Open Space, Environment, and Sustainability Committee Meeting Transcript – 09/23/2015 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 9/23/2015 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 9/23/2015 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [2:08:11 PM] >> Does anybody have anything? I'm going to go ahead and call us to order. Councilmember Zimmerman is not here, but I think he did say when I saw him earlier today that he would be here. Joining me are my vice chair, councilmember Gallo, and mayor pro tem Kathy tovo, and the chair of our parks board, Dr. Jane Rivera. Welcome, everybody. It's nice to see so many folks out in the audience. We're going to try to move through our agenda expeditiously and maybe give everybody some time back at the end of the day. So, I call to order the open space, environment, and sustainability committee. It is Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 2:08 P.M. We are in Austin, Texas. And we do have a quorum present. So, first order of business is approval of minutes. Do I have a motion? Vice chair Garza moves, and mayor pro tem tovo seconds. All in favor? Approval of the minutes of our last meeting, August 26. Citizens' communication. Is there anyone here wishing to speak? I don't have any signups. Welcome. Councilmember Zimmerman is now joining us. So, our first staff briefing discussion and possible action is item number 3, public accessibility to healthy food options in each city district. Do I have some staff here to present some information? This is a timely topic given some of the things that we did with our budget for fiscal '16. Welcome. And if y'all introduce yourselves. >> Thank you. I'm the chief sustainability officer for the city of Austin. [2:10:13 PM] And I'm joined by Edwin, who is also in the office of sustainability. Edwin is the food policy manager in the office. And he's been with the office now for about a year and a half. And we're very excited to be bringing this presentation forward. Thank you very much for the invitation to come and share this information with you today. You have, in your hands, a copy of the report that was released previously by the office that -- Edwin pulled together with our team, providing a lot of data and information which I think is very useful for us to think about as we develop policy and really think about development of programs, policies, and also redevelopment as we see Austin changing and growing. We had a specific request to come to you today providing some of this information with more specific geographic context by council district. So some additional work has gone into drilling down into the details of some of what you see in that report, and you also have some maps that give the detail you'll be seeing in the powerpoint presentation. Before I hand over the presentation to Edwin, because he really is our expert, I wanted to mention that we work very closely with multiple departments across the city, including health and human services and the parks department in particular with their community garden program on food issues. We do provide out of the office of sustainability an opportunity for increased coordination and data tracking for things like metrics. It's provides a lot of connectivity, as well as with external organizations such as the stable food center. Also, we staff the sustainable food policy board. I wanted to mention that the office of sustainability really does focus on a definition of sustainability stated as finding a balance among three sets of goals. [2:12:18 PM] The first being prosperity and jobs, so that's the economic piece of sustainability, with the local economy. Conservation and the environment, that's the piece that most people probably think of when they hear the term sustainability. But then the third piece of what's referred to as the triple bottom line is community he will -- health, equity, and vitality. It's an exciting area, as you mentioned, councilmember pool, there's recent attention to that in the recent budget adoption. But it's a very integrative topic where we can see all those different aspects, the economic, the environmental, and the social coming together. When we think about health and equity, that's where that piece becomes very important. I'm going to turn it over now to Edwin. He actually came to us from Birmingham, Alabama. We stole him away. He was running a nonprofit farm there. He has hands-on, extensive experience in farming, organizing, and was the coauthor of a book about urban farming. >> Thanks so much. I'd like to start out by jumping into what is food access, why is it important. Essentially, it's getting good, healthy food to everybody who needs it in our community. And unfortunately, as simple of a concept as that is, it's not an actual reality for a significant portion of our community here in Austin. So, the impacts of not having significant or continuous access to healthy, good food are significant from a number of different ways. We probably all know the statistics around chronic disease impacts from not having access to healthy food in Austin. It's a very significant percentage of our community that faces these issues. Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, those are all directly correlated to not getting the right kind of food and the right quantity of food. [2:14:21 PM] In addition, loss of neighborhood vitality. Essentially, when you don't have enough food retail locations in your community, you're not keeping the money in your community, you're not circulating dollars that could stay in your community. The decreased resilience of not having access to fresh, healthy food retail outlets, the ability of a community to respond to disasters, and increased inequity is a major issue here in Austin we'll touch on in more detail in a second. We have pulled together a number of statistics for the broad community of Austin around community impacts of not having access to fresh, healthy food. 25% of our children in Austin are food-insecure, defined by the U.S. Department of agriculture as when somebody doesn't know when their next meal is going to come from. The concept that 25% of our children here face that or have faced that in the re-correct past is a significant issue. The poverty indicator, 63% of students are eligible for free and reduced lunches across the city. The 211 calls to United Way about when community members call and don't know where they can get assistance to get food, upwards of 34,000 calls a year, correlates closely with our understanding of the depth of poverty in our community. And lastly, in terms of community impacts, the obesity epidemic is not just a health issue. It's also an economic issue. $9 billion to the cost of obesity to businesses in the state of Texas. And that was a couple years ago. Projections, that's probably closer to 12 billion a year currently. So, in addition to the significant health and equity issues, it's also just a pure economic issue of needing to take care of our community. So, why aren't people getting access to good, fresh, healthy food? There's two things we can point to, this is based on research done a couple years ago, done extensively across the city of Austin indicating four simple basic barriers to getting access to good, fresh, healthy food. [2:16:33 PM] The cost of the product and the quality of the product are barriers. If there's a low-quality product, it's not appealing or something people want to purchase. The quality of the retail outlet is important. A dimly lit, or unclean store is not going to be a safe and open, healthy place for people to get access to good food. And finally, location of retail outlets. We'll touch on that. The last point, there's good evidence out of this research study from Dr. Evans about the community's lack of knowledge and having time to prepare that food. So, combining all of those barriers, together we have a pretty significant picture of why people don't have access to good, fresh, healthy food. So what we have done in Austin is developed a state of the food system report, which you have. We spent about six months looking at all the different metrics that we could find from across the community and across the region that pointed out, basically how our food system is doing. This is based loosely on work that was done in other cities like New York and San Francisco and Seattle. We felt like it was a timely thing to do for the city of Austin. So we pulled together all these metrics, broke the system apart into four basic parts, growing, selling, eating, and recovering food. And then most interestingly, we looked at the city of Austin departments in relationship to each one of these sectors of the food system. And what we found is that there's 18 different departments in the city of Austin that are working directly on food system issues. And that was a very interesting thing for me as a new city staffer. I didn't know there were 18 city departments, much less that there were 18 working on food issues. There's a lot of people in our city working on these issues of developing a sustainable, equitable food system. Our attempt with the report was to help illuminate that, and coordinate future activities. So -- can I just add really quickly, but saying that there's that many departments, we're not saying those activities are redundant. [2:18:39 PM] They are interrelated, but there are a lot of different aspects of how the food system functions, including things like land use and code issues. Including things like programs that would increase access to, you know, S.N.A.P. Benefits. There are a lot of different ways we interface with food and businesses, economic development, and how we might foster and support businesses that are involved in food retail. I just wanted to say, because there are that many departments, they're each working on a unique aspect, although it's interrelated. >> That does indicate, also, that the $4 billion that was indicated that's spent on the food system or the overall foodprint of the food system was illuminated by the economic impact study of Austin done recently. That's a pretty good indicator of the depth and breadth of what the food system does in our city. We took the metrics from the report and divided it up by city of Austin districts. And we've come across interesting trends in statistics. First slight shows the rate of food assistance by district. And not surprisingly, you'll see the eastern crescent is reflected here. So, this is just a combination of who's calling 211 about food-related issues, which students are eligible for free and reduced lunch programs, and where our S.N.A.P. Benefits and wic benefits are being picked up in our city. You see a pretty significant trend around the east, northeast, and southeast, basically indicating that significant percentages of our population in those districts do not have access to adequate fresh, healthy, affordable food. The next slide shows the food production of our city. This does not touch on backyard gardening. That's something we are interested in, but don't have the ability to track that. So the only indicators that we could pull are community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms, of which there are a significant number. [2:20:44 PM] Districts one and three have the most significant number, correlating to the fact that there's significant vacant land, or has been in the past, in those districts, as well as understanding that there was a need to assist the community and community interest in food production. That said, districts 5, 4, 7, and 2 also show a limited number of food production locations. And probably opportunities to increase both city of Austin land allocated for food production, and other initiatives to increase those opportunities. Next slide is the retail outlets, farm stands, farmer's markets, and grocery stores. This is maybe the most telling of all the slides in terms of how we access fresh, healthy food. Districts one, four, and two have significant challenges relative to other districts in how many retail outlets there are for fresh produce and groceries in general. Significant portions of district 2 don't have access to grocery stores. In fact, the entire del valley ISD does not have a full service grocery store. There's five zip codes in the city of Austin that don't have them. It's important to understand that just because you have access to a full-service grocery store doesn't mean everybody in your community is food secure F. If you can't afford what's in the grocery store, if you don't have good transportation to that grocery store, or there's other reasons, including culture appropriateness of the kinds of foods provided in the grocery store. So, a complex picture. Lastly, we wanted to show the projected population growth. There's issues in certain sectors around food access. The districts that don't have good access currently are perhaps going to get worse in the near future as we see the biggest growth projections for the city of Austin coming in districts 1, 2, 3, and 9, with 1, 2, and 3 correlating to the least access to fresh, healthy food. [2:22:50 PM] So, in summary, we do want to also note that these district mapping data don't necessarily always correlate to exactly where people shop. Just because you live in district one doesn't mean that you always shop in district one. Just because you live in the city of Austin doesn't mean that you necessarily only shop in the city of Austin. But, we do know that the low-income minority communities throughout Austin are disproportionately impacted by these limited-access locations for food. Population growth is going to impact that in a negative way. And we also know that building on neighborhood strength is the best way to improve food access. So, with that said, what does that mean in terms of -- we like to think about building on food assets, building on the number one asset in your community, the people and their capacity to respond to those issues, matching those people up with good programs, and then developing places where people can get access to food. That's what we would inspire to do here in Austin. So, a quick example of what that means. The multicultural refugee coalition developed a garden at the high school. It's an incredible example of building on assets, namely, refugees with a tradition of food production, matching that with an existing school garden, perhaps one that is underutilized, and matching it up with the 4h program at the high school to develop what we now have, one of the most beautiful examples of how food security should work in a community where people can walk across the street and utilize communally owned assets like school property to produce food. If you haven't been to the high school so see the garden, I encourage you to go. It's maybe one of the most beautiful things in terms of seeing a representation of different cultures expressing themselves through food production. It's a small example, but provides a good road map for how to succeed in the future. We've taken that thought and developed a pilot program called plan four health, working with the health department, planning, and parks and rec, who developed a neighborhood food system pilot program. [2:25:01 PM] We got a grant. For the last six months, we've been mapping assets, which translates to, where can you get fresh, healthy, affordable produce. We'll be taking the maps to do community outreach and engagement, hearing from people in the neighborhoods about how they do or don't access food, what their traditions are for food production, and what their ideas are for how to strengthen their community food system. We'll be working closely with transportation and planning to understand the city of Austin's role in how to improve access to fresh, healthy food in those communities. And then lastly, in terms of the direct outcomes, we're hoping to expand urban food production, if that's something community members feel is an important piece in making their community work better. We hope to expand retail outlets and make sure that everyone that's eligible for S.N.A.P. Benefits is able to get them. Most importantly is the integration of various city departments in supporting what community members want to see happen in those communities. And lastly, recovering all food that's possible to get to people in that area and making sure that the dots get connected in terms of addressing food security. We are hoping to take this process and look at replicating it in other areas of the city. We're very excited about learning how to do this kind of neighborhood food system planning. We're collaborating with the lbj school at the university of Texas, graduate students are working on the project with us. We hope in the next year or so we'll have good ideas on how the city can be involved to support the great things that are already happening inside our communities. >> On that last bullet, I think that's also a good integration point to just note that, you know, we have hunger issues, as you've heard about. We have a lot of food that is still edible that does get disposed of. So, finding a way to get that food to people who need it helps with health and hunger, and helps reach our zero waste objectives. [2:27:08 PM] >> So, moving forward, we are working on how to implement other healthy food access programs, in addition to the city of Austin's allocation of $400,000 for a range of strategies for improving healthy food access. We're very excited about implemented community and school farmers' markets throughout the community, and expanding on the healthy corner store initiative already underway. We're looking at potentially expanding that to other districts, and expanding the double dollar program that allows people that are utilizing S.N.A.P. Benefits to increase the amount of produce they purchase from local farmers. We appreciate your support of these things, and we hope to expand these in the future. So, I've got time for a couple of questions. >> Pool: That's great, thank you so much. And welcome, welcome to the city of Austin. This represents some really good work. I appreciate your office's efforts on this, Ms. Athens. Does anybody here have any questions? Yes, Dr. Rivera. >> Okay. Going back to the item on the -- [ off mic ] >> I apologize. Going back to the rundberg outcomes last bullet, recovery fee donations, do you have in mind from other cities how that can be accomplished, or do you have an idea that you're pursuing? >> There's a range of strategies that we're looking at. The first and foremost one is supporting the existing organizations that are already doing that work. Keep Austin fed is a fantastic nonprofit working on 100% volunteer activity to move 30,000 pounds of produce each month from retail outlets to emergency feeding shelters. I think there's probably some ways the city of Austin could be involved with that on a greater scale. But in addition, looking at the way that we regulate some of our food manufacturing, processing, and then retail food safety issues to ensure that we're doing everything we can to make it easy for food retail locations to donate food. [2:29:19 PM] We want to make sure it's 100% guaranteed to be safe, and the health department does a great job of that. We need to look at every strategy we can to make it as easy as possible to get that food to emergency feeding shelters. So, I think there's some interesting opportunities from both a support nonprofit sector, examining our own regulatory process, but then, also supporting the tech industry. I was just meeting with some gentleman yesterday developing an uber-like app to help connect food retail locations with emergency feeding shelter locations. So, exciting stuff. And Austin is doing its best to infuse, as usual, issues with interesting, innovative ideas to address the problems and create solutions. >> One thing I would like to quickly add to that, before we were able to actually bring Edwin to our team, I was involved in a very simple project, but I think it might be a good example for us to think about. Yes, as Edwin mentioned, we must meet a lot of code requirements to protect public health if we're going to be doing food donations. There are a lot of organizations out there that want to do food donation. At the time, all we had to offer them were some statements of code requirements that were not very user-friendly. And we seem to be focusing a lot of telling people what not to do. We weren't spending very much time telling them what we wanted or encouraged them to do, how to donate food. So, we completely revamped those materials, made them much more user-friendly in terms of the language, so, those are really simple things we can do to try to get the information out there to people who want to donate food but don't really know what to do. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Pool: Sure, vice chair Garza. >> Garza: Can you explain the S.N.A.P. Program a little? >> Yes. S.n.a.p. Is supplementary nutrition program, basically, what they used to call food stamps. [2:31:19 PM] And it's based on income, eligibility. Anybody that makes a certain level of income or less is eligible to get S.N.A.P. Benefits. A pretty significant percentage of our community is eligible for S.N.A.P. Benefits. A significant percentage of that community doesn't know they're eligible for those benefits. We've identified numerous things like, either cultural barriers, language barriers, etc., to why a greater percentage of our community is not accessing those existing benefits. The food bank does have a staff person now that's working on outreach activities to specific targeted communities to ensure that those communities do know about their S.N.A.P. Eligibility. >> I thought that there was a previous city budget, in one of those, funding for the city to have a staff person? >> No. That funding went to the food bank. >> Garza: Oh, okay. >> To pay for their staff person. >> Garza: Okay. And have we seen an increase in, like, people enrolling in it because or do we have any statistics? >> I think they just hired the person six months ago. I don't think there's any evaluation at this point. We are looking at ways to track that. The sustainability food policy board, which was one of the organizations that was pushing for that funding, is interested in ensuring that we're able to track that. The S.N.A.P. Benefits, I will say, of the things that we can track, are easier to track because it's through a federal program. So in the next year, we'll be able to see that. That said, there's a lot of other factors that go into the whole equation. >> Garza: Mmhmm. >> So it's going to be a complicated issue. But we're certainly, absolutely certain that that's a good use of resources in terms of federal money already allocated being able to be used by our local community. >> Garza: And the S.N.A.P. -- do S.N.A.P. And double dollar work together? [2:33:21 PM] Can they use their S.N.A.P., basically, that's what the double dollars does? >> You have to be s.n.a.p.-eligible to use the double dollar program. >> Garza: Is the city funding that? >> The city is funding it through the sustainable food center. Up until last year, the sustainable food center used city funding to create the double dollar program at their 3-4 farmer's markets. Because of the increased allocation from the city of Austin, the sustainable food center is now training other farmer's markets around the region, as well as farms, to be able to utilize the double dollar program, making sure that they are able to get the S.N.A.P. Machines so they can run the S.N.A.P. Cards. So I think they're up to five or six other locations, and we're hoping to see an increase over the next year. We'd love to see all 18 farmer's markets, as well as other farm stands and farms in our region be able to accept S.N.A.P. And double dollar programming. >> Garza: One last question. Regarding the food deserts, is there anyone in your office that's maybe, you know, researching innovative ways to get grocery stores to those food deserts, and if not, is that something that could be addressed in the budget next year? Because my office has talked to economic development, brainstormed, talked to HEB, and, you know, I still want to keep digging into that, because, I mean, those slides you showed are -- I know all about that. And they're very alarming. And, you know, really sad that these families don't have access to healthy, and affordable food. >> The fact that del valley doesn't have a grocery store was somewhat stunning to me. It's 175 square miles. So, certainly, something I spent a lot of time researching. The research is mixed in terms of how valuable it is for a city to incentivize grocery stores. Grocery stores generally are pretty good at maximizing their profit. They know where they're going to make money. If they're not going to make money, there's probably not a good reason for them to be there, from a corporation point of view. [2:35:23 PM] But, that said, there are good examples where communities have collaborating. Collaborated. I would love to see community-owned grocery stores. There's funding from the federal government to help communities develop those. That's a model we could look at. A co-op. A high-end grocery store, probably not addressing the issues in way some stores could, but, there's an opportunity to look at the cooperative model. I have research that looks at that. I am interested in looking at the whole range of retail capacity. The research now is showing that ensuring not just the grocery store, but from farmer's markets, to farm stands, to corner stores, to small grocery stores, all need to be part of the landscape to really create a food-secure community. So, I just came across a research paper two days ago talking about the small grocer, the 3,000 square foot or less is probably the most cost-effective way for communities to address some of those issues. So, that might be a strategy for us to look at, is being able to encourage and incentivize that smaller grocery store. >> Garza: Okay. UT did a study, I think in 2005, that was specifically about the food desert area in my district. So, if anyone at UT is listening, it would be great if they could follow up and assign a ph.d. Student. I don't know, if there could be a volunteer effort in your office to really have one person dedicating to trying to solve that issue, because it's a really big issue for most of every district on the east side of 35. So -- but, thank you for your work, and for coming to Austin. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Pool: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Yeah. I just want to also say thanks. I think this is just a really interesting presentation, and it brings together so many different efforts that have been ongoing, so it's great to hear, for example, the results of the additional funding for the double dollars, and for S.N.A.P., and I also just want to thank you for pulling together the information in this way. [2:37:29 PM] It's really interesting to see it broken out by district, but also just the kind of citywide statistics. And I really appreciate that you started with what is just a startling statistic that I think most austinites don't know, that one out of every four children is food insecure. Thank you for the work you're doing and highlighting the successful efforts intermixed with what the city is doing. The fact that you've done case studies of successful efforts throughout Austin is very inspirational and helpful, so, thank you. >> Pool: Any other questions? Thank you both so much for coming. And please do make this report available widely. The state of the food system network, which was done by the office of sustainability. And then this is the piece that Edwin did, who's our food policy manager with the office of sustainability, food access in Austin. Really good documents. Thank you. >> And these documents are available for download on the office of sustainability website, as well. >> I have a silly question. How did you count the chickens? [ Laughing ] >> That sounds like a joke waiting to happen. >> Actually, it was probably one of the most interesting things that we worked on. I wanted to show that while we think about the city being critical in terms of pushing initiatives to address food insecurity, we know that people are the true asset we need to build on. We don't know how many people are growing food in their backyards, or how many backyard chickens there are. We tried to find out how many people were gardening in their backyard. We couldn't come up with an easy metric. With chickens, one of our partners that runs the urban poultry association was able to pull out all the people that sell chicken feed and divide that by how much an average chicken eats per day, and came up with the statistic. It's rough math. [ Laughing ] >> But it's interesting. I would be -- just in my neighborhood, there's about ten people with chickens. I live in a pretty small suburban community. [2:39:32 PM] Chickens are awesome for food insecurity, but there's also a great value to chickens in food waste. They can eat up to a quarter a pound a day of food waste. Instead of composting, get a a --chicken, you get food in addition. >> Just one more -- since we're talking about chickens, you might say how many there are. Because it was sort of a lot. >> 3,000 households in Austin have chickens, with 25,000 chickens. That's probably a really conservative number. But, that's our best guess. >> That is a staggering number. But, one of the things that I think councilmember Garza, your question about how to encourage grocery stores, that's really interesting from this conversation that I had never heard before, is the grant possibilities for cooperatively run groceries. That's really interesting. It connects so well with some of the efforts that we've had through economic development to help support cooperative business. I think there's a lot of potential in that. >> One very low-hanging fruit is food line coopts in neighborhoods. It's been done successfully. I'd love to see it implemented. We could partner with an organization to train neighborhoods how to purchase food collectively, my parents participated in that, very simple cost, it can have a tremendous impact to get high quality food at a very affordable price. And it's community-owned. >> Pool: And a great way to build community. I think you have a real interested group here. Any initial ideas, or if you're able to put some meat on those bones, we would like to maybe talk more about it and see what we can do to get something like that going. >> Thank you. We'll look forward to that. >> That just made me think of an idea. >> Pool: Okay. >> Can you maybe create a briefing, what other cities have done, how they did that, and what could be done moving forward to -- for us to be able to do that? [2:41:41 PM] >> In terms of the neighborhood food-buying coops? Absolutely. >> Pool: So many ideas are hatching from this presentation. [ Laughing ] >> Pool: Moving on. [ Laughing ] Okay. Item number 4. Thank you both a lot. I think we'll have some future conversations. Item 4, shoal creek restoration in 45th and bull creek, including the grove at shoal creek planned unit development. And this is paired with the shoal creek conservancy mou, which is item 5, but we'll hear item 4 first, and then we'll move into the conservancy's work at the lower end of shoal creek at the mouth. Welcome, gentleman. >> Good afternoon. I'm chuck, city of Austin environmental officer. I've got with me Mateo, in the watershed protection department, ecologist, environmental scientist, specifically, a stream ecologist. We're going to talk to you today about stream riparian areas. He's going to talk about the science of them and why they're important. And what kind of benefits they provide the city, and what happens when we don't take care of them. I'm going it talk a little bit about what we do to protect the riparian areas from a regulatory standpoint, and then Mateo is going to close by talking about programs that we have in place that the city is implementing, watershed protection specifically, to restore the degraded riparian areas, special in the central city. And then we'll -- be happy to answer any questions. I think you're right, councilmember pool, that this is a good pairing with the shoal creek conservancy and the work that they're doing. >> All right. Good afternoon. My name is Mateo. [2:43:41 PM] As chuck said. I guess the overview of -- to kind of qualify in the beginning here is that riparian areas is a fancy word, it just means by the water. I'm going to be talking generally about the transition zone between the stream corridor, the actual aquatic environment, and then the up-land. Generally, you can think of it as a flood plain. Anywhere where water floods and accesses is considered riparian. This graphic just gives you a feeling for that bottom bench area right next to the water. We call that a wetland bench. As you move up the bank, you get into more dense vegetation. All that area that's accessed by that flood is considered the riparian zone. And it's a very active, vibrant, productive area because of those flood pulses. You get huge amounts of water, debris and material get deposited there, it does good work. I'm going to remind you all, I'm sure you've seen this topic brought up many times. Urbanization is generally bad for water quality, flooding, and erosion, which are the three missions of the watershed protection department. As you add impervious cover to soil and to our watersheds, you increase the velocity and the volume of water that gets down into our stream channels. And on that photo on the left there, you see a very highly eroded bank. As those flood waters scream through our system -- and I also want to remind you that Austin, Texas, is kind of in the middle of flash flood Ailey. It's not just urbanization, it's also the specific rain patterns we have here are very flashy and powerful. And I will remind you, also, that the change in our climate that we're seeing, and are going to continue to see, those patterns are even more exaggerated than they are by urbanization. [2:45:44 PM] We're going to get faster, higher-volume flows that cause erosion. When you change the way that that water flows through these systems, and you push it downstream as fast as you can and none of the water soaks into the ground, you lose base flow, a water quantity problem. You increase the volume of your floods, so your floods come higher up out of the banks more frequently. And that's a flooding problem. We all are very familiar with that. And we also have to remember that flooding is related to development. The more impervious cover you have, the higher volume of water you have in our stream systems. And then, water quality, which is -- for Austin, is generally a nutrient issue. And it's a bacteria issue. But there are also a variety of other pollutants that wash off the development, get into our waterways, and cause a lot of water quality issues. Algae blooms, bacteria problems in our streams, we have a lot of degradation of the healthy ecological systems in these very, kind of, really iconic and important parts of Austin culture, our streams and waterways. And I think that the water quality there, which is where I come in, is heavily influenced by urbanization. So, luckily, we have one solution that I believe is a really good integrator of all three of those kind of big topics, that flood erosion, water quality. Riparian areas do an excellent job of buffering all of those, kind of, stressors in a very small area. Because of the dense vegetation that's allowed to grow here, able to grow here, because of the way that they can mitigate the flows, they are an incredibly useful, kind of, tool in our box for actually fixing some of these water quality problems. Just to give you a feel for what kind of benefits you actually can get from these riparian areas, this graph just shows you, kind of, in general, its certain general content, how much benefit you get from the wider your buffer goes in certain areas. [2:47:55 PM] Organic input, the leaf matter and the carbon and the wood and the food that comes into the system comes from right around the edge of the stream. So having a buffer that's five to ten feet wide is going to help with the food and the organic inputs that go into that stream. As you move up the bank, though, the kind of woodier vegetation that you have on the steeper slopes is going to hold the bank together. You want that to be up to at least 50 feet. That's just holding together those steep slopes of the bank. As you move outward from there, up to 250 feet, you start to get a lot more benefit from these riparian areas, because you start getting infiltration where the water soaks into the ground before it gets to the creek. You get more structure and overlap in the way that these services combine. As you probably know, we have a watershed protection that protects buffers along streams. At the biggest buffer we have in Austin is 300 feet. So what you're seeing on this chart is that that 300-foot area is what you need to get a little bit of flood control and habitat influences to benefit bird communities and terrestrial groups. These riparian areas down below the ground, and groundwater effects, through the canopy, the more dense and complex the vegetation is, the more benefits and the more accrual you get in those watershed values, that water quality, erosion, and flooding. Okay. Now you know about riparian Zones. >> Pool: Thank you. Let me see if anyone has any questions for you. >> Zimmerman: I do. >> Pool: Hang on. I think vice chair Garza had a question first. >> Garza: Yeah. The first slide, you were talking about how -- I guess, development creates, you know, the issues with erosion and stuff like that. >> Yeah. >> Garza: Which I've always -- you know, thought that that is the case. [2:49:57 PM] I'm not saying that that's not the case. But then whenever there's developments, there's extensive engineering studies done that basically go say you can't flood your downstream neighbor. And so, that's why they create those on-site detention centers. And so, I really don't know. Is it a little bit of both? Like, even though you do -- because, I was -- the Halloween floods happened in my district, so I learned a lot, a lot of people talking about impervious cover at south park meadows is what caused it. So, is it not really true that -- you know, not necessarily that you can't flood your downstream neighbors, and that it does happen when you have that impervious cover? >> Chuck's going to talk a lot about the regulatory environment. I'm going to let him answer this question. In general, remember, we are at one point in time. We have been developing Austin for a hundred years. So that's kind of the short answer. >> Garza: Okay. >> Or longer. >> Longer. >> I can add to that. It's a good question, because the material is right. It's historically, until the 1970s, we didn't require any kind of detention. And so, we have 150 years of development in Austin that didn't address that issue at all. We've really learned a lot about it over the last 40 years. But even with our detention today, it's -- what is required of new development is that you don't make the situation any worse. And it is about depth of water, not about volume -- or velocity of water. The problems that you see with the erosion and the flooding, more so with erosion, that gets exacerbated by additional volume and velocity, but, through good engineering design, you can prevent that from getting deeper, but it may be moving faster and longer. And -- but we have historical problems where flooding was creatinged by development, where there was no detention or requirements to prevent downstream flooding. [2:52:05 PM] So, we're trying to correct problems that were created by a hundred years or more of development. And particularly in the central city, the east part of the city where we have highly erosive soils, the picture here on the left is a very common situation in the central city on the east side of town by development that was done in the 1950s and 1960s. And we're looking, actually, at developing new policies to deal with exactly that problem. >> I would also really quickly point out that the magnitude of flood events that we get in Austin will, at some point, overwhelm all of our regulations, no matter how hard we try. We get big flood events. And it doesn't matter what we regulate. It doesn't matter how much impervious cover there is. It's just going to flood. It's going to be greater than our capacity. >> Okay. And that might be the answer to my next question. That's what I thought about on-site detention ponds, is that they regulate velocity. So, instead of, you know, all this runoff, it goes there, and then -- because, you know, I've gone by an on-site detention pond two days after it's rained, and it's still really full. I thought that's why it's still full, because little by little -- is the answer, basically, yeah, that helps, but that doesn't -- it's not a fix? >> What that's doing is what they call peak shaving. Because storm water runoff occurs like this. So you've got a little bit, the rain hits, and it goes like this and drops down. And the flooding generally is caused by an increase in that peak over what the peak is today. And so, they use that detention to prevent the peak to never get any higher than what it is right now. If you're already having flooding problems, and you redevelop a property, you're only required under current regulations to make it no worse than it is today. If that historical development in that area was already -- if they were already under capacity, if there was already flooding occurring, our current regulations don't -- aren't intended to fix that problem. [2:54:08 PM] And we're actually looking at that right now. It's one of the things that the flood mitigation task force is going to be looking at, is how do we fix that problem that's being caused by historical development and inadequate infrastructure. And in the central city, that's the cause of a lot of our flooding. >> Garza: Okay. Thank you. >> Pool: Councilmember Zimmerman. >> Zimmerman: I was going to say, if you were talking about the negative aspects of impervious cover and the lack of impervious cover, the biggest defender is right where we are. This is 90% impervious cover in the downtown area, we're close to large body of water, the Colorado river. There's not much vegetative zone. I guess the worst offender is where we're sitting right now, pretty much. But there's no plan to tear down downtown because it has too much impervious cover, there aren't any plans for that? Maybe we do. I'm asking. >> No. There is no plan for that. In fact, in the urban watershed watershed -- zone, we have smaller buffer Zones because those are historically highly developed areas. And they're also very low in the watersheds. And so, as you mentioned, the water that runs off of downtown where you can have up to 100% impervious cover, you do get a very large volume of runoff. Because at the very bottom of these watersheds, the shoal creek watershed, waller watershed, and these other downtown watersheds, there's not an impact on the creek because you're at the very bottom. And town lake, because it's a lake, it actually functions as a very, very large detention pond. And so there's very, very little impact on town lake itself from the high impervious cover downtown. And although we do see sort of localized impacts, you can see, look at shoal creek, lower shoal creek, and lower waller creek, they're in pretty rough shape. And it's because of that very, very high impervious cover. [2:56:09 PM] So you're right. >> Pool: Thanks. Thanks, chuck. And we're going to keep moving on so that we can also get to the presentation by the waller creek conservancy, and they'll talk about that piece of it. >> Shoal creek conservancy. >> Pool: Which one did I say? I meant to say shoal. Thank you. >> So, I'm going to go through how, from a regular tear a -- regulatory standpoint, how we protect these riparian areas. I'm going to point out we divide the city into a couple of different watershed classifications. We have on the west side of the city, roughly -- there we go. Roughly divided by mopac on the west side of the city, are our water supply watersheds. And then on east of mopac, roughly, we have our urban and suburban watersheds, our desired development zone. We divide our land development code regulations along those boundaries. And so, the critical water quality zone is that area closest to the creek. It's the riparian area that is closest to the creek. This applies citywide to our water supply and in the water supply, watersheds, and in the desired development zone. Low-impact uses are allowed under certain conditions. Any disturbance in that area has to be revegetated and restored. The width of the zone varies by size and location. I'm going to talk about those widths in just a minute. So, for what we call a minor watershed -- we classify the watersheds based on how big the drainage area, how big the watershed is. For a minor watershed from 64 to 320 acres, generally, the critical water quality zone is 50 to 100 feet wide, or the flood plain -- has a drainage area from 320 to 640 areas. [2:58:25 PM] And then we have our large watersheds that are greater than 640 acres, with up to a 400-foot, 200 to 400-foot critical water quality zone. And the urban watersheds are a unique subset. Shoal creek and waller creek are considered urban watersheds, but they have greater than a 640-acre drainage area. And they have anywhere from a 50-foot to a 400-foot critical water quality zone, or the equivalent to the flood plain. And so this is sort of a visual example of what I'm talking about. This is a critical water quality zone, a stream buffer on a creek with -- and you can see on the right where the buffer is much wider. It's because the watershed is much larger. The area draining to that segment of creek is much larger, so it has a wider buffer. As you move up into the tributaries of that creek, the drainage area gets smaller, and so the creek buffers that are shown in blue get narrower. As you move farther up into the watershed, the buffers get smaller. Historically, until the watershed protection ordinance came along, we didn't protect these very small drainage areas, less than 320 acres. Studies over the last 30 years have shown that the small capillaries, if you think of it like a blood transport system, the small capillaries are very, very important in terms of water quality and flood prevention. That's where you keep a lot of water. That's where you want to keep it, is in the top of that watershed, and it prevents a lot of problems downstream in terms of flooding, erosion, and water quality. So then, in the water supply watersheds, we have a water quality transition zone. So, we have one stream buffer, and that's the critical water quality zone. In the water supply watersheds, we also have a water quality transition zone which starts at the outer boundary of the critical water quality zone. [3:00:28 PM] You can see that shown there on the bottom. >> So it's only the supply watersheds in the Barton springs zone. It's the same developments that allowed in the critical is also allowed in the transition zone but also you can do some additional development and that varies by watershed and the location of the recharge zone. So if you have transition zone and you're over the -- you have additional limitations but you do have some additional ability to do development, transition that is not allowed in the critical. And the width of the transition zone for the minor watersheds is 50 to 100 feet and, again, this starts at the outer edge of the critical. So this is in addition to the width of the critical, intermediateiat it's an additional 100 to 200 feet for major watersheds, additional 200 to 400 feet. This is that same photo again but with a transition zone added on to it and you can see how it works the same way. The transition zone is exactly what it sounds like. We're transitioning into more intense development. There's very, very little development allowed in the critical. This area allows more development that you can do and then outside of it there are no limits on development in terms of water quality and stream protection. So I'm going to talk very briefly about the grove at shoal creek, planned unit and development application that's in review right now. It's located on shoal creek just south of 45th street on the state former Texas dot property. It's to a great extent undeveloped, only along bull creek road is most of the development. The development -- it's been undeveloped for decades down near shoal creek or some of it ever down near shoal creek. The critical -- this is an urban watershed. It is the critical water quality is between 50 and 400 feet but it's primarily driven by the floodplain here. And you can see on this picture -- hopefully you can see it from where you're at that the critical, because the floodplain -- this is a very deeply insighsed or cut-in creek so the floodplain doesn't go very far up onto this property. [3:02:42 PM] And so the critical is fairly close to the creek but you can see the riparian area is actually in really good condition. Mateo and I have actually walked the property and because it's been undisturbed for so long this has a really heather robust riparian area. Also there's a high quality wetland along the creek. In late July, early August, when we hadn't had rain in over a month you'd sink up to your ankles in mud on this west land and that was really surprising to us. So it's a really healthy, robust wetland. From the standpoint of protecting shoal creek and protecting the creek downstream those are really important. Fortuitously, that's also where they're looking at putting their park. So they're working with us, we're working with the applicant to actually preserve that riparian area even outside the critical water quality zone. They've been very open to that discussion and the wetland area as well. A lot of times we'll allow people to impact a wetland and create another wetland somewhere else. We're really working very hard in this particular case because it's such a healthy wetland to protect that and the applicant has been very open to all of that and we're working out the details on that right now. So my hope is that the P.U.D. Will contain a buffer that's wider than the critical, very similar to our transition zone, that will leave most of that -- most or all of that healthy riparian area undisturbed. So Mateo is going to talk about -- so we've told you what a riparian area is what our regulatory policies are to protect or restore those riparian areas and we've got a number of programs we're actively restoring riparian areas around the city, particularly in the central city. >> Pool: Sure. Mayor pro tem tovo has a question for you. >> Tovo: Thank you. With regard to the wetland and the park, you said it corresponds with the area that's been preliminarily designated as a parkland. [3:04:46 PM] Does that -- do parkland uses, though, interfere with wetlands? >> They can. You obviously wouldn't want to turn them into, like, a recreation field, ball field or, you know, a play space. It's just -- just becomes part of the open space. I know the parks department is looking at how much credit they get towards their parkland requirements and open space requirements, in terms of that wetland. Like we wouldn't want you to put a trail through it. It really becomes more of just a visual green amenity and not an active use space. >> Tovo: Okay. That was my assumption but the way it -- I just wanted to be sure that wasn't being designated as a -- >> And there is a buffer. >> Tovo: Playground. >> Also around that wetland. It's a critical environmental feature. We require buffers for our cefs and those vary in width and we're working with them to define that buffer and that's allowed within that buffer right now. >> Tovo: That gets me to my second question, which is on any other tract, whether they were designing parkland or not on that tracts they would need to protect that wetland and that would be a requirement. So. >> Right, yes. Yes. >> Tovo: And I assume that that's factoring into the discussion of how it contributes toward their parkland requirement. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Tovo: Because if they would be required under any circumstances to protect that, then I think there's a very good question to be raised about whether that counts toward their parkland dedication. >> I've had discussions with the parks department staff about that specifically. >> Tovo: Super. Thank you. >> Pool: My thinking on that is if you can't use it as a park, you can't develop it either, that it -- you know, it's not -- it shouldn't count toward the superior rating that would be looked for in a P.U.D. >> That's generally -- if there's critical environmental feature buffers, other -- the critical quality water zone, things that are required, generally that doesn't count toward superiority superiority elements. [3:06:50 PM] >> Pool: I think vice chair had a question for you. >> Garza: It's my understanding we haven't voted on this P.U.D. >> That's correct. >> Garza: I'm concerned when we have slides labeled like that and it was also on the agenda, just because I don't want -- I mean, it's not a foregone conclusion that council is going to, you know, pass that. So I just want us to be careful about wording because people who -- people pay such -- you know, they'll turn on the TV and see that and be, like, did they already vote on that? >> You know. >> This is a proposed plan that we're reviewing their application right now. That's correct. >> Garza: I was saying maybe in the future maybe make sure we put proposed and stuff like that. >> Good point, thank you. >> Pool: Good idea. All right, keep going. >> I'll try to stay away from the microphone. Sorry about that. Yeah, I'm just going to review really quickly, the range of activities that our department and group is working on kind of intensely right now. Just so you understand, there's a whole bunch of engineers within our division that work on stream bank stabilization and reach scale restoration project that always have a riparian project. I'm not going into detail about those projects. You folks probably hear about them here and there anyway. I'm going to talk about the softer approach, vegetative approach to repairing restoration. We call some of our projects active and we use that term because our staff and our contractors are actually the ones doing the work. We use cip funds for those projects. They generally are using what we call managed succession, so we're using vegetative characteristics naturally occurring in our area to make these things move. We just try to move them along a little faster than nature might. We do actual planting, irrigation, sometimes do a little grading and manage the -- oops, sorry. Let me see here. [3:08:52 PM] Interesting. All right. Anyway, one of the examples is the willow brook loop we did in the bogey creek watershed. What we're trying to get at with these active restoration projects is a jump start on what -- the structure and the character of a riparian area. So the goal is to increase species diversity, increase structural diversity so we get some of those water quality erosion and flood benefits as soon as we can. We always have an evasive species component where we're surgic LI removing bad actors, not wholesale and removing all of the species that would toned destabilize the system so we're being a little thoughtful about that. Just to give you a feel for what this might look like, the willow brook reach was a mode channel until the late '90s. The photo at the top there shows you what it looked like when we were out there doing surveys in 1997 and that's that same reach. Last year, basically what happened in this area is the channel was left to revenge Tate just the -- rereg Tate the stream channel for the last 15 years and what happened was astounding. We added vegetation to that on the upper banks and enhanced the trails, added a variety of kind of ground cover and understory components. If you ever have the opportunity to walk it, that's really what got us started on the whole riparian restoration bandwagon, what happened on the willowbook reach while no one was watching. >> Pool: So we can orient one of the slides, it looked like cherrywood and 40th? Is this where willowbrook is? >> Pool: East of I-3537 it's beautiful. >> Thanks. Another example, this is a -- we call this the grow zone program. This is really a partnership we do with the parks department, where we go in, target channels that have historically been kind of overmaintained. [3:10:58 PM] This is the Bartholomew park on the east side as well. That top photo was taken in 2012. And that low photo is what it looks like today. Basically what you're seeing there is a cooperation with the parks department to allow us to go in and change maintenance practices, remove that disturbs of the mowing were disturbance of the mowing but we also partner with nonprofits and local neighborhood groups. We do plantings, maintenance workdays. We have lots of educational opportunities out there and we bring the community in and it's basically all volunteer driven, the grow zone program. We've got 42 of these around the city. This is kind of the distribution you can see. I intended to put the council -- didn't work. The council districts were on this map at one point, but they're relatively well distributed but some of the council districts don't have as much as others. Again, 42 of these scattered around the city, about 75 miles of restored area. We figure out based on last three years of doing this program it costs the city about $3 a linear foot to run the program, pretty cheap and they're really effective and it really to me, this is kind of the best way we can grow riparian restoration on a large scale, is through this program because it's so scalable and so easily kind of adopted by the citizens who live around the areas and it becomes much more of a stewardship issue. Finally, an incredible component to riparian restoration that you can't have your stormwater bypass your riparian buffer. That graphic I showed new the beginning which shows all the root systems and incredibly good things that are happening in that buffer area, if you put a pipe right through the middle of that and run all your stormwater by that, then you've defeated the purpose of that important zone. So we're going in and we're finding the locations where we can grab impervious cover, put it into rain gardens, put it into bioswales, figure out ways to slow the stormwater down and get it into the ground. [3:13:10 PM] We're partnering up with the parks department all over the city to take advantage of the stormwater advantages you get by getting that water into the ground. Again, we're addressing those water quality and erosion problems primarily. So that's kind of the overview of what we're working on right now. >> Pool: Thank you so much nap was a really good presentation. In my district, with the new FEMA maps having been published we have new properties in what they're calling the red zone, and these are sustained neighborhoods that have never been anywhere near a 25-year or 100-year floodplain so it's come as an unhappy surprise for a lot of folks, particularly in brentwood, and we have a special meeting, I think it was last week, time goes by so fast, and Kevin chunk with our floodplain program came and talked to -- gave an educational presentation to folks and then there is try to answer as many questions as possible. Although they tend to be very site specific and individualized but one of the things we were talking about was how to move away from channellizing and speeding the velocity of water and rather slowing it down, absorbing it on-site and spreading it around so that we don't have the impact of flooding. It's better for the areas if the water can remain on-site and seep in and maybe we can have some better stabilization flood blanks too so we don't always feel like we have to arm more them. >> That's exactly what we're trying to, do with how the riparian areas function. Really with those techniques you're talking about we're recreating natural systems. The natural systems work really, really well. There's times when we do have to go in and have capital projects, in in fact most times particularly in the central city, we estimate we have over $2 billion worth of very severe erosion problems in our creeks that will take structural repairs. Now, we've got -- we're one of the leaders in the country in natural stream restoration and recreating engineered but natural appearing and functioning stream. [3:15:22 PM] And we do a lot of that, but it's very expensive and we're literally in the billions of dollars. It will take us decades and decades at current funding rates. >> Pool: The last thing I'll say and I'll see if there's anymore questions on this, north of this site, at the great northern dam near northwest park, a fairly sophisticated storm detention and channeling project had to be built a number of years ago because of mopac and all the development to the west. It's all coming down the shoal creek watershed, which I think is -- shoal creek is the third largest watershed drain -- I think unless you count upper and lower onion creek is two separate ones, but you've got Williamson, upper and lower onion creek and then shoal creek, is that correct? >> I think that's right. >> Shear drainage area you're talking about? I don't think it's third. I think it's probably fifth or sixth. >> It's pretty large. >> Pool: I think it depends if you break onion creek into two different watersheds. Anyway, this was part of the presentation to the present wood folks, there's a lot of water that comes down shoal creek prevail and a lot of it is coming -- because of the topography and the massive development that, you know, we got with mopac, it's all coming down there. So while we do have that system in place, I went up there memorial day this year to have a looksee and got videos and pictures of it and it was functioning the way it was supposed to but it was nearly overwhelmed by all the water coming in and that's a fairly sizable detention pond there and all that water shunts down and crosses underneath shoal creek boulevard and right into shoal creek and then south. So all of that water is going to funnel through and under the 45th street bridge and then down to the mouth. >> One thing to point out about that, and, alluded to it as well as, there's really not room or money to do the kind of large-scale engineering project that would actually solve the flooding erosion problems that we have. [3:17:28 PM] It's just so massive and then difficult. But what really does kind of get at it and it will take a lot more time and a lot more collaboration, is these small-scale distributed stormwater controls on everyone's yard, on every little pocket park we have, on every right-of-way, trying to figure out ways to slow that water down before it gets into the creek. That's the key, I think, to the whole thing. >> Pool: That's my thinking too and hopefully the flood mitigation task force will be able to take that idea and expand on it and come up with some other ideas as well. Any other questions? Thanks for joining us, councilmember Gallo. Good to see you. Did you have any questions or anything? Okay. Yes, Dr. Rivera. >> Thank you. I really just wanted to say a compliment rather than a question. I wanted to thank you so much for the work that has deny done in the boggy creek watershed. With the riparian restoration and the no grow -- the grow zone no more, it has made a heighth difference. It looks natural and beautiful and there are lots more birds and animals. So thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Pool: Great. Thanks so much for being here today and offering up this good information. >> Glad to do it. >> Pool: Item 5 is the shoal creek conservanci's memorandum of understanding with the city regarding the development, management and operation of an open space plan for shoal creek. And we have folks from parks and rec and also Joanna who is the executive director of the shoal creek conservancy. Welcome to y'all. I thought this would be a really good opportunity for the conservancy to talk a little bit about the work that they're doing and then also the good work that parks and rec department has done in order to make it possible for us to have this collaborative memorandum of understanding, which is just newly begun. So Marty stump, are you leading us out? >> Yes, absolutely. [3:19:29 PM] >> Pool: Leading off? >> Good afternoon, Marty stump, assistant director of parks parks and recreation department. I don't have much to say. I wanted this view of our distinguished group here. >> Pool: Way to play it. >> Bunch of qualified staff with the conservancy and Joanna, I wanted to thank everybody for being here. To tee off the conversation, obviously a multidepartmental effort. These riparian Zones and certainly the parkland and the greenbelt that we have within that context are community treasures and it really will take a village to love these riparian Zones and these creeks back to life so I appreciate the work Mateo and chuck really Teed this conversation up. Really Brian block from our department, park development administrator will sort of go through an outline of the work to date to really bring this partnership into a formal state. But Joanna and the conservancy and then the staff here from watershed and public works, as well as key partners in this as well. With that I'll turn it over to Brian. >> Thank you, Marty. Thank you. Good afternoon, councilmembers. As Marty was saying, there's several of us up here and the reason for that is the parks and recreation department is making the presentation but it's on behalf of four partners, three city departments and the shoal creek conservancy and so we have here Aaron wood from watershed protection, Joanna wilaver from shoal creek conservancy and Nadia from the public works department. We all wanted to be here to answer questions you may have during or after the -- kind of the presentation and overview. So with that, we will jump in. We first wanted to give you a high-level overview of the shoal creek watershed. It covers from Braker lane on the north all the way to lady bird lake. It is 13 square miles and shoal creek is 11 linear miles. [3:21:34 PM] So it's a very large territory. In terms of parks, just quickly, of course it has the shoal creek greenbelt. There are also 11 other parks in the watershed, including two district parks. And trails, the shoal creek urban trail is in the watershed, as well as sidewalks and bike lanes throughout. We wanted to hit on the city department responsibilities, as Marty referred to, many of the projects, especially in the shoal creek greenbelt, will touch on all three departments. It will have a water, a trail, and a parks and greenbelt component. You just heard a lot about watershed protection and their responsibilities. Public works is responsible for roads, bridges, urban trails and sidewalks. And the parks department for parks, greenbelts and recreational trails. And of course we want to talk about the shoal creek conservancy and their role and what they were set up to do. Their mission and their dedicated to restoring, protecting and improving the shoal creek watershed, building a strong community and providing a voice for shoal creek. And their mission includes all of the things that the three departments do, water, trails, and parks, as well as history. And we wanted to kind of overview, why did we enter into this collaborative agreement? What were we trying to achieve? We wanted to establish the shoal creek conservancy as a key partner for the shoal creek greenbelt trail, riparian areas, and watershed. We wanted to establish some of the key activities that the conservancy wants to work on, including advocating for and helping develop plans, as well as implementing those plans through capital improvements, maintenance, and programming. [3:23:40 PM] And we also wanted to describe the approach to collaboration that we're going to utilize among the three departments in the shoal creek conservancy. And I will jump into that approach to collaboration. That's really what's at the heart of the collaborative agreement. And we tried to bring together the ways we're going to work together, all of the tools, and we've employed these tools with partners throughout the park system and the other departments have applied them with other partners. We're bringing them all together here and putting them in one place as a -- kind of a toolbox or a menu of options. The shoal creek conservancy will and is building the community around the shoal creek watershed, raising awareness around watershed-wide issues. They're building that community through social media and online and also through their in-person activities, education, tours and walks, the shoal creek awards. And they're also already and continue to do advocacy, advocating for funding, for policy, for the priorities of the shoal creek watershed. >> Pool: I might just note that since Ms. Waliver is here she may want to talk specifically about the work of the conservancy herself and so yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Pool: Thank you. >> We could either break and do that if you want to or -- >> Pool: Sure. >> Would you prefer that? >> Pool: That would be great Joanna. Please. >> I'm good to go. I think -- did you leave off on the first bullet? We were -- started as an organization -- as a community that was really interested in improving shoal creek. So we're approaching our second anniversary this October. And we're working on continuing to build that community so that there is a voice for addressing some of the issues on shoal creek. [3:25:45 PM] Y'all know about the flooding. The erosion issues as well, there's ongoing maintenance and capital needs. There's a whole slew the issues on shoal creek that we're dedicated to improving and building a community voice around doing so. In addition, just going down these bullets, we see ourselves as a partner with the city in addressing these issues and raising funds, private funds, to do so to compliment public funds, making it a true public-private partnership. On the planning side of things, another major area of work in addition to on the ground improvements is planning for future improvements in shoal creek. And that really gets to the root of the collaborative agreement. It was created -- hopefully I'm not stealing your thunder but it was created in response to a resolution passed by the city council, last city council, directing the city manager to work with us on -- specifically on planning and to further describe the role of our relationship. And that's planning in three areas. It's planning for the watershed, so addressing flood, erosion, water quality issues. It's planning for -- trail planning, extending and improving the trail. And then thirdly for watershed-wide plan for parks within the watershed of shoal creek. So that's a very large area of work moving forward, but at the same time, working with the city on on the ground change, not just focusing on planning. So that's the last two bullets, working with the city on capital improvements, whether it's raising funds to do those capital improvements directly or advocating for funds to do so. And the last bullet is really collaborating on the maintenance and operations, that we are an added level of maintenance and operations, or at least I hope that y'all see us as that. So an example of that is after the memorial day flood, all three departments were out there right away, very impressive to check out the damage of the trail and the surrounding area and to see what needed to be done. [3:27:48 PM] For example, public works was out there. They went in and removed massive amounts of gravel from lower shoal creek on the trail to make it passable for bikes right away. We came in right afterward, doing the fine-level work of shoveling silt off and sweeping the trail and making it better for people. So we bring that volunteer capacity to doing some things the city might not be able to do. So that's an overview of how I see our role in the collaborative effort. >> Chair. >> Pool: Yes, mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: While we transition back I want to thank you and all the volunteers for all the great work that you're doing along shoal creek on behalf of our community. >> Thank you very much. >> Tovo: It's very appreciated and of course thanks to our staff. >> Thank you for the opportunity to talk to y'all about our collaboration and about the conservancy. It's great. I couldn't be happier to be a part of this, this group. I'm working with three different departments. That's exciting. >> Great. Should I take us back through the last couple slides and then open it up just for -- >> Pool: Yeah. Why don't you finish up the presentation. You bet. Yeah. >> Just to follow on what Joanna finished, kind of on those last two bullets, as we move into the future and the capacity of the conservancy pros, there's -- impose, there's a lot of opportunity for us when it comes to capital improvements that could be led for city-led capital improvement, as the conservancy builds capacity, they maybe able to design and manage improvements with the city's collaboration. And the same goes for maintenance and operations. We're currently getting a huge amount support from mobilizing volunteers that the conservancy is doing. There are opportunities to provide enhanced level of maintenance that's beyond what the city is able to do as -- with its base level of service. And there would be opportunities in the future for the conservancy to take on sections of the greenbelt and take over operations and maintenance. [3:29:55 PM] That might be further off, but nice to kind of put all those options out there. And we will kind of take you quickly through the rest and make sure you have time for questions and more discussion. So we broke down the current joint initiatives into planning, implementation, maintenance, and advocacy. L on planning. In terms of a watershed plan, the watershed protection staff are developing plans that analyze watershed data, identify problems and priorities and catalog existing and potential future solutions. They're underway in the north urban area, which includes Johnson, shoal, and waller creeks. And they are working and partnering with the conservancy to explore opportunities potentially advocate or bring additional funds to put a higher level focus on the shoal creek watershed. In terms of trail, parks and greenbelt plans, what we're doing this year is we're talking about the strategy for these plans. What's the approach to these plans? What do we want to accomplish with them, with the watershed being a really large territory we're starting with looking at what's the goal of the plan? What should be included in it? What shouldn't? Should it be all of the parks and trails within the watershed? If it's all of them will it focus at a 30,000-foot view or drill down to a finer level of detail? If it's not all of them is there a bigger focus on just the shoal creek greenbelt and getting down to more detail. So we're going to start and that's what we're doing this year. What is that approach? What is the strategy? And importantly how much will that cost and what is the funding plan? [3:31:56 PM] Right now those are not funded planning efforts. Moving on to implementation, there are some things getting underway right now, which is exciting, a preliminary engineering report, which for the .8-mile urban trail from 5 to 15th street that will include associated stream and greenbelt improvements. So with what that preliminary engineering report will do is it will be the initial step that we'll use to prepare for construction and actual improvements. So it's really beyond planning. It's moving into preparing for implementation. Some other things getting underway, Duncan park, we're working with the conservancy to both advocate for funding, raise funding for a habitat meadow as part of the Duncan park renovation. We'll be getting underway with that project as well. Some of the things that Joanna didn't hit on that the shoal creek conservancy is getting under way with right now, they're leading the efforts on these with city support and collaboration, restoring the historic west sixth street bridge and also lighting under the Lamar and 12th street bridges, all underway at the moment. >> If you don't mind me jumping in really quickly, I think the last big bullet on there is symbolic of our vision for the future of shoal creek. And restoring the sixth street bridge is not just restoring a historic structure but also making a special place on shoal creek and our vision is to create a set of special places all along the trail, to really improve the user experience. So there's that component. Then in the same sense lighting, it's not just lighting the Lamar bridge and the 12th street bridge for safety issues and to make that a better pedestrian and bikeway but it's eventual lighting of an entire urban stretch of the trail and putting lighting into all the bridges. [3:34:05 PM] So they're symbolic of a larger visionary plan. >> That's great. And I think y'all know that lower shoal creek is underway, gap project between fifth and west is under way. So fifth, 15th is the remaining part of the urban reach and all of these implementation elements cover the fifth to 15th stretch, which is the initial focus area of the conservancy and a big focus for the city as well. And we've already hit on maintenance. The conservancy is doing a huge effort, mobilizing volunteers so we'll move over to advocacy and programming. Also the conservancy is doing -- this is along the lines of building the community. They're doing annual spring and fall walking tours. Those are educational series, getting people involved, building awareness around the creek and watershed, restoration workshops, you heard from Mateo, the conservancy is helping us spread the word on restoration, riparian restoration. And ongoing advocacy and community building that they've been doing and will continue to do. So that's the presentation, and we wanted to leave time for whatever questions you had for the staff or for Joanna, any other discussion. >> Pool: Thank you so much, Brian. Any questions from the panel here? Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I don't have a question. I want to thank y'all for collaborating with each other and these kind of collaborations are so necessary in parks department because we wish we had the funding and we'll try to keep getting it to you but thank you for the work that you do to make our parks nicer. >> Pool: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Ditto. Thank you. I think it's going to make a real impact. >> Pool: One of the initiatives, just kind of rolling around in my head to come out of my office will be to work with staff and the community to find ways to expand our capacity through these unique public- private partnerships. [3:36:18 PM] I really don't see any other way to do, in a comprehensive fashion, all of the work that all of us know needs to be done. When you reflect on our budget constraints and our time constraints, and the really lovely thing -- I think one of the thing we all treasure about being in Austin is the community of volunteers and thought leaders and people who just want to get in there and roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and mud on their boots is tremendous. And to think that we have been able to pull together these efforts, Ted siff, who I have known for a very long time, has worked in parks and trails matters for decades, which says how old he and I are and that we have known each other. But he was instrumental in conceiving of the idea of the shoal creek conservancy. I remember talking to him two years ago or more before it was all pulled together. I know Joanne from from my work at the national wildlife federation because her time there coincided with mine before I moved on to work at Travis county. So I was really pleased to see that she had been hired away, although I'm sure nwf wasn't happy about it but it's a good partnership between Ted and Joanna and the community they're building around the shoal creek conservancy. I say all of that because the folks and efforts are prays worthy but also because I want to talk about it in a larger community setting. Because we can do these kinds of collaborations throughout our watersheds and for our parks throughout the city and so my thought is to try to set up a framework, looking at the different efforts that we already have underway, and then pulling together new ideas to try to sort of set up the playbook of how to go about doing these kind of efforts and make it more obvious throughout Austin and the region that this is something that we would like to engage in. [3:38:21 PM] So I'm just in really, early stages of it but I thought it was a good opportunity to put it in context of real programs happening here and that we're so benefiting from. The capacity is tremendous. Yes, vice chair? >> Garza: I just went to -- this girl scout luncheon and they gave a statistic and I think it was of all the philanthropic money out there that only 5% of it comes from corporations. And so I thought that was a crazy stat and they talked about ways of getting corporations more involved in nonprofits. Are there any limitations to -- you know, if it's a city project, are there any limitations to -- can corporations give to, like, the shoal creek? Is there any limitation to who can donate to organizations like your conservancy? >> No, we do take money from corporations in Austin, yeah, and there is not a limit. As for what work can be done on city land, using those funds, I think once we get to ground moving projects we'll need to sign a partnership agreement to make that official and, bribe, I know you've worked with -- Brian, I know you've worked with other organizations like the trail foundation to sign those. So those monies would go through us first and then it would go towards -- it wouldn't be direct corporate money. >> We have tools we can use for the conservancy to raise money and contribute it to the city for a project, for the conservancy to manage projects on their own with funding they have. So we have a lot of tools and agreements and options for doing any -- a variety of ways of handling that. >> Garza: Okay, thanks. >> Do you mind if I add that we -- just to give you a little background, we started out -- the organization we did a fairly lengthy feasibility study in the beginning, talking to community members, saying is a nonprofit something you support? [3:40:25 PM] Do you think it's a good idea? We got initial seed money from a lot of the different corporations and individuals that live within the shoal creek watershed so we've started out that way. In fact a lot of foundation funds you can't go after until you are a pretty well established nonprofit. So that's been how we've started, was with that seed money, with some great funders. >> Pool: Councilmember Garza, the other 95 understand that wasn't from corporations, is that from individuals? Or in kind? >> Garza: That was my assumption. >> It must be foundations. >> Garza: I don't know. I just thought that wassing there. >> Pool: That is interesting. I also think Austin is kind of a young city with regard to philanthropy. When you think about the more established mature cities like in the northeast or even Chicago, those cities have been around a long time and their urban areas are the way they are because they were -- there were some pretty forward-thinking folks maybe a hundred years ago who thought about grids and transportation and systems and were systemic in putting it all together. We were just a little rural backwater for a long time and really hasn't been except for the last 20, 30 years, I think, that Austin has really started to see wealth in larger amounts come into this town. So I think part of our job with the city and in our community persona is to talk with folks about how they can contribute and support the work of the city in more philanthropic ways because that's what makes a city union, are the people that -- unique, are the people that invest in it, with their treasure and their talent. Any other comments or philosophizing? Thank you so much. This work is really important and I'm really happy that we're able to give y'all the opportunity to talk about it here. >> Thank you. >> Pool: Thanks. We have one more item on our agenda and that's a recommendation. [3:42:27 PM] I think this is an action item, recommendation related to master development team, which will be responsible for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance for the Seaholm intake facility. Welcome, director Hensley. Looks like you have a team here. >> We're doing a tag team. Marty has to leave so -- >> Good afternoon. Again. Marty stump, assistant director parks and recreation department here with director Hensley. I do have to run up the road to make another presentation but I did want to take a moment to introduce the team here. Lynn and terry from our purchasing department. Insulin the project manager with the parks department. Again, another project and really this conversation about wealth and money and opportunity and where the city is today versus where it was. This discussion is about the Seaholm intake building there at the mouth of shoal creek but a very sophisticated process here on a very sophisticated project upcoming. Lynn will describe sort of steps to arrive at this moment. I don't know that we'll be discussing necessarily the proposer, successful proposer for the project but rather kind of allude to go when that announcement will be made and what this project is about. With that I will turn it over to Sarah and Lynn. >> See you later, Marty. >> All right. >> Hi, Lynn with the parks department. So I'm going to quickly -- two of you have sort of seen some of this. I'll quickly run through the history of the power plant, the district, the intake facility itself, what we've done in the community, and sort of where we are today. And so the complex you see in this picture was first commissioned in 1948, built in two phases. [3:44:36 PM] It's a concr strreith metal now and poureon ple ccre panels. It ceased in 1989, it ceased to be generating power and in that sort of preparation to get there, in 1985 the city council ordained that the land south of the power plant would become parkland once it stopped existing as a power plant. So, you know, from 1996 to about 2000, 2001, it sort of sat vacant, not a lot happened. The community riled together and because of the citizens' desires out there, the city, through the economic development office, decided to do a master plan. So in 2001, a master plan was done for the whole district. And you see that in the picture there on the right of the screen. So as part of that process, remediation, taking down of the power plant happened and that was completed in 2006. Austin energy then gave through the power plant to the economic development to decide what to do with, but the Seaholm intake, the small building on the lake, was given to the department in 2000 -- the parks and recreation in 2011. Sort of give you a little overview, in terms of the other sort of players in the district that were also added to the power plant. The developer was decided in 2005 and in 2013 they started construction. The green water treatment plant, which the smaller building actually took the water in for, was the rfq went out in 2008 and signed in 2012. The library was decided to add to the district in 2008, and its construction started in 2014. [3:46:38 PM] So the whole district has been a long time sort of in the planning process, and going through. This sort of gives you a nice shot of all the different things that are going on in the larger Seaholm district. And it's sort of the last piece of the puzzle. So with the -- once the parks department got the building, the first thing we did was a short-term investigation to figure out what we can do with the building. We then had stakeholder meetings, both large amount of internal departments as well as nonprofits and other groups like the downtown Austin alliance and the trail foundation, the parks foundation. We then had open houses for the public. We created a vision. So really the vision for the facility became really a community destination to be creatively addressing the needs of the public and in response to the surrounding environment. To turn that vision into a visual reality vision, we created the design ideas competition in the summer and spring of 2013. And that competition ended up with three sort of top design ideas, and those ideas were really a vision casting for the vision that we had. And then we had decided, okay, what are we going to do next? So through the leadership of the economic development office and through council, we decided to partner with urban land institute, which was a resolution that happened in November of 2013, to help us figure out really sort of what will it take to get this done? And so through that process, we sort of came up with three different main criterias, the technical advisory group from the urban land institute. It was really to create a true public-private partnership, make sure the development had a nonprofit participation mechanism and clarify the agreement so that they listed that a 20-year revocable license agreement would be the main path on how we got this accomplished. [3:48:47 PM] So then we issued the rfq itself went out at the very end of October 2014. And rfq is a three-phase process. So we did the first phase was really a qualification step, where we figured out, you know, are these development teams -- do they have experience doing this? Have they done it before? Things like that. The second phase of the process was, okay, now that we know you can do this, show us how you're going to do it. And then the third phase, which is where we're today, the third phase is, okay, take that feasibility and turn it into a reality in terms of graphics and show us what it's going to look like. And so those -- so we whittled down all the proposers down to the top two. And so that's where we are today. We did a survey with the public, and we had over nearly 2,000 people respond to the survey, which is a really good percentage of the population statistically and we were really excited about that. So some of the statistics, just to let you know, there are five questions -- I don't know if any of you took the survey yourselves but there were five questions we asked the public. So on each of the top two. And it was things on connectivity, things on amenities, questions on sustainability, and questions on the neighborhood foot and the appropriateness to Austin. So with those five topics, sort of the one proposer, number 1, that you see on the board is number 1, their score for the first question related to - - aha, related to connectivity, thank you, was 57%, and proposer two was 43%. On the amenities, which was the second question, proposer one was 59% and proposer two was 41%. On sustainability, proposer one was 54% and proposer two was 46%. [3:50:48 PM] On neighborhood fit, proposer one was 57% and proposer two was 43%. Appropriateness, proposer 158% and proposer two, 42%. That was sort of the rundown of the survey and sort of the next steps we're going to do now is within the next two weeks, the two top proposers will be sent a letter notifying who is the recommended team, that the city staff narrowed down. And then we're going to go to the concessions and contracts committee of parks support as well as parks board and come back to open space hopefully on the 28th. We were hoping to go to council on November 5 but we were told just today that purchasing items are being pulled off that or perhaps that agenda is canceled altogether. And so now the next available open council date for purchasing is the 19th. Of course if you guys would like to see it sooner than that, you can as a committee suggest that. >> Pool: Are you going to send this through the parks board first? >> Yeah. >> Pool: Okay. >> We were hoping to go to the parks board in -- October 27. >> Pool: Okay. >> No, October 27. >> Pool: There won't be a council meeting on November 5. A number of councilmembers are going to the national league of cities conference. I'm not, but they are. >> So then the next available date open to purchasing is the 19th unless you want it to come sooner. >> Pool: Yeah, that sounds good. >> The 19th of November. >> Because we do want to run it through contracts and concessions committee for the parks board. They're getting heavily engaged in learning how that works and then a file vote from the parks board. Quite frankly we're pretty proud of this. Lynn has done a tremendous job it's taken since 2011. If you look at how much work has gone into really gauging the public and really getting input, this is a really good model. [3:52:53 PM] It's taken a long time but we want to share it with our board. >> Pool: I ren all of the different proposals that were accomplished I went online to look at them -- published. I think I voted on my preferences. I thought it was a really neat opportunity to make good use of that structure. And especially tied to the actual power plant as it is, which I was really glad that we didn't gem olish. I do -- demolish. I do have a question. I think he had said in '11 that the land or the building was transferred or given, I think you said given to the parks board. Can you explain how that -- that transaction to me? >> It was deeded over -- sorry. So the parks department and -- it was dedicated parkland in that transaction. >> Pool: It came from which -- >> From Austin energy. >> Pool: From Austin energy. I'd be interested in seeing the specifics of that transaction as it relates to the pole yard on Ryan drive, just continue lane and Lamar -- Justin lane and Lamar. Because we're looking at transferring -- a deed transference from Austin energy there and if there's a way to do that without a whole lot of money having to shift from one department to the next, because you used the word given, so I'm not -- >> It was also part of an ordinance that in 1985 that the city council decided that that's what would happen to the land. >> Pool: 1985 so there may be some specifics about this transaction that aren't the same, then, for Ryan drive. >> What we can do is I'll have staff pull the ordinance back from 1985 and attach the actual information that deeded the property to the parks department, what we do D was one of those full sweeps that said when it's deeded at that time it needs to be as dedicated parkland which goes back to the point I think councilmember Garza brought up from the previous issue with the site, you know, once it's deeded or something then we automatically make that a recommendation for a parkland dissuasion. [3:54:53 PM] So in this case that's what happened and I don't know exactly what was said in 1985 but we'll pull that and send that to the committee members, all of you. >> Pool: That would be great, yeah. That may help us in some other areas. >> Any other questions? >> Pool: Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: I was reading through the rfq. And so I'm just trying to -- are we in phase three right now? >> We are. >> Garza: Okay. And so I guess you're coming back here for a recommendation but you're still going to have to present a full at the city council -- at a city council meeting? >> Yes. So what we're thinking about doing is that right now the plan is to send a memo out to all the board -- all of council to let them know who the top recommended team is. And then we would be going to council with presentations from the two top teams to present. We're still working out the details of whether the parks department and purchasing office is going to give those presentations with the teams in presence or if they're going to give the presentations. So we're working through some of that with legal. >> Pool: I also had an opportunity to go walk through the intake facility, which was pretty fascinating. I mean, it's -- there's not much going on there now but you can imagine that it was a pretty important piece of the structure over there. And then also to be able to see it kind of at its bare bones state now and imagine what it will look like five, ten years from now, it was pretty powerful. >> We're really excited that really both these two top proposers with very little -- I hope I don't say something I can't, very little money from the city's part, that they're really going to do it all and we're excited when we saw these two top ones. We were really excited, that the public is going to get a great asset for really nothing. >> Pool: That's great. [3:56:54 PM] >> Our tax dollars. >> Quick question. >> Pool: Sure. >> Garza: The last page of the rfq it gives like a time line. So are we already past the public display and community input? >> Yes. That was what just happened with the survey. >> Garza: Okay. Is there a way for us to see those boards? I mean, I know it's already happened. >> I have jpegs of the boards I can send your office if you want to zoom in and see them better. >> Pool: Would the committee like to have a fuller presentation? >> The presentation that the two proposers are putting together will go through -- more thoroughly about what sort of is in the whole package. We're still in the no contact pod there's certain things we can't say. >> Pool: Right. Then that will be the presentation offered to council. >> Yes. >> Pool: On November 19. >> Yes. >> Pool: Okay. So the action that you need from us today would be for us -- knowing that it will still go through Dr. Rivera's committee, that we -- because we won't see it here again, I would like -- I'd entertain -- >> You will see it through here, I think, again. >> We were planning to come back here again but we don't have to make that step. >> So we can come back here on the -- and present it in more detail, I guess, we'll be able to do it -- with more detail. Or you can take action today to say move it forward to a full council for a full briefing with the two proposers giving the full presentation. >> Pool: Will we be in the no contact period on October 28? >> Yes, on October 28th? >> Yes. Purchasing office. >> There you go. >> Both vendors will have been notified by that time. So we'll be able to at least talk about who it is. >> Okay. >> We don't be able to dive into detail, because technically we will be under no contact, but, that information -- the final list is not private, it's stratas and southwest, and that's already been announced. [3:58:57 PM] The specifics of the proposals are under wraps. >> We can't say who is who, but we can say who they are. >> Tovo: What's the feeling on the committee? >> Tovo: I guess my sense is that probably, the whole council will need to see the presentation. And so -- >> Pool: I think that's going to happen on November 19, for sure. So, the question is, do we want to have a smaller, specific presentation to us here in October? And is the 28th -- let's see, that's the fourth Wednesday. Okay. >> And at that time, we can bring storyboards back and do a little more information with you as a committee so that you then feel -- may feel comfortable giving more comments and things to the full council. >> So just to be clear, you're going to come back and say which one got the 53, and which one got the 46, and recommend the number one? >> That's correct. And we will be able to provide more details at that point. Limited information about the specific proposals, but much more detail than we can at this point. >> I would be okay either way. I would think -- to avoid duplication, maybe just saying, give it to the full council. I'll make that motion. >> Pool: Okay. The motion on the floor is to move -- to recommend to the full council the selection of one of the top-rated teams, I guess. Is that where we're going there? And be responsible for the design, construction, is operation, and maintenance. >> And a full presentation. By the staff and the two proposers for council to act on. >> Pool: Right. And we will hear full presentations from both of the top proposers at November 19, at the November 19 meeting. >> Maybe not so much a recommendation, just, we're forwarding this to council. >> We're moving it forward. [4:00:59 PM] >> Pool: And that we did receive the presentation. Okay. >> But we're not -- you mean this presentation, or . . .? >> Pool: Well, this is the bare bones of the fuller presentation. >> We couldn't give you a lot. We can't really -- >> My suggestion was just to move the full presentation for the council to vote on, on the November 19th. >> Yes. >> Pool: That sounds good. All right. >> Tovo: Do we actually need to vote on that, or is that just -- >> Either -- here again -- >> Tovo: I concur, we should do it once, once they can talk. I'm happy to second the motion, as long as it doesn't include a recommendation. I don't even know enough -- >> This is just to say -- >> Tovo: That I would recommend me pick one of those two teams. I don't know the details. If all we're doing is saying, don't come back, I'm happy to second that. [ Laughing ] >> Thank you. >> Tovo: I mean, until you have all the details. I'm extremely interested in learning more, but I think once we can learn the full proposal that makes sense. >> Pool: Okay. That makes sense. So what we're doing here is recommending that the full presentation be made at the November 19 council meeting, and action taken at that time. I don't want to do anything that sounds like we don't approve of something here, so. All right. So it's been moved by vice chair Garza, and seconded by the mayor pro tem. All in favor? And that's unanimous on the dais, with councilmember Zimmerman off the dais. I guess he's gone? Yeah. Thank you very much. This is a nice way to end the meeting. I'm really excited about this proposal or this project, rather. Thank you for your good work. >> Thank you. >> Pool: And, director Hensley, we'll let you know if we want to go ahead and have any additional information sent to the committee. >> I'll send you -- I'm going to have information. >> Pool: And what we may do is have it be sent by memo for the presentation in November to full council. [4:03:01 PM] And I think we are adjourned at 4:03 P.M. And good meeting. A lot of good information. Thanks, everybody.