City Council Preview – March 19, 2013
It’s election season, Denton – time to start paying attention to the big issues defining the discourse of our city government. If you haven’t yet already, check out votedenton.org, a site a bunch of smart people put together to make local election information more accessible for all. It will help you determine which council district you live in and give you the most up-to-date information on all the candidates.
Related to that topic, while my first year term is up in May, I am running unopposed for the District 1 council seat this year. So like it or not, you are stuck with me for another two years!
Tuesday’s council meeting begins with a Work Session at 3pm at the main City Hall on East McKinney Street. This will be followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session in the same building. Go here for an agenda of the meeting, complete with all the pdf backup material you can handle.
Here are some items of interest…
PAYDAY and TITLE LOAN REGULATIONS
Other than in the comment section of the local newspaper, where all manner of strange opinions are found, I have yet to find anyone willing to go public in support of the predatory lending practices exhibited among the growing number of payday and title loan businesses in Denton. 15 states have banned them outright and many others have rigid regulations. Texas, on the other hand, welcomes this industry with open arms. Be weary of the economic development claims of our state leaders. When they tout our low taxes and loose regulations as a reason for businesses choosing Texas, they far too often mean: “We’ll take all those industries that no one else wants – you know, the ones that don’t want the burden of social and environmental responsibility.”
Every conservative defender of capitalism should take note: the number one contributor to socialist tendencies among the younger generations is the blind ideological free-market defense of businesses like these. The best defense of capitalism long term is a willingness to regulate its own abuses. Texas dangerously misunderstands this as we boast in our apparent economic prosperity. I digress…
Several concerned citizens have helped advocate for greater awareness of this issue. Check out a recap from our December 18 meeting where members from Denton for Fair Lending presented to the council. That has ultimately led to where we are today. We’ll be considering an ordinance aimed at requiring such businesses to register with the city and curbing some of their more harmful practices.
You can find out more info on the ordinance, including the full text of the proposed ordinance right here. This ordinance won’t do away with these type of businesses, but it will require them to implement fairer lending practices. We are also exploring the possibility of a zoning ordinance which will realign our zoning categories to give the city more control of where such businesses can be located in the city.
RESOLUTION TO PRESERVE LOCAL AUTHORITY FOR GAS DRILLING
Many people have contacted me expressing concern over Texas Legislature House Bill 1496 – a bill that seeks to limit local authority over the regulation of gas drilling. We will be considering a resolution supporting the rejection of this bill.
We’ll also be discussing in Work Session a bunch of other bills from the current Legislative Session which are relevant to the city of Denton.
CONVENTION CENTER DISCUSSION
The city has been discussing for some time a proposal from a private developer for a privately owned and operated hotel and a city-funded convention center on the site of the old Radisson Hotel on the campus of UNT. A possible developer’s agreement could be coming forward for council approval in the near future, so we will be receiving an update on the project during the Work Session. Last year about this time, I posted this defense of the concept and the city process related to this issue. Here’s a sneak preview of the power point presentation we will see on Tuesday.
PUBLIC ART POLICY and FUNDING
Denton is committed to the arts – it is what makes us who we are as a city. You might recall an issue that came about when we were ramping up for our recent November bond election for street reconstruction. Because of a 2006 council resolution, we felt obligated to commit 2% of the total bond package to the funding of public art. At the time, this raised important questions about the nature of this policy and whether or not it had unintended consequences. Still committed to discovering a funding source for public art, council has already had a discussion on how to modify this policy. We’ll be hearing more about proposed changes to how public art is funded in Denton. I look forward to this discussion.
SPEAKING OF STREETS
Now that the street bond program passed, you might be wondering, “which streets will be done first?” I have that info for you - check out this list of first year projects. You might also check out the data I crunched of all the recommended street projects throughout the five years of this $20 million bond program.
As always if you have comments or questions, please contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
Sequestration, Denton-style – Info on how it might impact our city
The March 1 deadline is upon us – the dreaded or welcomed sequester is now upon us, depending on your perspective, thanks to the collaborative spirit in Washington, DC nowadays. If you are like me, you are wondering what this means for Denton.
If you haven’t already, you might check out this helpful article published recently in the Denton Record-Chronicle on the subject.
It is important that the city’s main revenue sources are local: sales tax and property taxes. Most direct impacts from state or federal cuts come in the form of hits to particular programs instead of ongoing city operations. This is good in that the city is fairly insulated from big cuts at either of those two levels.
Below is an update from from a firm the city works with in DC to help us navigate the local impact of federal issues. I’m providing it here for your benefit and education…
Overall, sequestration will impose a 5.3 percent across-the-board cut on most FY 2013 non-Defense discretionary spending and a 7.3 percent across-the-board cut on most FY 2013 Defense spending. The final impact of sequestration remains unclear because, six months into the fiscal year, Congress has yet to finalize FY 2013 spending. Thus, the City does not yet know the funding levels for individual programs that it could use to calculate the impact of the sequester on FY 2013 grants to the City. For example, until the City knows its FY 2013 CDBG allocation, it cannot subtract 5.3 percent from it. (It is tough to subtract 5.3 percent from an unknown number!) Also, note that the impacts of FY 2013 sequestration will be felt gradually over time up to a year from now. For example, the City of Denton will probably not start spending FY 2013 CDBG funds until this time next year, or even later.
The across-the-board nature of the cuts means that the Administration will not have the discretion to prioritize some programs and spare others. For the City, sequestration would therefore impact most core local government programs, including but not limited to CDBG, HOME, local law enforcement assistance and Homeland Security grants. Those core local government grant programs have all seen significant cuts since FY 2010 and the sequester could add to the backlog of projects assisted by them. The sequester would also impact a number of programs that do not provide funds directly to the City but could have significant impacts on its citizens and the local economy. For example, the sequester would reduce funding for the Section 8 housing assistance program, which means fewer families would receive rental assistance from the Housing Authority, and for the Social Services Block Grant, which assists a number of Denton nonprofit organizations. For the school district, the sequester would mean a cut in core federal assistance (but not child nutrition programs). On the Defense side, the sequester could impact metropolitan area employers that provide equipment and services to the Pentagon. In addition, federal employees living in Denton, including those who work at FEMA Regional Headquarters, might be looking at furloughs and resulting loss of pay. (According to the Washington Post, the Defense Department will reportedly furlough all civilian employees one day per week for 22 weeks. Employees of other agencies may be similarly furloughed. Friends who work at Defense have confirmed this report.)
Federal subsidy payments for direct payment bonds are subject to sequestration. If the City issued any Build America Bonds, the 2013 federal subsidy for those bonds is subject to sequestration. For any Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds or issued by the City or DME after 2010, the 2013 federal subsidy is subject to sequestration. Similarly, if the school district issued any Qualified Academy Zone Bonds, the 2013 federal subsidy payment for those bonds is subject to sequestration.
Sequestration will not affect federal surface transportation programs funded from the Highway Trust Fund, which means that core formula funding for DCTA and for ongoing highway projects will not be affected. (However, sequestration will affect the New Starts Program, which funds new fixed guideway transit projects – no Denton impact but a regional impact, especially for DART.) Similarly, the Airport Improvement Program is also exempt from sequestration, which means sequestration will probably not affect any grants that the Airport receives from that program. (However, sequestration could affect tower operations at the Airport.) In addition, most low-income health care, nutrition and income support programs (Medicaid, SNAP, child nutrition, etc.) are exempt from sequestration.
At this point, looking at sequestration for FY 2014-FY 2021 would mostly be speculation, so I would just focus on FY 2013.
For a broad perspective, the Washington Post has taken the White House information re: state-by-state impacts of sequestration and created a handy “cheat sheet” for different categories of spending: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/sequestration-state-impact/.
One final note: some people are arguing that sequestration does not cut funding and that it instead slows the growth of federal funding. In the out years, this argument is correct, but remember that we are starting from a low baseline after the Budget Control Act of 2011 imposed $1.5 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending over a decade. Also, if you measure discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP rather than in real dollar terms, sequestration cuts discretionary spending in the out years.
For FY 2013, which is the issue at hand, sequestration would, by any measure, cut funding: the federal government would go from $1.04 trillion in discretionary spending in FY 2012 to $947 billion in FY 2013.
Finally, note that the $1.5 trillion in cuts outlined above all came from non-Defense discretionary. That is why CDBG, HOME, law enforcement, Homeland Security have seen steep cuts since FY 2010. While it may be true that everyone needs to do their part re: deficit reduction, cities at this point can pretty easily say that they have done their part. (emphasis by Kevin)
VoteDenton.org – Finding Your Council District Just Got Easy
A couple weeks back, I put out a call to local web designers, coders, and data-heads to lend their skills to a noble cause: make citizen involvement easier in Denton. With a city election season upon us where district-specific seats are on the ballot, knowing which city council district you live in is the first step to paying attention to the race and getting engaged.
Which city council district do you live in? It seems like a simple question and it seems as if there should be an easy way to answer it. But as I describe here, things are much more complicated. If the basis of our form of democratic government is representation, it seems to me that we have a responsibility to make it easy for people to find out who their representatives are.
About a dozen of our best and brightest citizens responded to my challenge and gathered for a couple evenings in my home to help tackle this problem. The result…
Not only can you easily find your council district, you can begin your exploration of the candidates for this year’s city council election as well as find out more information on how to vote. This is a work-in-progress, so more info and tools will be added soon.
This is a profound step for Denton in many ways. This is just one of the many collaborative efforts birthed out of last Fall’s Denton Creatives Mixer and made possible by the emergence of CreateDenton.com (the collaborative platform created Darren Smitherman, Patrick Daly, and Andrew Lewis, also contributors to VoteDenton.org). It is a demonstration of what can happen when innovative technological solutions are sought for civic problems. It also points to the value and possibilities of open data for a city like Denton. By highlighting the density of creative tech talent within our city, it makes an important economic development point: Denton is quickly becoming the region’s leader for fostering an environment of innovation.
Just think what else we can do to innovate government in Denton, TX…
Here are the rock stars who made this happen:
Darren Smitherman – Design
Adam Krawiec – Development
Kyle Taylor – Development
Devin Taylor – Data
Jet Regan – Planning
Patrick McLeod – Development
City Council Preview – Feb 5, 2013
Today’s city council preview is being dedicated to this guy right here – Francis Paul Roden. This cool little man turns 2 years old on Wednesday. We will be taking him and some of his friends on a DCTA bus adventure for his birthday party. Buses, or “Buh” as he calls them, along with bulldozers, diggers, cranes, dump trucks, and garbage trucks, are among his favorite things in the world. He and his four year old sister, Rosemary, like to watch daddy talk about boring things on DTV Channel 26 on select Tuesday nights.
Tuesday’s meeting begins with a Work Session at 3pm followed by a Regular Session at 6:30pm at the main City Hall on McKinney Street in beautiful downtown Denton, TX. Click here to see a full agenda with backup material of this week’s meeting. Here are some things you might find interesting…
DOWNTOWN HICKORY STREET DESIGN – HOW TO PARK?
The Hickory Street corridor stretching from the DCTA Train Station all the way up to the square is scheduled for an overhaul and redesign. The goal is to make this area more walkable, attractive, and with an eye to a more aesthetic and human-centered streetscape. The folks helping with the design have some concepts finished and we will be looking at those and giving direction on whether the plans should include head-in or back-in parking. In order to give you the same presentation I will be seeing, I’m including it right here. Let me know what you think.
35 DENTON GETS LOUD
The 35 Denton music festival is just around the corner – click here to learn more. Among our consent agenda items are a request from them to increase their decibel levels to 75 (this has been approved that last few years) and a request to allow Rooster’s Roadhouse to be the sole seller of alcohol at the festival. This annual festival is a great amenity to downtown, our city, and brings national and international attention to Denton.
BUS SHELTERS FOR DCTA BUS STOPS
Council will have the chance to vote on an Interlocal Agreement with DCTA to allow for the installation of 16 bus shelters throughout our city. DCTA, in working with the city and analyzing ridership data, has identified the locations. As someone who rides the bus often, this is a great step forward to making public transit more user friendly. Below, I’m putting a list of the locations picked for this first round of bus stops…
- Hercules @ Stuart (eastbound)
- Colorado @ San Jacinto (southbound)
- Colorado @ Golden Triangle Mall (southbound)
- McKinney @ Campbell (westbound)
- Oak at I35 (westbound)
- University @ Elm (westbound)
- Windsor @ Olympia (westbound)
- Brinker Road @ 288
- Cardinal Driver @ Oriole Lane (northbound)
- Charlotte @ Ave G (eastbound)
- Elm St @ College (southbound)
- Meadow @ North of I35
- Mingo Street @ Village East (westbound)
- Scripture @ Bonnie Brae (eastbound)
- Teasley @ I35 (southbound)
- Wilson @ Ruddell (westbound)
PUBLIC HEARING FOR MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENT NEAR MINGO AND NOTTINGHAM/AUDRA
This area is right next to the railroad tracks and across the street from the Shiloh Fields Community Garden site. I know the area well, as I have led groups of TAMS students to help clean-up abandoned homeless tent sites on this property. A developer is interested in developing the site with multifamily housing. The applicant is requesting approval of an Alternative Environmentally Sensitive Areas Plan to remove an ESA stream buffer designation from an existing drainage channel. We will have to approve the Alternative ESA Plan as one item and then hear a Special Use Permit request as a second item.
As always, if you have any comments or questions, please leave a comment on this site, or contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
Hack the Vote: Denton City Council Elections
UPDATE: A hackathon to tackle some of this has now been scheduled for this Thursday night, Feb 7 at 8:30pm at my house (322 Texas Street). Come if you want in on the fun…
The average voter age in Denton City Council elections is 63. Only 4-7% of registered voters takes the time to vote in local city elections. I’ve discussed these trends in local voting behavior elsewhere and there are certainly many theories as to why this is the case. But one thing is clear: we can be doing a better job helping interested people engage in their local democracy.
That is why, as I head into my second election season running for the District 1 seat on the Denton City Council, I’m calling on civic-minded innovators out there to join me in “hacking the vote” to increase voter participation in this May’s Denton City Council elections. If you can code, design, do web apps or mobile apps, have GIS skills, excel in data visualization, or something equally cool, why not become an instant local rock star by helping to make democracy better for your community.
Below are two problems that are in need of solutions:
PROBLEM #1: WHICH CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT AM I IN?
Every two years, the city council elections are for the four district-specific seats, meaning you are only able to vote for the city council race corresponding to the district you reside in (or are registered in). This is the first step to getting someone interested in this year’s race – they need to know what district race to pay attention to. But how?
As it stands right now, you can navigate the City of Denton website and try and find the city council district maps. You’d have to know to go to the “Government” link at the top, then select “City Council” and eventually find a link to this page of PDF maps of city districts. After several attempts at increasing the size of the map to see the street names, you will eventually be able to find where you live. But try doing this from your smart phone – you’ll probably give up.
If and when you do discover your district from this method, a problem still exists – just because you happen to currently reside within a particular council district, that doesn’t guarantee you are actually registered to vote in that district. During my last campaign, I found this problematic particularly for poorer and younger populations (under the age of 40) due to the increased likelihood of moving since they were last registered to vote in the city. What makes matters worse, because you must change your registration 30 days before an election, most people don’t discover this problem until it is too late to do anything about it.
In addition to finding out which district you happen to live in, a potentially interested voter also has to double check to make sure that is the same district listed on their voter registration. Keep in mind that the city went through a redistricting process in 2011 (since the last city district-specific council race). And the new voter registration cards issued by the county ahead of last year’s primary election season were not yet updated with the new city council district alignments. You now have to go to the Denton County voter registration database website to check on your registration status to cross-check your city district to make sure your registration corresponds with your current address – there you can find the city council district you are currently registered in near the bottom of the right-hand column. If you’ve moved within Denton since you first registered to vote here, chances are the district you live in is not the district you are registered in.
HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS EASIER? A few hacking hints: the county has voter information readily available through an open records request. You can get access to all the registered voters, their addresses, their districts, their voting history, etc. This would be helpful data to begin the process.
PROBLEM #2: I KNOW MY DISTRICT, BUT WHERE DO I FIND OUT ABOUT THE CANDIDATES?
I don’t know of a single online resource that consolidates this info into one place – just a simple district by district listing of the candidates and a link to their respective web and social media sites. The local newspaper covers the races, but typically in a way that makes pulling all the info together difficult (the stories run on separate days and their site hasn’t in the past kept a static site, accessible through their front page during election season, where such info is available. The city doesn’t put this info on their site either.
Want to help find a solution to one of these problems? Let’s go. I’m on Twitter @KevinRoden or you can email me at kevin@rodenfordenton.com.
HACKING TOOLS:
A Postscript on the Gas Well Ordinance
I wanted to write a post to update you on our recent vote to amend our gas well ordinance. The City Council has been pursuing this latest round of gas well ordinance amendments since the time I came into office in June 2011.
I want to start by thanking the hundreds of citizens who got involved in this process along the way. From the start of this process, I have been committed to making sure citizens had a meaningful voice at the table during these many months of deliberations. With two major universities, a well-educated citizenry committed to sustainability, the existing framework of a city which in many ways is a national leader in environmental initiatives, and a civic-minded creative class, I knew that we needed to hear the ideas coming from the ground up.
I am mindful that certain parts of the process resulted in the unnecessary agitation of many people along the way. Both process and product are crucial to sowing trust in the system and we have many opportunities to improve the former for future issues of this magnitude.
I’ve been quite mindful that while the industry has several avenues and assets by which to address their concerns and grievances in their pursuit of profit, your average citizen has only their government to look to. That fact weighed and continues to weigh heavily on me.
But I can report that to whatever extent you view this as a strong ordinance, or as a stronger one, it is that way precisely because citizens took the time to organize, educate their council members, and frequently suggest ideas for improving this ordinance. The vast majority of our work was taking the list of suggestions from the DAG group, the official Task Force “Minority Report,” and others and working to find creative and legally sound ways to include them in the ordinance. Although many have criticized the process as being overly influenced by industry interests, quite the opposite was true. The DAG group and the Task Force minority members were given extraordinary access and consideration along the way.
These citizens did not get everything they wanted. I didn’t get everything I wanted. Other council members didn’t get everything they wanted. But I am convinced that what has resulted through this inevitably messy process (what in a democracy isn’t?) contains many new and stronger provisions aimed at protecting our citizens, city, and environment from the risks of an industrial activity that is afforded an inordinate amount of legal and political protection in our state and nation. Here are some of the highlights…
INCREASE SETBACK FROM PROTECTED USES TO 1200 FEET
I, along with several of you, had been pushing for an increase to 1500 feet. Legitimate concerns were made along the way by others in favor of keeping the setback at 1000. This is a classic democratic case where no one got what they wanted, but the ball was moving in the right direction. However, when you combine this new setback with the next point…
SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONS TO WHAT COUNTS AS A “PROTECTED USE”
The original list of protected uses included: any residence, church, public park, public library, hospital, or school. To that list, we added the following:
- residence dwelling (this includes apartments, college dormitories, etc.) - a more expansive list of types of schools in order to make sure we included things like pre-K facilities and Kindergarten centers.
- public pools
- public transit centers
- senior centers
- public recreation centers
- hotels and motels
The point is this: with an increase in setback combined with a significant increase in the types of protected uses which trigger this greater setback, the available land left for gas drilling has exponentially shrunk, particularly in the denser, more decidely “inner-city” parts of our city.
A CASE STUDY ON SETBACKS AND PROTECTED USES: Rayzor Ranch Wells
Perhaps the most visible and controversial drill site in all of Denton, the drilling right off Bonnie Brae served to raise the public awareness of this issue. Drilled before even the Phase I amendments of this process and before the previous setback of 1000 feet was set by council, the proximity of this drill site to a park, homes, and medical facilities rightfully caused alarm. I’ve put together the following map to show you what would happen if Range Resources came today with an application to drill there in light of our recently-passed ordinance:
The current gas pad site is the rectangle in yellow. The general boundary of the South-of-380 portion of the Rayzor property is outlined in blue. I then dropped a pin at only a few of the protected uses surrounding that area and marked a 1200 foot setback circumference around each one in red to indicate where no drilling site would be approved under our new ordinance. As you can see, the current well site would not be permitted. This would force the operators to move considerably toward the middle of the property – right where the surface owners have the largest stake in their project. I can’t begin to speculate how that tension between surface and mineral rights owners might have resolved. What I hope you can see, is how differently things might have turned out with the new rules we just adopted.
Want some peace of mind? Pull up a map of your neighborhood or your child’s school and do the same. Draw a 1200 foot circle around every house, every apartment, every church, every park, every school, etc. in your neighborhood and see what room that leaves for drilling in your neck of the woods. If you need help, let me know, I’ve got an app for that…
REMOVAL OF OWNER-CONSENT SETBACK VARIANCES
Ever since 2010, even prior to being on the council, I was concerned with the way a variance process was written in the ordinance allowing for owners of protected uses to consent to a reduction of this setback down to 500 feet. If you own a piece of land and live in the house on that land and you willingly accept such a reduction for yourself – fine. But in a town full of apartment complexes and rental houses where residents are often tied into lengthy lease arrangements, the idea of an absentee owner consenting to a reduced setback on behalf of his tenants seemed entirely unjust – especially if the reason for the setback in the first place is to mitigate the nuisance issues associated with drilling. I argued for this and the provision is no longer in the ordinance. Reduced setbacks may still be pursued through a variance process, but that process is now a public one through the Zoning Board of Adjustments. In the case above of an absentee owner, the residents can now get involved in the process and plead their case. It is also important to note: the city staff informs me that since the setbacks were increased to 1000 feet in 2010, there has not been a request or a granting of a setback reduction for any new well sites.
AIR AND WATER MONITORING
Throughout this process, we learned that the city of Denton already has one of the most, if not THE most, robust surface water monitoring programs in the state of Texas. The city already has 80 monitoring stations throughout the city on local streams, creeks, and rivers in order to protect one of our most precious resources. Though not primarily aimed at monitoring problems from drilling sites, it is setup to detect issues resulting from them and has the ability to track the problem to its source. This is an example of other environmental initiatives and programs already taking place in our city that, though not an explicit part of this ordinance, adds to the overall protection of our local environment. We are not bound to this ordinance when it comes to overseeing this issue.
Likewise, the council has directed the staff to immediately begin work on an initiative to monitor air quality and ground water quality within a certain distance from well sites. The fact that we are pursing this apart from the gas well ordinance actually serves to give us greater flexibility in our options. I’ll keep you up to date on the progress, but we are determined to do this as soon as possible.
And it is important to note that we have also directed staff to take a new look at the fee structure for gas well drilling and operation fees and augment them in order to pay for these new monitoring initiatives – the gas operators, not the taxpayers, will be offsetting the cost of this program.
OTHER NOTABLE ADDITIONS:
- Require EPA Green Completion Standards 2 years before Federal rules go into effect requiring them
- Compressor Stations now will have to abide by the same setback and well site standards as typical gas drilling operations
- Vapor Recovery Unit requirements
- New noise mitigation requirements
- Water conservation plans and site reclamation plans
- New soil sampling requirements
- increased insurance requirements
STILL TO COME…
And we are not done – during last week’s meeting, we developed a list of topics to continue to pursue to strengthen our approach to gas drilling in Denton. What we will now begin to pursue:
- a specific air and ground water monitoring plan, as referenced above
- research new zoning options for compressor stations, specifically with an eye to zoning them out of residential zoning categories
- reexamine our zoning categories as they relate to gas drilling activities. Because the zoning categories are merely referenced in this ordinance and defined in another part of the Denton Development Code, it makes sense to pursue this as a separate issue. I’ve already offered the following proposal (for those who don’t speak in zoning terms, ‘N’ means prohibited, ‘L’ means allowed by right under certain standard conditions, and ‘SUP’ means allowed, subject to a Special Use Permit):
- finally, we need to immediately pursue the creation of a robust Incentive Program targeting old well sites and new drilling operations that might be vested under older regulations. We might also find ways to encourage new drilling operations coming in under our new rules to go even further in their use of best practices. This is important – Denton already has around 260 well sites in our city limits and many speculate that the majority of our future drilling activity will take place at existing sites. Finding creative ways to work with the industry to encourage better practices might be one of the most important steps we can take from here on out.
As always, if you have thoughts, comments, or questions, contact me at 940-206-5239 or kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com.
MLK Celebrations in Denton
There are several ways you, your friends and family can celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend right here in Denton, TX.
SATURDAY, Jan 19 – Community Service Project and Reflection
Join the SE Denton neighborhood for a community clean-up at 10am at Fred Moore Park. After that, we’ll head down to the MLK Recreation Center at noon for a time of reflection, complete with music and a special talk by long-time community leader Ms. Alma Clark. Things will wrap up there at 1pm.
MONDAY, Jan 21 – MLK Jr Day of Service
The Denton Faith Alliance is hosting a day of service giving members of faith groups from our County an opportunity to work together. This year’s project is at Fred Moore Day Nursery School, the only sliding scale childcare center in Denton that offers care for newborns, toddlers and young children coming from low-income families. Volunteers are needed between 9:00am and noon where there will be projects including relocating a large play structure, installing a sandbox, laying groundcover, installing edging, sanding and varnishing furniture, painting, yard work and deep cleaning the interior. Check out their Facebook page for more info.
MONDAY, Jan 21 – MLK March and Community Celebration
Students from UNT will begin with a rally at 3pm at the UNT Union and will march to SE Denton. The community will begin their march at 5pm at Fred Moore Park and walk to the MLK Recreation Center for the annual community celebration.
In addition to these events, may I recommend some reading material for you and your family?
– Learn about the struggle of early Denton African-Americans by reading the account of Quakertown and the injustices of early 20th century Denton.
– Fred Moore isn’t just a park in town. He was an early African-American leader and educator in Denton who also happens to have a school named after him. Read an account of his life here.
– Read these accounts about the history of integration at UNT.
City Council Preview – January 15, 2013 – Gas Well Ordinance Edition
Why is there a big image of Rusty Taco at the beginning of this preview? You’ll see…
Tuesday’s meeting begins as a Work Session at 3pm, followed by our Regular Session at 6:30pm at City Hall on McKinney Street. Go here for the full agenda with backup material. I say that a lot, here’s what I mean: in addition to seeing what is on our official agenda, any citizen can, simply by clicking on the appropriate link, be connected to hundreds of pages of “backup” material for each item on the agenda. You will see exactly what every city council member sees as part of that item. It is certainly a bunch of reading, but if you are ever interested in a particular item, you can find more information about it there.
Most people will be interested in what I have to say about the scheduled vote on our gas drilling ordinance, but I should point out a couple of other important items on Tuesday’s agenda.
MORE PRESSURE ON PAYDAY LENDERS and TITLE LOAN BUSINESSES
The council is set to pass the second resolution in less than a month since a citizen presentation on this topic. We added a section to our State Legislative Agenda during our last meeting in December asking state leaders to move quickly to more effectively regulate these predatory lending practices. Since then we have been in the process of reviewing our options of regulating this industry through city ordinances. While we are continuing to do just that, we will vote on another resolution Tuesday calling on the Governor and Legislators to do the right thing.
NEIGHBORHOOD GRANT PROGRAM
I am very happy to announce that the council will vote on a new and improved Neighborhood Grant Program aimed at providing micro loans to neighborhoods interested in bettering life in their community. After tomorrow, neighborhoods will be able to apply for grants ranging from $100 to $10,000 for projects meant to bring neighbors together for a common purpose. Projects can be pitched in one of four broad categories: physical improvements, public safety programs or initiatives, cultural, educational, and recreation programs, and neighborhood master plan or comparable studies. Get your neighborhood together for a BBQ and begin brainstorming ways to make your neighborhood a better place to live. We have budgeted $50,000 for this year toward these grants – let’s have so many proposals that we will want to increase that amount next year. I’ll be getting out more information on the specifics of this grant once it becomes available on the city website. Please help and spread the word!
DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT – RUSTY TACO AND OUTDOOR PATIO
Those of you with an interest in following the latest trend in restaurants in the downtown area, pay attention. During our consent agenda portion of the meeting, we are set to approve a lease of city land just to the West of the old Ramen Republic. You know that grassy area between the parking lot and the building? The new tenants, apparently a Rusty Taco, want to put outdoor seating in that area. More tacos and more outdoor seating in the heart of downtown never hurt anyone.
VILLAGES OF CARMEL: BUILD UP THAT WALL!
This might not be of interest to you unless you live in the Villages of Carmel development down on the Southern end of town just East of I35 near the Shady Shores exit. These good folks live in District 1 and have struggled with a defunct and absentee developer. The result is an under-developed project with vacant lots and unfinished neighborhood amenities, including a masonry wall on the perimeter of the subdivision. There’s a new developer in town to the rescue and a new development agreement with the city that is meant to result in the completion of this wall.
GAS DRILLING ORDINANCE
We are scheduled for a vote Tuesday night on this ordinance following a Public Hearing on the topic. We continue to be in the midst of a moratorium (one that has now been extended multiple times by the city council) on new gas drilling permits. This is no doubt a divisive issue due to the fact that it hits squarely at everyone’s sense of justice, regardless of what side you find yourself on. I am quite sure that no matter what is decided in this matter, most people will remain unsatisfied with the results. This is not an issue that tends to lend itself to compromise.
During this debate, I’ve been accused of pandering to liberal college students. Some of those college students I’m apparently pandering to have compared me to the Newtown elementary school mass murderer and other unnamed terrorists. I’m told by some that I lack leadership and am allowing for a weak ordinance. I’m told by others that I lack responsibility and am set to pass the strictest ordinance in the Barnett Shale. The former threaten to throw me out of office, the latter threaten to sue me. Thus the enviable life of a public servant.
I am sure everyone is tired of hearing this, but this is a profoundly complex issue. One would think from the rhetoric of most public hearings that your local city council is determining the direction of the present and future energy policy for the entire country. In fact, we find ourselves in a country where both candidates for President, during their town hall-style debate, fought over each other as to who was more friendly to the oil, gas, and coal industry. Despite what it might seem from the perspective of communities facing the prospect of natural gas drilling, the nation as a whole has overwhelmingly given its approval to pursue and exploit our natural gas resources. Our current struggle is within this context of a decided-upon national energy policy that favors more drilling for natural gas. Furthermore, we happen to live in Texas where “drill, baby, drill” is an apparent state rallying cry. We exist within a state legal environment that has split mineral interests from surface interests and has given priority to the mineral owners. We live in a city that already has nearly 300 wells drilled within our city limits – much more than most cities our size in the Barnett Shale, meaning there is much more at stake for operators already existing in our midst. We have limited jurisdiction on many issues as defined by state law and ambiguous jurisdiction on some of those due to the constantly developing case law. We have a conservative state legislature being lobbied hourly to strip what limited jurisdiction cities do have in this area.
Yet despite these parameters, despite this context that has been dealt us as a city, the angst of a concerned citizenry will be aimed at us.
[I get it. There's an accessibility factor here and a chance for citizens to engage in real democratic expression in a way that no other level of government makes possible. Democracy also provides the opportunity for our expression to be met with the expression of others. At its best, democracy moderates us precisely because it forces us to encounter the other side, another perspective, other claims of rights, and confronts us with ideas that we don't agree with. Political fundamentalists don't like this about democracy. Instead, they harbor tyrannical attitudes and actually want nothing to do with democracy. This tends to come out in statements such as: "I will not stand for anything other than you voting for my particular perspective," or "I will not back down," or even "If you do this I will sue you." This is the symptom of a citizenry whose understanding of the political world has been reared through the lens of national politics. I still hold out hope that a return to robust local democracy can turn this around.]
I am proud of my approach to this issue from my first days in office. The DAG group has emerged as an important public educator, community researcher, voice of conscience, and advocate for a strong ordinance throughout this process. I am proud to have initiated the idea for this group. It began with conversations with professors in university offices and among concerned citizens in my living room. My goal was to leverage the vast amount of expertise existing within our university communities and ensure that there was a meaningful path for citizen involvement in the process. I also helped make the case for public task force meetings and continued to advocate for a better process. I was one of three council members who first publicly called for a moratorium on new gas well permits. I championed the Minority Report of two task force members. I’ve publicly criticized the process when the situation warranted it. I’ve advocated for many, if not all, of the positions so many of you seek in this ordinance. I’ve put forward a proposal calling for three things: 1) a 1500 foot setback, 2) the protection of dwellers in rental units from reduction in setbacks, and 3) a reexamination of our zoning categories and a call to prohibit drilling in areas now allowed by SUP. The first is still a live discussion, the provision that allowed for the possibility of #2 has now been removed from the ordinance, and we will continue to look at #3 as we examine the Denton Development Code (this ordinance merely references it, a change in this would require a different, additional process). I’ve also asked that we look into the creation of a Incentive Program for operators to willingly subject themselves to higher standards than we might be able to require by law. We will very likely be taking that up immediately after this ordinance is complete. I have also given Denton citizens access to information and insights through my use of this website, Facebook, Twitter, and the hosting of public forums. Whether you ultimately agree with my vote or not, I hope I have helped you engage your city and understand this process.
But I haven’t gotten everything I wanted. Despite how some have been characterizing this council’s approach to this issue, I can honestly say that all of my colleagues are trying to do what is right. We disagree on certain approaches, we have different takes on legal strategy and acceptable legal risk, we have different opinions on what we think ensures the safety of our community, yet we are seven different individuals acutely aware of our limitations of policy-making trying to come together under difficult circumstances and context. I may disagree with different council members from time to time, but I have a great deal of respect for them and their viewpoints.
We’ll soon find out how we land this thing. Tomorrow we will have a work session, executive session, public hearing, and possible action on this item. This, lengthy as it is, is merely my preview of tomorrow’s discussion. I’m sure I’ll have a few things to say in a postscript later this week.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
City Council Preview – January 8, 2013
Here is information for the first city council meeting of 2013. We get started with a Work Session at 4:30pm, followed by a closed meeting, and then a special called session to consider three consent agenda items. The full agenda with backup can be found here. We will be discussing two main issues during our Work Session…
NEIGHBORHOOD EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM
You might recall that I advocated for the inclusion of a neighborhood grant program in this year’s budget – see this post from August which references it. When we adopted this year’s budget, we approved the allocation of $50,000 to go toward a neighborhood grant program. Since that time, I have been involved with discussing the details of this program with several staff members and in my capacity as chair of the Council Committee for Citizen Engagement, where we recommended approval of a new plan to the entire council. The Council will be hearing the recommendations at today’s meeting and it seems this program will roll out very soon. Stay tuned for more info on this great program for Denton’s neighborhoods.
GAS DRILLING IN DENTON
In case you were already engaged in travels or extensive consumption of egg nog during our last meeting on December 18, you may have missed that the council once again extended the moratorium for gas drilling activities in Denton in order to give us additional time to complete work on the new gas drilling rules. At this point, we are set to have a vote on the new regulations at our January 15 meeting (a week from now). To see the latest draft ordinance draft, go to the Gas Well Inspections website. We’ll be having a work session on this topic as well as an executive session to consult with our legal team regarding legal strategies relating to this issue. Please send in your thoughts now in advance of the January 15 meeting.
PREDATORY LENDING – PAYDAY LOANS and TITLE LOANS
Also during our December 18 meeting, we heard from several concerned members of our faith-based and non-profit organizations in town worried about the proliferation and effect of predatory lending businesses in the city of Denton. I posted about their presentation here. We’ll be huddling with our legal team in an executive session to discuss the legal issues surrounding possible regulations and ordinances addressing this issue. More soon on this important issue…
As always, please let me know if you have comments or questions about all this. I can be reached at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
Predatory Lending in Denton
For months now, I’ve been raising awareness to what seems to be the speedy proliferation of predatory lending establishments in Denton. It turns out I’m not alone…
During last evening’s City Council meeting, concerned citizens from our city’s non-profit, banking, and faith community put together a presentation raising awareness of the growing problems with Payday Lending and Title Loan businesses in town. Click here to check out their Prezi presentation. You can also click here to download a PDF of their handout on predatory lending in Denton which I have also posted here below:
At the conclusion of last night’s meeting, council directed city staff to provide us with more information as to our options of dealing with this problematic issue in Denton. I am also happy to announce that the first action step requested of council has already been accomplished – predatory lending has been added to our legislative agenda and we passed that agenda unanimously last night.
Please pass this along to your friends in Denton and join the Denton for Fair Lending Facebook page to stay on top of the latest developments.