City Council Work Session 8/15/2012 a quorum is present, I'll call this council work session to order on WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15th, 12, Meeting in the boards and commissions room austin city hall, 301 west second street. Just to get -- to give [09:06:01] everyone an idea of the order that we're going to go in today, first we're going to go into executive session, and when we come out, we'll first take up items number 1 and 6, those are items that have to be completed today. Then when we get out we'll have a discussion on the bond items and if we get to it, we'll start our briefing from the individual departments on budget. On budget items. Before we go into executive session, I want to announce that -- that item 58, on the agenda for tomorrow, will be withdrawn. Just so folks will know. It's the auditorium shores item. >> Item no. 58? >> Mayor Leffingwell: 58. >> Tovo: Is it the formula 1 issue? >> Yes. To the council will go into closed session to take up 071 the council will discuss 8, discuss legal issues related to the november 2012 election. Is there any objection? Hearing none, the council will now go into executive session. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're out of closed session, in closed session we took up and discussed legal issues related to item no. 8. So now we'll take up item 1, we have a resolution to adopt the maximum proposed property tax rate that the council will consider. For fiscal year 2012-2013 and set the property tax rate. Under state law, the vote on the motion to adopt a maximum proposed tax rate that the council will consider requires a roll call vote. So I will entertain a motion to adopt a proposed tax property tax rate, the motion conducted would be [09:36:00] that move to -- that the proposed maximum property tax rate that the council will consider for the fiscal year 2012-2013 is 50 cents -- 50 and one-half cents -- which would be -- 505-dollars per 100-dollar valuation. Is there a motion for that? Mayor pro tem so moves. Seconded by councilmember martinez. We have a motion and a second to adopt a maximum 5 cents per 100-dollar valuation for council to consider adopting during the fiscal year 2012-2013 budget and tax rate approval meetings in september. The clerk will call the roll. >> Mayor leffingwell. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Aye. >> Mayor cole. >> Aye. >> Councilmember martinez? [Indiscernible] >> councilmember morrison. >> [Indiscernible] >> councilmember tovo. >> Aye. >> Councilmember riley? >> [Indiscernible] >> and councilmember spelman is absent. >> So that passes on a vote of 6 to 0 with councilmember spelman off the dais. We will now set the date for the council to adopt the property tax rate. For item 1, set the date that the council will adopt the fiscal year 2012-2013 property tax rate, proposed time and date is september 10th, 2012, BEGINNING AT in the austin city council chambers at austin city hall, 301 west second street, austin, texas, 78701. I will entertain a motion to set the time and date as proposed to adopt the fiscal year 2012-2013 property tax rate. >> So move. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem so moves. Is there a second? Councilmember martinez seconds. [09:38:01] That motion -- all in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Appear possessed say no. Passes on a vote 6-0 with councilmember spelman off the dais. Without objection, we'll now go to item no. 6. By state law we adopted the proposed maximum tax rate that is above what state law calls the effective rate. We must set two public hearings on the proposed tax rate for your fiscal year 2012-2013. Staff recommends setting the hearings on thursday, august 23rd, 2012 AT 4:00 P.M. And on thursday, august 30th, 2012 AT 10:00 A.M. Here in city council chambers, 301 west second street, austin, texas. I will entertain a motion on item 6 to set those dates for the public hearings on the proposed tax rate for fiscal year 2012-2013. Is there a motion? Councilmember martinez so moves. Is there a second? Councilmember riley seconds. All in favor of that motion say aye. >> Aye. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Opposed say no. That motion passes on a vote of 6-0 with councilmember spelman off the dais. So without objection, we will go to -- to item no. 5. [09:40:03] To approve an ordinance amending the order calling THE NOVEMBER 4th -- NOVEMBER 6th, 2012 SPECIAL Election to provide for general obligation bond propositions and declaring an emergency. Public comment is allowed. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? Thank you. No one is signed up to speak. So as you know, we had some discussion yesterday on this item. And -- and we will continue to have more discussion and perhaps action today. I would -- if there's no objection, council, I would like to -- I would like to establish the procedure for today's discussion. That when amendments are made, proposed to a motion, instead of having them described as friendly and incorporated only if the maker and the second concur with the friendly amendment, that we -- if any councilmember objects to the friendly amendment, we will have a vote on that amendment. So without objection, that's the way we'll proceed today. So the floor is open. >> Mayor. >> Discussion? >> Mayor. >> Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: Thank you, mayor. I realize that we have been in the process of discussions and that the citizens have went through a very lengthy effort to give us a package that -- that we can work with and they gave us a recommendation with 385 and they also gave us a recommendation with 400 million and that we can considerable discussions yesterday about which item to use as a starting point, especially with respect to the city manager's proposal, the city manager has also went through a considerable effort twice to get us to a potential starting point. So because the issue has -- [09:42:01] has risen about the tax force recommendation and city manager recommendation, I have passed around a sheet that includes listing both the task force recommendation and the city manager recommendation and then the next column represents what I will be proposing as a motion as you have said, are amendments to that motion for us to consider and then also changes from the task force and changes from the city manager. And the idea is for everyone to be able to closely follow what we are changing from. So with that said, mayor, i will make my first motion, which is for the women -- I'm making a motion to include the following items in the bond proposal. >> Mayor Leffingwell: What is the base of your motion -- >> Cole: Some of the base -- most of the items are coming from the city manager's proposal, but some of the items will be coming from the task force proposal and some of the items will actually be items that were not included in either the task force proposal or the city manager's proposal. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I understand that. But you are going to suggest amendments to the city manager's proposal? >> Cole: Well, I'm open for amendments. But with -- right now, I am only planning on starting with the city manager proposal. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's what I was asking. >> Cole: And making an amendment to it, especially with respect to affordable housing. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. >> Cole: So that the end result will be the task force recommendation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. So -- >> Cole: I thought that you were asking me specifics on what I'm contemplating might happen with -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'm asking you are you making the motion to approve the [09:44:01] city manager's recommendation, realizing that there will be changes proposed. Is that your motion? >> Cole: I will make a motion to approve the city manager's recommendation as OF AUGUST 6th. That was not -- that was not the day before yesterday. That was the original city manager's recommendation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. And that is the total of $385 million. >> Cole: That has a total of 385, I will let staff get that up, the original city manager proposal. The first item -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, before you start going through, maybe we should get a second to that motion. Second by councilmember riley. And remember, as you go through, and propose these amendments, if there's any objection, there will be a vote on that amendment. >> Cole: I'll go through -- yes, mayor, are i will do that. I will wait for staff and mike tremble tell me when you are ready. >> I do want to pass out -- we have a little handout that has the baseline, 385 recommendation, city manager's recommendation in the task force 400, you can use that as a reference point for kind of where we're starting, then with any changes. So -- so we'll be ready in just a second. >> Cole: Okay. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I guess I'm confused, the motion on the table is to approve the city manager's recommendation and now you're going to propose amendments to that? >> Cole: Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That's correct. >> Morrison: Okay. I guess that I would like to propose -- make a substitute motion? And that would be -- actually, you know, I think that obviously we have a really challenging situation here. And yesterday I went back and sort of contemplated what my real priorities are and what could be a path forward when we have such a complex thing. I actually talked to dave [09:46:00] sullivan because I remember the standard process that the mayor has now talked about that we're going to follow of trying to build consensus -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Their standard process, not ours. >> Morrison: Their standard process, although we have used it on the budget, we have used it on the comp plan where you lay out a main motion and hopefully you can massage that main motion enough in the end with amendments enough that -- well, nobody is going to necessarily agree with everything, that you can get to a point where you can get a unanimous vote, because I think that's all of our intent. For me the priority really is the task force. And what I wanted to lay out was that -- in a main motion that first with -- that pairs the main motion itself pares down the task force recommendation to below 385 and then walk through reductions, possible reductions and additions based on council priorities. So that's -- I'm passing out the motion then and so my -- so my motion is to move to adopt the bond advisory task force recommendation for a $400 million package with the following adjustments, so the adjustments themselves are part of it. Of the main motion and that is to reduce -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Substitute motion. >> Morrison: Sorry, yes, my substitute motion. So to reduce the a.p.d. Northwest substation by 9 million, which will bring it to 5.8 million. Reduce the emmitt shelton bridge by two million, bringing it to 3 million. Reduce the austin to manor trail phase 2 by one million to zero. Reduce the i-35 improvements 3 million to 18.7 million. Reduce the bike urban trail and grant match program by 2 million to 3 million and reduce the city-wide bikeways program by 5 million to zero, which would bring us to a total bond package on the table of 3 and the reason -- the [09:48:01] reason these were selected as -- as places to pare down is because there seemed to be at least potentially a majority support for those parings. So that is my motion which i hope puts us on a path to success. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there a second for that motion? >> Tovo: Yeah, I would like to second that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo seconds. >> Tovo: I just want to add a few comments. We spent a lot of time -- there were two motions obviously yesterday. We spent a lot of time looking at the one motion that I didn't vote for to see what elements were in common, that was the substance of councilmember morrison said that was the substance for these items, the northwest substation, austin to manor trail was in that the -- the main motion that councilmember martinez made yesterday, i-35 improvements, these were all part of -- with the exception of -- well, anyway. They appeared to have consensus based on the analysis that we did of who voted for which motions yesterday. And I just wants to say a few words about the task force. I know we talked about this yesterday but, you know, we have a lot of very talented folks in this city who spend a lot of time working on our volunteer boards and commissions and we are really fortunate to have had such a high caliber group working on our bond advisory task force. I think that is just a credit to them and I think we all did a great job in selecting them, but they really did a fabulous amount of work. There is one very substantial difference, mayor pro tem cole has already identified it, that's the affordable housing, the difference in terms of the affordable housing fund. I appreciate that the main motion includes a commitment to try to bump that up to where the task force is. I think that's the right direction to be moving in. But I would propose and just [09:50:01] really urge you, my colleagues, to think about what message we want to send to the community about the work that our community citizens task force did throughout this last -- these last several months. As I said, housing is the most substantial difference, but as you look down here, i really appreciate this mr. Tremble, this list, there are some other differences in terms of funding for things like neighborhood parks, small community level projects. And I think those are important. They are important to a lot of people in our communities and, you know, we haven't been through a multi--month process of studying the details as carefully as did our citizens task force. One of the things they really did was to evaluate all of the many, many requests they were receiving, all of the emails, all of the people who showed up to talk, the focus groups they did out in the community, larger community meetings, to come up with, in their best estimation, what was a good, well-balanced bond proposal. I know it wasn't easy. We have heard from some of the members of how challenging that -- that prospect was. So I would ask that we really take that as our starting point and work together to figure out what are the elements from the city managers that are just critical to discuss and to vote on today. So that is my pitch for starting at -- starting with the community task force recommendations and, you know, the -- and this version, which gets us down to where we need to be to start looking at other -- at other [indiscernible] so the main motion gets us to 384. I'm going to hand out some additional reductions for which -- for which it wasn't clear that we had consensus. But I think should still be up for discussion today. And then also a page called suggested additions. And what we tried to do is capture all of the suggested additions that arose [09:52:01] yesterday, either in councilmember martinez's proposal or in the course of our conversation, so that we've got one place where we can see the extent of what those additions might be. In looking at it I felt pretty good about it. If we can start with the base of 384 today and then talk about additional potential reductions, we might be able to make a lot of these suggested additions work. So I think that we are -- i think we are moving toward a really strong bond proposal. But I do think that it's for are to start in the right place and that's with the community task force recommendation. So I second the motion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem? >> Cole: I certainly appreciate what councilmember morrison and councilmember tovo have to say and fully respect the work of the bond committee. But first I want to point out that in the substitute motion, that has been made, also will propose in the motion sheet that I have, the exact same amount to the northwest substation, to the emmitt shelton bridge and to the austin-manor trail. And the other items, the -- the last three items, which are i-35 improvements, bicycle urban trails, the next two items, the i-35 improvements and bake urban trails are at the bottom of my motion sheet. What I did was list all of the items that were different between the city manager and task force recommendation for us to possibly discuss and I think that between the proposals that have within laid out by -- have been laid out by councilmember morrison and tovo, that we will get to all of the items for discussion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. I will say that I'm going to vote against the substitute [09:54:00] motion so that we can have our opportunity to work our way through amendments to that recommendation. And have the opportunity to vote on those amendments as we go through them one by one. We didn't have that opportunity on the substitute motions since the major amendments were laid out as a part of that motion. >> Mayor -- >> councilmember riley. >> Riley: I'm also going to vote against the substitute motion and I feel a need to speak up about a couple of items that are included in the motion because we didn't get to talk about them yesterday, i think some people may have concluded there was a consensus on those. I want to dispel any motions that this is a complete consensus on those items, first of all, I have no problem with starting with the task force recommendations of 400 million, that concept seems fine to me. That seems less critical to me than the number where we land on. The you -- the important thing is where we land. But the two items that i wanted to call attention to are the last two bullet points here. The bicycle urban trail and grant match program reducing that by two million, reducing the city-wide 5, zeroing out the city-wide bikeways program. We have -- the -- cities all over the countries are dramatically expanding their efforts on bicycle issues. Austin has been a leader traditionally on these programs. We were recently selected as one of six cities in the country to be demonstration sites for -- for a city-wide greenways project which really is squarely within the intent of the city-wide bikeways program. Instead of being able to continue our leadership position on this, this -- we can zero out that program. The other suggestion about -- about cutting the -- the -- the bicycle urban trail and grant match program is especially unfortunate because that [09:56:00] program has been very effective in allowing us to leverage transportation dollars. It is a way that we are able to apply for federal enhancement funding and other things that are getting more and more important right now. There is a -- through campo, we know that there are significant stpmm transportation funds that could be available, but those are only available to the extent that a local entity is willing to step up and provide a local match. We have been able to do that in the past and have been very effective in leveraging local transportation dollars to -- to a greater degree than we've been able to with any other transportation dollars, we're able to achieve very -- very effective transportation investments based on long-term bicycle planning that has involved the whole community. These two items would essentially put a stop to all of our progress on all of that planning and progress on infrastructure. These would be, these suggestions came up at the very last minute. I can assure you they would be very, very strongly opposed by the bike community. We have already started to hear from the bike community about them. There is very strong resistance to both of these items. I just wants to dispel any discussion that these are easy consensus things that anybody can live with. Because I think that these are very unfortunate recommendations and would do real damage to our progress on bicycle issues. >> Martinez: Mayor pro tem? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I want to share the same concerns that councilmember riley raised. While some of these may be similar in nature in terms of proposed cuts, it was in the context of what would be added back. We haven't had that discussion. So in my mind there is not consensus on any of these because -- because we haven't gone through and deliberately talked about the individual items, as i suggested yesterday in my motion, so that you could see where we end up in the end. The other point that I want to make is it keeps being stated that we are sending a [09:58:02] wrong message to our community that we are not honoring the task force. I find that a bit hollow because -- because we had a task force make a recommendation to this body to put single member districts on the ballot, only single member districts, we had 30,000 signatures from citizens to tell us to do that and the maker and the seconder of this motion voted against that. So what message was sent then? I bring that point up not to get into it. But to say that this is a difficult job. And so you can't on one -- on one item say we must honor the people we appointed, when on another item you absolutely did not do that. And that's why I find that hollow. >> Morrison: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I appreciate the comments from both of my colleagues. I think that with regard to the value that you speak to, councilmember riley, i certainly agree with them and the intent was certainly to look toward moving -- having opened up some of that funding and moving toward amendments that would add back some of the specifics that we had heard in the recommendation from the city manager and it was certainly not intended to suggest that I had any expectation that on each one of these individual items that we were going to have a 6-0 vote or a 7-0 vote. I realize that, you know, all of us are going to have to be -- be open, if we can get to make it so that we can get somewhere. And with respect to honoring task forces or not, I mean, I have given this a lot of thought and we are in a very complicated situation right now with the dynamics of our council and trying to get to a productive -- a productive path and that's why for me it was a matter of really trying to give some serious thought to where my priorities lie in this and where do I feel like I need to put my energy in working towards, I think that the spread sheets that mayor pro tem passed out, really speaks to the -- to the two facets of the differences between the two approaches and one is the -- of course the housing differences, and then the second is the much -- the much -- the numerous small differences and I feel like that is where -- where the task force painted the picture of the community needs and that's why the -- and that might be a lot harder to get to. So that's why I prefer to start with the task force and its a priority for me. [One moment please for change in captioners] >> Tovo: I do want to address the comment that councilmember riley mentioned, and that was about the bike program. And I want to be very clear that we were not proposing zeroing out the bikeways program. We were responding to the city manager's memo stating that other funds had been identified. Through the city's transportation fund. And so the thought is if other funds can and have been identified, that we ought to use those instead of bond funds. There seemed to be consensus around that, but I would just like to offer that councilmember riley, I think I heard you say that you were fine with starting with -- I don't want to overstate it, but I think you expressed a willingness to start with the taskforce recommendation, and I do think that would be an easier way at getting at some of the smaller changes. So perhaps one way to go about this is to take the substitute motion and identify what the issues are beyond -- I heard from you bicycle, urban trail grant matches as an issue. Why don't we amend our motion if the maker is comfortable with that and we'll start with a higher figure than 384. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Those would be to be amendments that are voted on if any councilmember objects. >> Tovo: So the other thing I do want to be very clear about is that there was every intent to vote on additional reductions and additional amendments. That was absolutely the plan we were just trying to start with something that got us to -- one that began with the taskforce recommendation and two, got us to 384 and then addressed the additional reductions. But I think I understand from what you're saying is you have some concerns about a few of the elements in this base plan and I would just suggest that we -- I'm certainly welcome -- certainly would welcome your feedback about which ones you would like to be removed. So that we would be at a base that we can hopefully build consensus around. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I'm not going to be supporting any amendment because I'm not going to support the overall motion. I'm going to state my objections now and call to question the motion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember martinez calls the question on the substitute motion. Is there any objection to that? If there's no objection, then we'll call the vote on the substitute motion? All in favor say aye? Opposed say no. That fails on a vote of four-two with councilmember riley, martinez, myself and mayor pro tem cole voting no. So that brings us to the main motion. Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: And let me just start by saying I'm sure we are all acting in good faith trying to get to a 385 number and we'll try to make sure we do that. The first item that I'd like to add is the women and children's shelter. For two million dollars. This is the exact same number that the taskforce put forward, and that is a change from the -- I mean, that is not a number that either the taskforce or the city manager put forward, but is a council-added item. I would like to move that we add the barton springs bathhouse for two million dollars. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let's go one at a time. >> Cole: Go ahead. >> Mayor Leffingwell: The women's and children's shelter, is there any objection to that being a friendly amendment? Hearing none, that's incorporated. >> Cole: Okay. Thank you, mayor. The next item is the barton springs bathhouse for two million dollars. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to that item, two million dollars added? >> Morrison: Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: An objection is heard. >> Morrison: I would like to speak to that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, let's get a motion by mayor pro tem to include $2 million for barton springs bathhouse, and i will second that. And recognize councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Well, i certainly see a great future for the bathhouse with some renovations, and I even see in my own future being able to use that renovated bathhouse with great enthusiasm. I do -- did note the city manager's comment on that, and that was that there are several higher priority items at zilker park beyond the bathhouse, and in fact, I don't know that I can -- let me see if I can find that very quickly. The proposed improvements to the building are considered a continuation of the current barton springs grounds improvement, in the second phase of the overall project, which I'd like to note that we actually approved I think in 2009 or 2 million in certificates of obligation, which were non-voter approved bonds to do some significant work on the short-term. It says that the parks department accepted the removal of the project from the overall recommended bond package for the following under the current pard cip program improvements have been made to the roof, showers and mechanical systems of the building, while other improvements focus on the pool and grounds. An improved entrance to the building is needed, however this is viewed as an enhancement to the facility rather than a structural issue. And thirdly, zilker park has multiple improvement priorities, several of which ranked higher with respect to the bathhouse renovation. So while I certainly appreciate the community's enthusiasm and work that's gone into this, I know that as you go down this list, there are going to be some really difficult decisions to be made, so for me this doesn't rank high enough to support it. >> Cole: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Yeah, I concur and I'm basing my objection in part on the city manager's recommendations, but just fundamentally the biggest gap between the city manager's recommendations and the taskforce's is in the area of affordable housing. And I would just request that we go ahead and add back in all the monies that are in the -- in the taskforce recommendation because for me that is the highest priority that we get -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're voting on this item up or down. >> Tovo: I understand that, thanks. That is the highest priority, and I'm not sure at the end of the day how much money we'll have available for that until that -- until that point i can't support adding barton springs. If we've got money available, then yes, I think it's a great project. I think it's going to be a community asset and I would like to see some money in the bond proposal for it, but it's not my highest priority and I don't want it to come at the expense of things like affordable housing. So I'm not going to vote to support this. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I'll just say I am going to support this and I want to confirm that the actual proposal will include a requirement for friends of barton springs to raise $250,000 and confirm that that's in there. If it's not I would like to have that added to the discussion. >> Cole: Mayor, I will certainly support that direction. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And say that we did the same thing a few years ago for the deep eddy bathhouse. It was an historically accurate, well done, well planned, well executed renovation. We're all proud of that. And a lot of folks think that barton springs bathhouse renovation should have been done a long time ago. I do too. I think it's really a worthy project. The cost is not very high and I intend to support it. So any other comments on that item? So we'll take a vote on that proposed amendment. All in favor say aye? Opposed say no. It passes on a vote of four to two with councilmembers tovo and morrison voting no. So that's incorporated in the main motion. >> Thank you, mayor, and i do want to ask staff that we keep record of the items that are going 6-0 versus split votes so that we're able to know that at the end. So that's the only second item that went 4-2. >> Mayor Leffingwell: You can rest assured the city clerk is -- >> Cole: Okay. Well, mike trimble can add better. >> Mayor Leffingwell: He can do that too. >> Cole: The next item is the dougherty arts center that I'm proposing at $4 million. The taskforce asked for 2 million, the city manager asked for 2 million. I have a council proposal for four million, given that the dougherty arts center is in such bad condition, and we had testimony about that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Before we go I want to clarify that your motion was for first reading only? >> Cole: Yes, first reading only, mayor. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any comments on this item? Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Mayor pro tem, I wonder if you could speak a little bit -- and maybe this was clarified yesterday and I just missed it -- about what it's going to bring to us if we have four million versus two million for the dougherty arts center? >> Cole: Well, I can speak to that. Tara hensley talked about that a little bit. It needs roof repairs, it needs remediation. It has -- I don't like to say rats, but it is rats. And we have also extent notices to parents when we enroll kids about the conditions asking them to understand that, but -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: hensley is here to answer that question. >> Morrison: I guess the real question is what do we get for four million? What does that get us. >> Sare are hensley, parks and recreation. The mayor pro tem is absolutely correct. One is to replace this billion, we're talking up to 10 to 12 million. So first and foremost if we had to replace it. Second of all, it is an aging infrastructure building that was never intended to be a cultural arts facility in the first place. We took it over and it was a navy site. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Navy reserves. >> And it has served its purpose well. We are putting duct tape on it on a regular basis, so the two million will help us-- the existing site to help some issues, however what we're trying to do is take whatever we don't have to put into this existing facility as we look down the road to try to find partners so we're not building a brand new facility, but we're partnering together. So two purposes. One is continue to try to keep the building together and use it in its current state with patching roof, patching holes. She is absolutely correct, we have some issues with some critters. And then the other problem is then being able to take what's left over and hopefully use it as a match for infrastructure improvements or work with another existing facility or partnering with another arts group so that we are able to not build a new facility, but partner and get more efficiencies and effectiveness out of operations there. >> Morrison: So would you say that the two million basically allows us to stabilize the current situation, but if we go to four million it allows us really to move forward? >> It will allow us to have an opportunity to move forward more quickly. >> Morrison: All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let me just say I'm not going to support this proposal because we don't have a full plan for spending the four million dollars. We do have two million dollars that's initially recommended to repair the facility. Keep it going. When and if we get to the point where we can talk about additional work, which is as yet unidentified, we can talk about ways to fund that and perhaps with another partnership agreement. I would support a lesser amount, but I'm not going to support the four million. Any other comments? Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: A comment and then a question. I am going to support this because I think it's important and I think we've had some discussion and we'll likely have others today about the amount of money we want to consider in our bond proposal for outside arts organizations. I think it's really critical that we recognize our public facilities that are in need of repair, and we hear lots of comments, all of us do i know, from the community about the state of some of our parks facilities, and this is an opportunity to begin to do something about it that would be good for the community. I think the dougherty arts center is a real value for children who take classes there as well as adults and I think it should be something -- it should really speak to kind of community we are and the value we place on our cultural arts. So I am going to support this. We're talking about support for outside organizations, which do critical work in our community too, but we node to support our public arts facilities. Mayor pro tem cole, I wonder if you can give us a sense of where we're going? Some of these relatively small dollars add up and might prevent us from doing larger things. So are you taking us down this sheet? >> Cole: Yes, I am taking you down the sheet that you have in front of you that has a list in motion taskforce recommendation, city manager, august 6 proposal, council proposal change from the taskforce and change from the city manager. And what I tried to do was consider the items first that there was pretty firm agreement on from the comments that had been made so that we would make some progress. And those were the top number one three items in that box. And second I tried to put in a cut that it looked like we all agreed on so that when we were going down we didn't have to guess like we were yesterday, are we balanced, are we not? Staff tell us where we are, so we knew where we were as we went down the process. Of course, anybody can request a totaling at that time so you can see that assuming we pass the dougherty arts center and pass the next item, then we are pretty close to being we are pretty close to being balanced. >> I would like to add one comment. I certainly support the arts and I would support having a nicer dougherty arts center, but this whole exercise is about making difficult choices and I find it a little difficult to put two million dollars extra into the dougherty arts center that we don't know yet how we're going to spend and at the same time reducing i-35, which is our -- i-35 planning projects by 7 million at the same time. I would much rather see that money spent on it. That's a higher priority for me and it's needed now, especially in view of the fact that we're trying as hard as we can to get i-35 projects. And I guess there will be several different ones shovel ready, so that we have opportunities like we recently had to make improvements to mopac. That was only possible because a lot of preliminary work had been done. And the opportunity is going to, I think, exist in the future to have funding to execute these projects, and so I think that's a higher priority for me. It's the most serious traffic problem we have in this entire city, and i think we should be doing everything we can to try to remediate that. Not cure it, but try our best to remediate. Councilmember riley. >> Riley: Mayor, I share your priorities on that. I-35 is absolutely a very high priority. The issue for me is that we may have an opportunity sooner rather than later to work on a long-term solution for the dougherty, and this investment of potentially two million dollars in that solution could actually wind up saving us money and putting us in a better position to be able to minimize that cost, which we heard could be in the range of 10 to $15 million to actually replace the facility. That is a very significant expense that we know is looming on the horizon and this rather small, modest investment, could enable us to mitigate that expense. And in the meantime my hope is that we would be going out for an interim transportation bond item before the completion of this entire bond cycle as we have done a couple of times in recent years. We know that there are transportation issues on the horizon and I suspect we will have an opportunity to bring those to the voters much sooner than we would have the opportunity to go to the voters with something like the dougherty. So it's simply a matter of timing. I think that a very modest investment in moving forward with the dougherty could make sense now. And we will have an opportunity to step up our efforts on i-35 and other transportation issues in the near future sooner than we'll have another opportunity to work on the dougherty. So I will be supporting this item. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any other comments? So then we'll vote on this amendment. All in favor say aye? Opposed say no. It passes on a vote of 5-1. I'm voting no on this and councilmember spelman is off so that becomes a part of the main motion. Four million dollars for dougherty. >> Cole: The next item is the northwest a.p.d. Substation. I am proposing that it be entered for the amount of $5,833,000. And this is a reduction from the city manager proposal and the taskforce proposal, but as discussed yesterday, we will begin the preliminary work and design on this facility. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes. And just to reiterate, this is for acquisition and planning. This won't cover construction of the substation, but at least we can get started on it. I will be supporting this item. Is there any objection? So that's incorporated as part of the main motion. >> Cole: Next is the urban rail project. It was not included in the august 6 proposal because we did not use it at that time so it is simply a reduction. >> Mayor Leffingwell: From the august 6, yes. Is there any objection to that? And I would just -- I've said this many times, but i just want to make sure it's clear to everyone that this reduction does not affect our plans, materially affect our planning on the urban rail, connect austin plan. We will continue with our work on environmental studies, alternatives analysis and so forth and we have adequate funds to do this for the next three or so years. Before we get to the point where we take the next step. So I will be supporting that too. >> Morrison: Mayor, I have a question. I just want to make sure I've got the proper information in front of me, and we're talking about the city manager's august 6th proposal. I'm still looking at my notebook. I take it that's outdated. And I would like to know how because it actually mentions city manager, I believe, has -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: The city manager made a number of recommendations to his original recommendation by way of a memo that we all got. >> Morrison: So I really apologize, but I need to be reminded of that memo and what those recommendations are because I didn't get it noted in my notebook. Is it in the -- >> we talked about an august 6, so the basis we're using is the city manager's 385 recommendation. The one thing that we did mention is the urban rail, two million dollars item. But that's already been noted. The other proposal you got from the city manager you voted on monday. We're not talking about august six, we're talking about the city manager. >> Morrison: So that said remove the recommendation for two million for urban rail. Where did that move in? >> >> Morrison: How did my notebook change? >> We just said that two million didn't free up. >> Mayor Leffingwell: There was actually more than two million in that memo freed up, wasn't there? >> In the memo, yes, but the memo I just wanted to be clear the memo came out on monday. So we're talking about AUGUST 6th. >> So the only difference to this beautiful color of blue, yellow and green chart you gave me is that the urban rail corridor projects would be zeroed out. >> Correct. >> Morrison: So there's a freed two million there. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to that -- before we do that, councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: That's okay. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to that. That's incorporated as a part of the main motion. >> Tovo: We're working our way down this sheet and i guess I'm still trying to -- your running total at the end and gets us to 392. >> >> Cole: The running total will get to 385 at the very end of the sheet. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're counting on that. >> Cole: And mike will mike trimble. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem, go ahead with your next. >> Cole: The next item is austin cities which I am proposing for 5.4 million,. We've had considerable public discussion from that as well as council discussion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to 4 for austin film studios renovation? Hearing none, that's incorporated in the main motion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: The next item is east 51st vision plan, which also has received a lot of discussion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any objection to this item? Three and a half million dollars for the east 51st street project. I'll just call it project, not vision plan. If you don't mind. All right. That's incorporated. >> Cole: The next item is violet crown trail. I will ask that the final numbers be two million dollars. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any objection to incorporate two million dollars for the violet crown trail? Hearing none, that's part of the main motion. Cole coat the next item is the wheelchair accessible fishing pier for $150,000. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any objection to this item? Hearing none, that's incorporated $150,000 for the fishing pier. >> Cole: The next item is the neighborhood partnering program, 1.2 million. And this is a very popular program and I will add that I co-sponsored that item, but lead on that item was councilmember spelman. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Any discussion or objection? Is there any objection to this item? Hearing none, that's incorporated. >> Cole: The next item is a reduction to park patrol facility so that the final number is $2 million. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Proposed two million dollars hensley here? Could you tell us a little bit more about this project? >> Sarah hensley, parks and recreation director. I think our friends in the police department are also here. This is another opportunity for co-location of park rangers and the police patrol, park police patrol. Primarily what we're going to look for is the ability to co-locate around the hike and bike trail area, lake area where we have now with the boardwalk coming on a lot -- see a lot more increased participation. So I don't know if the chief wants to add, but it is co-locating of a facility so that we can -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: What I'd like to ask you is this is a reduction of $2.7 million. How does that affect you? >> Oooh. Chief, do you want to answer that 2.7 reduction? If they reduce that, it's going to limit the size of the building. I don't think they're going to be able to do a lot of their location of facilities -- their equipment and supplies and things which they were going to add. >> Shaun maddox, assistant chief at the pd. Yeah, the reduction would be prohibitive of building out the facility as envisioned. To be a station for the -- a , park and specialized patrol as well as the rangers program. The facility is projected to be able to store police vehicles, atv's, be able to deploy a police boat from the facility and those kinds of things. So it would -- it would alter dramatically what that facility was envisioned to be. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Would the facility be functional at two million instead of 4.7? I would say that if we find ourselves in a position like we are with the northeast right now with an underfunded project. >> Have to go to a thatched roof. [Laughter]. City manager? >> I want to remind everyone we've talked about this issue before and we've had the problem in the previous bond program of inadequately funding a facility project. And that's what this stands to be. At this funding level it will not meet the original expectations that the staff has determined are necessary. So my suggestion would be that we provide enough funding to allow them to do design work. If you're going to reduce this and look at actually construction, either by other means or in the next bond program, but we don't want to be strapped with trying to meet that set of expectations when we know out of the gate we simply don't have enough funding to do it? >> Mayor Leffingwell: So i would like to follow one a question like this. So two million dollars is what the proposal is instead of 4.7. Would that be just an amount of money that's going to sit there and do nothing? >> Well, I don't know that we need necessarily -- howard, you will have to help with this -- two million dollars to do design work for this facility. That may be more than we need. But it's clearly not enough to carry out the scope that's intended, as this is being proposed in our plan. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Before you answer, howard, he just want to say I want to emphasize that that's one of the things we talked about at the very beginning of this process is that when we identified specific projects, the funding should be adequate and not trimmed down. We saw this with the combination of new municipal court building with the northeast substation that was approved. That was pared down to the point where we couldn't do that, so that money has just really not been used. We saw in the library where that money was pareded down from what we really needed to do and now we are going ahead with the labor, but it's not the kind of facility that we had planned to built. We had to make dramatic changes, reducing that by about 25 percent. So go ahead and give your answer. >> Howard lazarus, director of public works department. The challenge with the facility project is that until you get into actually developing the program and knowing what you're going to use it for and going through some estimates based upon pair metric planning figures like per square foot cost it's hard to really know what it's going to cost. And is there a process you go through. But you can estimate how much you need for design and all the coordination that we have to do based upon an early estimate which I think is where we're at. So putting aside two million dollars for design of this facility and other parks facilities enables that department to put forth a detailed design on this effort so that when there's another subsequent funding opportunity, whether it's a grant opportunity where we need to know what the amount is, or a subsequent bond, we have a much more certainty as to what we're going to need. And that leads towards better allocation of capital dollars. So by putting two million dollars aside now it will certainly get this facility to the point where we can get documents that we can bid and get -- and know what the price is. And I don't think it will lead to an overcommitment of funds. A lot depends on the language that's attached to it. I think that's an appropriate number. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So you think it's a valid expenditure even though you won't be able to build the facility. You will be able to plan for it, have it -- I'm beginning to hate this term -- shovel ready. >> We can have a facility when we talk about something being ready for construction, that has a complete set offed by documents and we're readying to get permits. We've done it where we bid it (indiscernible). But having a set of drawings that are readying to gives us the advantage of knowing what the cost is so we can make better use of bond funds in the future or if there's an opportunity for grant funds we know what to ask for. >> So we can do the paperwork, but couldn't build it. >> Not for two million dollars. 7 million was in the taskforce recommendation and the staff recommendation. >> And I think what was and pard is that that will give them a compromise facility for what their needs are. >> Mayor Leffingwell: That will give them a facility. >> But it won't give them the needs that they specified. You can build something, but it won't meet their needs. >> Mayor Leffingwell: You can build something for a lot less than that. City manager? >> I guess the point is, and to summarize what howard is saying, two million dollars is sufficient for planning and design, not for facility. That's the point that's being -- that's being made here. And should that be the decision -- and this language here says park patrol facility. I guess I'd want to make sure that there's some clarification in that language so there's no misunderstanding of having an expectation that there will be a facility at the end of the day because there won't be. We're going to plan for it. >> Morrison: Mayor? I'm going to support this motion. One thing that I think is important and I wonder if we've really explored is the possibility of doing -- so the idea is to put this near the hike and bike trail. The possibility of doing perhaps a small substation near the hike and bike trail for a joint facility, because clearly we know that there are a lot of people that use the parks there, but we have parks all over the city and we have some parks that have very high needs for public safety presence. And so I wonder if we could explore the possibility under this project and that would be to do a joint facility, like a major joint facility in another area of town and a substation near the hike and bike trail. I'm thinking particularly of, you know, dove springs. And I know that we have the -- with high needs, their park in many ways is not used because of concern about public safety. I also know that we own some land out there and we're -- we have in the bond package both the proposals a project for the mounted patrol headquarters to be built out at southeast. And so if this goes forward, I would like to add direction to actually explore, if it's acceptable to my colleagues -- before going forward with this concept of the major headquarters for parks and parks rangers at the hike and bike trail, explore the idea of a smaller station near the hike and bike trail and something in a high needs public safety area of town for the major location. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think that would be a totally different item to be proposed as another additional amendment to change that. Chief mcdonald? >> Michael mcdonald, deputy city manager. Let me just add a couple of comments because I think what we're actually proposing would satisfy what you're looking for anyway. Several years ago when we consolidated into the police department, the park officers became a.p.d. Officers, so really what we're proposing to do here is to take those police officers that are assigned to the parks along with the park rangers and co-locate them. And them being co-located in that way would in essence create that type of presence that you're talking about on the hike and bike trail. In that park system on the hike and bike trails. In many ways it would function because you would have an ongoing presence. Part of what chief talked about when you're trying to achieve that is the place for all of them to show up and operate out of that facility. So you would in many instance that substation presence that you're looking for, you would get that once we have a design and implement it. >> Morrison: Yeah, i appreciate that. I guess what I was trying to promote was to have that major presence in another area of town. Where we know we've got crime issues and they're really trying to lift up the area. So rather than having it all on the hike and bike trail. I wondered if there was a way to do sort of a small presence on the hike and bike trail, but really to have their major presence in another area of town that they operate out of. That was my suggestion. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And again, I think if that's what you want to do, you ought to propose that as a separate and additional amendment because this is specifically for this, this one facility. >> I have another question for the chief. >> Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Chief mcdonald or others, so the point came up yesterday and again today, have there been any discussions, has the bond committee and staff explored the idea of locating the park patrol facility with the mounted patrol facility and combining those two for cost efficiencies. And I understand before you say it that it's not centrally located, but again we've got parks everywhere and if there's an intent to have a substation here and a main facility, it seems to me there are other alternatives that could be explored and joint use is one in a time of scarce dollars should in my opinion always be the first consideration. >> I'll let chief maddox comment on some of the operational, but again having an facility where they can meet and deploy, the old traditional show up works, but there are other needs associated with mounted patrol where you have to -- the amount of space you need to keep the horses and maintain them and all of that. So trying to design it in such a way within the city to do those sorts of things to support the horses that the upkeep that needs to take place with them would be a challenge at a location like this. >> Morrison: Of course, it is -- right now it is within the city limits. I understand that's part of the interest in moving it out of the central city, but currently our equestrian facility is within the city limits. >> Yes, councilmember. The equestrian facility is -- the land has been purchased, 88 acres over on McANGUS ROAD NEAR WHERE The circuit of the americas is going to be. It is a far out facility as far as deployment citywide goes because you're going from one extreme corner of the city to citywide. Some of the issues that do go with that as well as in the central city-park corridor we do a tremendous amount of bicycle patrols. We use atv's and those kind of things. We're looking at a trailering issue of having to trailer equipment in on a daily basis. And trailer equipment out on a daily basis to meet those needs of the city as well. So all of those were taken into account when we started looking at where would we put a park facility. To service the parks throughout the city we know we could put officers in cars to get them to those facilities throughout, but to use the specialized equipment, the atv's and the bicycles, where we use them right now it makes sense for the facility to be there. >> Morrison: Okay, thanks. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I think what I would like to propose is that we increase that to four million dollars using two million dollars from the dougherty arts center. And bringing that item back down to two. Is there any objection to that? >> Cole: Yeah, a little bit. Just a tad. [Laughter]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So noting that there are five objections -- [laughter]. -- I'll withdraw that suggestion. I'll just vote no on the item. So there was objection and so we have to have a vote. All in favor of including that item say aye? Opposed say no. It passes on a vote of five-one with councilmember spelman off the dais. I was voting no. >> Morrison: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Before I know you are intending to move on, and before we do go on to the next one, I wanted to propose an amendment that we consider the item for the design of the park patrol facility that an initial step in that design would be to consider alternate locations, joint use possibilities and configurations, for example, a small substation centrally located, and then potentially a larger facility not centrally located. >> Cole: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Could we consider that direction to the staff. You don't have a dollar amount attached to it. >> Morrison: It would be to amend the actual description of the project. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Instead of park patrol facility -- >> Morrison: It would be a park patrol facility with an initial step of looking at those options. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. I object to that. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison, I guess maybe we lazarus up here, mayor. I'm not sure if you're suggesting that our department consider other locations, then I think we can give that general direction without disturbing this particular facility that is planned. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah. And we do need to vote on your proposed amendment of two million dollars for the park patrol facility first. >> Morrison: We did. >> Mayor Leffingwell: All right. I've got it checked off. >> Morrison: And I heard the mayor, and maybe misheard, object to going that direction and heard that we needed to vote on it separately. >> Cole: Merit can correct me, but I think you can make separate directions to consider park patrol facilities throughout the area and especially in east austin or other areas that they're needed. I think you can do that. But not to disturb this item. >> Mayor Leffingwell: A dollar amount will not attach to it. >> Cole: And not disturbing this item. >> Morrison: I think we need to acknowledge that that step would need to be done initially before spending money on designing a specific location. If we're looking at options and different configurations, before we spend money on designing one specific plan, we should look at what the options are. goode could -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let's see. You want to go back and change this item that we've already adopted as part of the main motion. >> Morrison: Yes. I want to amend the main motion, which is what we -- which is to adopt the description of this item. >> Mayor Leffingwell: You would have to move to reconsider the item that we just voted on. >> Morrison: I'm making a different motion, not to change the -- not to change the dollar amount. I'm talking about massaging what the actual -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: But your motion changes the title and purpose of the project, so we would have to reconsider -- that's my ruling on that. City attorney, do you have a comment? >> I'm not going to overall your motion -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well, you can't overall my motion. We appreciate your advice anyway. [Laughter]. >> I'll just make a suggestion that I think councilmember morrison, that might be more appropriate as kind of direction to staff within the overall context of the discussion that the council will maybe want to give to staff to consider that before moving forward on this particular item that those types of discussions and evaluations occur. That would just be my suggestion as that how to handle that particular item instead of doing it through a motion. >> Morrison: Thank you, city attorney. What she said. [Laughter]. >> Mayor Leffingwell: lazarus -- and i disagree with that, city attorney. >> Mayor and council, i think the issue here is what is the intent of the project that is listed because we'll go through a process that addresses requirements, community input as part of a detailed scoping effort. We're not talking now about size of the facility, we're talking about kind of the general scope and the intent. As we go down through design we have to comply with what the intent of the ordinance is. That doesn't really prescribe what this is going to look like when we're done. It just means -- it just puts out what the intent is towards achieving this facility. So it really addresses the specific language in the bond proposal what the intent was I think. We're basically -- we're really talking about -- [inaudible]. >> I think to add a little bit to the conversation, i don't think our bond covenants preclude us from the facility. If we pass the bond item that says build a fire station in onion creek and we pass another bond item that says improve parks facilities and we find that we can improve a park facility and build a fire station at the same spot, the bond covenants don't preclude us from doing that, which fulfills the contract with the citizens. So passing this item to say design of a park patrol facility, I don't think would preclude staff from looking at potentially co-mingling with another department. >> Morrison: Thank you for that. If that's the case, that's great, but we have been very specific. We have heard very specific language already from our staff about build a park patrol facility on lady bird lake. So as long as we can clarify that -- that we will be looking at other options as part of the -- as part of the effort, then that's great. I'm fine with that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And we haven't discussed this as building a park facility on we need to reconsider the previous -- is that what you want to do? You want to reconsider the previous item? >> Morrison: I guess I'd like to hear from our attorney that's coming to the podium? >> Lela fireside with the city fire department. And what I understand what you all are doing right now is coming up with your ideas for what you hope the way the bond funds will be spent. The propositions that we've drafted and the ordinance that we're asking you to approve today either on first reading, where you seem to be going today, but ultimately prior to the date to call the election, speaks in more general terms. And you know, we hope to be able to use the funds in the manner that you're identifying for the propositions in the dollar amounts that you're identifying. But we're wording it generally so that if there are opportunities that come up for projects that the funds can be used for, the description is general enough to allow that progress to be made. So -- but if you -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: You're saying after this item has already been voted for, a park patrol facility on lady bird lake, that we can go back then and add direction to say look at other places to build it. >> What I'm saying is that right now what I understand you to be voting on are the types of projects that you want in the bond package, but the ordinance itself is not listing out the particular projects. Unless you're directing that the ordinance be amended to list out the particular projects. >> City manager? >> So you're saying that what's in play now is broad enough to allow not only what we've expressed is our intent with this two million dollars, but it's broadened us so that we can consider a variety of solutions, if you will. Including the kind of facility that councilmember morrison is talking about. >> Yes, that's my understanding. >> Okay. But we have been pretty specific about what our intentions are with respect to the two million dollars. We've been specific about that. So in the absence of some additional direction from council, again, we've been clear about what our intent would be. >> Mayor, if I may. I wanted to point out that in the backup in the wonderful notebook that staff provided to us, this item description is the park patrol unit currently operates from a lone trailer. The project details the design and construction. Of course we would with the two million change that to design, of a secured law enforcement facility that will support park patrol operations. And when it comes to the map it specifically says site to be determined. So for me that suggests that our written language shows that we have not identified lady bird lake. There's clearly some contemplation of lady bird lake. has wreath that in developing the requirements options could be looked at. And that gives me a level of comfort and I wonder if the city attorney would suggest that that's a reasonable level of comfort. [Laughter]. >> Well, I feel that it is with the propositions as they are currently drafted. But with the direction from the majority of council is to call it out in a way that we create a contract with the voters to put this thing in a particular place, then we obviously will honor that direction and include it in the ordinance. But what I understood you all to be doing right now is on first reading discussing the project to try to get to a total dollar and then also to categorize the dollars where they're going to go. And there may be items that come up where you are talking about that and we'll need to address that with you. And then hopefully to have some flexibility going forward. If it turns out that a particular site is not the perfect location, that there's enough flexibility unless you really intend as a majority of you for that to be in the ordinance and part of the contract with the voters. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We'll go ahead with it as it is with clarification to -- more clarification on second and third readings. >> Thank you. >> Morrison: And just to -- a last month. We don't have it written -- we have it specifically written in our -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: But we have discussed it. We have discussed it. >> Morrison: We have, so maybe there needs to be a vote to change the written materials to get that aligned. >> Riley: Mayor? I concur with councilmember morrison and I don't see it written down that it would be related on lady bird lake. To the extent that it is written or described anywhere, I would suggest that we instead of saying it will be on lady bird lake, if we want to mention lady bird lake, we could just say lady bird lake or other suitable location that can convey that our principal intent is lady bird lake, but if that doesn't work, then we would identify some other suitable location. >> Mayor Leffingwell: We can get it all figured out before second reading. >> Riley: I do have one question about it. Councilmember morrison is right, the backup does say site to be determined, but i also notice that right below that it indicates the cip planning areas that there's an x in the box for central east, which seems to convoy the expectation that the location would be in the central east area. And I wanted to make sure we're all aware of that and that's our understanding that even if it doesn't wind up lady bird lake, that we would still remain in the central east area. I just wanted to raise that as a question. >> Morrison: Maybe we could have the attorney look into that. And perhaps that could be part of our follow-on conversation. >> Cole: Mayor, I just want to add that of course i support this direction, especially recognizing the high needs in central east austin, but we are not asking the attorneys to make any type of contract with the voters. The next item for the potential reduction is the montopolis parking lot is we need to fund our parking lots for a city facility through existing funds and not have them as part of a bond item. >> Morrison: I. >> Tovo: I object. I would like to talk. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Objection by councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I guess I have questions for staff about the montopolis recreation center parking. I know that is a joint facility and I would like to talk a little bit about the value of the parking lot, the state of the current parking lot, what that does for this community recreation center before they -- >> they're coming over to answer. >> Tovo: Super, thanks. I know this has been a priority certainly of that community and also of our city management to make sure that the montopolis recreation center gets the attention it needs in terms of renovations and dollars and resources. So it gives me -- I'm very concerned with the proposal to eliminate the parking lot, which would seem to me to be an important component. Sorry, I'm trying to buy time for you here by talking and talking. Glad you're up. >> Thank you. Carlos rivera, director of health and human services. The montopolis facility is very small and it was small from the beginning. You know, there's barely enough parking this for staff. So this is different from the joint recreation hhsd facility that has been proposed in the bond package. We're doing a lot more business through our w.i.c. Program, which is what's housed in montopolis. So we need to expand the lot to accommodate not only the staff, but the increase in client flow. >> Tovo: Thanks. So currently you have not enough parking for staff. Where do the staff park? >> Well, they're very creative. They park in the surrounding area. We try to fit as many cars as we can into the parking lot, but again the parking lot is very small to begin with. And with the increase in clients it makes it very challenging. We try to give the clients preference over our parking needs, of course. >> Tovo: So can you tell us a little bit about the number of clients -- i apologize if I'm putting you on the spot about this. Perhaps some is in our backup. I would assume some are families that will then have to walk a distance to get into the building? >> I don't know the numbers offhand, but yes, there are families who live in the general community and some of them do walk and a good amount of them drive into the area. >> Tovo: And I guess I was saying, as a parent myself, it's not the easessiest thing to try to shepherd children along into buildings. So probably a lot of our families who use that center do drive because they have young children. >> Kimberly maddox, chief administrative officer. Just to answer rho your question, there are approximately 1800 w.i.c. Clients a month going through that facility at this time. To give you an idea of the volume. And of course most of them have children with them because of the nature -- >> Tovo: I was going to say because that program serves parents with children. And can you tell us a little bit@bit about the rationale for having this included as a possibility within the bond proposal? What do you see as the need? What are some of the considerations that we should be -- have in mind as we vote on this item? >> We're hopeful that over time the montopolis -- our current montopolis site will be replaced by a joint facility with pard, which would alleviate some of the concerns because that area -- because that building would have sufficient park fog all the clients. But we don't need a decreased need over time, so we need to be able to accommodate the needs of the clients. Is certainly goes -- we're looking at the parking lot specifically, but we also might eventually have some facility needs given that the program is growing. >> Tovo: So I guess I just want to get back to this idea of how many -- we've got 1800 clients. How many would you say -- how does that work out on a regular day? How many clients do you have who then might be forced to try to find parking and kind of shepherd their young families along the streets? >> I would need time to get that information to you. >> Cole: Let me ask you a question, mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: When you talk about the planned joint use facility, I'm trying to understand or it was generally my understanding that that would reduce the need for the parking lot. >> Yes. With pard, yes. >> Cole: Okay. But when is that planned? >> It's in the current bond package. >> Cole: The current bond package. [One moment, please, for change in captioners] >> you may know more than that. >> Yeah, you know, we want to use the montopolis facility to accommodate our administrative staff for wic, I think we can do it with the existing facility, also a neighborhood in that facility. Those programs are accumulated with the montopolis site, if they are, we should be okay with the parking lot, given its current size. >> May I ask a follow-up question? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes. >> Tovo: Can you tell me when would the new facility be completed? >> Again, we're probably at once the bond is passed -- i would have to look, howard would help us with this in public works, but by the time we do public involvement, preliminary designs, go through that whole process, at least two to three years. So get a brand new facility going, you're talking two to three years. >> Tovo: For those three years you would have to ask those 1800 families to try to scramble and the staff to scramble for parking on a daily basis sounds like if you don't have enough parking to accommodate the staff on a regular basis. >> [Indiscernible] three to four years for that. >> Oka. >> You know the staff have been able to deal with the parking constraints to date. But again our concern is if -- as a facility gains more and more use, that parking is an issue now and it will become a greater issue in the future. Certainly we'll try to be as flexible as possible. But any assistance will be appreciated. >> Do you have a sense of how far some of your clients need to park? >> That's something -- >> Tovo: You can get back. I will just say, you know, one I said that I wasn't going to support it and i won't. But I regret spending a million dollars on a parking lot when we have so many other pressing needs. I understand the interest in at least interrogating it and seeing if there are other ways to work around. Seems to me this is a need we need to continue to keep in the bond proposal. >> If I could just respond real quickly the $900,000 price tag is actually for two parking lots. One far south facility, also. >> Thanks for that clarification, would you remind us what that is -- is that the far south is off of william cannon in south austin, home to one of our immunization clinics as well clinic facility. Again you have families, same issues, not sufficient parking for staff and the client flow. It is on a very busy street. A very busy thoroughfare. So you have families with young children that would -- it's an issue of not having sufficient parking. >> Yeah. I was going to say that is a very busy area where that clinic is located. >> It's a far busier clinic. >> Than montopolis, yes. It is a busier clinic than montopolis. >> Being on. Montopolis. >>> Okay. Thanks. >> Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I want to say I appreciate the attempts to try to get to a final proposal here but I can't support this item because of the needs in southeast austin. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And I just want to say I will support this amendment because it is needed. There's no question about it. But this is all about prioritization, as I said earlier today. Which is needed the most 1 and this -- this I think is something that we can scrape by on for a few years until this other facility is built. But -- but again, needed but I'm going to support the amendment. >> Mayor? >> Morrison: Question. I have one more question for staff. The far south clinic, is there any -- is there a plan to shut that down in a few years, too? >> No, no. >> Morrison: That's a very busy clinic. >> It is a much-needed facility, no. >> Morrison: I guess that I want to say that I won't support the motion, either. Just to share one of the observations that we made at our committee, public health and human services committee, that is when you look at the breakdown of where the bond dollars are going, of course, the lions share is going to transportation, one percent of the bond dollars are going to health and human services facilities. And I just think that to try to scale back even more is -- is not where I want to see the city go. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And I would just point out if this amendment is not approved, that means we're going to have to find this $906,000 somewhere else on this list. >> Cole: Yes, mayor. I was not -- it's my fault -- aware of the southeast austin clinic and its needs. So I will withdraw -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Withdrawing? >> Cole: Yes. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So that means we're now $906,000 over the cap. >> Cole: Exactly. You've got that michael, right? All right. The next item is the emmitt shelton bridge. That I am proposing for $3 million. Which we heard testimony would get us through the design phase yesterday. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to this item? Hearing none, that's incorporated into the motion. >> Cole: I'm proposing the herald court facility at 11,077,000. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Any objection to this item? I guess that I would like to ask, that's a reduction of about $5 million? I know that we discussed it yesterday, but I just want to reiterate what do we get for 11 million as opposed to 16 million? >> Cole: I will again ask the city manager howard to answer that question. >> Mayor Leffingwell: I was asking him. >> Mayor, we can, part of the discussion in how much to allocate to the facility included a conversation about how much of that cost we could bear through other means. We had determined that we could build a facility to meet the requirement with 11 million plus in bond dollars and the remainder would come from some other sources. So we would get the facility that we desire for that amount of money. With the understanding that we're going to have to allocate some funding from transportation fund over a period of time to [indiscernible] some debt. .. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. With the understanding that you are going to have to take money out of transportation to build it. >> Right. It would be essentially $5 million financed over 20 years, so that comes out to -- to $275,000 a year or so that we would have to put towards it. We do pay for facilities out of the transportation fund and we have managed our capital debt out of that to where there will be a decrease in some of the moneys that we have budgeted for capital costs. So I don't think the impact on -- there will be an impact in terms of a number of lane miles that we can't do. But given the tradeoff, i think the facility over the long term will make us more efficient. >> Mayor Leffingwell: All right. Is there any objection to this item? Hearing none, that's incorporated as part of the main motion. >> Cole: Okay. The next item is affordable housing. And I am proposing that we put the item in at the task force recommendation of 76,800,000. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection from councilmembers on this item? Hearing none, that's incorporated into the main motion. The main item is interstate 35 and I fully understand that this is our most congested freeway, but looking at the backup materials, I saw that most of it is used, would be used for signage and way-finding and not for another additional lane. I appreciate the importance of having -- of having items shovel ready, but this amount is being reduced simply, it's being suggested that it be reduced by a small amount to -- to give us funding to be able to do some of the other items that we have identified. So the bottom line number that I am suggesting for i-35 is $15 million. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Is there any objection to this? Let me just say that -- that I'm going to support this, I'm not going to object, but it is -- it is very disappointing that we can't make any more progress than this on our number one transportation problem in this city for the number one problem in this city, which is transportation. But I guess $15 million is better than nothing. So that's incorporated. >> Cole: The next item is design of new projects and in keeping with the idea that we don't want, we want to have items designed to make them shovel ready, we also want to fund items that we can't actually -- can't actually start to work construction on. So I propose this item at $4 million, which is a million dollar cut from the city manager's proposal of 5 million. And an increase of 2 million over the task force recommendation. >> Tovo: Mayor, I would like to talk about this one. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I actually wanted to raise this today for consideration as a possible cut. So I appreciate coming down from 5 million, but I would like to talk about coming down a little bit more and part of my objective here is to free up some room to get back to the task force recommendations on some other critical needs. If you look at the sheet, comparing the city manager and the task force proposal, we do have what I would regard as significant reductions in metropolitan parks, needs assessment said 33 million, there's a one million dollars between the task force and city manager, neighborhood parks, improvements, renovations, a $45 million needs assessment, a one million .. Neighborhood parks, improvements, open space, we have a one million dollar gap and of course an overall gap of 3 million. So again, you know, as the mayor said multiple times today, it is -- well, now I'm summarizing and I can't remember your actual words, but there are tough choices and these are difficult decisions. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Close enough. >> Tovo: That was the sentiment was the same. I agree completely. But I do think that what is for me a priority in this line item is the south lamar work and I believe that was estimated at about a half a million dollars, so I would like to see us reduce this down to 500,000 and keep some of that additional -- what does that give us? 5 Million to add back into the neighborhood level parks, the metropolitan park, the neighborhood parks and the neighborhood park -- neighborhood plan parks improvements because those are the kinds of projects that happen in people's neighborhoods all across the city and really matter significantly in terms of quality of life. Not that the congress avenue and others aren't important, too, but I think we need to -- we need to get out across the city and the neighborhood parks money allows us to do that. So again I would like to see this number reduced down to a half million. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Let's see if it passes. >> Cole: Mayor, I would like to make one comment. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem? >> Cole: Actually, we received $130 million unexpectedly from the federal government and we could not use that because we didn't have any projects within the central city of austin that was ready for construction and we actually had to partner with ctrma to do work on mopac and so the need to actually solve our transportation problems I'm trying to balance that between understanding it's not just construction, but it's also designed but not spending too much money on design. I'm concerned that if we take all of the design money except for one area, that we will find ourselves in a similar situation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: And I agree with that, mayor pro tem. So there's objection. So we have a vote on this line item. All in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed say no? Passes on a vote of 5 to 1, councilmember tovo voting no councilmember spelman off the dais. >> The next item is street reconstruction which i have -- which I am proposing a final number of $36,228,000. The task force recommendation and the city manager recommendation was 40 million-dollars, this is -- this is a very important item, but it is done throughout the city and I believe that we can appropriately stagger this and fund some of it in other ways. So that's my proposal. >> And could I ask mr. Lather, what does this do to our program of -- our 80% program? Or other programs. >> If I could ask the question, mayor, before i start, what was the reduction in the -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: It's a reduction from $40 million to 36,228,000, pretty exact number there. >> Cole: That was 3,772,000. >> Street reconstruction is the principal and primary means that we have to address the failed streets in the city, those that are rated f and d which are marginal. The street reconstruction program includes not only the actual pavement and subgrade, but it also includes a 30% allowance for drainage projects. So we also address localized flooding through street reconstruction. We also coordinate with the water utility on water main replacement. So these projects all go together. We also address through this line item intersection improvements and the capacity of many of our streets are more determined by conflicts with the intersection than the roads themselves. To answer your question more directly, we spend on all of those things about 15 to $20 million a year. And since we started the accelerate austin program, that's about the level that we've been at. So if we take $3 million off, do the math for the reduction, probably about half a year of our total progress, $3 million for a typical street is probably one project that will be cut out from a neighborhood or from a collector street. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So will you be able to meet your goals? >> We'll be able to maintain the payments at 80% or better. I think the assistant city manager good said yesterday that's sort of a target for us, we would like to do better. But it's not going to keep us from maintaining 80% of the streets as fair or better. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. Councilmember riley? >> Can I ask in the past, when we have gone out with interim transportation bond elections and I'm thinking in particular of -- in -- in 2000 and 2010, I believe, the last two interim elections, were there any funds included in those interim elections for street reconstruction? >> There were. 2000 Bond program had a lot of named projects in it. Many of those were to be done in collaboration with the -- with travis county. So those projects after going through some challenges with real estate acquisition and -- and, you know, synching those up with county dollars are going forward [indiscernible] our challenge and commitment was -- I'm talking about public works and austin transportation was to have that funding obligate or committed by the end of this calendar year. At the end of september we'll have 75 percent those funds committed. The main area we don't, partnership programs, [indiscernible] preservation, non-street reconstruction. Those projects will be street reconstruction from the 06 bond and the 2010 bond. Those moneys will be fully, almost fully committed by the end of the year. >> Okay. >> Riley: Mayor, perhaps one way of looking at this is that in the events that we are able to go out and within the next few years on interim transportation election then we would be able to consider including some funding in that election for street reconstruction and that would be consistent with past practice. That would ensure that we would remain on the pace that we have strived to set with respect to maintaining our streets. >> We have plotted out the -- the draw down curves, going out of business curves for lack of a better word for all of the bond programs since 1998. The program will start to gear down if we don't continue to -- to fund it during fiscal year '14. Because -- because again the rate of expenditures that we've experienced to deliver a product is at about $20 million a year. That also does include, i might add, that includes sidewalks on the streets that we reconstruct as well as part of the bike plan putting in the bike facilities so we accomplish a lot within that program. I take it from that answer if a subsequent bond election were to be held after 2014, you would be below, below your goals. >> We wouldn't be able to address the failing streets, which we wouldn't be able to make any improvement. I think that's the best way to put it. >> Well, again, same comment here. Most serious problem with the city or transportation problem we went through this, a few years ago, and we wound up with -- with so many potholes in our street that it actually got a lot of people's attention. We have been on track for the last few years to try to remedy that situation and make it a -- made a lot of good progress, this basically sets it back, in my opinion. >> I think one of the things to consider also, as i mentioned before, is the coordination with the utilities, particularly drainage and the water utility. As the water utility works on its remediation program, leak remediation program, we have partnered with them to reconstruction those streets, one of the outfalls of a greatly reduced program would be streets that are left in worst condition because they still have to do their subsurface work. So -- so funding level that we proposed at about the $20 million a year, it's necessary to keep that progress and sustain it as we go. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Right. So when we have a street reconstruction program, we partner with the water utility who has lines underground, obviously water lines and wastewater lines, we partner with watershed protection when they have something to do with improvements on the street, could include sidewalks, lakelines, all of these -- bike lanes, all of these things, if the public works component is missing, we either could not go forward with the entire project, which involves several different city departments or it would be a substandard project and we would have to go back and redo it I guess sometime in the future. >> I would add we also partner with external agencies which is texas gas and the telecommunications providers took in [indiscernible] >> Mayor Leffingwell: That also. So it has far-ranging effects. >> Certainly. >> Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I want to congratulate you because i think the -- I think, you know, the coordination of all of those different partners and all has really shown up and made a difference, not only in the money and the efficiency and all, but also for the people that live nearby or have to move through areas where the street is being reconstructed. It makes a huge difference because I remember sixth street being torn up time after time after time and we don't do that anymore. And I think a lot of that is due to the work that you've done and can you help me, i know that I asked you this before, but I'm trying to get my arms around specifically numbers-wise what it means. We're talking about our goal of 80% of the streets are above a certain grade. Above fair. Which is below target. >> Fair or better. >> Which is our target and it's -- have we met that now? Because before we hadn't, before we were way below that. When we started the program in fiscal year 2009, we were at just under 73% of the streets were fair or better, 28, 27% of the streets were either in poor or failing condition. Over the last several years, through the street reconstruction, we've been able to address those d or f streets. Through the transportation fund, which are operating dollars, we are able to preserve those that are rated as a or b and some of those that are marginal we are able to improve through increased overlay effort. Those are all operating dollars. >> Morrison: Is c a fair? >> C is fair, d is marginalnal. We have been able to do some work on the d's to get them back up to b or c. Because of the climate an the use, they are constantly deteriorating we need to constantly pay attention to it. A lot of the work that we have done have been maybe in some of the easier areas, some of the projects that we need to address now, I can talk about harris branch parkway is a good example. >> Morrison: We've heard about that. >> Stassney from terry to burleson is a street that's fail. Those are going to take a lot more effort to improve, those are only done through capital dollars. But also cite that in the last citizen report card that we got, 66% of our citizens were satisfied with the condition of their neighborhood streets. Which was more than 20 points higher than the national average. Most of the money that we're going to spend in the -- in the next several months and years are neighborhood streets, neighborhood collectors. To include a lot of work in -- in northeast austin and central east austin, as well as the inner core of the city which is where the oldest infrastructure is. >> Morrison: When we say we are five years ahead of schedule, what does that mean exactly. >> We had programmed achieving 10% by the end of fiscal year 18. At this year about 82%. So 12 -- so we're sort of there. >> Morrison: Okay. So we're -- sounds to me like we should -- are shifting into a different mode of either we change our goal and try to fund a plan to increase that standard or we get into a maintenance mode of keeping things, keeping 80% of them above fair. Fair or above. >> I think if we don't address the capital issues we will never be able to address those parts of the city where the need to reconstruct is there. In the areas where there's newer infrastructure, we have implemented the effective preventive maintenance program, we can maintain those streets for a very long period of time without significant capital reconstruction. But there are areas, and i have the map here, if you look at central east, central west, the older part of the city, that's where we need to address the issues and some of those areas construction gets expensive because of -- because of awful the -- you know, all of those -- >> thank you, I appreciate that. To me it's important to -- if we -- we understand that it's a low bar. If we want to change the bar, let's change the bar and plan for it and make sure that we fund it. But I guess there's, you know, there is a never -- there's an endless bucket of money that we could fill for transportation. And for me it's important that we -- that we work methodically to our goals. >> One of the things that we'll do for next year is budget, because we're going to look at comparison of peer cities to see what their expectations and standards are. As well as what is a best managed and best management practice to -- to understand. Because there is a point [indiscernible] marginal returns as well because we are constantly [indiscernible] laws of thermo dynamics -- >> you are not going to win those fights with the laws of thermo dynamics. >> We can get to a draw with it. I think we need to readdress as robert said yesterday, it was a good goal to get us started but maybe the bar needs to be ratcheted up a little bit more. >> Morrison: All right. I do have one question for our city attorney. One scenario is that this is approved on first reading and we come back and discuss it again on second reading. Will it be -- allowable to -- to actually come back and change this dollar figure again? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes. >> Yes. [Laughter] >> so it won't be a matter of reconsideration at that point because we're on second reading. >> Mayor Leffingwell: It can be amended on second and third readings further. >> Morrison: Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Leffingwell: With -- so before we -- this is the last amendment that you are going to offer, i would note that we're over the $385 million cap. >> Based on our calculations, you basically need about $900,000 over, our raw total is 385854, but because we want to round when we do the propositions we are saying for all intent and purposes 900,000 over where you want to be. >> Cole: Is that -- I'm sorry, is that a result of the removing the montopolis parking lot? >> That's correct. >> May I also just reiterate from yesterday, you have allocated the dollars to the specific projects or talked about that. What you actually need to do is if you want to go ahead and take a vote on that, you actually need to take a vote on that ordinance and then allocate the direct total amounts to each proposition and that would be the first reading of the ordinance. And I think staff has done that. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Laid out here in that way. >> Yes, sir. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah, so we can go back and -- >> ones -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: Do that after this. But let me just say symbolically at least, if this last line item is adopted, I'm not going to be able to support the main motion. Because it does exceed the 385 million-dollar cap that we discussed. Realizing that it will probably be symbolic and hopefully that situation can be corrected. But just for the record I'm going to vote no. >> Martinez: Well, there could be other amendments, mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yes, assuming that it stays that way. So I guess we have to deal with this last street reconstruction amendment first, which is a reduction of $3.8 million. To both the task force and city manager -- city manager's proposals. Is there any objection to that? >> Martinez: I just have a comment, I don't have an objection. I would like to ask the mayor pro tem if she would consider making the total amount 35,322,000, therefore finding the 906,000 so that we could stay at 385 and hopefully get four votes on first reading, knowing that it may be amended -- >> Cole: That is very friendly. [Laughter] >> Mayor Leffingwell: Does anybody have any objection to that? I'll just object so that we can get a vote on it. All in favor of that reduction say aye. >> Aye. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Opposed say no? No. So that passes on a vote of 5-1. I'm voting no and councilmember spelman is off the dais. That puts us below the 385 million-dollar cap. Any further amendments? Are there any further amendments that anyone would like to propose? >> Mayor. >> Mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell:. >> Martinez: Thank you, mayor. I don't have any further amendments. What I wanted to do was make some comments and say that i will be supporting this on first reading, knowing that we still have a lot of work to do to get second and third reading passed. The proposal that I made yesterday and that others made were not dissimilar to what we're doing today. Six of the seven items that I proposed yesterday are included, that's why I'll be supporting it on first reading, but I do want to speak about some of the items that aren't included that I fully support. One is mexic-arte museum which they have requested five million for a new museum. I believe that they have put together a fair proposal to us. That would require them to raise substantial capital. If we were able to allocate five million in bond funding for the museum. I'm going to remain supportive of that. I'm going to try to work to get it back in on second and third reading. The other item is the 360 fire station. At a main yesterday I was hoping that we would commit to at least acquisition and design because I do think that it's needed. If it doesn't make it into the bond package, though, i want to just lay out that i will begin working immediately towards budget to include a wild land management division within the fire department. Again, we -- every month the public safety commission has talked about the priority for dealing with our urban wild land interface and we have yet to really take any steps in that regard and here we are coming up on the one year anniversary of the bastrop fires and we still haven't done anything. Now, our firefighters are doing a great job, but we as a council haven't made any commitments. If we can't at least put a fire station design and acquisition in this bond package I would hope that you all would join in supporting the fire department with a wild land management division so that they can help us determine where best to place this fire station, not only to protect citizens, but to protect the millions of dollars that we have already spent in open space, and the $30 million that we're going to ask the citizens to spend again in open space that we need to protect as well. So I will be supporting this for first reading. >> Morrison: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Let me say, councilmember, I'm going to support that. I agree with you on that, that we ought to at least make some progress. But just to -- just for the record, I think we have done a lot since the bastrop fires. Particularly the fire department has done a lot of outreach, walking door to door and -- and talking to folks about how they can help themselves and we've established this -- this region-wide group to address these issues, too, so we have made incremental progress, but I agree with you and will support that effort to incorporate a wild lands division, at least make some progress during this budget cycle. And -- and I guess after we approve this motion, we're going to have to go through each one of these items and take another vote to approve or disapprove each proposition. I just want to pose a question, no answer right now, but I would like to get some information before second reading about the feasibility, just exploring it right now, of dividing the transportation bond proposal into two parts. The first part being road projects and the second part being bike and ped projects. Just to see -- just to kind of see how that looks. Not saying that I'm supportive of that at this point. I just want to get some kind of analysis of it. Councilmember morrison? >> Morrison: Thank you, mayor, I want to thank councilmember martinez for his comments because there are certainly some pending issues. And I think that, you know, previously in terms of talking about the priority personally that I felt for the task force there were two sides to that. One was the -- the amount of the housing bonds and this gets us there. The other were the -- this was just sort of the flavor with the different priorities on the smaller projects and I see that they are listed out here. And so because it doesn't integrate that, those other projects, I'm not going to be able to support this on first reading, but I am going to -- I am going to give some thought to how this might be massaged and i would like to just list out what my priorities are of those items that are different because there are more than a handful but for me it comes down to -- to the difference in metropolitan parks improvements and renovations as well as neighborhood parks improvements and renovations. The open space acquisition. And then the fourth difference is the transportation item north lamar and burnet corridor improvements is another one million dollars. So that's -- that adds up to 5 million and I would also like to mention the a.d.a. Fishing pier, which I think is a fabulous project and with a small amount of money, 150,000 -- >> it's in, you voted for it. >> Morrison: It's in there? >> You voted for it twice. >> Morrison: We only have four I apologize for that. Those are my four priorities. And I do hope that -- that we can get some -- some bay to address the needs at mexic-arte, also. So hopefully we can give some thought to all of those and come up with some ideas. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember riley. >> Riley: Yeah. I want to -- I share some sentiments expressed by my colleagues, I do expect to vote for this on first reading. But in my mind this remains a work in progress. We still have opportunities on second and third reading to try to define this. I believe strongly in the mexic-arte project. A lot of work has gone into the vision for that project, I think it's a very bold and exciting plan that has generated a lot of community support and so I'm remaining remainingcommitted to looking for ways to continue to work that in. Also agree with comments made by councilmember martinez with respect to the importance of fire protection in the northwest area. And in particular I -- i expect to join him in supporting the creation of a wild land division in the course of the budget process. My hope would be through the development of a wild land division that we would obtain additional expertise in -- that would be helpful in identify and securing the optimal site for a future stations. It may well be that the timing could work out well. If we get a wild land division in place, we continue to look at the needs for the new station that we will be in a better position to pursue that fire station in the future. And there's of course the other bond projects, foster project that we've heard about I think is a worthy project in some way. And to the extent that we can continue discussions on those, then I'm -- I'm very open to saying what else -- to seeing what else we can do to try to reconcile everything we need. This is a very difficult process as we all have found that there are -- it is not fun having to cut anything. So I remain hopeful that we'll find ways to mitigate that pain as we get into second and third reading. >> Cole: Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Mayor pro tem. >> Cole: I want you to know that I don't love this package. As a matter of fact I don't even like it. Because we could not do all of the projects that i wanted to support, which includes every one of those that y'all named. But I tried to make a good faith effort to put in what you had shared with publicly or in hearings those items and still stay below the tax rate. And I welcome your amendments along with the chosen cuts that you making to make to balance them out. I am especially concerned about the transportation items that the mayor has already discussed. And I am concerned about the park items and the lamar and burnet improvements. That being said, I think that I'm very pleased that most of you have indicated that most of you are going to vote for this on first reading and that we are making progress. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Yeah. I would just say that i would associate myself with your remarks and also councilmember riley's very strongly remembering that we began this process with a needs assessment of almost $1.5 million. Those were all good projects. Billion. No, I didn't say million. One and a half billion dollars, with a b. That has been pared down to le half a billion at this point, 385 million to be exact. This was not an easy things. A lot of people worked very hard on the staff, on the task force, people who made their individual comments submitted their individual comments ands especially members of the council have worked very hard to make some many cases, heart rending decisions about these priorities. I especially want to associate myself with mayor pro tem cole's comment that I don't like this composite package all that much. I wish it could be better. It's hard to see many changes but certainly i think all of us ought to be open and receptive to any ideas that anybody has for second and third readings. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I want to start by thanking mayor pro tem cole and my colleagues, i regard housing as one of our very top challenges in this city, I think that it's absolutely critical that we adopt a bond proposal that includes a substantial amount so I appreciate very much your commitment to raising it back up to the task force level. I had personally hoped that we would get closer to 80 as we did in our motion 8 is a very good start in this. So what I would -- for me, i would like to do some more thinking about some of the projects that I named earlier, parks, naked parks, and councilmember thomas just mentioned them as -- councilmember morrison just mentioned them as well. Also I would like to ask staff that we get clarity on a few differences between the task force and the city manager's recommended proposal and how that might affect those projec. One is colony park utility infrastructure, another is building renovations also within the parks. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Councilmember, can we take this vote -- >> Tovo: I'm just airing as everyone else has what their priority concerns are for wrapping up for moving forward for second and third reading. And these are mine. So to reiterate, the parks, the neighborhood parks items, and again I would like some clarity from the parks department of how those reductions, what I see as reductions from the task force to the city manager's budget might impact those projects. So again thank you for the work of my colleagues in getting us to this point, i hope we can get across the finish line on second and third. So I'm for the going to support it today but I did want to acknowledge the significant effort of getting affordable housing back up from the city manager's recommendation. >> Mayor Leffingwell: All in favor of the motion as amended for exactly $385 million or rounded off to 385 million. >> Mayor, if you want we go through -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: We're going to do that next. >> Propositions based -- >> Mayor Leffingwell: I thought that we would go ahead and vote on this first and then go through the propositions. All in favor say aye. >> Opposed say no. Passes on a vote of 4-2 with councilmember morrison and tovo voting no. Now let's go through the propositions, I'm sure that you are going to give us the right, the corrected number. >> We are going to actually put that up on the screen for you as well. I think, yes. So just to kind of go through the numbers, right now your total package as passed is 384,948,000. Transportation and mobility proposition totals 143,299,000. [Reading graphic] 1 one footnote I do want to put on that, we include the women and children's shelter as proposed as a change this morning. In the health and human services proposition, assuming that it's the same purpose and intent as the -- as the other women and children's shelter repairs that we have. >> Mayor Leffingwell: So we can take all of these items at once it turns out. If I could have a motion to approve on propositions for want of a better term at this point, 1 through 7 on first reading. Councilmember martinez? So moves. Seconded by mayor pro tem cole. All in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> 7 On possessed say no. Passes on a vote of 4-2 with councilmembers morrison and tovo voting no. Okay. So we have one more item remaining on our agenda. Councilmembers, I would suggest that we might want to postpone that item. That being the case can we postpone it -- okay, we can postpone it until friday. >> Mayor. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Just double checking. Councilmember martinez. >> >> Martinez: Just as a point of information, friday afternoon we are scheduled, the economic development subcommittee scheduled to meet at 1:00. We are posted for a special called council meeting at 2:00. I really don't think that we're going to get through any of the agenda with less than 50 minutes of a meeting, so I'm going to just announce that we will reschedule that meeting as necessary. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Okay. >> Martinez: But I also want to let everyone know that two weeks from today i will start at apparent leave, so I will be -- paternity leave so I will be out for at least five weeks. So the committee if they meet in that time more than likely will not have me around unless we're having a good day at home. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Well deserved, congratulations. City attorney? >> Item 7 is not currently posted on friday's agenda, but we could amend it to include it on either the postings for saturday or monday. >> Okay. Let me suggest monday. >> Okay. >> We will amend that agenda to post it on the monday. >> Mayor Leffingwell: Without objection, item 7 is postponed until next monday. So now without objection we are adjourned at 11:50.