All right, welcome to the meeting of city council. We are at frisco city hall, the georgia pure 4 municipal center and council
chambers, 6101 frisco square boulevard in frisco, texas. It
is 511 p.m. On tuesday, march 17, 2026, and I will call the meeting to order. We are joined
by the entire council this evening. That moves into closed session. Item 2, recess into closed session in compliance with section
551.001, texas government code, item a, section 551.071, meeting with the city
attorney. Regarding a matter in which the duty of the city attorney under the texas
disciplinary rules of professional conduct of the state bar of texas conflicts with the open meetings act
regarding 1. Receive legal advice regarding proposed interlocal agreement with collin county, texas, and other political subdivisions
for the use of the collin county animal shelter and related issues. Item b,
section 551.072, to deliberate the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property. Located 1,
north of stonebrook, west of preston, east of dallas-north, tollway, and
south of el dorado. And item two, north of el dorado, west of preston, east of dallas,
north tollway, and south of pga parkway. And item c, section 551.087, deliberation
regarding commercial or financial information that the city has received from a business prospect. Or
to deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to a business prospect I have a
motion. Motion by brian. Second. Second by laura. All
in favor? Aye. Passes 6-0. Recess an executive session at 5-12. All right, council,
can I have a motion to reconvene? Motion by bryan, second by byrd. All in favor? Aye. That passes 6-0.
as a result of executive session, there is no action for council to take. And we are reconvened at 6.31 p.m. And I will turn it
over to laura for the invocation and the pledge. Good evening, everybody. This
evening, our invocation will be provided provided by jessica skidmore,
pastor and executive leader at elevate life church, where she serves as the executive
director of experience. She oversees key areas of ministry and helps shape the overall
experience of the congregation. She is also married and has children. Elevate life church,
also called the cathedral of frisco, is a non-denominational church founded 26 years ago
by lead pastors keith and sheila craft. Thank you and welcome for praying
for us today. Thank you. It's truly an honor to be here,
representing elevate life church and serving our community by offering tonight's
invocation. So good evening, mayor. And all the council and everybody, the guests here
today. So please join me as we bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly father, we come before you tonight
with hearts full of gratitude. We invite your presence into this place and ask that you preside
over this meeting. Thank you for being a god who loves us and for the unique purpose and
gifts you've placed within each of us. Thank you for the opportunity to serve our neighbors and
to be good stewards of the people, the resources, and the responsibilities
entrusted to the city. Tonight, we lift up our mayor, our council members, and every member
of our city staff. We thank you for their service and dedication to this community.
we ask for your provision, your favor, your protection over each of them
and their families. Lord, grant them wisdom beyond their understanding.
give them strength and courage to do what is right and what serves the common good
of all citizens. May every decision be guided by integrity, humility, and a genuine care
for the people they represent. As they consider the agenda before them tonight,
we ask that you guide their thoughts, conversation, and decisions. Bring clarity
where there are challenges and inspire creativity as solutions are discussed. Help this
meeting to be productive and fruitful. Give them a spirit of unity as they work together toward the shared mission
of serving the city well. Direct their words, decisions, and actions towards the right
path. We thank you, lord, for the many people who serve and strengthen our community. And
all those that work each day to make this place we call home
such a wonderful city. May the city continue to flourish. May its people be blessed,
its leaders be guided, and may peace, wisdom, and prosperity rest upon this community. We
give you thanks and praise. In jesus' name, amen. Amen.
thank you. Next for our pledge, we have boy scout troop 216, if you
wouldn't mind coming to the
stage. I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Honor the texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee,
texas, one state under god, one and indivisible.
alright well thank you all you'll hang out there for just one moment.
we always like to welcome our scouts. Thank you all for being here with us tonight. And I'd
love to give you all the opportunity to introduce yourselves and ask
kind of one burning question. So here's kind of the gig.
it's just your name, your grade, school. And your tough question for tonight is, so
today is our city manager wes pearson's birthday. And
unfortunately, he's spending it with us working. So to make him feel even worse,
I want you to say for your next birthday, where you would like
to spend it in frisco. What would be your favorite place or favorite thing that you could
be doing on your birthday? That wes can sit over here and
wish he was doing tonight? Sorry, wes. You guys ready? You can pass it. So name, age,
school. You could do your birthday anywhere in frisco.
my name is ian, I'm in fifth grade and I'm ten years old
and the mall? Yeah, sure. You
like the mall? My name's
ayanch. I'm in fifth grade, I'm 10, and I'll spend it playing tennis
at my tennis academy. My name is austin, I'm
in ninth grade, I go to reedy high school, and I would go rock climbing at canyons rock
climbing gym. Hi, my name is vishnu, and I'm 11, and I go to lawler middle school, and I
would spend my birthday at like, main event or pinstock. My name is pritish.
I'm in sixth grade. I go to lawlor middle school and if I could spend my birthday anywhere, I would go to ifly
indoor skydiving. My name is arya patap. I'm 13 years old. I
go to pioneer heritage middle school and I'd probably like to spend my birthday
at home playing video games. Hi, my name is chris. I'm
in eighth grade and I'm 13. I go to clark middle school and I'd like to go to pinstack and
spend time with my friends on my birthday. Hi, my name is arav. I'm in 10th grade and I'm
currently going to richland high school. If I could celebrate my birthday anywhere,
I'd be celebrating at home with my family because they're the ones who appreciate me most.
my name is aditya. I'm in 10th grade and I go to richland high school. And I
don't have a specific place, but I'd probably go somewhere nice to eat for my birthday. I
would actually love in frisco
to go to one of the beautiful parks that frisco offers. We're going
to try to squeeze. There you go. Y'all three kind of move up there. There we go. We have to face your fans
over here. Alright, let's thank
our scouts again. We have some frisco pins for y'all. I'm going to hand you to make you
in charge, but thank y'all for being here. Much appreciated. Thank you.
alright, we have a couple proclamations tonight. One is to celebrate cindy lemus, 20
years of service. So, cindy and anyone that would like to join
you, make your way up come on, bring the whole crew. Come on,
everyone. All right, and it
reads, whereas cindy lima began her service to the city of frisco in 2005 as an accountant temp in the old city hall
building. Before moving into a full-time role in 2006 as a customer service
representative and central cashier in revenue collections. And whereas in 2011, cindy
brought her talents to accounts payable, where her reliability, accuracy, and deep knowledge of
the field became indispensable. In 2019, she was promoted to senior accounting
technician, a role in which she continues to excel. Through her expertise,
professionalism, and steadfast commitment to ensuring smooth and efficient
operations. And whereas cindy embodies a spirit of joy and connection through cherished traditions,
whether cheering on her grandchildren at their sports and activities,
creating memories while making gingerbread houses, enjoying peaceful days at the lake property,
or rocking out at classic rock concerts. And whereas her contributions
extend far beyond her job duties, as she is known for elevating holiday celebrations,
especially easter, where she serves as the department's expert egg hider, and
for brightening the workplace in thoughtful trinkets,
spontaneous bubble machine moments, and an ever-present supply of dr. Pepper. How come you've
never brought this to council meetings? And whereas cindy's willingness to support her team,
her generosity of spirit, and her dedication to both her family and the city of frisco make her a treasured
colleague and a shining example of service. Delivered with heart. She is recognized
for her exceptional service, her vibrant spirit, and the positive impact she makes each
day. Her legacy of dedication, joy, and kindness continues to inspire all who have the
privilege of working alongside her. Now, therefore, I, jeff chaney, mayor of the city of
frisco, on behalf of the city council, do hereby bestow special recognition for 20 years of service dedicated
to the city of frisco. And proclaim march 17, 2026, as cindy lima day. Testing.
okay, this is my husband danny and my son chad. And I have a daughter, but she thought
her trip to mexico was more important. You
know. She's watching online. Probably not. She's probably
at the beach. I mean, you know. You have another 20 years left in you? I'm getting
on up there. I don't know. I'll try. How about that? That.
alright, let's thank cindy and family one more time.
alright, we have a twofer
tonight, so hank johnson celebrating 20 years. Man,
thank goodness this guy didn't run for mayor of council. We'd be in trouble. Popular. All
right. Whereas henry or hank? Johnson began his service
to the citizens of frisco on march 27, 2006, and currently serves as crew leader in
frisco public works meters division. And whereas hank johnson's life has been marked not only by dedicated work,
but by passions that enrich the spirit. His commitment to our community began long
before joining the city. Including three years serving the youth of frisco
at the boys and girls club. And continued contributions through his work with primmo
school, berry best academy, and petty ann's flowers on main street. And whereas,
since joining the city of frisco in 2006, hank johnson has exemplified loyalty,
reliability, and perseverance, consistently demonstrating a strong work ethic and
unwavering dedication to the community. Whereas, amongst his greatest
accomplishments are his daily acts of purpose, positivity and kindness, brightening the days of those
around him. Henry is known for embracing life's joys, smoking fine cigars, listening
to music, gathering with friends, and playing the drums.
he's the most interesting man in the world. Jeff chaney,
mayor of the city of frisco, on behalf of the city council, do hereby bestow special recognition for 20
years of dedicated service to the city of frisco. And proclaim march 17th, 2026, as
hank johnson day. Let's hear it for hank. Well, I didn't know I
was going to be sharing with cindy lima, so it would be lima johnson. Sound
like a law firm. Well, I want to thank all my family that
made it. Fuego family back there smell like cigars.
but yeah, I just want to give this day to my parents who are not here. You know, my dad passed away
december of 20 years this year. And my mom, the day
before my birthday in 2007, bestowed all this upon me
to give to y'all. And I bet some of y'all are like,
they gave him the microphone.
yeah, I was like, yeah, wes, I told you. But no, yeah,
it's been a good 20 years. And just to let you know, I changed my name to frisco
king. And also, I am the mayor
of frisco square. So thank
y'all for being here. Those of y'all can make it. And people on youtube, I see you.
well, thank y'all and have a great evening. Be safe when y'all get to your homes. Come
on, alright, let's hear it for hank one more time. All
right, we have one more proclamation. This is to celebrate our
north texas community and mayor's cleanup challenge. We've got our team coming up
here. Hank's a tough show to follow, but I'm confident.
all right, the proclamation reads, whereas the north texas community cleanup challenge, otherwise known as
ntccc, is an annual region-wide litter cleanup competition
organized by the north central texas council of governments. That encourages
the north texas communities to work together to reduce litter, beautify the neighborhoods, and protect
environmental quality. And whereas? The city of frisco's environmental services and sustainability division has
proudly participated in the north texas community cleanup challenge in previous years,
demonstrating its ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship, community pride,
and sustainability. And whereas? The 2026 fifa world cup has established several
sustainability initiatives in advance of the global sporting event,
including tree planting efforts and community litter cleanup activities. And whereas fifa
has partnered with netcog
on the fifth annual north texas community cleanup challenge, further highlighting
the importance of environmental responsibility and community engagement on both a regional
and international scale. And whereas the 2026 north texas community cleanup challenge
will take place from march 1st through may 31st, 2026, providing residents,
volunteers, and organizations an opportunity to come together to remove litter and improve local
environments. And whereas participation in this event fosters civic engagement,
promotes environmental awareness, and regional collaboration,
with the mayor's challenge, the city of frisco demonstrates its support of the next north texas community cleanup
challenge, and it encourages residents, organizations, and businesses to take on an active role in keeping
north texas clean. Now, therefore, I, jeff chaney, mayor of the city of frisco, do
hereby recognize the months of march through may 2026 as the north texas community and
mayor's cleanup challenge month. So, thank y'all. Hi
everyone, my name is jackie sudeiky. I serve as the city's sustainability manager. We invite you all to participate
in our clean it and green it earth day litter cleanup event,
taking place on april 18th. It supports this community cleanup challenge. Bring your family,
your friends, your neighbors. We invite you all. We supply all the materials. We will pick
up your litter, weigh it, and you'll take part
in keeping frisco clean. Thanks everyone. All right,
let's thank our environmental services team again. All right,
council, that will move us to to item seven, which is council
comment or acknowledgement of proclamations issued
since our last meeting. Anything noted? I just want to wish everybody a very happy
st. Patrick's day. Traditional way to say, you know, may the
sun always shine to your face, may the wind
always be to your back, and may god hold you in the palm of his hand. And with that, please be safe tonight if you
go out and celebrate. And if you've had one too many to celebrate today. Definitely
call an uber, get a ride from somebody else. Okay, that
will take us to our report section. Item 8 is our visit frisco report.
good evening, mayor and council. You probably noticed that january was a little bit slow, and part of that had
to do with fcs not being here, but also the week of ice that we had. Really killed
a lot of group business, but I did see our february report this morning and it
looked really strong, so we'll have better numbers to reflect. I also wanted to just say a note of congrats
to our marketing team. They launched a drip campaign mid january to our convention
client database, which was about 5,800. And right off,
just today, we've had 143 leads. And after lost business,
we still have about 80 that we're targeting. So it's been really successful, and it's going to continue
over the course of the next couple of months. So it's a new initiative that we haven't done before,
so we're really proud of them for working with our sales team to get that launched. Other
than that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. All right. Counsel, what questions do you have?
okay. Thank you. That takes us to item nine, our development services report. Good evening,
mayor and council. Ralandria russell with development services. You all have our february report
in your packet and I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Council, what questions
do you have on the development report? All
right. Thank you. Item 10 is our fire department monthly report. Good evening,
mayor and council. Lee glover, fire chief. On march
2nd, 2026, frisco fire department amended a peak
demand ambulance program that will operate daily between the hours of 8 a.m.
and 8 p.m. The peak demand program will increase our total
ambulance count from 7 to 8 for a 12-hour period that it's
in service. This decision was made following the continuous increase in ambulance call volume over the last six months.
we expect this unit to provide relief to the entire ems system during our busiest time frame
of the day. And we will continue to monitor this monthly. Looking at our data to make sure that it's still the right
thing to do. Junior citizens fire academy application period
will open on april 1st. This program is designed for middle school age students who live
in frisco or attend frisco schools. Similar to our citizens fire academy, this
program gives students a front row seat in the frisco fire department operations,
training, and normal a day functions.
this program is free to attend and runs between the hours of 9 and 3 p.m. Each day and concludes
with a graduation on each friday at noon that we invite family and friends to come to the graduation. These
classes will be offered on june 1st through the 5th and june 8th through the 12th. If
you'd like to attend, please go to friscofire.com and go to the program section and go
down to the link for the junior citizens fire academy.
we'd also like to remind all of our citizens about our free cpr aed
awareness class and stop the bleed classes. We offer it on the third wednesday
of each month from 630 to 9 p.m. Stop the bleed occurs on odd months. And cpr and aed
awareness is on even months. Again, if you would like
to attend one of these classes, go to friscofire.com and register
online. With that, you have our february report.
I'd be happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you
for the report. Counsel, any questions? Thank you, chief.
and item 11 is our police
department report. Good evening, mayor and council. David chilson, chief of police. I'll start with, you
were sent our latest bias-based profiling report. This is a
report that we're required to submit to the state
by law, but one of the things that we're very proud of. At the police department is we
were doing this report long before it was required by law. So this is the 22nd
year that we've submitted this report, and really just some highlights
from it. You can see, year over year the numbers are very similar. One thing that we did
notice in our report was we did have an increase in racial profiling complaints.
however, that increase, all those complaints were...
unfounded, and so certainly something that we will continue to monitor and be very
transparent about. This report is available to the public,
you can scan that qr code, it's also available off of our website, and you can see the previous versions of the
report as well. I also wanted
to highlight we recently had our annual awards banquet and many of you were there,
had a chance to be there. We don't ever want to take for granted the great work that the
men and women of our police department do, both sworn and non-sworn.
really, just some highlights from the evening were the six life-saving awards that we
honored. All of those officers involved in that, as well as all the award recipients in the various
categories that we had. Really want to highlight the chief's
unit award, which was our training division. And one of
the reasons that that unit received the chief's unit award this year was,
as I'm sure you're aware, we started our first police academy here in frisco. And
that was a huge lift for our training division. They took it on, and we have
already started our third police academy. So we were in our third class. So that
group, very hardworking. That was a big project, and they continue to make each
academy class better. I also want to highlight the chief's award for service that we
recognized our it department. Certainly, it's not just about public safety,
it isn't just about the people in our department, it's the partnerships that we have with
our other city departments. And our it department has been instrumental in guiding us
through what has been the biggest technology project
in our city's history. As we changed from one computer aided dispatch system and records management system to another
system. And this was a huge lift, didn't just affect us, affected the fire department as
well, and so they helped get us through that transition. We're still learning our new system,
but it is providing us a lot more functionality than we've ever had. And that will pay big
dividends to public safety. Here in frisco, which we're very proud of,
couldn't have done it without our it department, and last but not least, we say
that opportunity lives here in frisco. Coming up on the 27th, we will celebrate
the latest promotions within our department, and we will swear
in another set of officers. And so just a way that we
welcome and recognize those that are being promoted and those that are just joining us.
so certainly want to make sure that everybody has a chance to attend that if they want. If you can't be here,
it's also live streamed on facebook. With that, you have our february report.
I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, chief. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and item 12 is our
rail district update. Good
evening, mayor and council. Jason brodigan, director of engineering services. Just to provide a quick update
on construction in the rail district. The aesthetic features on main street keep kind
of rolling in. You should see planter boxes now, and I believe trash cans were delivered and installed today.
we won't be able to take credit for this, but when the trees start to bud here in a couple
of weeks, it's gonna look even better. For 4th street plaza, concrete
pours are continuing, which will help us get the brick pavers in. It's a really big
step. In the next week, we ought to start seeing the support columns
for the shade structure start to arrive. And finally, the parking garage is still working
on the facade, the mep, the mechanical, electrical,
plumbing, and then it started the hardscape on 3rd and 5th streets. So good
progress being made, starting to look really good. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have on the construction.
when will the plants start going in the flower pots? I don't have an answer
for that question yet, but I will get it. All right. I'm going to bug you every time. Are we
still on track for the plaza? We are on track. We will be done by june. We will be done.
okay. Good answer. Yes, ma'am.
okay, good evening, mayor and council. A quick update on the gift card program. It's expired. Yeah, it's expired.
the gift cards have all been redeemed, or they're in the process
of being redeemed back to the chamber or a third-party administrator. As you can see at the bottom,
the grand total so far is over $400,000 worth of physical gift cards have been redeemed
at participating businesses in the rel district. The digital gift card program,
the bonus card program portion of it, has expired. Approximately $548,000 have
been redeemed, total. Of that, 232 are gift cards that do not expire, and
315,000 gift cards were the bonus gift cards that do expire, that have expired. Our
advertising program, again, this is static, but $123,000 in direct investment.
since this program went live. And we'd continue with the
digital marketing efforts for the billboards. So as a
reminder, we talked about this at the winter work session. Our near term goals, as jason
mentioned, is finished construction, kick off the downtown circulator,
complete all the work downtown, and begin to pivot towards,
you know, redevelopment efforts. The long term strategy is
activation of events, implementing leasing strategy for the garage, retail,
and other city-owned buildings, define and implement the governance structure,
and evaluate downtown circulator pilot. So these are kind of the goals
for fiscal year 27 and beyond. So next steps, excited to talk
about the next steps. We're going to roll out another digital gift card program
beginning june 1st. And also help market that to world cup traffic that's coming to
frisco. We're going to roll out the advertising grant program on april 15th. We're looking
to do a mural on the side of the old city hall, the former school of rock building.
we're talking about downtown circulator beginning in june, once the garage is complete.
we continue to have discussions in coordination with the rail district advisory board, rail
district roundup, and merchants on main, formerly the save main group. We talk
about budget discussions for special events, holiday decorations, programming, and
the activations I mentioned above. And also, a forthcoming will be an april
work session, a deep dive into the special events planned for the 4th street plaza. So,
with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. You can still go out and buy a gift card. Just
no bonus match, not until june 1st. We did notice when we started the program, initially
in november, that there was a huge rush of excitement. So we want to time that excitement june 1st with the grand opening
events that we're having downtown. Right, right.
council, any questions for ben? Ben, can you just expound
a little bit so that the public knows what you mean by downtown circulator? We're
evaluating an electrical
vehicle, it's a large bus. Capacity up to 18 people, ada
compliant, accessible, and the general path would be the
parking garage. Downtown on come down elm street, if you can visualize, to north
county, along main street, to rollertown, and may even go
beyond into simpson plaza, past toyota stadium. So that would be the circulator that we're
evaluating. Thank you. Okay,
council. Item 13 is council subcommittee reports. Any
updates? So for those
of you who did not make it out to the work session earlier, this is a continuation from
efforts at the cog and the rtc. We will be working
with dcta very quickly to bring some public transportation to frisco, so specifically
for areas. That need help. So, senior citizens that are living in frisco lakes,
in the grove, as well as students, all members of our
community will have access to a beta test. And really, really want to thank brian
moen, jason brodigan, the city staff for bringing this up
to light. So that should help with people. And the second thing is. We are currently also
working to get flood mitigation dollars from the state of texas to provide relief
for you areas in frisco that could be flooded. So wes and team are definitely on it. So
wanted to give that update from the rtc. And yes, the item mentioned will be
on an april agenda, where there will be a full presentation for the contract with dcta.
all right, that will move us to our consent agenda. Items placed on the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and are considered
non-controversial. The consent agenda can be acted upon in one motion. The majority of the council is required
to move any item for discussion in separate action. Council members may vote nay on any single item
without comment. You may submit written comments as part of the official record. And council, you have 14 through 27 for consideration. Motion
by laura. Second. Second by angelia. All in favor? Aye.
that motion passes 6-0. Legislative agenda. These items may legally require council
action, but by council policy should be the city manager's responsibility. The legislative
agenda can be acted upon on one motion. The concurrence of two council members is
required to move any item for discussion and action. Council members may vote nay on any single item
without comment and may submit written comments as part of the official record. There's one item, council, item
28. Motion by laura. Second.
second by angelina. All in favor? Aye. That motion passes 6-0. That'll move us
to our regular agenda. Item 29 is consider an act upon adoption of an ordinance
amending frisco's code of ordinances number 06-03-31, as amended, chapter 2, article 2,
division 1, section 2-19. Article 3, section 2-76, rules or procedures for the conduct
of public testimony at meetings, modifying certain rules of procedure for the conduct
of public testimony at meetings of the city council, boards, commissions, and committees of the city of
frisco. Good evening, marion city council. Ken schmidt, director of special projects for the city. So, the rules
of procedure for public testimony were initially established in the late 1980s. And they
were applied to the conduct of testimony at city council, board, commission, and
committee meetings. Recently, council gave direction to staff to consider updates
to the rules of procedure, and as a result, staff facilitated several work sessions
with council. Addressing themes related to speaker duration and registration procedures,
frequency and timing of public testimony
on non-agenda items, and additional rules of decorum. For the ordinance
that is before you tonight, for your consideration, it addresses several updates
related to speaker duration. Most notably, it proposes a reduction
in speaker duration from five minutes to three minutes for testimony
on both agenda and non-agenda items. For speakers that
require a translator, it proposes a proportional
reduction from ten minutes to six minutes for those speakers. This
proposed ordinance also eliminates an existing ordinance provision that
provides discretion to the presiding bodies. To reduce speaker time
on a single agenda item based on the number of speakers who wish to speak
on that item. For speakers on non-agenda items, this
ordinance limits those speakers to three minutes
of speaking time in total, regardless of the number of people they wish
to speak on. This ordinance
also addresses speaker registration procedures.
specifically, it transitions our speaker registration process from a paper form filled
out prior to or during the meeting to an online registration form
to be completed prior to the start of each meeting.
it does provide for reasonable accommodations to be made by the city
secretary's office for members of the public. Who may need assistance with that process.
outside of the ordinance, as part of our administrative
standards and procedures, the city secretary's office will provide for promotional
materials, as well as administrative standards to support the online
registration process if this ordinance were to be approved. This ordinance
also addresses the topic of placement of citizen input
on the council agenda. For agenda items,
it clarifies that process in that it provides speakers opportunity to speak
on specific agenda items, either before or at the time
of consideration of that agenda item, but not at both times. This codifies
our existing process, and I will note that this was a change that occurred
after the agenda packet was. Posted specifically to account
for the during the agenda item component that does provide
additional opportunity for speakers to address
during the agenda item. So that refinement was an improvement
to what was originally included in the agenda packet.
for non-agenda items, it defines an opportunity for speakers to speak
on those items at the end of the meeting. Where a citizen
input session would be defined at the end of the council agenda, with the exception
of regular council meetings. And consistent with current practice today,
public testimony at all other city meetings would be limited to testimony on specific agenda
items. The proposed ordinance also provides for additional
rules of decorum, specifically prohibitions against disruptive and unruly
behavior, to include the disruptive use of props, threatening speech
not protected by the first amendment. The use of electronic devices
to impede or disrupt a meeting, physically approaching the presiding body more closely
than the room is set up to accommodate, or displaying a sign, placard,
poster, or banner in the meeting room. This does not include shirts or apparel
that may communicate a message. This also addresses a process
for treatment of decorum violations,
beginning with a warning. From the presiding officer of the meeting and identifying the
specific violation. And if that individual does not correct
their violation of the rules of decorum, the presiding officer will ask a police
officer to remove that individual from the meeting. So staff does
recommend approval. The proposed updates to the public testimony rules
of procedures. These are aligned with best practices in the region, most notably
speaker duration time at three minutes. That is a very common practice in north
texas. If you do adopt this ordinance as presented, it would be effective
for your april 7th council meeting. We'd be happy to address any questions that you
have. All right. Well, thank you for the presentation. Some
color I want to add first. Because this isn't just
in a silo. And anytime you're talking about public input, especially
during campaign season, it's fodder for perhaps
political gain or misinformation. So city council receives public input in a number of ways. We do
three town halls a year where we physically call out to every single home in frisco, asking them to listen
in to the town hall. We usually have thousands of people that will listen to
the town hall all the way through. We stream it live on facebook and we also always
invite people to join us in audience. It's an intentional effort we've been doing now
for almost a decade, to try to get input from all four corners of the community. That's just
one item. We have multiple times when we'll actually go
out into the community to solicit input. It could be a scenario where it's a very
specific issue in a part of the city that residents want to point things to. It's maybe
meeting with an hoa. I probably give two dozen presentations a year to various groups with
frisco updates and seeking input. Every part of our decision-making process is a
citizen driven process. So it starts with our comprehensive
plan, which we just had a citizen body who solicited input, along with consultants
and surveys and feedback to build our 2040 comprehensive
plan. And then every decision goes through a variety of committees, all citizen
appointed committees, whether it's planning and zoning, parks and rec,
and you name can go all down the list, where their entire initiative is to expand our scope
of being able to hear the community and provide additional opportunities
for citizen input. Council then does many things on their own. I can say this entire council
will spend time meeting with residents at coffee shops for long-form discussions or
meeting them in their home. During campaign season, walking and knocking doors,
listening to the needs of the community. Many people
don't want to speak in front of a council meeting. I'd say, probably the citizen input is probably the tool used the
least by the community to reach us. Oftentimes, it's
just a simple email that we may get. It may be, you know,
one person articulated an issue very well, so they may send
out. A petition that they want to show support, that they agree
with those points. So kind of the point is, you know, we've always been a city
that wants to seek citizen input, you know,
and have that information for essentially every single decision. I think two years ago
was the first time we actually did a citizen survey, and that's actually going to be
followed up again later this year. So all we're addressing
tonight, all those other outreach where we're both kind of pushing for feedback and
pulling for feedback, will continue. All we're
addressing tonight is official city meetings and how
to handle citizen input during official city business.
and really, as was mentioned in the presentation, we've already had multiple work
sessions, and council has kind of narrowed into a scope of things we wanted to think
about and discuss. Some of them were coming regardless because of our new electronic system,
where we needed to change policies. Be able to kind of manage that. So that was
already on the horizon. And then some of the of the others are just changes
to practices and codifying practices that we've always used during citizen input.
there's probably really only kind of one change for consideration tonight other than practice,
which is the length of time. And I'll just kind of open
with my comments on that. So it's always interesting when you're in the market
for a car, then all of a sudden all you can see on the road is that car. You know, just because you become
more observant of what's happening with you. And so I thought, you know, with this coming up,
it's made me kind of more perceptive. Of our
citizen input process and how we can make it better for the person presenting,
but also for how our meetings operate.
and so last meeting was a great example where we had more than
10 speakers. Show up. And so all of those speakers on that agenda item then went
to the three minute time. And so what I found really
fascinating is that usually when we do citizen input, five minutes is a really long
time, and it sounds like a really long time. And so people will struggle because
they feel like they need to fill the time. And so there's usually kind
of what we would call the the academy awards. Beginning part of the presentation where kind
of everyone is thanked and you know, and then maybe kind
of ramble through some points. And then all of a sudden they look up and they're out,
they're out of time. Well, last meeting, I thought we had a lot. Of speakers, and I thought it
was actually probably one of the most efficient presentations from a citizen input. Because suddenly three minutes doesn't
sound like.and three minutes is I need to get my points articulated. If someone said one of my points, really well,
I can say an agreeing statement. Like my neighbor bill, really, I agree with him
on that point. Let me focus on some other points. In the past, we've seen
strategies where multiple speakers will want to come in, and they may take
different parts of the presentation. And so it
really kind of, in my mind, made me realize that it actually created a more
effective communication tool, I thought, and the most shocking thing is, when we're at five minutes, I
would say a very high percentage of people run out of time. When we went
to three minutes last meeting, I think 90% of the people of the people finished
in two minutes. Because it just changed the mentality of the presentation that we were giving, and I thought it was a
much better communication. So that's kind of my take on it, but council, we'll just kind
of take these one by one, and the first one is just that duration time. So those are my
thoughts and comments, but I'll look for any other comments or questions. Are we
looking to take public input before we start? Oh, yes, let's do that. Sorry. We do
have three people wanting to speak on this item tonight. So we will start with josh meek, and after that we'll have mark
pyland. All right, mr. Mayor,
city council members, my name is josh meek. I'm a resident here in frisco and my
address is listed there on the blue card. What's going
on? It's been a long time since I've kind of been here consistently,
so back in the rhythm of it. You know, after reading through the proposed ordinance, I do have some comments. You
know, for general public comment, non related, you know, to an agenda item, I think,
you know, three minutes is fair. I think, to your point, I think, to your point, I think, you
know, most of the stuff that gets covered in a public comment during that time, you know,
gets addressed. But I do struggle, honestly, every time. We reduce from five minutes to three minutes whenever we do have
more than 10 speakers, just because a lot of the general public isn't up to date with, you know,
what the rules of practice are. So they come prepared for that five-minute window.
it gets reduced down to three. And, you know I think back to a lot of the times that we've had residents,
you know, recently, with the warehouse there on the south side of
ridgewoods. But, you know, also the residents there of cobb hill when universal park was coming in,
and the residents surrounding harold backus park, you know, with the forest bark dog
park. The recent, you know, stuff related to the performing arts center, and, you know, things related
to civil service, collective bargaining and unions, you know, is three minutes for some
of the density. Of these topics to be, you know, is it enough time, you know, three minutes for that
to be allotted? And I would argue that it's not, especially, you know, I think
the reason I'm also up here is really for the citizen, the resident that isn't as informed. You know, they're
showing up and they don't understand the rules and the procedures, which is one of the
things that I was kind of, as I was brainstorming through the process,
is that if there's a way to even kind of hyperlink to the electronic form, which I'm all for. If there is
a way to hyperlink specifically to that form, or however that's going to be submitted,
if there is a way to do that within the actual agenda. But I just don't believe that. Three,
you know, reducing from five minutes to three minutes. And I know it's a practice that we've had,
you know, in, you know, lockstep for a few years now here locally. A lot
of municipalities use it down in austin. Three minutes is used. But since when is frisco
ever conformed? Right. We've been the leader. And you guys are the closest level
of government. To the people. And so, like I said, reflecting back on some of the
public comment that I've heard and seeing, you know,
the public comment reduced down from five minutes to three minutes, I just kind
of struggle with that. And just kind of, you know, conforming that moving forward from here on out, and not even
allowing that opportunity. Obviously, the last council meeting, we had a lot of public speakers. But, you
know, if you only have a handful, allowing them that extra time to me is something that is
supportive of what we should be giving to our residents and to the citizens of frisco. The
only other thing I was kind
of concerned about, too, was related to the times. You
know, the council meetings start at five o'clock. Your average everyday frisco resident is probably not getting
off work yet. Five o'clock, six o'clock, commute time. And I understand there's going to be a component of, you know,
electronic, electronic submission, but. With that, do they understand that they can
do that? Do they show up at a council meeting, there's an agenda item that they wanted to speak about, and now they can't speak
about it? So there's going to have to be a massive amount of education, I think, you know, if we're going
to conform to some of these standards. You know, the other thing that I kind
of struggle with is, you know, myself and my three minutes would have already been up.
but essentially. There's been several times where I have not planned on speaking at a
meeting and I felt inspired or motivated, or compelled. So I've seen other residents also
do that as well. So I struggle with also to kind of I understand the rules and having
an order and structure, but I struggle for that in the moment. Maybe somebody that wasn't brave enough
to speak decided to speak up on a topic or something. Triggered was triggered
in them, and then they felt motivated and compelled to then speak and stand up for their neighborhood. So
there's, I think, a couple of things that I just really struggle with on this. So I
just think that, you know, deliberately, of course, you know, reducing the time is just too much. But there's a couple
courses of action available of action available to you guys tonight. And I'd
ask that you guys continue to edit the ordinance. I don't entirely agree with it
in its entirety, and I do believe that it should be edited. But as always, thank you guys for everything
you do. I know you all come under the gun recently. I watch these meetings. I attend these
meetings. And one thing that I would love to see more of is more professionalism at this dais and treating each
other like neighbors. So thank
you guys for my time. Thank you. After that, we have shauna sowell. Good evening,
mayor and council. Mark pylative in the hollyhock
section of frisco. First, a couple comments, mayor, to your comments. The city's
getting ready to be a quarter of a million people. And while I know that there are meetings and neighborhoods and
gatherings, and that's all great, but the only other thing that's videotaped that the
masses of this city can see are our town halls and these meetings here. So while you
may have coffee with the mayor, you may have meetings in different communities,
the mass of frisco don't see that. They don't hear what you're talking about. So I
think for us, we have to evolve into a city that's not 30,000
people anymore. It's growing. It's big. And I think that we
need to embrace that and think of different ways to get information out
of the community. I'm okay with the decorum on the ordinance. I think that's fair. I think all persons that address this council and this
body and this chamber should have decorum. I think they all
should behave themselves in a proper manner. But I also believe this ordinance is a
slippery slope. And as josh said, limiting people to three
minutes, you've always had that ability. That's in the current ordinance now.
why make it a mandatory three minutes? If you've got ten or more speakers,
you've always had the ability to limit that time limit. So I'm not sure why that now
becomes mandatory. Putting non-agenda item speakers
at the end of the meeting, let's just be honest. That is trying to discourage people
from coming here and speaking. What you're saying is, if you have a non-agenda item,
we're going to make you wait to the end of the meeting, when maybe most people have
left, or when you just can't spend here that long, or you're just too tired or whatnot, so we're going
to put you at the end. I mean, that's what this is. Let's just be honest. For once,
let's just be truthful about what we're doing here. That's what we're doing. It's a deliberate attempt to discourage people.
from speaking. This is an issue to limit citizen speech cloaked
in good governance, and that is not what this is.
the job of the council is to listen. That is your job as an elected official. If you
don't want to listen anymore, reconsider your position, because that's why you were
elected. You were elected on transparency and
accountability. But you don't want transparency and accountability because you want the transparent people
to be there in the meeting when no one's here. That's not transparency, and that certainly is not
accountability. Public discourse is an american right.
and limiting free speech by
time and opportunity is wrong. I can't even begin to think
of our people in our country, the men and women, who have sacrificed everything
to give us free speech. And this is a slippery slope of this council to try
to limit that. It's a knee-jerk reaction to february 3rd and some other times when there's
been a lot of speakers here criticizing this council or saying some things that people
did not want to hear. But that's what free speech is about. It's
about not you agreeing with what they have to say, but you defending their right
to say that. And, as josh said, it's comparing us to other cities. I welcome that
comparison. Let's make that comparison because it's working here for 10 years. I can tell you, when there's something
that we want to do, we'll find a city to make that comparison. But when we don't want
to compare with them, we say we're frisco, we're different. I've seen it over a 10-year career here.
we'll talk about neighboring cities. Let's have that discussion. We
can talk about that because we want to compare ourselves. Let's do the full comparison because I've got some great
ideas about how we can be better if we're going to compare with our neighboring cities.
this basically is a solution in search of a problem is what this is. And it is limiting.
let's just be honest. It's limiting people's ability for free speech. It's just we
table this item. This agenda item was posted on march
11th at 5 30 p.m. Let's let other people in this city understand what you're doing
here, and let's have this discussion at this podium and get their ideas as well. Thank you very
much. Next, we have shauna
sowell. Good evening shauna sowell, and you have my address
here in frisco. Many of you know that I spent the first 12 years of my professional career
as a high school government and history teacher and speech and debate coach. One of my
master's degrees also had a heavy emphasis on political speech and first amendment law. So I ultimately
have fairly strong thoughts about free speech and the democratic process, especially
at the local level. The ability for residents to speak
to their elected leaders on issues that matter to them is paramount to our
democracy. I believe the residents have every right to come before their leaders in
this recorded public forum and share the things that matter
to them. Pertaining to city business and activities. Democracy and the activities
therein are messy. There is always a push and pull that the
founding fathers recognized would always exist between the freedoms that we hold dear and
the process. But they ultimately landed on protecting the freedoms as much
as possible, even when it led to messy results. The recent
meetings have led to this discussion
among the current city council about the citizen input
process. There are some changes that I think are fine. I do believe that residents should
have the first priority in speaking before city council. Residents should not
have to wait behind a long list of those who do not live here, regardless of the issue.
but moving all speakers to the end of the meeting makes it more difficult
for residents to speak. And honestly, the message that it sends is that whatever the
resident has to say just isn't as important as whatever. We have planned
for the agenda that evening. It also sends the message that we hope you'll get tired of
waiting and go home. I also have concerns with requiring speakers
to sign up before the meeting starts. Electronically is fine, but
often people who attend the meetings are moved to speak by hearing comments of others
for or against a topic. And that right should not be
limited because of wanting to shorten a meeting. We can
list a litany of supreme court cases and legal gymnastics to determine what can be done.
but just because it can, doesn't mean it should be done.
building public trust, especially of times
of disagreement, is paramount to a functioning democracy,
including at the local level. Something the audience needs
to consider. Is the decorum in our meetings. We must all remember that city council
meetings are legislative proceedings, and civil debate and discourse is so needed.
you can be passionate about your issue and still show respect and decorum for the
process, respect the time of others and maintain civility
in the discussion. How we go about our public input process as members of this community
matters, and in the manner in which we speak matters. It is the most basic level of interacting
with our government. So while I stand for your right to speak, I also stand
for your right to do it respectfully. I've sat through public input,
both as an elected official on that side of the dais, and as a member
of the public waiting to speak on several issues on this side of the dais. And regardless
of the side of the dais, I have maintained the same position. It wasn't about campaigning.
it wasn't about the issue. It's always been the same. The public must retain the right
to speak on the issues they deem important. To limit or discourage that right because
it makes our meetings longer? Presents not only a slippery
slope, but a weight of conspiracy, a lack of trust, and, ultimately,
a disrespect for the residents you represent. And I don't believe that's what any of you really want to do.
don't let your frustration with some of these meetings relegate how those who have
come and respected the process are treated. Things will settle down and we go on
about the city's business, but we cannot complain about residents not being informed or
engaged and then shut them down when it's convenient. Democracy is messy. It takes
time, but it is certainly worth it. All right, that's all we had
to speak on this item. And I do want to be very clear that city council landed very
quickly during work sessions to not limit the topics of citizen input or the content.
so that's not even something the city council is inquiring or discussing here tonight.
and as far as the timing of the agenda, the thoughts
around that is when there's citizen input for agenda items and non-agenda items. When you
have people in the audience like we do tonight,
three that spoke on agenda items and others that are waiting for non-agenda items, somebody in the audience is
waiting to speak. And so it's council's discussion
as far as where that priority should be. Should the priority be the citizens that are coming to speak,
like happened at last meeting with the neighborhood? Where we took citizen input first,
and those 20 to 30 residents that were there to speak on an agenda before the council
that evening, all had to wait. So that is the argument is who should get
priority when speaking before council. And so kind of with that, those clarifying
remarks, we'll just kind of go through these one by one. So
kind of the top line one is, you know, probably the biggest
one is the duration. So, council. I don't know if this would even be a fact while I
was still mayor, so it won't really impact me,
but what's y'all's thoughts? Are you starting, murray? So
the question, we're just going to do one by one, so from five to three? I think so. I
personally don't have a problem with that. We've discussed it in three minutes. I mean,
in speech class, it seemed about like three hours when I was doing it, so I personally
don't have a problem with it.
please keep your comments from the audience. Thank you. Citizen input is over. I have
heard from many citizens that have, countless citizens
who have said, can we shorten the amount of time to three minutes? And
it's not on one specific thing, but I can't not unhear the
multitude of citizens who have been disturbed. By things that have been said
in these council chambers, and I know that democracy is messy.
but allowing non-agenda items to go on for longer periods
of time to the point the citizens don't feel safe in our
city anymore is a problem that our. Please remain quiet. I
have to ask you to leave. Thank you. Excuse me, sir. There's no more comment,
thank you. If you cannot follow our decorum, we're going
to have to ask you to leave. So that's where I,
when we had conversations in council work session about it, I believe three
minutes is plenty of time. There's lots of opportunity to come and speak
with council, to speak to council members. Like I said, I've had many citizens reach
out to me personally and repeatedly said, I don't feel safe in frisco.
that's not right. I don't think anybody supports that. I don't think anybody wants that. And I
think part of it comes from what's happening here in council chambers. And I
think that three minutes is perfectly acceptable to get our points across. I've been
on council for about five years now, and I can say that this conversation
around how we govern public input. Has come up several
times, so I think it's important for the audience
to know that we are not dealing with the recency effect here. I will not give credence to that
issue as being the sole reason why we're having this conversation. This conversation
has surfaced on a number of occasions around putting governance
in place. It is not about eliminating free speech, it's about brevity of speech. I
watch this clock because I am responsible
for pressing the button. To ensure that we start the clock. And I can tell you that there
are many who come up here and speak and have completely gotten their point across
in less than three minutes. Generally, when it hits the
four-minute mark, people are then repeating themselves. But the essence of the message and the point that they're
hoping to deliver has come across very clearly. Josh, you did that tonight. I watched the
clock. You hit all of your key points. Your message was well taken
at the three-minute mark. So it can be done. I am strongly
in favor of going to three minutes and asking the audience to think about what you say ahead
of time. And practice the art of brevity. There's nothing restricting people from coming
every meeting if they want to come every meeting. So I'm
also okay with the three minutes. And the purpose of that is that. When we've had the amount
of people that come in and we've got ten or more, we get down to three minutes.
and those same people are able to communicate the same way that the people who have had
five minutes. The one concern that I heard that I actually
wanted to investigate further was for someone who? This is their second language. And
by using a translator, we've taken account into that, to being able
to say, if you need a translator to help get your point across, we will make that available to you. And that is very easily
accessible, as long as you let us know ahead of time. I did some research
around all the neighboring areas, plano, prosper, denton, mckinney, they're all
at three minutes already. So, with frisco and the population and the size that we have,
I think it's also respectful to our residents. To do this in an expedient fashion, so
that other people have the opportunity to speak as well. So with that, I am okay with
the three minutes. I guess I'm
going to be the dissenting voice here. If people had come to the work session when we
discussed this. I was against going from five minutes
to three minutes. What makes america the best country, quite frankly,
is that people have the right to speak their mind, as long as
they're not breaking the law. If you look at europe now, that's gone. They don't have that ability anymore. We're
basically the last country that allows that. I don't want
to see that changed. Yes, the last couple of meetings, I
think we broke a record that we had to stay here,
but that's okay. That's okay. I
do get comments from citizens,
and I specifically tell them at the end of our conversation, please, if you have more stuff,
call me back. That's what I'm here for. That's why I got
elected. That's why you elected me, that you can call and tell me, because I don't know what
your problems are until you tell me. And so, yes, am I for efficiency? Absolutely. Some of the things
in the ordinance are good. You know, the electronic part, good. I mean, that's what we're
all going to. I went to a play down in dallas, and they didn't
accept a paper ticket. And me, being kind of old school,
we were fumbling around trying to get the app going, but we figured it
out and we got it going. So we need to kind of get in the 21st
century when it comes to some of the stuff, which I think is a good thing.
but I personally want to encourage openness. And I will tell you, I've been
on that side and I'm up here. You get nervous. You're not sure what you're saying. And
five minutes. Is not as much time as you think it is. And so
I think there's also the aspect, we talk about some very
complicated issues at times, not all the time,
but occasionally we do. And five minutes allows someone
to articulate that, if they choose. They don't have
to go to five minutes. They don't have to. It just allows them the ability if they have
something more to say. What I don't like, though, is when
people, when we ask them to stop, you've got five minutes and they try
to abuse that. And that I don't want to happen.
but I think we should stick to the five minutes. I think we should adjust this one item,
table it, and redo the ordinance. And that's what, just this one
item, the five minutes. And I'm for keeping also the
decorum is fine. That can't have banners and stuff like that. We'll go through the other ones. Okay.
all right. But so anyway, I'm for the five minutes. So let's
just be real. Five minutes to three minutes. Doesn't seem
like a lot, right? Five minutes to three minutes. We're doing
it administratively. We vote. We do this. We do that. The reality is, how many of you are
professional speakers? Probably not many. Josh, you know why you were on time?
because you ran for office and you know what it's like
to answer something in a minute or two minutes, or three minutes. Most people, you know, to jared's point,
people get nervous. People have issues that they want to talk about. And look, what are we doing
by cutting the public's time by 40 percent to be able to get an idea out? I get it. There are issues and we want
to have efficiencies and we want to have government function
to a point. To get right down to the point. I argue that public input is not meant
to be efficient. It's meant to be representative. That's
it. And everybody, thank you, everybody has a right
to speak, to get up here. And if you can't form your words, you have the right
to come and speak for the five minutes. This argument, oh, we can do better
in frisco. Okay, we are. We are at five minutes. The
comparables that you're using between denton and all these other places, well, does
denton have the safest city? Does denton have the best police force? Does denton have
the greatest city staff? I don't want to be a comparator. I want us to be the paragon
of what should be. And look, a lot of people,
while they might be. Afraid or be perturbed, or this and that
with opinions that don't matter. Guess what? They're words. We saw what whether
or not you agree with charlie kirk, okay? That guy died because he was expressing a
viewpoint. Like, what are we doing here? We should give everybody the right to speak.
and this notion, dear council, this notion that we're going
to fix something by going from five minutes to three minutes? Well, guess
what? The other night, when we sat here and we listened to 35 residents speak
about warehouses, if we hadn't, you know, jared and I, we both voted no on it
to reduce that time. Maybe if we had listened to all of them for five minutes, maybe some of the council would have actually
heard what their beliefs were and they would have tabled it. You know what? I know what it's like to sit on the other side, too. And I
remember how tough it was for me to get up here and talk about issues. And mr. Mayor, with all due respect, this isn't about campaigning.
this isn't about... This is about affording the citizens a chance to come
in here and say what they need to say. And if somebody wants to come from an hour away, or they want to come
from five minutes away, to use this platform to get something
off their chest, it's their right to do so. And you know what we'll do? We'll sit up here as elected
officials and we'll listen to it. Because that's the american way. So, if you can't
tell, thank you, if you can't tell, I'm firmly against changing it, why fix
something that's not broken? What is the issue that we're trying to solve? And as opposed
to leading from a place of love, why are we approaching this from a place of fear that we call government efficiency?
sorry. I got a little passionate. I just want to clarify the last two council
members' remarks because I think people may be misled that
council is restricting content or speech, which we're not. So that was off the table
immediately when council had these discussions, so people will be free
to come and address this. Mr. Mayor, that's not what I said. I said, I'm against limiting five minutes
to three minutes. Understood what you said. Thank you. Thank you. But I think people could have inferred both of your remarks separately that we
were restricting. Okay, so to anybody listening, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm against limiting it
from five minutes to three minutes. There's no inference. Okay. Speaker represent registration
procedures. City staff, you've been working on electronic registration. You want to give council kind
of an update on that? Yes, we continue to work on those, and a lot of that
is just based on what is decided here tonight, what we make available. We are
mirroring other surrounding cities that have done this and it is a way to make the process
more efficient. And quite frankly, I mean, when you have these blue cards,
it is incredibly difficult to read people's handwriting. I don't know how many people are
writing letters these days, but if you see what we see, most of the time it's
not legible. And it makes it difficult for staff and for you as a council to even see what it is that they're
even writing on their form. A lot of times they leave email addresses that say, hey, I want
to be contacted, and they say, hey, contact me. And staff is sitting there trying
to distinguish what in the world is their email address so that we can contact them. And
so I feel like this is just a more modern way and an efficient way
to have people register, to speak. And it gets it electronically so that we can
be able to get through them and read them and note the record more easily. But yes,
that process is ongoing with our it team. And we had talked during our work
session about, you know, even having a qr code kind of here on site, so, you know, people that kind of came here
would be easily accessible. And the process would be pretty easy, just a form would come up
and they would fill it out and it would get routed to you somehow. I don't know
about the qr code yet, but yes, we're still working on the basics of the form right now
with the it plan. You know, hearing some of the comments tonight, you know, kind
of a fair compromise, maybe that kind of came
to mind, which is I would say, being the person who's had to run these meetings
for nine years, it is nice to know. Kind of where citizen input is coming to the agenda,
so you can adjust the agenda to get our citizens out the door and home quicker. I think to the point, excuse me, sir.
if you have one more outburst, you're going to be asked to be removed. Do you
understand? Thank you. Is everyone who is there
for an agenda item, they'll typically register and say they don't want to speak, you know,
but they want their comment known? I think it's reasonable
that if someone has at least registered a comment card or an opinion card on the site saying,
this is how I feel about this item, should they change
their mind during the meeting and want to speak, but they've registered, that could potentially be something
that council could do. Consider to some of our speakers points.
but my question was, what was the cutoff time for that? 5 p.m. And
but when will they first be able to file, or to submit it online? And to clarify, sorry, 5 p.m.
on the day of the council meeting, right? So how long? So that? I mean, we're not going to start
at 8 a.m that day. They'll have. So as soon as the agenda is posted,
we will open up those forms for people to register. Which, how many days is that now? That is now three business
days prior to the meeting. So it's three business days prior. So they'll,
given that our meetings are on tuesday, they'll have to have a weekend as well. So
they'll have, yes. So they'll have plenty of time to do it. Correct. Almost a week in some cases. Well, I am
normally resistant to all things technology. I personally,
I don't have a problem with that. If we give them five days to if they have five
days, a minimum of five days to do it and we advertise it, I like the idea
of putting the link in the agenda. As long as we advertise it and let people
know how we're doing it. And not just switch one meeting where everybody shows up and they can't talk,
but advertise, hey, as a effect of this date, it's going to switch to this. I think that's,
unfortunately, that's just the way everything's going. And as we get more and more people speaking, I think it's
for the staff and for the record keeping, and for the communication. I actually,
I believe that going electronic is really good. I know it helps with record-keeping,
which is important and paramount to the city. But I could also see individuals
coming in to counsel on the night of and wanting
to make a comment. And regardless, we're going to have to communicate this
very strongly to citizens to let them know what going on, but I would almost encourage a
more phased approach to going. Like, not fully electronic, but gradually phasing
out blue cards, or even leaving people the opportunity to use the blue cards going forward,
but encourage everyone to use the qr code and use the electronic form as a way
to keep that avenue
of communication open. I'm in total agreement with going to the electronic option of pre registering and getting the
blue cards out ahead of time. I would ask, though, if there's like a five day minimum. Three
days feels a little short, so I don't know what our options are when it comes to posting the agenda,
but I would love to be able to do that and have at least so it always be
at least five days, because if you think about it, it's three business days and that does not include
holidays. So typically, we are posting on either a tuesday or a wednesday
before the actual council meeting. So you typically have a full week, no less than six
days, not business, but just six days
to get that agenda, to get signed up. Okay. I am in full support. That is
accurate. That is just one addition. If we had a special call meeting that didn't cross
over a weekend, then we would still just have the three
business days. So, for example, if we had a friday meeting for whatever reason. We posted
the agenda on tuesday, or whatever the requirement would be. Yeah, it would be the, no,
so it would be friday, so monday. Monday, so that would
be, so you wouldn't have the weekend in the case of a special called meeting.
but for any normally scheduled city council meeting, what christy explained would apply.
and, to ann's point, I think
anything that the council decides to change, there's probably going to be a grace
period and a rollout period where we extend some grace for people who don't know the new
rules. So I'm sure that would be part of just our process. And plus, staff still has
to get this up and running, and we probably were going to test it. So it will probably
be a more phased approach anyway, for the registration, at least. I'm also in support
of having a transition plan, of moving us into the new thing, but as somebody who has to read
the names and has a very hard time trying to read them, I am in full support
of giving people more time. To be able to register where you're not having
to rush up here just to fill out a blue card and turn it in. You can do it days in advance.
but then also, it makes it a lot easier for staff, and selfishly also
for me, to be able to call your name appropriately. When it's time to have you come to the
podium. I personally think we should, I like the electronic
because my kids are whizzes on that stuff and they're great
at it. But I'm kind of old school, my wife will tell you. I think we should keep the blue cards
for people that struggle with that kind of stuff. But I definitely don't want
to do the cutoff at 5 o'clock. Because people are rushing here from work, I get it. You know,
traffic is really harsh now. In the city of frisco, not just
the city of frisco, the whole north, actually all of dallas, fort worth. I can't
name a city that doesn't have traffic. So I think we should,
I think the cutoff should be, you know, once the meeting
starts, we start at 7, I say, give it an extra 30 minute.
grace, 7.30. I want to make sure that anybody that comes here wants to sign up and talk, they can do it, and that's good for them. And so, I'm all
for the electronic. I know, christy, you had mentioned that. I asked you, well, how
quickly, if someone does the electronic, does it get to you? And you were like,
well, I'm not sure yet. And that may take 30 minutes. I don't know. Sometimes I get stuff that I submit electronic, doesn't come in right away. So
until we get that perfected,
that it's instantaneous. But I know some older people,
they struggle with the electronic stuff. So I'm for keep for
introducing the electronic, but also keeping the paper.
but at least I'm for maybe a cut off at 7, 30, 30 minutes
after the meeting starts. Well, you all know which way I'm gonna go. Uh, look,
electronically, covet taught us how to use these to read a menu. So I don't
think it's gonna be that tough for anybody to go figure
out electronic stuff and look. Anything that increases efficiency and lowers level
of effort on four from an engineering perspective, right? However, what mark and
shauna and what josh said really holds sway, because it reminds me also. I've sat there
right where you are, sir, and I've been inspired
to speak because of what somebody else said before me. How do I know
sometimes what I'm going to say? Or even if I have the courage. To speak until I hear
somebody else speak. This is, yes, it is a function
of government to talk about the agenda items and this and that, but as far as having a cutoff.
for people to have the right to speak, to have the right to be able to get their voices heard,
that is paramount. Mr. Mayor,
please. So, to that end, what I would respectfully request.
the council to do is to table this again. There's an old adage that's, if it ain't
broke, don't fix it. And the system, the system isn't broken.
what we can do is we can optimize it with engineering controls,
but let's not have a cutoff. This is nonsensical. Okay. The third item was placement
on citizen input on the council agenda. You
know, and again,
this is choosing to who are you going to prioritize
for people who come to speak? So tonight we prioritized people that were speaking
on an agenda item. Last meeting, we prioritized
residents that came to speak during non-agenda items, while 35 people that were waiting for
an actual city business item waited to get through that. My personal take on this one,
after thinking over it the last couple weeks, is I personally don't think
this needs to be defined. You know, I think that, you know,
the mayor runs the meetings per the city charter, and we've kind of moved citizen input
over the years, just depending on where we were in the agenda. And so one
of the benefits of having an electronic system is that, you know, the future mayor that
would be running these meetings will know that if there's agenda item 27 that has five
people waiting to speak that they can prioritize that agenda item. So my personal
belief is that when the mayor is planning to run the meeting, you know, after reflection over these
last couple meetings, is. The mayor should prioritize all
items with citizen input, but giving a higher priority to agenda items
with citizen input first. And so that's usually how we build our agendas. When we move to the agenda,
to the regular agenda, if we typically know or think that
people will be showing up to speak on an item, we tend to move that up higher in the agenda, knowing to get them out. So I don't
know that it has to specifically be defined per ordinance,
as far as where it is in the agenda. I think it can be part
of a city charter mayor discretion, depending on what
that night looks like. I'm actually okay with that. Yeah, that's, I don't know how you document that, but I guess just mayor's
discretion. But yeah, I mean, my whole point is, I want to be able to get through the business
of the city and the business of the citizens and get
through that. And do it in a timely manner so that those that show up to participate
in that can do it. Respect the people that come to speak on other things,
and your point's valid of how do you manage that? When there could be. Three
people for an agenda item and 150 people for a non agenda item, so I'm fine with the mayor's discretion. I think that gets
us to achieve our goal without having to create unforced errors in how you document it,
so I'm fine with that. I agree.
I think that having the ability to move the citizen input
around, I think at the end of the day, we want our residents
to be able to speak and to get to city business. And I heard that in the public comments.
council meetings are about city business. They're about listening to the residents, and we want to also ensure that we have
public trust in council's ability to listen and hear what's being said. So
I like the idea that it doesn't necessarily get pushed to the end of the meeting,
that you have the discretion, jeff, but also, I'd like to reiterate that I think even
with the electronic system, that we have the ability for people to use the blue cards still.
maybe just gradually phase it all out. I think meetings have an agenda for a reason, and the agenda is
to keep people focused. And to
ensure that you are covering what you set out to accomplish at the onset of a meeting. And with that, I think,
to mayor's point, having residents who have comments on
the agenda should be prioritized. And however we do that, whether it's
I'm putting in governance around that. In terms of the timing that they speak
on the agenda, or whether it's up to the mayor to make that decision. I'm fine, either way,
but I do want to prioritize those who are speaking on the agenda because that is the
business of the city. Yeah, we
had quite a bit of discussion of whether or not this was going to stay where it is. Or
it was going to go to the end of the meeting. And it could probably be a very valid argument, either way.
but I do think the in the interest of the city, we want to do what's best
for our residents specifically. So I'm fine with the mayor's discretion,
knowing that the mayor will do what's best for the residents. For citizen input, I agree. I
think we need the agenda items first, but we can do the agenda items first and then do the non-agenda behind it and then
get on with the meeting. I do want to hear the agenda stuff first. I think that's
important because that's what most of the meeting is about, typically. But I don't think it
should be put at the end of the meeting. I disagree
with that too, because the meetings sometimes drag
on and if people come to speak. Most
of these meetings, these items, I mean, people wanting to speak is not that long. And
so there's been times, yes,
but for most of the time that I've been doing this, it's pretty short. I'm
with keeping citizen input at the same spot, but I don't mind the agenda item first,
but then the non agenda right behind it, but at the same time. And for me,
I'm for it because it's another law that we don't have to put on the books. So if it ain't
broke, don't fix it. We'll leave it up to the mayor. So I'm good with that. I think I
heard consensus on that one. Okay, and rules of decorum,
this is how we. This is a simple, essentially codifying
how we've operated in the past, you know, as a city, but actually making it
something more enforceable. Any comments or turns on on this item? Okay, so that's,
that's all the items. I heard consensus on decorum,
I heard consent. We're going to change, you know,
this paragraph is far as the agenda, so I guess we won't have a physical change.
but whether we want to codify, sound like there's consensus.
to prioritize agenda items, citizen input yeah, sorry,
I didn't know my mic was. Prioritize citizen input
in general, but here agenda items first,
I think is a good way to summarize that. We're going to the cards. I heard, I'm not
sure, maybe I'm 100% solid on the majority of this one. I heard a majority saying fine
going to the electronic system, having some type of rollout period
in education, but ann, you may have been the one that differed, that said, wanted to keep blue cards. I wanted
to keep it, too. Yeah. Mayor, so when we wrote the ordinance,
we were trying to create alternatives for sign-up. So one thing we
discussed was have electronic sign-up, potentially have a phone number or email where
people could call if they were having trouble electronically. And if it didn't work,
then we would figure out something like a blue card or some other method
to sign up. So we weren't limited to electronic sign-up. The goal was
to get as many as we could, but if there's somebody who just can't do it, then we're going to do everything we can
to accommodate that person, to be able to speak. Okay, that's a good, that's a good,
helpful distinction. Thank you. Yeah, so to distinguish that, what we do with pirs, pirs are already online,
but if someone wants to come in and submit a pir in writing, we facilitate that in our office. Like, if they
can't manage the computer, they can't do any of that. We're already doing that. We would just extend that same
service to people being able to come into our office and complete a blue card, and we
will get that entered electronically for them. All
I'm saying is, I don't think you need to change the ordinance. I think it was baked in there. Got it.
thank you for that. And then the final, I did hear majority
of going from the five to the three minutes. So.
council, I'll look for mr. Mayor, before you say that, can I ask something? Sure.
given that, you know, I think you said something, and
I think I stand a good chance of being done before you, without a runoff, and then you.
I would like to, unless there's opposition to this, I
like what we're doing. We're trying to become efficient.
we're trying to add some structure as we get bigger and have more issues and have more
people come here. I think that's important. I think I brought that up
on other things, just about our rules of procedure and previous things about making motions. I'm all for structure.
I personally, while I am for the most of them, of these changes, and you summarize my views great, I personally would like to table it and just have some
more time to think about it. Because we are impacting our citizens' ability to come speak to us. And I'd
rather just take another look at it, think about it some more, and just before we start
making changes, make sure we're getting it right and not. Not rushing into something,
I know that's extra staff time, but I feel like there was
enough questions and minor differences that it might not
hurt. Just to take one more look at it and push it. But that's just my
well, it would come before us one final time, right? Or no? We could make it
come before the council. You're going to either have to write the ordinance tonight
with the changes in it, or you're going to have to come back. So you'll bring it back with the revised
changes anyway? Yes, sir. Okay, except I'm not clear on
the revised changes. I'm not either. I'm not even sure. Some of the stuff I said, you
know, I was kind of going back and forth and waffling. I would
just, this is important. It's not only important about how it
looks from the citizens, how it looks at what we're doing. I just want to make sure we get it right,
especially since.I'm not going to be up here. Probably when it becomes effective. I just want
to make sure we get it right. I don't have a problem with it. I'm not as passionate about burt. Thinking that, you know, losing two minutes of your
time to speak is violating your first amendment, right? Didn't say that. But I don't want
to rush into it, and I'd rather just sit and take another look at it. So to give, I guess,
direction, you said you're not clear. I think the only change would be the third item,
the placement on the city. Yes. Well, thank you, ken, but
I heard some things that were unresolved. So let me, if I may, just real quick. The
quorum is good. Everybody, I think I'm clear that everybody wants to leave it to the discretion of the mayor
for the non-agenda comment period. So that's,
I'm clear there. Bert said something about no cutoff time.
does anybody support that from the council? Yeah, so no, you can sign up whenever you
want. Oh. That's one that I'm not sure when I want the cutoff
time to be, honestly. Five o'clock. I do hear the thought of I'm sitting there and I want
to say something, but I also don't want. Just all
night, you know, three in the morning, people just walking up with cars at the last second.
to start talking about all sorts of things that we've seen,
some, you know, crazy stuff. But I do want a cutoff. I'm not sure it's five o'clock. So we
need to get an direction on that. Yeah. Because, frankly, chrissy can talk to the mechanics of that,
because at 5 o'clock she's up in our office taking notes in executive session. And then
back at 6.30, trying to get the meeting started. So if it's 5 o'clock,
they can prep in advance. Is, I think, why you came up with that. Yes. And, honestly,
5 o'clock is the latest of any surrounding city. Some
require them the day before, so like monday. Others require it to be done by noon. I found one that allowed it to be by 4
o'clock if the meeting started at 630. And so it does,
it does complicate things to be able to gather all that information and get it
transferred to all of you and in an efficient manner. Just because we're already
in a meeting at the time. So I, you know, we're already double-duty at that point.
so while it's not impossible, I would just say that it just,
it does complicate things. I guess if we do five, sorry. Okay. If we do by five o'clock,
but we leave the blue cards open until later, or something like that. I like that idea.
but that's another thing that needs to be correct. I just would like another, I mean, I don't know. No, that's fine.
I just, I just personally don't, I like the way we're
going. I like adding structure. I just don't personally I see the need to. And I just need clarity so
we can write the ordinance the right way. Right. That's all.
so if we're going to do a mix of blue cards and electronic,
the potential issue there is that nobody is going to use the electronics. We're
just doing blue cards, and we're not solving the issue. That's fair. And then if you're
trying to prioritize timing and meetings, like right now, most of the speakers,
they just fill the blue card. Because that's the way. They've always done it.
right. Right? But we've got quite a few people that want
to speak during citizen input that probably would have gladly filed online yesterday or today at 430. And I'm not trying to be difficult. I just want
to make sure we get it right. Yeah. That's where I'm coming from, and I feel like there's been enough nuances
between what everybody said, that the smart thing to do or not. My opinion about the smart thing
to do would be to take another look at it. Just pause. I definitely concur
with brian. That's brian. Weed. What? Livingston, sorry.
livingston, sorry. Yeah, definitely, I'm for progress using electronic.
we need to keep the paper. I'm for opening it up, no time
limit, because,
like councilman thacker said, someone may get it may get moved and say they want
to speak and, you know, they're trying to fumble with their phone and stuff.
and the blue card allows them to do it real quickly and give it to christy. Because I've
seen people, you know, come up after the meeting has started and handing in a blue card.
I've seen it more times than not that happens. So, again,
I want to give people an opportunity. If they're running late or they're not sure,
and then they decide they want to speak. Let him do it. So I want to keep the time limit
open. All right, well, to move us along. I think there's enough support, maybe, to table it and
have another bite at the apple. Um, give staff time to finalize some of the changes they heard tonight and
then take final action at our next meeting. Make a motion to no. Mayor, sorry,
you still got more items? I mean, I don't I'm hearing
what, what jared is saying, but I've not heard consensus from the council. I don't so what do you want
us to write? That's what I'm saying. So if we want to come
back and talk about this in another work session, I'd like us to each send you, can
we send you our comments and thoughts after the meeting tonight? Well, we need to give clear direction
for what they're supposed to be doing, and they need to know that they have a consensus of counsel. And so this is my
birthday. I'd love to go home. Yeah, I bet. So I'm
not trying to be difficult. I just need direction. I'm not trying to be difficult either. I just want to make sure we get
it right. I agree. I would say that let's bring it back to another work session to have another conversation. Because,
one, for efficiency. For this evening, we can send you all our thoughts of considerations.
you can understand where each of us are coming from. But then ultimately we can come back,
have a conversation, another debate in another setting where you can go enjoy
your birthday cake. Well, I mean, every time we do a work
session, that's, I mean, I think we could handle that at a council meeting. I mean,
I think really, kind of the only item that's maybe I'm hearing not a majority
comfortable. Is this cutoff time, right? And so cutoff
time and whether or not we keep the blue cards or not. Right. Yeah, I think that's kind
of together with it. Now, the city attorney's already said we'll do blue cards if people cannot figure out. Like, we're
going to accommodate a registration process, right? We're trying to point people to the electronic. We're trying
to train. That's the way to do it. That's the easiest way to do it. You know,
but if we're going to accommodate other ways, so that's already baked
into it. So, really, it comes down to the cutoff time, right? So just for my clarity,
so the purpose of sending this back is not to discuss lowering this from five minutes to three minutes, but only
about the cutoff time and also whether or not we're going
fully electronic. That's it. Council can talk about anything they want if it comes back. I
think the time can change their mind. Yeah, is to postpone it, to think about it more. That's what I'm
asking. That's a great idea. I third that. Okay. I will take that as a motion by brian
to table to the following council meeting. I'm trying
to give direction. Second. It
sounds like the only change council will be expecting you
is maybe the third item. We may still have some discussion on the others. Council, I mean,
the third item means the non-agenda can go wherever you want it to go? It's basically
going to stay how it is. It's going to, the change is going to be removed from the ordinance as far as, it'll be on the
agenda. And then depending on when people, you know, sign
up, that's how it will be prioritized. The third item
being the cutoff time and the blue cards. That's, those are the two. Okay. That's the second item. I mean, we're not
asking, council still needs to have a discussion on that. But I think the third item. Is already direction to change the ordinance? Yes, I
can, uh. Motion by brian, second, second, second by jared, all in favor. Aye, that
passes um, six, zero. Um. So that was our last regular city,
regular gen item, so now we will go
to public input. Citizen okay, so we do have quite a few this evening. Um, I will
say your name and then I will give the next person after you. If you could come to the podium, please state your name and address
for the record, that would be fantastic at the podium. You will see your time clock and,
as you saw with the agenda earlier. It will beep at you once you get close
to time, and then it will beep at you again once you or your five minutes are up. So first we have mark palaciano, next we
have kelly smith. Hello,
tyrants. I have you guys exposing yourselves tonight. Y'all are doing an excellent
job, showing everyone your disdain for the first amendment. Of course, you're reducing the time limit
from five minutes to three minutes. You guys are proving the pressure that I'm applying is working. You guys
have no respect for the first amendment, and you act like we're being disrespectful for saying things you don't
like. Nice virtue signaling, ann. But I wouldn't feel safe having elected officials in
america who don't respect the united states constitution and first amendment. Do you even
know why I started coming here in april last year to speak? Because t-mobile got me
censored and shadow banned on every social media platform I was using to expose them as a
whistleblower. And I knew this was the only place I could come where t-mobile couldn't have me
deleted from the internet. The first amendment is dying because of tyrants like you all
and tyrannical companies like t-mobile. And tonight, you're proving it even more. Mayor cheney, the last time you
talked about ethics and how you're compliant with the law, does that include
the time your 18-year-old son hosted a graduation party where underage people were drinking alcohol and doing keg stands
in your backyard? Face a bunch
of 18 year olds drinking in your backyard. Let me play, uh, well, let me,
I already played your snapchat. I found that interesting, especially since someone filed an ethics
complaint about it and the city council shut it down. Also, I have a lot of respect for the frisco police department.
but now I'm curious as to why they didn't show up to your house. When there were 911 calls about this party,
maybe the police chief knows more about that. Why wasn't there any more investigation? I
know if it were me or anyone else in the audience hosting underage kids drinking alcohol
on our property, we would have went to jail and been prosecuted for it. But since it was the
mayor of frisco, nothing happens. Maybe it's just another odd coincidence, like your net
worth exploding while being the mayor. Frisco is cooked. This city is done. You may as well
change the city name to mumbai, because in a few years, this entire
city council and mayor will be indian. Last meeting helped prove my point. A bunch of woke
boomers showed up and virtue signal. While completely not understanding what we're
talking about. How many of them do you think reached out to me to try and understand more about what I'm exposing? Not a
single one, even though their entire message was built on with communicating with people. In a few years,
they'll be sitting in a retirement home needing someone to take care of them, and
frisco will be completely unrecognizable. I've heard from a lot of frisco residents about the schools here being
70% indian kids. That is not diversity. This is an indian takeover, and the rate it's
happening will continue to increase. Over the last few weeks, I've visited a lot
of companies with h-1b employees registered
to them. Do you know what I saw? Ghost offices. Empty offices with businesses registered to them, and tons
of h-1b employees that were supposed to be there, but weren't. You guys want
to call me an outside agitator, but I'm a lifelong dallas texan, and what's going on
with h-1b and the shadiness behind it affects me where I live. People are speaking
at the plano city council about this issue. The same issue in prosper. The same issue in irving. All of you
elected officials say it's a federal problem. But I bet if you found me breaking a federal law, your frisco police
department would engage the feds to prosecute me. But it's funny how that same mindset doesn't work with h-1b visa
fraud. I can promise you right now, you haven't even seen the attention that you're going
to get with h-1b and the indian takeover. There are a lot of journalists with big platforms digging
into what's going on, and there's going to be a day when it goes really viral. And just so you guys know,
I'm personally being targeted by indians. Indians are now violating federal law with how they've targeted me
with spam calls. My phone rings over 30 times a day, when it used to go days or weeks
without ringing. And on top of federal law, they're breaking state law with targeted harassment. But I'm sure none
of you care, because none of you serve your oath to the constitutions. And as a reminder, t-mobile is the
biggest private sector employer in frisco, and they're laying off texans while opening up a
new office in hyderabad, india. And the whole reason I speak here is because t-mobile
violated my constitutional rights in their office in frisco, texas. At warren
parkway and the tollway. I've exposed how they use diversity, equity, inclusion
to discriminate against americans, how they censor text messages during covid, how they
provide unlimited money for transgender surgeries. And, in fact,
let me play a little clip of a video of a t-mobile employee sharing their transition surgery
on a company website, on a company webcast. My top surgery. And so with the dreams
we're beginning to this is what you get for supporting t mobile. Kelly smith,
after that we have blake. Hey guys, glad I can
come up here and give this speech before we turn into europe. I dove deeper and looked into some housing.
several homes are being bought. The owner is returning to india and renting out every
room. Some of these homes are even listed as homesteaded on the cad tax wise, even
though it's being used as a mini-apartment building with the owner in india. And that makes sense, considering
all the tech companies hiring h-1b employees that are being ran out of them. This advertisement says they will sell a home to an indian family
for $136,000 less than the advertised price. Registered llcs are buying up properties
in collin county and only selling to indians and muslims. It's right here.
there is clear and consistent housing discrimination going on, and the major demographics
change is further proof of this. Harry whalen flew to india to beg them all
to come here. There is something like 22,000 h-1b filings in the frisco area
alone. I thought city council was supposed to represent the taxpayers. I'm pretty sure
nobody voted to be replaced with india, yet here we are, and this is starting to affect
the surrounding cities. I'm going to stand up
for the white kids for a second because I've got two of them. And my daughters don't know
where they fit into in this country anymore because of what's going on. In 1999, frisco was a rapidly growing
suburban district with a predominantly white demographic. Tossed test scores exceeded the state averages,
and the district gained recognition for quality schools. These kids are now
being downplayed as if they are not intelligent enough to work in their own country.
microsoft, apple, google, facebook, nvidia, all american-made companies. Dell
was founded by a university of texas at austin graduate. William higginbotham of
connecticut created the first video game. Steve russell, an mit student, created
spaceway, the first game to be played across multiple installations. I could go
on and on. Americans are forefront, top-tier innovators
and inventors. Why is our own government failing us? And letting other countries take away our jobs and not investing
into its own people. The texas house passed house bill 2038, streamlining foreign
doctors into our system. When our own federal government capped spending
to fund required residency for its own american doctors in 1997, we need
to support our american doctors. On my dad's side, I'm a texan through and
through. I have a county named after my family. My brother serves in the united states
navy to support my right to free speech. On my mom's side, I'm a third-generation
italian immigrant. When my italian family came here from sicily, they did not get
government handouts. There was no welfare, no direct job placement, just
for being italian. They had to learn english and create work for themselves out
of thin air. They had to become innovative and embody the american spirit of creating something out
of nothing. They spoke italian and celebrated their heritage at home, but the moment
they walked out of the front door, they were americans first. This is my pop-pop.
look at that american flag. That's the difference between the immigrants back in
the day and the immigrants coming now. I'm really confused as to what country we live in.
these people are coming here, they're taking away jobs, they're piggybacking on systems
that were already built and put into place. We need to bring back the american
worker, support our american companies, doctors, and future generations, instead of just
giving our country away. Greg abbott if you hear this, you're a coward for selling
out texas the way you did. Frisco city council is even worse for exploiting the city
and surrounding areas for profit over its own texan kids and citizens. Was harry
weyland aware that the united states commission on international religious
freedom is calling our government to name india a country of particular concern? They are dragging christian
preachers in the streets, beating them with bats, and forcing them
to eat cow dung. You guys only care about money. Not the aftermath of bringing a culture
here that isn't assimilating and could care less about america. Texas isn't just one
big business park. It's our home. It's our legacy to pass down to our children. The land,
the natural resources, the water. Texas needs to be treated as more than an
investment for foreign interests. Our traditions and traditions and our country
matter, but we will not survive at this rate of infiltration. I hope the money is worth it.
god bless y'all. Kaylee,
seaver and then clayton, york. Good evening, council.
first, I want to thank these two gentlemen on the end for speaking up for the first
amendment. And the opposition to limiting the ability for
public input. And then I'm going to address the public to address the public input. Because claiming it's been a
long thought process and not a immediate reaction to propose these changes doesn't seem
entirely true. Here's an excerpt from community impact on this topic from february
19th. A non agenda item could be a city related issue, mayor jeff cheney said. It
could be. I know it's not on the agenda, but I still want
you to not build the dog part next to my neighborhood, and I'm going to come every
meeting and tell you that. This is not the first time city council has considered
changing its rules regarding public comment. City attorney richard abernathy said council members previously asked him
to review their options for changing the public comment policy when there was an issue about the palestinians.
quote, particularly young people came every council meeting, asking the council to pass a resolution. We came
back with a bunch of suggestions. It was decided not to do anything at the time
because the council didn't think it was the right time. So why is now the right time?
cheney said city council has opted against changing the
public comment policy in the past because council members assume the situation won't
eventually pass. Now, council members are reconsidering rule changes because they believe
what occurred on february 3rd may not be a one-time issue. Quote, it has always been where agitators have moved along,
and so then three or four months go by, we have normal
citizen input, whatever that means, and then we just kind of forget about it, cheney said. But it's becoming
increasingly likely that this is not going to go away. End
quote. Three, five minutes, it doesn't matter. Some of you clearly don't listen
to each other. Like, you don't listen to us, you clearly aren't listening to each other.
why would you listen to us? Now I'll address what I was here to actually talk about. In 2024, frisco ranked number
eight in texas for h-1b approvals, the same year that ms. Kelly was talking about
the director of economic development accompanying the governor in
flying to mobile. As of right now, 33 h-1b dependent companies are registered
to one building on warren parkway, an h-1b ghost office. That I went and saw three days
in a row this week. Empty. No one there. Lights off. I got
pictures. They also run a foreign investment construction fund, which is building that
same strip right there on coit, donated to a member
of this council. A restaurant off preston has been caught only hiring f1 students and
paying them cash under the table. Now, maybe tonight's facebook post will
contain h-1b visas or federal issue outside agitators came to spew hate, but does
anyone really believe that the trip to a foreign country doesn't impact the city of
frisco? Could he not have said no and commit a hundred percent
to the economic development of frisco and its citizens already here? If the city official can intermingle
in foreign affairs, which one could say is also a federal issue, what is stopping the city
from staying right here? And adopting a resolution requesting state and federal
authorities to investigate the fraud in the city. Nothing
in state law prohibits the city council from adopting a resolution that formally requests an investigation
from entities like the texas ag, attorney general, the state auditor's office, the
fbi, department of justice, or any agencies under the federal jurisdiction. There's already a
petition with over 200 signatures requesting this action. But instead,
we've gotten these proposals to change public input, social media posts calling citizens'
names, and then literally the next sentence calling for unity, unless you get blocked, cheney. That's lazy
leadership. You haven't addressed anything. You just made it easier for you
to not hear criticism. We would like answers, action, not
facebook posts, and then protections for you.
thank you. Clayton, york. And
then next is martin petetti.
hello, sir. I am sanjay gutpa. I am transracial indian. Sir, I
just want to say thank you for everything you're doing for the indian community. We need 10,000 more h-1bs.
to stand in solidarity with the indian community, I've stopped using the city garbage
service, and I've started throwing my trash outside and pooping everywhere. I love
poop. The city smells too clean and it is offensive to me and my culture. And I need it to smell more
like poop so I can feel at home. I also ask that we remove all deodorant and soap from the stores and frisco. Is
it offensive? Shout out vivek ramaswamy and shout out kash
patel. We need to legalize public defecation. Thank you. Martin, martin
pedetti, and then after that, paul jessen. City council
members and respected mayor, I'm not criticizing anyone, you can laugh. And I don't
like to disrespect any country's flag on this floor.
let's respect each other. We are all here, we all live together. Okay, my name is
martin pariti. I live in majestic gardens on west frisco. I ran into the primaries.
recent elections and I'm not here for campaign speech.
and I ran for a justice of peace in denton county prison, too,
and I got closely, like a 2400 votes. And during my campaign, I listened a lot of people.
they said people are getting evicted and I didn't realize
it's a true story or the people are telling the lies. Then I
went to my fellow judge friend and took court and sit into the eviction process
in one week. And I saw 80% of the people are getting evicted, and all of these people are
from the job loss. And then I realized, I asked a couple of questions, why? This is related to the job loss. They
said that they are all related to the tech jobs, because they have been replaced with the foreign workers. I
know this night, a lot of people saying about india, indians occupying and all that
story. We have a solution here. We have a lot of people here talking
about ordinance. We talked about an ordinance, and I wanted to introduce what
this ordinance means. The ordinance is a city law that has the same power as your federal and state government.
you have the law here, and I'm requesting this night all the
city council members and issue an ordinance. In the h-1b, f-1b, visa fraud is prohibited.
do you will? Because all these
people are blaming indians and because a few people are doing something wrong and we have a
ghost companies. And if you go to any restaurants, you can see students are
working in the restaurants. So these people did not come here to study, they are coming here
to settle down. So you can fix the issue, pass an ordinance law, you can make frisco proud.
we all wanted to live together. We don't want this to be continuing for every week, continuing all this time. So, I
humbly request all the city council members, try to see if there is a possibility. You can issue an ordinance so that we
can declare there is no visa fraud is encouraged in this city. That will make
the frisco proud, that will make united. Thank you so much. This is paul
jessen. After that, we have sehas kaul. I told you, these
meetings were entertaining. I
don't know if that light's going to be out there for me tonight, but just wanted to make sure
that maybe there'd be some work done on it. My name is paul
jessen. Paul, I know you intend well, but please don't do that again. I have an eye issue,
and I've been helped to go to the doctor because of the flash. I'm sorry. I can't have
bright lights. Thank you. I know you wasn't it was cute. I'll leave it out. Thank you.
I'll just do verbal. No props. Thank you. Thank you. And
by the way, I appreciate the correction I got last time. I misunderstood the dynamics. So
by knowing that, I can do what I need to do properly. So I appreciate
that. I like being corrected, especially when I'm wrong. So that's good. I want to talk about two things briefly,
I hope. One of them is this paper that you're probably
familiar with. It's got 130 businesses from the rail district, and they're still,
just haven't been clarified. For me. Whether the fact that
businesses have gone out of business, that shouldn't have
gone out of business, based upon the decision, and whether intentional or not,
you just have a result. Oops, these people need to be reimbursed for being businesses here,
ready for 10, 15, 20 years and all of a sudden going out of business because
of what happened to it. Just in talking to a lot of people around frisco, there's a lot
of small businessmen looking at this and saying, hey, if they can do that to their rail district, maybe they can do it to us. So
it's an optic thing, if not a real thing, that probably needs to be addressed. Second thing I
wanted to mention was prop 10 on the election. And I think
the exact wording was texas should prohibit sharia law and the islamic legal code in
texas. 94.6% agreed
with that. And this has nothing to do with being, with freedom
of religion, freedom of anything else. It's just that there's a law thing that
is if you look at it, it's fairly inconsistent with our laws in terms of the
constitution. So the answer is, why would there be such a huge
94% thing on that? One could be, if we look at the history,
george washington was asked as president, what was your toughest part of your
presidency? And he said, islam. And then adams didn't do anything about it,
but jefferson was in on this. He said, wait a minute. What is
the real deal? Because over in the barbary coast off of africa, right where libya is,
our merchant marines were being attacked by the barbary pirates and killed and sold
into slavery. And stuff like that. So they got a meeting together in london, said, guys, what is going on?
we've been very respectful. We've not done anything. Why are you doing this to us? And
the response from the leadership there was, it's simple. Our book says, you're infidels.
therefore, we get to kill you and do what we do to you. And when the word got
back to jefferson, he basically said, just deal with it. And
people don't know this, but the leatherneck, the marines are called
leathernecks. And that was to prevent the sword from the other side. And then,
in the marine hymn, it says, from the halls of montezuma to the shores of tripoli.
that's where this took place. And they got rid of it so that our merchant marine would be
safe and no longer be harassed. So there seems
to be a difference. And I appreciated the, who was it,
distinguishing. We treat all religions alike. I agree
with that. But islam, what does that mean? Oh, okay. Islam seems to be more a political ideology that does not want
to adapt and contribute. But take over and dominate. And so there is a wondering why
all this is there, and maybe there needs to be
some more discussion. I think I
mentioned that quote before, that some only fools say we should not discuss religion and
politics. Why? Because then thieves keep their power and
false prophets keep teaching. So we need to clarify what really is happening,
what really are the beliefs. And you look at london, you look at new york city, you look at new jersey, you look at
michigan, you look at minnesota, you look at all these things that are going on
in cities, but it's not going to happen here. People say, yeah, but it won't happen in texas. Well, that's what the
other people said, too. So what is it that's happening? What do we need to be aware of so we
can make the correct steps, make the right decisions so we
don't get taken over by those who are not american? Thank you. Okay, next
we have sehas kaul, and then after that we have neha sutran. Hello everyone,
my name is sehas kaul, and I've lived in frisco for 22 years. I
was born at texas health
presbyterian in plano, so I've been here for quite a while now.
and I feel like, with a lot of the rhetoric being said about,
particularly indians, I feel like I have an interesting perspective on this. Being a
first-generation american, with my parents migrating over in, I think, 2000, it's
really sad to see what's going on. The fact that I came to this
meeting and I saw someone bring out an indian flag, talk
in an indian accent, very saddening. And that's kind of, that's aside from what I was
going to say, but I just wanted to make that clear with
everyone that I don't think anyone should be applauding. That sort of behavior, and it is quite
saddening seeing that in my community, and it truly
does make me very emotional. But I feel like a divide has been created and the root cause
of that is misinformation. I feel like there are players that are outside
of our community that want to bring this rhetoric in here. And I mean,
I'm looking at the audience, the people that primarily made the the false claims against
indians, they're not even in this room anymore. They're not here to listen. They're here to just make their
statement and leave. And
it's us, as frisco, as a community, can't fall into that. It's dangerous. This misinformation causes
unnecessary conflicts, unnecessary stirrups,
and I feel like it just causes divide within our community. And, I mean, I had some statistics
that I wanted to talk about, but I think it's deeper than
that. I can say as much as I want about h-1bs, all this,
but, I mean with my experience here, as the indian population has grown, crime has gone down,
there's been a lot more economic growth. I had the
pleasure of talking with chief of police david shielson
earlier today, and he even said most cities with first class population would be envious of
our crime rate and our community. Anyone that really
wants to learn and be educated
and understand the perspective of someone that's within that community,
you can come to me, talk to me afterwards, and I'll give you that. Because I feel like this sort of information is
only spread when you're in your own echo chamber. When you're in your echo chamber
of thoughts and with social media, with all these things around us, we just get stuck
within our own thoughts and our own beliefs. And they become extreme. The only way we change that is through communication
and through coming together as a community. Thank you. Just let
me know when you start the time. I'll just start the time
like on my own side, so I can see how I'm doing time wise. You have it on there. Oh, oh my
god, it started. Okay. Hi, my name is neha surathran. I've lived in texas since 2016, and
I've significantly watched a demographic change. So today here, I'm here essentially
to address misinformation about the indian community that has been stated
at previous meetings, the blatant racism that was displayed quite literally 20
minutes ago, and all of this has spread to the news. Times of india is
writing about councilman tucker and how this, that so called activist paul
has blatantly made racist claims towards him. But many
of these people that have spoken at previous town halls, they've used the word alleged.
alleged fraud, alleged activity, alleged concerns. I will not be using that word
tonight. I'm not here to speculate. I'm here to present facts. I'm here to cite real data,
and I am here to address directly the misinformation surrounding h-1b visas and harmful stereotypes about the
indian community in frisco. Tonight, I'm here to talk about two things, the truth
about h-1b visas and the reality of the indian community in our city. I spoke directly
with the frisco chief of police, david shilson. Something that I want to make clear to everybody
here tonight. The frisco council is not responsible for h1b
visa fraud. That directly goes to a federal bureau.
complaining here, the only reason why people are
complaining to the council is to spread blatant hate towards
the indian community. Because they feel uncomfortable seeing people that do not look like them. What sahas had said
earlier, frisco is consistently ranked one of the safest cities in america. Not despite its
diversity, not despite its indian population, but alongside it. And as of today, there are no verified reports
of h-1b fraud in frisco. If the word alleged continues to be
used one more time, at this point, I would urge citizens to assume that it is false.
unless you do a quick research on google. Look at a, like, federal bureau website. The
statistics, the data, it's all there. Chief shilson
also said misinformation is one of the biggest threats.
to our country today. It creates divisiveness and hostility and does everything but promote unity. And that is
exactly what we are seeing. People are forming strong opinions based
on social media clips, group chats, and viral posts. Kelly, for example, today at this meeting made a claim that
hate crimes were happening in india against the christian community. She referenced the
cornell report. Upon looking at this report, you can see that there have been 200 cases
of hate crimes towards christians, but india is home to 1.2 billion people.
relative to the size of population, there has been
significantly more hate crimes towards muslims and jewish people within india. America.
so hate crimes happen everywhere, but are disproportionately happening
in the u.s. Due to uninformed rhetoric spread by people that do not educate themselves. So let's talk
facts. What about an h-1b visa? You need to have a specialized job offer, work in tech or
medicine, have at least a bachelor's degree or higher, be sponsored by a u.s. Employee,
and also, the company has to prove that you, that,
that that. They're paying the h-1b visa holder the same, if not higher amount as they would a u.s. Resident. They're not
outsourcing cheaper labor. And it's not an easy system to enter. It's selective,
competitive, and regulated. And there's a reason that this program exists. Around 70% of
ai and machine learning graduate students in the u.s. Are international students. In overall stem fields, over
50. That means that the very people being trained in our universities in the most
advanced fields are often not u.s. Citizens. Without programs like h-1b,
we are not protecting jobs, we are pushing away talent that our own system helped create.
for every one h-1b worker, approximately 1.8 additional
jobs are created for u.s. Workers. So the idea that these individuals are taking jobs is
just not supported by the data. Regions like frisco, with higher h-1b participation, have been shown to experience faster wage
growth for u.s.-born. Workers. Now, let's talk about the indian community. About 75% of americans hold a bachelor's
degree, compared to 38%. The medium. Income is 150k, double the u.s. Median. We are among the highest contributing
groups per capita towards taxes. And if you look towards the crime data, 1.2% of fraud arrests, despite being a larger share
of the population at 6%. So, statistically, the indian community is associated with higher education, higher
income, and lower crime rates. So if a group is associated
with safer communities, stronger schools, and higher economic contribution, why are we afraid?
if your goal is for your children to grow up in safe neighborhoods. High-performing schools,
stable communities, then this is not something to fear. This is something
to welcome. And let me be clear about cultural visibility. We also celebrate thanksgiving,
christmas. We are not forcing religion onto you. Hinduism does not convert. We believe
everybody goes to heaven, as long as you're a good person. Can I talk for a little more,
if possible? Sorry, ma'am. Thank you. Okay,
but thank you. We have harlan papert and then, finally,
we have donna schmittler. Well, hi, honestly, after all of this and what we talked
about, you know, having your time and what you want to talk
about. I don't even know what to say right now. I haven't been to the city council
meeting in some years. I think the last time I talked, it was like, about frisco arts, like,
whatever before covid. Just
having experienced this, I feel like I'm seeing democracy in action, but I do have
something to say. I'm looking at the makeup of this board
here, right, of this council. We have representation of
different cultures and different people from different places. So when I hear these outsiders
coming in and talking about frisco, I find that. Terribly
annoying and terribly frustrating, and I don't know how you all have to sit here and listen
to that. I didn't know. That's part of the process. That doesn't have anything to do with our city council, right?
there's nothing you can do about that. Whatever is going on, whatever that is, if it's a problem, it's not a
frisco problem, it's not a city council problem, you shouldn't have to deal with
that. I do have some questions though, because initially I
came here because I think I got a little bit blindsided, and I think some
of us were blindsided. About that industrial park, what used to be becky's horse
rescue. So I think a lot
of my neighbors are rather upset about the whole thing,
and I thank brian livingston and jeff cheney for speaking
to me about it when I first got here. I appreciate that because I really didn't know what was
going on, but I also feel uninformed. And I don't know
if there's a better way for
city to inform the residents who would be most impacted
about some type of construction that will impact their
backyards. So I think that that
measure was a little bit rushed. I know that was already something discussed. I heard
that 25 or 30 people came out. I've also found out just
yesterday that there was a petition that went around. I
don't know what impact that had, but I'm just wondering,
you know, about that and how myself and others could be more
informed, because I asked a few of my neighbors, and my neighbor showed up,
and I have another neighbor. They had no idea about this industrial park going on in our backyard,
and I know it's upset a lot of people. The other part to that is the impact
environmentally, public safety, and public health. I live in
prestmont, which was built in 95, 96. I moved there in 2012.
and when I moved to frisco in 2012, it was a very different
city, right? The exit from prestmont goes out to
prestmont and ohio. Where we have all that new, well,
it's not new anymore. There was nothing there many years ago. Now we have a lot of stores and
retail and apartments, and there's a lot of traffic. And years ago, we were told
that there would be traffic controls put in place. And one roundabout was built at warren
and ohio. But we also have, I think, and I'm sure the
police can look into, you know, the type of safety problems
we've had, but... At gaylord and ohio, we have this immense
intersection, and we were told there was going to be a roundabout put there
to control the traffic. It never happened. We were also told that potentially something
was going to be put at presmont, because I will tell
you, it's a dangerous intersection. Oftentimes, there's a police car posted there because of the
danger. Personally, I used
to walk my dog through there, and I can tell you a number
of times that I had to leap out of the way with my dog. Because I almost got hit
by a car. My neighbor got hit by a car there. He got t-boned right there. So I just want
to also ask that we can look into what happened to the traffic control there, because I think with that
industrial park also going in, we're going to see more traffic.
so that's what I have to say. Thank you all for your time, and I appreciate everything you all
are doing here. Thank you.
thank you. I will add really y quickly, the developer of that project is going to be
doing another neighborhood town hall. I know laura romel has been working with them
to coordinate that. I think it's after spring break for people to learn more about the projects,
and they're also offering to have residents come see another one of their projects
to understand it. So if you want to know more information about that, we can. We can get
that to you. Thank you. And jason, would you mind grabbing them afterwards, too, to give them a status
on the roundabout? Yeah, I
think it's in design. Donna. Good evening, mayor and council. Donna schmittler, 7037, white rock court,
frisco, texas. Just want to give you some information
about the heritage association of frisco. We are having, on march 31st, we are having a
lecture and a meeting at... At the heritage depot, and it
will feature the 1903 alan bickerstaff house. That the new
owners, the petruskas, have spent two years and much blood, sweat, and tears, and some
dollars restoring the house. So it's open to everybody. We'd love you
to come and see it. And she has written a book, which will be featured that night as well.
and we're still working on frisco 125. Which is coming up
in 2027, and some of you will be hearing from many people. We have hired
some writers and some authors to help with that. So if you get a call from us,
it's not a spam call. We really want your input. And thank you so much. I know it's difficult
what you do. I was on the school board once and it's not an easy thing. So it compels
in comparison to what you guys are up to. But I appreciate frisco and
like I said on more than one occasion. I came to frisco for a new life, and frisco has
given me a good one. Thank you. Thank you, donna. All right.
item 30 is city council discussion with city staff concerning any actions required by staff. We had the tabled
item that will come back. Item 31 is governance monitoring, which I had this evening. And
so council had good discussion on the one regular agenda item. Citizen input. So I gave us
tonight. With that, I will look for a motion to adjourn motion by burt,
second by and all in favor that passes 6-0. We are adjourned at 856. Thank you.