It is 8:44 am and, uh, we'll call to order this, uh,
addison strategic plan meeting of this addison city council. And
it is, uh, friday, the 30th of january.
and, uh, good morning everybody. Good, good to see everybody. And we have a nice, full productive day
ahead of us. And, uh, I hope we'll have, I know we'll have some good discussion.
and then we have, uh, nick here to lead us through that. Uh, david, do you have anything to say
before we get started? Just a couple words. Uh, good morning everyone. We're happy
to be here at a cu and, um, to use this great facility again. Uh, this will be
nick's third time with us. Uh, he's done a great job so
far. I know this will be a, a great session for everybody. I know we've also had a lot of time
together over the past few weeks, so thank you to council for spending this extra time.
um, as we all know, this is a very important piece of what we do every single year
as we go throughout the rest of the year budget and otherwise. So, um, thank
you for being here. I know everyone will take it seriously. Um, I will tell
you, you'll see we jump straight in. We jump straight into the material and,
um, and, and hope we have some really good conversation right off the
bat. Uh, we also have staff here as we go, as appropriate staff will be available
for questions to interact and, and some of the exercises that we do.
uh, one piece of housekeeping, if you could just, whenever you speak, make sure you hit
the green button on your mic. It's not to amplify in the room, but for
the recording so we can ensure everyone's heard on the recording. With that
said, I will hand it over to nick to get started. Thanks, david. Appreciate that. Thank
you, counsel. I appreciate your time over. And I want to re re echo that
comment, which is to say thank you so much for the time over the course of the last few weeks to sit down and have
those one-on-ones for the time filling out the survey. I really do appreciate that. It helps
me gain some understanding of where we are currently, and I appreciate the honor and the opportunity to be back again
for my third time. So, uh, look forward to some robust discussion. Uh,
my goal today is to help us get where we need to go in terms of strategic plan. So
I hope that we can go ahead and make sure that we're moving forward in a
productive conversation. We're gonna have some great conversations today. I understand where we
have some alignment. I understand where we have some misalignment, might be the
opportunity, but I think the conversations we'll have today will help flesh some of that out. And my hope is
that we're gonna gain some action. As, as david mentioned, this is the guiding principles
and the guiding documents that allow us to move forward in the city in achieving the outcomes that council
wishes to see. And so we're gonna get into some of these discussions today. Uh, with that said,
I'm gonna jump right into it, so, uh, hopefully we can have a good time along the
way or feel free to do that when I'm done either way. Uh, but with that said, let's
get into it here. So a little bit of a reminder, the elements of a strong strategic plan. You've seen this
before, for those of you that have been on council, for those of you that have not, this is basically
the elements of a strategic plan and where we're intending to live at today, which is, uh,
our key focus areas and our strategic objectives. So that is our goal today, is
to make sure that we really got those as locked down as we can get them. Uh, throughout the course
of, of that, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about the initiatives. That's where staff comes back and
says, here's how we're going to accomplish what you would like us to accomplish.
so you are the, what, what would we like to see happen here? And you gave us some great comments when,
uh, the vision for the future of the community and some of those. But we're not going after mission vision values.
we're not going after initiatives and measures, although staff will be here to make sure if there
are specific comments, we can go ahead and capture those as well. Along the way,
we're focused on the key focus areas and the strategic objectives. After that, we can get
into some other topics too. These are the other ways that we go about building in a strong strategic plan,
which are things like funding and staff. We do that resource allocation part, uh,
plan implementation. So collecting the data, are we successful with what
we said we were going to do? That's the execution phase, which was a clear, a clear
indicator coming out of the conversations with you all is that we're in an execution phase. We
are, we're big on the execution and making sure that we're achieving the vision and the things that were
stated there. And then of course, assessing the progress and sharing the results, that accountability and going
back to the public to make sure the public understands what it is we're doing, how we're doing with
what we're doing, um, and making sure that we're building that trust with the community itself.
so those are the kind of elements. Again, these two green areas are what we're focused on today
for these discussions. Um, a little bit of the definition space,
just so we have some clarity around that for those who might need it. Uh, key focus
areas. These are the 3, 7, 3 to seven words or phrases that we build around.
and so these are how we cluster our concepts and ideas that we build around those things.
and then, of course, the strategic objectives, the goals to have three to seven of those
per focus area. Um, I believe we may, I think we're exactly on
that with maybe one or two of them. So we're right up on it with where we'd like to be. Ultimately,
we'd like to see somewhere between 30 to 40 strategic objectives total. And we wanna make
sure that everybody's job is reflected somewhere in there. So we wanna make sure
that all the functions that we're performing as a city are reflected somewhere in the plan itself,
whether it's through financial excellence or organizational excellence, those kinds
of things. We wanna make sure that that's reflected as well. Um, with that said,
initiatives and projects, that's maybe a level below the discussion we're gonna have today, but those are more specific
things. That is how we accomplish what you would like to see us accomplish.
and so that's just a little bit of that refresher right here. So again, modifying
key focus areas if needed. Uh, refining our strategic objectives
under the key focus areas, removing or adding, modifying if necessary.
I captured all of your comments related to modifications. If I miss
something, keep me intellectually honest and say, hey, you missed this. I'd like to have
that as a part of the discussion. Okay. Um, the other thing I'd like to emphasize is today is the
day to have the discussion. So, uh, speak now or forever hold
your pieces. I think maybe one of the ways to say it, but we want to hear from you today what you would like
to hear, what you would like to say regarding any one of the initiatives. This is your
time to be able to do that. So if you have questions, comments, thoughts, this is the
time to bring 'em up. And that's my hope is that we're having a robust discussion around that so
that we're landing in a good place moving forward. Uh, with that said again,
the strategic plan initiatives, key focus areas, strategic objectives, initiatives. These
are the kind of layers that we're getting into. I just wanna highlight this, and I'm gonna skip through
this relatively quickly, but 18 completed initiatives here in the last year
on the plan. 73 are being rolled over. And so there are a continuation and that makes
sense. There's some work that is ongoing work, so that's still there as well. And then there were 16 new
initiatives added. So the idea of here being that as initiatives sunset
off the plan, we're adding new initiatives back into continue progress. And that's
something that's reflected, uh, that's something that's reflected on your website,
by the way. I think you do an excellent job. And I reference addison with a lot of the communities I work with.
your visualizations related to the progress made on the strategic plan,
I think is is one of the best I've ever seen across the country. And again, I've worked with about 130
different communities across the country, but I reference you all as an example. 'cause you do a great job
updating on the progress. Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let's talk about it all. Um, but we're
making a lot of progress. And I just wanted to underscore that these are the initiatives that were finished, the
18 initiatives that were, uh, taken off the plan because they were completed. Um,
so again, you'll have o uh, opportunity and access to these slides as well. So
if you'd like to be able to review this, I imagine many of you have seen this before. If you haven't,
you'll have an opportunity with the powerpoint itself to be able to take a look through specific initiatives. But
18 of these completed, these were the 16 that were added,
and again, we completed the 16, uh, completed, the 1873 rolling
over 16 added. So we're continuing that evolution. Again,
it's an ever evolving plan, and that's part of what we want as we go through this
as well. Um, getting into this, I wanna remind
us what is the strategic plan? What do we have in here? So here are
the key focus areas and strategic objectives as they were most
recently adopted. So I want to give us a chance to kind of take a look at those. I don't
know that I need to read all of these. I just want to give you a chance to take a look through these. So
we'll start here and I'll just give you a chance to read it. We'll get into the next section and the next section, and
then we'll move on with the conversation here. So ben, our key
focus area, public safety. We've got five different strategic objectives
under that. Can I, uh, ask a question? Yes,
sir. For clarifying, just to
make sure we're all on the same page of what this is for. Um, what
I understand, and just correct me, what when I'm not on the right course, um,
that this strategic plan is, is an annual direction for
the staff to go execute. And that starts, um,
this causes what we come out of today, causes the staff to build a budget and start
tooling to, to, and for us to, uh, adopt a budget that
reflects what we came up with here and then they start on october 1st.
yeah. So yes, that is the most kind of direct
impact is, or immediate impact is as we are about to
start the budget process, it helps us to cope with what those decision packages could be. Changes,
could be alterations, could be, um, but it also has a bigger impact than just that.
I mean, as you look at the initiatives, it's more than just an annual budget. It's also more
are we gonna focus on. So if you think about it, we're gonna be, we constantly
bring projects, ideas, uh, to council and
for your direction. At that point, council can decide, we wanna do this or not, or
not do this project or not do this project. But as we are coming up with
those before we bringing the council, this is the plan that lets us know, is
this something we should even be working on at this point? How does it align with the plan?
are we, how do we ensure that everything we're doing every day aligns with what this
council wants us to be doing? And I think then you'll see that come to fruition
with the, the projects, the budget that comes before you. But I wanna
say at that time, the council could not wanna do
that, could not, could decide to go a different direction. But that's why this document's important
because it helps us to know what do we want to, what do we bring forward to council at budget or otherwise,
right? Right. And there's a long timeframe from now until budget, until we start,
until the annual, the new annual fiscal starts is october 1st.
um, and I do understand, and just my colleagues hopefully that
this is not just this annual, but some of the, some things are very annual focused
and certainly it drives the budget, but it is beyond, uh, this year it's, it's,
it's a couple years out where some of them, and maybe even longer term forever, uh,
uh, for that matter. Um, so the key focus areas are all more,
uh, foundational is what kind of I get out of
that. Just want to, to, uh, make sure I had
that clear and, and have it open for anybody else to a ask any questions on how this, what
this means and what this does.
question for you, nick. Can you go back two slides? Uh, maybe there's a
third one there. It is. So your a hundred plus
cities you travel to annually and meet and do the exact same thing. When I look at the numbers
of 73 continued carried over initiatives and
18 completed, is that a good ratio from what you experienced year over year from
city to city? Are we behind or ahead or right on par? I, I would say that
we're ahead. In all honesty, the the, the type of initiative that's
being sunsetted matters a great deal, of course. Right? But at the same time, if we've got specific initiatives,
some of these are incredibly large in scale and scope, so it's
really the size and the scale and the scope. But having taken a look through your initiatives, you have crossed
off some pretty big things off the list, which is why I reference you as an example, because
these are not small things that are coming off. Some are the majority are large. Um,
so I'll say that you're, you're on par or above it, in my opinion. Um,
in terms of what I've seen when I work with other organizations, lots of times
they have a lot of these rollovers that continue to happen and there's no, what
I'll say meaningful progress being made in something that's a demonstrable way.
um, they like the words, they roll the words over and they're not actually making the real
progress, which I'm here to call you out on. That's why I'm asking the question. Yep. So you would've
told us right there on that slide, like, hey, you guys are 10% behind or 15%
behind as a percentage to be used of where I think you should have been by
now. What I tend to see is I would tend to see something more like 10 that
have been sunsetted. Usually those are not, then many communities
that I work with don't go back and add in initiatives even mid-year to continue that,
which is something that you do here and I really appreciate. So it's
not like something comes off and then we're done until the next strategic planning effort. We're constantly
rolling new ones in to make sure that we're moving forward on the plan itself.
thank you. Yep. I'll just add one comment and we took notes there
as well. If you look the actual initiatives, some of them are multi-year projects, right?
so we're moving the phases. Some of them are never gonna go away. I was just, I
pulled it up. I was looking at one, um, conduct education and outreach programs to residents,
property owners and businesses regarding our, um, zoning and build.
we're never gonna stop doing that. So that initiative will never fall off. So there is some context
with each initiative. Maybe, maybe we'll get through it today, but I would love to have seen
maybe some sort of scale or yeah, sure. They just break it down, down more time. Like, hey,
50 of these are always gonna be right. Yeah, that's a great point. So it changes the dynamic for my visual
yeah. Of that number. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great perspective. Yep. I appreciate that. Can
we get kind of an overview of the structure of today so that I don't ask questions that will
be asked later? Sure. Yeah. So
in terms of the structure for today, my intent is to provide a lot of information
upfront as stage setting. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna walk through,
uh, one, I wanna walk through where we are currently with the strategic plan, let you absorb that.
then I want to get into the data, what happened with the survey, what happened with the one-on-one
conversations, and where do we have agreement and alignment? Where do we have
some areas where we need to have more robust discussion? I'm gonna walk us through, not
in order of these 1, 2, 3, I'm gonna walk us through the process
in terms of we have complete alignment about this because we do, there
are several of these key focus areas and strategic objectives where we are completely aligned.
and I'd like to start with those and then move into conversations that are, uh,
require increasing levels of discussion might be the right way of saying it. So we'll get into
things where we need to have more and more discussions so that you can have that. But I'd like to start in
the areas where we agree with each other and then we can have those discussions, hopefully
building a little bit momentum. You know, what I can say is we are largely in
agreement. At the point where we get into more robust discussions,
we might get into some breakout activities involving, let's go ahead and get the actual
wording and smithing that we've done for some of us that are in years past. We've written those
down. We'll get into some of that as well. I just wanna make sure that we save enough time for
the discussions that need to be had and get as much off of our plate that we agree on as
possible. So that's a little bit of the intent of how I was going to do this.
I'll also say it's a little bit of a choose your own adventure too, friends. So
the conversations you need to have are the conversations I want you to have. The things that we're looking
to accomplish today, my hope is we can get through as many strategic objectives and key
focus areas as we possibly can and gain as much alignment as possible. That
may not be possible on certain topics, um, in which case we may have to pause and come back to
that at some point in the future. But, um, that's my hope is that we can get that far.
is that acceptable in terms of yes. That good for me? Okay. I just would
like to know kind of, so I don't jump the gun on something. Yep. No, fantastic. Yep.
moving right along. All right. Uh, with this right here, again, I'm
sure you're familiar with your strategic plan, but just wanted you to have a chance to absorb a little bit more of
it when it came to this, make sure you had a chance to see it. Um, I'm gonna
talk through some of the common themes of the discussions and the one-on-ones as well as the
survey results. So we're gonna get into common themes and some of that I just wanted you all to have a
baseline. Here's three, four, and five for you to have a chance to review and to the point
of ongoing financial health and organization that's never going away.
so that's why I picked yeah. Polo out and now zipper set is set. So
set it up. So headache would be helpful. Yep. I see what you're saying with that. I follow you this
new rep. Yeah. Yep, that's a great point.
really helpful context.
and six and seven,
good to move on. Feeling. Okay. All right.
um, one of the things, if I'm belaboring a point, you just
want me to move on, you can just yy me, which means, nick, we get it.
keep going. Okay. So feel free to yep. Y me if that's the case. Um, my
wife does it to me now and it's a really useful way for me to stop talking and keep going.
there we go. Uh, board governance guidelines,
we've talked about this before and I just wanna reemphasize this, reiterate this, but this
is good governance when it comes to how we go about this, which is to say you are,
uh, the organization's roles to focus on the means. You're telling us
the ends. What is it you would like us to accomplish? Staff will come back and say, here's how
we think you would like us to accomplish that. So that's part of the interplay that we've got here.
the point of the board is a, is a downward extension of man, uh, downward extension of
ownership, not an upward extension of management. And that's kind of where they meet in the middle. Part of your responsibility
is to make sure that the city manager is held rigorously accountable for achieving the outcomes that you would
like for him to achieve. So that's part of the relationship and how we craft that relationship
here in terms of effective governance, making sure that we've got that. So today you're
telling us the ends, we're working on the how, making sure that we've come back with
what that looks like. I'm gonna be big on this today. This is going to
be a conversation that I'm big on. And, uh, I've said this before, and for this
group, I will say it again. There's a difference between consensus and consent. Consensus
means that we have complete agreement on something that is not what we are after today.
consensus is an nearly impossible task in this current state. Uh, that's
just the nature of the world at this moment. So I'm not after consensus, which means agreement
on everything. That is not what we're after. What I'm after is consent,
in this case, informed consent, which means no significant objections. So there
is going to be times during the course of the day where you're gonna be like, hey, I have a really strong
feeling about that. Great, I want to hear what that says. Now, if we don't have general
agreement with your viewpoint, I'm sorry, but we do need to make a decision
and we do need to move forward. So what I'm after is informed consent in this space,
which means no significant objection. So if you don't have a strong objection to something,
be willing to take a step back and say, you know what? I'm willing to let this go. This isn't
something I have incredibly strong feelings about. Um, and that's part of
what I'd ask for you to do too. So I'm going to get into that at different points I'm sure today and say, hey,
I understand we don't have agreement or support for what you're saying. I understand that that's
something you feel passionate about. We do need to move the conversation forward. And that's going to be
my request, is that you honor that my role as a facilitator is to get us where we're looking to go.
questions about that? Yes, sir. Uh, real quick on consent, uh, can we talk about silence equaling consent?
uh, for example, three counsel members might say,
I don't want that, or I want that. And if the others are silent,
then they're basically consenting to what, what, in this example,
those three council members were suggesting, is that, is that
the way you view it? Or how should we view it? I, I think that's a great point that you're bringing up, and that's why I
was really encouraging us to speak up. If you have a strong opinion, let's hear it. We would love to hear from
you today about this, and you're absolutely right, which is silence is ascension in my
world. And, and the bottom line is, if you're holding your tongue and saying, I don't have a strong
opinion about this, then I'm gonna say that's good enough for us to move forward with. 'cause I, I can't
interpret your silence. Um, but please help me not do that.
I would like to encourage us to have active consent so that we are, uh,
instead of just being silent and saying, you know, assuming the consent, that we either
say, yep, I do have a significant objection, or
I don't, and we can move on. That's, that's what I'd like to see, because I don't
like surprises. We'll do our best with that as well. I appreciate
that. Absolutely. And thank you for that comment. I, I, that is the conversation
I hope we have today is I like what we're doing. We're in the right direction.
that feels better to me than nothing at all. Um, but my hope is we're hearing your
voice today in the best way we can. With that
said, let's get into the key focus areas here. Um, talking through these,
these are the data. And so what I'll say is one council member, and
I don't know who, because this is something that I could not tell from the
survey didn't complete the survey, so I don't know the answer on who did not.
but I will say that I have six outta the seven of your, of your, uh,
uh, selections reflected here. So that is what I have, and
that's what I'm projecting and presenting today. I can't tell who,
um, in future years, I will probably ask for names if I'm invited back
so that I know who and I can do a specific outreach to whomever did not. Okay? But
that's where we are today. So I just want you to know that the six outta seven voices are reflected in this. That's what I've
got. Um, so with this said in these particular areas, one of those questions in that
survey was key focus areas. What's your, what you're feeling about these? You'll notice
in the, uh, no objections or supportive category, we have a lot of support.
so we've got pretty much, uh, financial health and organizational health. Six, infrastructure
development maintenance, six, public safety, six, when it comes to economic
development of revitalization, we've got strong feelings
about that. We have a really positive thing. The comments that were made about that one are
things related to the branding and the addison way, and some of the things I think in the
strategic objectives were some of the commentary related to that. We'd like to see some bolstering of this because
economic development was incredibly important to us. So that's top of the list of importance,
uh, when it came to mobility and connectivity. That will be our last discussion for the day. Um,
four obvious reasons. We don't have agreement on this. And so that's a conversation that's
going to be more robust. That's it. That's where we're at on that one. And then this one, community
engagement and vibrant and active community down here as well. Um, several different
kinds of comments related to these, and I'll reemphasize this, but it wasn't that we
disagree and I had conversations with all of you around community engagement. We don't disagree
with it. We just think maybe it could be rolled up under vibrant active community. In some cases,
it was what's the right type of engagement. That's what we care about. It wasn't that
we're doing anything wrong, it was, we just want the right type of engagement. We want it before we're
doing a vote. We want it targeted to the neighborhood that's being affected and impacted by
it. Um, and so there was more specific discussion. I don't think any disagreement
with it necessarily on anything that was underneath here. More just the how,
how we're going about those things. So we'll get into that discussion as well. But I don't even know that that one's
all that sticky or tricky for us. So just wanted to give you a sense on the key focus areas as
a larger bucket, what that looks like. Uh, this was your waiting.
I asked which of these creates the greatest impact for the success of the town of addison.
these are your comments related to how you collectively would wait this out.
so I wanna give you a chance to absorb this, but this is where you feel the greatest
impact is created. As a result,
we can get all these results. Yes, sir. Yep. I will make
sure that all of these slides are provided and, uh, yep.
was that a yep, yep. Or a yep. I'm just giving everybody a moment. Yeah, no, you're on it. You're on it.
marlon. Appreciate you, sir. This is one of those things I, I think what's interesting here
is I also have your last year results as well, from a comparisons
perspective. And you haven't shifted all that much in terms of this public safety was
still number one. Economic development was still number two. And financial and organizational
health was number three. So in terms of like the overall priorities, we
didn't shift in overall priorities, maybe just the volume of that. Yes,
sir. Remind me again. Ali scored that, like where does the 21 come from?
was it, was it one, was it one to 20? I can't remember. Yeah, you had, so
the idea was which of these creates the greatest impact for
the town of addison? And that was the question. You had a hundred points to be able to assign
to the different categories. Okay. So these were the a hundred points assigned
to, to the categories. Okay. Yep. Good feature
survey. That was the last . And now
we know . Come on now. I just kidding. Just
that one friendly
reminder to turn your mic for everybody. Yeah. So what was the question again?
the greatest impact to the town of addison, which of these key focus areas has
the greatest impact on the town of addison? That, uh,
yes. I, I I'm 90%, lemme check that here real quick.
I'll get you the exact wording. I'm 90% sure that was the exact wording of it, though. I didn't know if it was
in the coming year, in the coming years currently. Um, just kind
of a temperature I got, I took it kind of as a, as a temperature is what I, it was, it
was a temperature question. Um, and to your point about the one year horizon
versus the longer term, I asked longer term questions in there. The vision
for the future. What would you like most associated with your 20 years? So there's this
element of us kind of planning on the one year horizon, which is the more actionable, that's where we
get into objectives and initiatives. Three years is, I used to,
when I do strategic planning, you know, I mean five years ago when I do strategic planning, my horizon
for folks to consider was more in the five to eight year horizon.
and here in the last few years, I'd moved it back to three years. And I think that's
probably the mind frame I kind of wanna send because there are multi-year projects in here and that's part
of it as well as we do have this. So we're looking at that one to three year horizon,
not that 5, 7, 9 year horizon. It's just an untenable
timeline to be looking that far out into the future anymore. Um, so
yes, in terms of thinking about it. Yep. Yes sir.
I guess, uh, as I answered those questions, the a hundred
points for me was difficult because
public safety was number one. Economic development was number
two, infrastructure was number three. Those align with my thoughts. But
what happens is you start using these points up and then you get to community
engagement and vibrant active community and you don't have many points left.
so I went back and took away from the other points because those
two at the bottom are more important than what that shows, in my opinion.
yes. And I don't know how to tell you to structure the question differently,
but I feel like if we had 500 points, it probably would still come out the same, but
I would've felt better about it. Okay. Because last year I didn't like that
those two came out so small at the end. So this year I changed the way
I, I allocated the points and I, I still did what
I wanted with one, two, and three, but I took away and put more in, in the bottom
two because they're more important than we, we gave them last year. My
opinion. Thank you, sir. So if I can make one note just on community engagement,
I think some of what you probably experienced is what nick was mentioning earlier, because community
engagement really is across all of these, we want community engagement to be
involved in everything we do in all these key focus areas. So part of a discussion we can
have today is do we pull it out from being its own key focus area
and just incorporate it in all the other key focus areas? Because to
your point, how do you weight it against something when it should be a part of those
key fo key focus areas? So, um, part of that pitching you may have felt could have been
because of just the nature of, of that key fo key focus areas
by itself. Uh, but that's for discussion for you all. It, it could be, it
could be that we only have a hundred points to divide over, what is it, six or
seven areas. Maybe we needed 150 points.
I, I don't know. I just struggled. I ran out of points. And those two
were important too. So I took away and added, and I don't know if
you could fix that up. Giving my, and what, what I'll add is my perspective is I love the
way that this question is formed because it forces you to prioritize. We have to prioritize.
so for me, um, it helps me, forces
me to prioritize what it, we've got a hundred percent where,
you know, what's the most important, what's the least important of the, of the
seven key focus areas. And if I could chime in,
I, I would almost prefer if we had seven questions. You gave us 10 points.
so you really can go 0.2, five, 0.5, one full point to really
weigh it so you really understand the prioritization. And I was one of the folks
you and I spoke about, vibrant, active community and community engagement need
to be, in my opinion, need to be rolled into one. So you can then spend those points
more targeted, more focused on exactly what is important versus fluff.
yep. Just my opinion and the challenge I have with, with this,
hold on a second. Go ahead. Thank you.
with with this is in my mind, if we get economic
development right, then we get financial health. Correct.
so that, that's where I challenge, we're trying to divvy up points because in
my mind, the economic development piece gets to be really important. If we get that right,
then financial health will take care of itself.
agreed. And I agree with, with howard, I don't care if it was a hundred points or
a thousand, it would've probably came out in the same order. 'cause I'd have waited them all the same. I'm,
I'm almost on dan's thinking that
just one through seven. And what is your most important, put it one number two
down, down the way line. I'm not faulting what you've done here at all, but
I do see where a couple of these can be rolled in together. And I don't want
any of our departments or staff to think anyone else is
more important than their department. 'cause I think the people that do the community
engagement are just as important as the rest of it.
just not in a out front and good. I, I want 'em to know that they're
appreciated. Um, but they're just not yep. At
the top of the a hundred point list. Yep. I I think the a hundred points is,
is good. It forces you to do the distribution of what's important. 'cause everything can
be important. Um, and I would agree with,
so the context is a couple years ago there was, um, a lot of concern
from the citizens about the lack of engagement, the lack of us being involved, hearing
our voices and things like that. So these things have a life cycle and
community engagement. Now we're doing it a lot better and we realize it needs to be in
all the other kfa, all the other activities. So it's a
natural thing for this to evolve out. Now I'm a fan of c uh, combining
or maybe distributing community engagement among all the other ones. Um,
and then, or combining it with vibrant active community. Uh, I have
some further thoughts on that further in the session. I really
appreciate all this feedback. I really do. And I think that's part of what I'm attempting to do here
is help you have a mirror. That's what I'm after, is just being the mirror today in, in terms of showing
you some of this, let me editorialize for a moment here on the why and the what with this,
which is to say that one of the challenges I do find with communities that I work with is
things are listed in the strategic plan and given equal priority. And we do have to make decisions
at the end of the day as staff. Which of these is going to, when, when I have limited
time, which of these should I be working on? Which of those should, should be funding it? Everything
in your strategic plan is important. And I wanna be perfectly clear, if it is in this
document, it is a priority for this community. So that is something
that is stated. It is a difficult decision to go through a process like this. And that
is absolutely what I intended is that there's some difficulty inside of this
equation. What I haven't discovered with other communities that I've worked with, and let's say community
engagement as a, as a thing, what if that came back as a two?
what that would say to me is that that is a key focus area that you don't actually prioritize.
and when it's listed in the same verbiage as public safety, which might be a 25
and that's a two, that means it's 12 and a half times more important. Which is why one through seven
isn't the way that I do it, which is an ordinal ranking. Uh, this is a card, excuse me,
this is a cardinal ranking, it's an ordinal ranking. So in this case, I can see how
percentage-wise more valuable something is in there. This doesn't
indicate anything wrong to me at all. And like you all have said, and this is a common theme from
the discussions vibrant act, the community engagement,
let's break it up and make it a part of others or let's combine it with vibrant active community.
and that was a conversation that I had with several of you as a priority. So
it just says to me that this is an opportunity, one, that the things up here are important
to us. If that was a two that would say that we need to discuss that, then that's what I would bring
up. But the fact that it's an eight, hey that's okay. And now we just need to discuss where
that would go and to the point of maybe having more points so it didn't feel so restrictive. I totally hear
you on that. Um, this is a process that I go through with a lot of communities
just to help them see the differences in terms of how you're collectively supporting or
approaching something. And uh, if you have a huge disagreement with certain elements
of this, you might be able to tell how out of alignment with
others on the team that you might be. Again, what I'd say is this is very similar
to where you landed last year, which is encouraging to me, which is we have a
lot of support for the things that we do support, that's a really positive thing. So really
great feedback. Uh, really appreciate the difficulty of the task that you were given
and I appreciate your willingness to lean in on something that's not easy. I know these are all priorities to
you. Let's make sure that it's reflected that way too when we go forward with the plan. So thank you for
that. Appreciate that feedback. Um, let's get into strategic
objectives. If we're okay with this. I, we will come just to be clear to this conversation about
community engagement and vibrant active community and whether they should be combined, whether we take community
engagement and, and make it parts of others or whether we leave it as is. So I
want to clarify, we will get into that discussion. Um, before we roll on, I just
wanted to make that clear. I'd like to provide a little bit of information related to the
strategic objectives too here, which is in general I ask for strong agreement,
agreement, neutral, minor objection or strong objection to each of the different initiatives.
so every strategic object, excuse me. Every objective. So every single
strategic objective you had the opportunity to weigh in. I strongly agree with the
strategic objective. I strongly object to this strategic objective.
this is the overall collective. So I just wanted you to see that in general, there
is a lot of strong agreement with what you have in the strategic plan as a general
group. Um, we have good agreement with it too. As I
mentioned, consent in this space, in the informed consent space, we
have a hundred and what is that 47 in that strong in the agreement
category. Those are areas where I'd say, hey, let's not lean in and really push back on those we, we like
what we've got maybe a little wordsmithing if we need to totally understand that.
areas where we're neutral, I think I understand the why. When I looked at the neutral,
they were these common themes that kept coming up the addison way
being overused in elements of the strategic plan that came up as an,
as an element of this. This becomes a a problem. Um, community engagement
should be included. We want the right type of community engagement. Those were common themes.
that's where I saw neutrality. And then there was minor objections and strong objections
and those predominantly, predominantly related to mobility and connectivity,
which is why we're gonna get into those discussions a little more robustly. Um, but I wanted
you to see that we do have a lot of agreements about the plan in general, which is really encouraging. It
wasn't all on the opposite side, which would be a scrap it and rework everything. We've got
a lot we can build off of here. So I just wanted you to see that before I kept going.
um, are you, are we gonna drill down to the strategic objectives
in which we, you know, those ones that are, we most strongly object to
those two or three or four? I don't know how many yes sir. We are gonna look at, yes sir. Okay.
yep. Thank you. Um, yes
and give good definitions of what they mean,
uh, mobility and connectivity. Yeah. Being one. Are
we trying to connect two buildings together or are we trying to put bike lanes all over town
and take car lanes out? Right. I, that's all I'm saying tho those can be
misconstrued and put into the same category and
definitions on what they truly mean would help for me.
absolutely. Appreciate that. Great feedback. Yep. So this slide is on
strategic objectives versus the kfa. That's correct. So these are all the
more granular pieces. That's correct. Okay. So this was every
strategic objective and this is on those we're beyond the key focus areas and into
the strategic objectives that next layer down. Okay. Yep. Yes. If
I can ask the council a question that I had to wrestle with what I was doing this
and have my conversation with nick in the past 12 months,
I would ask that o open ended question when we talk about the addison way of how
we handle business interactions, engagement with businesses, interaction,
engagement with community citizens, visitors. Was there,
was there a moment in time in the past 12 months where I had it multiple times where someone
had made a mention in business, um, about the way our staff
has treated folks? I, I don't know how, how do we incorporate
that conversation of the addison way within that work? David, you and I have had that conversation,
but I think that's something that I was wrestling with. I'm trying
to get communicated to nick, is just about how, what is the addison
way and how do we break that down when we're literally physically engaging
our businesses and our citizens? Yeah.
was there a question there? Yeah. Did, have you experienced anything in the past 12
months from any personal feedback from business or residents
of frustration? Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways that you can
define what the addison way is, but like to me it's,
it's the level of service. It's service beyond expectation. I think that's
what all of our residents expect. Um, and on, on the
business side, um, how we're engaging, I mean, I, I have heard that,
um, on the development side, we're, we're at times making
it a little more difficult. And I do feel like we've started to have those conversations
and address some things with staff and added, um,
added an employee that would maybe help as a liaison between some
of those things. So I mean, I, I think your point's well taken. That's what I'm trying to get at for, for if you could
each each answer that for me, it would help me understand where our headspace is at,
if that's necessary. I can jump in real, real quick. David, we do have that defined
on a particular webpage. Do we? Not the addison way.
we have the addison way defined. Correct. Okay. So, so a lot of people depending
on who you talk, talk to, they, they, they have their own interpretation
of what it is. And um, you know, to me it's really important
that you go to the, um, the real definition other than
polling everybody in town, what's, what's their definition? So I,
I always wanna start with that. Like, what, what is it really mean? And,
and I go to the webpage that defines that and then work, work
from there. Does that, does that kind of answer your, I
just didn't know if you had a per, I didn't know if you had a personal engagement with someone in business,
not, not necessarily a resident, but more business owners or business processes where
you had somebody say something to you negative about our addison
way. Um, not on the business side.
not, not about the addison way. They don't, they don't, I haven't really heard
'em bring that up. Okay. Um, all I've heard is, hey, it's
um, you know, to, to go through development,
you know, there's a lot of things, um, that are required and, and
we're one of the cities that makes 'em fulfill those requirements.
so if you don't mind if I could, so I mean, the answer is yes, we hear that and
I think we've been very, very transparent about that. And we talked to council about that. That's
a concern that we have. And here's what we're doing to improve it. Bringing charles's
position in, um, looking at our entire building inspection process to
ensure that it is meeting what we expect it to meet. If there are any improvements
we need to make to the make, to the code, we're gonna bring those forward to council. So I'm just,
I'm supporting everything you're saying. I think that is a concern that we've had. We've
done a number of steps to resolve it where I think we're in a good place right now of having
solutions to all those. I think that's a great point of conversation for the group. 'cause we
can talk about what we're doing and sure. That's reflected in the strategic plan. But
I mean, if your question is have we heard that? Absolutely. We've heard it. Yeah, that, I just wanna
get that. I just wanna make sure I wasn't crazy and thinking, I'm hearing it, hearing it differently
than any one of you or any one of our staff for that matter. I just wanna make sure that
was a point that we discussed today. That's all. Yep. So I,
I'm gonna weigh in just for a sec. The complaints I've heard from business or
residents is in the way that, I
guess I'm gonna call it out, code enforcement, um,
interprets what the code is. So we have codes, we have the
u, new udc, we had codes before that, but, but there's
codes and then, then the enforcement interprets
that and is very, uh,
I don't know what the word is, harsh. When they, when they
speak out to the businesses or the people, instead of having
a friendly approach to try and explain to someone, our
code is this and we need you to comply nicely. It's
like, this is the code. If you don't do it, we're gonna find you and we're gonna start tomorrow.
that's the problem. That's, that's what I hear. And every time I hear it, david
gets a call from me. So I, I relate it when I get that because
to me that is not the addison way to, to
be harsh with our residents or our businesses in trying to
enforce the code. I just think we need a softer approach then if someone's defying
it and we've tried and we've tried and they're just defying it within the level in
of intensity, should, should match the level
of defiance, if that's the right word. When I hear
the addison the way can, can we, can we move on? Wait, fox, I make, let me make this
comment to support our, to, to support our staff.
what we're, what we're hearing here is I don't believe we're hearing complaints about the addison
way. I think we start hearing complaints when the addison way is not
presented the way we would like the addison way presented. And I think the addison, you
know, for instance, I think the addison way is not to the first letter that
you get. You're gonna get a $500 a day fine in 10 days if you start. I
don't think that's what we intend the addison way to be. But there
again, the addison way can be described in many different ways to me, and I don't think it's the,
what frustrates me is when I hear it's the addison way that we have to spend 10 times more
than what a project should take because it's the addison way to do it that way. But
when the addison way is followed, I don't think we get complaints. I think it's when
the addison way is not applied in a
kind and friendly manner that we start getting those. Thank you mayor,
go ahead. Okay. Thank you for the discussion on this. It's
part of what came up through the discovery process as we went through this. And so
it was worth discussion and I'm sure we'll have more as we get into this. These
were the areas to the point about, uh, this is the stuff with most agreement.
so just so you could see this, I want to clarify that a five means strong agreement. So five
is the highest possible score, one would be the lowest possible score out of that. So as
we're kind of looking at these numbers, anything above a three would mean we're generally in agreement
with it as an overall group. Um, with this said, we
see strong agreement. What you'll notice is you'll notice the areas themselves, and I mentioned this, right,
uh, financial health and organizational excellence, tons of alignment and agreement around that.
uh, area four, which is infrastructure, lots of alignment and agreement around that.
um, two economic development and revitalization. Lots of agreement around that. Public
safety, lots of agreement around that. So I don't think anything too shocking here,
but wanted you to see that this is kind of where everything shook out. We have two areas with perfect fives
across the board and we love financial and organizational excellence, financial health and
organizational excellence. So just wanted you to see this, this is the areas of lease agreement.
so the area where we have less agreement, um, this one down here, mobility and connectivity,
the east west pedestrian. So now we start to get into three. Um,
this one, six, this was the addison way conversation we were just having and sort of where
that falls into it. Um, but you can see here with mobility and connectivity, that is
the one that seems to be the, the conversation that we need to center around in terms of
most disagreement. So just wanted you to have a sense of that. Also, the number three
is sort of our neutral space. So three would be neutral answers are
still mod, modestly supportive, above that line as a collective.
however, these are the numbers. And again, because we have one person's
score not represented in here, that could shift entirely where this lands at. And I wanna be clear
about that as well. Yes, sir. I think to randy's point, some of these are kind of squishy,
uh, not well-defined. And that may be part of, um, the neutral or
minor objection, uh, like the east west pedestrian connectivity
that could be defined as getting across a belt line in the north dallas tollway.
yep. Or could be defined as getting from vitruvian to
village on the parkway. So it's just a vast interpretation. Um,
so I I think that's, that's part of it. And just better, uh, better definition
probably going forward would be, um, of, of what the results look like for
us would probably be wise. I I'm with you a hundred percent on that. And I think that
in, in cases where we have a lack of clarity, the discussion today can inform
the initiatives and the projects underneath that as well, which is hugely important in terms
of giving you what you're after. And so let's do have those discussions
when they need to come up because it is the way that staff can understand what you mean
when you talk about this connectivity. Um, I crossed beltline
and midway yesterday. It was a joy. , you're alive.
I am. There you go. I am. My toes are doing well. Um, as a matter of fact could just,
yes sir. I I'll use the east west connectivity as an example because you're
right, it is broad. But that was a decision that was made during this
process a few years ago. That's correct. To make it broad on purpose. 'cause the conversation that accounts
all the time was we could fit a lot of different things in here. If this council believes
something different or wants it worded differently or wants us to focus on something different, change
it. We need to hear that as we go through the process. So we're here to, to change and
alter whatever we need to that aligns with this council, um, with the
plan. Absolutely. One of the things I've seen in the past is
kind of, we, we want to interpret it our own way. Um,
and leaving it that broad leads to ambiguity, which can,
uh, result in lack of consent. And um,
it says, so david, we were wise to leave it broad, but
if we can define better what each of us are thinking under these priorities,
I mean to, to capture that, then that would allow for, uh, probably better,
better movement forward. Does that make sense?
makes sense to me. I I would like to comment on that last one because
east west pedestrian connectivity is what gives me the heartburn
connecting the east and west sides of the toll road pedestrian.
I agree with that. But if you're talking about from midway to wynwood
when we're talking east, west, pedestrian doesn't even make
sense to me. People aren't gonna walk that. I think we have a disconnect between
the east and west sides of town. And I would like those connected.
I would like the people to be one addison instead of an east and a west pedestrian
and com connectivity is where I have heartburn with that because it's, to me, it's just the
toll road and I don't wanna spend $10 million to fix it. I,
I wanna fix it, but I don't know how we can fix it reasonably. But, but
the broadness or the, I don't, I don't know. I had problems with it because
it's pen pedestrian connectivity. These are discussions
we're gonna get into. And I think these, this is exactly what I wanted to hear, though, which is to say,
I just want one as a starting condition for you to see, hey, this is an area where we have less
agreement. Now we know those areas where we have less agreement. These are areas
where we have a ton of agreement and we got a lot of those. So we do have a lot of alignment
over a lot of really important topics here. When we get into some of these discussions,
it's the how and the what that are really gonna be the things that are gonna be kind
of the, the discussion that we need to have. And david's right, that
was intentionally vague or less specific
with the idea being that initiatives underneath that could help create definition around what
that objective meant. If we don't love it, we change it. That's it.
this is reflective of what you want this council wants. That's what we're after today. I
wanted you to see that alignment just so you had a sense of where it is. Um, I'm gonna get into each one
of these. Um, if we need to in the middle of this,
I'll take a break just so we can stretch our legs. 'cause I know how it is because, um, but
let's get into it here a little bit. I want you to be able to see this. So I've got several data sources.
one, you know, I've reviewed about, let's call it 180
pages of information in order to do this. So that's a lot to synthesize to be able to bring to a
conversation here. Um, all I'm gonna do is help provide flavor, and it's the mirror. That's all I'm
trying to do is hold the mirror up the data sources, the priority waiting. Question two, the agreement
with the current objectives, immediate priorities, and then the open-ended survey
responses as well as your one-on-ones. So we'll do some summary related to all of those
things in, in what I want to do. 'cause that provides us with complete context for this. Um,
keep modifying, remove. So I have labeled these
as things that you are fine with. If you're fine with it, let's go onto the
next, right? If it's modify, let's talk about the modifications that were being proposed by any
one of you. And if it's removed, let's talk about whether there's general support for the removal
of something or the combination of something as we discussed. So there's a lot of data on these slides.
the key legacy themes. These were the things when I asked you a legacy question, what
would you like your legacy to be when people look back 20 years from now on this council?
and these were the key themes that came out of those answers that you gave here.
um, one is fiscal responsibility and resident first. That was a very loud and
clear theme. I don't think I talked to anybody who didn't believe in those things as
well. So a lot of alignment on that. Um, economic reinvention and competitiveness,
office towers, hotel space, the reinvention or the reinvigoration
of those became really important. Discussion, uh, discussion points. Um,
competing successfully with the newer suburbs. And some of us felt that
maintaining addison as a destination, a target destination was critically important
as well. Um, public safety is a differentiator,
but what I'd say is strong public safety was considered to be the backbone of every
conversation. We can't have the other conversations without that conversation coming first.
and that was the commitment that was, uh, pretty red, uh, readily available if
you read the comments related to your legacy. So we believe in public safety,
we know that that's important for us. And then connectivity. Um, this
was selective and there was, again, a lot of variation in terms of the importance of
this being something that council members felt was part of the legacy.
so about half of us felt this was critically important. About half of us felt the
opposite of that. So that's all I'm getting at with this one is that that was a theme
that came out of some of these conversations. We disagreed maybe about what that
meant. Some of us felt like it meant transit. Some of us felt like it was connecting major roadways,
uh, crossing arterials, those kinds of things. Uh, verti port was mentioned, future mobility.
the airport was a discussion as well. So lots of different meanings behind
this kind of space of connectivity. But these were the legacy themes, the one-on-one
interviews. These are, again, I had great interviews and great discussions with all of you, and I
really appreciate your time with this. It is hard to encapsulate so many different
viewpoints. This is my best attempt at that. Okay? So
happy to be beat up for something if I did it, please recorrect me if I got something
incorrect in this. But these were key themes. Um, addison is in an execution
phase. That was part of what we talked about. We're past some of the visioning stuff. We have
a sense of a lot of these things. We're here to get the results done, and we want to see that
execution continue to happen. So one, a lot of agreement
and a lot of support for staff and the work that they've done. A lot of,
we are in an execution phase. Let's keep making progress. And I would like to see that progress.
I would like to know that we are making that progress happen. So that was a lot of discussion that I had.
um, dart is a proxy issue. So dart was an important one.
I had a discussion with everybody here on dart. I'm sure you've had more discussions on that. That was an issue that
was of, of importance for everybody here. So at some
point that discussion became a discussion and it meant something different to
everyone, is what I can tell you about that. So that's how I looked at
that one. Um, some of us were about fiscal trust, some of us were about the
location that we are and how we connecting things. Um, and then engagement was about trust, not volume.
nobody indicated support for more engagement of the wrong
type. That's just it. It was like, hey, let's not hold town hall for town hall's sake. However,
when we do a project in this neighborhood, let's make sure we're doing everything we can in
some cases door to door, let's knock door to door. In some cases, it was like, what can we
do to increase the engagement before a vote comes before council?
and that was really the key underpinning of the discussion was there had been a few
specific examples where it was felt like that didn't occur. Um, staff didn't
do anything wrong. That was never the statement. I did not hear that from folks. What I heard was,
I'd love it if the residents engaged more. I have no idea how to make that happen.
and there were a few ideas, but it was door to door knocking was basically
the best that anybody could come up with that I heard. Um, but it was, hey, we're doing
the social media stuff, we're doing the town halls, we're doing the in the parks,
we're doing that. And we still don't get the right types of engagement from the community, which
is why that community engagement discussion was so robust, um, with all of you
as well. So I just wanna pause there because one I'd like for you to have the opportunity to
correct anything that you feel is a misrepresentation if I did that, or two
say that. We'll get into some of these discussions as well. But I also just wanted you to see kind of things that
were themes in the discussions that I had with you before I kept going.
uh, can you explain number two? Dart is a proxy issue. What do you mean
by proxy issue? I understand all the bullet points. Yeah. In
this case, everybody's feeling was different about dart straight up. Everybody had a different
viewpoint on dart, whether it was the underpinnings for successful mobility throughout the entire
community, uh, whether it was the backbone or the future of what we're doing. Whether it
was the thing that would recruit and allow economic development and revitalization, whether it
was fiscal irresponsibility, whether it was signaling to the public,
our desire to make sure that they have the right to vote, whether it, so everybody
had a slightly different viewpoint. Some of us were in the space of the residents should have the right
to vote. That's what we're about when it comes to dart. If they vote to keep it, they vote to
keep it, but they should have the right to vote. And some of us were like, this is the thing that underlies
all the rest of what we're trying to do with economic development and revitalization. So
dart was the topic, but the issue changed depending on who I talked to
about why it was important to you. So what I
was saying with this is that it's not that dart's not important, it's incredibly important. We just all
have very different viewpoints on why that topic is so important to us.
fiscal responsibility, connectivity,
we all just had a different viewpoint on why dart was important. So that's why I call it a proxy issue because it wasn't,
it wasn't fully dart. It was what dart means in
the larger context of all the other discussions. Thank you. Yes.
so on the execution phase, uh, I agree. I think we're doing a lot of things right and going in
the right direction in general. Um, just my own thought
is, uh, we should weigh very strongly on economic development to revitalization.
um, and just, I suppose maybe it's, it's just executing that if,
if that's right. I just wanna make sure it's not missed, uh, up there.
yeah. Thank you for that. Absolutely. Execution. Yeah. Okay. There were strong,
um, strong support from everybody when it came to staff
is doing a great job. We have a great staff. Like that was a common theme from
all the conversations I had. It was a handful of, we could do this a
little better, we could do this, but definitely with you on that. Yep. Great.
okay. We can have more discussion on this, but I just wanted you to see those conversations
as a, as a whole. Um, when we get into the strategic objectives, like I said, I'm gonna do
this in sort of order of most agreement to areas
of leased agreement. My hope is to build a little love and momentum as we get into some of
those areas where we might have a little more of that disagreement. Let's just start with this
one. Public safety bottom line is, it's our highest priority across the board. Had
20.8% when it came to the points overall, that 100 points scale. So
it's hugely important to us. It has complete and unanimous support from the council. There
was not a single objection or change requested in this. With that said,
yep, yep, yep, yep. Look at us. Go look at us.
go. That was an easy one. It was. That's why I'm throwing out softballs
to start with here. That way we can knock 'em out of the park. . I knew it. That's
the fun part though, right? We do have complete agreement on this. So for my public safety team
in the room. Yeah. And let's go. All right. Um,
with that said, so economic development, right? Uh, revitalization also a huge
priority for us. It's a great, it's a great conversation that we had. All we want
is more and better. That was it, right? How do we go about doing it? There
was some how and some discussions in this. Okay. Um, 83% supportive,
17% neutral, which basically means one vote out of this was a neutral vote.
everything else was, uh, very supportive. Um, these ones had,
again, no objection to them. These were ones where we had a lot of alignment and
support. I've truncated them so they'll fit on a slide. Okay. So remember there's a longer wording
there. I apologize for that. Hopefully you understand which ones. These were the conversations
when it came to modifying, um, basically the addison way conversation
was part of it. We had that in there. Some folks felt like it makes it more expensive for us to
do construction on given projects. And that was the, the maybe the consternation
around some of it. Um, the phrase is unclear, and again, addison
way, addison brand might be misunderstood, but there was a little bit of that discussion.
and so I think there's some clarification that could occur there. But that was the discussion.
okay. Um, and then add and strengthen, um, economic
development, uh, resources and tools for redevelopment. So redevelopment in
particular was a discussion that came out in one-on-ones. Also came out through the survey,
how many incentives and what types of incentives should we put in place to create the
right kind of redevelopment that we're after. The one specifically mentioned were, uh,
aging office buildings and aging hotels. Those were the two
that kind of received the highest level of sort of visibility throughout the discussions in
the survey. And the other one is how can we leverage the airport more and
the opportunities to leverage the airport more was a discussion as well. Um,
so I'll pause there for thoughts on this. Again, these right here as
overarching themes, we had a lot of agreement on maybe the, how
underneath those is something that initiatives might be the space
where we could backfill some of that. Um, but I'm just saying we don't have objections
to this. I'll stop, I'll stop here because it is probably worth a little bit of
discussion to have about economic development. But, um, that's
what the data said. So,
uh, I'm in total agreement with this slide. The only, the only thought
I shared with you, and probably in the survey also is, um,
uh, just modify 2.4. It just seemed a little redundant the addison way,
when we're talking about economic development and revitalization. It just,
to me, it just, I would just change it to optimize and market,
uh, the addison brand and just leave it short and
succinct and, um, clear. Yep.
I'll make a point. Um, to marlon's point about brand
versus way, I would a hundred percent agree with that comment. The other thing that,
when I think about marketing and I see 2.8 business and realtor relationships,
um, I don't, and I like to see us play that up more because
ultimately when people always pull maps out, nobody uses the old mapsco. But when
we use virtual maps in our ed packet that we've left behind at some
of these conferences, um, it's amazing. I love how we've highlighted the
platinum corridor and we are the bullseye on the map. So if you're a potential
relocating business from colorado or east coast, and you were
to pull a map out and say, we wanna move to dfw, where do we look? How does,
how do we market? And I guess it is realtors or, um, brokers.
how do we get that bullseye more as a brand symbol
than just the blue dot? It would be my ask of the group in the room.
okay. Yep. Yeah. And I, I'll agree with marlon regarding
the addison way being part of this. And I, I recall the conversation from
last year there, there was mixed feelings about it
where there was some interest in that. The addison way needed to be almost
in every everything, every everything. Correct. And so that's us, us
overusing it ourselves. And so I think, I think taking
it out of that, I think that would be, that would be helpful. And, and, and to look, to
look at, look at, look at other places where we might be overusing it as well. Because
it, it does get diluted whenever, whenever it's, uh, everywhere like that.
yep. Well, I feel very strongly
about, um, the economic development side of things. I think
it's the most important thing that we can do. And I think it's where we,
you know, can all agree that we can do better. I mean, this time last year we had
the same conversation. So when the budget came around, we added another employee
to that office, and we also added a little more as far as dollars.
um, but I don't know how, how deep
you want to go in that conversation. I mean, um, I don't
wanna get too much in the weeds, but I have my own ideas on what we should be doing,
um, you know, to dan's questions about, um,
you know, what are we doing, you know, the business and realtor relationships. We had
a good conversation about that last year, but there's so many things that I feel like we should
be doing, and I don't know what the role of council would be. You know, it's like a fine line between
like micromanaging and just sitting back and let you know staff
do their thing. So that's where I have a, a problem with that.
yep. So, I mean, I would, I would encourage you to,
to have the conversation right now. Yep. I mean, even if we get into detailed questions, let's answer
'em. And we can, we can parse out what makes sense for the strategic plan, but we have
staff here. I would, I would get it all out. Ask your questions, give your thoughts, and then
what we can do is react to that and say either, hey, here's maybe what we're doing
to that effort. Here's how we can change, here's how it could be a new strategic objective. We
can react to your comments. But we wanted, this is the chance to, to hear 'em.
I, I'm with you on that point, which is to say, this is the room for the discussion, and
let's have a little bit of that discussion. When you talk about revitalization, economic development,
we had a robust discussion about this. What does it mean to you? Help staff understand
the intent and then they can help with projects and initiatives underneath
these objectives that will help accomplish the intent that you're after. I would just like
to see, because we did have this specific, one of the addison wave removal on that particular
phrase. Can I get a temperature check outta the room? We don't take votes, we take preferences,
votes happen later in formal settings. But just in terms of that, is that
an acceptable concept to remove the addison way as a phrasing from this? And that moves
that one across the finish line for us right there on that particular objective. Would
that be okay with everybody? Does that feel okay? Yep, yep, yep. Getting
yeses in general. Okay. With that said, we're gonna remove the addison way from that particular
one. Um, with that said, let's have the discussion. What are the things when it
comes to economic development and revitalization, which are important to us, we have these right here.
what does it mean to you? Tell me that one of the things, this is more tactical and it may be sub,
uh, objective and more of an initiative, but really focused on
getting a nice hotel or two in towns, high premium hotels.
and that may be, uh, taking what we've got in some way, pushing, uh,
a, a big remodel of the hotel. We don't need. And we've heard
from so many, uh, engagements with, uh, our existing visits, uh, in the c-suite.
they send their folks down the street out of addison to, to stay at different hotels.
and we, we've gotta fix that. So I'd like to see a, a, a strong
push, uh, to, to get a nice hotel
or two. And I, I know we have a couple new ones coming online, uh, remodeled
once. So I'll stop that. Thank you. Mm-hmm . On that
topic of, of hotels, and, you know, it's easy to say,
let's get a nice hotel or two that's four or five years
down the road. An idea I've had since before I got on
council and, and since I've been on it, and I want to get an agenda item put on so we can truly discuss this.
we need to nourish what we have. And we have
two really nice hotels that at one point in their lives
were really nice, that that would accommodate people that
are, that come in that are now bypassing us. And I would truly like to
see us discuss, uh, rather than just spend our
hotel and tax money on different things, why can't
we give them a, a refund on their
own tax money? Call it a grant, a city grant back to,
uh, the hotels that pay into that fund and get them to
agree to spend that money on that building.
get, and, and they would be using their own money with
city assistance on a grant back to that hotel and get them to do some refurbishment
to bring them up to a more cosmetic
level. And, um, it, it would just be a way of using
their own and, and embracing what we've got. And it would be a faster way
to get our hotels back online. And I have many more ideas on that
may not be the place to put 'em all out, but I would truly like to get an agenda item put on where we
can talk about reutilizing, the hot tax, a hotel and
tax fund, uh, in a more productive way in our
buildings, in our town. If we're gonna talk just hotels.
I, I think, I think you bring up a good point, but for me, it's
all about highest and best use. We have, what, 23, 24
hotels. And to your point, two of them are probably still working.
I wanna know why the, the rest aren't working, right? Um, average
revenue per night is like $60, right? That's pitiful.
that attracts a certain type of client, thank
you client or creates issues for us. So
I almost think it needs to go a step further. And I don't know how you do this, but you know,
some of those properties have outlived their useful life, and that's why,
and I'm not sure investing in them is the best thing. And
that's one of the things I think from an economic development perspective, we can do,
be aware when those properties hit the market. And, you know, we need to have,
you know, some developers in our back pocket that we could say, hey,
here's our vision, you know, here's our comprehensive plan. We think
that hotel will be great for you. Name it. Um, and we do the, and,
and we do the, do the things needed to maybe entice them. So I don't know if that's, um,
infrastructure or, or, or some way of getting
that to turn. So I guess my point is, some of the hotels we have,
it might not make sense for 'em to continue to be hotels. And I agree with that completely,
but part of my plan would be they would present us with
what they would like to do to basically plans for some type of
renovation or freight up, and then we would approve them just like a grant tool.
they wouldn't, every one of them wouldn't get an automatic percentage
of their money back unless they were willing to put it in. And we all approve that it would come
through the council or through economic, whoever to approve that. But just
a way of, of getting some of their money back
to them to make everything better for all of us.
to the point you make, randy, and we, we do have a program, david, clarify me if I'm wrong on
the facade program, we discussed a few years back about grants. Exactly.
to your point is, is something we've made available or have had
discussions and made policy about the second part, to chris's point about
what about the clientele of some of that $60 a night hotel? That's
what I'm thrilled most about, is the fact that chief freeze came in. We've all approved this. We
have a tier one, tier two program, which I cannot wait to
see how that pans out as long as we are willing to hold their feet to the fire. And if
they go tier two, the co gets pulled. I mean, there's one way of
cleaning things up back to brand or way, it's enforcement.
and our code enforcement has to just lock and buckle down. Because
I think you'll find that owners of these, let's call
'em certain tiered hotels, don't need to be refurbished. They don't, they don't need a dollar
of our money because their ownership and or management don't
care. They just flat out don't replace light bulbs. So I'd like to see
it split apart where you're, if you're tiered one and you want to have a serious conversation with
this council and this town staff about reinvestment, like, like looking
at the renaissance up the way, um, at legacy
west versus our renaissance as an example, it's night and day. So they
are, they are there to be saved, ie marriott. But when you talk about,
you know, not having a program, we do, correct me if I'm wrong, david, we do have a program.
so, um, so yeah, so I think this is a really good conversation. I
think I, I think actually there are a couple different conversations going on. I think to randy's
point, yes, we can model something after the program you're mentioning,
but we can do one tailored to hotels if that's what council wants, and we can look at using
hot funds. And I mean, that's something, if we wanna make that a strategic strategic objective,
we're gonna start working on it and we'll bring it back as what could that look like. So I think
that would be a template for it structure wise to start and then have a conversation with
council. But I do wanna say to, to chris's point, maybe this, just to kind
of go back to what I think you're saying, hopefully, and maybe try to help that a little bit is yes,
dan, well, you're the programs we have right now to help ensure that the hotels
are living up to the quality we expect is a line that we're going down.
but correct me if I'm wrong, maybe what you're asking is something a little bit different and something might
be in more in line with what we just did on multifamily or, or I'm sorry.
yeah. On, on, on multifamily where we, and, and sin, um,
and be simple ownership where we're brought somebody in and we present it to you all,
here's what the reality is right now, and here are some steps that we
can do moving forward. If that was the desire from council, we could use something
similar to hotels, bring someone to come in and try or, or ourselves
try to, I define why we're in the situation that we're in, and then
have a step moving forward and make that an initiative as we go forward. Which is
in conjunction with the other two conversations. But I do think it's a distinct of what you're asking. Yeah.
I I I think the discussion we had on, um, just housing
products was a, was a, was a really a, a good one, right? And I walked away with,
one of the things that I heard him say was, we need to identify what the next
neighborhood's gonna be. And, you know, um, we need to
be sort of aspirational. We, you know, build something that maybe we don't have, maybe
at a higher price point. But what I meant by my comment was,
and, and I won't get into specifics, but you know, there's a property that is,
you know, right on the trail right next to the dog park that would've been
perfect for, you know, I think, I can't remember how many acres it is, but,
um, you know, it would've been perfect, um, for
some sort of ownership product, right? It's right next to the dog park right on the trail.
um, I feel like just those two things right there are enough
to make whatever was developed there successful, it, and that
property went on the market. That's, that was an opportunity for us. Someone else bought
it, and it's continuing to, you know, charge the 60 or $80 a night.
and I don't know how we get better at that. But, um, you know, I
to your point, I think identifying the sites and then having a few things in
our toolbox, and part of that might be the vision and sharing that vision might
be a good place to start, if I can add to that. So back to chris's
question, which was the biggest question of all, why are people not checking into our hotels
and the rate driving the rate up by occupancy? I would ask
the question of our town staff and ourselves, have we gotten
to the top 20 business owners, mary
kay being one, the hospital being two, when they have conferences,
when they have visitors coming in town, have we pulled them to ask, by
the way, when you have your board coming in for a meeting of 12 to 20 people, where do you
put them up? Where are you recommending they stay? Do we know that information? And if we do,
if we do, great question. I think the mayor, other folks who've been on
the business retention meetings, we know the answer to that. And they're not staying in addison,
they're going to frisco, they're going uptown. Um, that's the answer. And that
is really what's driving a lot of this conversation. But I'll open that up to anyone else. When we do kaboom
town or we sell bundles and packets, hey, you tickets and stay at our hotels,
you get ticket. How do we maybe maybe make that an enticement to the
business owners to say, hey, if you're holding, if you're holding a conference or
you're gonna have 20 doctors in for a meeting and you stay in addison, you get
xi don't know what that is. Is it a, is it a coupon to a restaurant, which I would
think would happen because we have so many restaurants? Or is it the bat box? Is it the
put shack? I don't know. But we have so many resources, right? On beltline,
it's a tragedy that they would go stay at up north or down south, I
think. I think all those things help, but ultimately it's, they're looking for the quality of the
hotel, uhhuh, that they wanna stay at. So that's
the fundamental issue. So some of these other conversations we're having, I think can help that. But
I think all those pieces are gonna help on the margins. But to try to get
folks to really want to do their conferences here, and it should, it's gonna be us working with
our partners to try to improve those. But I don't think that's how you define success
by saying, let's get 20 doctors in here and have one successful
weekend. Or let's have one successful week where we have a nice conference.
I think you get to the point where you ask the question, do we have too many
hotels? And like I said before, can, can those properties that have
probably seen better days be repurposed to something else?
or apartments? Yeah, I, yeah, I mean, I know randy's a big fan
of apartments and I mean, that's always something that we can discuss. ,
some of your hotels were apartments. As somebody who stays here,
I'll just say the first time I stayed here, I always used hilton properties.
first time I stayed here, somebody did not tell me which properties to stay at. I stayed
at the one next to oaked, the oaked restaurant, right? Right. Next door
is a hilton property. Used to be a hilton property. It's now something else. It was,
I, I'll say this, , I've stayed in some interesting places,
, that was one of the more interesting places I'd stayed in. And it was effectively an apartment complex.
that was a very unusual experience for me. I've stayed at other properties here,
and now I don't have a problem staying in town. And I was staying at a hilton garden inn, which is just fine.
but to your point of having nice, upscale, it is an interesting one to have those upscale
hotels, I think that is something that really pulls folks in. And the revitalization
of existing assets, I think is a really great conversation to have. Um, you do have
some older and outdated units, and that's just the truth of it. It, and doing something
about that, whatever you decide is the, is a, to my mind, a step in the right direction.
so that's my, I I'll editorialize a little bit on that, but I'll say the first time,
that was an adventure less than I wanted.
yeah. And, and from what, from what I heard is, is, uh, as we're coming
outta the pandemic, you know, a lot of these limited service hotels,
this, that, that was the only way they, they could stay alive was to go to this
extended stay, uh, business model. Um, and
if, if that's, it wasn't really a choice that they, that they had, it's, they
couldn't just say, well, we're gonna keep charging 80, 90, $120 or whatever.
uh, but we, we need to get heads and beds and to, to keep
the place alive. And so that's, that's where we are. And I don't
get turning, making a turn away from that is, is hard, you know? 'cause it's, you
know, we don't, we don't own those businesses. They're, they're,
they're, they're complying with what they're, what they're approved for. They're, it's a, it's
a, it's a legal business that they're doing. So, um, it's
a, it's a challenging thing and I think it's, it's a good discussion to have going forward to see,
you know, what, what opportunities do we have? It's not, there's no quick solution to it
in any, any kinda way. For sure. Do, do you think
in agreeing with your point that it just gets with the competitiveness,
do you think 30 years ago we may have
approved too many of these and, and rather, you know, rather than been more
selective. So going forward from this, you know, there's nothing we can do about 30 years
ago mm-hmm . But from this day forward, being more
selective and making sure that we don't oversaturate
one particular business over, over another one going forward. Sorry. Yeah. And it,
to chris's point, if there is a way that we can get that redeveloped
mm-hmm . Then you know that that's a great thing to do yeah. In, in all
of the old stuff. So yeah. Anytime those projects come up, that's, that's the conversation that needs to be had.
correct. I agree. Um, that's what I'm going forward. There's nothing we can do absolutely. Right.
in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Bruce, when you had your, your, um, one-on-one
business meetings when you're going door to door with economic development,
bless you. Um, did you notice, like when we used to have the hampton, that became
something other than on beltway, are you, are you seeing that there's more responsiveness
to marriott type properties in, into nick's point that I'm umbrella, ihg
properties, marriott properties, hilton properties? I'm not, I'm not, I don't think I've heard people
mention particular brands, you know, okay. Of, of hotels,
but it's just about the quality. So when they're, when their executives come in, uh, yeah,
they're, they're taking 'em to newer, uh, you know, nicer, nicer properties.
gotcha. You know, and the, you know, the, the two full service hotels that we have,
um, they're good, but they, they, they both need some, some love and,
and, uh, so they're not being chosen by these, by these, uh, the local, uh,
businesses. Dan, I would, I would echo that exactly what he is saying,
because we, we've been in these meetings and we're saying,
hey, we have these two hotels, and they, they basically
say, no, you don't understand. We, we want something more premium
than that, and we're willing to drive 15 miles
to and from each day so that we can have that. So, um,
that, and the other thing I've heard, um, is maybe not the marriott
flag, but being able to tap into the marriott rewards program
being affiliated, somehow that's really important. Is, is what I'm
hearing is, is that, uh, hotel, hotel, what is it? Dax
dax, yeah. Um, you know, that, that I believe they're tapped into the marriott reward
program. And, and apparently that's a very important thing. So those are the, those
are the two things I'm hearing. Um, at the higher level, obviously, we've
already discussed the, the ones who are just trying to survive from covid and
nobody could have predicted. Yeah. That's, that's the point I'm trying to get at bruce, or,
or, or marlin is exactly that. Fly it under the flag. They have 40 names
under certain flags, and that does give street cred when you're a business traveler,
like myself or randy just chimed in. Yeah. I, I do not stay at properties
that I'm not earning something with because I stay a hundred plus nights out of to addison.
right. So I think that's what I'm asking, should we be targeting leadership,
let's call it, of those flag flying brands to reinvest
in our town? That was the bigger opening. I think the market will drive that,
right? Yeah. And it, and it just, your question kinda leads me back to darren's thought,
you know, is, is we're already, we're already targeting
a premium boutique, um, hotel property, right
at the tod where you can kind of see it in various, various places.
but do we wanna, you know, your, your question is, do we want to add it
as a strategic objective? Is that correct? Is that where we're, because I just would love
to answer that, if that is your question and kind of move on. Uh, my thought
the fastest way to get there is to incent and, and to negotiate remodels of,
of the nice hotel. So to, to your point, randy, yes. Not just build one from scratch.
we already got one of those on the books. That's great. Uh, I like your idea, david, as
kind of an initiative is to get in that, uh, presentation that talks about our
hotel stock that we have, the choices we have and the reality, and give us,
uh, some, uh, information to make strategic direction changes.
um, but yeah, I think talking to the, the top tier, I think that we
should be targeting it just like we do 2.8 up there, business and, uh, realtor
relationships. Okay. So, uh, I'm just trying to understand
what you're saying. Do you, do you feel like we need to modify any of these strategic objectives
or change 'em, or I would say we should add one. Um,
if it's not up there, just looking at this revitalize hotels and
meeting space, I'm not too sure that doesn't encompass it. So
I'm thinking 2.6 probably. Does we just, um,
give some of the, uh, patients that's
alright. Do you want us to do that? Do you want us to give
the, the dis our initiatives? The, the discussion is, is providing
initiatives. Right now, this discussion is providing initiatives underneath there, but part of it
is, uh, perhaps a study session. It sounds like could be the right way to go ahead and discuss what
the hotel stock looks like. So there's some stuff underneath, but it doesn't sound like
we're actually creating necessarily a new in, uh, a new strategic objective.
it sounds like we've got some desires to see some specific
suggestions underneath some of these objectives and say, hey, you know, we'd like to see this
type of incentive. We would like to see us talk with the top 20 of this, or,
so it seems like we're already stating some of these and I'm confident somebody on staff is
capturing some of these initiatives as they come up, or we've got video proof of that. Yes.
I'd make one suggestion just based on a conversation I'm hearing. You might say,
revitalize or re you do the microphone, microphone
revitalize or redevelop because revitalize is
a much softer yeah, I was gonna suggest that's
exactly what I was doing, but stronger language. Yep. Okay. That was like
hang out with chair. So we might take a look at 2.6, make some stronger language about that particular
item itself. And the, the other, the other thing that, um, if
you look at initiative, the initiative, 2.2 0.1, um,
alright. You know, there could be some added, added more descriptive
wording than just something like, um, develop the tod properties.
yep. Thanks for that suggestion. Okay. I'm jumping in. I think that's a great, yes. I lit
this up a long time ago. So we kept going down the hotel,
uh, slope, which nobody mentioned the, uh, crown plaza, which
is being redeveloped. I think, aren't we gonna have a really nice,
okay. Sorry, I didn't know that was the name. But what I wanted to say is
tying this into some of the other strategic, um, incentives
here is that we, we said,
uh, public safety's number one, and we said economic development's number
two and mobility was somewhere down toward the bottom. And
yet the biggest thing that we're spending money on is dart.
and I wanna, I wanna relate the dart back to this conversation because
1% or 50% of our, um,
a sales tax revenue is going into dart, which is mobility. And
we can't change that. The public has to change that if it's gonna get changed. But if we
were to re-look at that and those dollars
became available to the town, everything costs money and all of
this redevelopment, all of this is, it's a, it's a money thing. So
in, in the decision whether or not to call an election, which we just did,
part of that is we are spending so much money on mobility,
and yet mobility was near the bottom. And here where
we want economic development, we're in competition with all these other cities that are
non to art cities that have a hundred percent of their sales tax
revenue, and we only have 50% of ours. So I do want to equate that
those two things are connected. That these are not all independent
issues. Mobility is an issue, economic development's an issue.
dart is a part of that. I know it was on a previous slide and I'm getting into
a different area, but I think it needs to be brought into this
conversation because that would give us money that could go toward
economic development to fix a lot of the things that we're talking about. The
citizens have to vote on it, it's up to them, but not calling an election
would have prevented them from doing it. So I think we made the right decision. Well, here's
the thing that gets lost, right? And this is my biggest argument
behind staying into art is
all, all of this is connected, right? And the 17 million
we pay in, we, we can do one to two things. We can, we can exit
dart and we can take that money
and lower the tax rate, right? Use some
of that money like you're saying now and try to
bring in developers or use it for economic development.
the way that I'm approaching dart is I would much rather make
that $17 million investment because
that investment makes us more competitive, right? So if you
look what happened last month, right? There's this company outta fort worth, lone cypress. They,
they purchased 15 3 0 1 spectrum drive, right? 118,000
square foot office tower. That is, that is what we
need, right? So I know everyone in this room knows it, right? We did the
comprehensive plan, the part of the comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plan is who we wanna be in
50 years. The market position report that we did
associated with that just tells us where we are right now. And it's scary,
right? Office is tired. We already talked about the hotel and
how tired it is to me. We're not gonna outspend mckinney,
we're not gonna outspend frisco, right? You said it the other night. Well, you know,
people are going to mckinney and frisco, they're going there because it's cheaper. They're going
there because it's a blank slate. There's vacant land with utilities
already there. Developers can come in and they can build much cheaper. What we need, because we're
developed in the eighties, we need redevelopment, right? To wayne's point, we need people to
come in and knock down some of those hotels and put a product there that fits with
our comprehensive plan. That's the differentiator,
is that rail is a differentiator. It makes us different. We're, we're not
gonna compete dollar wise with mckinney and frisco, but if we make it easier for
people to come into the town, we get more people like l type or spying the
spectrum. There's this flight to quality, right?
we're try, businesses are trying to get people back into the office.
how do they do that? They, they put 'em in places that have workout
facilities, right? Um, it's walkable to restaurants and bars.
we have that. We just need people to make that investment. And I think the thing
to do it is the rail make it easier to get into the town. We,
we got some great ideas to connect the station to all those office
towers. And I think that's the thing that does it. I'm, I'm, I'd like to spend maybe
five more minutes and then take a break. Yeah. I, we can continue the discussion. I just wanna make sure we take
a break here and stretch it out for a second. I just want to add 30 seconds to chris's comment. And, and maybe it's
an open-ended question for the, for everyone in the room is if
we, if we look at the vendor, which vendor is dart and we are the
customer, and if we, if we were to be flipping the flipping the
script addison runs, let's call it addison, instead of calling it dart
and we were the ceos and we were the cfos and we were the board, um,
we would probably, probably take a hard look in the mirror and say, wait, like to randy's
point at one point was I should not be allowed to ride this product for a dollar 50.
it's a brand new, $2 billion train. How we got to 2 billion is up for discussion.
however, should, should there be a process as any
of those have traveled in europe, you can upgrade your car. I can go into a
secured more fancy, I don't care what the amenities are, I can get into a locked
car for $5 or $20, whatever that looks like. I don't think
that that product, that that vendor has challenged themself
to, to draw the audience you're talking about, that
audience and that surveys have been done, doesn't feel safe getting on that product
enough of the time. Whether the optics of it, regardless, I'm not here to argue
that point. I don't think that vendor has challenged themself to
be competitive with that customer that we want coming into our town
to not go to, let's say potbelly, but to go to chamberlains for lunch
or to go to hudson or to go to a full service
restaurant versus, I call it fast service, whether that be chipotle and on
and on and on. Chick-fil-a. I, I I would don't, I'll leave it at that.
I just want that to be part of the discussion. If this is gonna be had, uh, I'm gonna
just say this back to chris and I don't really want to get in a
match here with you, but you're a banker
and if any business came to you and showed you the financials
that dart has, I do not believe you would approve them
for a loan. They have taken on a ton of
revenue and they've borrowed $9.7 billion
and their model doesn't work. And as a banker, you would not approve that, in my opinion.
I, when you're done, I'd look to okay. I I just, I was saying there's
pot of money. I think that we should be looking at my, my que
so so wayne brought up a good point on 2.6. Do we want to
change rev, uh, change that to revitalize and
redevelop hotels and meeting space or no?
yes. I mean, I think it's a great idea. Um, I'd just love to
figure that out and I think that's a good direction to go on now. Yeah, that's
what I agree. Four. I'd like to talk about 2.5 also if we're done with that one. All right.
so leverage just kind of seems mediocre, um,
on leverage. Addison airport, I wrote down a phrase here, position addison
airport as a signature corporate gateway and powerful driver of both economic growth.
that's too long. But the essence of that, I mean,
not thinking the airport is so much of a transportation means, but
more of an economic driver and an e economic attraction,
um, from a corporate standpoint, that's what I would like, that we think
of mo mo many things in addison as a, uh,
a driver of the economy. Like they add some performing arts center that's the driver
of the economy also in a lot of different ways. I, I think that
may be something that needs to go on our objective level as well. Just, just f yi
performing arts center. Yeah, no, I like it. I just, um, I think when we get
into this more, it won't, we won't, we won't put it in there, but maybe not,
not under e well, yes, but maybe not under this. I agree.
kfa, darren, darren is the word optimize instead of leverage? Is maybe that
a better word to use as a descriptor? I, I don't know. Maybe. Um, well,
the full verbiage of that is, is leverage the addison airport to maximize business growth and expansion.
is that the, oh, is, that is. Okay. These are trunk versions in order to fit
on the slide, please. Thanks nick. Like mayor is doing referred to. I thought it was bigger than that.
okay. And at this point, I'm gonna go ahead and just hit the pause button and say, let's
take a break here right now. It's 20 after. I'm gonna call us back at 30 after. So
take 10 minutes to stretch it out here and we'll continue the conversation. Thank you.
alrighty. I appreciate the robustness of the discussion on this topic. Thank you so much for
that. Thanks for the participation in the discussion this morning. Um,
comments are being captured. So again, just know as we're talking, those comments are being captured
as you're indicating preferences as you're talking through potential initiatives that's
getting captured. Okay. Um, also, I just wanna remind you, this is not your last bite of the apple.
so there is additional time in february where things will come back to you. So just know that
it's not inked today, right? There's another opportunity for, for you to see things,
to weigh in on things. So that's just not, I just want to clarify that as well. So as we go
through these discussions, we wanna get the bulk of the work done today. Just know that there's gonna be a little bit
of work that happens after this as well. Uh, with that said, let's go move on from economic development
and revitalization, um, and get into this one, which is financial health and organizational
excellence. Uh, so again, when it came to this, we have strong agreement, a hundred percent supportive.
so nothing here that was being flagged as a major issue. Um, keep
these, uh, so these three were basically straight upkeep, no objections,
full support, nothing here. And again, truncated words
up here. The actual phrasing is sitting in front of you. So if you need to flip to that
for the actual phrasing of it, um, modify. One of the suggestions to
modify was on five four, it was remove and or expanding
and or expanding. Um, and then in this case, the next bond,
uh, the next bond election, there was a suggestion to make it
specific to police department and municipal court facilities. So there was the desire
to potentially make it a little more prescriptive. And in this one, um, potentially
remove and or expanding. I opened these up for discussion
in this case. Are we okay? Yep. Yep. And on these, generally speaking, 'cause there
wasn't any objection to those. Seemed like we were supportive of them.
felt like we were okay. Yeah. Okay. Getting that yep. Preference
out of that. Feeling good. Yep. But some guidance under initiatives under there. Um,
I think it's important to, uh, to measure performance. Bless you. To measure
performance. The town staff does an incredible job
and I'd like to see it measured. I'd like to see, uh, the, um,
some of the measurements be by private sector performance,
um, so that we, uh, we can be kind of,
um, have the view broader than, uh, government, um,
public level, but private sector performance also. So you have the same
or other, other measures in there. Okay. Like I've been talking to david
also, so I think think that's good to carry forth, but it, it does fit under
5.2. Okay. Sorry. So some potential initiatives
in there. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. You know, um,
'cause I, I think everyone agrees with the language on 5.2. Uh, certainly, but I do wanna
highlight some of the work that we have done there. And it, this, it could lead to further conversation.
so obviously we've done our resource maximization the ca past couple of years that
will continue seeing really good significant improvements on that
for the bottom line and just the way we operate. And the next step, which I mentioned to council briefly,
that we will be kicking off is going, uh, division by division,
function by function, and doing deep analysis of are there more efficient ways,
better ways, cost, saving ways, can we share resources
division by division and providing a report on what that looks like. So
I don't want to, obviously that's been there for a while and it will continue to be there, but I want to sh just
note when you see those initiatives, that is a huge focus for us as we go forward.
and so a continuing resource maximization, the next step will be doing those
division by division manage competition type analysis of
are we operating in the best possible way that makes the most fiscal sense?
am I hearing you say re reduce redundancy,
reduce redundancy, just common sense ways to be more efficient.
can we share resources? All of that. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks
for that clarification. That's important. Yep. Absolutely. That's big undertaking and it's
a good one. Thank you. Um, help me with 5.4.
let's maybe hit that one for a second. Yeah, yeah. Thank you nick. Um, so
I was on council back in two th 2018 when we, we created
a, uh, strategic objective to conduct a
facilities consolidation study. And, um, so that was
our, that was our focus then. And, um, not sure how we
got to, uh, expanding, expanding the word expanding
facilities, um, expanding town facilities
specifically. So right now, 5.5
0.4 in our strategic objectives reads as follows,
explore opportunities for consolidating and or expanding
town facilities. And, um, I'm, I'm proposing
we change that. We modify it just to explore opportunities for,
um, town facility consolidation or facility consolidation
rather than, because I don't think we're looking to, to add
or expand, expand town facilities right now.
I think the context of that was before we, when we were kind of,
uh, loosely con considering, uh, maybe a, a new town hall.
uh, and one of the options was retooling the, uh,
the, uh, what are the words, uh,
where we're at now. . Yeah. Conference center. Thank you. Mm-hmm . Um, so that
was the legacy on that. That was the history there. But it's, it's not, it didn't go
expanding. It meant it went into retooling and reusing what we have. And
I agree with you. We need to take off expanding. Are we expanding the
police department remaining bigger? Well,
I think an item of is expanding the police department's different than, let's say expanding
other buildings. I think the general premise that marlin's getting at is the buildings,
the mass of the buildings we have already not looking to expand those. Correct.
correct. Not adding buildings. We're not adding facilities.
the next one addresses the police department.
so does anybody, uh, have any other thoughts on 5.4? I don't,
I'm fine to take it off. Do you want me to modify it?
no, to modify my so go ahead david. So I mean,
it is a good time just to talk about this in, in and of itself.
is there still a desire from counsel that we're looking at further consolidation right
now? We have having the conversation on the police station. We've done what we've done with, with
town hall. When you say consolidation, is that a 10 year, hey,
10 years we wanna look at something? Or is there still a desire to look at some kind of consolidation today?
yeah, I think it's just year to year. Each council is going to modify this
any which way they want to. But obviously we have the finance building to consider.
um, that's an obvious one. Um, and, and, um,
you know, there there's going to be situations. I don't, I don't know what they are right
now, but I, I can see, uh, situations where it is possible that
we could, um, have two f have two facilities
come together. Right. Like that's what we've been doing a, a great job of that.
so, okay. Um, that, yeah. Well, so I think david makes a good point
though. 'cause 'cause we're looking at, we're not looking long term here, but we're
talking about what could we, you know, possibly implement this year.
I don't see, I don't see us doing any new consolidation this
year, or even getting something started unless something, somebody
has something on their mind that, uh, that they would be thinking about. Maybe we don't
need to have that for this year. It'll, it can always come back. Right.
and again, the finance building is an obvious one. Um, but that's not really consolidation. They're
just gonna, we gotta figure out what to do with that property.
so you're saying just eliminate by 0.4, maybe take it on? Yeah.
or maybe something that, something that, uh, has a place to
consider town facilities, uh, because we have the finance building
to consider and then we have some other things. Do we have any, what what
else is left on the, the plan for the town facilities that we did?
I, I mean, have having a, having a conversation on the finance building and the finance
property is the next one to discuss. Um,
so that, that's the next big conversation to have from facilities outside of obviously the police station.
right. So after those two, is there, is there a, a distant
third? I think the, there, the other items that you'll see
in years to come would be, you know, renovations
changes to the fire stations, but that's not a new time soon. Yeah, I'm as
well. No, I'm, I'm good with removing it. Is this not
one of them that we talked about earlier that just kind of rolls over every year and
it, and it's just kind of a, something to keep on there to
where it's at the front of our mind. I agree with the mayor that it won't happen in the
next year, but there's many of these that is just kind of a, a continually
process of keep this in mind for when we do start thinking about it.
other than that, I, I agree. If, if this is only one year plan,
I would agree. Yeah. But well, 'cause because when, when, when we're looking at that dashboard
and we'll say, well, what kind of progress are we making on this? Well, there's no progress. So
if, if we know we're not gonna make any progress on it this year, why not? We,
you know, we could, you know, put it on, on the, uh, back burner and it can come back any other time. We,
we start seeing a need for, for consolidation.
but I just don't see, I don't see us even having a conversation about that this year.
I'm the direction that yeah. But then there
probably is gonna be a lot of these that were, if, if it's not a one year thing, the next 12
must take 'em all off. I'd like to hit the pause button on that for a second, because what we're talking about is a one
to three year, like, I want you thinking of three year horizon for this. So one
year is the actionability timeline. We're looking at the next year and how we're gonna achieve action three
years is the mental horizon. I kind of want, you're working on, because there are some of these that are longer term, shorter
term. So some of these are gonna be in the first year. Some of these are gonna be 3, 4, 5 years.
but what's the action we could take in the horizon that we've got here? Not that we will take
that action, but if you are intending to consolidate town facilities
or that kind of thing in the next three years, and that is something that is
in the foreseeable future, let's have that discussion. If that's not the case, then it would
make sense to possibly remove that. Yes. So if I could offer one thing, possibly, if you kind
of look at what we've done with this, um, strategic objective, we've tried to
try to use it as a catchall to some degree too. Like we didn't have a, we're doing our security enhancements
at the buildings and we didn't have a place for that. So we had, we put it under this one so we
could just, you could make it more broad of, hey, we want to improve and
modernize our facilities and something like that. Which if you say
something like, if an opportunity comes up to consolidate, maybe we, it can still fit in there, but maybe
you just change the verbiage so it can incorporate more of improvements we
can make up. Yeah. That seems to fit a little bit more with what we're doing. Do we, we could just
rename that. Yeah, I agree. Because ultimately you don't want a building that's
not waterproofed or secure tight meaning safety. You don't want our employees coming
to work feeling they're not safe. So I agree with you. I think I like what
david just said better, but I was gonna say why not put explore opportunities for
the finance building and the police department. That's what we're working on. That's gonna
be the next one to three years. But if you want to include modernizing
existing building is in that, and maybe what you just said could be under the initiatives
and not the uh. Okay. Yeah. I, I would agree with that. That seems like a thoughtful way
to do it because we know what facilities we're targeting. We can get specific at that next layer,
that short of a window, one to three years. Those two are gonna come into that.
yep. There's not anything else we're looking at. Right. So, okay, so,
so can you repeat the, the phrasing that you just gave david? 'cause you gave a
phrasing there. This is, this is what happens to me all the time. So I'm just putting you on the spot right
back by you. Right. Can we, we run the tape? We should check with our scribe. Think I said, uh, I think I said
something like improve and modernize, um, uh, town facilities.
um, so leave something like that. We can, we
can wordsmith it a little bit. It sounded a lot better first. I know, I know well,
I I didn't say it with confide, you know. Yeah. I gotta say it with confidence. Yeah. Try it again. Say it with the confidence
that we're yeah. Improve and modernize these facilities.
yeah, yeah. Little four score and seven years ago style. Yeah. Um,
gen generally speaking, do we have some support for that rephrasing
of this? Yep. Yep. Yep, yep. Yep. Okay. Again, later on,
we will give you copies of what the, what these changes look
like. So you'll have the chance to react to all these changes and be able to see them all. So you
have another opportunity to look at them all. Okay. Um, hey, nick, could just for
for a moment, could we jump back to 5.2? Yes, sir. Because the, the, the full objective is,
is is, uh, implement continuous improvement of business process
efficiencies, maximizing the addison way in brand. Mm-hmm . Yeah. So again, we
have the addison way in that, should we just say maximizing the addison brand?
yeah. I should keep addison way in there because this is very much internal and
the addison way is kind of an internal culture. Um,
and it helps keep it in focus. Meaning that we're not gonna cut
to the, to the, to the bone. We know that we're gonna label a little extra on there
because doing things, the thought will way, thoughtful way that we do in addison
requires a little extra. That
was, that's my thought. This was one of the
referenced addison way. It's been baked into several different points. So this
is the discussion yes. To, to me, it's, it's
just, it seems redundant. I, when I read it, I just kind of include it with all the other
stuff that's part of our brand. I agree. Okay.
you agree with removing it? Removing, okay. Yeah. Just
remove towards way and, and, um, brand.
yeah. Maximizing the brand. Yeah. Way. Yeah. Way. And
just take the two words yeah. And take, take out
way. And, and so generally supportive
again, did you have a thought?
okay. I'm good. Good. I'm good with it. Okay. So we're gonna remove addison, that we're
gonna keep brand in there though. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you for that great
point of clarification. Uh, how about this for 5.5 developed plan for next bond
election, uh, police department and municipal courts facilities was
kind of the specific
addition requested to this? Yeah, I, I
proposed that. I was just trying to figure out what we're talking about. Are we talking about what we're doing now or are we talking about
some, some future bond elections? So, uh, I just want clarification.
yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I think we all need that. Right. Staff definitely needs that,
that settled into the police station. Sure.
so can we just be specific and just, um, I mean, I think we're pretty close
to the finish line, but hopefully develop a
police department, uh, bond
election. Well, something to that nature. It doesn't need to
be that specific wording. Please. Do you mean develop a
plan to implement what? The bond election, what the
results of the bond election are imple implement a, uh, police department bond election,
something. Oh, I think, yeah, I would say, um, either imple
implement with a, proceed with a, a bond election. Because if
at first, if you all call an election and if it passes, it would be mid-year, we'd
probably do next steps of, we're gonna go for design and things like that. So I
think something that we just move forward with the process so we could add initiatives
that would be appropriate, get those things happen. Yeah. And I, my focus was is I
just wanna make sure we're talking about the , right? Yeah. Rather than
just like anything, something, another bond election
needs to be specific, right? So, so that's suggestions been put out there, discussion
related to the suggestion of making it more specific versus leaving it
as is a fan of more specific.
okay. Great. Thank you.
it's fine with me. It does. I'm not, either way, I'm fine either way is okay
for you. You, I feel like that captures the lock, the both the plan.
so are you in support of the, the rephrasing or is it more just leave it as is?
I'm, I'm follow looking at as it is. Okay.
half a dozen to 1 6, 1 half a dozen dozen me. Yeah.
okay. I, I personally would like
that this bond election to be in the fall. I don't know if that's
needs to come in here or not. And maybe this develops a plan.
is enc cumbersome of could be may, could be november. I'm in favor
of the fall on this one. It's not, not specific to it. We'll just
decide. Okay. Later. Okay.
at this point I'm not seeing the point to modify it. We're just seeing, basically
leave it as is seems to be the status quo. We seem to be okay with that, generally speaking.
can, can we just go real quick because I think we, uh, what I heard is two
specific, two, two people say, hey, I wanna modify it. Two
said, leave it as is and the others or seem to be indifferent. Okay. So, so we'd
like to hear some preference around the room. Well, I'd like to know exactly, um, where we
stand, because right now it just seems like we haven't figured that out. Fair enough.
I'd like it to be specific, obviously. Well, I, I don't, I don't see a need to, to make a change.
okay. Okay. No change. Specific, specific.
I'm okay with adding police to it specific. Okay. Specific.
I had zero preference. You gotta give one,
develop a plan.
we've already developed a plan for the next bond last, correct. I think that's done.
oh, thank you. We've already developed the plan for the
next bond election minus vote
mode, minus the council vote to take it to an election. Yes.
so I think that's done. So, but it's not complete though.
it's not complete. You're right. Because we're, we're still in development on it. So I think keeping
that verbiage is probably the right thing to do. I, I think you make a, I think you make
a good point that it is still in development. Yeah, I would,
I would, this is not a voting arena, but I would, I would leave it as is.
leave it as is. Yeah. I, I'm fine with the way it is. Okay.
as is, has it? No strong objects. Okay.
thanks for that discussion on this.
at this point, we're feeling generally supportive of this. It feels like we can yep. Yep. And move on.
okay. Again, this one right
here, there is no objection. There's no significant objection. We have consent
on this in general. We have support on this. There's nothing here that's causing
anybody to flag out. Just figured I'd throw it up there and see if we have general support to move on. Yep. Yep.
yep, yep. Yep. You look at us rolling
friends. This is fantastic. Fantastic. This is fantastic. Alright,
now we get into the fun stuff. Yeah. Alright. So
I just wanna preface this by saying we've discussed two different variations on community engagement. One, I'll say nobody's
against community engagement. I have not heard that. I had discussions with you in one-on-one
specific to this topic because it has come up every year. We've meant something different
in different viewpoints, but what I've heard is the exact same thing. So I just wanna stage that, which
is to say, staff's doing a good job in general outreach.
we would like more participation from the public related to specific topics.
we would like something a little more aggressive, door to door style. Something that
is a little more, get into the community and really get after it before it
comes to a vote with counsel. That was the general nature of the conversation. Not that
anything's happening wrong, just that we encourage more of the right behaviors in this. So
there was no desire to get rid of any of these either.
so it wasn't that we didn't, we value community engagement. That's just it. The question was
whether it should be rolled into
vibrant active community or whether it should be separated
out and imbued in other elements of the strategic plan.
so do we take community engagement and start to put it in other areas of the strategic plan?
or do we take elements of this and wrap it into vibrant active community? Those
were two suggestions that have come up so far. That's the starting point for the discussion. So
I'd love to hear your thoughts related to this. So again, um, nothing here that's, and again,
the addison way conversation came up again here. Um,
that's the discussion. Have that, yeah,
I'd love to jump in here. Um, I don't know about others, but it was definitely an idea
of mind. First of all, I think we do an excellent job of community
engagement. Is it perfect? No, it'll never be perfect. There's a lot of things,
um, reaching out to people. But, but as far as our efforts,
um, I feel that they're perfect and we, and, and we've got a ton of,
uh, community engagement. But, um, I don't, I don't really,
two things. I don't really see it when I have to prioritize
as the top seven. And, and I think
a vibrant, active community has, has good community
engagement. So I, I don't wanna remove it. I just think we should
place it as a strategic objective under vibrant active
community. Thank you. Thanks for that.
what's a, what is a vibrant active community? It's
a community supply. Bingo, .
when I read that, that's just one of those things. Are we talking about a physically
active and vibrant community? Right. Or are we uh,
uh, that is just so broad
that it's hard for me to put yeah.
so, so when you're looking at this, are you looking at it also by looking at
the strategic objectives underneath that and the initiatives underneath
that? Because when you do, I think that help will help you kind
of better understand and define what we're, what we're driving at.
but you have to look at as a, as a whole rather than just, um,
three words. But it's the bullet point. A
lot of people, when they read the newspaper, they read the headlines. Mm-hmm . Then you gotta get into
the article. Can't. I'm not sure I can help all those. I'll, I'll, uh, so I, I think I
can some context though, from, from my recollections from a couple years ago when
we came, when we kind of, we scrapped the strategic plan, strategic plan and started over,
we went through all the items that we talked about up front, said, public
safety is one, economic developments two fiscal. Those were the top three were the top
three. And then we came up with mobility and these other ones. And then we got
down to the end and we said, okay, well where are we gonna put arts
and parks and recreation and these thing and commun those type of functions?
and it was kind of a, well, we need somewhere to put these things that are important
to addison together. And I, so it was kind of one of those we worked,
I think council at, I worked backwards to say we wanted to get these things included and came
up with the language. If there is better language, let's change
it. Um, but I think hopefully that helps a little bit. We were, at the time, council was
trying to figure out how do we fit all these other things that we do in addison, but that aren't
public safety and economic development. And those, I I accept that. And,
and I think that's a, an excellent point is, you know, is a vibrant, active community.
one that goes to the theater, one that goes, you know, walks to get a hamburger,
right? Or right. Uh, I I think it's just a such a large
conant, um, with the community engagement. God, it's
so important. And, and I, that's just the biggest question we've got in the room today.
how do you do that any better than we do? And you know, we go to all
these events and we have all these pretty pictures on the
walls of renderings and put a sticker on it if you like it. Well, everybody's
gonna love a beautiful picture. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty. Put a green sticker on it.
well, then they don't get the full picture of, that's
$10 million. You wanna spend $10 million. Is it pretty enough to spend $10 million
on, uh, community engagement, I
think has to be more of a complete education of
the public and engaging. Uh,
we've had several that we've been told that there were public engagement, and I think there was
true effort to have public engagement, but when we actually got out
and started knocking on doors and talking to people down the street, they'd never
heard of this stuff before. Not faulting our staff because they did what they
did in, in their public arenas and all. Uh,
I, I just think this is the hardest thing that a town can do, is
how do you get community engagement to a level? It,
you know, when you have 8% of your population that votes, how do you get the voting up? So
it's all, how do you get more engagement? And that's right.
I think that's the million dollar question that every, every, every city asks that. It's not unique because
we all want everybody to get involved and be part of the community. And the bottom line
is, and the truth is that the overwhelming majority of folks, they don't want to
yeah. They don't wanna be involved. They, they have their own lives. They're very busy. They don't
have time to follow what the city council's doing. You know, as long as the water turns on
and el least they there and fire's there. Happy as the plant you
were describing, most city council people, we were really happy
until we weren't. And we got on council. You can speak for yourself on that. Okay.
because, because that, that does not describe me. Well, I agree. I agree with the mayor.
um, I, I, I think every community struggles with this. We all, we all get
so busy. Um, I mean, I'm on this council and I, and I, I miss
things. Um, so I can only imagine when some of our residents, um,
you know, go through sometimes just because again, like life gets so busy. But I
do wanna say that I think we do a better job than most cities in trying
to get the word out and educate. So kudos to the staff on that. Yeah.
and, and even some of the things that we've done where we've, we've put signs in, in the parks,
you know, to, you know, do this qr code and fill out the survey, you know,
online, we make it as easy we possibly can and people just walk
past it, you know? Yeah. You can't force, you know, people to be, to be involved
in and engaged in their community. And, you know, as much as we, we might want to.
and, and the idea of going door to door,
knocking on people's door and saying, you need to be engaged. You here's this thing coming up. And,
and, and how often do you do that? And quite frankly, I think people would be upset.
why do they, why is the city come knocking on my door? Yeah. I think, I think you
get a different kind of engagement then. Absolutely. Yeah. Not so, not so, uh, loving.
yeah. And, and, and, and which things do you do that for then? We'd
have a constant flow. You know, people out and walking in the neighborhoods, knocking on doors,
harassing people. I, I agree with you. To comment on, on aggravating people at
the door. I I, even when you're campaigning, I hate to do that. It, that's not a popular
thing to do. No, nobody wants you doing that. But when we start talking about the signs and the
parks and that type thing, I am more concerned about
what my residents think. And the largest
majority of those people walking on our trails, speaking from my neighborhood
and going through the parks, are people that don't live in addison.
and I really don't care that they get on that qr code and tell me
they want a bridge across a creek that runs into the apartment complex. And
we should spend a lot of money on something to get the dallas people into addison
on that. And then the people that walk through my park in north addison park, uh,
probably 99.5% addison residence. Correct. Now I'm, I'm ju that's why
I've prefaced it. Mm-hmm. In, in my park. It's different all over town. It's, yeah. And
I have no good answers. Yeah. I don't think anybody does. Or we'd have them silver bullet, but I
would just like that to be a good point of emphasis
is all I'm saying there. And I wonder, I wonder how much somebody that's
walking through addison circle park and they see a qr code to do, to do some
online survey. I wonder how many, if if I didn't live here, I wouldn't even consider
that to do it in another city. So I think that's, I think that's probably pretty low number of folks that do
that. Well, I think we can look at, at our discussion that we've had on dart,
I think the large majority of the people that was sending us emails and talking
were people that didn't live in addison that had no vote. Well, that's, that's
the regional aspect of that. Yeah. I, I'm just saying because they're not just addison folks that
are affected. We are very unique that we are surrounded and we, we are a community
that draws people in. Mm-hmm . I, I'm gonna add to that, if I can jump
in. So we get to go as council members, we get to go and sort of town staff
to these tml conferences, nick. Yep. So you get 1200 municipalities
under one rooftop. Um, and I spend my time sort of not just buckled
to one of these guy goofballs, but sort of communicating at lunch or a break
or on a way to get a coffee with, I'll look at the names on the polos,
right? Oh, you're from x, y, or z town. And some are big and some are small and some are on,
not quite unincorporated, but they're right on that precipice. And they have the exact
same sentiment, whether they have a million, whatever, whatever the size.
houston to addison, the exact same argument, which is
we try our best. And to, to his point, there is no silver bullet. But
to the point of having two separate, we're community in two different
strategic kfa. I just think we need to roll it into one back to his point.
what is vibrant? Is it walking? Is it how pretty the flowers are?
that can all be put in community engagement, in my opinion. So there's
a vibrant act of community, vibrant act community points of
interest. Ie parks can roll into community engagement. 'cause you are gonna ask
them to engage, uh, the obj project. What do you, what do you, we had this whole thing put,
put stickers on the thing, which, which is prettiest regardless of cost.
but that could have been right under community engagement. So it's either take community engagement,
put it on a vibrant, active, or flip it. In my opinion. I would, I would
recommend the opposite in terms of the direction. Exactly. I, yep. I would go community. I'll leave it to the experts
and I'm with you. Community engagement under vibrant, active community. If you were gonna against that would be where I would put it.
exactly. If that's what you're gonna do, can we rename it possibly by
vibrant and engaged community that way? You,
because I think engagement is important. I, and I'm, I'm not stuck to it. Uh,
the, the community engagement, like I said, was because, uh, a lot of residents
felt like they weren't being heard. Um, and, and those strategic objectives.
and I, I'll, um, uh, I'll give, uh, staff kudos for all the different ways they're trying
to figure out how to communicate with residents, uh, the signs
in the parks, you know, great idea. Maybe it's not working now. Maybe we put it on the shelf
and try something else. But community engagement is important. Uh,
but I'm for combining 'em. And I think vibrant and engaged community may be,
uh, a good name for that. Kfa. We keep it as vibrant, active, fine with
that. Combine 'em. I'd love to hear some
discussion around that suggestion. I don't, I don't love you losing the word active
though. Okay. I think that's an important part of, I like, of who we are. We are, I think vibrant is
active, but I'm not opposed to losing or not. It could be
vi vibrant, active, and engaged community.
I don't see anything wrong with that. I I was thinking the opposite of what you were thinking. Uh,
take clean engagement and rolling it up under vibrant,
active. And if we want to throw engagement, I would be okay with that too. Yeah.
that's what I'm getting. You just consolidate these points down is the key point we're getting at.
how do you name it? It's up to you guys.
okay. I like adding them together. Vibrant
and engaged. Uh, active community is fine or vibrant. Active and
engaged. The problem is staff's doing their job. Doing
our job. Hey howard. Oh, I, sorry, go ahead. I, I think the
problem is that staff's doing their job and we're doing our job and the community is not
doing their job. Correct. Although we are getting it out there. I
they're not, they're not, uh, getting the in, they're
not absorbing the information. They are busy. They have families, they have jobs. They,
they're busy. And if it doesn't, if whatever the issue is doesn't
concern them or they don't think it concerns them, they're not gonna show up. That's right.
so, um, this is a tough one, but I
think we need to keep, keep on keeping on. And I, I think maybe
snail mail is probably better than email. I think the friday reports
are important. They're long. And I don't know if people are reading stuff that's
coming through email or, or text. You know, I, I'm surprised these days that when
I talk to so many people that say, you know, I, I, I don't, I never check my mailbox.
they don't even, they don't check their regular snail mailbox. You know, old, old guys like
us. You know, we, we check our mailbox 'cause that's what we've always done that. But hey,
, randy, what, what? But a lot of people, because,
'cause most people are not getting important things in their, in their snail mail that they, that that's
encourages them to, to check that. So that, I mean, that's been, that's a very
expensive thing to do too. Mm-hmm . Yeah. I haven't checked mine in two weeks.
yeah. , randy, where are you with rolling community engagement
under vibrant active community and or some wordsmith of that?
I'm, I, I'm certainly in favor of consolidating. Okay. Consolidate, consolidating
that. And I, I think our,
as big a in community engagement that is becoming more popular,
I think is the friday newsletter that we're putting out. Mm-hmm . I am getting
far more positive comments mm-hmm . From that friday newsletter than
I ever have before. People are actually starting to realize there's valuable
lot of value there. So I really like that. And maybe even,
I don't know how you expand that and make it more, but I, I really think,
I think that's been a valuable tool mm-hmm . And, and I do agree that the
c mail is too expensive, number one. And most
of the time mine goes from the mailbox to the recycling den. So that same,
I I open it over my recycling veterinary garage. Yeah. Oh, you don't? Thanks for recycling,
uh, . No, no. Um, so do you have what,
what you need vibrant, active, and engaged community seems to be the kind of place we're
landing. It seems to be that there's a general tone and tenor that we'd like to do this. It also
very consistent with the conversation. We'd love the community to be more engaged, however they're apathetic
up and until the point where something impacts or affects them, which case they have incredibly strong feelings.
right. And very little information typically. Right. Am I, yep. This is by
the way, incredibly typical for most communities I deal with. Uh, there's one
community that has an overly engaged populace, and that is los alamos,
new mexico. And that's because they're a bunch of retired nuclear physicists with nothing to do. . Okay.
and that is a problem on a different scale. Okay. Um, careful
what ja for it is, it is they have what they call their, the nifty 50 and the nifty 50 show up
to every discussion. And they actually have a, uh, a, a premium that consultants
charge to work in los alamos to deal with those folks because they're
so overly engaged on everything under the sun. So I'll say it's
an interesting conversation to have, but this is a conversation that 99% of the communities I
have is how can we get the residents more engaged? And it is a trick. Um,
you know, there are things, you're doing the right behaviors. Honestly, the newsletter, if that's hitting for you and you're
getting traction, do it. You know, get after that. Um, if, if
snail mail's the right way, well, it's kind of being phased out a little bit. Social media's its own
dynamically hot bed playground, it's not gonna get a, there's just
so much you can do. And then there's gorilla chalking neighborhoods and gorilla
marketing for things that are targeted campaigns. I mean, there's only a handful of
things you could do. You can't make the public care until something impacts them
is my experience. So I'll just say that. But if vibrant, active and engaged
community allows us to better encapsulate what we're after, which it sounds
like maybe it does, is that something that we could work on or, or live
with in, in terms of this? 'cause I, I see them being connected as well.
um, it's just where we want to kind of elevate and, and create, create
that focus. Are we creating an un undue burden
on staff by, by combining those? Or are we combining different departments
or do different departments work on the different areas? Or is that still one basic department
that might even make it easier for them? That's it. It's easier to have
less ks. Okay. Perfect. I just don't wanna put an undue burden on staff if that,
if that's the case. Thanks for asking that. Yes. And we're not, we're not done
with the process either. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. And this will give howard
more points with less ffas, howard gets a win.
so, so vibrant, active and engaged community. Vibrant, active and engaged community.
that was the recommendation. If that's, we okay with that? I feel good with that. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah.
I like it. Yep, yep, yep. Okay. So outside of the language, um, maybe
just provide a little context and example of how we
can and should prioritize community engagement. And by putting priority on
priority on it, it could lead to some of our projects. When you look at the coloring being
red, because we want to go back and do additional community engagement.
so take that and circle park vision study, we add a committee.
we had 4, 5, 6 public meetings. Did a
lot of, we was in the newsletter, did a lot of engagement on that. And we got to a point where we're ready
to kind of take the next steps spoke. We've stepped back and we've heard
folks that still are saying they didn't have that, they didn't feel like there was enough. Their opinion
wasn't heard and it wasn't coming from the ground up. So we're resetting that project
and we're gonna go back out and do more engagement, more pops up popups in the park
to try to ensure that we have that. So by prioritizing that, you
may see some on some of these notes, hey, we're gonna delay this a little bit because
we want to do additional feedback. And that's just us trying to listen to you
all trying to listen to the public to ensure that especially on projects
like that, that they are, they have that community basis support as they go forward. So
I, I just wanted to pro provide that as, as an example of one of how we're trying to ensure
we're not only doing everything we can, but we're listening to was it successful?
and two, while you may see some of those notes on the projects as they
go forward. That's great. So an obs observation I see on that one in
particular, it's a really good case study for a lot of them. Like the buy lanes or
like the quorum or many things is you've got,
uh, you've got a momentum or philosophy of council that's
going this direction and like addison circle, and
then you're doing all the work, and then it starts getting time
to start putting these things into action. And people say, wait a minute, now you're gonna
activate a quiet park that I like, that I moved here for. So they,
they now they're starting to take, uh, take up arms about it.
and now they get very vocal. They, and, and they say, okay, we gotta stop
this. When in actuality there was, there was complete engagement and there
was, there was very much a direction from the, uh, the
council. But now that's tide has changed.
so that happens on many projects. And I, I want to just
point that out. I don't know what we do with it. But then that's
a reality. You did engage, you did do everything. But now when you
actually start doing something, it stirs people up. They get active changes the,
the temperature of, of the, of the council.
so that's how I throw that out there. I've got another one, but I'll wait.
thank, thank you for that. Very typical,
not uncommon. What do we do with it? Yep. And, and
it's a reasonable question. At the point when we've done the engagement and we've gone through the process of engagement,
and in this case even reone through the process of engagement to ensure we've received that,
there will still, in my experience, be many people who are dissatisfied
because the outcome isn't the outcome that they wanted, at which point they'll contact you all
and tend to try and work around that process. And that's, we just have to
recognize the rules of engagement when those moments happen. Did we do what we said we were going to do in
the right ways to get the right type of engagement to the best of our abilities? What it does is,
it is you recently here stopped progress in addison and
it paralyzes yep. The staff. So I,
I'm frustrated with it. Not that I agree with any of those particular points
or, or case studies that I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I, it's, it is frustrating. Yep.
david, so for clarification, you're talking about the obj project that I referenced earlier is gonna
be scrapped and start over? No, we're not. That's, I wouldn't say scrapped or start
over. Start over. Our, we were, and in the budget we had, our next bill was to go in and start having
conversations with council about funding possibilities and taking
those. And in, in that we would be saying, hey, here's what it's going to look like
based on the studies that we had and council direction. But we,
as staff said, we're still hearing from the community
that there's some folks that have questions that wanna get their thoughts heard, even from council.
and so I think it's worth it for us to pause for six months, nine
months, do do some more of those popups, get some more feedback, come back to
you all with that. Um, because in that project in particular,
that's one that has a huge impact on us going forward. It's a long range project,
let's get it right and ensure we're hearing from everybody going forward. Now,
I don't want that to dilute the, what we've heard to this point,
the work of the committee and things like that. But I do think it's worth it to get as much engagement
as possible to bring forward through you all. And maybe there's some changes that are made to it.
um, but I wouldn't say it's scrapping the project. Okay. Thank you. Yep. For people that
may watch this later, can you just tell 'em what obj stands for? So
they, so they know what project you're referring to? You're gonna quiz me on? No,
I'm just, it's actually ojb. It's the offices of james
fett is the co name yeah. The add
farm. Yes. Yeah. And, and, and what it's gonna be affecting. So it's the, yeah. So it's
the addison circle park vision study. It's saying what addison circle park
as it exists now, what could it look like in 10 years? Um, and then
what are the steps to get okay. I, I could just see people saying, what are they talking about?
question. Thank you for that point of clarification. Yep.
alright. We have general ascension to move this to vibrant, active, and engaged community.
okay. And thank you for the robust discussion around this. I think the shared understanding of
what we're after as a group is really important. 'cause it helps staff out when we go through these processes
going forward and understand the challenges with that. So david asked the question of how can
we better engage our citizens? Yes. Did you ask that question, david? You wanted a
conversation here? I heard it. Maybe actually I didn't ask
the question, but it's okay. Yeah, I didn't hear the question because we've been talking about I like that there's a
question that you wanna ask though. Like, let's put it out there just on the strategic, um, the
initiative level. Um, I think equipping one of the
best, uh, community, uh, community, um, uh, engagement
is council people. We're not only on council to set direction,
we're kind of, um, information sources for all the folks that we know.
and, um, if we get better equipped with information
that we can readily have available to share with our residents and our
spheres of influence, then that allows us to, to be more of a, uh, information
source, right? Accurate information source. It's better equipping counsel with information,
easy information. Um, and we get a lot of information,
but maybe it's just the way it's packaged. Maybe it's the way it, it's, uh, the top 10 and
faqs, or what are we hearing? Um, those sorts of things. I, I thought that for
a long time, the better I'm equipped, the better I can be a better council. We're we're ambassadors in a lot of way
to the town, to the town people. A big interface point.
so initiative level. Mm-hmm . Thank you for that. Thank you for that.
yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. All right. Y'all are doing great. Really appreciate
it. Stick with me here. We, the next one up is vibrant, active, and now engaged community.
yeah. Good stuff. Um, so what I'll say is in, in terms of the council
support, 50% supportive, 50% neutral on this one. So a little
more in the, eh, I'm okay about it. Um, I think some of it was related
to the wording and of course this issue of community engagement inside of it, there was a little bit of that discussion,
um, keep or modify. There was one disagree vote on each of these three
things. So again, it's, is it keep, is it modified? That doesn't mean there wasn't support, just one disagree.
so let's just make sure that voice is heard. Uh, activate parks and town assets, gateways
and streetscapes and special moments and events. Were kind of these right here. Let
me just, uh, finish this thought real quick. Um, these were the signals overall that you gave
related to this. These are both in one-on-one discussions as well as open-ended commentary
in this. And so I kind of consolidate these into sentiments so that I could give you some idea of what your signals
look like. So generally positive sentiment. We like the concept of a vibrant active
in community. We don't have any problem with it. Um, high general support, but low overall urgency.
so this just didn't fall in the list of like, hey, in terms of things we gotta be really after this
wasn't just top of the list for that. So let's recognize that as well. Um, again, that community
engagement part and then the narrowing the scope to branding and experience was
the other kind of comment. We're back into the brand discussion a little bit here, um,
with this one. So that's the discussion. I just wanna open it up in
terms of keep modify. I think we maybe understand the intent behind this a little bit better now,
but let's talk it through here. So the please. Yeah. The, the only question I had
on this was 7.2 and I'm just gonna read it. So we can also enhance
addison's gateways and visual appeal of streetscapes to optimize,
uh, addison brand. And I love it, but I just, to me, I
just thought, shouldn't that be under infrastructure, um,
and development. Okay. So I love the,
the objective. I'm just thought it might be misplaced. Where does
it belong? Yeah. Infrastructure and developed. Correct. Okay. Alright.
so let's, let's start with that one, since that's kind of being brought up first in this discussion.
what are your thoughts related to it? It, it, it could be moved to infrastructure and
that could make some sense to us, or we might think that this is okay
where it's at. Yeah. So for me actually, this is the, the aesthetics
of the, of the town as you're driving through, what does it look like as, as you as, as,
as visitors and residents are going through it. Where I think of infrastructure
as those, those necessary things that
we, that we have to have the water, sewer, all those different things, the roads.
um, I, I, I, I see, I, I see this as different than,
than infrastructure. Okay. I, I don't think I would love to, uh, combine them. Appreciate
that. Thank you. Other
thoughts, feelings, confessions?
nobody ever takes me up on confessions, but I think the,
the intent of this vibrant, active community in this, uh, objective was, uh,
what it feels like addison addison's image. And that was
the original intent. It was what, two or three years ago? And, um,
now that we've kind of changed the tone of the vibrant, active and engaged community,
uh, the vibrant community part was to make this something where
addison is alive. And when people, visitors want to come here and
experience the things that we do, we have, uh, performing arts, uh, the art that
we have around here, uh, nice parks, uh, appropriately
in public places, uh, to, to come to addison and to
spend money here and to want to live here or move their office here. So that was the the
an intent. It was an attraction. That's correct. So I I'm fine with
leaving it there. Uh, it, to me it could move to economic development and revitalization.
some of the objectives that are under there enhanced addison gateways because it's,
it's your he image your brand. Yeah. I, and I don't
see this as going into ed either, just because, because I think this is the
vibrancy of the town because we've talked about this for years. That when you are
surrounded by multiple cities and we really have, have expressed
the, the desire to have, uh, the experience when somebody enters addison,
they notice something different that they, that they, that there's a change. And that's,
that's where I see this fitting in. And that's the vibrancy of the town. Um,
and it is just, it's a feeling that you get when, when you, when you come in,
uh, that, that, you know, there's something different. Yeah. That I agree with that it's just, you know,
if it's, if it doesn't, if it moves, then ed would be a better place for me to revitalization.
'cause it's, you know, not just revitalizing hotels and office spaces and retail facades
and so on. It's, it's the whole place. It's the street scapes and stuff like that. I mean,
but again, it's a crossover. I agree with
the two comments that I heard that, you know, it, it's, it's visual and it creates
this feel, um, experience. And that's why I think it
deserves to be under the vibrant active engagement community.
okay. So we'll just do kind of a straight up preference indicator
here. Would you like to see it moved?
if you'd like to see it moved, gimme the hands up in which
case we're gonna leave it where it's at and that's okay. We understand the con. Thank you. It
is one of those things that ties us together and it helps to, so it does have a lot of
relationships to a lot of the other items. And thanks for bringing that, that conversation. Thank you.
uh, other topics about this right here. So we're gonna keep it where it's at. Yes sir. So I'm
hearing from residents on 7.1 that
the ones around the circle do not want all that
activity put into that park. They want to keep the park like
it is and they don't want activating it with all those
enhancements that we've talked about, um, coming into the park, a beer garden
and whatever they, they like it the way it is. And, um,
that's just my comment on that park. I, I don't know about other assets.
they also were very active and, um, loud about
their trees and cutting those trees down. And I'm hearing that
constantly that they do not want our staff coming in and
cutting their trees down without them being engaged in the process. They
feel like those parks are their backyard and they wanna know
what's, what's gonna happen to those parks. And so
when we have people come to the staff, uh, to the council in a work session
and tell us about all these great plans for the park, those meetings need to be
happening with the neighbors that are adjacent to the park and get
their feedback and then bring it to the cows. Okay. That's
just my howard, if I can ask a point of clarification on that. So when you're talking about,
I'll, I'll use, I've used that reference before, is addison circle park,
our want to be central park in new york where it's active people riding bikes,
they're walking dogs. The community members you've
spoken to also, correct me if I'm wrong, want more engagement for their
businesses in the circle. Meaning more human beings get into that circle for one
reason or another, and then go shop, eat, dine, play, whatever that looks like. Get their
hair done, nails done. So am I hearing you correctly that
they, they wanna leave it alone, which means low populace or you
saying they want both ends? They want specific people to come in,
spend money and leave without growing that population at the park. So you think
they're conflicting goals? I do. Mm-hmm . You can't have one without the other. You want more
people. You want that to become central park. We need to re reimagine that park.
it's stale. It's sort of like some of our restaurants or hotels.
so then maybe that message needs to be delivered by
staff to those people who live there. Because the,
the pro what I'm hearing from them, I've now got a lot of friends in the circle. I didn't use
to have that, so I didn't know anything. Now I hear it. They
would like all those empty, uh, spaces
to be leased. They, they want more business in those in
their neighborhood and the park. They,
I, I don't know what I'm getting from them. They like being able to take the dogs in the
park and play frisbee and walk the park and enjoy the park. And
they don't want a lot of stuff built on the park that changes
the park. I I I it is too different, um,
conflicting issues. So, so we need more engagement with those
people and, and, and get a consensus from them. And
maybe I'm hearing from just the small group that I'm hearing from, I certainly
don't know thousands of people in the park. And you have property owners, you have
business owners, and you have, uh, tenants in the apartments and it's, it's three
different groups. Well, and you know, as we were going through that whole project with
that, uh, with the consultant on, on the park, there was a lot of community
engagement, a lot of opportunities. And it still goes back to, you know,
you can't force people to get engaged. And there's the problem from
what we were just talking about, how long has it been since we've had a briefing on this project to
council? 'cause I, I'll be honest with you, I'm, I'm behind the power curve on this. I don't know
a lot about it. I don't think I've been on, we have a, it was prior to you coming on. We
don't talk about it since you been, I would love to, to get more in involved and, and learn
more, whether it be coming to the office and just sitting down with somebody and, and
get it explained or to have a work session item put on it to kind of,
if we're going to kind of, not restart, but shift
back and reimagine, possibly have some kind of work
session on it again. Uh, and and was all of the,
were these plans brought before our new project
development project? Is, is the new development there
going to take some of these things that you're wanting to do in the park and
put 'em in the new project where we can keep our park and still have the entertainment
area that you're talking about? It there was all, all together? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it
was, how, how do we integrate them? Really? I don't know that I'd want a beer garden in the park if we're gonna have
a beer garden in this new development is what I'm saying. Right. And make them work
more hand in hand. I have been briefed on the tod mm-hmm . But I haven't
been briefed on this part deal, so I, I'd like to get caught brought up to speed on it's what I'm
saying. I'll just ask ashley to send us, send us a link since you're new and chris. No,
I'd love that. I'd love that. So help me, howard, are you suggesting we modify,
um, 7.1 or somehow can
I, can I give some input before we well, I just would love to, he,
he started the thought and I'm just trying to make sure I understood what
he's communicated. I don't know. I wasn't, I wasn't looking at
whether we should keep it change. I'm just making the comment that
that issue has, I've been hearing from people okay. That they
are comment, sorry. Yeah. Alright. Yeah, so like for me, 7.1 is
just to what level do we activate the park? I, I, I think,
I think that's, that ton circle area is very dense and that park becomes the
backyard to a lot of people that live there. So it is very important to listen to them. And,
and that's the feedback that I'm getting is I do want some enhancements, like we're gonna plant a bunch
of trees over there, which I think will be great. Um, but it could be that we're
over activating it a bit. So I think that's kind of, for me, where we need to
pay attention to. I, I do think the, the trail that comes through that's gonna be
run parallel to the, uh, dart rail, I think we will get people in
and hopefully that'll be just enough to get those, um, on, you
know, the underutilized spaces to get activated. Yeah. There's certainly
more discussion to be had on, on what the, uh, the final project may,
may look like. And, and it, again, it's a long term project too. That's not
a, not a this year or next year. It's a multi-year
project. And yeah. I just wanna add, you know, we've got a lot of parks and some
of them are meant to be very active and some of them aren't. Some
of them are for children to play. So it's just like, depending on which
park you're talking about, it has different, they all have their own purpose.
so from a tactical, this is very broad, right? This is, we're we're strategic planning, right? Yeah.
so from a tactical perspective, it sounds like we'd like more information on the part and that
seems like a, we'd like more information about what's happening. Well, I hear an update.
I hear an update. Or you want some updates on addison circle. I want visionary study,
right? Is that what you're, is that what you're kind of, is that howard, I mean you're just kind
of, you guys wanting some updates on some isn't that what, uh, I
forgot the initials again. J that's what we're
talking about. So ab we need to,
I don't know. You said we have a lot of engagement. I only learned about it when I got my counsel. I
didn't know. So I get like everybody else. So just to be clear, when I was talking
earlier about paus a project and reengaging that this is the project I was talking about.
so we're already okay. Yeah. So's in the process that I, I love
our parks and we've had several discussions on parks, I think through their, they're one of addison's
crown jewels on our parks area. And I want 'em all activated
and I want people to enjoy 'em. However,
I don't, I, I don't think if activating
our parks means turning them into a commercialized district.
I am opposed to that. I, I don't think putting commercial businesses
inside of our green space parks is where we should
be going. We should be keeping our parks to a level that everyone expects
'em to be, to where they can get out to. I agree. Completely agree with what chris has said. This
is some people's backyards. So, uh, I, I
love our parks. I would like to see our parks activated as a park, not
as a commercial, uh, space, is what I'm saying. Yeah. You don't, you don't wanna overdo it, randy, but it, but
I also think that a lot of the folks that live in the, in the circle, they really enjoy the fact that javin
hops is there. Oh, absolutely. And that's, and that's a commercial, but you gotta, you gotta
do the right things. But it's not in that green space. It's kind of on the periphery, but it is on park
property. I understand. Yeah. I get it. And I really like to, like someone else said,
I'd love to try to get some of those empty spaces that are connected
to that part. Mm-hmm . Filled up. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I would rather
concentrate our commercial activity, trying to fill those spaces rather than build
our own. You just have to be thoughtful about how you do it. Yeah. I certainly look forward to
the discussion. I really wanna find out more about it. Are we good? David, can you inform the conversation a little bit?
it looks like maybe you have a little bit of con con context around this, or
no? I, I think we'll come back and discuss it. I, I just, I guess for folks
watching, I also don't wanna mischaracterize what the project is today 'cause it's not, I mean, it
is, it adds a lot. It has a, it has a significant open space in the middle.
it's not commercial activity throughout. It adds a lot of trees. It has some more activation spaces
so that folks can use that. We need to go have discussion and if we need to remove
things, change things. Let's, that's why we wanna engage more. But I also don't want folks to
listen to this and think it's just gonna be like, shops everywhere. That's not what it, right. Yeah. Thank
you for that. And that's me not being fully up to speed on it. That's what I was trying to
avoid. So thank you for that context too. And this is great. This is the discussion we want to
have. And let's have more discussion about this. 'cause it sounds like it's a really valuable opportunity for us.
it doesn't sound like we've got an objection to this particular, when coming back to strategic objectives
when we talk about this really activate parks and town at, we don't have an objection to that. I'm
not hearing one. At least we like it. There's also, what's the right level, what's
the right location acceptable. That's, that's the how we get it. The
what? So I'm not hearing objections to that. Yep. I'm not hearing
objections to 7.2. We already decide we're gonna keep that where it's at. We like that as well.
7.3. We haven't had a conversation about yet. Special moments and events. 7.2.
yes, sir. Just one real quick thing, 7.2 to, to marlin deal on moving
this. And I know we've already said we don't wanna move it, but that almost somewhat sounds
to me like to be something that should maybe be under parks.
if we're talking about the green spaces between the streets and, and that type stuff.
uh, it seems like that should fall. And, and you're talking about when
you move, come into town, you wanna know you're in addison. It it has to do with the greenery
and, and the spaces in the middle. And anyway, that's just a comment. So,
okay. Um, special
moments and events.
any comment? I mean, again, we had one person object to this, that, which is why I
bring this up for discussion. Is this something that needs to have modification or have we discussed
the reason for the modification to the point where we feel okay about what's happening here? Well, that's a special
moment. Well, I, I think so. I, yeah, I had to read, I had to read the whole
thank you. So, so the whole, the whole objective, it says vision and create
special moments that make people want to be in addison arts
events, uh, addison athletic club markets. So yeah, it's, so
instead of, it's not events. We got events, but special moments. I'm
not sure how we came up with that. Right. That verbiage for that. Yeah, that was, but, but
I get the point of it. That was a specific inclusion by one of
the, uh, I, I think council members who's no longer here, that was a specific inclusion
that was requested as a result of a previous discussion. So I could, I could
see that happening. Yep. Yeah. That's how that came be to your
point that you had to read it. Yeah, I would too. Yeah. People at home don't have this advantage
of having their act, but, but it is all on the website. It is all there if they want
did. And because they're likely not gonna see this powerpoint. Correct.
I just love special mo. I mean, I have a lot of special abuse of town. So
different kind of special moments. Maybe we're after here. No, really? Yeah. I, I have
no feeling. Okay. Yeah. Yep. I'm okay with it. Nick. Okay. With it as
well. Can we change moment to occasion? I, I don't
see it as a moment. I see someone coming in and having an experience
or something. I, I think occasion or experience, I don't know who came up
with that before, but I would, that, that don't, that word doesn't fit either.
with occasion. I don't wanna have occasion, occasion, occasions, special
occasion seems better than moments. Yeah. Yes. We're feeling okay. Yeah.
especially moments. Sounds a little hallmarky. It does. It does. And, uh, I, this one made me
smile when I read it, you know, like, it was great, you know. Um, all right, good. But let's change that to, okay.
good idea. All. Thanks. We're good. I, I don't find good on that. I don't care either way. I do care.
all right. Yeah, I'm not seeing any more objections to this or any
further discussion that needs to occur with this one in particular. With that said,
I'm gonna hit the pause button here. We've been at it for an hour and 15 hour and a half. So let's
go ahead and stretch it out here again for a second. Uh, what are we looking at? 11 36 46.
we'll be back. Okay. It is, uh, are we on? It is
1217, and we will come back in, uh, into our session
from our lunch break and turn it back over to nick. All right. Thanks everybody. Thanks
for a great morning. Let's keep rolling. Uh, we're making some great progress here, and like I said, we
saved the best for last, so that's right.
where's the greatest degree of, let's say, uh, opportunity
for conversation? And it would be right here. So given what we,
uh, given what we looked at in the survey, uh, this ranks at about 10% in terms of q
uh, that, that question one, uh, 10%. And then council agreement, 50%
support of 33%. Strong objection. Lowest overall weighted
average in the overall equation. Um, we had one
that really had no significant objections to it, and that was
improved pedestrian safety. So that's one that I think we have a lot of
alignment. Now, some of the question may be about where and how. We actually had some discussion around
that. What types of areas should we be doing pedestrian and safety efforts in,
those kinds of things. But there was an objection to this. So this is an area where it feels like we have
a lot of alignment and agreement. I wanna keep this in the context of the larger conversation,
uh, which is to say, requests to remove
requests to modify or reframe. And this is the general counsel feedback, so I'll
let you take that in for a second here. Um, again, I'm just
being the mirror.
so in terms of the general feedback, it was, some folks felt market should solve
connectivity. There was discussions around things like waymo and lyft and
uber as being mechanisms inside of this. There was discussion about
scooters and roller blades. Heck, I, I mean, I'm just kidding about
the roller blades. Nobody brought that up. But at the same time, it felt like everything under the sun was a topic
with at least one of you. Um, so the lots of sort of
differing viewpoints on this. I talked about dart being that proxy issue before.
so that conversation was very fluid and flexible, depending on which council member
I was speaking with. So a lot of thoughts about that. Um, the bike lanes
really was the sticking point for a lot of this. There was, I'll say
general and, and again, please, the, the eloquency
with words is a hard one to walk with this one. Okay? But we're not opposed to
bike lanes. We might be opposed to bike lanes on certain thoroughfares, though, on these streets.
we don't love bike lanes. We like 'em as trails. We like
'em segregated from the roadway. We like 'em on non-major arterial streets. We don't
like to lose car functionality in lieu
of bike lanes was some of the conversation. And in others,
the conversation was that is critical to signaling that we are a community,
uh, who is ready for this. Sustainability is important to us. It is what younger
families and younger residents want. It's part of attracting people to the community. It's
an economic driver. So it came under both of these headers and, and it came with very
different voices in this space. So that was the bike lanes discussion. There were specific
issues with at least one or two projects were bike lanes were brought into the
equation. And uh, and I think this came back to that community engagement discussion.
residents in the area, seemingly were not engaged in the way, um, when they found out about
it, obviously it changed the perspective of several council members related to bike
lanes on one roadway in particular, or two roadways in particular. So that came
back and we found out that wasn't wanted. It was just something we were going forward with.
um, and the other thing was the opposition to car
reduction framing. And so some of the framing and the plans themselves, I believe it was the transportation plan,
the perception is there that there's an anti-car framing going on. Um,
whereas the perception is also that everything in dallas relates to roads.
um, you all are a concrete jungle. We love our cars here. That's
what we do. We do cars in dallas and the dallas metro area. So quit trying to make
me get outta my car and walk somewhere. I'm generalizing. But that's the
kinds of conversations I was having. So, yes, go ahead. I can, it might be, uh, on this,
just given the conversation so far for this point, it might be good to go strategic object,
like actually pull each objective up. Um, perfect. Uh,
for example, there's no, none of these objectives say by claims, right? That's correct. So
I think what we, what would be really good, and I'm sure you're gonna get to this is what we wanna hear, is what
language are you opposed to exactly. That would lead leads to that.
um, so I just wanna provide a little bit of that. I think, I think it's wise to go to it one
by one. A hundred percent. And I agree with you. Um, so this is the exact wording and the exact
language in there. As you mentioned, there's nothing specific to bicycle infrastructure, bicycle
plans inside of this. Um, however, we're back to the how
and the how we go about this, I think is the discussion that needs to be had. Also, the varying
perspectives. Everybody here had a great perspective. It was wonderful
to hear that. It's also just very different. We all had a different viewpoint on this and, and
the connectivity. And does this drive economic development? Does it not? Is it a waste of money?
is it a good spending of funds? Right? So that's the discussion. But these are the
specific ones here. I, I would offer up that improved pedestrian safety
had support. Again, nobody was opposed to improving pedestrian
safety. It was maybe a little bit of the what and the where,
but nobody was opposed to it. So I wonder if that one's an easy one
to kind of step back from out of the conversation. Say, you know what? We don't actually have objection
to that. I'd like to add something to that one or maybe somewhere else. Please not add,
but at least have, uh, input from council is, um,
so walkability in texas is like,
so walkability in texas is like trying not to fry when you're walking. Yes.
'cause it's very hot. Um, so it's, it's walkability and comfort.
it's safety and comfort is, is one of the things I'd like to put somewhere
in here. Maybe it's in initiative level, uh, but we're talking about trees
shade. So it's not just safety, it's, it's a, it's a not, and, and, you know, it would
cover things like crossing the, uh, belt line and tollway intersection.
not just safely, but comfortably also. Okay. Um, so that's
kind of something that came up with, with my thoughts on walkability. I'm thinking somebody
walking from the colonnade over to, um, astoria,
you know, making it not just, uh, and, and that's gonna make
us think about planting trees and, and other sorts of, um, nicer
sidewalks or things like that. Something very functional. So I don't know where that goes, but
I'd like it to live somewhere. For now. I'd like to just have maybe
a gen general discussion about this and get, but I appreciate what you're saying, which is when we talk about it,
we want walkability to include some level of comfort with that walkability. So appreciate
that. Uh, edit to the thought. But I, I agree with where he is going with
that, because I think, I think we need to do a deeper dive on
the improved pedestrian safety. And I think there are some initiatives
that we're missing. And maybe that's not a, a conversation for now, but I do think
that needs to happen. It is a conversation for now, and I wanna encourage it.
I think that this is where we should spend our time is having this discussion. 'cause it is the most meaningful
discussion for staff to have some understanding about what do we mean? Because
we are going to go through an adoption process at some point with this, and I wanna make sure
that we have an understanding of where we're all coming from. You probably already do
on some level, but it is a worthwhile discussion. So if you have specific initiatives,
let's talk about what some of those might look like. Not to say they make it in or don't, but at least we
can understand the perspective. Well, first of all, I think all of this, anything that we can do
to address all of these points is its own form of economic development. I think it welcomes people
into the community. I think people pay a premium, um,
to live in residential areas that are connected. Um, and I think, I
think, you know, businesses wanna relocate where their employees can come in
and walk to lunch or walk to pick up dry cleaning or whatever. So I, I do think
that connectivity matters on the pedestrian safety.
one of the things that always comes to my mind is just, we talk about the
trail system, but I know we have this toolbox that we're
working with. Um, but we, we really need
better crosswalks, like getting people across some of our major thefor fairs.
and we've, we, we've talked about it. We've, we're trying to address it, but I I don't see it
as an initiative unless I'm missing it. 3 6 1.
give me an example of one of the intersections. You're talking about wanting people
to cross safer. Yeah. So I mean, we, we've talked about getting
people across the tollway, right? And that's got its own challenges. But,
you know, one of the ones that comes to mind is like, in my area, we, we've built out
some great, um, sidewalks. Um, there's
some bike paths there, but then you get to like beltway and midway
and that's it. There's not even a crosswalk there right now. So randy loves
to make fun of me because I wanna walk to grab a beer and a hamburger. But, you know, if I
wanted to go across midway, um, there's really not a safe way
to do it. It's broader. Yeah. I mean, they need to be well lit
that, you know, there, there needs to be, you know, dedicated something
there. Uh, something more than just paint that gives everyone
maybe a false sense of security. Okay. And
those intersections that, that you're referring to, you can completely
get me on board with looking at alternatives when you start talking about
going across the tollway. That's dallas. And I would
be all on board of getting of, of working with dallas to
encourage them to spend dallas money on dallas, on a dallas road.
I think that rather than addison tax dollar well on there, if,
if we're talking about getting dallas to do something there, I'm uh, absolutely
in agreement with you. But you still, in any of these roads that
you're talking about, even if we wanna talk about crossing the tow
lake, you still have to go across the service road, walk across yeah. And then
cross the other service road. Unless you're talking about exorbitant money of
going up and over, then you're going to have the same issues
with safety, with the, with the crosswalks. I understand.
I agree. And going across, but going across midway at beltway,
same thing. How, how do you, how, I'd love to
have that conversation on what you think would be more safe than a crosswalk and
minding the, the, the walk sites. Yeah. And I never make
fun of you. 'cause I walk to get a beer and burger. I love to walk. Okay. But it's,
it's what do we do and how do we do it in a fiscally
responsible way? And, and I think that's my point. Exactly. Like we, we gave
becky $150,000 to implement her toolbox, which
I think there's some great things in there, but I, I wanna have deeper conversations
and figure out what is the best way to get across midway. What is the best way to
get across beltline? Because I, I do think people want to do it.
zero problem with that talk. And, and let, let, let's look at it.
but you still have to cross the street. There are still cars driving on that street.
so what is the best way, you know, mining the sidewalks
and, and, and that type of thing. I'm all for crosswalk in places. Mm-hmm
. Uh, in addison with addison
tax dollars. Okay. I think we agree. Yeah. Absolutely. And
I think there's many places that we could look at putting
sidewalks along streets that don't have sidewalks to
where you can walk. Uh, I welcome those conversations
to be had. Okay. And in a prudent way.
so, uh, maybe I'll just jump on one of the specific points. And I, and I don't
wanna jump mention chris's points, but not divert the conversation too much on the,
um, the toy, because I think it's, that really is, when it's talking about east west, it's two conversations,
which I think, which fleshed out earlier, which we need to have total east west connectivity.
but it was in a large part talking about over the tollway.
well, fir first a portion of that is addison. And,
um, the conversation we had previously was a larger project
of closing the u-turn and doing something bigger. We don't see that being something that's
gonna move forward this time for a number of reasons. So we can look
at a smaller project that makes it safer to get across in addison,
because, uh, the south side is addison, right? Right. By the u-turn, if
you look at the line. So we can do things in addison, that's not a, not a hugely expensive
project, but make improvements to that. So I just don't want this conversation
because of a previous project we discussed, have us say we're never gonna
try to make pedestrian improvements over the tollway because there are things we can
do in addison. And that's not to shut down that conversation. Just to give a little bit of insight
into that. Um, to the other conversation of just overall, we,
we do have the one initiative that says, hey, we're gonna fi fi we're gonna finish the toolkit
and go forward with it if we want, if we want more initiatives that work
fairly state, we're going to bring back these discussions on intersections in the next
few months. Something like that. That sounds, I mean, I'm, I'm listening to you and we can do more
clear things like that as well. Just make it more obvious when those discussions
are coming, how we're gonna decide where we go. So, um, hopefully that
helps you a little bit. And, um, we're listening to you as we think about what those initiatives could be. I have a
question then, david, you, while you're on that, um, let's talk sidewalks, 'cause that's an easy one. We're
not talking about crosswalks, but sidewalks leading on
going east on beltline. As you get to inwood,
the sidewalk is as narrow as this table. Then you go further
east and you have a section that would be montfort
almost probably be back to the tollway. It's also as
wide as this. Are we talking about widening those areas of sidewalks
with or without ownership of the, uh, business centers? Yeah. Uh,
I mean there's just, we would love to absolutely. I mean, I, I walk on
the sidewalks and they're, I do too. They're difficult. But some of those are tight quarters,
like between by the vop mm-hmm . We,
we are continue to look at solutions there, but it's hard to find solutions that doesn't take
part those parking spots away from village on the parkway. So I
think that's gonna be a partnership with the owners of village on the parkway as we hope they improve the
pedestrian access throughout the entire project. Working also on
that part, on that sidewalk. But, you know, I think it's similar in other spots. It's just
a difficult conversation of working with the private industry, with the business owner
or I extent, and how do we do it. But I think the more that we emphasize it
from a council level, the more that we can use that as we're, as we go forward
and have conversations and look at, look at what those options are. Okay. Thank
you. Yeah.
so, and I would just make a comment about the, the crossing of the tollway. Yeah. We've had a lot of conversation,
all different kind of, uh, visions for that. And some very
expensive and some not possible to do. And I think where we've really kinda landed with that
is that, uh, is getting it to where creating, uh, an environment where
there's more awareness that there's pedestrians, crossing there, making it more visible
could to the drivers. 'cause right now, the, you know, drivers are
fairly inattentive already. So what can you do to, uh, to create something
that, that alerts them, say, I need to pay, I need to be paying attention here.
so, so that, and, and I think we, we can do some of those things that are not hugely expensive,
but can, can take some of our apprehension away every time we see somebody
crossing over there and just hoping they make it. So, so I think it is definitely
a discussion, but I think it's important for us to do that. Um, because, you know,
for, for the folks that are in the hotels that, that, that, that they're trying to
get over the village on the parkway and back, um, it's, I think we owe it,
uh, owe them a responsibility to try to do something to make that as, as,
as safe as possible. I think the number one thing is lighting. It's
so dimly lit where you're talking about yeah. Lighting and, and I think street
markings and things like that, you know? Yeah. If it was lit up, you can do some different things. Yeah. Yeah.
smarter people than me. I would wholly look forward to that conversation.
and this is, and I appreciate you saying it. This is the first time I've heard that
removing the u-turn lane has been taken off the table. Uh,
all this canopy over the top and all that is no longer the vision of that. If,
if the vision is truly trying to just improves
safety going across with lighting or some kind of
crosswalk activity, you, you won't have a bigger fan. Yeah. Some
of those things really might not have been, might not have been a, a vision or
maybe I used the wrong word, but it was part of the discussion, right. What are the different options we
could look at, you know? But once upon a time people talked about, you know, putting a deck park
over the, over the tow weight and that that was it. Probably put a green
dot on that picture when they saw it. Big green dot, big green dot .
yep. Great discussion. Yeah. Other thoughts? Yes. Yeah, I'm gonna
jump in. Um, I think, I think when the, uh, the cotton
belt trail gets completed, specifically the portion, uh, traversing
over the tollway, we'll we'll share a lot of insights
as to some other things that, that can be done when we're talking about, uh,
crossing, crossing the tollway, um, in the, in the
feeders and so, so forth that, that connect with that. Um, when I, when
I look at 3.2 and 3.6, it's just, I just wonder
with what we're talking about, it just seems like we're we're wanting to improve
pedestrian safety and then also maybe add something that to the
level of comfort to that. So I just, I, I just, I don't see
this major focus with improve east west
as a need as much as just overall throughout the town. Um,
and produ improve pedestrian safety. So that's, that's one thought.
um, the other, the other thought I had is we did the, we did the survey
and, and we, and we spoke, nick, what was that, three weeks or a month ago or
something like that? Um, doesn't sound like that that long, but
a lot has changed, right? A ton has changed. So,
so, um, you know, where I had some, some different thoughts
on 3.4 and 3.5, you know, those, those thoughts have changed.
um, and, and I no longer
want to change or edit that at this point because we just, we've
got a lot up in the air that we need to, uh, resolve. Um,
so, so I was one of the ones that said, hey, let's let the
market, uh, figure out first mile, last mile, let's let
entities like waymo, that kind of thing. Let, right now, I just kind of feel like we need
to keep that up there and, and that's our problem, our problem to solve.
and until it's solved, it's not solved. And, and, and we shouldn't remove it
or modify at this point. I think that'd be premature, but, um,
um, my change would be strike
3.2. And if we want to add some, some wording that darren suggested,
um, I'm, I'm open to that. You said a strike
3.2. Well, I think it's covered in 3.6.
there, there was a specific discussion when this about the east west being
the priority inside of the, the, the connectivity. And, and I think what you're suggesting
is that it no longer needs to be specifically called out. It could be placed under 3.6
or, or implied inside of 3.6 that east west is the type of connectivity
or that we're doing with it. So it could be improve
pedestrian safety and connectivity, or improve
pedestrian safety, comfort and connectivity or something to that
that encapsulates the east west. The other discussion that was had at that time, if
I recall correctly, and this is why the addison way and some of these other things had made it in there, was
we wanted to specifically signal to the community certain things, hence why
community engagement was called out separately as a key focus area. 'cause we wanted this document, which
is public facing, to be something that indicated our level of
interest in certain activities. So that's why that was called out separately,
is we wanted folks to know east west was the priority when we were talking.
so just flavoring the conversation a little bit. But so the two, uh,
strategic in the initial, I'm sorry, the initiatives underneath the objectives on
3.2, uh, two of 'em are striked out. So they're they're gone. Yep.
they've been discontinued. Uh, 3 2, 2 3, 2 3. What about 3, 2, 1
and 3, 2, 1. Um, is the only one left.
um, you know, I I think striking
what the title of that is, improve east west pedestrian connectivity, that was
so vague, um, to we, we could
rename it to, uh, improve strategic, uh, pedestrian
connectivity. And one of 'em would be specifically for that intersection.
'cause even though, uh, the dallas, uh, ntta in dallas
owns part of, uh, the crossing at the tollway, it's still in our best
interest to get people across there. And it, it's for, uh, for addison's good,
uh, for village on parkway for the hotels, for other, uh, parts
out on montford addison's side. So
maybe that will be so that we're specific about those because there's
a very important business process for pedestrians. Think about that. That's,
that's just not top. I'm stuck here. One more time. Um, just
if we keep it as three, two improve, um,
strategic pedestrian conductivity or business focused pedestrian conductivity,
uh, you know, thinking about crossing that intersection at the tollway.
um, and other places may be getting across,
uh, belt line, you know, towards the west end of addison
walk. So that's really crazy. Um, things like that.
maybe what we keep up there, but it, it easily could go under three six also. Well,
yes, you're talking about initiatives with those though. And I think, I think marlin makes a
good point that you could probably get rid of three, two and make it three six in. That's
what I understand. Safety and connectivity. We keep it at the strategic objective level,
then we would wanna rename it if we don't, uh, and we just strike it. I'm not opposed
to that. Yeah. Saying that. And I think you could, you could combine it with 3.6 and then move
that initiative over to that. I completely agree with that. Yeah.
I'm on board with that too. And then on board with that. Okay. We're getting a lot of support
for that, that concept. So let's talk about how three six should read. Let's talk about
we're striking three, two, let's talk about how three six should read so that
it encapsulates it. So we had strategic connectivity, I believe improve pedestrian safety
and strategic connectivity. No, I love it. Just the way it is. Improve
pedestrian safety. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. Keep it simple. Whether it be, keep
it simple, whether it means getting across midway, whether it means getting across or
coming down beltway. Whether it means putting in a sidewalk,
the less is more, in my opinion on this kind
of stuff. Okay. And, and I'm bringing this up because we had this discussion earlier.
lack of specificity caused us to go ahead and say we need more definition around certain terms.
I'm just making sure that we're clear enough that, and we are having the discussion so
staff understands what we're after with this. I just wanna make sure we're, we're dialing it in at the right
level. Well, if the, with east west pedestrian connectivity, if, if that
was intended to be more specific. That's where the confusion to
me comes in because it's so broad. We've got it. Not if I don't, I don't think you include east, west.
I, I, I'd like to see improved pedestrian safety and connective connectivity.
'cause it's, it's two, two separate things. I agree with that one. Okay. So 3.6,
improved pedestrian safety and connectivity and connectivity. Yeah. Alright. And I'm going now wait a minute. You're gonna have
to define connectivity for me on that then. What are we connecting? I it's
pedestrian safety is my concern. Business centers is what we're connecting. Yeah.
I think restaurants to employees, I think they're already connected.
we just need to make them safer. But, but can we improve the connectivity? Well, it
improve pedestrian safety is what I'm saying. Well, and I'm saying connectivity because we wanna, we wanna
make it better and easier for people to get around as pedestrians
as connectivity. But the connectivity to me, meaning we're connecting, you know, it
could be the end of a trail to the beginning of a trail as they get across
a road. I mean the, the, the connectivity I think is important. I just think
you're throwing mud, mud into the water when you look at that. Pedestrian safety is, is
where my concern would be. And that would include
if they're trying to walk someplace, put a sidewalk in or trying to walk across the street,
we got a good cross street. Well, I think it's you whether connectivity's
a priority for us or not. And and for me, for me it's a priority.
and I mean, and to have it separately mentioned I think is important. I agree.
when it comes to this connectivity conversation, and I'm just throwing this out here, does connect major destinations
in town. Thank you. Also, that's kind of help to that gap gap for us. Yeah.
and then when we're dealing with the safety issue, does pedestrian safety target the
type of this that we're after? I only bring that up. Just I think we're being redundant
if we put that in six. I I get your point and I get your point.
connecting major destinations is an important thing. Con it
does, it doesn't connectivity's a bigger thing than just that because you, it's talking
about connecting trails with neighborhoods and those other parts of connectivity.
those are not major destinations. Those are just making it easier for those folks that
do wanna get out and walk or ride a bike or whatever. And we are doing it. Yeah.
right. Every time we get some development and we, we it's happening. Correct.
we're just putting in and writing now. Yeah. No, I think, I think it's important to keep the keep and
connectivity as, as part of 3.6. Agreed. What I'm hearing though is we agree
that 3.2 should go yes, correct. Yes, correct. We do have general ascension on that. Yes,
yes. Correct. Okay, so 3.2 and now the
question becomes how 3.6 reads. I, I think, uh, to your
point, it could fit under 3.5. The pedestrian connectivity
things could, you know, we could say, okay, that's connect major destinations.
that's the west side of the tollway to the east side of the tollway.
and in this case that's, um, initiative would be, uh, pedestrian connectivity
and the next initiative under there may be a, uh, circulator, which
frankly the circulator could solve that problem also. I wanna propose something else.
um, I, I wanna propose that we would keep what
the mayor suggested on 3.6, improve pedestrian safety and connectivity,
but that we consider rewording 3.5
and, and strike major destinations and insert points of interest. So
connect points of interest in town. So we're talking about something much larger
than village on the parkway. And it, because it could be the mo
it could be the addison athletic club. It could, you know what I mean? I think if you did that then
you, then you wouldn't necessarily have to include connectivity in three six. 'cause that
might cover it then that one's, well, one, one I'm thinking pedestrian. And then another one
I'm thinking, um, some type of shuttle, uh, shuttle service or sonder
side, two different, two different, uh, products. I understand. Okay. But yeah, I mean I
think you could do that in three five, make that change. And then you could leave three six just
as it is. Uh, if you did that, your support, just so you,
what you suggest is support. Yes, yes. Absolutely. So what's I'm looking, what's
being put out there is that three five would change too. And can you say it again for us? Points of just remove
major destinations and insert connects points of interest in town. Yeah. And then
we leave this as improved pedestrian safety. Yeah. Yes. I have written
down and comfort. Did we talk about that? We kind of said
that can go under initiative, initiative level, but
uh, you know, comfort would kind of be
like, uh, moments. So it's kind of a little squishy.
okay. Yeah. And, and comfort that, because that can also go with some of the, uh, the other, uh,
what was the last one we were talking about with the, with the, uh, the vibrant inactive community? The vibrancy. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean I think that should be something under the points of interest
or on a tree. Five or three, six. Okay. That comfort is is and it rolls into parks
and trees, I mean right. Yep. Just it's more of a, it
weaves through a couple of different places. I appreciate that. And I think there's ways to put
that in there. I think it does fall embedded inside of initiatives as opposed to being
a specific call out in this case. That is my perspective, you guys. Yeah. And I know they're taking notes here,
so that's good. Yep, we are. And uh, that's perfect. And so connect points
of interest in town. Okay. We're feeling good about that. Yeah. General
preferences. Yes. Yes, yes. And then we've got improved pedestrian safety. We are still liking
that. Yeah. As is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
okay. We're plowing through it. Friends. All right. We, I, yes. Oh,
I wanna talk. Go ahead. You got something else on that? Oh, he said we were plowing through
3.1. I wanna talk 3.1. Thank you. I do too. Yep. What does that mean? Give
me a definition of that. Exactly. Thank you, randy. I'd prefer not to. No, you, no,
you're just, 'cause I'm the person in front of the room. I mean, you know, I would like to strike
that. Yeah. Well it's not his document, so, so somebody else I'd like that I'm a mirror, you
know, mirror, mirror on the wall. Um, you know, let's talk it through three. One, one is
done, isn't it? Almost done. Well, that's what I'm saying. So why is it there? If
we're going much of this will,
it's almost outdated. Well, it's done since we first
talked about it because things could change. It could get put back in later.
I would like to strike 3.1. I think marlon would disagree with. Yeah, I just totally,
yeah, sorry. That means then tell me. Yeah, I I just think we've got
a ridiculous amount of work coming, uh, all around the tod oh, I, um,
uh, I see other transportation options that aren't here yet, whether that be
waymo or verti port, I don't think that falls under the category of
major north dallas transportation. Now, if you wanna reword it
into transportation to our points of interest, uh,
that could do that. But being a major north dallas transportation
hub is the words that that have me. Correct.
didn't you kind of drive this one last year? Do I remember that? Um,
I drove it. Yeah. I, yes, yes, yes. And, and I thought we also covered it when
we covered mobility, um, a few weeks back on that, on that
we do item. Um, but, but yeah, I, I view us having
an opportunity. Um, uh, I'm not saying we're
gonna be bigger than dfw airport or love field, right?
but, but with all the various, uh, mobility options that
we already have and that we're adding to the mix, um, the, the
more we can con uh, connect people that are coming
off the airport, some of them to maybe some other mobility option,
uh, that we might add in the future, I think, I think that's
very, very powerful. And that's, that's one of the ways where we become
maybe the most, uh, relevant, uh, place along the silver line.
I'm still not following you on a major north dallas transportation hub. If
you wanna say have an addison transportation hub,
I can go with that. But I, I, I, I'm just,
I guess I'm not grasping your vision on what you're talking about in three one.
so, yeah. Uh, I see that as what we have now
in dart with their transit station right there
as, as being the hub. Everything coming in. Yeah. Yeah. So I
don't know. I so what if, help me help see your vision. Yeah. Multiple points. Yeah.
so what if we had a, um, in the future, what if we had our own
circulator, right? That was, that was, um, connected
throughout addison and maybe just a little bit outside addison. What if we had
a, um, you know where a verta port is? Okay. So what if we had
a verta port, um, somewhere over there by the,
uh, south of, of addison circle park that's not coming in the next year
or next three years, but go ahead. Right. But, but we, no, we do
have to plan for it now. Right? We've got a addison airport master plan, and
if, if things like that aren't in the master plan, then, then we're then staff's
not focused on pursuing that. Well, I thought we'd agreed earlier that we were talking about
in the next year to three years. So is your challenge with
the word major, major north dallas? Yeah. So what if it just, what?
it's just, if we dropped, uh, major north dallas and just said significant
and, and hub, to me it seems like we're just taking a big swing and we're trying to think
big, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Yeah.
so that's my aspiration. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way that I see it. I just look at as vague.
I don't like north dallas. Yeah. We're into addison. What, what were you
we're talking about what addison's going to do, but we rely on north dallas to
rely absolutely only 17,000 people, you know, will make
my points go ahead. That that's what I'm telling . But I mean,
it's just like everything else. I mean, we're not gonna get there if we just think about addison
alone. I mean, we need to, but this plan is for addison track
people here. No, I agree with that completely. I just,
major north dallas transportation hub just
doesn't ring true with me. Okay. It needs to have a,
an addison heart
and I'm having trouble with build out and hub. Yes. What's build out precisely
what is build out and hub to you? Um, kinda like
what I just described. I mean, some of it is gonna be infrastructure. I mean, uh,
verti port is gonna require some infrastructure, right? You're
gonna need to land someplace, someplace safe, someplace relevant. They're
gonna need charging, uh, for something like that. Um,
uh, also talking about circulators, um,
we may need to have a a, a certain
main, main hub for those circulators. I don't know what that's gonna look like yet, but,
but I do believe that, um, that we can, this
is, this is not something we have right now, but I don't think it's something we're that far
from not in the, not in the next three years in the airport.
um, they need things like this right now and in the master transportation
plan, if we're even gonna start marching down that path of ver deport. So in
a hypothetical, fast forward a year from now, and there is no dark transit
center that goes away. Is that the area? You're talking about redevelopment as a,
to land these aircraft and to have these waymo's secured and things of
that nature in that, in that area. Okay.
basically you're talking about the center, the center of the town and the new heart of the town.
okay. And I don't have a problem with the word hub. I just don't know that it needs to be in all caps.
well, yeah, that is like a big is. Yeah. I'm, yeah. I I just,
I understand where you're coming from. I like that vision. I just don't think it's within the next
foreseeable future of this particular connectivity thing.
I I, I'm not, I'm not gonna fight you on it because I could live with it
or without it. I'm just saying north dallas build out of
a north dallas transfer state hub, I don't think's gonna happen in the next three years. Yeah. It's,
it's, it's just hard to know what, what, I'm now on your page. I'm, I'm in agreeance
now I understand where your head space is at. Another way of saying it for me is if
our voters decide to stay in dart, like I don't, I don't want that site
to be average. I want it to be the best it possibly can be. And if we can become
a major north dallas transportation hub, why wouldn't we try to get there?
well, I agree, but then we'd be at to dart amir better than make than major
premier. Yeah. Okay.
I withdraw my objection on that. Simply, I just want
to say, I would prefer to say addison and then
this was designed to be more aspirational. That was the discussion around it was, it was going for
more aspirational also the, if I recall, the reflections were along
the lines of we have to start planning for this now in order to actually make
progress on it if we wanted to. And this was one of those discussions related to
if we have folks coming here and we're the place where they connect, then they'll stay, they'll shop, they'll
work. That kind of thing. That's the nature of the discussion that I recall
was it is more aspirational. It also has some real deliverables that happened on
a shorter timeframe that needed to be addressed in order for it to make the plan. That's what I recall
around it. Yeah. And, and, and I think the, uh, the having it there and keeping it there as,
as part of our strategic plan is, is good. And it important to do that
one, it keeps, keeps the top of mind for us. And if those
people that are in that, in that world, in that space with that technology
are looking for a, a location, they see that as part of our
strategic plan that might help them in their decisions. Okay.
I have no problem with that. Mayor, that I withdraw my call
to x there. Good discussion though. Oh, this is, this is the discussion we should be having. We could
a fork in there. We could change it to north texas transportation
hub, premier north texas transportation. I think we were good. We that too big. I'll, I
think it's swinging big man. Yeah. . Okay. I prefer premier to major. I
agree with mark. Sorry, dear. Whatever. Okay.
I don't know if anybody cares. It's one word float to har. Hmm.
a har what do you need? Damn.
I just, am I going?
I working my, there you go. Uh,
so just a couple points about the initiatives on this. And this is, so, I mean, I think you
all basically saying this. I think this is obviously as we go
through the year one, where the initiatives are gonna change depending on where everything
lands. Um, particularly on the ones that we've been talking about. I mean, first mile, last mile,
can the, the way we've changed 3.5, that's gonna be dependent on how everything plays out
for the rest of the year. So I think you're gonna see a lot of changes on that. But I also think on
3.1, this conversation, this conversation has been very helpful for us.
I think there's things we're already doing that we can actually highlight as initiatives
in three one, but to hear this conversation helps me to crystallize some
of the things we can do with initiatives on that. So it was helpful to hear this as we start
to develop that, I think you'll see some changes to those as we go forward. You know,
my, my opinion has changed on first mile, last mile
before going forward with our vote to po to have a a
a vote. I, I, I would be adamantly opposed to first mile, last
mile, that's somebody's responsibility to get himself to and from the bus. Now
that we, that we are going to be looking at other alternatives
to transportation, first mile, last mile is what I'm hoping we can provide
our residents. So I I, my my opinion has certainly changed
on, on that and, and I wanna keep that in. Okay.
yeah. So based on what I'm hearing, we're moving through this and I really appreciate
the thoughtful conversation. I know this is where the devil's in the details and the way that we go about
and the, what we're doing is the big part of this conversation. What I'll say is we've
talked, one, I didn't, I heard some suggestions for change. I heard motions withdrawn.
I don't hear premier north texas, texas, the world. I don't
know where we are in this, but I'll say that it sounds like there's not a really strong, and again,
remember this again, agreement or record. That's, that's the space
we're after. No significant objection. It didn't feel like there's an objection to keeping it as is
for now. So let's keep it as is unless anybody really wants to hammer me on that.
we're gonna roll on your word visionary changed my mind. So I'd like to see visionary
put in ex in marks up there, but I'll leave it at that. Okay.
okay. Good. Okay, good. Yep,
yep, yep. We're not feeling it on in. We're out with, uh, east,
west pedestrian connectivity that is gone. Yep. Correct. Three, three is something we haven't
discussed. Three, four, we have not discussed. Three. Five. We're okay with three. Six.
we're okay with, uh, I thought three with modifications. Points of
interest with points of interest. That's right. Correct. Points of interest is the change that we made there. I'm sorry. Three. Three and three
four are the only other ones up there. Uh, when it comes to this, any significant objections to
update and implement the master transportation plan?
I'm sorry, can we, can we jump back to three five again? I thought we made another change with that. It
was, uh, it was, we were gonna add connectivity to that one. It was connect points of interest
in town. Points of interest. That's all right. What I said. Yeah. Yes,
it was your exact phrasing, so I'm glad yeah, you agree
with you. And that is what's important here is that, you know, uh, that's good. So mimicking me,
, I love that. I love that. Look at that. Uh,
but, but help me with this. Uh, three, three and three four. Well, lemme try three, four real quick. It
sounded like we maybe had, because again, three weeks ago maybe we had some objections. Now we
don't have the same objections we did to that. So are we okay with three four? Correct.
we're okay. I, uh, okay. And maybe, um,
does the circulator fall under there? It does for me. Does for everybody
else? Yeah, it does for me. Cell microt transit, uh, point
to point falls under there. That's, that's the definition of all that. Yeah. Points of interest. I just wanna make sure.
yeah. Okay. Which is all of that is why I would yeah, right.
continue to have this in for myself. Yeah. Okay. Good.
good. I I have a question on three three. Does it, uh, address
bike lanes under three three that would I, as I would assume that that
is where bike lanes exist at. There's only one now. Not, not in the initiative level. Really.
I was so wrong. The only initiative in three three is to complete the plan
and implement it. Um, that I will tell you all
at this point. We were on a schedule to wrap that up very soon. We
are gonna delay that until we see how everything plays out with dart.
I'll give some caveats to that. We're gonna, yeah, we're gonna delay to say, oh, because the plan
will change naturally. Our master transportation plan will change if
we are not in dart, that is not gonna delay the pedestrian
toolbox and the toolbox implementation. We are gonna continue on that. We may bring that,
we'll bring that separately. We'll approve that separately. So we are gonna kind of separate those
two. But it, it would not make sense for us to adopt a master transportation
plan that we could potentially have to revise in six months.
but that is not stopping the toolkit, I think. Okay. That would've been less. Okay.
I, I do have a question though. Where in, um,
these initiatives are we picking up, like possibly having to find
replacement for dart? So based on
my impression in this discussion, it would be both three four and three five, really. Three five is
where it would primarily live. We're saying connect major points in town. Um,
and three, three will be part of inside the master ation. So I, I think you
could probably see different pieces of the initiatives all the way from three three to three five. Um,
you know, we're, some of that will be fleshed out as, as we have the discussion on february 10th
about what those options could look like. Um, but if there needs to
be verbiage changes to make that more clear, I mean, that's something that we're open
to. Just, just did, did you have thoughts on that?
um, well, you know, the, the first mile,
last mile and connecting major destinations in town, I don't know if that really
picks it up. I mean, but before we even put an initiative
on there, I, we probably need to have a conversation on what
do we really wanna provide? Is it something just to addison residents? Is it
providing someone who might live in richardson but works in addison?
I think that's what's coming up on our february 10th. Yeah. So I, I guess that's where I'm going. It is
I part of it. We'll have that conversation and then I guess at some point that'll become an initiative.
yeah. 'cause the initiatives can change. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And,
and yeah, and that's what you would see is you would see the initiatives be modified as a
result of the discussions you're having on the 10th. Then you would be able to come back and
the plan would still function. However, you'd have a few initiatives underneath that that might
address exactly what you're referring to. I got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. Uh, and I, I guess I just want one
piece of clarification. As you were wrapping everything up, you did a good job and you said, hey, three,
two is going away, but I wanna make sure what I am hearing is
that, is that become synonymous for the beltline crossing. We're still gonna have an initiative that's
literal away the toy. Sorry. Yeah. We're still gonna have an initiative that's looking at a
smaller scale safety focused crossing that we may bring
back. I just don't want you to see that as initiative and say, well, I thought we could wrap that up. Three
six, I think is where I'm with that. Yeah, perfect. Absolutely. With you on that.
so something, um, so there'll be other items
with the, uh, transportation solutions with or without dart.
uh, that may, that we'll define further in a council meeting coming
up. If they don't particularly fit under one of these, are we just gonna make 'em fit somewhere?
initiatives or we're gonna create a new objective? It's possible that you could
create a new objective as you guys have that, as y'all have that discussion. Um, it
could be that they fit very neatly into one of these. It could be a part of, and I think that's the catch,
which is, is it actually implied inside of one of these or something that could get rolled up
under there? I think it's a little cart before the horse. It's hard to make that call
because it is such a major call. It would be more of a placeholder. It
it is a little bit. Okay. And, uh, it could we add in another objective, but it also could be
that we're taking some initiatives underneath there and saying, hey, they belong under
connecting a, a, again, the, the points of interest in town. Just wanna make sure
we're, we're okay with adding an objective versus, um, not
having a place to put something. If it needs to be the case, I would say yes. And you'd wanna do
that before you do formal adoption. I would say in general though, if it does fit under here,
and then of course next year, once we know where things are going, we can
have a much clearer conversation about some of these things that have a little ambiguity right
now because of the vote. Is there something specific in mind right now? Or just
just the thought? Yeah, some of the things that may not fall directly under it, like the, um,
paratransit, um, express bus downtown. Some of those things that's,
you know, kind of just not up there right now. I've got a
list of them. The other one is, um, with regard to what you mentioned,
david, about making sure that the tollway and belt line crossing
is still on the radar and is still an active. Um, do we,
and I it is kind of an initiative level. Do we have like an inventory of, of
the pedestrian crossings that we want to address? I think we do.
it looks like it's in 3 6 1. That's the toolkit. That is the toolkit,
yep. Okay. 'cause I know we have a tool, but part, it's a toolkit, but part of the toolkit. But the toolkit will be how we
address them, but as an inventory of not inventory of tools, but in
inventory of crossings that, that are gonna be the ones and sidewalks, other pedestrian
things. 'cause I, I mean there's a lot around there. I'd like to get an inventory. I wanna
hire a consultant to do it. Maybe we can walk around, have howard walk around with the notepad and murder
it. Law. Law. Well it's beers and burgers. Hold on. I'll do it too. .
by the third beer and the third burger. The crosswalks are gonna get real interesting. But yeah. Inventory
inventory's there of all the things, all the places we need to do.
yeah. That's what we're bringing. Okay. We're good. Thanks. Excellent.
the perfect at this point,
I think we've hit a nice point here for a second. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna call a break. We're gonna compile
all of the changes that we're discussed today. We're gonna print out
copies so that you can see those. And we will do one more review of the thing. So I understand
what you see in there. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is we're gonna have a review of
everything. We just came up the modifications, so you have one more chance to take a look at it.
one more chance to make comment on it. And we're gonna wrap up the day after that. So that's my intent is
we'll have your actual wording changed on the fly. Some printouts
will be coming. So we'll take a 15 minute break here just so we can stretch our legs unless
we have one form. Yeah. Nick, I've got an idea. Yes, sir. Um, so we removed one of our key focus
areas. Yes, sir. And we can just leave it at that and, and be more focused
on, on six key focus areas rather than seven.
or we could add, add another key focus area
and we would retain seven. And my thought coming into this meeting
is that we would do what we did, but also add, uh, addison airport,
um, as the seventh key focus area, just because it's such a major,
um, part of our okay. Our economy. And it's
a major, uh, differentiator. This is the point
for that discussion. So you're suggesting adding a seventh related to the airport. I'm suggesting adding,
adding, uh, addison airport as
as a key focus area. Is it currently fall
in yeah, I was looking, I think there's various things, uh,
active out across apple economic development. Yeah.
because it's in the leverage addison airport. So you're just wanting on the
strategic specific. Yeah, it, it, I think it, um, deserves, uh,
big, big focus that it, it's not getting right now. It's a really big deal.
um, there's already, um, initiatives we have that are scattered around,
um, in other key focus areas. Um, but obviously
complete the addison airport master plan, stuff like that. Um,
um, complete taxiway bravo. We just, I don't
feel that that we as a council are focused in on
that as much as it deserves. We do a lot of work with it, but,
but I think we should be more focused. I think it's a big asset and
I think we overlook it. Like I mentioned earlier, there's, it's a, it's a corporate gateway and it's a driver
of economic growth, not just on the airport economic, I mean, not really on the airport
economic growth, but on the whole town economic growth that it's, it's an asset
for the corporates that, uh, are here, are nearby, do business in addison.
so, uh, I'm, I mean I'm not stuck to it, but I'm in favor of a good conversation of it
being a k of a. Yeah. I'm not opposed to that
if I'm not opposed to it.
so then we have to take that a hundred points and now we got
another one that next year, if I was trouble year next year we will. Yep. Next
year. Now that it was a fine boys not to do issue
selling next year, it was hard. I was happy we went to six, but I, the airport's
important. I'll make it 500 points next to your council member. Okay.
absolutely. The math is too hard. It may not be, that may not be enough.
marla. You come up to 104%. There we go. Marlon, do you have any four, do
you have any flowery language to go with that or do you want us to come up? Um,
I go, are we gonna do some wordsmithing? We could, we could, uh, with
all this stuff, are we probably not the key focus areas, but I don't need,
I mean for me, addison airport, it's as, it's as for the
key focus area. Wording or, or what strategic objectives, key focus area. We,
we'll just try to think of words to make it have the same tense as the other ones. Something like that. Yep. We'll, we'll figure
something out. Addison airport works for me, but if you've
got something better, great. Okay. Thank you. Would would federal control
or federal funding of that airport, or, or would,
would that cause us any problem in doing this? I, I agree that it is, it is an asset that
we need to constant, it needs to be one of our concentrations. But
is that it's a, it's a different animal too. It's, it's
an animal of a different shape and color, so. Correct. Um, is there
anything that would prevent us from having that as a key focus area? Well, then
I would support it if that's a no. So what all kind of things do we want under it?
so, so let's start with, first of all, ascending it to a key focus area. I'm hearing general, but I want
to, I want to have a preference indication that we are on board with it being
elevated to the level of a key focus area. Yep. So if you're on board with that. Yes. Alright.
I'm getting the general yeses. So the air. Yep. And we're gonna give you 500 points next year. And I hear you on
that. I just, just for howard, for howard, how you're gonna, I'm the, I'm the ignorant one
here. 'cause I really don't know anything about this airport. Not at all. So it seems like the airport
kind of runs as its own entity and, and
we approve a lot of stuff for the airport. 'cause they're funding it. They're self-funded. We,
I mean, I'm not opposed to putting it in here, but it, these things seem to
be like we have direct input in the airport, seems to operate independently.
I don't know if that makes a difference to whether it's, I mean there really is no they or not,
there is. No, they we are the airport. You are the airport. So
you're the airport just like your parks and rec, just like your public safety. So,
um, and that's, I mean, and I think whatever we can do to help, to not
think of it that way, if this helps us to not think of it that way, then I think it's a good improvement is because,
um, you're just as much the airport as you are. That's one reason I'm supporting this
is because I don't think we think of it that way as much as we should.
and it will give us more of a inclusionary feeling for the airport.
and I mean, going back to your major north texas hub deal, is that where that would fit
up underneath? Yes. I mean, yeah. Mm-hmm . Part of that. So both of those
would be good. And I also think there's some contributions to the general fund
that the airport has now that we could grow. That's why I would support it being a,
a focus. Right. David? I, david, I'd ask that and maybe bruce, you
chime in on this. Um, is it a part of, and maybe I
missed it, our friday newsletters, could that be a part of what was happening at the airport
call? What's happening at the airport maybe once a month? Some people that
do read that newsletter versus being passed over so much.
yeah, we do. We can continue to, to do that. We could be emphasizing it more. We
have a lot of stepping to friday reports that go to you all. We do do newsletters and
frequently, but we can make sure we do, we can, yeah. Just if something exciting is happening at the
airport, that'd be great. Absolutely. I'd like to suggest then that we're taking this
one right here related to the addison airport 2.5 and moving it immediately underneath that
seventh. Yeah. So it area and then work on drafting
additional strategic objectives underneath that. Is, is it acceptable
to move this? I think there, yeah. And I mean I think there's a clear one that marlon mentioned. It
was complete the airport master plan that will be certainly a strategic, you know, strategic objective.
okay. Complete the airport master plan. Yeah. Okay. And
right there, that's not dissimilar to number four, which is we've got two under
it as a starting condition, which gives us a place to start the discussion from as
it comes to the airport and, and how we're valuing it or what we're
doing with it as a focus area. One more time. I'm sorry, could
you repeat that? What I was saying is that we're, we're not being inconsistent. We've got number four, it's got two
strategic objectives under it. We've got the airport now that has two strategic objectives under it. And so we've
got complete the airport master plan and then this one that we had here, which is leverage the add
addison airport. Those two feel like strong starts in terms of
strategic objectives for the airport in general. Yeah. Yeah, definitely in the master
hub transportation hub. I mean, wouldn't that fit up underneath the it
is partially, but, but transportation not just the airport. It so
it, it's connected to that. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
if we're, okay, I'd like to hit the pause button here and let's try printing out what we've come
up with here and have a just a moment to read it and react. Yes sir. So
initiative 5.26, like I'm trying to, I'm, I'm having a hard time
figuring out where that 5.2 3 6 6, 5 0.26.
you're, you're, you're looking at a sub-bullet. You're looking at an initiative, you're looking at the initiative level
initiative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean we're, I don't have the initiative levels up here. Yep. What I'm getting at is
sustainability. I know we had a really good conversation on that last year. Yep. And I feel like we haven't
really done much. So. Yep. I
mean, I would like to bring forward more sustainable efforts. I think it can
be part of our brand. I think it attracts people to the town. I don't know where all
that fits in. Again, we haven't done much from last year, but you'd
like to see the conversation on sustainability elevated and you'd like to see more progress made on those fronts
is that I would, in, in encapsulation, I would. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I know we've got a, an initiative
out there. I'm, I'm guessing it focus it, is it
falling under, well, if it's under five two, this one, organizational excellence.
yes. That's financial health and organizational excellence. It looks like if it's 5, 2, 6, that's
where you would have it at. It's right here. So I don't know how we get there. Um,
well that's an initiative, chris, so I assume that's certainly something we could probably put on the work session at
some point and get an update on where we're with that. Okay.
well, fair enough. I mean that's, I think if there's, so
that initiative we're gonna continue to do because it's on the plan. But if,
if your goal is to ask council if they want to elevate sustainability
to a strategic objective with more initiatives, I think this is the time. If that's what, not
trying to put words in your mouth, but if that's what you're trying to do, I think that would be maybe a way to ask council.
yeah. I do think there are some things that we can do, um,
to improve on what we're doing. You know, uh, you know,
we've got plenty of older or multi-family properties that
don't recycle at all. I know we had years ago looked
into some pilot programs to see if we could
offer that and that kind of fell along the wayside. Um,
you know, I I, I don't know if we recycle in every single town
building, but I'd like to make sure that we are, um,
you know, I, I just, I know we talked about last year had a, had a decent conversation
and I'd like just to maybe take the pulse of everyone and see if there's any concern or
would like to elevate that. I I would, but where would it go? Under
what? Kfai know, I, I guess that's why I'm asking.
I mean, the fact, fact that it's just an initiative right now. I mean, I I, I'm,
I'm good with that, but I wanna do more than just have it
as an initiative. I, I would love to just see what we can do,
you know, as a council, um, to maybe elevate that a bit. So, so
if it were a strategic objective, would you put it under five?
like organizational excellence or, or what? Um, well, that's where it is,
right? That's where it is right now. There we've, we've got one that just says elevate potential opportunities
to improve the waste and recycling contract at the town. And that's an initiative,
right? That's right. Yeah. And so, so you're talking about elevating
something, sustainability, uh, as a strategic objective
objective under five, right? I'm just trying to understand the thought.
yes, yes. So, okay. So what, how would you word that
sustainability, um, focus on sustainability? Um, improve sustainability?
something, something broad? Um, yeah, I think so because, yeah, because
I'm not a hundred percent sure what that would look like. There's probably some low hanging fruit,
like trying to find a way to get some of our multi-family properties that aren't
recycling to recycle. Uh, what about improved sustainability
options? I think that's a good, I mean, I'm just spit balling here. I'm, yeah, I've
got a better idea. Choose your efforts. Efforts,
I think is a better word. Yeah. Efforts. Yeah. Okay. If, if
you were talking about trying to get people to recycle and things that we already have going,
I absolutely agree. And I, I almost would think that would be
just direction to staff to say, start recycling at, at our facilities
and, uh, approach apartments with it. If you are talking about
this sustainability in the way of we're going to increase,
uh, uh, building codes that we're builders have to start,
uh, building at a higher level in, in expense,
uh, um, and getting rid of cars because they have
emissions. I would be absolutely opposed to any of those efforts. But if you're
talking about simple recycling efforts or picking up trash
efforts, things that we already have in place and
we're just trying to encourage people to use. There you go. You have a, you don't have a
bigger fan than yeah, that exactly what I'm saying. But I don't want to impose upon our businesses
that they have to meet these higher no, I would, and I would never do that. I never, I've
never want to you increase the cost of doing business in addison. But I would like to know, I
think that's a great point. Do all of our office towers recycle? Do they offer,
is there something really simple we could do to allow them to do that? Do we have commercial
entities in town that might have a product that they're throwing in a dumpster that we might be able
to help them recycle? I I, I'd like to know that like all the restaurants
we have, I was just gonna, there's a way to reduce waste in some of the restaurants. Some
restaurants have ling. If we, what if we added 5.6
improved sustainability options, efforts or efforts? Efforts. Pardon?
I efforts said options. Just one.
'cause obviously great conversation, but you're most mainly focused on recycling.
sustainability can be a loaded term for some folks. Would you be okay with just
saying recycling or do you want to keep it maybe where other things could fit in with, I guess that's
where sustainability is what triggered me. Yeah. I guess that's just where I'm
challenged. I, you know, yes, recycling is part of sustainability.
um, I just don't know what else is out there. I was trying to, and, and we can, and we can,
we can start by saying, hey, let, let's try to improve
our recycling efforts and then see what steps come, pops up next baby
steps and say explore recycling sustainability.
sustainability is the slippery slope that then we start talking about in other
places of the world, trying to get rid of gas appliances and,
and, and putting different emission levels on
buildings and it starts stifling things. Yeah. And I don't, that's what triggered me.
if you are talking about the, the let baby steps. Somebody said
that. I said we can start doing that. Baby steps all supporting.
I think if we can start with one. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to, yeah, I just want, want to kind of back
up just a little bit from that. Really good, good, good discussion. And
and the idea is great and, and I like that we have the initiative here
for me. I don't, I don't, I don't see, I, I don't, I don't feel like that's important
for us to move that up as a strategic objective. Rather
we should, we, we could give staff direction to kind
of elevate this on their priority list because it's already here. I don't,
I I, I don't really see, if you look at that initiative, two, uh, 5, 2, 6,
um, it's, it's already there. You know, I mean, I just think we should
maybe just implement it at a, at a higher level or give it a higher priority.
that's just my thought on it. Or maybe just add to that initiative. Improve recycling
efforts. We could add other in, because I mean, I could,
I could I, let's support that. Yeah. Recycling efforts from initiative perspective. If we're getting some
reports back from staff on what's happening and we obviously want a little more visibility into
the topic. And if staff is coming back and reporting out on that as an initiative
to you, we would just like a better understanding what's happening. What are the impediments
that are created? And having worked in a number of communities, there's always impediments when it gets into that conversation. So it's
like, what can we do to remove barriers? What are the opportunities available? How can we enhance
what we're doing? We'd like a greater understanding of that. Does that help elevate it on this? And
I, I think part of what could be the future, it's a baby step
now, but let's take a look too at, you know, what are the other opportunities for enhancement
that create choices? 'cause it sounds like we're a choice based council, right?
we're not looking to mandate, we're looking to create opportunities for folks that might otherwise
prohibit it. Is that, yeah, that sounds good to me. Okay, so, so let's recognize that
that's an initiative that's important and we do need, need some more discussion on it. Yeah. And I would, but I probably would
like to change the initiative or at least add, improve recycling efforts. 'cause it gets into
improve the waste and recycling contract for the town,
including commercial recycling. Recycling. I think we can, I think we have two initiatives. I just,
we're gonna take this and I think based on this conversation we're gonna have multiple initiative related.
I agree. I appreciate good. Yeah. Yeah. Quick question, david. Um, like give quick
example to this point, and I, I should know this answer, but in our, in our own
city, in our own town parks, if I throw away a water bottle, I don't
remember if it says just, just a circular trash bin or it says recycling goes here
and the other half is waste it. It does. It has,
they they are there. They are there. I just, maybe I haven't paid attention to park or it should be a
trash you have, but maybe that's that effort he's talking about where you, every park
has a split trash can going forward space. Okay. Thank
you. Thank you guys. Okay. Thanks for raising that issue. Appreciate
that. 15. 15. Alright, so we're looking at 25
according to that, which means we're coming back at 40. After at 40 after we'll be reviewing what
we discussed today. Okay.
ha having to do with the airport that the big discussion we had on moving it
over to an objective here. I,
is that appropriate to have such a broad category
just airport in there? Uh, being, being that,
or is there a better way of saying that
other than airport? There's a better way of saying that other than airport.
I don't know off the top of my head what that might be, but it could be something like activate airport
or, you know, I think there's some additional phrasing you could throw
into that. I think it could be something where staff comes back and makes a recommendation
on how to rephrase the key focus areas so it's consistent with others in terms of that. Okay.
um, and we can do that through this process. Do you have any ideas
on that? Is there, is there a better way of saying that than an airport or? Well, I'm, I've been having
the same thoughts. I can't think of anything yet, but we are gonna have a work, so
we'll have a work session in february where we just touch base on this and then we'll adopt it at
the subsequent one. So maybe homework february. Right? We'll, we're gonna think about
it. I really like the fact that we're putting an emphasis and focusing on it, but
it just doesn't, you can suggest it feel right the way that that
was lifted for a moment. I was kind of saying public safety is similar, but public
safety also means, right. So as long as we can come back and address it and
have a, have a further conversation on, okay. I own at least like it changed to addison
airport. Correct? Yeah. Because it's not just airport
like a movie, isn't it? Right. And if it went to activate addison
airport, it turns into aaa. That's like a battery. But this sounds like a
credit rate or a car. Maybe not. Maybe not. Yeah. Yeah. So addison airport maybe is a
starting condition. We move it to that call, call that the, the kfa
for now and we can, as you said, maybe some homework is to think about a, a better
phrasing for that key focus area for that february 10th discussion. But, but having
it listed as an individual one, I mean, that's
not indicating to anyone that there's a problem. 'cause I don't think there's a problem with our
airport or management or running a public safety or, yeah. Uh, especially
there's that it's the high priority. Right? And, and we don't have, you know,
any other department or deal listed and I just don't want
the airport people to think, we think there's a problem with the airport either. So
anyway, further conversation would be appreciated on that. Yep.
thank you for that. How would we name it?
addison field? You know, no death. No. How about
addison runway? Addison air airport?
what step
say where you want.
thanks
tap
seems like it captured what we were I captured what we did. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. We're feeling it.
yep, yep, yep, yep,
yep. You try. How you gonna yy up through the last moment of the thing? We're
outta here. Yep, yep. I love it. But hey friends, if
we're there, then we are. Yep. Yep. Um,
so with that said, I wanna say thank you for the thoughtful discussion. I really enjoy
visiting this community that you all are leading here. It's always exceptional to come
back to addison and spend some time doing that. I look forward to some safer road crossings next time
I'm back in town. Just kidding. Just having some fun. Uh, and that, that was 'cause of the ice. That
was 'cause of the ice, you know, that's not it. He was like, that's right. Look
forward to recite. I don't wanna make it across the street on my third burger and beer. I just wanna make sure
I'm crossing safely. All right. He's listening. He's listening.
so with that said, that's my time with you all. I appreciate all your dedication today.
thanks for the thoughtful commentary and discussions. I really appreciated the one-on-ones, the survey, the
time and all of that. So thank you for that. I'm sorry I, before the end here,
uh, I wanted to discuss on council is, is this the time to do
this? Do we want to consider doing this in february? 'cause when I came on council,
we did this strategic planning right after election,
like in may and I had asked to to move it to this time. So when I thought every several
years, we should consider if it makes sense changing the
timing of this. Um, I like it now. He gives staff plenty
of time to, to prepare. Just wanted to throw that out there as a, any conversation
if anybody's really, I prefer this timing actually. Yeah. I prefer it. It gets
hard too compressed after election. Yeah, I would just provide some contact. I would tell
you every city in texas battles this because of our elections in may
and our budget in october or you know, in september as we're going through the budget process.
so the benefit of doing it now is it is in advance of the budget process
and it really helps us to guide that. But it also means we could have election turnover
in may, not just a few months after. The negative of doing it
in after the election is we're right in the middle of a budget. So you don't have a document that helps us guide the budget. So
there's no easy answer. So I think it is good periodically
to bring that question up to say, is this a time that works? Um, there's a lot
of benefits to doing it now, but there is that big drawback of, of the election. You know, the
one idea I had was, um, we could just push it
back maybe two weeks, something like that. And sometimes it would just
remove the question of, of the, the new counsel turnover, if any.
um, it's just a thought two weeks after,
after filing. Oh, that's about what, after half filing? After filing
deadline. It's about the same. We're do we'd doing it the same time a year. Roughly.
you still could have turnover. Well, I would, I would. You still could, but sometimes you'd know you're not and you'd take,
remove that question. Yeah. If it, I think if somebody's got it in their head that they're thinking about
running, that if it's important then they wanna be here, that they would be here.
uh, but most people don't come anyway. Yeah. And, and, and it's uh, it's
one thing to be in the room, but if you don't have a voice, it's just kind of, but
those are my thoughts. So if anybody's not, but they wouldn't have a voice anyway. Correct.
yeah. I like this time of year. Yeah. Before you get
too busy, right, everybody. Exactly. I'm out. It's february, I'm out. Yeah. So
good then. And I've said it before, it is hard when,
you know, especially if you raise your hand, you, you wanna be involved in
the town, you have to run an election, sometimes incur that expense,
and then you get on council and you don't have, you really don't, you didn't have a voice. You're
operating under a strategic plan where you, you didn't have a voice. You inherited it.
and, and we've talked about that before and I, I heard you everything that you just said. So
I mean, I don't know if I'm opposed to it, but I just thought I mentioned there is, there is
something to be said about pushing it back to after the election to give someone who
spent the money, spent the time getting elected, have a voice in that strategic plan their
first year. Well, and you know what though, chris, I think if somebody's
gets elected for the first time, and if you went to, to do this right after you
got elected, you, you'd be lost anyway. You, you, you'd be, you wouldn't
have that much input. So your voice might be kind of quiet for, for some
folks. Hunters, sometimes some folks might not. I wouldn't have known anything. Yeah, agree.
I mean, ma'am and I think it's a way better, I just thought I'd throw
that out there, that there is another side to it. But I, well, I came on to council, I was exactly in
that position. I didn't know anything yeah. About anything. And the o other effect
is like randy came on and he inherited a strategic plan that the
budget was coming up for and nothing to change. So a lot of questions and,
and you get to inherit something you may not have had any voice in. But, um,
coming on right after council is literally a waste of me being there. I I just,
uh, felt so uninformed, ineffective. So I I I'm in favor of having it now. I just
wanted to bring it up for con conversation. No, that's good. I like this for people
watching this at home and thinking about being on council or on one day,
I would highly encourage them to try to get involved in processes
like this. Correct. If only sitting in the room because there is a different
feel and you get more out of being in the room than you do watching on your
computer. Absolutely. As much as I appreciate them watching at home. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different feel.
and it's, it's, I I would highly encourage them to get involved in a lot of that stuff. Yeah. And, and this,
and doing it, you know, offsite like this. And, and it's a, it's a more comfortable
conversation and it is just discussion. I think it's really helpful. Yeah. But
yeah. You're hilarious person. Alright. Everybody good? I'm good.
we good? Alright. It is 1 55.
we are everybody. Thanks. Are we.