July Denton Business Chronicle 2017

July 2017

DENTON

Business

CHRONICLE

www.dentonbusinesschronicle.com

Stayin’ alive Golden Triangle Mall using fresh concepts to avoid fate of declining shopping centers

By Jenna Duncan

T

he awnings of a storefront at Denton’s Golden Triangle Mall still have the markings of a traditional Bath and Body Works. A curtain awning frames tall glass windows, but something’s off.

The exterior is black and orange, not the uplifting blue and white of the retailer known for soaps, suds and candles. Bath and Body Works used to be here. Now it’s in a renovated space across the hall.

The black and orange reflect the latest tenant, Harley-Davidson of Corinth. During the holidays, the popular motorcycle brand had a pop-up shop in the mall to sell its apparel, mall manager Matt Ludemann explained.

“Having those available spaces now allows us to bring in unique uses — like having Harley-Davidson here was a great use to have during

the holiday season for our shoppers,” Ludemann said. “It’s something they’re not used to seeing. You’d like to have 100 percent occupancy, but part of the evolution of the mall is constantly bringing in new ideas and integrating new concepts into the property.”

Leadership at Golden Triangle Mall, and property owner Weitzman Group, is working to make sure the mall has a different fate than many across the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Weitzman bought the property in 2011 and has added tons of new features, renovations and investment on the front end. By giving shoppers nontraditional experiences, like live music and art galleries, they’re fighting to keep customers inside the 765,000-square-foot complex.

Jeff Woo

Harley-Davidson of Corinth operated a pop-up store last holiday season in Bath and Body Works’ former space at Golden Triangle Mall. The mall’s occupancy is at 96 percent.

MALL | CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

“... Part of the evolution of the mall is constantly bringing in new ideas and integrating new concepts into the property.”

— Matt Ludemann, manager of Golden Triangle Mall

Jeff Woo

In the past year, Bath and Body Works, Victoria’s Secret and Hot Topic have changed spaces at Golden Triangle Mall — not because they were performing poorly, but because they wanted to refresh and expand.

In the DRC file photo at the top of the page, a 2014 remodeling project at Golden Triangle Mall included the installation of a new exterior sign with a fountain.

Perry touts U.S. energy exports

By Matthew Daly | AP

By Jenna Duncan | Staff Writer The wait is over: Denton has a second Taco Cabana, with the newest store opening in early July at the former home of Pollo Tropical at 2220 S. Loop 288. Taco Cabana will be open at the location from 6 a.m. to midnight daily. Plus, the drivethrough will be open for 24 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

There’s a “pizza theater” now open in Corinth, so says Domino’s Pizza.

The chain has billed its latest loca-

tion at 1701 N. Corinth St. as a theater, since customers can watch every step of their pizza being made. It also has indoor and outdoor seating at the restaurant.

Denton Vape Parlor is now open on the Square at 110 W. Oak St. In addition to the latest liquids, e-cigarette parts and accessories, there’s also a barber. Some of the crew from The Bearded Lady are now permanently inside the space, instead of the

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pushing for increased exports of natural gas and other energy sources as it seeks U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday.

He and President Donald Trump have offered a “comforting” message to energy companies seeking to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, at huge terminals in Texas, Louisiana and other states, Perry said: “If you meet the rules, here’s your permit.”

Perry also said he has not seen a widely expected department study into the reliability of the electric grid.

A draft version leaked to news outlets indicates that renewable power and federal regulations have had little impact on reliability.

“There are lots of people breathlessly waiting to read that” report, Perry said — and he is among them.

In a speech at the National Press Club, Perry called LNG exports a

DUNCAN | CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

ENERGY | CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Energy Secretary Rick Perry listens to a question at a news conference Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington.

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Enterprising Voices

Business recruitment and retention in Denton O

ne of the city of Denton’s economic development goals is to expand the community’s tax base, which generates the revenue necessary to provide services such as police and fire protection and amenities such as parks and libraries.

Another goal is to ensure that high-quality jobs are available in the community so residents have employment opportunities to provide for themselves and their families.

Business recruitment and business retention/expansion are two tools that economic developers use to achieve these goals. The city of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce work together on recruitment and retention/ expansion as the Denton Economic Development Partnership.

Business recruitment, or locating a new company within the community, is the most widely recognized, publicized and visible economic development tool. Newly located businesses create interest and excitement because they often construct new facilities and may hire a significant number of employees in a short amount of time. I want to use the location of the WinCo Foods distribution center in Denton as an example of business recruitment.

In August 2014, the Denton EDP received a lead from the Texas governor’s office of Economic Development called Project Ranger One. Project names are a common practice in economic development and

Caroline BOOTH | COMMENTARY

are used to protect the identity of companies when revealing their name would divulge a trade secret or create a competitive disadvantage by disclosing plans for relocation or expansion.

Project Ranger One (WinCo) was seeking a location for a large-scale distribution facility with significant capital investment and job creation.

The Denton EDP responded to the lead with details about the community and a possible site on Western Boulevard near Denton Enterprise Airport.

On October 14, 2014, we learned that Denton was a finalist for the project and representatives would be in town for a site visit in less than two weeks. EDP staff pulled together detailed information on utility infrastructure and rates, zoning, plan approval process, permitting, fees, taxes and the local workforce.

The first site visit was a success. Countless phone calls, emails and meetings and three more site visits later, Project Ranger One selected Denton as its new location

pending negotiations with the landowner and City Council approval of an incentive agreement. The deal was final in June 2015.

Fast-forward to February 2017, and the 800,000square-foot distribution center is up and running, currently serving nine Texas WinCo stores with long-term plans to serve up to 36 stores in multiple states. WinCo invested more than $135 million in the project, which will expand Denton’s tax base and create 165 new jobs with an annual payroll of over $7 million.

Business retention/expansion, or keeping and growing existing companies within the community, is often not as visible as business recruitment, but it is just as important to a healthy local economy. Existing companies are already invested in the community, and their growth through facility expansion or new fixed assets further expands the tax base and creates new jobs.

Business retention and expansion is an ongoing activity that involves establishing relationships with the business community and engaging in proactive communication to identify and address issues and opportunities in a timely way.

Sally Beauty’s recent expansion is a good example of business retention/expansion.

Sally Beauty is a global specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies that has had its international corporate headquarters in Denton since 1982.

Biz on the Wire

DRC file photo

WinCo Foods invested more than $135 million in its 800,000-square-foot distribution center in Denton.

It is Denton’s fourth-largest private employer with more than 1,000 employees here plus 26,000 more worldwide.

Due to corporate growth, Sally Beauty needed to add 80 new positions in accounting and finance, customer service, e-commerce and web content.

Representatives from the company contacted Denton EDP staff to let us know that Sally’s existing headquarters building was at capacity and the company was exploring options for accommodating the new positions, including leasing office space in a community outside of Denton or renovating an existing building in Denton.

To get the new jobs and the

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Aug. 15, 6:30 p.m.

Aubrey 380 Area Chamber of Commerce hosts monthly networking luncheons the third Wednesday of the month at Prairie House Restaurant. Admission is always $12 and includes a meal.

Wednesday, July 19, 11:30 a.m.

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 11:30 a.m.

Gene J. Puskar/AP

A CSX freight train passes through Homestead, Pa., on Jan. 26. A jury Monday said CSX was 35 percent responsible for the death of Sarah Jones, who was killed in train collision that happened while her film crew was trespassing on a Georgia railroad trestle in 2014.

CSX to appeal $3.9M jury decision SAVANNAH, Ga. — A railroad owner plans to appeal a jury’s decision that it must pay $3.9 million to the family of a movie worker killed on a Georgia railroad trestle in 2014, a spokesman for the company said.

The jury in Savannah decided in a civil verdict Monday that CSX Transportation shared in the blame for the deadly freight train collision even though the film crew was trespassing.

The parents of Sarah Jones sued CSX in Chatham County State Court, saying the railroad shared blame for their daughter’s death. The 27-yearold camera assistant died in the crash Feb. 20, 2014, during the first day of shooting Midnight Rider, an ill-fated movie about Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band.

“This trial disclosed a number of exceptionally poor judgments and ignored opportunities by CSX Transportation to prevent this tragedy,” Jones’ parents, Richard and Elizabeth Jones of Columbia, South Carolina, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Jacksonville, Florida-based company, Rob Doolittle, said CSX plans to appeal the jury’s decision.

“CSX is deeply sympathetic to the terrible loss suffered by the family of Ms. Sarah Jones, but respectfully disagrees with the conclusions reached by the

jury today,” Doolittle said.

The film’s director, Randall Miller, served a year in jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing charges.

Jones’ parents said CSX also failed to take precautions that could have averted the crash on a trestle spanning the Altamaha River near Jesup in southeast Georgia.

Jones’ family also had sued Miller, his fellow production managers and several other defendants. All of them except for CSX settled or otherwise resolved their cases out of court. The jury Monday found $11.2 million to be the total value of Jones’ life as well as her pain and suffering. Jurors decided CSX — the only defendant on trial — bore 35 percent of the responsibility for Jones’ death, making the railroad’s share $3.9 million.

The jury in Savannah heard testimony during the civil trial that two CSX trains rolled through while the movie crew stood on both sides of the tracks within an hour before the crash, but the operators of those trains never called dispatchers to alert them. Jurors also were shown a CSX policy that train operators are expected to immediately report trespassers on its tracks and rights of way.

Jeffrey Harris, the Jones family’s attorney, also noted that the train’s brakes weren’t applied until after the locomotive struck a hospital bed the

capital investment with a short-term tax rebate and the city gains increased tax revenue and high-quality, goodpaying jobs for its residents.

I hope these local examples have shed light on the economic development tools of business recruitment and business retention/expansion.

Please reach out to me if you have questions or would like to have a conversation about these or other economic development projects.

L. CAROLINE BOOTH is the director of economic development for the city of Denton. She can be reached at 940-349-7751 or caroline. booth@cityofdenton.com.

Calendar of Events APIs and IPAs, hosted by TechMill, meets every other Tuesday at Harvest House, 331 E. Hickory St., for a techcentered hangout.

By Russ Bynum | AP

increase in tax revenue associated with a renovated building in Denton, the City Council agreed to a three-year, 50 percent rebate grant of the new property tax revenue generated by the building improvements.

In order to receive the grant, the combined assessed value of Sally Beauty’s Denton facilities must be at least $28.6 million.

Additionally, Sally must employ at least 250 people at the renovated facility with a minimum average annual wage of $51,800, which is a 31 percent increase over Denton County’s average annual wage.

In this win-win business retention scenario, Sally Beauty defrays its $7.5 million

filmmakers had placed across the tracks. Actor William Hurt, hired to play Allman, had been lying in the bed before the train came upon the crew at 53 mph. Hurt escaped unharmed.

Six crew members were injured by flying shrapnel from the bed. Jones was run over.

Hurt appeared in Savannah and sat outside the courtroom during the trial’s first day last week. But the actor was never called to testify in the case.

CSX attorneys blamed the crash entirely on the filmmakers. CSX officials had twice sent production managers emails denying them permission to shoot on the bridge.

Three of Jones’ co-workers testified that production managers never told the rest of the crew members, who went onto the railroad trestle unaware they were trespassing.

CSX lawyers argued that evidence of failures to follow company policies doesn’t prove the railroad was negligent. They said the engineer didn’t brake sooner because he was afraid the train would derail and possibly dump its payload of shipping containers onto people who were huddled on the bridge’s narrow walkway beside the tracks.

The crash ended production on Midnight Rider, which has remained in limbo. Allman went to court to prevent Miller from reviving it before he died in May at age 69.

Denton Black Chamber of Commerce meets the second Tuesday of the month at the Denton Housing Authority, 1225 Wilson St.

Denton Young Professionals hosts coffee and breakfast every third Wednesday of the month at The Chestnut Tree, 107 W. Hickory St.

Tuesday, July 25, 11:30 a.m.

Denton Chamber of Commerce will host its quarterly membership mixer at the North Texas Fairgrounds, 2217 N. Carroll Blvd. Attendance is free.

Thursday, July 20, 11:30 a.m.

Denton Chamber of Commerce will host a Business Over Breakfast meeting at Springhill Suites by Marriott, 1434 Centre Place Drive.

Breakfast costs $13. Jamie Wilson, Denton school district superintendent, will talk about the tax ratification election.

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 7:30 a.m.

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 7:15 a.m.

Denton Young Professionals hosts a monthly mixer at a new business each month.

August’s location will be Hannah’s Off the Square, 111 W. Mulberry St. Thursday, Aug. 3, 5:30 p.m.

Denton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce holds its monthly board meeting and member breakfast the second Friday of the month at Quality Inn and Suites, 1500 Dallas Drive.

Little D Open Coffee Club, hosted by TechMill, meets every other Tuesday at West Oak Coffee Bar, 114 W. Oak St., to discuss technology and startups.

Tuesday, July 25, 8 a.m.

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 8 a.m.

Open Hack Denton, a casual meetup for software builders to work on code, is held every four weeks on Tuesdays at Harvest House, 331 E. Hickory St. Tuesday, Aug. 15, 6:30 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 11, 11:30 a.m.

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 6 p.m.

Denton Chamber of Commerce hosts the Smart Business 101 series regularly for members at the chamber office, 414 W. Parkway St. The event is free to members and $15 for nonmembers.

Lake Cities Chamber of Commerce will host a community leadership breakfast at Lake Dallas High School, 3016 Parkridge Drive in Corinth.

The Denton League of United Latin American Citizens No. 4366 meets the third Saturday of every month at the Denton Senior Center, 509 N. Bell Ave. Saturday, Aug. 19, 9:30 a.m.

Sanger Chamber of Commerce holds a networking leads luncheon the fourth Wednesday of every month.

RSVP at http://sangertexas. com. This month’s luncheon will be held at the chamber office, 300 Bolivar St. Wednesday, July 26, noon

Denton Planning and Zoning Commission meets at City Hall, 215 E. McKinney St., every other Wednesday.

Wednesday, July 26, 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Aug. 9, 6:30 p.m.

Electronics recycling takes place at The Cupboard Natural Foods and Cafe, 200 W. Congress St., the second Saturday of each month. Drop off any computer-related electronics for recycling. Visit www.computercrusher.com for a list of acceptable items and more information.

Sanger Chamber of Commerce will host its After Hours Mixer at Sugar Ridge Winery, 212 Bolivar St. in Sanger. Registration is open at http://sangertexas.com.

Thursday, Aug. 10, 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, Aug. 12, 8 a.m.

Friday, Aug. 11, 7:45 a.m.

Who to contact Scott K. Parks Managing Editor 940-566-6879 | sparks@dentonrc.com Jenna Duncan Business Editor 940-566-6889 | jduncan@dentonrc.com Sandra Hammond Advertising Director 940-566-6820 | shammond@dentonrc.com Shawn Reneau Retail Advertising 940-566-6843 | sreneau@dentonrc.com

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Enterprising Voices

Premises liability for trespassers, invitees O

f prime importance to property owners and occupiers (tenants) is liability for damages to persons or property that occur on the property.

Ownership or control of the premises upon which the damages occurred by itself will not create liability for the owner or occupier. There also must exist a duty from the owner or occupier to the damaged person or property. Also, control may be established through a showing of actual control or a right to control the area in which the damage occurred. The control must relate to the activity that caused the injury complained of before a duty will exist.

Areas beyond the limits of an owner’s or occupier’s control will not establish such a duty.

Chapter 95 of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code governs damage claims accruing on or after Sept. 1, 1996, arising from negligent construction activities. A thorough discussion of that chapter is well beyond the scope of this article.

In addition to control, an owner’s or occupier’s duty to a party will be determined by the legal status of that party. A party may be considered a trespasser, licensee or invitee.

A trespasser is someone who has no legal right to be on the property.

A licensee is a person who is present on the property with the permission of the owner or occupier, but for whom the owner or occupier has no business relationship.

A licensee is present on the property for his or her benefit only and not that of the owner or occupier.

On the other hand, an invitee has a present business relationship with the owner or occupier and is present on the property for the mutual benefit of both parties.

A licensee or invitee may become a trespasser if his or her occupancy exceeds the scope of the rights granted to them.

Scott ALAGOOD | COMMENTARY

Typically, owners and occupiers owe trespassers no duties other than to not injure them willfully, wantonly or through gross negligence. This has been the common-law rule in Texas for many years, and has been codified in Section 75.007(b) of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code.

For licensees, owners and occupiers owe the same duties that are owed to trespassers, and the additional duty to use ordinary care to make reasonably safe and adequately warn of dangerous conditions of which the owner or occupier is aware but the licensee is not. Actual instead of constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition by the owner or occupier is required.

Owners and occupiers are additionally responsible to invitees for their active negligence.

With respect to agricultural or recreational activities, Chapter 75 of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code provides special protections to landowners engaged in such activities.

Texas courts have divided invitees into two categories: public invitees and business visitors.

Public invitees are people who enter premises that are generally open to the public, such as government facilities and parks. A business or merchant impliedly is inviting the public into its place of business. Contractors, employees and public servants are distinct categories of invitees.

By way of the invitation to the public, all entrants into those premises expect to be in

a safe environment. As such, owners and occupiers owe invitees the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises reasonably safe, including the duty to inspect and discover latent defects, make safe any defects or warn invitees of the same.

For invitees, an owner or occupier is charged with any actual or constructive knowledge of the condition of the premises (i.e., conditions that the owner or occupier should have known of regardless of actual knowledge) and has a duty to make sure their invitees are reasonably safe from any such dangerous conditions or adequately warn the invitee of such conditions.

Even where a duty exists on an owner or occupier to provide a safe premises, liability will only occur where the breach of such duty proximately causes damages to the third party.

Proximate cause is made up of two separate elements. The first is “cause in fact,” which means that the negligent act or omission was a substantial reason that the injury occurred and without which the injury would not have occurred. The second element is “foreseeability,” which means that an ordinary and reasonably prudent person — whom my first-year contract law professor described as Ward Cleaver — should have anticipated that such act or omission would result in such damage or injury.

These rules are general in nature, and several special situations have modified versions of these rules. For example, premises liabilities relating to children, disabled persons, elevators, escalators, sporting events and animals each have modified rules relating to liability of the owner or occupier.

Under certain circumstances, an owner or occupier may be responsible for acts of third parties. The same rules as above apply for a thirdparty act as for the owner’s or

Getty Images/Thinkstock

Property owners may have liability for damages that occur on the property. Trespassers have no legal right to be on the property, and Chapter 75 of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code provides special protections to landowners engaged in agricultural activities. occupier’s direct negligence.

There must be a duty, a breach of that duty and such breach proximately caused the injured party’s damages.

Most premises liability situations involving third parties are determined by proximate cause. However, a third party’s act or omission may be a superseding act, breaking the chain of causation between the premises owner’s or occupier’s conduct.

A superseding act is an outside force that intervenes in a chain of events to cause an outcome that otherwise would not have occurred. A superseding act can relieve an owner or occupier from liability relating to that act.

The criminal act of a third party is a common type of superseding act that may prevent the owner or occupier from becoming liable for an injury occurring on the premises. However, there are situations where an owner or occupier has been held responsible

even where the criminal acts of a third party were involved.

In situations where such conduct is foreseeable and unreasonable, courts have imposed liability on the premises owner or occupier.

Employers have a duty to provide a safe workplace for their employees. Owners and occupiers have a duty to follow laws and ordinances that relate to safety of the premises, and the failure to follow such laws and ordinances may be considered to be per se negligence.

Where an area or place has had so much criminal activity that there’s damage or injury to persons in and around the area, a premises owner or occupier may have a duty to protect invitees against such dangers.

Note that employers typically do not have a duty to warn an employee of conditions that are commonly known or already appreciated by the employee. Of course,

such duties will necessarily be affected by whether worker’s compensation insurance exists or not.

The principles underlying premises liability are in most instances purely fact-driven.

The analysis can be complicated, particularly when there may be more than one cause of the damage or injury or a superseding act.

Owners and occupiers of real property should always take advantage of liability insurance that will cover any negligence found against such owner or occupier as well as provide the owner or occupier with a defense (attorney) against the prosecution of such claims.

R. SCOTT ALAGOOD is certified in commercial and residential real estate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and can be reached at alagood@denton law.com or www.dentonlaw. com.

Chamber Spotlight Things are heating up at the Lake Cities Chamber of Commerce.

On June 19, we held our monthly luncheon at Genti’s Italian Restaurant in Hickory Creek. CPA Ivan Alvarez spoke on “Accounting Tips for Small Business Owners.” Communities in Schools of North Texas also gave a presentation on its upcoming new programs.

Communities in Schools of North Texas as well as the chamber’s recent July luncheon were sponsored by DATCU. We have had Wednesday morning coffees at Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke, and the chamber hosted a coffee meeting and gave an overview on our new website. Check it out at www.lakecitieschamber.com.

Michael Barnhart with There Has to Be More Ministries also hosted a coffee and invited everyone to participate in the upcoming Back To School Fair from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Aug. 10 at Lake Dallas Middle School.

Students who have applied will receive backpacks with their school supplies for the year, and there will be free eyesight screenings provided by the Lions Club, plus free immunizations and free haircuts.

On June 23, Lake Dallas and Hickory Creek had a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the reopening and new construction of Main Street. Hickory

Creek Mayor Lynn Clark, Lake Dallas Mayor Michael Barnhart and Corinth Mayor Bill Heideman were in attendance. This ribbon-cutting was hosted by Denton County Commissioner Bobbie Mitchell of Precinct 3.

On June 29, Oxford at Lakeview Apartments celebrated with a groundbreaking for a new development set to open in 2018. It will have apartments and retail tenants.

Please join us at our monthly luncheons on the third Tuesday of each month at 11:30 a.m. and our Wednesday coffee held each Wednesday at 7 a.m.

Details will be on our new website. Hope to see you at our next chamber event!

Metal & Hardware Your Steel, Fencing and Metal Building Supply Store

ALAGOOD

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Enterprising Voices

Simple social media for small businesses S

ocial media. You can’t escape it these days.

From Facebook to LinkedIn to Snapchat, there’s a social media platform for every occasion and group. But how do you take these sites and leverage them to help meet business goals?

Small business owners often wear many hats: CEO, bookkeeper and salesperson, just to name a few. This can make adding social media manager to the mix overwhelming. However, with a little effort, social media can make a major impact without the spending required for traditional marketing and advertising.

Here are a few simple ways to implement a social media strategy at your business:

Know your goals

The first step to any successful social media strategy is determining exactly what you’re hoping to achieve. Are you looking for new leads? To raise brand awareness? To create a community of loyal

Measure, evaluate, adapt

can focus their limited resources to ensure they are getting the best bang for their buck.

Automate your content strategy

Khristen JONES | COMMENTARY

patrons? By establishing your goals first, you will be able to better structure your social strategy with those goals in mind.

Research your audience

Listening to and researching your audience is imperative to ensuring you meet customers where they are. If you’re looking to talk to today’s teens, maybe Snapchat and Instagram are your best options. However, if you’re looking to talk to empty nesters, maybe you stick to Facebook. By researching their customers and where they are, small businesses

Social media is a fast-paced game. Consistency is key but can be tough when you’re already wearing so many other hats. There are a number of inexpensive or free tools that can help bridge this gap.

By automating some of your content, you can stay consistent while also trying out new times and post types to see what garners the best response.

Respond and engage

One of the most common social media mistakes is forgetting to engage with and respond to your audience. It’s not enough to simply push your message and promote your product — you have to respond to and engage with your audience as they respond to you. When you do this, your audience is more likely to

Getty Images/Thinkstock

Managing social media for a small business can be overwhelming, but with a little effort it can reap major rewards. become advocates for your brand and spread your message further.

Be who you are

Trying to do too much too fast is the easiest way to burn out when it comes to social media. Yes, maybe some big brands are posting 15 times a day across all their different platforms, but that doesn’t

mean you should. Develop a strategy that fits your company right now and then grow that as your company grows.

But don’t forget that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Follow bigger brands or companies you’re hoping to emulate. See a piece of content performing well on their page? Adapt that to fit your brand and strategy.

Finally, track everything.

Track when you’re posting, how often you’re posting, what you’re posting. Look at the demographics of your audience and how they shift over time. Track everything and use the data to inform your strategy moving forward. I like to do this monthly, quarterly and annually.

That way I can ensure I’m capturing all trends and data as they shift.

Managing social media for a business can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. With a little effort on the front end and a commitment to maintaining the strategy moving forward, social media can reap major rewards as your business grows.

KHRISTEN JONES is the social media and media relations specialist for Texas Woman’s University. She can be reached by email at kjones79@twu.edu or via Twitter at @khristen_jones.

Business Spotlight

Seven tips for preparing your taxes in a divorce

By Tina Orem | NerdWallet Taxes are understandably low on the list of things people worry about when they’re getting divorced, but ignoring Uncle Sam can be an expensive mistake. Here are seven things the pros say you should do right away to avoid a tax surprise when the rings come off.

Check the calendar

For tax purposes, your marriage status on Dec. 31 is usually your marriage status for the whole year, notes Paul Joseph, a certified public accountant and attorney in Williamston, Michigan. So if you expect your tax bill to go up after your divorce, and you’re not prepared for that yet, consider waiting until Jan. 1 to make things official. A tax pro can help you run beforeand-after scenarios.

Start gathering account statements

You’ll need them to inventory your assets and liabilities, as well as to determine whose names are on the accounts. “You should start creating your own statement

of net worth,” says Molly Burton, a certified financial planner at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, Florida.

“You should be gathering as much information as you can about your assets — and that includes the home, any tangible assets, the cars, investment accounts, retirement accounts, any loans.”

Hire pros

you’re married could keep that $500,000 gain tax-free. Sell it when you’re single, however, and suddenly $250,000 of your gain could be taxable.

That exemption generally applies only to a primary residence, not second homes or rental properties, Madonia adds.

Getty Images/Thinkstock

“It really and truly takes a village to get a couple divorced,” says Vicky Townsend, CEO of the National Association of Divorce Professionals, which provides a directory of member lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and other experts who provide services in divorce matters. Another option is to search the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts website for professionals who carry the Certified Divorce Financial Analyst designation. Ask your divorce lawyer to bill you separately for work done around alimony or tax issues — those fees can be deductible, Joseph adds.

Make a plan for the house

If you’re selling the house, it might be better to do it

If you’re getting divorced and selling your house, it might be better to do it while you’re still hitched.

The IRS exempts the first $500,000 of gains on the sale of a primary home if you’re married filing jointly, but for single filers the exemption is only $250,000. while you’re still hitched, says Chicago-based attorney Tony Madonia. That’s because the IRS exempts the first $500,000 of gains on the sale of a primary home if you’re married filing jointly, but for single filers the exemption is only $250,000. Generally, you need to have lived in the house for two of the last five years. For example, if you originally paid $200,000 for your house and it’s now worth $700,000, selling it while

Factor in the tax effects of the kids

Generally, a parent with whom a child lives at least half the year and who provides at least half of the child’s support can claim the dependent exemption, as well as the child tax credit and other related deductions and credits if the parent is eligible, Joseph says.

The parent might also be able to use the head of household tax filing status, which has its own advantages. There are exceptions, however, so be sure the divorce decree explicitly details everything, he notes. Also be sure there is a signed Form 8332, which tells the IRS what you’ve agreed to on the exemption.

If your ex is being obstinate, doing your taxes early could help, Madonia says.

“File your return right away

Know the rules for alimony and child support

Payments made for child support aren’t tax-deductible, but payments made for alimony are.

Likewise, payments received for child support aren’t taxable, but payments received for alimony are.

The tax deduction for paying alimony can be valuable for people in high tax brackets, Madonia says. If you’re receiving alimony, though, plan ahead for the tax bill, he warns.

Usually, nobody’s withholding taxes from an alimony check (the way an employer would on your paycheck), so you may need to make estimated tax payments during the year. You could also increase your withholdings at work to help offset the alimony taxes, he says.

Mind the tax hit when splitting assets

From a tax perspective, getting $100,000 of cash in a divorce settlement can be very different than getting $100,000 in stocks, Joseph warns. That’s because for the stocks, you might have to pay capital gains tax later on the difference between your basis — typically, what you paid for the shares — and what you sell them for. Similarly, lowbasis investments could generate more capital gains taxes than high-basis investments.

For example, if you get a stock portfolio worth $100,000 in the settlement, you might pay more capital gains tax if the stocks originally cost $25,000 than if they cost $95,000. That could change the way you decide to split up assets. “Even when assets are divided 50-50 — I mean right down the middle, to the penny — if you don’t look at the tax consequences, then it really isn’t 50-50, and in fact it could very well be detrimental to you,” Madonia says.

TINA OREM is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website.

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Biz on the Wire

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BISMARCK, N.D. — Additional environmental review of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline is likely to take the rest of the year to complete, U.S. officials said in court documents in which they also advocate for keeping the line operating during the study.

Developer Energy Transfer Partners also is asking U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to keep the line open, saying a shutdown would cost the Texas-based company $90 million each month.

The $3.8 billion pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois was finished after President Donald Trump pushed through its completion despite opposition and an ongoing lawsuit by American Indian tribes who fear environmental harm.

Since June 1 it has been moving nearly half of the daily oil production in North Dakota, the nation’s second-leading producer behind Texas — a total so far of more than 18 million barrels, or 756 million gallons.

Boasberg last month ruled

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Sections of the Dakota Access pipeline are buried Oct. 5 near St. Anthony, N.D. that the Army Corps of Engineers largely complied with environmental law when permitting the pipeline but that it didn’t adequately consider how an oil spill under the Missouri River might affect the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. He ordered the Corps to reconsider certain areas of its environmental analysis and is accepting arguments from attorneys this summer on

whether he should shut down the pipeline while the work is done — a move he has said “would carry serious consequences that a court should not lightly impose.”

Corps attorneys in documents filed Monday maintain that the agency expects to be able to substantiate its earlier determination that the pipeline poses no significant environmental threats.

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Business Spotlight

How to make money selling stuff online

By Devon Delfino | NerdWallet

On its face, selling stuff online seems easy: You post an item, someone buys it and you watch your bank account grow. But if you want to be more than an occasional seller and have ambitions to start an online business, there’s much more to it than that. Here are four steps to take if you’re serious about making money selling stuff online.

Find your niche

The success of your business largely depends on how it fits into the spectrum of existing businesses. If someone else has already cornered the market you’re after, it’s going to be harder to stand out. But going too generic can backfire, too.

“Attempting to start a generic online store is the fastest way to failure,” says Lisa Chu, owner of children’s formalwear website Black N Bianco.

“You cannot compete against giant online retailers like Amazon in terms of price, brand awareness, shipping cost and service. Focus on a niche market that you are interested in, because it will motivate you to learn every aspect of the business.”

Scope out competing sites and use surveys, social media, friends and family to gauge if there’s interest in your product. Determine how much money, if any, people are willing to pay for it. Then use that information to calculate how

viable that business is. (More on that later.)

Consider venue options

There are two main avenues for selling your stuff online: marketplaces like Etsy, Shopify, eBay or Amazon, and a website you create. A combo of the two is also a possibility.

Marketplaces are usually easier and faster for starting your business, but they also charge transaction fees that can eat into your profits.

If you build your own website, you’ll have more control over the look and feel of your business, but there are costs for web hosting services and monetizing your site to consider. PayPal, for example, charges a flat rate of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction.

If you aren’t sure which option is cheaper, research both and write down the associated costs, then move on to the next step.

Do the math

Before you can get your operation off the ground, you need to know if it’s a sustainable business.

To find out, you’ll need to decide how much inventory you plan to sell each month and the corresponding prices.

That will give you the total revenue per month, assuming you sell everything. Next, take the marketplace transaction or other payment processing fees and figure out how that affects your revenue. Going back to

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP file photo

The entrance to eBay headquarters is pictured in San Jose, Calif. There are two main avenues for selling your stuff online: marketplaces like Etsy, Shopify, eBay or Amazon, and a website you create. the PayPal example, you’d pay $1.03 for every $25 sale, leaving you with $23.97 per item.

If you sell 100 items per month, you’d get $2,397 a month.

Next, add up the various costs associated with your business, including things like the amount spent on creating or acquiring your products, website hosting, marketing and promotion. Break that into a monthly number and subtract it from your monthly revenues.

Then figure out your taxes.

You’ll need to estimate your tax liability, using your current annual household income plus the amount you expect to make from your new business.

Divide that estimate by 12 to find the monthly portion of

your earnings that would be set aside for federal taxes.

Depending on your circumstances, you may have to make estimated quarterly tax payments. Also, check with your city, county, state or other local tax authority to find out if you’re on the hook for sales tax or other kinds of taxes.

Once you’ve subtracted all of your business and tax costs from your total revenue, compare that figure with your monthly expenses, including any existing debt payments, like credit card minimums or loan payments. If you have cash to spare, you may be ready to start your business.

Otherwise, it might be better as a side project to supplement your income, at least until it gets going.

Biz on the Wire

Promote your business

Reaching the right audience in the right way is key for your new business to gain traction. The first step is identifying likely customers, putting yourself in their mindset and using that to formulate an outreach strategy. Often that boils down to a combination of blogging, social media marketing and paid advertising. You’ll have to decide which tactics are best for your business.

“Content marketing generates the highest [return on investment] of any marketing or sales initiative that we’ve seen,” says Pat Ahern, director of traffic generation at Junto, a company that provides web development and traffic generation for freelancers. “Start

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By Pan Pylas | AP LONDON — Two hundred years to the day after Jane Austen died, a new 10 pound note featuring an image of one of England’s most revered authors has been unveiled — right where she was buried.

At the unveiling Tuesday of the new “tenner” at Winchester Cathedral in southern England, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said the new note celebrates the “universal appeal” of Austen’s work.

Austen, whose novels include Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility, is considered one of the most perceptive chroniclers of English country life and mores in the Georgian era. Combining wit, romance and social commentary, her books have been adapted countless times for television and film.

“Our banknotes serve as repositories of the country’s collective memory, promoting awareness of the United Kingdom’s glorious history and highlighting the contributions of its greatest citizens,” Carney said.

The new note, which is due to go into circulation Sept. 14, is the bank’s latest effort to make its notes more secure by using plastic, not paper.

It’s printed on polymer, just like the recently relaunched 5 pound note, which features Winston Churchill. A new 20-pound note that will feature the landscape painter J.M.W. Turner is also in the works and scheduled to be rolled out in 2020.

The new note also includes a new tactile feature to assist the visually impaired, which was developed in conjunction with the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Apart from Queen Elizabeth II, whose portrait is on all U.K. currency, Austen is only the third woman to feature on a modern-day British bank note, after medical innovator Florence Nightingale and social reformer Elizabeth Fry. She was chosen after a campaign for more female representation.

As well as a portrait of Austen commissioned by her nephew in 1870, the note

by identifying popular content in your industry using tools like Ahrefs or BuzzSumo.

From there, write in-depth articles that are more extensive than the best article you can find about the topic.”

If you have an email list, test out new content there as well. Try sending out an email or poll asking users for feedback on a few ideas you have.

Tracking traffic from emails to your articles will help you understand your audience better.

The research you’d do for content marketing could also help you formulate your social media marketing strategy. For example, with BuzzSumo you can see a breakdown of the number of social shares each article gets. Look at the top five or 10 articles for your main keyword and note which social channels are the most popular. That’s where you should focus your initial efforts. You could also check out the social channels of sites that publish those top-performing articles to discover successful tactics and relevant hashtags.

Be sure to take advantage of services that offer free analytics tools, like Facebook Insights, and explore options like Google Analytics and Sumo. Then you can experiment with outreach tactics and improve your strategy as you go.

DEVON DELFINO is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website.

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People in period costume pose with one of the Bank of England’s new 10 pound notes, featuring British author Jane Austen, on Tuesday in Winchester, England. features a quote from Pride and Prejudice: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”

Some Austen fans questioned the choice of the quote — spoken in the novel with

deep insincerity by the unlikable Caroline Bingley.

Carney said that the quote was quintessential Austen: It could be read straight or enjoyed ironically.

A tenner doesn’t go that far

anymore. It’s worth about $13 and it could yield an Austen novel or maybe two, a couple of pints of beer (at best), and at a stretch a trip to the cinema to see one of those Austen adaptations.

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Enterprising Voices

Thoughts on investing in health care “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.”

— George Burns

Biz on the Wire Claims close Chipotle NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle says it temporarily closed a restaurant in a Washington suburb after reports that customers had become ill, a possible setback in the chain’s efforts to recover from past food scares.

The company says it shut down a location in Sterling, Virginia, on Monday after becoming aware of a “small number” of reported illnesses.

It says it is working with health authorities to understand the cause, but the reported symptoms are consistent with norovirus. Chipotle said it planned to reopen the restaurant Tuesday after a “complete sanitization.”

The Denver-based company notes that norovirus does not come from its food supply and it is safe to eat at its restaurants.

Chipotle has been working to bounce back from food scares that included an E. coli outbreak in the fall of 2015 and a norovirus case in Boston later that year. Among the changes the company has announced are tweaks to cooking methods and training for employees to prevent such cases.

For the first three months of this year, sales were up 18 percent at established locations.

Norovirus is the leading cause of illness and outbreaks from contaminated food in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infected employees are frequently the source of the outbreaks, the CDC says, often by touching foods such as raw fruits and vegetables with their bare hands before serving them.

Chipotle Mexican Grill’s shares fell more than 5 percent Tuesday after Business Insider reported the closure in Virginia.

Jonathon FITE | COMMENTARY

good inventory management.

If a patient in a hospital, for example, needs medication, odds are that that medicine served to that patient that day made its way from a distribution center to the hospital that very same day. Distributors are an essential cog in the broader pharmaceutical ecosystem.

The pharma industry also benefits from several powerful tailwinds. The first is health care innovation that creates more and more new medicines to treat more and more diseases, which creates a larger addressable market.

On top of this, the industry benefits from favorable demographics. While many other industries such as consumer products see demographics as a big drag on their earnings, the pharmaceutical industry is the opposite. It’s really helped by the aging population, and baby boomers are entering their peak prescription drug consumption years. Prescriptions also make up a larger and larger portion of all health care spending, and that’s projected to rise further in coming years.

While the drugmakers, insurers and pharmacies all tend to have very high mar-

AP file photo

George Burns knew what it meant to get older. The pharmaceutical industry is helped by an aging population. cycle, the rising burden of health care costs led pharmaceutical companies to become a bit of a punching bag in the political world. Very aggressive price increases by a variety of pharmaceutical companies such as Valeant, Mylan and its EpiPen, and the infamous Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of his drug by 5,000 percent, created a series of congressional hearings and a great deal of political scrutiny on the pharma industry.

But distribution companies, with their razor-thin margins, would be difficult to label as greedy businesses making abnormal profits.

They are actually really efficient. If you call them anything, they are part of the solution for the high cost of health care, not part of the problem. They are not really a politically sensitive part of the value chain.

But other players in the value chain such as pharmaceutical manufacturers may be “overearning” from their vested pricing practices. Pharmaceutical benefits managers (PBMs) also have much higher margins but less clear value-add. These

players might experience margin compression in the years ahead versus the thin-margined distributors who likely would be much less affected.

Of course, Amazon could potentially disrupt yet another industry. There has been some speculation about Amazon wanting to enter the pharmacy arena, and this speculation intensified after the announcement of the AmazonWhole Foods deal.

But Amazon has been experimenting with grocery sales for many years, piloting grocery delivery prior to the Whole Foods deal. There has been much less discussion by Amazon on the pharmaceutical front.

One aspect to consider here is that pharmaceuticals occupy a very regulated space and Amazon’s disruptive success has been in much less regulated or unregulated industries. Amazon has done worse in highly regulated industries such as alcohol, for example.

Pharmaceuticals have intense regulatory scrutiny because of the presence of narcotic drugs and the importance of not letting drugs escape the inventory chain. As a result, drugs require much more special handling than the typical distribution center would have.

If Amazon were to enter the space, we believe it would not be able to leverage its existing distribution infrastructure, but would either have to replicate it or perhaps face a build-versus-buy decision in the distribution segment. Amazon may choose to focus on other parts of the pharma value chain instead.

Last month it was reported that Amazon was in the process of building its own in-house pharmacy benefit manager to service its own employees. Just as Amazon did with Amazon Web Services, where its inhouse IT platform used to service Amazon’s retail platform eventually grew to become an external IT provider to the broader marketplace, an analogy has been drawn that perhaps Amazon might grow out its own pharmacy benefit manager and eventually try to serve customers beyond that.

This is another reason why we see the PBM space as the part of the overall ecosystem that is most prone to disruption, rather than the core distribution segment. All of this, of course, is really guesswork.

What we focus on is how the companies we own are exploiting operational, financial and macro catalysts to their advantage. Our current focus is on a company that we believe could double its earnings over the next few years. A high-quality business trading at a price well below the current market multiple allows us to exploit the fact that we are all getting older.

JONATHON FITE is a managing partner of KMF Investments, a Texas-based hedge fund. He is a lecturer with the College of Business at the University of North Texas. This column is provided for general interest only and should not be construed as a solicitation or as personal investment advice.

Comments may be sent to email@KMFInvestments. com.

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Grandparents’ Rights to Grandchildren Historically, grandparents have played a vital role in the development, nurturing, and care-giving of their grandchildren.

Questions tend to arise, however, when a grandchild’s parents separate, divorce, pass away, become incarcerated, are found to be otherwise unfit, or when the parents isolate the grandchildren from the grandparents. When these questions arise, what are a grandparent’s rights?

In June of 2000, in Troxel v. Granville, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision on grandparents’ visitation rights.

It is the most important case ever decided with regard to grandparents’ visitation rights. Troxel overruled a Washington State law that permitted judges to grant visitation to any interested party so long as the visits were in the best interest of the child, even if the parents objected. The Troxel v. Granville decision was unclear because the majority of the justices agreed that Troxel should be decided a certain way; however, each justice had a different reason for doing so, which resulted in six separate court opinions. The court held that “The Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

The unclear legal opinions in Troxel made it difficult for state courts to interpret the decision, but the bottom line is that Troxel severely limited grandparents’ rights.

With this ruling, the uphill battle for grandparents began.

Basically, the Troxel ruling meant that grandparents had to overcome the presumption that parents act in their child’s best interest as they make decisions related to a child’s care, custody and control.

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few weeks ago, my business partner and I were asked to present an investment idea at the Manual of Ideas “Wide Moat” conference. Warren Buffett introduced the concept of a “wide moat” business years ago — the business whose characteristics are so strong it stands a good chance of fending off the various threats that capitalism brings to bear against it. While many folks shy away from the complex pharmaceutical ecosystem, we focused on a corner of the market that is fairly easy to understand: pharmaceutical distributors.

Pharmaceutical distributors play behind the scenes in this very large industry.

There are huge complexities with insurance companies like United HealthCare, pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts, retail pharmacies like CVS and hospitals like HCA — let alone the prospects of which drug Merck or Pfizer will successfully bring to market. But nearly all of the prescription drugs sold in the United States go through one of three largest pharma distribution companies.

See, pharmacies and hospitals don’t actually keep a lot of inventory on hand, which if you think about it makes sense given the high cost of prescription drugs. The typical hospital or pharmacy relies very strongly on distributors to supply them just in time, which is a best practice for

gins, distribution businesses have thin operating margins, typically less than 3 percent.

To survive, they must be lean and efficient.

On the surface, the low margins are not that compelling. But some of these distributors generate high returns on capital. In other words, for every dollar invested in the business, they generate a handsome return on that investment. The key is the combination of strong cash flows and extreme focus on efficiency when it comes to transportation, inventory turnover and warehouse management.

One of these businesses in particular caught our eye. In the early 2000s, the company traded at roughly 33 times earnings per share (EPS) — an expensive multiple of earnings. Investors were clearly expecting lots of growth from the business in the years ahead. Over the next 10 years, the management team did the hard work of integrating a large merger and smaller tuck-in acquisitions while paying down debt, resulting in EPS growth of nearly 18 percent over the decade. Strong growth indeed.

Yet, the share price went nowhere. The multiple fell from 33 times EPS in the early part of the decade to around 11 times EPS after the financial crisis. Even though the earnings were much higher, investors were paying much less for the future prospects. Yet, over the next six years, earnings tripled again and investors finally began to notice.

But during the last election

Many states amended their statutes regarding grandparents’ rights after Troxel. The Texas statutes on grandparents’ rights have been modified since Troxel. And it seems that during every legislative session in Texas since Troxel, bills have been filed to further modify grandparents’ rights. In fact, there are several bills pending before the Texas legislature this session.

Oftentimes grandparents are found in primary caregiving roles for their grandchild. This may be on a full-time basis when the grandchild’s parents are unable to provide for the child, or in the case of emergency or tragedy. It is in these situations that a grandparent may serve as the grandchild’s primary caregiver. On the other hand, there are times when grandparents are excluded from seeing their grandchild by one or both of the parents. Usually a legal battle begins when grandparents want to maintain primary caregiving or contact with their grandchildren.

There are three types of suits grandparents can attempt to pursue. The first two types of suits involve “conservatorship,” one being custody. The third type of suit is for possession and access to a grandchild (visitation). The first battle a grandparent must overcome is to establish that they have a right to bring the suit, called “standing.” Standing can be complex, but some of the things a court may look at with regard to grandparent standing are as follows: • The grandchild’s present circumstances would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development.

• The denial of access to the child by the grandparent would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development, and the parents are incompetent, deceased or do not have court-ordered possession and access to their child.

If a grandparent has standing, then they

may proceed with their suit. The proof required in a grandparent case depends on what type of case the grandparent is pursuing. If the grandparent is seeking custody of their grandchild, the burden on the grandparent is different than if the grandparent is seeking visitation with their grandchild. For example, for grandparent custody of a child, the court may look at whether the appointment of the parents would not be in the best interest of the grandchild because doing so would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development; the best interest of the child; whether family violence has occurred between the parents; and whether awarding the grandparent custody is in the best interest of the child.

For visitation, the court may look at whether a parent’s rights have been terminated; whether the denial of access by the grandparent to the child would significantly impair the child’s physical health or emotional development; and whether a parent is incompetent, incarcerated, deceased, or has actual court-ordered possession and access to their child.

Every case involves a unique set of facts and grandparents should consult with a family lawyer to consult about their rights. The laws for grandparents’ rights can be quite complex. It is dangerous to obtain legal advice about grandparents’ rights on the internet, as valuable grandparent rights could be lost.

(From left to right) Brook Stuntebeck, Sean Abeyta, Charla H. Bradshaw, James Logue, and Sarah Darnell

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Enterprising Voices

Reception for new school personnel set for next month W

Chuck CARPENTER | COMMENTARY

ith the blessing of the Denton school district, the Denton Chamber of Commerce has sponsored a popular initiative to personally promote the products and services of its members directly to new teachers and school staff members for more than 25 years.

We held the first reception in the cafeteria at Denton

High School. There were barely 9,000 students in the district at the time. We had make-your-own fajitas for all of the new employees and sponsors.

Today the district is opening a new campus, with corresponding teachers and staff, nearly every year.

The 2017 Denton Independent School District New Employee Reception is sched-

uled for Thursday, Aug. 3, at Ryan High School.

The continued expansion of Denton ISD campuses and corresponding new personnel — all under one roof for orientation — typically equates to a fruitful opportunity for our members to sponsor exhibit space. Sponsoring exhibitors should have direct access to an estimated 300 potential customers and

Biz on the Wire

Homebuilder sentiment down

By Alex Veiga | AP U.S. homebuilders are feeling less optimistic about their sales prospects, although their overall outlook remains positive.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index, released Tuesday, declined to 64 this month. That’s down two points from a downwardly revised reading of 66 in June and the lowest level since November.

Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good rather than poor. The index has been above 60 since September.

The July index fell short of analyst predictions, which called for a reading of 67,

according to FactSet. Readings gauging builders’ view of sales now and over the next six months also fell from last month. A measure of traffic by prospective buyers also declined.

Sales of new U.S. homes are running ahead of last year’s pace, reflecting strong demand for homes as the economy has continued to create jobs, pulling the unemployment rate down to a healthy 4.4 percent.

All told, new home sales hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 610,000 in May, up 2.9 percent from the previous month and an 8.9 percent gain versus the same month last year. June new-home sales data are due out next week.

A tight supply of existing

homes on the market also has helped heighten demand for newly built homes, pushing prices to new highs.

The median price of a new home climbed in May to a record $345,800, up 16.8 percent from a year earlier.

But a shortage of available building lots has tempered new construction.

Construction of new homes fell for a third straight month in May, declining to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units.

In addition to a thin supply of available land parcels cleared for home construction, builders continue to grapple with a shortage of skilled construction workers and rising materials prices, particularly lumber.

clients to provide samples, coupons and promotional materials.

In 2016, chamber members representing 43 Denton-area businesses had direct contact to approximately 350 new Denton school district employees. Sponsorship fees provided $1,700 in gift cards as well as a $5,400 donation to Grants-to-Teachers through the Denton Public School

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Diesel doubts spark recall FRANKFURT, Germany — German automaker Daimler says it is voluntarily recalling 3 million Mercedes-Benz cars with diesel engines in Europe to improve their emissions performance in the wake of widespread public debate over the future of diesel.

The Stuttgart-based company says it is taking the step to reassure drivers and strengthen confidence.

Diesels have been under a cloud since Daimler’s competitor Volkswagen admitted equipping vehicles with illegal software that meant they passed emissions tests but then exceeded limits in everyday driving. There has been a push for diesel bans in some German cities because of concerns about levels of nitrogen oxide emitted by diesels.

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said Tuesday that “the public debate about diesel engines is creating uncertainty — especially for our customers.� “We have therefore decided on additional measures to reassure drivers of diesel cars and to strengthen confidence in diesel technology,� he said in a statement.

The recall will cover nearly all vehicles made under the EU5 and EU6 emissions standards and will start in the next few weeks. The company said it would cost $254.21 million but that customers wouldn’t pay anything.

The recall expands a smaller, ongoing recall offered to owners of compact class and Mercedes-Benz V-Class vehicles. It said the fix would involve a software update and

would draw on knowledge gained through the development of the company’s new family of diesel engines.

Daimler said in May that German investigators had searched its offices in connection with investigations of Daimler employees because of suspicion of fraud and criminal advertising relating to the possible manipulation of exhaust controls in cars with diesel engines. The company has said it is cooperating with the investigation. The company was also asked by the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an internal probe into its exhaust emissions certification process.

The Daimler announcement came hours after the regional government in the company’s home region of Baden-Wuerttemburg agreed to abandon proposals to restrict diesels if older diesels could be mechanically fixed to pollute less, the Dpa news agency reported.

The current debate over diesel was launched in September 2015 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of violation against Volkswagen.

VW has said it used illegal engine-control software that detected when cars were on test stands. Emission controls were turned up during test and turned down during regular driving.

Some 11 million cars worldwide were equipped with the software. The company pleaded guilty in the U.S. to criminal charges, eight executives were charged, and it agreed to pay more than $20 billion in criminal penalties and civil settlements.

CHUCK CARPENTER is president of the Denton Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at dcoc@ denton-chamber.org.

Digital Copy Center

A woman walks toward Mercedes-Benz cars at a dealership Thursday in Berlin.

By David McHugh | AP

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Register by logging into the Member Information Center at www.denton-chamber.org

by July 21. Email travis@ denton-chamber.org for more details.

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Cover Story

DRC file photo

H&M opened at Golden Triangle Mall with an exterior door in 2015.

Jeff Woo

From left, Golden Triangle Mall manager Matt Ludemann, mall marketing director Carrie Carter, Weitzman Group senior vice president for asset services Jim Greenfield and Weitzman vice president of communications Ian Pierce pose for a photo at the Denton mall.

The mall’s occupancy is 96 percent right now. Considering the current retail environment and the struggles of traditional malls, that’s pretty good, Ludemann said.

Traditional retailers keep downsizing or filing bankruptcy, like PacSun, which closed its Denton location, or Sears, which is still performing well in Denton but not many other places. This has always happened, and retail has always had high rates of turnover.

The problem now is that there aren’t new stores lining up to take their spots, said Jim Greenfield, senior vice president for asset services at Weitzman.

“That’s the biggest issue facing these properties,” Greenfield said. “We’re in a lull right now because a lot of new concepts are online, but even those online people are now seeing they need brick and mortar to deliver their product. ... It’s the same reason Amazon is buying Whole Foods.”

The downturn of local malls

Other malls in North Texas have not fared as well as Golden Triangle.

Vista Ridge Mall in Lewisville, the only other traditional mall in Denton County, is up for auction come August.

Bids start at $4.5 million for just a portion of the property — 438,707 square feet of the 1.1 million square feet. Retailers Dillard’s, Macy’s, Sears and J.C. Penney still own the parts

Jake King/DRC file photo

Le Macaron is bringing new people into Golden Triangle Mall with its authentic French treats. of the mall they occupy.

Collin Creek Mall just finished its auction and got a bid, but a deal hasn’t been finalized. Based in Plano, the shopping center lost two of its four anchors in recent years.

After Dillard’s closed its location at the center, it defaulted on a loan in 2015 and things continued to tumble downhill.

Valley View Mall in North Dallas is in the process of closing and being demolished.

Instead of an indoor mall, it will soon be a new 70-acre mixed-use development. Already in the works is a massive Life Time gym with attached apartments and office space, plus a hotel.

Despite these trends, from 2010 to 2015 Golden Triangle Mall generated more than $8 million in sales tax for the city, said Caroline Booth, director

DRC file photo

With major mall renovations in the works, the old sign at Golden Triangle Mall along Loop 288 gave a fond farewell to Denton in 2013.

of economic development for Denton.

Between bringing in new and popular retailers like H&M, Booth says the mall’s size plays into its success. It’s less property to keep full at all times, and is easy to get in and out of for quicker shopping trips.

“As people’s retail shopping behaviors have changed, it was an advantage to Golden Triangle to not have an enormous footprint,” she said. “That’s worked out to be an advantage for them while other, larger facilities appear to be struggling.”

subtle. As visitors walk through the mall, the music coming through the speakers is all Denton artists, Ludemann said. A current concert series on Saturdays features local artists outside, and the performances are shown live inside of the downtown Denton Welcome Center.

The community connection expands to the physical space when it can. A large storefront is still full of photos from Thin Line Fest, the annual arts, film and music festival.

“It adds an extra dynamic that consumers are looking for,” Ludemann said of the gallery. “They’re not just out shopping. They want an experience, and this is one of the many things they can experience.”

The gallery used to hold Body Central, a tenant Golden Triangle worked hard to get as the chain was expanding, Greenfield said. Sales were good for the store, then come January 1, 2015, it filed for bankruptcy. It closed all locations.

Since then, it’s been a flex space for the mall, and Victoria’s Secret was there for a while. Being able to have these

Jeff Woo/DRC file photo

Bob Canada looks at photographs in a Thin Line Fest exhibit April 20 at Golden Triangle Mall. The gallery remained at the mall long after the festival ended. types of spaces to move stores around and host new concepts has been another advantage for the mall, Ludemann said.

Looking ahead at Golden Triangle

Attracting other types of businesses is something Golden Triangle executives hope to do, but without the demolition part. They think new concepts like hotels, apartments and gyms can reconfigure existing space.

Ludemann says a combination of being in a good market and having an owner that is constantly investing in the property keeps it afloat and ahead of other, ill-fated projects.

He’s excited about new tenants like Le Macaron, which is bringing new people into the mall because of its authentic French treats.

Meanwhile, Greenfield is looking even further into the future.

There’s been a lot of talk about what to do if Sears

closes, as the company continues to shut storefronts nationwide to try to save itself. Plans have been drawn envisioning what it would be like if one of the four anchor locations wasn’t a retail store, Greenfield said.

“We might add a grocery store or a theater. We could add a hotel, multifamily. We’re not totally unique in this has been happening around malls across the country, but that’s one of the things you have to do — keep evolving, changing and adapting the use,” he said.

“You can’t be static; you have to continuously evolve.”

Until then, mall officials hope to keep bringing in customers and making money, even as new developments at Rayzor Ranch and other shopping centers continue to grow.

“Shopping malls are tough — it’s a tough business,” Ludemann said. “But we’ve held our own and exceeded expectations.”

JENNA DUNCAN can be reached at 940-566-6889.

What makes Golden Triangle different?

Well, a lot of things, leadership argues.

One strategy is fairly simple. The mall tries to keep things fresh by rotating existing retailers throughout the space, giving consumers new layouts and parts of the mall to explore, Greenfield said.

In the past year, Bath and Body Works, Victoria’s Secret and Hot Topic have all changed spaces — not because they were performing poorly, but because they wanted to refresh and expand.

“When you refresh something, it makes a big difference on your sales,” Greenfield said.

“I’d like to say that strategy is unique to us because we carry it out, but others try to do it but haven’t been as successful.”

Other initiatives are more

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Business Spotlight

Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs moves quietly into Main Street

By Ken Sweet | AP NEW YORK — More homeowner, less hedge fund titan. Goldman Sachs, long known for its super-rich clients and well-connected executives, is starting to act a lot more like a neighborhood bank.

The most Wall Street of Wall Street firms really wants people to start thinking about it the next time they need to open a bank account or borrow money. It’s paying aboveaverage rates on online savings accounts and offering that stodgiest of investments, good old-fashioned CDs. Personal loans are available through its Marcus brand, a friendlier reference to co-founder Marcus Goldman.

For a firm that never had a reason to advertise, Goldman now runs Marcus commercials with the casual tagline: “Debt happens.”

During most of its nearly 148-year history, the main way to do business with Goldman was to be incredibly wealthy or a CEO at a major company.

That’s changing.

“We want to grow a robust consumer banking business,” said Stephen Scherr, Goldman’s chief strategy officer and CEO of GS Bank.

Goldman’s retail banking business is less than two years old and tiny compared with the overall size of the firm.

The company hasn’t yet even broken it out as a business line in its quarterly financial statements because of its size. And Goldman isn’t backing away from its traditional strengths: trading and advising.

Trading is inherently a volatile business, and a quiet

Open/ Closed DUNCAN | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

truck behind East Side Denton.

Downtown also has its first liquor store: Applejacks Liquors. The former Weldon’s Western Wear & Saddle Shop is now filled with specialty wines, a wide range of whiskey and the other usual finds at a large liquor store.

Velocity Physical Therapy of Denton opened a second clinic in Cross Roads last month. The new clinic will offer general therapy as well as treatment for vertigo and dry needling. It’s located in the Presidio building on U.S. Highway 380 between U.S. Highway 377 and FM424.

Add burgers and fries to things Texas Master Gardener Gene Gumfory reaps once he opens his new It’s-A-Burger location in Denton. There’s already one in Aubrey on U.S. 380, and one will open in Denton come August on Teasley Lane.

Also coming in August is Cartwright’s Cafe, a new concept by John Cartwright (yes, of Cartwright’s Ranch House). Located on Dallas Drive, the new cafe will feature breakfast and lunch items from the Ranch House, plus more options.

Clark’s Outpost Bar-B-Q, which burned down in January 2016, has reopened in Tioga. Their famous meringue pies aren’t back yet, but they’re in the works to make a grand return.

We also have two new wedding venues that are up and running: Chapel Creek Ranch, located off Interstate 35 at 3794 W. Ganzer Road in north Denton; and The Nest in Ponder. Both are on farmland serving up the rustic vibes for the country element brides-to-be are craving.

French pastries are now in Golden Triangle Mall. Le Macaron is now open in the center court area of the mall, with lots and lots of macarons.

Plus, they’re making crepes, croissants and other pastries at the shop.

market weighed on Goldman’s second-quarter results posted Tuesday. It earned $1.63 billion, or $3.95 a share, basically unchanged from a year earlier. The division that contains its trading desks had revenue of $3.05 billion, down 17 percent. Fixed income, currency and commodity trading revenue fell 40 percent, and Chief Financial Officer Martin Chavez said its commodities division had its worst quarter since the firm went public in 1999.

Goldman executives see the new consumer banking division as a way for the firm to expand into businesses it traditionally wasn’t involved in. But how well Goldman’s brand and image might appeal in the consumer business remains to be seen.

“I had a few readers tell me that they had no intention to do business with Goldman, but those comments were pretty limited,” said Ken Tumin with DepositAccounts.com, a review site for savings accounts and other bank products.

The consumer products Goldman is offering are pretty conventional. An online savings account with its GS Bank requires no minimum opening deposit and pays an interest rate of 1.20 percent.

Looking for longer-term savings? Goldman offers CDs with terms from six months to six years, paying as much as 2.30 percent. And fixed-rate, no-fee personal loans are available through Marcus by Goldman Sachs.

Firm executives aren’t saying what future products they may offer. Analysts say it’s not unreasonable to think Goldman may consider check-

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

People walk past Goldman Sachs headquarters Tuesday in New York. Goldman Sachs is paying above-average rates on online savings accounts and offering good old-fashioned CDs. ing accounts and student loans. Just don’t expect Goldman to be opening branches anytime soon, or ever.

“Whatever size it’s going to be, it’s going to be entirely a virtual business,” said Michael Wong, an analyst at Morningstar.

Goldman’s path to Main Street has its origins in the financial meltdown of 2008.

At the height of the crisis, Goldman and its rival Morgan Stanley — both trying to avoid the bankruptcy fate of Lehman Brothers — converted from investment banks to commercial banks. They did this largely to gain access to emergency tools the Federal

Reserve created to support the failing financial system.

Goldman could then accept and hold deposits. But it did little with its commercial bank label for years.

That changed in 2015, when Goldman announced it wanted to buy the deposits of GE Capital, and later announced it had hired Harit Talwar from Discover Financial Services to explore creating a consumer lending business. The purchase of $16 billion in deposits from GE provided the firm a stable source of funding. Goldman opened GS Bank in mid-2016 and started testing Marcus later that year.

Along with it opening up Goldman to new forms of business, the deposits are attractive for another reason: Unlike other forms of capital, deposits are less likely to fall in times of market stress.

“It’s providing us greater diversification for the firm, and that inherently is a good thing,” Scherr said.

Goldman has since added $5 billion in deposits to GS Bank on top of the $16 billion it bought. Marcus, which launched less than a year ago, has made $1 billion in loans to consumers. The firm expects to do another $1 billion in loans by the end of the year.

Online lending has explod-

ed in the last few years — which has raised concerns about the industry getting too big too quickly. Also, many of these loans have been made by companies that haven’t been through a recession.

Goldman is using its own money to make loans, unlike others who are selling the loans to investors. It says that means it can make more customizable loans with more flexible due dates.

“We’re very excited about crossing the $1 billion mark, but it’s been more important to do it as a responsible lender. We don’t want to cause more stress for our borrowers,” Talwar said.

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Enterprising Voices

Creating a powerful social media strategy E

very business needs to have a solid social media presence to find new customers and engage with current ones. Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important marketing avenues for businesses. According to a recent Borrell study, 71.3 percent of business use social media advertising.

Learn how to create a successful social media strategy in four simple steps. Creating a strategy does take time and effort; however, the payoff could result in reaching hundreds of thousands of new customers daily on social media.

Set social media goals

Goals are a crucial step when creating your social media strategy. Too many businesses just set up a bunch

Biz on the Wire

your website.

■ Maintain a consistent three-times-per-week schedule on Facebook.

Write down your social media goals. Have them somewhere the entire marketing and sales team can see them. No one on your team should have to wonder what the social media goals are.

Daryl HIVELY | COMMENTARY

Choose the social channels

Today, there are so many different social channels.

There’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and more. How do you know which one is best for your business?

The truth is that any of these social channels could be beneficial to your business.

However, don’t take on more than you can handle. Choose one or two channels (Face-

of social channels and try to just post as much as they can.

It’s a great start, but then you’re not measuring results or understanding the power of social media for your brand.

Social goal examples: ■ Increase page fans from X to X amount in six months.

■ Increase engagement on posts from averaging X to averaging X. ■ Direct more traffic to

Slow sales hit Harley MILWAUKEE (AP) — Shares in Harley-Davidson tumbled nearly 10 percent after the company reported lagging retail sales and shipments as new riders opted for used motorcycles over newer, more expensive ones.

The company lowered its guidance for motorcycle shipments in 2017 by about 6 to 8 percent as retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles fell 9.3 percent in the U.S. and 6.7 percent globally from the same quarter last year. Motorcycle shipments for the second quarter fell 7.2 percent from last year’s second quarter.

The company said it is strategizing how to better balance sales of new and used motorcycles as the industry tries to attract millennials and other young adult riders.

“Plenty of millennials ride motorcycles,” said president and CEO Matthew Levatich.

“A lot of the data that is easy to get is new motorcycle sales, but if you look at that used market place, there are plenty of millennials that are riding, and it’s up to us to inspire even more them to ride and to engage with Harley-Davidson’s products and experiences and the strategy that we had laid out.”

Harley-Davidson on Tuesday reported second-quarter earnings of $258.9 million, which beat Wall Street expectations but came in lower than the $280.4 million for the second quarter last year.

The Milwaukee-based company said it had net income of $1.48 per share, in part due to lower costs. That also topped expectations, but fell short of the $1.55 per share for the same period last year.

The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.37 per share.

The motorcycle maker posted revenue of $1.58 billion in the period, which fell short of Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.6 billion. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion in the same period last year.

Harley-Davidson shares have declined about 20 percent since the beginning of the year.

Plan your social content

We’ve seen this happen over and over again. A business sets up a Facebook business page and starts posting every single day for a few weeks, possibly months, and then stops. You don’t want your audience to look up your

Facebook page and find no recent posts. Posting every day with no plan is stressful and leads to posting burnout.

Plan out the month of content and create a posting schedule. Creating a posting schedule can take a couple of hours. Have a piece of paper or a Word document and write out possible post topics.

Make sure your content is engaging and not too promotional.

After you have post content ready, schedule your Facebook posts using “Publishing Tools.”

For scheduling on other social channels, there are scheduling tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social.

Engage with your audience

Now that you’ve created your goals and started creating a content strategy, you’re

good, right? Wrong!

After you’ve started posting, now you need to engage with your audience. This applies to every social channel you have for your business. If a fan comments or shares a post, you engage. Thank them for their comment or share.

The same goes for any negative reviews or comments.

Users control the conversation on social media, and it’s the brand’s responsibility to respond and engage. A negative comment or review that’s been handled by the business looks much better than a negative comment or review that’s sitting there unanswered.

DARYL HIVELY is the founder and CEO of Guarantee Digital, a digital marketing agency with media partners in almost 200 markets.

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Keith Srakocic/AP

An employee at a Harley-Davidson dealership adjusts a leather jacket April 26 in Glenshaw, Pa.

book and an additional one) and truly master those social channels. For example, if you already have a solid Facebook and LinkedIn presence, then consider setting up an Instagram.

We always recommend having a Facebook business page for your business. More and more users are using Facebook to look for and research businesses. There are 1.4 billion active Facebook users monthly.

Don’t miss out on engaging with that audience!

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Vital Statistics ASSUMED NAMES

The following names (followed by DBA and address) were posted in June for Denton at the Denton County Clerk’s Office.

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

Robert Richard Alagood, Temp of One, 5038 Oak Bend Circle Peggy Allen, M and P Surplus, 1714 Tyler Street Lisa Alridge, #WheretheDELEKEat, 3708 Ocean Drive Apai LLC, Maaco Collision Repair and Painting Center, 2115 Sadau Court Mark Armstrong, Off The Hook, 2812 Paddock Way Kevin Atkinson, Marauder Football Camp, 814 Lynhurst Lane Helen Ayeni, Heavenly Worshippers, 3804 Harbor Mist Trail Bill Biggs, Biggs and Biggs Financial Architecs, 211 Fort Worth Drive Heather and Dana Binnion, Lake Bottom Girls Inc., 5190 Shaw Lane Theresa Blake, Blake Law Office, 306 N. Carroll Boulevard

Tonya Blum, Coyote Music Studio, 2615 N. Locust Street Carrie Breedlove, Breedlove Counseling, PO Box 815 Martin Bruno, Hickory Loophole, 1004 Stuart Road Jesus and Alejandra Franco, Franco’s Auto Sales, 603 E. McKinney Street Maintaining the Common Ground LLC, Common Ground Irrigation, 1123-B Fort Worth Drive Maintaining the Common Ground LLC, M.E.T. Irrigation, 1123-B Fort Worth Drive Thomas Cochran, Big Bend Screen Printing, 300 Plum Hollow Yvonne Dacres, Empowering Voices, 521 E. Windsor Drive Jamie Snailer and Brandon de la Torre, De la Torre Realty, 2434 Lillian Miller Parkway

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

NAME — DBA/ADDRESS

Quyen Tran and Paul Pham Do, Denton Fantasy LLC Nails, 1400 S. Loop 288, Suite 104 Ashley Farr, Ashley Rhian Photography, 5404 Dolores Place Luisa Feliz, Fast Document Assistance, 1308 Teasley Lane Kelly Fiore-Watson, Loose Women and Pickpockets: Dangerous Comedy, 312 Marietta Street Justyn Fraize, 3 Alarm Pool Care and Service, 6733 Hayling Way Melvin Fudge and Francis Garner, 5306 Studios, 420 S. Carroll Boulevard, Suite 107 Helen Gaffney, Acts of Joy, 1107 Sycamore Street Dawn Gaston and Pamela Hopkins, Les Muses LLC, 728 N. Elm Street, Suite 100 Stephanie Gohlke, Gohlke Cookie Company, 8816 Seven Oaks Lane Bryce Goodman, Mad Snax LLC, 1116 1/2 Wilson Street Brooke Gordon, Brooke Gordon Designs, 293 Benjamin Street Emilia Guillermo, Guerreros Fit 24, 2000 Denison Street, Suite 104 Ronald Hance, North Texas Coil Restoration, 1700 Morse Street

Toni Hatfield, Tranzformed, 812 W. Hickory Street #3 Elizabeth Henning, Agua Island, 1300 Lindsey Street Brett Hetrick, Arbor Oaks Counseling and Consulting, 1417 Manten Boulevard Daniel Hill, Victory Gardens, 2415 Mercedes Road Jeremy Schneider and Lance Hill, Swimming Pool Solutions, 9067 Teasley Lane Robert Himel, Music Academy, 2430 S. Interstate 35E, Suite 230 Brandon Hogg, Fool Fighters, 1113 Beechwood Drive Edmar Jimenez and Juan Rodriguez, JP Services, 1028 E. McKinney Street Sydney Kasner, Sydney Kasner, 2214 Fowler Drive Sydney Kasner, Gypsy Doula, 2214 Fowler Drive Joshua Kelly, August Moon Coffee Roasters, 1205 Bolivar Street Michelle Kilmer, Sunny Daisies, 3312 Hofstra Drive Ronald Kutcha, Freedom Solutions, 4610 Baytree Avenue Quy Le, Q.Le, 5301 E. McKinney Street, Trailer 210 Matthew Liberio, UNT Chi Alpha, 8212 Canoe Ridge Lane

Taaka Manuel, Clara’s Soulfood, 319 Bradshaw Street Moniche Martinez, Absolute Better Cleaning ABC Service, 1606 E. McKinney Street, Apt. 7210 Oscar Meza, Super Signs, 1204 W. University Drive, Suite 300 Ann Marie Nelson, WCN, 5800 N. Interstate 35, Suite 401 Tiffany Nelson, Salon Twelve Seven, 5801 Long Prairie Road, Suite 600 Henry Nguyen, Hollywood Nails, 1776 Teasley Lane, Suite 108 Jorge Olguin, On the Side Concrete, 3217 Evers Parkway Venetta Petties, Pink Glitter Events, 2701 Pioneer Drive Juan Ramirez Jr., J&O Electric, 2713 Stockton Street Sualy Solano Ramos, My Miracle Foundation, 500 N. Bell Avenue, Suite 109 Dolores Reyes, Houses in Denton, 2434 Lillian Miller Parkway Dolores Reyes, Reyes Realty Group, 2434 Lillian Miller Parkway

Juaquin Ruiz, Concrete King, 808 Denton Street Cecil Samuel, Gold Hearts Records, 422 Audra Lane, Apt. E Brody Shanklin, Brody Shanklin Campaign, PO Box 51924 Sarah Smithers, Sarah’s Pet Sitting, 2215 Crestmeadow Street Jeffrey Stanski, Dallas Head to Head Irrigation Systems, 2120 Pembrooke Place Brian Storrie, Tuition Works, 1320 E. Windsor Drive Brian Storrie, Tuition Design Worx, 1320 E. Windsor Drive Linda Woods and Debbie Taylor, Denton High School Class of 77, 2100 Highland Park Road Raylee Trawick, Arty Party, PO Box 2452 Brett Traylor, Traylor Trash, 2005 Northwood Terrace Jon Trimble, JR Eletcric, 1506 Stratford Lane Marcus Washington, Pit Stop Collectives, 516 Chambers Street Patrick Will, Ammocan Concepts, 118 N. Locust Street Jesse Youngblood, Youngblood Media, 1420 Stratford Lane Daneil Ziegler, Other Life Cycles, 715 Mimosa Drive

BUILDING PERMITS

LIENS

The following liens for Denton businesses and residents were posted in June at the Denton County Clerk’s Office.

STATE TAX LIENS

NAME/ADDRESS Brandi Farrington, 3939 Teasley Lane Lot 400 Naan Restaurants LLC, 3044 Old Denton Road Suite 300

TYPE limited sales excise and use tax mixed beverage gross recepts tax

AMOUNT 426.55 17,279.04

REC. DATE 6/23/2017 6/23/2017

TYPE 1040 1040

AMOUNT 39,313.29 9,512.26

REC. DATE 6/6/2017 6/4/2017

FEDERAL TAX LIENS

NAME/ADDRESS Jerry Cummings Sarah Jarmon

SALES TAX

The following sales permits were issued by the state comptroller’s office for June. The list includes the owner, name of business and address within zipcodes 75068, 76201, 76205, 76207, 76208, 76210, 76226, 76227, 76249, 76258 and 76266.

75068 Beadz by Lulu, 2453 Ranchview Drive, Little Elm Ada’s Perfect Creations, 1913 Tawakani Lane, Little Elm R Montes Lawncare, 2413 Texoma Drive, Little Elm Spartan Precision Tactical, 328 Bluefinch Drive, Little Elm Agnes and Dora by Chelsy Rae, 2021 Sunny Side Drive, Little Elm Cosmic Fox LLC, 626 Matador Drive, Oak Point Little Elm Party Rentals, 1221 Roadrunner Drive, Little Elm 76201 Library Bar, 109 Ave. A, Denton Samuel’s Tree Service LLC, 405 S. Elm Street, Suite 303, Denton Wood Pultz Beverage LLC, 501 W. University Drive, Denton Love Brothers Gold and Silver, 901 S. Elm Street, Suite 101, Denton Soul Harmony Apparel, 2500 W. Hickory Street, Denton A Treasured Anthem, 501 S. Locust Street, Apt. 1107, Denton Taiyaki Black, 901 Ave. C, Denton Vape N Vapor, 722 Fort Worth Drive, Denton Varel Sales, 916 S. Locust Street, Denton

The following building permits were issued by the Denton Planning and Development department in June. Commercial alterations and commercial permits reflect the owner or tenant and the address of the business. Residential permits include the address of the home.

76226 Faithsdefense LLC, 9610 Blanco Drive, Lantana North Texas 360 Tours, 1132 Grant Avenue, Lantana Nikki Miller Photography, 9804 Meadow Creek Drive, Denton

76207 Brooke Gordon Designs, 293 Benjamin Street, Denton Love’s Travel Stop #609, 6421 N. Interstate 35, Denton Trinity Pool Service, 3237 Windbrook Court, Denton CFDI Aero, 5088 Sabre Lane, Denton Mandy Smithers Photography, 2215 Crestmeadow Street, Denton

76227 Fixed On Life, 1309 Squires Lane, Aubrey NTX Carts, 5241 S. U.S. Highway 377, Krugerville Psalmtree LLC, 1728 Ridge Creek Lane, Aubrey Siddhartha Artistry, 9001 Benevolent Court, Providence Village Superior Repair & Maintenance Inc., 9105 Chisholm Trail, Crossroads Vintage Magnolia, 8744 Sagebrush Trail, Crossroads Mom’s Burgers and Wings, 26615 U.S. Highway 380, Suite 170, Providence Village Commercial Plumbing Specialists LLC, 5017 S. U.S. Highway 377, Krugerville

76208 Circle W Structuries, 5101 E. University Drivve, Suite 601, Denton DFW Central Vacuum LLC, 113 Cielo Lane, Shady Shores

76249 Drop Shade, 313 Eagle Drive, Krum Scott Nelson Landscaping, 1 Christi Lane, Krum V’s Smoked BBQ, 1222 Golden Hoof Drive, Krum

76210 Socalzone LLC, 4251 FM2181, Suite 230-506, Corinth 4 Kings Poker Clubs LLC, 7650 S. Interstate 35E, Suite 140, Corinth John Sawvell Design LLC, 8804 Serenity Way, Denton ALKM Enterprises, 1704 Glendora Court, Denton CVS Pharmacy #10642, 1101 FM2181, Corinth Welch HVAC Incorporated, 1308 Eagle Wing Lane, Denton

76258 Pard’s Saddlelry & Boots, 8620 U.S. Highway 377, Pilot Point

76205 Fish Window Cleaning, 402 Dallas Drive, Denton Tropical Cabana, 2201 S. Interstate 35E, Denton Runs & Drives LLC, 1023 Dallas Drive, Denton

76266 T&T Flowers and Gifts, 807 N. 5th Street, Sanger Designer Equines, 6254 W. FM455, Sanger

Biz on the Wire

CERTIFICATES OF OCUPATION North Point Apartment, 2830 N. Locust Street Mayhill Taqueria, 3922 E. McKinney Street, Suite 102 Trinity Distribtuing, 1716 Shady Oaks Drive Arsi Construction, 3737 Mingo Road, Suite 106 Tax Crusher, 1417 E. McKinney Street, Suite 200 Go Pro Hail Repair, 1700 Shady Oaks Drive, Suite 140 Elite Spa Nail, 1791 S. Loop 288, Suite 160 Paxica Security Group, 3745 Mingo Road, Suite 501 Sign It Drive It, 3829 Market Street, Suites 131 and 133 Ink Hair Salon, 717 S. Interstate 35E, Suite 126 COMMERCIAL ALTERATION Arbor Preschool, Inc, 3118 Los Colinas Arbor Patio, 2912 Augusta Drive Associate In Periodontics, 3000 Wind River Lane, Suite 100 Extra Space, 816 Frame Street Asian Spa, 1622 W. University Drive Target Store, 1801 S. Loop 288 Unnamed, 124 Eagle Drive Best Western, 2450 Brinker Road Unnamed, 207 W. Hickory Street, Suite 312 Unnamed, 1212 E. University Drive Denton Obstetrics and Gynecology, 209 N .Bonnie Brae Street, Suite 304 Unnamed, 117 N. Elm Street T-Mobile, 813 S. Elm Street The Oaks of Denton, 425 Bernard Street, #805 Applejacks Liquors, 345 E. Hickory Street Dominion Appartments, 929 W. Sycamore Street Unnamed, 109 Daugherty Street Unnamed, 903 Mayhill Road Cartwright’s Cafe, 1022 Dallas Drive Unnamed, 1610 E. McKinney Street, Building 2-20 COMMERCIAL Unnamed, 5501 Fishtrap Road Cavender’s Boot City, 3705 N. Interstate 35 Code 3 ER, 3111 Teasley Lane Guyer High School, 7501 Teasley Lane Unnamed, 9440 Ed Robson Circle Unnamed, 2224 W. University Drive Unnamed, 4910 Teasley Lane Unnamed, 3100 Unicorn Lake Boulevard RESIDENTIAL DR Horton 4008 Stonetrail Drive 4004 Stonetrail Drive 2104 Ringtail Drive 2112 Skysail Lane 3912 Crosstrees Drive 313 Cypress Creek Lane 321 Cypress Creek Lane 4216 Stonetrail Drive 4204 Stonetrail Drive 320 Cypress Creek Lane 316 Red Fox Lane 309 Cypress Creek Lane 308 Red Fox Lane 304 Cypres Creek Lane 300 Red Fox Lane 320 Red Fox Lane

DRC file photo

Best Western Premier Crown Chase Inn & Suites, 2450 Brinker Road 312 Cypress Creek Lane 308 Cypress Creek Lane 305 Cypress Creek Lane 300 Cypress Creek Lane 4212 Stonetrail Drive 328 Red Fox Lane 3609 Helm Lane 4001 Crosstrees Drive 4113 Ranchman Boulevard 4208 Stonetrail Drive 4116 Stonetrail Drive 4108 Stonetrail Drive 325 Sky Meadow Lane 312 Doe Creek Trail 309 Sky Meadow Lane 308 Doe Creek Trail 228 Red Fox Lane 120 Red Fox Lane 236 Red Fox Lane 232 Red Fox Lane 229 Red Fox Lane 224 Red Fox Lane 220 Red Fox Lane 212 Red Fox Lane 208 Red Fox Lane 116 Red Fox Lane 112 Red Fox Lane 108 Red Fox Lane 4000 Ranchman Boulevard 305 Doe Creek Trail 313 Red Fox Lane 320 Sky Meadow Lane 4112 Stonetrail Drive Pulte Homes 6424 Roaring Creek 6709 Roaring Creek

6509 Roaring Creek 6516 Roaring Creek 6601 Roaring Creek 6512 Roaring Creek Jeff Gutknecht, 9958 FM428 First Texas Homes 4131 Boxwood Drive 4129 Boxwood Drive Carson Carter, 11908 Southerland Drive Gehan Homes 6500 Roaring Creek 6513 Roaring Creek 6421 Roaring Creek 6413 Roaring Creek LGI Homes, 4709 Conley Lane Bloomfield Homes 9505 Lakeway Drive 9117 Conroe Drive 9121 Conroe Drive 9512 Athens Drive Dunhill Homes, 3700 Juniperio Street Robson Ranch 8200 Brant Court 8200 American Way 10316 Lindenwood Trail 11833 Willet Way Audra Oaks Home Builders, 2704 Beverly Drive Habbitat For Humanity of Denton County, 725 Alexander Street

DRC file photo

Workers take down electric lines along North Bonnie Brae Street on Oct. 17 as part of a project to replace the wooden poles with metal poles and improve Denton’s grid.

ENERGY | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

“major driver” of jobs and energy production and a key way to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

“We can have a cleaner environment and a strong, prosperous nation,” Perry said.

“We do not need to sacrifice one for the other; nor will we follow the course other allies have taken to their detriment.”

Perry cited a drive for renewable energy in Germany that he said has forced electricity costs to record highs.

“That is not the direction the United States plans to take under the Trump administration,” he said.

Perry also touted increased U.S. oil and coal exports as part of a strategy to boost energy production and jobs.

Trump has heralded an “energy revolution” that he says celebrates American production on American soil, noting that the U.S. is on the brink of becoming a net exporter of oil,

gas and other energy resources.

Trump signed an executive order in April to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, reversing restrictions imposed by President Barack Obama. Trump also has pushed to revive U.S. coal production after years of decline and to boost energy production on federal lands.

U.S. coal exports rose sharply in early 2017 amid increased demand in Asia and Europe, the Energy Department said Tuesday.

Exports were up by 8 million tons through March, a 58 percent jump over the same period last year. Top destinations for U.S. coal were the Netherlands, South Korea and India.

Despite the increase, volumes remain well below what the industry anticipated when it announced plans over the past decade to build or expand coal ports in Oregon, Louisiana, Washington state and California.

On the grid study, Perry said critics on all sides were “throwing jell-o at the wall” on a report that is not yet finished. “I haven’t seen it yet,” he said.

A draft version leaked to news outlets indicates that renewable power and federal regulations have had little impact on reliability. The draft report cites declining demand and plunging costs of natural gas for early retirements of traditional coal and nuclear power plants.

The Energy Department has said the draft study is out of date and a new version could have different conclusions. Renewable energy advocates, including some Republicans, have expressed concern that the report could be used to undermine support for wind and solar power.

The report is expected to be made public this month, but Perry offered no firm timetable. “Like you, I’m breathlessly waiting to get my hands on it,” he said.

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