City Council Preview – November 11, 2014
Happy Veterans Day! Today’s City Council meeting starts at 3pm and is a combination of work session and executive session items – no official actions items are on today’s agenda. Go here to see the full agenda. Here’s what we will be discussing:
UPDATE ON DME’s CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS
The city owns its own electric utility. That means that we have oversight over its direction and future in a way that we wouldn’t if our city was at the whim of a large corporate provider. It’s the reason we can boast 40% wind energy and the reason why we have significant say in large-scale electric-related infrastructure projects in our city, such as where we put our substations and transmission lines. DME has embarked on an ambitious and large-scale update to our transmission and distribution system that was first approved in Fall of 2013. Today we’ll hear an update to that and see what lies ahead.
COMMUNITY MARKET LOCATION
The wildly popular Denton Community Market is exploring additional options of where to set up for its next season. We have asked the city staff to explore options on city-owned property. We will hear a presentation of the pros and cons of setting up the market in three different locations: Quakertown Park, the Civic Center, and the parcel of land by the old county tax office between E. Oak and McKinney Street. This will be a great discussion as we seek to find a way to further encourage this one-of-a-kind community amenity.
On this note, here’s a book recommendation: The Good City and the Good Life by Daniel Kemmis, former Mayor of Missoula, Montana. He starts off the book discussing the central role Missoula’s Farmers Market plays in the democratic life of his city. This is worth pondering.
CHANGES TO CITY COUNCIL RULES OF PROCEDURE
We will be discussing possible changes to the “rules of procedure” of city council meetings, specifically whether or not to extend the 3 minute public hearing comment length to 4 minutes. During this discussion, there are some other rule changes that I’d like to consider:
- Allow the public to speak to Consent Agenda Items at the beginning of the Regular Session. Currently, the time to do that is at the beginning of our afternoon Work Session. This might be difficult for some given that flexible start time and the fact that it takes place in the middle of the day.
- Discuss the necessity of pre-sign-ups for Citizen Reports – currently a citizen must pre-register by Wednesday prior to the following Council Meeting in order to get on the agenda.
- Consider moving all Citizen Reports to the front of the council agenda. Currently, when there are more than 3 citizen reports, the others are moved to the back of the council agenda. It seems we can put them all up front.
- How can we make the beginning of the meeting more celebratory? Currently the mechanism for highlighting something is by using an official proclamation. I’ve seen other cities use this time as a way to highlight great citizen initiatives and other worthy projects in the city. In some cases, all the council members are invited to submit an item or person to honor during this portion of the agenda.
- Denton ought to choose a few meetings a year to begin the council meetings with live music and a reception in the lobby of City Hall. It’s how Denton does Government.
LEGAL DISCUSSION ON GAS WELL ORDINANCE AND CURRENT LITIGATION
No doubt, after last week’s historic vote banning the use of hydraulic fracturing in the city of Denton and the subsequent litigation that came the next day, there is much to discuss with our legal team.