A Note of Encouragement Relating to the Gas Well Ordinance
There is increasing frustration among many who have been following the trials and tribulations of the city’s rewriting of the gas well ordinance. I understand these concerns precisely because I share many of them. I know it is not fashionable in this environment to admit mistakes, but let’s be blunt: The process by which we pursued the task of writing this ordinance has been a bungled mess. It has brought about a frustrated, disenchanted, exasperated, and increasingly skeptical citizenry, and it has produced a mediocre draft ordinance lacking in both creativity and rigor.
Yet, I have not lost hope.
My discouragement is tempered, first of all, by the fact that I am not surprised by what has come about. Some history… The original suggestion from city staff was to have an official task force with only three members. Had that idea gone through, the task force would have been composed of Ed Ireland, Don Butler, and John Siegmund – this was presented to council during my first council meeting following my election in Spring of 2011. I was not the only one among my colleagues who expressed concerns with this make-up and eventually we saw the addition of Vicki Oppenheim and Tom LaPoint. Early conceptions of what this task force would do and how they would do it were very different with what ultimately came about. You might recall that their first meetings were not open to the public and involved no public participation. Through council encouragement, the task force meetings became open, televised, and contained a time for public comment. With a task force weighted quite heavily on the side of industry, it was important to me that the public have the chance to see the dynamics of their decision-making process. And what we witnessed was not surprising. Only a couple of the task force members came to the table with creative ideas – the other three, not surprisingly, existed primarily to vote down many of those ideas. You might recall a post on this website where I called out the double talk of one of our Task Force members.
This is why City Council, during our May 8 briefing on this subject, encouraged the staff to treat the official Task Force recommendations as just one perspective among others to be considered. We were clear that we wanted greater discussion and explanation for Task Force votes that didn’t pass. We were also clear that we wanted the Minority Report vetted thoroughly prior to the process moving forward. Finally, city council made it clear that we wanted the chance to thoroughly discuss what should or should not be included in this ordinance PRIOR to it coming to us in draft form. One of my colleagues on council put it this way: “Having legal coming up with final form ordinance provisions at this time is a waste of a lot of resources. If we are going to weigh in substantively and have public comment, that’s still a relatively developmental stage.” You can go here to read the postscript I wrote following that meeting.
I have been assured that we will hear more on a vetting of the minority report and the non-unanimous vote items that did not pass through the official Task Force. It is obvious, however, that the council has not yet had the chance to substantially weigh in on this ordinance.
Herein lies the second reason why I continue to hold out hope: the very entity who holds all the power as to what is ultimately contained in this ordinance and whether or not such an ordinance is passed or rejected, the city council, has yet to weigh in. The fact that a substantial conversation with council on what should or shouldn’t be in this ordinance has not yet occurred is problematic only from the point of view of process and efficiency, not from the point of view of what will be the end result of this ordinance. The current city council has a well-documented history of digging into the minutia of ordinances of lesser consequence. Take, for instance, our ongoing discussions on the new food truck ordinance. Council has spent nearly 5 hours in public discussion picking apart problems with a proposed ordinance designed to allow food trucks in Denton, only to send it back twice for more revisions. We demonstrated on that issue and several others that efficiency will take a back seat to substance when we are concerned with “getting it right.”
In order to give my third reason for hope, I must return to the first reason – my lack of surprise in the results of the official process. I continue to believe, just as I argued upon running for office, that our best ideas in Denton come not from our government or its processes, but from our citizens. This is why one of the first things I did after getting elected was to call together a meeting of UNT professors who oversee the nation’s leading PhD program in environmental ethics in order to seek their service in this process. From there, I gathered several concerned citizens who were interested in our gas drilling ordinance rewrite, connected them with Dr. Adam Briggle, charged them with advising the city on this issue (even if unofficially), and let them do their work. Thus was born the Denton Stakeholder Drilling Advisory Group (DAG) and a subsequent flurry of educational programs, citizen forums, recommendations, and true grassroots democracy at its finest. Though I was unsuccessful in making space for them in the official process, due to their diligence, professionalism, and expertise, their influence has been notable every step of the way. The past, present, and future work of DAG is my third reason to hold out hope. The work they have already done to point out the deficiencies of the current draft ordinance combined with their promise to generate substantial creative ideas for inclusion in a final ordinance is precisely what I need as a policy maker who is about to enter into this discussion.
The example of DAG throughout this process is encouraging because it has given us a clear picture of an important democratic principle: that which emerges from the engagement of civic-minded, educated citizens at the grass roots level will always be better than that which results from the top-down. We need to always be mindful that when we meaningfully engage our citizens in policy making, we not only get the benefit of making better policy, but we also have the beautiful consequence of creating better citizens. So while my initiative to form the DAG group was meant to engage citizens in the particular problem of our gas drilling ordinance, it is clear that we need to do a better job in engaging our citizens in all areas of city policy.
My fourth and final reason for continued hope is that we are on a path toward better citizen engagement. A few months ago, I proposed the creation of a new Council Committee for Citizen Engagement. The council unanimously voted to approve its creation and we met for the first time last week to map out an ambitious agenda of better engaging our citizens. I am proud to serve as the Chairman of the committee along with fellow council members Dalton Gregory and Jim Engelbrecht. From now on, whenever a major policy issue is planned to come before the city council, the Committee for Citizen Engagement will, prior to a process being initiated, take a careful look at how best to involve the citizens and suggest a process plan to the entire City Council. With this in place, the process of future issues as important and potentially controversial as gas drilling ordinances will be predetermined by the body who should be making such decisions: the City Council.
I continue to have hope and you should as well. Democracy is messy, but it is worth it.
The Denton Creatives Mixer – October 22
You like to make things. You like to make a difference. Now join us in being a part of making Denton.
Denton is quickly becoming the go-to city in the North Texas region to find innovative people, ideas, and creations. It’s time we leverage this in order to bring more creative jobs to our creative city.
Many of you are on the front lines of Denton’s emerging creative economy. We want to learn from you. We want to connect you to others. We want to help you become more successful. We want you to join us in making our city better.
If you are in a creative tech field or innovating your field in other ways, join us for Denton’s first Creatives Mixer on Monday, October 22 at 5:30 at Oak Street Draft House. Local cultural economist, urban planner, and rocker Michael Seman will be on hand to help us catch a glimpse of the future of Denton.
A Facebook event has been created to help us know how many to expect – go here to RSVP.
For more on my initiative to bring more creative jobs to Denton, click here. Also check out this recent article in The Atlantic Cities on Denton’s emerging creative economy and this story on NBC/DFW.
If you have any questions or are interested in sponsoring part of the event, contact me at kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com or 940-206-5239.
City Council Preview – Sept 18, 2012
Today’s meeting begins with a Work Session at 3pm followed by a Regular Session at 6:30pm, both at the Main City Hall on E. McKinney Street. Click here to see a full agenda with backup material for today’s meeting. Here are some things we will be discussing today…
SMOKING ORDINANCE CITIZEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE
I alluded to this in last week’s preview – we will be discussing the make-up of a committee designed to help us look into options and possibilities regarding a new smoking ordinance in Denton. The health issues regarding this topic are obvious, but good questions remain about the impact on certain businesses. Our goal is to get all perspectives at the table to vet a possible ordinance and look at various options.
CITIZEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR THE DENTON PLAN
We will also be looking at the possible make-up of a citizen body to help guide the important work on our Denton Plan. If you haven’t yet checked out the website for this, please go here. This plan helps us look at the direction of our city for the next 20+ years.
CHP DISCUSSION
We will be talking at length about the possibility of Combined Heat and Power facility in the industrial area of Denton. This holds out a great amount of potential for targeted economic development whereby we can attract substantial industries and substantial jobs to Denton. I discussed this issue at length in one of my previews from February – if you care to read more, check that out.
EV STATIONS IN DENTON
We will be reviewing a contract and giving direction on the placement for Electric Vehicle charging stations in Denton. This is just another example of how Denton is leading the nation in sustainability practices and initiatives. Along those lines, to you get the chance to see our city featured in Mother Earth News?
COMMUNICATION BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS
During my time on the Historic Landmark Commission, I realized that we lacked a clear mechanism whereby we could communicate ideas or pose policy questions to the City Council. With the incredible talent and expertise we have among our many boards and commissions, I’ve thought that we were missing out on some great ideas and potential for collaboration. After some concerns with other boards, I suggested we create a clear mechanism by which these boards could both pose questions and express concerns with council as well as an encouragement for them to provide annual updates on their progress and initiatives. We’ll be approving the language behind such a mechanism during our consent agenda vote today.
SEVERAL PUBLIC HEARINGS
You can check out the agenda to see a list of these. A few of them revolve around the UNT property where the old Radisson used to sit. The proposal on the table seeks to zone the land so as to allow for the existence of a conference center, hotel, and restaurant.
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.
The Day Denton Failed to Open the First State Bank Time Capsule
Glen Farris, downtown dweller, local musician, and statesman, woke up on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 filled with anticipation. Today was the day the First State Bank Time Capsule, located on the corner of Hickory and Locust, in front of the downtown Wells Fargo building, was to be opened. Fully expecting the site to be surrounded by workers with jack hammers, cement saws, and preparations beginning for this 100th anniversary celebration, Glen headed to the site to see nothing of the sort.
At 8:46am, he posted this picture on his Facebook timeline with the statement: “Denton, we have a problem. We had 20 years to plan for this day.”
News spread quickly through social media. Conspiracies were formed, offers of vigilante digging came forward, and a city-wide sense of unease took over as to the proper response to what was looking like an obvious failure of execution.
Glen knew the people needed a voice of calm and assurance in this time of instability. By 7pm, he launched a city-wide invitation to the event “See You At the Capsule,” inviting citizens to gather at the site of the capsule at 12:01am on September 13. In his words…
On September 12, 1992, the good people at First State Bank, Denton, TX buried a time capsule with the hopes that we would be responsible enough to open it 20 years later. Even though it’s been engraved in brass on the sidewalk of the southeast corner of our square and we had 20 years to plan for this day, somehow we have failed to follow these simple directions.
Tonight let’s raise Time Capsule awareness and raise our glasses at 12:01AM and celebrate our failure as a community to follow the SIMPLE DIRECTIONS of our ancestors.”
Shortly before midnight, a crowd began to gather. No one quite knew whether it should be a time of mourning or a time of celebration. Several iPhones of crowd members were set to alarm at 12:01am. Glen Farris could be seen ascending the Hickory hill toward the site and we all awaited his wisdom. Here’s a clip of what you missed…
As the City Council member who represents the district where this capsule resides, I spoke next, accepting partial responsibility for the failure to execute the opening of the capsule. But I then offered hope to those in attendance…
While we observe this day of failure, like so many failures that we have witnessed in our day and throughout history, we are now presented with an opportunity. We now have the opportunity to ensure that this capsule remains forever unopened so as to give every visitor to Denton, every child of our city, and future generations the chance to visit this site of the unopened capsule. To witness its dates, to know that the proper time has come and gone, and to always gather here every subsequent September 12 to celebrate and commemorate the failure of its opening. A holiday has been birthed out of the mourning of tragedy.”
There is something important to understand about cities here. Despite our best efforts at planning, development, and the creation of city amenities, the soul of a city is more often composed of a collection of beautiful little accidents like this one.
Mark your calendars for September 12, 2013. And if you see Mr. Farris around the square today, stop and thank him for his service to our city.
City Council Preview – September 11, 2012
Given that my email box has received approximately 108 emails over the past few days regarding gas well variance requests, I imagine many of you are reading this in order to read my thoughts on that topic. I’ll get to that in a minute. Meanwhile, check out what else we’ll be discussing this Tuesday. City Council will begin with a Work Session at 3pm followed by a Regular Session at 6:30pm, both at Denton City Hall on McKinney Street. Click here to check out the agenda and back-up material for the meeting. Some items of interest…
URBAN CHICKENS
Believe it or not, this is a question that comes up frequently – “are we allowed to have backyard chickens?” Until now, the answer has been “maybe.” If you had a property that enabled you to keep the chickens 150 feet way from any residence, business, school, or hospital (meaning your own house and that of your neighbors), you could do it. Most people do not have properties that large. But because urban chickens are becoming more and more popular today and because our own recently adopted Sustainability Plan has as one of its goals the increased access and availability of locally produced food, it is time for a change. We’ll be hearing a proposed ordinance and discussing it in preparation of bringing it back for a council vote at a future meeting. Here are some of the requirements of the proposed ordinance:
- A minimum distance of 50 feet to other residential structures, churches, and businesses (down from 150 feet).
- A maximum limit of 8 hens on any single parcel of property in a residential neighborhood.
- No roosters allowed.
- A requirement that hens be kept in an enclosure or fenced area at all times.
- A requirement that the owner registers and obtains an annual, renewable permit.
Please let me know if you have thoughts or suggestions about this proposed ordinance.
COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
When I ran for council in the Spring of 2011, my campaign tag line (which still exists on this website) was “bringing citizen involvement back to Denton City Hall.” I was convinced then and am still convinced now that the citizens are our city’s best asset. We are a creative, educated, ambitious, wordly, and hard-working bunch of people. In order to have a formal avenue for continued reflection and initiatives toward this end, I recommended the creation of a new Council Committee. We will be voting on a resolution to create this committee and assigning members to it on Tuesday night.
COMING UP… CITIZEN COMMITTEE TO LOOK INTO SMOKING BAN FOR DENTON
This has been a long-time coming, but we are now prepared to take a serious look at the possibility of a comprehensive smoking ban for the city of Denton. Our goal is to develop an ordinance to be voted up or down by January 2013. Before we get there, we will be creating a citizen committee tasked with examining all angles of this issue. We will be putting this committee together at our next meeting on September 18. If you have an interest in getting involved with this discussion, please let me know.
EXTENSION OF GAS DRILLING MORATORIUM AND STATUS OF VARIANCE REQUESTS
As you probably know, the City Council unanimously passed a 120 day moratorium on natural gas drilling and production activities on February 7 of this year in order to give us enough time to complete the current ordinance. Near the end of that time period, we passed a 120 day extension to that moratorium. The moratorium, as it is right now, is set to expire on October 4 – less than a month away. Because that is far too short of time to adequately review, amend, involve the public, and pass a new ordinance (given that a draft of it has yet to be completed), it continues to be the will of council to extend the moratorium until a new ordinance can be put in place. As such, we have set the goal of December 18, the final council meeting of 2012, to complete the ordinance. See the tentative timeline below:
Therefore, part of what we will be doing during our deliberation of Agenda Item 6E is extending the moratorium to December 18. That should be good news for those of you concerned about gas drilling in Denton. That means we will have had a moratorium in place for close to a year while we take the time necessary to complete the rewrite of our ordinance.
This is important context for those of you who are probably going to be frustrated with the other part of this agenda item. This moratorium has potentially held back hundreds of new gas drilling and production applications from being considered since it was put in place in February.
Another amendment to the moratorium, in addition to extending it, involves a clarification and specification of what sort of natural gas activities are not stopped by the moratorium. You might note that the original moratorium from February included a provision, found in Section 2, that read, “Applications for oil and gas well permits for Mineral Activities filed before the effective date of this moratorium are not affected by the moratorium and shall be processed pursuant to the Denton Development Code.” In layman’s terms, this is akin to a grandfathering clause, the intent of which was to allow existing gas drilling projects to move forward. Imagine you were in the process of building a house after receiving the necessary permits to do so from the city only to have that same city declare a moratorium on house building after the fact. You would expect that your current project could continue and not be subject to the new moratorium. This was, in very lay terms, the spirit behind that provision in the original ordinance.
Also in that original ordinance was a provision that allowed property owners, drilling operators, or other relevant parties the right to request a variance, based on a “unique and undue hardship.” You may have heard that EagleRidge, a gas drilling operator, had submitted four variances for four separate well sites. While technically variance requests, it is important to understand their position: EagleRidge maintains in their supporting paperwork that the moratorium ordinance does not actually apply to their specific application (it might be helpful to read the link provided a few words back). With projects and certain permits preexisting the moratorium, yet not specifically defined by the clause in Section 2 I alluded to above, reasonable questions arose as to whether such projects are exempt or not from the moratorium.
The EagleRidge variance requests came to our attention around the same time we were considering a possible timeline for the ordinance and a possible extension of the moratorium. Now that we are pursuing an extension of the moratorium, it seemed prudent to reexamine the exemption clauses from Section 2 to bring clarity to this issue. As such, we are considering the addition of a clause that states (now in Section 2b of the proposed moratorium extension): “Applications for gas well permits that are in sequence with an approved specific use permit, site plan, development plan or gas well plat approval, under the terms of the City’s existing ordinances relating to gas well drilling and production activities.”
If passed with that language, the requests put forward by EagleRidge are rendered moot. That is why, as you may have heard, EagleRidge has removed their variance requests from Tuesday’s agenda. Should we not pass the moratorium with that additional clause, EagleRidge has indicated they will bring the variance requests back to the council.
BECAUSE MANY CITIZENS WERE EXPECTING THE VARIANCE REQUESTS TO BE ON THE AGENDA AND BECAUSE THE DECISION ON THE MORATORIUM DIRECTLY IMPACTS WHETHER THESE PROJECTS CAN MOVE FORWARD, ANYONE WISHING TO SPEAK TO THIS ISSUE SHOULD COME TO THE MEETING AND FILL OUT A BLUE CARD TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEM 6E.
What do I think about all this? I remain committed to working hard to finish an ordinance that protects the health and safety of our citizens and our environment and one that protects both present and future land uses in our rapidly growing city. We need to keep our focus on that long-term goal and recognize that it is that goal that set the context for the passing of the moratorium in the first place.
I’d love it if every gas drilling company stopped what they were doing, willingly subjected themselves to new regulations (designed to protect the health and safety of the community), and worked to do what is best for the common good and not just their own financial interest. But despite all those days in Sunday School and all those episodes of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, some among us are intent on pursuing their legal rights above their community responsibilities. And this continuing divide between what is legal and what is best for the common good is not unique to corporate culture and is certainly not new to American society. A couple hundred years ago, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville said this:
Each person, withdrawn into himself, behaves as though he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others. His children and his good friends constitute for him the whole of the human species. As for his transactions with his fellow citizens, he may mix among them, but he sees them not; he touches them, but does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone. And if on these terms there remains in his mind a sense of family, there no longer remains a sense of society.”
I look forward to hearing your comments, but I’m convinced that our moratorium, which will be in place for nearly a year by the time we finish our new ordinance, has kept several gas drilling projects on the sidelines while we work to better our regulations. We need to focus on getting a tough new ordinance in place and look ahead to the more important and strategic legal issues relating to a city’s ability to effectively regulate this activity, not spending our energies fighting a challenge to a moratorium that will be gone anyway in just a few months.
It’s about the greater good, after all.