 Requested to speak there are two speaker podiums in the chambers the podium in the back is for individuals with mobility concerns We ask all others to step forward to the front podium Each podium has a countdown clock located to the speakers right that will indicate how much time is Remaining when you have 30 seconds left a bell will sound and you should complete your comments Before you begin your comments, please state your name. Thank you Good evening and welcome to your four city council meeting. I'll call us to order Please rise for the invocation tonight's invocation will be given by pastor James Lapine, please rise and remain standing for the invocation and pledges of allegiance Pray with me Jesus when you taught your disciples to pray you told them to say our father in heaven Hallowed be your name your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and so father tonight We pray that your will would be done that your name would be hallowed that your kingdom would come on In Fort Worth as it is in heaven Jesus we declare that you rule and reign over all of history over all of time and so would you come and Heal the things that are broken in our city Would you come and shine the light of your gospel in the dark places of our heart in the dark places of our city? Would would all of Fort Worth thrive as we pursue you and your gospel and your kingdom Coming to earth and so would you empower our city leaders our city officials our policemen and women our Constituents everyone here tonight. Would you give them your spirit your love and would we pursue your kingdom coming? In Fort Worth as it is in heaven. We ask all these things in your powerful name. Amen Next mayor. I believe mayor pro Tim would like to do a special recognition Wonderful mayor pretend Bivens It is there. We are I am so excited to see the scouts from Probably two churches Mount Olive and Shiloh if you guys would come down and have your troop leader your scout master introduce you This troop or these two combined troops have Resulted in several Eagle Scouts and coach if you would tell us who they are and I'll come down and join you and anybody who wants to take a picture with these fine young man Just meet me in the well Mayor Parker and all the other officials here My name is skymaster Jones. We hail out of My not a missionary Baptist Church. We also come from destiny Baptist Church. Yeah, we Enjoy what we do and we love to come here and Get some points for our citizenship of the community and with me. I have SPL in North Crowley is Kenneth Allen Also North Crowley his brother. Can they're Allen? from Pasco High School We have Say your name Okay, and then we also face the Henderson and the last but not least we have We want to welcome you guys we're gonna join you down there for a photo while you continue saying whatever you want to say That's all. Thank you. Oh Yeah, thanks for all the work y'all do all the time. I used to be a coach and nobody never said thank you anything So I just want to say thank you too for the work that you guys do all the time Marin counsel the next item will be consideration of the minutes from the June 6th June 13th June 20th and 27th meetings Got a motion and a second any other discussion council, please vote Motion carries Marin counsel that concludes the action items the rest is public comments Thank you, Jeanette our first speaker this evening is Leticia Wilburn followed by Richard Perez many minutes. Do I have? Okay, I just want to say that I'm with Echo Heights top six environmental coalition. I also live in Echo Heights The coalition started with me fouling a complaint with the NAACP Miss Williams answered and she and Miss Gina bird came to my home and Gina burn had the idea to Come up with the coalition and she worked with us to get the coalition formed So with that said I wanted that everybody know that's listening that according to miss Williams I know miss Bevan said that she left Echo Heights, but miss Williams said they have not abandoned Echo Heights So that's not true also, I just want to say that Course you guys know we have over 200 industries in our community as a result I have a trucking company behind my home. Can I show the pictures, please now ask of Thursday? I can't show the pictures on the screen On Thursday, I recorded my temperature in the backyard Friday Saturday and Sunday I recorded temperatures and if you look at the thermometer the temperature is 120 degrees tops, which means that it's actually how to have been that in my backyard It's so hot in my backyard today that the One of the thermometer's actually broke. Can you show the other thermometer the other picture, please? Okay, and see you see one of the thermometer's there and you see the trucks in back So with with that being said with all of the industrializations that you all have done in this community Not only do we have the pollution we have the illnesses We have the health which we also are attending global warming now With you know if the thermometer tops 120 like I said, it's over a hundred and twenty degrees in my backyard And miss Martinez. I was not being rude at the meeting Last week. It's just that when I bought my home in 1985 We checked and we was told that homes would be built in that area The city went behind the community's back and put it in and termed it an industrial sites zone Without any community input and that should not be that way, you know We've had miscarriages as I said, we've had deaths We've had a lot of things going on that you guys are aware of now now you guys see how hot it is in the Community from the global warming and we also have one guy in the community that has over 100 lots Bowie Holland Now we all know that he's got to be a frequent customer So he must be getting special treatments because he's allowed to do things in the community and the community has asked for no more industry We asked for a moratorium to stop industries been adding and we Won't y'all to listen to us and respect. Thank you miss Wilburin our next speaker is Richard Perez followed by Jim Scherbeck I'm Richard Perez a lifelong resident of Fort Worth with family in my present area for four generations of about 80 years I'm here to support our friends at Echo Heights to make sure that their needs are heard For concerns of current and encroaching industrial zoning that negatively impacts the air they breathe from large diesel truck exhaust The safety of their streets from these trucks the impact on their parks Noise pollution and the eyesore of the semi truck trailers backed up into their backyards To get perspective from a historical community surrounded by industrial zoning I want to tell you about my own environmental plight with a chemical factory My area is near the stockyards about half a mile south of Joe T Garcia's restaurant We're right behind the Rose Marine Theater in the past six years There have been two major noxious gas releases from a chemical company on Northside Drive that borders our small village type neighborhood There have been moderate releases during those years as well I've reported this to TCEQ and the city of Fort Worth environmental the gases released irritate the lungs eyes Nose and throat it makes us short of breath It's above and beyond the severity of what nuisance laws or ordinances call smells or odors Calling it that downplays the severity of these respiratory irritants and possible carcinogens The major releases of these noxious gases and even the moderate ones usually happens at night or on the weekends outside of City office hours I can only guess why There has been some mitigation of the problem when TCEQ and Fort Worth environmental does investigate And I'm sure this chemical company alters their operations when they know they're being observed It's basically a cat and mouse game I've read portions of the comprehensive plan environmental sections and there is brief mention of future mobile air quality Monitoring but no guarantees for it currently there are only Two government air quality monitors several miles away are not real-time and may not provide accurate monitoring of volatile organic compounds only Particulate matter they are not effective We need local real-time air quality monitoring of the gases emitted to protect and warn our community if there is a major gas release We need due diligence goals and objectives for alerting the community during major gas releases As frontline communities next to the industrial zoning and businesses that pollute our environment I challenge the city of Fort Worth to fix and remedy these problems and provide environmentally safe neighborhoods for eco-heights Northside and all residential areas. Thank you Thank You mr. Perez And Richard, I think you know dr. Wittenberg if he's here just to make sure you have the connection with Cody in our environmental department Thank you Our next speaker is Jim Schoenbeck followed by Bob Willoughby and as Jim's coming to the microphone I think mayor pretend Bivens. Did you have something you needed? Go ahead I'd like the record to state that for the record I had a telephone conversation with a Stella with the NAACP in which she told me They would be focusing on eco heights that is true I'll put it in writing and I want the record to state this amendment Thank you mayor pretend Jim you're up and then followed by Bob Willoughby. Thank you. Howdy Jim Schoenbeck 1808 South Good Laddimer Dallas 75226 I'm here representing downwinders at risk a 30 year old Environmental group one of the most persistent and best funded in the region our appearance here along with other groups and representatives from other neighborhoods is a sign that the echo heights matter left unresolved by this council earlier this year is a very serious matter indeed and The fact that we're here again tonight Recognizes that we're at an impasse and that there hasn't been a very sufficient or satisfactory city response I think that's because after now attending some of these meetings I understand why and that's because I don't think Fort Worth has ever faced a challenge like this before In quite this way, and I think it's totally unprepared to do so if you don't mind me saying so It's never dealt with The systematic racism that is baked into this city's design as it is baked into every American cities design just about You don't even have the language in your planning materials or any city materials that I can find that talks about Environmental justice at all as a policy is a planning policy is a goal worthy of your commitment You're behind the curve in this respect you at least the staff wants to treat this Amendment that's going on to the echo heights plan the yearly plan for next Tuesday It's kind of a bureaucratic detail that needs to get cleared up before the end of the year That's understandable, but the neighborhood can't see it that way Because they cannot allow further abuse to happen while the larger 2050 plan is actually being written They want some assurance. They're not going to keep playing whack-a-mole while that draft is being written And so last Tuesday we came to what I thought was some progress. I understand there've no been no follow-up discussions That's kind of disturbing But the sense of the room in a community meeting with everybody present staff and community Was that we had at least three things we could agree on that we needed some kind of freeze or moratorium on new IR I am zoning in echo heights that we needed enforceable new truck routes It would not bring traffic through the neighborhoods and that environmental justice should be Included as a goal worthy of your commitment in this plan and every other from here on out I would urge staff in the city to begin our initiate discussions with the community toward that in and show up next Tuesday with These suggestions and you would have community support for getting this 20 through 23 plan passed much less to 2050 plan I believe If not, then this is going to get larger and more complicated and messier And I don't think you want that to happen. You can either lead or be led to this goal of environmental justice We'd prefer it the former rather than the latter. Thanks Our next speaker is Bob Willoughby followed by Julie Ledford I'm going to start the video Make sure the volume is up, please when you do So these CCP funds we don't know where they're going. They should be on the city website Wherever Penny's going should be on the website where we can see it, but it's not I just want to show you one small bit of this But it's a whole see the same kind of problem right here We have a blackout the media is not going to tell you anything about what's going on or like Rodney That's gonna be coming up here in a second. You're supposed to only receive 300,000 and 30 months time This is his website. I thought they'd take it down after this came out on Google. You can Google in Fort Worth Here's his website right here. It looks pretty happy I would be too These events There's no events. He's ain't got one coming September, but not one of these events. You can stroll down see a bunch on my whole page nothing Check this out. This is a contact number. We get this man almost a million dollars with a contact number of five five five five five five five Can you believe that you better believe it? over here There's no volunteers You know that Matty's a cheer of this She should be responsible for the money that he hadn't got and he's lost. Okay, we should do a full investigate Here we go with the water thing, aren't we? Well bite your tongues on the water, okay That's sustained. I think we're just trying to explain that it's actually councilor Carlos Flores the chair CCPD I want you to join the email this you can find out what's going on this city Matty You don't know what you're doing. Okay. This is terrible. You shouldn't be there. You're too young. Thank you Our next speaker is Julie Ledford hi Julie and Julie will be followed by Dan Hayes Sorry, no disruption. Sorry. Hi, Julie. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening I'm Dr. Julie Ledford, and I'm giving can we close that door, please? I'm gonna restart Julie's time. Dr. Ledford you're up. Please. Thank you All of you should have a copy of the community engagement policies and revision That are on the website and the bylaw proposed revisions This is also included in my presentation. Can we please close that door? All right, I'm not gonna read all of this because you have a copy and these are the city policies But I just want to highlight neighborhood associations should collectively represent all residents membership is open to neighborhood residents and Boundaries should not overlap with any existing registered associations Association shall notify community engagement to About changes to boundaries and they have an outreach plan with each household within the proposed expansion area Notified of the meeting and the reason I'm coming is we have a bylaw revision suggested to open the boundaries to anyone not Including non-residents so that would mean everyone would have to be notified Residents of the proposed expansion area who are in attendance at the meeting shall vote so again if we have open Membership to anyone anywhere then it would be challenging to have a meeting with that population Boundaries are clearly described in the bylaws. This is people who permanently reside within the association boundaries and live within the limits If Organizations are not in compliance. They will be notified by community engagement and Other residents will be allowed to petition to have their own neighborhood association Currently for the neighborhood where I reside there are proposed bylaw revisions including non-residents will be allowed to vote Non-residents will be allowed to serve as office officers and then the officers vice president and president will be allowed to speak on behalf of the Organizations and then a prize members of the positions that they have chosen Currently the registration policies only allow one group per boundary area. That's to prevent overlap Currently there are no neighborhood associations that have open memberships that include voting rights There is one organization within our historic area, but they're currently inactive and they're not on the city roster They're not listed on the register and then finally Communating engagement only recognizes one group Historically non-residents were allowed to To Be in attendance, but not voter service officers And this will set a precedent for other organizations to cease being representative of their local area I did meet with my michelle goot and our city manager david cook And I requested Considering allowing another organization within the limits if the bylaws are revised to include non-residents because the point Is for us to have a vote in our neighborhood Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, julie. Just a quick question for you for my own clarification Which neighborhood association or where do you live? Handling, okay. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is dan haze followed by george trials Good evening. My name is dan haze and I live in district 11 tonight I'm bringing part one of a progress report on east Lancaster avenue First, I wanted to talk about the public improvement district. This was a grassroots effort Resulting in the establishment of the district in 2019 Because of the timing the pit went from fully operational or went fully operational. I should say in early 2020 The pit has two primary goals which are to improve public safety and security and marketing the street for redevelopment This shows the limits of the pit which run from riverside drive to loop 8 20 And here is how it looks as far as city council representation The portion of east Lancaster east of loop 8 20 and outside the pit is in district 5 Security wise there is success to report private security encounters with vagrants have been reduced to a manageable level with occasional surges QR codes on the rear windows of the patrol vehicles linked to the tarrant county homeless coalition website So we're trying to get help for those who are willing to accept it The pit also pays for eight flock license plate reading cameras Among other successes those cameras were responsible for the apprehension of two men in january 2022 who shot an employee and stole merchandise From a home depot in north las vegas, nevada The north las vegas pd shared the license plate across the flock network And two days later those cameras on east Lancaster alerted the pd Who made the arrest here and now they're back in nevada Not all is rosy with the pit though We still have some uncooperative business owners who don't appreciate the intrusion of security because their business model depends on nothing changing They are not part of Lancaster's future As for marketing, this is going a little slower, but we are seeing progress Perceptions are not easily reset But the progress made has given property owners hope and hope has translated to fresh coats of paint and other improvements We've also seen new businesses open including a health care clinic A local hardware store and even an ice cream store And the rebe carry youth library pulls in parents and kids from across the metroplex Now comes a mixed income proposal for east Lancaster that will be called philadium's city skyline You'll hear the zoning case next week, which has the strong support of central metterbrooks board and membership This will be the first new private construction within the pit in 20 years and will provide much needed housing I suspect it will be a catalyst for additional development Thank you Thank you, dan. Our next speaker is george trials followed by jarilyn jackie cox My name is george running trials. I live in district 11 I'm here because of statements made in this room to the effect that this nation is being torn apart because quote There's no unity unquote. My reaction to this is twofold First the audacious experiment called the united states of america was founded on two glaringly mutually antagonistic words ordered and liberty The turf war started at that moment and shows no sign of ceasing as examination of the docket of the united states supreme court will consistently show Secondly, I may intend that what is actually being torn apart are concepts that are long overdue for exactly that I think that this is taking place in the amount of both issues and participants sufficiently for it to be fairly characterized as national psychoanalysis by psychoanalysis, I mean digging out repressed ugly facts from the past in order to prevent them From shaping the present and future in their own corrosive image An individual analysis these facts can sometimes be so ugly That consciously or unconsciously a cost benefit decision will be reached about whether an attempt to prevent Future trauma is worth the risk of causing present trauma by facing the past In personal analysis the effects This affects only the subject and at most a few dozen people close to him or her In national analysis this decision can be of vital interest to millions But it's not just a matter of scale It also means that if the decision is made by a level of government It takes on the force of law this can lead to another level of government disagreeing with what that law says Another result can be individuals Disagreeing with that law so strongly that they are faced with With choosing between a legal duty and a moral duty Given this it is natural to adjourn for there being an agreement about something And as always there will be no lack of those with comforting dare I say lulling Words I suggest that two questions be kept in mind when hearing those words First are they so vague as to offer nothing Of substance to consider second if this is the case do the obscuring clouds This causes sometimes part long enough for the possibility of an agenda To be discovered in reference to those clouds I suggest that when united we stand divided we fall as heard in support of unity It would be prudent to inquire who are we and who are what are we going to fall to? Or would that be fall four? Thank you, george. Our next speaker is miss cox followed by james mcbride Thank you council. I'm jackie cox I'm here because I went with others to the meeting in echo heights Hoping that I would hear from the city of a plan to address our problems with air quality And environmental pollution that falls most heavily in east fort worth But it also spreads with the wind to the whole city And I note that there are two air quality monitors in fort worth One of them is near forest park and the other one is kind of down along the river Near well, but not too far from white settlement at hindersen The one that's closest to me is the one by forest park And it reports today that it's a bad day. I shouldn't go outside And I can kind of tell that I don't know if you can tell my from my voice, but I do have co pd It's fairly severe and in this weather It's a struggle to breathe outside So when I went to the city's website this afternoon to see what the city says they're doing about air quality I was I kind of laughed because they said oh the city is aggressively pursuing air quality By using tsec the texas commission on environmental quality air quality monitors, and I just went You know tsec In the eyes of people who are really concerned about the environment Is just a shabby excuse for quality And the city does Just flat nothing To provide us with more air quality mandate monitors But you do a lot in terms of development That makes our air quality worse So i'm here to remind you that there are a lot of people in fort worth who suffer from bad air We're spread all over the city It's worse in echo heights because they're closest to something like 12 truck terminals and truck terminals are places that just pour out massive quantities of diesel fuel particles Matter particulate matter that is particularly dangerous for the health of the residents in the area But you know what they send their trucks all over the city and send them to all of us So please pay attention We are in trouble global warming is a danger Thank you Our next speaker is james mcbride followed by jim dalong It's mr. Mcbride here I'll see him come in okay jim dalong followed by adrian smith It's an adrian either Good evening. I'm jim dalong. It's nice to be back in here with you all misty last month My wife says I should shoot myself in the head for thinking that but um I want to talk about something that's that's troubling to me And I've mentioned this many times The division that we have on our country. We're so polarized. We can't come together It's either you're over here and I'm over here and how do we come together and I uh Titled this same tune different key. I'm a musician and that's kind of a phrase that musicians type people use From the beginning of time it's been Man versus man race versus race ideology versus ideology Nation versus nation it goes on and on that's something for thousands of years that we deal with Inherent in man is the greed and need to have and take what others have This includes increased hatred division and polarization History is replete with examples of this There's abel and kane alexander the great the roman empire hitler communist russian And then there's the iris immigrants when they came over about the only jobs they could get was to be a policeman Because of racial bias against them The same thing is happening today History is repeating itself and it's been repeating itself over and over and over again The moral fabric of our society is crumbling before our very eyes. We are consciously Doing this to ourselves. What can we do? Recognize That what's happened in the past is happening to us again today. It's the same tune But a different key Don't fall into the same trap of those who've gone before us Is a possible that we can learn from their mistakes Make a quality decision to turn away From what leads to division hatred and strife These are attitudes of the heart I believe in you Our city council the leaders of our city And that you have the personal fortitude And are willing for the sake of all your constituents and I emphasize all To bring people together We if we can't come together to talk about our problems The problems will never be solved and we'll just get farther and farther apart and when that happens Everybody loses So I encourage you do what you can to bring our people together in unity. Thank you Thank you, mr. DeLong our next speaker is adrian smith, but i haven't seen him And then our last speaker is tina james Good evening. My name is tina james. I resided 50 21 coddy street in stop six Currently coming out of speak again regarding the incident or the meeting that we had on tuesday. Thank you dana for reaching out to us We appreciate it I don't have to say anything that hasn't already been said as it relates to the situation and the life expectancy that's happening over in the echo heights area for worth We are asking again for you to do your due diligence in assisting us And making our community a cleaner and better place to live a safer place to live I'm not going to talk bad to anybody. I'm not going to call anybody out I think y'all have on your hearts and you understand what we're going through as a community And as family in our community Mayor pro tem we'd like to thank you also for reaching out as well Talking with the black with the n double a cp. We do look forward to working with them as well Again, like I said, we just really wanted to clean up our community We want to make it safer for our children and their children's children To enjoy a fair and healthy safe community to live in where they can go outside and play in their backyards Without having to worry about catching any type of illnesses or sicknesses None of my children have um, what's that thing that you have to do the inhaler with Look at that So the whole community know what that means. We don't experience that uh in our family, however My daughter went to the doctor the other day and the doctor told her to Be careful of where she's spending her time at And so with that being said i'm going to ask our city councilwoman, uh, miss martinis If you could just dig in a little bit harder We don't want octahomet the eighth to go past without being something being done for us As we've been coming to you for a long time I know that you just got in your seat and But we really want you to work hard for the community that voted you in And pay attention to what's going on over in the neighborhood to make sure that what we're asking for And the changes that are needed to be done in the community Are being heard and that you're willing to work with us to get those things done And so I just ask everyone to take the time and look into what's going on Over in the east area Fort Worth and the echo height stop six community There's a lot of sickness and pollution over there and again, we don't want any more Commercial or industrial companies being put over there. What's over there? I'm quite sure we can't remove or relocate. They're there But we are asking for y'all to take the time to go out and hold them accountable To what they're supposed to be doing in their areas like we do with city code When we're not doing we're supposed to do on our property code comes out in spec give citations We're asking you do the same thing with these companies hold them accountable for what they're doing to our community and our health. Thank you Thank you, miss james council. That is the last of our speakers. I'll close the meeting