City Council Preview – September 16, 2014
The City Council will meet at 3pm on Tuesday for a Work Session, followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session – both at City Hall at 215 E. McKinney Street. Click here for a full agenda online and look below for some highlights you may want to know.
TREE CODE, TREE FUND, and TREE TRUSTS
It ought to be well-established by now that a city full of trees is a good thing. It looks better, it is better for our air and our environment, and it means higher property values. How to incentivize developers to save trees and plant more of them has been a long-standing discussion in the city of Denton. Everybody seems to agree that changes are needed in our code in order to achieve our tree policies and goals. Last Fall, the council directed the Planning Department to proceed with plans to tackle this issue is 2014. We will receive an update on the progress as well as a timeline for the completion of the work. The staff report for this Work Session item has a great summary of the history of this discussion in Denton – see it here.
FINAL APPROVAL OF CITY BUDGET
The council has been discussing the city budget since early summer. For a recap on this discussion, check out all the info including previous presentations, budget timelines, and even a helpful video explaining the city budget on the city’s budget website. This website is the direct result of discussions between the city’s finance office and the Committee for Citizen Engagement. We agreed the city budget can be difficult to grasp and there needed to be more information presented in a more user-friendly format.
The General Fund (that which is funded mostly through sales and property taxes and is used to fund many of the things we expect from a city: libraries, police and fire, parks, etc.) is set at around $90 million and the entirety of the city budget (including utilities) is just about $900 million.
Here are some aspects of this year’s budget that I am proud to see:
- AVOIDANCE OF A 1 CENT TAX INCREASE: During last year’s budget talks, we forecasted the need for a 1 cent tax increase that would go into effect this coming fiscal year. Thanks to a stronger-than-anticipated revenue (property taxes, in particular) and solid financial planning, this has been avoided.
- INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY and INNOVATION-FOCUSED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: It was less than a year ago that I highlighted the city’s lack of focus on this growing and important sector of our local economy. This budget includes $220,000 for our Economic Development office to invest in tech-focused entrepreneurial innovation in our city. We’ve come a long way since launching our Creative Economy initiative. Now everyone is talking about what high tech could mean for Denton. This is great.
- NEW TOOL TO MAKE IT EASIER TO START A BUSINESS IN DENTON: I’ve been attending the Code for America Summit since 2012. It’s a gathering of some of the greatest minds in technology who are targeting their talents toward improving the way city governments work. It’s sort of a Peace Corps for geeks. There I discovered a new tool called OpenCounter which aims to make it easier for small business owners to navigate the timeline, permits, and fee structures involved with doing business in a city. The city now plans to contract with this innovative technological company to help small business owners in Denton.
- BIKE AND PEDESTRIAN IMPLEMENTATION COORDINATOR: We have a great bike and pedestrian plan, we’ve funded it, now we need the right person to make sure we stay on task to meet our goals and implement our plan. This year’s budget includes the funding to hire such a person.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.