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03-E Hist Pres.Comm. (10/14/02)MINUTES (TRANSCRIPT) HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2002 CITY OF PARIS, TEXAS HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION: Arvin W. Starrett Paul Denny Jerry Raper Sue Lancaster (came in late) Members not in attendance were: Linda Ryan Ann Rogers Claudia Hunt Becki Norment (alternate) Barbara Wilson (alternate) Also in attendance were: Michael E. Malone, City Manager; Larry W. Schenk, City Attorney; John D. Lestock, Asst. City Attorney; Terry Townsend, Director of Public Works; Tommy Haynes, Director of Community Development; Shawn Napier, City Engineer; Steve Methven, Chief Building Official; Maria Pope, Main Street Manager; Mattie Cunningham, City Clerk. BUII,DING AND STANDARDS COMMISSION: Brad Archer Chad Brown Mary Crumpler Vic Ressler (alternate) Members not in attendance were: Lucius Joe Jr. Harrell Tippett Billy Hill (alternate) MAIN STREET ADVISORY BOARD (no quorum) Suzy Harper Linda Su Suarez Members not in attendance were: Mary Ann Chalaire David House Lisa Spann Karen Wilkerson Tommy Robinson Pike Burkhart (alternate) Mark Rothfuss Ward Hall (alternate) Linda Ryan Zack Saffle (came in late) Patsy Davis Bill Payne Barbara Wilson Mr. Malone: As you all know this will be the first meeting, the organizaitional meeting, of the Buildings and Standards Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission. Also meeting with you today are representatives of the Main Street Advisory Board. The purpose is to get everyone sworn in; to elect officers of the respective commissions; and to get some orientation and to discuss the goals and obj ectives and the visions and staff would answer any questions. First of all , I want again, I am Michael Malone, City Manager. Over here is Larry Schenk, our City Attorney. Assistant City Attorney, John Lestock, is here. Tommy Haynes, Director of Community Development, he will be the person who will work October 14, 2002 Page 2 of 35 with the two new boards or two new commissions. Terry Townsend is the Director of Public Works and works with the Main Street Advisory Board as does Maria Pope who is right here. Shawn Napier is our City Engineer and he is with us today. Steve Methven, our Chief Building Official, and he works with Mr. Haynes in the Department of Community Development. We have a combined agenda. Each of you have a different heading but all of the agendas are the same. Our City Clerk, Mattie Cunningham, that you all met when you came in, is back in the back. Mattie has sworn everyone in except the two people that are just coming in. Zack Saffle from the Main Street Board came in and Sue Lancaster who is on the Historic Preservation Commission has also just come in. General discussion about who the two people represent. Mr. Schenk: If you are on a board or commission it would probably be better if you could join us here and put a name tag on. Mr. Malone: Of course the first item of business would be to call the meeting to order. So I am calling to order the meeting of the Main Street Advisory Board, the Historic Preservation Commission and the Building and Standards Commission. Item number three is election of officers of the Building and Standards Commission and that would be an item of only those members of that commission to vote on. You will need to nominate a person. We will need a chairman, is that right. Mr. Schenk: A chairman, a vice chairman and I would suggest a recording secretary. Mr. Malone: A chairman, a vice chairman, and a recording secretary. I will go over the names of those who are members of the Building and Standards Commission: Brad Archer will you stand please so everybody will know who you are. I am sure you all know one another. Chad Brown will you please stand. Mary Crumpler right here. Lucius Joe Jr. is absent today. Tommy Robinson is absent today. Mark Rothfus is also absent today. Harrell Tippitt right here. I think it would be appropriate for you folks to nominate someone to be your chairman, and have a vote on that. That would be the four who are present. Mr. Haynes: Alternates can participate. Mr. Schenk: Alternates can participate. We used to follow an the old rule of thumb that if you don't show up for the meeting you will probably get elected to an office. October 14, 2002 Page 3 of 35 Mr. Malone: The two alternates that are present are Ward Hall and Pike Burkhart. So they may participate. So do I hear any nominations for the office of Chairman for the Building and Standards Commission. Mr. Schenk: The only problem is that the alternates cannot stand as officers and can't participate in the vote. Mr. Malone: Do we have a nomination for Chairman? We need someone to chair the meeting. Mr. Schenk: Don't all speak up at once. Mr. Malone: Don't all volunteer at the same time. Woman: This is just a suggestion. Is it possible for them to just sit and talk to each other for ten minutes. I don't think these people have ever gotten together. Mr. Schenk: No. They could talk here but they cannot have a separate special meeting. Woman: It is just haven't met each other Larry, that's all. Mr. Schenk: Oh I know and understood. Woman: This is a little different. General discussion among several people. Mr. Malone: I believe that an alternate can nominate somebody. Mr. Haynes: Larry, can alternates nominate someone? Mr. Schenk: Sure Man: I will nominate Mary Crumpler as Chairman. Mr. Malone: We have a nomination for Mary Crumpler. This is Mary right here. Ms. Crumpler:I'm sorry, what? General laughter and conversation. Ms. Crumpler: I don't even, what does the vice-chairman and I know what the recording secretary does. Mr. Schenk: The chair conducts the meeting. The secretary has to take the minutes. October 14, 2002 Page 4 of 35 Ms. Crumpler: Right. I nominate Chad Brown. Mr. Malone: We have two nominations. Mary Crumpler has been nominated for chairman and Chad Brown has been nominated. Are there further nominations? Ms. Crumpler: I want to nominate.... Mr. Malone: You just want to withdraw your name. Is that what you want to do. Laughter of the group and discussion. Mr. Malone: Chad Brown is our nominee then. Further nominations, further nominations, further nominations. Man: Who are the two who are not present today? Mr. Malone: Lucius Joe and Tommy Robinson Man: I nominate Mary as vice chairman Mr. Malone: Let's take a vote on the chairman first and then we will Mr. Schenk: The chairman will have to run the meeting. Mr. Malone: That's right. All those in favor of Chad Brown as chairman of the Building and Standards Commission signify by saying "aye." And that would be voting members. All opposed same sign. Ayes have it. Chad you can conduct the election for vice chairman and recording secretary if you would like. Mr. Brown: Do I have any nominations for vice-chairman? Man: Mary Crumpler. Mr. Brown: Mary Crumpler has been nominated. Anybody else. Everyone in favor raise their hands. Looks like Mary's got it. Mr. Malone: And Recording Secretary Mr. Brown: Recording Secretary. Any nominations? Woman Brad Archer. Man: I nominate Brad Archer. October 14, 2002 Page 5 of 35 Mr. Brown: Anybody else? Show of hands. Brad Archer is chosen unanimously. Mr. Malone: Mr. Chairman the next item on the agenda that relates to the Building and Standards Commission would be discussion, consideration of and action on establishing regular meeting dates for the Building and Standards Commission. I believe that this Commission is designed to meet at least monthly. Is that correct? Mr. Haynes: Right. Mr. Malone: Meets monthly. We will be talking a little more about the ordinances that established this commission and the types of things this commission will be doing. One of the things that will be coming before the commission would be Code Inspectors will be presenting you information about dilapidated buildings that we wish to remove. And we are not budgeting overtime so we would suggest that hopefully, this is going to be quite a legal type of experience. When we take action against property like that it is a very serious matter. And so we will be bringing photographs and other information. We will be sending out notices and having public hearings and things of that nature. So our suggestion would be to have the meeting sometime in the afternoon if at all possible. Now that is not to say that we can't have meetings at night, but it is going to cause the City some problem with our overtime to do that because we have not budgeted any additional money for overtime or for mailings or any of that type of thing. We have a very tight budget this year. But we recognize that all of you are serving voluntarily and that it is certainly a monthly meeting or from time to time additional meetings would be an additional imposition on you and it might be due to your jobs and careers that it might be appropriate to meet in the evenings. Chad Brown: How much time do you anticipate for a meeting to take? Mr. Malone: I guess that would depend on how much information is on the agenda. How many houses that we would be dealing with or other matters and of course having public heaxings. As Chairman you would conduct the meeting and put the limitations on the folks as far as how long they can speak. I would anticipate that the information that the staff presents would be in the form of pictures and narratives and they would be there to answer questions. You would have that ahead of time and you would be able to go and look at properties ahead of time. So I think the important thing when you have hearings have some public input but that can be anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes or whatever you think is appropriate in a particular instance depending on the scope of the property. Mr. Schenk: I say that you had better plan on two hours per meeting, at least. Chad Brown: Okay. October 14, 2002 Page 6 of 35 Mr. Schenk: I think I would be doing you a disservice in telling you a lesser time. Some of your earlier meetings may be devoted, probably will be devoted, for the most part to setting up your procedures and adopting the rules and those kinds of things. When the cases start coming in, depending on how many you have, in a given monthly period. Of course you will have people there who will want to plead their case and want you to hear their side of the story. There may be neighbors that are involved. So it could be quite interesting. Then the meeting might last forty-five minutes. It depends. Chad Brown: Is any particular time better for anybody on our committee? Anyone have a problem with meetings in the afternoons. Man: What is the regular time for the council meeting? Mr. Malone: You mean in terms of length? Man: No, with your starting time? Mr. Malone: Council meetings start at 6:00 p.m. Man: What time of month? Mr. Malone: The second Monday of the month is our regular meeting and the Thursday following the first Monday is also a regular meeting. And then we will quite often have one or two other meetings. Sometimes more depending on what is going on. Man: All of your meetings are on Monday night? Mr. Malone: Monday and Thursday. Mr. Schenk: The Planning and Zoning meeting is also on Monday night. The first one. Man #2 I am semi-retired. I will go back to work after I leave here. I just work two days a week. So any evening or afternoon other than Tuesday or Thursday will be fine with me. Much Discussion between several men and women. Came up with Mondays at 3: 00 p.m. Mr. Malone: If you have any special meetings they can be scheduled in accordance with what the members would like. Mr. Schenk: Which Monday are we talking about? First? Second? Third? Or Fourth? Chad Brown: When is the City Council Meeting? The second? October 14, 2002 Page 7 of 35 Mr. Schenk: Second. P&Z is the first. Chad Brown and general discussion. Third Monday was decided at 3: 00 p.m. Mr. Malone: Can we have a motion, a second and action on that please. Mr. Tippett made a motion which was seconded by Mr. Archer. All approved. Mr. Malone Thank you. So that will be the third Monday at 3 o'clock and those meetings will be conducted here at the Junior College until we have our other quarters renovated. Chad Brown: Always in this room? Mr. Malone: Possibly. We will have to schedule that. It will alternate perhaps between this room. We used this room today because of the size of the group. Normally we meet at the far end of the building in Room 1216. I think 1216 is almost always available to us. Man: 1006 Mr. Malone: This is 1206 and that is 1006. We have already administered the Oath of Office to the members of the Historic Preservation Commission and so at this time we would need to elect officers of the Historic Preservation Commission. And again I will introduce those folks that are here. Under the designation of architect we have Paul Denney; Paul do you want to stand or raise your hand. Member of the Main Street Board representative is Linda Ryan. Right here. Thank you. A resident of landmark property is Claudia Hunt. Right here. A member of the local historical society is Arvin Starrett. Right here, Arvin. Member-at-large, Sue Lancaster, right over here in the corner. Member-at- large Jerry Raper is right here. Member-at-large Ann Rogers. Right here. We have one alternate here today, Becki Norment. And so Becki can .....We don't have any missing do we? Mr. Malone: Do we have any nominations? Larry what do we need? Mr. Schenk Chairman, vice chairman, recording secretary Mr. Malone: Do we have any nominations for chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission? Mr. Denney: I'd nominate Arvin Starrett Mr. Malone: Alright. We have a nomination for Arvin Starrett as chairman. Are there further nominations? Further nominations? Further nominations? October 14, 2002 Page 8 of 35 Alright all those in favor of Arvin Starrett signify by saying aye or raise your right hand. Alright. And all opposed same sign. Ayes have it and Arvin you will be the chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission. We need to elect a vice chairman. Do we have any nomination for vice chairman? Woman: I nominate Ann Rogers. Mr. Malone: We have a nomination for Ann Rogers. Are there further nominations? Further nominations? Further nominations? All those in favor of Ann Rogers. Raise your right hand. All opposed same sign. Ayes have it. Ann Rogers is our vice chairman. And recording secretary. Did we do Recording Secretary awhile ago. Brad Archer: Yes we did. Mr. Schenk: Brad Archer. Mr. Malone: I'm sorry Brad. I bet you won't forget. OK recording secretary. Do we have a nomination for recording? Mr. Starrett: Manager, due to his ability to record and archive I would nominate Paul Denney for that position. Laughter. Mr. Denney: I don't do shorthand. Mr. Malone: Alright. Are there further nominations? Further nominations? Alright. All those in favor of Paul Denney for recording secretary raise your right hand please. All opposed same sign. Ayes have it. Paul Denney is the recording secretary. So that takes us down through Item Number 6. We need item 7 a discussion, consideration of and action on establishing the regular meeting dates for the Historic Preservation Commission. What type of time do you think this will take? Mr. Schenk: About the same. Mr. Denney: Does it need to be prior to the building... Mr. Schenk: No I think after awhile Paul your sequence should get kind of. I don't think you can plan necessarily or we can meet monthly Mr. Methven: Larry, shouldn't it be the fourth? October 14, 2002 Page 9 of 35 Mr. Malone: What about having the Preservation Commission Mr. Methven: Larry, shouldn't it the be the fourth? Yes it should be carried forward. Mr. Schenk: Yes it will but then you have the time frame they have to consider to deliberate though. Mr. Methven: Oh yes Mr. Malone: Kind of a lengthy process anyway. Mr. Schenk: As long as it meets monthly, I think that is the key. Mr. Malone: Is there discussion about a date that would be preferred by the members? Mr. Denney: Not Thursday. Mr. Starrett: What would the second Tuesday be like? Mr. Denney: That is fine Woman: Second Tuesdays are fine with me because Monday's are a little difficult for me. Mr. Starrett: Second Tuesday. Paul Denney: 3 o'clock? Woman 1: Are we talking 3 to 5 Arvin? Mr. Malone: Is that in the form of a motion? Mr. Denney: I make that motion. Mr. Malone: Paul Denney moves. Second? Sue Lancaster seconds. All those in favor signify by raising your right hand. And all those opposed same sign. Ayes have it. That will be the second Tuesday from 3 to 5 and the meetings will also be held out here at Paris Junior College in one of these two rooms. I might say again that the agendas will be generated by the City. So if the chairmen feel the need to call a meeting just contact Mr. Haynes or you know any member of the staff, my secretary or myself, and we will get that lined up. But we will work on the basis of the regular meeting date that are established unless the commissions have other meetings that they feel they need to have or we will let you know if there are other matters that come up that require a meeting and we will visit with the October 14, 2002 Page 10 of 35 chairman. Our usual custom is to try to contact the members to find a date and help the chairman select date and time that is available to the most people serving. Item number 8: Orientation of the Board and Commission members. A and B we have a couple of items that are important to all boards and commissions of the City of Paris. These today are specifically geared toward the two new commissions. Those members of the Main Street Advisory Board can profit from hearing from this discussion as well because all of these do apply to our boards and commissions. And I am going to ask the City Attorney to give out some information and discuss with you the Open Meetings Act and how it relates to your respective commission or board. Mr. Schenk: I am going to try to make this a little less formal and let you sit back in your chair a moment and relax and try to enjoy this as much as you can. I have handed out, first of all this is the Attorney General's Open Meetings Handbook, 90 pages long, anyone who wants to borrow that is entitled to do that. Then he also has a publication called The Open Meetings Act Made Easy which is 18 pages long, which I also have a copy of if you want that. I have tried to give you what I think you need to know in a single page. And so what I would like to do is go over that with you very quickly. So we are dealing with Exhibit No. 1: Basic Principles of the Open Meeting Act. That is the first one we are going to talk about right now. And I will try......... Multiple discussions about who needs which copies-ordinances etc. Shuffle ofpapers. Discussion about who has what papers. The Open Meetings Act, because these two boards are boards which have authority to make decisions regarding the issuance of different kinds of permits, they are boards or commissions that will be subject to the Open Meetings Act. What I am going to try to do is to kind of hit this kind of outline given to you and then hopefully at least familiarize yourself with why we do what we do and how it has to be done. I think you received in advance an agenda for this particular meeting. That is part of this whole issue of open meetings. That is part of the state requirements for this kind of ineeting. The door is still open down there; anybody can come through because this is a public meeting and so will all of your meetings. There will be no closed sessions for either of these commissions without the approval of my office. There is not a circumstance I can envision where it would be appropriate to do that. First of all if you have a meeting, as we all know, you must have a quorum for that meeting. Can everyone hear me down at the other end? And the quorum for each of these boards is four. So you must have four members in attendance. In lieu of regular meetings, alternates can serve and still establish a quorum. But when you have a meeting of a quorum of inembers that is a meeting for purposes of the Texas Open Meetings Act. That is a state statute adopted by the legislature applicable to October 14, 2002 Page 11 of 35 both of these commissions and the city council. They are all governed by the same rules. Third there can be no closed or executive session meeting for either of these commissions without the advanced approval of my office; in which case we will describe to you some limits and circumstances in which such a meeting can be held. Item four before a Public Meeting can be held by this commission, the commission must give notice of that meeting by posting an agenda giving notice of the date, hour, place, and the subj ect matter to be considered during the meeting. Notices for these meetings, as for all the others, are posted through the City Clerk's office at our official posting board which is located in the City Hall Annex. You may have been down there an seen that as you enter through the main door of the annex there is a glass cased board. If you look up there, there are a number of public notices up there. The agenda which is posted in addition to giving due notice must be sufficiently specific to give reasonable notice of the matters to be considered and discussed by the commission. What that means is if you look at your agenda that you have for today; the first item was to call the meeting to order; the second was to do the oath; the third was to elect officers; the fourth to discuss establishing a meeting date. The desire is to have the items enumerated in that fashion so that a person coming in off the street will have a reasonable understanding of what matter is being discussed by the commissions at that time. As an example, as a minimum a Building Standards Commission agenda posting will need to include as a minimum the address of the particular property that is being discussed for action by the commission as an individual agenda item. If a matter comes up during the course of a meeting which is not covered by one of the listed topics on the agenda, that is it is not associated with something that has been on the agenda for the commission to consider, then that matter cannot be deliberated or substantively discussed at the meeting. You can't discuss if someone pops up and says I want to talk about this address over here. If it is not on your agenda, it is not appropriate for discussion. A response to such matter if it comes up, must be limited to exclusively one of three ways. A statement of factual information: Sir, we haven't finished notice to that property so it is not on our agenda tonight. Or, a recitation of the existing policy: our policy is that we post these matters 72 hours in advance and have to have a minimum of ten days notice. So I am sorry that matter cannot be discussed this evening; as an example. Or third, a direction to place the matter on an agenda for a future meeting: I am sorry sir that is not on our agenda for this evening we will have to carry that over to our next month's meeting. That is the only way that you can respond to something that is not on your agenda. All the notices of a meeting must be posted at least seventy-two hours in advance of the scheduled time of the meeting; no exceptions. And we need that information, whoever is doing the posting of course, needs that even more in advance of that time to prepare the actual agenda and have it in form. It has to be advance planning. It can't be last minute; let's add this to the agenda. I cannot think of an instance again, there is a provision in the law for emergency postings but I did not put that in here because I cannot imagine a circumstance at this point where or any of these commissions would require emergency postings and meet the statutory standard for that. Each commission must October 14, 2002 Page 12 of 35 prepare and keep minutes or make a tape recording of its meeting. As a minimum the minutes must identify the matter being discussed, by reference to the agenda and indicate each vote, order, decision or other action taken on that item. The minutes and tape recording of each meeting become public record. There are some exceptions to that on executive sessions but we won't need that. You will notice that we have a tape recorder and the microphone at the center table for this meeting. That's the reason why. We are taking minutes of this meeting today. No action may be taken on any matter not on an agenda. All actions, that is all voting, must occur publicly and during the course of the meeting. There cannot be any discussion of voting beforehand, preordained and preestablished, predetermine votes. Your vote should be based on the matter as presented during the course of your meeting. It is likewise a violation of the law for the members of the commission to meet in numbers of less than a quorum; that is three together in a coffee shop to discuss public business, business within the purview of the commission, with the intent to circumvent the intent of the Open Meetings Act which is to have all such discussions public. The purpose here is to meet, deliberate, and decide in your meeting following the posting of a duly noted, duly fulfilled, duly completed and duly filed agenda. Any action taken by the commission in violation of the law is voidable. Members of the commission who potentially circumvent the requirements of the law and or participate in an unlawful meeting are subject to criminal sanctions including fines and imprisonment. I don't know of any way to sugarcoat that. It is something that we live with day to day. That is the law in Texas. Are there any questions on the Open Meetings Act? Certainly sobered the group there. It is kind of hard to find mirth and laughter in that. Man (1) I would like a copy of that. Mr. Schenk: You don't have a copy of this? Man (1) I thought you had something different than that. Mr. Schenk: No, no, no. This is just the... Really there is not a whole lot more that is going to affect the operations of these commissions. Other than what I summarized here. Man (2) Explain to me again Number 10. Because what I got is that you couldn't discuss any of this other than in a public meeting. Mr. Schenk: I have spent considerable time with members of the Attorney General's staff, several times over many years, discussing this issue. I think that the primary purpose of that is just what I suggested to you. Two or three members.... I will give you the classic October 14, 2002 Page 13 of 35 example and then you can spin from there. The case that happened, and I cannot recall the county, but it was a situation where, and this applies to the County Commissioners Court as well, but the County Commissioners Court was in attendance at a particular seminar sort of thing. They had different hotel rooms, as you would expect, and one commissioner was going from room to room discussing something with the commissioners about something they were going to meet on after their return from their seminar; and then finding the reaction on that particular issue and then goes to the other members and say so and so says, so and so says, so and so says. And obviously the intent of that action was to circumvent the purpose of the act which is to have those deliberations and discussions in the course of a public meeting. It is very difficult to give you a hard and fast rule beyond that. Can you have casual conversation or one classic example that I spoke of with the Attorney General about one time. Two council members saying, I hope you support me on that point. One council man and one council. That particular Attorney General felt that was okay. The A.G. has rendered an opinion recently that where we have a subcommittee of councilmen created where it consisted of a Mayor, and one council member on a subcommittee that was going to be primarily advisory that was too close because it was a five member council and obviously one more vote would be all that would be necessary to adopt whatever those two members came up with. So, that is part of it. There is no hard and fast rule. I think the best rule, especially for the Building and Standards Commission, because I make that distinction in the materials I give you under the conflicts of interest, is that the purpose of that board is enforcement as opposed to the, there are aspects of enforcement in the Historic Preservation but that is primarily designating areas as historic and considering regulations to apply. The job of the Building and Standards Commission is to order someone to do something with their property and if they fail to do that to meet out the various civil penalties or other actions. I think you should do your best. You can certainly go and look at the property on your own. Consider the staff reports and the information that is presented by the staff. But your action ought to be based on what you primarily hear at the meeting. I think that is the standard that you can follow on your deliberations on a code enforcement action like that you can never go wrong. And so I think that is the primary purpose of the act is to see that the essence of the deliberation that leads to a decision is done in a public forum. Any other questions? Well, we all understand the Open Meetings Act. It only took me about five years so you are actually way ahead of ine. If you have any other questions I certainly encourage you to contact us and discuss these questions and we will be in contact with both chairmen in regard to those kinds of issues. But I think the Open Meetings Act is a very important part of what you do. It is essential that you understand it and it is really not that complicated when you consider the basic principle. October 14, 2002 Page 14 of 35 The second perhaps is not as well defined. The second matter that I want to talk with you about which is Item 8B on your agenda has to do with conflicts of interest. And that is this handout here: the Basic Principles of Conflicts of Interest. I was able to get the basic principles on a single page but not to do so without providing you with three or four pages of attachments. Let me tell you what this is and the conflict of interest or sometimes it is called adverse interests, ethics, whatever. There is less law or the law is less exact in defining this issue but it is somewhat related in the concept that you have in open meetings. That is the purpose of each board, each commission is to conduct their affairs in a manner that is fair to both parties. I think if you let the matter of fairness be your guide in what you do it will be very difficult for you to go wrong. I think that is the point that I am making in item number one, basic goal of conflict of interest and ethics statutes, is to assure that all proceedings of every public body are conducted in a manner that is fair and equitable to all parties concerned. As a consequence commission members must avoid conflicts of interests whether direct or perceived. Conflicts of interest, and this is a very general definition in the general sense, means that a board or commission member has an interest whether monetary or otherwise which would appear to preclude the commission member from making an unbiased decision that would force the commission member to vote against his or her own interest. There is a lot of heavy hardware in there. But it is very simply that there are means or ways that your conflict of interests should be avoided in making your decision. There are three sources of rules and regulations governing conflicts of interest. There is some state law. There is the city charter, and then there is what called common law. The state law provisions of conflicts of interests are found in Chapter 171 of the Local Government Code; which I apologize I think is the latter part of your handout beginning with this funny looking, legalistic type of material. Skip the charter page for a moment and focus on these materials. This is Chapter 171 out of the Local Government Code. What it basically says, if you look at it, is that it defines a local public official which by the way you are by providing service on this board for purposes of this statute but not for every statute you are considered a local public official because you are a member of a local governmental entity and you exercise responsibility beyond those that are advisory in nature. What this precludes is what is called a controlled situation of a"substantial interest in business entity." That is on page 336 on the second page of that handout, that portion of the handout. Under Section 171.002, a person shall have a substantial interest in a business entity if that person owns 10% or more of voting stock or shares of this entity or 10% or more or $15,000 or more of the fair market value of the business entity; or funds received by the person from the business entity exceed 10% of the person's gross income for the previous year. Understand I did not write this. The legislature wrote this. I make no apologies for how clear or readable it is. The person has substantial interest in real property, that is real estate, if the interest is an equitable or legal ownership of the fair market value of $2,500.00 or more. If you have the kind It also applies to a person who is related to the public official in what is called the first degree of consanguinity or infinity. I am not going to tell you what that is today other than you October 14, 2002 Page 15 of 35 can begin to think about your closest relatives and that is what we are talking about. If a matter comes before the Building and Standards Commission and if a member of the commission son, brother, etc. then that matter is a matter that may trigger this depending on the legal interest involved with regard to the property interest. If you have this circumstance then your responsibility is set out in 171.004. If you have a substantial interest in a business entity or in real property, your first obligation is to file before a vote or decision on that matter is made, an affidavit stating the nature and extent of that business interest, and secondly to abstain from further participation in the matter if in the case of substantial interest in the matter the action will have a special economic effect on the business entity that is distinguishable from the effect on the public. I don't know how you determine that. So my best advice to you with regard to the remainder of these standards is if you have an interest stay away from it. File your affidavit and abstain. That is what we have in part alternates and the sooner that you realize that you have this conflict the better it is to notify the appropriate staff inember. When you get your agenda, immediately screen that agenda and determine if there is any item on there that may constitute a conflict of interest. And abstaining from further participation means not that you just abstain from the vote. It means you don't participate in the deliberation of that item. You don't discuss; you don't ask; you do not participate. I think that is primarily the substance of the statutory conflict of interest language. The second category, you recall, that I mention was city charter and that is under VI. I said City Charter provisions likewise prohibit city officers from having a financial interest, direct or indirect, any contract with the city in the sale of land, materials, supplies and services to the city, etc. etc. How this is applied to this board or commission may be on an individualized basis that we may have to consider at the time that the potential conflict occurs but you will see sections 132 of the Charter that I have put in and recommend to you for your review, that has to do with personal interests. Section 133 is probably not going to directly apply, although it infers no direct gifts. Although it only restricts in the language to gifts from a public utility corporation enjoying a franchise. 134 deals with relatives of employees. 135 persons indebted to the city. 136 has to do with the oath that you received today. I recommend those materials to you for your review. Finally, the last category of conflict of interest is what is called Common Law. You will find a provision in State Law that I have given you that says that State Law preempts Common Law conflict of interest. I have never really found a substantive interpretation of that. I think what it means is that in the case of conflict at law under the Common Law and conflict of law as described in a statute that the statutory provision will control the instance of the direct conflict. Otherwise, I think Common Law is still alive. So what that means is, a much more vague concept. But again I think it goes back to the issue of what is fair. As an example, a council member must be expected to listen to constituents about what matter may come before a council October 14, 2002 Page 16 of 35 as regard to budgetary issue or just about anything else. I think comparably the Historic Preservation Commission will be expected to try and gain input from the community at large over historic preservation issues. On the other hand, if you have a case of enforcement coming before the Building and Standards Commission, specially for someone who is in violation of an outstanding order, I am not sure if it is fair or equitable to listen to the arguments of somebody that is associated with that. That is not necessarily a conflict of interest but it could be perceived as a conflict of interest. So again, the rule of fairness must apply in all of the things that are done by these two commissions. Try to be fair and impartial and I don't think you will have a problem. Any questions on those materials? Mr. Townsend: Can I have a more specific example on historical preservation and conflict of interest? Would there be a conflict there if they lived within the district? Say they were specifically if they were looking at design standards or electing that specific district and its boundaries. Mr. Schenk: Terry, I think when that comes up we are going to have to look at it. I think it is a possibility that there is a similar conflicts provision in the statute on zoning that infers that kind of conflict could arise. But I think I would rather defer until we have a circumstance come up because the district may be so large that it may be very difficult to really show an affected interest. Those are issues that we are just going to have to take on a case by case basis. The obvious is I think if you are talking about historical designation for a particular structure that person had an interest in that structure. But you live further away and the further away you get there may not be a problem. Mr. Townsend: Sure. Mr. Schenk Any other questions? Okay, then we are going to try to move through the two ordinances. I want to emphasize something. First, I am not intending to embarrass, but how many, I will ask with both groups together, how many have read your respective ordinance? Hands up. About 50%. That is not bad. General discussion and laughter and side comments. Mr. Schenk: It kind of lets me know to what extent of detail to go through these materials. I am going to tell you that I am going to try to touch in the broad brush circumstance what we have here. I am not going to try to answer all the questions. I don't think I want you to try to pose all of the questions that you may have. Because, as I told myself that before I go any further here, I need to emphasize that this is a long-term process. It really may take at least a full year for both of these commissions to be up and ginning as it were. It takes time to find your feet as it were; time to understand all October 14, 2002 Page 17 of 35 the nuances; it will take time, especially in the instance of the Building and Standards, for the staff to implement a new ordinance; to follow all the procedures; develop all the forms; go out and find the properties; identify the properties; identify the ownership; give the proper notices; and then prepare the findings and the agenda for your meeting. So, I think, ambition is better served by looking at progress rather than overnight success. I think the biggest overnight success is having these ordinances in place. This is like the fifth or sixth ordinances that have been adopted since I came in that are all part of the larger part of the Keep Paris Beautiful concept. We have adopted new weed and litter ordinance; adopted new junk vehicle ordinance; we adopted an ordinance regulating the hauling of solid waste. With these two ordinances we adopted an ordinance authorizing the issuance of search warrants, administrative search warrants, to obtain entry to some of these buildings. I know I am forgetting one or two. Mr. Malone: I have about five extra copies of each one of these if anybody Mr. Schenk: Which one? These ordinances? Mr. Malone: These two. Mr. Schenk: Oh, I have about thirty-five if anyone wants any extra copies. But again when we started the new, I still refer to it as the new junk and litter and high weed ordinance, it took us awhile to get our feet on the ground and get up and running. I think it has made a measurable success. Made a measurable difference in the community. I have had people tell me they have seen lots that had been mowed that weren't mowed for years. So it is my hope that we will all be talking about this as a success, a successful way. In your first Building and Standards Commission, that is 2002-032 that is the larger up here up at the top, 2002-032, Building and Standards Commission, substandard buildings. I am going to try to make a brief run through on that. Beginning at page 3, just a note to highlight for you, of course this creates a Building and Standards Commission; identifies and recognizes code inspectors under 7-47 definitions. It will also attempt to define in a general sense what constitutes a dangerous building or structure. You will see ten different categories of what that can be. This is always subject to interpretation and implementation. I would suggest to you that you have a number of buildings that will have no difficulty in falling in some of these categories. I think judgment calls are going to be much later on in the process. Subparagraph (d) on page 4 is very important because it clarifies one point and it is very subliminal as to how it does that. But subparagraph (d) says "Vacate or order the vacation of a building or structure means to require or cause individuals other October 14, 2002 Page 18 of 35 than the owner, the owner's lessee, or other invitee's of the owner or lessee to leave or quit." This ordinance is not intended to be applied to inhabited or buildings in which there is a resident. These are for vacant structures only. That is the purpose of this ordinance. Vacant structures only. Now, where that comes in to play is occasionally we will have a vacant structure that will have someone who is not associated with the property, either a tenant or a lawful tenant or the owner in there. This will not preclude, that status will not preclude us from taking enforcement action on that building. When a building with a tenant that is owned by an owner is not covered by this ordinance. This ordinance is primarily intended to address vacant, falling down, dilapidated buildings and structures. The next page, page 5, section 7-49, implements some of the things we talked about and have done. It provides for your membership on the commission. I could not recall whether we designated terms when we established this. If we did not at a subsequent meeting you will need to call, to draw as to whether you have one or two year terms, but I think when we made the designated the appointees we designated one or two year terms. The purpose being that in the initial instance to set up a staggered, what is called a staggered, because these are two year terms and you want continuity on every board so that every year you only lose three or four members depending on how they were appointed. Mr. Malone: We did establish the terms. Mr. Schenk: If you don't know already, we will tell you today whether we have you hooked for one year or for two years. That establishes the stagger. It also stipulates that before any decision can be made you will have to conduct a public hearing. It provides for alternates and their disposition. Under subparagraph (c), begin to look at your proceedings for the commission on due notice you must conduct public hearing on the matters brought before you. You must by subparagraph (c) (2), under 7-49, provides that by majority approval of the entire commission, that language is important because that includes the alternates. The alternates can participate in that process so this is a 7-4 commission, so you will need to have at least six members in attendance to do this function which is to adopt the rules and procedures and then that must be the majority approval of the entire commission so that may not be enough unless you have unanimity. So it is very important for the meeting in which you adopt the rules and establish procedures on the Buildings and Standards Commission that as many people as possible be in attendance for that meeting. These are important, these rules and we will try to provide you some examples if we can locate those, but these are matters of rules of decorum, for conducting your meetings. You all and the other commission may want to listen because I will probably just gloss over some of these things because there are similar provisions in your other ordinance but you will have to have, you October 14, 2002 Page 19 of 35 will need to have rules of decorum. Rules that address how long someone may speak; how you recognize persons who want to speak; the criteria for recognizing those individuals, such matters as that. One point to make here in the nature of the Building and Standards Commission, you may have parties that are represented. They may have legal representation for the purposes of what they do before you but they are not entitled to cross examination of the other witnesses. Nor are those witnesses entitled to cross examine the individuals appearing. This is not a court of law. It is an administrative commission. So the concept is that the commission is supposed to do the questioning. You will ask questions of the staff that bring the cases to you. You will ask questions of the property owner who is there to respond to those questions and plead his or her case. Then you will deliberate and make a decision as to the disposition of the property. It is not an advocacy proceeding for the two parties to argue it out. Page six addresses the meetings again that we talked about open to the public; formal officers of chair and vice-chair; provides for your quorum; provides for keeping the minutes. On page 6 under C, the middle of the page, we provided that the burden of proof in discerning or demonstrating the scope of work that is required to comply with the article is on the property owner, lienholder, or mortgagee. What that means is that the staff is to present you to a case, pictures, hopefully a thorough analysis of a building that is not compliant with code, burned out, represents a threat to health and safety. The property owner then has the burden if they want that property not demolished to demonstrate to your satisfaction with whatever evidence you deem appropriate that in fact they have the financial wherewithal, the capability to do what they say they are going to do to repair or return this structure to where it is no longer a threat to health and safety. Health and safety is something that I need to emphasize. That the essence, the essential element of both of these ordinances. Texas law does not per se recognize this test. It recognizes health, safety, and what is the best for the general benefit of the public. This is truly a health and safety ordinance. The whole purpose of this commission, Building Standards Commission, looking at property owned by someone else is that person has not met the minimum community standards for maintaining that property and not having that property represent a substantial risk to the health and safety of the general public. I have said many times before in the cases we have about mowing weeds; the city would just as soon no be involved in that business. It would be a perfect world if everybody mowed their grass. And mowed it promptly on the property they own, then we could take care of streets and we would not have to have that statute. The same is true here. This is not the City of Paris mainstream business. We take care of streets; we provide you water and sewer. gap m tape ...of volunteers and I thank you for it. October 14, 2002 Page 20 of 35 In starting on page six we go through the notice provisions. The notice provision can be extensive and I will not bore you with all of the details of them but this is basically out of the state statute. This is not my creation. Not a whole lot of any sort of thought on my part because this is basically what the state statute is requiring us to do if we want to do this with somebody's property. That is true continuing over the page seven and page eight; filing notices; checking the records; it is so detailed that it goes in to what happens if the notice is refused or unclaimed. And then on page eight under item (7), it says, " after a hearing on an affected property the commission shall reduce any order or condition to writing." What we will probably try to generate for you are some forms to use in advance of you having your orders issued but it is not only important but it is mandatory that you issue an order for repair; to issue an order for demolition; you issue an order for a property to be secured and it must be in writing. Secondly, under paragraph (7), and very importantly, this is an ordinance that anticipates prompt action. So it provides that there is a thirty (30) day window for a property owner to comply, unless they meet a higher burden set out in the ordinance that in your judgment justifies them having a longer period of time. I know this is one of the complaints under our old ordinances was that orders would be issued and linger for six months to a year and nothing was happening. That is not the intent of this particular ordinance. When a property has an order rendered against it, that property better have some good reasons for you to consider why they can't comply within a thirty (30) day window in order for you to be empowered to give them more time. And finally under paragraph (8), "the commission shall not allow the owner, lienholder, or mortgagee more than ninety (90) calendar days to repair, remove or demolish the building or fully perform all work required to comply with the order unless the owner, lienholder or mortgagee submits a detailed plan and time schedule for the work at the hearing and establishes at the hearing that the work cannot reasonably be completed within ninety (90) days because of the scope and complexity of the work." So this is not a"we will wait around and give you time" ordinance. If it comes to you it comes to you because it is pretty bad shape because nobody has cared. And that is the message we are trying to send through this and that is the message the legislature sends. The rest of it deals again with more notice provisions; how those orders are sent; the calendar dates that deal with that. I think under page ten you have a general recitation of the authority of the commission to declare a building dangerous or substandard; order it secured; order it demolished or removed; order it repaired; or in the appropriate case order the immediate vacation of persons and the immediate removal of property. And of course, again, I emphasize again that people who don't belong there because it is an occupied building shouldn't come to you in the first place. And on the next page, page eleven, it also provides for you to, in the appropriate circumstance, impose up to a thousand dollar per day civil penalty for violation of October 14, 2002 Page 21 of 35 your orders. This is in a compliance mode where again it says "after the owner received notice of this article's provisions, the owner committed acts in violation of this article or failed to take action," then you can impose those kinds of penalties. Subparagraph ( fl on page eleven on the general standards that you apply and civil penalties. 7-50 on page twelve is what is called the bridge provision. I think when I go over this with you, I think the rest is fairly straight forward and self-explanatory. This is the provision that will bridge between the Building and Standards Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission. What it provides is that at this time, as the city becomes designated as a Certified Local Government, and the application is pending for that, then when that certification occurs before the Building and Standards Commission can consider a matter brought before you, it must be referred to the Historic Preservation Commission for that commission to review it, as you will see in Paragraph (d) to write a written report to the Building and Standards Commission indicating the results of that review, if the Historic Preservation Commission determines that a structures cannot be rehabilitated and designated a historic property, then the Building and Standards Commission has the green light to go forward with its hearing and take whatever action it deems appropriate. If under paragraph ( fl, the Historic Preservation Commission makes a determination that a structure could be rehabilitated and designated as historic, then it must follow those remaining procedures through a ninety (90) day period attempting to get the owner to be responsible and to respond to bring that property back to code and to be again preserving the historical character of that property. On the next page, page thirteen, after the expiration of ninety (90) or greater calendar day period, if the City of Paris Historic Preservation Commission is unable to identify a feasible alternative, locate an alternative purchaser, or in the absence of the owner or the owner's response, call for the appointment of a receiver, and I doubt that will be done very often, it is very difficult. Then the Building and Standards Commission can resume its review of that property for enforcement. So what it does is buy a window of time to consider and attempt to preserve historic structures that would otherwise be subject to potential demolition orders. I am going to emphasize demolition, as I say again, I think we have such an inventory of structures right now that repair orders are something that we would like to believe that we will get to very quickly but I rather doubt it. I think we will be looking at buildings that are gutted and burned out initially. Tommy don't you agree that we have such an inventory of those to have to go through all these notice requirements that it will be some time before we can work our way down to repair orders? But we will get there. It takes time. I have been there. I have seen it happen. One other thing that you need to be aware of on page fourteen. The Commission's decision is final. You can appeal to district court. That is a provision that you find October 14, 2002 Page 22 of 35 back on page thirteen for judicial review but there is no appeal for Building and Standards Commission to City Council. Your decision stands. It is either complied with, enforced, or the party must appeal that to district court. That is why your paperwork is so very important; because we have to produce it in your record case file to the court and establish to the court that the actions that were taken were taken in accordance with the law. The burden of proof in that sort of case is very, very difficult for the party appealing that. I would point out to you on page fourteen, at the top, " the district court's review shall be limited to a hearing under the substantial evidence rule." That is a rule of law that means if there is anything more than what is called a scintilla of evidence to support the action of the commission then that ruling is sustained. It will not be reversed by the district court. That is a very difficult burden. I have had to face that personally before both in the sense of having to substantiate it on the side and having to defend it and go against it. I mean to impose upon you, or emphasize, I should say, the importance of your deliberations and your decisions because basically it is very unusual that your decisions are not the final decisions as to what happens to these properties. Any questions? The rest of it I think is fairly straight forward in terms of the remainder of the ordinance. Then the second part that starts on page nineteen is what is called the secured building permit which is not something that is within the purview of this particular commission but it was adopted by the Council at the same time as an alternative second approach for property owners to have a property that is structurally sound but is not in compliance with the ordinance to place it in a special status that would exempt it from enforcement actions provided they kept it secured and did not represent a risk to the health and safety of the public allowing the property owner then to bring the property back into compliance. The only time that this affects the duties of the Building and Standards Commission is that if a property owner seeks and successfully achieves that kind of permit, then the Commission may prefer enforcement action further on the property. Any questions? Depending on how you look at it this is the short or the long admission of this ordinance. Man: When do anticipate would be the soonest that this commission would meet? Mr. Schenk: I think you guys decided it would be the third Monday. Man: Do you think you will have anything to present? Mr. Schenk: I think regardless of whether we do or not you still have to sit down and establish your rules and regulations. October 14, 2002 Page 23 of 35 Man: That is done in public? Mr. Schenk: Yes. All. Everything is done in public. There will be no executive or closed meetings. Man: But there will be nothing considered until you Mr. Schenk: Again, I think you must have that meeting to establish your procedures. You need to decide how long you are going to allow people to talk; what your rules and regulations are for allowing them to talk; you need to co-ordinate with the staff people who will be presenting cases to you. Sometimes commissions establish a second meeting, in more of a work session vein, where if there are pictures or other materials they just come and look at those materials in advance of the meeting without a substantive informational meeting to help hopefully speed your main meeting along. I think that would become an issue later on when you will have a number of cases. I think it is going to take some time, you can see a leeway, so you may not even have a meeting in a month or two and that may not work bad because the meeting after November is December. And the third Monday is approaching the holiday. But the staff has to go through and give notice and do all of their research and process cases so I would be very surprised if you had some cases that quickly. Maybe. That is really kind of up to Code Inspectors. But you do need to get your rules and regulations set out so that everybody is on the same ground as to how your meetings are going to be conducted and those kinds of issues. Any other questions? Woman: Do we have any models to go by from other cities as to how they set? Mr. Schenk The forms are in your ordinance so there are no questions there. I think the ordinance - I have conflicting comments: My God this thing is a monster or as you are saying it doesn't exactly tell me how to do this or that. I think the advantage of the flexibility there is that it allows you to decide how you want to proceed and actually conduct your own meeting. I can provide you probably some information from another jurisdictions but what worked well for them may not necessarily be the way that you would like to conduct your meetings. A general rule of thumb is that staff will place certain items on the agenda including some sort of summary of the condition of that property and attached back up material for each board or commission member to look at. Then you will convene the meeting. That item is called and that particular Code Inspector who worked that case up will make a presentation of the case to you. You will call during the public hearing to see if the property owner, mortgagee, lienholder is available and wants to make comments. Recognize those persons to come forward, make their statements, and then call on any other interested person, if any, that may want to make comment or answer questions or respond. And then after all questions from the commission are October 14, 2002 Page 24 of 35 adequately addressed you will close the public hearing; have your debates and discussions; and then order whatever actions you deem appropriate. A meeting in a nutshell. Then you will do that for each case. You will be surprised at the number of properties that nobody will show up on. Those are pretty easy. But there will be some that will show up. Some will have various reasons why they have not done something to the property. It will take some time to deliberate and see what you want to do. Any other questions? We will move on to page thirty three. The Historic Preservation Ordinance. The general thrust of this ordinance is that it involves materials from the state and federal government as well as our local ordinance. It is set out, beginning on page three, section 7-152, the purpose of the ordinance. I think it is important if you are on that commission to focus on that material and to more or less get a feel for what you intend or what we intended to accomplish by implementing this ordinance. 7-153 on page four of the ordinance calls for a seven member commission and two alternates which we took care of today and designated areas of interest. Term ends four for two year terms and three for one year terms. Chair. Vice-Chair. Director of Community Development is ex-officio and that is the person who will be administering those matters as stated the ordinance. Then you have a general list of authority. Again, number one, beginning page five of your authority is to adopt rules and procedures. How you want to conduct your meetings; how you want to what you do. The thrust of this particular commission is different from the other one. Primarily because the purpose of this commission is to designate areas within the community and city that deserve and require special scrutiny and attention with regard to whatever happens to the properties in there because of their historical significance or importance to the community. There are a lot of wonderful historical structures in this community and I am pleased to say that we are about to open the Depot, which has been a long time coming, hasn't it Tommy. I think we are finally there. That is one of the most beautiful pieces of railroad architecture I have ever seen and I love that kind of stuff. So it is just amazing. There are other structures equally as beautiful in this wonderful city that deserve attention and care and I think that is the purpose of this particular ordinance-to try to see that they get it. Provides for monthly meetings; provides for the quorum of four. 7-154 administration, Director of Community Development or his designee as the Historic Preservation Officer. And then you get in to 7-155 which is on page 50-designation of landmarks and October 14, 2002 Page 25 of 35 historic districts. What this attempts to do is to first give you the general responsibility of initiating the process to designate those sites, building structures, landscapes and objects as landmarks. So this can be a whole area or a street or a single building. It can be anything of that nature that can be considered historic. Now, it says by adopting, the city council designates those by adopting zoning districts which are designated as HD, very innovative on my part, Historical District. And let me try to explain to you conceptually how this is going to work as we go through the ardinance. You have right now zoned areas of the city and you are probably very familiar with those: residential, commercial, retail, industrial, light industrial, neighborhood services that are based on the kinds of uses that are permissible in those particular areas for the property located in that area. And we regulate that. We have changes. We have a master plan. It became an issue the other night, didn't it Steve? This is what I refer to, it is referred to as many things, it is the process that we have here will create what is called an overlay district or overlay sites or areas. You can have a historical district that has a multitude of permissible uses within it. It can be retail; it can be commercial; it can be industrial. It can certainly be residential. If you visualize a map of several different colors, yellow, green, etc. for the uses that I just mentioned before and suddenly for want of a better choice you are going to have a chartreuse color that goes over parts of those other colors. Those areas are now designated as historical. The goal of this process here is to get us to that point. This commission is to begin to screen those things that I enumerated, site, areas, locations, landmarks, that are, that should be designated as historical and ultimately to be so designated through that whole process. To get there you have to apply your criteria which you find on page six of the ordinance, significance and history associated with certain events, associated with lots, significant persons, etc. etc. And then you have to in so doing, and we will get to that point in a minute, but you then have to call public hearings and under subparagraph (d) on page 7 up at the top notice must be given to property owners, to all property owners, of a proposed historic district designation prior to the commission's hearing on this designation. So if you have a large area, all property owners are going to have to receive this notice because you are rezoning that property. That is why I emphasize this. But we do a rezone on a lot that is a fairly small matter with regard to notice, isn't it Steve? You have the surrounding people within 200 feet? Mr. Methven: Yes. Mr. Schenk: That we have to provide notice to and the property owner themselves. In this instance if you have a street, three streets, that you intend to designate historical, you rezone that property. It is now going to be residential historic district. Mr. Methven: Is this still going through P&Z, though? October 14, 2002 Page 26 of 35 Mr. Schenk: Yes. It has got to go it starts with this commission. It must go ultimately through Planning and Zoning for their process and public hearings and notices; and then ultimately the City Council for Council's public hearing and adoption. So this is not going to be an overnight, a matter of overnight as far as being done. I think it is intended to be that way. I think it is intended to have careful scrutiny and review. But this part touches on the designation by this commission and when we get to the latter part of this ordinance we will deal with these other issues. But it says that property owners within the proposed historic district must receive notice. At the part above that it touches on, and in this ordinance of course in greater detail, regulations, design guidelines and other appropriate regulations concerning the exterior and site development and redevelopment of a historic district may be recommended by the commission. I will substitute the word "may" and put in there "shall." The commission must also designate, review state and federal standards for the kinds of changes that are permissible to these structures and then attempt to establish a set of regulations that regulate that activity appropriate to those respective districts. So you may have Historic District 1 that has a set of regulations that may be done to that and within that district, you may have retail, commercial, residential property. Then you may have Historic District 2 that has a different set of regulations applicable to it and in which you may have, again, retail, residential, commercial properties. But me, I have an easier time understanding it if I think of the first set of colors on the map and then I put colors on top of it that are like an overlay of requirements. 7-156 provides that ordinary, what is called ordinary maintenance or repair, is not to be prohibited by that but it is defined "work that does not constitute a change in design, materials, color, or outward appearance and include in-kind replacement or repair." So basically if you are not changing anything you don't need to get a permit. That is an easy way to understand that. 7-157 is important because in contrast to what the Building and Standards Commission does, which is issue orders to tear down, this commission issues what is called Certificates of Appropriateness. Those certificates, as set out at the bottom of page seven and the top of page eight, are to be approved by this commission that designates the particular kind of changes that can be made beyond what is referred to as ordinary maintenance. And so that will be one of the functions of this commission. Not only establish generalized guidelines, which presumably if you came in and you wanted to do something to your property and it is in the general guidelines then it is a cake walk. But if you have something that is a departure from those regulations or are not covered by the regulations then certainly that would be more difficult in terms of getting this particular certification, the Certificate of Appropriateness. What this is talking about, first of all, I emphasize under 7-157, is a Certificate of Appropriateness for repair, for modification, alteration, change, those kinds of things still preserving the property. When we get to the back I will show you a different kind. Under page 9 it says: "Certificate of appropriateness October 14, 2002 Page 27 of 35 required: A person shall not alter a property designated a historical property within a historic district or any portion thereof or designated effective right of way or place, construct or maintain, expand or remove any structure on that site without that person obtaining that certificate of appropriateness." That is to be obtained prior to the issuance of any building permit. Now the permitting process for building permits can be going on, or ongoing, simultaneously with this process. You come down if you are a property owner and you want to do something to your property and it is a historic district, you can apply for your certificate of appropriateness and apply for your building permit at the same time. The building permit cannot be issued until such time as the certificate of appropriateness is issued. It says again in (d): "Application for certificate. Prior to the commencement of anywork, the owner shall file an application for a certificate of appropriateness with the director of community development," and it sets out the material ar information that is required. Page ten, (e), at the top: "Approval of certificate. The commission shall deny, approve, or approve with conditions within thirty (30) calendar days of receipt of the application." So again this may also touch on your timing for your meetings. That is why it is so important that you have a meeting at least once a month as you begin to look at the timing on these. This stuff can miss a meeting if you have an application pending in front of you because it requires action within thirty (30) days. You have a concept which is called minor exterior alterations which leaves to the Director of Community Development the authorization, the authority to authorize what is called minor exterior alterations and those are to a certain extent defined in subsection (c), subparagraph (c) of 7-158, minor exterior alterations: "installation of, or alteration to awnings, fences, gutters and downspouts; incandescent lighting fixtures; landscaping and hardscaping, comprising less than 25% of the front or side yard; restoration of original architectural features that constitute a change from existing conditions; painting of wood or appropriate elements that constitute a change in color," etc. I would submit to you that Mr. Haynes, if he has any doubt, he will punt and promptly send it to you. Mr. Malone: That was my very words. Mr. Schenk: I have the feeling that will probably be the rule of thumb. Unless it clearly meets one of these criteria in the definition then it will be treated as a matter for the commission to consider. 7-159 is important because that describes the process of an application, a certificate, in the sense if you have an application for a demolition permit. And so, a demolition permit cannot be, or any structure within a historic district, or designated landmark, cannot be issued until the issuance of a certificate of appropriateness as well. And that process is set out in these provisions under section 7-159. So you have the instance of someone wanting to modify, change or do something with an existing property and needing a certificate of appropriateness if it is in a historical district and October 14, 2002 Page 28 of 35 you have again the requirement if you intend to demolish to also comply and get a Certificate of Appropriateness before we can issue a demolition permit. In both instances you are required to hold public hearings; grant or deny; there is an appellate process set out later in the ordinance; ultimately the City Council. In this instance there is language about grant or denial. To deny the application, if the application is denied then the commission must participate in the process of seeking alternatives that may result in the preservation of the structure. There is a time limitation of that process if after 180 calendar days the Commission has not successfully found a purchaser or otherwise determined a process by which the property can be preserved the building official shall issue the demolition permit. 7-160 talks about, Steve what you asked about, procedure for adopting an ordinance to establish or amend a historic landmark. Basically what you will see if you look at it in there is that what the process is. If an area is designated for consideration by this commission. The process starts and then later in the ordinance it provides that the, that it goes from there to, earlier, back to the earlier part, it goes from there to the Planning & Zoning Commission and subparagraph (b), the procedure is considered to be initiated immediately when the city council or Planning and Zoning Commission or Historic Preservation Commission votes to authorize the filing of a designation case. And then under (a) it says, I am assuming that it starts with historic preservation, then it goes from there on to P&Z and then to council. So the difference is that the Building and Standards Commission cannot issue something close to permits. It issues orders for tear down, repair or removal. This commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, is the one that gives you Certificates of Appropriateness with regard to changes or modifications to property only in those areas that are designated as historic. If again, the property is outside the area of historic designation then the process is very straight forward for Building and Standards. Once an area is designated as historic, once we are certified, then for those properties in those areas, it involves a first review of the Historic Preservation Commission before it can back to the Building Commission. Mr. Denney: Right now we only have three historical districts? Mr. Malone: We have none. Mr. Schenk: We have none. Woman: We have three on the national register. Mr. Schenk: Right, but none of that has been officially designated by the Historic Commission. Mr. Denney: So we have to survey and then do the district and any landowners. October 14, 2002 Page 29 of 35 Mr. Schenk: Right and the reason, Paul, as you can imagine, it imposes additional restraints on the property owners as to what they will be able to do with their property. And so this is going to be heavy duty stuff in that sense, depending on how expansive the regulations are. And so you will have to have public hearings on those designations and well as on the others. To give the property owner the opportunity to appear and say his peace with regard to what he thinks is fair or unfair with the property. Whether the property ought to be in there or not. And it will subsequently go up the ladder until it is finally approved by City Council as all of the changes are. Mr. Denney: The survey was done but that was extremely Mr. Starrett: ....with the National Register as regards this.... Mr. Denney: Okay. Mr. Starrett: Are there copies of the survey done by the architects in the early 80's. I think it would be beneficial for all of the members of this commission to have a copy of that. Multiple speakers Mr. Denney: Right now our commission has no job. We have nothing we can review yet. Mr. Malone: You do. Mr. Schenk: The only difference is that the bridge has not been created for the cases from Building and Standards to come to you before hand. You can begin your deliberations about designating areas as historic. Now. Mr. Malone: We are going to be certified. It is only a matter of time. Mr. Schenk: That is the essential element of what this commission does anyway. To find those areas that you want designated as historic and go through the process. That is not going to be easy. It is going to take a lot of hard work. That can be ongoing now. You have to come up with regulations; find all property owners; notice them that the hearing will be considering an area; decide this area should have this, that area should have that. Mr. Malone: Fortns and certificates. Everybody is going to have to be familiar with national standards and how they relate to your Certificates. The color pallet, everything. Mr. Schenk: There is plenty of work. The only thing is that we don't have the bridge right now. Other than that there is plenty of work to do. October 14, 2002 Page 30 of 35 Ms. Pope: Will the Main Street board be providing an advisory role in the establishment of a historic district? Mr. Schenk: Say again. Ms. Pope: Will the Main Street board be providing an advisory role in the establishment of the historic district? Mr. Schenk: That is not provided for in the ordinance. A representative from the Main Street board is on the commission. Ms. Pope: Okay. Mr. Denney: And it is a public meeting? Several discussions going on for about 30 seconds. Ms. Pope: I would just like to know what role they will have because they have been working for so many years with the national districts. Mr. Schenk: I think that is a matter again for the chairman of that commission to decide information. I see this as a proceeding. These proceedings are going to be much more broad ranging. You will want to receive input from any and all parties who have something to say about what you deliberate at the time. Because, the importance of this particular ordinance is to get a consensus of the community as to what they want saved and what they don't want saved and the price to be paid by the property owner or by someone else for doing that. So these meetings ought to be big. The Buildings and Standards Commission meetings, when they get rolling on an individual case, could be limited to no more than the staff person, the commission, the interested property owner and maybe a neighbor or two saying I want that thing going down, yesterday. Mr. Malone: The Preservation Commission will get lots of input. Mr. Schenk: Yes. Any other questions? Mr. Starrett: Attrition aside or changes of ownership or subsequent demolition aside, I would really think that the survey done that Paul was referring to is probably the best basis for this commission to begin their work in that all of those properties were made as a recommendation to the national trust. Mr. Denney: I agree with you. October 14, 2002 Page 31 of 35 Mr. Starrett: almost 20 years ago. Mr. Schenk: Makes good sense, doesn't it? Woman: A lot of that is provided on the website for the Texas Historic Commission. Mr. Starrett: Not the volume we are speaking of. Woman: We can provide you with a copy of that survey and each chairperson a copy of that notebook that (inaudible)_and (inaudible)_have developed that covers everything. Mr. Schenk: Is there anything I can try to respond to or answer? I am sorry to dominate this part of the meeting. That was my objective and my assignment. No other questions? Man: What about enforcement? I see that there is a place in here for enforcement. Will that play in an area as being declared as in poor condition and somebody does something? Mr. Schenk: There are separate provisions for enforcing a zoning ordinance. Keep in mind that after this process is complete all of this is basically part of the overall zoning scheme. Mr. Malone: Somebody is going to have to report it. Report the violation. So the commission members might see someone in violation, or maybe a member of the city staff might see something that is going on and recognize that is a historic district; or a neighbor might turn them in if they see them out there working on the house they might. It might be wise to establish some sort of a provision that these Certificates of Appropriateness be posted somewhere on the property so everybody can see that they have one. Mr. Schenk: It may be a question of doing something and someone may not realize that they have been through the process and been approved. Mr. Malone: That would eliminate lots of calls. Man: Well I mean, talk about a Certificate of Appropriateness and everything that goes with that people are going to be in the historic district will be notified of what the standards are today. Mr. Malone: That will be part of the public hearing process. I don't know to what extent they will have input Mr. Schenk: The formal notice that has to go to them will primarily be a notice that your property is being considered in an area as a historical district and be subject to all of the rules October 14, 2002 Page 32 of 35 and regulations that will be applicable thereto. Some general statement about what those rules and regulations could include and give them notice of when and where the public hearing will be held. It is not necessary to repeat all of the regulations. I don't think. Mr. Malone: So what they would have to do is to come down to City Hall and get their application in for their change. Then they can find out what the rules are in their particular district then. Mr. Schenk: When they come down for instance what will happen as this process is done. They will come down for a building permit. "Hello. You are in a historical district. You will have to get the certificate as well." Come down for a demolition permit. Same process. Mr. Malone: It may be more than a building permit. Because presently we don't have permits for things like roofing, painting, and things like that. Mr. Schenk: Right. I think there are other activities that require a building permit that will still require that kind of... Are there any other questions? Thank you. Multiple discussion about having a vision. Mr. Malone: Item number 9 was placed on the agenda in the event that there were members here who wanted to talk about the goals and objectives and the vision for these new boards as well as input from the Main Street board as Maria mentioned awhile ago. Members of our Main Street board, or Main Street Advisory Board, have been active for several years and they have some interests in, particularly, in the downtown historic district, and there is a downtown historic district that has been declared. I don't have enough copies of the exhibit, but in 1998 there was a designation made by the City Council. Of course this Historic Preservation Commission is starting anew with the designation of historic areas, and I'm sure the Main Street Advisory Board would want to suggest that this be an area to be one of the first considered because they have some interest in preserving and improving our downtown district. Trying to get appropriate repairs made to buildings and appropriate store fronts so that we can develop a theme and try to encourage people to invest in downtown and create activities that will benefit the community not only culturally but economically. It is about 10 to 5 and city staff will have to go to a council meeting at six. But as much time as you like if there are any members here who would like to open questions. Ms. Harper: Overlay, Larry's words, is the whole concept of vision and what we want Paris to look like in the next five years, the next ten years. We want our grandchildren to grow up here and be proud of this town. The current state of Texas has embraced this idea. There are not only out of historical commission but out of the legislature October 14, 2002 Page 33 of 35 in Austin is the whole idea of communities figuring out what they want they want to look like in five years, ten years plan. And this kind of effort that we are doing has been a long time coalescing. I mean, Mike and Larry have been working on it for a long time; Main Street has certainly been working on it for a long time; the CDC has been working on it for a long time; Keep Paris Beautiful has been working on it for a long time. And we need kind of, everyone needs to link hands and make sure that this actually really happens. Because what we have here in Paris, Texas, are the best bones in Texas. We've got more square blocks of wonderful stuff here than anybody. It just needs some polishing up and some appreciation and some demolition. And the reason, Karen is not here today because she had to go to a funeral in Albuquerque, but she would be talking instead of myself if she were here, because we went to the City Council knowing that the Building and Standards Commission, which was mandated by the legislature, needed to happen. But our concern was also that you could apply the same criteria for rat infested, non-occupied buildings downtown as you could a crack house that was burned down across town. So obviously all of you have a pretty big elephant. What I wanted to tell you is that the Certified Local Government, which is the historic preservation end of this, has been approved from one desk top to the next in Austin and is supposed to come back here shortly. The entire program was set out by Bratten Thomason and she is committed to come up to Paris, Texas, to give a workshop for us all so that we can kind of understand how this works in other cities. And I think that her knowledge and Maude Emerick could come and help everybody not only on Building and Standards, Main Street, and Historic Preservation, so that's kind of difficult to show, and hopefully the CDC would come and hopefully everybody here who has a major interest in how you actually structure this and how have others done it. I think Mary asked that question. There are three million people living right now under Certified Local Government Administration in the State of Texas and lots of those people are attracting tourism, and you know people coming to live in their towns, because they look so special and wonderful. Which really, when you go to Dallas now and you think how filled up it is going to be with all of those millions of people, you are sitting out here just perfectly positioned to grow in this kind of special way that we can. The discussion was for her to come sometime the first of November and she would come from Austin and give a workshop so everybody could kind of get some real help. What Larry said is fine, and everyone agrees to, but it is a whole lot for everyone to be getting overwhelmed, myself included. But the suggestion was to take just one historic district, don't designate all three at one time. Just take one. This suggestion was, on Building and Standards, that you would learn as you go so that it is not something that is insurmountable but it is a very exciting thing. I think the more people that are involved in this the better off we are going to be. All of a sudden I have more hope for Paris, Texas, than I have had in the 31 years I have lived here. Terry, did you have anything else to add about Main Street, because I really did not say anything about Main Street. October 14, 2002 Page 34 of 35 Mr. Townsend: No I think you have said it perfectly. I think we have come the extra step every year we have been involved in this. Of course Main Street was kind of create in Paris in 1984 initially. We dropped out of the program for a little while. And then we came back in 1997. Since then a lot of these same people have been on that board and kind of seen the vision go and come and the mission kind of change as we have gone, and we have, with Maria and the Pumpkin Festival and the education programs and the brochures and the word out of what we are trying to do. The ball is really rolling and it seems like it is rolling a whole lot faster here today. The Main Street board is just that. It is the Main Street Advisory Board and of course it has no real teeth to be able to do what these commissions are going to be able to do. That is why you are a big part of the process. Ms. Harper: I guess I would only add that we really need to be some help. No just by mouthing it but by actually. We will walk the blocks, we will count the buildings, we will take pictures, we will work with the appraisal office, we will bring in people from Dallas and Ft. Worth and Austin if we have to be helpful and answer questions. It is to must to expect anyone to know... Mr. Townsend: There is tons of information that you guys deal with on a regular basis in your meetings, that Maria probably already has. Such as that one pamphlet that you were talking about. And some of that information economic wise. We have all of that information. We can throw that together and get that to them as soon as we can. If something comes up along the way that you would like an answer to please call. Ms. Harper: Is there any particular week in November or December that is terrible for everybody if we brought these people in from Austin to help and put on a workshop? Early December. General discussion too far in the back ground to pick up. Mr. Malone: Is there anyone else who has anything they would like to contribute before we close. On behalf of the Mayor, City Council, and the City Staff, I want to thank all of you for this donation of time that you are taking and your commitment to a better city and especially your commitment to historic preservation. We have a lot of groups that are working under the umbrella of Keep Paris Beautiful. And groups that are working that are closely associated. Our Main Street Board. I would like to introduce Linda Ridder with CDC, and she is our new executive director, and as you all know CDC has plans for housing, to improve housing in Paris. We are trying to restore and rehabilitate neighborhoods. So all of these things are going to have to work together and we will try to see that we communicate and share this information and everyone will be aware of when meetings are being held because they will be posted on the bulletin board and I am sure the newspaper will make note of ineetings as they occur. Feel free to visit from one group to the other because these will be October 14, 2002 Page 35 of 35 open public meetings. Again, I want to caution you is that the way we look at it is that if you have near a quorum just don't discuss business if you are at supper or out and amongst the crowd because it is a very serious matter about open meetings act. With that, I want to thank all of you for being here today. If you have any questions or concerns you can contact me or my secretary or you can contact Mr. Haynes or the respective staff inember. APPROVED this 28th day of June, 2004. Chairman