and fire and our first responders is also a priority. So you'll see all that as part of this budget and pretty proud of what's put together. So I won't belabor it, I'll let them go through this process and tell you what, and I thank y'all for being here and watching tonight. So David Cook, our city manager. I'm going, I'm good, I'm good. Thank you, Council Member Crane and thanks for everybody joining us tonight. And thanks for the staff. We've got police fire development services code and folks here to answer parts. Thank you, Richard, to answer the questions you might have but let's go ahead and jump into it. I had the privilege and honor of presenting the recommended budget. It's now been about two weeks ago. We've had a couple of budget work sessions with the city council. So we're well on our way on deliberating on the budget. Yeah, let's see, let's see. Now we're going, hold on. Technical difficulties. I could almost do it from memory though. I saw something. There we go. Thank you very much. I start with this slide on the presentation to make a couple of points. One is it is so nice to be two years after the start of COVID. One is we get to meet face to face, we get to talk to each other, we get to interact. That's different than how we've had to do the budget over the last couple of years. And if you think back to May, excuse me, March of 2020, schools were closed. We asked businesses to close. And remember back then, very strange time and we at the city, a lot of the people you see around the room still had to go to work each and every day. Whether it was police, fire, water, TPW, parks and recreation to provide services. So I'm incredibly proud of the organization as we worked our way through COVID. The other thing that I'd share with you is we also didn't know what the future held, right? That pandemic was a new experience for a lot of us. We did not know how it would impact the city financially. What would happen with property tax revenues? What would happen with sales tax revenues? And so I can tell you we're not entirely through COVID, as everybody knows, but the city, and again, I'm proud of the organization working our way through, we're in a much stronger financial position now than we have been in the last number of years. And I'll go through some of that to share with you how strong some of the revenue streams are. And also some of this is coming from growth. Your council member, Crane, talk about the big focus of this budget is about a safe and clean community and we think those two things are connected. You'll hear about more police officers, you'll hear about a new engine company in far North Fort Worth and fire, but safety is more than just police and fire. Safety is also about vehicular safety, pedestrian safety, and you'll be hearing about more money for street lights, more money for payment markings, more money for code enforcement. And so the focus is on being safe and clean community as part of the budget. I also wanna take the opportunity to thank everybody who went out and voted in May for the different bond propositions. All of the bond proposition passed, I think that's incredibly positive for the city. That infrastructure is needed for a growing city and one of the things we'll talk about is the city's growth and you're gonna hear me say, the growth is not stopping. The growth is gonna continue over the foreseeable future and we need to be planning for future bond referendums as we implement the bond program that was approved by voters just this past May. These next couple of slides, I'll tell you that we're no different than other large organizations in the city of Fort Worth. Many companies, many organizations are finding it that it's harder to recruit and retain folks. We're gonna tell you the same thing with the city of Fort Worth. And so we've got money in the budget to help make sure that we are able to recruit and retain top talent to provide great services for all of our residents and businesses here in the city. We are also not immune from all the costing increases that households face or businesses face, whether it's the cost of fuel, whether it's interest rates are going up, all those things impact the city as well. But I also wanna say we're very conscious of affordability on citizens, affordability on households and the affordability on businesses. We're gonna talk about the tax rate, property tax rate coming down. One of the reasons that is is because values are increasing. But we also wanna be conscious of the impact that has on household and businesses. We're gonna talk about water rates are not going up, storm water rates are not going up, solid waste fees are not going up. That's in recognition of again all our businesses and households in Fort Worth. We will however talk about the environmental fee going up and more on that as we go through the presentation. I made this point, we're a growing city, we're gonna continue to grow. And the way I describe it is we grow about 20,000 people a year. So every five years we had about 100,000 people. So think about the service needs that brings with it as well as the infrastructure requirement of that growing community. This is I think, I do it at different points of time on the presentation, DJ raise your hand right there. That's the guy responsible for development, responding to development here in the city of Fort Worth. I'll have you think about this. During the pandemic calendar year 2020, excuse me, he did more permits in 2020 than he did in 2019. Imagine that. So while I think what everybody did, everybody went home and did a home project which helped drive up some of those permit numbers. But he did more permits in 2020 than he did in 19. He did more permits in 2021 than he did in 2020. And he's told all of us that he's gonna do more permits in 2022 than he did in 21. So workload did not slow down for DJ during the pandemic. And the workload has only continued to go up. He's getting new resources, new staff to help with the demand, but all that to say, we're continuing to grow here in the city of Fort Worth. To me, the budget doesn't start in June and we presented to the council and they approve it in the end of September and we start in October. Our fiscal year is October to September. The city is getting input about the budget from citizens throughout the year. We have advisory committees that advise almost all our departments. We had the bond meetings in the spring. People talked about more than what was on the bond program. We staff goes to neighborhood association meetings so that feedback is coming in all the time about what the city ought to be funding or not funding. And so I would tell you it's an ongoing process and we invite that input throughout the year. These meetings are important because I get to share with you what's in the recommended budget and then we can specifically talk about feedback and input related to that. So here's what you'll hear me say more than once. We're focusing on a safe and clean community. We're gonna talk about why it's important to take care of the infrastructure after we build it and being good stewards about the infrastructure. We are a growing community and I'll talk about the reduction in the property tax rate as we step forward. So here's the recommended operating budget. As we go through these numbers, I'm not gonna read numbers to you and I'm gonna try to make a few points along the way. The point I'll make here is in our operating budget, if you look at fiscal year 23 recommended, our total operation of the city is a $2.3 billion operation. And it's more than just, we'll talk a lot about the general fund, that's where the property tax revenue is and sales tax and where we pay for police and fire and libraries and parks and recreation and code, but the city is responsible for a lot of other operations that might not get the same conversation that the general fund gets. We run a regional water and sewer utility that provides water and sewer services for more than just the citizens of Fort Worth. That's a big operation. We run three municipal airports, Spinks in the far South, Alliance in the far North and Meacham Airport. We run a convention center in a Will Rogers complex. We have a solid waste utility. We have a stormwater utility, all that to say that the operation of the city is more than the general fund. It's a big operation to the tune of $2.3 billion. This just shows that same information and a different chart. And we're gonna move to the general fund, which is 915 million. So in the general fund, this is where the property tax revenue primarily goes. And if you look at property tax and sales tax, it makes up over 80% of all the revenues in the general fund, right? So the remaining less than 20% is made up of all those other slices of the pie. And again, the majority is property and sales. Both property and sales tax have recovered in a very strong way coming out of the pandemic. I'll spend more on the property tax rate in a minute, but sales tax has also been very strong for the city. So this gives you an idea of what your tax bill may look like. So you get a tax bill and it includes the rate and the amount from everybody that can put something on your tax bill, right? And the city is part of that. So the city's tax rate, we'll talk about it in just a minute, would make up that proportion of your overall tax bill. So about a quarter of your tax bill is what the city is recommending. And then the other taxing entities like the ISD, like the water district, like the county or the hospital district or the other parts of the tax bill. Let me take a moment on this slide because what you pay in property taxes is a function of two things. One is the value of your home or the value of your business. And the other is the property tax rate. So first, let's talk about what is happening to all the values of property in Fort Worth. And when we talk about Fort Worth, this is property in five counties, right? It's not just Tarrant County. Fort Worth is in Denton County, Wise County, Parker County and Johnson County in addition to Tarrant County. Our total values in all those counties is going from a little over 87 billion to a little over 100 billion. That's the growth in values in Fort Worth. The 2.7 billion, when you see that new construction value, that's new stuff that's on the ground that didn't exist last year. That's new development, right? So that's a pretty healthy number there, 2.7 billion of new growth that's on the ground. But nearly $10 billion is from growth in values of existing properties. Whether it's residential or commercial or business, those values are going up by nearly 10 billion. It's that growth that allows us to recommend a reduction in the property tax rate. So we are recommending that the property tax rate be reduced two cents, right? So that we're not capturing the entire growth and assessed values across the city. Let me go back to that one more time. The city has had a goal over the last number of years, going back at least seven or eight years, to reduce the property tax rate when we can. And so the tax rate about seven years ago was 85 and a half cents. And so it's been reduced by over 14 cents over that period of time. But also growth and assessed values has been strong during that period of time as well. But there is a, it's a goal of the city and the city council to reduce that tax rate when we can. So this just shows values are going up, property tax rate is going down, but we're still capturing what I would call a healthy growth and property tax revenue year over year. And that's what the budget then is based on when we talk about what is funding police and fire, what is funding the maintenance of infrastructure, and what is also available to fund future bond programs. Switching to the expenditure side, one night I'm gonna lose my voice. Switching to the expenditure side, we're just showing the larger departments, police and fire make up over half the general fund budget on the expenditure side. The other large departments include transportation, public work, parks and recreation, and economic development. This just shows the growth year over year for the different departments. I won't spend a lot of time on that. But again, police and fire again making up more than 50% of the total budget. So what's in the recommended budget? One is the property tax rate reduction that I mentioned, but we're also gonna talk about increases in spending to do better in a safe and clean community, infrastructure stewardship, addressing growth, and as I mentioned, workforce retention and recruitment. So what's in there when we talk about safe and clean community? Well, more police officers on patrol, more investigators for homicide and crimes against children, more money for 911 communications, not just in the police department, but in also looking at improving the overall process of 911. Our homeless outreach program enforcement, I got it, is in there. That's been a popular program in trying to deal positively with homeless population and homeless camps, crisis intervention team, neighborhood patrol officers. We're expanding the school crossing guard program to include middle schools. And I already mentioned we're adding an engine company in fire for the fire department in far North Fort Worth. As I mentioned, safe and clean is more than just adding police officers and firefighters. It's about improving what we do in maintaining street lights, right? And we believe that leads to a safer community. It means we're gonna put more money in pavement markings to make driving around the city safer. It means adding resources in the code department to do more inspections of multifamily properties. We're gonna talk a little bit more in a minute about street sweeping, litter abatement and homeless camp cleanups. And when we talk about the environmental fund, but we are focusing on making the city safer and cleaner. We also talk about meeting two in the south side of the city. It's a community center up North and we will be looking the same as we implement the 22 bond program and the projects that are in there. We are increasing the amount of money we put toward the maintenance of our infrastructure. A growing city needs to do that year over year as we build more infrastructure. We have more infrastructure on the ground and then there's more infrastructure to maintain. So we are every year trying to set aside more money to take care of the maintenance of infrastructure we already have. That last bullet is funding that comes out of our water fund. And I'll touch on that here and mention it a little bit later. Does everybody remember the winter storm and the broken water pipe? I got it affirmative in the back. Thank you. Almost all of the broken water pipe is cast iron, which was popular in a couple decades in the 50s and 60s I think and we're using any chance we get to replace that pipe and so there's a concerted effort to accelerate the replacement of cast iron pipe. Did somebody say it also in hot weather is problematic too, right? Here are some of the other funds other than the general fund. I'll talk about enterprise special revenue and some of the actually enterprise and special revenue. Here we go. Enterprise funds, these are funds that essentially generate their own revenue like the water and sewer fund. You pay a water bill, that goes to support that.  So these enterprise funds are not supported by sales tax, not supported by property tax and they are intended to stand on their own. Couple things, just real quick through these funds. I'll read the first bullet. There's no increase in rates in the water fund, the big operation. Solid waste fund, there's no increase in solid waste fees as part of the recommended budget but I do need to describe one thing that is occurring. Right now the solid waste fund is paid almost entirely by residential fees. Right, so only residential customers pay into the solid waste fee, almost 100%, but not quite. But we are spending money out of the solid waste fund that should be borne by a broader group of customers. For example, we do homeless camp cleanup through the solid waste fund. We do litter pickup through the solid waste fund. We do illegal dumping cleanup through the solid waste fund. That should be borne by businesses, as well as residents, as well as industrial properties. And so we are taking some of our costs that we currently incur in the solid waste fund and we're gonna shift that to the environmental fund. I'll talk about that in a minute. But it's that shifting of these costs that also allow us to say that's one of the strategies that allows us to say that there's no increase in the fee for solid waste. And then stormwater, there's no fee increase in stormwater. And when you think about what is paid for out of the stormwater, that's a lot of the capital projects that deal with flooding. I would tell you from June 3rd to last Monday nobody even thought about the stormwater fund. But with the rain, right, that came at the beginning of this week, everybody remembered why we had a stormwater utility and why that spending on some of the investment is important in dealing with flooding in the city of Fort Worth. Jumping to special revenue funds, I'm only gonna touch on a few of these. Mainly crime control and prevention district, culture and tourism and we'll talk about the environmental fee. Crime control and prevention district is a half cent of our sales tax and voters re-approved it. I guess that's the right term in the July of 2020 for 10 years. So CCPD, half cent sales tax dedicated for those purposes is in place for the next essentially eight, nine years from now. It's since it's sales tax, it's got strong growth projections tied to it. This is where we're paying for the school crossing guards. This is where we pay for some of the Hope team, crisis intervention, neighborhood patrol officers as well. Culture and tourism, this is primarily hotel tax. And so when you think of the revenue streams from COVID, when nobody was traveling, when businesses were shutting down, nobody's going to conventions, this is the fund that took a hit. I'm glad to tell you that most of these revenues are almost back to where they were before COVID. So people are traveling again, the convention center is holding events and you'll hear us talking about the next number of months about getting back on track, talking about the convention center expansion which got put on hold during COVID. Now let me talk about the environmental fund or the environmental fee. I got two questions for you. Has anybody seen a street sweeper? I'm listening, yes or no? Okay, you're going to see a lot more if the budget is approved. So one of the jokes has been though, a lot of people when you ask that question have never seen a street sweeper in Fort Worth. I'm going to tell you we have two of them. That's not nearly enough for the city the size of Fort Worth. Now the other question I'm going to ask you, do you know what your fee is, environmental fee is on your water bill? All right, it's 50 cents. So every household that is a water customer has a 50 cent fee on your water bill per month. That's the same fee that's been in place since 1996. It was 50 cents in 1996. It's 50 cents in 2022. We're recommending that that go to $1.50. And correspondingly, commercial properties will go up, a corresponding amount, industrial properties will go up a corresponding amount. And our intent by recommending an increase in that fee is to tell you that we're going to make a visible difference in the cleanliness of the city. Right, so we're going to recommend increasing the fee with council's approval. It's our intent that we put into place some of these programs and I'll just touch on some of them so that we will all see a visible difference in the cleanliness of the city. And I can say that because the people that have to make that true are sitting in that corner, right? And they've now heard me say this at multiple budget meetings that we're going to make a visible difference in the cleanliness of the city. And just one example is we're going to get 12 street sweepers instead of two. We're going to clean instead of 580 miles a year, it's going to go closer to 6,300 miles a year. So we're counting on you seeing street sweepers much more often. We're going to increase the number of litter crews that we have. We're going to increase the number of homeless camps that we clean up. And so again, we're recommending we're going to increase the environmental fee. We're going to make a visible difference in the cleanliness of the city. So it's a recap back to when you talk about all the money that the city spends, it's 2.3 billion. Here's our priorities, safe and clean city, maintain the infrastructure that we build, address growth. And again, that I mentioned that we're reducing the property tax rate to six. Our next steps, we had a work session today. That's what Council Member Crane was talking about. We have two more scheduled. We have a public hearing on the budget. That's a formal public hearing at a city council meeting that's September 3rd. And then if all goes according to plan, the council will approve the budget on September 27th. We're working our way through a number of these meetings. So there we are right here, Thursday, August 25th, already Evans. We have meetings next week and through September. And the public hearing and the other meetings that I mentioned with city council. Who gets this part? Okay, this is some examples of other ways that we're asking for people to provide us feedback and engagement with us on the budget. So for the first time, we can call the city's call center. And one of the customer service reps will be able to take down your comments and you can make that phone call in English or Spanish. We have the My Forward app that you can submit your comments. You can also send an email to Fort Worth Connection at FortWorthTexas.gov. You can also use that email to submit questions during tonight's meeting. And we also have an online comment form which is on the city's budget web page. And we also have something using the platform thought exchange where you can go on there and you can provide your thoughts, concerns, ideas about the budget. And what this platform allows you to do is you can go on and read what other people have said and then you can like those which increases like their popularity on the app. And then you can also submit ones of your own. And then we'll be using all of this information will be gathered and it'll be given to council. So this is for tonight during the meeting. You can text your questions or you can send them through email to Fort Worth Connection at FortWorthTexas.gov. And I'm gonna go ahead and leave that up so that people can see it. So I think we're at the question and answer portion of the evening. And just some guidelines for tonight. We will take one question at a time from each person and we asked that you keep your comments and questions brief and that they are related to the budget. We'll also be taking the questions that come in through email and text. And if we have time, we'll come back around and allow people second questions. We also will have staff available after if there's a question that came up you don't wanna ask it publicly you can go and talk to staff. We also have complete and turn in and we will compile all of that and give that to council. First I wanna ask Amethyst to come up and we asked you, we gave you dots when you came in and we asked you to mark what you thought were the most important items and Amethyst has the results from tonight. Sure, so thanks everybody for being here and for participating in the exercise and being engaged with the city's budget. So before I tell you what your items your most voted on items were tonight I wanna give you a round of what has already happened in other meetings and how other places have voted. So we had a meeting up North at the Summer Glen Library. Their top vote was for development services to for more analysts to improve permitting and consultants for the subdivision ordinance. We had a meeting South at Southwest Community Center and they had a tie. So between TPW for street lighting improvements increasing crews from nine to 12 and library higher 14 for the Southwest Library opening in 2023 which makes sense. And we had a meeting yesterday in district seven at Boswell High School. They also had a tie. So parks youth sports division pilot for after school sports programs and development services to increase customer service staff by 12 employees. So tonight you've had a four-way tie. So development services to increase zoning and historic preservation staff and update the zoning ordinance. The second is code compliance to clean up to three times as many homeless camps to support homeless outreach enforcement hope team efforts park and recreation additional location for the Fort Worth at six program and TPW street lighting improvements including increasing crews from nine to 12. So those are your top voted items today. And hopefully that gave us some time to get some questions in and we'll turn it over. I'll come around with a microphone if you do have a question that you'd like to ask publicly. Okay, if you'd like to ask a question just raise your hand and Amethyst will come and bring you the microphone. Any questions? Yes, Mr. Willoughby. For a sample. Oh, I'm sorry. For a sample what I call wasteful spending. That's I don't think it's working though. But my question had to go to the councilman Mr. Crane I'd like for him to ask him early if he'd take a question. He said yes, he would. So I'm hoping that he will take the question. A little while back on the city council agenda was to vote to put $250,000 to outside attorneys to keep chief Fitzgerald from coming back to this job. And we don't understand why our city's spending that money. I think that's wasteful spending. He wants appeals and everything. So I'd like for Mr. Crane to answer why did he vote? And the second thing is, does that money come out of general funds or where does that money come out of? And this also makes it up to a half a million actually to keep chief Fitzgerald from coming back. But Mr. Crane wasn't here on the other part but he's here and he voted for $250,000 worth to go there. And I'd like to know why. Chris Nell is the only council member that voted against it. And the thing I want to do, I want to spoke out one thing real quick. I've asked each council member each place this question. Okay, I think that's the one question that you have for right now. I just want to be fair with you, that's why I'm asking. And I believe that question was asked at a previous meeting and I don't know if David wants to address that. Sure, it was asked at two previous meetings by Bob. The reason Bob doesn't ask me is because I'll tell him that, again, the show was terminated for performance and there's plenty of stuff on the public record. We don't need to rehash these times. The reason Bob doesn't answer him is because he's an official. Crane is an elected official and he's our representative. We do. He voted for it, not them. All right. Okay. So how do you protect him? Chris, can you take a question? Next question. We do have a question that came in through text or the email, I'm not sure which, but what is the breakdown in improving bikeable, walkable public transit in the city? So, who wants to take that one? Oh, we got plenty of people. Let's see, that also came in. Okay. Who wants to take walkable public transit? Because that would mostly be found in our capital plan. And we also give some funding to Trinity Metro. Anybody got that? Dana, look at that. We're using the microphones because it's being recorded and shown live and that's the only way we can hear it. Thank you. So the question was about bikeable and walkable transit? Ways to get to transit stops? Okay. What is the breakdown on improving? Oh, good. Okay. So the city has an active transportation plan which was adopted a few years ago and it identifies both on-street and off-street connections to get to important destinations including transit stops and transit stations. So one of the things that we do each year is provide funding through Trinity Metro, in partnership with Trinity Metro I should say, to provide sidewalk and ADA access improvements to various transit stops. And we're also working with them, likely this next year to make some improvements to the bus stops and benches and those kinds of things as part of our pay-as-you-go capital budget. In addition, the city through its pavement markings also makes improvements to how streets are configured or laid out so that when they redo a street they try to think about who are all the users on that street and in some cases that might mean providing a safe route for a bicycle in its own lane or in some cases that might mean a side path where it's say 10 feet wide where you could have a bicycle and a pedestrian share that route. So there's a good partnership. In fact, the city council received a briefing today from Trinity Metro on transit initiatives and so encourage you to watch that. It was a great presentation. Okay, our next question is what is PAYGO? I'll take that one. So that's being guilty of using acronyms, right? When we need to be a little bit clearer. So we take a part of the property tax rate, we call it PAYGO internally. It is the same as cash. So we take a proportion of the property tax rate. In this case, we're recommending seven cents of the property tax rate. It goes to provide cash on an annual basis to maintain infrastructure that the city builds. Okay, what is the purpose of increasing multifamily housing inspections? Brandon wants to come up and take that one. Brandon Bennett, our code compliance director. Since the late 90s, we've had a multifamily inspection program. It started because we had some substandard apartment complexes where tenants were living in really bad, really poor conditions. And then over time, it has developed into a clean and safe city initiative with crime-free multi-housing where code in the police department work hand in hand to make sure the tenants are safe in their apartment complexes and that if they have a complaint about crime or about a substandard condition, that it's easy for them to report and they get service from both the police department and code compliance. So it doesn't take a lot to drive around the city and see all the new apartments that are being built. And that is drawing more staff time, not as much as say the older complexes, but we need to be ready for that. And so part of this is growth. Part of it is there's a higher community expectation these days where it used to be we responded to tenant complaints. Now we receive complaints from people that live in neighborhoods around apartment complexes where they are experiencing trouble with the lack of management. There are parties or litter and things like that. The good news is that the vast majority of this budget increase is actually paid for by the apartments themselves. That there's a fee that they pay each month to the city. And while it doesn't cover some of the initial capital expenditures with the growth of the apartment complexes and stuff, it will pay for the operating costs. So that's good news for your general taxpayer. Are there any questions from anybody in the room before we take another one from the online viewing audience? I was wondering what the decision process was to, I realize you're dropping the property tax rate, but you're actually increasing it above the voter approved rate and using some of your unused increment. Are you planning on continuing to use unused increment in the future? Or was this a one time we have specific needs today? That's a great question. I'm impressed that you know voter approved tax rate, unused increment, and what else? But- I'll limit on the treasure of the city, Bartlett. Yeah. I'm doing that here. I'm doing that. I could roll it here, just like you did. I think that's awesome. How many people knew what voter approved tax rate and unused increment? Ah, thank you. All right, so I'm gonna try to break that down a little bit. So when you think about the growth and assessed values, part of that comes from new development. What the state of Texas has said is cities can keep 100% of new growth. But a number of years ago, the state legislature and with their infinite wisdom decided they need to limit growth that cities and counties and school districts and whoever else can capture from the growth and existing values. How am I doing so far? All right. And what the state said is you can only capture 3.5%. Right, so we can get all the new growth and only 3.5% of the existing values. Except if there's a year that it didn't go 3.5%, you can capture that what's called an unused increment. And that occurred during the pandemic in calendar year 21. Right, when the growth and existing values in Fort Worth only grew by less than one half of 1%. So we can capture essentially the 3% growth that we didn't capture in 21. We're only capturing a part of that. And the state said you had three years that you could look back to capture that. So our tax rate at 71 and a quarter is higher than the voter approved tax rate, which I think is close to 70.9. So it's a little bit higher. And it's because we're capturing an increment from 2021. No, not necessarily. No, no. What'd you guys do in Arlington? Okay. Okay, we have another. That was the inside baseball for those of you that. Okay, our next, it's kind of a triple question, but it all has to do with the same topic. What does it mean to clean homeless camps? Where do the people go when they are displaced? And what is the hope team? And I know we got a similar question at another meeting and chief notes, I think did an excellent job. He did. So what does it mean to clean homeless camps? Where do they go when they are displaced? And what is the hope team? I think they are in the hope team. That's an absolutely wonderful question. So the hope team, it stands for the homeless outreach program enforcement team. So what we have are some officers who are specially trained to deal with our unhoused population forward. We're actually asking for an increase in this year's budget through the CCPD portion of our funding for six new positions, five officers and a sergeant so we can actually expand what we've been doing. And here's why. We've known for a long time in law enforcement that we had to have a new strategy when dealing with the homeless. Oftentimes when we're dealing with the homeless, we're also dealing with those who might be mental health consumers, correct? So we have these combined teams where we come together with our partners in fire. We come together with partners in the mental health field, social workers, mental counselors to provide resources to wrap around resources for those who are homeless who are willing to take the assistance because we find oftentimes someone who is homeless, maybe they just need a hand. Maybe they need some help. So whenever the teams go out, say to a homeless camp, the very first thing they do is try to get an assessment of what this person may need. What kind of resources are required? What can we do to get this person back on their feet? Do they need mental health counseling, substance abuse counseling? They need help with housing, with the job. What do they need? Because before our response was all we could do, really take them to jail, right? We want to be able to provide resources. So that's the first thing that the HOPE team offers. Now there are times if a person doesn't want the assistance, they fail to comply with the requests to move, eventually may have to be moved. And that's where our good friends and co-compliance come in. And do you want to speak a little bit about that, Brandon? Okay, they basically come in and help us assist with the cleanup. And really I think sometimes people get an idea of what a homeless camp is or isn't. And I've been to a lot of cities across the country. Has anybody been to Los Angeles recently? It's absolutely depressing. Go down Skid Row, drive down any highway, look at the overpass, it's just lined with people who are camping, but it's basically become their residence. The sanitation conditions in downtown are such that when I was there, they actually said they're seeing diseases that they haven't seen since medieval times, typhus, typhoid fever. That's unacceptable. We are not criminalizing homelessness and Fort Worth, but we're not gonna enable that behavior either and make it unhealthy for all of us. What we want you to know is we're doing the best we can to provide those unhoused with the resources they need to be successful, but we're also going to make sure you have a clean, safe environment to live in as well. Hope that answered the question. Do we have any more questions from anyone in the audience? Do we have any more online? I noticed that there was an increase in neighborhood patrols in the budget and I wondered how, I mean, we're all seeing that social workers would be maybe better placed in certain calls to 911 and how is that being addressed? Another wonderful question. We actually are being blessed with a very generous staffing package this time around and really from what I've heard talking with others who've been here longer than me, maybe one of the most generous we've had. But we're being very strategic in how we place those positions. You mentioned more presidents, more officers in the neighborhoods. That was one of the things we saw in the citizen survey that the city did is we want that kind of feedback. There's three things we're looking at when it comes to staffing.  We're looking at those recommendations. We're looking at our own internal review of what we need where we're weak. We're listening to stakeholders. We're listening to community members. We're listening to our city council members. One of the things that we saw the community talk about a lot was our response to people who are in mental health crisis. Touched a little bit on that earlier talking about our unhoused population, but this is different. This could also mean someone who lives in a home, an apartment, wherever it may be, who may be in mental health crisis. Years ago, finally law enforcement realized a lot of the people who were having negative interactions with and sometimes having to use force weren't really criminals, but maybe there was people who were just in crisis who didn't understand our commands. Maybe they just didn't know what was going on and we didn't know how to respond because we weren't trained, but the satisfaction of the matter is you can't call a social worker 24 hours a day. I wish you could. We're working on that. So what we have is our crisis intervention teams which will partner an officer. All our officers are becoming mental health trained peace officers. Something put on by the state, we're making sure they all get it, but this team has even more extensive training on how to deal with someone who might be in mental health crisis, but they're also partnered with master's level or above trained counselors, social workers, mental health professionals. Because there are times where we may have to go if it's a dangerous situation, we will take the lead to make sure things are safe and then that counselor can come in, but there's also times where we show up if it's not a dangerous situation, we actually take a step back, let that counselor take the lead and they deal with the situation because there are times that if we show up it might escalate things, we need someone to come in and de-escalate things. So the officers are trained to do that themselves. They have differently marked cars, they don't dress like this so they're not as intimidating when they approach, but oftentimes they can just stand back and let that counselor take the lead on those calls. And we've seen great results from that and those are another team, those members that will benefit from this budget because we're asked for three more members for that team as well. We're trying to make sure we're putting the resources where they're needed the most, the response to our stakeholders and that'll be one of the teams that gets more personnel if this budget passes. Is there a discussion of changing a hotline? So where there's people in communities that don't want to call 911 but need that type of assistance? 988, it is a new number. There is a number you can call now. It's 988. If you need mental health assistance, you don't have to call 911. You can call that number instead. Yeah, great question, thank you. We have kind of a continuation on the homelessness topic and it's got two parts. Where do people go when they leave the homeless camp and why is there such an effort to push anti-homeless infrastructure? Anybody wanna? I'm not sure I understand the question on the anti-homeless infrastructure. There are different options. Obviously we have some shelters and things within the city of Fort Worth where someone can go but one of the biggest initiatives the city of Fort Worth is putting on right now is permanent supportive housing. I don't guess Tara is here, is she? Permanent supportive housing. There are certain criteria that must be met. I believe it's being homeless for a year. You are. And more efficiently throughout the city. So moving throughout the city more efficiently is important. The other piece that the question didn't ask about is equity. And so that's something that we've been emphasizing with our transportation investments whether through the bond program or through PAYGO is trying to look at areas where we've neglected our infrastructure in minority majority areas or super minority majority areas. And so that's one of the criteria that we used in helping to allocate funds. And so that tends to be in a lot of our older parts of the city where the infrastructure is older where there's gaps in our networks particularly sidewalk networks. And so there's a lot of things that are being done there that will help from an equity standpoint. And then from an eco-friendly standpoint I think you could say that reducing congestion will help with emissions and air quality. And in fact the city often receives federal congestion mitigation and air quality grants to help with those kinds of improvements. We also are working with Trinity Metro to expand the transit system. So encouraging people to use alternative forms of transportation can help from an environmental or ecological standpoint. Let me think what else. And then the other piece is again trying to get folks to jobs. And so the eco-friendly I think is meant from an environmental standpoint but I would also use eco as economics and equity. Lauren anything you wanna add? Okay thank you. Okay and the next one you mentioned community feedback. Do you have social and demographic breakdown of this feedback? I'll go ahead and take this one. We do not for the feedback that we're getting on the budget. We don't have a specific like demographic information for each person that's responding. But what I will say is that and then part of that question was an opportunity to talk about equity. When we looked at the different ways for people to provide feedback, we tried to make sure that people had a lot of different options during this budget conversation to provide their feedback. So with the meetings we've had meetings in English and Spanish in person for those that want to come to a meeting. We've had the online option for people to provide feedback. We also for the first time, as I mentioned, people can call the call center and they can provide their comments, English or Spanish and we're compiling all of that information to make it as easy as possible for people to give us the input in whatever platform they're comfortable with. And as David mentioned earlier, we're taking the feedback now during the budget process after he's presented the proposed budget. But as he mentioned, this is something that goes on year round and it's working with our community partners, working with our neighborhood associations, our HOAs, our community survey. And in those, especially the community survey, we do capture that demographic information and we do know like the geographic breakdown. So some of the information we have and the input we get, we do have that. But for the specific budget input that we're doing at this time, that's not a question we're asking in our online form. Anything else? Any other questions? Well, thank you, everybody. And again, I'm gonna remind you that there are a lot of different ways that you can continue to give us feedback on the budget and we'll be having more of these meetings around town. This is what was being recorded and we'll have that posted on the website. And all of the presentations that council receives and all of the reports that they received during the budget process are all being posted on the 2023 budget page of the website. So you can go and look at any of the information that we're giving to council if you'd like to read that. David, do you wanna see anything else? All right, well, thank you, everybody for coming. I appreciate it. At Shepherd doing this project all the way through all the community advocates that really helped us and Kibo Works, who was the group that helped bring this project to fruition after I was moving to Hawaii and kind of not able to complete this after years working on the project. And of course, a big special thank you to all the fabricators and engineers and the installation team on the project. So this project has been always about connecting to communities and the idea of using these iconic longhorns in a beautiful sculptural way echoing the patterns of birds and flight, really becoming something coming from the celebration of the early aviation that the city was known for. And using that to create a dynamic sculpture that really talks about the technological evolution of the city wanting to act as a point of celebration that connects the city from two vantage points along that Hemphill Lamar area. Thank you again so much for coming and we are happy that this project is finally up and that it can be used to celebrate another part of the city. So thank you again, enjoy. Hi, I'm Scott Daniels and I'm your Answer Man. Send any question my way and I'll answer it for you. Today's question very timely. It's been a hot summer and air conditioning is a must. My question is, what can I do if my AC is broken? I've got you covered. There's a way to get your air conditioner fixed at no cost, LIHEAP, which stands for Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is a federal program that helps pay people for heating or cooling your home. And it will pay for your electric, gas and propane bills too. The good folks over at the City of Fort Worth Neighborhood Services Department and the Community Action Partners Services will work with you to get you set up right for free. All you've got to do is sign up at FortWorthTexas.gov slash neighborhoods. That's a lot of letters, so I'll link it to the video and the application process is easy. Must live in Tarrant County and be the account holder for your utilities. You can be eligible for money to fix or even replace your broken air conditioner and pay your bills. I'm Scott Daniels, your Answer Man. Send any questions you may have, and I'll answer them. From the River Ranch in Fort Worth, Cowtown, the music of Texas is upon you. And the music of Texas is upon you. Good to have you with us. Whether you're watching on television or listening on radio, here's one of the all-time favorites. Tommy Duncan gave Cindy Walker the idea for this song and she wrote a hit when she wrote Bubbles and My Bear to sing it for you. Here is Curtis Potter. I'm sitting apart from the laughter and the cheer, while scenes from the past rise before me, while watching the bubbles in the beer. A vision of someone who loves me brings a lone silent tear to my eye. And I know that my life's been a failure, while watching the bubbles in my beer. Looker! It's just as empty as the bubbles in my beer. A vision of someone who loves me brings a lone silent tear to my eye. And I know that my life's been a failure, while watching the bubbles in my beer. I know Cindy would be tickled to death. I know he loves the way you sing, just walking out into a Curtis Potter. I can't remember what Carl Vaughn is going to sing. I know he's going to do it in E-flat and I hope the band remembers. Carl, do you remember what you're going to sing? Oh, I know there's an old Hank Williams song, one of the favorites called, I Can't Help It, If I'm Still in Love with You. We'll just come on in here and sing it for us. Carl Vaughn. Hey, I've passed you on the streets and my heart fell at your feet. I can't help stood by your side and he looks so a picture. They're coming on now to sing some good songs like Carl just sang and he loves Hank Williams, Bob Wills, or Lefty Brazil, or Ernest Hub, or any of those songs. And you know, I didn't even ask him what he's going to do, but I know it's going to be good. From Jacksboro, Texas, here he is. Joe Paul Nichols. What is it? Which album is that off of, CD? That's on These Old Lies Have Seen It All, CD. That's probably the most requested song on it. Is it? OK, written by Mrs. Wayland Jennings. Hey, Craig Chambers. Hey, thank you for being here. We get old Craig up here. He was scheduled a little bit later on, but we're going to try to get him up here right now because we're going to take a break here in just a little bit. But before we do that, we get Craig up to do a tune and then we're going to, after the break, just lift the band, cut loose, and do some things that they'd like to do because we have what we feel the best pickers in the world right here on this stage, among the best pickers in the world, for sure. They're so great. Well, we're going to turn them loose here in just a little bit after we turn Craig loose. The stars on this side, the Alamo. It chant the strange as a blue of a bunny and a moolip pad. But only she would know. Still, here's my broken song of love. Your splendor, no walls of sand and tone. Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart. Sneak once again up my, once again up. For some reason, you're doing, driving nails in my coffin and I don't know why. But, you hadn't recorded San Antonio Rose yet? No, I haven't. And I was just wondering if it's going to be on the one that's coming out before long. It's not. You know, it's been done so well for so long. And after Leon Roush does one, what is there I can do to it? Hey, Craig, appreciate it so much. And folks, we'll be right back with more of the Music of Texas right after this. Hello, my name is Estes Tucker. And I want to personally invite you to join us in Fort Worth Tarrant County Minority Leaders and Citizens Council weekly noon lunch form every Wednesday at 12 o'clock at the Community Christians Church Education Building located at 1720 East Victory at the Riverside Drive Exit. In case you're not able to come to the live lunch broadcast, you may catch us on Fort Worth Community Cable every Wednesday at 8.30 PM, Channel 31. Please join us. Well, with this great band, we're going to have them get loose on an old Bob Wills favorite with the big band here with the brass and all. You're going to love this. Tommy Murrell on the steel. Tommy Halsef on the lead guitar. Right behind me, Larry Reid on saxophone. And Roddy Schultz on trumpet. Tommy Perkins standing up and playing drums as usual. Mark Abbott on bass. The Twin Fiddles of George Upmore and Bobby Boatwright and the piano of Curly Hollingsworth and that old Bob Wills big band favorite called Big Beaver, fellas? Don't know who you'll find. Not only are they just great musicians, but the soul, the feel they have. You know, when Bob put a good old voice to go along with it, you betcha. Back in 1973, Bob Wills wanted to do three last things. He knew time was near. He wanted to record one more time. He wanted to make another trip to Nashville. He was honored by ASCAP, one of the three licensing bureaus that you have to belong to to have your music perform. He wanted to make one last personal appearance. He did it. Boyle makes a stampede out of Big Spring, Texas. For the recording, he chose everybody, the songs. He chose the producer. He chose Tommy Halsef. He chose all the musicians to be on there. And Cindy Walker wrote some songs, original songs, for that particular album called for the last time. Perhaps you have it in your collection. One of them was called What Makes Bob Holler? And of course, what made Bob Holler was what he heard. And I got to tell you, he would have had to holler a whole bunch on that particular version of Big Beaver. It's just great. Tommy, we have some time left. How about featuring the Beatles right now? And no breakdown or two, fellas? OK, we'll start with George F. Moore, then Bobby Bodewright. Well, it's George F. Moore and Bobby Bodewright. But let me tell you, every member of the band, plus a whole lot more, are part of the Lincoln County cowboy symposium. The second weekend in October, each year out in Rio Dosa, we start off on Thursday night with a special tribute to Bob Wills and the greatest array of Western swing musicians you'll ever see, of quality musicians. And a lot of the young musicians are on stage. We raise money for the Bob Wills Scholarship Fund at South Plains College in Levaland, Texas. And by the way, it's the only college in America that offers a credited course in Western swing, blue grass, blues, commercial country, and rock and roll. So that's on Thursday night and Friday, all day Friday and Saturday. But let me tell you, on Thursday night, Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon, we'll have from 15 to 18 fiddles on stage. And Tommy has them doing like Fated Love and Maiden's Prayer together. And then he gets each other to do their favorite breakdown. And they all wind up on liberty. And folks, it is unreal. If you like to dance, we have two fabulous dancers have a gospel concert. That's always in October. Well, as I see, according to that old clock in the wall, we are about out of time. Here on the music of Texas this week, we thank you so much for watching, so much for listening. And anytime you can, we hope you'll join us in person right here to River Ranch at 500 Northeast 23rd. We're here on the first Monday night of every month, taking four shows of good luck for you to be here in person. Thank you so much speaking for this great man, saying so long, from Cowtown and the River Ranch. With the mission to educate and engage Fort Worth residents to take responsibility for their community's environment, Keep Fort Worth Beautiful is the city's program to support and promote all things sustainable in Fort Worth. Established in 1978, Keep Fort Worth Beautiful supports many outstanding city programs. Vital citywide efforts, including the Adopt-A-Street, Park, or Creek programs, Forestry's Tree Grant program, and Profiti Abatement. Keep Fort Worth Beautiful's signature events are the Cowtown Great American Cleanup, where thousands of volunteers clean up litter and debris across the city, and the Earth Party, held after the cleanup to celebrate the Earth in Fort Worth. Keeping Fort Worth Beautiful requires the help of every Fort Worth resident. Taking care of our city requires action by you. Get involved by cleaning up trash on land, recycling more, properly disposing of household hazardous waste, conserving water and energy, preventing stormwater pollution, reducing air pollution, and living healthier. Join Keep Fort Worth Beautiful to get the job done. To learn more, check out the program's details on the city's website. For later years, be live. The Fort Worth Best Years Club gives seniors a chance to connect, create, and contribute at eight community centers throughout the city. I see them more than I see my family. They're like so, and we are family. Here's just part of what the city of Fort Worth Best Years Club has to offer. Best Years Club at a community center near you. And it keeps me happy. At Northside Community Center, Loteria is a Best Years Club favorite, but it's not all about the game. I enjoy coming because I have a lot of friends that I can talk to, and if I have a problem, they listen, or I listen to them. Whether it's dominoes or cards, seniors enjoy the chance to spend time with friends. Oh, divertirme, jugar con todos. Guest speakers help seniors learn about something new. Exercise programs keep seniors healthy. Some enjoy walking in the gym. Others choose pickleball, a crazy cross between badminton, tennis, and ping pong that's sure to get your heart rate up. The Best Years Club, helping seniors connect, create, and contribute. Learn more about Northside Senior Activities, online or by phone. Tin Crud here, and my job is fighting for a cleaner, safer world. Kids, I've got a few questions for you. Sometimes when it rains, the water runs off the grass and down the curb into a big, dark hole in the side of the street, doesn't it?  Well, it does not go to a treatment plant to be cleaned and recycled. No, it goes as is, straight to your neighborhood creek, river, or lake. As is means it takes everything in its path, like dirt, trash, oil that drips from cars, weed killer from your lawn, and yes, even doggy poop. I hate that. That's right, all that crud flows down the street and dives into that big hole along the curb, otherwise known as a storm drain. And it ends up polluting our creeks and lakes, harming fish and other wildlife. Let me show you what I mean. Take a look at my arch enemies, the cruddies. They want to see harmful chemicals go down the storm drain. Here's Bloomer, the plant food cruddy, and Pesty. The weed killer cruddy. Then there's Van Goo, the paint cruddy, scrub, the soap cruddy, and finally Otto, the automotive cruddy. When I see them, they make me want to say, boo! Can you say that too, crud crusaders? When I say cruddy, you say, boo! Here we go, cruddy! Let's try it again, a little louder this time. Cruddy! You know crud is anything grimy, gooey, icky, yucky, like the stuff that washes off when you clean your bike or the family car. This is one of Scrub's favorite hangouts, because he's the soap cruddy. Remember when I say cruddy, you say, boo! Oh no, there's Scrub now. These suds are like totally awesome. They're going right down the driveway and into the street. Woo, surf is up, dude. I bet I can ride this wave all the way down the curve. At this rate, I'll make it to the storm drain in no time.  Sweet weather. Oh, but dude, like I made a major slope ring around the creek. Eww, dead fish ahead.  Too late for that. You're coming with me, Scrub. I'm taking you to the Environmental Collection Center. Ah, dude.  You know, crud crusaders, detergent is a major pollutant in our creeks. But this crime against nature can be prevented if you wash your bike or car on the lawn instead of the driveway. Better yet, tell your family and friends to go to a commercial car wash where dirty soapy water drains to a treatment plant to be cleaned and recycled. There are probably lots more cruddies. Under your kitchen sink or in your storage shed, stuff like paint, oil, weed killer, and household cleaners.  They're not for play. Crud crusaders, you can help me out by reminding family and friends to put these harmful products up high and out of reach. And when it comes time to get rid of that leftover paint or oil, adults can take these cruddies to the Environmental Collection Center. That's because hazardous chemicals like these should not be put in the trash or poured down any kind of drain where they can pollute our earth and water. Let's talk about another natural resource, trees. How many of you know that trees produce oxygen?  Good.  Good. Well, crud crusaders, you can help me save our precious trees by recycling paper at your house. Use newspaper, not paper towels, to clean windows and mirrors. Wrap gifts using the comic section instead of wrapping paper. And put old newspaper in the green recycling bin, along with aluminum and tin cans and plastic drink bottles.  One more time, crud crusaders. What do you say when you see a cruddy? Boo! That's right. Now, it's time to go to another school and recruit some more crud crusaders. I only hope they're as smart as you are. Thanks, crud crusaders. Conquer your crud! When I say cruddy, you say boo! Here we go. Cruddy! Let's try it again, a little louder this time. Cruddy! Fort Worth has watering restrictions year-round because saving water is important every day of the year. So when can I water? Before 10 a.m. and after 6 p.m. That's when wind and evaporation are lowest and less water is wasted. Before 10 a.m. and after 6 p.m. Got it. But what days? Your watering days are based on your street address. If your house number ends in an even number, you may water Wednesday and Saturday. If it ends in an odd number, water Thursday and Sunday. Tuesdays and Fridays are for apartments, businesses and such, and nobody waters on Mondays. Nobody? Nobody. So winter, spring, summer and fall, remember. Water before 10 and after 6, and know your watering days, but no more than twice a week. Watering by handheld hose, drip irrigation, or soaker hose is allowed at any time. For more information, visit savefortworthwater.org. Whether we drive over them, into them, or around them, potholes drive us all crazy. Don't get distressed. The city's pothole crew is working to fix them. Crews assigned to each quadrant of Fort Worth look for potholes along the city's 7,700 lane miles of pavement. At just under 25 minutes per repair, this fast-working crew expects to fill almost 15,000 potholes this year. The only thing slowing them down is finding the next pothole. That's where you come in. When you see a pothole, call<PHONE_NUMBER> and report it. The pothole crew gets reports in real-time on city mobile devices. The goal is to fix potholes within 48 hours of getting your report, or faster if they happen to be in the neighborhood. Truth is, weather, traffic and aging streets mean potholes are with us year-round. So just don't dodge that pothole. And the pothole crew will fix it. Call<PHONE_NUMBER> and give the street location or report it online. The pothole crew and you, working together for a safer for... Rummy Cube is a favorite pastime at Handley-Metterbrook Community Center where seniors gather to play games with friends. I see them more than I see my family. And we are family. A sense of being in community and being together with people, the fellowship that I have with friends here. Games are a big part of the Best Years Club, but fitness is a priority too, and these seniors have lots to choose from. Treadmills, stationary bikes and weights help work specific muscle groups. Walking in the gym, everyone at their own pace is an easy way to get the heart rate up. And low impact exercise classes improve flexibility and stamina. One day I was really stiff and I went in and exercised. And when I got through, I felt so much better. So that convinced me that it's really important that I go every time I can. It's like a second home for us through weekdays. And we love each other.


If you grew up in the 2000s, you might have used an iPod or even had one, but do you still use it? Probably not, but I'm telling you that they are still a great option. On an iPod, all of your music is downloaded and on the iPod, so there's no buffering. On an iPod, no one can call or text you, meaning no interruptions. And possibly the best part of using an iPod is the fact that you are using an iPod. People using iPods has become super rare nowadays, so you could be in the small community of people that still use one.


Here in Nehemiah chapter 2 we pick up the story. It's an incredible story I love the book so much because it has to deal with a man of incredible character The more you study Nehemiah the more you look at it. You begin to read how much character He was not anything except the cup bearer and what is interesting about cup bearer in those days You think well, I know what it is. It's just somebody who tastes the wine. Well, he did he was responsible for that He would keep the king alive, but he also would taste the food But even on top of that the main responsibility of a cup bearer is that he Would stand in front of the king's house and the door and no one could go in Unless they went through Nehemiah not even the wife Not even the family could go in to the king's palace now Why would that be well, you know that many of the kings were killed by their brothers and so on Many of the kings were killed by their wives. So the most trusted Man in all the kingdom guess who Nehemiah a Jew So here is kind of an interesting thought Daniel the same thing He had an excellent spirit and you remember he said that I have the purpose in my heart that I I'm not going to eat That meat and because he purposed when he was 15 years old He was able to stand in the lion's den when he was 90 So if I'm going to stand when I'm 90 years old with the lion It's because of what I did when I was 15 years old he purposed they didn't like it But he said listen at the end of ten days You will see that we're ten times better and ten times wiser And so the unit of the king's palace it's okay. We'll try it and sure enough They brought Nehemiah they brought I should say Daniel and he was ten times better And so Daniel went from kingdom to kingdom to kingdom He went from Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom to you remember the Meda Persians kingdom Cyrus Darius He went all the way up to the sages kingdom So he went through four kingdoms and here's what they said about him We're not going to find anything that we can find against him unless we come against his god And Daniel was a man who prayed and that's what they went after and so when the edict was written by Darius That he would once again throw anyone who would pray to any other buddy, but him then he realized the mistake he made So they threw Daniel in that lines then the next day Darius came and said king king or Darius or Daniel Daniel. Are you alive? He's no king live forever the god who my sir continually he has sent his angels to watch over me and All of a sudden we begin to see a pattern Caleb had an excellent spirit at 85 He could begin to climb a mountain and out do any kids at all So there's a thing about this excellent spirit It means that you are filled with the anointing of God that the work of the Holy Spirit is all over your life And that all of a sudden if you're dating you're not messing around trying to touch her or trying to mess around See how far you can get you're trying to respect her And you're trying to honor her and you want to put God first And you don't want to mess around more than she doesn't want you to mess around in other words She has found somebody who has an excellent spirit every other guy is into one thing and that's it And so all of a sudden you think well Why did I end up with this guy because when you were dating he treated the waitress horribly? He was on his best behavior, but he couldn't do that right either And so you got what you got and because you looked on the outside We could never pray this prayer God if it's not your will take him out of my life No, can't pray that God he's finally the guy who want well didn't pray the prayer well God You always take away the things I give you well great. Let him do it one more time See what why are we afraid of giving God everything and what happens is we think no this one I'm gonna make a decision and do you realize the mistake you made what about Hezekiah God said to Hezekiah You're going to die get your things together. What did he do? Did he trust God?  I'm tired of your weeping You can't you're crying too much.  I can't believe this. So you have 15 more years What did he do in those two 15 years or 15 years? He did two major things that just messed everything up number one He had a boy named Manasseh and Manasseh was the guy that cut the prophet Isaiah in half That's not a good thing Secondly one day he opened the house of Treasury up to Nebuchadnezzar so he could see what was inside the house of God You see because of those two acts All of a sudden Jerusalem would now be under attack because of his foolishness when it's time to go home Guess what you want to go home? You don't want to beg God plead with God or stay longer with God you want God to do what he wants to do Nehemiah the same way He's a cup bearer in chapter one and chapters two all the way through chapter six He's gonna be a construction guy. He's gonna build the walls now. Let me tell you how incredible this is He built the walls around Jerusalem if you guys are carpenters like I am 52 days it was done. That is almost impossible To build a city wall in 52 days and it says to buy it and sand ballad. They were completely bummed out How did he do it? He had everyone working the kings. He had the priests. He had the scribes He had every single person doing the work and guess how he did it He made everybody work in their own backyard. So if you were doing your backyard, you were doing it And all of a sudden your wife said hey, honey that Little crooked isn't it so you have to go back and straighten it out And then all of a sudden I live next to you and so all of a sudden I finally realized well Your brick has to overlap my brick and so we have to work together And then over here Dave's over here and he's trying to do it, but he got sick So guess what you and I had to go over here and help David We built our walls and they were the most magnificent Someone else said hey, I think I'll put a waterfall on my wall You know and they built this wall and they did it for the glory of God and the walls were connected in 52 days But he taught him how to work and he also said I didn't take what belonged to me the money I was a at that point. I became a builder. I had right to be a governor, but I didn't take the money I slept with them. I ate with them We had one sword and we had a trowel we worked and we fought and he taught his people how to do it And so we see and then verses chapter 7 all the way through 13. He became what a governor So you could say in chapters 1 through 6 he rebuilt the walls then in chapter 7 through 13 He reorganized their lives and what do I mean by that he got into their life He made him break up because they married women outside of the Jewish faith He made them reorganize their life and he brought back the glory of God This guy was incredible, but he was a cup bearer And so the last thing you could do is you did not want to get the king upset How important was it? Well, let me say this Daniel said from the going forth of the commandment to rebuild and restore the wall Shall be what 170,880 days so from March 14th 445 BC when exerces told him to go to the day that Jesus Christ came in on a donkey 32 AD was exactly 170,880 days in other words it was like 69 weeks or 69 times 350 or 360 days in a year Babylon encounter and it was to the date So it started from that day he went into the city and one last thing before we dive in he was 900 miles away So he was having a time of his life until one day the brothers came and his own brother came and said hey Have you heard how bad it is in? Jerusalem Ezra went to rebuild the city or rebuild the temple Rebebel did the same thing they rebuilt the temple, but then it been a few years So Nehemiah found out though the temple was built the enemy was coming in and the people were going outside Intermarrying so you had this lack of separation Nehemiah his burden just began to go crazy So he didn't know what to do and here is the probably the golden nugget of all nuggets in chapter 1 When all of a sudden he hears the news It was at the beginning of the year in chapter 2 where we're going to read right now Four months later. So guess what? This is the heart of this man for four months. He prayed he fasted He wept and he mourned those four Adverbs that's he's just a bam bam bam. He mourned he fasted he prayed and he wept So guess what when it was time he was ready. So I want to teach you Why you want to learn how to pray and if I could do my kids again? I teach them how to pray I think I was a good dad I don't think I taught him how to pray the way I want to even now in our church We're getting on Sunday night We're praying as a congregation and every day at 3 o'clock we pray as a church and that has changed our lives So if I had to do it again, I would teach my kids how to pray Why because teachers are a dime a dozen, but those that can touch God Those that can communicate to God those who understand what it is to speak to God Those are the ones that God's gonna do great exploits through and so it's so important to understand this And so if you're going through a tough time I'm gonna ask you to give it four more months if you're thinking about divorcing your spouse I want you wait four more months if you're thinking about quitting your job wait four more months Because I want you to make sure you're right on tune and not in the flesh And so we're gonna see this in a very profound way of what he did So the character of Nehemiah comes out He was a cup bearer as I mentioned to you before and we find out that the king said three questions to him Exerces number one and verses one through three. He questioned. Why are you so sad? That's a bad day because the king could kill you if you made him sad Then in verse four and five the question. What is it that you want? In other words, this king was really good. What is it that you want? Tell me and then number three question in verse six through nine How long is it going to take so this came was really together.  Yes? I am but during these four months. It was not a time of waiting It's a time of preparing and that's where I believe Christians make a big mistake. They're waiting for God to do some I don't think that's where it's at. I think you have to start preparing when your heart's ready and that woman's heart's ready God will bring the two of you together But he could be speaking to her and you're not ready because you're just waiting for God to do some well Hey, guess what you better be preparing or God could be preparing a job for you And God could be pairing the work for you or the ministry for you and God preparing your heart and when God sees it time then he brings it together and that's what you want more anything in your whole life You want to give God time and we don't we mess our lives up and we give God a week to get together Just give God time and space and you cannot believe what he can do in and through your life So he was full the spirit Nehemiah. He was absolutely a guy that did not quit on the job He pondered what God spoke to him. He went down He looked at the rubbish and I want to give you three things to think about jot these three things out Because if you don't get anything else out of tonight, I want you to understand three things that are so important in your life Number one you have to see God through the rubbish You have to look at all the things in your life and see God for instance when semi I was cussing and cursing David and Joe Epps said can I take them out? Davis said no, how do I know that God did not send semi I to deal in my heart? I don't know my life has not been right I've been in sin. This guy could be really a guy from God. So don't touch him I deserve what I'm getting right now. Let him alone later on. He was killed, but right now He didn't know so could David see through semi I and see God working in his life If he could he wouldn't touch semi I unless God told him to so number one look at what you're going through Maybe you're overweight. Maybe you're just going through a tough time physically the pain in your life Do you see God through that situation if you can that's great It says that the donkey could not even go over the top of the rubbish. It was so bad So he had to get off he had to walk himself and then it says he pondered this in his heart He for three days he walked around and just look at the problem of everything in his life And that's exactly what happened at Jericho. They walked around they walked around they walked around for seven days on the last day seven times thirteen times Finally it dawned on them. They can't bring this down. It's too big. This Jericho has mocked them This Jericho has embarrassed them if it was going to come down God was going to do it from inside out And that's exactly what happened. So you've been trying to tackle this thing destroy this thing Maybe it's pornography you've been trying to deal with it. You can't do it. No, you can't why?   It's like a marriage. You cannot figure your husband out and I can't figure my wife out I just can't I mean I got married to her remember in one week So I walked up and say hey, are you going with anybody? No, do you like anybody? No, will you marry me? She was sure So I called my mom and I said mom. I'm getting married next week. Well Stephen. What's your last day? I was I don't know I didn't ask her My mom said are you on drugs again? No mom well worked out don't do that But it worked out and so, you know, that's not the best way to do it But we've been together, but we had to learn certain things in our life So here he's saying, you know, number one, can you see God through the rubbish number two ready number two? Can you see God through people? That means that you can see God through your wife. I don't know We've gotten a big fight the other night. No, can you see God through her? Bob says don't go to bed with wrath on your heart.    No, I'm so bitter. I can't forgive. Well, that's interesting So people who can't forgive people who are bitter basically don't see God in another way They see what these people have done. But what about this?  So I have I'm able to go to bed at night I know too much, but I'm able to go to bed because I know one day Jesus Christ is gonna come Secondly, I know that behind my wife and all things she's gone through There's a God that loves her and loves me and thirdly I know no matter how much rubbish there is in my life God is wanting to show me something and I have to see him same thing with the boat He put the disciples there to teach him a lesson. What was the lesson? They had to see God So in that storm he didn't get in the boat He stood there so they could see who he was Secondly, he spoke to them so God wants you to hear him and God wants you to see him in the storms of your life Otherwise, what's the purpose of a storm and by the way, didn't he say go to the other side? Didn't he say that what that's the word of the Lord God told these disciples go to the other side That is God's word. How can you sink if God told you that you see God told them But they didn't believe the word of God, that's the problem So here is a guy at Nehemiah that had everything going for him and he had this incredible heart and he finished well 52 days he was done. Gehazi, he didn't finish well Solomon, he didn't finish well. We know pastors. They don't finish well. Well, I want to finish well That's important to me. So let's take a look at Nehemiah four things I want to teach you this morning that I think are really really really important and we find four words I'm going to give you number one a word, you know, so well patience. How many of you have patience?   Why because I don't she knows I'm not listening So listen these year second word persuaded. Are you persuaded? Are you absolutely persuaded that God's for you? Not against you. Do you know that his thoughts are for you and not against you? They're not evil, but they're good to an expected end Do you know that God does not withhold unless he's more gracious at the end? Do you know that God's thoughts for you are more than all the sands the seas?  He flung the stars into existence. He measured the universe with his right hand look it up a span What's the span nine inches if you're a carpenter nine inches? 18 inches and Then the reed was 10 foot tall, so they grab a reed. That's a 10 footer. They do a cabinet 18 inches That is nine inches. He measures the universe with nine inches of his finger. I like this one the best He takes his right nostril Opens a red sea There's a big God we're talking about you know, but but our our God can't do nothing. He's not for us because Cancer gets capital C and Christ is nowhere, but I had cancer small C Christ is a big capital You see, you know when you look at this you begin to realize so let's look at and then number three You have to prepare. Are you prepared at number four? Are you persistent? Steve how are you gonna pull this together? I'm gonna show you it's really kind of fun It's all in verses one through nine. Let's take a look at number one. How do I deal with obstacles number one? How do I deal with them say put your kids in there? Put your marriage in there put your business in there put your church in there doesn't make a difference How do I deal with my physical health spiritual does not make a difference might be impatient number one lesson You have to learn patience. Look what he says in Nehemiah chapter two verse one It came to pass in the month of Nisun April four months after What he said what he said in chapter one in the twelfth year of exerces the king that wine was before him I took up the wine gave it unto the king now I had not been before time saddened in his presence In other words, he had been able to keep it somewhat together. He was quiet before God But notice the first thing he did he was what he was waiting on God. He did not complain He did not go grab a phone. He didn't call anybody. He didn't tell anybody He bowed his knee before God built that relationship. So the same thing happens when you're flying I flew a leera jet one time and the pilot, you know, I was I was doing pretty good job And and all of a sudden he says we got to make a correction. I said why he says your two degrees off I said well, he said the way you're going we're gonna happen Hawaii But we're gonna die because we're gonna run out. Yeah, okay So I corrected it did great every no one knew and so all of a sudden he says now we just dropped a thousand feet and You're on a head-on collision with another plane. Oh That's not good. What happened? Well when you turn back you didn't give it, you know, the thrust it needed And so as you turn the drag dropped it down So I brought it back up, but I went too far 4,000 feet kept their wings straight everything cool He says now you're way out. So we got to bring it back down.  First thing you do you climb why because you don't want to hit a mountain number one rule in the plane you climb That's what you do in prayer number two. You communicate. You don't say hey, how are you doing down there? Talking to this guy down in the station. Hey, I'm lost up here. I don't know where I'm going.  You have to once again confess You can't be saying hey, how's it going down there? I just want to talk. You know, I'm just up here No, you want to say I am lost now guys have a hard time with it Guys have a real difficult time with GPS because they don't like that woman. Tell them what to do and They so for some reason they don't believe that satellite they think they know better Though they don't know what streets in front of them and that's how I like does they cannot accept it I have guys on my staff that argue with that thing day and night drives me crazy I don't like those guys and then all of a sudden, you know, so they get lost now Let me give you an example the wise men. When did they finally find Christ? How old was Christ? two years old They follow the star, right? He says that Christ was in the house, so I just kind of blew the whole major thing didn't I? Sorry, but he was in a house two years old. Well, that makes sense because guys get lost now put a woman They would have found him in two weeks Because they go to gas station a guy goes to gas station. Hey, what I'm lost. Okay Go here go there turn right turn left turn right right right left and the wife just say oh lord Jesus help me father the guy gets back and the wife says you got I got it right here got it Honey, did you write any of that down? No, I didn't I got it's okay He has no idea what he's talking about. He's lying So again, we see you have to wait because when all of a sudden with Heather, I had to wait 15 years I had to wait and three scriptures. God gave me be still and know that I'm good be still Be quiet Stephen and know that I'm done stand still and see the salvation of God Remember that Moses and then you remember what Naomi said to Ruth set still till he's done his work So it's not you telling me or me getting information Why am I in this mess because my broken relationship with God? God? I'm lost. I need help The first thing me am I did because he was such a great guy was he had the ability to turn to God I don't know what to do. Sometimes God shows you something about a spouse.  No, then why do you tell him? Well, he told me that doesn't give you right You will tell somebody if God spoke to you. Why do you speak to you? I don't know what you asked God Did he give you a green light yellow light or red light? What do you mean? You know, well if God shows me something about my wife, am I just gonna walk in and tell her what God showed me I don't think so. I did that didn't work Well, why doesn't you're the head I know I'm gonna have issues the neck and she turns it any way she wants So I got to make sure so sometimes God says green light go for it sometimes God says yellow light Sometimes God says red light. Don't you dare share what I shared. I gave you that information. Check it out to pray for your wife Well, I never thought about that. I know why because we just move too quick. We don't wait He prayer is waiting on God. He waited for four months and what was he waiting for? He was not going to ask the king. This is what he said God you hold the king's heart in your hand So God you do it. Well, I'm not getting a raise. Well, why should you get a raise? Well, I'm working hard No, the Bible says that Promotion comes nothing the East or from the West but where You want to say it but from the Lord Promotion comes not from a boss or somebody else. It's God giving you that promotion So some people I've been with you 13 years. No, you've been with me one year 13 times You see every year you're not growing you stop growing So when God sees you consistent when God sees you growing then God begins to call you But he's looking for that excellent spirit So prayer it says in Isaiah 30 verse 15 for the say the Lord God the holy one of Israel in Returning and rest shall you be saved and quietness and confidence shall be your strength. You said name So where's your strength?  You thought you did but it wasn't right But the moment you bow a knee heaven goes crazy Because now you're looking for a super natural answer to a situation and remember Satan only attacks in Relationships and we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and he comes and he tries to destroy our marriages and our Relationships and our guys and girlfriends and whatever it might be he wants to destroy us So we need to wait on God in Psalm 27 13. I had fainted unless I had believed and waited and Then one more in Psalm 37 34 wait on the Lord Keep his ways and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land when the wicked are cut off thou shall see it wait Secondly not only did he wait but secondly check it out How do I deal with these obstacles being persuaded look at verse two and three he was persuaded Wherefore the king said unto me, why is thy countenance sad seeing thou art not sick interesting This is nothing else but sorrow of heart Nehemiah Then I was very afraid and said to the king let the king live forever Why should not my countenance be sad when the city and the place of my father's Scepticers liest waste and the gates thereof are consumed. You see he did not lie He did not hold back. He was absolutely persuaded. This was the moment.  You opens the door What I have found out is people when they see that they don't want to do anything. What's what are you gonna do? I don't know But what are you praying for? I don't know What would you like God do? I don't know Why were you praying?  I don't know What have you been praying for last year? Give me a new job. Could it possibly be or what did Moses do when he was to go through The Red Sea he's praying And what did God say now's not the time to pray now it's time to move. You see he was out of balance Sometimes we should be moving When we should be doing that, but we're praying sometimes we're praying we should be moving sometimes we're moving we should be praying in other words You can't be in the perfect harmony into you are together It's real simple study Well, Steve, what's the problem? Why am I always out of whack because you're not in whack with Christ if this is Christ And this is you what's the cross when God wants to go this way you don't want to go So you can have all these wrong relationships, but is it the person? No, is it you? Yeah Will ever be the church? No, will ever be my wife? No, it'll always be me Why because if I get right with God everything else turns through it's there It's right here against you and you only have I sin so it's not other people It's me either.  That's not what you do.  Because all of a sudden the king says well, what's wrong? The king answered you Four months and did me am I see I'm afraid no me am I you've been asking God to speak to the king to speak to you Guess what he's doing? See, we're not real tuned in spiritually and guess what he says. Yes He says how can I be any other way? I'm kind of bummed because my people are destroyed and that's a good answer number three so powerful number three Goes on to say how do I deal with obstacles and here it is number four is the biggest point being prepared I don't understand when you begin to pray God begins to prepare your heart. What do you mean? Well when you are quiet before God God begins to speak to you I have a book. I carry around my journal. I write everything in it God speaks to me I write it down. I read my Bible. I write things. I never go anywhere without my journal And because it is the moment where God begins to speak and so here all of a sudden it says pray without ceasing So I've been praying without season But all of a sudden I'm praying but who is God changing tell me is he changing the king or is he changing me? Is he changed my wife? No, I wish but no change me because she comes up She goes where would you like to have dinner tonight? I said, oh, no Not this one. What are you talking about? I said honey. We're talking about something. No, what honey? I just don't want to talk about this Steven. What's wrong with you? Nothing, honey Where would you like to eat tonight and honey? Can we just like you pick it? I'll just go wherever you want to go and She's starting to get mad with me. I said, okay. I want to go out back. I don't like out back Why we have to go there? You know, I thought you wanted me to pick it Every single time it happens.  I I haven't the button still there She can still push it. See God finally took the button out with my daughter So she could push it all day. I didn't move none of these things moved me Neither that I count my heart dear that I might finish the course with joy the ministry that God has set before me And I'm not gonna be moved my husband to do what he wants I'm not moving if he moves and you move the distance between you two are bigger if You don't move and your kids move the distance is not that far But if they move and you move the distance is way out of the way You have to stand in the ground You have to stand there and so he prepared he says in verse 4 Then the king said to me for what does thou make a request? What do you want? I don't know I just hate that, you know, tell me what you want. Well, I think he what he says this is what I want to do He says here So I pray the God of heaven and Philippians 4 6 be careful for nothing But in everything by prayer supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known to God You can be very crystal clear you can speak it with authority and then psalm 37 verse 5 Commit thy way into the Lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass Do you know that there was a time you probably read it in Ezra where he stood? He read the word of God and the people stood from day to night. I think I want that in my heart Why did they do that? Well, there's a reason why because Why do all these people stand before Ezra? We would not do that where there was a reason when they came back into the land Ezra was reading the word of God. He came across the genealogy He began to read and every name if your name got read that means you own the house inside the city And you got it back for free. So you think you stand there and listen to it You bet your life would if you didn't hear your name, Rick You'd have to go outside the city and live. So people are motivated by the word of God And so we realize here he was prepared and then he check it out that one last one How did we deal with this obstacle by being persistent three things? This is what me am I want to do and this is what will happen with you if you wait four months If you just give God a moment of your time If you just believe God with all your heart and soul and mind that God will never let you down Three things and this is the am I speaking to the most powerful man of the country at that time He's not number one. I need your permission look at verse five and six I said to the king if it pleased the king here you hear that if it pleases you If I serve it has found favor in my sight that thou would send me to do it I don't want to go by myself.  So I'm not gonna hold that That's the authority God wants you to like he goes on to say in verse six The king said to me the queen also said he by him for how long shall the journey be good question And when will thou return so it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time He later on we read three years. I need three Because not only do I want to rebuild the wall. I want to get the people together great things are good. I Will send you out. It's a heathen king. How do you change a heathen king? How do you take a mayor? How do you change the president? I say how do you do change a CEO?  God will wake him up in the middle of the night It could be that how do you reach a kid that you love that's out there like my daughter?  I'd love to help you Will you forgive her?  And so I realized that it's light and darkness number two Not only I need permission. I need your permission sir number through to I need your provision I need your provision Verse seven and eight more over I said into the king if it please see very polite if it please the king Let a letter be given to me of the governor's be on the river and then verse eight a letter Also to the keeper of the king's forest because I need to make beams in the city and in the walls and over the gates and I need to have the timber for the side of the gates and the tops and and For you know the king studs and everything else. I need to have these okay fine. I need two lives. Okay, great. You got Really so when did all this come to him? Well, I tell you what when he's praying he's thinking when I'm beginning to build I'm thinking how many doors how many this I'm just thinking but when he's praying He's thinking okay if he asks me I better have an answer I want to have an answer so we think that have an answer for every man Is that just Christ is that just that or is that your boss at work? That's your boss at work They finally say hey come on talk to you. Well, I haven't talked to CEO for a long time. Well, I'm here. What are you gonna say? I don't know If he says what do you like do you like anything would you like it? Yeah? I would by the way, thanks for calling me up here, and then you tell them what's on your heart you're not afraid of anybody and then lastly not only do I need your Your your Permission second I need your provision with third. I need your protection first night He says then came to the governor beyond the river and gave them the king's letter Now the king has sent the captain of the army of the horsemen with me That's so cool, you know because all of a sudden you realize that Nehemiah had an army Because the king wanted him back the king wanted to make sure this was successful But Nehemiah still had to prepare everything, but all I'm saying is to me when I read this I Think it was God working in Nehemiah. It's like don't you it was God speaking in Nehemiah So here's what I think happens We get so hurt so bitter with God that we forget to let God in and then we get upset with God because Well What did Martha say if you would have been here my brother would not have done what did you say he's not here see Or what did Peter say?  You're gonna deny me No, never Peter Satan has ripped you and Satan was gonna beat you But I have prayed that you are going to overcome and when you do you're gonna straighten the brother So all of a sudden Peter was there. I don't know the man Guess what? He's warming himself by the fire of the world. He had the Holy Spirit But now he has this fire of the world. He walked a far off. He took a whack at the servant of the sword of the flesh I don't know where his fisherman gets a sword. He's out of he's totally in the flesh. He's not yielding He's not surrendering. He's swinging. So when I started swinging, I'm in the flesh Finally, he walks the far off. He's warming himself and then they kept coming out to Peter Curse it be the man. I don't know the man And Jesus the Bible says and mark mark and Jesus looked and Peter looked and the rise hit and Peter remembered That's why I need God to speak to me like he's never spoke to me ever before in my life that I'm doing That's more important than a Sunday morning a large church or anything else And I can tell you that you can have your children back You can have your marriage back, but somebody has to pray and Jesus said I don't find men willing to pray And who is going to stand in the gap? The only way you can solve your problem is you have to understand why you have the problem You've got them because you were not there. You've got to get back You have to be okay. You have to be persuaded because we lose heart. We lose focus We have no confidence and here's what he says. I under right here if your heart condemns you You have one greater God But if your heart does not condemn you you have access to God So either way you're fine You can come to God and God will give you his heart or you can run into God because you have access with them But never is there a time in your life that God doesn't love you all the things that we Lose and suffer because we will not simply give God