Council Meeting Preview – January 10, 2012
I am a bit of a political junky, so I am bummed about missing coverage of the New Hampshire Republican Primary on Tuesday night – but there is much city work to do at this first City Council meeting of 2012. We convene in a Work Session at 2:30pm before our Regular Meeting at 6:30pm in Council Chambers – both are open to the public. There is much that might interest you at this meeting. Check out the agenda here and see my highlights below…
NAMING POLICY FOR CITY BUILDINGS, FACILITIES, AND LAND
You might recall a proposal from the Denton LULAC chapter to add Roland Vela’s name to South Lakes Park – read the story here. In addition to being Denton’s first Hispanic City Council member, Dr. Vela is an internationally-acclaimed Biology academic. The proposal was denied by the Parks Board late last year, sparking much controversy. During the process, several city staff members and city council members pointed to the lack of clarity in the current policy of naming civic institutions and the need to draft a new one. We will be hearing more about a proposal to do just that. Whatever comes of that or this specific proposal, one thing is clear: we need to work together with the Hispanic community to find ways of honoring and promoting pride for this wonderful cultural heritage.
SMOKING BAN IN DENTON?
The City Council has been lobbied heavily as of late with requests to consider a smoking ban in Denton. At Tuesday’s meeting we will be receiving initial information on the background, history, and options associated with this request. As we move forward with investigating this policy, I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter. What do you think?
MORE TRANSMISSION LINE CONVERSATIONS
The long discussion about the placement of the new high-power transmission lines just might be coming to and end after a long community discussion that began in the summer. Citizen involvement has been robust on this issue, causing DME and the council to consider many alternative options. To catch up on the latest, go here.
CONTROVERSIAL GAS WELL APPLICATIONS
Although the city is in the midst of a re-write of our Gas Well ordinances, requests for various types of natural gas activity continue to come before us. This puts the council in a difficult position of deciding on new applications for gas well activity prior to the advent of newer, hypothetically stronger, regulations. Several of you have advocated a moratorium on all new gas well applications until the new ordinance is in place. One of the applications is for a SUP for natural gas storage on a piece of land on East McKinney (a place to store gas underground that has been retrieved elsewhere, not for the drilling of new gas). Another application is for a SUP for two existing wells directly across the street from the new UNT Apogee Stadium. This is causing a flurry of controversy due to the fact that they wells were originally drilled several years ago and have been operating ever since without a city permit. There’s plenty of complexity to this request and this issue, but if you are interested in this topic, the discussion tomorrow night is a good place to receive an education.
PILOTING AN iPAD
The City is exploring the option of phasing out big, expensive laptops and replacing them with smaller, cheaper iPads for use by the City Council. Each meeting involves hundreds and hundreds of pages of materials – the goal is to find an efficient, technological solution that helps the city in its path toward greater sustainability practices. Toward that end, I’ll be piloting some of this new technology and helping work out the kinks before encouraging its use to some of my more Luddite colleagues 
As always, let me know what you think – kevin.roden@cityofdenton.com