 to the speaker's right, which will indicate how much time is 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 beginning your comments, please state your name. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to your Forest City Council public comment meeting. I'll call us to order. Tonight's invocation will be by Council Member Carlos Flores. Please rise for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiances. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight we offer this invocation to bless our council meeting in the spirit of open public dialogue. We also offer a prayer of comfort for the family of Athena Strand, the seven-year-old girl who lost her life tragically after being abducted from her home. We are all wearing pink ribbons provided by Councilman Blaylock's office tonight in honor of Athena and her favorite color. May the Lord bear the burden of the Strand family's sorrow and give Athena eternal rest. Psalm 3418 reads, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And this we pray, amen. I'll pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible for the liberty and justice for all. On the Texas highway, pledge allegiance to the United States of America. The first item of business will be the approval of the minutes from the November 8th, 15th, and 29th meeting. I've got a motion and a second. Any other discussion, Council? Please vote. Motion carries. Mayor, the next is just the public comment portion. Thank you. And before we get started on public comment, I'm actually gonna ask Dana Bergdorf to speak because there's a lot of you here interested in discussing short-term rental and we had a good discussion during work session. She's gonna provide some clarification. Thank you, Dana. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Dana Bergdorf, Assistant City Manager. So earlier at today's City Council work session, the Council decided to keep the current zoning ordinance regulation, requiring a zoning change for short-term rentals in residential zoning districts. And for those who may recall, that was option one that was discussed this summer. They also asked staff to bring forward a registration ordinance for legal short-term rentals. Staff will share the draft registration ordinance later this month and anticipates bringing it to the City Council for consideration in late January. Code compliance will resume enforcement of zoning violations on a complaint basis, regardless of nuisance violations, and will communicate with property owners with active cases in the coming weeks. Thank you for that. Thank you, Dana. Our first speaker this evening is Bob Willoughby, followed by Avery Wilson. Let me say one thing for you to start the video real quick. I am amazed, because usually when you had this big a crowd, you put me last, Maddie, I'm amazed. I appreciate you doing it in order. Go ahead and start the video. Fort Worth Council members have taken advantage of their job and power and trusted to them to benefit their own needs and desire, while doing little for the citizens that trusted them with their vote. Let's talk Fort Worth has presented a petition for an honorary plaque for the late Thomas Torlin Kasai to the Mayor and City Council. Thomas Torlin Kasai 1960 to 2022. In a city of sleeping people, Thomas had his eyes wide open to see things as they really were. He knew wrong from right and when he saw something thing wrong, he did not turn a blind eye like so many people do. He would confront the issue, not for money for power or for attention. Thomas knew that it was his and everybody's responsibility not to turn a blind eye. Thomas can't go before Judgment Day without fear of having done his part. Can you say the same? Please get to it. I'm just trying to not be scolded or to be harassed or bullied by members in power. No one's harassed. We're David and you are Delilah. We're done. That's next item. Go ahead. I'm gonna address this item. You're done. You're done. It is the least the Mayor and Council. There was one more. I didn't see on there. I must have missed it or something. I did have a picture of Gina Bibbins' street sign she had put up. She waved all the rides and all that in the signatures and put up a street sign and Bibbins' name for her father. I mean, Thomas has done so much for people. I think at the new city hall, we should have some place, a plaque for him. Y'all probably don't know who he is, but he was down here all the time. He was at the tax board fighting for your taxes. He was there. And I'm really, you know, I really do miss him. Anyway, I don't have any much hope of these people that I run out of time. I still got 30 seconds, right? Okay. I really don't have much hope of these people doing a plaque. Okay, so since they've been in office here, they've done nothing for us, but take away our right to speak, cut down our times, change our meetings, everything to them. They don't do anything for the people. Elections coming up in May. I hope to God we get a real mayor and city manager and maybe we can go up at the new place, get a plaque for Thomas up. If they was to do it, they would be surprised me in them doing something other than for themselves for once. Thank you. And you can contact me here. If you want to know more about Thomas or anything else. Thank you. Our next speaker is Avery Wilson, followed by Don Crosby. Ms. Wilson? Avery? Avery? We'll try again in a minute. Don Crosby, followed by Janine Lund. Good evening, council. Mayor, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak. You may remember me in the past. I've come up before you and member of the Fort Worth Short-Term Rental Alliance. No booze and hisses, okay. I wanted to say that the city currently is not imposing fees on or hard regulations or ordinance violations on long-term rentals. Not every registered, even those that are even registered within the city or they're not even registering those in the city. So you're not registering long-term rentals, but we're looking to do short-term rentals. I'm not sure that that's quite fair. And furthermore, if we continue to do things the way that have been proposed today, that it will only be up to large operators like Fakasa, Sonder, Evolve, and Barsala, some of the large operators, large corporations, to do short-term rentals here in the area. Right now, according to your study that was done, there were 60 legal short-term rentals, I believe that according to Ms. Dana. Bergdorf. Bergdorf Bergdorf. Ms. Bergdorf, that I think there were 60 legal short-term rentals in the area of 400,000 households. That basically eliminates short-term rentals in this area. And this will be one of the major cities that will not have that opportunity for people to come and visit and stay anywhere other than cramped hotel spaces. Is that really what we want? Very few complaints. And I'm sure the naysayers back here will say that's exactly what they want. By the way, we gave them, Ms. Bergdorf, we just gave them the prescription for getting people eliminated from doing short-term rentals. We basically told them all they need to do is complain and then they'll, people will be shut down. Whether it's a true complaint or not, whether it's simply, I didn't feel comfortable with the people that were next door because they were different. Like Brandon had mentioned earlier today in your meeting, Brandon had mentioned that people said that, let me use his particular words, what did he say? He said there were very few complaints of nuisances other than, in his word, it's because they are different when people call those people are different. What does it mean by people that are different? So I have 30 seconds. Okay, great. Why did the city pay for a study that we're going back to the same thing? We've wasted a lot of money. And you know what, it's very important, I think that we have short-term rentals in our community for people that are coming to visit. People enjoy them, people have them. All of you have used them. Every one of you, probably most of these people out here have used them as well. And we don't, I don't really care. I really don't care. Thank you, Mr. Crosby. And they should, I'm sure. Our next speaker is Avery Wilson. We're gonna go back to Avery on the phone. And then it'll be Jenny Lund. No, no, no, we're not gonna do that. Avery? Avery? Avery? Can you hear me? Yeah. Please go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I know for, my name is Avery Wilson. I know for my area, specifically the polytechnic I'm kind of opposed to short-term rentals because the rental properties and duplexes that we have in our area, most of the people who do rent them out, whether it's short-term or long-term, is a lot of drug activity. And you hear like a lot of random gunshots, whether it's overnight or during the daytime. So I know specifically for my area, I'm opposed to it because I know some of, probably you, Maddie, Parker and some of the council members probably stay in HOA areas, gated communities. And I'm pretty sure there's certain betting processes and ordinances and everything to allowing people into the neighborhoods that you guys stay at, the estates and everything. So I'm opposed. I hope that you guys vote no on the short-term rentals, but that is my take on it. Anything else, Mr. Wilson? No, ma'am, that is all. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Janine Lund, followed by Mary Collins. I am Janine Lund and we, like many others here, bought our home in a zoned residential neighborhood, residential only because we wanted to be in a neighborhood where people knew each other. Our friends have a sense of cohesion, have a sense of who lives with us and cares about our neighborhood. I support that final statement of the objection to short-term rentals being, not turning our residential neighborhoods into areas that have strangers coming in and out as hotels, but I do support registration of short-term rentals and I'm curious to see how the city will enforce those who choose not to register. So thank you for your time. Our next speaker is Mary Collins, followed by Gail Davis. Is Mary here? Mary Collins, no? Gail Davis. Gail will be followed by Dan Hayes. My name is Gail Davis. I live in the Crestwood neighborhood, I'm the zoning chair of our neighborhood association and I am here to oppose short-term rentals in our neighborhoods in any residential neighborhood. I know I pay a lot of money in residential property taxes. I've opened every single election in part to ensure that my home isn't threatened by commercial intrusion into the neighborhoods. We've been here many times for that in the past several years. Every single proponent now seeking to operate a short-term rental in the residential zone area was aware of the zoning when he or she acquired their property. If operating a small hotel is now what they want, they simply should have acquired their property in a zone for hotels in the first place in a more of a commercial zone area, not residential. So I'm against that. I did wanna say that allowing the short-term rentals in neighborhoods will lower the quality of life for the residents of the neighborhood, the quality of the neighborhood itself. It'll lower the desirability and the property taxes values. I believe I don't think most people wanna live in a residential neighborhood that has like a boarding house next door. Feeling safe and familiar with our neighbors and the sense of community is the American dream of owning a home and that's the biggest investment most residents make. And I just said, please keep us tax-paying, voting residents in mind when you make your decisions. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dan Hayes followed by Chris Clark. Good evening. My name's Dan Hayes. I live in Central Meadowbrook. I'm gonna alter my proposal since we got the good news a few minutes ago, but I did want to show you a house that is in West Meadowbrook that's so outrageous it got showcased by the Star Telegram and WFAA. It's listed on a website called Zillow Gone Wild. This is the outside of it. The listing in part reads, host the best pool parties or game day parties in town. Think Fort Worth's ultimate party house meets the coolest investment property. Until we brought it to the listing agent's attention, that read think Fort Worth's ultimate party house meets Airbnb. It's $745,000, four bedrooms, five bathrooms, 7,100 square feet, although TAD thinks it's only 2,064. It has a underground wine cellar, two master bedrooms, an indoor pool, a hot tub, and many other features not found in a normal middle-class neighborhood. And I promise you, this is just a regular middle-class neighborhood. I can only imagine the parking challenges and the noise the neighbors must endure with a house full of partiers. There's the indoor pool. Here's some of the other rooms. So here's the house from an aerial view. I think you can spot it. Here's how big TAD thinks it is. I point that out just because there are, this is probably a rare example, but this is probably not unique in Fort Worth. And there's a lot of reasons why you guys made the right decision today. And I hope that's something that you can especially make note of. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Dan. Our next speaker is Chris Clark, followed by Jessica Wrench. Good evening, Mayor Parker, Councilman Crane. Council, my name is Chris Clark. I live at 4120 Selkirk in Southwest Fort Worth in the Fosher Park neighborhood. And I'm very happy to hear the news of the vote from earlier, but I'm gonna piggyback on what he said. Rockets parties late at night, streets choked with parked cars, garbage left out at the curb. Neighborhoods gutted it when longtime neighbors are replaced by revolving door of transients who do not live there and have little incentive to be good neighbors to people they will never see again. And I encourage you to look at the, continue to look at the statistics of crime that that brings into the neighborhoods and so on. So I'm enclosing. I just wanna thank you for your vote today. And I was gonna encourage you to keep the current ordinance. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jessica Wrench, followed by Paul Kerpo. Jessica here, no. Paul, come on down, are you fine? Ginger Edwards, after Paul. Madam Mayor, Councilmembers, I planned on being brief, but not this brief. Thank you for your decision today. And thank you for showing Mr. Willoughby that you pay attention to the people. Our next speaker is Ginger Edwards, followed by Judy Taylor. My name is Ginger Edwards and my issue is a nod about your short terminal. Although I do believe it's dangerous. I'm a victim of a former secret service agent. His name's Grant Jack. And he was a Dallas district attorney and he was a big cop in Dallas for a long time. And he was investigated in 2014 for sex abuse scandal and he was told to turn it in his gun in his badge. And when the Texas Rangers investigated his home, videos of me of an unknowing victim were confiscated and he is now and was a now registered sex fender. He has been abusing me for 12 years and I can't get anywhere with the Fort Worth police and I'm at my wits end. I have no more recourse. They've put me into bankruptcy and I had to visit with Mr. Nettles assistant today about how they're trying to throw me out into the streets with two old service dogs. My husband died on this day about 13 or 14 years ago. Now I am the sole surviving victim of Mr. Jack. The other women have been killed. I tested positive for lethal amounts of arsenic in 2015. I have proof of it and I was assaulted by my neighbor who forgive me, I have no problem with Muslims, but he is a Muslim and he works for Mr. Jack. I've been assaulted three times on the property, four times in the neighborhood and it's the precinct over on Hemphill and Rosedale. And I just need for somebody to take a police report and do their job, you know, it's all I'm asking. It's all I'm asking. You know, every right I have has been violated. I pursued legal remedies and small claims court. The city referred me, told me to redo it. In the district court, it has stalled. For some reason it's stalled. In June, Grant Jack faked his death. He now lives in Oklahoma under his alias, which is John Hamilton and I just need some relief. So thank you for hearing my thoughts. Make sure you connect with Chief Aldridge there in the back corner. Thanks Chief. Judy Taylor is followed by George Chiles. I'm Judy Taylor, President of Handling Neighborhood Association. My neighborhood is being covered in STRs. It's taking many people away from a home that they could live in with a family and be content at all times instead of just a party time. I thank you for making a decision today to support us, but I ask that the city strongly begin to enforce the law we already have. Thank you. We do not need STRs in our family neighborhoods. Thank you. Our next speaker is George Chiles followed by Adrian Smith. Hi, I'm George, I'm a child, I live in Fort Worth. This is in response to the comments of the District 7 Council member on November 8th against the Community Police Policy Advisory Board. The main thrust of this was, quote, by effectively placing an observer on the backs of our police officers and an observer whose mission is in fact to find fault, this will put our officers at risk and consequently our citizens at risk. For fear of retribution, officers may not act. That's a scary thing to think about. And it certainly makes our community less safe, unquote, fear of retribution. From at least 1392, the earliest date of its use shown in the Oxford English Dictionary, retribution has meant something justly deserved. It's summed up thusly in Black's Law Dictionary, 11th, document one. Rule of law, which is the codification of social contract, would be impotent on worthless paper without the power to make people fear. The justly deserve consequences, i.e., retribution, are carefully defined act. That's why there is law enforcement. One of the enduring goals of police unions is to use elected officials to shield their members from the receiving end of this dynamic. I maintain that what the council member actually finds scary is losing the support of the POA, just as keeping the support of Hillwood, causing him to ignore the rules for speakers on June 11th. The council member says internal affairs is all we need. Document two shows that a complaining party is, quote, a person making a complaint that he or she was harmed by the officers alleged misconduct, unquote. Document three shows that City of Fort Worth has no definition for harmed in this context. So a fundamental of the rule of law, definition of legal terms just isn't there. This isn't the case of the foxes guarding the henhouse. It is where the POA foxes, through the current meet and capitulate, denying the materials to build a henhouse to begin with. And then there is the scary scam. This hootie has been around since rocks were literally cutting-edge technology. And a tribal leader told the members, if you don't believe everything I say and do everything I tell you to do, those subhumans in the next valley will eat your children. Document four demonstrates that police unions have utilized the scary scam for at least 30 years. Now they mostly use the elected officials as their guru, Ronald G. Delord, in terms of wilder beasts. This is certainly more subtle than the earlier one, since almost anything would be more subtle than using a desk head to make a point. But on the other hand, subtle is just a nice word for sneaky. Our next speaker is Adrienne Smith, followed by Rick Herring. Adrienne Smith, let the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and I cite, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Affordable housing is one issue within its given society in which individuals champion for what their desires for why they champion for it never passes the smell test. Council meeting November 29th, 2022 for those who are interested, MNC 22-1018. And if you decide to look online, you can begin at the one hour and five minute mark of the discussion. Once again, business interests and developers showed up in the interest of not only protecting their bottom line, but to ensure this council would pass favorable concessions that will grow their portfolio more with financial gain. Some spoke to the idea that a 65% rate would make it harder for new development to come about. Some spoke to the idea that taxpayers will bear the brunt of development costs going up. Some spoke to the idea that a 65% rate would shut down future development consideration all together. Some said, I say this again. I say this again. This is simply a play on words, but it does not pass the smell test. This council has the power to determine what's best for the city overall. But it is best, but is it best when business interests and developers flex their collective power for that which benefits them? Now I will address the council. Council member Crane. I don't know why there is never any recusal from development decisions. When you yourself is a certified realtor slash developer. Sir, a blatant conflict of interest in which I'm sure you benefit from. Mr. Flores, you advocated for the establishment of an advisory committee that will focus on development stakeholders, home builders stakeholders and residential stakeholders. Where was the same energy for police and community relationships becoming better? Oh, I forgot. Your own personal experiences wasn't enough. Maybe it was the fact that you didn't give your constituents necessary information so that they could make a collective decision. Ms. Beck, good stewardship is what this council is supposed to be beholden to. We hear what's spoken. Thank you, Mr. Smith. The next speaker, thank you, Mr. Smith. Our next speaker is Rick Herring, followed by Marian Armstrong. Good evening, Mayor and Council, city staff. Thank you for having me tonight. I almost decided not to take up your time because I watched the pre-council meeting and you had made your decisions there, but I was already signed up and I also wanted to show solidarity with the many citizens of Fort Worth who are so passionate about the short-term real issue. And I wholeheartedly agree with the majority of the council as you discussed today to keep the current ordinance in place. I think that's the goal that many of us were seeking. So thank you for that. The staff recommendation to me as council member Beck articulated so well would have just created a nightmare of very contentious zoning cases with lots of residents having to come down zoning after zoning after zoning because the short-term rule folks would not probably just give up on that fight. So I just didn't see how that could possibly work. Councilman Flores mentioned something that I feel is very important and that I don't recall and all these discussions has been pointed out before and that is the fact of all the many, quite a few council initiated rezonings in residential neighborhoods where the residents of those neighborhoods made it clear that they wanted their neighborhoods to remain residential. We had large areas of Riverside do that in the past number of years, including the United Riverside Neighborhood Association just three years ago in 2019, which is located in district eight. So appreciate all you do. I think the decision is good and thank you for staying the course with that. Appreciate it. Our next speaker is Mary Ann Armstrong, followed by David St. Germain. Good evening. I'm Mary Ann Armstrong. I'm in district seven, live at 2569 Castle Circle in Fort Worth. I'm here. I'm a neighborhood association on South Lake Worth is the neighborhood I live in. We know each other. We have brunch together once a month. We have Christmas parties. We know we can call our neighbors when the tree falls down in our yard or the car won't start. That's the kind of neighborhood we want to live in. We wanna live in a neighborhood of good neighbors, not tourist. That's what we have right now. But we do have some illegal short-term rentals in our neighborhood. Short-term rentals that advertise they can sleep 16. That they have a lake view, but they have to walk through someone else's property to actually get to the lake. They have to actually ask, can we use your swim? Can we swim in your front yard, in your backyard? Can we use your dock? Those are positions that none of us really want to be in. We don't want, you know, can, we've really worked to make Lake Worth a lake, a central park for the city of Fort Worth. The city itself has spent money on the lake. We've had it dredged about 10 years ago, or a little less than that. You know, we have wonderful city services and it's a wonderful place to live and that's what we want. That's why I'm opposed to us expanding the short-term rental ordinance that we have. I appreciate it that you guys have voted to enforce the ordinance that is there because any short-term rental takes one more residence out of our neighborhood. That's one more neighbor that I can't call and my car won't start. And that's not the kind of neighbors that we want. That's not the kind of neighborhood we want to live in. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is David St. Germain, followed by Bill Schur. Is David here? No? Bill Schur followed by Marcia Wright. Good evening. First of all, I want to express thanks to the council for making what I feel was very definitely the right decision for today. Because that decision was made, I'm changing what I am going to say. I want to point out something that I did not hear discussed in today's discussion. Our zoning ordinance is built upon a permitted use table. Any prospective property owner who wants to buy property in this city can look at that table and determine what is and is not legal in a particular zoning district. When a space is empty, that means the city does not permit and does not want and does not believe the use is appropriate in that district. And for many, many years, bed and breakfast homes and ends have been limited in where they were allowed. And now short-term rentals also officially have empty boxes meaning they are not permitted. If a cup is ever put in a box for one of our residential zoning districts, that means that the council has made a determination that there are at least in some cases that that use is appropriate in the district. Further under the ordinance, as it reads today, a cup would mean that the use is, and I quote the first paragraph of our cup ordinance, it is generally compatible. Short-term rentals are not generally compatible with family residential living and they are not compatible with strong neighborhoods such as those Fort Worth desperately needs to protect. And therefore I wanna add, when you put cup in a box, if you ever get around to that, which you should never do, you will be basically telling investors across the country, wealthy investors, you can buy up a house in Fort Worth, you can retrofit it to make it into a short-term rental. We had this happen in our neighborhood, that investors from California bought a house and they retrofitted it and they start sleeping a lot of people in there and there were parties and anyway, I don't wanna come down to the council one time for each of the 25 blocks in my neighborhood to oppose a short-term rental application. A cap based upon one per block means 25 or more in my own neighborhood. And I don't think we should have to come to the council repeatedly to fight off these investors. Thank you. Our next speaker is Marcia Wright, followed by Doreen Greiger. My name is Marcia Wright. Thank you council for your decision today. But I'd also like to thank the more than 20 volunteers who sit here tonight representing thousands of your citizens and people that you represent. Your taxpayers, the people you represent who want to keep their neighborhoods as neighborhoods. So again, thank you for listening and also thank our Fort Worth residents for staying with us for months on this issue. We appreciate it. Our next speaker is Doreen Greiger, followed by Libby Willis. Good evening. My name is Doreen Greiger and I'm a district three. Recently I read several fourth leaders stated that lack of affordable housing is a serious issue in our city. Today lack of affordable housing means lack of houses for people of many income levels. The problem is not just the higher cost of purchasing a house but also the lack of enough housing inventory. I believe that there is a direct correlation between the increase in short-term rentals and the decrease in affordable houses. Short-term rentals convert residential properties into commercial properties when hundreds of houses become commercial properties. Of course, there will be a reduction in affordable housing inventory for people who want to make Fort Worth their home. I know young couples trying to buy their first house but the neighborhoods they want to live in have too many short-term rentals and therefore not enough houses for sale to families. A city is only as strong as its neighborhoods. When people in Fort Worth can't find affordable housing here, they will move outside of Fort Worth. Who is this city's priorities? Is it the residents who live, work and vote here or is it tourists? Thank you. Our next speaker. Our next speaker is Libby Willis followed by Chris Getz. Good evening, I'm Libby Willis. I live on Cremorow Street in Oakhurst. Madam Mayor and members of the council, you made the right decision for today and for the future. And I hope it's an infinite future. You did the right thing as far as STRs and neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are not the place for commercial business. They are the place for growing families, for couples, for older retirees. That's what neighborhoods are for. They're for living life. So based on that, what I want to focus on is I'm very pleased that Dana and staff are gonna bring to you this ordinance that you'll look at for enforcement and registration. I wanna talk about just a bit about enforcement. For the last eight months in Oakhurst, and this was not an STR, but it's an example of why we need more code enforcement officers. We had the office of a business, a corporate business located in a residence on Yucca, and it operated as an office for eight months. Eight months, nobody lived there. It was not a home-based business. If I hadn't known Brandon Bennett to contact him about it, it would still be there. So thank you, Brandon, for his help. What I'm saying is this was important to the next-door neighbor who's over 90 who couldn't get her trash or recycle picked up because the vehicles going to this house, an office, were parking in front of her house, not in front of the office's house, in front of her house. Things like that make a difference to those of us trying to just live our lives in our neighborhoods. We need proactive code enforcement, not just reactive. They wanna do their jobs. They're trying to do their jobs, but we need more of them to keep our neighborhoods as wonderful as many of them are all over this city. They are the strength, the greatest asset that we have in this city, and I appreciate what you all are doing to stand up for us because I believe you understand how important they are, and that's why your decision today and for the future is the right one for this generation and generations to come. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Chris Getz followed by Michael Johnston. Good evening. I made it a rule a long time ago to tell all the police, all of the first responders, people, how much I appreciate their service. I'm here to tell you the same thing. I do really appreciate everything y'all do for the city, and I thank these people here tonight. I think if I ask every one of them, we had time, they'd appreciate it too. Thank you. My name is Chris Getz, and I live over in the South Side Area off University, and I just wanted to tell Mr. Willoughby that I kinda like cramped hotel rooms myself. It's kinda something I look forward to when we travel, but I can tell you, I wouldn't go to a B&B. I think that's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life, and I love the way that y'all approached this. With the late, tell me your name again. Thank you, Dana. The process we went through in the summer, it was great. Y'all weren't here to listen to it. I understand why, but it worked out real well. Long, short-term, the problem with that is, if we have short-term leases, it's gonna turn into long-term nightmare, and I think y'all have approached that in the right way. I know there's probably not one person up here that doesn't want entrepreneurship to work, but not this way. We don't need it that way. Those people need to go somewhere. A good example of it not working well is used to Texas. It's a nightmare down there because of their lack of zoning. We don't want that. We don't need it. We want you people to stay focused on what you're doing and continue to do the right thing, and I want you to know we appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Getz. Our next speaker is Michael Johnston, followed by Louisa Masters. Everybody, I'm Michael Johnston. I live at 2434 Rogers over in the TCU area, and I can tell you that I am very proud to have lived and been a resident of Fort Worth for the last 43 years, and got out of law school, and the next Monday I was in Fort Worth, and I tell you what makes Fort Worth unique. What makes Fort Worth unique, it's the only major city in Texas, and I know about all the major cities in Texas and five offices and all of them, that what makes Fort Worth unique is it has viable, affordable, active neighborhoods, neighborhoods that are protected by the city government, protected through zoning. Chris, who's a friend of mine, we have been involved in a number of individual zoning issues threatening our neighborhoods, and he mentioned Houston. I happen to grow up in Houston, and I know in Houston there are a lot of short-term rentals and real short-term, like our short-term rentals. And some of them were, I grew up in a neighborhood or was born in a neighborhood where taxi drivers wouldn't go during the day, and so it was an interesting place, but what makes Fort Worth unique and what every other city person I go to in every other city says they love Fort Worth because they can go inside the interloop and find viable neighborhoods, different price ranges, different value ranges, but they're all protected through zoning, and that's because of you and the other city council people that have served before you, to my knowledge, at least for the last 43 years. Again, thank you very much. Our next speaker is Louisa Masters, will be followed by Dave Short. Good evening, my name is Louisa Masters, 6148 Springleaf Circle, Fort Worth. I'm the vice president of South Hills South Neighborhood Association, and I have been appointed to present our unanimous position to the city council that South Hills South Neighborhood Association is against any changes to the residential codes, which allow STRs in our residential area. Our concerns are much of what has been said here earlier, but the advertisement seems to be geared towards a lot of people packed into one house, and we already have that. We have a lot of neighbors that have multi-generations in their homes, in homes that were built in the 50s and 60s with only one car driveways, sometimes two car driveways. Now we have residents that have six and seven cars that belong to their house, and our fear is all we need is a party house advertising it sleeps 16. How many cars is that going to add to our problem already? Our streets are very dangerous to pass through with so many cars. A normal two-way street is only passable one direction. You drive, and then you come to the side and let the next person pass the other direction. That's how bad it is in my neighborhood. And that was our major worry and concern. The rest of this is about how I thought that option number two was ill-conceived, but you already figured that out. So thank you very much, and good night, thank you. Our next speaker is Dave Schwart, followed by Noble Reed. Good evening, Mayor Parker and City Council. My name's Dave Schwarty. I live in Arlington, Texas, and I am a co-founder of the Texas Neighborhood Coalition. Our primary mission is to help communities deal with the problems that short-term animals inevitably create when they invade residential neighborhoods. I signed up tonight to come and to support local chapter, and now I find myself thanking you for the decision that you made. Choosing option one is in fact the only option that will adequately protect the sanctity of your residential neighborhoods. We work with cities across the state, and everywhere the story is the same. Where city officials have failed to step up and take the bull by the horn and protect residential neighborhoods, short-term rattles have invaded quiet residential neighborhoods in ever-increasing numbers, causing untold misery for the people who live there and who want to live there for the long term. You've heard a number of those stories tonight, and I know you've heard it before. The bottom line is short-term rattles destroy the very fabric of the neighborhood because they destroy the cohesion as people you once knew and trusted are replaced by a total parade of strangers. I live in Arlington, and about four years ago, we adopted the approach that is very similar to the one embodied in your ordinance. Certain neighborhoods are off-limits short-term rattles, and I can tell you it has worked. The key is strict enforcement, and we have a track record that has in fact worked with minimal additional staff, but using smart technology to help us locate those who are not operating in areas where they're allowed. So again, we very much appreciate the decision that you've made, and we as a coalition stand ready to help you if we can't assist in any way. So thank you very much. Noble Reed will be followed by Michael Moore. Good afternoon. My name is Noble Reed, and I'm the president of the Greenway Neighborhood Association, and I've been down here before on this, and I guess I'm one of those 20 that with a little problem. But I'm in district eight, but I don't live in the south side. I live in a little community that exists with approximately 185 homes. Only one of them is a multi-dwelling, only approximately eight are rentals that I'm aware of. However, one of those is a short-term realm owned by an individual in the state of Washington. Now, we have no commercial residences, nor entertainment businesses in our neighborhood. So I'm confused as to why anyone would put a short-term realm there, and I would like to ask that you continue to resist the temptation of letting short-term realms where the homegrown individuals owned are those that are owned by people on the outside. So in the interim, please continue against this. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Moore, followed by Pam Hudson. Thank you, Pastor Moore. Yes, thank you, Pastor Moore. Our next speaker is Pam Hudson, followed by Jim DeLong. Hi, I'm Pam Hudson. I live at 4600 Inwood Road. Everyone here can list all their favorite reasons for why STRs are either detrimental or beneficial to the city, but what have the courts actually ruled? Prohibiting STRs in residential zones or requiring a zoning change or a cup is in direct conflict with court cases that are ruled in favor of property owners. All of the options that have been considered by the council recently are based on the assertion that STRs do not fit the definition of residential use. This is in conflict with the Texas Supreme Court decision tar versus Timberwood Park. Quote, the term residential use did not require that someone make the property their usual place of abode, but that the building was a residence in itself because it is a place of abode. The city of New Orleans allowed residents to rent their homes for short term but did not allow non-residents. The Fifth Circuit Court ruled in August that the city of New Orleans cannot prohibit non-residents from renting their homes, even in residential neighborhoods, for short term, as it violates the US Constitution's prohibition on discriminating against interstate commerce. The court didn't rule that the city had to treat non-residents the same as residents, but they specifically ruled a city cannot ban non-resident owners from renting out their homes for the short term. If STRs are allowed at all, anywhere in the city, for some homes, the court concluded, a city must allow anyone who owns a home to obtain a license. The Fifth Circuit Court observed residential STRs offer dressed unique opportunities to immerse themselves in the city and to have an authentic view of the city. As the saying goes, location, location, location is what matters. The court found that allowing out-of-state owners to have STRs in non-residential neighborhoods did not compensate for restricting them in residential neighborhoods. The residency requirement was intended to prevent nuisances to promote affordable housing and to protect neighborhoods, all the reasons we've heard tonight. The court stated, there is no question that those are legitimate local purposes, but all of those objectives can adequately be served by reasonable non-discriminatory alternatives so none of them can justify their requirement. The court offered many alternatives to the residency requirement. For preventing nuisances, the city can step up enforcement, as someone mentioned here was needed anyway. There can be parking regulations to prevent the parking problems. It can also increase the magnitude of penalties it imposes on STR owners that don't follow the rules, even strip repeat offenders from their license. With regard to preserving the neighborhood character, the court specifically pointed out there's an obvious solution to that. Cap the share of housing units that can be an STR in a given neighborhood. The Fifth Circuit Court states, the city has many options to address the problems caused by STRs in residential neighborhoods. There are many available alternative methods to achieve your policy goals other than discrimination. Instead of focusing on complex, complicated, unconstitutional solutions such as conditional use permits, Fort Worth should develop reasonable, straightforward regulations that allows STRs in all zones while addressing the problems that can sometimes occur. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jim DeLong, followed by Michael Mays. Good evening, I'm Jim DeLong. To some people's surprise, I'm not here to talk about a single or what STRs or whatever they're called. I used to be a musician, I love music, and I love hearing people that have talent. And recently I've gotten stuck on watching YouTube, just America's Got Talent, and all those kind of programs. Last night as I was watching, there was a young man, a young black man, he was about 16 years old, and he had an alto sax, and he came up and he was gonna audition. And they asked him some questions. They wanted to know about himself. And he started talking about how he had been bullied in school. He had been born 1.8 pounds, and he had some defects, and kids bullied him. And he almost committed suicide because of bullying. He found that he could turn to music as an escape and to give him hope. And I'll tell you, when he played, it was awesome. But bullying, we find that everywhere. It's in the script, you can find it in bad neighborhoods, good neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, rich neighborhoods. We find bullying everywhere. You can find it in the workplace. And see, bullying is a result of our fallen human nature. Our human nature is like a coin that has two sides on it. There's a good side and there's a bad side. And there are people that will operate under their fallen human nature, and there's hate, there's jealousy, there's anger, and there's malice. Years ago, decades ago, I made a decision. I wanted to be a part of solutions, not problems. And I'm about to say something that might put a target on my back. The root of the problem of racism is fallen human nature. We see it everywhere. The Hatfields against the McCoys, Alexander the Great conquering, Hitler conquering. We see that everywhere. If we want to really deal with racism, let's get to the root of it, fallen human nature. Our next speaker is Michael Mays, followed by Dave, David Griffith. Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff. My name is Michael Mays. I am a licensed local real estate agent. I own a local brokerage. And we operate and manage rentals, long-term rentals in Fort Worth and North Texas. We also help other owners that have short-term rentals here in North Texas. You have never heard my name or our company's name involved with any of the complaints that have been voiced here tonight around short-term rentals, even though for many years, myself and other team members have been helping with that management. There is a misconception, I believe, with short-term rentals in that many people think that they are only vacation rentals. I would share with you the reasons people have stayed in the short-term rentals that we manage. They are, in many cases, people that are in Fort Worth that are dealing with doctor's visits, or they're elderly that are coming here for graduations. They don't want to stay in a hotel. They may have children. They may have pets. And those hotels don't always even allow that. Here in this great city of Fort Worth, we also have what's called the Stock Show. People come here, and they actually rent short-term rentals for the Stock Show as well. You heard it voiced a couple of minutes ago. Tar versus Timberwood, where the Texas Supreme Court has reinforced that short-term rentals by a homeowner is a residential situation, not a commercial one. This, and our focus as taxants overall in maintaining property rights for all individuals, should not be infringed upon, though reasonable expectations should occur. I would agree with some of the people that have spoken here tonight about some of the problems that have happened with short-term rentals. I haven't had those. If they've occurred, we absolutely should enforce rules and strike those down. It's also interesting that someone mentioned Houston as an example. Houston that has no real zoning is not a good example to compare to this great city of Fort Worth that does. However, San Antonio, another sister city of ours, has implemented short-term rentals across the board. Yes, they have restrictions. They have rules. They also have enforcement. So I would encourage us, if a city the size of San Antonio can accomplish that a larger city than us, a larger population as well, if they can accomplish it and make the betterment of their city, we should be able to do the same. Last but not least, there are situations. I don't care if it's an owner of a property, a renter, a long-term renter, or a short-term rental. There are problems that occur at properties. The only way to solve those problems are to enforce the rules. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Griffith, followed by Tara Rice. Is David here? No? Tara Rice, is Tara here? I think it might be. James Smith, and we'll check and see if that's Tara Rice that just walked out, if you don't mind. James Smith, I have not seen James here tonight. Next speaker would be Rita Gomez. Let's cut to call. I'll let y'all pull that up. Samantha Newman, is Samantha here? It was a note that she might be here in person. No? Ms. Gomez? Hi, I'm Rita. Can you hear me? Go ahead, please. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I'm Rita Gomez. I live in District 7. I like to talk about the proposed zoning restrictions regarding STRs. Responsible to the rights of homeowners are being infringed upon setting forth code violations and restricting zones. We'll talk about when the city of Fulworth adopted it through the zoning amendment staff report, case number VC18-013. This is an informal report which is then adopted and then you all may change it too. Proposed Chapter 9 definition. The ad definition for event center or rental hall, short-term rental and indoor amusement and revised the definition for transient and short-term residents. Amendment 2018, number 23110-02, 2018, the city of Fulworth regulates ability through amendments allowing by zoning code. The problem with this approach is that the regulation of short-term rentals does not fall within the scope of local zoning authority. The reason is that the key characteristics of local zoning power in the long established principles that zones deal with land use, not the owner, operator, occupant of the land. Zoning inherently pertains to land rather than the land owner. Zoning regulations of STR violates this fundamental principle and it focuses not on the use of the land but the form of one's interest in the property, owner or renter and the duration of the occupancy short versus long-term. Provisions that are being made to include things like terms, owner, renter, short versus long shouldn't be used for zoning purposes. Let's talk about what I just covered about ordinance changes and why this affects the Texas Constitution. The Texas Constitution prohibits the creation of retroactive laws. The Constitution Article 1, Section 16, no bill of attaining or ex post factor law, retroactive law or any law impairing the obligation of contract shall be made. Two fundamental objectives, protects the people's reasonable settled expectations, i.e. the rules should not change after the game has been played and why that is important is that we have expectations as we own the home, rent the home and this shouldn't pertain to longevity of the runner which was set long ago. We have reasonable expectations of being a home owner and two, it protects against abuses of legislative power, robins versus crown cork and seal, company ink. We have the right to privacy and assembly ban on short-term rentals, violate facially and apply constitutional rights to privacy, freedom of assembly and association. Due course of law, equal protection and freedom from unwarranted surges, when a code violation officer comes repeatedly to a home just to check if enough of that is there over again for the same reason is a violation to a home owner's right to assemble. I'll give you an example. When a police officer goes to a home for a noise and complaint it goes there and the same day the complaint is made and filed. The police officer doesn't check back up two months later, four months later, five months later for the same violation. These violations have to occur and the officer's sent out. These code compliance officers are violating home owner's rights, think about it. They just come willy-nilly just because the complaint has been made. Thank you, Ms. Gomez. Our next speaker is Tara Rice, followed by Samantha Newman. Samantha's here. Michael McDermott would be up next. Samantha's not available. Boy, do I feel like Thomas Trillincasi today? First, commissioner's office. Now, commissioner court nods. You guys. So I was gonna speak about the CIT team, changed my mind once I seen how James will be portrayed. A lot of people don't know. I knew Atatiana Jefferson. I met her January, 2019. When I met her, I met her in Pleasant Grove, one of the wars, a war zone. So the city of Fort Worth, the area where she was at, that was just like a suburb to her compared to Pleasant Grove. And when we was out in Pleasant Grove, and I met her, January, 2019, guess what? There was gunshots and she said to me so calmly, I said, you not scared? And she said, girl, no, I'm used to this. So that's why she had her door open that night. So she was used to it. She came out here and got killed, murdered by Aaron Dean. Murdered. Then, guess I'm gonna bring this to everybody's attention. Then you have Aaron Dean asking for every witness, anybody's witness that testifies because he knows his punishment. Addresses, phone numbers. Now that little boy, Zion, he has to grow up from a childhood that he should never have to recover from. The officers are corrupt. And this is proven facts. They are corrupt. They operate like a gang. So if any of these witnesses die, blame it on Fort Worth PD. The next speaker will be Michael McDermott followed by Terry Smith. Hello, my name is Michael McDermott and I live in the Fairmount District, Fairmount neighborhood at 1831 Fairmount Avenue. I've come here to speak about a couple of things, but first I'm rather disappointed that it seems like a decision has been made on STR Reynolds without actually being people coming down here to voice their opinion. I mean, you haven't voted yet, I assume. So I don't know how the decision can be made, but here's what I'll say. And I hear people mumbling behind me and I was quiet while they were speaking. So I hope they'll be quiet while I'm speaking. I live in Fairmount and we have a garage apartment that we rent. I'm 64 years old next year, I'm 65. My husband and I have been trying to build a retirement. We don't work for a business. We don't have a retirement income. We don't have anything that will come to us after we quote unquote retire if we ever get to. We're both landscapers. We work very hard. We're very busy, but this, we've been we've been renting short term rental because our house is zone B2 family. We have a garage apartment. We, when we first moved in, we had a long-term renter who destroyed the apartment. He ruined it. It was a mess and it was a mess all the time and it was somebody we even knew and it's hard to throw somebody out when you know them and having lived in Fairmount for 40 years next year, I have seen long-term rental horror stories, one after the other after the other in our neighborhood. So long-term rental, I think a lot of these investors, their properties will become long-term rentals and I hope for the sake of these folks that they don't get somebody like him because once they're nested and they're in there and they've got all their junk on the property, they have too many cars of their own, there's very little you can do with Texas law. It's very, very little you can do to actually get them thrown out because believe me, we've been through that. I wanted to tell you real quickly why the people come to Fairmount and the area where they stay. First of all, we're a very tight-knit neighborhood association. I'll ask Elizabeth Beck. I don't believe our neighborhood associations come out against STRs and we have a lot of them in the neighborhood and they're all very well-run with very few complaints. So I can't speak to what these people have experienced but I know from Brandon Bennett's testimony or his remarks before you that there have been very few legitimate complaints compared to how many STRs there are. Also, I think after your study, only 800 plus STRs that your professional group found in Fort Worth out of 400,000 residences, is that correct? I may be incorrect on that. But the people come to stay, they come to TCU games, they come for funerals, they come for their kids' activities at TCU for everything that happens at a college, all your different college activities. They come for the hospital, we've had people stay there, they don't wanna stay in a hotel for a week. If they have a sick person in the hospital they'd have to be near, they wanna stay in an STR where they can, they wanna stay at somewhere where they have some space. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, I appreciate it. Our next speaker is Terry Smith, who'll be followed by Cheryl Austin. Hi, I'm Terry Smith. I know that when I go out of town I look for a short-term rental to keep my daughter, my granddaughter, her husband. We don't wanna all be crammed into a hotel room or two hotel rooms. We wanna be able to hear that baby cry in the morning. No, not really, but anyway. I also, if I was traveling for business I would want a place to cook my meals so I didn't have to eat every meal out. And there are people in Fort Worth who have had fires in their house, had mold in their house, that are remodeling their house and they need somewhere short-term to stay to take care of those problems that they had in their original house. And just so you know, short-term and long-term rentals are both rentals. The only difference is the time stay, maybe not the only difference, but that is one of the differences. And a short-term owner allows the owner to pay the huge tax increase. I got a tax increase of 70,000 and one property and 100,000 on another. If I took that property tax that I had to pay now and gave it to my tenants, it would be like a 40% increase to them. So the short-term rental helps me keep my tenants rent down a little bit because I can pass it on on the short-term rental. It also allows me to keep my property nicer than some of the other properties I see in the neighborhood. 400,000, 500,000 house next to me that looks awful and terrible disrepair, but you won't see my property looking like that because I get higher rents and I'm able to keep it up better. So you can have, I don't want a party house either. You know what happens when you have a party house in your rental? They tear it up. They make a mess. You have to clean it up. The neighbors complain. I want nice tenants in mind. I look for good reviews. I look for people who have had good past rental history. Do the same thing on my long-term rentals. That way you get a good tenant in there. Real estate ownership comes with a bundle of rights. The rights are the right of possession, the right to control the use of your property and the right of disposition, the right to transfer ownership permanently or temporarily to another person. So why am I not being able to have my bundle of rights with my property? Thank you. Our next speaker will be Cheryl Austin, followed by Carolina Rodriguez. Hi, I'm Cheryl Austin and I live in on South Lakewood Shores, 2464 Indian Cove. And just so I wanna make it clear to everybody that I am not, I do not own any short-term rentals. However, because I have a property, I believe that I should be able to operate my property as I wish if I chose to do a short-term rental. I think that should be within my rights. I think y'all should put laws into effect where making sure the zoning is there where if the house is a nuisance like they're talking about these party houses, the city should shut those down and find those short-term rental owners so that they're not operating that way and they're good neighborhood people, just like that lady who's improving the neighborhood by what she's doing good for everybody. And also our homes have skyrocketed in the city of Fort Worth the values. And y'all talk about affordable housing, but there's not much affordable housing anymore in the city of Fort Worth. It's becoming a short supply. I have friends that are in the city of Fort Worth in order to keep their home, they're having to do short-term rental because they have to rent a room out because they can't pay their taxes. Otherwise they're gonna have to get a reverse mortgage or they're gonna have to sell their house. So that's another reason I have friends are having to do that. And as they retire, they can't pay their taxes. Also the short-term rentals, if you allow them to register, they would have registration fees. They wanna pay the hotel taxes, let them pay the taxes and y'all will collect a lot of revenue off that. They bring a lot of economic impact to the city, just like they were talking about. They go, the Dickies Arenas here, the stock show, the TCU games, they wanna, they bring their big families here and they wanna stay somewhere they don't wanna stay in three to four to five hotel rooms. When I go out of town with family, I stay in a short-term rental and I would like my family, when my family comes here, I have a big family unit every year on the lake. That's where I live. And my house is only 840 square feet so they can't stay at my house, guess where they stay? They all stay in short-term rentals and they appreciate that they are able to do that. I sure appreciate y'all's time, thank you. Our next speaker is Carolina Rodriguez. Is Carolina here? I think that's the last of our speakers council meeting adjourned.