Open Space, Environment, and Sustainability Committee Meeting Transcript –4/29/2015 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 4/29/2015 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/29/2015 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [2:08:39 PM] >> Pool: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to city hall. I'm epipool, chair of the commission on open space, environment and sustainability. I know there's something formal that I'm supposed to say, and I - - >> Zimmerman: Time of day. >> Pool: I think it's along the line of calling this meeting to order. It is April 29. >> Zimmerman: 2:09 P.M. >> Pool: 2015, and it's 2:09 P.M. We're a quorum, including our chairs from three of the citizens commissions, daily gray, chair of the wastewater commission, Mary gay maxwell, chair of the environmental board, I guess you'll be called commission soon, and Jane Rivera, chair of the parks and rec, parks board. Welcome, everybody. Before we move into our business today, I did want to just take a moment and you're all aware that Travis county lost one of its ems star flight nurses, kisrsten Mcchain, I wanted to take a moment to extend our condolences to her family and friends. She died tragically earlier this week helping rescue an injured woman on the greenbelt. I just wanted to think about that for a moment and just say that we should always be thankful for our emergency responders like ki remove Sten Kirsten who who risk their lives to save people. Thank you. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes. [2:10:42 PM] Moved by vice chair gag. Seconded by Zimmerman. All in Faye favor? Done unanimously. We have citizens communication. Weaver experimenting with a couple of different ways of doing this. We're going to do eight people at two minutes at this meeting and I'll ask for someone to help with the timing. Do we have a list -- here we go. We have a list of people who want to speak. Jessica, are lease these in order that you received and the first eight are up at the top? All right. So how we're going to handle input today, we have the citizens' communication, eight people at two minutes now, and then we will have a public discussion of item number eight. The other items are not posted for public discussion, but we will definitely be having opportunities for that, specifically on the aquatics program. I know there's a lot of interest in that. Today we're going to get a presentation from the parks department to talk about what they are recommending, and then we'll have a conversation at the dais about that, and we'll have future opportunities for more dialogue with the community. So we will start two minutes, Sharon blithe. Welcome, Sharon. >> [Off mic] >> I am Sharon Blythe. Thank you for listening today. I'm going to speak on the park in northwest Austin. [2:12:42 PM] We have $500,000 set aside for the neighborhood parks self for our area, our park, from a lawsuit agreement that my neighbors and I brought against the city for the jollyville transmission main. The city of Austin is a great liability of injuries to sustain on badly maintained tennis courts and basketball courts. This is a park I'm going to speak on, mountain view park. Just a few blocks from my home. As you can see here, this is a deeply rutted tennis court very dangerous to play on, heavily used two courts in mountain view park. Another view is from the courts. You can see they're very badly dilapidated and another view. Also, the basketball court has a dangerous draw dropoff where people can break their ankles and break their legs going off that court. These are some pictures of some restroom doors that need to be repaired or probably replaced. Since the money has already been set aside, there's really no reason for a long, drawnout public engagement on these repairs, long drawn out planning since the danger is now and no pretend public comment period. So I'm hoping that we can move ahead on this. District 6 is a forgotten district in the city of Austin. District 6 taxes are high with little benefit to our residents. I cannot even get 311 service at my home. And I haven't tried 911. [Buzzer sounding] >> I'd appreciate it very much if you'd take this into consideration and get those repairs done. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you, Sharon. Next is peter stinhart. [2:14:46 PM] >> Zimmerman: Quick question. Sharon, I know peternalis covers part of district 6. Do you know where the line is with Austin in charge and peternalis as it moves -- because you guys are in Austin energy right? >> We're in peternalis. >> Zimmerman: Do you know how far it goes past you before it gets to peternalis. >> Good [it gets to Austin energy. >> Zimmerman: Before Austin energy. >> I'm about 700 feet bra the line. >> Zimmerman: You're right on the line. >> South side of spicewood road. >> Zimmerman: I haven't tried 311 since I can't remember when. I wonder if it's a peternalis thing maybe that you're not getting 311? >> I've called that asked that we be included in Austin city limits, talked to telecommunications experts concerning this problem, and they tell me that it's the way that AT&T, who is contracted with the city to run the 311 system have configured their city limits. >> Zimmerman: Okay. >> We were annexed in 1997. >> Zimmerman: Okay, thanks. >> Pool: Peter stinhart. >> Thank you all for your time and your service. My name is peter stinhart. I've been involved in observing the parks, being in the parks, swimming in the pools, being all around, and my issue is parks is a basic service and fiscal responsibility. I'm just going to read you my notes and be off your thing here. To know how much it costs, one has to know what monies was spent, how much money was spent, what monies were received, what monies were promised, what monies were repaid, what portion of expenses is capital, what controls the monies, what does the control -- who controls the money and who the controller reports to. To know what the costs should be, one has to know what the intentions are, what the criteria are, what the options are. [2:16:49 PM] There is no comprehensive view of the pools or parks in Austin. It is always incomplete. We have made all of the income go to the general fund, mixed the costs with many other projects. The accounting cannot be released relied on to prove anything we have a long history of providing free parks and pools and lots of them. We have done this through the Anne of many city managers, what happened? Who changed the criteria? When did they ask you or us to change this? The government of Austin relies on the city council to decide all of these things. Some decisions are delegated and some are specific to the council. It appears that the Austin city council has attempted to know the information, delegate the responsibility, trusted the delegates and de facto allowed your delegates and their staff to change city policy. The parks in Austin are a basic service. They are not income centers and assets to lease and rent to the highest bidder. Aquatics is not a garnish, but a main ingredient in healthy Austin. I am asking to you fix this situation. Do not allow any more money to be allocated to new facilitates or equipment until a full accounting of the monies specifically. [Buzzer sounding] >> May I finish? >> Pool: Yes, you may. >> -- Specifically allocated to maintain is completed. Emergency situations, accepted. Do not allow the foxes to account for the chickens, eggs or cash. Require an independent architectures open the pools, amend your relationships with citizens of Austin by offering candid, honest, easy communication. Remove those administrators who have twisted the facts, set clear criteria for how we'll manage ourselves in Austin, create a job for someone who reports to the council to be your eyes and ears regarding pard and its facilitates and programs. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you, Mr. Stinhart. [2:18:51 PM] Roy Whaley. And you have two minutes. >> Howdy, y'all. Good afternoon. My name is Roy Whaley chair of the Austin regional group conservation committee. And I want to speak about the pools in east Austin, that that is better -- if that is better addressed during the aquatics portion I will Kate wait. Otherwise I'll go ahead and speak now. >> Pool: Continue. >> Okay. Sierra club is very much in favor of our parks and our recreation for everyone in Austin. We're also very in favor of water conservation. Not everyone uses the parks, but everyone uses water. So we need to be very mindful about the amount of water that is being lost at these pools. At the same time that we look at the fact that parks got an infusion of $6 million last year to address these problems and no pun intended, that's a drop in the bucket. And so -- and then they were directed which pools to improve instead of being able to use their discretion on which ones were most needed. And the most needed pools are the ones in east Austin. Are the ones that are being affected right now. These are areas that are used in lieu of air conditioning to a great extent. It's a health issue to be able to keep people cool. And so we need to be able to address that and find the balance where we need to also address our water concerns. So I would hope that you would press during the budget cycle this year that these pools get improved, that we stop having parks be an afterthought in our budget. Because parks, when you say parks, think about people. [2:20:55 PM] Because it's the people that use the parks. [Buzzer sounding] >> -- That we need to be thinking of. So thank you very much for your time this afternoon. >> Pool: Thank you, Roy. I have more cards than eight so I'm taking -- we've heard from three people. I've got five more. >> I'd like to speak too. I couldn't figure out how to use the sign up. My name is Robert Corbin, on citizen communication, if I can. >> Pool: We've taken the cards and we've filled up the slots. >> Oh, okay. I'm sorry. >> Pool: Thank you. So what I'm going to do is take the next five people that signed up. That would be Jennifer Houlihan, and she's speaking on parkland nominations. >> Good afternoon. I'm from Austin music people, the organization that advocates for the music industry here in Austin. And one reason we are the live music capital of the world, we're internationally known is because of the festivals we have that attract visitors from around the world, attract artists, creatives, create thousands of jobs and contribute hundreds of millions to the general fund. A defining characteristic of these events are their open-air concerts in the parks. I don't just work for this organization, I'm also a mom of tweens, god help me, and we live in very far south district 5. So practically Buda. In one of the newest neighborhoods. Our closest neighborhood park is one that the developers put in. It's about the size of one lot, has a playscape and it's just not going to be something that helps our family. So when we needing to see nature, we have to get in a car and we have to drive somewhere. Events like the kite festival, ei don't remember's birthday party and trail of lights help create community in a rapidly growing city, events like blues on the green help do this, by inviting everyone to the municipal parks built expressly for that purpose to, foster community in the largest sense. [2:23:09 PM] My request today is as you deliberate appointees to the parkland events task force is to make sure that all stakeholders are represented. These are Austin's parks, and they belong to the city. Renters and owners, those who can walk there and those who immediate to drive 45 minutes like me and pretty much everybody who wants to enjoy what Austin is famous for, which is its natural beauty. All these voices need to be represented in the continuing conversation. Thank you. >> Pool: Thanks, Jennifer. Next is Ross Smith. We only have comment during sitcom so I moved you up. Then we'll have comments later on decker lake, which is item number eight. >> Thank you. The reason I signed up for item 5, which is the household hazardous waste is I was reading through the material there that you have out front. There's one item on what the review folks have overlooked, which is what another one of your committees is looking at, the transportation committee, which is hazardous waste transportation corridors. Wherever these events get sited, they need to be close to one of the designated material routes. It would not look -- it would not go over well with the public to do a -- to do a four or five-hour hazardous waste collection at a high school and then find that you had to drive 5 miles through residential streets in order to get a large quantity of very old term tine and used bottles of nafta on to a -- down to the main collection site. So that needs to be part of their review. >> Pool: Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Pool: Appreciate that, Mr. Smith. Angelica naola. [2:25:15 PM] And after Angelica Susana Almanza and then farhad. Welcome, Ms. Naola. >> I don't have much of a voice. I'm here to speak about metz pool. One as stated earlier that community relies sole reason on these pools to get condoness in the summer time, especially for children. 85% of the families can't afford to cool their home with electrician because the bills are so high. It's a health issue. Children could have trips to the emergency room and elderly as well. I keep hearing and seeing on documents this pool is not utilized. I beg to differ. It's very utilized. I drive by every single day during the summer. You've got a lot of ways to fix this. I keep hearing $1.5 million and a water like. It's only 10 to 15 thousand fix this. There are millions of dollars allocated to the holly plan. Metz pool falls within the boundary. Why can we not take 10 to 15 thousand dollars out of that funding to fix the pool. You've got deep eddy and Ramsey pools within a 2-mile radius that all had the repairs they needed. What about our community? I see on a document there's another pool down the street. You guys have five within 2 miles map makes them so much better than our neighborhood? What makes those children in that community much more better than our kids in our community who have a higher need to have those pools? You know, it's just a bunch of excuses, I think. For a long time east Austin has gone without, and we've had to fight and scratch to get the little bit that we have gotten. And I think that it's high time that new councilmembers step up and do what's right for our community. You're a voting office to do a job and stand up for us, the people. And please I implore you, when you're listening to aquatics, ask them the questions I've asked. [2:27:17 PM] Why do those five pools on the other side of town get the up most attention and we have gotten none? $1.5 million, they could have paid for that repair more times than I can count so I ask you please don't close our swimming pool. We immediate that pool. Our children need to be cool in the summer time. [Buzzer sounding] >> Pool: Thank you, Ms. Naola. Welcome, Susanna. >> Good afternoon. Last year as I served on the parks board we had this discussion about the closure of pools and keeping these pools open and also about the shortage of lifeguards and then here it comes up again. We need to make sure that we have a thorough plan and that we follow through it and that we're paying our lifeguards a living wage and that we keep them on the payroll so that we do not encounter this particular problem over and over. Again, you're talking about major discrimination here, when you look at what has and hasn't happened and to the repairs of the pools and where they have happened and where they haven't. You're talking about majority people of color, use of color who use the metz pool. And so we're saying this pool needs to be -- to remain open. We need to look at equity. We need to look at doing an audit of where these funds have gone, where they haven't gone, and we need to look at what cbdg money used when they fixed the center, what we did the pool, all of these issues. The other thing is we've already lost the baseball -- the softball field there at metz. It's a parking lot. That was taken away. It's supposed to be temporary but years and we haven't gotten it back. Now you're about to close down the school take that over. A plan should have been done, build the alternative pool where you put the parking lot being built so that you get rid of the old one but you just can't close it when we're about to embark in summer. That needs to be kept open and then look at the alternatives. [2:29:19 PM] The other thing is we've never gotten our fair share of the drainage fees. There are millions of dollars in drainage fees funds. I say that the drainage fees funds need to now be looked. These are drainage issues. They need to be allocated to east Austin pools so they can be fixed, they can be rebuilt, whatever needs to be built so they can do it, not spending 10 millions on the waller creek development with drainage fee funds we continue to pay in and not benefit from. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Pool: Mr. Madani, welcome. >> Good afternoon. My name is farhad madani, actually an aquatics consultant and expert witness. I have done an assessment of manysies for the past few years and this facilities actually I have a product of Bartholomew pool. I learned how to speak English there. I learned thousand swim at northwest pool. Northwest -- how to swim at northwest pool. I have to tell you I've ran every single one of these facilities from pretty much '83 until actually 2010, and that was when I retired from the city of Austin. These pools are very important to eastside community members. That's the only place children can go to and learn thousand swim. If you close these guarded facilities in east Austin or anywhere around Austin, what's going to happen, the kids are going to go find a place to swim. They're going to go to apartment complexes, Lakes, rivers, and your drowning rate is going to go way up through the roof. The reason I'm here today and I'm so frustrated with this about four years ago I sent a memo to councilmember about closing down some of the winter facilities that was set up for recruitment and hiring in a different part of town. [2:31:20 PM] Right now the reason they have a lifeguard shortage, they haven't decentralized their system. They expect every teenager, we're talking about ages from 16 to 21 years old usually become lifeguards. That age group have to come downtown. For example, tonight is a recruitment night on a weekday, and how many children are you going to know that are going to come here from northwest, southeast, southwest, east, even west, going through mopac or going through the traffic, coming to downtown so they can apply for a job? Instead, the same people can go to their area, to the nearest site, which in the past was north Austin, like northwest, so they can do the northwest rec center if they don't want to open up a pool. [Buzzer sounding] >> They can utilize at garrison and other places. Lastly, please there have been already assessments done in 2005 that showed all the leaky pools and that's when we got the bond money, in 2006, to fix all these facilities. [ Applause ] >> What happened to that money? What's going on? I mean, that was the whole purpose of going through all that assessment. Now we're back, another assessment and they're going to show you this nice picture of water park and Bartholomew concept and free pools, San Antonio has 26 free pools currently. >> Pool: Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Pool: I think mayor pro tem tovo may have a question for you, sir. >> Tovo: I actually just had a quick point to the speaker. I appreciate the points you've raised, sir, and as we start to talk about aquatics later, I think we can raise some of the suggestions you had. And I hope if you are able that you'll have an opportunity to hear our staff. If not, if you would connect with my office afterward, I'd like to share with you some information about a pilot program that started this year in one of our high schools, and I'll need two of -- two high schools and I'll need our staff to remind me which ones they are. [2:33:32 PM] I believe it was lbj and eastside -- I'm sorry, lbj and Reagan to do a lifeguard training throughout the year as part of their pe and so we've taken some of those suggestions seriously and tried to recruit in different parts of the city. That was really councilmember Morrison and some community members ideas of doing so. I appreciate the suggestions you've raised. >> Pool: I wanted to read into the record the additional people who signed up that we don't have time today to hear from you, but your opposition or support will be read into the record. I'll do that now. Then I expect that we will have additional opportunities to talk about our pools and aquatics program. But for now Pam o'connor is registering against item number six, which would be the aquatics. Alisa R Montoya, against item 6, better that delgado against item 6, Ramon [indiscernible] Against item number six and Sharon Blythe against item number 6 and then one other men, Melissa morrow is in support of item number seven. So we're going to move quickly. We have a lot on the agenda today. I've invited maria fowler senior educator in the south central region here in Austin. Many of you may know that and Mary has worked with nw for a long time and she's here to talk to our ten minutes of education goes to monarchs and will being week or more generally pollinaters and nectar flowers. Welcome and thanks for coming. Do you have everything you need on your slide? They may be able to help from you the bench there. There we go. [2:35:33 PM] While Mary is getting set up I want to draw everyone's attention. I asked our parks and rec staff to bring a stack of grow green guide, and it's the native and adapted landscape plants. This is a really great resource. It's in its -- I think fifth edition. I've been use this as my landscaping bible for native and adaptives in Austin for about 25 years myself, and the pictures are beautiful. Even if you can't grow them to look that good you can enjoy looking at the picture. This is to support some of the work that Mary is going to challenging us to do. >> Excuse me. Chair pool? I believe that the watershed protection department is the one that produced the grow green manuals. >> Pool: Yes, they did, watershed protection in conjunction with Texas Amy agra life. I mentioned pard because I asked them to bring them along. Our staff does good work this this area. The floor is yours. >> Thanks so much. >> The mic is not on. >> Okay, there we go. I can hear that. Wonderful. Thank you so much for inviting me here today to tell you a little bit about what's going on with the North American monarch butterfly. And I want to preface this by saying that I am not an expert in this subject matter, but I am learning a lot as the days go on and as this becomes a more and more important issue to conservation organizations, particularly to the national wildlife federation. As I'm learning, I am growing to love this monarch butterfly more and more every day. So the monarch butterfly, the state insect of Texas, has captured the imagination of adults and children alike. This stung species makes an epic migration each fall from as far away as Minnesota and Canada, all the way to Mexico. [2:37:39 PM] This is a migratory population of the North American monarch that cannot tolerate northern cold, so it heads south for the winter. Texas is a strategic location for this magnificent species. Serving as one of the most important spring milk we'd habitat areas for monarchs and hosting a large population of southern migrating monarchs who need to fatten up on nectar as they return to their wintering areas of Mexico each fall. I think it's important to understand a little bit about the life cycle and biology of the monarch. To help us understand the importance of their habitat requirements, which is really the reason for this presentation. The adult butterfly lays its eggs on milkweed and after about three to five days the cater pillar hatches. The cater pillar then eats the milkweed as it grows and malts for a period of ten to 14 days. It will then spend nine to 14 days as a chrysillus before it will mate and if it's female it will lay eggs. With the spring migration this cycle repeats itself. So milkweed up and down the area of migration is incredibly important so that the adults can lay their eggs, the next generation is born, and the migration actually continues. These are just a few examples of some of the milkweed that you might see in this area. It is full of toxic cardonolides that in turn make the caterpillar topic to predators, an important relationship between the monarch butterfly and this species of -- well, the species milkweed and the fact that them feeding on this makes them distasteful to predators is a really important component of their biology and also their habitat requirements. [2:40:12 PM] So if you look at the spring migration and watch this slide because it is live and you can see what happens during the spring migration and how Texas really is one of the first places that gets hit and hit very, very heavily with monarchs who are laying their eggs, their first generation of four generations that migrate all the way to Minnesota and sometimes as far as Canada. This U.S. Fish and wildlife service slide highlights the importance of the I-35 corridor in this migration. Both north and south. The I-35 corridor is actually sometimes referred to as the high immigration funnel because so many migrate through and along the corridor on their way to Mexico. And Texas again on that southern migration is hugely important as a place for the monarchs to fatten up on nectar before they continue their journey to Mexico, where they overwenter and live off the fat reserves that they have attained on the nectar plants on their way south. So where are they headed? They're headed to the oyamel forests in Mexico. And there are -- they overwinter at 19 different sites in Mexico, but today there are only seven sites that are active. They arrive between October and December, and the way they estimate the number of monarchs is by looking at that population in Mexico. That's where all the counting is done, because that's where the concentration of monarchs actually is. [2:42:20 PM] So if you look at this slide, you can see that from 20 -- the area populated by monarchs in 2013 to 2014, the estimate was .67 acres. And that is a decline of approximately 90% from the 1994 to 2013 average. So there's a huge decline in this population and, again, these Numbers are all counted in Mexico, at the oyamel preserve or areas. And what they're looking at is the area that is inhabited by these butterflies. So what are some of the causes of decline? They're really four main factors as far as the decline. The loss of milkweed breeding habitat due to increased herb site ooze, logging in Mexico, climate change and also the use of insecticides particularly in agricultural areas. So what can you do? What can we do? Plant native milkweed where it is appropriate, and I do say where it is appropriate because sometimes in a home garden situation, tropical milkweed actually has a role and that's simply because it is one of the easiest types of milkweed to grow and also it prefers a richer soil and many of your native milkweeds do not. So on your ranch lands, areas that are overgrazed, et cetera, that's where many of the native milkweeds should be, wide areas, roadsides, park lands, et cetera. Make requests for native milkweed at your nurseries. Get the drum kind of rolling that people want native milkweed and this is important. [2:44:22 PM] Plant native nectar plants, particularly important for the fall migration, maintain an herbside and pesticide-free landscape and if you have tropical milkweed consider cutting it back in October. There is a side about tropical milkweed that it may actually have adverse effects on the monarch butterfly. But it is also still very much under study and in discussion. Become a citizen scientist and report sightings to citizen science programs such as journey north, inaturallists that way you can become a part of the solution and help people understand better what is going on with the monarch. And work with the city of Austin and national wildlife federation to become a trained habitat Stewart so that you can do your part to spread the word and to educate others. So that's what I have for you. If you have further questions, you're welcome to contact me. And I did want to invite Meredith gray from wildlife Austin who runs the habitat stewards program for the national wildlife federation and for the city of Austin to say a few words. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Pool: Hi, Meredith. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers. I work with the city of Austin parks and recreation department. And I work with the wildlife Austin program along with my colleague. I want to fill you in briefly on a couple of initiatives we're working on to bring back the monarch population here in central Texas. First of all we're launching our individual pollinater challenging for Austin residents that will help southeast their pollinater habitat. Launched later today. Wee also have -- our program will fund monarch weigh stations for any facilities able to qualify as monarch way stations. A large component of that is landing milkweed of course so that's going to request our colleagues to establish that milkweed. [2:46:31 PM] Third component is we are actively training staff and volunteers in collection. So we are very much interested with the wildlife Austin program and helping to work with national wildlife federation on encouraging the monarchs here in central Texas. Thank you. >> Pool: Great. Any questions for either? I did want to direct my colleagues to look in your binder. We have a proposed resolution we're not taking action on it today. Thank you, Meredith. But I have been talking with Sara Hensley, director of the parks and rec department about this resolution, and trying to expand the milkweed propagation and, frankly, just nectarring flowers far as far and wide as we can. Including here at city hall if we're able to plant additional natives here at city hall we'd like to move forward with that. This is here for you to look at and we'll move it forward as we get additional cosponsors. Anybody have any other questions on that? >> Zimmerman: I have a quick question. >> Pool: Sure, councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: I don't know this for a fact but I did catch caterpillar that looks an awful like one I saw eating up my dill plants. >> Pool: Good thing. That is a good thing. >> Zimmerman: Well, I really like the herb dill and I was really upset that caterpillar ate it all. May not be the same one. >> Pool: That's right. It's a black swallow tail. I promise you they won't eat the entire plant and dill and felon fennelweapon we'll be healthier in the environment for having those butterflies throughout. Thank you for mentioning that. That's part of why I wanted to nut on the agenda, the very fact that this piece of education, a lot of time folks see caterpillars and they think they should just kill them. [2:48:39 PM] I would ask you not to and assume they really will turn into something quite beautiful and helpful. >> Zimmerman: I never saw the butterflies. I only saw the caterpillars so I just quit growing the dill. >> Pool: Well, we can have a -- a conversation later. [Laughter] I will tell you the caterpillars will crawl and you pupate elsewhere. They'll go do that quietly where you probably won't find them. Next thing, item 4, discuss nominations of three members to be voted on the open space, environment, sustainability to the parkland events task force. This also -- I didn't receive any names yet but I wanted to draw everybody's attention to this so that we can make our recommendations as soon as possible per our council resolution done on March 5 of this year. And this speaks to what Jennifer Houlihan was talking about, we're looking to have a balanced appointments on that. We do have some appoint tease, I think three or four people have been appointed. This committee is responsible for bringing an additional three names, aside from the names that each one of us will be putting on that. On that task force. Microsoft tovo, do you have something to add? >> Tovo: Not at this point. I think I have gotten some good recommendations of several individuals who are deeply involved in the music industry here in Austin, and I think it's very important that this task force does have representation from those in our community who are -- who produce events, including at our parks, so that we have a balanced discussion and can incorporate those perspectives as well. So that's one of the perspectives that I'll bring to looking at at the nominees across the board, as councilmembers make those appointments and looking to see whether the three slots that our committee recommends ought to pick up some of those individuals. [2:50:46 PM] So I do have some recommendations that I've received, but I think it's more appropriate to see who our colleagues appoint and then look at where there may be gaps. I would say we had asked the parkland task force to report back as early as June, at least, with -- at least with some initial recommendations, and they're going to have a real challenging doing that since they haven't been able to meet yet. I would encourage any colleagues who haven't nominated anybody yet to give that thought so we can get that group meeting. Clearly we'll have to revise the schedule as well. It is really a priority for the community to have that group up and working so I hope they can do that soon. >> Pool: I'll just echo that and emphasize the importance of getting the nominations in. Any other comments on that item? Okay. Item number five, councilmember Zimmerman had asked staff to give us an update on the potential of collecting hazardous household waste in the district. Bob ged ert did a very nice, inclusive report available for public viewing as back up. It's attached to this agenda. And as this was councilmember Zimmerman's initiative, I'd see if there's anything you'd like to say about it. >> Zimmerman: Everybody thought this was a good idea, but the -- sorry. The price tag on this was a little high so it -- seems like it's high so that's where we got stuck on it. It looked expensive. If there's a way we can get the cost, do I think everybody would want it, that's my first thought. I did look through this material, and I agree with you, it's pretty well-presented and it looks sensible. I'm just trying to figure out how we can get the cost down is all. >> Pool: Maybe one of the things we can do while we're looking at the cost angle on it is try more broadly to educate the public that we are doing this so that we can clarify where the pickup spots are or when the trucks will be going through the neighborhoods. [2:52:56 PM] And maybe that would be an additional push that we can do. I know that Mr. Ged dirt is here in case there are specific questions anybody has. >> Zimmerman: I do have a question if he could make come up. I cast curious it says in 2008 there was a pilot program and, you know, there were a whole lot of vehicles that came. Sounds like kind of got overwhelmed. The question there is that's a one-time event. If this were to be a routine event there wouldn't be a crowd like that, wouldn't be a lot of stuff to pick up if it were done on a regular basis. >> Director of Austin resource recovery. I think that's a good assumption. I think if we rolled with the proposal of one per district, I believe we'd be overwhelmed with about 1,000 cars on the first try. If this cyclical and people knew it happened on a regular basis I agree with your assumption there. I would -- >> Zimmerman: Sorry, what is the -- what is kind of -- if you could outline the top cost drivers on this. If you'd analyze that for us. >> Yeah. With tcq, Texas commission on environmental quality, their limiter are 45-day plan of action on how we manage the site. And it does require a contractor on-site. We can deploy staff but it does require a contractor, professional contractor, that handles these events. And that's the primary, most expensive part. Also, the disposal costs. So half what have we collect, approximately half what have we collect, can be recycled or reused like paint and other items, but the half that needs to be disposed of, there's a high disposal doss that, and that's a driver right there. So what we look at is cost per vehicle. We're kind of looking at how many are coming in, average of quantity, and that's how we calculate the cost, is the number of vehicles. And we're in -- is in the cost estimates we're assuming 1,000 vehicles. >> Zimmerman: Okay. Now my question is I thought we had looked at this as part of the recycling program we have. [2:55:04 PM] So we have recycling now and you mentioned that some of the materials that are collected actually can be recycled and some can't. Why not append this idea to the existing recycling that we have now? Why create new collection centers? >> The items we collect at the hhw facility on business center drive just south of the Todd lane and 71, we collect all those items that you had noted in your posting. And half of those can be recycled, half need legitimate, reasonable disposal. And so the current program we collect, Donald, 50% recycling? 40%? >> We're at 40 right now. >> 40% of what we collect at our current facility is recycled. And I introduce Donald hardy, my manager and expertise on hhw. >> Zimmerman: Okay. We'll pick this up later. You gave me ideas. >> Happy to work with you on the issue. >> Pool: Thank you so much. Any other questions? Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I'll make them quick, but I assume that when you prepared these costs, you considered things like if we're doing lots of events that we might get a break on the cost from the contractor? >> Yes. >> Tovo: Are those kinds of things factored into the prices you gave us? >> Yes. We looked at volume and type -- number of customers, number of cars, as well as number of events. There could be a cost savings measure of maybe five events instead of ten, where you group two districts together. You still have the volume of cars, but there might be some cost savings with the contractor on that end. >> Tovo: So there could be some volume savings with the contractor? >> Yeah. >> Tovo: And those have not been factored. Speaker1: The estimates? >> Actually, I think you're right. I don't think a volume deal with a contractor has been calculated into it. We're looking at the individual event calculations. [2:57:07 PM] >> Tovo: Okay. All right. Thank you. And I guess I do have another question. I'm wondering if it's possible, if -- we pay to dispose of 60% of the things that go to that hazardous waste facility. Is it possible that you might realize some cost savings -- I would assume that you might 8 some cost savings in that line item for that budget if there are more regionally based collections around the city. So maybe you're just displacing some of that cost with these -- with these more -- I'm struggling with the word. With the ones around the city. >> Yeah, I followed the line of thought. I might disagree on that because when you enlarge the collection to be more convenient to the public, you're capturing new households into the system. And my past history in operating these types of facilities, as well as dropoff location like, that we don't have the savings at the main facility. >> Tovo: I see. >> It's augmented. >> Tovo: Got it. >> That actually is why I support the concept, because we're capturing more households, but I don't normally see the cost savings. >> Tovo: Okay. It will just expand our collection. >> Exactly. >> Tovo: Thanks. >> Pool: Thank you so much for coming. Appreciate that. We'll move on to item 6. A discussion regarding the sustainability of the city's aquatic program operations, and I think Kimberly Mcneeley for parks and rec, sure, whichever microphone you'd like, is here to talk about >> Pool: Thanks to y'all for being here today. [2:59:08 PM] >> Thank you. Kimberly Mcneely, assistant director for the parks and recreation department and with me is my colleague Sheryl Bowlin, the division manager over aquatics and athletics. And we're here today to talk about the sustainability of citywide aquatic operations. And before I start, the biggest question that has been brought forward to me in the last couple of days is why now? And why you? And I would say well, if not me, then who? And if not now, then when? And I wanted to just preface this by saying that in 2013 our department gained some new leadership in the aquatics division and so we have a little bit of a different perspective on aquatics than we had before. I'm not saying right or wrong, I'm saying a different critical analysis of what's happening. We have the aquatic assessment that was completed in July of 2014 that provided us some data. We did leak detection tests in 2013 and 2014, which provided us additional information. And our department's also become more proficient in data collection and data analysis. So therefore all of those items collectively gave us information or provided us with a set of stuff for us to take a look at and brought us to where we are today. And so our current operational model we believe is equivalent to a business plan that is not successful. We could go as far as saying that it's a failing business plan. If we were in the private sector, this business model that we currently have would probably make us bankrupt or perhaps at least put us as a nonoperating entity. [3:01:14 PM] The next several slides will summarize the challenging operational practices and attempt to explain why and how we got to where we are today, provide some short-term or immediate responses to what we're about to learn and then also a long-term plan. We don't believe that our current operational model is environmentally, fiscally or operationally sustainable and we think it's time to open up a discussion for a bigger policy discussion about the city's desired aquatic state. And by that I mean what does our city value as far as aquatics goes? What do the policymakers believe to be true? What does the community believe to be valuable? What do some of our industry experts say is the best way to move forward? And then after we know what our desired state is how do we prioritize the process by which we get from where we are today to this desired state? And I'm going to talk about that mostly at the end of this presentation. So when we talk about environmentally sustainable, please know that we know that the lake is 35% full. I heard on the radio just recently that lcra states that it's 37% full, and that if we lose another 1 10-acre feet of water we'll fall below the 30% mark, and that is really going to put us into a bad position. So we're in an historical drought and we know that's been happening since 2008. In the summer of 2014 an estimated 56.77-acre feet of water leaked from Austin pools and that's equivalent to approximately 18 million gallons. So we're saying that environmental sustainability, the way that our pools are operating today and the amount of water that we're leaking is not a way that this department feels as though we should be moving forward. [3:03:18 PM] And we need to take a look at the issue larger than just what's happening right now, but how are we going to make sure that we don't have this condition two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. I need to let you know that the locations of leaks are not always readily visible. They're underground and usually it requires some kind of excavation. Not all the time. You know, it depends upon the actual leak, but we are saying that we're not exactly sure where the leaks are happening, and if they're happening on pipes that are underground it's going to take some investment for us to be able to figure out where those leaks are. Along the lines of environmental sustainability, the two pools that we've brought forward for consideration -- we've recommended, certainly we think it's an action plan that will help us become more sustainable, but with that being said I also want you to know that we've heard loud and clear what the community members have said. So we understand that we have some thinking to do based upon that. The two pools that we brought forward, a combined amount of 256 gallons of water per day, and you can see what it says and each day is 21,000 gallons and maybe bell twice is about 25 gallons. Each day the amount of water leaked is equivalent to approximately 374 austinites. Not households, individual people, while the combined average attendance at those two facilities is only 328 people. So we're leaking more water than people are attending the pool, if that makes sense. And please know that when we talk about attendance it's compared to other pools within our inventory. [3:05:20 PM] It's not to say that people are not using the swimming pools, that's not at all what the intended message is, but what we are saying is that compared to other swimming pools these two pools have a little bit low attendance than some of the others in our inventory. It's also not to say that other swimming pools in our inventory don't leak because it's important for me to tell that you 25 of our 36 pools have some sort of leak. These two just happen to be ones that are leaking a combined amount of approximately 7 million gallons. When we talk about financial sustainability, the biggest question that I hear from individuals is how did we get here? Why didn't we fix the pools? Why didn't we take care of these things in the past? How did this happen? I want to offer this for you. We as a city, we are 15th in the nation, nationwide as pools per capita. And when you take a look at what other entities, what other cities spend per person, per capita, it's an average of $100. Some of those cities spend as much as 120 to $200 per person on their park system. In 2011 the city of Austin spent $62 per person. And right now we spend approximately sign $69 per person. This is not the only situation, but certainly it's a piece of the puzzle that says that when we are spending less money than other cities who have similar pools per cap tax it's harder for us to keep up our infrastructure. It's also important to know that our pools are approximately an average -- they're not approximately. They're an average age of 50 years old. The life expectancy of a public swimming pool is somewhere between 25 and 30 years, so our inventory is more than double the life expectancy. [3:07:24 PM] And when you have aging infrastructure it requires a little more time and attention and maintenance sand the reason why we're here where we are today is because it's difficult for us to keep up with the facilities and the maintenance needs of our facilities. Based on the results of the 2014 aquatic facility assessment it will cost approximately $47 million to bring all the pools in our inventory in the same condition, not renovating them to anything they are today and the original to their original state it will cost approximately $47 million. City council was kind enough to give us six million dollars, $6.2 million last year to address govalle and Shipe, but that means to bring all other pools up to a place where they would be environmentally sustainable and financially sustainable, it would cost approximately $41 million. Those are $41 million in today's rates, and so I-- for the sake of being able to say four years, a 40-million-dollar price tag. This only addresses our existing pools. Our aquatic assessment tells us we also have service gaps. In order for us to create a swimming pool similar to what exists right now in the majority of our neighborhoods, a square pool that has lap lanes and it looks similar to all the rest of the pools in our inventory, we would need 2,422,000,000 -- another $22 million to be able to close that service gap. When we talk financial sustainability I want you to know that our quality assessment told us we had seven pools that we're calling the seven critical pools and that means that our aquatic assessment is estimating these pools could fail in the next five years without some significant investment. [3:09:34 PM] And they let us know that the significant investment that would need to be made to bring these pools up to par is anywhere between eight million and three million dollars. As you can see by the dates of those swimming pools when they were put into operation, all of them are over 50 years -- I'm sorry, over 30 years. And some of them have been renovated, but that still makes them, even the rent knowvation puts them right at 29 years old. Please know that in the past from 2012 until what we anticipate this year, the parks and recreation department aquatic division has exceeded its budget allocation, which means that it's overspent what it was allocated by the amounts that are written up there. We are expecting to be similar in 2015 as we were in 2014, maybe closer to a half million dollars that we would be exceeding our budget. And so that requires us each year to realign our budget allocations, taking resources from other department programs to make sure that we continue to have the swimming pools open. Parks and recreation. I want to mention that finances and funding allocations are not just the only issue. Funding is only one component of that larger policy discussion because when we talk about sustainability it's not just about giving more money to the problem, but it's about really saying what do we want to do with the precious money that we have and how do we want to create a system that our citizens can be proud of, that our citizens enjoy, that will put an aquatic facility in a space that is feed neisded. How do we fill the gaps? How do we look at the bigger picture? We can focus on the today and now, but what I'm hoping is when we went get to the end of this presentation you will agree with me that we need look at it from a bigger policy standpoint. [3:11:35 PM] Operationally in 2014 citizen advocacy and also council requested that we open the swimming pools the day that school -- I'm, so the day that school was out and then close swimming pools the day that school went back into session. And based upon our attendance calculations, you'll see that we had less attendance -- even though we were open more hours -- this takes into account or some folks will say you didn't open all the pools at the very beginning of the season and you're right. This takes that into account. But you will see that both our neighborhood pools and municipal pools had less attendance even though they were open more hours. So the message that I'm getting from that, and this will be for us to have a larger discussion with the community, is that what we have to offer, while it might be great to be able to get cooled off, but what we have to offer may not be what people desire. They may be looking for something a little bit difficult in their aquatic. -- Aquatic facility. In the summer of 2014 it is true that we did not have enough lifeguards to open every pool on June 6. To date we have 244 guards. We have a hiring class tonight as one of our citizens mentioned. I'm sorry, we call them hiring date night to try to recruit more, but right now we're about 25 less lifeguards registered and ready to go than we had last year. So a lot of folks say to me why is that? Why do you have less lifeguards? What's going on? And I can tell you from our recruitment efforts, we do go out into the community to recruit. We do have -- last year we had mobile application stations. As mayor pro tem tovo explained, we did have a partnership with the ymca and the school district. You can listen to Pandora, can you go to Alamo and see an advertisement. [3:13:39 PM] It's been on the news. We have recruiting posters that we've placed up. We've gone to recruiting events at colleges and high schools. We've recently conversations with goodwill industries to see if there's something they can do to help us. I had a kind citizen call me today and say they will volunteer her time to do recruiting. So we're putting a lot of efforts into that situation, but what we've found is that youth tend to think about summer employment sometime after memorial day, and that just doesn't give us enough time to get all of those folks trained, certified, oriented, on payroll, background checked, make sure that they have all the skills that they need by the first day that school is out. That's about a week's time. So our immediate action that was up for consideration is to close two pools. As you heard some of the citizens say, maybe Mabel Davis and tool close metz. Please know that metz swimming pool is about .7 miles from martin swimming pool and also there is a splash pad right next door to metz. I don't want to disregard the fact that regardless of how close there are to pools, if that's your neighborhood pool and that's your beloved spot to go, I understand perfectly that individuals are disappointed. Mabel Davis park, the coolest to -- Mabel Davis is closest to Stacy or to Gillis, approximately two miles to those locations. We are changing the schedule to allow us to have that staggered opening that we didn't have before and historically the staggered opening has allowed us to have enough lifeguards on hand, ready to guard the swimming pool and not disappoint our customers. When we're able to print a staggered schedule and able to let folks know when swimming pools will be open they won't show up on the first day and be disappointed by the fact that the swimming pool is not open to them. [3:15:47 PM] We're telling them as much in advance as possible. We also are recommending and have implemented a maintenance day. Last year one of our bigger issues were that a swimming pool, which shut down because of some maintenance issue, it could be shut down for an hour, two hours, a whole day, two days, a week, depending upon what was wrong. What we would like to do is implement a maintenance day that allows folks to know in a given region that there's a maintenance day that's happening and allow folks to know in a given region that that pool won't be open and we'll do all of our preventive maintenance, all of the fixing of whatever that filtration system or pool needs so that there's no onexpected closures. I want to let you know that we hear the metz community and so certainly it is an option that our department wants to consider is to not close metz. And if we didn't close metz, that would mean that we would probably leak about 900,000 gallons of water, close to a million gallons of water. However, we would be satisfying the community and allowing them an opportunity to utilize that space this summer because we hear, we've heard how important that is. With that closure, with pets and Mabel Davis closing it's a savings of about half a million dollars. If we chose not to close pets it would just be a savings of 400,000 and I want you to know our department is taking that into very serious consideration based upon the feedback we received last night, the phone calls we received and of course the citizen communication that you heard today. This is tough information to present. It doesn't make me or the department proud to come forward and know that we're disappointing citizens. It doesn't make us feel good that we haven't been the best environmental stewards, but we want to set this up for larger policy and larger value discussion and we want to talk about and we hope that we could have support in talking about a desired state. [3:17:57 PM] And the desired state would be again having conversations with policymakers, with industry experts, with the community, most importantly with the community, about what is a desired aquatic state? Are you happy with a swimming pool that you have? Are you looking for something more exciting? If there was something that had more interactive features or was more family friendly do you think that we could increase attendance? We know we have individuals attending the pool, but we don't know why the individuals who aren't coming to the pool, why they're not choosing Austin's public pools? And so I just have a couple of pictures up there of ideas. One is obviously a playground and one is just simply adding an amenity to a pool that already exists. Perhaps those kinds of things might make our citizens more interested in utilizing the space. We want to take a look at usage trends. Rectangular pools or box pools, are they obsolete or something that the city values? Once people experience -- at least it's been our experience of folks in our division, once people experience the fun of a water park they're less interested in visiting a flat water pool, but we can't make any of those assumptions so we would want to talk to our stakeholders about the trends in the industry and find out what they're feeling. We want to determine Austin's values. We want to -- we were given $200,000 last year by the previous council to conduct an aquatics master plan or a strategic plan, which takes a look at all the pools in our inventory, all the needs that our city continues to have, and it's going to be asking our stakeholders what are you looking for in the future? What's your desired state? -- State in the future? How do we balance recreational needs with safety needs. How do we balance that with program needs? [3:19:58 PM] How do we consider environmental impact, how do we consider economic impact? What's the desired social impact to having a swimming pool in somebody's area or backyard or region or district. How do we make sure that we set these up to be sustainable and that we preserve them in a way that we won't be back in front of council in a number of years talking about the situation that we're in? We want to talk about identifying sustainable components, environmental, economical, operationally, socially and structurally. So as I talked about, we have plans to conduct a master planning process that will include a large stakeholder process across the city. It would also include having a taskforce of individuals that would be appointed. Our ideas is they would be appointed by council. And we would be talking about all the things that I previously said in a larger policy discussion. And then together we would develop an innovative process to get to the desired state and how to get to the desired state. So Sheryl and I are prepared. Just so you know, the previous slide and these slides are Bartholomew park. So this is obviously an aerial before anybody was using it. So we're prepared to answer questions. >> Pool: Thank you, Kim. Any questions? Councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Thank you. That was very interesting and I can remember in southeast San Antonio we had a city park where -- very close to where I grew up and it's one of those rectangular swimming pools that you were talking about, but you bring an interesting point on what people want. If they're not going to the pools. Did you compare, I guess, pool attendance with other cities? Is this a trend going on all over the state or all over the country? [3:22:01 PM] Because I would guess it is probably. It's not just peculiar to Austin that people aren't using pools like they used to. >> So the national trend, as you can read in different magazines, aquatic magazines, and recreation management magazines, consultants, what the national trend says is that if you create a facility that is family friendly and has amenities or features that a whole family can enjoy from young to -- from older grandmas and grandpas all the way down to preschool that the attendance increases. My own personal experience, and this is just my own personal anecdotal experiences, I came from palm beach county. And when we added watersheds and a water playground we increased attendance three fold. We had a rectangular pool that was not -- was not sustainable. It didn't -- it was costing us more to subsidize than the county could afford. We invested in those features and the attendance increased three fold. So if you read the literature it tells us that community pools adding features that the community says are interested to -- interesting to them or creating aquatic family -- family aquatic centers are a way to increase attendance and provide more opportunity for individuals to enjoy the water. Phrasers and if I might add, usually when you combine those features with a place where water safety and swimming lessons and exercise can take place, those seem to be the most successful. >> Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: Thank you for this presentation. Please don't take any of my questions as -- am I on? Okay. Thanks for your presentation. I have a couple of concerns and a couple of questions. [3:24:04 PM] I'm concerned about the conversation being framed in a comparison to the private sector because if we compared most of our departments to the private sector we wouldn't be doing it. We wouldn't run a fire department, we wouldn't run a police department. Much of what a city does is a community benefit. And so I don't -- I know there's other councilmembers who would disagree about how the role of government, but for me this is absolutely a community benefit and I -- I'm very concerned that we're comparing it, a model to the private sector. I agree -- owe I talked to some of the community members that parks is always an afterthought and that's a big concern of mine. And issues like repairs seem to be something that should be -- expenses involved with repairs should be an expected cost of this. For example, our fleets, our fire fleets, our police fleets, all of that is included when we consider our budget, you know, when we have contracts before council, when we're extending contracts, all of that is included. So why aren't we including those expected costs for repair and leaks and stuff in the parks? And I understand the parks department is woefully underfunded and that's a big policy decision that the council is going to need to deal with during the budget discussion. And so I don't know where I read this, but is it true that we don't know what's causing the leaks? In the two pools that are slated for diplomacy sure? -- For closure? >> Yes, it is true. We can excavate, we can bring in some heavy equipment and excavate. We've done leak detection. We've done what we can as a department to try to identify the leaks, but we know in one pool we're losing eight inches a day and another pool we are losing -- excuse me, I just have to look. [3:26:11 PM] In another pool we are losing about four inches a day. And so we've done what we can do as a team and we need to bring in some other experts to be able to do that. But I need you to know that this is the -- these two pools are not unique. There's other pools that are having some leak issues. And that when we made the decision about bringing forward the swimming pools we look a look at proximity it to other pools, how much water was being leaked, how that region was being served. So, for example, there is one district that only has one swimming pool and so if we were to choose that, that would mean there would be absolutely no opportunity to be able to utilize that. We take a look at attendance Numbers. So it was a matrix. And I know that, again, I get that if it's in your backyard and it's your pool and it's the thing that you love, all of those factors don't matter, but I wanted to let you know that it wasn't made -- we considered a lot of things before we even brought forward this idea. It was not made just willy-nilly randomly. So to answer your question very simply is yes. It's not just unique to these two pools, it's some of the other pools that we're not 100% sure where the leaks are coming from. >> Garza: If we don't know exactly what is causing the leak, how do we come up with the 1.6-million- dollar figure to fix something we don't know? >> Well, first of all, that was a combined estimate and that was put together by our aquatic assessment folks to say that if we needed to renovate they were estimating that hey, we know that there are some things going on with this pool. They're estimating that to be able to figure that out and make the repair. And I do need to let you know that leak at metz pool was much less in 2013 and increased significantly in 2014 after -- when we got the leak detection test was in August. [3:28:12 PM] It was after the Austin, Texas assessment was completed. So even the $300,000 for metz may be woefully under budget as far as what it would cost to repair that. That doesn't mean all of these are estimates. And bringing these pools up to par are just to create what currently exists, in their original state as they currently exist. It's not to provide any other feature or attraction that people may desire. It's just to get them up and running. >> Garza: Why are we having this conversation just a month before they are slated to be opened? Why didn't this conversation happen in January? >> That's a very good question. [Applause]. It was our best opportunity -- after being able to analyze all of the information that we had, this was the first available opportunity to come forward following all the protocol that would to follow in coming forward, this was the first opportunity we had to bring it forward. I realize it's late in the season and I realize it's very disappointing. >> Garza: So I understood the last council dedicated some revenue to the capital improvement budget for pools. Is there a way to know where that money was allocated? >> Yes, ma'am. You can look in the documents, but I'd like to tell you $6.2 million were allocated and it was allocated for the renovation of govalle and the renovation of Shipe, each one $3.1 million. >> Garza: And there was a suggestion I think by Ms. Noela by possibly diverting funds from the holly master plan to one of the pools. Is that a viable option? [3:30:13 PM] >> Certainly this department could look into that, but I also need to mention that the holly master plan and the decision as to where the funding would go was also suggested and worked -- we worked as a department with council and the stakeholders to make that decision. So it would not be appropriate for us to commit that money right here and now without going back through a process to see if that's something that of the majority of stakeholders and council could support. >> Garza: Okay. Thank you for answering those questions. I do agree with a lot of the community and this is really an equity issue and when you show the list of pools that need repair and three out of those are in district 3, that sends a message that we're neglecting a certain part of Austin. I'm very concerned about that. And I do hope that my colleagues remember this conversation when a possible discussion of a homestead exemption comes up because these are the exact things that could possibly be cut even more if we implement a homestead exemption. >> If I might add, just for your knowledge, when you look -- when we divide it into districts and I know I'm sure this was not intentional. It's just the way it worked out. There's eight swimming pools in district 3, which is the most swimming pools in all of the districts. It has more swimming pools than any other district. So if we were to select to close those two swimming pools there would still be six pools. With that being said I need to repeat it doesn't matter, that number doesn't matter if it's your swimming pool and the one that you like to go to in your backyard, but I just wanted to mention that. >> Garza: I think you're talking about my district with the one pool. I would say drew drew has the one pool. >> You have two pools. [3:32:13 PM] >> Garza: Dittmar and dove springs. To that point I would say many people probably in district 2 go to district 3. They may be closer to a drew pool than a dry -- district 2 pool than a district 3 pool. >> Tovo: [Indiscernible] If I could see the pools by district I think that would be helpful information and also there's a difference between the neighborhood pools and the -- what's the next level? >> Municipal pools. >> Thank you. Because one is free and one is not. So that would also be helpful information. >> We can certainly do that for you. And I appreciate all of the information and the real challenges before the aquatics program. But I just want to echo a point that my colleague, councilmember Garza made. I see in the slides a discussion of the desired economic impact, but I want to be very clear that it is not my expectation as a councilmember that our parks department is going to turn a profit on its aquatics or its parks or its other facilities. I agree that it's a community benefit that we have a responsibility to provide and that the taxpayers who live here expect. And so I think as we move into all of our budget discussions I hope that we'll continue to talk about the really significant underfunding of the parks budget because I know you really struggle in many, many areas to find the resources necessary to make repairs and to provide the programs that are just so important to the youth and the people of Austin. And you're just underfunded year after year after year, despite some of the additional money that's been put in over the past few years. I wanted to ask a couple more particular questions. [3:34:16 PM] It sounds like from your answer that this may not be possible, but I know last year when Shipe pool had some very significant issues you were able to kind of patch it together for the season. Is there any way to do that with metz and from Mabel Davis in a way that would stem some of that water loss. >> Based upon the feedback that we've been hearing those are things that we want to take under consideration, serious consideration, but between yesterday and today, we haven't been able to complete all of the research that would be needed to see what that would look like. But certainly we want to take it into consideration. >> Tovo: That kind of temporary repairs that would keep it working? >> So I guess the answer is maybe, but not in a snooty way. >> Tovo: I didn't hear it as a snooty comment. And I think we've heard a lot about metz, but I would say Mabel Davis has a community and neighborhood around it a as well and they love that park and enjoy that asset. So though we're not hearing from them yet, I would be interested in knowing what -- whether there are repairs. Let me rephrase that and say we may not be hearing from them in the same Numbers, but I think that's important. R. To consider that as well especially because Gillis school park is a significant difference if -- a significant distance and a few neighborhoods over so it's really not in immediate proximity. Can you help me understand what work has been done on the master plan? You may have covered that, but I'm not clear. Is that what you were talking about, about the stakeholder process that we'll be starting? >> Right. The solicitation has been written which would mean that we've created the scope of work that would need to be put on the street for bid and it would be our expectation if we were to move in that -- if we were to move at the same pace that we formry move that that would be completed at the end of summer with discussions starting in fall. [3:36:30 PM] However with that being said we just met this morning knowing how important this issue is to see if there's a way to expedite and start some community engagement even this summer especially since people will be at their swimming pool and what a great day to cap occur captured people's values and their thoughts about their swimming pool while they're utilizing it. So we just met this morning and we'll have some follow-up meetings about expediting that. >> Tovo: Can you help me understand why it's taken to long for the solicitation? Some of the money I think was already in the budget and more money was allocated [indiscernible]. I sort of hope that was all underway and we might a soon be seeing that master plan. >> So the capital planning program or our capital improvement program, there's a schedule and this is one of the competing priorities. So along our capital improvement schedule there's a lot of other projects that are expecting community engagement, that are expecting consideration and expecting us to expedite that too. When we fit it into the schedule it was where it fell in the schedule. I'm not making that as an excuse, but realizing how important it is over the last few days. We also see that it's important to consider expediting. So I guess at the risk of disappointing someone else earlier we put this in the schedule so we would disappoint the least number of people, but we're finding out that this could be disappointing more people than we had expected. So that's why expediting it is being looked at. >> Tovo: It makes sense as you said while people are at their pools enjoying them that might be a good time to engage them. I want to talk a little bit about attendance at pools. I hope that we can get some more information from you about that. I know that you showed us the bar graph and we've got it here. [3:38:34 PM] It has not -- it's not my perception as somebody who is not studying this, admittedly not studying it, but as I go around to neighborhood pools it's not been my perception that there's a real -- that they are underutilized. And just in my hearing from people out in the community about the way in which these function within their daily lives throughout the summer that's not been my perception either. I wonder if we can talk about those Numbers and whether we have a significant -- whether that drop from last -- from the previous year to this year is really signifying anything -- a trend that we would need to pay attention to. I go to Gillis and Ramsey and Shipe and most days during the summer they are so filled with people swimming that can you hardly carve out a little three-foot radius around you to get -- they're just very well utilized, it would seem to me, most of the pools. >> We would be happy to share with you our attendance. We have tracked that and we can send that to you in the same documents that we send the number of pools in the districts as you had requested. >> Tovo: That would be great. Again, I would say even the charts that we saw today don't seem to show that -- they certainly show a little bit of a drop from the previous year, but I would wonder over the last five or 10 years if there's a significant decline that we would be paying attention to and really asking ourselves is this a resource people still want. It would seem to me that our community, again, I haven't been studying or analyzing the issue in a way that some of our staff may have, but I haven't gotten the impression that our square pools or whatever that term of -- that technical term was that our square pools are not [indiscernible]. And I guess at least one of the slides talked about it looked like it had a citation to a water park association. And there may be very good reasons why a water park association is claiming that people would prefer water parks. [3:40:40 PM] I mean, water parks are great, but they're not free. And neighborhood pools are and I think -- >> Nothing is free. >> Tovo: Free for participants within the city of Austin. I hope that as we talk about some of the goals we can talk about some of these things, some of these more particular issues. >> So some good news about attendance is that we recently renovated west Enfield and recently renovated Bartholomew and did see a significant increase in attendance. West Enfield has that community pool feel where there's some features. It's not a full blown water park, but it has some amenities and features that the community helped determine were needed and desired. And then of course Bartholomew has more of the water park features. While I wouldn't call it a water park, it's closer to an aquatic, family aquatic center than any of the other facilities that we have. And both of them saw an increase in attendance. Just anecdotally to let you know. >> Tovo: I appreciate that. I have one very last question. Occasionally it comes up that part of the city's difficulty in recruiting lifeguards has to do with the policies surrounding benefits. So I just want to ask you about that. Can you help me understand what the policies are? Is it accurate to say that our lifeguards considered temporary employees have to be limited to 20 hours a week if we want to work year-round? And if they are 40 hour employees they need to be limited to six months of work? >> That is accurate. The way our department looks at that is in a rolling calendar year, and not just our department. It's citywide. 10-40 in a rolling calendar year. So an individual who is not working with us full-time, who is considered temporary or seasonal, may only work tun thousand 040 hours in a rolling year. [3:42:47 PM] So that works out to approximately 20 hours a week year-round. Or 40 hours a week in a half year. So we hire seasonal temporary individuals to work at our swimming pools because it's truly a seasonal temporary opportunity. It does not offer benefits, it offers somewhere between eight dollars and $10 and 50 cents for lifeguards. So if I might just add, I think part of our recruitment struggles come from -- you have to have a particular skill when you come forward you have to be able to swim. You become certified and have some very good skills when you leave as far as basic water rescue, lifeguarding, being able to help somebody in distress if they are having a heart attack and need oxygen, breathing, aed. It's got a lot of responsibility associated with it and we're paying between eight dollars and $10 and $50. We pay 15-year-olds eight dollars because most 15-year-olds have difficulty finding a job. There's a lot of places that won't hire a 15-year-old. So those individuals are happy to make eight dollars an hour. But as you start to get a little bit older and you look at the resources or the opportunities before you and you can go to a fast food restaurant and make $11 an hour or you can go to a retail and make approximately the same amount of money around you're not disconnected from social media on your phone for hours on end and you're not in the sun and you didn't have all that responsibility that I mentioned earlier, our job might not be as attractive to some for some this is a career path for them and that's what the whole idea of working with aid and the ymca is this isn't just a summer job, it can be a career path and getting people excited about that. And that's what the conversations with goodwill industries is about too, a career path. [3:44:51 PM] So we're trying to look at it from different angles. >> Tovo: I would agree that's a low salary for a lot of responsibility. When you send us the information can you give us a sense of how many full time lifeguards we have? I think the sense I have of lifeguards who are working during some of the winter months and then may -- whether or not they're able to continue throughout the summer. I think has been the question that's been raised a few times. >> We certainly can, number of full time lifeguards. Absolutely. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Pool: All right. I wanted to give the chair of the parks board an opportunity to say anything if you wanted to. >> >> Mic on. >> I just wanted to say when a number of citizens came to see us at our meeting last night, I was surprised that the information had gotten out so quickly because we had just gotten the email from staff the previous day. And I'm pleased that everyone heard about it and understands. What we were suggesting we were not scheduled to talk about the item at all or anything, but what we were suggesting following citizen comments was was it not possible to do whatever minimal repairs could be done and use the pools as Normal as possible after the repairs and look at considering some kind of way of working with the community to figure out what pools need to be closed. I suspect we have pools throughout the city, since the average age of pools is 40 years, that we probably can't repair. We probably are going to have to close them and replace them. [3:46:54 PM] And what I would hope we could do in conjunction, community and parks department, is come up with an equitable way of making sure that no community is left without a pool, without access, without something while any new pools are constructed. So that was the kind of conversation we had. Thank you. [Applause]. >> Pool: I just wanted to take a minute too to emphasize what my colleagues up here are saying. I don't look at the parks and rec department as one of the city's enterprise funds. I don't look at any aspect of it as an enterprise fund. I don't expect the community benefits that are provided to turn a profit. So that would be -- I think that's really important to have out there in the community that there are some of the assets that the city provides. We don't expect them to be turning a profit. I've talked since January about the importance to the city and the residents of the city looking at our parks, pools and libraries, how important they are to everyone. There's really very little disagreement on that. Unfortunately the budget for our parks, pools and libraries has not been at the level that it needs to be at all to take care of the fact -- to recognize the community value and assets that this infrastructure is. So I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues on. -- On this committee when we get to budget and then the larger council too. And call on the community to weigh in on the importance that you place on increasing the budget for our parks and rec department. It will be singular initiative. I think that this council will need to take up and review very carefully. [3:49:02 PM] I had a question on the consultant for the master plan. If it would be possible to look inside the city for someone to do that work as opposed to going to maybe a larger metropolitan community so that we can both keep the money in Austin, but also keep the vibe in Austin. I think that might be a really good idea. [Applause]. And then I would also echo something that the mayor pro tem was saying about the attendance figures. If we could be provided with a longer look back, just a small drop from one year to the next wasn't as insightful as I think would be a good document. I wanted to also read into the record we have two more citizens who have registered their opposition to -- I'm assuming to closing the pools. And that is Carey Cordova, item 6, and Malcolm Yates, also against item 6. Members, anything else? Yes, councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: Thank you, chair pool. Just a quick question. I would like to see more of the stats. So there's leakage in the pool, but also evaporation losses, certain maintenance losses. So the general question is how much are the pools consuming on an aggregate basis. And are we -- is your department giving money to the water utility for water consumption? How does that work? Is there billing or no billing? >> We pay water -- a water bill for all of our water usage. >> Zimmerman: Good. So it means you know what it is, how much water there is. So I guess the other thing is if you have reasonably accurate Numbers on the people who are coming, then it would be possible to figure out what our cost is. So obviously there's a benefit to the pools. There's no question. But there's always that cost benefit analysis. [3:51:05 PM] >> We can absolutely provide for you a cost analysis at each pool based on the amount of operational dollars and then a cost per participant, just so you could look at it. It's just information. It's just data to look at. And also we can provide for you the capacity of each pool. And you're right, you have to take into consideration some water will get splashed out and there's going to be some evaporation. So the capacity of the pool plus what would that pool normally -- how much water would it normally utilize versus what it's actually utilizing so you can see [indiscernible] On top of doing the leak at the detection, how we came up with why we think certain pools are a little less environmentally friendly than others. We can give that to you. >> Zimmerman: Another thing for councilmembers is to think about priorities for the different districts because there could be different priorities, right, between the different districts. Some districts might really, really want their pools and are very, very valuable, but for other districts not. I know that doesn't make your job easy, but still to have some flexibility between the districts to decide how to allocate money, that could be a way to resolve some of the issues. Because I was a homeowner director in my canyon creek neighborhood and we had a big debate about whether to build a second swimming pool, talking about the cost. And it was a pretty difficult Vy sieve issue. We ended up deciding not to do the extra pool not just because of the extra cost, but the ongoing maintenance costs were so high. But it could be a local decision. If there were some way to do that, that would help calm down the politics, I think. >> Pool: Thank you. Any other comments? >> Garza: I do. To that point that's what I was going to say and a perfect segue. I guess I just want us to be careful when we're making statements like kids don't want this, this is not -- this is not the model that they want. Especially when it was also stated that we don't know what the community wants. We don't know what the community wants, but we think that they want this. [3:53:07 PM] I just don't want us sending a message that we know what they want. And I would agree that it could be district by district because if the reasoning of splash pads is because once a child goes to a water park they don't want anything less, there's districts where children can't afford to go to water parks. So they've never been to a water pack. So I just hope when we're having this conversation that we can be careful about making these assumptions of what -- because it would be -- I would say it would be unique to the district and to the part of town. >> I agree and that's why we hope that the taskforce and the stakeholder process will help guide what it is that people value. And you're right, people may value different things in different parts of the city. >> Pool: Thank you so much for coming and making this. Probably the prospect of this was daunting, but I appreciate you walking us through it and providing the information so well to the community so we can take it in and start thinking about it and hopefully make some changes that will benefit everybody. All right. Anything else on item 6? Okay. Item 7. And -- >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Pool: Could you check with the folks in the audience and see what it is they need? >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Pool: I'll read again the names that I have. And if anybody has any information, feel free to -- and we will be having a public hearing on this. This was not posted for public comment. But we did take in sheets, yellow sheets from people who wanted to express support or opposition to these items. And I will also mention two of the councilmembers may need to leave to go across the hall to the mobility committee meeting. So -- and your name, ma'am? [3:55:11 PM] >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Pool: I did read your name. Pam o'connor had registered against item 6. Elise Montoya, Bertha delgado, Roman mall Dan in addition dough against six, Sharon Blythe against six. And then the additional two that I got later, corrie Cordova against 6 and Malcolm Yates against 6. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Pool: We actually had eight people at two minutes today and we had more speakers than that sign up. So when we have time -- we will have a longer conversation on this. And if you would like I would be happy to -- >> Memorial memorial. >> [Off mic]. >> Pool: We need to move on. Let's see, seven is consider and develop recommendations on an amendment to the August 2013 parkland improvement and use agreement with the west Austin youth association regarding Lamar beach and town lake metropolitan park. Kimberly, are you Teed up for this one also? >> I'll save you -- two minutes because I don't have to walk from the back to now. If you don't mind I'll start on the background. The side will come up that will give you all of the information about the background. December 2013 city council authorized the department to negotiate and execute a parkland improvement agreement between west Austin youth association and the parks and recreation department. And later on I'm going to show you a slide that tells you where Lamar beach at town lake metropolitan park is, but that's what this agreement was for. And the basic terms were 25 years with one 10-year extension. [3:57:12 PM] The renovations were to begin six years after the agreement was effective. And they would provide improvements to the field, put in a press box, put in other amenities that would be decided and other benches and playgrounds and things of that nature and we're look take 10 plus-million-dollar investment. They would maintain six fields for use of -- for waya to have priority use and maintain one field at all times for public use, which would mean that the public would always have access to a space at Lamar beach town lake metropolitan park. And they would be subject to all the reporting requirements. That includes serving predominantly Austin residents. The parks and recreation responsibility is that we provide a per field stipend for the and that we would have the priority use of six fields for their program. We meetinged and executed that agreement and in August of 2014 the city council approved a resolution that asked the city manager to please reenter into negotiations with west Austin to modify the contract that I had just described to you. And what they asked us to negotiate was an extended agreement for a term of 50 years plus one 25-year option, which would be a total of 75 years. Allow 10 years to construct the improvements after the Lamar beach metro park master planning process and the opening of the Pressler extension occurred. [3:59:13 PM] And then to negotiate a mutual parking and controlled access agreement so that wia would be able to have parking available during their programming. So this is a map of the area. If you take a look, the green space that north of west Cesar Chavez and west of Lamar beach. It kind of comes into that little point, that is the space that we're speaking of. That's the area that the way association would be renovating and that would be -- the field to the very far right of that or to the very west right next to Lamar is the field that would be available for public use and there's a parking lot right there associated with the ymca. That's the public use field. This is a map of the proposed Pressler extension and so you can see that the Pressler extension is happening at the far west part of this property. And it requires a road to be built from fifth street through -- over the railroad tracks, taking up a little piece of parkland and ending in that traffic circle that would allow cars to exit on to Cesar Chavez and eventually into the managed lanes of mopac. The west Austin youth association is concerned if they put a lot of investment in their fields right now and the construction comes in they will have to redo their field. They would prefer to have that construction to happen and for that entire process to finish and then have the opportunity to invest in the fields, which is why they're saying please give us 10 years to finish everything after that construction and the master planning process is completed. [4:01:14 PM] So just to give you a comparison of the two, the original agreement was 25 years, the new agreement is 50 years. This is 10 years, the new agreement per the resolution says. Please 10 years to complete the construction and that it -- the 10 years, the time, the clock doesn't start ticking until the master plan and the Pressler -- the master plan is complete and the Pressler extension is complete. And originally the agreement said from the date of the execution. You only had six years from the date that we executed, which would have been August of 2013. So just to give you a little bit of background, this is a parkland improvement agreement along with a maintenance agreement. And so I just wanted to give you a little bit of a comparison. So other youth sports organizations that the department works with have also invested in our park system but not at the same amount as waya has committed to. You can see $100,000, $45,000. And please know we are very thankful for any investment in our parks. Waya is talking to us about a 10-million-dollar investment. Another thing that sometimes for -- this is just for comparison purposes, we have community initiated projects, which are folks that come forward and say we'd like to do something really cool in this park, but normally there's no exclusive use that has anything to do with the community initiated project. And those projects again are a thousand dollars to about. [4:03:25 PM] So we see this way agreement more in line with a public-private partnership although it is called a parkland use and maintenance agreement. When you look at -- when you try to look at consistency of terms and those sorts of things it's more comparable to these types of agreements. Our request is to ask for an execution of the amendment to the 2015 parkland and use agreement between west Austin youth association and the parks and recreation department regarding Lamar beach at town lake metropolitan park as directed by the resolution that was forwarded August 7th, 2014 >> Pool: Thank you, Kimberly. I see Melissa morrow is here. I just wanted to thank west Austin youth association for the many years of good stewardship and the great ball playing that happens on the fields at Lamar beach. So the specific changes we're looking at in here is -- would give ten years, under 1d, the amendment deletes the within six years the effective date of the agreement to be within ten, and in section 9, subsection a, we extend the term of the agreement from 25 years to 50, with one period of extension of 25 years up from ten. And that is to provide a margin of time and planning for west Austin youth association, considering the large changes that are happening in that part of town. And then under exhibit D, the ball fields maintain standards, I think the resurfacing and LE painting stripes would be done as needed instead of every two carriers. [4:05:30 PM] I don't know that you in connectioned that but we have that in our document as well. >> I did not, only because I wasn't part of the resolution -- it wasn't part of the resolution but was something when we were negotiating the new agreement that certainly we agreed that would be appropriate. >> Pool: Ob. >> Pool: Okay. Colleagues, any particular questions on this? Did anything you wanted to say? I see the vote was 1-0. >> We were concerned about the ten year time frame and concerned about the 50 years because things can change from either side and we felt it would be more prudent to do a 25 year initial term and extension, but we were supportive in general. >> Pool: You were open to the other side saying -- >> Absolutely. >> Pool: The other part of the conversation, which was it gives them more margin for planning, considering the large changes underway. What I'd like to do, our consideration would extend to accepting this and then moving it on to the council agenda for formal approval. I'm forgetting something. Melissa would you like to come to a mic and remind me? That's right, it was a timing thing, and it was the end of may that you were needing this to be on a council agenda, that's correct, and so, Kimberly, if you could make a note of that. It would be the last council meeting in may, not the first one. Thank you so much. >> Garza: So are we moving it to council with the recommendation that staff -- staff's recommendation? >> Pool: That's correct. >> Garza: Okay. Do we need a motion for that? >> Pool: It's only the two of us here right now. We can wait until the Microsoft comes back to vote. I think that's it on this item. [4:07:32 PM] Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you so much. >> Pool: Microsoft is back. What I'd like to do is move we amend the additions and amendments to the agreement, where the staff recommendation worked out with the west Austin youth association and have that appear for council action at the last council meeting in may. And that's what our -- what we're looking at now. Does that sound good to everyone on the dais? >> Garza: Sure. >> Pool: Looks like unanimous with councilmember Zimmerman in the mobility committee meeting. We'll move to item 8, which is consideration of -- consider and develop recommendations regarding the negotiation execution of a 50-year license agreement with decker lake golf LLC to provide funding, design, maintain services for a golf course at Walter E. Long park. I do have speakers signed up who would like to speak and we also have a presentation from Brian Rogers. Is Mr. Rogers here? Okay. Good. I also have made available -- we have a handout with portions of this presentation. Brian, come on up. There's also extra copies of this document for anybody who would like to see it. And then what we'll do, welcome, Brian. What do you think? Would ten minutes suffice? >> Yes, ten minutes will be fine. Thank you. >> Pool: Demonstrate. >> Pool: Great. I wanted to give Mr. Rogers an opportunity to present information he's compiled. To date we've primarily heard from staff, from the different departments in the city, and the folks who are advocating for the government course. [4:09:35 PM] And this is an opportunity to hear another voice. So welcome. >> Thank you jay. >> Pool: Welcome, Brian. >> Thank you. Since this is not the economic development committee I'm not talking about any economic development issues in particular. This is the mayor's item referral, there's four items, and I'm going to go through them. Is this an appropriate use of parkland? What one of the developers said in response to councilmember tovo's questions about the market is -- says with respect to if there's a market for this type of golf, I think that currently or five years ago I would have said no, but with the growth of downtown hotels, our market is basically leveraging the new hotel market that's coming, the jw Marriott, the Westin. So what the developer is saying is this is about creating an amenity for downtown hotels. He's saying our market is leveraging the new hotel market that's coming. So is that appropriate use of 735 acres of parkland as an amenity for hot hotels. I say the answer is no. This is how big decker is. It's larger than Miller redevelopment. How many baseball diamonds could you fit on that 735 acres? There's capacity for a lot of other things other than a golf course, which was a long time ago proposed. The developer has 24 acres that abuts the property, has another 24, so that's under contract, but he's not even in the city limits, right? So that developer's land, the hotel, is not in the city limits. It would pump, according to their figures, over 90 years, almost 15 billion gallons of an aquifer we may need from. Golf is in a downward spiral. Kevin will try to tell you, oh, no, it ticked up in the last couple years but that's not true. He cites the national golf foundation which clearly in January said 20% existing golfers are poised to quit in the next ten years and it fell last year. [4:11:44 PM] So not an appropriate use of parkland. Does it run afoul of legal provisions? Let's go through the genesis of the deal because Ms. Hensley sent you guys a memo saying that the city was approached in early 2014. Well, that's not true. The city was approached in early 2013. Here is here calendar records, the meeting with Richard sutle and Warren haze, a full year before anybody knew about it. Here is July with sue Edwards and Rodney Gonzalez. This deal is cooked a full year in advance. Here it is in October. So come February of last year is only when Kevin is trying to talk to Mr. Sutlle here and he says I'm meeting with purchasing and legal next Monday so I need to get up to speed on the deal. What they're doing is they're clearly giving decker golf the inside track and the rfps is really a cover for somebody who has already been decided who that will be. Even last fall with regard to the alien nation provision, the Ms. Hensley says this changes the course of action agreement to a lease. We ant can't have that. Basically they're evading the spirit and requirement of the city charter. And that's not what the city charter is about. This -- the amount of this land is huge. Owe they say it's cancelable. It's cancelable. The domain was sell skeletallable. You skies guise can cancel the domain subsidies right now. All you have to do is fail to attribute the funds, fail to budget the funds. And as it reads it says this owner, which would be Simon properties, at this time should not be entitled to recover any damages from the city. [4:13:51 PM] I spent a lot of time, I spent years and $100,000 trying to get the city to walk away from a contract that the developer agreed they could walk away from and they won't do it. So let's keep our word. The city will never walk away from the decker deal either. It will be iron clad. The purchasing department and -- there was a whole violation of the no contact provision. I mean, I filed through bill Aleshire a whole complaint because as you can see here they were under a no contact timed period and Ms. Hensley is saying I want you to know this guy is really pushing Kevin employer million. So under the no contact period the proposer is pressuring city St. That's not the way the no contact is supposed to work. In fact, it's a complete disqualification, but the city manager overlooked his own regulations and they decided there was no violation. This is just one after series of them. Does it run afoul of alienation. Is this the best way to leverage it? Let's look at the Numbers because the first three years we don't get a dime. The first money comes in in the year 2018 when the first course is -- is finished. So we have to look at their saying the years 1 through '10 that pard will get $3.8 million. No price reductions for hot Summers the the first course built in 2018. The second course and short course don't have to be built until 2023. Community benefits all arise from the short course and from the extra money that the visitors will be paying, but you won't see that in eight years. Eight years a is long time. A lot of those people who are living there, kids will have graduated from high school and gone on without one dime of community benefit. [4:16:02 PM] This is how they say the rounds of golf will be. They're not even required to build a second course by the way. They're only required to build the first course. The projections are overblown on the rounds of golf. Now, you've asked -- you've probably heard what are they going to charge for the green fees? Well, the developers have been real cagey with that, say we don't know yet. Well, actually they do know and we know because you can reverse engineer the economic analysis and using a little algebra in the fir year the visitor green foes are $176 and the local is 105. If you run out the years that means in year 10 the visitors has to pay 289 and the local 173. The talk to local golfers and they're not going to pay 173 bucks. These are the way the green fees are going up. Mr. Although gill I have said in the paper $110 for out of town guests. We can't get that in the summer, it's too hot. We'll probably get $100 and locals golf for gift. So during -- for 50. During the summer and hot times, only 50, where does that show back in these Numbers here that it's only going to be 50 bucks for 30, 40% of the year? Well, it's not in there. He says we're running at 30 to 45% capacity at gifting golf courses of the recently he's act like that's pretty standard. It is in this day and age because golf is in a free fall and if it drops much more I'm sure that it will be in the red and maybe some of us in the red now. I don't know. But 50-dollar golf at decker will draw away municipal customers and create additional pressure on the golf surprise fund. So you ask a golfer you want to golf at Kaiser for 30 or decker for 50 and they'll say here I come to decker. [4:18:04 PM] And the PGA, it is coming to Austin already, but will it stay? It moved -- this tournament moved six times in 17 years. It's all about who is going to fund them. And right now it's Dell. Dell may enjoy that for four years and it could be over and then it's just another golf course like the rest of them in the country. So we so we had a deal summary. Here's a lot of them that -- I want to ask, there's nothing in the provision, what if a hotel owner wants to -- to charge only $30 for golf, and -- and $100 for his hotel rooms. I mean, he could make -- the owner of the hotel, all sorts of deals to pair golf with the hotel. In fact, they could even, you know, it's not clear in the contract that the clubhouse has to be built. The rft is not a part of the contract in a way that it has to follow the rfqs. It's a demonstration that the -- that the developer was capable. But it's not part of the document that make it a requirement. So the developer could pretty much, you know, MIX and match how he wanted in order to -- to get more revenue for their own food and beverage service. I mean, why put a bar -- the fancy bar on the public when you can put it on the hotel and make all of the money? Okay. 735 acres is -- if it's probably worth 40,000 an acre. I have searched all over loop net and the commercial brokers, I've been in the commercial brokerage business for almost 30 years, there is no replaceable property anywhere out there. Period. But if you could find it, it's $30 million or more. So if you are going to be mercenary about this, saying I'm going to make money on this, let's go out and buy some more, the only way that you would have to -- it would have to spin off enough revenue to amortize a new bond to buy another $30 million worth of land. [4:20:11 PM] It doesn't come any closer. It's not a good deal. Pesticide, I talked about this briefly, since y'all have aquifers, I did all of the open records for Morris Williams. Here they're putting 288 pounds in one application of oxide diazone which kills fish to 72 acres. [Buzzer sounding]. Am I 10 minutes or anything? No. >> Yeah. But you can finish up. >> Okay. So over 90 careers, that's 18,000 pounds of oxide diazone, should there be a new master plan, yes there should be. This is the things that people wanted and the time. Just to close. There's a fence there, yes, everybody talks about the fence, I think that's the only park that we have that is fenced. So we could have this -- we could open a gate, have sheriff's -- as city dwellers we pay 72% of the county budget. We pay for two police forces and only get the benefit of one, so I think that Travis county should take it upon themselves. The last fall I volunteered to donate $50,000 of my own money, which stands now to -- to take part of the fence down, you can -- they can grade part of the parking lot, do a tree and topo surhave a I with that money. I can -- survey. I can envision a loop road or maybe wya takes a certain amount of the land, all of these other interest groups, whether it's bmx or any of the other type of thing and then coming upon them the city pays for loop road, subs out the utilities, then each of these groups finds it within their special interest sphere to build a park that becomes a people's park. I think that's a much better idea. [4:22:12 PM] So. >> Thank you Mr. Rogers, questions? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Thanks very much, thanks very much, Mr. Rogers. I have a question for you. You used the figure of $30 million for the land. Do you have an estimate based on your research what a lease would be rather than a sale? >> You know, a lease would be probably 10% of this -- of its value. So it would be 3 million or it may be union maybe six percent. It depends, you know, on what's built on it, what residual value there might be for the lessor. It's certainly grander than 128,000 in three years. It would be mean, you know, two -- two million would be be a number that would certainly amortize a lot of debt if you went out to find a new park, you know. >> Any other questions from folks on the dais? I have one question and then we will hear from other folks who have come to register their support or opposition. This -- the land is -- since it's owned by the city, it's not on the tax rolls, is that correct. >> That's correct. I mean, it has a tcad number, but not paying taxes currently. >> If there is a concession on it that is spinning off revenue of whatever amount, there is no additional tax money coming to the city or to the schools or -- >> There's personal property tax based on those personal -- those property -- those improvements that aren't affixed to the land, so there would be some. >> Pool: Okay. >> That's right. >> We may have some additional questions later. [4:24:13 PM] I am thinking about it might be a useful -- useful exercise to have a conversation with you and the folks with the city who crafted the financials so we could maybe understand where their Numbers came from in comparison with yours. Which is certainly a gap there. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I have a number of people signed up to speak on item 8. The first person is Warren hays, for, Warren, would you like to come down and speak? And Veronica vargas, she is also for. You can come down and grab a mic, too, if you would like. >> Pool: Let's do -- what time is it? Okay. Welcome Mr. Hays, good to see you again. I think they all work, you just have to push the button. >> I'm Warren hays, thank you, councilmember, for your time, your consider of this east Austin parkland improvement project. It's greatly appreciated. Walter E long metro park plus golf. This would be a public owned asset. We're asking for no taxpayer investment for the construction cost. This investment to the city of Austin of approximately 18 to $20 million for the first four years, I would consider is a -- is a gift to the city of Austin as an improvement value. Our architect is Austin's own Ben crenshaw, considered by many to be the best golf design firm in the world leading the sustainable golf movement. [4:26:22 PM] This Austin public course would become an instant must play course. Our locals would get a deep discounts and our gulf tourists would gain a premium that would directly benefit residents of east Austin. Walter E long park has the opportunity to become or zilker east. It would greatly enhance the lives in our community, create a sense of balance. It has a real potential to create thousands of jobs in the immediate vicinity and millions of dollars of tax base in our del valle school district. In exchange for the development of Walter E long park, we are asking to become the 69th concessionaire for the city of Austin. These are undeniably a community asset for the areas where they reside. All of these concession agreements, just like ours, were thoroughly vetted by the dedicated professionals at the city of Austin. After staff approved they were brought to the city for approval. It made us wonder, what is the approval record for the council as brought to the council basically how many concession agreements have been denied in the past? So that's the past history of the concession agreements. The most -- to me the most exciting part of the proposal is the Walter E long parks foundation. This is a not for profit that received revenue from golf tourism, 25% of all revenues related to non-golf related improvements in east Austin. Perpetual funding source for park improvements in east Austin. A yes on this project will give east Austin at least 500 jobs in adjacent land development, new parks, massive tax base for del valle and an economic engine that will help end the 50 years of neglect in my community. But most of all, yes, acknowledges all of the hard work and comprehensive planning that has gone into this project by this growing list of community organizations, city of Austin staff and the hardest working people in Austin, my neighbors, the coalition of local individuals that have been committed to bringing east Austin a sense of balance and dignity. [4:28:32 PM] We're going to build a community that we're proud to call home. We're going to let the rest of Austin know that we matter. Thank you. >> Pool: Thank you, Veronica vargas. Oh, okay. Warren -- mayor pro tem tovo has a couple of questions. >> Tovo: I have a couple of questions. I want to look a little more carefully at some of your slides. I'm looking at this one right now. I'm just looking at the number of city departments that you have listed as - - as having endorsed -- anyway, the question that I really had was back a few slides, if you could go back. Right there, thanks. So do you agree with Mr. Rogers' assessment that the community benefit, that the dollars for the community benefits will not be -- will not be generated until 2023? >> I didn't listen to his presentation. So -- >> Sure, well, that's right around my assessment, too, of the agreement based on my review [multiple voices] That those community benefits are not going to be available I believe for the first seven years and I want to make sure that [multiple voices] What I read of it [multiple voices] Accords with your understanding of the agreement. >> The community benefits, as far as the -- on the parks foundation, which is -- would be when the I guess we sell our first round of golf on the 18 holes to our first tourists, so that should be, you know, four years construction, so the first four years we're making investment in the park so there's no revenue coming in. That's just basically we'll invest $18 million. I think that you could argue that's a community benefit in itself, you know, getting the asset put on the ground. Great community benefit. [4:30:33 PM] Them once the parks foundation starts, it will start generating revenue immediately for the golf tourism. When we had the P.G.A. Tour out there, that's a community benefit that will generate a lot of revenue for east Austin. We'll have some -- so I would say after four years out, probably, after construction. As far as cash. [Multiple voices] >> Tovo: Yeah, not the more general community benefits that you're describing. So the short course, though, is not in phase 1, it's in phase 2, so that's the third bullet point here that's -- >> Well, the short course by the non-profit and, you know, the -- I think we're happy to build the short course concurrently because it makes more sense for us to build it while we have the equipment out there. We're going to use the same architect. I think in our agreement we've agreed to build it before we build a second major course, so it's in between the two courses. Probably makes sense for us financially to keep our construction costs down to build it, you know, sooner than later. Maybe even while we build the first course. >> Tovo: The existing agreement, the short course is proposed for phase 2, but I appreciate what you are saying. That there may be an interest in revising that. That gets to the third bullet. The second bullet talks about the bag fee, as I understand your question, that bag fee would be triggered immediately upon opening of the golf course. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: Okay. That is just for out of town players? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Tovo: Okay, thank you. >> Uh-huh. >> Pool: Any other questions from folks on the dais? Thank you, Mr. Hays. Veronica vargas. And then after Ms. Vargas is bill oakie. [4:32:38 PM] Welcome, Ms. Vargas. >> Austin's greatest -- [indiscernible]. Austin's greatest asset is its people. Passionate about our city, committed to its improvement and determined to see this vision become a reality. Austin values and respects its people. We stand together for equal rights, for all persons, especially acknowledging those who have been denied full participation in the opportunities offered by our community in the past. We stand together for equal rights for all persons. Who is standing with east Austin? Who is standing with us? We know who is not standing with us. Brian Rogers is not standing with east Austin. He's an outsider standing against us. The Sierra club and its members are standing against east Austin. The Sierra club is the driving force behind a plan to have the ability to drain two-thirds of our Walter E long lake water and replace it with reclaimed water. Reclaimed water for my community to swim in. Reclaimed water that could devastate our delicate aquatic environment. Could kill other wetland. The making to drain 2,000- acre feet of water from our community lake was done from no input from our community. No consideration of how it would affect us. It was done behind our backs and approved -- it was approved for the study by last year's city council. The same council that berated the parks department for not being -- having enough community input for the development of the new parks for our community. Austin values and respects its people. We stand together for equal rights for all persons, who is standing with east Austin? Austin parks and recreation is standing with east Austin. The citizens who have testified from colony park, Harris branch, imperial valley, Woodland Hills, lbj, winding trails, lakeside, they are all standing with east Austin. [4:34:45 PM] The city manager is standing with east Austin, purchasing, economic development, Austin water, wastewater, legal, watershed. They have all agreed with the park development proposal. They are standing with east Austin. Austin Travis county fair and rodeo, Indian hills ... African-American advisory committee, lbj neighborhood association, agave neighborhood association, whisper valley ranch, colony park, lakeside community, development corporation and councilmember ora Houston, they are all standing with east Austin. We stand together for equal rights for all persons, especially acknowledging those who have been denied full participation in the opportunities offered by our community in the past. Honorable councilmembers, today you have a chance to accepted a message loud and clear by voting to approve the full staff recommendation that you are also standing with east Austin. Thank you for your time. [Applause] >> Thank you, Ms. Vargas. Mayor pro tem tovo vote may have a question for you. >> Tovo: Thank you, Ms. Vargas, I have a question for you. This would be helpful -- well, in any case. I wanted to say I hear your concern about the proposal regarding decker lake, that was part of the water task force report and I would encourage you as -- as the integrated water resource planning task force gets started to please make sure that they hear from you and your neighbors who would like to have inapproximate you the into that particular -- input into that particular proposal into decker lake and the use of reclaimed water. I also wanted to ask you if you could give us some sense of where you live in proximity to this. >> I live maybe a quarter of a mile? Maybe. >> Tovo: So you are a neighbor to the project. Thank you. >> Correctly. >> Tovo: Appreciate you being here. >> Thank you. Mr. Oakie, after Mr. Oakie, Lou mcrearry. [4:36:55 PM] >> This one works, okay. I'm not sure where all of you were on December 9th of 1952 at 10:00 A.M. I was five years old then, so I'm sure some of you all were probably not even born. But on that date and at that time, mayor drake, I haven't been able to find his first name, mayor drake and the Austin city council voted for some pieces of the city charter and they approved it. So here's what it says. The council shall have no power to and shall not sell, convey, lease, mortgage and listen to this phrase very carefully, or otherwise alienate any land which is now or shall hereafter be dedicated for park purposes unless the qualified voters of the city shall authorize such act by adopting it in a general or special election or proposition, et cetera, et cetera. So, in other words, ever since 1952, and still today, it requires a vote of the people. So that's a separate issue on whether you like the idea of this golf course. The bottom line is that it requires a vote of the people. Now, I have no doubt that a powerful company could find a lawyer that could parse the language and somehow claim that a lease agreement is not alienating public parkland. But if the city is willing to take the risk, then they are risking a lawsuit and that's not a good situation. The spirit of the city charter and the letter of the city charter says that it requires a public vote. And as a matter of fact we had a public vote on a golf course and hotel for decker lake in the '90s and it failed. And every precedent that you can think of points to the fact that this does require an election. [4:38:57 PM] And so I'm going to ask you to please do two things. Number one, I would like you to adopt a resolution that sends a clear message to the city manager, that none of Austin's park can be alienated for this kind of a purpose without a vote of the people so that a bunch of staff time isn't wasted doing this without recognizing that it has to be put into the context of a public vote, a public proposition. That's the first thing that I would like for you to do. The second thing that I would like for you to do is in case you decide not to approve this recommendation, if you feel that -- that it's not a good use of the water and if you feel like a lot of people have made those comments, the bottom line for me on this is I think the people of east Austin deserve economic development and so regardless of whether you support this proposal or another proposal, I strongly encourage you to do whatever it takes because they've had a master plan in place for many years and nothing has been done with it, there needs to be a process set up [buzzer sounding] To get some kind of proposal either on this November's ballot or next may's ballot that if it is a commercial project, that can be done to finally bring some economic development to these people after all of these years. So thank you very much. >> Pool: Thank you, Mr. Oakie. Any questions? >> I don't know -- I would like to know if anyone can tell me what kind of parsing they did to try to say that it's legal. Is there anybody here that can explain that? >> Pool: Well, I can answer to the extent of my knowledge is that staff crafted it as a concession and not as a lease, which is a different instrument. >> But what about that phrase about or alienation of public -- the charter was written to cover everything, at least it looks that way to me. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how anybody can get around that. [4:41:00 PM] >> Pool: I understand. Thank you. >> Thank you. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I don't have a question for Mr. Oakie, but I do have a question for our staff. It's my understanding this has been crafted as a license agreement. I wonder if -- I believe we may have talked about this at one of our hearings, I apologize for treading this ground again. But if you could explain to me how -- how staff determines the difference between a concession and a license agreement and if the chair would rather we hold our questions until later, I'm happy to do that, too. But I would at some point like to -- >> Pool: I think that's a good question to get answered, aired out. I see from the law department Gregory Miller who -- >> Let me say, Sarah Hensley, director of parks and recreation, when we were looking at this and we were approached to look at this possibility and we did the request for qualifications, we brought up the [indiscernible] Department and purchasing and other city departments and we worked with the law department who then said this is what you can do, this is what you can't do. So this is how it was decided. >> Gregory Miller, law department. >> What we would like you to do is explain the difference between a lease, license agreement and is the license agreement the same as a concession? >> Okay. So first with lease and license. What's distinguishes the license from a lease agreement or any other kind of property agreement, arrangement, is that the license can be revokable at will, at the discretion of the licenseor, that really is in essence the primary thing. Also the license holder has a non- exclusive use of the land, so they can't kick other people out. It doesn't take priority typically over anybody else on the land. Compare that to a lease. A leaseholder has certain enforceable legal rights. They can't exclude other people. If they are evicted or forced to cut the contract short, there are remedies such as monetary penalties and so forth. [4:43:05 PM] So those are the primary distinctions. A concession agreement, looking at it that way, I would say a concession typically is a category of license. >> And to the point that Mr. Oakie made and it may be where mayor pro tem had the question was how does that interface with chapter 26 and the alienation of parkland and the requirement for a public referendum. >> Sure. Chapter 26 is primary concerned with no longer using the park for purposes, so in this situation we're talking about recreational golf which is consistent with park purposes. And the concept of alienation really goes towards relinquishing control of whatever lapped we're talking about -- whatever land we're talking about for its primary purpose. So just to illustrate, just making something up here, an alienation of parkland would be carving out a lease or giving somebody rights to go operate an ice factory or something like that. Something totally at odds with the primary pickup of the land. -- Primary purpose of the land. Trying to think of the best way to explain this. Alienation would involve ceding our right, the public rights to use a piece of property for its primary purpose. The reason why this would not be an alienation, what we're talking about here, is that the land will continue to be used for park purposes in a very public way. That doesn't fit the typical concept of alienation. >> Pool: So that's your recommendation, your interpretation of that portion of the -- is that state law or is that the charter? >> We are talking about several different things now. Focusing on the charter, this is the license agreement we're contemplating is not an alienation for the same reasons that I just discussed. [4:45:06 PM] We're talking about a license agreement that can be revokable at will for a continuation of park purposes. So ... >> Tovo: Quick follow-up. In your definition, I'm just looking back through the Q and a, question and answer for March 5 where you provide a definition for concession, I believe most of our -- is that I'm sorry, yeah, that would have been through pard. Concession as I look at it is a category of license agreement, I think that phrase has special meaning for pard's operational purposes rather than a distinct legal definition. So pard might want to think of that. >> Given that we have more members of the public here, I want to keep my questions short. I do know that -- that -- I do know when we got back some information about license agreements from pard, they fell into very different categories. I think we do need to get some clarity about -- about how -- how different operations are handled. But thank you for explaining that the legal definition as you see it is that license agreements are a category of concession. >> Rather concession being a category of -- [multiple voices] Yeah, that's right. >> Tovo: Then you said something in your definition of license agreement I wanted to go back to. I think the language that you used was something like license agreements are revokable, which we've talked a lot about in the con sect of this situation. We've said something about the use doesn't take priority over other uses. While I understand that, if we're talking about a license agreement, to put a sign on a sidewalk for a business, it's not preventing me from using that sidewalk. I don't understand -- I don't understand that piece of it and -- in this context. How -- I mean, if I don't pay the admission fee, I can't go out and throw a Frisbee on this land. [4:47:09 PM] So it is preventing me from that use. >> That's correct. Then when I said -- when I said that was more, very general terms, that was probably not the best -- best way to describe a license agreement. I think really the key thing to focus on, it's revokable at will. And I think beyond that, we would be talking about special examples of license agreements. >> Tovo: Thanks. I'll follow -- I appreciate that clarification. I will ask some follow-up questions through the q&a process that I think might help us get a handle on why different -- as you know, one of the things that we've heard is that this is like other arrangements and so I think it's important for us to consider whether it is like other arrangements or whether it's quite different. >> Okay and, you know, as always we stand ready to help clarify whatever we can, whether it be in writing or verbally. >> Tovo: Sure, I appreciate that, thanks Mr. Miller. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Lou Mccreary and then after Lou, Jeffrey Schreiber. Welcome, Lou. >> Good afternoon, thank you very much for all of your time that you have given us this afternoon, I'm Lou Mccreary, only here as a citizen, I have lived in Austin since 1960, I love this city and if this lease goes through, you will be basically given away 735 acres of the most valuable lands the city of Austin will ever own, this is one of Austin's crown jewels. It can serve you many, many purposes of the for example, we have R we are overrun in zilker park, every week, every day, with festivals of all kind and character. That park could be used to put some of those there. We could actually charge for that and make money off of it if that's what you want to do with it. If you just want to do that. [4:49:10 PM] But let's get back to what we're talking about. I'm a lawyer and I've read the lease. And you can call it a concession. And you can call it a license. But it's a lease. It's a 90-year obligation to let them use our land, which the people own, for a high value golf course. Which is totally adverse to 80% of the people who live in Austin, in my opinion. Because it will be high green fees, it will be next to a resort hotel. You've already been told that. And so a people's park will be converted to a commercial use of the highest order, which will profit the converters, the people, and the city of Austin very little. Now then, lawyers can disagree and we do quite often. And we can settle this dispute in court about two years from now. As to whether or not this was a lease or a concession or whatever it might be. I would suggest to you and the council that in the -- in the interest of caution, that whatever you decide to do, if you and the council decide to go forward with this, I would suggest that you put it to the people and a referendum, because if you just think about the purpose of the referendum, it is to protect public lands from being given away because that is the most important resource that we have. Particularly those that have water. Located on that land. So this is not a run of the mill deal. This is not a little concession stand at zilker park selling snow cones. This is one of the biggest deals that you will ever see. And everybody in town knows it. And if it not submitted to the referendum and the council approves what the city manager says you should do, I guarantee everybody in Austin will think that the charter will be violated. That's the common sense of the people, so to speak. Let me get off my high horse and say this. Ha. The main problem with the deal is it doesn't do anything for the people in east Austin or anywhere else in east Austin. [4:51:12 PM] It does not help us with our mobility needs, our infrastructure needs, our job needs, it will not help us from creating a situation which will keep our middle class citizens from having to leave Austin because it's becoming too high to live in. And here we have today presented -- [buzzer sounding] -- About to close up. We have two swimming pools that are about to be closed up because we can't afford them, yet we are considering giving away 735 acres of land to a private developer so they can make money off the deal. That's what we've heard this afternoon. So I would say that to err on the side of caution, I would be very careful of these opinions of the I would like to show you something. Would you approximate you the that up, please, I have two things that I would like for you to see. Number one we don't need any golf courses in Austin, what you see is what I pulled off life this morning. We have about 40 golf courses between temple and new braunfels. As shown on that map. We have about 20 or so in Austin. We have several in many high value, high dollar golf courses where all of the P.G.A. Tournaments can be held. This one will add nothing to what we have already got. So to say we're going to create golf with the citizens, we've already got golf and plenty of it and we don't need another one. So it's not going to satisfy any kind of a recreational need for the city of Austin. May I see the second one, please? The second one causes me some concern. I pulped this off -- I pulled this off line of the city's website. I see here where the city manager's office or somebody has already announced that we have the Walter long metropolitan park golf course, as if it's already there. You are the city council. The city manager is not the city council. I hate to keep saying that, it's the point that someone else raised here. In one of the charts that the gentleman put up he listed the city manager's office as being one of the advocates for this proposal. [4:53:15 PM] Let's think about that for a moment. As I understand the city charter, it is the city manager's job to activate your policies which you enact, not the other way around. I don't think the city manager is in the golf business, but they are. I don't see the city manager being a stakeholder so to speak. I don't see the city manager telling you what to do. So as a citizen, it kind of bothers me a little bit to look up online what we've got here and it's a done deal. As if it should have gone through last fall before our last election. That's all that I have, I will be happy to answer any questions that you have that I can answer. >> Pool: Thank you. Mayor pro tem. >> Mr. Mccreary, I appreciate you bringing this copy for reasons -- anyway, I show that had escaped me. On our website, I agree with you. While it's a proposal be and identified as such, I think this is a very unusual staff for the city to have taken to leave that up for council approval, especially because it uses a fair amount of the language that the developer has brought to us. >> If I may say so, it uses the exact language that the developer has proposed to you. Thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you. >> Pool: If I could just offer before the next speaker, the fact that this appears to -- to be a done deal and the policy decisions seem to be made by staff has been of great concern to me from the very beginning. Jeffrey Schreiber and after Mr. Schreiber, Linda Schreiber is that I hope that I'm saying your last name correctly. >> I would like to donate my time. >> All right. Am I saying your name right, sir? >> Schreiber, yes. >> You have six minutes. >> Makes me wonder how we have any golf courses in the city system at all. It's just -- let's talk about the park. To the open spaces committee, I think the comments are that Walter long is -- is itself a very open space that's closed. [4:55:24 PM] It's the largest park that we have in the parks system, 250 -- 251 I think at the last count parks. It really is the least accessible park that we have. For some of the reasons that you've heard and for the picture that you see and also because of the way the land mass is constructed and has been sequestered for so many years. So 95 spes of that open -- 95% of that open space is really closed. It's unavailable to the public, whether it's by foot or by boat. We just have never been able to utilize this in the way that the master plan anticipated. And the question that I have is how do we open this park? Because we do want this open space. We want the park that was assembled from the public and planned and waiting for, we want to open that and make it available and usable for the public. So the question is how do we do that? Well, why has the park remained closed? I think it's been two reasons. One is where it is. And the other is how big it is. It's clearly it is our largest park by a factor of four and tips the scales against another 100 below it. It's the size of Austin. If you lay out Cesar Chavez, and mopac and I-35 and 38th street, this area is truly the largest project we ever would have conceived and it obviously has to be done in a sequential way. It is a real -- it is a real question, how do we provide the infrastructure and provide for this sequential utilization of this land. I'm not an advocate for keeping it fenced off and away from the public forever or for another 50 years. Now the master plan has had 80 such venues and activities above ground, if you will. [4:57:28 PM] Additional land was added quite a bit, a few, 1200, 1400 acres in addition to what was required for the lake was added for parkland activities, as described by those master plans. The point is that there's room for all of those. Because the land was justified and the eminent domain and the farms that are closed were justified on those different things becoming available sometime and there's room for all. So I don't see this as an either/or. The question is how do we utilize a plan to go forward? How do we fund the park. So this is the part that is available to the public. This was part of the boat dock, picnic area. Little progress has happened here. It's also $10 entry fee, which is interesting to me because it's one of our most expensive parks. And the most when we built that picnic area, there was one restroom built and that's now closed, the drinking fountain doesn't work. That's now been replaced with 29 port-a- potties. So the park as it stands, the accessible park of Walter long, looks like more like a permanent temporary event. And you can see the lack of support that even this small piece has endured. I think the sign was left over from when they built the bathroom because if there was a beach at one time is so overgrown by weeds that the sign should say no swimming because the parents can't see kids, there's no chance for rescue and people do snake through cut paths in these reads and are swimming on the other side. In itself this one area of the park that is available to the public is not a model of what we would consider to be a high quality park and it's certainly a very small amount of access for such a great area. [4:59:58 PM] It has taken a long time to construct, but relative things happen,, the bowl ramp was built, the picnic tables, the power plant that you see in the horizon and the course of the lake, but the rest of the area inside the fence line is inaccessible. I believe that this project will provide the infrastructure and binding that will open the planned areas of the park. To me it's not about making profit. It's a sharecropping deal with the city, if you will, and I won't call that anything other than what it is, a way to help fund other areas of the park and help us as a community open the other areas of the park and improve the existing areas that are so much in need. Comments to the environment? That's part of your purview in this committee. I think the point I would like to make here is that integrated pest management plan is in place for all of the city utilities and all Austin parks are under integrated pest management plan. To me that means there's no double standards. I know people have concerns about how we manage parkland, but areas that are highly managed, onion creek soccer -- [buzzer sounds] Is that double time? >> Pool: That was six minutes. >> I'll wrap up quickly. Highly managed lands, soccer fields, auditorium shores, the great lawn at zilker, highly managed turf areas as well as natural areas all fall under this ipm plan. And I think it is the safety net that's protecting our dog parks, our walking parks, our aquatic parks. And I'm very -- I think it's very important to recognize here as we look at this change in Walter that nothing has been done that that the ipm that Austin abides by will be protected. [5:02:04 PM] So there's an environmental safety that has been implemented the buffer zone is six times larger than the other parks by our standards. In terms of sustainability, our parks are now using reclaimed water and Walter long with this project could bring a new irrigation quality, well sourced. That's very critical for all of our water needs. Deal well water is a potential for geo thermal energy, preheating water at the planned hotel. Potential for gray water use for flushing toilets in that hotel and eliminating the use of potable water as we do now for that. And the effluent from that can be reclaimed and used as future irrigation for this course and for the areas of the park. So I think many of the aspects here address open spaces, which we need and in this case don't have. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and the photos. It occurs to me on decker and the power plant there, we're hoping to shutter that soon, so it makes me think that it's even more important than ever to have -- to take a very comprehensive look at the park and the community surrounding it and the lake. Any thoughts on that, mayor pro tem tovo? >> Tovo: There are lots of discussion in this area, the Travis county expo center is planning and the work that the taskforce is doing or will be doing soon and the discussions about the future of the decker. I think all of these need to be taken a into account. [5:04:11 PM] >> Pool: I have two other speakers. Peggy [indiscernible] And Roy Whaley. You want to donate your time to Roy. Six minutes for Roy. Thank you, Peggy. >> Good afternoon, y'all. My name is Roy Whaley, the conservation chair for the Austin regional group of the Sierra club and I would like to clear up some things right away. I heard earlier today that there was that we changed our minds on the decker. That is not correct. We have remained opposed to the golf course at decker. The other thing I would like to point out that the Sierra club does stand with east Austin. We do we do stand with east Austin, we do not stand with golf at decker. And the reason for that as I've explained before is economic. It is golf is like tying your hopes and dreams to an anchor and dropping it off the end of a pier. Golf is a dying sport. So all of the Numbers that we're looking at are based on the success of golf. And the Numbers are showing that golf is a dying sport. So rather than have the hope for economic engine, the same economic engine that they promised us on F 1 that we have yet to see, but to have instead real economic planning for east Austin, for this area. We've got the homes coming in. We saw the list, we saw the neighborhoods that were included. And by the way, I would like to say Sierra club should be on that list of groups that stand with east Austin, but one that should not be according to chuck Lesniak is watershed protection because they are neutral on this. [5:06:15 PM] So not all the names on the list were correct. But that we should do comprehensive planning for the economic opportunities for our friends and neighbors in this area. And that is the approach we should take on water issues. I would say talk to chuck me zarous where we talked about the reclaimed water. Where we need to talk about the potential that has been mentioned for drilling wells into the Trinity for water that will have to be treated. And then injunction wells used and those injunction wells should then go back to the Trinity. But we -- Austin water has already talked about not wanting to use reclaimed water for this area. So it's not, as they say, brown is the new green. So it's going to be a very environmental golf course. Well, all of their literature shows that green is still the same old green because the photos are all these lush, beautiful, green golf courses. So golf is a loser. Let's not tie our dreams and hopes to a loser. We do want to see economic opportunities presented. We want to see that our previous council has authorized the development of many subdivisions over there bringing in the rooftops that businesses look for in order to locate there. And there are already major grossers looking at sites in -- grocers looking at sites in the area to serve the neighbors. No one will go to a golf to us or PGA tour and say let's grab a ham on the way back to the W. So we will see these opportunities. [5:08:15 PM] I want to make it really clear that the Sierra club stands with east Austin and the opportunities that they have been denied and that they deserve and that they should have now. We do stand with the neighbors on that. We oppose golf as a way to get there, but we do think that this city council should put real effort on not just establishing plan for economic development, but have the follow-through to make it happen. So that the people that live there now can continue to live there, so that the people that are going to be moving there will have those opportunities. But mostly for the people that have been living there for so long to finally have the services that they deserve, to finally have the opportunity they deserve. When we hear that it's going to create 500 jobs at the hotel I don't even think there will be 500 people staying at that hotel because it's just not going to be 500 people want to come to Austin and play golf. Sporadically it will be there. It's going to want to tie its hopes and dreams to f1. And so yes, we want these economic opportunities. We want this park space to stay park space. As the previous speaker said, we'll never be able to afford to buy it again. And so we want, as Barbara Shaw said, people want to come over and look at birds, watch birds here. We want to watch our children swimming. So do we. We want those opportunities for our kids much as I said earlier on the pools, let's stop putting east Austin on the bottom of the list. Let make these things happen for east Austin, but not at the expense of our parks. [5:10:20 PM] And let's not try to pretend and convince ourselves that golf is going to be the savior. And let's do look at our water future because even with all the rain we've had, we're still in a drought and we're going to have to use decker after the powerpoint is closed as part of our water plan, and water is just more important than golf. >> Pool: Thank you very much. I do have four more people to speak. And if it's legal and maybe if our law department advise can advise, the mobility committee has an expansive crowd in the boards and commissions room and if it's okay with posting and all the rest when we're done here they may like to reconvene here. Can you check on that for me, Greg? Or -- okay. And while he's coming forward, margarita [indiscernible] And Richard suttle. And then there will be two more people after that and then those will be all our speakers. >> You're fine as long as you give adequate notice to folks. >> All right. Is it adequate notice for me to announce it here that the mobility committee may be moving here in like, I don't know, 15 minutes or something like that. Melvin wren and Richard suttle. Six minutes for Melvin. And Richard, did you want to speak or are you donating your time as well? Welcome Mr. Wren. And you have six minutes, sir? Good afternoon, I'm Melvin wren, citizen of the community. And been involved, let's say living in this area since 1978. [5:12:20 PM] Let me make a statement so that we're straight and clear. I've never seen a committee dole out minutes in the way in which this committee has done. This is probably one of the most discriminatory practices I've ever seen where you give a person named Bryan Rogers who is speaking in opposition 10 minutes and he takes 15, then you selectively give others. And this is the basis of what's going on right now in Austin. This any, just like a lot of times when it comes before council, it has discriminated against east Austin. It is the most segregated city in the country when you begin to look at the 1928 plan and how it divided along that line. The reason why the park never developed in the first place was because this was going to be a zilker east. So all of the people coming up here, speaking and saying how they would like to see something happen, it hasn't happened since 1968 when harry Akins, a very dynamic individual who integrated his restaurants, tried to get a park. It's been fenced in because that's the way we treat people in east Austin. We discriminate against them and we keep treating them as second class citizens. This area is predominantly minority. It is a high -- income. When you start talking about city investments, the federal government, hud, put three million dollars into the 208 acres. The city has not put a dollar into that area. The federal government put three million dollars and this is the pattern that goes all the way down through history. Every time you get federal dollars for planning, for trying to move forward, you don't come up with public dollars to support that. The persons who speak about reclaimed water, I would hope to put together an opposition and show that that is discriminatory in its practice because what you are doing is denying black and brown citizens an opportunity -- and residents out there an opportunity. [5:14:30 PM] You have a high degree of tax credit properties, for-tax credit properties in the census track. And 78704 is one of your highest areas when you start looking at morbidity rates, when you look at the fact that it doesn't have access to anything, but yet everybody sits up here and denies -- doesn't even look at the economic impact of a 20-million-dollar investment. It goes over three times in the community. As we would look at it. When the revenue comes in its like the other venues that are out there. So we said in our colony park area we would like to attach our revenue stream to the 208 acres. We would like to do the same thing with the repurpose of the expo center to the 208 acres. We asked to have the city put into the budget $10 million for the infrastructure that's going to go into 208 acres. That didn't happen with the last council and when you look at all of the discussions that are going on now, there's no discussion about putting money where the federal government put its money. So when you start sitting here as individuals who sit on the city council, please be mindful that what you are doing is carrying on the same discriminatory, historically segregated practices of your predecessors that started back in the 1920's. And in the 1928 plan, the group that got together that helped approve that plan, two of them set up what they called the Negro park. So when you start looking at the history of Austin, the reason why we have a net loss of African-Americans, the reason why we are considered the most segregated city economically in the country is because of decisions that are made strictly along the line of getting people like Bryan Rogers and the fellow from Sierra club and all of them to come up and be anti-against the black and brown communities that are out there. They don't live there and yet that's what they do. I know when I challenged the banks in the 1990's, I couldn't find Sierra. [5:16:33 PM] They wanted me to stand with them on Barton springs -- the Barton golf course. I would refuse to do that because they wouldn't stand over here in east Austin with me trying to challenge the banks on red lining. So when you start getting into this whole thing and start looking at it from an economic development point of view, you recognize that there is an impact that is being left out of the equation. If you look at 11th street, and I put together a company that did the development, brought in the money, the hud 108 loan money into that project and helped set up Ara, you still have vacant lots where you look at what do they do for Mueller? They put in all of the different monies and gotten Mueller going, but yet 11th and 12th street, which is historically black and brown is now changing because no money has gone into it. Once you will see things come along. So I think when we say you will have economic development that's not true. When you say you're going to have a comprehensive plan, haven't had one for 100 years. When you talk about development in east Austin this is is just talk. There's nothing factual about it. I'd like to just say it as I said on record, this is one of the -- the practice of having a Bryan Rogers come up and speak for 10 or 15 minutes, that's totally out of order. That's something that should never happen before a public forum. He should have had three minutes just like everybody else and somebody dedicate his time. But you allowed him to speak and his conversation, I look at it and say that's hyperbole. I headed up research and development and I know that a lot of stuff he used you can't do that when you're talking about coming before a body. You need facts. You can't speak about something you don't have the facts to back it up. You can make up facts. That's what people do. [Buzzer sounds] The thing I'm sighing saying to this committee is stop discrimination, stop segregating yourselves away from this community and start look tag from the standpoint of rectifying. The land that you talk about, the gentleman said about it being a high value land, a lot of it was taken from African- Americans. [5:18:38 PM] That's what Dr. Urdy talked about was taken from him. And that was used in terms of how it was done. And all of the other African-Americans said that it was taken from are dead now. So high value if it was so high value how come they didn't give them a good return on their money and on their investment? >> Pool: I don't know if you were in the room when I talked about at 2:00, but I did talk about that his comments were invited and he did a longer time to talk because we had not heard from that voice, but had heard from supporters and staff briefings on the decker lake question. >> That was not true. Mr. Rogers spoke back in November. He had time on that, and I think that what you've done is you set up a precedence of selecting people, technically out of the audience, to speak on an issue and give them time that they're not following the same practices as everyone else. That is unfair. That is discriminating against people -- communities I represent and that's the kind of thing that you should not do regardless. You sit in a public space, but you're not practicing a degree of fairness and not being honest and open in trying to create an equitable situation as it deals with this particular community. So that's not correct -- you can invite anybody up here you can, but then they should only have the amount of time that everybody else has. Otherwise you're discriminating. >> Pool: Thank you, Mr. Wren. Are there any questions for this gentleman? Thank you. Richard suttle? >> Test, test. [5:20:42 PM] Madam chair, members of the committee, I'm Richard suttle and I represent decker lake, I probably know more information about this and how it started and where everybody is. What I find interesting is the process that this is going through now with this new council is not the process that we normally give a project of this magnitude. What I'm here today to ask you to do, it is clear from what you have said, what you have left unsaid, and the way you have run the meetings, is that there are at least two of you up there that do not want this project to move forward. I would ask you out of fairness to the community, maybe to take a step back and let this have the same amount of process that you would give any other project this size. This council has not had a hearing on this as a full council. This council has heard information through the campaign process. Mayor pro tem has heard it, but the rest of the council hasn't. There's been a lot of misinformation. I know how reporters are and I know how people can be misquoted, but Ms. Pool, you were quoted that this was a private course on public land and I'm assuming that that was just a flat mistake on the part of the reporter because you probably know that it is not a private course on public land. It's a public course. Those types of misstatements and misfacts that are out there need to be worked through. As Warren and them started this project, every time there was an objection thrown up, there was an effort to solve. We'd like the opportunity to maybe sit down with Bryan. Maybe sit down with Roy and see if common ground can be made. One thing that is indisputable is that we didn't have the process or at least we didn't have the objections when the dumps and the recycling centers and the prisons and the wastewater treatment plants were being placed in this community. [5:22:47 PM] They went through, none of the people that are opposing golf courses or development of the land stood up and said anything. This is one thing that is not a dump, it's not a prison, it's not a wastewater treatment plant. And I think it deserves at least the same amount of attention that we give other projects. And I hope today that what you might do is encourage more conversation between the folks both pro and con on this. And let's keep this project at least alive. There's no harm in keeping the conversation alive. And that's what I'm asking for today. >> Pool: Thank you, Mr. Suttle. Any comments or questions? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I did have a question. And I did want to say that prior to our work session on the March 5th or 4thing meeting I suggested we open the public hearing because the current council did not have an opportunity to hear from the public. Both those in support and those in opposition and that was not the will of the group. So again, we had an opportunity to -- in fact, I guess it wasn't posted, but in our discussion at the work session we specifically addressed whether or not the public hearing should be reopened. I would say I'm interested in your ideas about what process you think we should follow. This issue has now gone to council and has gone to three different committees, including one at least twice. So what sort of process suggestions would you have? I agree with you it's a big process. It's a big project. It deserves adequate discussion. But I want to understand what that would look like from your perspective? >> I don't know what that process would look like, but for instance, I recall when there wasn't an interest to reopen the public hearing, but one thing as the public and open space committee might do is say we make a recommendation that we do reopen it. [5:24:48 PM] Because by not reopening it, Mr. Wren's comments ring true. I mean, this has been a very strange deal and some of it shameful what is going on. Maybe this committee says let's reopen the public hearing. Maybe this committee says let's have a stakeholder group. Let's look at this. The water -- the utility committee you've got your water utility that says problem solved with the deep water well. The recommendation is it's okay, it's going to be safe. They couldn't even reach agreement on the water even though there was very little disagreement that the issue had been solved. I don't know exactly what the process looks like, but what I don't want to do is have this thing headed off and said nope, because of the -- a handful of folks that have raised some issues they're going to kill this thing off and move forward. Then the folks that have been -- that have the other facilities put upon them, they're just -- they're out of the game. They don't have a process anymore. So I don't know exactly what it looks like, but I've been involved in a lot of processes in this city and they were far more elaborate by the one we're going through by the folks trying to kill this project off. >> Tovo: Mr. Suttle, if you have an example that you want to forward on either right now or later, that would be helpful of a process that you feel was equitable and fair to all parties involved and represented a good model. >> Rather than come up with one off the top of my head I would like to think about it. Told thanks. >> Pool: If you would send that to me as well. I would like to make the statement that I have made an effort to have this public comment specifically today in this meeting because there hadn't been previously. And I was on the side of having the public [5:26:49 PM] hearing: Are there any other -- >> You were, but Mr. Wren's comments were well taken. You had invited testimony with a lot of negative testimony, and everybody else was limited to three minutes and your negative testimony that you invited was given 10 to 15. That may be okay, but you need to give my -- my opinion is you would give the folks the same. >> Mr. Gray from the water, wastewater commission? >> I'm the chair of the water and wastewater commission, as you know. We took it upon ourselves to ask you guys to come to our commission and gave you a very similar treatment that this committee has given to Mr. Rogers. We gave you 15, 20 minutes, had an hour discussion with you directly, and anyone that was opposed only got three minutes. So I think I disagree a little bit with what you're insinuating here. That this is somehow completely out of line with what happens at other commissions. Thank you. >> Well, let me respond to that because the difference before your commission was is that this was an item placed on there by the city. Remember, this is an response to an rfq. My compliant responded to a request by the city to see who would build a golf course. And that item is before you and as I recall at the hearing it was a conversation about the process. That to me is a little bit different than invited testimony. I think your prerogative as the chair could have -- if Bryan wanted to present that, he could with the will of the commission, you could open it up. But it's just -- this one had a different feel to it. And you and I may just disagree about it. >> We'll disagree about it. >> This is also a committee of the council that will make the ultimate decision on this, whereas the water and wastewater commission is an advisory board. >> That's correct. And we advise the council. [5:28:52 PM] >> Mary gay, chair of the environmental board. >> I would like to speak to -- I'm the can chair of the environmental board for the city and we've never even seen anything about this project at all, and there are environmental issues out there. And I really feel like there have been, from my standpoint, there hasn't been adequate -- there haven't been an adequate number of eyes on this whole thing. So there's a lot of blame going around this room right now, but everybody could carry a little bit of this blame or you could stop blaming each other. And look at this whole thing, it has not gone through adequate public scrutiny to get to point where it could go sailing through the council. So I think that I agree with these councilmembers who say they would like to have a public hearing and a public process that this -- this project goes through -- we haven't been included in it as the environmental board and as far as I can see there hasn't been a full public process on this. So I would really appreciate it if this committee -- and I'm not a voting member of the committee, but if a committee could recommend to the council. It needs more eyes on it, but the the way it's been handled the last few years as not been done in a way that all the public has had a chance to see it because we've never even seen it. So enough said. >> And that is true. >> Thank you, Mary gay. >> An rfq doesn't come to the environmental board. That being said my client would love the opportunity to be in front of the environmental board. If we had the ability to place ourselves on our agenda -- [5:30:54 PM] >> You can have the ability at any time, Mr. Suttle. You know that absolutely. I'm a fair person. We have things on our agenda that come from all different areas. And absolutely you could come before us. One of the things that have gone through is what's Normal and what the procedure is and how we go around and how we do that. That's a good way to get around and do whatever you want to do. I'm standing up for having a full public viewing and vetting of this project. >> And you always have and I appreciate it. And we look forward to coming to present. >> And I look forward to your coming, Mr. Suttle. And we'll give everybody lots of time. >> Thank you, Mr. Suttle. [Applause]. >> Pool: Thank you, Mr. Suttle. We have one more speaker, Scott Johnson. Our last speaker is Scott Johnson. >> Okay. That is the end of the public comment that we had today. I will say for the record I have called for a public vote on this project. I agree this needs a full public hearing and I have called for a full vote of the public on this project. One of the obstacles that is in front of this council in making that decision is the one that we chewed on a little bit earlier today and that is the definition of a license or a concession. We will deal with that internally at the council level, I'm sure, but I have said it previously in open meeting. I have said it previously to friends and colleagues. This project, if it is to go forward, deserves to be put forward to the public as a vote. [5:33:06 PM] Anything further from my colleagues at this point? I don't think we have anything further on our agenda. But we do have a couple of other items to quickly go through. Yes, mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Just a couple of things I would like to request we consider for an upcoming agenda. The first would be a discussion of a resolution that I intend to bring forward asking the staff to provide clarification of the physical boundaries of the town lake community center event project. This has been an ongoing question among -- among -- between the city and some community members. And I think it would be helpful to everybody involved to have clarification on that. So if we could add that to an upcoming agenda, that would be great. >> I would reiterate that we're looking for events to the community events taskforce tout suit suite. To all of you listening. And I thank everyone for being here and we are adjourned. It is -- what time is it? 5:35. Thank you..