Okay, good morning everyone. Happy Eve before Christmas. I guess it's good to see each of you. Thank you for taking the time in a busy holiday season. Uh we're going to we're going to kick things off this morning in a great way. If you have not heard Dr. Wallace speak, you're in for a treat. Um, he's an
incredibly gifted innovator and entrepreneur serving as the founder and CEO of Success Training Institute, which is an award-winning global edtech company focused on soft skills, emotional intelligence, and workforce readiness. Um, he's also had a busy
career founding Impactcoin and Impact Tree, initiatives that linked credentialed learning and environmental sustainability with economic empowerment. if you attended um our Metropolitan Black Chamber lunchon this last year, he was also the featured speaker and was excellent. And so today,
I think he's going to bring that same energy to our discussion this morning to kick things off. And so with that, Dr. Wallace, the stage is yours. Thank you very much. [snorts] >> Of course we do. [laughter] >> [applause] >> It's an honor to be here. Wonderful
opportunity to work with, serve, and have the opportunity to engage with these wonderful city council members and city managers. The pleasure is mine today. Uh I want to begin by giving you something. Uh I know that you know you normally don't accept gifts and these
are technically not gifts. These are props. So Josh, if you'll make sure that we start handing out the props so we can get started on the right foot. Don't open these that you're about to get until we give you the instructions to do so. Uh I'm excited and let me also say when I am fortunate enough to be in the
same presence as my beautiful and dynamic and beloved wife who I affectionately call my beloved. I always want to acknowledge her. She is uh not only the apple of my eye, the glide in my stride, and the pep in my step, but
she is the president and CEO of Houston Tillson University in Austin, Texas. There you go. There you go. Uh-huh. Uh that look at that. Mother is a proud grad. And thank you. Oh, thank you, man, for turning test. Oh, I get all my preliminary stuff. Let me get my mic on
here for a second. And then there you go. Uh, and additionally just secure the one of the largest ever donations given to an H.B.CU. The largest ever given to an H.B.CU and one of the largest ever given to any institution.
150 million. So beloved, I'm glad that you are here with us today. So, as Josh is putting these gifts together and passing them around, I want you to hold on just for a second. Thank you, my beloved. She's gonna help me, too. Uh she's uh Vanna White today. Don't help
me pass the gifts out. Uh you'll be able to look at those. And this is how we shall begin. Ladies, you didn't think you were going to come here and leave empty-handed now, did you? And once everybody has their nice gift,
you know, uh the Louis Vuitton watches are for the ladies and the Gucci watches are for the guys. So if you have the Gucci watch, then make sure you pass it over to the person who should have it. I think everybody's got ONE NOW. ALL RIGHT. NOW
we can officially get started. So I would love for you at this moment to open these gifts that we have worked so diligently to give you. put those gifts out. Open them up, you know, open them UP AND PULL THEM OUT. LET THE PEOPLE SEE WHAT YOU GOT. Uh because this is how we will begin. Oh, look at here. Look at
this. I bet you never thought you'd get a Christmas gift like this, did you? [laughter] >> Look what you have. Hold those gifts up. See what we have taken the time to get you. Oh my goodness. Isn't that something? >> Can we trade? >> You can. I'm gonna let you trade. I'm
gonna let you trade. Let you trade. Uh see the gifts that you've got. Now my opening question my opening question is going to be what did I give you? What was it?
>> Okay. Uh I I Cman Ldorf Ldorf >> Ldorf just said that it was ingredients that we've gotten. What would you say? What would you say councilman? What did I just give you? >> Ingredients to make something. >> Ingredients to MAKE SOMETHING. OKAY. I WOULD I would say that 100% you've all
got ingredients. I see some people have some baking powder and others have butter and some have minced garlic and others have olive oil. All of you have ingredients. But what you have more significant than that is these ingredients represent something even
more dynamic. They represent who we are. because you may not have ever thought of it but yes I like to submit to you today my argument that I'm going to make male park is that we are all ingredients we like to think that we're something
different often times count we like to think that we're something different but I would say that we're ingredients now I have to ask now what does an ingredient do what's the purpose okay let me let me let me councilwoman I'mma call on you
what does an ingredient Um it works together in partnership with other ingredients to make something >> beautiful. Uh it does work together just so that it can create something more dynamic than itself because a ingredient
is only relevant. It loses its relevance if it cannot create anything. But unfortunately most of us think of that term of an ingredient as being kind of insignificant. Some might consider it insulting because really I like to show you who we think that we actually are.
Now, now just just for the record, I've got my own ingredients as well. Uh in my office, I keep a few things that nobody understands why I have them. I have some salt on my desk and I have
some chicken fat. Nobody can do anything with it. And every time somebody comes into my office, they'll ask me, councilman, they'll say, "What are you doing with salt and chicken fat?" I said, "It's just my reminder of who I really am."
That no matter how high we get, no matter how many positions or titles we hold, that ultimately I'm really not that significant unless I can come together to create something spectacular. I also have duck fat, too. Anybody ever want to make a sandwich, I can assure you that you've never made a
sandwich with duck fat or chicken fat. not the goal. So, but this is who we think we are. I want to show us who we actually believe that we are. And I believed I was for many, many years. I'm I'm I'mma put my nice duck fat over here on the ground. And I want to articulate
for us just for a moment of who we think we are. Most of the time, we think we're this. THIS IS WHAT EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE. And this is who we believe we are. We think we the cream of the crop. We the we the
cake and the bag of chips. We believe that THIS IS WHO WE ARE. BUT IN ACTUALITY, THIS IS SO MUCH LESS significant than who we are in reality. Most people think that they're the cakes. Uh they don't believe that they're anything other. So as a result
of that, it's difficult to collaborate when I believe that I am this. So we just outlined first what ingredients are. And all of you did such a phenomenal job in outlining. Yes. Uh councilwoman, you said ingredients have to come together to make something
spectacular. So if ingredients are something that makes something spectacular, uh and if we all can recognize what an ingredient is in its purest form, what are these, Sister Peoples? What would you say these are?
Well, you speak so well. It's hard for me to tell you that you didn't get the right answer. But that is so beautiful. Oh, yes. >> Pretend like >> you did. YOU DID. [laughter] BEAUTIFUL. BEAUTIFUL. SO, I pretty much you are on the right track. These are
simply outcomes and ingredients are designed to produce phenomenal outcomes. That's what these are. And essentially as an ingredient, which is what I am, which is what I would like to say that we are, we
collaborate for one purpose and for one purpose only to create some phenomenal outcomes. And when the outcome becomes our priority, our ego becomes unnecessary. You can take some notes on that in the audience if you ever want to write that down. Uh so as a result of that, uh this
is the this is the outcome that we're all attempting to produce. We're all wanting to make outcomes. So, I love for you, even if you're in the audience, this is like a studio audience. It's kind of like watching one of those sitcoms, you know, where you got the main thing going on on stage in the s. So, even in the studio audience, you can
say these words. I am an ingredient. >> I am an ingredient. >> Yeah. I'm an ingredient. AND MY JOB AS AN INGREDIENT is to strategically produce dynamic outcomes. The better the outcome I can produce, then the better ingredient I am. If an ingredient can't
produce an outcome, it's probably not a good ingredient. So today, we're going to take a journey and learn a few components about the dynamic art of collaboration. Something that everybody thinks that they already know. We think we know how
to collaborate, but how often times is it that we serve on a board or on a committee and collaboration seems like it's a tough thing to do. So let's do that with our just a few key points. I'm going to call it our collab acronym. Just six key ways for us to collaborate
effectively and learn the dynamics of working together to create the cakes. I'mma leave all this stuff behind. Uh uh and the first step is compromise. First step is compromise. [sighs]
The let me let me get one of my other my other ingredients out of here. Compromise. Now, this is the duck fat I told you. It stays in my office most of the time. So, compromise. If the duck fat was unwilling to
compromise, it could never be anything other than what's in this can right here. I'm going to I'm going to make a Who has butter? Ah, Councilwoman, you have the butter. Councilwoman B. Let's just say you and I are going to go into a business
together. you know, uh, I know a little something about entrepreneurship and running a business and we're going to go to business together and we really are going to exclude all the other ingredients on the table cuz we got butter. You know, hey, butter's pretty pretty cool. So, we got some butter and
now we can open up a restaurant and guess what? We're going to sell butter. WHY WOULD EVERYBODY NEED IT? PEOPLE LIKE BUTTER, SO WHY WHATEVER. WE JUST going to sell butter. In fact, I even got a name for it. We're going to call our restaurant butter king. That's what it is. BUTTER KING. PEOPLE WILL DRIVE FOR
MILES AROUND AND THEY CAN GET MELTED BUTTER. They can get frozen butter. They can get butter on a stick. THEY CAN GET FRIED BUTTER. THEY CAN GET BUTTER ANY WAY THEY WANT. HOW SUCCESSFUL DO YOU THINK our business will be? >> This ain't Texas. >> Probably not.
>> PRO. WE MAY NOT MAKE A LOT OF MONEY WITH buttercream because butter by itself does not accomplish anything phenomenal. But when you compromise butter and allow it to be a part of something bigger, then that's when the magic happens. SO THE QUESTION SAYS, HOW DO I develop an
attitude of compromise? How do I develop that attitude of compromise? I would say step number one is awareness. It's awareness. Just like Councilwoman Beck recognize that that butter couldn't make a dynamite restaurant, I've got to
recognize that my individual ideals and positions and ideologies won't in it in and of itself make anything phenomenal unless I come together. So, I have to have an awareness of my limitations. I realize yes. How many of you even in the studio audience if you believe you're
very smart? Raise your hand. Very smart. I believe raise y'all THINK Y'ALL VERY SMART. SOME OF YOU OKAY, LOOK. I KNOW EVERYBODY here think you're smart. SO, BUT WE also recognize when the when the plumbing backs up, we don't think
we're smart enough to fix it. When the AC GOES OUT, AS SMART AS WE BELIEVE WE ARE, WE PICK UP THE PHONE AND WE CALL SOMEBODY. UH THAT SHOWS HOW intelligent we are because we're WILLING TO COMPROMISE. WE ACTUALLY HAVE A UNIQUE AWARENESS OF OUR OWN LIMITATIONS. And oftent times in order to compromise I
have to begin with realizing I'm just an ingredient and it's a whole lot of things that I need other ingredients to collaborate with me on. BUTTER JUST CANNOT STAND ALONE. Now of course if butter cannot stand alone then you know uh Councilman Crane and Kane we we we
know Council Crane that that bacon we can't open up a bacon soda business. As popular as Arman Hammer is you know and they got a good-look mascot. He's got a head like mine, you know, strong and popular and everything. Cannot on our own open up a baking soda restaurant. I can't even come up with an idea for why
we would need bacon. Hey, we could clean some teeth. You know, we could compete with Crest and Colgate and to attempt to do those things and try to get on the shelf and make us some money. SO, UH, BUT NOR if we but we recognize baking soda has a lot of limitations. Baking soda's got some good things, but it's
got a lot of limitations. So, step number one is awareness. I I become aware of my limitations. Step number two is acceptance. If I'm going to compromise, I start realizing that everybody else in my ecosystem, I got to bring them in and
accept them because there's no way that a cake can be made until I'm willing to do that. So, if I cannot accept sugar, salt, and eggs, this outcome never happen. If
if if if butter got so angry at flour that they decided not to work together, I could never make this. If if if if I said, "Hey, listen. Look, you know, uh and if and if just two or three of them decided they were going to stick together for a while, you know, if Sugar
and Flour say, "Listen, we're gonna be together on everything. Wherever you go, that's where I'll go. We're not going to fool with butter. and we really don't need oil. You know, that's you and I just form a collaboration and alliance.
Acceptance recognizes that I've got to have everybody in order to make this work. So, uh that that when I when I the next one is allegiance. Allegiance.
Allegiance. Now in business that term allegiance means a lot and it's multifaceted. In business our allegiance has to be to
something. So, as an ingredient, as an ingredient, I'm going to ask uh to see as an ingredient, Councilman Nettles, what should my allegiance be to?
>> AH, BEAUTIFUL. COUNCILMAN NETTLES SAID, "The agree, the allegiance should be to the outcome." I kept these cakes in my hand just so you kind of give you a little hint, you know. Uh so the allegiance has to be to the final outcome. If I cannot align this is the
only thing that matters is whether or not I can produce this. So really butter, sugar, salt, oil, flour, allpurpose flour, coconut flour, COCONUT OIL, ALL of them have one uniquely
aligned allegiance and it's not to themselves. It's only to the outcome. Which leads us to point number two is we've got to become outcome oriented. Is the process of becoming outcome
oriented. Now, [sighs] you know, I'd like to say that some of the most polarizing figures,
uh, city manager Chopper is sugar and salt. You know, sugar and salt are very polarizing. You know, they have some real tough stances. You either like sugar or you don't. And you know that when you eat too much salt, well, I can
just say in some people's cases, uh, you know, my my my grandmother, if she ate too much salt, her ankles would swell up, blood pressure get higher, and she would say, "I'm never going to eat any more salt." The doctor tells me, "No more salt." Some doctors will say, "No more sugar. You need to cut out sugar from your diet. Leave out the sugar,
leave out the salt." And as polarizing as they are, nobody can deny the outcome. Okay, now I'm going ask a tough question. If you're trying to bake a cake, if you want to bake a cake, I'm I'm
gonna find out. You want to bake a cake? Want to bake a cake? I I ask Councilman, would you ever decide to instead of sugar? Now, I don't know a lot about baking, so
I I maybe this might not be the correct answer, but would you ever say forget the sugar, man? You know, sweeten low is good. Let's put two cups of sweeten low in my cake. >> What you think? >> I wouldn't have it in my [laughter] >> See, THE BEAUTIFUL PART ABOUT SUGAR IS
AS POLARIZING AS IT IS, THERE IS NO VIABLE SUBSTITUTE. FOR THOSE THAT KNOW HOW TO COOK, YOU NEVER SAY, "WELL, LISTEN, IF IT CALLS FOR SUGAR, let's just put seven cups of sweet low in." You'll be opening LITTLE PINK PACKAGES ALL DAY long trying to get the stuff TO GET YOU.
YOU'LL NEVER MAKE IT WORK. BUT AS AND SO YOU can be opinionated. Sugar can be polarizing. SUGAR CAN BE ALL OF THOSE THINGS. But what nobody can deny is you really cannot get a great tasting cake without some of this right here. You got
to have some sugar. So, so one of the components of being outcome oriented, I'll just give us three key components to say how do I become truly outcome oriented? One, it's identify. I want to take the time to discover what
it is we want to accomplish. I'd love for you to [sighs] as esteemed city leaders, write down three things that you would say, I want to accomplish this in 2026 because first I have to identify the outcome I want to
achieve. Uh you start off with sugar knowing that you want to make this. If anybody ever baked a cake, my wife is actually surprisingly a phenomenal cook. You would think in those, you know, well, because you would think in those high heel shoes and all that nice makeup
and all that other stuff and working like she does that she wouldn't know HOW TO COOK AT ALL. YOU WOULD THINK THAT, COUNCILMAN, BUT UH BUT let me tell you what happened. That girl can get into a kitchen and burn and she CAN BURN. IN FACT, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT SHE DID ONE day for my one of my birthdays, she made me a peach cobbler.
Now, it wasn't just any peach cobbler, Councilman Bllelock. It wasn't just any peach cobbler. She monogrammed the peach cobbler for me. She made the crust say DL. She made me a monogram PERSONALIZED PEACH COBBLER. GIRL, I KNOW HOW TO COOK. I MEAN, SHE'S FROM LOUISIANA, so that
that's one one of the things that make it a dead give. But she can go in and make things from scratch, but every time she starts pulling ingredients out and when clabber comes out and when flour comes out and when coconut oil comes out, all that other stuff comes out. She
doesn't just pull it out and then get all the ingredients on the table and say, "hm, I wonder what I can make with this." SHE HAS AN outcome in her mind before she even goes to the pantry. By the same token, often times outcomes cannot be achieved if we just have all
the ingredients on the table and cross our fingers and say, "Huh, let's just put everything in the pot. Let's just see what this stuff will make." You pull the ingredients out because we've already identified what it can do. when my beloved made that peach cobbler for me. Oh my goodness. And she makes crust
from scratch. Mel Parker. She just she rolls the little thing, you know, whatever they call it, long wooden thing, you know, they used to use on Little House on Prairie. She rolls that little thing out right there. And then she starts floating it over and making the crust and put it in the oven. And she gets the peaches from a certain place and all this other stuff. Uses a
cinnamon. Somebody has some cinnamon and some nutmeg and all this. And she comes out with something phenomenal because she already knows council woman what she wants to make. Similarly, if we can identify outcomes before we pull out the ingredients. In fact, our outcomes determine what ingredients we even need
to pull out. So, as the first component is is identify, the next component is intensify. If I ever want to become outcome oriented, I've got to ramp up my efforts to do those kinds of things. Uh,
I notice how teams when it gets down to the end of the game start playing a whole lot harder. You ever see the Cowboys, you know how in the fourth quarter when they already down by 17 points, then all of a sudden
Dak Prec Scott, he can't miss a pass, you know, and it's like, and then we start asking ourselves, man, if we PLAYED LIKE THAT THE WHOLE GAME, WE COULD BE 12 AND0, YOU KNOW. SO WE ALWAYS THINK ABOUT THAT, BUT WE INTENSIFY WHEN TIME is right. BUT TYPICALLY, WE START AN OUTCOME WITH A LEVEL OF INTENSITY. SO
WHEN I WHEN I INTENSIFY, that means I'm putting all of my efforts just, you know, unfortunately not quite like the Cowboys. We don't want to do that, you know, just work in the fourth quarter. We want to be intensified all the time. And then that last step is not just identify, it's not just intensify, but
it's also indemnified. That term simply means to protect others from injury and harm. That's what it means. [sighs]
It's no benefit to sugar and flour to have a fight. No benefit. Uh and the beautiful part about it is ingredients really don't have the capacity to point the finger. The reason they don't is because they need all the other ingredients in order for them to be
effective. So if you look to the right, if you look to the left, if you look across the table, those are our indemnification responsibilities as an ingredient. I'm not really a good ingredient if I can't protect the other ingredients. You know, this this whole cake
could be messed up with one rotten egg. Ain't that something? If this ingredient would have just had one rotten egg in it, it kill the whole cake. Uh, and but if I can protect, so flour doesn't want a rotten egg inside of the mix. I got to
protect the egg. So, let's keep the egg in the refrigerator. Let's keep it right. And I have to indemnify. I have to hold harmless. I've got to protect the people who I need in order to make this outcome. You know what I do like about the Cowboys? Uh it's and and you know in sometime in in December it's not
just a whole lot of stuff to like you know but you know it's not a lot of stuff to like about the Cowboys in December. But what I do like about them is they never point the finger at each other. You never hear that guy say if CD Lamb wouldn't would not have dropped that pass we' have won that game. He was
thinking it BUT HE WOULDN'T SAY IT. HE GOT [laughter] HE WOULD NOT say he was thinking it. And then and and then in in the recent game, a kicker that never misses field goals, misses field goals. And then we want to say the coach never said, "Man, if the kicker would just have done what we
expected him to do because once we start that process, then the kicker could say, "You should have we should have WENT FOR IT." WHY Y'ALL CALLING ME OUT TO KICK A 75 YARD FIELD GOAL? JUST GO AHEAD AND TRY TO MAKE FOURTH and two. SO AS A RESULT OF THAT, the the blame game will never stop. BUT IF MY GOAL IS TO protect
the other ingredients because I still need to get this outcome. I still need to lift up flower. I still need them to be better. I still need them to be strong. So I I I would I would recommend it. It's an exercise that we do in our office quite regularly.
Our staff has a commitment to protect each other. So we'll say we don't blame. If it's if anybody wants to say it's somebody's fault, let me say it's mine. But let's not get in the habit of calling anything anybody's fault. Here's the question I'll pose to the
council and esteemed city manager. If this cake falls, you know, you know when you bake a cake, I never really understood that. My mother would tell me when I come in the house, I slam the door. SHE WOULD SAY, "BOY, STOP THAT. YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE MY CAKE FALL." And I would think she put it
in the oven. Where's it going to fall from? You know, and so ME NOT KNOWING HOW TO COOK, I'M thinking that when you put an oven in, is it floating in there OR SOMETHING? YOU KNOW, HOW DOES IT FALL? SO, IF A CAKE FALLS, what ingredient was responsible?
The baking powder was, was it? I didn't know that. I I I [laughter] I'mma act like Councilwoman Beck. Bacon powder CAN'T BE THE PROBLEM. YOU SEE WHAT she just did there? Council, you got bacon powder. [laughter] NO, they bacon powder. SO IF IT'S NOT
ENOUGH BAKING POWDER, CAKE CAN FALL. EVEN IF YOU SLAM a door, >> it's a I I'mma come to that in a minute. That's a good So [sighs] I'mma say let's not say it's anybody's fault.
>> SHE SAY BACON P. I'M GOING SAY LET'S LIKE THE COWBOYS can't say it's anybody's fault. They lost. IT COULD BE A LOT OF EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT CAUSE THE CAKE TO mess up and not do what it's supposed to do. SO, AS A RESULT OF THAT, WE'VE GOT TO SAY, I'mma protect baking powder because
baking powder has some good benefits. It's the one that level stuff out. Yeah. But, so we got to have baking powder. We're not going to blame baking powder because we need some more good case. And the baking powder will say, "Well, listen, I'm just going on strike. Forget it. I'm out. FIND ANOTHER KICKER. FIND SOME OTHER LEVELING AGENT. LET coconut
oil do it. We're in trouble. Aren't we in trouble? We'll be in trouble." So we we we recognize that. So now I say if I understand outcomes and how to achieve them then I also must embrace limitless possibilities. That's the next
component. Limitless possibilities. Uh here's here's an exercise I want you to look at closely inspect and examine your ingredients. Take a gander at your ingredients. Y'all got some good
ingredients. Look at your ingredients. And I want you to think about what your ingredients can create. Think about what your ingredients can create. Now, probably since y'all got some good ingredients, think about what they can make. Uh, now you got baking powder, you
got butter, you got ko syrup, tell me five things that your ingredients can make. Not together, but just independently. What can But what is butter found in? Everything. Butter's found in everything. And the re and butter's found that show. Okay. Now, let me see.
Man, >> is that lord? What is that? What is that yellow thing? What is that? >> Cornstarch. >> Corn starch. That can make a lot of stuff. I don't know a whole lot about cooking, but I know I've seen cornstarch on a lot of ingredients on the back of a label. Cornstarch can make A LOT OF STUFF. EVERYBODY'S INGREDIENT CAN MAKE A
WHOLE LOT. OKAY, let's see. Let's see. What do you have, Councilwoman Hill? You got some sugar. You can make a lot with that milk. You can make a lot. You may not be able to eat cereal with it, but everything else, you can make a tongue with that. Notice
the limit the the limitless possibilities that we have when we're not fixated on creating butter can. So when I'm not trying to make buttercream, I got limitless possibilities. There are things that we
can do and we can do those things effectively just because we made our world so major and that's the result. And so if if I want to embrace those limitless possibilities then collaboration is required. I have to
lock arms and I got to join forces with things that might be fundamentally different from me. Uh there's not a lot of correlation between sugar and butter. One
comes from a cow. Another one grows in a field. They don't really have a background that will make them come with each other. Yet you find those two ingredients in a
whole lot of stuff that we eat every day. So, in order for me to embrace collaboration, I've we've got to recognize that there are some limitless possibilities we can accomplish whenever we come together. And those limitless possibilities lead us to our next step,
which is simply longevity. Now, now watch this. This is what's so cool. Longevity. I want you to look at the expiration dates on your items. I didn't get them out of my pantry. I
bought them from the store, so they should be all good, beloved. You know, look at the expiration date on all your items when Okay. Okay. Uh I want you to see the expiration date on everything that you've got. Uh how long does that last, Councilman Flores?
>> This one goes to March. >> Sorry, this one goes to March 2027. This one to uh 2026. >> Yo, man. THIS THING LASTS FOREVER. NOW WATCH THIS. HOW long How long does your Now that baking soda probably last you for? >> 2028. And really, it probably lasts a lot longer than that cuz you, you know,
you can use baking soda forever. Uh, and your sugar, does it even have an expiration date? >> 2027. I think sometimes Mel Parker, they put See, you you've got something that doesn't have an expiration date at all. >> You need a refund on this one. It says 1225 24. [laughter] >> NOW, THAT might have come from my
pantry. That may have come from my pantry. See? So, UH, IF SO, IMAGINE IMAGINE NOW WATCH THIS. SO ALL OF THE EXPIRATION DATES THAT YOU JUST CALLED OUT with the exception of me pocket will last longer than this cake.
Nobody is keeping this till 2027. Outcomes are very temporary. The the outcome is temporary. But in order to achieve longevity, I got to embrace my role as an ingredient because the ingredient is the only way I last.
And as an ingredient, I'm really an outcome factory. THAT'S ALL I'M SUPPOSED TO do is whip out cakes and biscuits and pancakes and waffles and BURRITOS AND ALL KIND of stuff. STUFF THAT MAKE YOU HUNGRY RIGHT NOW THINKING ABOUT IT. I I'M SUPPOSED TO WHIP THESE KINDS OF things out. Remember, I'm going to show
you how what how how outcomes are fleeting. I'm going to go back to my beloved Cowboys. Remember when the Cowboys won backtoback Super Bowls? Most don't, but that's okay. You know, one time back in the day,
>> if you're ever telling fairy tales to your children before they go to sleep, say, you know, one time a long time ago, way before you were born and way before I was born, the Cowboys won backtoback Super Bowls. But because outcomes are temporary, I'm my as an ingredient, I'm supposed to produce outcomes every
single opportunity. And because outcomes are temporary, the only way I can embrace longevity is by remaining an ingredient. If I ever change and transition to this, my time is limited. It's only when I am committed to being
this that my time is all the way. I I can last forever cuz I don't believe there's an expiration date on this salt. It has a code on the back of it, but it doesn't look like it's an expiration date. Uh uh, Councilwoman Peoples, you see how it doesn't What? Put your
glasses on and see what it said. You say nothing. There's nothing. I think this will last forever. I think we could keep this salt and we could have this salt until 20 for we could have this salt until the Cowboys win another Super Bowl. [snorts] In fact, I'm going to save this salt for until they do. And when THEY
DO, I'M CRACKING THE SALT OPEN, YOU KNOW, AND I'MMA FIND AN OUTCOME I CAN PRODUCE AND SAY, "NOW WE COOKING WITH GAS CUZ IT'S LAST FOR a long, long time." So, as a result of that, I've got to embrace longevity. And then the next component of collaboration is I've got
to be able to appreciate. I got to be able to appreciate. If I cannot appreciate, there's no way I can collaborate. So, as I'm going to tell you something, I
really didn't know at all what duck fat could make. I still don't know what duck fat makes. I know it's got to be good for something because I've never seen anybody drinking it. Never seen anybody turn up some duck fat. They do eggnog
like that for Christmas, but I've never seen anybody drink fat. Uh and but as a result, I've got an appreciation for the fact that it lasts a long time and that it's good for something and that it's just like me. It's also an ingredient. I
may not understand it because I do not understand duck fat. I don't know what situation would make a person want to cook or use it. Male Parker, where would a person use duck fat? She's never used duck fat. Male never used duck fat. And if she's never used it, it's probably not going to be something that anybody WANT TO COOK WITH. BUT I'M SURE I got an appreciation
for the fact it is an ingredient. Similarly, ingredients that we don't understand still deserve our highest level of appreciation because they are exactly who we are. They're they're same shelf life, same
length of time, same level of of of of productivity. Whatever this is supposed to make, I'm sure it does a good job. Else they wouldn't be selling this in a store. I'm sure that they didn't make the duck fat for me. So, just as you know, I never ordered this. They don't tailor make duck fat. It's just sitting
on the shelf somewhere. Go to your local grocery store, maybe you can find it, and ask for some duck fat. So, as a result of this, I learned to appreciate. So, uh, I would say look at the person to your right and to your left. They're an ingredient just like you. They you
may not understand the kind of ingredient that they are. They're an ingredient. They way better than sweet and low. You know, they're an ingredient. They're sugar. They're salt. They're they're oil. They're something that even if we don't understand, the level of appreciation has nothing to do with our understanding. It has everything to do with our recognition
that they are the same as us. Did you realize, man? People, we the same. Not just because you went to Hust Tillist University. Uh uh, and I have gone I'm a Baylor alum, but we are both ingredients. And even though we've yet
to meet, I can still say I'm an ingredient just like you. I want you to say it one more time. I'm an ingredient. And if you're an ingredient, then you can appreciate all the other ingredients. And there should never be an animosity against an ingredient because the goal should be the same. If outcome is my priority, then ego is
unnecessary. Last but certainly not least. Oh, it was early on and I told you I was going to come back to this. Councilwoman Beck, you said that what you've got in your ingredient, one of them is a bonding. What' you call it?
>> What does that mean? >> AH, BEAUTIFUL. BEAUTIFUL. OUR OUR LAST element of collaboration is we must be bold enough to bond.
Bold enough to bond. Now, who has something in your uh ingredient kit that makes stuff stick together? Do y'all know what that does? What What is that? What kind OF THING DOES AH, KROLL SYRUP. YOU GOT ALL THE STUFF. YOU GOT THE STUFF
THAT MAKES IT RISE. YOU GOT STUFF TO MAKE STUFF STICK TOGETHER. THE KRO syrup makes things STICK TOGETHER, RIGHT? SO, AS A RESULT OF THAT, it it when when and what happens in the bonding process, it's typically heat and pressure that creates this bond because now all these
ingredients mix together and there's one ingredient that makes everything stick together. In this case, it's kroll syrup. In other cases, would it be butter that makes stuff stick together? >> Thank you. Eggs. Somebody from the studio audience just giving us a phenomena. Eggs make
things stick. I didn't bring any eggs with me. Uh but uh but they make things stick together. So as a result of that, we've got to be bold enough to bond. You know, people talk about it in sports all the time. They have a term called
team chemistry. That term is just a term to identify how closely people stick together. That's all that the team is so unified that there's no outside noise, no media, no press that could cause them to be at odds with one another. They're not trying to go at another's throat.
They're going to be the same. And then you always know when the team is not doing well, they'll say they have bad team chemistry or the locker room was really bad. As a result of what we get to do as ingredients, I must be bold enough to bond. What does that look like? What does that
mean? That simply means that I cannot concern myself with what non-ingredients think about me. Can't be I can't concern myself with that councilman. I can't concern myself with what non- ingredients think about me. I want to bond with you. I'm a
bonding agent. I'm like Kro syrup. That's might be my nickname from now on. Thank you. They can call me Kro. >> Sweet. >> I'm sweet, beloved. Am I sweet? >> There you go. Okay. See? >> Okay. I can BE CRO. I MUST BE THE BONDING AGENT. And that simply means
being bold enough to bond means no matter what ingredients are mixed together, somebody's got to be strong enough to say, "I'm going to be the eggs and the kairoll syrup in this situation." In fact, that's my new nickname, Kro. I'm going to be Kro in this situation. So, as a result of that, if we're bold enough to bond, there is
no limit to what we can accomplish. We've got to be bold enough first of all to use bonding language. That's that's the other component that I have to uh outline. Bonding language.
That's language that doesn't criticize, language that doesn't condemn and language that doesn't complain. I'm using bonding language. Bonding language is that language that you find. What kind of thing is that you got right there that makes stuff right? >> Yeah, there you go. Bacon powder. So, uh
that that that that it's the language that elevates. It's the language that that motivates. It's the language that puts a pep IN SOMEBODY'S STEP. IT'S THAT language that we want to use. And oftentimes the way bonding breaks down is somebody starts
using language that divides. I'm sure that there's some kind of thing that sift stuff and you might probably makes that if you don't have it then the cake won't sit right. Whatever that [snorts] might be. But I've got to have bonding language and I've got to be willing to
have bonding listening skills. Those of the listening, that's that's that's just being quiet and taking notes and recognizing. We got a rule in the Wallace household. We got a lot of rules in Wallace household, but one of them is we always positive. No matter what, we look on the bright
side. Everything that happens, there must be a PO. And so, and so even my daughters, all the girls, all six of them, they're trained to know that when anything happens, first thing you think about is think about something positive. We were driving down the street one day. We were actually going to the State Fair of Texas. Uh, we should have went to the fax stock show because, you know, we shouldn't went there. But went to the
state fair, Texas. And on the way there, something happens with my Escalade. It just starts doing all these different digital things on the side of the road. I went to pick my daughter up at PV and we were going together. Uh, my team, they they wanted to have a good time, hang out at the fair, and my electrical wiring just started going crazy. I see
all these things come and my car stops. My car stops right around Cottage Station and three of my daughters in the back, my three youngest ones, AND THEY ALL SAY, "WOW, WHAT AN ADVENTURE. WE'VE NEVER HAD THIS HAPPEN BEFORE, DADDY. This is going to be fun." I said, "Now we going to have to go walk across the
street and make it over there to this convenience store. I got to call OnStar to get them to come. I got and one of my daughters, I got to put this in my journal. This is so cool. We have an opportunity. We And now this is this is AND WATCH THIS." THEN MY BELOVED was in Austin. So, I tell her what happens and she
says, "I get to come pick y'all up." Now, you know, we we got she she she did her best to be positive. You know, you >> she working on it. She getting there. She she making an ingredient. She getting there. But then she and we said, "We need you to come from Austin to where we are in College Station. Pick us
up cuz they're going to tow our car, but we cannot miss the state fair cuz we got to be there tomorrow." And she came and when she arose, when she got there, THEY ALL HUGGED. OH, HAPPY. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? WE STOPPED ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND then daddy had to get out and we had to walk across the street and we WERE DODGING TRAFFIC. OH, IT WAS FUN. WE
HAD TO GET OUR BAG OUT OF THE CAR. WE CHECKED INTO a hotel at COLLEGE STATION. WE DID ALL BECAUSE THE GOAL IS ALWAYS SOMETHING POSITIVE. AND IF WE CAN BE POSITIVE WITH ONE ANOTHER, I WOULD CHALLENGE YOU TO LOOK AT EVERY COUNCIL MEMBER, EVERY CITY MANAGER, AND YOU START THINKING ON THOSE POSITIVE THINGS
ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE AND ABOUT YOUR city and about the goals you want to accomplish. And then start using the bonding language and then bite your tongue when you want to complain. Bite your tongue when you want to ask questions and bite your tongue and then think about what's the most positive thing I can say to cause something else
to rise. What's the best thing I can do to make everybody stick together? What's the thing that I can say right now that can make me a bonding agent? What kind of language CAN I EMPLOY THAT'LL MAKE PEOPLE SAY, "AH, that's good, man.
That's great. I like the way he handled stuff. I love the way she communicated that. That was a wonderful way to say something." And as a result of that, that's how we bond. We can never be great if we don't collaborate. Ah, that's my time. I hope I was
helpful. Thank y'all so much for your opportunity to serve you. I'mma leave all these ingredients. [applause] >> Thank you, Dr. Wallace. That was terrific. In all honesty, what do you want us to do with the ingredients? >> Keep them. [laughter] >> Okay.
>> We can have a white elephant exchange in a minute here. >> Yes. But I want to thank him on behalf of this Fort Worth boy home. He absolutely loves this city and he loves what you all are doing. He is absolutely proud.
He is all over the country representing this city. Uh retired at the age of 32, a Baylor alum, uh on the covers of magazine, Global Million, and he trains teams all the time all over the world. But today was very special for him uh to
have an opportunity to come home and to work with you all. So God bless you and have a merry Christmas on behalf of team Wallace. So thank you team Wallace. We appreciate you very much. [applause] >> Great ambassador for our city for sure. So I think we're taking a quick fiveminute break. Is that right Jay?
Yep. Okay. Five minutes and then we'll come back and Hillary Shine is going to kick things off. Right. That's correct. Okay. Perfect. Good morning everybody. I am uh not um I was saying I'm not dextrous enough to hold cakes or uh as exciting as your
previous speaker, but I want us I want to turn our attention now from kind of team dynamic to the individual dynamics that influence the team. So you all did an assessment ahead of our being together today um called IOP and IOP really is an instrument to help us kind
of understands people understand each other's informationational needs a bit better um so that we can kind of remove ourselves from the assumptions that sometimes creep into deliberations and try to really understand what it is that we all need to be comfortable in making
a decision or to feel confident in the decision that was made. So I opt again you all took it and you have your form right in front of you. We'll talk about everybody's results here in a moment. But what I want to start is it's this isn't like disk. How many of you have done disk before? I think most of you,
right? Okay. So this one's a bit different. It's not about preferences. It's not about choices. It's really about your internal need for information and what level of comfort you have to reach with that information in order to be confident in making a decision on the other side. Everybody processes
differently. People process at different speeds. They have different levels and depths of information that they request or require and that affects our behavior. So in some cases we may, you know, we've got lots of time. We can uh talk about things, we can kind of work through things, but then when it's
pressure time, pressure time is when our real true kind of needs start to bubble up and that's when they b they boil over often. So what we want to do is understand better what the common ground is that we're always trying to seek to achieve so that when the pressure comes we can again push the assumptions out of
the picture and say well that person has a deeper need for information or they have a less actionoriented mind uh set and so you know trying to work better as a team by understanding those those influences that that are internal to each of us. So, the acronym is input output processing template. Um, and
again, it's not about your feelings. It just really focuses on your [snorts] need for information um and and the the behaviors that may result from that need being met or not met. So, you've all got your um uh results in front of you and I
think it's page maybe two where it says what your profile is. So, you've got hypothe hypothetical analyzer, relational innovator. You see some acronyms. Is it page two? Is it in red? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, we'll get deeper into that here in a second, but
honestly, it's uh the way we process information is unique to us. So, we can all hear the same piece of information. We can all hear the same spiel. We can all hear the same um uh uh uh discussion that's going on, but all of us process things differently than each other. Some of us more similarly, and we may find
ourselves kind of uh um uh engaging or interacting with with folks that are like-minded to us. But what we don't want to do is have blind spots because of it. So we'll look at at each of you individually, but then we'll also look at the team to determine where those spots may exist. Um, but also where they
all come together um to to make us a more, you know, unified team to make the cake out of us as a group. So this is just a a a funny little cartoon. Daryl suspected someone had once again slipped him a spoon with the concave side reversed. Everybody has the same spoon,
but some people look at it in a different way than others. And so we want to know how people process information um in order to to arrive at a decision point. So we make choices on how we process it that information. So some people crunch time is debilitating
too. They shut down. They can't move forward because they feel like they don't have enough time to really work through the information. And that's not the decision making process we want to have. People on the other side of that who don't feel confident that they had enough information and they felt pressured to raise their hand in that
instance one way or the other >> walk away from that and question the decision and often question the process that put them in that position where they had to raise their hand and they weren't quite confident to do it. So one choice isn't better than the other. Faster, slower, uh more less not better than the other. Um but we also process
information different speeds. So, you've got the folks on this council who you can probably all point to who are shoot from the hip, right? Like, I am confident. I've got what I need. I'm ready to go. And you have others who really feel like they need to deliberate more. They need to consult more. They
need to to understand a more deep um uh perspective or maybe there's another perspective they want to gain. And some people really just want the discovery process to keep going. Doesn't mean they're wrong. Doesn't mean they're necessarily delaying though. we the the actionoriented folks may be like you're
delaying you're doing on purpose. It could just be that they're not quite at the level that they want to be to raise their hand and feel confident in the decision that they make. So again, you know, the quicker, yeah, you might be efficient and effective, but you may be making change or making a decision that long term isn't as sustainable as what
you intended because you missed, you know, you missed some of the details that you needed to know. slower you may be trying to gather gather gather gather and never get to raising the hand because I'm still gathering gathering gathering. So we want a balance of that
particularly in a deliberative body so that we can all reach a point where we can move forward confidently together. So let's talk about the individuals. So you all like I said have these on your charts and you're going to start to see the shapes come together. But in this you've got four different styles. You have the reactive stimulator that's at
the top. This will remain in all of the the slides here. The logical processor on the right, the hypothetical analyzer, and the relational innovator. So, we'll break those down a bit more. Nobody get offended by any of these words. Some people are like, "Well, I I'm logical,
too. Why are why am I over here?" Well, it it's not that. It's really about the process of information. [snorts] So, everybody has parts of each. And so what the chart on the next chart does for you, this kite looking chart, um is it plots those graphs. How extreme are
you on any of the axes and um and so what patterns do you typically exhibit? So everybody's shape is different, but I'll show you some that are more similar than others here in just a moment. This is where we start with kind of figuring out where your preferences
um or processing sort of lies most heavy. So, if under pressure, this is sort of your natural place that you that you retreat or you go. Um, and again, all different and everybody has a mix of all, some more than others, and we've got some interesting shapes in this
group. So, that's kind of fun uh for me. But, uh, but what we want to do is see where where the alignment is ultimately. So, if everybody's shapes are different, how do we finally get to a decision? Well, it's when the base level need is met for everybody. That's when we can
move forward as a group. Everybody's not going to agree. It's not about agreeing. It's about meeting that informationational need so that we're confident in raising our hand. Yay or nay. So that's blurry, but so why are you the way you are? Michael Scott. Um, so the
reactive simulator, who are my who has the RS as their primary? Okay, some reactive simulators. So these are folks who are actionoriented. They want to they want to do it so that they can uh say they did it, move on to the
next thing. It's action action action. Um they are fine with input coming from all different places. They don't need it to be a specific chart. They don't need it to be a specific person. These are the kind of more gut oriented people. It's I know what I need to know and I'm going to I'm going to get what I need to
get and then I'll be confident to move forward. So they're much more spontaneous with their process. They're not as rigorous as some of the other folks. They'll take it from whichever angle it comes. They'll filter it themselves and then ultimately they're they're looking for action. So they're ready to just say, "Okay, I've got enough. I feel confident. I'm ready to
move forward." Um their behaviors could be things like faster execution. Uh again, low um rule or norm compliance. They can be really intensely focused on whatever it is because they're looking to say, "We accomplished it. We moved it forward and now we can move to the next thing." um they're excited typically,
especially if it's something that they they're interested in or they think is going to create a really positive outcome. Um they focus on the win. So again, time is of the essence to folks like this. They're looking for action. Um they don't love a routine and they like fast resolution. So belaboring
something and deliberating something to the, you know, like for six months just sounds terrible. How was the EMS process? Was that a little long for you? Yeah, you were probably ready earlier on to say, "Yeah, let's do this." Obviously, we needed to go through a a
process. But but those are um that that's just an example of where you probably were very very confident in the very beginning about what you thought, but you went through the process so that others could be comfortable um in the same way that you were and make a good decision on the other end.
So again, uh the they like quick results, variety. Um they're looking for an easier way. That doesn't mean a shortcut that's that doesn't produce the same result, but they're looking at how can we make this more efficient so that we can get to the next decision faster and keep things moving. Um, they like
flexibility, personal control. They don't love an ironclad set of rules. That's not um their most uh uh appreciated space. They like some some latitude. And they could be heard saying things like, "Let's do it," or, "When do we start?" or "Now's the best time.
Logical processors um are much more structured, rigorous people. So they like structure. They like things to make sense, but they're also actionoriented. So they're looking to put the pieces in place so that the action can be taken and then the action is sustainable. So they're not looking
for the quick decision and then it falls apart, you know, six months later. They're really trying to think longer term about what it is that needs to be put in place to make this sustainable. You see a lot um of this in department heads in particular in the or organizations that I work with because
they're thinking about what are the effects? How do we make this work? What processes do we need to put in place uh in order to keep this thing going on in the longer term? They are um they like structure again um they they have a very logical process. They want one plus one to equal two. They're not so comfortable
when one plus one could be three. Um they're decisive. They have very high operational clarity. So these are your these are your resources. These are the people who you can like look at and they can quote policy to you because they know it so well. That's their clarity. They like to know what the structure is
that's already in place. They're very stable disciplined typically. Um they want to know the how. So I so the change person right the the first one we looked at says let's do it. They need a how because we can do it but if we don't have the how then we have we made a
decision that that we can all ultimately uh fulfill and then they don't like uncertainty. So they like the certainty of outcome. So they want to take a bit more deliberative time to try to make sure that what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong and that we've built
the system before we launch the before we before we put the cake on the table. We want to make sure we could replicate it or duplicate it. We're about to tell you. He's jumping ahead. Secret. It's a secret. So, they like the task. So,
again, um your logical processors are like, "Tell me what you want, what the outcome is you want, what kind of cake do you want, and then I'll figure out what ingredients and how to do how to do that." They like consistency. Again, that's why the policy and rigor is important to them. And then they're clarifiers. So the logical processor
might come across as a sharpshooter because they want to understand that you've thought through the the third and fourth order effects or the process that may be um on the other side. They like predictability. So again, systems uh clear direction. Just tell me what it is
you want and then get out of my way. Um they're the ones who who like to go get specific training. They like to to learn more. They like to have a deeper well of information they can pull from. and they um they like clear expectations. So if
you say we want to increase this program's usage, that's going to be a different interpretation for every single person in this room, right? So they want to know what do you what is the outcome that you're ultimately seeking? So
they're going to ask questions, not sharpshoot you. That that's not necessarily the the intent. It's really to clarify so that they have a clear understanding and then they can go pursue whatever the right solution is. So they might say things like according to my list what are the rules and let's
develop a procedure. The hypothetical analyzer is also in that structured mindset. They like they like for there to be structure. Um they process things logically but they're not as action focused. So they may be comfortable continuing to deliberate on
an issue or continuing to research or study uh or or discuss an issue and maybe the outcome never comes on the other end but they feel validated or valuable in the fact that they've explored it thoroughly and fully. Um so again if you think about this uh uh type
of profile um they need someone that has action to balance them out because if not we may be sitting in in in thought for for longer than we intend to and and not get to the to the other side. So their behaviors they like to have conceptual clarity. So they want to
understand all of it. So these are the ones who you're like okay I answered the questions. Why are there more questions? And it's because it opened the next layer and the next layer because they want that deep deep understanding of of what it is we're doing and how we're doing it. They're thoughtful again
unhurried which for the action-minded folks may be thinking why why is this not so why are we slow rolling this? Why is why is this not as important to you? They're seeking a different level of clarity potentially. They're focused on why so why are we changing it? not
necessarily change averse or decision averse, but but let help me understand the why. What's the why in it? So that I can rationalize that the disruption that may come from it or or whatever um is worth what what we're trying to do. And then again really wants understanding.
So they're focused on the project. They love complexity. Again, they like to keep peeling the onion layer by layer. Uh and they like to be free to consider a lot of options. They want clear goals. Um and with them it's important to sort of set deadlines often because sometimes
we don't we don't necessarily get across the finish line um because thought is so um important. The freedom to explore minimal supervision and then they want to plan a project see it happen but then hand it off for someone else to
accomplish or to to maintain. Uh and they could be heard saying things like let's look at different options. What's the reason? How will we do it? And then finally, we have the relational innovator. So we're back to this sort of spontaneous unconstrained mindset where I'll take it from anywhere and however
it comes, but I'm thought, not action. So I might be okay with just continuing to take more and more and more information, but I'm not hurried to get to an action posture. Um, so they're looking more mission level horizon. um they can be really intently focused on
something um and then move on to something else that that catches their eye or their interest. So again, kind of setting the the parameters up front is important because they're looking for new options, novel approaches. These can be your innovators and you don't want to shut down the thought. Uh but we also
have to keep them sort of focused and and moving in a direction. um they're typically enthusiastic when they're excited about uh change or they're excited about innovation or they're excited about advancement. Uh they focus on well what if we did it this way. So you you hear people say what if right
and the people who are like why do we have to what if all day? We need to just sort of get down to get down to um basics and then they like the creativity. So in the the job environment, they're looking at the mission. They want autonomy because they want to be able to
think and conceptualize. They're looking for new possibilities, but in that they may find old problems or new problems that now need attention and need to be addressed. So so you've got to keep them sort of focused on the issue at hand. Often uh they need to be trusted that
they're going to come up with a great solution or or a good a better solution than what we have. They want minimal supervision. uh untested. They want to explore untested possibilities. Um they're really committed to the project or the people. So whatever it is, they're they're fully invested when
they're working on something. Um and then they I have an idea. How about we try or oh that reminds me of this other thing that we should look at or explore. So once you have those kinds of profiles, you start to see patterns and
that's where these come in. So each of you has a shape. Um, and so the more of your shape that is in one of the quadrants than the other makes you either a changer, a performer, a conservator, and a or a perfector. And everybody bristles if they fall in the
conservator category, especially my elected officials, because that f sounds like I'm just trying to keep it the way it's always been, but that's not what it is. A conservator really is more about the longevity. So they're thinking about how do we put a program in place that affects the change that we want but is
sustainable over time. Um it's it's not it's not keeping us rooted in in where we are. Um and then so you can start to see the patterned thought, unpatterned thought, structure or not structure and then action versus um not as action uh
mindset. So let's look at you guys. So changer here. Let's go back and I'll show you that again. Upper left. Is that your left? Yes. Okay. We've got the mayor,
council member Beck, Council Member Crane, and Council Member Lowdorf. I would like to call our attention to our baking soda deliberation earlier today and just look at how similar your patterns are for the information that
you need um to get to a place that that you're comfortable moving forward. >> What? Hey, I'm not done with you yet. [laughter] Get ready. And then we've got we've got
the the mayor who is the most extreme of our uh um categories. And that one is interesting because because of her position, she has a bit more pull in certain directions. Just setting agendas um uh being the the public, you know,
face like some of her role starts to add uh influence to to to her or to the group dynamic. But it's interesting. So, all of you are changers. All a little bit different except for Michael and Elizabeth. Um,
[laughter] I'm just having fun. And then you've got the mayor who is who you can see that her her um point is is quite a bit higher than anybody else's. Does that surprise anyone that you're in those that the four of you are together or does that seem pretty
okay? Okay. Well, let's go back. So, the rest of you that aren't changers, >> do you feel rushed sometimes? >> Ask the changers if we feel slowed down by the people that I mean, that's the question first. >> Yes.
>> Right. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, so in some cases when you've got the folks that are in the conservator or perfector, you're going to feel like I'm dragging them along sometimes because you're ready to make change. But then how do they feel? Do they feel like it's rash decision-
making? Do they feel it's maybe not as thoughtful as they would like for it to be? Or do they feel pressured because of the time constraints being placed on them by the changers? Um, again, when you're in a pressure cooker situation, these things are going to become more
pronounced and you can see people, particularly the changer pattern and the conservator pattern. Um, I see a lot of there's some opposites there where um, the changer is looking to let's get it done. The conservator wants action, too. Um, so you've got kind of the same
mindset. It's just a different speed or a different pace. and the changer might look at the the um uh conservator as being obstructionist, right? So, we start to fill in these words and we're like, they're just deliberately slowing down the process.
They're deliberately doing this when honestly they may not be. It could be that they just are not as comfortable with moving forward at that moment in time with the level of information they have. So, now let's go to the conservator. So, the opposite.
And we've got Council Member Flores, Council Member Martinez, and Council Member Hill. Does that feel right? Yeah. >> Changers, do they drive you crazy? >> I'm just kidding.
>> I just want to know if Carlos was really heavy on logical processor, [laughter] >> but I don't think he was necessarily. It did figure prominently. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. Absolutely. And having worked with some of you all in different environments than this, it's like I I
can feel or sense them, especially when we we worked on a kind of a long duration project. Um but but you've got to have these folks because they're looking at what are the long-term ramifications of a short-term decision. What process do we need to put in place
today before we ever even announce that we're doing this tomorrow? because they're sort of in the everybody is looking at the long game. You're all trying to affect change. You're all trying to make the community better. But some people have a need to do it right here, right now. And then you have the
others who want to make sure that even after they're gone from their tenure in office, that this this change can still persist and that we've put all the right elements in place so we're not surprised by something on the other side. [snorts] So my Oh, these are my trouble children.
>> [sighs] >> Mia, Mia, see me after class. Um, well, both of you, so so both Council Member Hall and Council Member Peoples are like dead on the center, but you can see in this case, you have
stronger pulls um to to the north and south for you and then stronger pulls east and west for you. So, these are a difficult person for people to predict. The other personalities that are much more pronounced It becomes it becomes very very difficult to
predict because they go whatever way they feel they need to in the moment. They're the chameleons. They're the ones who can kind of bend into to the different categories. Oh, we want to go a little deeper on this. Oh, we want to go a little which is unpredictable and that frustrates the heck out of other
people because you're like now wait a minute. You were ready to raise your hand after two days last time and now you want to take two years. um because they're just more they're more um u malleable to whatever the the subject matter is and so they're much harder to predict. Um
you you've got some real extremes in the opposite direction. Um anybody surprised with that? Um but also you fall on that sort of split profile, split pattern um that makes it hard. So, so what what I ask
you the the split profile I was gonna say split personalities. That's not what I'm saying. Split profiles. Um [laughter] the split profiles really have to kind of do some reflection and figure out okay when under pressure this is what this is what comes out of
me. Right? So whether it's okay I when I'm under pressure I just want to get it over with and move on could be one strategy depending on the issue. Or when under pressure I need more time. I need more time. I need more thought in this. And it makes it very hard in a group
dynamic for folks to be as predictable >> or that. >> Yeah. I mean, if you feel like you're being pulled in every direction and none is dominant and there's no good answer, um there there can be this sort of bubbling up of of emotion because it's
logic sort of gets gets missed or gets mixed up. >> [sighs] >> Folks, we have an island. Councilman Bllelock is a perfector all on his own. Uh he's perfecting while
everyone else is not in his in his camp or corner. Does that feel right? >> YEAH. [laughter] YEAH. SO, your perfector, your perfector is that pattern that can be comfortable
with there not being a decision on the other end. We can talk about this. There may not be a better solution. We may not want to change it. We want to make sure that whatever it is we're coming up with is the best it can be. And so, let's continue to think. let's continue to talk. I don't necessarily feel pressured
to to to make um a decision or a change. Um but but that is also the person who might have the ability to say I don't think that's the best solution. I think we might want to consider this
other thing and we don't want to dismiss them because we're so focused on action. Now, I will tell you in your group there is no one in the performer category. We've got our chameleons that are there in the middle, but the performer is the
one that like grabs it, takes it forward, right? And so oftentimes you'll see city manager positions and um executive leadership that sort of are more in that direction. They're not coming up with the policy decisions, the change that maybe is made. They're really the ones who are trying to carry
it forward when they get their clear direction. But I would say in your case, you've got kind of a heavier heavier weight sort of in three quadrants and we don't want to miss that performer part. So who's going to do it? How are we going to do it? How do we know if it succeeds or fails? Um we want to be
asking those questions even if that's not a normal um cadence in this group so that we're not so focused on just action or ideas, but we're really thinking about how it's going to be carried through. Along those lines though, I I observe in my position though that
everyone at this table has that capability and interest in being performer is kind of a strong word, but taking leadership on specific issues and has done so depending on what it may be. Everyone probably can name something that they are passionate about that they
feel like it is their issue to carry the mantle on. >> Yeah. >> And even if there's not agreement on council, right, they feel very strongly that is their, you know, it's their prerogative. Um, and I think that's healthy actually >> rather than it being responsibility of one person or you know a handful.
>> Absolutely. And and the whole point of this is let's let's look at the strength as a group and make sure that we don't miss something. Um, and y'all are y'all are in the business of a hundred years or 200 years or however many years ahead of us as a city, right? So the decisions
we make we can make the action we can take the action we can set the system in place but if we haven't created the the performance element of it then are we still meeting the mark. So the performer the performance part is is not just the
kind of doing the work um that has been chosen or selected and we move it. It's also maintaining it. So the conservator is saying these are the systems that you need but the performer is the one who needs to indicate you know usership has really gone down and so the performance isn't isn't doing what we thought it
was. So again all very important and again when you look at in a city government you have your elected leaders who y'all aren't super unlike others that we've worked with um but you also have this whole cast uh here in the audience um who is who
has different profiles and different personalities. So leaning into those strengths as well and understanding those strengths is really important um because you're playing the long game ultimately. So then what we do is you place all of them on top of each other, all of the crazy shapes. This is just a madeup one. This is not you all. Um and
it [clears throat] shows you sort of the extremes. The extremes. Then you get to the gray area which is where everybody overlaps. So every single person um is included in that area. So it's a real strange shape. The white is where theformational need comes in. So if we
can meet thisformational need in the sort of conservator category, then we can potentially set up the decision-m to go as well as possible, but also to meet everybody's needs to vote yes or no. So really, you you're you're looking to at least be in
the gray. So providing enough latitude or enough ability for people to get what they need for information and and timelines. Um, but we are we're ultimately trying to get to where everyone is really confident in the decision that they make and that they're not being pressured based on somebody
else's need for information or preference. So that's another one. So this one, [clears throat] so many people are down in the conservator category and so you can see that they're they they have a much bigger section that they can work with.
But this is you all. So, and you can see what we were talking about with the we all have capacity to be performers, but it there's no one necessarily in over in that area. Um, but you have a a really interesting shape. It's like a shield, the white
part, and you have a broader uh um area to work with. So, oftentimes they're more heavily weighted in in one section or another. So, this is hypothetical analyzer is what's down here. So, that's ideas. let's think about different ways, new ways, what could we do? And then
you've got the group, you've got this perfector need, the need for it to be the best solution we can come up with. Um, and to take the time it requires for that. And then you've got the we want to set in place the systems that are going to make this successful. So, I I like
this profile. Um, even though you're very weighted in the changer pattern, there's a strong pull because your your shape is so extreme, which we'll uh show here in just a second. But there's this strong pull for it to be thoughtful, deliberate, and the best decision.
So when you add the leader in here, so you're you're sort of pulling um us up and pulling us down, but like I was mentioning earlier, her position is the mayor, um running meetings, um agendas, like all of those sorts of things give her a certain level of influence. and
her personality profile while it's not issues driven, it's timeline driven, it's process driven, it's those sorts of things. So she she is trying to meet the needs of all, but she has her own personal preference. And so her she's much higher. So she's probably
pulling you all more toward change or performer um because that's her that's her um uh predominant feature. So, so when she is um working with you all as a group, she has to be mindful that you've got this
big group down here who has a different level of need for time and information. So, here are just some uh um thoughts. It's all in your things and they'll email you a bunch of other reports. But just in general, the characteristics that we're looking at with these
patterns are the changer, experimental orientation, high risk, high reward, rapid deployment, incomplete specification, high uniqueness, disruption potential. Um, the performer, issues resolution, low to moderate risk, but prompt response, practical methods, tangible outcomes, um, an intense focus
and very task specific. the conservator precision, um, low risk and deliberative response, uh, high certainties of outcome, methodical execution, commitment and focus, and then skeptical posture, not meaning they're again sharpshooters, but really questioning
and wanting to make sure they have a full understanding. And then the perfector, um, evaluation and planning, no risk, low action. So, they're always seeking to minimize risk. uh and then unhurried response potentially analytical methods high certainty of
conclusion and contingency focus positives. So when we're looking at each other and engaging with each other, these are the the the ingredients that that are um all going to be magical in our cake. Um you've got your changer can be
enthusiastic, charismatic, engaging, energetic, versatile, and creative. For those of you who are perfectors and conservators, that can feel like flash and sizzle, right? Like, hey, next great thing, next new thing. Uh, performers, uh, being
resultsoriented, determined, self-reliant, committed, purposeful, decisive, can be seen as being very dominant or or um uh uh forceful. Your conservators are efficient, principled, confident, productive, consistent, unwavering potentially. And so it's does
the policy support it? Does the thing support it? Do we need to change the policy before we do? So, again, trying to hold us to some sort of standard. And then your perfector, um, astute, tolerant, versatile, perceptive, very interested, and they, um, can be very
innovative. But here's where we caution ourselves. So, just like with DISC, you want to be as self-aware as you can um because you come off a certain way to other people who are not necessarily like you. So with the changer, the changer can be
looked at as overbearing or imprudent, disruptive, impulsive, hurried, erratic or glib. So when you're a person who really values certainty of outcome and you really want to have all the plans and things in place, that feels reckless in an environment like this sometimes,
not calling any of you reckless, um I don't believe that you are, but it can feel like you're taking reckless actions or that you're you're um too hurried in what you're what it is you're deciding and you haven't thought everything through. you're shooting from the hip. Uh the performer because they are the
ones who are are ready to carry it out and see it through can be looked at as contentious or doineering. Uh impatient, brash, harsh. Um they've got a job to do and they're going to do it. Uh and so they're really just trying to carry out the will that the changer has set in
motion and the conservator has helped put in motion. Um, but they're the ones who who get to be the bad guy and say, "Well, this is what we said we're going to do and we're going to do it and we're just gonna kind of keep pushing." The conservator, because they're thoughtfocused, people can look at them
as being obstinate or uh um regressive or unenthusiastic or unadventurous. And these are not these are not so unlike the changer. It's that they have a different level of desire for certainty of outcome. they're not willing to take
as much risk as a changer would be. Um, and so oftentimes, um, you have the the the those two being kind of opposites because one is is really asking the hard questions and feeling like they're being pressured, uh, into a into a corner that they're not ready to be in. And then the
perfector, because they're the thinkers um, and kind of get lost in thought and ideas and generating ideas, they can seem evasive or sort of detached or uncertain. uh but it's because they're really processing information and and trying to understand something or trying
to make something that's better than we even imagined when we started. Uh and so they can be seen also as as procrastinators. Um and so the action-minded folks, you got to be patient. We got to meet those needs. And especially like in this group, you've
got a a a strong uh need to make it thoughtful to to um uh understand all the different options and then ultimately to come to the best decision with the best systems in place to support the decision. So when we walk away from here, like I said, you've got your sheet there and
then you'll get a bunch of other stuff via email. That's the one that has the main points. Um but but really you've got to you've got to understand and really try to seek the balance. So, um, understanding that it may not necessarily be a person's political
tactic, um, to to deliberate in a certain way. It could really just generally be genuinely be they have a different need for information. And, and we want everyone to be confident. What happens in groups oftent times is that when someone feels pressured to make a
decision they're not ready to make, whether it's because they don't have enough information or because the timeline is is constrained or whatever, they walk away and attack the process. When you attack the process, that means that the vote that was taken is now
somehow sullied because now I can say, well, you know, they rushed this through and I wasn't ready to do it, but I didn't, you know, necessarily have the time or the ability or, you know, the understanding that I could ask another question. Doesn't mean you could slow everything down. Um, but what we don't
want to do is create a situation where people can't walk away confident in the decision that they made and defending that decision even if it wasn't their decision. So, I could walk away and say, "We took all the time. I was on the losing side of the vote, but we we
followed the process and we all got our chance to to deliberate." Um, that that's going to to pay dividends to the system that you all have. um so that we don't have people, you know, kind of going out and going, well, you know, they didn't think about this. They
didn't give me time for this. We don't want that to be the the message that's carried forward because someone was uncomfortable with with the timeline or the decision decision made. So, we want to meet the the informationational needs, but we ultimately have to take action. Y'all are in a business of action. So, there are things you have to do by a certain timeline. And if there
is a need for you to have more time or more information, perhaps we need to change our systems to say we need more deliberative time for this. But we also can't just hold the issue hostage forever because we just want to keep thinking about it. So it's the balance
between how do we get everybody to a place where they're at least comfortable that they've gotten maybe not as much as they want, but they have the level that that they feel comfortable that they need. um telling others what you need.
So saying and now you've got people's graphics. You understand people's graphics saying, "Hey, I need more time to explore other options on this." I don't think that just fixing this little broken thing is the best option. We may need to completely recreate it. Can we take time to do that? But if you're not
saying it and you're getting frustrated by the process and saying, "Well, they rushed it, but you never said it." So we can't be, you know, people aren't mind readers. Again, you can't hold the the the process hostage with just thinking thinking thinking. Uh but there's a balance that you all can strike. But you have to start with communicating what
your needs are. And then um seek just seeking common ground. That graphic again common ground in information and deliberation, not necessarily common ground by agreeing on an issue, a specific issue. We want to we we are trying to build in processes and
understand people's unique needs so that we can to the degree possible meet them so that everyone can walk away being more confident in the decision made thoughts. >> Jay, I need less studies. >> Ouch. Ouch.
>> I know. Perfect. >> Take you off your list. >> I have to say I've never been accused of doing too many studies. >> Yeah. [laughter] I wonder I'd be curious what he he's probably you're you might be a conservator who
>> you we haven't we didn't do yours but I'm thinking because studies I >> should do management >> opted out >> did [laughter] not >> I opted out that was good >> I have an observation and hearing you talk made me think about this
>> especially when you talked about process and the way each of us makes decisions Because of the structure of our governance, none of us in this table, including myself, set agendas. The CMO office talks about these issues for months on end, oftentimes before they
ever surface to the council. And then by then, sometimes it's the very next meeting or next month where these issues are going to come up. And so it is probably really worthwhile to do the same exercise with CMO. And then I also think as an observation, I don't know
that our management structure and really across the entire city has ever adjusted to the two additional council members because having two additional council members does take more time. We have a great body here, but each of us requires a certain level of input and process and
candidly a one-on-one with the city manager when the council member meets with him or her is not enough on these big consequential issues. So it's just more of a stating an obvious problem, but how do we work through that together moving forward? So there's a lot more transparency was and I think it has
created more mystery [snorts] and then it creates a sense of distrust that is deeply hurtful to the body and then makes it harder for us when you do have very consequential votes that are on council and you have a body that feels like they were pitted against each
other. They weren't ready to make a decision. They felt backed into a corner. So, I I think that's just something for us to work through as an overall city management team to think about how we want to help this council be supported differently in the future. >> Yeah. I mean, it's the the the
constant pressure that is applied to you all as elected officials, whether it is um you know statuto, whether it is some new mandate, whether it is whatever is it's a pressure cooker, right? And so if we don't have the time or if we don't
take the time to say that process doesn't work and we're just busy dealing with the same process and trying to make decisions and hoping that it's going to get easier, it's not. It's only going to get more complicated and more more pressure um a more pressure cooker
situation. And so taking the time to set in place some stronger governance policies I think is really important to this group. and those can start to say this is the way things work so that you all know but more importantly the public
does because if you're feeling that the decision has come out of nowhere and you're being forced to make it tomorrow and again some of you more comfortable than others what do you think the public thinks and so that starts to creep in this distrust in the process
which means the whole thing is rotten right so how do we as a as an elected body as a governing body say. We recognize that there are differing needs and then we represent people who all have differing thoughts and and feelings like this, but are there things in our processes or in the way that we do our
work that are failing us repeatedly? And the answer is probably yes. It's just it's the nature of the business. And so what can you do moving away from here today? And I'm about to transition into what I heard from you in our individual interviews about the kind of
things that are happening and the feelings that we're having right now about where we are. And so we may come back to that after we go through. Yes, Jay. >> So I think the mayor's comments are perfect segways to the thoughts that I've had since I since I left in 22.
What now after going through this first 10 11 months the biggest change that's impacting I think and I listen to you all um in my evaluation about communication is the way staff communicates with the whole council is through work sessions and executive
sessions but the number of work sessions and executive sessions were reduced in half from the time I left to when I came back. We used to have work sessions basically every week when we had any kind of council meeting and now we have
twice a month um work sessions and so what the mayor said is true staff's working on a project or a pro on a on an issue we bring it to city council and we're looking for an answer because we're up against a deadline. In the past, you used to be able to go from one
work session, get feedback from the city council, go to another work session, get additional feedback, and then hit the deadline or have more time. But the fact that we have less work sessions, the ability to communicate transparently to the public and to the whole council at
once has been cut in basically in half. And so that's one of the things I've I've been talking to staff about how how we can either deal with that issue or how do we bring back more work sessions. So just for food for thought, it was just a perfect
>> kind of segue to what I've been thinking of. >> Dr. Hall has a comment. >> That's all I had. >> So I did want to ask a clarifying question. Um because when we were talking about or when you were talking about each other's profiles, um I feel
like you leaned into a lot of like our different roles and the roles that we play, particularly what role the mayor plays and how that influences her profile. Um but wouldn't it be fair to say that our daily lives, our lived experience, what we do every day is also informing each other's profiles? I mean,
>> so in this case >> or no, >> in this case, it's really more about just your root internal need for information and comfort moving out. So some of that, yeah, it's lived experience depending on what job you're in. So for instance, I see engineers,
um, attorneys, um, uh, what's the other one? Down in the conservator section often. Thank goodness. I hope that the engineer who's building the bridge is taking in the soil samples that are going to
support the bridge standing, you know, after 10 years or five years or whatever. Um, and so there some of it is this um professional uh uh need. It could be the way you studied when you were going through school, but it's less about um it's this one is less so than
say DISC or one of the other profiles about preferences. It's really about just an internal guttural need and in your way of processing things but some of that yes it can be influenced by your profession or >> Okay. So that's what I was trying to
understand like I think from what I heard you say mayor's role is influencing her profile. >> It's influencing the group's profile. So hers, she has her profile that's independent to her, but when you put them all together because she has an extreme pull to the north, she's sort of
pulling the group because that's just natural to her to run a meeting the way that she needs information. Right. Right. And so she has to be aware of that in order to make sure that the other folks are getting what they need in the process. Okay. >> So that's it's the group dynamic. Yeah. Gotcha. >> Sorry, I I misconstrued that a little bit.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. So, in the interviews that I did, we'll go back to the the this idea of how do we improve the process because I hope that that is something that we walk away today with because the interviews that I did a few weeks ago and there were some issues that were a little raw
at the time, I think. Um, and they may still be raw, but I this is a point in time assessment of us as a group as a as a as a deliberative body. Um, and and I think you were all concerned about where we stand currently today. And so the
question is how do we move up and out of this and and make ourselves a better team or a better um uh group or a more effective group. So I asked each of you individually um how are the the council dynamics just open-ended question and this is
kind of just a a compiled report. No names are on it, but there's a feeling that there is disrespect um both personally and professionally um in the meeting environment. That the group is dysfunctional. That there is it's divided. It's divisive. Um that
it's partisan. Uh that we're getting things done, but it's sort of limping along and not being as effective as it as it might be. Uh we've got new members, new dynamic, new people at the table that we're all still getting to know. Uh personality conflicts are kind
of palpable at this moment. Um which is driving people to be sort of individualistic in their thinking and not necessarily as collaborative as as maybe to be. A lack of team spirit that it's becoming publicly embarrassing our behavior. Uh and the public is noticing
um that it doesn't have to be this painful but it has become painful um to to uh to to engage in deliberations. that there seems to be a lack of uh communication and that was amongst each other and I recognize laws. I mean like
got it uh but also just sort of internally um and with with staff and then a lack of general decorum so talking over not you know being recognized calling each other out or names or whatever. Um but this is what you all said about your current state of
affairs. Does anybody take issue with that? Does anybody think this is the way we want to keep moving forward? Okay. Yeah. Anybody? I'm just messing with you. You just were
looking at me. So nice. I'm just kidding. Right. So, so, so what do we do? So your opening speaker um talked about sort of valuing the individual parts and and bringing them together and thinking about bigger picture bigger
like what's the ultimate outcome. Getting out of the the nitty-gritty how we do things or why we disagree about this or that but really focusing on what that higher level objective is or outcome is. Um that's difficult to do when all of this is going on. But as we
mentioned just a moment ago, we've got uh processes that are in place that are probably creating more strain than there necessarily has to be. And if it's opaque to you all, then it's opaque to the public. And so you're also seeing the public stand up and start engaging
in a way that they may not have engaged in the past. Um and so how do we how do we how do we reset? How do we reinstill decorum? How do we bring everybody back to um we may not we may not agree with opinions but we respect each other as individuals. And so this afternoon we'll
spend more time Ron uh with with governance sort of the principles of good governance. But what I want us to do also is be thinking about do we as a body want to endeavor to change the way we do things. Whether that's through a policy, whether that's
through uh you know uh u we're going to get retrained on something or trained at all on something. Um but that's the way out of this. It's not to just keep going like we're going because it will only get worse. And I always hate when an organization gets to this point and then says, "Whoa,
this is not good." Right? We would rather have put some things in place ahead of it. It's sort of becoming more contentious or or divided. Uh but this is where we are and so we as a group need to decide if we're going to get out of this. And in my individual interviews
with each of you, I got the sense that we all wanted to get out of this. We may all have different ideas, but if we can say the cake is we want to have a better process that we can all agree to and that we can educate ourselves, our next
generation, the staff, and ultimately the public. I think that will be an advancement to this to this group and can help alleviate. It's still not going to you may still hate whoever. You may still not like baking soda or whatever. I'm just kidding. Um but but at least we
can figure out that that we'll all play by these rules so that we can maintain that decorum and ultimately get to the outcomes that we're really trying to get to without all the distractions. So then I asked each of you what values you each apply to every decision that
you feel like this these are my these are my um absolutes my never waver and these are the things that I think should be important to the body when it deliberates. These are the things that the organization should hold dear [snorts] and these were the things that came up. Civility, respect,
communication, strategic thought. Um, is it sustainable in the long term? Uh, who's my conser? That was a conservator, I'm sure, who said that. I'm just kidding. Um, the safety, uh, is it safe? Is this promoting public safety? Is it this, is
it going to be safe for the people we're serving? The delivery of essential services being the baseline. Are we meeting those standards? Do we have those standards or we feel like we're doing a good job before we do the nice to haves? Um, collaborative
diversity, inclusive, equality, dignity. Would I want it to happen to me? And can I sleep at night with the decision that I made? Very personal those two. But I would say that most of these I don't know that anybody would kick any of them off the list.
Some of them are very similar and they might be combined. But if we can say this is what we're ultimately this is our sort of why we want to process or why we want to talk about an issue in a certain way or why we want to bring you know voices into the fold then we've now
sort of elevated to it's not because I like soand so it's because I really want this to be an inclusive process we don't have stated standard values as a body some places do some places it doesn't
make sense, some places it does, but food for thought. Just wanted you to see kind of what your peers were saying. And then finally, so how do we start to improve from where we stand today? Um, and I asked you all, what could we do?
And you said, we need a reset. Uh, we need to instill civility. We need to get back to the business at hand, which is intentionally nonpartisan and stop, you know, sort of allowing that to
dictate what the city does. Uh, respecting each other, respecting our roles, um, creating a shared vision. You have priorities, but what is it those priorities, those ingredients are ultimately trying to create?
when have you had that conversation? I know when we first did the priorities, which we'll talk about a little bit more here in a second, um quality of life was the kind of umbrella. This is what we're ultimately trying to improve people's quality of life and provide a great
quality of life. What's the definition of that? We said these are the ingredients that add up to it. And that's great because they're process driven and we're we're moving forward and you'll see a report here in just a second. But have we as a body really come to some sort of clarity on what we all
think is great quality of life? And so value or not values, vision um can be one of those sort of things that everybody can point to and say, "Well, that's what we're chasing. This is what we're ultimately trying to become as the city of Fort Worth.
Improving the system, like we talked about, there are plenty of tried and true things. You've got experts on your staff who may know some tried and trueue things. Um, but I do think that if you're going to reset, you've got to you've got to come up with whatever the system is that's going to support the
reset and everybody has to buy into it. So, it needs to be an official um action of this body probably uh to change the way we've been doing things rather than just saying because then we can hold people accountable. The public can hold us accountable. But right now it's I
mean like you're just going to call uh uh Councilman Flores or Mayor Pro Tim Flores and say you're terrible, you didn't do you didn't whatever. What does that do to him, right? That's your standard. It's not the body's standard.
And he may or may not take your call. I don't know. Depends on the day. Just But we want to communicate better and and part of that is let's get back to this sort of civility and respect for one another. Um, and ultimately we've got to build some trust back. And if the first
start is just building a system that we can all trust, that's the first start because you may never trust, you know, certain members or each other or or whatever, but at least if we can all agree that the system is built to be effective, then we can trust in the system um and hold each other
accountable to it. So one of the things that you all did a few years ago and I know you have revisited it since but was you looked at strategic priorities. So as a body you deliberated as a group um and I know they have come back to you uh over over
time but basically said these are the five top categories of things that we think are really really important to our um quality of life to our residents and the things that we want to place priority on so that we can deliver best services better services and so
Christian is going to give you a report and an update but I think that's a really great example of when you elevated the conversation and said, "We all have these things in common. We all think public safety is important. We may have different ways of getting there, but we all think that's
important." Those types of of categorizations and and that proclamation from you all gives staff clear direction that your expectation is that we're going to advance these things. You're going to get to make policy decisions. They're going to bring reports to you. All of that. But at
least we've all said these five categories are of utmost important importance to us as a body and that is that is um that is something that is a valuable tool because it is clear direction again and it's part of a system now that is in place um that now
staff can come back and report to you uh where we where we are with progress that has been made um and where we might not have made as much progress. Is Christian where? Oh, there you are. Okay, she's coming up next. Do you need mine or you going to use
that? >> Yeah, thanks. Okay, good morning. Did we need to stretch? I almost fell when I walked up here. Um, thank you for letting me be here with you today and like return the power dynamic to the room where like I'm
presenting to you in the way that you're like, you know, normally hearing from me and you can ask me questions and you don't have to feel bad about your personalities or anything. Um, I think [laughter] this is um I want to make you feel good before
lunch. Um, okay. So, Chrissy Simmons, Fort Worth Lab, just for the purpose of streaming and all. Um, thanks for letting me be here. This will feel more like maybe a normal report out that you get, but I'm appreciative to have the time during the council retreat. I think this is a good time to talk about strategic priorities. We're not really
revisiting the priorities today. In a lot of our pre-work with you that Hillary did, you're you're pretty aligned on the priorities, which is great because, you know, you're all kind of different and that's a good thing. Um, but it's nice when we have alignment on the big overarching issues. But this
is kind of our first attempt at what an annual report out might look like. Some of you will end up wanting more detail after you see this and that's okay. I'll give you a resource for that. Um, but you can let me know what you think as we go here. So, Fort Worth Lab, like a lot of departments, all the departments
really, um, wears a lot of different hats. So, a lot of times you hear from me about budget or data analytics. Today, I'm wearing the strategy and performance hat, which is another division of the lab. So, we sort of lead in close collaboration with the departments of course the strategic priorities and performance management
process for the organization. And so I'm just going to remind us of kind of where we are in that journey of strategic planning and performance management. So last year is really about 18 months ago the city council as it was constituted at the time um adopted a resolution with
strategic priorities and it was really great. It was an important step in your governance to have these adopted for the first time and uh there are five priorities and I hope that you know what they are. I won't quiz you. I'm going to show you in a minute. Just don't break my heart. um the five priorities and
then there are 27 goal statements that sort of spread across those priorities um and kind of hold up those pillars and then the resolution also said and I you're not supposed to be able to really read this but item two at the bottom if you can see it it says that staff so me
or whoever is directed to present these goals to you every year and the strategic priorities every couple of years so that you can kind of revisit those resolution also in a paradoxical way says that these are multi-year sometimes decadesl long priorities. So later in this presentation, I'm going to
recommend that maybe we do the big review not every year or every two years, but we can again talk about some of that. But we definitely want to be reporting annually on the implementation of your priorities and goals. So here they are. Um you've seen these
many times. Uh one example of the way we've been trying to get these priorities out in front of the public was during the budget engagement this year. So if you for all of you had a district meeting, you might remember we organized those presentations by priority. So when we did kind of the
introduction of the budget to the residents, we said here are the council's priorities and here are the major budget allocations or milestones per priority. That's intentional. We want to be tying together resource allocation with priorities. So these aren't in any particular order,
but you can see them here. economic development, community investment, community safety, infrastructure, and responsible growth. And I like the little icons that CPE made. Those are nice. Um, it helps us kind of like uh incorporate them into a lot of documents
and stuff. So, that's that's nice. Um, okay. So, I I want to pause here. I want to emphasize the importance of your role in setting the strategic priorities. So, I know this is not a new concept for you. you've all worked in
and led organizations that have like goals and you're everybody's trying to work towards the goals. That's fine. In the city of Fort Worth, it's not that we've never done performance management, but this is kind of a new framework in which we're doing it. And we would really like it to cascade appropriately from council to the city manager's
office to the departments and staff. And so in order to do that, there has to be clear direction from our governing body from the top. That's you. um you're telling staff what's important to you based on what you're hearing from the community and for your constituents and stakeholders. And so that's your
responsibility to set those priorities and goals. And at that point, their responsibility turns over to the city manager's office and departments to say, "Okay, how are we going to do that?" So you're setting forth the what or the why. And then you're turning it over to city staff, public servants to say,
"Okay, how are we going to get there?" And so that's what we're reporting on today. um you set the priorities and goals and then I have these departments don't mean anything. We just selected a couple to show you that every department then uh creates a performance framework. We're
using a framework called uh stat performance stat Fort Worth stat. This is not a new framework. This has been around local government for a long time, but it's kind of new to us. It um was created with the onset of the Fort Worth lab. So about two years ago. So most departments now have been through a couple of iterations of stat. Fort Worth
stat in Fort Worth stat there are action items that are tied to the different goals and priorities. So it goes priority goal action item and then uh the departments report on those action items and there are metrics attached. So it doesn't help to know you know what a department's doing if we don't know if
it's working right. So action items and metrics. So every department comes before the city manager's office two times a year and talks about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. So SWAT analysis, they talk about their metrics, customer metrics, operational, financial, workforce. And then they say,
"Here's what's going well. Here's what's not going well. Here's what we think we're going to ask for in the budget. Here's what we might want to redesign based on the metrics." That kind of thing. So those are very productive conversations. Okay. So quick summary by priority status. So again, we expect to see lots
of ontarget um and and you'll see that here. So across the five priorities, lots of work going on. There's 150ish action items. I think there could be more and less like through the years as we iterate. We're a very large organization, you know, that. And so we expect to see a lot of action items. It
can get a little unwieldy with a lot of action items, but it's part of the lab's responsibility to calibrate like what is an action item, what is a goal, what is a metric. So, we're working on all of that. Um, but we have about 150 right now that roll up to those goals and priorities. The large majority of our
action items are on target and in progress. There are a few that haven't started yet. Um, and I can of course provide you detail on those, but typically that's a funding issue. Sometimes, you know, we've hired a lot of department heads in the last year. Sometimes it's like a leadership change
kind of looking at priorities of a department. Um, and then we have some that are marked complete and we expect to continue to kind of check those off. This is a point in time, so these are constantly changing. So, I'm going to use the next couple of slides to uh
remind you of each priority in the goal statements because I'm sure that you don't have those memorized, and that's okay. Um, and then because you'll ask me, well, what are the action items? I'm not going to list them all because again, there's a lot, but I'm going to just show you some samples of what the action items are that we're measuring across the departments. And that way you
know kind of what I mean when I say that. And I've tried to do a good selection so you can kind of see um that these action items cross really every department. They're so multi-depart and collaborative. So economic development first uh priority statement is there and then
there are three goal statements that go along with your adopted priority for economic development. So it's about improving the development process itself. So you'll see a lot of development service related action items in that priority and goal. Um attracting and retaining corporations and jobs. That makes sense. Economic development
and then small businesses. And we've talked a lot about small business development and support over the last you know six months to a year. So as a priority you'll see they have a lot that are on target and some that are complete which is great. Nothing really offtarget or not started here.
And then so that's like the whole the whole little stacked bar on the left and then on the right hand side by goal status. You can see how those break down. [snorts] What I will say later in the recommendations um we'll talk about the cadence of review for priorities and
goals. And we want to do that when it makes sense not to like they're really big, right? So we don't want to do it every year but we want to do it like every 10 years but we also want flexibility to be able to do them ad hoc. So like right now we know for this priority in particular, we're about to do a new economic development strategic
plan. We have a new director that's in the budget. You funded that in the fiscal year 26 budget. So we expect that some of these goal statements and maybe the wording of their priority might change as part of that strategic plan. We want to be okay with doing that and not having to wait, you know, at a three-year cycle.
[snorts] Um these are just examples, and again, I won't read them of some of the action items that do roll up to economic development. The point is just to kind of show there's development services items, there's economic development items. These are sourced from the departments based on what they're working on in the budget, what's outlined in their current strategic
plans, etc. So, you can see some items here about development 101, um different strategies for incentives, a small business website, lots of action items here, some of them obviously multi-year, some of them will be done in six months. So, it just kind of depends.
>> Christian, question for you on each of these. Are any of them in your office broken down or have specific examples or projects you're working on that are council district specific? >> I don't think that we're capturing the council districts in the intake, but we
could. Some of them will be district specific and then of course some of them will be citywide. >> One behind you, community investment. Invest in revitalized neighborhoods including access to food and dining options. >> What does that actually look like? And I'm just thinking we're missing an opportunity to hear from council members
on what they would see as success. Yeah. >> And what their own goals, how those align because they're hearing directly from constituents. And that's a great example of an issue that several areas of our city are begging for assistance from the city to the extent that we can help facilitate that. I think council member Peoples had a question.
>> No, thank you for asking that because I was just sitting here thinking that same thing. It it it kind of overshadows um it kind of overshadows the whole discussion because I'm sitting here thinking how does this apply to my
district? I mean, I think they're great goals, but if you're sitting here thinking that other council districts get the benefit of this and yours doesn't, it really does uh impact how you see this and how you
agree with it. And then catch hall. No. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, that's that is a great point. And so maybe in the next iteration we really do focus on the council district intake and prioritization um of the action items. I think we can source a lot of
that from the departments. Um but I agree that's probably an intake that we're not doing that we should do. Well, and I think to go further, you I know you have a process, but almost immediately starting in January to work with each council office and start to give allow them to come forward with examples or things that they want to see
live out in their own district. And you can incorporate that over the year into your process. But I know for a fact each of them are working on different things that would fit these. >> But if they're not included in that process, it will be lost on how to translate that to the community and offer and also for each council member to feel like they have ownership in it as well.
>> Got it. Well, if I I could mention one of the >> thought process be behind updating the economic development strategic plan is the fact that we now have 11 districts that was created >> beforehand. the districts are really different and and we wanted I wanted
after hearing to hearing council and hearing the public to update specifically some of these areas where where the targeted areas are for this type of just in this area specifically where we want to be targeting because you can't do everything at all together
at once but do we need to change the targets and that should come out of that pl that plan and it should come out of getting feedback from the council members as we go forward. >> That's great. Yes. Thank you. This is perfect feedback. Thanks. We appreciate that. Um, goal number two, community investment. You may have had time to
read it by now since I switched uh prematurely. So, this is about um revitalization of neighborhoods, affordable housing and homelessness, which we've again talked a lot about some through the bond process and other other items, commercial and retail development, and then just community and cultural assets. So, things like parks
and libraries, those kinds of opportunities. And again, lots of in progress work here. We do have a couple not started here. Um and I think I believe I remember one of those was like a funding issue and then maybe uh revisiting some director level priorities but I can
provide more detail there. Um but good lots of good work going on across departments here. Some of the action items include um again library if I start at the bottom on this one the zoo and botanic gardens those really important partnerships that we want to continue. So those are certainly like underway on target multi-year not going
away. Um, we talk about using PID funds uh in some of the key cultural and commercial areas. What else? Parks and green space, priority repair. That's neighborhood services. Um, you expanded that program in fiscal year 26. So, we saw um we saw a completion there with
the expansion because the word is expand and and we did that. So, that's great. We might want to do it again. And so, that could be an ongoing thing. Um, launching a high impact project. That was the homelessness pilot. So, that launch occurred. So, that'd be another complete action item. So you see just a variety of examples here.
Safety, another one that of course these are overarching goals, encompasses a lot. Um, and this one I think has the most goal statements of all with these seven. So of course what you'd think of with regard to enforcement, but also relationships and and listening out in the community. Um, some infrastructure
or TPW related uh safety issues with roads and traffic. A vision zero certainly falls within these categories. response times and then the use of CCPD. Um, people have varying opinions on, you know, like what is a crime nexus? What can we use CCPD for with regard to
public safety? So, there's a specific goal here about using CCPD for community safety in creative ways. Again, lots of onarget things here. Nothing nothing really lagging. Some of the action items include uh court
presence and community events. We have a lot of great metrics from court about their um their you know warrant forgiveness and community events. The mobile tool shed is a new thing. We talked a lot about that in fiscal year 26 budget development. A very exciting expansion that we did in the city. Um 2026 bond. That action item is uh you
can't tell from the wording I don't think but that's a TPW action item um with regard to road safety. Master transportation certainly CAD. Um the police did a beat analysis. So that's a complete action item that's about resource allocation for police. Um and then of course we have a lot of work
going on with regard to EMS and new systems and protocols. [snorts] Infrastructure huge topic we know a couple of goal statements here about just funding and capacity which is I mean just a giant goal statement of course and maintaining our infrastructure and assets on schedule
and then of course flooding um primarily coming out of TPW storm water and water. a number of action items. And then some of the examples of these include um some of our enterprise funds and special revenue funds, not just water and storm
water, but also the convention center expansion. Um the airport has a number of action items in the infrastructure category, aviation, I mean the the three airports. Uh property management also has action items in infrastructure. And then we have um varying multi-level uh
multi-year action items about water loss and uh floodways and storm water. And then finally, just to wrap up this little snapshot of the priorities, responsible growth, again, a really big priority with big goals. Um and that's
planning for our massive growth, right? Um enhancing connectivity, parks and open space plays heavily in this category. and then public engagement which some of that is in the Fort Worth lab and and also CPE. So lots of really great progress going on in the last year through the Fort
Worth stat program and performance management system with regard to these action items. Some of the examples include the place types approach which is comprehensive plan. We're in the middle of updating the 2050 comprehensive plan. You all know that. And part of that is um this this methodology called place types for
future land use planning. And so that's an in progress goal. Um we know that the landfill will close so that's responsible growth making a plan around that closure. There's um action items around trail oriented development and open space conservation. Um one 5.4.1
there is a Fort Worth lab and CPE goal about colllocating public engagement. A lot of you have been pleased with you know the sort of bond and comprehensive plan together meetings as well as some of our u more multi-depal budget meetings. So that's been helpful.
So, that is my Oh, I'm go Oh, I'm going crazy. Hold on. Let me go backwards. You're like, I'm done. Nope, I'm not done. I'll never be done. Just kidding. I'll be done in a second. Um, so recommendations. We I just I know this is a quick snap and again, I know that a
lot of you are like, well, I want to see the detail. I have a resource for you to see the detail and and perhaps we'll we'll look toward what an annual real like static report might look like. Right now, what we have, if you kind of skip to the bottom of this recommendation slide, is a a website that's I'm not call it a dashboard. It's
not really a dashboard. It's a GIS like web website. Um, and so we're we're hoping to roll that out in January. Remember a couple weeks ago, I talked to you about some of the public facing dashboards that we want to push out as part of data transparency and that kind of thing. So, one of the things we'd
like to publish on the open data page is the council priorities like implementation status. And I wish that I could pull up the video. Maybe you can switch to the video. I don't know if you can. You can't. That's okay. Um, we have a little demo. Maybe I'll send it out after the fact. Um, where you can um you
can click into the web page and you can link by priority and you can see all the detail. It's like these tables and there's little like red, yellow, greens about how things are going. Um, you can filter as you want. you can submit comments and feedback. So, we want that to go out to the public so that you you
I mean you can see it in real time, but also they can see it in real time. I'm a big fan of pushing the work of, you know, our hardworking departments and public servants out to the public. And so, we'd like to do that and maintain that as a public facing website um so that people can see how the council
priority implementation is going. Um, we are really excited. I'm excited to have a framework around the strategic priorities and performance management. Again, there have been some stops and starts at this over the years, but um, with the Fort Worth stat framework, it seems to be kind of catching on and
working. We are again a very large organization. You know that better than anyone. And so, this type of transformation around performance management only occurs at the speed of building trust and collaboration with departments. And so it's certainly iterative and incremental. Um, but we're
we're excited. Um, and we we know how important it is. I hope you do, too. You will hear from Jay later today, spoiler alert, that the fiscal year 27 budget is going to be a challenging budget year. Again, I'm sure that you already know that. Um, so you'll hear a little bit about fiscal health. But with regard to
a challenging budget year, this becomes very important as you know, um, because it's like, well, where are we going? like what are we spending money on? How aligned are we with the priorities? Are there programs we should stop doing? Are there programs that like they're not performing well and they need a
redesign? So that three strand cord of like budget, data performance, which is like the Fort with Labs wheelhouse. Um it it becomes very important with regard to like responsible resource allocation, fiscal year 27 budget development, all that stuff. So we have to have your
strategic priorities and your buy in on those priorities in order to to make progress there. So, we would like to keep reporting annually. Uh, we would like to review or update their priorities and goals every three years to start rather than bringing you goals every year that we can't make meaningful progress on year-over-year. So, we're
recommending three. It could even maybe be five. I stuck three in there because I thought that was maybe an appropriate cadence. Um, and then again, like I mentioned with big strategic plan reviews and that kind of thing, we'd like to do as needed reviews. So for example again with the economic development strategic plan we expect
that maybe that particular priority and its goals may be reworked a bit as part of that process. So we would like the flexibility to be able to do that feedback on the cadence of priorities and goals. Three years is that too does that seem too short too long? Three
years. >> That's okay. Five >> years too long. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, any other discussion or questions for me? This was going to be the video, but now it's a PDF, so it's not the
video, but I'll send this out to you so you can play around with what that public facing web page might look like. We're having microphone troubleshooting. But any other questions, thoughts for me on strategic priorities, goals, marching toward implementation day by day? Any other questions or comments for
Christian? >> No. Thank you very much. >> Okie dokie. Well, I think I get to send you to lunch. Are there any comments or housekeeping things before lunch or? >> Not that I'm aware of. >> Okay. All right. So, I think we're going to break and lunch will be ready shortly and then we'll we'll move on to the afternoon. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Christian.
>> Okay. Okay. Council, thank you for eating lunch quickly. Our next presenter is Jennifer Hernandez, who is a partner with Holland and Knight Land Use Environmental Law. Um she's the west coast chair out of San Francisco. She has four decades of experience in
land use, environmental, climate change law, and co-leads the firm's climate change team in West Coast practice. She is a recognized author, educated board member advising public, private, and nonprofit organizations. I've had the pleasure of seeing um Jennifer present and then also at a conference most
recently at UT Austin um around affordable housing policy. And because this is an issue that's very important to each of us on council, I thought she could really help us be more proactive and and pushing the state of Texas and our own city on what housing policy really should look like. So, Jennifer,
thank you for being here at this time of year. I know it's quite busy. Um, and the floor is yours >> now. Now. Okay, great. Um, well, thank you very much. I have uh had the privilege of uh visiting Texas many a time. My grandmother was born in Warz.
Um, the one anecdote I'll share with you that I'm glad to have survived was uh my not even quite husband yet uh who had never been on a canoe and didn't swim well and I uh spent a week by ourselves in a canoe uh eight days uh through Big
Bend. And uh there's dumb and then there's really dumb and uh uh and we survived and thrived and have been together. But uh boy was that stupid. Uh and what amazing country. So it's a real pleasure to be here. Um I want to just
briefly tell you enough about me so you can maybe put what I'm about to tell you in context. Um I grew up in Pittsburgh, California. It's named Pittsburgh because it got US Steel. And it got it because it agreed to name Pittsburgh.
And my grandfather, both Mexican and German, and my dad spent their whole uh careers uh as steel workers. And so it's union town. Stank gh. We all had weird rashes,
but it was solid union jobs, which meant we had medical care and we had paid vacations, and we didn't really think too much about whether we were or were not prospering because we had what we needed. My parents owned their home. My
grandparents owned their home. My Mexican grandparents took longer to own a home. And redlinining is a real thing. Uh AAN in California. Um, but then you know, eldest, what do I'm supposed to do right after
high school? I'm supposed to go to junior college and then become a teacher. I'm like, no, I've always been bad, bad, bad, bad. The nuns, when you're trained by nuns, you're a saint or a sinner. I'm a sinner. And so, so I'm like, I'm not
staying in California. I applied for and got this crazy scholarship to Harvard. How crazy? It came with winter clothes and airplane tickets. It was crazy. And I had never been east of Reno.
[laughter] And and and then I flew out there and I was, you know, 17. And oh my goodness. And what an amazing rocket ship. And I went from there to Stanford Law, another full scholarship. I'm like, whoa, now I'm mistress of the universe,
right? I couldn't be more conceited. And uh so the goal was to start practicing law, learn the trade at a big firm, make some money, and then go to a nonprofit, and do good for the environment. And in March of my first
year as a lawyer, where I started off at $39,000, making $10,000 more than my dad ever made in his union job, um uh but in March of that first year, my dad, aed 57, was permanently laid off. and but
for the fact that my parents owned their home, that my little brother had become a welder and had a good job with our local utility, and that my sister, who majored in high school in boys, had started at a Catholic school, college,
and ultimately um graduated and got her masters. Um uh but for home ownership, our family would have been uh hurting big time, big time. And it was hurting big time. My dad went from that
job to being a retail clerk, minimum wage. My mom ended up doing some house cleaning before I figured that out. Home ownership is a non-negotiable in this world ticket to stability,
multifamily, multi-generational wealth. It is your bank account and you pay yourself every month. And we in California have made homeownership completely unattainable. Completely unattainable. We're running
right now at about 9:1. The magic ratio is median income, home price. If median income, three, four, maybe five times home price, you can have attainable home ownership.
Right now, California is running about nine to one. Nine times your total annual income to buy a medianpriced house. We've broken we've broken it. And so I'd
like to talk to you about two parts of the California experience and then I promise you promise you I will return and not exacerbate your housing situation by trying to move here. So uh [laughter]
uh um so the first thing is uh California has a very Orwellian way of communicating. It's very misleading. When we talk about affordable housing,
what we mean is incomerestricted, taxpayerf funded or philanthropic funded housing. And I like to focus on incomerestricted because if you take if you make too much money, you lose your home. It is a from
my perspective a trap. It's a trap. That means if your kid gets a job, what do you lie about it while he's trying to save for college? Because now you're over the line and you're going to lose your home. It's a trap. It's hard to
have two adults and not get over that line sometimes so you don't get married. It's a trap and it's a trap that we perpetuate. And in California, an affordable apartment, an
incomerestricted for low-income families or or occupants, affordable apartment. And by the way, those are running 0.9 bedrooms per unit is the size of uh the units we build. An affordable apartment comes in at a little over $800,000
per apartment to build. Rand, which is a think tank in California, compared Denver, Los Angeles, and San Diego, San Francisco, and Dallas. Cost of building.
For the cost of one incomerestricted affordable apartment in California, you could build four market rate apartments in Dallas, 1.5 market rate apartments in Denver.
So what California has done is load on through frankly completely everybody just made a bunch of bad decisions for decades. My generation we kept turning knobs. Oh yeah, let's do
this. Oh, let's do this. Oh, we got to do that. oper. We turned a bunch of policy knobs and we created a housing catastrophe. That starts with how much it costs to
build the darn things. And it's really important, I think, to own that and to recognize we're going to have to make some changes ourselves. It's not that we have different wood. It's not that we have a different refrigerator.
Our cost [snorts] issue is partly land but not a lot. Not totally out of control anyway, but it's mostly just policy decisions about what we've decided housing needs to have. So, that's one thing. The other thing is we've used climate policy to create this
kind of framework uh moral framework policy framework that says people should live in small rental apartments without a parking space and take the bus.
The people who have decided that are not living in small rental apartments or taking the bus. We have this very top-down political approach to how people should live and we're very righteous about it
and we love lecturing everybody else around about our righteousness. And then the people have to live with the consequences of unattainable home ownership, 2-hour commutes, and frankly
life as a renter. Maybe a choice. I respect everybody's choice. I'm an all of the above in terms of housing, but is it the healthiest? Is it the best? Do you know how much more often homeowners vote? A lot more often. You know how much more they volunteer? A lot
more often. There's stuff that comes with just being people that we can't switch around with policy knob turning by saying, "Well, climate We should all learn to live much more
lightly on the planet and go outside. So, I'm going to touch on a little bit of these issues in more detail, but not much. There's only four three of these text slides and then a picture. So, I'm not going to torture
you long, but you just heard my stickick. So, the rest is a little more detail. So, we have a deep blue green state uh virtually one party. Uh which means that
all of these housing policies have been um uh imposed uh by I was a labor side envirro Democrat till about three weeks ago when I pulled over and declined to state because of what
we've done. So these are political choices made by a deep blue, deeply in our minds at least compassionate, environmentally appropriate, civil rightsoriented group of folks making policy choices. But look what we've
done. We have demonized local government. The very first thing we've decided in Sacramento by all these former local government officials who occupy the
state house is that every local government in California is at fault for causing our housing crisis. Each of these people were from local government. But now the preeemption of local zoning,
the top-down mandates to accommodate certain kinds of housing, certain numbers of housing units, to quickly process housing approvals. It may feel uncomfortable to you, but I have to say in California, really, I
made a living. I have 30 lawyers working for me, making a living. We used to call it creative graveling. You used to ask for years Please sir, may I may I please make an make one house, make five houses, make 15. We have cases where
we've litigated for 30 years over whether or not housing can be built. And that is in part local government, it's in part environmental laws. But we really did have a problem with local government. But what do we do when we have a problem? We kind of stumble around trying to make it better. And now
I think we've done quite a top-own number on local government without really recognizing local government also has a job to do like providing real services for real people and how do they get paid for and whatnot. But top down
big theme big theme of our state dense um California has 40 million people there a lot of people. Uh it's about 100 million acres big state not like yours but big. How much of California do you
think is actually developed for people to occupy? Percentage. What do you think? How much of our land have we taken? eight. That's a remarkably good guess. According to the Census Bureau, it's
five. And yet, we've decided, mostly for environmental reasons, that we need to go up, not out. I mean, that's a policy choice. It's not like we don't have land, but it costs
three to seven times more to build up that difference between up to a three-story town home or single family home. If that's your sort of base price to build an apartment stacked on top of
each other, uh, or god forbid, condos stacked on top of each other for various other reasons, insurance and other stuff, that's three to five times more. Once you get above five floors and have to go to a steel frame building, that's close to seven times more.
So by choosing a density knob on our policy dial, we've picked higher [snorts] cost land. There's something there already. It's already in an existing community. Harder, usually infrastructure because
it's already kind of deteriorated and isn't sized for density. So you got a retrofit which is more expensive. And then a form of building that is more expensive. And just that one like oh we should do density to like not drive to not burn
fuel to even though we're trying to get to electric vehicles or whatever. It's this whole kind of ethic about density good infill good exurban bad suburban bad. Um and again not to say that people
shouldn't have options to live in existing neighborhoods. They should existing neighborhoods from my perspective shouldn't be able to shut the door. And if somebody wants to build an accessory dwelling unit in their, you know, backyard for their mother-in-law,
that I don't think that should be disallowed. But the idea that everyone needs to cram into what's already the most densely populated region in America.
Everybody like New York, Chicago, LA, LA, Long Beach, Anaheim. That metro has more people per square mile than New York. And yet we're going to go only up. Next, transit bikes.
This one [sighs] I'll give you I'll give you a headline. What's white, male, and six feet wide? >> [snorts] >> Chronicle headline. Why? It's a bike path.
We have a very ardent community of bikers and they love biking and it's a little unsafe to bike on streets and they're strong and they've got biking and I'll show you an image
soon. Um, but everyone should bike or take the bus. Um, we have in the LA area 97% car dependency. So, we are now turning a policy knob for
and it's not even really 3%. But the 3% who may or may not be able to use transit. Transit is built on a spoken hub system where there's a downtown and a dayshift. It does not take people to more distant jobs. It does not take
people anywhere on off shifts and it takes two to four times longer to get there if the buses are running on time. So most people 97% choose as soon as they can afford it to
buy a car. [sighs] before COVID transit ridership even as we were expanding it uh transit and not increasing fairs all over the state transit ridership had plunged before co with co and remote work
every transit system is in huge trouble but we're doubling down on people should ride their bike or take transit who who are these people that we're doubling down for who are we serving And I think there's a real disconnect
between my dad used to say for being so smart you sure can be stupid sometimes and there is an element of being disconnected with your communities and and it seems to happen as soon as you get to Sacramento in California. Um uh
but you know transit and bikes and we do have in fact we see them in Berkeley for example where I live or Santa Monica or whatever these like $7,000 electric cargo bikes with two little
kids in the front and they're going to preschool and I'm like how cool is that? That's neat, right? Those kids aren't going to be two and four forever. What happens when they get a little bigger? They're going to ride their own bike. In any event, it is a example of where
California has married housing and transportation policy and policy choices in a way that has created the highest number of supercomputers, people who commute more than 90 minutes per
direction every day in the United States because people have to move further and further out. drive till you qualify for housing you can afford to rent or buy.
Rents. Rentals. Rentals are fine. Um they're a huge part of the market. um they are critical for so many reasons, but rental only as opposed to home
ownership products that changes the world in ways that no one I think is very comfortable talking about out loud. One thing that's true for renters, especially in urbanized areas, very high
percentage of Democrats I mean, it's what what are we doing and why? Why are we making home ownership unattainable? 95% of the units we build, housing units we build in existing communities in this
infill uh regime are renters or rent are rentals only. And and and who voted against home ownership? I nobody did, but our policy choices got us there. and continue to focus on it. And then what
happens? We need rent control, rent control, eviction control even. So even when a unit becomes vacant, you can't reset it to the market. And then we have a return to what used to be called public housing and is now called
social housing. And that's the idea that government should build, own, build, and operate housing at scale. There are places like Vienna and Singapore where this has been very successful. It's high cost. It's most identified as a policy
priority for the Progressive Democratic Socialists of America wing uh which we now have pretty significant contingencies of on various um city councils as well as in Sacramento. But returning to social housing where the government is now going to build
$800,000 per apartment unit and then maintain it. It feels like deéja vu. We've been there, right? I don't even need to comment on it, but these are housing policy uh passions
of uh quite a few of California's leaders. and and I think you probably could guess and certainly the numbers say why um that hasn't turned out to be very well but the the vision is interesting right let's all live in
Berkeley or Brooklyn um uh let's you know fasttrack approval of of the kind of housing we we want so make it hard for local government to stall or block apartments in infill locations um let's make sure we accommodate the
important interest groups in our political coalition. Um those include [snorts] folks that are uh uh advocates for tenants, advocates for homeless housing. These are legitimate, very important advocacy efforts. Um but if we
try to accommodate them and then we add on the climate and green folks, uh who have quite a a roster of uh I call them gizmos. I don't mean to, but like, you know, windows that don't up open and
shut because it's more efficient to uh uh not heat or cool outdoor air. So, you shouldn't open windows and then you have to have pretty darn elaborate HVAC systems and you got to run those 24/7 or you'll get like Legionnaire's disease or
something. So that is a cost that results in electricity pricing for every family who occupies those units that wouldn't be incurred by that family to the extent they can open or shut the window which in one of the most
temperate climates in the world is in fact mostly what we do along the coast. Um and then finally we have to deal with uh the fact uh that almost all residential housing is built with non-union workers. Um we have a notion
of public works um for publicly financed projects, infrastructure, roads, whatever. Those are typically um they are always required to have prevailing wage and most of the prevailing wage jobs uh go to construction workers. That
has never been true anywhere in the United States for single family homes. And so we're going to favor a form of housing that gives uh union construction workers more jobs and we're going to mandate that uh uh kind of hiring.
>> Jennifer, I'm going to interrupt you for a minute. I'm curious. State preeemption is I mean we're experiencing that extremely in Texas right now. >> I'm aware >> and housing in the same way. So, you know, local control is an issue all over the country, regardless of party, and
it's been really detrimental to us in Fort Worth. I mean, most recently was Council Member Hall's district, District 6, where she had no power to really work with a multifamily developer because that particular location, you know, go along to get along. And so, I guess to
kind of create a conversation around housing here is it does have real real implications for cities that are for us, we have great density in certain areas. that's working for us. A lot of it's in council district 9, but we also are 350 square miles that is sprawled and I
think we are actually pro a lot of these things. It takes a lot of balance and we don't have all the same issues that maybe you've had in California, but each of us could speak freely about our frustrations and how to intersect good local policy with what's happening at a
state level also. And so I don't know if you've looked at all what Texas has done in the last few sessions that caused you pause and because what I really want us to get out of your discussion and and and help us today is what should we be advocating for differently in Austin? Um
because they are on this affordable housing track and I'm very skeptical about the current um path that they're on because I don't think they have a real understanding of what it's like to implement locally. Yeah. So, I want to I
would love to spend actually most of my time in a dialogue. So, let me make a couple more points and then I would love to talk to you about that because we watched the evolution of preeemption of local control. I was skeptical that the
courts would uphold it. They did. We now as lawyers representing housing people, including affordable housing people, we love it, right? we can cram down approvals. Oh my goodness. And the more the most fun one that we're just
starting actually is a 21 um story uh apartment complex in uh the San Francisco Marina on top of a Safeway that has just outraged this totally wealthy community that thinks of itself
as highly progressive, highly equitable, highly whatever until it hit their neighborhood. And now we're hearing the howling, but that is possible because of state laws layered on top of local laws. And um and so I'm going to come back and
then would really welcome a robust conversation about this. Um uh in California there's a huge fiscal cost to local government because for years now we have been imposing fees on each
housing unit to pay for all infrastructure to pay even for things like road maintenance and stuff that existing homeowners get by virtue of paying their taxes. So we c have now loaded more than a hundred
grand again per unit in costs to try to make up the fiscal catastrophe of adding people without a way to pay for either hard or maintenance costs um
for what people bring. And that's not just usurping local control in terms of policy control, what kind of housing, where, um, but also leaving local government um, uh, fairly stranded in
terms of how to now pay for um, the additional municipal costs incurred. In fact, um, Los Angeles just announced it was going to sue and is suing the state for usurping local control and requiring highdensity transit housing to be
accommodated without a comasurate um, fiscal [clears throat] kind of uh, solution. So, um, I I can skip most of this. Um, I'll just leave you with not only do we have the
nation's highest housing costs, second to lowest home ownership rate, um, but California also has for years now had the nation's highest poverty rate using a supplemental poverty uh, metric invented during the Obama
administration, managed by the Census Bureau, and it just adds housing costs to the measure of poverty. um a a a poor family in Mississippi has more disposable income than a family making
30 40% more than that family in California because of California's cost structure. And so, um, we have a a real problem, a real problem with, uh, the 30 or so percent of our people who are just
barely making it monthtomonth and anything anything topples them. And this is with a pretty generous safety net. So solutions I think here um
are a little bit more Californiaentric and I don't think you've jumped off [snorts] the cliff on a whole bunch of these topics as California has. You still have affordable housing in the sense that many people who live and work
here can ultimately afford to stay here. We now have hit the place where, as you well know, Californians are leaving to go to a place that they can afford housing. >> But I would offer, and anybody could
speak up here, I'm hearing more and more about affordability and have just the last four years as mayor, even before that, families from Fort Worth or this area that have called it home don't feel that way anymore. And their salaries and their household don't reflect that. And
so it's something we all have to be cognizant of. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. So, in your in your local control uh debate uh with uh with Austin, um
h how would you normally say yes or no to an apartment project? In the olden days before Austin did what it did, we have in California, it's called zoning and general plan, but you have a
similar structure. So, I look as a developer uh at a location, it allows for, you know, 30 dwelling units per acre. It's 4 acres. I'm going to add 120 apartments and
everything's copacetic. Can I just come in and say, "Give me a building permit." Or do you have a process by which you could say, "I don't think so. I don't think you've got a design that works in our community. I don't think this is the
product type that works in our community." What's your ambient level of local control pre-eumption? >> That that was it. you could if it was zoned correctly, you came in with your plans and and you could move forward with your project,
>> right? And it allowed council members a lot more autonomy to work with that developer and the neighborhoods around it because a lot of us are experiencing extreme concern around infrastructure and that lack thereof or amenities that our neighbors are wanting and asking
for. And so now each of you could speak up for an example. you don't have that power anymore or the ability to work with a developer that you may have had before, which is problem. >> If you wanted to change the zoning, all that happened. If the zoning was there, then they just have to make sure there's enough water, you know, water, sewer,
all those kind of things, >> parking, whatnot. >> Exactly. >> But say they came in and it was surface parked with no pool and you wanted there to be a pool. If you're going to add that, >> you could do that number that you can. We previously we could have that
conversation but and when I say previously I've only been here six months but my understanding is former zoning um we could have that conversation. Um now as the statute is written if I understand correctly we're not supposed to have those type of conversations with developers anymore. It kind of kind of put everything the
ball in their court with what they want to bring. Now it's just a I don't know. I don't know. It's it's a tango to try to get the outcomes that you want for the development. Previously, if you had the zoning, you could come in and do those things as long as you met all our building codes and requirements >> and there was infrastructure. There was
room in the sewer pipe and you had water and >> what they changed was they did an basically a a local overlay that added multif family zoning to every commercial property >> in cities. So now a property that people
bought a house next to that thought it was going to turn into a restaurant or some other commercial product can now show up with 300 apartments and we can't do anything about it >> except for historically designated >> right >> except for historically designated
districts >> if it's historic. Right. Right. there was a uh a rush to declare uh whole cities historic uh or neighborhoods. Um and you can imagine that rush was most
uh frequently uh accomplished in California in wealthier communities or neighborhoods. Uh uh and lower income areas uh were uh not part of that rush. Um uh there
was a a further rush to uh uh designate we're very excited about our wildlife uh to designate uh uh urban uh communities as as as wildlife habitat where we shouldn't have more housing. Um that
that that didn't quite fly. Um but it was a good time. >> Jennifer, your third bullet point here, master plan for attainable home ownership. Can you parse that out a little bit? Yeah. So, this this golden rule of
uh and it's a very bipartisan, by the way, desire to provide starter home products so people can rent and then buy something that's not very spacious. I mean, I grew up in a 810
square foot home until I was in fifth grade, right? Uh two bedrooms, three kids. Uh uh but that starter home sweet spot is the hardest thing to build. It's what the community accepts most readily
if it's on a manageable density like a town home as opposed to an apartment block uh doesn't uniformly gets accepted um get accepted. that that starter home sweet spot coupled with uh which means
that starter home has to be attainable to a family based on a median income ratio to home price of 3 or 4:1. You have to have a price point for home ownership at that ratio. Then what
happens is renter people move up. There's movement in the rental market and there's move up opportunities for uh already starter homeowners as their income or
preferences allow. >> But fixing the middle with an a home ownership product is a way to restore home ownership opportunities and you just have to be super cleareyed about how much you can afford. I mean, we
don't go shopping for a car thinking I'm going to get $150,000 car. It's what can we afford? And policymakers have stopped in California asking primary questions. What can people afford? Because we
always need taxpayer funded, supportive, and very lowincome household housing. We need that. that floor needs to be provided or we're going to have homeless and other crises that are catastrophic. Then we need the rental market to allow
vertical movement so people aren't spending 60% of their income on rent which is a thing and that's not a good thing and we have that in several California communities. But if you restore that missing middle affordable
product, then you actually can free up both the uh rental market and still provide uh for you know neighborhoods with with higher wealth homes. >> Council, did you have something? >> No, but I
>> I got something. >> Yes, ma'am. [clears throat] >> Go ahead. >> Would you like to go first? >> Uh yeah, I think I would. Um, I'll be honest, this feels like a very myopic view of of the take of the housing policy
um that created that crisis in California. Um, I don't even pretend to know all of the rules in California that make it more expensive. We know that they have a different set of standards. Uh
but I think to say density is only a product of um uh a democratic green living uh agenda is shortsighted. For those of
us that um deal with the budget of a city, what we can tell you is we know it's much cheaper and there's incentive for us to have density because it is cheaper for us to operate and maintain all of those city facilities. So I one I
I don't know that I necessarily um subscribe to the same uh analysis that we've that you used on this. But really what I'm interested in knowing
home ownership was the pathway to building wealth in the United States. Was the pathway. It is no longer the pathway now. And so the question begs, are we trying to force a pathway?
Did [clears throat] the pathway disappear? Um, or are we trying to force people into a uh an an old pathway that is no longer productive or realistic in today's economy with today's society.
Um, our parents bought homes. Your parents bought homes cuz they you grew up in the same home till you were in the fifth grade, right? And then I bet a second. >> Yeah, we got a threebedroom instead of a twobedroom. >> You stayed there for a while, too. >> Still sharing a room with my sister. >> You and I just the way that people work in the workforce. Uh you used to stay at
a job forever. You bought a house, you had a job, you stayed there forever. We have a much more transient workforce and it creates um a lifestyle in a society that's not necessarily looking to stay put for a long time. So that avenue to wealth building that home ownership once
was really depends on building equity. But if you're moving every couple of years, that doesn't build equity. So I'm I'm interested to have a dialogue about that. >> Well, let let's let me clarify first. I'm an all of the above kind of housing
person. So I support density. It's not it doesn't work everywhere. It certainly doesn't work for almost anyone if you say there's no parking and ride the bus, which California has conjoined. Uh, and it that hurts people who have to
physically be present at a job, not in a central hub, not on a dayshift the most. It has a very desperate [clears throat] impact on lower income communities of color to conjoin those policies, housing and transit. Um,
that's not to say though that there isn't every reason to want to live in some hip downtown area, right? I mean, why not? Uh, most people do, uh, end up wanting to own a home. And I don't
accept that it's okay to overthrow the only established pathway to wealth we've created in the United States. And it has been a behemoth. I mean, it's incredible the ladder that home
ownership created. And I'm not accepting the idea that, oh, it's that was yesterday. What are we going to do today? Put some money in the stock market. I don't know. I'm old enough to have gone through three different cycles and watch the stock market like, oh my goodness. Well,
that's interesting. So I I don't think we should eliminate an a proven pathway and hope for the best with respect to an alternative because I don't trust an alternative is emerging. >> I don't think we eliminate it, but I think we know it's not the avenue. The
the the policies that we had in place >> 50 years ago that really subsidized home ownership aren't >> ne subsidized in the sense that it's true. We use taxes to pay for things like road maintenance, >> right? And now those taxes are being
stretched and it's more expensive to have more land that's developed than to have less land. >> We had federal and state policies that also incentivized building single family homes >> that that made it incredibly affordable.
We had mortgage policies, mortgage insurance policies, which we denied to black and brown people for years, by the way, and finally got that fixed in the late 60s, early 70s. >> Did we get it fixed? >> And got wiped out. A trillion dollars of
equity of communities of color was wiped out in '08. And I started doing civil rights lawsuits against these policies because I don't think it's okay to say home ownership was 50 years ago. You're not going to have it. I don't. And and
I've lived it, right? I mean, it took my Mexican grandparents 15 more years than my German grandfather. But Jennifer, I will tell you as someone who lived in the great state of California, you started your whole presentation,
>> we are a nonpartisan group and I think you made it very partisan when you started and I'm going to be very honest. I checked out as a member of a community of color and having lived in California, I think it's unfair to blame one party
for all the housing woes. And I'm just going to be very frank with you. I just got a text from someone who was watching on TV. I mean on uh who's watching and they felt like uh your uh presentation is very partisan. And I'm feeling that
way too. And I want to talk about how we get uh to increase more affordable housing options for people and not feel like I'm being lectured to from a partisan perspective. Well, and I think to your point, Deborah, that the interesting thing has peoples and for
the entire council is there we are repeating a lot of the same things in Texas right now from the Republican side >> in a Republican state. And so our city has a responsibility because we're so fast growing and we have good policy makers around this table and I think
experts across the city. What do we need to be doing not just as a city but also advocating in Austin? It's very important. And you know, we're not going to have time today to talk about the housing trust that's been created in council district 9 that has real
possibility or our upcoming housing bond that could be more dollars. Absolutely. It's our first towin. What should we be focused on? And so today was really meant to be thoughtprovoking on it is to me it is a nonpartisan issue in that everyone's very jaded on this.
Republicans don't have it right and neither do Democrats across the country. and we have an opportunity to really try to shape what Texas is going to do because what's interesting if you look at what the legislature tried to do last session and is looking at this session, there's a lot of similarities for sure.
And I I picked on council district 6 recently because I just feel like we've had so many zoning cases in D6 where council hall has no ability to work with her district anymore. Um and I would push back the same way council rebeck did on the density comment. You know, we
are as our city in certain districts need to encourage more density and we also have put um pizzas in place, Jennifer, for you to know like um the public improvement district that's run in your southside district. I would put them against anybody in the country in terms of how they work alongside council
district and any developer in that area. And they're very, yes, there's still parking, but you talk about this, Beck, you could speak to it all the time on it's it's reduced, but it works for that area. Um, but you still are encouraging car ownership or transit, whatever it may be. And then we actually, Jennifer,
we have two council members, council member Crane, and Council Nettles, that both serve on our transit authority to help create better synergy and decision-m um for Trinity Metro as our transit authority and for the city of Fort Worth. So, that's helpful context. >> All super uh both of those comments
super helpful. um uh by Councilwoman uh uh Councilwoman Peoples. My point in being as partisan as I am is because I trusted my party to avoid this mess and we made it worse. And I own that as a
generational member who turned a lot of these dials and I don't think we need to stay with it. We can fix it. But from somebody who has lived in both red states and blue states, it is not a one party issue. As the mayor just said,
we're we're facing this here in Texas. And Republicans have controlled this state for over 40 years now. And the median price for a home in my district is $450,000, which is ridiculous. I mean, most of my
residents can't qualify for that. So, it's not one p one state's problem. It's a national issue and we need to look at it as a national issue and as a uh a nonpartisan issue because if we get into
this red state, blue state, we're going to end up blaming each other and getting nothing done. >> Again, I couldn't agree more. And there's a a sort of movement, if you will, the abundance movement that says we got to get past these lines and we got to just start building stuff. And my
point is we got to build stuff that people can afford. And from my perspective, and it's it's maybe a just different perspective, that includes home ownership, not uh an unknown substitute. Um, and it includes density
and it includes transit and it includes cars and it includes what people actually want and can afford. And when you try to do with policy too much either party social
engineering, I was telling someone I had a really good friend, brilliant guy, a lawyer, um, who who bought a place on a hill and decided with his wife to cut a tree and had seen the cartoons that said, you know, if you put the V on the
tree, that's where the tree falls. And it turns out that doesn't work on a hill because there's gravity. And so very smart policy people can turn policy dials in ways that just don't
work. And my point is we know these dials don't work. Now local government I what you have is so incredibly streamlined based on what we have that
it's really apples and oranges. So we would have and do allow even with preeemption what we call kind of design control. No, you need to move the threestory units over here so they're further from this guy's backyard but you can still
have the same number of units. But please work with us to make this fit more in the community that we have and none of our state preeemption laws preclude local government from doing that. Also, all of
our state preeemption laws start with local zoning. There is though one, actually several, but they're hardly used that says any commercial uh uh area zoned for commercial with a
prior use, prior redevelopment, uh retail, um office, parking, so no industrial or whatever. Um, but if that's your zoning designation, you can build an apartment by right. But it came with a mandatory inclusionary housing
requirement for a certain number of percentage of units that had to be subsidized for low-income households. And it came with prevailing wage um uh labor requirements which ca more than doubled the cost of of building. And so
that hasn't been used. Um uh and I think it's an example of when you hear California preeemption, there are gradations of preeemption. And in that way, we still respect local control, but then
there are overlays. And so in California, we have zoning. You make your choice. You live with your choice. You have to though zone for as many people as the state tells you you have to zone for. So, you can't just say, "I don't want to grow anymore." And we had a whole bunch of the California cities
who had said that and found out the hard way that they have to accommodate more housing. [sighs] And then we have state density bonus programs that say, "We'll let you do more than local zoning if you achieve
these policy objectives, primarily inclusion of uh uh units restricted to lowincome uh families." and uh and that sometimes gets to outsize local zoning but it's usually in the kind of 20 to
30% >> uh above local zoning. >> So what you have just described in terms of like any commercial area is now permissible for apartments is more radical than what California's local
>> preeemption program looks like. >> Council Rebecca, did you have something there? Was it large or somebody had a hand? No. >> No. Go ahead. I just um I'm I'm interested to know I think what would be helpful is none of these policies
happened in a vacuum right like for instance the parking and transit policy um that is layered with all of the environmental regulations that um California has right their labor laws every the cost of doing business is much
higher in California because of their regulatory Not just those that touch housing, right? So, >> a lot touches housing, but yes, you're right. >> And so, but those that are directly related to housing. So, how much of that
transit policy impacted the cost of housing? How much how much did the the building code impact the cost of housing? Right. Where where was it? Because I imagine it's a death by a thousand cuts. And so where knowing
where they which policy went the wrongest >> yes >> is I think the the most helpful in in preventing us from going down that particular path. I also am curious to
know um because it's something that I feel like I push hard um push back against a lot at the city is um how many of those policies were California trying to to shoehorn
uh Californians into a way of life that that they don't want. For example, um bike lanes in Fort Worth, Texas, right? We don't have culturally people in Fort Worth don't really like to ride bikes. Um, you know, it's just not what
they do for an activity. They like to drive in the car, right? So, if we had a a policy that said every new road had to have a bike lane, we'd really be forcing Fort Worth into a character that they aren't. So, how much do you think played
into to that that that it was just a quote unquote best practices as opposed to a contextsensitive solution? >> Um, we are not respectful of contextsensitive solutions. If by contextsensitive you mean responsive to
the way people live today. Um the top slide is actually family housing at the UC Berkeley campus, uh which is very impacted by housing. And this was built 20-ish years ago. Um they're three
stories. They're chopped up into differentiz units depending on it's they're they're all grad students, but some are bigger and some are smaller. And you know, it it looks like a higher density apartment complex.
in a scale that's more or less suburban. Um, uh, the image on the bottom is the newest campus housing for UC Berkeley on that same site. So, it's building out
that family housing. The units on top have windows that open and close. The um units on the bottom are elevator, hallway, sealed windows, very green. And
this is an example of a green building code uh kind of imagery, but none of them have enough quote parking, but they're grad students and there's a shuttle bus that takes them to, you know, school and also to, you know, the
shopping center and stuff. So this is a purpose-built form of housing that in my mind accommodates on the bottom a lot more people albeit at a much higher per unit cost because of things like energy consumption and other sort of green
building rules. The image on the right is a bridge that goes most directly from the a refinery in in Richmond, California, which is not a wealthy community, over to Alcatraz,
the prison, and Marin, which is a highly wealthy community. And this bridge is the throughway for the huge workforce of essential workers that has to go to Marine every day to make sure that they have toilets that work. And there's
construction workforce and retail workforce and there's just a huge need. And so every morning a whole bunch of people get on this bridge and try to get to work. And bike advocates persuaded
folks to block one of the three lanes for bikes only. For on a good weekend day, fewer than 30 people use that bike lane and virtually none during the weekend. This is a transportation
example of California really not doing such a great job forcing Marin to create workforce housing while putting a ton of additional cost. the cost of time, the
cost of time away from your families and making what should have been shorter commutes longer because the backup's ridiculous and the commute length is ridiculous based on a transportation policy choice. These are common sense. I
think Texas is so far away from losing common sense that >> to me at least >> depends on the day >> it feels good. But you know what? I'm in such pain daily that your level of pain
maybe I'm just not feeling. But I can't imagine why you don't have and shouldn't continue to advocate for much more local control uh for zoning compliant designs. Is there any we got to we got
to wrap it up, but are there other cities or states that you think of outside [snorts] of Texas or California that are doing things differently right now that are worth looking at for Fort Worth? >> You know, there there really are. And there was a a meeting uh uh in September
of the quote abundance movement, an extremely bipartisan group of mostly people your collective age with maybe an exception or two saying this is ridiculous. we just got to build. And it there was a good focus, Governor Cox led, on starter homes being kind of
where you need to tune government policy because that's what's not being built. Attainable home ownership, starter homes, developers build bigger homes, higher profit margins, nobody can afford them. And what happens in an infill only kind of regime is the lowest cost land
gets the highest displacement. And so um uh kind of opening up land was another major theme that was bipartisan. Um issues for the lowest income families, you know, ideas like land trust. Habitat
for Humanity has a great program. They're a client and um you know they allow for home ownership without the equity increase. And I think every council member to my knowledge has had significant growth on the habitat side
and every has been a yes >> and every development looks different. Um this council specifically not historic the people that maybe had been their positions before but >> um which is helpful. >> Well, I'm I'm just grateful for the opportunity to share and and you don't
invite me if you want somebody boring, right? I'm going to be spicy [clears throat] and irritating. It's my specialty. Um, uh, but I think you do have so much more going for you and so many more ways to solve a problem before it gets worse, uh, without undoing so
many knobs. So, I thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you, Jennifer. We appreciate you very much. Okay, council. [snorts] I don't think we have a break before next one. So, we're going to move right in to Ron Holyfield. Or no, we do have a break, says Jay. Five minute break. >> Five minute break, council.
>> Only if y'all think we need it. Let's Yeah. Give you a bathroom break. That's perfect. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Looking good. >> Okay, let's rock and roll. We're missing a couple of council members still. We'll hang on just a
second. Okay, in the immortal words of Monty Python, now for something completely different. If I don't offend every one of you in
the next hour, either I have failed or you're paying attention to texts on your phone. What we're going to talk about is actually how to get out of pain. The bad news is y'all are in a lot of
pain. The good news is you literally have already resolved the biggest step in moving forward. And that is in the interviews Hillary did and you saw the
the reports, everybody is in agreement. We're in pain and we're tired of being in pain. Now, I want to flash you back just for a moment about your fifth grade natural science
class. And in fifth grade, you did an experiment. You took a piece of potouse ivy, cut it off, put it in a jar, in my days, in a glass Coca-Cola bottle, and put water in it and set it in the window
sill facing away from the window, away from the light. Within about 24 hours, that plant had actually moved and reoriented itself to face the light. That is a natural system.
When we came in the room today, if the lights had not come on, there's only about three reasons that the lights would not have come on. That's why an electrician can make a
living as an electrician. There's a limited number of things that would be the problem. If there were an infinite number of possibilities and you could not predict what the problems were, it would not you we wouldn't be able to
have electricity. That's a natural system. Flash back with me for just a moment to the turn of the last century, 1900. It was the dawn of the industrial age.
And at the dawn of the industrial age, there was something that you will recall from your college organizational development or organizational psychology class called scientific management. scientific management which had been
posited by Frederick Taylor basically held that a human being was really now he didn't use these words but it was the concept was really just a cog in the wheel of the machine and that you could
scientifically determine exactly the best way to achieve optimal productivity. you could determine how far the seat of the chair should be from the floor, how far the seat of the chair should be from the tabletop, what the
light lumens ought to be, etc. That all of that you could scientifically determine in this industrial age how to optimize productivity. And what happened is in I think it was a seamstress factory in Chicago, they
bring in a consultant. They had bought into scientific management. So they bring in a consultant and that consultant is going to study how to optimize performance. The human turn them into machines and they look at the
temperature and what happens is and they're just trying to figure out the optimal temperature to maximize productivity. They turn the temperature up and productivity goes up. They turn the temperature down and productivity goes up. They turn the temperature sideways and productivity goes up. And
what they discovered is yes, human beings were part of natural systems, but the natural system was not what's the optim optimal lumens or what's the optimal temperature or how
far the seat is. the the the true scientific natural system is people responded to believing erroneously that management cared.
They were responding to the belief that management was trying to take and actually make their world better. And that wasn't even the motivation. It was a misunderstanding. But the reality is how we treat each
other actually produces tangible results. That is systems theory. And systems theory applies to this city council just as much as it applied to the piece
of potouse ivy. And I'm not calling y'all potted plants. just as much as it applied to the piece of potouse ivy in the window sill. Systems theory is no more complex than
predictable inputs create predictable outcomes. It's that simple. Right now, one of your systems theory items is you don't have a healthy, you
may not have any, but you don't have a healthy governance policy in place. You're not operating following a work plan of a governance policy that everybody has agreed to that says this is how we're going to operate.
It is predictable in the absence of a welldone governance policy that you get frustration, disorganization, conflict, anxiety, pain.
Predictable input creates a predictable outcome. One of the things that happens and and let me qualify this just a moment because I said I'm going to offend everybody before I wrap up. I have not had any conversations with staff,
but SG as a team works with over a thousand city council members a year. And there's nothing new under the sun. So everything I'm sharing with you, the things that are going to kind of poke
you the most are not because somebody has whispered in my ear, but it's because they are great truths that are true because they're a product of systems theory. Does that make sense? So the first thing I want to draw your
attention to is you ought to have a really wellthoughtout, highly highly you need to bleed and sweat over the right governance policy. That becomes your bible for how you're
going to operate as a team. The mistake most teams make, most governing bodies make is they start working on solving problems before they have their system in place for how we're going to think about the problems.
What happens is that means every time you deal with the issue and it doesn't matter what issue it is, everybody is bringing their own frame of reference instead of having an agreed upon frame of reference.
What happens what I'm seeing happens a lot and again I'm talking universally. I'm nobody's talked to me about any of you either individually or collectively. What happens in today's world is somebody gets elected to city council.
You get elected. Do y'all run on a Saturday in May or a Tuesday in a Saturday in May? Okay. So, the first time you get elected, you go to bed on Saturday night with the votes on the city council with the total
misunderstanding that you're still a normal person. You wake up on Sunday morning and you go to church or the grocery store or whatever and Miss Johnson jumps you out wanting to know why the sewer plant
stinks and she expects you to be able to answer that question. Now, let me give you context for this. All of you are familiar, I presume, with Maslo's hierarchy. Maslo's hierarchy says you can't be healthy here till you're healthy here, etc. And it's
basically human needs. I'm convinced and I mean this in all sincerity. Maslo missed one of the levels. And the level he missed is our need to not look stupid.
So what happens? The need to not look stupid, an incredible driver of our humanity, of the things we do every day, all of us. So when you get elected to the city
council and Miss Johnson jumps you out about the sewer plant, the temptation is for you to provide answers to her when you don't have a flipping clue what you're talking about. because you feel like you're expected to
have answers. And then what happens is we have a significant number of folks in today's world that get elected to council believing
that no preparation, no study, no anything, no qualifications are required for you to be an excellent council member. So, you show up at your very first council meeting
with a baseball cap and a catcher's mitt and everybody who's been on the council is wearing a helmet and shoulder pads. And the temptation is to immediately assume if you're the one that showed up with the ball cap and
the catcher's mitt is that it's somebody else's fault and it's a conspiracy that everybody else is wearing shoulder pads and you're wearing a a catcher's m or carrying a catcher's mitt. See what happens is you have people who don't
want you to actually prepare to do a great job on the governing body. You are on the board of one of the largest employers and organizations in North Texas
and you have supporters who don't want you to do a great job on the board. They want you to obey. They want you to do their political bidding. They don't want you to spend the time actually wrestling with the
issue. And what happens with that is it creates an intensely shortterm mindset. And almost everything that is really wise over the long term
is really dumb in the short term. And yet the political dynamic drives you to focus on the short term at the expense of the long term. It's the reason our infrastructure nationwide on average is
rated a C minus or a D because we think we get conditioned to think short term. And in an environment in which we become increasingly partisan, which you guys have said is one of your problems,
is that what happens is we begin to view real issues through a political lens instead of through a governance or a community lens. And and everything I'm saying, it doesn't matter which where you are on the political spectrum, it's all still
true. And so what happens is when you start trying to think politically instead of thinking from a governance perspective, you are embracing a momentum to do dumb.
It's just that simple. Now, there's nothing wrong and everything right with every special interest in the world being able to share their perspective from their special interest angle.
Totally totally appropriate in our system. What is not appropriate is for you to confuse their special interest with the public interest. That's where it really begins to get
messy because you have people who are pulling you in different directions and wanting you to obey rather than to actually come and engage and think deeply. All you've got to do is understand in a partisan environment,
if you look at all of the polls, most of the nation on almost every big issue is actually in agreement at about a 65% or higher level. the public actually agrees about a lot
of the topics but they begin to disagree about the methodology and they begin to disagree with the political does that make sense so what happens is what what we've got to do the irony and it played out here
exactly when Hillary did the presentation there were two things two two charts that she put up one is what are you saying about how you're operating as a team. And basically what you said is we're in pain. We want it to
get better. We're tired of hurting. And then she talked to you about your big priorities. What are those big topics? What are the priorities that staff ought to be focusing on? And you're all in agreement. We work with councils that are so busy
fighting they have no idea they actually agree with each other on almost everything. Again, we work with about a thousand city council members a year. We've worked I I personally worked with one city council where two of the
council members who had been on the council for seven or eight years together had not spoken to each other in three years. They literally would be I'm picking on you guys. Allan would literally say,
"Mayor, would you tell Charlie this?" And Charlie would respond, "Mayor, would you tell out?" Now, I'm talking about from the DAS from the DAS. And they weren't embarrassed and
humiliated with how stupid they looked. Now, if you want to transform this council, if you want to transform how much fun you're having, if you want to transform how much impact you have,
there really are some simple ways to do it. Number one is that the tendency in a council meeting, and again, I don't know anything. I'm just using. I have no idea who's where on
anything. In a council meeting, there's a zoning case that comes up and Michael is supporting it and Mia is is am I pronouncing is it me or Maya? Mia. And Mia is opposed to it. And what happens
is all of the citizens that are opposed to it show up because the citizens who want it, nobody ever shows up and SAYS, "LET'S GET ALL THE NEIGHBORS OUT TO TELL THE COUNCIL HOW MUCH WE LIKE YOU." YOU NEVER HAVE anybody that comes to do that. People are only motivated
because they're upset. So what happens is Mia is opposed to it and her supporters show up and Michael is in support of it and they start ripping him and Deborah is aligned with Michael. So
in a political mindset [laughter] in a political mindset Deborah starts defending Michael. What that does is it devolves lower and lower and lower
into the muck of a political mindset. If you want to transform this city council, the answer is simple. Ronald Reagan said, "People say there aren't any simple answers." There are simple answers. They just aren't easy answers.
The simple answer in the midst of that when the crowd starts getting abusive is for Mia to say, "Mayor, can I speak?" And then for Mia to look at the crowd and say, "Y'all know I agree with you on
this subject. You know, I plan to vote against it, but I will not be a part of this kind of abusive behavior. And if it doesn't quit now, I'm going to leave the DAS and you have one less vote.
See, stand up for what you believe in, but stand up for the the quality of the governance process is more important than any given issue. When you begin to do that, you will transform how you
operate as a council. That's hard. It's simple, but it's hard. But if you begin to do that and you say how we how we deliberate is our foundational issue. And let's go
back to Maslo just a second. Basically, if you don't have food in your stomach and your kids don't have food in your stomach, nothing else matters. And what I'm telling you is just like Maslo, if you don't have healthy governance
processes that all of you not only agree to and have your fingerprints on, but defend, nothing else matters. You will never be able to resolve those other issues if you don't have healthy governance processes in place where you've agreed
to the rules of the road. I will tell you the best city council I ever worked for as a city manager was in little bitty Farmersville. And in Farmersville, the city council would fight like cats
and dogs. They didn't even have a DAS. They had a single table. Would fight like cats and dogs about the issue. In fact, when I went there, every city council member except one smoked.
[laughter] >> Marlboro, [laughter] ALTHOUGH SOME OF MY MEETINGS WOULD HAVE GONE BETTER IF they had done something different. While I was there, every one of the smokers except one quit at the same
time. Now, you want to talk about cranky council meetings and the one who did not quit. I'll never forget one night on some issue and he was losing the battle. And again, they they were all around one table about this size. He is losing the battle. And
Ray takes and he he's got he's already got about four cigarettes going in the ashtray at the same time. And he reaches up and he takes the deepest draw he can take. and he leans over the table and blows the smoke out. The debate stops
completely. The debate shuts down as everybody is sniffing because there, you know, and so so I want you to know that they they they it was full contact deliberation,
but it was a matter of professional personal pride and ethics. that when the issue was done, they actually all closed ranks behind the issue because they believed in the
integrity of the process that let them get to that point. Does that make sense? It's not about winning or losing on any given issue. It's about your number one goal, your foundational goal on the Maslo hierarchy is the integrity of the
process. Most city councils, what they do is they head the next morning after the council meeting to the Dairy Queen. The Dairy Queen is sort of conspiracy central in most cities.
You've got a bunch of folks that go hang out at the Dairy Queen the next morning and the council member on the losing side will often go sit at the Dairy Queen and go, "I can't believe they did that. I know it. I'll bet they're in a developer's pocket. They they they they
don't they they didn't listen to the people. They didn't Yeah. Something was stinky. In other words, they're undermining the integrity of the process. Somebody who undermines the integrity of the process is a cancer on the future of
your community. Very bluntly. If you believe that the process did not have integrity, then you have a duty as a council member to engage in correcting the situation,
whether it's holding the council member accountable, changing the process, etc. But the answer is not to undermine the integrity of the process. Your number one goal, your number one
duty as an elected official is to create an environment in which the public believes that you are deliberating with integrity. The reality is when you undermine the
integrity of the process, you don't just undermine the credibility of the other s the other side. you undermine your own credibility when you're on the winning side. What you've got to do as a governing
body is to come together and say we are going to deliberate with integrity. We're going to have certain behavioral standards and we're going to hold each other accountable to that.
Now, when I was um I was city manager in a city here in Darren, would you mind grabbing me a water? >> I was city manager in a city here and there was a a really in the DFW area a brutal election. I mean, it was brutal
and it Thank you. it. Um, in that case, right after the election, we have a council retreat and L. Sumec was the the facilitator we were using and we're sitting at a U like
this and the council had had four seats turn over a nine member council and four of them had turned over and so at the start of the retreat law looks at the council and says uh before we get started does anybody have anything to
say? My five older council members were on this side of the table. The four new ones were over on this side. So they were even sitting with each other and my 29-year-old young buck mayor pro Tim who
was a wild man puts his hand in the air. L calls on him. He looks at the other side and he says, "The four of you," in this very gracious voice, he says, "The four of you, you did a great job getting
your message out, getting your voters out, and I commend you for that." There's only one thing you need to know to be successful on the city council, and that's how to count to five. I've got five. You've got four. Y'all can
leave the retreat right now because it doesn't matter what you want. I'm going to kill it. See that mindset? That's a political mindset. That's all about every single issue. Every single item is a blood battle.
What you've got to do to do a great job as a governing body is to recognize you actually agree with each other at about the 85% level. If you deliberate with integrity of
process, what begins to happen? Not only do you make better decisions, you make more discern uh more sustainable decisions. You actually make decisions that don't whipssaw back and
forth. Back when I was in city management long ago, Austin every year, one year the developers would win the election, the next year the environmentalists would win the election. And it simply pingponged back and forth in a constant
sort of turmoil. And nothing was predictable because you knew that when the other side got in office then what was going to happen is it was going to swing the other way. You are in this truly unique situation
in Fort Worth and as a council and I don't know the exact numbers but you're relatively divided between red and blue. We're in a environment in which the world is becoming more
partisan, more more players who are driving conflict for the sake of conflict, more people who are stretching you. And I know I' I've been there not as a council member but as a city manager where you get to the point you're so
tired of being beat about the head and shoulders that you start giving into stuff and you start getting sucked into it just because you're so weary of getting beat up. The reality is giving into the loudest voices because they are
the loudest voices is the way to ensure that the abuse keeps keeps on coming. The way to end the abuse is integrity of process is building systems that actually have reliability. Building a
governance system that everybody agrees to. And what happens typically is we become so wrapped up about a particular topic that we start trying to make the rules fit the topic. What whatever we
think about that particular topic. And what you want to do is reach consensus on what the rules are and how we're going to operate and everybody be committed to this is the way we're going to operate. And then from there that's
how you begin to wrestle with all the issues. So so that's number one is that whole sense of governance systems. Number two is how you deal with con uh conflict from the das i.e. you can never seize the moral high ground protecting
your own side. You only seize the moral high ground by protecting the other side. And I'm not talking about agreeing with them, but by saying I'm not going to become that kind of person. It's matters to me that I've got I've got to
rise above that. I have higher expectations for myself. Now, coupled with that is part of what you've got to do is begin to recognize.
Let me let me let me give you three statistics. The first one, if one, and it's this package is the first of the three. If one citizen
shows up and speaks on an issue at a council meeting or a public meeting, your tendency is to view it as an issue of grave public concern. If two citizens speak on the same issue,
your tendency is to view it as a movement. And if three citizens speak on the same issue, you tend to view it as a mandate from the people. The reason that happens
is because you have good hearts. [snorts] You ran for office because you wanted to make a difference and you want to be able to do the things that impact folks in a positive way.
But let me contextualize those three people for you. How what's the population in Fort Worth now? About a million. >> Okay, good. I can do the math a lot easier that way.
So, the National Dairy Council, this is about seven years ago, did a study that 6% of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from
brown cows. Now, somebody that's better at math than me, Jay, what is 6% of a million? 60,000. [snorts] >> Okay, so stop and think for a moment. If
just the chocolate milkers showed up at a council meeting, you would have 60,000 people showing up at your council meeting to speak. When three out of the 60,000 that
believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows show up, you don't allow them to hijack the agenda. Now understand, you still treat them with honor, dignity, and respect. They are do that not just because they're a Fort Worth resident,
but simply by virtue that they're a human being. So I'm not talking about blowing them off. I'm not talking about ignoring them. and you need to legitimately and seriously consider what they have to say,
but you don't surrender the agenda because three people spoke on an issue. every city council I ever worked with as a city manager at least once and most of them it was
more than this I had a situation something similar to this where a in the in the period after the council meeting when it's been a very difficult council meeting and you're kind of going into the back in the ready room and looking
for some stale potato chips and lukewarm coffee or whatever to decompress before you go home. And during that time period when you're sort of decompressing before you leave, one of the council members would say, "I can't believe we did
that." And the second council member would say, "I know it. We ought to have our tails kicked." And the third council member would say, "I can't believe we did it unanimously." See what happens is
the more you cater to extreme perceptions and behavior more than than topic. The more you cater to extreme abuse, the more you enable and empower extreme
abuse. And it happens all across the political spectrum. I speak all over the United States. And it does not matter whether is a red city, red state, blue city, blue state, blue city, red, any any combination.
The topics change, but the behavioral dynamics are the same. Does that make sense? Questions so far, reactions to what I've shared so far? >> No. And I just want to point out we do not have lukewarm coffee or [laughter]
because we have an amazing staff that really takes care of us. I love it. I love it. [laughter] Any any other thoughts, reactions so far? Are you sitting there going, "Oh my gosh, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
[laughter] Jay, you need to start serving chocolate milk at every council meeting as a reminder." >> Just Well, yeah, for the people that come to [laughter] chocolate. So, see what what what I what what I want you to what I want you to hear
go back to two big things. Number one, what Ronald Reagan said, people say there are no simple answers. There are simple answers. They're just not easy answers. And number two, it's all about the system. And if you don't have a healthy
system, that's what drives conflict. And and I love when Hillary shared with you using the IO opt. I love using that because it begins to help you understand
each other. In SG I am 880% more changeoriented than the rest of the team or at least previously the last time we did it a few years ago. The rest of the team as a whole. See what happens if they don't understand that? It just feels fickle.
When I was city manager in um another city here in the DFW area, my mayor and a council member had intense conflict. I mean, intense. She felt like he was always bulldozing her and he felt like
she was always simply being an obstructionist. And they were like this all the time. It wasn't the IOP we used, but we brought them in for an assessment. And what was interesting
is that in essence, Richard, it didn't matter whether he was buying a new truck or buying a carton of milk. And I literally was with him on the car lot when he did this, where he walked onto the car lot, salesman came out and he says, "I want that truck. Can you
have it ready for me by 4:00?" either. It doesn't matter whether it's a truck or milk. That's the way he would make a decision. Judith, it didn't matter whether she was buying a new car or a carton of milk. She's going to read
every label. She's going to compare all the price per ounce of everything. She's going to look at all of the nutrient differences. In other words, their approach to how they thought about what the question was. Forget about the answer. their approach to how they
thought about what the question was was dramatically different. And because they didn't understand that, it drove interpersonal conflict that was intense. When you begin to pay attention to the
IOP stuff, and I would urge you to even begin to incorporate that into your conversations, make it part of your cultural dynamic because when you understand how the different people, how the different members of the team are going
to process information, you begin to understand it's about how they think. It's not because they're trying to do something to pay political gotcha. Whether it's moving fast or slow, it both anything with the absence
of de in-depth understanding tends to drive political gotcha perceptions. So what what you really want to do is begin to authentically understand each other. You have players out in the community
writing you contribution checks, hosting fundraisers, whatever. I hate to break this to you, but except for your mom or sister, the people who write you a check are not doing it just because they think you're
a grand person. Just a reality. I'm not going to go write a check to somebody that I'm not trying to feel like I'm trying to advance an agenda. Now, it doesn't mean it's an
illegitimate agenda, but it means you've got to understand and recognize that and factor that into how you think about the world. And again, it's totally appropriate for them to do that. It's appropriate for them to be advancing
their agenda. It's not appropriate for you to confuse their agenda with the public interest. It may overlap, but it may not. Your job as a governing body is to figure that out. Your job as the governing body is to go,
I want to take that into consideration, but I also want to take this information in consideration over here. See, one of the things that you get pressured to do is to not have any doubt or questions.
We're in a political dynamic in which don't you dare act like you can accommodate the other side on something. We're we're in an environment that's looking for political purity at the furthest out extremes. And when you
cater to that, you are abandoning where real transformation occurs. real transformation and real sustainable future of Fort Worth happens in the 40% that are in the
middle. That's where sustainable deci you you need to be every decision you wrestle with. Quit thinking and I know I'm going to say this and you can't really do it, but quit thinking about the next election and start thinking about the next generation.
Every question you ask when you're wrestling with staff agenda items, council uh council agenda items, every item you look at, you need to be asking yourself, what are the implications of this for the next generation?
What are the implications for what this means 25 years from now? Not just in this moment. Does that make sense? It changes how you see everything. Not only does it make you a better elected official, if you can create the
culture in which everybody is doing that, you're going to find that immediately you actually agree at about the 85% level. When you get out beyond about five years, definitely beyond 10 years,
you are unbelievably aligned. Not because of what I saw there that suggested that, but because of worked with thousands of council members. When you get out beyond the next election, the further you get out from the next election, the more you actually agree
with each other. And then what you can do is spend your time arm wrestling over the how instead of the what. But what happens is when we're not really thinking in those bigger terms, we end up getting wrapped
around the axle on small stuff. Stuff takes on a life all of its own. And part of that, and I know you have districts, and you've got to be attentive and and and representing your district, but part of your role is also
to educate your district that a rising tide lifts all ships. You've got to be taking and saying we've got to be thinking about 25 years from now and what are the implications. There [snorts] is one city council I worked with that
repres the person who represented a much lower in the lowest income segment of the community and he was a right-wing Republican and at the council retreat when they
were talking about swimming pools he sounded like a left-wing Democrat because he was focusing ing on what's happening with my comm. In other words, his perspective got out of his personal political box
and started thinking about the constituents. Does that make sense? And and and it changes when you just think politically, you don't make as good a decision. But what also happens is if you really think about driving decisions
in that 40% in the middle of public sentiment, that's what is sustainable. That's what's going to allow you to leave a legacy that 25 years from now it really matters that you were on the city council. And so I urge you to think about it from
a legacy standpoint. None of you ran for counsel because you did not have enough abuse in your life. You ran for counsel because you wanted to make a difference. But you know what? With a shortterm
mindset, you don't make a difference. All you do is move the deck chairs on the Titanic around if you're only thinking short term. When you begin to think long term in every decision you make,
everything that comes out of that is good. When you think long term, it reduces the short-term conflict because you agree at a much higher level than you think you do. When you think long term, your community actually you become much more aligned
because the community actually agrees at a much higher level than you think they do. and you begin to make better resource allocation decisions when you think 25 years down the road. We fall in the trap of doing a lot of
dumb stuff in the short term purely thinking about the next election. When we begin thinking longer term, we make better decisions. Our human tendency
is we get so weary of the abuse. And I promise you, I understand the abuse you get. I get it. You going to the grocery store and you're pushing your cart and you spot Miss Johnson down the aisle before she has seen you and
you whip a U-turn to get on another aisle over before she can get hold of you. I get that. But the reality is better governance actually makes the difference in the
impact you have, but it also makes the difference in how much fun you're having. You need to have each other's backs as a team process-wise. fight like cats and dogs around the topic,
but be unified in the behavioral expectations of each other. And [snorts] and the greatest strength comes when you step over and defend somebody on the other side on the behavioral dynamic. And here's what's interesting
is that the community will begin noticing and you will literally begin impacting how the community interacts with each other. But I'm going to take it a step beyond that. You have this unique opportunity
because of the thing that you feel the pain with with the blue red divide and the division and all of that that's going on everywhere and that political dynamic. you are uniquely positioned to actually become the role model for
other cities across the nation to say it really is about that dynamic of weak. It's not just that you can disagree without being disagreeable. When you have healthy systems and healthy behavioral respect for each other,
you actually take and begin to transform the community in dramatic ways. Questions, comments on this so far. I'm getting close to time out and I want to make sure I don't cut off any interaction.
>> Questions or comments? Council? >> No >> reactions. Just text to your significant other going, "Oh my gosh, I can't wait till he gets finished." [gasps] >> You're good to keep rolling, Ron. >> Do what?
>> Oh, okay. Um, so, so what you want to do is begin to think in terms of systems. What I would I would recommend is that you ought to do two retreats a year like
this. The first one ought to happen after every single city council election. Just changing one player, it's a different team.
you need every year within 90 days of an election is to come together as a team and your focus needs to be on our governance policy that is formally adopted. You deliberate, you wrestle through it. If you're trying to create
the rules of the road when you're in the middle of an issue, the rules you come up with suck because the rules are are driven by the topic. So you want to literally take when it's fresh with the new team. And again, if it's just one
member that's new, it's a new team. And you want to you want to make that all about here's how the system operates because part of what happens is new elected officials run for office making lots of promises.
Then they come to their first council meeting in June. Jay, when do y'all start on the budget process? >> Last last week. >> Last week. >> Uh, April with the council. So, so by
the time they show up at their first council meeting, the budget is way down the road and the tendency is they've made campaign promises and then they get there and it's too late in the current
cycle to be able to really influence things. When you get into a rhythm, part of what you're able to do is to be able to explain to people, here's how the system operates.
And we will have next fall our second council retreat of the year. And it really is the one where we talk about priorities and vision and budget and things of that sort. So you really ought to have two different one of them is all
about governance process so that everybody owns it. One is about vision where are we headed that then feeds into staff to be able to use in the budget process. Second thing or third or 10th or whatever the heck it is.
The tendency is for council to grow frustrated and again I work with over a thousand council members a year. we do is for council to grow frustrated with the relationship between the mayor and the
city manager. The tendency when that happens is to start sniping instead of dealing with it from a policy and a system standpoint. What you should
do is come together in your governance process and say this is what we need. Now, let me tell you one of the greatest challenges of the manager and it goes back to the IO opt. Some of you on here,
if you get more than a onepage executive summary, you're frustrated that staff is trying to hide the ball by not giving you enough information. others on you on here. If you get anything less than a 250 page report,
you feel like staff is trying to hide the ball by not giving you all in in in other words, it's a no-win situation. The way you resolve that is actually with a healthy system where you come together and you say these are the
expectations that gives the that gives the manager and the staff the ability to actually meet the desires of the council. So what what you've got to do is always
come back to do we have a healthy system? And if you don't have it formally laid out, you don't have a healthy system. And if you don't revisit it annually and have everybody agree to it, you don't have a healthy system.
Does that make sense? Couple of other things. One of the things that can tend to frustrate council is when staff tells you what you don't want to hear.
You do not want to have staff that can be bullied or sweettalked into styling a recommendation or report around what you want to hear.
If if Allen can bully Jay into getting him to change stuff to accommodate him, Macy can bully Jay. In other words, what you want is for staff to give you their best professional opinion
without regard to what anybody thinks. It is not their job to try to package it up for political purposes. Now once that happens the word to staff
is council has the right to do dumb. Now what I mean by that is that it's council's prerogative to take your professional information and make the decision they want to make in it.
I had a in a situation in a city when I was assistant city manager. We had a 250y old oak tree that was in the way for where a road was planted and the traffic engineer was
like a dog with a bone. We got to take that tree out because we can't have a curve in the road. council was like, "We are not cutting down a 250 year old oak tree curve the freaking
road." The mistake staff makes is being a dog with a bone and not letting it go. So, what you've got to have is both of those pieces working together. staff has got to believe that what council's expectations are is that you're going to
give us your best opinion, your best recommendation without regard to any political angling whatsoever. And then you need to expect of staff once they've given their recommendation, they're not they shouldn't be
emotionally involved into whether you follow it or not. See, your role is different. your responsibility to be the traffic engineer. The traffic engineer was technically right that the
best road design according to standards went right through the middle of this 250 year old oak tree. The role of the council is to think more broadly than just that one recommendation. The
role of the council is to think about the community to think about okay what are the implications for things that are unrelated to that issue at hand. Your job is to think holistically in everything you tackle. Those are two different roles.
And what you want to do is you want staff to be highly confident that you really want them to give you their honest opinion. And then staff, you want counsel to be highly confident that once
you give them that opinion, you've done your job and it's their job to make the decision with it. Does that make sense? Now, one other thing on on roles a little bit.
One of the biggest mistakes that local government, city councils, and staff make is not understanding the distinction between strategic visioning and strategic uh planning.
The role of the council is to do strategic visioning. Your responsibility is to be up on the bow of the ship pointing towards the horizon and saying this is where we're going.
It's the role of staff to do the strategic planning that says this is how we're going to get you to where you said you want to go. Back to Maslo. Our human tendency
is to want to lean into stuff we think we understand and abandon our roles so that we look smart or don't look stupid. Let me give you an example of that. One city I worked with,
we had a council member who was a lubricant salesman for mobile oil. every agenda item, we would get a lubricant question.
We could be buying freaking copy paper and we would get a lubricant question. And he was a great council me. He was not playing gotcha. He was very supportive of st good good person. Good council member. Staff [snorts]
just like council doesn't want to look stupid. So, you know what staff did is that every other week before our every two-eek council meeting dur during our agenda prep session, we had about 12
department heads sitting around the table with the hourly clock running or what it cost. We would spend about an hour taking and trying to figure out what the lubricant question was going to
be on that item. What you've got to understand as a council, it is your job to ask questions. It's your job to ask hard questions. It's not your job to ask gotcha questions. Nor is
it your job to ask questions designed to make you look smart. The way you ask questions is actually a resource allocation issue. Just like in that city, we we spent
$500, $1,000, whatever it was in department head time every council meeting just trying to anticipate the lubricant question. So through your questions, you're actually directing
allocation of resources. What you really want to do with the way you ask questions is number one, always make it always know why you're asking the question and convey to the manager or the mayor, hey, I have this question.
Sometimes it's going to be a question that you're that the best solution is to say, Jay, I'm going to ask this question. If you could be prepared for it, that would be great. Sometimes it's going to be I have this
question. If you could answer it, I won't have to use up counsel time at the DA is going down a rabbit trail. It's fairly straightforward. Sometimes you're going to have a question that you feel the need to ask for political reasons. Nothing inappropriate about
that. But your best solution is to call Jay and say, "Hey," or or the mayor, depending on dynamic of the of the topic. I was at a homeowners association last night. This question came up. I need
them to know I'm listening to them. I'm going to ask you about this, so please be prepared to answer it. Part of what you do when you do that is you actually accomplish what you were trying to accomplish far more effectively. But
what you also do is you build trust with those residents. Not just that you listen to them, but that the city that staff is responsive. So, so what you want to do is be purposeful in what you're doing. Don't be short-term
mindset political gotcha kind of stuff in in how you approach stuff. Does that make sense? Okay. So, I was shooting to wrap up in about an hour here, which I'm I'm about at that time. Questions. And I know I've
kind of honestly I kind of blew off my PowerPoint and kind of went with the flow based on what I watched today where I thought maybe the the most ontarget uh stuff was based on today's conversation. >> I have a comment and observation that I want the council to react to. Curious
whether or not I know I sound a little like I'm very manly. Sorry, Ron. is one thing I've heard from each of the council members at various points is that at times it feels like council, excuse me, staff well-intentioned is expecting a rubber stamp and like it's
so far along by the time it gets to us that the input from council is not rejected, but sometimes it feels like annoying if we have feedback or we don't like where the direction is going rather than it come to us beforehand. something I mentioned to talk to Jay about earlier and I'm curious if council agrees with
that and if so how do we work better with staff so that we have more time to deal especially contentious issues and may very well deserve and need more input from those of us that are represented elected to represent the city >> your first question was to council >> react to that if that's something that
you all observe to Alan >> based on my eye profile I agree >> [laughter] >> Mia councal. >> Um I would just say you know a lot of what you said I would say has been my experience. I've only been here for 6 months and coming from somewhere
previously where we did have board operating procedures and things that we adhere to and just I think a different culture of operation than I've encountered since being in this role. But to the mayor's point, for me, I think you've offered a lot of added value and suggestions with regards to
operating um standards. But my question is more about the like the next steps and how that actually manifests like how do we um enact those expectations? How do we because you've had suggestions not only for council um suggestions for the
relationship between mayor and and and manager but also the expectation with regards to staff. So I think that kind of centers on your question. How do we shape all of that and make it actionable to move forward? I hope I answered your
question probably with the question. >> Any other council before I >> Yeah. Council Martinez. >> No. So, I I agree with you, mayor, and with that frustration, but um so that would kind of make me want to ask Jay the question. What are you doing? I know
you're still um in your first year. What are you? Yes. Within your first year as city manager, are you planning to host some sort of retreat with the directors? Has that already been done? >> So, yeah. Um as far as retreat with
directors, we do have one scheduled for February. And typically this retreat happens in February. We moved it up because I think both the mayor and I recognized that we needed to have more of this kind of discussion the council. And I think this idea about governance
and actually having a framework for governance that applies both to the council and just overall in the meetings I think makes a big difference. And I mentioned earlier communication with these things we're trying to achieve and we can we can
start pushing more toward committee meetings and then just provide make sure uh all the council knows more readily what's in those committee meetings so that we can have that public dialogue because oftent times the the work involved in trying to make sure
that that we're being transparent to the council as a whole so it doesn't appear like we're just working with one council member or two council members. So, how we get how we do that and so the streamlining of meetings, public meetings makes it hard sometimes. So, I think we we were going to, you know, we
talked about [clears throat] this, we're going to need to be doing more of that through the committee process since those exist. They want to make sure that all the council members know what's on those committee meetings so they can pay attention or have their staff pay attention so they understand when it
actually gets to the full council. They don't feel like it's the last minute. But those are all kind of tactical things that we've been talking about as staff to move forward. Um, but because you do get, like I mentioned, going
through the bond program, the list of bond program was already set basically when I came on board. We do we did make some changes. We were able to find additional dollars and now we're getting kind of to the date where a final bond list needs to be put together. And I
know there's opinions in the in the neighborhoods and there's opinions on the council that things should change. What makes it difficult is how do you come to consensus on how it's changed because everybody has their own uh priorities. So, so we are working on that. I think having some type of
process on the governance side I think would would assist us in doing that. >> Leilock [clears throat] >> Jay thank you for those words. I uh really do agree that I think we should look at putting together some kind of
formal governance policy just so we kind of establish rules of the road between all of us. I think that would be very helpful. Um on the communications front, I'm I'm just going to share one thing that that causes me frustration and I
and I expect it's uh not me alone. Uh when it comes to our formal meetings or work sessions, often the briefing material comes very late and puts us in a situation where [clears throat] we're
having to do intense research with hours of time available. U so I'd really like to see that process improve as well. Just it would be very helpful. Mhm. >> We're addressing that as we go forward. >> Council Ed.
>> Yeah. Um I think I mentioned a few times about coming to work session or an executive session where we have to make a a decision the very next meeting and how hard that is. And I think uh that some of those decisions are staff is looking at those where these are
mandates or these are uh legally we have to do this and so it's presented as if we're just going to rubber stamp it. I think they have seen this council come around this table and come up with creative ideas to say we can actually do things different. And so I think it's
important that we have as much time as possible to have an open discussion with this council before we feel like that we have to make a decision just per law or mandate. >> Yeah. And so for me, I think that's like
kind of back to like the question that I have originally like it sounds like, you know, you introduced the idea that we have a very limited meeting schedule that doesn't really give us an opportunity to have in-depth discussion about certain things. Um, so then my
question gets back to how do you change that meeting schedule or how do you discuss if people want to change that meeting schedule? How does that become um a proposal or just even a discussion? and where's the time for that where it's, you know, reasonable
and going to be received in in the manner in which it's intended, the spirit intended. Um, again, back to that question for me, it's just kind of this the same thing. >> Um, and just to address your original question on when these items come to us and it it looks like it's already been
fully baked and we just need to rubber stamp it. and stabs defense too. Y'all live it every day and you're you're living and breathing these issues and then it's brought to us at a a different level. Um I do think a lot of that's relationship based. I think as a council we could probably do a better job developing those relationships with individual staff members when we know
there's a project in the pipeline and we've heard rumblings about it. Um I've tried to to do that to reach out and be proactive, but that's also there's too many things coming at us at at a high frequency. But to um me your point, being able to have more work sessions, I'm all in support of that because I
think that's more helpful for us to have um more open discussion more frequently and I think these issues will get hashed out and be a little bit more transparent to the public, but also to us as well. >> Yeah, it really feels [clears throat] like the quantity of information that's
being given to us has greatly reduced. And so I have been I've actually been wrestling with this for a couple months now. Um, and I don't know if it's, you know, our committee, the committee structure changed and also our committee assignments changed. So, at first I thought, well, maybe it's just I'm not
on that committee anymore. So, you know, I don't get that that information. I'm getting other information from different committees. But what I noticed is our committees don't seem to be meeting as often, right? I get I it it feels to me that I'm getting more meeting cancellation notices than I am getting
of actual subcommittee meetings being held. Um, and it feels like we're not getting the volume of information that we used to get. So, I don't know if a decision's been made to pair down what we get. I don't, but there's definitely a a different tenor when it comes to the
way and the amount of information that this council is getting. Um, and I know you were gone, but you were certainly here when we um when this group got elected and you lived through uh what we put your predecessor through when it came to information and how we wanted it
and and it became very clear that this council u is a little more involved than our previous iterations and it just doesn't feel like we're getting that. I do feel like I'm flying blind and I don't even necessarily mean specific projects in my district. Although I mean
I agree with Macy. I think staff does a pretty good job of proactively reaching out and say I want to brief you on any myriad of things to the point where I'm not upset when there's something that they have forgot to brief or like if there's a project that they didn't necessarily brief me on um that happens
so infrequently that it's not the norm. So, it's not like, hey, what's going on? But, um, I think we do need some better, more formalized information coming because it it I don't feel like I have as good a handle on what's happening in
the city as I once did. >> I understand. I think we we are trying to we are we were struggling with the committee piece, right? So, is this a committee or is this a full council item, right? because I've heard from different folks and when something's gone to a committee they're upset that
it should have gone to the whole council and so it kind of goes back and forth but I think that's part of the idea of and so I don't know that there's been any there's not a mandate to say provide less information it's just how things have rolled out right and um I think the
idea going forward was the thought that I had was to have more things go to the committee so there'll be more committee meetings but ensure that the all the council members ers. Um, even though it's in the packet, not everybody looks at it if you're if you don't have the time, but make sure that you get a
special communication that says these are the items on these committee meetings so that if you are interested in that item so that when it comes to the full council and it's pretty baked because the committee gave us a lot of feedback that you don't feel like you didn't have a chance to to provide input along the
way. That's that's the struggle, right? On on one side or the other. >> Yeah. I think >> I'd like to see us get everything For example, the thing that came up on registered sex offenders, it went to the committee and we didn't know anything about it and we got a briefing in
council and my district I felt like was targeted one of the examples. I heard you and that's that's one of the examples of of that went to the committee and went through that process. It was in the packets that everybody received that it
was going there. And so I just think staff's gonna own up and we're going to make sure that you get that you get that the information, you know, it's not just a part of a big packet that you get a special email with a communication that says these are the items.
>> One thing Macy made a point that is true that staff is living and breathing a lot of this all day. You also have a very busy council um outside of this job. All of us are busy >> and the the way we are communicated with is inconsistent, right? And all of us
have examples of that. Maybe it's a phone call from a department head, maybe it's an email, maybe it's a team's chat, maybe it's a text message, maybe all those things. And that can be really overwhelming for those of us that are trying to operate at a high level. Back to the our we can joke about the Dropbox, Chris, but um you know, it's
not in Dropbox or we don't all have it in there. The presentations are late and we we it's probably not our responsibility to figure out that problem. It really is management to say this is the way we're going to communicate going forward and build a system that works for this entire
council that creates more consistency because I'm not convinced honestly an email is going to work necessarily because we've already had issues before. It's like you didn't email D9 but you didn't email Elizabeth directly or that's too damn confusing. So how do you eliminate that too? And I I don't think we have to solve that problem today. I
think we just have to state the state that there's an issue and we all need to get better at it. And to [snorts] Elizabeth's point and um well most everybody that's spoken uh some consistency too I would say just down the chain a culture of if you're meeting or talking with someone that might affect us in some way that it
shouldn't perk up because we find out about it accidentally. I'll use the golf course as the example right seem to be conversations that were happening or met with people etc. Um, and then I'm walking into a situation, back to the point that someone made earlier, like you don't want to say you don't know anything, but if someone does know
something, just some communication and a culture of like, hey, this happened, this meeting happened, so we know what's happening. >> Give the council member, >> we're not trying to direct or whatever, but maybe we've got some backtory information about what the other part of it, the political side that we're supposed to be our our ear to the ground. That might be helpful too to
stop things from going down roads that they probably don't need to and save time too for us. >> Understood. No, that's true. >> Council, go ahead. >> One more thing to add and uh and I agree with the comments already made. >> You know, given the time that I've
served on council, I've had the opportunity to do those formative, you know, relationships with staff. So, much of that communication for me is facilitated because I know who to go to. However, lately, you know, we have staff changes and sometimes I find out on the tail end that it happened. I mean, I've been in
meetings and I'm referring to a staff member, then I hear, "Oh, they're no longer with the city." I'm like, "No one told me." So, it becomes a little difficult to uh uh to reestablish those uh communication lines. So, I think maybe u review those uh processes that
inform us of those, you know, staff members that we rely on to give us, you know, that information would be helpful, too. Okay. Uh couple of practical suggestions. Number one to staff, our tendency is to
assume that the end of the agenda item is when seven hands or however many six hands go in the air. The agenda item doesn't end until the elected officials go to the theoretical Dairy Queen the
next morning and explain why they voted the way they voted. When you've got a agenda packet like this, the greatest trap is for the council members who trust the
staff the most because you tend to not really you go, I don't need to read all 200 pages of that. I trust staff. And then you go to the Dairy Queen and somebody goes, well, why did you vote for this? And your only real answer is because I trust staff. And that is not a
good answer. So part of what you need to do as staff, one of the things I did as a city manager, my ex-wife's name was Cynthia, college degree, you know, normal intelligence, no local government background, and all of my what what did
I say? >> Normal. >> Oh, well, I just meant you figure out why she's YOUR EXPERT. [laughter] >> MY MY POINT MY POINT BEING that there was no particular background, expertise, whatever. And what what I had staff do
is develop a C. We didn't put it formally on that, but a Cynthia report. And what I said is every agenda item had to have a one-page Cynthia report that with her no local government background, no special expertise, etc. that she
could take and read that one-page report and understand the basics. So, one of the things that I found that works is attaching that kind of a onepager with all of the other stuff because the
greatest frustration of staff is one of you wants 500 pages and one of you wants one page and trying to figure out that balance is a real. So, so kind of coupling those is one strategy. A second strategy
is that and and and that one pager needs to be designed for the Dairy Queen conversation. That one pager needs to give the the council member the talking points to answer the question, why did you vote for this? The second strategy
that I found that works really well, and this is really mainly for Jay, is a Friday memo. What I actually did as a city manager is I kept an open email all week long and was just [clears throat]
adding bullets to it. My my practice was it was no more than two sentences on any one item. It moved the responsibility to the council to say let let's just use a staff change. this
department head has, you know, heads up, this department head is no longer with us and the comm if I don't want to pick a department head because then I'm going to start rumors and everybody's going to panic. Um, but but a particular department head has left and somebody on the committee that works with that
department doesn't want to get surprised. They may have questions that somebody who's on the audit committee doesn't have. And so what a well done Friday memo can do is put the burden on the council to go it's my responsibility
to say I need more information about this now particularly with a Friday memo it needs to be sort of at least two major sections one is current issues which may to it was either Michael or Allen's point you know that I had a
conversation with this person heads up you may get a phone call kind of thing on this this issue. The second session section though is the longer term. That's an easy place to say, hey, we've been working on a policy on uh uh
dangerous dog policy or whatever it is. It's not the place to provide all of the information, but it's the place to say Deborah really, really cares about this subject. she knows the conversation is going on, so she can reach out, schedule
time to say, "Hey, give me a heads up. Where are you headed?" etc. And then this one is going to get way out there and may be beyond any of your comfort zones. There's one city I know of that the city
manager is now using an AI agent to predict the questions that each of the council members are going to ask. And what they've done is they've uploaded the council members campaign materials, bio,
etc. And and it's and and it then the city manager actually has of going >> I will I will make chaos J Choa. I promise you [laughter] I will go out of my way to ask questions. >> Like I said, you may not be comfortable with that.
>> Try it. >> I'M NOT advocating that one. I haven't had experience, but it is something that's going on out there. Now, >> a personality said, "Don't try to predict me." [laughter] There's three of you.
But but even absent a tool like that, part of the challenge, and this goes back to the lubricant salesman, part of the challenge for staff is actually begin to up your game in trying to anticipate what are those questions that are going
to come. You know that Allen with his profile is really going to have some different kinds of questions than the mayor is going to have with her profile. And it's not about providing different information, but it's anticipating that.
But it's really got to work in tandem. Staff's got to up their game on anticipation, but the council has to up their game on telegraphing to staff, hey, I'm going to have these questions. And the reality is the earlier notice that council has that a topic is going
to be coming, council, if you get earlier notice, telegraph earlier. Here's what my questions are g and it may be it may be that Jay literally says we're going to start a study on a dog park and it may be a year-long study
process. The earlier you provide feedback to him that says these are questions I'm going to have or this is data that I'm going to want to be able to make a good decision with it. the better job staff can do getting you what
you need. Okay, my time is way beyond what I was asked to wrap up at. Any closing questions, comments, rocks? >> Um, I have a request from Jay for Jay. Um, and since we're still on the good governance topic, I think it would be
helpful for council to if we did trainings on how to run appropriate meetings, um, committee meetings, um, especially being able to support mayor during public comment and help make sure that we're promoting civility with not just the audience, but among ourselves. But I think giving us tools that we can
actually use would be very helpful. Well, I was going to ask the the council, would you all be willing to have another retreat just specifically to talk about a governance >> process and policy? >> Absolutely. >> No, not eight hours.
>> Would suggest a book. Uh Bob Widner is a longtime city attorney in Colorado. I don't remember which city, but he's written a book. What one of the traps you run into is trying to adopt Robert's rules of order, which is way too
complex. What he's really done is a Robert's light. And the National Civic League, I think it is, also published sort of a Robert's light. They call it something different. But those are a couple of resources that can give you a good place to begin thinking. What
matters is not what the rules are. What matters is what you agree the rules are, >> right? So, should we shoot January or February? >> February. >> February. Okay. >> Okay. Just [laughter] >> You see, I didn't ask February or March.
[laughter] >> No, just Ron, I like your idea about summaries, especially for those um committee meetings. And like uh Councilwoman Book said, you know, I've noticed a lot of cancellations, but you know, I and not to be negative, but I'm going to rely more on my staff to attend
those uh or at least watch those committee meetings so I can be briefed and um because I don't feel like I'm following those close enough and then that comes to council and I'm not prepared. And just working on myself and identifying how I'd like to receive information. I'll share that with you when I decide how I like that.
>> Wait. So within staff, I am working on having a a weekly update to council and so we're just trying to figure out what the format is and what what all would be. But this helped this conversation helping type of information you want. >> Ron, thank you. It's always great to see you. Great job.
>> Thank y'all so much. And all I want you to hear me in I mean we we haven't pulled any punches and all of that sort of stuff. you are in the best position you can imagine because while you're in pain, you're in agreement. We want to move
forward. We want to get beyond that. That is the single biggest hurdle. So, you're you're actually in a great great situation. I don't want you to miss that. Thank you'all for letting us be a part of this today. >> Appreciate you. >> Council, we're going to keep rolling. You can get up into his restroom or use a phone call if you need to, but Jay is our last presentation.
>> Yes. And this won't be long. Okay. Gina short. >> Who Who's getting up? Are we going to lose quorum? >> Three minutes. Go for it. Yeah. Three minute break. >> We want short. >> We want This is one of the
Okay, Jay, I think you can get started. Yes. >> Ready whenever you are. >> Go for it. >> So, the length of this presentation will be proportional to the amount of questions you ask. >> Okay. >> So, [laughter] >> yeah. Yeah. >> Uh, so typically, as I mentioned earlier, we uh
>> staff, we're going to get started. Sorry, y'all got to stop talking. T typically uh this pres this uh retreat is done in February and so part of the overall retreat usually has this kind of indepth uh population a lot of data about the
city but that information is not available yet. It actually comes out later this month or around this time this month and staff has a time to compile everything and make it part of that presentation. So we'll we'll do that in the future maybe at a when we start the budget process. Um, so this is
really strictly kind of tied to to a little bit of information. It's not very long and at the end of the the presentation, the idea is to provide you kind of a 50,000 view very macro of what the next seven years general fund budget
uh is looking at as we go forward. So we do, as everybody knows, we are now the 10th largest city in the country. And uh we just wanted to show you just to remind you how quickly you see this all the time but how quickly the city is growing and as we continue to move forward according to COG there's no
reason why we're not going to continue growing uh based on how uh the demographics are going and so you know we roughly could be 1.3 million people by 2050. So that's a short 25 years from now. And when you look at where those people
are moving to in Fort Worth, you know, between 2010 and and 2020, you see the darkest green areas uh show where people moved. We did, I think, do a good job in infilling some of this central city. You see that dark green uh there and the
darker shades of green in the central city. But as we move forward, uh you can see that really a lot of those areas are built out. Every time I talk to developers when they have significant issues uh in the inner city, it's because those are the hardest places to
to actually um build things out because there's either the already built conditions or because nobody built there before because of the slope or the drainage or whatever the issues are. So most of the growth in the next 25 years is going to the the edges of town. You
see where the dark green is? Most of the population growth We've also done a pretty good job, I think. I mean, the percentage wise, we've done a great job on the job side, but really we are still not swinging the size of bucket we should for the size of
the city of the number of jobs in Fort Worth. Uh we've grown 31% and this is a comparison with the other large cities in the in the state, which is huge. Only Austin has has grown faster on the job side. So, we've done a good job doing that. But long term, I think Fort Worth
for us to be uh a place where people you can cut down commuting times, you can people can live in Fort Worth and work in Fort Worth, we need to continue that kind of job growth. Uh you see, Austin is smaller than us. They have uh almost not quite twice as many, but about uh
80% more jobs than we do overall in Austin. Um and if you look at um what is it? San Antonio. So San Antonio is a lot larger than us and Austin has more than them. So they're Austin's, you know, because of UT and because of all the
tech jobs that have shown up there, they've really gr grown, but we should be closer to the the numbers associated with San Antonio and Dallas in the long term. And so that's going to be a goal as we go forward. We had the conversation about affordable
housing and you can see here that u our median home value has g has grown considerably. Uh 2023 was nearly 300,000. Um and as was mentioned a lot of the new housing is that's coming
online is 400,000 plus. It's hard to find new housing that's that's less than that on the single family side. We did see a a decrease in single family homes on the appraisal side. Uh but that I'm going to be t talking about that that's
really more tied to uh Tarant County and the fact that re residential housing or single family residential was not reappraised and there's actually uh folks actually um protested. So it lowered the overall values as we went
on. So looking at the economy, you know, there's several factors. I think everybody here understands the different factors that impact the the economy. Uh inflation being one. Uh for the city, it means that when we have inflation, uh
that's low, you know, you you it has an impact on the amount of revenues because you're not people aren't spending as much and so we're not getting as many revenues. But when you it's converse you can also have people spending less when the inflation's high which also impacts
uh revenues on the other side. High inflation though does I think impacts the city worse when it comes to cost of actual delivering services especially when it comes to capital and we saw that after co co with the huge increase in costs where several projects that we put
in the 22 bond program coming short once you actually got the bids out. Um the DFW area has been lower than the national average the last few years when it comes to inflation. You can see uh
before earlier right out of inflation we were actually higher. Interest rates also impact how we do things. um as a you know my long term at the city. One of the things I've always advocated for whenever we've had severe
uh reductions in interest rates is to as much as possible try to get the city council to issue more debt to do more projects. Uh because you get the bigger bang for the buck with the interest rates being low and you're able to stretch that out if we could afford it.
And um the the problem with interest rates being too high or too low is that it impacts how us as citizens, us as individuals, our whole population react and work in the economy. If it's too high, then people are not buying homes.
Um they're not moving forward with those kind of things. They're not they're not the economy isn't turning as much. when it's too low, then people have a tendency of it drives up housing costs. And again, [snorts] the affordability uh
piece comes into play. And so, uh having a a stable interest rates kind of in the middle, what's being targeted by the Feds uh is really where I think works best for the economy overall. So
when we look at our our general fund budget as we go forward, the the general fund budget is really driven uh by the property tax side and sales tax. And if you look at at our property tax, this is the traditional for the last several
years, uh David Cook would show that we needed to do better of closing the gap between commercial and residential. Uh we're too There's too much value up on the residential side, not enough coming from the commercial side. And this is what you've always seen the last couple of
years. You've seen the residential come down and commercial come up. I think it's a combination of uh the city um the city's work for economic development to bring in commercial on the one hand, but it's also an impact of the TAD values going down this last year on the
residential side. So this combination of those two have shown a little bit of movement and I always always have this conversation with my predecessor in that I always thought multif family residential is more commercial than it is residential and uh so I had staff pull out the
multif family side um and you can see when you take the multif family side that's 10% of the values of the and there there's also since I've been here in the mid 90s and folks uh citizens and sometimes council members don't want
additional multif family. You can see at least in the last seven years, but this goes back to the '9s, we've never been more than about 10% multif family across the whole city. And so, uh even though it seems like there's a lot more, there is a lot more, but
there's a lot more residential. So proportionately, we've never really gotten there's never really been a separation or a growth of that of that number. But >> yeah, I just I know that's what I was just about to say. Just caveat, if we
could work with u our engagement team to really push that because I know one thing that we all hear >> incessantly is we're building too many apartments. We're building too many we have too we're we're not building anything else. And I'm actually really
shocked by this um graph and I think our residents would be too. >> Well, and so people don't realize especially people depending on what part of town they live on, they don't go to the other side of the the other side of the city and see the just acres and acres of rooftop single family that have been bu built at the same time. So that
combination uh it's really kept us at that level around 10%. I'm going to have staff to take this back to the 90s cuz I remember actually being a budget analyst and presenting that like in the mid '9s and it was Chuck Silox at the time if you know Chuck Silox uh didn't want any
more apartments and we were at about 9% is what I recall. >> Yeah. Interesting. >> Alan, did you have a question? Um so really when you look at the the numbers if you were to say to me
apartments are business, right? and and so if you would say that's commercial more than residential, then we're really closer to a 50/50 uh on the on the commercial versus residential. But I think separating it this way really provides a a cleaner picture of the the type of values that
we have overall. Any questions on that? [laughter] Jay, uh, but on that graph right there, does that include tax exempt properties >> when you're dealing with multif family? >> It's everything on the tax roles, so that they're not
>> Okay. Just want to be sure >> aren't on the tax roles. >> Thank you. So, looking at at property tax overall, which is the biggest uh revenue source for the city, as I mentioned, uh TAD did not reappraise residential properties
this past year. Um, and their their plan is to not is a three well, it's a two-year appraise every two years, but or every three years, but the first plan, the first year was just to stay status quo. So, it's really going to be
3 years before they actually reappraise. Um, and and so the idea was to provide relief to the home owners. And so there was because people could still protest and so the values went down. Um 93% of
our values come from um um TAD from Terran Appraisal District. So the other we're in five counties but the other counties combined are only 7% of the value um for our our overall properties. Um
so as I mentioned the property residential values were frozen in 2026. The bianual reappraisals will start in for 2028 FY28. So the it won't be reappraised again until the January 2027.
Uh there was a law that was passed or in a bill that was passed there was a line in there that said that uh that said that January 1st needed to be reappraisals but it didn't specify annually and so TAD is not changing the
way they're they're moving forward. Um, as you recall when I came in on board and we started talking about the budget, we were predicting having a reduction of the overall values and having to cut at the time, uh, and we ended up coming actually above what we thought we were
going to have and that was really tied to commercial valuations. commercial re valuations went up. Um, and so actually allowed us to be able to not have to cut a a tremendous amount of of programs or
or uh dollars and we were able to bring in MedStar and additional other public mostly public safety related um programs on board as well as add capital money to the maintenance side of transportation
public works. But as we look forward knowing that um this reappraisal program is still going to be in place where we're not going to have residential reappraised and you look at what's
happened with the the last state legislative process. We did um excuse [clears throat] me have House Bill Nine which basically took uh business personal property exemptions from $2,500 for businesses to $125,000.
That impact to the city is that existing business personal property is wiped off the tax roles at that level and it's going to be an estimated about $6 million hits to our budget. So that just from start off, if if nothing changes, exact same values, we have no growth or
whatsoever, there's a $6 million reduction in in our um in our actual um income. The the reappraisal process I me I mentioned that the law that was passed that said they had to be reappraised
January 1st, it didn't specify annually. And so my understanding is they still plan not to reappraise. And so we can expect uh residential property unless we had a lot of come on board probably be flat if not uh reductions again uh since
since people will be able to protest their existing values that are on board. As you look forward, the governor put out a um his his uh he just announced that he was going to run again and his platform is primarily around
property tax relief overall. And so these are the items that that he's put out there that uh in a couple years as we look at this seven-year forecast that we had to potentially, you know, think about some of these items being
approved. Uh one is that instead of appraising every two years after the 2027 that it would be every 5 years. So residential properties wouldn't be appraised until every 5 years. So, you're going to see a stagnant value
there. Um, that the cap on appraisal growth from one year to the next, currently 10%. So, if your house goes up in value, the appraisal amount can only go up 10% when it comes to actually
taxing your home, it would only be 3%. So, we did, even though there was an appraisals this this last time, houses that were that had a higher value than the 10% cap or that could move in the 10% cap, we did gain some of that value. In the future, it would only be 3%
potentially. Um, on the local spending side, uh, for us, we currently have a 3 and a half% gap uh, cap on existing revenue. So existing values, revenues that come up from the existing value.
The proposal is to have inflation plus population growth or three and a half% as a cap for all revenue, not just existing. So even this past year we had overall the the budget grew by 5.4%
because we added our existing plus our commercial our commercial growth. The growth on the commercial side or the new growth, it wouldn't matter. It would be together it's three and a half or population growth plus infl in inflation. Inflation last year was 1.9%, our population
growth was about 1.1. So you would be at 3% and that would be our revenue side for property taxes would be 3% growth. If you want to go above that as city council, you'd have to go to an election of the of the citizenry and a supermajority would have to approve
that. And then the last one is there is a proposal to eliminate all property taxes for the ISDs. I don't know how that would work and it doesn't mention how it would be what would substitute for that. The good news is FIFA [laughter]
um for this coming year. We're is I think when we did the the um we did our budget, we projected our sales tax just based on the things that we knew. So, we're hoping to see the bump in FIFA uh activity on the sales tax side and uh
it's predicted to have almost four million visitors to the Metroplex uh because of the of the uh FIFA uh soccer in I was going to say Arlington, but in Dallas stadium. Um the estimate overall for the direct impact
to the the area is you know there's a huge range there of 160 to 600 million. uh but consulting that's how they make money, right? They're never wrong. And then on the on the DFW's uh overall uh the [clears throat] overall project impact just indirectly and everything
tied in as a dollars recirculated is 2.1 billion as when you look at that we have the opportunity if especially if we land a um a team at TCU. So TCU is one of the potential sites uh host sites for one of
the nations. If we land at TCU, I think the impact uh will be significant because all of the fans from that >> from that nation will end up wanting to be close and we'll congregate in this area. >> So when when will we know that whether
TCU gets the site? I believe uh the 1 of March or late February is when the come in. >> Well, there's there's like eight locations and there's I believe six teams. So, there's a couple that may not hopefully we have
one there. >> Yeah, we feel good about that. >> Yeah. So here's the forecast looking out seven years based on all the data that we have currently >> and um making the ins the assumption
that we would move forward with our our pay study plan uh and compression as that we had outlined to the city council the increases in group health that we're projecting and the uh EMS subsidies continuing
um along with the 22 to 2022 bond project operating costs are the only things that we've put in there along with the normal growth uh to come up with these projections. So this year we're intending to be uh balanced. Of
course in the state of Texas uh every you can't adopt a budget that's not balanced. So even you'll see as you go forward those numbers grow but uh you see the bottom line shows you the growth or the negative number or growth uh
every year assuming a balanced budget was achieved. So, at the end of 7 years, if nothing changes, um, and no other additions were made other than the ones that I mentioned, we'd be about $68 million to the negative over that 7-year
period. Of course, we have to balance the budget every year. So, if that was the case, we're nearly $39.5 million. Uh, as Christian mentioned earlier, uh, almost $40 million to the negative now. So staff would be as we go through the process, staff with council will be
working to figure out um how we'll balance that. Of course, this is early, it's macro, it's big numbers. We'll start getting more information as we go through the year. Um and we'll be bringing potential solutions both on reducing the budget and hopefully
ability to raise revenues on the other side. Um but the fact that we are looking at those headwinds on the appraisal side and uh potentially in the state further down the road um the some
of the you know local preeemption things that are going on. Uh we're we're going to be looking I think and I'm not the only I meet with city managers every once in a while. In fact, in fact, uh, Ron puts a group of us from the Metroplex together every quarter. Um,
and everybody's facing the same thing. So, this is not a Fort Worth specific issue. It's a statewide issue for local governments, uh, as we move forward. So, with that said, I think, you know, the mayor and I, it was just eerie or
odd. We had a conversation about looking out and she made made the we were talking about potential shortfalls and we talked about the $40 million number. That was about a a month ago without having any data. Staff puts together this uh the this overall projection and
it's right at $40 million. Um if you recall last year we added basically $40 million. That was the 20 million or so for EMS. uh an additional about 16 million for police and fire pay um and
then the about four million that was tied to um uh PGO capital. So it's ironic that the number so close to that number that we did add to the overall budget overall. But with that I'd take any questions or concerns or thoughts or
>> comments or questions from council >> ideas for bake sales. >> Council member Bllelock. So Jay, could you explain I understand how the net position is calculated. How does the shortfall to balance budget, how is that calculated? It's just
assuming that going from 20 in 2027 that we would come up with a way if the if the total revenue and total expension numbers are correct, then assuming that that we got that down to zero,
right? We would have uh we would have the shortfall the next year of about $8 million. It does correlate to the numbers above, but it it's how much less you're going to have every year as you go forward with the same assumptions down here. >> Anyone else?
>> Of course, we know that we're we just started the process with uh the 440 on the renegotiation the fire contract. So, you know, we know there's some things that are not going to be static. Uh but again, this is a 50,000 foot view just to give us the overall perspective.
Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay, it says closing remarks. Is Ron closing us out? Is that the plan or no? He's looking at me like he's surprised. So, I don't think that's the case. >> Um >> I think he I think he was I think he was just going to say Miller time or something.
>> Miller time. >> All I'll say is don't screw up and miss how good you really have it. It always feels worse in the middle of it. When you come from our perspective of dealing with folks all over the nation, y'all
actually are in a great situation. You have the right foundation in place. Don't miss that because we focused on the challenges because that's the only way you get better. But y'all really are in a great situation. Have a wonderful Christmas.
>> Well said. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to everybody here. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> [clears throat]