 remaining. A bell will sound when you have 30 seconds remaining. When your time has ended the bell will sound again and you should complete your comments. Before you begin speaking please state your name. Thank you. With that I'll call our public comment meeting to order. Tonight's invocation will be by Reverend Dr. Russ Peterman from the University Christian Church. Please rise for the invocation and remain standing for the pledges of allegiance. Let us pray. God of us all in this holiest of weeks in which so many of your people are in the midst of sacred days whether it be Ramadan or Passover or Holy Week we pause to give you thanks and to acknowledge your presence in the city that we love and call home. Tonight we ask your blessings on the people who have been called to lead that city. Help them be the leaders that the people need them to be. Holy One these are precarious times and as you have in times like this throughout the ages remind us all of your call to respect and protect the least of these among us. Those who are the most vulnerable those who are often forgotten. Give our mayor and all of our leaders courage and clarity and conviction compassion give them wisdom and grace. This we pray in the name of all that we hold sacred and holy. Amen. Mayor and council the first item of business will be approval of the minutes from the February 28th and the March 7th and 21st council meetings. Second. Council any other discussion? Please vote. Motion carries. Mayor that concludes the action items. The rest are the public comments. Thank you. Before we get started with public comment I'm going to take just a minute if you don't mind to say something about a misconception that came up during our last public comment meeting in March. First I should say thank you so much to everyone that I see here this evening and based on some of the commentary in our public comments we know there's some very important issues that you brought forward to your city council and that's what tonight is about. During public comment last comment time some false and revolting personal attacks were made about me and rather than cut the speaker off I decided to do what I teach my children when they find themselves wrongly attacked. Just step away deescalate as best possible and I decided to leave the chamber for 60 seconds and come back to the next public comment. I chose not to engage in hateful vulgar lies and this type of political discourse frankly has no place in this chamber and in recent months we've seen and aimed at every single member of this council in this chamber. Since my inauguration I promised to attack problems and not people and I have continued to live by that in office. I believe this philosophy is more important now than ever. We live in a divisive time. To solve real problems we need honest debate and facts not attacks that have not a single shred of evidence to back them and again we are here to attack problems and not people. What I learned from that moment and that in the future I will not be stepping away in these situations. I will be acting in clear accordance with our point of order rules which means speakers who choose to engage in this type of behavior are allowed one warning and then your time will be ended. Everyone I serve with on this dais deserves respect and so does this chamber, our government and our residents who come here to engage with us. I appreciate so much our constituents that are here tonight to share your voice and to help solve issues on behalf of the residents of this city. This dais is here to work together to solve problems and I want to thank each of you for being here and serving alongside me as your mayor. We're going to help do just that. So with that I'll close my comments and move to public comment. Thank you. Our first speaker is Bob Willoughby followed by Peter Rokas. If you can blow it up or I can read that top line. That's good enough. I can read that top line and I'll get to it in a little bit. Okay let's start off with, well this is about a community center. I got removed by the police from not doing a thing. Not one person in the building can say I was disrupted. The police know one. We've seen the video. It didn't happen. It's cost me a thousand dollars so I can go back to community center to a meeting and I still may have to go. So this time I'm going to get in too later on about this piece of paper what they have we should not have in this city. We're coming under government control. Now I've got to give very seldom I ever get these people any credit down here because they keep doing things that are wrong. If it's all right I'd be glad to put in a paper. I have to give Maddie, I have to give you some credit and I'm not trying to say this but I'm getting kicked out of here okay. Mr. Crane, Jared, Maddie has more blank than both of y'alls put together because she did spend 30 minutes for me and neither one of y'all have that to do with me okay. Now give her that. Point of order that was a personal attack. Was that a personal attack? Did I get killed or not? No just keep going Bob. That's your warning. Do you please get your warning? Okay I didn't know. Okay but anyway I think you ought to have a personal meeting with me. She did okay but you won't do that okay. Anyway but now the answer was the main one was but I always been complaining about him taking away our right to speak and Maddie gave me an answer and she would have done that when I was off and a thousand dollars had been good enough to accept but it's not the real one I believe deep down inside and not libous real much but it's acceptable. Once you said what she took away our right to speak because no one cared no one that's why I understood it that people didn't come down they didn't care about our right to speak in the city council and the difference between a council meeting and this this is a public comment that's all it is. You come down here you comment they go home you go home. Council meeting you should get the answer. Now I did ask Maddie how about changing this to a Q and A okay I could handle that now if you want to leave us off there and have a Q and A here that would be good but this is not a Q and A you just come down and comment. Now it's cheaper for me to come down here inventing them than it is to go to counseling I'll take advantage of that okay but nevertheless taking our right to speak the way I see it is it's like a weapon for us you may not never use it but you know I'm gonna get rid of it I got a 38 special at home I had never had to use it but thank god it's there if I need it and my right to speak I feel the same way about it you got to put it back thank you I want to get on that I still got 20 seconds oh that's about this point here this is what I hate they gave this one here to me at the end of it says I can go back to it says however just as any other candidate he talking about me must remember not to create a disturbance see they they they're setting me up as some kind of and I've never have and the video will show this and I'm gonna document it it'll come down here and apply and it'll actually show that Gina Bibbins caught that's not an attack Gina Bibbins caused disturbance because you can see her pointing her finger she interrupts and she did all this but the police accused me we're gonna change it before I'm through I don't care if I get elected or not we're gonna change it thank you our next speaker is Peter Rokas followed by Dan Hayes Mr. Rokas I'll come back if he comes in next speaker is Dan Hayes followed by Angela McKinney good evening mayor and council my name is Dan Hayes and I live in soon to be district 11 last week my daughter and I went to the water gardens neither of one of us had been there in a long time and if you haven't been in a while I would encourage you to see the condition it's in the walls were dry and the quiet pool instead of water cascading down them the spray pool is obviously over chemicalized and has turned the adjacent concrete a blue-green color the active pool has lots of unattractive stains and areas where water is not flowing as intended every exposed aggregate surface is dirty and appears to have not been cleaned in a long time many of the shrubs are past their prime and what flowers there are outside the entrances were nothing to get excited about overall there was a very evident need for maintenance I learned yesterday from Joe McElhaney that there is bond money to make repairs but not enough to bring this park back to something to be proud of heritage park has been closed for years for lack of funding for maintenance and repairs and is just now starting to see millions of dollars in renovations however unlike heritage park which will never likely see the same number of visitors the water gardens is within a short walk of several hotels and the convention center is right next door we are definitely not putting our best foot forward when these folks visit having spent my entire career in maintenance I know this park must be a major consumer of time and money but it's must be done right and just as a reminder a lack of proper maintenance and upkeep we're contributing factors to six people losing their lives and several others being injured in two separate incidents in the 1990s someone needs to take a hard look and figure out how to get this park back to being the beautiful and refreshing oasis it's intended to be the bond money already allocated is not enough according to Joel the next bond election is at least three years away and that's a long time to have a major downtown asset showing its age thank you very much thank you Dan sounds like you're already connected with Joel which is just the right person but I know that several of us including council member Beck who's here remotely have talked about the prioritization of this water garden we thank you very much for coming this evening our next speaker is Angela McKinney followed by Jim DeLong and counsel my name is Angela McKinney I came and spoke about loud music happening in the Lake Como neighborhood on June the 21st 2022 here I am again today same issue the problem is documented undocumented nationals from Mexico out of the good ones there's the bad group bringing loud tihono music in the form of live bands and loud bass speakers the backyard band was started at 9 p.m and in the next early morning at 1 to 2 a.m or they were utilized their vehicles to blur their music this behavior disturbs the elderly the physically disabled children and working class we are captive audiences within our homes residents are tired of the disrespect and choose not to do self-help but call law enforcement to terminate the violation it does not do any good when an officer who elects to show up four hours later after the group has decided on their own to stop I was told by a Forest Hill resident that Forest Hill police does not allow this to happen in their city because if they have to return what is said to them is action will be taken this nips the action in the bud now when they start to move into the upper elite neighborhoods and display this behavior is this when there is going to be a big outcry that will result in noise enforcement and control some nationals or millionaires do the illegal drug trade and can't afford the elite neighborhoods so don't be fooled that because they have a lawnmower and cutting your grass that they can't afford your neighborhood it's just a cover and also let them know that blue and red strobe lights on their vehicles are illegal enforce the noise ordinance it has gotten out of control thank you thank you miss McKinney our next speaker is Jim DeLong followed by Gwendolyn Buffington good evening my name is Jim DeLong and tonight I want to talk about a bullet I love classic western movies I watch them all the time and I don't know how many times in a movie someone gets shot sometimes they're out you know in in the planes and not around the town and what do they do when someone gets shot with a bullet they'll take a knife and they know they got to get that bullet out of there sometimes you shoot and the bullet will go through then you can patch it up and no problem but if you don't take care of the bullet you can clean the wound you can sew it up you can put a sterile bandage on it but the bullet's still in there and you're going to have problems the civil rights act 1965 from the civil rights act to 2012 14 trillion dollars were spent so if you take that up to to uh 2022 we're probably looking at around 20 trillion dollars spent we've spent 20 trillion dollars trying to patch up the wound uh sterilize it make it look nice but the bullet's still in there we have as much racial problems and angst amongst people and division amongst people today then we had in 1965 we've spent 20 trillion dollars and we continue to spend that much money and we're patching things up we're making it look nice but the bullet's still in there so the challenge is what are we going to do to address the bullet and the bullet has to do with our character the bullet has to do with the worldview there are some people that are just naturally angry people i'm glad i'm not one of them i choose to be an optimist but if we don't deal with the condition of our hearts all we're doing is patching things up and we haven't seen much improvement after 20 trillion dollars that's a lot of money if you divided that money amongst every poor person in our country they'd have tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars individually so i encourage you all let's not try to patch the problem let's try to go and get to the root of the problem the bullet and try to extract that bullet so we can have a city where we can live in harmony and unity together where we can respect one another and honor one another and and build consensus and grow into the city of the shining light on the hill that we all desire it to be thank you our next speaker is gwendolyn buffington followed by joe grero good evening my name is gwendolyn buffington i'm speaking on behalf of myself i'm a 65-year-old woman who had worked for mr gary causton for over seven years as his caregiver i recently had to go to court probate court under judge allen judge allen has manifested a bad feeling and it seems as though it's just been chaos from the beginning of the trial to now she has asked me personal questions about my son she has came at me about things that are just inconsiderate and my lawyer as well as the attorneys in question from mrs fields have all gotten together since they've all gotten together against me i found out that my lawyer jack shuster judge brook allen margit fields family and her attorney moses pile and howe were all in this thing together the judge levied up my home my personal properties and all of my accounts because she said if i were to return to court again mrs fields would have the right to come at me in that manner taking everything that i owned mrs fields has stated that i work for mr causton and i was the only person involved in caring for him so therefore i was the only person in and out in and out of his home in question during the uh year of 2016 i submitted records to her showing that there were two agencies in the home as well as myself the judge went on to proceed it asked me how many people were in the house i provided her with documentation they came at me again with saying that i stole money from mr causton's account i did not steal money from mr causton's account i was a joint owner which was said in court mrs fields stated that i was not a joint owner i was only a beneficiary to some of the whole thing in question was mr causton left me a will a power of attorney which when mr causton fell sick i gwendolyn buffington adhered to everything in every condition that he had provided and writing to me his family was contacted i was concerned enough to even contact all of his friends after contacting everyone i was called by his sister okay so do you have 30 seconds oh so therefore like i said as a good person i acknowledged everybody's request what they wanted what they needed from me i went ahead and i made funeral arrangements i was attacked at the funeral home by market and benjamin fields so therefore i turned over the conclusion of the funeral to be handled by his sister miss bonnie raider all i'm saying is judge allen and everyone involved in this it has not been professional and i have been thank you miss buffington thank you for coming thank you our next speaker is joe guerrero followed by victoria argus mayor members of the council my name is joe guerrero i'm the president for the worth height neighborhood association i'm here um in regards to some concerns that we've had and um the purpose of our organization is provide an organized framework to promote an enhanced equality of life and the value of worth heights neighborhood i love the city of fort worth i was born here 79 years ago i'm still here thank god and um we've done a lot we've worked with the city of fort worth and uh we have um have have had a lot of good ventures of the city of fort worth have owned a business in sundown square for over 30 years and um my i have um some concerns that i'm going to pass over to our next speaker victoria she needs three minutes that's we'll start it over no problem madam mayor and city council um my name is victoria bargus and i currently reside in district nine soon to be an 11 um having just heard my colleague's presentation uh we have a good history of uh a neighborhood association and our involvement with the city of fort worth so you can imagine how shocked and quite frankly we were angry and i should say we still are that our library the fort worth public library seminary south branch was a very unceremoniously and rudely closed the issue is too pronged the first is the very disrespectful way this transpired no notice was given to the community where the library resided and his patron residents patronized on a regular basis not just the worth heights neighborhood but surrounding neighborhoods including brint war rosemont shaw clark satham pale heights fairmont just to name a few there was absolutely no transparency in the way this was implemented no outreach no community meetings nothing are these decisions made unilaterally and if so by home are they made by a committee or by library staff when you take away a valuable resource you should at least ask what the community thinks and how we feel about it that didn't happen is this the fort worth way second to find out what happened we have to reach out ourselves to library employees and ask why why were we not told and why was such a valuable bill resource taken away standalone libraries are being built all over the city so why would this library be closed we were told the seminary branch was underutilized which came as quite a surprise since the library was always crowded and the parking lot was always full it is very difficult to believe since children and adults were always seeing coming and going data was not offered to how this conclusion was reached don't take a resource away from a community that uses it and depends on it for so many things the things the library is meant for a place to learn to read to come together a library a valuable resource that has been in the community for 50 plus years is just shut down and taken away for no good reason for no reason at all thank you miss bargas next speaker on here is laura rios is laura here and laura will be followed by richard gonzalez just second miss rios let's make sure the microphone's on just one moment thank you that's better thank you okay my name is laura rios i'm also here about the library this library was once very well used unlike the Fort Worth history center whose parking lots it's empty most days what we got was a glorified storefront daycare now called the grand bibliotheca this said grand grand bibliotheca is very deceiving for the simple fact that there is nothing grand about it truly it's nothing but a bona fide joke that's putting it nicely this decision was made with the input of a Hispanic organization from clear cross town who knows nothing about us rather than the input of its surrounding community our community was stripped of its voice how disrespectful who in their right mind finds this justifiable once a year worth heights elementary school would make trips to the library to introduce the children to all the advantages they had at their fingertips you have managed to strip this neighborhood of its resources at a time when illiteracy is at its highest safety accessibility and lack of resources resources are the first thing that come to mind as this location this location's parking lot is dimly lit and crime written the location also has no access to a bathroom inside to get to the nearest bathroom you have two choices enter the marketplace or enter a long dimly lit corridor there are no doors to buffer out the noise from the surrounding stores and there is clearly not enough books does this sound like a library you or your children would come to let alone does this library sound like it would be your first choice to obtain knowledge and resources just think about it as elected officials you should work alongside and receive input from all communities to understand their wants and their needs because as we know one shoe does not fit all worth heights neighborhood we were tossed a bone expected graciously to accept it I'm here today in hopes that a wrong can be made right as there is no other way around it worth heights neighborhood deserves a free-standing state-of-the-art building and we will accept nothing less thank you thank you miss rios our next speaker is Richard Gonzalez followed by adrian smith thank you city council and mayor for this opportunity to speak about obviously a library need for the words heights community I'm Richard Gonzalez and I'm a member of the worth heights neighborhood associations books for the body the city has a history of meeting book needs of various communities currently there are 19 libraries throughout Fort Worth however newspaper and library reports show Vivian J. Lincoln library to open this year at a cost of 9.6 million taken from a 2018 bond election funding community gave input through community meetings about this library about what that community wanted to see in that library over 5000 votes were garnered to name the library Vivian J. Lincoln for now for an admired outstanding educator of the Crawley independent school district I've read also that the city was planning to purchase land you may have done it by now on Avondale haslet road in northwest Fort Worth for the anticipated population growth please note the word anticipated because there are no people yet there per newspaper reports the city was a communication with john and tracy westrom who operate westrom group property to purchase the land from them once the land is purchased city would contact architects for designs the rebe carry youth library opened on august 14 2021 funded by 2014 bond election for 3.25 million rebe carry was a respected educator and civil rights worker from the african-american community of Fort Worth as you see as you can see when there was a community need for books and state of the art libraries Fort Worth citizens and the city administration the city council stepped up and passed bonds to fund these valuable resources community involvement and discussions were the method of determining and discerning the needs of the community books for the body of solution we asked that the Fort Worth city council utilize the same methodology that you did in the other areas of the city in planning and funding and expanding and expanded library services as you did in other neighborhoods with the worth whites community center we want the same mo that you saw in other areas we asked the city council and mayor promote reading worth heights by making available a new library for books in the body in worth heights we appreciate the eyes sorry's but the eyes sorry's don't put books in the hands of children's and parents instead of the eyes sorry's we rather hear let's work together from the start we ask your support in putting in a new library however you need to fund that please undertake that immediately thank you Mr. Gonzalez our next speaker is adrian smith followed by james smith adrian smith i am one with the people the Fort Worth community community art center has been a light shining bright within the arch district for 69 years and counting it has provided opportunity space and an outlet for all creative minds with creative minds within the arts community for the purpose of expressing and sharing their artistry artistry gifts its continual contribution to the history of Fort Worth however is now up against a 26 million dollar revitalization effort that it can't fight alone to the arts community know that i stand with you in your resilience for ensuring the arts can continue moving forward there's no reason you should be fighting for funding from this city given how much you've contributed to the livelihoods of all native all visitors that have benefited from your giving it just takes leadership being willing to place the will of the people above that which only serves their personal interest to the appointed task force your recommendations are what this council will adhere to however it doesn't pass the smell test why create a task force when the collective voices of the community are greater i get it it's an election year and this is the time when people usually say and do whatever that will keep them elected i ask you to do what's necessary to ensure the Fort Worth community arts center is funded and continue and can continue forward to this council you've already fumbled the ball with the with the new city hall 50 million dollar debacle and let's not forget the 8.5 million dollar renovation initiative designated for the wheel rogers memorial coliseum you do know that was the people's money right made possible by means of the american rescue plan act either you just don't get it or you just don't care it's that simple and as i return to my seat and i just want to say what that opening mayor kudos but remember everything is for interpretation so that matter that occurred two months ago remember it's for individuals interpretations i wish we would have had this same voice in you know stands when the poa attacked uh council newly elected council members uh maybe was it a year ago when they made a had a had a vote against a particular agenda item and the people i heard the people talking with all y'all listening and mr mr williams that's your constituent up there she's no longer in three she's in uh thank you mr smith it's your constituent she needs help our next speaker is james smith followed by cara martinez uh good afternoon council my name is james smith i live in district eight i want to start by saying thank you to councilman nettles and reapporteam bivvans for attending the unveiling of the talk to the jefferson car at hillside as well as thanking the mayor and mr craig for the generous food offering uh a while back it was told to me that the city and some clergy were working on ways to honor tatiana i'm still wondering and waiting with that honor will be her friends have honored her the community has honored her her family has created a foundation for her and i got a lot of feedback from the neighborhood saying what is the city gonna do it wasn't just a south side thing that's was from some of the people that were against the name change that obviously have softened up in in agreement with me so we're still waiting on the city's response a few months ago a young man was arrested and convicted of murder in the city of fortworth for a shooting it turns out to be a self-defense suffact i remember that story i remember that story well and the revelations that have come forth now are nowhere compared to the original story that came out that brings me to the police accountability i'm not sure if you heard the 911 tape of that incident or the call but it was clear on that 911 call that those patrons were being shot at when the police arrived to the scene the caller the callers were accosted enthroned to the ground and arrested narrative you saw i have a problem with narrative because it takes me back to 2019 narratives are important and if your narrative is a truthful narrative then you won't have any problem with the narrative but an untruthful narrative eventually will be uncovered untruth so i'll be back police accountability truth transparency and i was just giving this uh survey of uh how to improve the quality of life and forward truth transparency and accountability thank you thank you mr smith our next speaker is Kara martinez followed by jerald miller is here right here no jerald miller followed by manual marta my name is jerald miller and first and foremost i'd like to thank each of you for doing your civic duties madame mayor mayor pro tem um and the other esteemed members and you do have some exceptional members of the city staff you know miss washington comes to mind um many other people who serve the city faithfully that are transplants transplants um and there are issues with the city i'm a four-worth native son i left to new york to enter the music business and had my first grammy by the age of 21 i then became more and hills manager and talked to her in the leaving the fujis and committing and creating an album the miseducation which we proudly did and when i came back home in 2018 i was proud to be back home i was happy i've always given to the community i've always tried to give back to people no matter what the age race religion sexual orientation anything and you know me as a gentleman who about suit about two months ago was arrested for theft of my own dog now i was arrested i was put through the system those charges uh after being put in the system and arrested within 36 minutes of being taken of my animal being taken to animal control they adopted my animal out again right they and it was a concerted effort in which animal control officers falsified information that they gave and provided to the police that was materially false and based upon the animal controls offers officer statements which were which were knowingly false the police issued a probable cause warrant basically to just take my animal away so my animal was taken away three weeks later the charges were dropped but i do fundraising for large-scale events having having received funds from people like the Ford Foundation the national endowment of the arts so imagine what it looks like when i'm talking with people and they're doing background checks and they see now that there is an arrest for theft right so now i am going through the process where i have to spend close to seven or eight thousand dollars of my own personal money to get that arrest expunged from the record and from the system and there's no accountability being held anywhere by anybody last uh at the last meeting i gave y'all a 95 page document with a nine page timeline of all the actions and 78 pages of exhibits that i attained through city records from subpoenas and nobody has ever reached out and contacted me about those documents from anybody on this board even though you shown up on a friday lunch brunch ready to talk to people that's it i'll be back thank you mr miller our next speaker is manual mata hello my name is manual matam i'm a resident of fortworth and uh our medical examiners our chief of police the judges and family court the district attorneys the criminal court judges internal affairs police union co-compliance some court appointed lawyers who have become uh criminal court chiefs lie do you know why they lie you only have 30 to 60 days to file a complaint on a police officer to internal affairs which is the city of fortworth police department you have two years to file the claim for any misconduct or wrong for anything before it expires in texas our annual budget goes to each of these while certain parts of the city suffer because of the misuse and violation of the public records request to withhold or destroy evidence to help the real victims who have to become lawyers public record request experts learn how to file motions understand the policies and procedures and family criminal and civil courts how to file complaints to the state commission on judicial conduct for judges and the state bar of texas for lawyers the residents of this city continue to speak out but it's only a certain part so it's okay over and over we are working on it we are going to come up with a plan soon we have to follow our meet and confer labor agreement that only a few in this room took pardon mnc 20-6356 the approved version on 8 4 2020 which is on the city's website under the legislation section right do do my question is do the intake sergeants look at both police reports and body cam footage not help them to write it over and take up to four hours two hours later that don't match because while the case is open we cannot get affidavits or body camera footage that proves our innocence or their misconduct loopholes the family court is being used as a weapon to silence or get even not even thinking of the kids i have a question do any of you know if the kids have legal representation in these procedures everybody's saying the same thing and it's kind of like give certain people less of hope right because it's like they come up here certain people are shunned ridiculed or whatever right but the message isn't getting through because some people are stuck on kill the messenger not the message so while everyone picks their point on who it is focus please council i believe that's the conclusion of our public comments this evening with that meeting adjourned