City Council Work Session Transcript –09/23/2014 Title: ATXN2 Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 9/23/2014 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 9/23/2014 Transcript Generated by SnapStream Enterprise TV Server ======================================================= [02:55:20] >>> >>> >> test test test this is a test,. >> Test test test this is a test, test test test this is a test,. >> Speaker1:2, 3, 4, 5,. >>> >> [03:06:26] >> Cole: I would like to call to order this meeting of the austin city council work session. I would like to announce that mayor leffingwell is out of town on city business and will not be joining us. And we will start with our preselected agenda items. The first item is item no. 80, pulled by councilmember riley. >> Riley: Thanks, mayor pro tem, I just wanted to give you a heads up that we are working on the resolution posted as item no.80. We have gotten some input from some folks including the downtown austin neighborhood association, they have raised some concerns about the current wording of the resolution and have pointed to some comparable provisions in other city codes that might provide a model. So we just are going to work on some language to -- to reflect those suggestions and to try to avoid the concerns that they raised. So we should have a -- a yellow copy of a -- of a revised version on the dais on thursday. >> Cole: Did you want to tell us any more about the use -- >> Riley: Just pointed out if you lift restrictions there are potential pitfalls, so we wanted to just put in some protections against those pitfalls and also look to direct staff to look at that certain other cities' ordinances that have addressed those. >> >> Cole: Any other questions? Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I haven't had a chance to refresh my memory on the recommendation from the music commission and one question that I have, is this going to -- to allow for busking city-wide or focused on downtown? >> Riley: The -- the resolution doesn't -- isn't explicit about that. The -- but that's one thing that we can look at over the next couple of days. The geographic application. >> I think that that might make sense, especially because we don't -- I don't know if it even mentions just commercial areas versus [03:08:27] non-commercial areas and things like that. >> Riley: Okay, we will go back and look the a the music commission's recommendation and see if there's anything that we need to build into the resolution to address that. >> Martinez: I wanted to ask don pitts if he could come up and walk us through. This went through the music commissioner, is that correct, the busking? What were some of the conversations about the concerns for types of busking and noise overflow and things of that nature. Can you bring us up to speed on some of those conversations. >> Don pits, music program manager. The music commission in the discussion primarily wanted it to formalize busking. We still get a lot of complaints from buskers that are getting ran out from enforcement and confusing enforcement. There was talk about what types of -- of things that they could put in place, music commission chose not to really put that in the resolution, but really let staff address those. What came up, talk about amplified sound, outlawing it in general or using hand held amplified, but there was really -- there was not much discussion on how to address those from the music commission level. More or less just formalizing the -- the art of busking and then let staff make recommendations to address those concerns. >> So what is our current practice, mr. Pitts, as it relates to folks that are busking. We still see folks out there with acoustic guitars, bucket drums, balancing stools, I don't know what to call it, the guy that balances himself on top of a four-legged stool. Yes. Also through this process there's a magician society here that says they've had [03:10:28] issues with busking and performing magic tricks on the right-of-way. >> When they say they are having trouble, is it code enforcement, a.P.D. >> They say that it's a mix between apd and venue owners, business owners. >> In those instances do we site-- there was one gentleman that came to the commission -- there was one -- >> are those just -- >> through a.P.D. >> And are those minimal fines and -- >> yes, sir, I think so. >> What is the code that we're citing that they are in violation of. 923, I believe, is the make noise or play a musical instrument. -- This would provide -- this would provide at least legal pathways for busking to occur. >> Yes. 9232. Which is essentially we have found the only place in city code that references busking or street performance. >> And it looks like we've done some cross referencing for other parts of the code that may be in conflict with busking, such as 9-4-14 e 2 which is sitting on a sidewalk, obviously buskers may be sitting on sidewalks to perform and we have a prohibition against sitting or lying on our sidewalks. >> Yes, sir. Legal had provided a -- quite a lengthy list of conflicting codes. >> Okay. >> Well, I'm certainly open to aing some concerns and would be -- co- sponsor [03:12:29] would be looking forward to working on that. I would say we are one of the most creative cities when it comes to performance and music. When I go to cities like new orleans and jackson square, when you go to central park, it's an integral part of the culture and the fabric of those communities. I think, you know, there's opportunities for us here to get something right. So I -- I appreciate the work that you have done and that the music commission has recommended. I'll just ask that you help us move through this process leading to thursday with any potential amendments to make sure that you review it and give us your advice. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison? >> Morrison: I agree completely we need to find a way to make it possible. I assume this is a general performance thing so even tap dancers can busk, perform. >> Absolutely not. >> No, I know some tap dancers, carry around their little square and put it down, tap dance on the street. Watch for them. [Laughter]. So -- so -- >> would that be you? >> Morrison: No, that would not be me. I'm just wondering -- I see that there's a quick turn around time on this, and I just wonder if we -- maybe we can get into it and start looking at it and postpone it if need be past the OCTOBER 16th, WHICH IS Three weeks from now. But I'm just wondering if there are other considerations and if maybe the downtown commission needs to look at it or if we could get some other input, it's obviously not requiring the whole process for a code amendment, like a 25-2 would going to the planning commission, but I think it would make sense to think about who could help us through the -- through the potential unintended consequences. >> Cole: Councilmember riley? >> Riley: I agree with that. I would be happy to include language directing this to go before the -- before the [indiscernible] commission and any other body that you would suggest. [03:14:30] And I think -- I'm not sure why we wound up with such a tight turn around, but seems like we could extend that, if necessary. And another question came up about the geographic application of this. Did the music commission talk about any geographic limitations for these provisions? >> That -- that conversation -- the buskers and street performers that spoke on the music commission, it's okay if -- if council wanted to add commercial. My opinion is commercial properties, buskers, generally don't make any money in residential areas. So -- >> okay. >> If you wanted to address that, that would -- >> okay. Thanks. >> Any other questions, comments? Okay. We'll move on to item no. 81, pulled by councilmember spelman. >> Spelman: They are new. They don't have green and red lights anymore. >> Cole: Very confusing. >> Spelman: They moved my darned cheese. I pulled this item because I wanted to be sure that second be it further resolved was going to be inclusive rather than exhaustive. You are looking at safety and crowd management in the downtown area. There is a list of be it further resolved of good ideas for the -- for the city management to consider. I know there are other good ideas that have been adopted by other cities that have crowd problems, new york, san francisco, other places where you have large gatherings of a-- I've adopted some practices which seem to work for them. I wanted to be sure this was -- these are not the only things that you are asking the city manager to take a look at. >> Cole: Councilmember martinez. >> >> Martinez: Not at all. In fact if we need to add language to allow him to add even more options in there in terms of recommendations, this just came out of the post incident report from the south-by-southwest. We took language from that. [03:16:32] But it certainly is my understanding that mr. Pitts and those that have been working on this, that they understand that their options are unlimited as to recommendations that they can make to us to improve overcrowding, events that are giving away free alcohol, queuing in line, making sure those lines don't run out into the roadways, things of that nature. >> Spelman: That was mostly what I was getting at. I have already got that already. I may have a couple of lines to suggest to add to that. >> Martinez: Perfect, thank you. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison? >> Morrison: So I noticed that this is specifically related to downtown and I wonder if the report gave any thought to other areas? For instance, during south by, south congress gets very populated and so that would be my question. Maybe it makes sense to just start with downtown, see how things go, but does seem like it might be applicable elsewhere. >> I consider south congress at least to live oak downtown. >> Morrison: Uh-oh, don't let travis heights hear you say that. >> Martinez: For purposes of this item. Not for purposes of anything else, other than proximity of downtown and what we're trying to address with this. I think those same recommendations that would come back from the downtown area would certainly be applied east sixth street beyond 35, south congress beyond the river, things of that nature. >> Morrison: It says downtown entertainment district. >> Cole: My or conversations about the breadth of downtown. The next item is item no.90 pulled by councilmember spelman. >> We are still looking at -- I think for a council-wide consensus as to [03:18:32] what circumstances you ask the city manager to investigate and which circumstances you initiate code amendments. This looked to me like a situation where personally if it were my item, I am very sympathetic to the idea. But my first reaction would be to ask the city manager to provide us with further information to -- whether the code amendment is warranted. Are you absolutely certain councilmember morrison you want to change the code or you think this is a prudent way of moving a discussion further? >> Morrison: Thank you. The reason this really jumped out at me was because during our budget hearings, when we had the discussion on bull creek, there was some data that was put forth by mandy demayo which I think we have gotten confirmation of, we have no on site affordable housing from p.U.D. At this point and that there are 13 proposed still. To be on site. And that's actually the south shore district p.U.D. That was approved under a different more stringent requirement before the -- affordability was cut back. So I feel quite certain that it makes sense based on that data that we are not getting the on site that we need and this would be a prudent way to go forward. I'm very interested in going ahead and get the code amendments started, obviously the conversation will be had because it will be at -- it will be discussed at various commissions and all. I wonder if what we might do, if you have some particular data you want to make sure comes along with it, we could add a request to do that. Into the resolution itself. >> If hypothetically, the -- the code -- the codes and ordinances committee and the planning commission, city staff, brought back the ordinance which -- which did not flat out prohibit in lieu donations but encouraged, incented or [03:20:34] perhaps made a requirement for some level of on site affordable housing but not the full, would that be something which you would consider as being successful? >> Morrison: Yes, I think if it was couched in the appropriate analysis and framework that would get us to where we would want to go, if we could get some sense that could get us to where we want to go. Obviously what we've got now is not working. >> Spelman: I agree completely what we have got now is not working. >> Morrison: I guess what we could do would be to add something in there to say, also, please consider other mechanisms that would ensure that we get on site affordability. >> Spelman: I'll draft something for your consideration. >> Morrison: Okay. Maybe you could post it on the board. The council message board. Get it in backup. >> Nobody else does that, though. I was going to have to ask you to posts something on the message board just for parity purposes. >> Morrison: I will do that. I have two co-sponsors on this, so I would certainly want to get th input if they have anything to add. >> Spelman: I would welcome their comments on the message board as well. >> Cole: The information that we received from housing mandy demayo was there any insights as to exactly why this wasn't working? >> Just the data. >> Cole: Just the data. Okay. Councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: My guess would be because the in lieu fee is almost always going to be a cheaper option. Substantially cheaper, so ... Just is an easier route. Councilmember morrison, can you remind the 13, are all of the 13 units in the south shore p.U.D. >> That's my understanding, yes. >> Tovo: That may have even be for -- that was quite a while ago, that was before -- did that come through when we had a revised, the first revision of the p.U.D. Ordinance? >> Morrison: Yes. It did. It came through under -- councilmember spelman probably remembers this, it [03:22:34] came through under the -- the p.U.D. Ordinance as it has been readvised before it was revised again, it came through under the requirement that there be an affordability requirement that's based on the full square footage, not just the bonus square footage, which it has now been changed to. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. You asked us to weigh in on councilmember spelman's idea. I think that I'm going to have to see it in writing to really have a sense of where we're going. >> Spelman: So will i. I'm not sure that I agree with it until I see it myself. >> Tovo: Was your thought to -- would you mind explaining what your thought was? >> Spelman: Sure. Right now. The way I understand the council initiates a code amendment to remove the in lieu donation option. Basically right now you can do the whole thing on site, you can do part of it on site, part of it in lieu, you could do the whole thing in lieu. This would remove the in lieu if you want to do a p.U.D. It has residential stuff in it. It has to provide on site affordable housing. There's no other way to do it. Seems to me there are almost certainly going to be some situations where for some fracturecal reason practical reason that none of us have thought of it, that's impractical to do it on site. I don't know what that would look like. I'm prepared to believe that somebody somewhere is going toes come up with an explanation for why that's going to be exactly necessary for their case. Seems to me we ought to provide a little bit of wiggle room to consider the option of some in lieu contributions, so long as we can be sure of getting some on site affordable housing. >> Tovo: Your intent would be to craft the language in such a way that it's the real exception. >> Cole: This is something that I have not tried to craft this yet. I think the idea of mandating that some of the -- at least some of the housing be on site is perfectly reasonable. But requiring that all of it be provided on site struck [03:24:36] me as asking for some trouble downstream. That's about as far as I've thought about it. >> Tovo: I'll keep my eye out for the message boards. >> Spelman: Look forward to a better conversation. >> Cole: Any further questions or comments? If not, we will go to our morning briefing, the water resource planning task force report briefing. >> Good morning, greg lazarus. >> I'm char lien I'm charlene [indiscernible]. Talk to council today about the findings of the task force. To let you know a building bit more about myself. A little bit more about myself, I work for a national non-profit [indiscernible] that represents about $12,000 in institutional investment funds. We work with those large investors to understand how water scarcity and climate change after their investments, I work with utilities like austin water on adapting their business models to survive in an era where we have more water scarcity and volatility and rising costs and need to provide afford and reliable services. I also work with bond and -- to take those times of factors into account. The austin water resource planning task force convened last spring in response to the drought that we're still within. Really I think reflects the future that both austin water and the city at large is having to -- to rapidly respond to. In my experience, working [03:26:36] with water utilities across the country, the -- the adaptation of our water resources in terms of our water supplies, our capital infrastructure and even the way that we use water tends not to really shift dramatically until we're forced into a crisis. Some of the neighboring communities like san antonio were forced into a crisis several decades ago through regulatory measures that force them to substantially reduce their water use. Austin is only now kind of encountering that sort of crisis in the form of a drought. This is just a picture of lake travis, which many of you know is in extreme doubt conditions. Very low lake levels. The task force as we convened and heard from austin water on the options that they were considering for how to maintain the reliability of the service, both now in our current drought and then also in the future for a growing community was very focused on the need to look at opportunities for diversifying our water resources. And I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the opportunities that we've identified and that we think are consistent with the communities that you represent. And it was recognized as we looked at the opportunities to diversify beyond our present single source of water, austin is one of the very few communities, one of the top 10 largest cities in america by population that relies on a single source of water. That carries with it unique risks. As you look at lake travis, you see that it has significant drought vulnerability. So we wanted to understand how to respond to that. But there are other types of risks in water resources that we might invest in. There's regulatory risk that we might not be able to draw our water supplies because of endangered species or other sorts of regulatory compliance needs. There's also the political risk that given the way that water is regulated in the state of texas, in the -- and the differs between our rivers and ground water, you then entertain different types of risk that local, political jurisdiction [03:28:38] oversees that water resource might effectively curtail, significantly curtail the availability of that resource, so we wanted to think about those things as well. I think it's worth council considering, and recognizing, that any new centralized source of water that austin water would seek to bring online will be significantly more expensive than the existing water supplies that we have. I think we talked about the contract with lcra, who is our water provider right now, being around $150 an acre foot just for the raw water. That's in comparison to about $2,000 an acrefoot which is the price of water that's being negotiated by san antonio water system in a ground water project with some private entities. So that's an order of magnitude difference. That it is just one example, but anything that's very capital intensive will involve significant costs and that needs to be considered as well. How can we control those costs? That was an objective of the water task force to think about. One is that we ask growth to be part of the solution. We know we have a rapidly growing city and the types of building technologies and funding mechanisms that are being used in other parts of the united states actually create opportunities to move beyond just the debt capacity of austin water and the financial capability of its ratepayers to be able to bring that water online and provide reliability. We also knew that there was a need to deepen our commitment to conservation, that presents unique challenges to austin given it's business model, but we also know that it's a cheaper -- there was [indiscernible] that we submitted to you in july, that guided our choices in prioritization. One was that affordability was an important consideration for the council, but what exactly that means is a complex issue. It wasn't the same as saying all of the water services austin provides need to be provided at the [03:30:38] same costs they are today or historical costs. We don't think that's realistic. Depending on where water is being used, at what volumes, it might actually encourage behavior that drives high peak demands that results in a need for huge capital expenditures to service those peaks. So we also recognize that the utility as people actually respond to pricing, which they have been doing and the sorts of rates that austin water has set, people have been responding to higher prices per volume of water by using less. The utility still has to recover its cost of service. And as they look at capital expenditures over time and they look at changing demand, the need to ensure that they are adequately recovering cost of service across customer classes, including the customers who are using very little water. I use less than 2,000 gallons a month at my home. I should be paying the cost of service for that. Those were the sorts of conversations that we couldn't get to in detail. We know that there are other committees an task forces that work on those issues but they are worth keeping in mind. The -- the task force felt very strongly that we should be investing in making the most efficient and optimal use of our local water. So that might mean the water that we already have through lcra, optimizing how much we can capture and how well and efficiently we use that water. But also looking beyond just the water that comes through the colorado river, which is our only source right now. And thinking about how we find untapped sources of water. I'll ta a little bit more about that. We felt that given the -- the costs and risks and other sorts of variables that are highly complex, and given the significant capital expenditures that would likely be entailed for really substantially diversifying the portfolio of water for this community, that those decisions really needed to be made through an integrated water resource plan. Right now we know austin water has been undertaking lots of plans for implementing conversation vacation, for drought [03:32:38] contingency planning and the rest of it we felt that there was a need to bring those different kind of planning veins together and also look at the broader suite of water use and relines within the community, storm water was a central component of that. And I can talk a little bit more about that. So we think that's incredibly -- an incredibly important process. Most cities in the united states of austin's size have an integrated water resource plan. Some of them actually look at the energy footprint of those water needs as well and the water needs of the energy providers. So there's lots of different ways that you can go about it. But we think it's really important for us to do that and for that to guide the decisions of where we invest. For that to be a transparent and inclusive process as well. This I think is one of the most important points that the task force wanted to bring to council. Which is we have come from kind of a legacy mental model that we get water from a central water provider. Austin water in the case of our community. That that's the only opportunity that we have for getting more worry. But the technologies that we have available today leave that mental model in the dust. And the costs of pursuing fully centralized supply, I think, are being borne out through the ongoing kind of yearly renegotiations around rates, the increasing costs of rates here in austin, that's not unique to austin. It is universal within the water sector. Water rates are increasing faster than any other basic service costs, that is a huge business problem for a water utility -- for water utilities. So looking at ways of tapping into the city itself as a water resource is something that the task force wanted the council to think about. Because that's an opportunity that we have -- we have an immense opportunity around, if you look at the scale of development that's happening within this community, but it's not something that austin water can pursue on its own. It's something that requires the leadership of the council to actually work with the development community and develop the [03:34:39] types of codes and ordinances and financial incentives that allow that growth to -- to fulfill that solution. I want to give you a couple of examples of what that looks like concretely. One, the watershed protection division has developed a storm water ordinance that was designed to create incentives and requirements for a large -- for large commercial buildings to manage their storm water because of big rain events so you don't have excess flows coming into the system, overwhelming the system, creating flooding and water quality problems. The cost of doing that through fully [indiscernible] it's enormously expensive. The reason they developed that ordinance was to deal with water as a problem, a pollutant problem, a flood problem. The task force recognized that's actually on the flip side of solution. Storm water is not just a pollutant vector, not just something that creates flood, also possibly a water supply source, that's why we thought that integrated water resource plan was so integral for austin water to work with watershed protection to think about how it can be used as a water supply source. If did you look around the country, there are large scale developments and large single family home developers that are putting products in buildings on to the market that provide their own water treatment services. That's also another opportunity that austin has not yet tapped into and requires leadership of council to enable us to do. Kb homes is now selling single family homes in southern california that use 70% less water than the typical home. It does that by the house is built to have its own gray water system. That collects and treats water for non-potable purposes. That house also creates 100% of its own energy, electricity. And that relates to our conversation today because as we looked at water supply options, we were looking at cooling options from one of austin's major power plants. So how you, if you can possibly make the transition [03:36:39] from that as a cooling treatment plant to a water supply source, how you do that and still have reliable energy, that's why council, as you consider the options of water supply and investments, it's really important to think about the energy footprint of the decisions of the -- that the community is making as well, in ways of maximizing that opportunity for the city itself to be providing its own resources, not just the centralized providers. New school in new york was developed to treat all of its own sewage. It reuses that sewage for non-potable purposes. It's doing it at the same cost that the few school would be paying to the new york city department of environmental protection for sewage and water costs. Those technologies didn't exist when we took out the contract with lcra for colorado river water. They do today. I think it's the responsibility of the council to find ways of making that possible and looking at financial incentives as well. Do our impact fees encourage this? Or do they discourage developers from doing anything different? So beyond that we also recognize that austin water is our water provider today. There were steps that they needed to take in the intermediate term and in the longer term to invest in the reliability of our water resources, those kinds of centralized options are what I'm going to talk about next. [One moment please for change in captioners] we know they have done a lot to create incentives for their ratepayers to use less water. But it hasn't reached kind of full saturation. And there are tools out there, water smart is one of them, that can actually help the utility deepen the covering vacation gains that it's already -- conservation gains that it's already made at relatively also cost. [03:38:40] We felt that there were -- there was probably a need during this drought to discourage that increased peak water use in the form of -- that we know comes along with in-ground irrigation systems. That's something that austin water again can't do alone. That it needs support of council to do to discourage those irrigation systems from being built with new development that's coming online right now. But as far as austin water's investment, we wanted to encourage the buildout, full buildout of the water reuse system that's the only been partly built out right now. We also thought that was important not just for serving new customers for non-potable water, but for increasing the resilience of the overall water supply. That's something that benefits all ratepayers whether or not they are using that water directly, because it's increases it is efficiency and economic productivity of the water that we have as a community. There are obstacles in the existing code that -- that prevent local developers or individuals from building out gray water systems, we felt that those probably needed to be removed and we have some language in the report on that. We also felt that there were probably opportunities for deeper water savings and greater cooperation across our whole river basin, but that requirements engagement by austin water and lcra and others to look across the basin and think about ways of improving the reliability of that basin, I know they've been involved in some of that with their water management plan. Nearly all of the supply augmentation options that austin water presented us with that were really just about optimizing the existing system was affirmed by the divorce as being an important investment -- by the task force as being an important investment to make. Gates on the longhorn dam to capture more water, looking [03:40:40] at decker lake, the cooling water source for the decker power plant that in a way wouldn't affect its existing capacity, we felt that was very low cost. Opportunity to just invest in making sure that the existing infrastructure that we have is capturing all of the water that's coming into it. Right now there are lots of areas where we might get water coming into the watershed, but it's not actually being used to the benefit of austin water or the city of austin. It's just being sent downstream. So we wanted to find ways of tightening that system up. Operating lake austin as a varying level lake in the non-peak recreational months was presented to us by austin water which we felt was a judicious use of infrastructure. Something that also will require a significant amount of community outreach to implement. There's a lot of water that could be captured without impairing that resource for recreational purposes. Also inflows into lady bird lake from barton springs to optimize that system. Those were from our perspective kind of no brainers. You would use the system that you have to its best effect. So we supported that. There were other options that we felt were a bit more complicated and there there was significant tradeoffs that really had to be left to the determination of council to make. One of those is how and if to repurpose decker lake storage. And the implications of that would be not being able to use that as a power generating resource during peak summer months, that's something that it's up to council to debate about when that could feasible take place without impairing the ratepayers and the users of austin energy. In direct potable reuse into lady bird lake, taking our west water stream and returning it to lady bird lake is an option. We heard from watershed [03:42:41] protection that they had significant concerns about that as an option because of the present level of treatment capabilities. And the increased amount of nutrients in-flow. Those are options that we asked austin water to consider, but where we thought there was more study needed before we could make a sound decision. I'll talk lastly about some of the long-term centralized options. We felt that absolutely there is a risk of austin having only surface water supplies, meaning only the water that's moving through our lake system. The amount of -- even as we have had more rainfall than we've had in the 1950s drought, there's been less in flow into the highland lakes. It is a resource that we recognize as highly vulnerable to drought. We felt now is the time through this integrated water resource plan for austin water to consider other options for using other storage facilities and treatment capabilities to diversify and make us less drought vulnerable. Aquifer storage and recovery was one of those areas where we thought aquifer storage and recovery being that you take water from one resource and you use an aquifer as a storage resources and then recover that water at a later time. We know there's been a lot of interest. Saws has developed a facility like that. We think that there is potential opportunity to do that in this area, but that it really required further investigation, the same with brackish desalination from brackic ground water. Those are things that we think need to be in an integrated resource plan. Recognizing that they all have their own costs and benefits. Anything that's not just taking surface water out of the colorado river will be energy intensive, capital intensive, you have have to build new transmission and it will have its own unique risks. This really needs to be determined through the course of this integrated [03:44:42] water resource plan. We didn't include on that short list of prioritized recommendations for further investigation what I will call once through ground water projects, which is like the vista ridge project that san antonio is potentially going to be forward on. They are expecting a decision in the next week and a half or so. The reason for that is partly because those sorts of ground water projects, there were many of them presented to us, they had a range of different question marks in terms of what the actual costs would be, what the actual yield would be, how much -- what the permitting -- what the permitted amount of yield was that different developers had. We weren't able to consider those different options really in an apples to apples way. But I think there was also a recognition that many of those projects that are being brought forward are effectively being developed as grounds water mining projects and so they may have a particular yield over the lifetime of the physical infrastructure to move that water to austin. But it's not a renewable resource. And there was a concern there that -- that if there's significant capital expenditures that we are making as a community, will it have a lifetime that is really worth our investment. Those are questions that we think need to be wrestled with within the integrated water resource plan as well. It has all kinds of costs and risks. We know that there are many communities in the areas looking at those types of projects and often at a yield greater, a lot of conversation about regional participation. But it's important to couch, to examine those opportunities in the light of others and the costs and the risks that they bring as well. So that is -- those were the findings of our task force. I hope that that provides some clarity to the report that we have provided. I'm very happy to take questions. >> Cole: Thank you very much, charlene. I can't express enough how grateful we are for your leadership on this task force and the recommendations that you [03:46:43] have made. I will let my colleagues go ahead and start with questions. Councilmember martinez? >> Martinez: Charlene, how do you pronounce your last name? >> [Indiscernible] >> Cole: I didn't get into that. I didn't want to try without asking since she was here. I really do appreciate the recommendations, but obviously as you pointed out in the report, the full cost risk analysis needs to take place with some of these recommendations. When I look at some of them, I just wanted to see if anecdotally you could provide baseline information. If we look at adapting decker lake for municipal storage, what does that look like? If we look at varying levels on lake austin, superficially what does that look like to you now? And then of course the intake at lady bird lake. I just wants to if we can have a brief conversation about what that looks like to you. >> I will call on mr. Meszaros to help me with the technical details. For the decker lake option, we are looking at the opportunity to store water, operating the lake and I think plus or minus three feet from its existing lake level. The reason that that was the target, was it three or five, I'm sorry. >> Three feet. >> Three feet. That kind of plus or minus was based upon the existing intake pipe for the decker lake facility and trying not to impair the operation of that facility as austin energy doesn't have an alternative in the near term. We know buying power on the spot market is expensive. The capital cost and the unit cost of the water that would be gained by austin water was very reasonable compared to some of the other options, so it was of course more expensive to entertain that option given that you have to build some sort of transmission capability to bring that water into the system. Than say the capital cost of operating lake austin as a varying level lake. [03:48:43] There really isn't much capital cost involved, if any, in that. It's really just an operational optimization. So there is some cost, but we were looking at, you know, very severe forecasts for what might happen to our single water source. In the next couple of years. And the recognition that austin water needs to start lining up permitting applications, it needs to start building out facilities, even if we get an el nino, an epic el nino and there are huge in-flows that come into the lake, we still have to prepare as though we are going to be surviving a drought that continues as it has. >> Martinez: So when you talk about the transmission lines at decker lake, are you talking directly from the south to the north -- >> that I will leave to austin water. -- A couple of comments. First you had mentioned lake austin, that's a solution that yields small amounts of water, 3 to 5,000-acre feet. As a matter of fact this last rain event was a great example. If lake austin had been three feet lower, we would have captured a couple thousand feet of water from this local rain. That's one of the february man that's -- phenomenon, the rain east ands on opposed to going over the reservoir. Working on lake austin in non-recreation months would be in essence zero costs. Decker lake is much more complicated strategy. I want to make sure that I do justice to it for my austin energy colleagues. There is many, many miles to go to figure out if a full decker lake strategy would work, it not only involves decker power plant, it involves ercot, transmission lines. I don't want to make you think it's a solution and we are ready to go. There's a lot of work ahead of us there. Even the decker lake strategy is broken into two pieces. One referring to maybe decker lake light or baby decker lake. [03:50:44] Similar to lake austin. If we operated the lake three feet lower we could capture water during high flows, a few thousand acre feet, low capital cost. But full decker strategy, operate that lake maybe all the way down to the bottom, fill it back up again, it's big, 33,000-acre foot lake, in comparison perspectives, lcra just announced they are building an off channel reservoir in the lower basin, called the lane reservoir, that reservoir is a 30,000-acrefeet reservoir, they're going to spend a quarter billion dollars building that reservoir. We kind of have one right here if we can figure out a way take make it work. Again, many, many miles to go before we can execute that full option, if ever. Thinkery there's a tremendous amount of conversation with ae and ercot and others. Ae is here if you wanted to talk more on that. That's just a couple of examples. >> I don't want to get into the weeds, I wanted folks to understand the enormity that we're talking about. While these recommendations certainly could have some impact when you talk about a fluctuation of three to five feet and it may create a few thousand dollars acre feet of water -- it certainly would be helpful in drought conditions, no doubt, but there's a tremendous cost to be able to utilize that lake as, you know, that capture, if you would if storm events. That the reservoir in horton that we're talking about? >> Yes. >> That to me also brings it into full context, $250 million? >> Building it from scratch, yes. >> Martinez: Okay. There are options that we can improve our situation in the long term future, but the bottom line is conservation and reuse is [03:52:44] still to me the cheapest and best options available to us, so I do appreciate the work and look forward to continuing these conversations as to what might be the course of action. Is there a course of action that you are recommending in the short term. In many of your scenarios you lay it out and conclude by saying, this is a council priority or this should be a council priority or council initiative. What is your recommendation today after this presentation? >> I think the primary one from our task force was that the community working with austin water and watershed protection and austin energy and the office of sustainability need to work together on an integrated resource plan. The options that we outlined they are about very near terms of playing augmentation, we didn't feel they needed to wait for a plan. We have outlined those. But figuring out how exactly water reuse that's done centralized by austin water fits in with the water reuse potential of the city itself and new development, how that -- what impact that might have on reducing peak water use within the city, those all need to be considered through a real integrated resource plan that looks at the field, the risk and the cost. I think with the example of decker lake, it is rare that you have a community in which the set of users of a resource on the electric power side that demand water for cooling and on the municipal side that need water for drinking and all sorts of other purposes, that that's the same set of users. We could have a scenario where austin water was looking at how to use decker lake and really there was no room for negotiation because it was a totally different entity that was politically disconnected from -- from itself. That's not the reality. It's mainly the same user group, but I think it requires the guidance and leadership of council to ensure as we move forward as a community, that we are planning our energy [03:54:45] resourcing and our water resources and even our waste recovery resources in ways that -- that optimize the synergies between them. We've developed these three different types of resource entities in silos over time because of the way the technology was. The technologies are irrelevant at this points. The ability and need for us to actually fully integrate it is so critical because otherwise we end up over investing in the development of new water supplies and new energy generation capacity that -- in a in the long term makes it very difficult for people in the city of austin to survive affordably. So that kind of siloed decision making will only I think undermine our long term affordability targets and the economic competitiveness of the region. We really have to be approaching this in an integrated way, I think that's one of the primary recommendations to council. >> Councilmember, we are also as a as a result of another resolution that council passed a month or two ago, we are preparing a implementation plan with a little more detail on schedules and costs and -- and kind of some basket of things that we would work on, some things are going to be easy, some things are hard, we're presenting it, I think it's due, is it this week? This week. So -- so we'll be having -- you'll have a little bit more of a roadmap on some of those items that are in the report. >> Cole: I have a follow-up question for you, charlene. You talked about indirect portable reuse into lady bird lake that's causing somewhat of a treatment challenge. Could you say a little bit more about that? What's the issue? >> Sure. So given the existing treatment technologies that -- that austin water has, there would be no problem with returning that -- that effluent stream to lady bird lake from a -- from a kind of toxicity standpoint. No pathogens, it would be healthy to interact with. But the impact that it could [03:56:46] potentially have on the ecosystem was the primary concern that watershed protection raised. Because the existing treatment, technologies that are in place cannot achieve the same level of concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus as well as what the lake itself already has. If you have increased concentrations of those types of nutrients or pollutants, it can create algae blooms, other types of problems that could impair the ecosystem and impair its recreational use, so that was the concern, the task force was aware that there are other technologies, wastewater treatment technologies that may be coming into the market that could allow to mitigate for some of that, but not currently in place and there was a concern that -- that there might not be a technology on the commercial market that can meet that level of -- of nutrient removal. So that's where we thought that it probably needed to be more investigation, but also it was still on the near term, you know, worth considering, worth thinking about how we would do it because we knew that there could be a situation where the highland lakes were at such a critically low level that there's a tradeoff. You could get into a situation where there's a tradeoff with the ecosystem health but you don't have any other options and you need to undertake everything that you possibly can to make sure that you have a secure water supply. [One moment please for change in captioners] [04:00:00] >> right, but, it's worth noting, indirect potable reuse has been used in lots of places for quite some time. It's really just, what are the implications for this particular water resource. >> Okay, thank you. >> I'd like to get a sense of scale here. You've got a list of recommended actions, you have not given us any numbers, but, I'd like to see if you can fill in the gaps a little bit, and get a sense to the extent that we can solve the problem. >> That's a great question. In doing some of the modeling with austin water, the options that we prioritized in terms of deepening conservation and investing in all the options for optimizing the existing system -- so, treating lake austin like a variable-level lake, using lake decker in a way that doesn't impair generating capacity, building out the reuse system -- those were really -- and maybe, greg and teresa, you can correct me, our view was that was lifeline investments, stuff that really needed to be done in the near term so if we were entering into the next two years in reduced inflows from what we've had -- and we modeled, what would happen to lake levels if you had 70% of inflow to 2011-2013, it's possible. There's nothing to say that couldn't happen. All those strategies were necessary for ensuring that there weren't dramatic impairments to the highland lakes. In terms -- I think there was some debate around how much more gain we could get through conservation, but ultimately, the task force felt that there was significant room there. And we know that it's a challenge for austin water, given that they've already been [04:02:00] experiencing revenue volatility, but, that's where it comes back to council. If we're going to make a commitment in the reliability of water resources by exercising more conservation, we also have to be prepared for dealing request the consequences -- with the consequences of that and ensuring that austin water is financially whole in the coming years, because they can't take their eyes off that. >> It moves the ball forward, but doesn't answer my question. Maybe this is best answered -- maybe I need to see the report on this. But, let me push a little further on this. What's the right metric for understanding -- for comparing the extent to which we can address our problem in the midterm and long-term stuff, is this a number of feet per year? >> It's not that simple. You can bring on certain numbers of acre feet or save a certain number, but, ultimately, they're having to both provide water here, and, they're having to comply with environmental requirements sending water downstream for the river. So, I think the metric -- again, I'll need their support -- but, I think we were basing it on how do we keep the highland lakes at a certain level, and you guys will have to help me with the level. >> Yes, I think council member, you might recall from an earlier conversation, we developed a computer simulation of the entire river system, up and down the basin, called a conditional reliability model that we can plug in various scenarios in terms of not only our water use, but, rainfall, and water use across the basin, downstream ag, the whole shebang. Some of the key measures we have for that is, how many months the lakes are above emergency levels, the acre feet, how many months the lakes are above what you might call super-emergency levels, 400,000-acre feet. How long the lakes go down, do [04:04:02] they continue to go down, do they come up. Those are some of the key metrics we have. For us, we don't want to operate persistently in emergency level. We just don't think that's the right long-term direction for the community, is to be in a persistent water supply emergency. So, that's what we're trying to pull out of, is how to stabilize the lakes above 400,000-acre feet, you could lose the tree canopy, that's not the circumstances we would want. And so, that was some of the parameters that we were using. A key outcome of that is, what are your assumptions with inflows into the highland lakes? I think that was a big point of discussion over several meetings with the task force, how conservative should you be with modeling inflows to the highland lakes. Is this drought the right level? The three driest years? Should you back that off a bit more? How much is climate change going to push down on that, and maybe reduce it further? Those are tough questions to wrestle down. Task force, in general, took a pretty conservative posture and said, conditions are going to be as bad or worse. I think we ended up modeling 70% of the driest three years of this drought. So, a drier condition than what we've been in, how would the lakes respond. Even with many of these strategies implemented -- teresa, you might want to speak to the numbers -- we would be persistently low for a great deal of that time. Do you want to talk about that? >> Water -- we did model two main scenarios, where the conditional -- oh, pardon. >> The red light has to be on. >> The conditional reliability model, looking at the flows from 11, 12, and 13, and 70% of that. [04:06:04] With the 70% of those years of inflows, the information was provided as part of the task force report. We still -- at the end of this simulation goes through 2023. We're getting down to combined storages as low as 200,000-acre feet in the combined storage, even with all of these strategies enacted in a tiered way, where you start with some of the initial strategies, with the tier one, and get deeper and deeper. We had the indirect potable lady bird lake come in in stage three, 400,000-acre feet. If we have those persistently very dry conditions for a long period of time, which is what we're simulating, worst-case scenarios, and look at developing plans that could be reactive to that in a tiered way, we may need to even go deeper and go beyond this. So, the process of continuing to advance these kinds of strategies and look at additional strategies with the integrated water resources planning will be able to continue this kind of work, look at what the conditions are as the drought proceeds, and update the model and put this information into the model, and be able to project the combined storage. That is our -- one of the key parameters that we're looking at. >> It seems, teresa, logically, conceivable we could get the three worst years in the next three years. It's unlikely we'll have a run of bad luck, but, it's a possibility. >> Possible. >> If it is possible, are these near-term solutions sufficiently near term we can get them implemented in time to reduce the damage? >> I do think they're staged and there are some that ones that we can enact in a short period of time. [04:08:04] And then I think the other additional ones like the indirect potable reuse through lady bird lake and some of the other strategies will need to be advancing our understanding of those, developing more cost and yield and implementation information over this next year. I think we're in a position where if we continue to work on these strategies and entertain, you know, new ones, as we learn more about the limitations and strategies -- or, limitations on some of them, some of them we won't be able to put into effect in a timeframe where we may need to, so, we may need to look into alternatives to that. But, from my perspective, it's the correct thing to continue bearing down on these, and advance the ball. And as was mentioned before, we're working on the response back on some implementation plan information that would carry some of those things forward. >> So, from your point of view, it may not be accurate to say we can get all the near-term stuff done in the next three years. Some of it you're not sure. But, would it be accurate to say you believe we ought to do all of that, or, at least we ought to pursue it? >> We ought to pursue all of it and put in place the plans that if those triggers and those requirements come on it, then we'd be in a position to react, you know, of course from council direction. But, like was mentioned before, we need to get working on the -- you know, understanding the permitting for some of these things so that if, you know, if the decision point comes that a strategy would be needed, we'd be in a position to be ready for that to occur. >> Help me -- go ahead. >> You know, working on the long [04:10:04] lead time issues, permitting, there might be land acquisition issues for some of these projects, coordination with other entities, those are things we need to be working on now to be in a position to implement a couple or three years from now. If we get a partial refill, that gives you more time to work through these things. But we just don't know if and when that's going to happen. >> We may be talking three years, five, 30, there's no way to tell. The best way to pursue this is to assume we have the minimum amount of time, and see if we can get it done as a quickly as possible. It's going to cost more to do it fast, of course. Let me nail down one thing, which will be exemplar for all of this stuff, for me, at least. Greg, you were saying we have many, many miles to go on the decker lake municipal storage options. Is that many, many dollars, many, many months, many, many meetings, what's involved in that? >> Probably all of that. >> Yeah. >> You know, because, it does involve ae, an active power plan, transmission lines, there's just a lot of work ahead for that kind of full decker lake implementation. I see my ae colleague joining me. >> I'm really happy you're here. From your point of view, is this a, do-able, and b, how long a timeframe do you need to -- participate in this? >> There's two strategies, we're working on one right now, an operating agreement to allow the flexibility and keep us whole in the times of curtailment. So, we're actively progressing with that particular item. As greg mentioned, the longer-term strategy around [04:12:04] using at the entire lake is timely, with costs associated with it. I believe this week at the council committee at austin energy we're going to talk about the resolution passed and the cost associated with transmission upgrades. It will be lengthy, there is going to be cost associated with it. >> Let me ask a screening question. There has been a lot of discussion about putting -- replacing the decker lake gas plant with a new one, could you maintain a new one and use it as a reservoir still? >> There are a lot of different technologies, from a gas combustion standpoint with different types of water profiles. So, you know, there are effectively dry-cooled machines now, as well as, you know, extremely efficient machines. Certainly the once-through cooling is a dated mode. We want to use the investment that the city made in the '60s with the large reservoir to the most optimal benefit, but, recognizing closure of the plant and upgrades are out of our hands. We have to work really aggressively to look at the costs and sometiming associated with those changes. >> So, it's not out of the question, and maybe we could use the whole thing as a reservoir without getting in the way of ae's plans, or the council's generation plans. It may be, there's a portion that can be used, certainly, the first three feet. >> Yes. The longer-term plan is going to have to be looked at based on, you know, how we reuse the site. >> How long a time frame would yo envision before you could work that out? >> It's tough to say. We've been working with the austin water department to form this collaborative response back to you all, and we've agreed do really accelerate planning and engineering of the solution so we can come back to you with information, facts, dates, costs. >> Accelerate is not a number [04:14:07] >> I know, I don't have a number. We're going to work together to essentially do all the engineering evaluations and prepare a number and a timeline. >> When will you have a sense for the due date for that? >> I believe -- I don't want to speak on your memo, but, I believe we discussed having it done in the next fiscal year, 2015, correct? >> Essentially, by the end of 2015. Not fiscal year, calendar year. That's where we're planning to advance that and put that information together in 2015. Or, you know, we're working on it now, but continue that. We should have it done in that timeframe. >> Okay, so, but roughly this time next year, you'll have a plan going forward saying what you think we should do. Presumably, it will take several years after that to get implemented. >> Potentially, yes. But, I think we'll need to respond as quickly as we can, depending on how deep the draught proceeds, you know. We'll just try to do the best we can in the timeframe that we have. >> Shirley, put it in as a midterm solution? I understand. So, I should think of near-term as the next three years, midterm at five-seven years, long term as beyond that point. >> Yeah, that's fair. >> We're going to need some level of near term, midterm, and long term, giving our uncertainties, is that accurate? >> Yes. You know, we've been work with saws a lot, they've been trapped in these problems longer than we have. And, one of the things their executive said was, you know, we have to play small ball. There's no home run, the one water supply and we're all set. This is about bunts, singles, there's a whole combination of [04:16:09] things. Reclaimed water, enhanced capture, storm water, decentralization, storage and recovery, six feet here, five here, I think it's going to take all of that. Short, medium, long. The future of water is much different than the past. Ironically, in texas, I think the power industry is going to settle down and good things are going to happen, and it's water that's really the unpredictable part of texas' future. >> As joe might have said, you have to manufacture water. That sounds like what you're doing here. >> Joe morgan said that? >> I hear you say that all the time. When you get to the world series, you have to manufacture runs. >> There you go. >> You're manufacturing water. >> You're a big red machine fan, I like that. >> Actually, a big red sox fan, but, that's a whole other story. >> There we go. >> Last question, I'll shut up. What kind of schedule should we be looking forward to as far as putting together the integrated water management plan? >> On that one, we're looking at two years. >> Okay. >> We're starting now, we're in the process of thinking about how to organize and plan and scope that. >> Yeah. >> And then we anticipate that'll be over the course of the next two years, so, '15 and '16. >> That's the long-term capital stuff, assuming short and medium term. >> There are some things that we're jump- starting, and there are things we needed to bring before you and work on now. But then, some of these are a little bit more midterm and long term, thinking about some of the things that may take a good about of time to put into place so that they have some longer-term payoffs and benefits over a long period of time. >> And we're consulting with saws, we've been talking to them about their approaches, what's [04:18:11] worked, how they go about those things, as well as, shar lean mentioned, integrated water planning will be beyond austin water. It will involve parks and sustainability office, austin energy, watershed, the whole city apparatus, not just how austin uses water, but, how the city uses water. Ae is vulnerable to colorado river issues, as we are. Their whole power system is colorado river-driven, too. You can see the connections already just through things like decker, but, it's much richer and broader than that. >> The nuclear plant on the colorado river. >> Exactly right. We've talked about ways a nuclear plant could get water that wouldn't have to come out of the highland lakes. There is a lot of wheels turning up right now. >> Who besides saus is good at this, who else can we learn from? >> Do you want to take a shot? >> Sure. Los angeles department of water and power just went through a huge plan including both sides of their operation, electric, power, and water. It was very rich in terms of community engagement, as well, and I think that was another message from the task force. The process -- because we're dealing with such complex issues that relate not just to cost, but also to environmental impact, and all sorts of other impacts, it needed to be something that was an engagement process with the community. And I think that there are some good models that austin water has used in the development of their continues equation plans, but, there are opportunities to look at the processes that have been put in place like in l.A. That's really important for making decisions in the best interest of the community, but also trying to create the will to implement, because, ultimately, that's when it comes down to. You can have a great technical plan, without the will to implement you don't really have much. >> I understand. [04:20:11] Thank you, I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Tovo? >> Tovo: I just want to begin by thanking the members of the task force, I think you did tremendous work in a short period of time. We're really fortunate to have individuals with such expertise lending their voices to this. Thanks to the staff who supported them, I know we had staff from watershed. Just a couple of questions. The resolution that we sponsored in august, I sponsored with morrison and the mayor pro tem coal, advanced all of your key recommendations, anded and the staff to report back with some -- with a schedule for implementation, a spending plan, and potential rate impacts for each of the key recommendations in there, from conservations strategies to short-term strategies, to, I think, the main one you've indicated, the integrated water resource management plan. It's a complicated word. I just wanted to ask mr. Meszaros, is that on track, will you have that on thursday? >> Yes. >> Tovo: Great. >> Some of the projects, it's hard to pinpoint -- like, we just talked with decker, there's a lot of miles to go. We can't say the strategy will cost this, and meet this schedule, because, there's unknowns. But, we are going to have a pretty good road map of a lot of these activities. It's not just the physical changes, like capital improvements, optimization of lake storage. The plan's also going to include steps to implement some of the conservation recommendations, additional stakeholder outreach steps. The report covered a wide range of recommendations, not just physical changes to the system. So, we'll be detailing more on [04:22:13] those other matters. We've had four or five basket of issues that kind of thing. >> We've categorized things, what we're developing as a response into short-term demand-side strategies, short-term supply- side strategies, and then, some of this basket, referred to as feasibility studies and engineering studies like what we've talked about to in the next year or so, completing and fleshing out the concepts, developing cost information, schedule information, for potentially implementing those yield information, that kind of information more. So, there's that basket. And then there's the integrated water resources plan basket. And then codes and ordinance revisions and those kinds of things, because the number of recommendations require code and ordinance revision, so, those things have kind of been put together in a basket so that those things can move forward and come back through the council process for those, as well. So, we'll be reporting on those, you know, how we see implementing or proposed plans on how to implement those things through those main pathways. >> Tovo: That's great, I really look forward to receiving that. Huge thanks to the staff, I know you're working very quickly, this was a lot of information to compile. Some of did you had been in process of doing. That brings me to my next question. Some of the code changes were already scheduled to go before the boards and commissions, those are the code changes related to reclaimed water use. Can you tell us a little bit about the progress, have they started going through the boards and commissions process yet? >> Yes, they're well into the boards and the commissions process. I don't know the exact date for the ordinance. >> I think it's late october. So, it's anticipated. Is it the -- [04:24:14] >> yeah, the reclaimed water, the purple pipes irrigation system changes. >> Tovo: I think my last question is one for you. You talked about the need to have the communities involved, community input involved in the plan. I wonder if you could talk, it's my understanding the task force had some interest in seeing some outside consultants involved in addition to all the staff resources. I wonder if you could speak to that point. >> Sure. We felt an integrated water resource plan, the one the city needed to undertake, should include both supply-side strategies as well as demand-side, so, conservation. We also felt it was important to include the full spectrum of the water use within the community, that goes beyond just what austin water provides, but, also the opportunities to gain water through development that might be beyond the centralized model of provision. For that reason -- there's such a complexity of issues there, it would be difficult for any water utility to have all the expertise in-house. There was a recommendation there be a process of bringing in outside expertise. I think that beyond just the consultant hiring process, the actually community engagement process is just as important, because, you know, if austin water were to work with the best experts in the world and be behind closed doors for 12 months and present an immaculate plan, it wouldn't necessarily be of the greatest impact or use here. So, I think there's still some room for figuring out exact what the process looks like. But, I would emphasize it's both about making sure they're appropriately bringing in expertise where it's needed, and maybe, you know, even in the form of external stakeholders with a very trusted reputation [04:26:15] like the alliance for water efficiency or others who can help to make sure that we're making best use of our resources on the demand side. There might be similar expertise on the supply side, but also, you know, making sure that we're investing in the right process. And I think that was left a little bit unanswered by the task force in terms of proposal of how the process would be convened, but, there are great models to pull from. We trust council and austin water will choose the right process to be transparent and inclusive. >> Tovo: I completely agree, I think that's really critical. It's really important not only to get all the voices in, but to help build the political welfare to the implementation. You had mentioned one city that was successful in their planning, and was that was los angeles. Is that more or less the kind of model they used, bringing in outside experts as needed? >> You know, I'm not sure if the report itself was done by staff people or if they had external consultants coming in for pieces of it. I'd have to look at that. I would say, there is no single consultant who can do all these things, you have big engineering firms with expertise in big, capital projects. It's part of the solution, not the whole solution. You have to look at diversity of expertise. I will say, for their process, what was very important in los angeles where water politics are extremely heated was to have a community liaison who worked within austin water and whose job was to be the lee -- liaison and advocate. That helped with gridlocks in decision-making. That's one type of model, there are other models out there. >> Tovo: And that person - - I don't want to dryly -- drill down into the details too much, but, the liaison was employed by [04:28:16] the water utility? >> Yes, from what I understand from people who participanted in the process, it was something, I think had been initiated to go through that plan, but, the person lived on after that. And it was really foundational in trying to change the way they operated. Los angeles isn't that different from austin. Los angeles is looking at bringing on 100,000-acre feet in storm water. They're looking beyond just, you know, rivers, lakes, groundwater, but how you implement that -- los angeles department of water and power can't implement that a loan, it's stuff happening on private property, you have to work with neighborhood associations, it's the future of water. It's not a big single project austin water can do, it has to be integrated across the community. Developing those close coordination and staffing -- a person whose job it is to do that is an option worth considering. However the process ends up working, recognizing that investing and securing reliable supplies of water is something that can't be done by austin water alone, it has to be done in coordination with the community, tapping into all the resources that are available. >> Tovo: Thank you, I appreciate that. I assume the report back from staff will include some manufacture information about not just the timeline for such planing, but, whether the funding is sufficient. >> We have sufficient funding for 2015 to work guard guard -- forward on these fronts. We'll be working with councils in the future on that. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. >> Cole: Morrison? >> Morrison: Thank you. I appreciate all these comments and all the work. I feel like it's moving the ball [04:30:16] guard in a -- far ward -- forward in a significant way. I appreciate the questions about how we're going to move forward on the plan, but, it sounds like we'll get details in the near future, is that correct? Is your report going to talk about, yes, we're going to find a consultant and start things at a certain time? >> Yes. It isn't necessarily going to be every single step we're going to do. It's a 15-page document on implementation across all the recommendations, so, I mean, I hope it'll have the right detail for you. We're working out details of how we're going to go about integrated water planning. We plan on working with -- for us, saus was a group we saw the the -- local resource, experienced in conservation, water supply planning. I've been in regular contact with their leadership team. To the degree you want to call them a consultant, we're going to ask them for advice. We'll work closely with the community, boards and commissions. We have expertise across waste water, the water resource task force, we want to fold those folks in. I'm not imagining we hire one consultant and they do their thing, I think this is staff, other city departments, boards and commissions, some expertise in various areas that we need. One of the task force recommendations of -- was a review of best practices, water alliance for water efficiency, saus are good resources. >> Morrison: I do think it will serve us well if we have one person that sees the whole basket and makes sure it's all working together. >> That would be me, I'm the director of the water utility. [04:32:17] >> Morrison: I'm not sure about that. You, obviously, have a major role in all of this, but, because the issues are broader than the water utility, I feel like we need somebody that sees the overall, comprehensive picture and how everything is playing together. That's my thought about that. And I do think that in terms of community engagement, in addition to the very critical issues that have been raised about why it's going to be so important, one of the things that's tangential, somewhat related, we are looking at cultural shifts, and we need them to be productive. If there are choices in what those shifts are, we'd better have the community there. They're not going to happen in any peaceful way unless it's something that's really done in in -- comes out of a good dialogue, and comes up with realistic options. So, charlene, I have a question for you. It's sort of a broader question, back on the very first, I believe slide when you mentioned asked growth to be part of the solution, to step back and ask a different question. And this is a question that got asked but not answered when we were doing imagine austin. Won't this region get to a point where we have reached the capacity of population, and we can't squeeze any more water out of the earth to be able to serve that population so that we essentially reach a bar, a carrying capacity, we reach a bar and we can't grow anymore? >> I think if we were to continue using water and providing water in the way we do today, yes, that would absolutely be the case. There is a tremendous amount of growth that can happen using the same amount of water. [04:34:18] Los angeles has not increased the amount of water that they've used in the past 20 years, even as their population has increased. But that was not something that just happened. It happened intentionally, it happened by design. It doesn't mean that they weren't investing in diversification. They realized they were very dependent on vulnerable water sources, their own types of vulnerable, so they've been allocating their resources to invest in diversification. I think from my perspective, growth is happening here. >> Morrison: Sure. >> We either find a way of inviting or requiring that growth to be part of the solution, or we find ourselves 20 years down the line potentially in the same situation where we still have vulnerable water resources, we have extremely expensive water and deep debt burdens because we've centralized the whole thing, and we have communities that don't have reliable water. I mean, that's a possible solution if we just continue as status quo. But, I think we can find lots of examples around the u.S. And the world where we have the technology, we have the regulatory tools, we have the financial tools to ensure that water is not a limit in terms of an input to our economic product, but also that we're not asking too much of our water resources. Partly the reason people move here to central texas is because we have unbelievable water resources in the forms of barton springs, and creeks -- I mean, across this whole region. And that preservation of those things so that this is a livable community where people want to be, and where those resources can still provide what they give us, that's something that happens by design, not by default. >> Morrison: I agree with you completely. There is so much -- I like the way that you've captured this, to say growth should be part of the solution, instead of the problem. [04:36:18] There's so much more that we can do with the resources that are here, I get that. I just have to say, I don't believe that an infinite number of people with live in this region -- can live here, and, I think it's so important, what this lays out for us, in terms of how to make the most of our resources, but, we do need to be thinking -- and maybe it's 200 years down the line -- we're not thinking of the complete problem. And it just feels like -- and maybe water won't be the limiting factor if we ever reach a limiting factor. But, we don't have an infinite amount of water. But, your point is well-taken. We need to think about landfills. You know, where landfills, all of a sudden, they had a 6-year, maybe, one had a 6-year capacity into the future, and then six years later, it actually has a 20-year capacity, because we've done such a good job about reusing and all of that. But, I just think it's something we need to think about. And then, on the -- I wanted to ask about the principles, the issue of affordability for essential uses should be protected, and at the same time, the utility still must recover cost of service and should reflect the actual cost imposed by customer classes. That's a contradiction we're running up against this year. So, we had a recommendation on water rates, I'm sure you're aware of them. And that was the multiyear plan, is to move even the lowest users to -- service. But, we're running into the opposite of that, and that is affordability for central users is starting to -- we're starting to run into trouble there. So, do you have any comments on that? >> Sure. This is a big part of what I spend my day job doing. Actually, we just worked with a bunch of utilities, including austin water, davenedders -- dave joined us, they've worked with the university, we've been [04:38:21] doing work on water pricing models with them to look at using open-source tools that can help you forecast revenue impact. As you adjust your pricing, both to communicate water to scarce resource, you should use less, also, to true up cost of service, you can better anticipate what the outcomes might be in terms of how much revenue you're bringing in. Austin water, and the revenue volatility they've been experiencing is universal. The growing pains you're going through is just run of the mill at this point. There are tools that are available. The one I mentioned, the alliance for water efficiency, is an excellent open-source tool that can be used to test those different revenue models, and help you measure things like affordability as a metric, but also, the revenue certainty. I think while it is true and important that austin water be able to recover its cost of service in a way that reflects the actual cost being imposed by customers, that both means, potentially, given the way the rates are structured right now, maybe over time finding a way of trueing that up for the people who are using less than average water. If I'm paying an amount that's not reflective of the actual cost I'm imposing on the system, eventually that's going to have to be trued up. That's a different conversation than how do you protect the most vulnerable, which is actually about income. And there are different policy models you can put in place to protect that certain customer class. The other component of rate design to that it reflects actually cost is a reality that some of the big investments we might be making in treatment capacity, storage capacity, new water, we have to ask ourselves, and council has to ask austin water ever year, how much of what you're investing in is being driven by the need to serve peak demands, july, august, when people are watering their lawns? If that is what the necessitating or driving the [04:40:23] investment, then the cost of that investment needs to be shouldered by those who are enforcing those peak demands on the system, not the people who are using little water. Now, this is even more complicated because as we talked about today, our water supply is not secure, and we will have to be making investments in diversification. It's not about peak demand, messily, but about securing reliable water. There are stools available -- tools to help council understand, is it actually conforming to our policy objectives. >> Morrison: Right. Well, greg, I know all the work you're doing with the financial committee, certainly, you've been doing modeling, is it a different model that what shar shar -- charlene was mentioning? >> It's all similar modeling, different revenue strategies, how volatile they are, how they perform under different demands in terms of cost to services. I think it's similar, although there is kind of an evolving science here. We're trying to learn from what others are doing. As charlene indicated, sometimes you feel it here locally, but, it is a much more broader national issue. >> Morrison: A lot of people are wrestling with it, so, we'll wrestle with them. But, the plan we have in front of us, a multiyear plan, is to true up the cost, as I understand it. And, council member tovo made the request that the rates be looked at again, especially with respect to the that lower class. And I'm wondering -- and the difference there is that what we actually adopted was to work on trueing up. [04:42:23] But then the other concern is, what about -- especially the vulnerables. So, if we can -- in your discussions, maybe try and separate those two things out, I think that would be helpful in terms of when it comes back to us. And I suppose, speaking of peak demand, I mean, that's where we get into the tiered system and trying to get that tuned appropriately. >> That's right. And some of the challenges to that are, you know, if you have a lot of revenue coming in from the top tiers, people are price- responsive. Austin has been seeing that, as have other places. That's great, but it also introduces challenges. >> Morrison: We're seeing all of that. >> There's no single rate structure you will put in place and you never have to think about it again, but, again, I would refer you to, I'm sure austin water has robust, internal resources. One of the kind of defining mantras of the water sector today is, "uncertainty is our business." We're weather-dependent, too rainy, too dry of a year, you see it in revenue. If you have curtailments because of drought, you see it in the revenues. People are using less water because the stuff we're building uses less water, in terms of appliances. All of those things define very uncertain operating environments of the water utility. The more the water rates and revenue forecasting that austin water can do reflects those uncertainties, and embraces them, the better we'll be able to construct smart rate structures that achieve the policy outcomes we want. >> Morrison: Right, that's reflective of the goal that we're moving toward of moving more of our rates to fixed fees as opposed to volume metric fees, which points to a cultural [04:44:23] step we need to make. People need to start understanding, when they're paying their water bill, they're paying for the reliability to be able to turnen a their tap, and the service that's also coming in. >> Absolutely. I think it's also really critical council and austin water be strong and consistent on messaging that conservation is a long-term cost-saving choice. And we've seen great examples of communities like westminster, colorado, that went back and did a study of what their rates would have to be if they had not invested in conservation, and they had to invest in meeting that demand. The rates would've been 100% higher than they were. People were upset their rates were 15% higher, because they had to adjust rates to deal with lower demand. It takes active, consistent messaging to help people understand, this is the long game, we're investing in providing affordable, reliable supplies, and conservation is an important part of that. >> Morrison: I presume -- it's a good point, it's about messaging and having the community embrace it. And hopefully that will be part of the integrated water management plan. >> I think the council should take pride in our business model adaptation, the tiered fixed fee is a unique structure. We're teaching others, not just learning from them, they're learning from us, too. And back to growth being a part of the solution, I think, again, the council should take pride in the decision they made to increase our capital recovery fees. That's another way that growth is paying for new infrastructure. >> Morrison: Agree. >> Right now, the fees are $5,300 a unit. Over the long term, that's going to pay for a lot of investments we made as opposed to it just being on local ratepayers. >> And just to give you a point of comparison, the utilities that we're working with further out west, their impact fees are [04:46:24] $15,000, $30,000 a housing unit. There's significant room to continue to allow growth to be part of that solution, and that should not be -- I mean, these numbers can be staggering to us here, but, it has not slowed growth in places like arizona and colorado. >> Texas law, maximum allowable right now. >> Morrison: Greg, just to follow up in terms of the work that you've done with the financial committee, I think one of the lessons there is we have a lot of folks sitting on the committee that are trusted folks in the community, and when those rates come to us the first time around that they made the recommendation, which was I guess last year, nobody showed up to even talk about the rates during the public hearing. This time there was one issue that came up about the rates and we're going to follow up on the rates, but with their help. So I think that it's really a testament to getting the right people at the table, and a good partnership between staff and the community. >> Riley: I just want to join my colleagues in thanking all of you for your work, especially you, charlene, you've worked hard, all the members of the task force have. It's a very important subject, and a timely one. And I think part of the value is that it points out the need for and value of an integrated water resource plan that we have just got to get in place, partially because of the uncertainty you mentioned. We need to be ready for what may occur. There are long lead times to some of the solutions, so we need to have some planning in place to be sure that we have the gears turning in a timely way towards whatever solution we may need. With that in mine, I just want -- mind, I just want to ask, I can see how that would work well once the plan is in place, as conditions evolve over time, we know how to respond. My question is, what about the [04:48:27] short term? Over the next couple years, before we get the plan in place, what do -- what document do we look to do guide our decisions to make sure that we are taking the appropriate steps to be prepared? Say, for instance, that it just doesn't rain again for the next few years. What planning documents do we have now, before that plan is in place, that we should be looking tod make sure that we're taking the right steps to be from -- prepared? >> We have a number of sources or multiple documents that we use to guide and help respond. We have our -- kind of on a broader context, we have our regional water plan. We work with the region k water planning group, and through that process we look long term for our water supply. That's more of a long term. But, for the short term, we have our drought contingency plan where we have our different stages of drought response in that plan. We're currently in stage two, as you know, and we have plans to go to stage three and beyond that as the combined storage may drop in the highland lakes. So, we work closely between systems planning and other parts of the water utility with the conservation group through our water conservation planning and our drought contingency planning, we have those plans in place to be able to respond. We have the process is that we're going through now, we've presented a report to council in june, and then a task force followed up with a report in july to lay out those various response strategies, demand-side and supply-side strategies and have identified some of the short-term things that can [04:50:28] accomplished. And as part of responding to the august 7th resolution, we're putting together those plans to move forward on those things. So, in my mind, kind of the combination of those working plans that we have in place with the drought contingency plan and our overarching region k plans, and then these short-term steps that have come out of this planning process where we've really had to accelerate looking at these things due to the drought, that those are what I see as being our short-term, kind of, road map and step guide through as we work on the integrated water resources plan that will be coming along in parallel with some of that early work, and that those things will be integrated together as we move forward. So, that's kind of how I see it. >> I think she's right. The contingency plan governs how we step on the brakes with regards to drought restriction. The plan takes us down to dropping demand below 100,000 acre feet, which is about a third reduction, as well as the various memos and plans, details about all the strategies from how we'd leverage reclaimed water, lady bird lake water, lake austin, decker lake, water management plans revisions with lcra, that would be what you might call the short-term focus. >> Riley: We talked about strategies, but, we haven't focused on the triggers that would call policy into action on any strategy. That's what I want to get at, I want to make sure we are prepared to respond timely as necessary. >> And I believe those are laid out in both the plan that austin water provided to us, and the menu of options that are laid out in terms of tier one, two, and three. They had triggers associated [04:52:28] with them pegged to highland lakes levels. And those where largely, I think, mirroring within our task force report, with the exception of a couple like the indirect potable reuse and lake austin, where we had provided our own suggestions around, you might not want to implement this until this or that level. It's a fairly simplified option of the different options we talked about that I think would help to clarify. >> Riley: Great. Okay. Charlene, I wanted to get to some of the recommendations that you were presenting. In particular, on the slide where you talked about growth being the solution and storm water as a resource. It's fairly easy to picture how some of those solutions could work on a site-specific bases, with things like homes and the new school. There are great models out there for particular developments with very innovative water techniques. What's less clear is how larger-scale systems would work. For instance, making use of storm water on the scale that los angeles is, as you mentioned, or perhaps other ways of -- are we talking about water treatment plants that are something less than fully centralized, that are serving subareas? Can you help me picture what we're talking about with growth being part of the solution, and storm water as a resource on a large scale? >> It's an excellent question. Even with los angeles, they've set an aspirational goal, when they look at what storm water can potentially serve. I would not say at this point they've figured out how to implement it, everybody's going through the learning process at the same time. One of the things that we found when we heard from watershed protection, which had done a lot of analysis on codes and [04:54:29] ordinances, we found it wasn't being framed in terms of yield or -- because they're not a water supply provider, it makes sense they wouldn't frame it in terms of yield. That's why it's really important, to figure out, if you can do an analysis of implementation of that ordinance, how many acre feet are you going to bring online each year, if you implement it, what would that mean for yield within austin water's service territory. So, those are questions that haven't quite been answered, but should be answered through this process. Obviously -- and it's very clear that we are as a community invested in financial incentives and programs to encourage rainwater capture at a very small scale that probably isn't that cost effective when you look at the amount of yield you're going to get, and the amount of money that austin water may be spending for rebate and things like that. It was the early days of a program, something seen as being separate from the storm water management opportunity. I think if you bring those two different types of analysis together and think about, how would you actually -- what is the realistic scenario for build-out with the new development projected to come online, most likely, the most cost effective solutions, the places where it will make sense for austin water and the city to place their staffing resources would be on new development, large-scale stuff where you can really get big yield, because you have a totally new parcel coming onto the system. I don't think that analysis has been done yet, but it's why it's so important to have the different divisions working together in this integrated water resources plan, and it's why I think it's really important and it's wonderful to hear that the incorporation of de-centralized options is being considered as part of that integratedded plan itself. The same is true with maybe some pocket water treatment plants, [04:56:30] or waste water treatment plants. That's an area that is really exciting, both for allowing communities to kind of, in a modular way build out water infrastructure, without having to invest in a centralized facility with the hopes the growth and demand happens, but, build it out piece-wise. There's amazing models out there of pocket treatment plants that are not just about providing water services, that are actually generating electricity, restoring stream flow, and harvesting nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus so they're not pollutant factors. There's all kinds of interesting stuff, but, it hasn't been examined in a way that allows me to give you a real answer. >> Riley: On storm water, are we talking about potential solutions on a watershed basis, as opposed to a project basis, that would capture flows for a whole watershed? >> Well, storm water -- the way I believe the ordinance was framed was really around a kind of a parcel scale intervention to just make sure the development was capturing some of those flows to take the burden off the system. You could do it at a much larger scale if you wanted to, but, it depends on the level of complexity that you want to approach, and also where you think the real opportunity is. I mean, at a parcel level, given the amount of development that's happening here within the city, you could say, let's not look at it just a parcel by parcel level, but, as investment zones. [One moment please for change in captioners] [04:59:47] >> ... As commercial parking lots go in that we have provisions to make sure storm water is direct into landscaping areas. I think there's probably additional work we could do on that and assume that would be part of the recommendations in a water resource plan. >> Absolutely. And then that be fed back into their demand forecast as well, yeah. >> Riley: Help me with reclaimed water infiltration. What is that? >> I think that's the alluvial project. >> She's going to that. >> That's a concept that -- where we would take treated effluent from the wastewater treatment plant and put it into an alluvial process and pick that water back up and pipe it either back to lady bird lake or directly to the water treatment plant. So similar to the indirect potable reuse concept, but with an important additional element of having that water be injected into that alluvial aquifer. So there's some elements of aquifer storage and recovery, but the amount of storage capacity, you know, would vary based on how large of an area and how large of an aquifer that water would be put into. >> Riley: We've run into technical issues in the fact we saw some [inaudible] and as we try to use aquifers for storage you wind up with the calcification that we have, I think councilmember morrison would remember a meeting someone brought a big chunk of something saying this is what you try to do with aquifer recovery with the system we have. Did you all talk about those technical issues that make that technique problematic [05:01:47] in our area? >> We weren't able to get into great depth in that because partly it was -- I think there was only one option presented for asr and that was barton springs brackish, if I remember. >> Northern edwards. >> I'm sorry, northern edwards. So we weren't looking broadly at opportunities for asr in the region and obviously depending on the formation that you are using you would have different treatment implications and water quality outcomes, but that would be part of the sweet of considerations you would have to think about before cost and reliability. >> Riley: Wonder if there would be any changes that would make that workable. >> Potentially and that's something we do want to continue to look at and study more and look at what the different options might be there. We also have the concept and I think what we had also looked at or proposed as an option for possible consideration is storing reclaimed water and having that be part of the mix. So, you know, I think all of the -- all of the different options and treatment levels and capabilities would be something that we would be looking at as we proceed. That sar is kind of in that -- asr is in that category of additional recommendations from the task force to be studied so we can take that further. >> What's good about like asr or alluvial storage, one of the risks the task force identified and climate change is for certain going to bring heat and more evaporation and open reservoirs evaporate a lot and one of the advantages of underground storage you don't have evaporation. >> Riley: That's why we looked at issues that I thought were off the table. >> Maybe the change would be looking at this more from reclaimed water and things that aren't maybe going to [05:03:49] be subject to these risks that we experience with trying to put our potable water in underground. >> Riley: Okay. Well, thanks so much for all your work on this. It's very exciting to see this kind of progress. >> Cole: Further comments? >> Tovo: I just wanted to thank [inaudible]. >> Cole: Thank you for the presentation. Next we'll have council items of interest. That's after the -- that's after. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I have a few. I'll start with one and if somebody wants to jump in before I go on, that's great. I wanted to talk about number 54, which is the concrete pore issues. -- Pour issues to expand the allowance for wear overnight, I guess you call them nonpeak hour concrete pours are. And right now according to the code you are not allowed to make noise at night or use heavy equipment, but there is an allowance in the cbd, is that correct, an allowance for getting a 72-hour permit to operate your concrete trucks overnight. >> That's correct, councilmember. Greg guernsey, planning and development and redevelopment department. We've been approached by other departments in the city and some property owners with regards to late night concrete pours. Historically the staff has just issued these permits. If there have been complaints, the police department has followed up on some of the issues regarding whether or not they've been actually following some of the [05:05:49] regulations. With regards to the permitting, we've put this on about a month and a week or two ago and I received several concerns have been raised by property owners. Some that were already in the cdb area so we listened to those concerns and revised ordinance and addressed some of the concerns that may arise. Yes, this is a proposal that has been limited only to cbd. It would expand to the d.M.U. Area and also the public properties. Those primarily being owned and controlled by the city of austin. >> Morrison: I appreciate your taking the time and trying to address some of the concerns that were raised. I think basically what got added is notice and interaction. My main concern is I've been close to someone who experienced this impact where they lived in an apartment building and cbd right next to the w when it was being built. And these are 72-hour permits and one 72-hour permit or two 72-hour permit, six days of sleep disruption, which it was, might not be a problem, but the code allows you to stack these consecutively and so probably within a two or three-month period it was not livable, you could not sleep in this residence. And for me that's a public health issue. We do not want people that aren't sleeping because people that don't get sleep, you know, it leads to real issues. So I don't -- I'm real concerned about this. If there was some way to add a limit on the number of permits, I think it would be so much more workable. [05:07:50] I get that, you know like with the central library there was that 24-hour, 1,000 trucks, you know, people can deal with a limited amount of disruption, but this, the way it is now, it allows it to go on, and maybe that was just a one-time thing. And so what I was going to ask was -- and this might take some time so I was thinking it might make sense to postpone this, I was gooding to ask staff if they could do research and let us know in the past how many permits have been for some of these situations, how many permits -- how many days basically have been permitted within, you know, from start to stop. Did it go on for four months? Was that just an anomaly that I'm aware of. And then if you can get an idea for the future, the people that you are talking to, certainly we should be able to get an idea for the city departments, like the central library, what's their plan, what is their needs. But this is -- this is -- this is where the rubber meets the road when you are trying to manage the balance between a residential downtown and a downtown that is vibrant and growing and all that. And I don't feel this gets to the balance yet. >> Cole:. >> Riley: I their shows concerns and have asked a postponement. They understandably make the point if we're trying to promote downtown as a good place to live, why should it be subject to such a different standard than, say, a residential neighborhood is. It raises a number of questions for me. For instance, what -- how is this handled in other cities that have -- that have got large residential populations downtown. [05:09:50] Are there any particular standards. Would you typically be able to do nighttime pours on this scale in other peer cities. Have we examined that? >> Yes, sir, we have and we have contacted several cities. I don't have all the list I can provide you at this moment. I can probably provide it before you actually -- if you are expecting this, if that's council's desire, probably have that by next meeting. I think the list is almost actually compiled. >> Riley: Could I see where we are on that postponement that has come up? Greg, was it -- >> we will delayed it, but I understand there may be several of you that would like this item delayed. And so, yes. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison and then councilmember riley is suggesting the same. Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: If you used other cities in terms of research for this proposal, can you tell us this is in line with what you've seen in other cities? >> Some cities they only operate, and I don't have the list, some cities only operate, go ahead and do it if there is a complaint and we'll deal with the complaint. Some will only issue them in the downtown area. Some will not issue them at all. But their hours are more generous and depending which city you are talking about, some will go into the evening but not necessarily allow 24-hour pours. >> Martinez: And so did we also talk to some of the contractors that performed the construction and ask if there are logistical considerations as it relates to why they are making this request? >> I think part of this is -- yes. Part of this has to deal with the cueing of concrete trucks and their arrival. It's more difficult during [05:11:50] daylight hours because they are competing with traffic trying to get in and out of downtown particularly in the afternoon hours. There's some safety concerns with the workers because concrete actually generates quite a bit of heat and when you add in some of the summer temperatures that we get, it actually endangers some of the crews that are working. In the evening it actually is more preferable. Commercial businesses sometimes have difficulty getting deliveries because of the cueing of the concrete trucks during the day. In the evening it's -- the sleeping hours of residents and trying to strike that balance. Two questions or two issues that came up in my discussions I had with the public, one was particularly just where the trucks cue up. The staff doesn't really have a mechanism to say you can't let your truck idle or can't, you know, bring it up on certain streets per se as far as where and how they are coming into downtown. I think if the street was closed, we could try to get to that. That's partly addressed by the staff comments trying to figure out where they are cueing. Some of them are actually - - a lady I talked to complaining they were cueing up in judge's hill, which is not even an area that's being suggested where this ordinance applied. The other individual that I talked to actually had a concern about the concrete pump that pumps up the concrete. It wasn't even the vehicles so much in that that pump, depending on how it's placed, can generate a lot of noise and we were going to take a look at that. We have had certain large builders downtown actually move the pump or try to shield the pump from creating so much difficulty. I guess I'll throw out one other third one is some of the lighting sometimes is indiscriminate by the people [05:13:51] pouring the concrete and they will shine out with large halogen lights and they could be focused downward or more inward towards the building. I think that would be helpful. That was more of a consideration I think on the issues on that. >> Martinez: I thought we had an existing idling ordinance within the city limits. >> This is when the trucks are cueing up so they are trying to stage the trucks so the concrete is delivered only when it's needed. So if they are parking and idles one after another, I think yes we do unless it's a refrigerator truck. The trucks are cueing up. >> Martinez: So when we do I guess either a site plan review or when these permits are requested, do we ask for some kind of traffic management plan as to the routing and cueing? >> We don't at the site plan stage. The building permit stage is where you would actually start looking at the building and that's where I guess we would get our first indication of the construction that's used. If it's all concrete or multi-level parking garage, or most critical around the foundation as we've heard most recently on the library. >> Martinez: I would support postponing this so we can continue the conversation. >> Cole: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I concur. I think this is an issue that needs a lot more discussion and I share the concerns of my colleagues about the extent to which this change could really impact our downtown residents. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: If I could submit that as a question to get us some history on the duration or consecutive number of days, and also you said you were talking with some folks internally and other developers, if we have an idea of what they are [05:15:55] envisioning of terms of how many consecutive permits. I have one other specific question. You all provided in the backup, a map, the downtown austin plan density bonus area and zoning districts and this is where it would be applicable. >> That's correct. Right now the ordinance without any suggestion of conditions is already permitted in cbd. So this would be adding the d.M.U. And public zoned properties within that boundary. >> Morrison: One of the questions I have, is this the density bonus area boundary or I'm curious about I think there might be a vision for actually rezoning some things d.M.U. Between -- d.M.U.60 or 40 between 7th and 15th east of lamar up to nueces, then san antonio. And my question if those rezonings go through, as currently written, would this ordinance then apply more broadly? >> It would. The suggestion is by council to remove because we already removed several districts. The suggestion is remove d.M.U. That could be a consideration as well. I knew that even on other cities exceptions were made for certain civic projects because they are necessary. >> Morrison: So -- okay. So I just wanted to make it clear that this boundary of the density bonus area is not really the boundary of the density bonus area, it's sort of what it is right now, but d.M.U. Would -- if things get rezoned -- >> within that boundary, if d.M.U. Went beyond that boundary, it would not be available to obtain this type of permit. >> Morrison: And aren't there some recommendations in the downtown plan to have it go beyond the plan? [05:17:56] >> They would go beyond the existing d.M.U. Zoning as it exists right now. >> Morrison: Right. I just wanted to make that clear. As we look at this, the application could potentially expand in that northwest area. Which is an area where we're hoping for a more -- more residents, and ironically a lot of that is commercially zoned and ironically we want to add -- one of the reasons to add d.M.U. There, albeit limited, is to get more residents there, but then on the other hand we couldn't -- expanding this ordinance there could make it much less pleasant to live there. It's a paradox. >> Cole: Further comments? Do you have other comments? >> Morrison: I do. Greg might be able to help with this one too. This is a resolution, main sponsor is councilmember morrison and councilmember tovo and I are co- sponsors of item number 92. And this addresses the east riverside corridor plan. One of the issues -- probably everybody has heard from the neighbors concern about a zoning case that came up 1500 ple valley. That -- that is in the east riverside corridor area. And the neighbors were surprised that it didn't require or questioning why it didn't require a neighborhood plan amendment also and concerned about process. They were also concerned, I know, about we just got this plan in place and now there's a request to change it and what kind of predictability does that provide for the neighbors. Councimember spelman drafted this resolution, number 92, that basically asked for a code change that would do a [05:19:57] couple of things. First of all, it provides notice to the contact team that this zoning case that is in their area is going through or has been applied for. It requires a community meeting before the planning commission. It requires no for the planning commission. It requires notice for the council hearing. And the applicant pays for all that. Basically what it does is make sure the contact team is sort of involved in the discussion which I think is good. I have a couple of questions. One, since the contact team is already registered on the community register and this is a zoning case as it is now, is that extra notice redundant? >> Greg guernsey again. When we have a neighborhood plan amendment, we have a pre- meeting which would not normally -- >> Morrison: I'm just talking about the notice. >> The notice, yes, it may be redundant for some of the cases that come forward. Not necessarily all contact teams may be registered. >> Morrison: We're talking about the east riverside corridor specifically in this resolution. >> That's right, and it may actually go beyond them. I think it may also include montopolis if you take all the east riverside corridor, so I won't say with absolutely certainty, but both contact teams, majority of them certainly are, but I could not say if all of them are. Yes, there m some [05:21:59] redundancy. But that would be for the planning commission and city council. They would not normally be associated with a zoning case the pre-meeting like we would have in a neighborhood planning area where there would be a notice for that area, which is a meeting before it all gets going. That would be something new suggested by- >> Morrison: Right. The community meeting. That's one of the things I think we need to be careful about is we're not asking the applicant to pay for the same notice over again and maybe there can be ways to broaden this so ask for -- >> I notice on the last part of the resolution there was a notation about eliminating double -- >> Morrison: You would consider that a conflict. The other thing I haven't had a chance to talk to my sponsoring councilmember about with -- about this yet and one of the things that I'm interested in doing is so notice and conversations and all that, that's nice just to have and hopefully with public input and all there -- we can have better outcomes. One thing that I thought we might consider and I'd like to -- I'll probably be drafting an amendment to propose here, you know, with neighborhood plans, they are on a cycle. And one of the things that neighborhoods sort of get with neighborhood plans is some predictability and that is they are not going to be amendment to change the neighborhood plan all through the year. There's one time during the year that neighborhood plans, somebody can apply to change a neighborhood plan. Except the city can always do it in the context and if there's a hardship you can always do it. But that provides some predictability and some, if I might think of it as piece of the plan that says we're not just going change ing this willy-nilly. And so my proposal is that [05:24:00] because there's this overlap of the neighborhood plan area and the -- the corridor plan area, and because what I'm hearing from the community is sort of a frustration that we've got a plan and now all of a sudden we've got a zoning case to change the plan. Eye motion would be and what I would like everyone to consider is add a limitation on amendments to the corridor plan zoning that we have here so that it can only be done also on the same cycle as the neighborhood plan. That would elevate it up to the same level of treatment and it raises, I think, the expectation just in the world of civic engagement and that is that we do really mean it. These plans are our plans and we don't want them to be just treated as anybody can come in and think about changing them. We want it to be serious and we want it to be only once a year. So I am going to make a motion and I'll ask staff to help me draft it, it will probably be a general thing that says please also consider adding a requirement in the code that says these changes can only be done in the same cycle as the neighborhood plan amendments. And the reason I want to keep it general is I think some judgment is going to be needed on staff's part because, you know, there are -- for the neighborhood plan amendment cycle, if you look at the code, it also gives them -- it gives them relief out and it's the director that gets to decide if it's a hardship and there's an appeal process, so I would want it stated generally and just look to your guidance to exactly how that ought to be crafted if we're going to consider it. I just wanted everyone to know I'm going to be making that motion and I hadn't gotten to talk to the sponsors of the resolution [05:26:01] about the yet. >> Cole: Any further comments? Okay. I have a next item that I wanted to touch on briefly, it's item number 93. I am the lead sponsor on that item. It has to do with each of the west connectivity between interstate 35. I've heard from some stakeholders they were concerned what they were suggesting might happen at second and third street, and the focus of this resolution is really just dealing with fifth street. So I'm going to propose some language probably thursday to take out references to the other street in the whereas clause. And the be it resolved clauses do not mention anything other than fifth street and the preference for the modified existing alternative also known as the elevated version not proceeding to meet. So I just wanted to alert everybody that was going to happen, if they were hearing from stakeholders to let them know we plan to address it. Any other items? We have some other things to discuss. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I just want to make one comment about something I'm working on on the urban trails master plan. I've been working with staff and trying to find some ways to add some enhanced community engagement in the urban trails master plan because going to try to sort of absorb when the concerns are, I think that the concerns are issues that probably ought to be dealt with at the trail level and so trying to beef up the community engagement and council participation in the process for developing a new urban trail. [05:28:02] And basically asking, you know, that -- when the preliminary design is done at 30%, that it come through the boards and commissions and that the council actually get a look at it then. Because otherwise the council doesn't look at it until there's a contract in place to build it. And I think that that's going to be too late to back up if something needs to change. So I'm working on those things. >> Cole: Okay. Thank you. Any further comments? No? Okay. We'll go to council discussion about potential appointees to the low-income consumer advisory task force. Created by resolution. Anyone want to discuss potential appointees? Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I can say who we are considering, we've talked to and that's carol batichke and carol arola. >> Cole: I can say that I'm considering cyrus reed to appoint to that consumer advisory task force. Councilmember riley. >> Riley: And I've heard from kelly wise and looking at appointing kelly. >> Cole: Okay. Any discussion on recommendations from the -- councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I have several people I really want to appoint so I'm trying to narrow it down, but I will say carol is the resource management commission's appointee and karen hadden is going to be the [inaudible] appointee. An update. >> Spelman: Mayor pro tem, chris strand has been beating down my door and would very much like to do it. >> Cole: And I'm also considering chris strand. I've heard from him. >> Spelman: I'm sure you [05:30:03] probably heard from scott johnson on behalf of chris strand. >> Cole: Yes, but I'm theiring my lift and leaning towards cyrus. >> Tovo: Councimember spelman, are you considering appointing mr. Strand? >> Spelman: Yes, I am. >> Tovo: Provided us with really valuable insight in my office, especially during the rate case. That seems like a great choice and that makes my choice a lot easier. >> Spelman: Good. >> Cole: And that makes my choice a lot easier. Further comments? Okay. Next we have discussions on recommendations from the boards and commission transition task force. Do we have any staff presentation on that? >> We did not prepare a staff presentation because you have received a couple briefings from the task force. I think you have a copy of their report and then you have kind of a summary list that we tried to put together and go through all of the different recommendations that they made throughout the report. We just need some direction on the items as to how you would like us to bring them back in the norm of an ordinance to make any revisions to 2-1. >> Cole: Councilmember martinez, we night still need to you walk us through -- one second, councilmember, what you have before us on your recommendation summary. You have your general -- go ahead. >> So the first one, one of their general [05:32:04] recommendations was to hold another board and commission recognition event. A couple of you have expressed interest. A couple are not necessarily interested. So really on that one I just need to know whether or not as a body you are interested in moving forward. And if you would like us to plan it or if you all want to do something individually like I think a couple of staff started. >> Cole: Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: You heard from me already. I'm happy to help you with this. >> Likewise I spended and said it -- I think our citizens volunteers certainly deserve the council and the community recognizing their volunteerism. >> Cole: And I'll just say since we're moving from a system of electing seven of us at large and that our commissioners have served the entire city in their service that it would be appropriate for us to recognize them and have an event for them. Again, I don't believe that that should be an expensive, large endeavor, expensive endeavor, but I do think we should do that. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I'm very supportive of that idea too. I think we ask a lot of our boards and commissions and they step up and perform to that level all the time and really make our job easier. I was a little surprised by the estimate that appeared in our memo from you and I'm now not remembering what it was except that I was really surprised. >> The cost really kind of range for food anywhere from about -- and this is kind of hor d'oeuvres, light snacks, anywhere from about 7,000 up to about 14,000. >> Tovo: In my mind -- >> so we threw in a little extra for postage, et cetera, for mailing out invitations, et cetera. [05:34:05] So I think our total we estimated around 15,000 at the high end if we went with the high-end catering. >> Tovo: And do you have this money in your budget? >> It is not something we had budgeted so it may be some that I can pull out at least part of it from our election budget. But I don't know at this time if I would have the entire amount. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. >> But we can start with it. >> Cole: What else are you needing our input on? >> We're needing input on merger recommendations, and under some of the reassignment recommendations, new commission recommendations. And then under the subcommittees and changes to existing board memberships. >> Cole: Let's talk about these one at a time to get some input. Your first is on removal recommendations, comprehensive plan citizens task force work is completed. >> Yes, so nothing really needs to be done on that as far as you all are concerned. That was just them reminding everybody that those two have completed their work and so they are not being included in any of the recommendations. >> Cole: Okay. So that, you don't need any opinion put from us on that. The merger recommendations, you are asking about the african-american resource advisory commission being merged with the african-american cultural and heritage facility. >> It was their option to merge the two together and increase the numbers to 15. They also provided you with an option number 2 to leave [05:36:07] it as it is and then to create a separate commission for the african-american cultural heritage facility. >> Cole: And is option 1 the preference and option 2 the second in preference? >> Option 1 was the first preference adopted by the task force. >> Cole: Well, I would be in support of option 1. Does anybody have any comments on that? >> Spelman: I wholeheartedly support you in that. >> Cole: Thank you. Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: We have similar recommendations I think also with the macc and the asian-american quality of life, and I would like to get other folks' input because I have concerns about those. And I know we've been hearing a lot of concerns from the community so I don't know if anyone else wants to chime in, but it's not obvious I would support option 1. >> Cole: I am open to that discussion and I do recall that the other minority commissions had similar concerns. So I just take that feedback. I simply went with what I believed the committee wanted. >> Morrison: Yeah, and I appreciate the recommendations. There were -- there are a variety of mergers that we're going to be talking about and I think that certainly if you want to look towards -- if we're trying to find that balance between getting the right voices at the table and efficiency and so I have a concern about several of the mergers. >> Likewise. >> Spelman: You're not suggesting we should pick option 1 or 2 in all cases. >> Morrison: Definitely on a case-by-case basis. >> Martinez: I appreciate the recommendations and the work of the task force, but [05:38:08] when I look at these particular recommendations, one commission is really a facility use and a facility operation, and the other is really a much more indepth and robust conversation about quality of life initiatives that affect our entire community but more specifically to the latino quality of life, african- american quality of life and the asian-american quality of life resource advisory commission. So I appreciate the recommendations. I realize that we're trying to reinvent the way our citizens reenact and engage with our commissions, but I just see them as holisticly different. And I guess barring the ability to get enough volunteers to serve on both commissions, I think we should keep them separate. If we run into quorum issues and issues of not be able to have enough citizen volunteers, then obviously we're going to have to rethink that. >> Cole: If I'm understanding you right, councilmember martinez, you are suggesting we not use either of the options but leave them as is, both the african-american and the mexican-american and asian-american. >> Martinez: I think option 2, which is 1 b, 2 b and 6 b, are the two separate commissions. So they are on the table as options. >> It's two separate commissions, but I think -- if you choose that option, then their recommendation was that they hold at least one joint meeting because that seemed to be kind of the feeling from the task force is there wasn't a lot of communication and dialogue between the two groups even if they were separate. >> Cole: This is an this is an interesting discussion. Jeanette, can you tell us a little more about the discussions in the -- with the community or within the commission about the two different options and you who they saw them? [05:40:08] >> It really kind of varied. The most out spoken, of course, was the hispanic and the macc. And the asian- american quality of life was pretty amenable. I don't remember a large turnout from the african- american quality of life, at least not objecting to it. The biggest objection came from the hispanic quality of life and the macc board. >> Spelman: Mayor pro tem? Jeanette, I wonder if you could characterize for us why the macc board and the hispanic quality of life commission had that -- such a strong reaction. Let me run past you, sorry, tell me what you think it works. The macc has been in existence for several years. There is a constant flow of activity at the macc. The macc board has a lot of work to do. The african-american cultural heritage center committee does not have a lot of work to do because it's new, and ditto the asian-american resource center because it's new. Seems one way of thinking about this, when you are dealing with a place like macc where there's been a lot of activity for a long time, you've got a board which is used to regulating that activity and engage in the activities of the macc and being engaged in that and not being drawn in other activities and quality of life issues ought to be a split board. Since we're dealing with facilities without that long track record of activities, the african- american world and the asian-american world, at least for now I think it makes sense to keep those one committee until they have developed that legal of activity that would [05:42:09] require them to split. >> Cole: Councilmember martinez. >> Martinez: I'm only speaking of fist soicly if philosophically we do it for one we should do it for the others. I have heard, though, just as strongly as the city clerk has in relations to the mexican-american culture center and the african-american quality of life station so at a minimum I would not support consolidating those two at this point. The other two if there are no issues and they actually feel like they could be more productive, if you will, consolidating, I would not stand in the way of that. >> Spelman: At this early stage in development of the african- american cultural center and the asian-american, it's my impression from those communities they would be more productive working together. They believe that it would be more productive working together. I think largely because they don't have that long track record of activity that the macc has got. >> Cole: I can only speak for the african-american cultural and heritage facility that many of the people that are involved in the commission are also involved in the heritage facility. So there's considerable amount of support and overlap. I don't think it would be causing much confusion in the community or disarailroad if they were merged. >> I think one of the things the task force was trying to do was treat all three groups consistently. So that was part of their reasoning for going ahead and making the recommendation as well. A lot of feedback they got from the hispanic quality of life folks and the macc really didn't -- I don't want to speak for the task force because I'm not a member of it, but from just observing the meetings, didn't necessarily always [05:44:10] answer the questions of why they were objecting to the merger for the task force. Other than it -- it seemed like it felt, they felt like it would delude their direct contact with council. So their concern was the lack of communication between the two groups and trying to figure out a way to facilitate that. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: Let me throw out this idea. Our sign review board is essentially the same as the board of adjustment. Right? If you sit on the sign review board, you pretty much sit on the -- >> I think it's the other way around. If you are on boj, board of adjustment, then you are on sign review, and there's two additional members on sign review. >> Morrison: So what I'm wondering, what if we offered the flexibility of keeping them separate and if -- if two of the boards were interested, say the asian-american resource center and the asian-american quality of life, if they were interested in being the same people so that they met at the same time just like the board of adjustment does and the sign review board, the sign review does, then they could do that. Like what's required in the code to even let that happen? Is there something special in the -- in the code that designates the board of adjustment and the sign review board as having that overlap? >> John steiner, law department. That's the way the ordinance is written. I could write an ordinance so that the -- the two boards were the same. >> Morrison: Well, what about if we wrote it so they [05:46:12] could be the same should that be the desire? >> Well, if the council wants to appoint the same people to two different boards all that would require would be to make an exception from the general rule that you can't be on two boards at once. >> Morrison: So if fact if we keep them separate, the new council could implement, say, mayor pro tem, for if there was a interest and it was made clear during the appointment that there was an interest from the community in having them be the same, they could just do that. >> Cole: That would be an option. >> Morrison: It would be an option. If we select option 2 - - >> Cole: Option b? >> Morrison:1 b, which is option 2, then in fact they could be the same and we would somehow want to memorialize we happened want the new council to think about that. But that keeps the options open. >> I also think you run intro the logistics of what john just mentioned and that is potentially having 22 different appointees from two commissions if they decide to meet together, what constitutes a quorum, what constitutes the ability to make joint december's of decisions. And I know he mentioned waiving the rule about appointing more than one person to one commission so you would preclude the option. You would go into it saying I'm only going to appoint this person to both commissions. I can't imagine that appointee would want to serve in two different commissions on two different nights. >> Morrison: A decision that would be treated sort of like the sign review board and the board of adjustment. They meet on the same night and call to order their board of adjustment meeting and they adjourn that and then call to order their seen review meeting. >> That would require that the council agreed the [05:48:13] appoint exactly the same people. >> Morrison: Yes. >> If the council didn't agree to appoint exactly the same people or some did and some didn't. >> Morrison: That would get very complicated. >> That would get very messy. >> Cole: What I'm hearing is that -- I feel like we don't have to treat the minority appointment boards and commissions exactly the same. Especially if they are at a different stage of operations and interest. So that I am fine with adopting option 1 for the african-american advisory commission and option 1 for the asian-american quality of life commission, and then option 2 for the mexican-american cultural center. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I would actually like -- you know, the asian-american quality of life commission is very, very new and in fact I'm not sure the extent to which they have weighed in on these recommendations. I plan on reaching out to my commissioner and potentially [inaudible] just to get their sense. You know, we had -- we did have -- I mean I heard at least in the first year or two of my time here that there was a strong interest in having a commission devoted to looking at the asian-american resource center and there may continue to be even though we have an asian american quality of life. I hear what you are saying, councimember spelman. There might not be any and that may be true, but I think it's worth asking the quality of life commissioners whether we've been operating for a couple months where they feel it would be helpful to have a group focused that. It is a more narrow focus than our quality of life commission. >> Cole: And that's a [05:50:14] central question of whether we're going to try to make this narrow or focus. >> Tovo: And I think there's real value of potentially having two different commissions and value of having them meet jointly occasionally. I wouldn't want to mandate it would be quarterly, that may be too often if we kept two separate commissions. [One moment please] >> Cole: I do have a hard stop at noon. >> Martinez: I want to provide input on some of the other recommendations as well just to let you all know and let staff know, I've heard a lot of concerns about merger recommendation number 4 with the building and fire code board of appeals board with the electrical board and mechanical and solar board. So at this point I'm not prepared to agree to that merger because of the concerns that have been raised and the technical knowledge they believe is necessary that is specific to each one of their responsibilities as a commission or board. And then lastly the animal advisory commission, under changes to the existing board membership, it is recommended that it go down from its current roster to five members nominated by the health and human services subcommittee. And some of these are mandated by state statute, a licensed veterinarian whose duties include daily operation of an animal shelter. One animal welfare organization representative, one person recommended by travis county commissioners court, and then one nominated at large. That -- for me that leaves [05:52:14] out a significant citizen input of folks who are very active and have been extremely instrumental in helping us get to where we are today as an animal friendly community. And I dare say it's still going to be an ongoing very important issue for this new council, so reducing it down to five members is I think not -- not the course of direction that I could support. I would want individual councilmembers to be able to fulfill the commitments that are required for appointees, but as well as additional community members who would like to serve on that commission. And those are the inputs that I have. >> Cole: Councimember spelman. >> Spelman: I just plain forgot, why is it that the task force recommended this interesting change in the animal advisory commission. >> I can actually answer that for u that proposed change came from we had a member on the task force who served on the animal advisory board, and in conjuncti abigail smith. And one of their concerns was depending on how council felt about it, whichever councilmember gets to be the nominating sponsor for the representative from travis county, it's not like you are getting to actually appoint someone that you may want to appoint. >> Spelman: So as long as we kept these categories, somebody from welfare organization, somebody from the outside, outside of the city that is correct sort of thing, then our hands are tried to some extent as to who we can appoint. >> Right. State layman dates certain folks to the veterinarian person -- >> those categories come from the state law which requires a city that [05:54:15] operates a shelter have an advisory board. It requires certain kinds of people be on it and that's where that list is, that person with experience representing et cetera, et cetera, come from. >> Spelman: Thanks. >> Cole: I believe you have gotten feedback on those two. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I may have other, but the one I wanted to mention is I'm not in favor of removing the commission for women or blending it into the [inaudible]. I think we talked about that in the past and I see my colleague turning her mic on. >> Cole: Councilmember morrison. >> Morrison: I want to second that, but also I definitely think it shouldn't just be absorbed into another, but also if we're going have different approaches to the quality of life, minority quality of life commissions, we need to take a look at what number 4 might do under new commission recommendations. Because that was a joint inclusion committee that was going to basically merge african-american, asian-american, hispanic immigrants, people with disabilities and women into all of that inclusion and it sounds like we're leading towards keeping a lot of those separate. So we'll have to rethink that especially if we keep some of them separate and some of them not. So anyway, I'm not in favor of that -- of doing away with the commission for women. I think they are doing some good work. I think that I have a question about one of the new commission recommendations number 2, the intergovernmental commission. While theoretically I think that sounds like such a great idea, and when I look at -- it's such a broad reaching, I'm not quite sure how it's really going to operate effectively. First of all, it mention independent school districts, well, we have nine that overlap the city of austin. Capcog, campo, water board, higher education institutions, and then again [05:56:16] there I'm not sure, were they envisioning one person would represent all higher institutions? >> I'm not sure they really got down to that level of discussion. It was kind of an idea that came out towards the end of their meetings. Just as a way of trying to figure out how they -- the boards and commission process may be able to provide council with some better regional information that -- and insight. >> Morrison: I appreciate that effort and I think that it's not quite baked yet to make it a useful one so I guess I'm not quite ready to jump on board with that. And the -- I notice under nomination of members by committee of council recommendations, number 1 in terms of aligning the community development commission appointments so this is on the -- it's on the third to last page, number 1, community development commission. It says council may want to revisit the existing seven geographic locations. I think that there are some federal requirements for those locations. >> And our problem is we just found out this past week that the st. John's area apparently has somewhat dissolved and they don't have any folks to actually make the nomination. And the person who had represented them has gone off to the cdc. >> Morrison: Some of this is a requirement for our federal grant, so I wonder if it sound like it would be good to pull -- >> that was just a note I put in after the fact. >> Morrison: I wonder if you could connect with betsy spencer and ask their advice on that. [05:58:16] >> Yes. >> Morrison: I think in terms of the grand redesign of planning commission and staff, I'd say that's worth a try. I'm concerned about all the zoning cases being in one body. And I don't know if anyone has ideas to help mitigate that besides giving it a try. I'm jumping around. Changes to existing board memberships, the second one about boards and standard commission, I thought we already have two boards and standards commissions, right? So I'm not sure why they are building and standards commission. >> Yes. >> Morrison: So maybe this got addressed before that was implemented or -- >> it may have just gotten included into their report as kind of a model for one of the other -- when they were talking about planning and I just pulled out you're it out bymistake. >> Morrison: There's a lot of great things. I think having the economic prosperity commission, moving the bond oversight commission into economics and capital budget joint subcommittee, lots of really, really great things in this pan. >> Cole: Okay, jeanette, I want to weigh in I am fully supportive of keeping the commission -- wait. And council can put their ideas on the bulletin board about this so you get a chance to see that. And so let's see how the bulletin board goes. I looked over some of the items that you had no changes recommended and I thought those were a good list of items. So perhaps we'll have council look over the bulletin board and you bring this back for a little further discussion. >> This there is one housekeeping item I might [06:00:18] mention. ON AUGUST THE 7th, YOU MAY Recall you amended the board and commission ordinance to provide that effective next july, after the new council has been in place for a half a year, that the default number of members of a board goes up from 7 to 11. That's so that each councilmember will be able to make a nomination. The only boards that that august 7th amendment affected are the ones with the standard membership which calls the membership of council. You also have a number of boards that have nonstandard numbers of members, and if you wanted to have the same logic apply to those boards, then for all but one of them, which is the one that doesn't apply to is the early childhood council which for some reason already has 11 members appointed by council, but for the animal advisory commission, the board of adjustment, the community development commission, the commission on seniors, the downtown commission, the sustainable food policy board and the sign review board, if you wanted to have a corresponding change for those, each one of those boards would need to be increased by four members. So that in addition to all the extra members that get appointed by various other groups or entities, each councilmember would still have one nomination on those boards and that change has not been made. >> >> Spelman: Could you get us a list of that if you could put it in writing so we could all respond. >> Yes, sir. >> Cole: This meeting of the city council work session without objection is adjourned.