City Council Transcripts 8/21/2012 We all jumped and cially -- and robbed or we're going to use the aircraft that is available. We have -- we have yesterday in tarrytown, one gentleman had his truck broken into, they stole items from his truck, [10:16:00] another family broke into the house, actually, they came in through an unlocked door. Word to the wise, lock your doors. Really a good key to not getting victimized. But they took the -- the person's keys and they used it to steal the car. A lot of folks don't realize that the iphones, there's an application where we actually use -- >> the propositions when you are suing people, we backed away, we didn't have an aircraft available, all that we got the stolen vehicle back, we lost a suspect because we didn't have -- where he went and ran it or she or had he ran into we have a lot of -- we have to make -- we try to minimize the impact to the community. So when we have closures, for example -- we want -- what's happening with traffic, so we can fluctuate our traffic management plan to try to minimize the impact on -- on neighborhoods, on businesses, so it gives us a lot of flexibility from that [10:18:01] standpoint. This specific aircraft, what it's going to do for us is give us the ability to have aircraft available. We don't have availability like we do now. We don't have the necessary availability that we have. But the most important piece of this specific aircraft is the multi-mission capability that the chief can talk about now. >> We did -- I don't mean to interrupt you, but we did talk about that at the hearing. >> You have enough on that. >> Tovo: Unless my colleagues want to hear it, I understand that it's going to be -- you know what? It had a lot of -- sounds like it has a lot of great features in that regard, what did you call it? A multi-use. >> Multi-use, multi-functional, multi-mission capability and including fire, and our current aircraft are a lot of folks don't realize are not just police department using it, the fire department, it's of course the fire department on a regular basis, I've got a couple of instances in the last couple of months that we have actually supported e.m.s. So although it's a police asset, it really belongs to all of us and it is used across disciplines and across departments. >> Right. I really appreciate this information. It's giving me a sense of the kind of -- the kind of things that would trigger helicopter use and they -- they sound like instances where you would need a helicopter versus another kind of -- another kind of response. Are there -- do you have guidelines that your officers follow about when it should not go out? I mean, is there -- is everyone clear on where -- >> the -- absolutely, the ones that control the -- the use of the aircraft is what's called our watch, our watch commander is an officer in the field or a young officer, it is a person or a -- or what we call -- actually a real-time crime center, which is kind of an operations center that we have -- that we have established in the last couple of years. That lieutenant is responsible for ensuring that the use of the aircraft is an appropriate use and a justified use. One of the things that we really want to focus on, at least I want to focus on is when we talk about pursuits, [10:20:00] is one of the opportunities that we will have with the additional capabilities and the additional coverage is we're probably going to end up strengthening and -- our pursuit policy where -- where -- where we will automatically call off the -- the vehicle -- the -- back away the units because depending on the situation, you may not -- if you have bonnie and clyde there, you don't want to take any chance on losing these people. But in a lot of instances, what we will probably end up doing is requiring a justification as to why we kept the -- kept the units with the aircraft overhead. So we will be a little bit more restrictive, we believe that we will have with the additional coverage the ability to do that in a much more frequent basis. >> Great. So in terms of the logistics, we had talked about, you know, waiting in long for a time time, 18 months -- can are you reminds me where why -- why it's coming forward today for just a partial payment. Not today, but thursday. >> That's okay. So the it is the financing of it, I believe we are authorizing, believe considering authorizing -- [one moment please for change in captioners] >> when there is ano carrierringconnect 57600 [ technical difficulty ] >> absolutely. I think we can track the hours and that's something that we could track in the future. >> Great, because it is a more costly way. >> It is probably the most effective way. It is the most effective way to manage large traffic control [10:24:00] issues and, fortunately, in our city, it's fortunate in one area because it brings in a lot of people spending a lot of money, but it is a challenge from a public safety perspective. When you can look from an aircraft at what's going on from the ground, next to satellite, it's the next best thing. >> I know you attended to kind of give us a sense of the round -- I didn't mean to cut you off earlier, I just wanted to run through my questions. But a snapshot of capabilities. >> From the fire department's perspective, the ability to have that first due aircraft to deliver water to the scene is significant. One of the things and what's most illustrated we spoke of 57600 >> I appreciate you being here and I appreciate the backup information this time. >> Sure. >> I just want to say something real quick here. >> Sorry, mayor. i think I said it all the last time that we considered this but I just want to reiterate some of it. In my opinion, this is the fastest most effective thing we can do to improve subsafety in austin and central texas. We all still remember not only the pinnacle but the fires last labor day and even at that time everybody [10:26:00] was saying we wish we had more air assets. In a lot of cases that's the only thing available to fight the fires, specifically out at shiner ranch where the terrain is difficult. They couldn't get ground machinery in there because of the hills and so forth, to fight that fire. If we had had more air assets at that time we would have faired, I think, much better in combating that fire. It is the quickest and most effective thing I think we can do to improve our public safety. >> Mayor, if I could just add to that, I remember being in our emergency operations center when we started calling -- even though steiner ranch wasn't our fire, we're partners and, you know, in public safety there's no territory when it comes to saving lives. We started suggesting we need to get in line. Chief evans hit it. This region was way down in hose fesnd it several days to actually get assets here so you're hitting it on the head. We're going to have it here, ready to go, in our control, and one of the things that scares me coming from southern california is, you know, I live were a lot of -- we're going to have a hundred year event. It has not happened and i don't want to be an alarmist but it's coming, and this is an shrnses policy. I think council member martinez referred to it as an insurance policy that we are going to draw on for the fire capability and we will draw on every day for the law enforcement capability, the ems capability definitely will be drawn on. thank you. >> Mayor, I hate to butt in here, but -- didn't want to leave you out. >> No, I mean, really, we're talking about fires, we're talking about property, we're talking about protecting all of that but one of the key roles of ems is to protect the rescuers who are fighting those fires and the officers in those locations that are hard to get to and we have challenges accessing that. So in ems we need to jump in and being able to be dropped in with medics and their gear to make all the difference in the rescuers [10:28:00] lives who are working to resolve those and mitigate those situations. >> Mayor leffingwell: thanks. I've actually been picked up by a helicopter in and a horse collar in a training exercise. It's interesting. >> You haven't lost an aircraft yet, mayor? [Laughter] >> mayor leffingwell: no. So I guess now we can go back to b1? Which is a discussion of citizen forum. Council member martinez. yeah, this is the item -- or the citizens forum is from an item that council member tovo and i and I think mayor pro tem cole co-sponsored and since staff has identified a date, and we are still talking about some of the logistical issues we might face such as if they sign up and don't specify a topic, what kind of interaction can we have. I just want to manage those expectations of citizens that might want to participate so the greatest extent possible and let them know that those are the rules and that we're restricted by that under open meetings act. But I do want us to go ahead and move forward with the item and have this forum. Unfortunately, the data identified by staff is one in a time period where i won't be available, so I'm just respectfully going to ask that we look for another date so that I can attend, but if we can't, i completely understand and i will do everything I can to try to be there on the 22nd, I believe is the identified date. >> Mayor leffingwell: mr. St st einer, do you have anything to add? I mean, you're here. I think it's worthwhile to elaborate a little bit on what the restrictions might [10:30:00] be, and if it's anything like what I understand the rules are, the rules used for citizen communication are that you can talk about any topic you want to. It's just that unless they were posted in advance the council could not engage in a discussion of that topic. >> Yes, sir, that's correct. If no subject matter is posted, the council is limited to responding to an inquiry with a statement of spec fact or with a recitation of existing policy or a suggestion to the body that you schedule a topic for a future meeting. Other than that, if it were -- if it were entirely open-ended and no subject matter was posted to be limited to that, if you use a model like citizens communications where citizens can identify -- a citizen who signs up to speak can identify the topic the citizen wishes to speak on, then it depends on what they write down, and we'd have to look case by case to see whether or not that was sufficient notice under the open meetings act. And of course that would have to be posted 72 hours in advance of the meeting. >> Mayor leffingwell: right. >> Something like city issues would allow no discussion. >> Mayor leffingwell: right. >> But -- or tbd. Say that a lot. >> Right. Something that was quite specific, you know, animal control issues and the bouldin creek neighborhood would be something that you could engage on. If you wanted to do something where you posted something that citizens might speak on, then we would have to consider what sort of things you would like to hear about and consider what sort of postings would be appropriate for that. >> Mayor leffingwell: yeah. And that's exactly why when [10:32:00] people sign up for citizens communications, we ask them to list their topic so that we could, if necessary, have discussion about that. And the other thing I wanted to bring up is we kind of discussed the possibility -- you know, it's going to be hard to find a saturday when everybody is available, especially on saturday, but also the possibility of just posting a meeting for -- in case there's a quorum and just kind of saying, if you'd like to show up -- to council members, if you'd like to show up you can. We wouldn't necessarily have to have a quorum of council members to let people come up and speak. Speak. >> Well, without a quorum there's no meeting. right, there wouldn't be a meeting but you could have -- >> I guess it would be a town hall -- town hall, yeah. but then we wouldn't be limited by the concerns that you just raised about having discussions. If there weren't a quorum, it's not a council meeting. Therefore, it's not having to comply with open meetings requirements. that would be my guess, and steiner might want to weigh in on that. >> If only the sponsor showed -- [laughter] >> well, three of you are chris and mike and kathie. When you add the mayor all of a sudden you become the council. So -- or even without me, we could add laura. I don't think we have to worry about adding the mayor. [Laughter] >> add any additional one and then all of a sudden just those individuals turn into the governing body of the city. So if it's not the council, then it's -- it could be a town hall meeting. Of course we would have -- [10:34:02] if it were posted as a council meeting and turned out not to be a council meeting, I guess you would have to at that pointo i hadn't really anticipated that question but I guess you would have to say, well, the meeting is called off since we don't have a quorum and then you'd just be hanging out with the folks that showed up. sort of hanging out. Okay. Kathie? so, yeah, I mean, we've talked about this a little bit in previous work sessions and I've given this a lot of thought because we've, you know, kind of talked through some of the different options, and none are ideal. I'll just say none are ideal, but they are the restrictions we have to work within. I would like a situation where if a citizen comes to us and is talking at the podium, we have the ability to ask clarifying questions. It's my understanding we won't if we don't have topics posted. On the other hand, if we have topics posted, that limits the citizens in other kinds of ways. So I'm satisfied with having this meeting struck turld as an extended citizens communication, so I would ask that if it's possible that we open up the computers several days in advance and allow people to sign up with a specific topic if they so desire. Would that be an option in the same way we do with citizen communications? Then those items would be posted 72 hours in advance and if we had clarifying questions we could ask them -- >> our speakers signing up using the kiosk would not allow them to post topic. When they sign into the speaker sign-up system they simply select which item they're interested in speaking and indicate whether they're in favor or against and whether they want to speak or they want to donate. So using that system would simply allow you to have a group of speakers that you know want to speak on [10:36:00] whatever topics are posted. The way we handle citizen communication is very different and goes through the agenda item. and it's still by phone, I guess? >> We allow by phone, by email and in person. >> Tovo: I see. So there's no way to configure -- there's no way to configure our kiosk so they would accept that information so that a staff member wouldn't have to be involved in manually compiling the list of topics and citizens? >> Well, and I don't know that that's really our concern because when we start of calculated it out, if you have three hours and you're going to give three minutes apiece, 60 speakers, we can handle that through our normal system. The problem is then you have no time for discussion with council members if 60 people showed up and signed up with topics, so you might want to limit that to no more than 45 people, you know, to try to build in some discussion times if you're going to stick to that three hours. So it's really those kinds of limitations. I mean, I think we can handle, if you want to let people know that within a certain time frame they can start calling in or coming in and giving us their topics. I don't think that's the restriction that's limiting us but it's rather how many speakers would you allow to do that and then would you allow people who show up that day and haven't registered but want to be heard, would they be allowed to speak. So those are some of the issues I think you need to work through versus whether our office can handle it or not. thank you for that explanation. You know, from my perspective I think it's less important that we have time to talk with one another because we do that with some frequency, especially lately, but I do think it's important that we have plenty of time for the people who come down on a saturday to speak to us. So yeah, I guess that gives me pause. We don't want all the time [10:38:01] slots to be filled up by the time people get here on saturday. On the other hand, it might be useful to have a handful of them filled so that if there are clarifying questions that we need to ask from the dais to get the information -- you know, to really understand the point somebody is making, then we have the opportunity to do that with at least a certain number of the people who come down. So I guess that's really a question for my colleagues, does it make sense to have some sign-up opportunities available for people who want to clarify -- who want to specify their topic or should we have it be just a free for all on that saturday. my preference would be, mayor -- sorry -- my preference would be that we conduct it like we do citizens communication and have a sign-up time period. I mean, I just think we envisioned this as sitcom on steroids, kind of, and so why not stick to that same process and let citizens sign up, you know, ten days in advance, I believe. How many days in advance can they sign up? Two weeks? >> It's ten days, roughly. so allow them to sign up, have a closing period. Then have all of our speakers -- a list of whoever they are and their topics and conduct the forum. I think -- I don't think we're going to be inundated with 45 people wanting to speak. It's going to be the same ten people that are mad at us and want to talk about the same issues like fluoride and con trails and issues like that. that was sitcom with a c, not an s, right? >> Tovo: yes. >> Martinez: yes. So I think it's important that we're having this discussion. I don't think it's going to be some logistical nightmare. I don't think we'll have 100 people come down on a saturday morning, but it's important to give them that opportunity if they want. So having a pre-period sign-up is not -- to me it doesn't give me great heartburn. It just gives us the ability [10:40:00] to post these items with the 72-hour notice so that we can engage in a conversation with them, because I think the people that are going to come down on saturday morning, they're going to want a little bit more than just their 3 minutes. They're going to want to say, what do you think? What can you tell me? And we need to be able to post that properly so we can engage in that discussion. >> Morrison: mayor? council member morrison. I agree with that last point completely. I think that to be able to have some conversation and interaction with the citizens is important. Otherwise it's going to be really frustrating. They might as well just write us an email, it's just a one-way street, so I'd like to allow some time for that. I would -- I would hope that we might be able to set aside some time for people that are just signing up at the meeting as opposed to allocating all the time, because I certainly see the benefit of being able to sign up so that people know, for one thing, what order they're going to be in. They don't necessarily have to be there for the full three hours, but to be able to engage. On the other hand, I'm hoping that we might be able to -- that this might be an opportunity for people that aren't usually engaging with us to be able to have some face-to-face contact, and frankly, that was my understanding and maybe i just read it into it, to broaden the engagement base, if you will, in terms of doing this in the first place, and so I would -- i would foresee some benefit in allocating, say, an hour of it or something at the end, maybe, and we could even say, you know, that's going to be at the end so people know when to come if they haven't signed up, just for -- just for people to show up and sign up. And we can make it really clear on the agenda that it's going to be a one-way street that those topics are. So those are my thoughts on those two items. I do want to know, are we having it here at city hall or were we having it somewhere else? [10:42:04] >> The plan was for city hall. >> Morrison: okay. Those are my thoughts. I just want to make clear I thought I heard something about action. These are not going -- topics posted for possible action, just discussion. I didn't mean to suggest that. council member tovo? >> I did want to note that if there was interest in changing -- not using the september 22 date, the other dates that rose to the top as I looked at your schedules and f1 and music festival, they were september 22, september 29 and october 27. September 22, september 29 and october 27. I want to just in here and say I like the suggestion of having a good block of time reserved for people who just show up. You know, it is really my hope and that was part of my intention in sponsoring this item, to really broaden beyond just the people who come down here every week and understand how to sign up for citizens communications and, you know, know how that system works, and can make time to come over here at noon. The suggestion that came from our community member was to have it on a saturday to accommodate people who work all day and through the workweek and don't have jobs that are flexible enough to come over here. So I think that is an important balance that we have, an opportunity, if the staff feels it's feasible, an opportunity for them to sign up in advance so that we have some ability to ask questions but a good block of time, at least maybe half, for people who just come down that day. With regard to the date, i want to add in there that i believe -- I believe we wouldn't have any of the sponsors present. I think three of us have [10:44:01] maybe committed to a session on the date of the 22nd. I think there was an affordable housing discussion going on on september 22 that several of us have been invited to attend. So that could pose an issue, I think. There may be as many as four of us who aren't able to attend the people's forum, the citizens' forum. So I would suggest we do change the date and think about another one of the other options that misthomas thomas has presented. And I hope owe, you know, i don't know once we have arrived on a date or arrived on a new date, I don't know what mechanisms we have here at the city, but I hope we can promote this through channel 6 and through other means because I think it is a unique opportunity to be able to come down to city hall on a saturday and i hope members of our public will take advantage of it and come tell us what's on their mind. And I'll just say the 29th looks good for me, of september. I would just add -- council member martinez. one last comment and that is that we do everything we can to have a quorum. To me it just avoids so many logistic al issues. If you just have three, then the question comes up, are you trying to circumvent the open meetings acts with just three. So whatever we can do to accommodate schedules to ensure that a quorum would be there I think is really important. council member riley? I'm going to be out of town on september 29 but I would be here on october 27, for whatever that's worth. so i definitely couldn't make the 29th either. the 27th works for me. The october 27 works for me. i don't know about that. I can't commit to that right now. it looks like we have four. [10:46:00] that's good, and i think it's important -- i really delighted, i believe this passed on consent, and I think that shows the cooperation of council so I think we should have a date we can be here so we can have a majority of the council. >> To summarize, so you don't want any limits on the number of people who can sign up in my office and be posted on the agenda? I would -- my opinion is that we should have limits, and I think council member morrison suggested maybe about an hour's worth of free time. I would suggest maybe half-and-half, so allow for about an hour and a half worth of speakers and then keep about an hour and a half -- >> so that would be 30, the first 30 who sign up will be posted on the agenda? that sounds -- >> that allows no interaction. I mean, if they each took their full three minutes, council would have no interaction with them, so do you want to reduce it down to 20, the first 20? I'm certainly open to that. What do you all think? 20? First 20? Mike? First 20 sounds good. >> And will this be televised? yeah, I'd like -- I'd like for it to be televised. just as an fyi -- council member martinez. we had a fiscal impact node on this item and one of the things that we specifically eliminated to cut cost was staff -- channel 6 staff, department DIRECTORS, ACMs, BECAUSE We start running into a huge cost to the citizens if we start -- do you remember how much that was? we whittled it down to 500 bucks. I think it started at like 15, 20,000 with all the staff. I can't remember exactly. I'm throwing those numbers out there, but it was something very drastic. Once we eliminated all of the staff needs, it got down [10:48:01] to really just ac, you know, running the ac on saturday mornings. we need a lot of that. i couldn't support that expenditure. would it be -- we can bring candles. [Laughter] hopefu hopefu lly it will be during the daytime. Council member morrison? I wonder whether we could fund the cost specifically to have it televised because there's a huge benefit to the community to be able to have it televised or at least have it recorded. I don't know if it adds something to have it televised live as opposed to just recorded because if that's the way to break it down we could record it and play it later. you're still going to have the crews. that's why I'm wondering is there more of a crew if it's live versus just recorded? What money we're talking about. Because if it's a thousand dollars, I would support it. If it's 15,000, then it's a much different question. >> Well, staff just noted the request so we don't have it now but before the day is out we'll have an estimate. >> Thanks. >> I'm just hearing -- excuse me, I'm hearing october 27. I want to say thank you. I know you've spent a lot of time and energy researching was possible and talking with our office and researching dates. So thank you so much for your work on this. we haven't had enough meetings this year. We need to pick up the pace. [Laughter] if we're done with that, i don't know if there's any staff -- I didn't -- i didn't think to -- okay. I want to do bring up item 3, and just taking a look at the back -- this is the building services item to add 28 new ftes for [10:50:02] custodial services cost, and energy, march 1, rca was submitted to the council for -- to outsource those services. And march 22 the council, i believe, rejected that contract. It looks to me like from -- could we -- I know you're not interested in this, but -- this backup material says that the costs will be $682,007 more than the projected cost for services provided by an outside source and through fiscal 1617 additional costs resulting from the transition would be $3.3 million. So can you verify that? I think what we're saying is by rejecting the contract item through those three years we'll be spending $3.3 million. Is that right? >> [Inaudible] okay. There we go, eric stockton, building services officer. [Inaudible] packages of facilities and contract services considered in march plus additional facilities that were not under contract based on the assumption that we are to move these services in house for austin energy facilities as contracts or new facilities come up in the future. So the cost change a little 3 million cost differential over five years [inaudible] to based on the [10:52:00] additional facilities. and that involves 28 new full-time employees. >> Yes, sir. would have to be hired for that. I -- you know, obviously we're going to consider this item on thursday, but to me this puts a whole different light on it and I think we ought to take another look at it. In the big scheme of things, 3 million is not a huge amount of money, but that is money that you could say, does this increase the cost of austin energy service to its customers? I think the answer is yes by some increment. And perhaps I think the concern at the time was we're not sure that these employees of the contractor are being paid a living wage, have adequate health benefits, et cetera. Maybe we could take a look -- maybe it would be possible to issue another -- another request for action, another rca -- or rfp, i guess it would be, that would include, at least to some degree, addressing those issues, because to me with this additional cost i think it merits reconsideration, and i don't -- I personally can't support this item on the agenda as it stands right now without at least exploring it further. >> Morrison: mayor? council member morrison. thanks for bringing this up because i wanted to talk about it also. Actually I was ill that day when this -- and I watched the discussion. I was certainly supportive of us moving forward to make these folks in-house. As I recall, the real difference came down to the fact that the -- the contractor didn't have benefits that were really accessible in terms of the costs and all, to the [10:54:02] contracting employees, so the really discussion was, are we willing to contract our work out so that we can get a cheaper price because the folks doing the work don't have health benefits and all. And that was a very important and actually pretty extended conversation by the council that didn't include me and it talked about the fact that it's not necessary -- we need to think a little more broadly and have having folks in our community that don't have benefits is not free to us because the community comes around and ends up supporting those folks, not to mention that, you know, when we do an economic incentives and all, we have some baselines of wanting to do business with folks that do provide health benefits. The big difference here, as I understand it, is that the new system control center wasn't really contemplated when we looked at the numbers last time, and so that we really -- so the numbers sort of stay the same for what we had considered, if I'm correct. It's just that we also have additional requirements for services. Is that -- is that correct? Am I looking at it properly? >> That's correct. The service control center is approximately 200,000-square-foot facility, and by comparison if you consider city hall, for example, we have about five to six custodial personnel in the services office building. The service control center is about double that in terms of square footage and it also has some small percentage of is a 7 by 24 facility as well. So there's a number of factors which that building alone adds a great deal. We also were able to absorb some of the facilities in our existing staffing. We kind of reach a tipping point once we did that where we had to -- we weren't able [10:56:00] to absorb any more square footage with existing staffing bringing that on-line. >> When is it coming on-line? >> My understanding is it's due to come on-line in november december of this calendar year. >> Another question, a suggestion was asked -- there's a different rfp that actually had requirements for the contractor to be providing benefits. Is there any reason to believe that they're going to be able to provide benefits and come up with a contract that's less costly than us having the folks as employees providing benefits? Byron, I know, you're probably going to say you can't answer that question, but seems to me that benefits cost money and either we pay them to our employees or we pay somebody else to -- >> there's two parts here, byron johnson, purchasing officer. One part karen can handle, which is the legal aspect of having benefits in contracting, and that's one -- that's the one issue there that we can't control because the attorney general's office has said that you can't consider health benefits as part of the process. So we can't mandate that, to do that. Your second question was, is do we think that their costs would be less? We participated with eric and other people on the team that did the evaluation, and even though they offer benefits in some cases, some companies, you will find that generally they do have a little bit different cost factor, and it sometimes is more costly for the city to do something versus contracting it, which is why we do a lot of the contracting we do and we don't have the employees doing that. So I can't say that, but the third part to that was, is could we issue another bid? Most assuredly. We can issue a bid in anticipation -- if you [10:58:00] remember, we took two actions. We took the original contract for council, and then when council gave the direction otherwise, we brought back another item to extend the existing contract for up to 12 months, anticipating that building services would need to gear up, ramp up, bring forward ed's budget item to be able to do that one. So we still have that in play. So it's not such that we would have to do that. The wildcard is going to be the ecc. We would need to be able to go out fairly quickly if we were going to contract for the ecc because that wasn't on the initial contract and we would need to be able to contract for that, but we most assuredly could do another solicitation. We could go forward. The problem that eric will say and as ed will say, is that if council then chooses to not make an award, there wouldn't be sufficient time to bring staff in to do the same work, so we would have to do either a temporary contract or we would have to do a permanent contract, at least until they could be able to get staff in. Did that help? yeah, I think that's a lot of good information, and I do want to comment. My memory is that the contract that we were -- had before us that was rejected, benefits were available to the contract employees, but the cost of them was prohibitive. It would have cost, you know, a week or two's pay or something like that. And I could be wrong about that. So I know that it was -- it's hard to compare. It could be apples and oranges and all, but I do want to just briefly mention that, you know, I think this is sort of an overall issue -- overarching issue that we need to think about in terms of what kinds of responsibility we want to take in our contracts or are we going to be supporting employees that we know have benefits, and interestingly, the parks department has done a couple of contracts that we have approved and both recently -- this week 50 is one, and a couple weeks ago there was another one, and both of those in the backup staff have been quite clear in articulating why they need to be contractors, because they are for peak purposes, you know, serving peak demands and things like that. So I really appreciate the parks department doing that. And then just lastly i wanted to mention that we also have item -- we have a water utility item that is to do a contract for the security guards, and i understand it's a ratification and they need to be able to, number one, provide security for our water utility assets, and number two, they're in a situation right now where they've exceeded the contract. But I do think we need to ask there, you know, some places we have security guards, as I understand it, that are our employees, and other places we don't, and it's a question I feel like we just need always to be asking. yeah, a couple of things. Number one, let's not forget that when we contract out we're contracting for -- usually with local small businesses, and so that's something that doesn't need to get lost in the discussion. In addition to that, and this just occurred to me so this may not be well thought out, it is a question, how is national health care going to affect this issue of benefits and over what time frame? >> May not. in other words, it may not be an issue early, in the near future. >> Mayor? city manager. >> If I might, and this really is an overarching issue and I think one of policy. I mean, when I just generally have listened to the discussion, this almost feels like I'm taking on some sort of an employment policy, if you will, that the city is doing that, and when I think about that in the context of, you know, the economic decline and also the challenges and the things that we had to do structurally to stabilize our budget, you'll recall that we were very much committed to no layoffs, for example, and one of the other things that we did was we eliminated a number of vacant positions. And those two things seem to kind of fly in the face of an employment policy, if you will, that talks about hiring additional people. I'm not certain or convinced that the economy has entirely stabilized yet. So let's say that in a worst-case scenario that we began to experience problems again. We could find ourselves in the position then, having hired a bunch of people, and then later on subsequently having to lay them off and some of those people end up in a position worse than they are today, certainly being unemployed is a worse position than working for an employer out in our community where you may or may not be getting benefits. I'm just -- I'm just concerned about that. And so I ask that we just be mindful of that as we go down this path. yeah, I -- I think as council member morrison brought out, there are certainly places for contracts, where there are economies of scale, there may not be a need for a full-time service but if you hire your own it has to be a full-time service. Just as an example, if i want to -- if I want to hire somebody to mow my yard, you know, I can hire somebody to come by once a week to do that, but I don't have to hire a full-time gardner. So it would be more economical for me to do it that way, and, you know, i can envision this being the case in a lot of services like this general janitorial services, a private contractor might be able to do two or three different facilities in a day, different kinds of facilities and not necessarily have to be there full-time. Just some thoughts. Council member tovo? I have a couple quick questions lest there be any confusion I am quite interested in this item. I assume that in your calculations you considered the point that the mayor is making. I mean, you don't want to bring on full-time staff who are -- have three hours of work and then mot enough, you know, nothing else -- not enough -- nothing else to do the rest of the day. And so are there -- can you just confirm for me that that was part of the consideration that these full-time employees would be, you know, consistently -- would consistently have tasks before them, either in one facility or would be shared -- you know, would have responsibility for working in several different facilities? >> Yes, we use a staffing model based on industry standards which, you know, we modify as necessary based on our needs, and what that means is, is we hire a full-time equivalent to handle a certain amount of square footage, which means they work a full -- you know, full 40 hours a week. Some cases we may have a part-time position that is used to cover any sort of outliers on that and, you know, if we have a total square footage and we get five full-time equivalents and we still are short, about half -- 20 hours a week, then we'll hire a part-time position to, you know, complete that coverage for that square footage. So we -- we don't have, strictly speaking -- we're never going to hire someone full-time to work on in a part-time capacity. We do have some flexibility built into the system because not all tasks are done every day, but there are tasks that have to be done periodically, like mowing the yard or buffing the floors and things like that. So it's -- it's a fairly delicate balance in terms of, you know, getting the staffing just right, and also being able to cover vacations and sick leave and, you know, unexpected events and training and that kind of thing. just a few specific questions about the bid. -- Excuse me, about the backup information we have in front of us. I notice in the first chart, the first table, you talk about austin energy facilities, the full-time equivalents the contract had proposed 17 and then the city of austin has proposed 14 1/2, and then there's some discussion in the backup information about -- and I think you mentioned it as well, about the scope somewhat expanded in terms of adding some additional facilities. Is that correct? So what we're talking about here today is custodial staffing for an expanded number of facilities than were before us last time. Is that right? >> Correct. What you considered last spring did not include several facilities, the largest of which was the service control center, which is about a 200,000-square-foot facility, and that is really where the bulk of the costs -- additional costs that have been added to what you considered last spring came from. that would have been an additional cost in either configuration, we would have had -- >> correct. we would have had to spend the money. >> Correct. on additional staffing for that facility? Okay. Thanks very much for doing this analysis. >> So while the ag's opinion may preclude us from issuing an rfp that contemplates health care benefits or other benefits, is there any -- is there anything that precludes us from inserting language that would say for any respondent to work with some of the groups that we currently work with as a city, like capital idea or skill point alliance, something that meets a policy value of the city? If we're going to contract out, would there be a prohibition on putting something like that in an rfp? >> Council member, that's something I haven't -- i haven't heard of before. The issue as the city manager mentioned of benefits in contracting versus employees has been around for a long time. The ag's opinion actually goes back to 1987. It unfortunately was one of my bid when I was with the city of houston, so I'm quite familiar with it. So there are some innovative ways we can look at doing this. As the law department can say, we can ask them to identify what benefits they offer. We can say things like we encourage. We just can't mandate it and you can't make that as a condition. And again, in some cases when we -- when we have put some things out there in the past saying we encourage this, some of the companies say their people don't want the coverage, either they have coverage from a spouse or they have coverage maybe, as eric mentioned, maybe they work part-time somewhere else and they don't want the coverage, and they don't want to be burdened with that extra cost themselves. So again, as a directive, we can -- we can do out with a directive that says do this, and we can go out and see the best bids that we can get, and we'll attempt to do that with the community, and I think the community has been really good at responding, but again, they're trying to win the bid and they know that they've got to put the best number they can or they're going to lose it. council member riley. byron, how much flexibility do we have in a situation like that [inaudible] a respondent that offers a benefit package that we have a preference for? Are we required to take the low bid or are we allowed to look at the whole array of responses and make some decision, taking into account the various types of benefit packages that are offered? >> In my purchasing viewpoint, again, I will gladly take input from law and karen, but you can't require benefits, you can't -- you can't take that as a consideration in an award. You could take value. You could look at experience. You can look at quality. You can look at a number of those factors, so you don't have to take the low bid. We can take best val. You just can't say because there's benefits we're going to select company b instead of company a. so we are legally prohibited from considering the benefit packages in making our decision? >> That's correct. >> Riley: okay. That's important to know. Thanks. well, you know, despite the discussion that you had about allocating time for full-time employees versus part-time employees and shifting the tasks around, it still falls back to the statement that I'm reading, the cost will be more to do it in-house, and more by a lot, more by $682,000 a year. Joe? I guess that's it. Thank you. >> Mayor? >> Mayor leffingwell: ed? >> If I could just take a moment to remind council that there is a council referral on contract insourcing and that staff is in the process of looking at 54 contracts that are set to expire by the end of the year, contracts that staff felt might lend themselves to insourcing, so, you know, things that are not seasonal in nature, things that don't require some specialized skill set or knowledge or certifications. And so we are reviewing those 54 items. It is a lot of work. You know, you're dealing with budget staff, purchasing staff. You have the department who needs the service, and then the department, like eric, who would be providing the service, and we got to get all those people around a table and multiply that by 54, it becomes this avalanche of work, largely being done by the same folks who are trying to get a budget out and bond information out. But we are working very diligently on that and are hoping to report back to council by october 1 with a comprehensive report as opposed to piecemealing these things, a comprehensive report, of here's 54 contracts set to expire by the end of the year and the rationale for why we may or may not want to insource those different contracts and what the costs may be for insourcing versus continuing with the contracts. I want to remind you that work is under way and we'll be getting back to the council here in the next six weeks or so. this is a timely discussion to have, then. Council member morrison? thanks, and thanks for bringing that up. And I do appreciate the work you all are doing. We had a great conversation about that in our earlier conversation -- in our earlier conversati I think you mentioned, in fact, it probably came back in a memo to council from staff that you had win owed down a huge number of we had from 54 down to -- can you remind me of those numbers that we're actually looking at? Because it's -- >> I believe, and byron may know, it's maybe in the thousands in terms of all the contracts we have, and we said, how about if we narrow to the contracts that are going to expire by the end of the year or set for renewal at the end of the year, let's cut down the little ones under city manager's authority, let's cut out the ones that are seasonal and that's how we ended up with the 54. great, I wanted to point that out because we do have a lot of contracts, and so the ones that you've picked out are the ones that are -- we're going to have to be dealing with one way or another in the near future and are nontrivial and so really that's going to give us sort of a framework, perhaps, to have that policy discussion that the city manager refused to. >> If I may, mayor, to add to ed, is we also did look at the benefits issues, and some of the contracts that we pulled out of the list of -- there was 1800 to 2,000 at any given point, so we said, here are ones that we know they offer benefits. So let's take those out of the mix because that's a nonissue. So we thought we wouldn't spend the staff time for those. That was a direction. Council wanted to look at those that might not offer benefits. So when you look at them and see if it's win owed down, if it's win owed down to those that don't offer benefits or maybe have a lower employment rate than some of the other ones. Again, we tried to narrow it down to the contracts we have with the 54. >> Morrison: thank you. any other topics? There are no others listed. Council member morrison? I wanted to highlight one item on here and make a comment to my colleagues, and that is item no. 52. It's under telecommunications and regulatory affairs, and if you all will recall, a year and a half ago I guess it was, or a little less than a year and a half ago we had pretty intense discussions looking at ways that we could actually help the school district that was having some real financial challenges and all. And one of the things that i had mentioned at that time to put on the list was the fact that we have franchise fees that come from our cable providers that go into a pot of money that the city -- it's restricted now. It can only be used for capital investments, but that was -- that was -- those were funds that i think our legal staff -- well, clearly our legal staff determined that those were funds that could be shared with aisd because they are part of our whole public access system, and so what this item does is transfer some of those funds to aisd for them to use for equipment. So I appreciate the staff bringing that forward, and i just wanted to put that in the context of it's -- as i understand it outgrowth of those discussions that we had with aisd a while ago. >> That's exactly right. I want to acknowledge ray laray and his team and ron della and all those folks who remain sensitive that that issue and that's why it's on the agenda. >> When it was first brought up there were discussions about what our budget really was and what -- the equipment, what the funds would be used for and they've all been accounted for, but keeping your eyes open, apparently, ump able to find ways to open that up. So I appreciate that. council member tovo? I have a quick question actually about that item. I submitted it through the q and a but since we're talking about it, I wonder if those funds -- well, I'll just mention it and then submit it through the q and a, but I wanted to know whether or not -- at the joint subcommittee recently we asked staff to look at opportunities for working with the schooled to expand internet access for students in the school district, and I wonder if the staff could also be thinking about these funds and potential possibilities for using them to help effect that goal. >> Council member, bert lumbreras, assistant city manager. We'll be happy to look into it but it's my understanding that these dollars are only for capital, and I don't believe that it would specifically solve that particular issue, but we'll vet it out a little bit more and look into it. >> Tovo: thank you. >> Sure. >> Tovo: thanks very much. And I have a couple quick questions about some other items, if we're moving on. So I had questions for some of the sponsors of 70 and 74. With regard to 70, I wanted to know whether the austin fire department is aware of the technology and whether there are any efforts under way on their part to study the use of it, and then my second question is, where is it currently being used? It's called fire watch america, but the resolution refers to its use in other countries. yes, it's -- it's developed by the german space program. It's only used in germany at this point. Fire watch america is the first -- the first company to enter into a franchise agreement with them to market their product. They were able to reduce forest fires in germany by 90%. It's worked very well. It's not certain whether or not it is going to work that well here because in germany most of the forests are uninhabited. So when there's smoke, it's really an anomaly. Here in the western part of travis county we have huge population, and so it's not an anomaly when you see barbe -- see barbecue pits and smoke. This resolution allows the staff designated by the city manager to meet with them to see if it is something that works. They are in town. They've met with county officials. They've met with the texas forest service, fire departments, west lake i know is one of them, maybe lake travis, hudson bend fire department. All I wanted was an enabling document that wouldn't preclude our appropriate staff from entering into these conversations. Lcra is very interested because obviously they have to protect the areas that their power lines cross. This could be one way to monitor those areas. But, you know, it could be a five seven way partnership. You just never know, until they are able to start these discussions, and that's all that this item does. It will obviously have to come back to council for any action if we're to move forward on any type of interlocal agreement or funding. We just don't know. They haven't done a study of the area to determine how many cameras are needed and there's obviously going to be a bunch of questions about the use of cameras for monitoring, for potential fires. Those are the kind of conversations I believe that need to begin now so that if and when we can make a decision, you know, we'll have all those questions answered. But to me it's just one of those things where we really need to look at everything we possibly can to help us protect from the dangers of wildfires in and around austin, and I think this is one tool that could be of benefit. I don't know for sure at this point. but at this point they haven't met with austin fire department. They've met with other surrounding -- I do not know that for sure. I know that they were meeting with a bunch of folks. I don't know if they met with afd, but I did provide a contact for them to reach out to them. I don't know if they did. great, and thanks for the information about where it is used. My second question regards 74, and again, it's directed at the sponsors of this item. So the resolution talks were a 2008 event honoring olympians that was -- or. it was canceled for hurricane ike. so my question is will the event being contemplated also recognize past olympians or is it designed to recognize central texas olympians who participated in 2012? that's a great point. I don't think we -- I don't think we discussed that. We just simply said, you know, we missed out on '08 because of hurricane ike. Let's not mess out this time because -- miss out this time because we have several central texans that were in the olympics. You know, I think we could include past olympians if we wanted to. I don't see why we wouldn't. We just wanted, you know, to hold a family friendly event. The conversations right now are to start at the capital with a brief ceremony introduction, jog with them to some location, and there's logistical problems. Auditorium shores is taken up for an event. Not sure if we can get an agreement from ut. But try to find a suitable location where there is a huge video screen or a jumbotron where they can show each one of their events, and then kind of have an autograph session with them and picture taking. It's just a way to honor them and, you know, recognize them for their efforts and hopefully we can pull it off. Paul caroza is helping coordinate all of the athletes since he seems to know everybody in this town. So he's helping with ut. So this item again is one of those enabling items that says, you know, let's not miss out on this if the city can be a partner and help in any way, let's try to help. >> Tovo: great. Thank you. council member riley? yeah, I have not previously notified staff, but I do have some questions about a couple parking-related items on the agenda. First is item 20, which is -- relates to the parking agreement in place up around the central library, and this is something we've talked about for years. Flongs the policy at the -- for a long time the policy at the library was that we would tell the employees, here's your 100 or 125ed for your parking space -- dollars for your parking space. You're going to like it. And even if an employee didn't want to use the parking space and would rather have $50 and take the bus or ride a bike or walk, we weren't giving them that option, and there's been a lot of interest around the country in recent years in parking cash-out programs that do try to promote alternative travel by -- instead of just providing -- automatically providing a free parking space, instead offering some amount, maybe even a lesser amount, to an employee if they were willing to give up their parking space and take some other means to work. And so since this is coming back, seems like a timely opportunity to check in on that program, see how it's working, consider whether we need to make any possible adjustments. I think I'll be fine letting this go on the agenda and continuing to work on that afterward based on -- if i can get some assurance that, in fact, the number of spaces that we're renting can be adjusted. I believe it's the case that since the backup says the agreement may be canceled in whole or in part by either part at any time within 30 days -- with 30 days advance written notice. So I think it's the case that if we're able to make the program more effective, reduce the number of spaces that we need, that we can cut back on the contract in that case, and we won't be incurring that expense. But I'd like to get some confirmation that that's the case. >> dina McBee, assistant director, austin public library. Either party can cancel on 30 days notice. We only pay per month for the spaces we use that month. Some months it may be 100, some 105. It depends how many employees take advantage of the parking. >> Riley: great. I think this is something we need to keep in mind because if we can get this policy right, then it's something that can be useful in a number of locations not just the library. This came up recently in connection with the jones building in an area where the city is using a lot of office space, there's a parking shortage there. We would be able to market those spaces, save money and encourage alternate travel so we just need to keep our efforts on that parking cash-out program to make sure we get it right. I'm fine with letting this go on the agenda but I want to do make a note of that and recognize that there are significant policy issues at stake with respect to parking opportunities like this. The other item that I'm interested in related to 22, which relates to a tract on rainey street, and this came up yesterday, again, during the budget discussions and i wanted to revisit it to make sure we're all clear exactly how this is going to work. The -- as I understand the item on the agenda, this would authorize negotiation and execution of the sale of -- of documents related to the sale of a parcel of lane on rainey street, at 64 rainey street, for $100,000 plus 30 privately managed controlled access public parking spaces, and so I just wanted to get clarification on -- on a few items -- a few issues related to that, such as where those parking spaces would be located and what the actual cost is. But let's first talk about where the parking would be located, if we could. >> Council member, the proposal -- your mic, and you might want to introduce yourself. >> Elaine riser, real estate. Council member, the winning respondent that we're recommending to you today is going to build a structure parking garage that goes across that lot and the lots adjoining this property. >> Riley: okay. And so the city would have access to 30 spaces -- >> there would be 30 reserved spaces for the city. We're still in negotiations with the property owner to determine the parking agreement to decide whether we're going to have it be a card or a meter or a person. We haven't determined that yet. But it will be reserved just for the city, and it was determined early on before we went out for the proposal that in five years the programs for the mac and the boat house required additional parking, so that's why on this tract that's adjacent to the mac we determined we needed parking as part of the compensation. did I hear you say we haven't decided on the term? >> The terms of the management agreement with -- with the respondent, we're still in negotiations. and what period of time are we talking about for access to the parking? >> Forever. and have we looked at the -- just so we'll know the cost that we're talking about, have we gotten an appraisal on the -- on the -- to tell us how much the land would be worth if we were to just sell it without reserving any rights related to parking? >> Yes, council member. We appraised it both ways. We appraised it without any encumbrances and it came out to $1.1 million. And then we appraised it with the city goals being 30 parking spaces that were in a structured parking facility, with management. so even though the only number we see on this agenda item is $100,000, the cost we're talking about is actually $1 million? Because if we were to just sell it without reserving parking, then we would be expecting to receive 1.1 million? >> That is correct. this is a $1 million item? >> That is correct, sir. and this is a structured parking garage on rainey street? >> Yes, sir, it's not just a structured parking. I have some photographs of what they're going to build on the property. >> Riley: okay. So just based on what I see here, it looks like the parking -- there would be no parking adjacent to the street at the ground level. >> That's correct, there will be the entryway on the ground level and then it will be underground. >> Riley: okay. And -- >> there's not a complete design yet. This is just a conceptual. >> Riley: okay. Have we -- given that there are long-term plans related to the mexican-american cultural center next to this, to provide structured parking on the site that's currently used for their surface parking lot, have we considered the possibility that at whatever time in the future that that -- that that gets built out, that that could provide an opportunity that would be even more convenient for users of the rowing center, that would actually be closer? Have we considered the possibility that parking might become available whenever that garage is built? >> Parks and recreation, and the answer is yes. This is actually a phase 3 of development for the mexican-american center cultural center and part of that is construction of a garage that would be on the property to the west of the facility. There hasn't been extensive discussion about who would use the garage, but the -- there is a phase of building a garage there for phase 3 that is not funded at this time. >> Riley: okay. But of course there is a surface parking lot there at the mac that exists today, and there has been some discussion about obtaining access to some spaces on that lot. Now, the mac -- i understand, from the perspective of the advisory board for the mac, those surface parking spaces that exist today are really supposed to be for mac purposes, but they are open to the idea of making them available at some cost, and actually providing a revenue stream for the mac. So have we done any kind of a side-by-side comparison to consider whether instead of essentially spending a million dollars on -- to do structured parking along rainey street, if -- and with the million dollars going to essentially that -- that value is essentially going to the developer of the building on rainey street to do more structured parking there, an alternative -- it seems like one alternative might be to pay -- to have some fees to be paid to the mac for the use of parking spaces on their surface parking lot, and if it seems like, if tho amounted to less than a million dollars over some period of time, that might make more sense and be more convenient to the users of the rowing center. >> I guess I'm a little confused, but I know that -- what I can tell you is that the board there is very -- is supportive of a mechanism that would improve parking, period, and we've looked at, through our work but also in partnership with transportation and particularly steve grassfield and rob spiller, is looking at what's the answer here. Council member martinez mentioned about a gate. We're actually looking at a gate to be put up only to be put at the ending and closing of the facility so that people don't come in and park overnight and stay and then we don't have parking spaces. So there's one answer we're working on and actually going to do that work in-house. The second is we're ready to go with the meters on the lot which would open up those spaces for public parking. Users of the facility but also users of the boat house. But it would be for parking, and that those who were coming into the mexican-american cultural center would be able to not have to pay for the parking. We'd have a system in place that we're going to work out. So the revenue then of course would come from that that would help hopefully pay through a resolution that you receive through the mexican-american cultural center board. We did look at, when we looked at this site, I was heavily involved in working with lorraine on what's the best process here with this site and that is what if the city looked at -- keeping the property and developing a parking garage. The problem is after visiting with rob spiller with transportation is that the cost of building the garage and operating and maintaining it may outweigh and cause them to put money up front they didn't have, number one, but number two, if a developer would do it and take those expenses, continue to pay on the tax roll, which would help the economic vitality of the city and carve out 30 spaces for use by city programs, boat house and the cultural center, that we created sort of a win-win for everybody until we could then in the next five years request bond money for the development of another garage, how far size it need to be -- however size it need to be based on usage from the rainey street study, then again for the use of the mexican-american cultural center. And correct me if I'm wrong but I'm trying to regurgitate all of our meetings we had. But that was sort of the sequence of our discovery. But we went through lengthy discussions on the site and the need for parking in general, and the final piece to this is this parking study that has just been -- I've just been given on rainey street that's very comprehensive. yes, that's been completed for some time now. The -- what you're essentially describing entails the city essentially becoming a participant in the development of a parking garage on rainey street which will presumably be larger as a result than it would be otherwise. And I can see some value in terms of additional property on the tax rolls. You can question whether having additional parking on rainey street -- you can question the value of having a larger parking garage on rainey street. What's clear is at the same time that we are essentially investing and creating a larger parking garage on rainey street, we are letting the surface parking lot sit and we are -- and i have to point out that the hours of parking demand for the rowing center are quite likely very different from the hours for peak demand of parking in the rainey street district, so that if -- if one goal is to generate revenue for the mac and allow them to make the most efficient use of their surface parking spaces, it might actually be in the mac's interest to make more use of those surface parking lots during the day, during times when you don't see a great demand from the rainy street area or events at the mac and get a revenue stream through that and provide more convenient parking to the users of the town lake rowing center and then you would just have the space on rainey street would be whatever size that the market would dictate for that project on rainey street. So anyway, I think this is -- I appreciate what the staff is trying to achieve here. We certainly want to make the use of the rowing center convenient for everyone, but it seems like we might -- it might make sense to give some more consideration to the possibility of working cooperatively with the mac to see if -- if their parking -- their existing surface parking could provide a better alternative than essentially investing in the larger parking garage on rainey street. With that in mind can I just ask, to what extent is this a time-sensitive item? Is this something that has to be concluded this week or would it be possible to take some more time with this? >> We could take some more time. >> Riley: okay. Well, with that in mind, mayor, I would suggest that we -- that we pull this item from this week's agenda and give this more thought. And also work with the mac advisory board to see whether there is some arrangement with the mac that might actually make more sense than what's proposed here. and we'll have to withdraw it thursday. >> Riley: right. council member toafy? >> Tovo: thanks. I have -- tovo? I have some questions too. I appreciate your questions, council member riley, and i agree with a lot of the thrust of the discussion. I concur that, you know, it needs some more thought. Here's some of the questions I had. I guess I wondered, as i understand the value of having a private developer develop the garage, and i assume that's, you know, the $100,000 is not -- is not such a boon to the coffers of the city that it would make sense to sell this. It seems to me, as you presented it, the value is getting that parking. But how soon is it going to be constructed? Are there any requirements within the contracts you're negotiating that would require that parking to be completed by a certain amount of time? >> Yes, it's to be completed within three years. how much total parking are they constructing in that project? >> I don't know that answer right now. >> Tovo: okay. I can submit these to the q and a so you've got them. What other kinds of -- i guess did you consider the -- and do kind of a complete cost benefit analysis of what a different kind of partnership would look like? And I guess my general perspective is that this is an area that is changing so rapidly and we have a lot of exciting things happening there, right, as you mentioned, the mac will be expanding its programming and will need more parking, the rowing center will need more parking. We're a few blocks from palm park, which I hope will need lots more parking at some point when that project is -- when that park is revitalized and we've got lots of families going to that area who will -- you know, may drive instead of taking other forms of transportation if they've got young children in the car. But it's the whole waller creek project. Seems to me this is a well-situated piece of property and I know that you've given it serious consideration, but to what extent did those other factors play into the decision of recommending that we sell the property? >> The main driver to sell the property was the need for the parking and the parks and the macs board not having the money to build the structured parking. And so in meeting we tried to come up with a way that we could try to meet that need without having to come up with any revenue. and what was the purpose of the -- why was this tract of land purchased and I guess when was it purchased? >> This land was actually part of a trade with another piece of property when they vacated a street. I can't remember the name of the development, but it was a development on rainey street, and it happened probably 10, 15 years ago. and what was the initial vision for the tract? >> There was no vision originally because it has a big wastewater line running through the middle of it, and so it was just going to be open space. but was part of the thought it was nearby the mac and could supplement the programming going on there in some way, either through parking or through -- >> and I will say, you know, from the beginning we looked at that site in the possibility of acquisition. It's owned by actually public works department i think is the city owner of it. But the fact that the wastewater line ran right through the middle of it and we did not victim funds to develop a -- have the funds to develop a garage. We would only be able to get a small amount on surface area there. This is a more viable option for us from a financial standpoint, knowing that we, as council member riley pointed out and is very accurate, is knowing that we have parking available at the mexican-american cultural center, but we need to be able to try to control it in some manner. There's different needs and times. That's why the recommendation came forward with the meters and how that would solve a lot of our issues and help generate revenue. So it's something I'm 150% in support and hope it moves forward fairly quickly. This was just an option where we just didn't have the money to buy it and develop it, but at least i could get 30 spaces out that we desperately needed also as overflow and also I was trying to honor the efforts that we were directed by council to do in finding more parking for our friends at the boat house. >> Tovo: I see. Do you have -- have you given any thought to how the value -- what the value of this property might look like ten years from now when we've got more of waller creek completed and again perhaps palm park will be under way or the revitalization of palm park? >> We did not look at that. Again, there's a big wastewater line running through this, and in order for this recipient to even use that property for anything but a surface parking lot, it is not allowed by the zoning out there. You have to relocate the wastewater line, and that's a big expense. I think it was about half a million to $750,000 to move that line. So that really keeps any kind of construction from being built over it. And so if the city did anything on that lot we would have to have that expense to move that line as well. and I assume to achieve this, that is what they're planning to do, to relocate the wastewater line? >> Yes. is it any cheaper for the city to relocate a wastewater line than it would be for a private developer? Is that 500,000 the private developer's cost or is that the city's cost? >> Yes, that -- that's the number that I got from austin water utility. and so would that be the city's cost? >> Right. >> That was my understanding, we would have to encumber that cost. We would have to make sure we paid that cost. >> Tovo: I see. Did I understand from the questions that council member riley was asking that the spots that are designated, the 30 spots that are designated, are not on the ground level, they're higher in the garage? >> We haven't negotiated where these will be located yet. In meeting with the developer, he would be open to anywhere in the garage that we would want the spaces. We just would want them contiguous. >> Tovo: right. So I see a comment in the backup that this would not be -- this was deemed not appropriate for smart housing, and I wondered if you could provide some more information about that, that the tract was offered to the austin housing finance corporation to see if it was a viable option, and it was determined that the parcel was not a viable option in ahsc passed on the right of first acceptance and i wondered if you had any information about why that was the case. [Inaudible] argument that this is, you know, centrally located and we might certainly want to see housing there and i understand there's housing contemplated, at least i assume that's what -- >> yes. levels [inaudible] residential. >> Yes, and that's over four lots, side by side. These are small lots and i think that in talking to austin housing finance corporation, that the lot was too small and the cost to develop it with moving the wastewater line really took the affordability component out of the property. okay, so the size of the lot and the wastewater line? >> Yes. >> Tovo: okay. Thank you. council member riley. just a couple more points. First, I want to be clear, i fully support the city selling this property. This property has been a matter of private sector interest for years now, and I wholeheartedly support the interest in getting this on the tax rolls. I have one question about it. Since this is public land that would be coming to the tax rolls would it be subject to the rule that 40% of the tax value from this would go in towards the housing trust fund? I guess I'm seeing people nodding heads so I assume that would be the case. The one thing that kind of confuses the picture in this case is that it is also within the -- within the waller creek pid -- or tif area. just for info, we're going to have to adjourn here in about two minutes or lose quorum. >> Riley: okay. We can sort through exactly how the tif would interact with the 40% rule, but the question -- so I fully support bringing it on to the market. What I'm questioning is whether it makes sense for the city to essentially forgo $1 million in revenue in order to invest in additional parking in this site as opposed to making use of surface parking that already exists on the mac lot, that the mac actually wants to market and generate revenue from. >> Morrison: mayor? Can I make 60 seconds worth of comments? >> Go ahead. I'll make them quickly. Number one, I really appreciate your questions, chris, and we had -- me and my staff -- my staff and i had gone through trying to figure out a lot of what was going on and that's sort of a general comment. It would have been helpful to have a whole lot more information about what this is all about and I don't know if my questions have reached you yet, but you can see I submitted questions struggling to figure out what the heck is going on here, and I think that it might have saved us some time. Number two, as you talk about these things, one thing that jumped out at me and that is that if we're planning to do a phase 3 parking at the mac and we're looking at forever parking here, I guess I don't know why we would need forever parking at this place because we're going to be having parking later and clearly this is costing a million dollars for the city so if we could scale back what we're asking from them, if this, in fact, goes forward, that might save us some money. And then my last question for you and you can answer later, is you mentioned that they have to provide the parking within three years and my question would be, what happens if they don't? Do we get the land back? And you can just answer that later. And lastly, a comment, we've talked a lot about, you know, trying to get good big picture visionary real estate assessments strategy in place and this seems to be part of that -- >> actually this is. We put together a project team that focused specifically on this area. I think -- sara, I think you're on there. I think sue edwards is the executive sponsor for it and I don't know that they are quite at a point, they may be now, to come and kind of lay that out for the council that would take into account many of these factors, and the reason we did that is because we seem to be dealing with these issues on sort of a singular basis and we wanted a comprehensive approach. So delaying this gives us time to check on that and to come back and try to address this in a more holistic context. right, because as the discussion has shown, there really are a lot of issues in this area to work through. I'll just throw in the mix there as the last word, whatever discussions you have, whatever recommendations you're going to make, i think solving the parking problem at the mac and the rowing club in the near term is a very high priority for me. Without objection we stand adjourned.