Backpacks Needed for Annual SE Denton Back-2-School Fair
The annual SE Denton Back-2-School Fair is coming up on Saturday. August 11. See all the info on the flyer below. The organizers are in need of 1000 backpacks to help make sure local students can start-off their school year right.
Can you donate a backpack or money to get one? Please let me know and spread the word to others. You can contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
City Council Preview – July 17, 2012
I apologize for the late posting of this and for its brevity…
Today’s meeting begins with a Work Session at 3pm followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session, both at City Hall on McKinney Street. Go here to see the full agenda with back-up materials. Here are some things you might find interesting…
STREET BOND ELECTION UPDATE
For some time now, we have been discussing the possibility of going to the voters in November with a $20 million bond proposal for the purpose of doing some much needed repairs of streets in our city. I posted a very comprehensive look at the proposed projects (sorted by district) a few weeks back – go here to see it.
Today will will begin the discussion on how the ballot proposal might look – because there has been the desire to follow-through with a 2006 council resolution which provides 2-4% of every subsequent bond program monies to public art projects, there is a need to determine how to word that on the ballot. Specifically, we need to determine whether the public art proposal is part of the street proposal or a separate proposal altogether.
TAX INCREMENT REINVESTMENT ZONE
A proposal has been made by a private land owner to create a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, allowing the owners to invest in needed infrastructure work with a promised reimbursement of their investment through increased property taxes over the years. The goal would be to jump start interest in the area from companies. We will be discussing the pros and cons of this proposal.
McKINNEY and MAHILL ZONING CASE
We will return to two zoning cases previously postponed by the council… One is near the corner of McKinney and Mayhill. The sticking point with this proposal is fear from nearby neighborhoods of development projects that will exasperate and already clogged street. Specifically, there have been questions about whether or not multifamily development projects are currently appropriate for this area.
FAIRHAVEN ZONING CASE
We will return to the zoning change request from the current owners of the old Fairhaven structure, one of famed local architect O’Neil Ford’s buildings. Go here to see my write-up for this when it was before us in May. This is an important case with many historic, planning, neighborhood, and business principles at play – some of which do not share similar ideals. According to the latest proposal, the owners of the building are willing to agree to not changing anything on the exterior of the building without prior permission from the council. This is akin to agreeing to come under many of the guidelines of local historic landmarks. That is a significant step from the last city council meeting – we’ll see if it is significant enough to find a path forward.
PASCHALL BAR
My friend, Historic Landmark Commissioner, District 1 citizen and part-owner of District 1′s own Paschall Bar (pictured above), Eric Pulido, invited me out for post-council discussions after the meeting. So perhaps I’ll see you there?
Serve Your City and Save Democracy: Board and Commission Openings
The City Council will soon begin the annual process of nominating interested individuals to serve on our citizen boards and commissions. This is a great way to contribute to this city and participate more fully in the democratic process. You might not realize this, but great improvements have been made during the past year which make the work of our boards and commissions more accessible to everyone. Under the leadership of our City Secretary, Jennifer Walters, you can now find out all sorts of things about each one – membership, agendas, minutes, as well as ways to contact members of each board or commission. Click here to see what I am talking about.
It is absolutely essential to the vibrancy of our local democracy that these boards and commissions thrive. A healthy city has many avenues available for substantial citizen governance. It is how a city keeps its ear close to the ground and best moves in accordance with the will of its people. A feisty, questioning, even ornery citizen board, though no doubt a headache for city administrators looking for a clean and easy way of running the city, is the beautiful symptom of democracy taking place.
You may have heard of Alexis de Tocqueville, the early 19th century Frenchman whose study of the American experiment in democracy resulted in the famous, Democracy in America. He argued that the uniquely American spirit of freedom came about through citizens practicing democracy primarily in their local cities, villages, or townships. Consider this profound quote on this subject:
It is nonetheless in the township that the force of free peoples resides. The institutions of a township are to freedom what primary schools are to science; they put it within reach of the people; they make them taste its peaceful employ and habituate them to making use of it. Without the institutions of a township a nation can give itself a free government, but it does not have the spirit of freedom. Fleeting passions, the interests of a moment, the chance of circumstances can give it the external forms of independence; but despotism suppressed in the interior of the social body reappears sooner or later on the surface.”
If you reflect on it, you come to understand this somber point: the freedom of our nation rests on our citizens learning to employ their citizenship in the context of local democratic institutions! It is why it is crucial that our generation turn its political focus back to the city, to where our democratic citizenship can more meaningfully be exercised. Motivated yet?
Below is a list of the anticipated open positions on Denton’s boards and commissions. There are people currently serving whose terms expires, but are eligible for reappointment – since most of those will be reappointed, I haven’t listed those as open, available positions. You will also see the council member who is responsible for nominating that particular position (we each have “spots” on each board and commission). An “ALL” means that they can be nominated by anyone on council.
| BOARD | # of POSITIONS | COUNCIL MEMBER |
| Airport Advisory Board | 1 | Pete Kamp |
| Animal Shelter Advisory Committee | 2 | Kevin Roden and Pete Kamp |
| Community Development Advisory Committee | 2 | Jim Engelbrecht and ALL |
| Health and Building Standards Commission | 2 | ALL |
| Historic Landmark Commission | 1 | Mark Burroughs |
| Library Board | 1 | Jim Engelbrecht |
| Parks, Recreation, and Beautification Board | 1 | Chris Watts |
| Planning and Zoning Commission | 2 | Jim Engelbrecht and Pete Kamp |
| Public Art Committee | 2 | Jim Engelbrecht and Chris Watts |
| Traffic Safety Commission | 2 | Dalton Gregory and Jim Engelbrecht |
| Zoning Board of Adjustment | 1 | Mark Burroughs |
If you are interested, here is what you should do ASAP:
– Click here to fill out an online application to serve on a board or commission.
– Email the appropriate council member – the one listed next to the position you are interested in. The above council names are hyperlinked – just click for their email.
– Email me to let me know that you are interested as well, especially if you are in my district. Although I only have certain positions to fill, I can suggest people for the benefit of other council members looking for great applicants.
- Stay tuned – we’ll be finalizing these at some point in August.
Denton is Open for Food Trucks!
Way back in September, the Denton City Council gave clear direction to the city staff to work on an ordinance aimed at allowing and encouraging a culture of food trucks within the city of Denton. You might even recall that I held a public event at my house prior to that meeting to get feedback from interested citizens. After months of waiting, council finally got to see a proposed ordinance at our April 3 meeting. The first go at a new ordinance was, in my opinion and seemingly the opinion of most other council members, too restrictive and overly-regulatory – see my comments on that here. After giving plenty of feedback, we were supposed to see a newly revised ordinance in June. Then it was delayed until August. Meanwhile, just about every city around us found a way to take advantage of this new food craze without much delay – lesser cities in the DFW area have already established food parks and are on regular rotation for DFW food trucks.
If you’ve been following this, you might recall the one element of our city ordinance that prevented food trucks, beyond the construction site lunch wagon, from doing business in Denton – a rule that limited mobile food trucks from stopping at a given location for more than 15 minutes.
While we are waiting on the final touches on our new food ordinance, the city’s Planning Director released an “Informal Staff Report” to the council in our weekly packet last Friday which read:
“Lacking any authority to support the restriction of a mobile food truck’s duration of stay at a given location, the City will discontinue the application of this practice, until such time, when and/or if, the City Council adopts such a restriction.”
In order to clarify that this meant what I thought it meant, I asked a couple questions of city staff and received this reply:
“The only thing Denton currently requires beyond the enforcement of the State regulations (§229.169) is the requirement of a valid food service permit, which must be kept in the vehicle at all times. This permit is issued through the Building Inspections Division, who also administers and enforce the requirements under §229.169.”
This effectively removes the previous barriers to mobile food truck operations in Denton. Spread the word!
I would encourage all interested mobile food truck operators to consult with our Building Inspections Division for what they need to do to get rolling in Denton.
Update on Denton’s West Nile Response and Why I Voted Against Spraying
The City Council met in a Special-Called meeting on Monday afternoon to get a briefing on the escalation of West Nile concerns within our city and to vote on whether or not to authorize the spraying of pyrethroids as a method of controlling the adult mosquito population in key problem areas.
The council voted 5-1 to authorize the use of spraying. I was the one who voted against the resolution to authorize this. Let me give you some background and the reason for my vote…
The city has a serious issue with the spread of West Nile and we now have two confirmed human cases of the disease, as reported by the Denton County Health Department. The two people happen to live within 1/3 mile away from each other in the neighborhood surrounding the Fairgrounds. This, combined with an increasing amount of mosquitoes found carrying the disease has led the city to bump up our risk level to Level 5 – the highest level. The city, in cooperation with researchers at UNT, have 16 mosquito trapping stations of various kinds in areas around the city. See the map below for a look at the situation:
This map has since been updated with even more instances found at various traps throughout the city – it will be found soon on the city website.
Here’s some helpful information relating to the city’s approach to this issue:
- City website outlining the current problem
- Denton Mosquito Response Plan – including info on the 5 risk levels
- Tuesday’s briefing to City Council on the current situation and our options
- Brochure on what you can do to help control mosquitoes on your property
What was clear from today’s presentation is that the elimination or mitigation of potential breeding habitats for mosquitoes is the MOST EFFECTIVE method available to control the mosquito population and the spread of West Nile. We all need to do our part to inspect our property for the presence of standing water (even in very small quantities) where mosquitoes multiply. Please take a look at the brochure above to learn how you can do your part and please share this with your friends and neighbors.
For many reasons, the use and spraying of “adulticides” is the least effective method of tackling the problem. This is precisely why the Denton Mosquito Response Plan reserves its use only after triggers have been met leading to Risk Level 5 – and only then in targeted areas and only after City Council authorization. I say this to make clear that, although I voted against the authorization to spray, I certainly understand the concerns and deliberations that led the rest of the council to vote for its use. Balancing competing health concerns is never easy and I commend my fellow council members for a very responsible discussion on this difficult and unfortunate topic.
At the end of the day, I was not convinced that the use of this spray – a combination of Sumithrin and Prallethrin, under the product name of Duet – is justified scientifically. There is not one study that can be pointed to in order to demonstrate its ability to lower the incidence of West Nile virus in a human population. It essentially boils down to a move to demonstrate that we are “doing all we can” to address the situation. I understand that sentiment, but I had to weigh it against my hesitation with spraying chemicals into our air and around our neighborhoods without much understanding of the long-term effect on humans or our environment.
My other key concern related to the important issue of citizen participation on this issue. I suggested that areas identified for spraying should have an opt-in/opt-out mechanism by which neighborhoods and citizens can weigh in on whether or not they want to assume the risks of spraying or the risks of not spraying. Each time I brought this up, my suggestion was met with reasons why such citizen and neighborhood sentiment would be difficult both to gather and assess. “There are strong feelings on both sides of this issue – how could we gauge public opinion on this issue adequately enough to act in a timely manner?”
Not a bad point, but I submit that such robust and vigorous public participation in specific city health issues is both important and worthy of pursuing. I can’t think of a more onerous form of big local government overreach than the unconsented spraying of chemicals into a city neighborhood. Surely with a bit of time and creative thinking we could conjure up a mechanism by which a group of concerned citizens clustered in a targeted area could say NO to spraying – or even YES to spraying, for that matter. As a local government, we must resist the urge toward technocratic decision making in such things and, though messy and inefficient, promote lively democratic engagement at every turn.
You will be hearing more specifics as we move forward and I assure you that we will seek the most aggressive notification system possible. Keep your eye on the city website for up-to-date information.