With nearly two dozen boards and commissions, Denton has more than many other cities yet struggles with filling seats and getting the minimum number of members together for meetings, according to a Jan. 16 staff report to the City Council.
The city secretary’s office conducted a comprehensive review of the city’s 27 boards and commissions in fiscal year 2024-25 and identified ongoing challenges, such as difficulty meeting quorum and persistent vacancies. As a result, the Internal Audit Advisory Committee was dissolved and the Community Services Advisory Committee saw a reduction in membership.
A year later, those challenges still persist with nearly 80 vacancies or expired terms and a half-dozen boards and committees with quorum issues. The Discover Denton Advisory Board, for example, has six vacancies, according to the city’s Boards, Commissions & Committees website.
The city staff has proposed to dissolve, integrate or phase out and make adjustments or restructure more than a dozen boards and committees. Those facing possible dissolution include the Committee on the Environment, the Development Code Review Committee and the Public Art Committee.
Aligning all board, commission and committee terms to begin Sept. 1 and end Aug. 31 was also recommended. It closely aligns with the city’s budget cycle and strategic goal cycles. Terms would renew in even-numbered years for Districts 2 and 4 and Place 6 and odd-numbered years for Districts 1 and 3 and Places 5 and 7.
“This approach will simplify term tracking, improve transparency and ensure a more predictable and equitable appointment process across all boards and committees,” Chief of Staff Kristi Fogle wrote in the Jan. 16 report.
The City Council won’t be making a decision on the staff’s proposal for another few months.
“On February 3, 2026, the Agenda Committee voted to schedule the pitch for a future work session following the swearing-in of our new City Council members,” Fogle said in an email to the Denton Record-Chronicle last week.
The council’s decision will matter because boards, commissions and committees are not ceremonial but a direct access point to government for many local residents, Josh Taylor, a local adjunct instructor and church musician, wrote in a Feb. 22 column for The Denton Luminary, a Facebook group and Substack newsletter that publishes opinion columns about city issues.
Taylor pointed out that 79 public meetings were canceled in 2025 and early 2026. Each cancellation, Taylor wrote, represents a moment when the public was absent from or unable to access the decision-making process.
“In Denton, many issues that later dominate headlines first appear quietly in an advisory board meeting,” Taylor wrote. “Unfortunately, due to declining participation and, at times visible strain between boards and staff, these public forums are struggling to function.”
He advised asking why people don’t feel like filling the empty seats: “Let’s address the unclear expectations and the lack of clear guidance on how to participate effectively. Let’s address why at times we have an environment where service feels frustrating rather than meaningful.”
Managed by the city secretary’s office, the city has 21 advisory boards, commissions and committees, and six quasi-judicial boards, commissions and committees. Of the 27 total, five committees are required by state law and/or the City Charter.
To serve on a majority of Denton’s resident boards or commissions, a person must be 18 or older, a resident and in good financial standing with the city. It’s a two-year term with a limit of three consecutive terms for most boards and commissions.
In the report, city staff noted that “a higher number of boards does not necessarily equate to stronger engagement or better outcomes. Meaningful civic engagement is best supported through boards and commissions with clearly defined purposes, manageable scopes of work and adequate staff support.”
In September, council member Jill Jester pitched the idea for staff to look at standardizing board and commission terms, review meeting frequency and quorum challenges and explore software tools to support council members.
Jester pointed to issues such as several cancellations and a failure to meet quorum.
“With this pitch, I would like to increase efficiency and engagement in the city of Denton,” Jester told the council last fall.
The council gave consensus for staff members to begin soliciting feedback from board liaisons and department directors. They also conducted a thorough review of current boards’ and commissions’ processes that included nominations and appointments and term lengths and effective dates.
Staff found that Denton’s ongoing, year-round board and commission process was an outlier compared to many other cities, which follow a more structured approach such as annual board cycle, scheduled recruitment events and coordinated onboarding timelines to help streamline operations and improve consistency in member engagement.
The staff’s recommendations can be found in the Jan. 16 Friday staff report. Some of the highlights from their findings and recommendations:
Instead of engaging throughout the year to consider nominations for vacancies, staff members want to implement a defined application period from May 15 to July 15, with August being the dedicated nomination month.
During the nomination month, council members will work closely with the city secretary’s office to review applications and engage directly with applicants and potential nominees. “This streamlined approach aims to foster more intentional outreach, improve transparency, and strengthen community involvement in the appointment process,” Fogle said in the report.
The city secretary’s staff uses Granicus’ Boards and Commissions software to manage board member information, vacancies and applications. It also has an attendance tracking function that the secretary’s office recommends continuing to reinforce that board liaisons enter attendance data regularly and generate reports every six months to share with the council. Tracking attendance is needed.
Denton’s Agenda Committee, for example, has been struggling to meet regularly since it changed from meeting twice monthly to monthly in 2021. The mayor, the mayor pro tem and the city manager are the only committee members who meet to address the city manager’s proposed agenda and any other council items that need inclusion.
Yet, for the past three years, nearly half of the meetings have been canceled each year,
“The long-standing practice has been that, when the agenda committee is unable to meet, the City Manager’s agenda is brought forward to the Council at the meeting,” former Chief of Staff Ryan Adams told the Record-Chronicle in August 2023.
Only six committees were identified as having quorum problems: the Bond Oversight Committee, the Committee on the Environment, Community Services Advisory Board, the Denton Police Department Chief of Police Advisory Board, the Zoning Board of Adjustment and the Parks, Recreation & Beautification Board.
Staff recommended dissolving the Committee on the Environment, in part given the limited meeting schedule and minimal workload, and also noting that “the environment is integrated into other committee discussions.”
The Development Code Review Committee is also facing dissolution or a return to an ad hoc status. Staff pointed out that the committee members already serve on the decision-making bodies responsible for code changes.
With 13 voting members, the Economic Development Partnership Board is facing a reduction to seven members, which is consistent with the other boards, and elimination of its nominating committee to start using the annual nomination process with the other boards and commissions.
Because the Committee on Persons with Disabilities’ original objectives are now fulfilled, the city staff recommends integrating the committee with the existing internal Americans with Disabilities Act Liaison Group that is reviewing the implementation efforts. Staff said doing so will allow for more direct collaboration between staff and committee members.
The ADA Liaison Group will continue to meet separately from the committee on a monthly basis.
To improve efficiency and quorum attainment, the city staff recommends reducing the number of members and meeting frequency for the Denton Police Department Chief of Police Advisory Board. It would begin meeting annually instead of biannually — with the flexibility to convene additional meetings at the discretion of the City Council, city manager or police chief.
The Public Art Committee, on the other hand, could be phased out. The nine-member committee meets bimonthly and advises the city on public art, which includes commissioning, placing and maintaining artworks. It also offers oversight of cultural districts.
“Over time, the scope of the committee has become somewhat unclear, and members have occasionally proposed artistic concepts that exceed the city’s operational capacity or available resources,” Fogle wrote.
Staff pointed out that the council could approach the nonprofit Greater Denton Arts Council about taking a similar role as the Public Art Committee.
GDAC is contracted with the city and “likely in a stronger position to facilitate community-driven art initiatives, given its established infrastructure, professional expertise and deep connections within the local arts community,” according to the staff report.
The staff also recommended restructuring the Mobility Committee — which is charged with advising the City Council on traffic safety, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and other mobility-related matters — to include external partners such as Denton ISD, Denton County, Denton County Transportation Authority and the Texas Department of Transportation. If not, the committee would be reduced to three council members only. The staff recommends eliminating the two resident positions from the Mobility Committee.
The Board of Ethics could be meeting less frequently, from monthly to bimonthly or possibly quarterly — as well as the Health and Building Standards Commission, the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee and the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
And while some boards and committees face dissolution, staff recommended that the council establish a new city-managed board to replace the Denton Main Street Association board and dissolve and transition functions from the Downtown Economic Development Committee to the new Main Street board.
A new Main Street board is expected this year.