[0:08] Good evening, welcome to the North Rutherland Hills City Council work session. It is 5 p.m. and I will call, excuse me, the mending November 10th, 2025, city council work session to order, quorum of the city council is present. The meeting has been duly posted in accordance with the Texas meeting's act of the Texas government code. Adam's listed for discussion on the work session, agenda, provide an opportunity for the city council to discuss the items and receive information from the staff.

[0:34] Yeah, City Council will not take action on any of the item listed for discussion during the work session.

[0:39] Any members of the public wishing to address the Council regarding items listed on the work session.

[0:45] Agenda may do so during the public comments portion of the regular meeting.

[0:50] The first item is to give the Council an opportunity to ask questions on items on a regular agenda that the Council has not had any clarification on it this time.

[0:59] I'll have any.

[1:00] Nope.

[1:02] Seeing none, move on.

[1:03] and lead services, operational efficiency audit, Paulette Hartman.

[1:09] All right, thank you, Mayor.

[1:10] Actually, these next two will kind of be presented together.

[1:14] I think we're going to do the fleet services audit first and then permitting.

[1:18] And then, so Aaron, baggerly, with matrix is here and he'll be doing both presentations.

[1:25] Because Catherine, I don't know how to say big no.

[1:28] You know, the venue who was the lead on our fleet services study, she was not able to get

[1:36] here.

[1:36] Her flights were canceled.

[1:39] Do the government shut down.

[1:41] So Erin will be covering all of these and Erin, if you want to make your way to the podium,

[1:47] this is a, these are the studies that the council had approved in this, or the previous fiscal

[1:53] years budget.

[1:54] but they were awarded April 14th, 2025 and so Matrix has completed both of these final

[2:03] reports and so Aaron's going to give you all just a high level overview of some of their

[2:09] recommendations and then you'll receive the report tonight so you can have it in detail.

[2:14] A lot of their recommendations are operational in nature so we'll be looking at those but

[2:19] I feel free to ask any questions of course following his presentation that you might have.

[2:25] Aaron, go ahead.

[2:27] Thank you, Ms. Hardman.

[2:28] Aaron Bagley, a major consulting group.

[2:31] As Paula said, my colleague, our fleet practice lead, Kate Venio cannot make it here due to air traffic control shortages.

[2:38] So she sends her regards.

[2:40] So I will present on both the fleet study and the permitting efficiency audits.

[2:44] and we'll start with the Fleet Study,

[2:46] and certainly be available for any questions.

[2:49] You have on both studies as part of this.

[2:52] And as you recall, these are operational efficiency studies

[2:55] where folks are on the Fleet Audit

[2:57] and the Permitting Study so far.

[3:00] So just a quick overview of really what the goals

[3:05] of the studies were, is really to optimize processes

[3:07] and approach, and that was both internal processes,

[3:10] primarily on the Fleet side of things,

[3:11] But on the permitting site also the external processes and how you engage with the public to develop the community and residents within North Richland Hills.

[3:20] Also looking at improving both internal and external customer service components of this obviously fleet is an internal services fund where permitting is both internal and external facing with the public and also looking at enhancing operational efficiencies are the three broad strokes that really focus on as part of these two studies and engagements.

[3:42] As we mentioned, Fleet Services study looking at your internal fleet services as a recent

[3:47] transition to the public worst department, some best practices and benchmarking, sorry,

[3:54] I'm sure I'm going to speak today, part of those services also looking at acquisition,

[3:58] replacement, maintenance, approaches, technology, utilization, et cetera.

[4:02] On the permitting side of things, current state, process, diagramming, we did have some external

[4:07] customer survey and some focus group conversations, focus groups conversations were a little bit

[4:12] lighter than the customer service feedback. We did invest practices in comparative assessment

[4:17] and then looked at your technology processes, customer service and operations and thirdly,

[4:21] we're also doing the information technology efficiency audit, which was started a little

[4:25] bit later. So transitioning the focus on the fleet service is operational audit component

[4:33] of this. This is our fleet team. We had separate teams that worked on the fleet team.

[4:38] Catherine, if you know, leads our fleet practice over 35 years of experience.

[4:42] She's supplemented by Ruth Alson, who was a former fleet manager in City of Cincinnati for

[4:47] about 30 years and then David Branch is part of our team as well.

[4:50] This is our dedicated fleet team and this is what they primarily focused on.

[4:54] So a separate team for the fleet component and the permitting team because I led the permitting

[4:58] side of the study.

[5:00] And so really just an overview of the fleet services study is an comprehensive operational efficiency study of your fleet services looking at the governance, your procurement practices, utilization, fleet utilization, equipment and asset utilization, your maintenance practices, your maintenance approach, and technology, organizational structure needs, and also looking deep dive into some of your policies that you have governing your fleet operations for this. So the study really focused on streamlining and optimating,

[5:29] optimizing your fleet processes, improving customer services, and improving

[5:34] efficiencies from operational perspective with that. This is really an overview of

[5:40] our task plan. We start every project all by doing due diligence and learning

[5:45] about your organization. Our fleet team was here on site back in May for about

[5:51] three days meeting with the fleet main esteem meeting with city management to

[5:55] to understand about the organization.

[5:57] We did extensive data collection and analysis with this

[6:00] and developed a current state profile

[6:02] of the fleet operations for the city.

[6:05] We compared the fleet operations

[6:06] to industry best practice

[6:07] and this is through the North American Fleet Association

[6:11] and the American Public Works Association.

[6:13] Both of those have a very strong

[6:14] and robust set of best management practices

[6:17] for the industry with that.

[6:19] As I mentioned earlier, we also did a site visit back in May.

[6:22] I interviewed a lot of the staff within the fleet maintenance

[6:25] team, towards your facilities, look how they impacted your operations.

[6:29] Both at the fire fleet maintenance shop, but also the shop across the street that services

[6:35] are rest of the city organization.

[6:38] Also some benchmarking, comparison to award-winning organizations through best practices, but also

[6:44] a couple of North Texas communities as well.

[6:46] And we're here to present the final report and implementation plan to guide some recommendations.

[6:51] I think a total of 28 recommendations were made as part of the fleet study and many

[6:56] of which have already implementation has started as part of this engagement.

[7:00] As some of the key findings that our team found was to move to public works as viewed as

[7:05] a positive by staff and their customers.

[7:08] There's been a different approach to providing these services and some improvement with this.

[7:13] The availability of data to really guide some of the future decision making is lacking.

[7:18] There's a lack of historic data and some data points there that could be very beneficial

[7:23] to really proactively lead to the department, but also some policies that this city council

[7:29] could make with that.

[7:30] There's also some opportunity for increased centralization between the fire and fleet

[7:34] components of that to increase flexibility for staffing needs, but also maintain and provide

[7:39] better levels of service.

[7:42] I really looking at your fleet.

[7:44] We looked at your fleet inventory.

[7:45] or you have 441 assets.

[7:47] That's not just fire trucks and police vehicles

[7:49] and building inspectored vehicles.

[7:52] You know, that includes dump trucks and public works

[7:53] and trailers and mobile units and dump trucks

[7:56] and tractors and lawn mowers.

[7:59] Your average age is 8.7 years for all your fleet assets.

[8:03] A little bit higher than industry average.

[8:06] And so we'll talk about that a little bit more with that.

[8:09] And you've got some technology systems in place

[8:11] and you're actually testing some systems

[8:12] that could be very impactful to efficiency of operations moving forward.

[8:19] We bucketed our recommendations into six buckets, governance, procurement, utilization, maintenance, staffing, and technology.

[8:28] These are the summary of some of the points I want to talk about here in the next few minutes.

[8:31] But these are the six buckets that we dropped the recommendations in and focused our analysis around.

[8:37] These are the key areas that we found to dig a little bit deeper and make, like I said,

[8:42] 28 recommendations for focusing on the governance side of things.

[8:46] This is really the administration of your fleet operations and the need to create a fleet

[8:52] steering committee, having department representatives to really help guide fleet operations, to guide

[8:57] that replacement plan, to guide that utilization on components that you need to dive in to make

[9:02] sure that you're doing what you need to do, to be more proactive and have the end users

[9:07] provide feedback back to the fleet team to say, hey, we're having these issues.

[9:11] This committee's perfect, you know, for each department to have a central point of contact in their department,

[9:15] to go to and to feed that into the larger group to provide enhanced service and efficiencies,

[9:20] whether that's securing a new vehicles or maintaining the assets you've already purchased.

[9:25] Also, annual conducting of internal customer surveys to get that feedback of what's going well,

[9:32] where there might be some opportunities for improvement.

[9:34] And then finally, there's opportunity to update several fleet policies around fleet policy

[9:39] manual, driver's handbook and a couple other areas that are teamed over and to really tighten

[9:44] up some of those standard operating procedures for consistency in how the fleet is governed

[9:49] and how the operations are governed.

[9:52] On the procurement side, we do make the recommendation to develop a 10-year replacement plan.

[9:57] These are assets just like your personal vehicle.

[10:00] Local, on that many of you probably drove to get here today, you know, so depreciating asset. When you have to buy new equipment, new vehicles, it is costly. So a 10 year replacement plan is industry norm for this to have that due diligence to say, hey, in three years, we need to get a fire apparatus. We need to replace one of our fire engines or we've got six patrol cars that are rolling off the line near end of life or we can maximize the return on selling those assets with that.

[10:27] So developing that tenure replacement plan is a critical strategy to really think about the finances

[10:33] In place and where you need to go because we all know

[10:37] 2020 there was a shortage of vehicles around. I'm sure it impacted your team as well

[10:41] with that so you maybe

[10:43] Didn't replace the minion 2020 but 21 22 so

[10:46] You've got some grouping of vehicles and those and you want to be proactive in providing the funding for your vehicles replacing at the

[10:53] the opportune time to get the best, the most money back out of some of these assets that

[10:59] you have, and then to also be good stewards of the financial resources of the city. Also adopt

[11:05] the policy of key for key replacement as well for your, your keys and how you do that and really

[11:10] looking at your fleet and the opportune times to replace on these components. Part of that

[11:16] replacement plan utilization is, is important. There needs to be a utilization policy looking at

[11:21] those assets. Some assets like patrol vehicles, they're driven a lot more than some pool vehicles

[11:27] that are for administrative staff or IT staff or maybe go into a conference or something

[11:32] like that. There's much different utilization around that and you need to take an annual

[11:36] look at your utilization of your assets to see, do we need to keep this asset? I would say

[11:41] a low mileage dump truck is one thing. You're not going to replace a dump truck or get rid of

[11:46] a dump truck because it's only driven 500 miles a year. But if you've got an asset that's

[11:52] a sedan that is only driven 500 miles in a year and over four years it's only driven

[11:56] 2500 miles do you really need to keep that asset. And so that's where you need to do these

[12:01] annual utilization reviews to see which assets you need to keep on the books and maintain

[12:06] and replace eventually in which ones might be not used as much and you might be able to turn

[12:11] them over, or it might not be utilized in this, but if we transition this to Dan to a pick-up truck

[12:17] then it might provide more functionality for that department.

[12:23] On the maintenance side of things,

[12:25] there's policy and procedure related components here and force pre-trip inspections looking at

[12:30] that to make sure that policy is in place. So you don't have an asset, it's got a flat tire and somebody

[12:34] drives five miles down the road and realize you have that. You want to have some consistency and

[12:38] enforcement of those inspections and policies around them.

[12:42] Another area that our team noticed was a backlog and really upfitting vehicles such as your patrol vehicles getting them fitted in-house.

[12:53] We do make some recommendations to minimize in-house upfitting so you don't have that backlog.

[12:57] So you don't have a new asset that is sitting to wait several weeks to be upfitted before it can go out on the road with that.

[13:04] And then we also make the recommendation to centralize the fire and fleet maintenance teams into a single team that works more

[13:12] cohesively and collaborates together as part of that single operational unit.

[13:19] When it comes to the staffing levels, we did look at the, there's a pretty comprehensive analysis.

[13:24] We get to vehicle equivalency units based on the type of unit and the number of hours of maintenance that needs in the year

[13:29] and start building this staffing model with this,

[13:32] and we do make the recommendation to reallocate several

[13:36] of the positions to different classifications

[13:38] for a total of seven mechanics that you need

[13:41] to maintain the assets that you currently own

[13:44] and responsible for maintaining at this point,

[13:47] and continue to encourage staff to receive training

[13:49] and certifications to continue to be a larger asset

[13:51] to the city, but also for their professional growth

[13:54] and development as well.

[13:57] And technology, we do make a recommendation

[14:00] to enhance the functionalities of your fleet management information system, the FMIS,

[14:06] on that you have there some functionalities that are missing as part of that system,

[14:10] and to work towards implementing some of those best practices out there.

[14:14] To get some of that data we talked about that is missing earlier.

[14:17] We also make a recommendation to implement telematics as part of this,

[14:21] and I think there is a test scenario going on right now with a system or two out there about telematics.

[14:27] IntelliMatics really gives you a lot of that data and details that the fleet team needs

[14:32] to look at it, you know, how long are cars idling, you know, or staff maybe driving

[14:36] too fast or going over to speed limit against policy, are they, cars vehicles being used

[14:43] in the way that they need to be used, you get to track a lot of that information about your

[14:47] vehicle, the usage, the maintenance, and telematics even has alerts now when it says, hey, we're

[14:53] past the old mile, the mileage to do the oil change and have that capability if we

[14:58] minus to get a report of that.

[15:00] So they can ping the right department director and say, hey, we've got two vehicles that need

[15:04] to have an oil change, or a PM, prevent a maintenance for them to bring it in. And also

[15:08] create a reporting matrix, a dashboard with a lot of this information that we collected

[15:12] from the new fleet management information system or the telematic systems. Integrated

[15:16] into that, both for fleet maintenance team itself, but also the department has to see some

[15:21] of the information on fleet utilization and usage as part of that.

[15:27] So there were 28 total

[15:29] recommendations that we made and for each of the recommendations you'll see in a report

[15:34] there's implementation plan associated with these recommendations, timeline for implementation

[15:38] and a general cost associated with this.

[15:41] And so we do provide this prioritization component in the report with some dates on it also understand

[15:48] that the team has actually already started implementing several of these recommendations to date and

[15:54] are working diligently towards this and started well before we got to the draft report stage

[15:58] about a month ago. So a couple of components here, Institute of Fleet

[16:02] Steering Committee with quarterly schedule. This will promote a lot more efficient

[16:06] decision-making on vehicle replacement resolution of maintenance issues, other

[16:10] components that are needed with that, and that gives a group buy-in effort versus

[16:14] having the fleet team, the fleet supervisor, making those decisions in a vacuum.

[16:20] You'll soon create a formal preventive maintenance program for trailers and

[16:23] small equipment that doesn't really exist now while there's not a large burden

[16:26] and all that. You never want to have staff go up and hook to a trailer and has a flat tire

[16:30] because it hadn't been moved in six months with that. Enhanced the safety, prevents failures,

[16:36] reduces risk management, and also prolongs the life of these assets for you. And then also

[16:42] communicate benefits of pursuing ASC or the lecture vehicle tech certifications to your technicians.

[16:50] Surgeon mechanics are staying up to date with technology, with maintenance activities,

[16:55] and the gain skills that benefit the city.

[16:57] If you provide that professional development component of that,

[17:01] it could help maintain and retain employees

[17:03] which mechanics are just like every other component

[17:06] of the local government.

[17:07] It's hard to recruit and retain employees with this,

[17:10] particularly when there's a shortage of those skill laborers

[17:13] out there in the market.

[17:14] Dealerships will pluck them up very quickly

[17:16] for a lot of different reasons.

[17:20] So any questions on the fleet study?

[17:24] We don't have any questions or comments.

[17:31] Just mayor if I might.

[17:32] I'll just mention a few of the things in the fleet area that they've already initiated

[17:38] or already started.

[17:39] I'll start with district.

[17:40] You might remember that, oh gosh, I can't remember when it was that we put fleet under public

[17:46] work.

[17:46] So fleet used to be a separate department.

[17:48] And I guess in the last year, year and a half, we put that as a division under public works.

[17:54] So that's what they're referring to in the study about these customers are internal

[18:01] and they like the move to public works.

[18:03] So one of the things that some of the things already in the works is working on those policy

[18:08] updates, doing a draft vehicle use and operator policy, we're implementing the pre-trip inspections,

[18:18] we're implementing the key for key vehicle replacement policy.

[18:22] We're also working on several things in the procurement and utilization area, scheduling

[18:29] department follow-up meetings, asset utilization questionnaire to make sure we have a handle

[18:34] on what's being utilized, what's not, and what are those things that we're not, we might

[18:40] be able to eliminate from the fleet or create a pool from.

[18:46] Also, the difference between, we do allow some take home vehicles, so we're working on

[18:52] to clarify our policy around that.

[18:55] And then the vehicle replacement plan that he referred to, we do have a vehicle replacement

[19:01] plan.

[19:02] However, over the years, it hasn't necessarily incorporated all of the vehicles in our fleet,

[19:09] so we're working on that.

[19:10] And we're also taking a look at it from the perspective of, you know, just because it's ten years old, five years old, whatever, ten doesn't need to be replaced on a piece of equipment that's not utilized that often.

[19:25] So those types of things. And then technology, you'll see some of those requests come through in next year's budget requests.

[19:32] There is a lot of, this division in particular has not utilized technology hardly at all, and there are lots and lots of fleet maintenance technologies and softwares that could assist us in being more efficient with maintenance and repairs and those types of things and also knowledge of the utilization.

[19:55] So those are the types of things that are already in the works and again you'll see some of these recommendations.

[20:00] Conditions come forward in the budget and in the budget process. We have not shared the final reports with the departments yet. We'll be doing that later this week. We wanted to present the council with an overview of the studies first, and then later this week, I'll meet with the fleet division and then also the permits and inspections division to go over in a little bit more detail some of the recommendations that are being made and the things that we're looking at. Thank you, Cohen.

[20:27] Hey, Paulette. You know, as mentioned, having seven mechanics and the certifications, we have a list of the different certifications that are required, and we want an X percentage to be diesel certified into whatever.

[20:40] Right, so I want to clarify obviously the ones our mechanics are certified mechanics, but those are types of things that we'll be looking at in the study.

[20:48] What they've recommended is keeping up with certifications that are kind of best practices and new certifications.

[20:53] I'll say at this time, we don't necessarily have a list of those certifications that would

[21:01] be needed.

[21:02] We're going to look at that and some have other certifications and some don't, but anyway,

[21:08] so that is an area that we need to handle on and understand what certifications we need

[21:13] that would be beneficial to our fleet.

[21:18] Are we fully staffed with mechanics that said seven is the recommendation that we have seven?

[21:23] Yes, we are fully staffed. I think the recommendation there is more re-reallocating the workload or

[21:29] Reallocating some of the staff to make sure that we can handle the existing workload the other thing that we'll be looking at in as a part of that recommendation as the possibility of

[21:38] outsourcing

[21:40] I think that

[21:42] What we kind of took away from this study is maybe we've been operating a little too lean in terms of our mechanic shop

[21:49] Knowing that we likely will not be in a position to add mechanics, to add positions and it's

[21:55] going to be about reallocating the work and also looking at areas that might be able to

[21:58] be outsourced.

[22:00] And was there a recommendation about putting fleet and fire under the same?

[22:05] So right now we have separate fire mechanics.

[22:08] So that allocation would be looked at in terms of, you know, the recommendation was to bring

[22:15] them all together as one mechanics division that works on everything and so part of that

[22:21] would be what we'd look at in terms of the reallocation as well.

[22:25] And the 3.8 overall rating was on a five point scale which

[22:30] is a decent, right?

[22:32] Yeah.

[22:34] Yeah, that's good.

[22:35] It's a B, I guess.

[22:40] I see.

[22:40] I don't know what's the grade left out.

[22:42] I don't know.

[22:43] What's the range?

[22:44] Yeah.

[22:44] I don't know any more because I know the scale are.

[22:46] They don't make any sense anymore.

[22:48] Yeah.

[22:48] A lot simpler.

[22:49] Okay.

[22:49] Thank you.

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:50] I had a question about electric vehicles.

[22:53] Obviously, there's not an electric fire truck or dump truck, but is it now becoming more practical

[23:00] to consider electric vehicles, maybe even the police fleet?

[23:05] And the reason I bring that up is I've got an electric vehicle, had it for five years.

[23:09] The big difference in cost, not only fuel, but maintenance is almost zero.

[23:13] So is that becoming practical to use or to look at electric vehicles for such services?

[23:22] Certainly, looking at that and you're correct.

[23:24] When you look at an electric vehicle, the maintenance, I'm going to say the maintenance hours associated with that vehicle are much lower than an internal combustible engine, a gas or diesel engine with that.

[23:35] There is some preventive maintenance savings in that because you're not obviously changing all, but you're still replacing the tires, upgrading the brakes.

[23:43] for place in windshield wipers, et cetera. But there is less parts in there. And so they are

[23:47] more efficient from that standpoint because there is less work per unit associated with that.

[23:54] We are seeing more government fleets increase electric vehicle or other alternative fuels out there.

[24:00] That technology continues to evolve. And so we're seeing where it is more sustainable.

[24:05] As you mentioned, you know, sometimes some vehicles like a patrol vehicle might not be a great candidate

[24:10] to be replaced because they run 24-7 hard to bring them down and to charge them with that.

[24:17] There are electric fire apparatus out there. They are very expensive, but you also have to look

[24:23] at the cost and the functionality of that as well. With that technology is just starting to emerge

[24:30] on the heavy equipment side of things, a fire apparatus where, as you mentioned, you've had a

[24:35] Let your vehicle yourself probably a sedan for five years so that technology is a little more known on with that

[24:41] It does require different skill set and for your mechanics to maintain that but also the infrastructure is needed for electric vehicles for here at City Hall at your

[24:51] Fleet yard on with that and as you start looking at that there are different requirements and infrastructure and sometimes that cost of

[25:00] We're here to entry for that if you have to upgrade your yard to be able to charge more vehicles as part of that. So as something to keep in mind, if you were to make that transition dead, yes, electric vehicles, maybe not much more upfront, but how many hundreds of thousands, not millions of dollars, may you have to input an infrastructure side to have the site ready to be able to charge 15 or 20 vehicles here overnight, every night of the week.

[25:25] Thank you.

[25:26] All right.

[25:26] Thank you.

[25:27] Good question.

[25:28] Anybody else?

[25:30] So, a couple of things.

[25:32] So, when you do the final report, which we'll give us, you're going to give us the bitch

[25:35] marking, the best practices, the best in class, whatever it is in some of the data, so we can

[25:40] look at all of it.

[25:41] I got a lot of questions that are rolling around in my head.

[25:46] The other is, if I look at, when you say 8.7 and I realize there's trailers in that and

[25:52] some other things, and you say a 10-year replacement,

[25:55] that means we're 3.7 years past a 10-year replacement plan,

[26:00] just based on the average,

[26:01] because you'd have an average of five years

[26:03] if you had a 10-year replacement, right?

[26:05] Many news stories.

[26:06] It is a 10-year replacement and some assets

[26:08] will replace multiple times in 10 years.

[26:11] When you look at patrol cars,

[26:12] typically that's a 3-to-5-year replacement cycle.

[26:14] So some of those vehicles might be replaced

[26:16] twice in a 10-year plan, where a trailer you buy once,

[26:20] it's gonna get you 20 years.

[26:21] our fire apparatus that's typically a 10 to 12 year turnover on those okay so

[26:28] do you break that out by asset class we did not include a replacement plant

[26:36] in here but I think there is some information in the report to talk about some

[26:43] of that to provide some guidance and 100 percent sure on that but I do see a

[26:46] life cycle table here on page 67 report that you will get that talks about

[26:51] a lot of life cycle years, life cycle miles, and even trailer, you know, 20 years life cycle,

[26:57] life cycle miles, not applicable with that.

[27:00] And then what our average is in each of those classes.

[27:02] Because it implies there's more money to be spent than less money to be spent.

[27:06] I'm just trying to, I'm trying to thank money here.

[27:08] So we don't have a replacement plan in here for your physical assets itself.

[27:13] But we do provide some guidance on when you should replace our policy.

[27:16] Okay, and then I believe like the telematics is what they use for a lot in the long haul trucker stuff, right?

[27:24] Yeah, okay, that's what I thought.

[27:26] Yeah, you think from GPS, how long have you been going?

[27:28] GPS, how long has been Adeland, you know, if Aaron Adels is his work truck for an hour before he starts his day,

[27:35] you're going to get that and you come and have a conversation with me where my colleague might just go out there and crank it up, jump right in.

[27:41] And define the word up fitting.

[27:43] A fitting is where you take a patrol vehicle for police, and where you customize and put light bars on it, the North-Western Hills decals,

[27:52] you know, some moment, depending on what you're buying to have the seats in the back and the cages are already in.

[27:58] Sometimes they don't, your patrol officers have certain features and functionalities that they like.

[28:03] The radio systems included in that with that someone maybe, you know, a sergeant maybe has a different setup than a patrol officer does

[28:10] because they have different equipment needs with that.

[28:12] So, upfitting is taking the base patrol vehicle.

[28:15] I think it's a Tahoe here, upfitting it to North Regional Hill standards, putting your

[28:19] light bars on it if it's not on there, putting in your radio systems, putting your decals,

[28:23] putting the boxes in the back.

[28:24] You know, custom, I don't want to say customizing it, but essentially customizing it

[28:28] onto what you need.

[28:29] So, it's really upfitting a vehicle to be used for your patrol department, even sometimes

[28:34] public works, you've got some radios in those or fire department as well.

[28:37] And then you have to strip them back down before you sell them as well.

[28:42] Okay, then my last comment is, I know that most of the dealerships around here,

[28:49] they actually, in turn, they pull kids from the Bechtle that are mechanics.

[28:54] And they'll do, if they want to think in terms of an intern to have one,

[28:58] coming through, you might see about how we can work with them.

[29:01] Because I know they have a 5-star Ford certainly is lousy with them.

[29:05] And so it's an automation, they get a lot of the kids from back to old, they'll do the mechanic stuff, and they're really up to date on their set, and they all have a job right when they graduate high school, making good money, too, by the way.

[29:18] Thank you.

[29:19] So the reports, like I said, will send them out to you tonight.

[29:22] Those reports are 100 or so pages each.

[29:26] So they're going to include a lot of detail of their recommendations.

[29:30] Again, on things like replacement plans, they don't give us a plan.

[29:32] And they're making recommendations and given, like you said, some of those best practices,

[29:37] some of those industry norms or even, you know, new things to look at.

[29:42] So, so happy reading once you get them, they are like I say, 100 or so pages each one of them.

[29:50] So, the other thing I was going to say on the mechanics, that is an area where we have a lot of turnover.

[29:55] And a lot of it is because what Erin mentioned is the pay.

[29:59] We can't pay.

[30:00] Okay, what? Four dealerships, the car dealerships, and other private shops can pay, so we do experience a lot of turnover in those positions. But we're hopeful that some of these recommendations can help us retain more. So, anyways.

[30:20] We'll transition to the permitting study if that's all right.

[30:25] So I've led the permitting study. I'm a former planning and development director, Alison Brecky, former planning and development director as well.

[30:32] we were the two lead analysts on this engagement looking at permitting and

[30:37] permitting is multiple departments. It is drawn in blank. Stephanie, what's your

[30:44] group up? Community development. But yeah, so it just real quick. So we called it

[30:50] permitting but really they're looking at permit and building inspections as

[30:55] well. So those are kind of these are the areas that this is looking at. So

[30:59] including community development, planning, fire marshes, office, and a little bit of public works engineering as well.

[31:06] So it was a little more accomplishing of multiple teams that make up that permitting operation in the city,

[31:12] everything from pre-application to certificate occupancy to open up a grand opening of your business.

[31:18] We conducted this operational process analysis of the city's permitting approaches,

[31:23] looking at processes and workflow, technology, utilization, integration both internally,

[31:29] and externally with your customers, looked at opportunities to improve customer service.

[31:35] Where can that be enhanced more on the self-service, but also ensuring that you align with

[31:40] energy press practices with this, but the ultimate goal to provide a predictable and

[31:45] timely permitting operation and services to the public and to the community that you serve.

[31:51] One of the biggest things that we have found doing this and dozens of studies across the

[31:55] country, is the biggest challenge is there's this expectation for service, irrespective

[32:02] of where it is in government, particularly in permitting, and when you don't meet that,

[32:06] that is where you, as the elected body, get the complaints at, and so that's why I'm providing

[32:11] a predictable and timely service is really our ultimate goal here, where you get the service

[32:17] that you're expecting to get, and to align those resources around that, and so that was really

[32:22] the point of this permitting efficiency audit was to provide a predictable and timely service

[32:27] to meet the service level goals of the city.

[32:31] Our methodology and the permitting side was very similar to the fleet side.

[32:35] We did a current status profile where we interviewed all the staff included in the permitting process.

[32:42] Extensive data collection, I think it was about 22 items as part of that list that were provided

[32:47] to us.

[32:48] We did our due diligence to understand the current state what is working well, where there

[32:52] there are some challenges associated with your,

[32:56] from that perspective, with the current process.

[32:58] We also did a process mapping exercise.

[33:00] We set downstairs in one of the conference rooms,

[33:02] pulled up our screens and started typing out the process

[33:04] to create process diagrams to see what it is

[33:06] in today's current state with this

[33:09] and use those to identify improvement opportunities

[33:11] whether it's with the process itself,

[33:13] technology, utilization, timeliness, et cetera.

[33:16] We did some benchmarking.

[33:18] We compared to industry best practices.

[33:19] This is about 60 industry best practices

[33:22] that we have evolved over the years as part of this and compared your operations,

[33:27] your processes to these best practices and identify current strings,

[33:31] but also opportunities for improvement with the existing system.

[33:36] We also compared you to four other North Texas cities, very similar size and scope of North

[33:42] Richardson heels on such things as timeliness, structure, and workload with that.

[33:49] We also had customer input as I mentioned earlier online survey and focus group but recent customers

[33:54] to get their perspective because as you often hear and you get some complaints and we

[33:58] dove in to see if there's valid or not to balance out what we're hearing from what staff

[34:02] is saying on what the process is and really what the customer thinks those processes are.

[34:07] All of this due diligence really led into an operational analysis where we looked at those

[34:11] operations, practices, processes, your workload, your performance, your technology and identify

[34:17] these issues and develop recommendations to address these based on this analysis and findings.

[34:23] We had this, I was input and then we analyzed it to get to the recommendations and develop

[34:27] an action plan that identified the recommendations and the impact to the organization, whether it's

[34:34] efficiency, gain, customer service level with that. You'll see that in the summary of recommendations

[34:41] before the appendix and a report with that. And here to present the draft and final report as part

[34:46] part of this.

[34:47] Some of the key findings that we had as part of the permitting study is you have an online

[34:52] permitting system with various degrees of utilization by staff and so there's a whole technology

[34:57] to chapter in our report to talk about the permitting system.

[35:01] You have a really strong website that has robust data sets and some interactive maps related to development activity, perm any activities here in the city. It's a really good resources out there for that. You have a cross disciplinary development review committee that is in place that really looks at some of those larger applications that are coming in to discuss them and to collaborate on them internally to provide that feedback back to the customer with this.

[35:25] You do have processing timelines for when application comes in or re-review comes in with that.

[35:32] You have these timelines. You have adopted them as a city. There are some challenges in meeting those performance goals.

[35:39] And that's where oftentimes there's complaints come where I talked about earlier, meeting expectations, but you're not meeting those expectations at times.

[35:48] There are some technology improvements to the permitting software to improve internal processes and efficiencies, but also some of the customer portal as well.

[35:56] We'll talk about that.

[35:57] You'll see that in a report, too.

[36:00] There's an opportunity to enhance customer information

[36:02] and documentation out there to provide more resources.

[36:05] But like most of you, most of your customers

[36:07] are gonna go to the website to take a look

[36:09] to see what is out there to do their due diligence

[36:11] before they decide.

[36:13] Maybe I should call somebody at the city

[36:14] and see if I really do need a permit

[36:15] for X, Y or Z with this.

[36:18] One thing that we did notice that was confirmed

[36:21] in the survey was there is a strong emphasis

[36:23] of customer service throughout the departments involved in this, and that was reaffirmed in the customer survey that we had.

[36:31] The customer survey was very positive with most interactions, but there were also some improvements for offer.

[36:38] Opportunities for improvement identified as part of that feedback as well.

[36:43] We broke, in a permitting study, we broke the recommendations down into processes, technology, management, and administration, customer service, and staffing needs with this.

[36:54] So, some of the process recommendations that we presented in a report were to standardize

[37:00] review timelines to internal teams.

[37:01] There was some confusion about really what the timeline is depending on the team and the

[37:06] team member themselves.

[37:07] So, some opportunities to standardize this approach.

[37:09] We also recommended to modify the approach to the development review committee and how that

[37:14] committee is used internally to be more efficient and effective.

[37:18] As part of the pre-application process, we made recommendations to change this approach on

[37:23] some of the criteria where it's maybe required, but also formalizing some of the pre-application

[37:27] process to provide better and efficient services with that.

[37:31] Over on the civil plan review side of things, there's not official application for some

[37:35] of these site plan developments and it's needed, and there's no fee associated with that.

[37:40] So if you create an application, there should be an adjoining fee with that to formalize

[37:44] that, to have greater consistency in the review, and to also establish some performance metrics

[37:50] around that and performance timeline goes.

[37:55] Other recommendations related to the process,

[37:59] there's some inconsistency and recent middle of applications.

[38:02] Some of these are emailed in, staff do allow that.

[38:05] It's good customer service, but it often gets lost

[38:08] when the application comes in, if somebody's on vacation,

[38:11] not checking their email for a week of his email

[38:13] to an individual, and there's some challenges

[38:15] with the online portal for some recent middles.

[38:18] And so you made a recommendation to consistently require

[38:21] to go through that online permitting portal for a consistency in capturing that data and rerouting it out.

[38:28] Also the same thing with inspection requests through the permitting software system.

[38:32] Right now you can call, you can get those, you can go through your online customer portal.

[38:37] It's a different approach so there's recommendations to consolidate into every inspection request coming through that online portal as well.

[38:45] There's been some recent efforts to update some codes and standards for the city.

[38:50] I know some of these have been brought to City Council recently for adoption.

[38:53] We made some recommendations to continue to update codes and standards.

[38:57] As part of this, if you've got updated code and standards that align with the prevailing

[39:01] development practices out there, it streamlines the process.

[39:06] You're not having to make exceptions.

[39:07] There's not a lot of interpretation.

[39:09] And so this is benefits of process for the customer, but also staff and gets, maintains a high

[39:15] Not a level of review, but also maybe prevent something for having to take multiple rounds

[39:20] of submissions to get it approved.

[39:22] So we made a recommendation to continue recent efforts to update your codes and standards

[39:26] that have been adopted by the city.

[39:29] Transition into technology, there were a fair amount of recommendations related to technology.

[39:35] A lot of these are internal facing very niche changes to the EPL system, as it's called

[39:41] the permitting software system as part of that, such as reducing the number of work flows

[39:46] and link related permits within that system.

[39:51] A lot of just work flows are in the system for different types.

[39:53] I think there's like 148, that's a lot, you need to consolidate that for greater consistency

[39:58] see for staff but also

[40:00] We also reduced that when somebody tries to submit something online. Several updates to the customer portal. There's navigation challenges that were noted and our due diligence looking at the system. Staff noted a lot of the frequent complaints that they receive from customers. Customers talked about several things from their perspective. Hasn't screen sharing a couple of times when we have some one-on-one conversations with people with that. As I mentioned earlier, modify approaches for inspection requests. There's some real nuances to how that system works and some inefficiencies with that for both the customer and staff.

[40:29] and there's some challenges and we want to address that with some changes within the workflows to make that much easier for both the customer and staff.

[40:39] They're having to navigate a lot of this, get an inspection request, it's not even relevant to what they're really wanting for.

[40:45] So an inspector shows up and it's classified as rough and plumbing, but that's just something that they pick because it's not a thing they could pick and it was actually a framing inspection, much different approach and thought process related to that.

[40:58] And then there's also some opportunities for some auto-generated correspondence with

[41:02] the applicant through the portal and the system itself.

[41:05] And then we also make the recommendation to improve connectivity between the plan review

[41:10] software, which is looking at the plan set, and we'll call them Blueprints, Historic Name

[41:16] for a floor plan, and integrating that system, which is a standalone system into the permitting

[41:21] software system to link them up to create greater efficiencies for staff on the backend and

[41:26] the applicant too.

[41:27] Other recommendations use a permitting software system as a data phase for all development related activities, applications and inspections.

[41:37] Also the creation standardized performance reports and dashboards, both internal facing for management but also external out there to show some of the good things that are going on related to performance and the workload out there.

[41:50] There's a lot of things happening, a lot of work going on, a lot of permits being pulled, a lot of applications going on out there.

[41:56] So dashboards are good for greater transparency, but also monitoring that fluctuation and workload as it changes and

[42:03] managers can make more decisions in real time to adjust or approach or say, hey, we've had a backlog here of what's going on, what's

[42:09] happened in the last quarter, why are we're slowing down or why do we increase our performance that

[42:15] insight is very critical to make decisions on how potential modification and changes moving forward.

[42:21] All fill staff should be equipped with tablets to be able to pull up those

[42:25] plan sets and the permit application online on their tablets in the field and they

[42:29] can also result that inspection pass, fail it immediately and it's automated in

[42:34] the system where they can be right there with their tablet. Click pass, the customer's

[42:40] going to receive a notification that they pass their building inspection this

[42:43] morning that they requested are failed with correction notes as part of that.

[42:47] So giving staff to be able to do that in real time is important for operational

[42:51] additional efficiencies.

[42:52] Also, related to technology and the permitting software system, there's some training opportunities

[42:57] for staff for both new hires and existing staff as new updates are rolled out as part of

[43:02] that system with that.

[43:04] And then finally, we do make the recommendation to establish an internal technology working

[43:07] group.

[43:08] Very similar to the fleet side of things, have this working group to work together to work

[43:12] through the kinks, the bugs, our additional needs for technology to have multiple resources

[43:17] is looking at that focusing in on that to make some of these changes that we're recommending

[43:22] as part of this report, but also to be more proactive in the future to really address

[43:27] these challenges before they come off or make those changes proactively.

[43:33] The other bucket, as I mentioned, customer service recommendations.

[43:37] We made the recommendations to establish a virtual one-stop shop web page, a permitting central

[43:43] web page that has links to pretty much everything you need related to this.

[43:46] If you walk in this building on the first floor, you go to the development services counter there on the right if you come in over here by the municipal court

[43:53] You have a one-stop shop essentially in person, but online is fragmented among multiple web pages

[43:59] And so there's not a one-stop shop if I'm a customer do I need a permit for this? Where do I start?

[44:05] Do I start in the permitting? Do I start in planning? Do I start in code enforcement? Do I start in utilities?

[44:10] having a one-stop shop with all the majority information needed out there is

[44:15] critical for efficiency for the customer and to hopefully bring down the number

[44:20] of inquiries that somebody might have if they have questions. Another area that

[44:25] we made a recommendation on is provided development fee calculator online. This is a

[44:29] gift the customer an estimate of what that potential fee might be if they were to

[44:34] pull a billing permit. What am I looking at? Is this going to be a $10 fee or is this

[44:40] this where they can do some of their due diligence based on your fee schedule to get an idea of what

[44:45] it might cost to submit a permit and receive that permit. Also, focusing on development and

[44:51] permitting application checklists, providing that information out there to get more complete

[44:55] applications early on initially. You want to have a complete application.

[45:00] If it's everything you have, you can get through the process much quicker versus piecemelling it back together, or missing these three things, and then you have to add these additional things there. That slows down the processes, create more choke points, create more challenges. Most of us are probably going to DMV, or we'd gone to the bank, and didn't have a checklist and then show up with everything we needed to establish a power, if we bought a new house, or got a new apartment, or something like that. And so you want to make sure you have everything to go one time at it instead of having to

[45:29] go back and do it, people get frustrated at that point.

[45:32] Also, made recommendation to update your public noticing

[45:37] signs.

[45:38] Modern technology have QR codes where you can drive by sign,

[45:42] snap to QR code, go to the development web page.

[45:44] Having that type of information is critical to provide more

[45:47] information on what is actually going to happen on this vacant

[45:50] ladder or what's going to redevelop here with the sign,

[45:53] provide more information through that sign to be more

[45:59] proactive essentially with the public.

[46:02] The other bucket that we had was management and administration recommendations.

[46:07] We do make recommendation to create a mission statement to unify all development staff to

[46:12] really focus on the primary focus of their day-to-day responsibilities and how they fit into the

[46:18] greater good and greater team with that.

[46:20] Also an internal development leadership committee to enhance collaboration amongst the different

[46:25] teams.

[46:26] And to address any challenges to have somebody who's really a point on this, when you have operations that span multiple departments while they're generally co-located all in the same suite, sometimes you're going to have some conflicting challenges on review comments or how do you resolve issues.

[46:43] So if you have this leadership committee, everybody works together towards that common mission that an interversible point.

[46:48] And another area that we made a recommendation and was to conduct a user fee study to update

[46:54] that fee schedule and establish cost recovery goals.

[46:57] You know, you're providing, you know, police services, that's general fund covering a lot

[47:02] of the development and permitting functions, you know, as a service that you're providing

[47:08] because you have to.

[47:09] But as we call somebody to decide to do something they come in and pull a permit with

[47:12] that.

[47:13] You have an updated your fee schedule.

[47:15] So you updated incrementally, but you haven't really done a deep dive into understanding what's the true calls behind that V-Schedule.

[47:21] Are we under collecting? Are we over collecting as part of that?

[47:25] And so you needed to do a deep dive into understanding what the true calls?

[47:28] How much does it really cost the issue of water heater permit versus a new apartment complex or a new restaurant coming in or a tenant improvement or somebody putting a fence in their backyard?

[47:38] What does that cost the service and how much of that do you really want to recover as a city is important to look at and updating that user fee schedule as part of that and we met a couple other recommendations around that to make sure that you are meeting those cost recovery goals that the city is established and that you are providing the level of fee that you want to charge for these services that are critical to the public health and safety of the community.

[48:07] Also, as part of that, there are re-inspection fees and excessive plan review fees.

[48:13] Plan review shouldn't take eight rounds of review comments.

[48:16] So as an incentive us, that typically after three plan reviews, that's where an excessive

[48:22] plan review fee could come in place.

[48:25] I need to assess these fees to really promote a complete application early on, to get quality

[48:31] submittals early on.

[48:32] So I think with re-inspection, if somebody is really egregious and they're just calling

[48:36] in and hadn't got it completed three or four times and you know Bob's going to do that then you

[48:41] have that in your toolbox to say hey I'm going to start assessing these reinspection fees

[48:46] because you're not ready this is a reoccurring offense that's taken art staff away from other

[48:52] customers who actually have done what they said they were going to do in every question inspection.

[48:57] As part of the plan review fee currently you have a permitting fee

[49:03] for a building permit. And that is paid when the building permit is issued.

[49:09] There are a fair amount of applications that actually come through that are

[49:14] reviewed once, twice, maybe three times. You say we're ready to issue a building permit,

[49:20] but nobody comes and gets that building permit. They actually never build that

[49:24] building. But your staff has spent time reviewing that application. There is

[49:30] There's another model on that many communities have implemented where they charge a plan review

[49:35] fee upfront.

[49:37] They'll recover a cost-tom associated with reviewing that application, generally up to three

[49:42] times and then the rega, assessor plan review fee jumps in with that.

[49:47] And then you have a permit fee at the back end when that building permit is issued so your

[49:52] staff is not providing all the service that never comes or fruition and you never collect

[49:56] the fees associated with that.

[49:58] So, we made the recommendation to try.

[50:00] Transition to a plan review, impermanent fee model, where it requires you to take a permit, review the upfront, to cover this application. This is only like single family homes and commercial development. This is not a water heater. I mean, this water heater is issued automatically over to, over to counter, typically with that pretty quickly. Not subject to a lot of review with that, but for some of these other ones that do require a plan review to establish this model, where you have the plan review fee upfront.

[50:29] You get through that if you need to have excessive plan review fees, you can tack that on,

[50:34] but then once the permit is ready to issue to do that.

[50:37] So you do not have unrecoverable costs associated with a plan review where there is no permit

[50:44] actually finally issued with that.

[50:48] And finally, as I mentioned earlier, staff, there are several code changes we make recommendations

[50:53] here to prove the efficiencies of the permitting process.

[50:56] That's one of these is transition to a new state law recently to staff approved preliminary and final subdivision plans.

[51:03] I think you've probably received a few of those here for a cursor review on Cassandra agenda.

[51:08] That can be reviewed and approved by staff now based on state legislature.

[51:12] So update your code with that, I think there's some language that's maybe coming with that.

[51:15] Simplify the table of uses in your development code with that to streamline that effort to consolidate that and to broader categories with that.

[51:24] And then also to special use permit thresholds and approval process to make some changes with that to focus on a more predictable and efficient process

[51:33] Or some areas with that so you might be seeing some of these to update your code to make life a little bit more easier for the customer

[51:40] But also improve the efficiency internally as well

[51:45] So with that I'll turn it over to the questions of the questions

[51:48] Questions?

[51:49] Go on.

[51:52] Who makes up the Development Review Committee?

[51:58] So it's a staff internal development review committee, and it's got representatives from

[52:03] various departments.

[52:05] So you've got police, fire, obviously planning, engineering, the building officials part

[52:11] of that, parks and recreation is part of that kind of, any fire, or you said that, any department

[52:21] that needs to see it from a standpoint of not just a plan review, but how does it impact public safety, fire response, that kind of thing.

[52:31] Would it make sense to maybe bring some people in the community who work in certain areas to be part of that, or would that be a different committee that I'm just thinking about contractors or real estate folks, people who maybe know the industry to kind of help bounce things off of.

[52:49] Now, we, we, it almost was a bad discharge recommendation, there were a lot of committees suggested in there.

[52:54] I would just say.

[52:54] No, yeah, there's a lot of committees.

[52:56] Maybe, maybe you put them on one of those.

[52:57] Well, the thing is, is that's kind of what you're planning and zoning committee is for.

[53:03] That's, that's who that's made up of.

[53:04] So, the staff, internal committee is really just to look at it from the standpoint of does it comply with our ordinances?

[53:12] Does it meet our long range comprehensive plan, not just for land use, but for parks and rec.

[53:17] And those types of things, they're given that type of input and getting those comments back to the applicant.

[53:24] And then it's the P and Z that kind of serves that function that you're talking about.

[53:28] I'm understanding the recommendations that they've made in this report for the committees.

[53:33] They're really staff committees to improve the process.

[53:37] Okay, and I think I understand and we've obviously talked about this the

[53:44] People apply online and then you get emails and you got to connect the dots there

[53:49] Is the recommendation to force people back to the portal to do that so that it all gets tracked in one place?

[53:56] That is correct all initial applications and recent middle should go through that online customer portal

[54:02] through that where you're not circumventing it or anything like that.

[54:05] We dealt with contractors who I was sure would tell me they were doing one thing but

[54:09] we're actually doing another thing and they weren't connecting the dots there.

[54:12] Is there last question which I know that makes tracking easier, right?

[54:18] Because then do you know when it's, you know, when it's dating?

[54:22] One of the things I've noticed I oversee risk management for the company I work for which

[54:26] you can fill my risk management, you can fill a thimble with my risk management knowledge,

[54:30] but it's my responsibility. I've noticed that when we submit certificates of

[54:34] insurance, a lot of them are being reviewed immediately by AI. Is there any AI

[54:39] technology? I don't know it's coming, but is there any AI technology on some of

[54:43] this planned review and permitting that will be either here or now or somewhere in

[54:48] the near future? Yes AI can be a game changer like it is in many areas when it comes

[54:54] to the permitting process where it has seen the greatest emphasis so far.

[55:00] Is completeness check? Having that checklist, identifying what is needed as part of that and then filtering that through AI to say, hey, you've got 17 out of 19 requirements on this or you're missing the site plan or the engineering plan or utility plan as part of this plan set. And so if you reject that automatically. That is an area that we see where completeness check for a new single-family home, you might take two minutes to do that where AI can run in 10 seconds and it can flag it or say it's good. And then you have the human review.

[55:29] with that. Also, other areas where AI is prevailing, you're starting to see more and

[55:35] more of it is on the building plan review itself. Looking at the structural of that

[55:40] and compliance with the adopted building code and running it through that and just cross

[55:45] checking it with audits by staff to confirm that yes, this applies with the adopted building

[55:51] code. And I think there was some recent legislation in Texas that allowed that and I'm trying

[55:57] planning to think there is a community or county, I think somewhere in central Texas

[56:02] that actually has AI plan review as part of that it might just be with some of the

[56:07] trades. I'm not 100% sure. But that is out there. Orange County, Florida is probably

[56:12] that sort of land of Florida. They have had AI building plan review for almost two years

[56:16] now. The zoning code of things a little more complex because that is very specific by

[56:22] communities in Texas is harder with a lot of their plan developments with a lot of the

[56:26] of divisions that it came in over the years, why don't that's not digitized?

[56:30] If you talk to zoning staff, that's a little more intensive review with that.

[56:34] But for the completeness check and the building plan review, those components,

[56:38] a lot of success in local government for AOP perspective.

[56:44] You mentioned using the permitting software as a database, I guess you make some changes

[56:49] on that.

[56:50] Is that permitting software we currently have?

[56:53] Is that at the pool, I guess, is it something we built ourselves or is that about the

[56:57] You make the changes?

[56:59] You have EPO, which is, I believe, Interga, which is one of the probably three largest companies out there that provide permitting software solutions along with the whole other suite of municipal enterprise software systems out there.

[57:13] So as a very common system, many of my clients that I've had over the last three to five years have the same system, it's a little more common here in North Texas.

[57:22] We do see it a lot here. We also see it in California, Florida elsewhere, but it is a one of the the larger companies out there

[57:29] It has a lot of capabilities and functionalities that are prevailing best practices and it integrates very well with the plan review software as well

[57:37] And you mentioned that we have a

[57:40] It's some certain percentage of our plans never get to final

[57:46] I do not have that information off top over hand

[57:50] I mean it's not 20% that are getting plan review not going to permit, but it was enough

[57:55] that it was brought up in multiple conversations with staff and interviews and throughout

[57:59] this iterative process that we had with the Project Steering Committee that is something

[58:03] to do and there has been nationally and a lot of our clients.

[58:09] We see that particularly with the economic uncertainties of the past 12 to 18 months or inflation

[58:15] We've got a grand idea, well, I can't get financing now or our

[58:18] interest rates are too high and we'll put it on hold, so people will run it through,

[58:22] get approval, and then assist, and then permits expire after 180 days of no

[58:28] activity with that. So, you know, if it's a large project, your staff could be spending

[58:32] 20, 30, 40, 100 hours on some of these large projects. If it's commercial,

[58:37] no, you don't have a lot of new commercial. You're not building high rises.

[58:40] Baylor Scott and White's not building a new hospital here necessarily. You're not spending

[58:43] hundreds of hours with that but 10 projects a month adds up that's a part time

[58:49] employee. Okay and you also mentioned the timelines and we're not necessarily

[58:53] meeting those. You do benchmarking as far as kind of other cities around or

[58:58] the multiplex is that going to be in the correct that it be in the and the 150 page

[59:03] report that city managers spoke about there's some benchmarking for other

[59:07] communities and comparative analysis with that with what those established

[59:11] timelines are obviously we didn't dive into their data to understand if they're meeting

[59:15] those or not. We were able to take the building permitting data that you have, break it down

[59:21] by year and break it down by whether or not the due date that was in that software download

[59:27] and the time that the comments were provided back to see if it matter not. There are some

[59:31] fluctuations over the last three years on that and we broke it down by different functional

[59:35] group whether that's residential review or commercial review or fire planning and zoning

[59:39] engineering with that so that that doubles in the detail and some data tables on

[59:44] that are in the second chapter of the report that you could take a look at to

[59:47] see where some teams are you know when they turn around on average for a lot of

[59:52] things and others are a little bit longer with that so there's some good data in

[59:55] there to really look at and to dissect that with that but from a adopted

[1:00:00] The timeline standpoint, North Richland Hills is generally in line with the four comparative communities that we have. This area's pretty general, some other work we've done. Everybody's around the same performance goals and timelines on that you that have been adopted. It's almost kind of a Metroplex. Everybody's doing around the same thing. Obviously, your individual performance varies. Okay, so we're not missing the mark that we're not best in class either. No, there was a couple of nuances that were that we we noticed, but nothing that was

[1:00:29] What are you doing, either this is a well above average or well below average with that.

[1:00:36] So you're right in the middle almost of that and lining with your peer communities.

[1:00:40] Thank you sir, sir.

[1:00:41] Anybody else?

[1:00:43] So I know we've had outward facing issues as far as customer.

[1:00:46] And the portal has been one of the clunky things in the conversation that people struggling with how to use and stuff.

[1:00:53] I know we addressed some of the communication issues so that not only the contractor but

[1:00:57] the resident is also getting the communications so that there's no miscommunication

[1:01:02] between what the contractor says they may have may not done versus what was really done.

[1:01:08] Not that that could happen.

[1:01:10] And so I know, but you also talked about the auto-generating of communications.

[1:01:16] That's going to be part of that all the time which put in.

[1:01:20] Correct.

[1:01:20] We made some recommendations on some of those audit communications where if it is completeness

[1:01:24] check your staff's not having to go in there and type up an email and say Aaron, you submitted

[1:01:28] all your application materials. We deemed it complete. We're going to start our review now.

[1:01:32] It can be automatic generated and say your application has been deemed complete. We're accepting

[1:01:37] it for review with that or even on the back end when you get all the review comments. You

[1:01:42] get them on the plan set or you get a comment letter in the back end of the system. It can

[1:01:47] be reviewed for content. Yes, everything's good. There's no conflection between the building

[1:01:51] in code and a fire code. We're good to send this comment out. You press a button.

[1:01:55] It automatically generates an email to the applicants. Say, hey, your review comments are ready.

[1:02:01] Please log into your portal to review them.

[1:02:03] There's some manual steps right now that staff are doing with that. And then also,

[1:02:07] at least more automatic reporting on the back end where you hear some of those complaints

[1:02:11] with that. Staff can easily go in here and say, hey, we sent an email in this state. This state,

[1:02:15] this state, we haven't received recent middle. And it's very clear that

[1:02:19] Something is a mess hasn't been resummitted or we actually didn't see this one in the queue.

[1:02:24] We skipped it as staff for some reason and you could do that due diligence.

[1:02:28] Okay, good.

[1:02:29] So the other is not only here in just a permit fee but also probably like an application fee on the front end for things that don't make it far, but we spend a lot of time on it.

[1:02:38] I think that's where you should focus on the money going there versus everyone paying all citizens paying for someone that's generating work, but not actually getting work product.

[1:02:48] because we're not getting to the end.

[1:02:51] Just kind of generally say, you did a current state processing map mapping.

[1:02:58] Did you do a future state or suggest it on that?

[1:03:02] To be, we actually did not do that, most of the recommendations that we made to process

[1:03:07] improvement were some of those like recent middle things with that.

[1:03:10] It's not something that you could really capture in that process diagram or as a technology

[1:03:15] improvement.

[1:03:15] So it's so nuanced that those process diagrams did not capture that 2B process as part of that and so we did not create that 2B process diagram for many of for the right for the 8 to 10 processes that we outline as their current state.

[1:03:33] So, just kind of overall, because I saw a lot of cost recovery opportunities, basis

[1:03:41] cleaves, what you mentioned.

[1:03:43] But would you say on these two audits that you've done so far with us, they are kind

[1:03:50] of indicative of what you've seen and other ones that you've done as well?

[1:03:55] I mean, I know each one is a custom case, right?

[1:03:58] And so you see different things, but would you say it's better, worse, where do you

[1:04:03] Where do you see it in the spectrum of kind of the outcomes and the suggestions of kind of what you've done before or kind of normal or average on what you've done with reports?

[1:04:13] I can't speak to the fleet side because I was not intimately involved in that.

[1:04:17] On the permitting side, North Richland Hills, as is, as you have been right now, you're above average, well above average.

[1:04:23] A lot of the tweaks said that we make and recommendations we make are more smoothing out the edges,

[1:04:30] getting the sandpaper out, working on, refining some of the internal stuff that

[1:04:34] workflows within the permitting software system. You have strong performance.

[1:04:38] You have a strong team, as I mentioned on one of the points, strong customer

[1:04:42] service, that was noted by our team having conversations but also confirmed in the

[1:04:49] focus group conversations that customer service out there. Yes, people are gonna

[1:04:53] have complaints. A lot of the feedback that we had, very strong, very positive

[1:04:58] of overall sentiment.

[1:05:00] With the survey analysis. A lot of your stuff is really internal, looking at how can we make the software system better? How can we provide customer service out there? When you start looking at permitting, you have two groups, you have the mom and pops, you have the businesses, you have the homeowners, you have the residents here, who have very little experience with dealing with the city and the regulatory environment versus the developers that deal with this as a full-time job. There are submitting applications all over the metropolitan, all over the country, with that.

[1:05:29] You have two customer groups that have different skill sets, and you have to balance out that customer service, and that's very difficult.

[1:05:37] Overall, you have a lot of strengths in your organization, based on our findings and analysis, to serve both customers.

[1:05:44] Can my mother come in and get a building permit? What would be her perspective versus me who's been in planning and development for 18 years with that?

[1:05:51] So, putting me on the spot, you're well-loved, average on what you're doing and it serves

[1:05:56] you providing.

[1:05:56] Yes, you've got some timeline hiccups, you've got some challenges around that for consistency

[1:06:00] and performance, but you're still overall, you're meeting your timeline goals, 80% of time

[1:06:08] on residential commercial applications, for that much stronger than many other communities

[1:06:13] we work in, when they take you 12 weeks to get a single family home apartment, which it's

[1:06:19] not the case here.

[1:06:20] I believe that's what we've been hearing over the last couple of years.

[1:06:23] A lot of things have been addressed that hadn't been in the past.

[1:06:25] I think the one-stop shock with the FAQs or whatever that would go with that will be

[1:06:32] very helpful because people get a little confused of, I'm coming in for a permit, I can't

[1:06:38] get a permit and getting information about not being able to get a permit and then finding

[1:06:43] out what's because they need to get plated, but nobody told them that they need to be plated

[1:06:47] because some of these property they've never planted before.

[1:06:49] You know, so there's some confusion there of where do I start

[1:06:52] in this continuum, right?

[1:06:54] And I know that for claims to have the one stop shop page on there,

[1:06:59] so I won't comment whether they do or not, because I don't know.

[1:07:03] But I will say this from my expectations,

[1:07:05] perspective, and what you have, I've preached a lot as far

[1:07:08] as the whole idea of what an efficiency audit is.

[1:07:11] A lot of efficiency audits in the past.

[1:07:13] So I did operational side of stuff for a long time.

[1:07:17] And the expectations usually end up, people come with the idea that there's a panacea that

[1:07:22] goes with efficiency audit that we're going to find gold and there's going to be a leprechaun

[1:07:27] there with it, right?

[1:07:28] And the reality is that's not really how it works.

[1:07:30] Usually, the stuff we had, and I was in the college and university space with the United

[1:07:33] Health Care, so it's large organization, obviously.

[1:07:37] And everything that we defined as what we needed to get to always required a large IT investment normally.

[1:07:49] And we rolled to a significant amount of self service, again, I've retired three years ago.

[1:07:54] So before really the whole AI, I think kicked off, it was more branching and scripting in those days.

[1:08:01] And you never you never you never staffed for peak right because then you've got a lot of downtime

[1:08:08] So you always try to manage, you know, when's your peak but the reality is what we're getting out of this has meant my

[1:08:16] Expectations of what improvements, but there are some cost recovery and some opportunities there fleet

[1:08:21] What we'll see I think I only heard money in that one that I need to spend versus not the other way around

[1:08:29] But the reality is, for people to come back, I just, I'm in setting expectations and

[1:08:35] thanking what this has come to us.

[1:08:38] I mean, we have to squeeze the juice out of the lemon now, because that's what you're giving us a documentation to do that.

[1:08:45] But I don't believe that I'd look at it as the panacea, we're going to just save all this money and all the taxes are going to go down now.

[1:08:51] So I kind of hope everybody else has the same kind of that this is kind of met the

[1:08:56] expectations of what we are looking for out of these, I mean, IT, IT is always a mess,

[1:09:02] so I'm just kidding.

[1:09:04] And so there's a lot to do there.

[1:09:06] But no, just in saying that it's not something that this is something that I believe

[1:09:13] that's workable someone to go with, but it's that I think there's some people have different

[1:09:18] expectations that don't understand an efficiency audit and this is kind of

[1:09:22] met mine as well. And they usually always call it investment but they have large

[1:09:26] savings over a long periods of time. And I think also the context of

[1:09:33] efficiency audit, you mentioned the Ford example. When you are manufacturing

[1:09:36] something that's much different in government and a regulatory environment,

[1:09:40] something that you're that sort of required to do whether it's in your local

[1:09:43] code or it's coming out of Austin or even the federal government that you have

[1:09:47] something to do and how do you do that is you've got some restrictions on that you just can't say

[1:09:52] oh we're going to access process with that or and doing that so you're correct and as part of

[1:09:58] our recommendations, there is.

[1:10:00] With each recommendation, what enhancement our efficiency is gained from that is noted with each recommendation. So it's either customer service or more predictable timeline or enhancement of service or whatever it is. So you'll see that with each of those recommendations as part of the 360 recommendations for permitting study. Thank you. So I just just in summary, that's, you know, I've been kind of beating that drum since we started this, that these aren't necessarily about cost savings.

[1:10:29] there about process improvement, and so that's really what Matrix has done here.

[1:10:36] They've done a deep dive into both fleet and permitting.

[1:10:40] We knew there was a lot of room for improvement in both of these areas, which is why these are

[1:10:44] the ones we suggested to do on the permitting side to your question, Calvin, about the software.

[1:10:51] So you might recall that about three years ago, and we started the implementation into this

[1:10:55] inter-gov software. Before that, we were on really, I mean, I think it just only can be described as an ancient system.

[1:11:02] It was still green screen, and we were doing much of our processing by hand.

[1:11:07] So one of the things I would also say is that this lean training we've all been going through has really helped.

[1:11:14] And it has helped as they're going through this process as well when we were implementing this software.

[1:11:20] The intent was to map the process and they put into the new system, the process that we needed.

[1:11:28] I'm not sure that that's occurred.

[1:11:30] And so we have, I would say that the software we have right now, we're not utilizing it to its full capacity.

[1:11:37] I think there's some modules that we need to look at implementing and then there's some changes we need to make.

[1:11:44] I would say that and the staff will laugh when they hear me say this because I say it a lot.

[1:11:48] It has been a lot, the tail wagging the dog in terms of this is what the software can

[1:11:53] do and then we just say it was set up this way, we can't change it.

[1:11:57] That is one of the things that's already in progress as I know we're working closely

[1:12:00] with IT and with our software vendor to begin to incorporate some of these changes that we

[1:12:06] know need to be made.

[1:12:08] So it's been a journey but I think that you've got the right team in place to kind of improve

[1:12:14] these internal processes.

[1:12:17] so anyway. So there was you'll 40 some odd I guess recommendations or whatever that number was. Are those ranked in there as far as kind of ease of implementation or kind of this thing for a bag or

[1:12:29] loading and fruit? They're ranked kind of like in order of steps like if you're going to do this you first you need to do these things first.

[1:12:37] And I think it's kind of like that on both sides and in terms of you know these are the recommendations we would make.

[1:12:43] These are the ones that would need to happen before certain other ones, but mainly they don't focus on

[1:12:49] The way you might think of bang for your bucket buck in terms of ROI. It's really more. What is the impact of it as Aaron was mentioning

[1:12:57] They'll say this improves your customer service. This improves this right right so

[1:13:04] So what you'll see again in the permitting side as well as as we move forward and also the other thing under under in progress right now is that

[1:13:12] that fee review and looking and we'll be bringing to you some recommendations in the first

[1:13:17] part of of of 26. I'm going to say in the first six months, Corey sent me something that

[1:13:23] she felt like she would do it in the first quarter. I think that's a little aggressive but

[1:13:29] that that fee survey and review is already underway. So we're hoping to for sure have it done

[1:13:36] by the time we're bringing to you budget recommendations so that we can go ahead and then setting those

[1:13:40] cost recovery goals. That's something that we've done in some other fee-generating areas.

[1:13:46] We've never really looked at that way on the development review side. And so, you'll

[1:13:50] see those incorporated into our recommendations on that.

[1:13:56] Anybody else? So, sometimes these are like an IRS audit. You want to know that you got

[1:14:02] it mostly right. And it sounds like we got it mostly right.

[1:14:05] There you go.

[1:14:07] All right. Next item is the future agenda. The purposes item is to allow the City Council. Thank you, Aaron. Sorry, I was being rude there.

[1:14:17] The purpose item is to allow City Council an opportunity to bring forward a proposal to put an item in the issue they wish to discuss on a future agenda.

[1:14:25] In accordance with the TechSoup means Act, any discussion shall be limited to the proposed to the place and the item on the, to place the item on the future agenda.

[1:14:32] the Council shall not vote or take any action on the items during the meeting.

[1:14:36] Council, do you have any proposals or items that you'd like to put on the future agenda?

[1:14:39] Seeing none, we will move on.

[1:14:41] Paulette, the City Manager's report.

[1:14:44] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:14:46] I just wanted to let you know we are working, let's see, first on the CEC Food and Toy Drive.

[1:14:54] We are working closely with the CEC and then also our fire department who...

[1:15:00] It leads, usually, it's really just focused on a toy drive this time of year. I know the CEC has been talking with our chief and the area chiefs about also shifting that focus to food, and then the city itself, I don't like to separate city side fire place. I don't like to do that, but the city is going to become more involved in that, and you'll start to see some bins placed at city hall and different facilities to assist in not just the toy drive, but also the

[1:15:29] food drive to help meet the demand that our CEC and other food pantries are facing right

[1:15:37] now. So I just wanted to make you aware of that. Also we always participate in Christmas

[1:15:45] providers and I haven't said that information out to the council yet but we have families

[1:15:51] that different departments are adopting and so we'll ask the council to participate with

[1:15:56] us in that as well so I'll be getting that information out to you all. Any

[1:16:02] questions about that or okay and then on just holiday events we do have lots

[1:16:07] of things coming up. We have our Veterans Day event tomorrow which is not

[1:16:11] necessarily a holiday event but it's a one of our favorite traditions that we do

[1:16:15] here to honor our veterans and so that's tomorrow November 11th at 11 a.m. here at

[1:16:21] City Hall. Our tree lighting is December 4th at 6 o'clock. I guess we call it stormy

[1:16:28] plaza over there. So that'll be a good event. We also have on December 6th, run, run,

[1:16:34] root off 5K. It starts at 8 a.m. at the NRH Center. And then on December 11th we have stories

[1:16:42] with Santa at the library at 5 p.m. And then on December 16th at the library we have Flutusimo,

[1:16:48] which is Flutes playing holiday music at 6.30 and just check out the library events page.

[1:16:56] You know, they always have all kinds of neat things going on.

[1:16:59] There's several crafts and different things going on in December.

[1:17:03] So I just wanted to make the community aware of all the different things that they can take

[1:17:08] advantage of at no cost to them to participate in these events.

[1:17:18] Thank you.

[1:17:20] I'm sorry, that is the fundraiser, that is not freeway.

[1:17:26] So we'll now be moving into executive session, it is 617 on November 10, 2025, to consider matters authorized by the Texas government code.

[1:17:36] Section 551-071, consultation with the city's attorney to seek advice about pending or contemplate litigation on or are on a matter in which the duty of this attorney of the governmental body is under the Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct for

[1:17:50] of the State Bar of Texas, clearly conflicts with the Texas Ominis Act, number one, with

[1:17:55] just a good fill, versus the City of North Richardson Hills at all, cause number 352-366-545-25

[1:18:04] and two, which is chapter 551, the government code, section 551-072, deliberate purchase exchange,

[1:18:13] lease or value of real estate, real property, sorry, at 88-51, but

[1:18:19] Jensen Drive, 6020 Walker Boulevard in 1915, Grand Avenue.

[1:18:24] Section 5510-87, deliberation regarding the Economic Development Negotiations, 8851 by Jensen Drive, 6020 Walker Boulevard in 1915, Grand Avenue and deliberation regarding the commercial or financial information that the government body has received from the business prospect, that the government body seeks to have to locate, stay or expand in, or near the territory of the state.

[1:18:49] the city in which the governmental body is conducting economic development negotiations

[1:18:54] or regarding the offer of a financial or other incentive to such a business prospect

[1:18:59] 4401 city point drive and 8800 mid cities boulevard we'll see you in executive session.

[1:19:17] Okay, good, okay, 20 seconds, you know about ready, everybody ready?

[1:19:23] I'm right here.

[1:19:24] Ricky?

[1:19:25] Yeah, good work.

[1:19:26] Short timer.

[1:19:27] Good.

[1:19:28] Put it over there.

[1:19:29] It says he'll sit down.

[1:19:33] Five seconds.

[1:19:34] Yeah, he's not coming to that.

[1:19:35] Okay.

[1:19:46] Alicia, you ready?

[1:19:48] Good.

[1:19:50] Okay.

[1:20:14] Good

[1:20:29] evening. Welcome to the northwards and hills, city council meeting. It is seven o'clock, and I will call the November 10, 2025 city council meeting to order. The quorum of the city council is present. And the meeting has been duly posted in court. It's with the Texas meetings act. The Texas government code. We will start with item a one and two. It's the invocation in the pledge. Councilmember Mitchell will lead us and I invite you to join us in prayer as well as the pledge to the United States and Texas

[1:20:54] fight as you choose.

[1:21:01] All you do for us thank you for allowing me to serve again on the City Council

[1:21:06] and getting to be part of what goes on in our great city and I just thank you that our city is

[1:21:12] one of the best cities around here. I mean it's because of the people we have

[1:21:17] working for us here and the ones that represent us and the one that serve us and we ask that you

[1:21:21] put a hand of protection around the police, the fire, the medical, their jobs are so dangerous

[1:21:26] sometimes Lord and we just ask that you just protect them and make sure that they get home safely

[1:21:33] every day. Thank you for the administration and the staff that we have that do so well representing

[1:21:39] our citizens and our city and that they make things so much easier to do business with us and

[1:21:45] that God would just thank you that we've been blessed with the group that you've blessed us with.

[1:21:50] We ask that you be with us as we go into a Thanksgiving period this month and thank you that you

[1:21:55] for your grace and your mercy that you continually showed us. Let us not take advantage of any situation,

[1:22:01] let us think wisely about what we're doing, probably about our decisions, and make sure that

[1:22:05] the decisions we make are the ones we do want us to make. Thank you again for letting us serve,

[1:22:10] and thank you that you're going to be with us as we go forward and we ask that in Jesus name.

[1:22:16] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it

[1:22:23] stands one condition under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[1:22:30] Fix its flag, on the next flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one.

[1:22:45] Moving on to public comments, it's an opportunity for citizens to address City Council matters

[1:22:50] which are scheduled the agenda for consideration by the City Council but not scheduled for a public

[1:22:53] caring.

[1:22:54] In order to address City Council during the public comments, public meeting appearance form must

[1:22:58] be completed and presented to the city secretary prior to the start of city council meeting.

[1:23:02] Do we have anyone?

[1:23:02] No mayor.

[1:23:03] Having none, we'll move on to the next item.

[1:23:06] This is a chance for the council to remove an item from the consent agenda.

[1:23:11] Council, do you have any items you want to remove from the consent agenda?

[1:23:15] Seeing none.

[1:23:16] Next item be.

[1:23:18] Item's listed on the consent agenda and consider routine and require a little no deliberation

[1:23:21] by the council.

[1:23:22] For the audience's information list, those items on the consent agenda will appear on the

[1:23:25] screen.

[1:23:27] I'd like to call for a motion.

[1:23:31] Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented.

[1:23:35] Thank you, Councilmember DiPri.

[1:23:36] I think Councilmember Mitchell for the second.

[1:23:38] Any discussion?

[1:23:41] Call the question, please vote.

[1:23:50] Passes 6-0.

[1:23:54] Next one is public hearing.

[1:23:56] ZC-25-0-147, ordinance 39-35.

[1:24:02] Public hearing, consideration for the request of.

[1:24:03] Plant and Pro renovations LLC for a special use permit for a permanent accessory building, 6918 Walter Street being one acre described as a lot to block one Clifton edition of the public hearing for the ordinance and all in Clayton has been to introduce the item.

[1:24:25] Thank

[1:24:33] you mayor. This application is for a special use permit. This is for a permanent

[1:24:37] accessory building, one acre at 16918 Walters Street. This is on the east side of

[1:24:42] Walter, just south of Amonson. They're in their crane road. They're highlighted in

[1:24:47] green on the map. So view of the house looking from Walters Street. This is a

[1:24:53] currently has a house, pool, cabana, in the backyard area. There's a proposed

[1:24:57] building on the south side of the property.

[1:25:02] This is an area designated for low-density residential. You can see the property highlighted. They were the green star. Properties currently is on residential estate, RE1. This application will not change the zoning on the property, but we just authorize another building on the site as proposed.

[1:25:18] With that, the applicant is here to address the council. We'll follow up with the recommendation from Planning and Zoning Commission.

[1:25:30] Please state your name and address for the record.

[1:25:35] Good evening. My name is Andrew Brutucci.

[1:25:38] 3, address 6, 9, 1, 8, Walter Street.

[1:25:42] We're asking for a special use room for 2174 square foot accessory building.

[1:25:49] We're asking for 13 foot walls so we can put a 12 foot garage door on there.

[1:25:54] It's going to be in the rear of the building.

[1:25:56] It's going to have one restroom located in it.

[1:26:04] Yeah, if you guys have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

[1:26:09] So you may have a question to applicant.

[1:26:13] I will apply it.

[1:26:13] Thank you.

[1:26:16] Now the staff and the PNZ recommendation.

[1:26:19] Yes sir, just to summarize this application for this building located on the south side

[1:26:23] of the property.

[1:26:24] Parts of the building do exceed some of the requirements for accessory structures, for permanent accessory

[1:26:29] structures.

[1:26:32] Those are shown here on this slide.

[1:26:34] The maximum square footage is permitted on the lot by right is at a little over a thousand

[1:26:38] square feet.

[1:26:38] This building has a footprint of 2,500 square feet, a little bit more than that, but that also includes covered porch areas and garage space and bathroom space within the building.

[1:26:48] Building just slightly taller than what the permitted requirements are.

[1:26:51] And one item to note too is there is an existing pool house on the property.

[1:26:56] The existing cabana, that building is a little bit over 200 square feet, so that qualifies as a permanent accessory building.

[1:27:02] And this proposed request would incorporate that allowance into the proposal for the existing building.

[1:27:07] I think so. Two buildings would be provided instead of just the one that's permitted by right planning zone of commission held their public hearing on October 16th recommended approval by unanimous vote.

[1:27:18] If there's any questions about the project, we're happy to answer those at this time. Any questions of staff? No. Thank you.

[1:27:25] Like this is a public hearing and I've already opened the public hearing at this time.

[1:27:30] I'll ask the city secretary if she has any request to speak at the public hearing now there seeing none if there's

[1:27:35] like anyone in the audience that would like to speak as well to sport or opposition.

[1:27:39] There's quit police approach podium

[1:27:42] being none.

[1:27:44] I'll close the public hearing city council for a master of motion.

[1:27:47] Is there any clarifying questions or requested additional information?

[1:27:51] Not seeing any call for motion.

[1:27:53] I make a motion that we approve ordinance number 3935.

[1:27:57] Second.

[1:27:59] Thank you.

[1:28:00] Councilmember Robertson.

[1:28:02] Councilmember Rodriguez.

[1:28:04] Any discussion?

[1:28:06] Call for motion.

[1:28:07] Please vote.

[1:28:12] Passes 6-0.

[1:28:14] Moving on to item zc25-0146.

[1:28:18] Ordinance 3936.

[1:28:19] Public carrying.

[1:28:20] Consideration for request.

[1:28:21] Cambridge Northridge and Hills Development LLC for revision of the plan development 120 at 7,000 iron horse boulevard being 5.01 acres described as lots 1 through 18 and lots 1 x and 2 x block 1 Cambridge Manor open the public hearing for ordnance 3936 call and claim has been again to introduce the item.

[1:28:43] Thank you, sir. This is a zoning change that's a revision to an existing plan development for the Cambridge Manor subdivision.

[1:28:51] that's located there on the south eastern side of Iron Horse Boulevard, just east of Roof Snow.

[1:28:57] There's 18 lots in this subdivision. There's a street that runs between Iron Horse and Trinidad

[1:29:01] Drive. This is a little bit older photograph of looking south from Iron Horse Boulevard. You can

[1:29:06] see the development there around the curve.

[1:29:11] And the application is primarily to amend one standard

[1:29:14] regarding fencing in the property. And this is in this area here looking north from Trinidad Drive.

[1:29:19] This is the western portion of the property adjacent to the bank property.

[1:29:23] You can see the drive-through area there on the left side of the photograph.

[1:29:27] This is an area that the land use plan designated for office commercial, but it was rezoned

[1:29:31] to residential in 2023 through an RIPD.

[1:29:35] The zoning map on the right shows that particular layout and this application is just to revise

[1:29:39] one of the standards within the PD.

[1:29:44] Applicants here this evening to present the item and we'll follow up with the recommendation

[1:29:47] from Planning and Zoning Commission.

[1:29:49] Thank you.

[1:29:50] Yes, sir.

[1:29:52] You'll state your name and arrest for the record, please.

[1:29:55] Yes, Bill Hardy, 11937, Carlin Drive, Fort Worth.

[1:30:00] Texas. Really, what we want to do is

[1:30:07] have a better shield for the homeowners directly across the street. Right now, it's set up to have a rot iron fence. And it's going to be a lot of visual impact to the neighbors across the street. So our desire is to have less of an impact visually and also delete some of that sound that will be coming from the drive. We've been out there numerous times. A lot of traffic comes through there with the drive up. And we just like to shield that.

[1:30:32] more for the neighborhood area. This is the type of fence we're looking at, and that

[1:30:38] was recommended by a member of the P and Z on the 18th of October, and we do this type

[1:30:46] of fence already, so we'd like to have a recommendation to do this fence in front of

[1:30:52] that area of the drive-through of the bank.

[1:30:54] Okay, any questions, applicant?

[1:30:57] No. Thank you.

[1:30:57] That was good.

[1:31:00] I'll call on staff for the PNZ recommendation.

[1:31:02] Thank you.

[1:31:03] Yes, sir.

[1:31:04] So this application would just modify one standard in the plan development district and

[1:31:08] that would be for this fence area between Glenda Drive and the bank property.

[1:31:14] So replace that ornamental fence requirement with a solid fence allowance.

[1:31:19] In addition to that, there is a quite a bit of landscaping that will be constructed in

[1:31:22] that area.

[1:31:23] So over time, the area will look a little bit different is that landscaping

[1:31:29] matures and the maintenance of this type of fence is a little bit superior to just

[1:31:33] the standard wooden fence. These are just photographs looking at the

[1:31:37] property from a couple of different directions. If you were in the lots across the

[1:31:41] street, I'm going to drive. This would be the view that you would see along that area,

[1:31:44] about 280 feet, and then looking north and then view from the drive-through

[1:31:49] parking lot looking back at the houses just for context.

[1:31:54] I'm playing zoning commission.

[1:31:55] Did their public hearing on October 16th recommended approval by unanimous vote.

[1:31:59] We're happy to answer any questions about the project at this time.

[1:32:02] Any questions or staff?

[1:32:04] Okay.

[1:32:06] I like the fans.

[1:32:07] I've never seen one like that before.

[1:32:08] Who's responsible for like the upkeep of the boards and, you know, the wear and tear over time?

[1:32:13] There will be a homeowner association maintenance.

[1:32:14] Okay.

[1:32:15] Yes, this is on an open space lot that will be owned by the associations that they'd be responsible for all the maintenance.

[1:32:19] Thank you.

[1:32:20] Sir.

[1:32:20] Any other questions?

[1:32:23] Seeing none.

[1:32:24] Thank you, Clayton.

[1:32:24] This is Public Hearing.

[1:32:26] I've already opened the Public Hearing.

[1:32:28] At this time, I see the Secretary.

[1:32:29] Has anyone requested to speak?

[1:32:30] No, Mayor.

[1:32:32] Seeing none, I'll look to the audience.

[1:32:34] Is anyone wishes to speak or support opposition of the request?

[1:32:38] If so, please approach the podium.

[1:32:42] Seeing none, I'll close the Public Hearing.

[1:32:44] City Council, before I ask for a motion.

[1:32:45] Do you have any clarifying questions or requests for the information from staff?

[1:32:51] Seeing none, call for the motion.

[1:32:54] Mayor, I make a motion and we approve ordinance number 3936.

[1:32:57] Encounterman parks.

[1:32:58] Second.

[1:32:59] Thank you, councilmember Rodriguez.

[1:33:01] Any discussion?

[1:33:03] Seeing none, call for the question, please vote.

[1:33:09] Passes 6-0.

[1:33:11] Now moving on to item C3, ZC, 25-0148, ordinance 3937.

[1:33:18] Public hearing and consideration for the request of MJ6

[1:33:22] This enterprise is LLC for a zoning change from R3, which is single-family residence

[1:33:27] to residential infill plan development, RIPD at 8217 Sayers Lane, being 0.493 acres,

[1:33:37] described as a lot 15 block 2, Woodburnt Edition, and for, I'll call for public hearing,

[1:33:45] in the ordinance 3937, call for Clayton, as with the introduce, yeah.

[1:33:51] This final item is a zoning change request.

[1:33:54] This is from one single family district to another.

[1:33:56] This may look very familiar because the property adjacent to this went underwent a zoning change a few months ago to the same, same district, same set of standards.

[1:34:04] So this is from the property north side of Sayers Lane, just west of Davis Boulevard.

[1:34:10] This is another one of those long narrow lots along that north side being proposed for a free zoning change from R3 to residential infill plan development for

[1:34:19] the purpose of subdividing the property. This is an area located in a low-density residential

[1:34:25] land use designation. Current zoning is R3. You can see the other properties there along

[1:34:30] Sares Lane, a lot of R3 properties, several PDs and some R2 districts there as well, all single

[1:34:36] family development in that area.

[1:34:39] These reviews, the property is looking from Sares Lane. This is looking

[1:34:43] back east towards Davis Boulevard. The White House there on the left is the subject of the property

[1:34:48] and just looking back west and just for context of the area and these are

[1:34:54] existing houses that were constructed under similar types of standards. So the

[1:35:00] Thank you for receiving to present the item. When they're complete, we'll follow up with a recommendation from planning the zoning commission.

[1:35:09] Please say to your name and address for the record, please. Yes, my name is Jared Goff. I live at 6217 Price Drive in North Wilson Hills. And yeah, we were just here. Seems like a month ago, opportunity came to buy piece property, build a house for our granddaughter, and the neighbor contacted me and my wife and asked if we had an interest in purchasing their property. I am in the home building business, and it was a good opportunity.

[1:35:32] We just want to implement the same PD that was issued before

[1:35:37] Same style of house meeting that PD seem by having questions. I was feeling deja vu when I was looking at this today

[1:35:44] I was wondering who the tech person was though. Were we down here? Was there someone on the that was from tech or TCU last time?

[1:35:52] Yeah, I was a great game. Yes. I was TCU's tech.

[1:35:56] Wasn't a good weekend

[1:35:57] Yeah,

[1:36:00] I don't claim it right this minute.

[1:36:02] You'll have any questions the applicant while he's here.

[1:36:05] Thank you.

[1:36:06] Thank you.

[1:36:09] Clayton by PNZ recommendation.

[1:36:11] Yes, sir.

[1:36:12] So these proposed lots.

[1:36:14] So when they follow through with the planning of the property,

[1:36:16] these lots will be 75 feet wide by 96 and a half feet deep.

[1:36:20] That's one of the standards that's associated with the plan development district.

[1:36:24] Everything else is similar to the one that was approved in August of this year.

[1:36:27] regarding landscaping on the property, providing privacy fences with a certain design,

[1:36:33] minimum 2,000 square foot living area with certain architectural design standards,

[1:36:37] and then some additional private open space in the terms of front porches and

[1:36:41] things provided on the property. So essentially the same standards would

[1:36:44] almost apply to the three lots next door and then the three lots a little bit

[1:36:48] down the street from that. So it's kind of a seamless development just then in

[1:36:51] three different operations. Planning and zoning commission recommended approval of

[1:36:55] This item by unanimous vote at their hearing on October 16th.

[1:36:59] We're happy to answer any questions about this application.

[1:37:02] Any questions, staff?

[1:37:04] Seeing none, thank you, Clayton.

[1:37:06] This is a public hearing.

[1:37:07] I've already out in the public hearing of this town

[1:37:09] on the last city secretary.

[1:37:10] Is there any request to speak at the public hearing?

[1:37:11] No mayor.

[1:37:12] Seeing none, I'll ask if there's anyone in the audience

[1:37:14] who wishes to speak in support of our opposition

[1:37:16] of the request, please approach the podium.

[1:37:20] Seeing none, I will close the public hearing.

[1:37:24] City Council, before I ask for a motion,

[1:37:25] Do you have any clarifying questions or requests for the additional information from staff exactly don't I have any call for the motion?

[1:37:34] I move to approve ordinance number 3937.

[1:37:37] Councilmember Rodriguez

[1:37:39] second

[1:37:42] Councilmember parks with second. Thank you. Any discussion?

[1:37:47] Seeing end call for the question, council, please vote passes

[1:37:54] 6-0

[1:37:56] So

[1:38:03] we move on to item F

[1:38:05] It's

[1:38:08] an opportunity for citizens to address city council matters, which are not.

[1:38:12] We pulled that one from the deal.

[1:38:15] Yes, Mayor, we did, but if you can read that that item's been withdrawn and that there's no further action needed by the city council, please.

[1:38:23] Okay, sorry about that.

[1:38:26] All right, so for item tr25-08, this item was noticed as a public hearing, but the request has been withdrawn.

[1:38:35] there being no action necessary, we will move to the next item.

[1:38:41] Now, the citizens' presentation, this is opportunity for

[1:38:43] assistance to direct city council matters, which are not scheduled for consideration by the city council in order to address.

[1:38:48] The council, please complete public appearance, meeting appearance form, and present the city secretary prior to me.

[1:38:54] Do we have anyone that wishes to see?

[1:38:56] No mayor.

[1:38:57] Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item, which is general items, Chase.

[1:39:05] I took further consideration really, 2025-044, casting 16 votes in allocation to the North-Writz and Hills for one or more candidates in the Tarant appraisal board of directors election.

[1:39:17] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:39:19] This is your opportunity to cast the 16 votes that the City of North-Writz and Hills has for one or more of the following nominees for the Tarant appraisal district board of directors.

[1:39:31] Mr. Mike Alfred, Ms. Wendy Burgess, Mr. Eric Crile, Ms. Sayeda, Ms. Sayed.

[1:39:42] Those are the nominees that are before you tonight.

[1:39:48] There's a resolution attached, and once you cast your votes, we will submit that to Tad for voting.

[1:39:55] We also received just I wanted to let you know while you were in work session.

[1:39:59] you

[1:40:00] Tad, the Tad staffs, and notice that one of their Board of Directors resigned. And so next meeting there will be an item on your agenda to place another nominee. And I'm sorry I'm trying to, Mr. Allen Blaylock resigned from the board. And his term is set to expire on December 31st of 27, and they'll be accepting nominees.

[1:40:29] December 25th is the date, so it would be the next business day after that.

[1:40:34] So again, an item will be placed on your agenda so it will again seem like deja vu.

[1:40:39] But the item before you today is to cast your 16 votes for one or more of the nominees that

[1:40:46] I listed.

[1:40:47] Well, I'll call for a motion.

[1:40:50] I move to cast all 16 votes for Mr. Mike Alfred.

[1:40:55] Thank you, Council Member Rodriguez.

[1:41:01] Someone like to do a second.

[1:41:03] Thank you, Council Member Mitchell, for the second.

[1:41:05] Any discussion?

[1:41:08] Call the question.

[1:41:09] Council please vote.

[1:41:15] Passes 6-0.

[1:41:22] Item G-2, this is considered rejecting all bids received for

[1:41:29] RFB25-031, the Generator Replacement Project for

[1:41:32] Foundation number 1, 4-N-5.

[1:41:37] Chris is presenting the item there you are.

[1:41:40] And I was going to say your last name, but I'm Arata.

[1:41:44] I'm Arata.

[1:41:45] I'm Arata.

[1:41:46] Thank you.

[1:41:46] There you go.

[1:41:47] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[1:41:49] Tonight, staff is seeking approval from Council to consider rejecting the bids.

[1:41:54] This project consists of three replacement generators, automatic transfer switches, and all

[1:42:00] these associated construction activities at the following three facilities.

[1:42:03] Fire station number one, fire station number four, and fire station number five.

[1:42:10] Staff received 27 downloads on public purchase and on October 9th, public purchase closed

[1:42:17] with five contractors submitting bids.

[1:42:21] You can see the range from $7.6 million to $2.4 million.

[1:42:25] The city's available budget for the project was approximately 1.9 million or the overage

[1:42:34] On the lowest contractor was the shy of $500,000.

[1:42:41] The proposed next step staff would like to do is we'd like to utilize a cooperative purchasing for the generators and automatic transfer switches.

[1:42:48] We would buy all three of those items, six items, thank

[1:42:56] you.

[1:42:57] We've proposed to bring that back to city council on December, in December 8th, 2025.

[1:43:04] And then in March, we would go out for another RFB for just a labor material and necessary tools for the installation of the city provided equipment.

[1:43:13] At this time, I can't answer any questions, y'all, I have any questions now.

[1:43:20] So I assume that was just all the bids came in too high, and so that's why we're doing this.

[1:43:27] Yes, sir Mayor, we thought we could get an economy of scale by grouping these projects together and sending it out for bids.

[1:43:33] And it didn't work like we thought, so now we're going to go a different avenue with some cooperative purchasing as well as some value engineering and going out for bids for disillaborant installation.

[1:43:44] Okay, good.

[1:43:47] Call for the motion.

[1:43:52] Make the motion that we reject all bids received for RFB25031.

[1:43:59] I second.

[1:44:00] Robert, thank you, council member Delaney.

[1:44:03] Any discussion?

[1:44:07] Seeing none, I call the questions, please vote.

[1:44:14] Passes 6-0,

[1:44:23] may it pertain to pre- with announcements.

[1:44:27] Good evening.

[1:44:28] At each council meeting, a member of the governing body announces upcoming events in the city and

[1:44:33] recognizes an employee that exemplifies the city's core values.

[1:44:37] Joining us this Tuesday, November 11th for annual Veterans Day celebration.

[1:44:42] This event will take place at 11 a.m. in the lobby at City Hall.

[1:44:45] There will be a picture out at music and a keynote address by Mr. Johnny Yallock.

[1:44:50] I retired Air Force Staff Sergeant and President and CEO of the nonprofit organization, SENS OF OUR FLAG, SENS OF THE FLAG.

[1:45:00] City council meeting has been scheduled for next Monday, November 17th to canvas the results of the November 4th city charter election. The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. here in the council chamber. City Hall and other non-emergency city offices will be closed November 27th and 28th for the Thanksgiving holiday. Garbage and recycling will not be collected on Thanksgiving Day. Thursday's collection will be made on Friday and Friday's collection will be shifting to Saturday.

[1:45:27] And in Kudos Corner, every council meeting we spotlight our employees for the great things

[1:45:31] they do.

[1:45:32] To now we recognize the entire Parks and Rec Department.

[1:45:36] The recent pumpkin point fall festival was a huge hit with the community, we received

[1:45:41] numerous positive comments online with one resident calling it pure success and another

[1:45:46] writing quote, thank you for everything, thank you to everyone who worked so hard to create

[1:45:51] this memory for our kids.

[1:45:53] We love in our age.

[1:45:54] I estimated 2,500 attendees joined us for the festivities and joined a fun field evening activities and community spirit.

[1:46:02] This incredible turnout and positive feedback or a testament to the outstanding planning and dedication of our parks and rec team.

[1:46:09] A big thank you to everyone who helped make this event so memorable. Your hard work truly made a difference. So great job.

[1:46:16] Any other announcements?

[1:46:18] Yes, I have one announcement, Mr. Mayor.

[1:46:22] just let everyone out there know that last week I did put in my letter of resignation

[1:46:29] before I filed for another office this past weekend and just to really quick like Ricky,

[1:46:35] why are you still here then? There's a there's built-in to code about a couple days period before it

[1:46:41] actually takes effect so of course I still have duties here today was one of my duties to be at City

[1:46:47] council, but so just to answer that question while I'm still here.

[1:46:51] But I just want to say it's been an honor to represent the great people of North

[1:46:55] Rishon Hills.

[1:46:56] I grew up here.

[1:46:58] This is still be my home obviously.

[1:47:00] I call this home for most of my life.

[1:47:03] And for everybody up here, you guys, it's been an honor to serve with all of you.

[1:47:07] And I believe we're in great hands in North Rishon Hills.

[1:47:09] And the city's staff, you guys have been fantastic.

[1:47:12] And so I just want to say thank you all and God bless you.

[1:47:15] Well thank you. I appreciate it's really been great servant with you Ricky.

[1:47:20] Really has. We will be missed.

[1:47:24] With that we are adjourned at 727. I think that's a record.

City Council on 2025-11-10 5:00 PM

Agenda

Transcript