City Council Work Session Transcript – 01/24/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 1/24/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/24/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:05:00 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Today is Tuesday, January 24th, 2017. We have a quorum present for the Austin city council work session. 9:04, we are in the boards and commissions room, Austin city hall, 301 west second street, Austin, Texas. We have a fair number of items that have been pulled, just under 15. The manager has suggested that we start with the pulled items so that staff can leave. We also have a briefing that we'll have toward the end from Austin energy, and then we have the committee and meeting agenda questions that we want to be able to talk about. That may take a fair amount of time so I would suggest that we probably want to get through the pulled items as quickly as we can. As we start the new year the things that we talked about doing last year at the beginning of these work sessions is were to kind of map out what we wanted to do in terms of breaks so people knew that. Also to remind everybody that the Q and a system is up so if all you're doing is asking a question of staff so if you can do that on Q and a or even a phone call to staff, that's the best way to handle that kind of question. This is mostly an opportunity that we don't get because of the oop meetings to be able to talk to your collective colleagues or put people on notice of something or to ask a question. If we want to try to get to the committees and have the morning to do it and want to get there to committees,, you know, 10:10:30, we're talking about spending six [9:07:01 AM] to eight minutes on each of the pulled items so we can keep that kind of in our head as we go through it so that you can see how we're tracking in terms of leaving that bulk of time available to us. All right. So first thing -- I'm sorry? >> [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, manager? >> Just a moment of privilege, I would like to introduce our new public works direct. Richard Mendoza joined us last week so go easy on him this week at the council meeting. [Laughter]. But we're glad to have him. He's got great experience with the city of Atlanta and San Antonio, so we want to welcome him and thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Welcome. Okay. Let's go through the agenda. The first thing pulled is item number 19, which is the pilot program for sound equipment for certain businesses on red river street. I just wanted to indicate what the intent of this was in case someone doesn't think that what was filed meets that intent. The intent here is to take -- this came out of the music omnibus bill that we passed. It's gone past the commissions, a little of stakeholders have been involved in the process. And what we're trying to determine here is if there's a way to take advantage of a sizeable increase in income that would go to venues to help preserve them, a sizeable increase in what musicians and artists could be paid, but to do it in a way that is not inconsistent with the rest of the community and most importantly the residences that historically been concerned about sound and noise. [9:09:01 AM] So this is a pilot that's aimed to see what technologies could exist that would mitigate sound and noise, practices or customs, enforcement, what tools we could bring to bear in order to see if we can make both these work in concert with one another, please excuse the pun. So that's the intent. Obviously this is a point that historically has been a rubbing point in our city and we're trying to figure out if there's a way to move past that to a better place. And I'm excited at the prospect that we might be able to advance this issue. Anybody else want to say anything on item number 19? I noticed that you had pulled this as well. >> Pool: I'm just happy to answer some questions. You will have the staff make a presentation? >> I Manhattan unless people wanted them to. I pulled that to just say that. I hope there's support on the council for doing this kind of pilot. If people had concerns about it I'd like to hear it and see if there's a way to address them because I think it's an important thing to do. >> Pool: That's great. Just a couple of questions to sort of direct the conversation and possibly the work that our staff will do. I wanted to milk sure that we look at enforcement and the ability to actually level some real penalties in those instances where it may be necessary. I do like the agent of change approach to things. That makes a lot of sense to me. I think, though, that there may be some existing sound concerns because of the creek, and we know how sound [9:11:02 AM] travels up the creek, that also need to be looked at. So I'm looking forward to seeing the work that the staff brings back and really just want to make sure that whatever you recommend, there are real levers for enforcement, that the penalties are real and that we understand the direction that this might be going in on all sides. And also to hear from the neighborhoods that may be affected by the sound distribution. I hear it. I'm up shoal creek and I hear acl from time to time, depending upon the conditions. And I know we can't control those, but we have to acknowledge them and see what we can do to address them. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Yes. Ms. Alter? If you press the button your light should go on. >> Alter: If these are questions that can be done in Q and a, just let me know, but I think they may be more on the policy side to I want to throw them out there. I want to know what if the pilot fails in a few months before the 12 month term with respect to the citizen measures. It does say that you will be reporting out measures every 90 days, but is there a policy for stopping the pilot if we see that it's upon awry? I'm not wishing that, I'm not hoping that, but I would like to know that we have a procedure in place if all of our indicators suggest it's not working before that 12 month period that we can end the pilot if necessary. And then I'm wondering how do we determine a positive outcome? What is our criteria? We have some data, but how do we determine a positive outcome and who makes the decision on that? >> Kevin Johns, can director of economic development. Those are excellent questions and we've been thinking long and hard about them. I'm here with Alex Lopez, our deputy director, and she's in charge of [9:13:03 AM] redevelopment as well as music. And as you know, this is -- we're talking about music today, but there are forces for growth that are occurring in this area with the innovation district, the medical school, the teaching hospital. And then along the beautiful waller creek there's 27 acres of new development. So we're very conscious of the fact that we've got to try and create a well thought out, vetted balance to make sure that the important music venues are protected. So Alex has been leading that. You want to chat a little bit about the specific questions? >> Sure. As far as the potential to end it early, our intent was through those quarterly reports to be able to give you enough information should we choose to recommend to suspend it. We are fully aware that there may be enough data three or four months into this to say that we shouldn't be doing it anymore. We just wanted to be able to brief you on a regular basis what we're finding. On the venue side of that it may take a few months for them to be able to book enough talent to show any of the economic impact which is why we're recommending that it go the original 12 months. As far as the positive outcomes, we're looking for increased revenue to our local musicians, on the economic impact side we have certain indicators we're looking for and will be measuring, but we have to balance that out with any kind of complaints, signs of additional vitals that are documented. -- Violations that are documented. We're trying to find what that balance would be. We haven't set hard numbers. We haven't said we want to see a 10% increase. We want to see what we get as we go along the quarters to see if it's really worth the additional time. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes, Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: Let me make [9:15:04 AM] sure when it talks about the music office to extend decibel levels. If a venue is given extended hours and they continue to violate the rules, the music office could pull those hours back? >> Absolutely. >> Nan began: And they don't have to wait for the end of the pilot. I feel like pulling the hours back is the best enforcement mechanism that the staff has. So if you give the venue an extra couple of hours and then they're going at 90-decibels, staff can say you're not playing by the rules and you need to close at midnight. I think that may be more so than fines is a very powerful enforcement mechanism. And you mentioned that part of the outcomes was increased income for musicians. And I don't see that in the ordinance. Am I missing it? >> No, we didn't list all the specific metrics we want to measure. We've been working with the venues. There are a total of five venues that would be recommended by the recommendation. We want to see how far they can drill down. Sales tax data we can pull, but for the musicians is something we have to work on directly. >> Flannigan: In theory we could write an ordinance that would require them to do some measure of -- we'll figure it out is what you're saying. >> We could, yes. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston, and then the mayor pro tem. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Good morning. The only concern I have is how do you decide that the music is coming from red river and not from sixth street? It seems like there's already bleedover from sixth street, so the issue for me is how do we say this is actually coming from the red river district or not? And the complaints that we're getting of coming from sixth street? >> It's -- what we're proposing is to take more -- more of a monitoring approach. So at least in this [9:17:04 AM] particular data set and for this study to be able to send somebody out there with monitoring equipment to say are they still within the decibel limit at the property line per their sound impact plan? If they are, then they're technically not in violation. It becomes more of a much bigger conversation to say this block or that block or that block. But what we want to see is are these venue really abiding by the rules or not. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I have quite a few questions. I have submitted some through the Q and a so I won't repeat those here. But just by way of background, councilmember Houston and I share the red river cultural district and -- but I also represent neighborhoods to the north that have for years historically had concerns about the sound transmission that happens from the businesses on red river. And you know, actually, I do see someone from our music department so I would like to invite Mr. Murray up to just talk about some of the work that they've done with the neighbors, but I want to say when -- I will occasionally get emails at late hours, on the weekends from neighbors over in the north university neighborhood area or Hancock, and every once in awhile, you know, when I'm getting those emails saying I'm being awakened, my windows are shaking, I can hear it in my house as well over by Lamar. So I mean, the sound transmission in this area is really unusual and I want to let my colleagues know that I'm hearing those concerns from neighbors who are saying we've been trying to address this issue for years and extending the hours, you know, isn't address the needs we had. And I've also been asked the question if we're moving forward as a city with something like the agent of change how is this policy consistent with that? If you're talking about who was there first, it is the residences that are in that area that is along waller creek to the north. [9:19:05 AM] So one of the things that I've asked through the Q and a process and will ask again at council and try to get some clarity around is what -- the ordinance speaks to the extended hours. It doesn't necessarily speak to increased enforcement to what -- to whether you're going to require of some of the music venues that they invest in some of the sound mitigation equipment that I know you've been testing? What is the pilot beyond just looking at the extended hours? Councilmember Flannigan brought up the question of musicians and wages. It's also been suggested to me those extra hours are likely going to increase alcohol sales, increase the money coming through the doors for the venues, but are we providing for any assurances in here that some of that increased revenue is going to go back to the musicians or is it really just designed as an intent to help those who are trying to stay open in the red river cultural district, which I support. So those are some of the questions that are on my mind today and I want to again ask Mr. Murray to talk a little bit about the work that he's done with the neighbors to try to track the music transmission there. But the other thing I wanted to remind my colleagues of is when we were considering this year's budget and especially when we were looking at the acvb, we gave some direction to our staff, the funding T comes to us from the hotel-motel tax can be used to do things like support the red river cultural district. And I'm not clear on what work has happened there. I know we also gave the same direction to the parks staff and they've been be looking at their budget and determining what they have on the books that would be eligible funding sources, but it seems to me that there are things that can be done within that area with our existing funding that we get to the hotel-motel tax that could increase revenues as well. So there are other opportunities to be innovative here and to support the red river [9:21:06 AM] cultural district which would benefit the revenues beyond just extending those areas. So again I'm submitting some questions through the Q and a to try to get at what -- what other ideas have you explored? What projects have you identified that would directly benefit some of those venues in that district? And kind of when we can expect to see those online? Mr. Murray, would you talk a little bit about the music transmission? Some of you may have received from neighbors a few years ago some of the neighbors in this area presented to the music commission this document that was compiled by a sound engineer, Chad Himmel, called music noise in the north Austin neighborhoods. It's pretty technical and in a very high level of technical detail it talks about why the music -- why there is a noise transfer from this area of the city along waller creek up to those neighborhoods. >> Right. So in 2014 stubs barbecue was one of the main points of complaint by the north university and they participated in our loan program and they leased a downward firing state-of-the-art sound system and greatly contained the sound at that time. Speaking to enforcement, I want to mention that we do have self- contained noise units, it's called [inaudible] In the various safes. It's like a force multiplier. We can leave them up 24/7 and monitor to the question of -- to help identify the source of the sound. We can seven set thresholds where it will trigger an audio recording whether it's a siren going by or this venue to hear the sound. Received complaints about stubb's many times when they're actually dark. So to locate the source of the sound is very difficult when your in your bed and -- it's a difficult thing. >> Tovo: Can you -- it seems if -- if you haven't experienced it, it seems very unlikely that the music [9:23:06 AM] from downtown where transfer all the way to the neighborhoods, but I am told that you and Mr. Pitts have actually been out there and have experienced it and have gotten on the phone and said, turn down the music and then noticed a change in those neighborhoods. And I'd like for you to confirm that's true. >> No, that is true. >> Tovo: It sounds preposterous that the music from here would transfer all the way up to those neighborhoods. >> No, that is true that in 2010 complaints were coming in. And really what we're talking about is the bass. Those are the frequencies that travel the furtherrest. And so if a venue has excessive bass it will go until someone stops it, so one provision in this is we do have a C weighted restriction that we can impose. And if there's a problem we can modify at any time the sound impact plan to further restrict, hours, industry waiting. It really is the bass. In an open air environment you can barely hear it, but if you have a wood frame house it becomes a resonator and people really hear the thump of the kick drum in the bass. >> I think that speaks to this report because it talks about how music will go around and whatnot. I'm not going to try to explain it. Can you help me understand from the ordinance -- I'm not really seeing the kinds of levels of enforcement and adjustment that you're speaking to. Is it passages part 4-b? Where would I point people to to say, hey, if there's an issue they're going to adjust the sound -- the sound plan. If there's a problem we would cancel the pilot. I'm just not -- I'm not really seeing the language in there. It's certainly possible I missed it. >> No. It's in section 4-b that language is what we currently have in the code that says the music office can further restrict any sound impact plan. We carried that over into this pilot. As far as termination of the pilot program, our intent [9:25:07 AM] was that all along if there's sufficient data that's already showing that we're not seeing the outcomes that we would like to see, suspending it. We can add something more specific, absolutely. >> I would suggest, and I have some other ideas for some amendments that would be helpful, but as I look at part 4-b, to me because of the way it's structured, that doesn't give me the signals that if there are issues the music staff will work with the venues, have them adjust their sound plan to accommodate some of the concerns and impacts on neighbors, because it says unless the music office determines a more restrict active decibel level a pilot program can go under these decibel levels. I'm not sure -- I take your point that it does allow for that. It doesn't necessarily suggest that either to the venue or to the neighbors that there's going to be -- there's going to be a corrective action if there's a problem. Let me say it's not that it doesn't suggest that. It's not quite as clear as it might be. And I think everybody should have, you know, clear expectations. If it's a pilot it really is going to be a pilot. And if it's continuing to keep people awake in areas that are -- that ought not to be impacted by music, then we're going to make changes. >> Mayor Adler: And mayor pro tem, I will join you in that intent as well because I think that's what the intent is. And I see the sections in part 5 as also reinforcing that because all the venues know that staff is supposed to be coming back to the council to talk about the impacts on the public and public safety and sound complaints. So I think that the venues are also going to have an incentive to try to figure out how to make this work in a way that's going to sustain it because otherwise they know it could go away. Anything else on this item number 19? Thank you very much. [9:27:07 AM] Next item that we have pulled here is item number 22. This is something that you pulled, councilmember pool? >> Pool: Right. And if I could bring this up with item 23. This is the next step alerting council. You may remember that earlier the city of Austin won a planning grant from the national league of cities relating to children in nature. Our plan won an implementation grant, $50,000. I think the planning grant was 25,000 and the implementation grant we won, one of six cities to win the implementation grant. So there are a number of things that are rolling out as a result of this really good work that our staff did. We're going to have a press conference before our council meeting on Thursday. Everybody is welcome. We're posting it so any who wish to stand with me and the staff and the stakeholders who worked really hard on the implementation grant for children in nature, connecting cities, connecting children to nature, are welcome to attend. So we have an executive summary. I have the -- a little description of the children's outdoor bill of rights which basically says that children of all ages, backgrounds and abilities throughout the city in Austin can climb a tree, catch a fish, picnic in a park, hike a trail, ride a bike, splash in a creek or river, discover plants and wildlife. Play in the sand and mud and get dirty, gaze in the night sky, plant a seed and watch it grow which speaks to the efforts of this impact plan implementation and this plan to move forward. And harvest and eat a fruit or vegetable. So these are all really good things that underpin the research that has proven that children who learn and play in nature are healthier, happier and perform better in school. And these are all really worthy goals and things that [9:29:09 AM] the city of Austin works with the surrounding school districts and non-profits in order to support. So I just wanted to point out that this is a really remarkable accomplishment for our staff and folks in community who have helped. I'm really proud of their efforts and I think you will be too when you hear more about it. Staff is here to answer any questions if anybody has any, but I commend both of these items to your good votes on Thursday to adopt. >> >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. And congratulations on staff for getting that. It's exciting. Next item we have pulled is item number 38. Mr. Flannigan, you pulled this item? >> Flannigan: Yes, so I had questions on how we're determining the question of affordable and if we're going to -- one of the lines that was in that ordinance talks about if it's been inhabited in the past year. And I wanted to think about if something has been inhabited in the last six months, if it's now uninhabitable, is the current price of that really representing an affordable unit? So if there's too much repair to be done and they move out, but it wasn't inhabited in the last six months its current price is not reflective of an affordable unit because it's not liveable. That was one concern. And then more broadly, how we're measuring -- and this is maybe a Q and a offline question, but when we talk about median family income and I saw a chart that showed that it's not just one number, and I think the median family size in Austin is under three people now. [9:31:12 AM] It's 2 point something. And are we thinking about-- how are we defining median family? And if that's some federal definition is that really accurate to the experience of austinites? >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: So I was going to think more about the question you raised with regard to the six months. I think unfortunately it's certainly true that some of what is affordable, non-subsidized affordable housing energy this city is also substandard housing. And I certainly don't want to -- I think that's worth recognizing because of course we want people to live in safe, healthy housing and not pay low rents because they're living in unsafe conditions. On the other hand, I'm not sure how we -- I'm not sure really how we get to that level of precision, but I'm certainly happy to entertain any ideas. With regard to the second, we've really just been using the standard definitions that the city uses for measuring median family income, but you raise a good point about how we at least as a council might be aware of how those family sizes and whatnot match the experience in Austin. >> Flannigan: And one other note is that affordability is -- whether or not housing is affordable in one part of town doesn't mean it's affordable in another part of town. Like to use the same number doesn't make as much sense for me because I have plenty of housing in my district where it's a one bedroom under a thousand dollars a month, but you're spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on transportation costs that you might not spend elsewhere. And it will take some time to get to the point where we're considering affordability in a household way, but I will keep bringing it up so that we're not thinking that the housing costs alone is the most important or the only number we have to consider for affordability. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: So I have some very brief proposed draft amendments. I haven't run these through law so they're not really [9:33:12 AM] proposed amendments. They just fit into three categories of changes that I would like to see. Generally I'm very supportive of having as much information as we can from the consultants and the staff about the effects of codenext and the associated tools. And I think that my amendments in no way change the spirit of what's being done here. The first is that I would like for us to understand the potential net loss or gain of market affordable housing and income restricted housing together. I'm going to use a straw man number and a very small number on purpose just as an example. If because of this resolution we find that the proposed changes within codenext and the associated tools would result in a net loss of 20 market affordable units, that's interesting to me but it's a lot more important to know is that going to be a net loss of 20 and we're going to have a net gain of 20 income-restricted units because of the associated tools or would it be a net loss of 20 and we get 10 income restricted units with the associated tools, if that makes sense? I want to know how many of those potentially class C and lower standard units might we lose, but then given that we're going to also be implementing tools for income stricted affordable housing, what's the balance there so we're not looking at one part of the affordable housing pie, but both at once. So I want to know essentially the whole equation and not just part of it. And I assume that we probably have got that information presented to us anyways, but I would like to show it upfront. The second change I would like to make clear that this is relative to -- we want to understand this information relative to our current code. So again, if what is being presented to us through codenext is evaluating the [9:35:13 AM] potential of the loss of market rate affordable housing and let's say that that numbers potentially could lose 20 market rate affordable units, what's really interesting -- would be really interesting to me would be, well, if we didn't vote on this, if we left the code the same, would we be losing 40? So therefore would this be a reduction? Or if we left the code the same would we be losing 10 and therefore voting on codenext in this way would it result in an increase? So I want to know what the relative value is of this compared to the status quo, not just what codenext would do in a silo on its own. And that's again what I anticipate the sponsors want this to do anyways, I just thought that the language there might be more clear. And the final point here is instead of trying to pin down a definition on Thursday of market affordable housing to a particular mfi, I just -- I'm just interested in understanding at various levels of mfi what the impact might be. And I assume that would be okay with everyone, but I think that instead of trying to set up a definition, I think everybody is interested in all the various levels of affordability because 70% mfi units are important, but I do recognize and appreciate people trying to focus in on those deeper levels of mfi so I don't mean to negate that by that change. It's just I kind of want to get the range. If the data is there I would like to see as much of the data as we can get. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: So let me by way of background knowledge, I want to acknowledge the members of cag. Can I skip that acronym. Community action group. We had two members raise this in one of our meetings and they worked mightily on this resolution. So I will certainly be [9:37:15 AM] talking with them about these amendments. I believe in my mind I think the first one is fine. I think they're all generally consistent. The one I'm concerned about is the second one because I want to talk a little bit more with staff about whether that is actually something that they are going to be easily able to do for us when it comes back. I don't think it's as clear-cut as the other data that we're asking them for and I think it's -- it involves -- as I track through my head sitting here today at 9:30, it seems like it would take some extrapolation for them to come back and provide wuss some useful information on that and I don't want information based on sort of assumptions and predictions and extrapolations. I don't think that would be useful to us coming back. But there may be ways they can provide us that in a useful manner. I'll think more about that and I'm more on having data on more levels of affordability. I think the mayor had some feedback on the levels of affordability and we made some changes and adjustments on that front, but from my perspective, the levels you have here is fine. >> Casar: Great. And I guess my question isry totally understand that we want our staff to do things that they can provide us in the resources and time they have, but is this not already asking for an extrapolation based on what codenext would be able to do in -- so ultimately we are asking for extrapolations based on codenext. And if the staff has the resources or the consultants have the resources and time to provide also extrapolations based on the existing land development code then ultimately they are talking about the potential future scenarios based on, you know, some economic projections and our set of regulations about what might happen. >> Tovo: Again, I just want the opportunity to talk with staff about how they would respond to that. I certainly think it's true in the course of our discussions about these that would be something that people want to talk about, [9:39:16 AM] what the relative nature of the situation is, but I can take that offline with the staff and talk more about how it will work. >> Casar: I'll check in about the same question. Generally yourself and the other -- and I can of course the other co-sponsors can speak for themselves. This is something that you think would fit in as long as the staff and others can actually do it. >> Tovo: I'm going to give it some more thought. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Mayor Adler: Generally speaking from where I am, I support this as -- I also heard it at the cag meeting and thought it was a good idea. I've been trying to get as much information and data that we can get I think is helpful so if there's a way to get it in absolute terms and relative terms I think that would be additional information and be helpful too. I like that it asks for more levels on the mfi because I think we're trying to do a lot of different things with the codenext. In fact, I would go up above the 80% mfi on rental units. You know, when you look at San Francisco right now, the only people that live in San Francisco are the people that -- with a median home price in San Francisco of $1,150,000 right now. The only people that live in San Francisco generally are people that can afford really expensive homes and then people that are in subsidized homes. Sometimes 80% mfi and below. And what they've been completely gutted out of is that middle working, creative sector, segment. And that's the problem that Seattle and Boston are facing right now. And I'm not sure they can pull back from it. I understand from talking to our housing people that in the city of Austin we have about 80,000 units that are class B and C apartments that are workforce housing. About 45,000 of those are on transportation corridors. And I understand that all of those 45,000 units probably don't represent the highest [9:41:17 AM] and best use of the property, meaning someone could buy them tomorrow and put in $20,000 a unit to change the carpet or the floors or the counter tops and then turn around and rent it tomorrow at a higher price. And that the predictions are that in the city of Austin we will lose all 45,000 of those units over the next 10 years. And that's like a city the size of Amarillo. The strike fund concept that people are working on, the housing and stakeholders, is trying to hit that area that's not subsidized housing to find a market instrument that will deal with that. So they're targeting eight or 60 to 120 percent hoping to average on the 80%. But it's being able to preserve some of those units that go above the 80 percent that help drive the funding to make that work internally, to make that instrument work. So I think this is a really good thing. I like the levels. But I would like us to give some thought as long as we're just asking for information, to go up to 120% in the rental units as well. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you. I'm open to the idea, but I would like to hear from staff about how they would collect this data and how soon we would be able to get it. >> Greg Guernsey with the planning and zoning department. I think when someone comes in for demolition it's probably simple to track the number of units and bedrooms. Rent we can ask the question, but zoning alone, our land use tools won't necessarily track units that are not coming in for demolition. That could change and become unreportable as well. So someone could paint, fix up as the mayor had indicated, fix up a unit and then come in and what may have been affordable before [9:43:19 AM] might change before it gets to our door, and not come in as a demolition. Codenext I think is a tool that certainly we can talk about looking at affordability of the new units that come in and that councilmember Casar was talking about and the increase. I'm not sure what that would be relative to based on what I just said, but we can figure out what the difference is with codenext and without codenext and what the net change would be on affordable units. Might be able to give a better idea of by types and price points. Also the density bonus program that will be next in the second draft, you will see a little bit more of the tools that would be put in place that could add those affordable units. So I think just getting the numbers we could probably get that by asking customers that come in. We could talk to neighbor neighborhood housing about the other units that may be aware of, but tracking those is difficult because unless they come in and ask for the demolition we won't know if those units have been lost or not. >> Houston: And one more question, mayor. And do we find that we have demolitions that nobody comes in and asks for a permit to do? >> Good. Yes.but usually we'll find out about that later. Neighbors in Austin are quite engaging and will let us know that -- let the code department know that there's been a demolition without a permit. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I have a proposed amendment to the second be it resolved. This is further clarification on the information being requested on demolitions. Two aspects of it to align [9:45:23 AM] with an existing instrument that we use right now to analyze and direct data and that's the city's affordability impact statement. Directed to collect the following information on applications for permits that we do so via the city's affordability impact statement. And then the second aspect of the proposed changes is to add some additional information that I think would be helpful for us about these demolitions, and that is to also collect other housing policy -- data about other housing policy considerations, such as alignment or conflict with existing housing stock, strategic plan or other affordable housing initiatives. So the concept here is that when we're going to obtain information about applications for permits, in addition to the information that's outlined here, that's called out here about number of units, units by bedroom count, et cetera, we are also going to want to know out this demolition permit aligns with other housing policy considerations or conflicts. So that's why I'm proposing adding this additional information. So there's two aspects to the amendment. So line it with our city's affordability impact statement, so that's our vehicle to collect this information. And the second thing is to have additional information that speaks to how the demolition aligns with our other housing policy considerations related to housing stock planning so that we have in context around the demolition permit. >> Tovo: You know, I think in concept I'm fine with it. I would suggest -- so right now the city's affordability impact statement is not something we give to our applicants to fill out. It's something that our staff do. So it doesn't make sense to me to use our affordability impact statement form. >> Kitchen: I didn't mean that. [9:47:23 AM] I'm sorry, I misspoke. I don't mean for the applicant to fill it out. I mean for our staff to fill it out for us to have the information in that context. I'm sorry, I misspoke. >> Tovo: My suggestion would be that I'm fine with it in concept. I would suggest altering it so the city's impact piece is attached to the housing policy considerations because that is where they -- that is the intent of the affordability impact statement is to tell us how -- what the impact is on affordability of this change, but also I think it can accommodate those other policy considerations, but where it's positioned here it sounds like we're collecting information from applicants about the number of demolitions using that form and it just isn't applicable. >> Kitchen: I can clarify. >> Tovo: That would be great, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? No, it was Mr. Flannigan next. >> Flannigan: Thank you. I'm not sure if this is a legal question or an idea question, but when we talk about tracking unit prices, is that not something that gets crosswise with when we're tracking or the state rules about what you can track with the sale of property? Isn't there something around like the appraisal district can't ask for how much a piece of property sold for? And are we talking about unit prices in terms of its most recent appraisal or are we actually seeking the sale price, which -- so that's why I'm not sure if it's a legal question or if it's an ordinance question, but is there not a state rule around what we're allowed to track in terms of sale of property? >> We've had a lot of discussion around what the appraisal department will do and we don't track at that it this point, but I'm not sure [inaudible]. >> Tovo: We're asking for the applicant to put down rental prices as well as sale prices when they submit that for demolition. [9:49:24 AM] I'm not sure of whether that runs afoul of any laws. >> Flannigan: So it might be an optional thing if it runs afoul of a government regulation of tracking the sales price after property, it might be an optional thing? >> Tovo: That would not be my hope. >> Flannigan: I assumed it wasn't your hope, but I wanted to clarify that. >> Tovo: It's been awhile since I looked at the educational impact statement, but we do ask for information about rental costs on that form, as I recall. >> Flannigan: Yeah. Rent is more straight forward. It's more the sales price of property that I think gets more afoul. >> Pool: I had another question, but just to follow on with what councilmember Flannigan is saying, I think that we can -- staff will clarify this for us, but if a unit is being sold they have a sales price that's public if they're selling it to an individual. So that's also an element of it too. If it's not on the public market that's I suppose a different thing, but there is a stated price usually that we may have access to. Anyway, I think it's complicated. [Laughter] What isn't complicated? Would it be possible either in councilmember kitchen's motion or in the mayor pro tem's to include information on the demographics of those who may be displaced by demolitions? Or in the alternative if a home is vacant then the demographic information on previous residences -- >> Kitchen: I could certainly add that. >> Pool: To who is living there and what happens to them. >> Kitchen: If it works with mayor pro tem I'll be happy to work with you and put it in this amendment. >> Pool: Great, thank you. [9:51:26 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: So I recognize that the second part -- the second be it resolved is the demolition section and I just want to clarify with the sponsors that when we're talking about net loss or net gain of affordable units or income restricted units we aren't just talking about demolitions, but just net loss of those units out of affordability. As the mayor suggested there are tens of thousands of units that we have seen and will see no longer be affordable units not just because of demolition, but also because of just change in rental price and renovation. Is that what we're talking about in section 1? About all -- about all different kinds of loss of affordable units, not just the demolition of those units? >> Kitchen: I think it's written right now. I'm sorry. >> Tovo: Go ahead. >> Kitchen: I think it's written right now to focus on demolitions. Is that correct, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: It is, for some of the reasons you heard before. It's challenging to ask the city to track the loss of units that are, say, rental to condo conversion. They may never come through the city. We can certainly track those come and ask for an upzoning that goes to the loss of affordable units. We can track those that come through a loss through demolition. I think it's important to track them to the extent that we can, but this is fairly focused on demolition. I'm happy to add a passage asking our staff to track some of that. I think they are doing that to some extent when it's knowable. >> Casar: Let me clarify that. Not in the second section where we're talking about tracking of permits, but rather in the section relative to what we're hoping to extrapolate from codenext and associated tools when you're talking about the city staff and codenext consultants evaluating the local net loss or gain of housing and by that I wanted to clarify if our staff can extrapolate the potential net loss or gain, which it may include [9:53:28 AM] renovation or demolition that we intend for -- for them to provide all the information that they're capable of providing. I just want to -- so much of the affordable housing that I see being lost regularly in my district is we have demolitions, but it's largely not by demolition, it is by renovation. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this one? Great. Let's move on to the next one. The next one is item number 40. Colleagues, this is just the implementation of work we've already done. We passed a music it and we funded the acquisitions. I have handed out on the dais a description of the night life initiative that was initially left off. There were three components and two of them were in the posting. This was the third. It's a term that was in that. This has gone past the music commissions and the like. So I just wanted everybody to get this handout and post this as part of the attachment to the resolution. Yes. >> Kitchen: I have two small amendments to attachment a and I'm getting copies for you, but basically where it says loans to renovate existing spaces, so it's not an existing space, but existing spaces so that contemplates more than one. The second bullet is loans to preserve existing performing and creative art spaces. So as we talked about this awhile back we were talking about creative arts spaces a a potential also, so I'm changing that bullet. This is on number two under attachment a. And then the last one is [9:55:30 AM] loans to support women and communities and artists of color. So I added that language also. So passing out the suggested changes for that. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you. Anything else on this item? Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: On number two, professional development, is the intent that city staff would run these public workshops? >> Mayor Adler: I don't think that's been determined yet. I think they just identified the need and now we'll go out and say what's the best way to impart this information. I'm not sure it would be city staff. >> Flannigan: Because it seems like something that an association or third- party would run. We would set the rules and enforcement and they would teach it and pay for it through member dues on how to comply and best practices and not have the city decide what best practices for night Clive is, let the merchant association do it. I think that's probably my only question for now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Anything else on this? All right. Yeah, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: One fast question. Do you intend to make this part of the backup? >> Mayor Adler: Yes, it will be attached. It was inadvertently left off. All right, the next item that we have then is item number 42. This is the textile collection contract issue. My understanding of what happened here was Austin resource recovery trying to implement a program that was going to divert materials that would go to the landfill, implemented a program. [9:57:30 AM] Didn't have to come to council because it doesn't cost us anything. In fact, it was revenue generating and below the threshold. And then we started immediately getting calls from Salvation Army and goodwill among others because they were saying that this program that we were entering into was inadvertently impacting their business models because they take a lot of this material by way of donation, which they resell, and that serves as the funding source for a lot of the activities that they -- that they do. And my understanding is that the impact of this program on those folks perhaps was not vetted with them as well in hindsight as it could have been in order to figure out what the best intersection was. So I think that this is a resolution that is in response to that. I joined on this resolution, but I'm not sure that the best thing for us to do this week is to cancel the program because there are good aspects to the program as well. But I think that within the last week the participants have actually first now begun to talk to one another. My hope is that there would be ideas or suggestions that might be able to surface to continue. This is our resolution. I know your office was working on those meetings with the folks. So I pulled this because I wasn't quite sure if it was ready to be acted on this week while the best resolution may not have been yet determined. >> Troxclair: Thank you for laying that out so succinctly. This resolution was in [9:59:31 AM] response to the non-profits who had concerns about the impact on the amount of donations that they would receive. We have been working with the mayor's office and the stakeholders this week to try to come to resolution. My hope is that by Thursday we will have an amendment that all parties agree to that there's some way to allow the contract to continue, but maybe a way for goodwill and salvation Army to work with simple recycling to allow them to continue to pick up -- I don't know what the solution is, but they're still meeting and talking about it and I think that there is a way to get there so that we can reach the city's goals while still honoring the contract with simple recycling because I do understand that the city entered into a contract with the business and they have an expectation, they made staffing decisions, they made financial decisions based on the expectations and the agreement that was entered into with the city. So I want to respect that as well. So thank you for your patience with this and hopefully we will have a resolution by Thursday. I can post it on the message board as soon as we have more and if we get to Thursday and there's not a resolution maybe we can talk to staff about what the best way is forward. I know either way that there's a 45-day -- I don't think that the will of the council is to cancel the contract, but if that was the will of the council there's still a 45-day cancellation -- continuation after that decision was made that staff and the stakeholders could sit down and figure something out. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I pulled this one in order to engage the conversation. We have a legal memo. I think it came out yesterday so we can see what the ramifications would be on canceling or continuing -- specifically canceling the contract. So I think it would be good [10:01:32 AM] for us to read that before Thursday. And I don't know if we need to have an executive session to talk about that. But I do think our concerns might have been avoided if we had had a chance to hear about the contract before the program kicked out. The first time I heard about simple recycling, and I support what they're trying to do, was when I got the mailer with the bags. And so I want to also note that not every part of the city has our recycling pickups, so people still will need to go to the various non-profits, and I want to continue to support what they do. So maybe it's an education or awareness or some kind of flier that talks about simple recycling can pick up those kinds of things in these parts of town. We still have good non-profits in this city who also rely on your donations of clothing and home goods in order to forward the missions that they have and that we support. So I hope that we can find a way to keep the contract going because it is providing us with a move forward to get to zero recycling. Sorry, zero waste. 100% recycling. [Laughter]. Sooner rather than later. It feels like this is filling a gap that existed in our programs. >> Houston: Mayor? Thank you. I think everybody feels that this is an unfortunate situation. I know that I do. I feel for the fall family business that stepped up to the plate, but as a council we always talk about stakeholder engagement and transparency and I don't think this happened in this instance. So if something else I hope that staffed in that sometimes you may have [10:03:32 AM] administrative approval over things, but there's some things that you need to go deeper and make sure that everybody in the community that will be impacted by a decision that's made by this council has some opportunity to participate in the conversation. Then we wouldn't be here today. So I think that we can -- that a solution can be devised and hopefully we can do that on Thursday. >> Renteria: Mayor? I -- in my household we recycle. And I know the items that the thrift stores and goodwill don't take, and they're usually all the torn-up clothes, the underwears, the socks. They just don't accept those. And in the past I have been throwing them in the trash because there's no way of recycling these items. I hope we also look into the fact that there are items that some of these non-profits do not take. So we also need to find a solution to make sure that, like my colleague pool said, that we do reach that goal that we don't want to send items like that to the landfill. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem and then Mr. Flannigan. >> Tovo: I appreciate my colleagues who brought this forward. This is an issue I thought about a lot in the month or so since the contract start and my office has been involved with trying to get information from Austin resource recovery which you've provided and I appreciated. I really have a slew of questions, some of which I've submitted but the Q and a, but I want to say I'm not sure that moving forward with the contract is the right thing to do. I do have concerns about the extent to which this is going to cut into the clothes and textiles that are going to our thrift stores and other organizations. [10:05:32 AM] I know that there are a few others. The assistance league, I go to their thrift store a lot. I'm a big thrift store shopper. I enjoy not only when you shop at a thrift store not only are you keeping resources out of the landfill, but you're also supporting great missionsiclike the assistance league does in a variety of ways. The settlement home is another big stakeholder that I think should be included in those conversations as well. I'm pretty sure I've heard from some of their members about this change in policy. I've heard about this -- about this new program from neighbors, from people I go to church with, from people I see in the thrift store. There are a lot of people who are concerned about this, and I appreciate again that you've raised it to the attention of putting it on our council agenda. Some of the kinds of questions I want to know, I appreciate what Texas campaign for the environment said about the extent to which we need to keep these text times tiles. Some are not appropriate for reuse and their clothes you can't wear he again and clothes you can't turn into something else necessarily, so what do you do with those? But I think I would have felt better about moving forward with this kind of contract if I had seen some really substantial outreach to the thrift stores in town and the other organizations and a kind of partnership with them to promote among customers, you know, please, help us with our zero waste goals by donating your clothes to all of these organizations. I may have -- you may have had that kind of publication and education before, but I'm not sure that we've -- I'm not sure that that's -- you know what I'm saying? That would have been kind of the step one. Let's try to get people donating to these organizations that are here in Austin, their money stays in Austin, they support Austin families, and they sell -- I'm concerned too not just about this business and the way they may be -- it may impact our non-profit organizations. I'm also concerned that the thrift stores were the [10:07:34 AM] textiles end up were for profit thrift stores. It's not ending up in non-profit thrift stores and they're not in our community. They're not provided in a resale venue that would be provided to Austin residents who want to get value priced clothing and textiles. Anyway, again, I have a lot of questions, some of which I have submitted and I would like to look toward how we move forward, but keeping open the option that this may not be the right fit for Austin. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I would like to add on to councilmember Renteria and mayor pro tem tovo. This program sounds like it may be more effective as a textile program where the community already knows or feels they know to bring their underused or old clothes and old textiles to a goodwill or Salvation Army and all the other organizations and maybe the zero waste element of this is working with those organizations to take on the stuff that they're not willing to keep. And maybe that be the second version. And arguably that would be more affordable to the taxpayers than running a curb side program or something more consistent with the community's values. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> Pool: Thanks for that, councilmember Flannigan, I was coming to that conclusion too that the nexus between simple recycling and the non-profits, I don't know if that's been established. But simple recycling could be the location for things that goodwill and the assistance league can't accept or use, but they still have it dropped off there. Did y'all look at that? >> Sure. Hi, Jessica king, Austin resource recovery. And we have been working directly with stakeholders to address a lot of their concerns and you are right [10:09:36 AM] we have not been able to have the attention needed to the community. And that is in large part because our efforts are focused on recycling. We subpoena about reduce, reuse and recycle. And unfortunately recycle is what most of the community hears upfront first and that's what we looked at low hanging fruit to energize there. But we do have an interest in -- and have always had that interest in master plan to focus in on reuse and this is a prime opportunity to do that. Was it missed in the process at the front? Yes. And now we are able to dedicate some staff to actually focus on the reuse and our goal is in the next 45 days to promote and do more education about the reuse. The message will be generally about how to manage textiles and housewares in our home and so it won't be dedicated to any particular organization per se, but really trying to fix a closed loop fire marshal, really trying to keep things locally and trying to support all the reuse organizations in the Austin area. So that's not just the non-profits because we also heard for for profit thrift stores that have a stake in the Austin community as well and we want to support those organizations as well. So right now we have on our website when you right now we have a what do we do website at Austin recycles.com, but if you put in information about clothing, textiles, shoes, the first message you receive is donate first and there's a link on that site to take you to a list of organizations in the Austin community to donate to. Our goal is expand that list and we hope to work with all the reuse organizations in the community to expand that list. We will work hopefully with your offices to expand that list and really identifying not just these organizations that are available but what they do and how they benefit our community. So we are looking at ramping up the reuse side of the communication in a big way. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, [10:11:40 AM] troxclair. >> Troxclair: Thanks for your work on this. I just wanted to comment, I think the point has been made there was a breakdown in process so hopefully if there's a new program being rolled out it will come to council. A couple of other points that have been made, this is a revenue positive contract, right? So it's not -- I mean the issue gets complicated because the city is actually making money from recycling, I think it's $70,000 a year that's projected. Is that correct? >> No, I'm sorry. >> This doesn't work. Here we go. Interim director. Our contract with simple recycling indicates about $20 per ton. So this last, for example in December the amount of textile that was collected by simple recycling was approximately 60 tons. So it's about $1,200. >> Troxclair: Okay. I don't know where I got -- >> I'm sorry, $1,300 we received in December. >> Troxclair: In December. >> Three weeks or so. >> Troxclair: So per month. That's one year we're talking about. What would a different program cost the taxpayers less? It puts us in a difficult position when this is a revenue positive program for the city. To some of the other ideas about potentially having things taken to good will and then simple recycling taking the things good will doesn't want, that's not really their business model. From what I understand they are reselling the things in good condition and they are doing away with the other -- the other items that can't be resold. So I guess can you give us some guidance as far as staff recommendation -- if we get to Thursday and there's really not an agreement or a clear path forward on this issue, what is the staff recommendation as far as how to proceed with this contract? [10:13:41 AM] >> Well, our recommendation at this point is giving us six months or 12 months to work with simple recycling, also work with nonprofit organizations to see -- what I'm looking for is from both, from not only simple recycling but also nonprofit organizations in Austin to give us some information about what they collect as far as textile goes, how much they collect, and how much they collected last year. Maybe month by month. It would be great to have that information so we could compare to see if there is an impact on -- because right now I really don't know. We hear that there is an impact, but we don't have the information to kind of compare with what they had last year, say in December and what they have this year. We heard -- we met with a few organizations yesterday and to give us some information, but we need to work with them to think around within this next six months to 12 months to figure out what those numbers are so that we can value it, this contract. Now, this contract is for 36 months. There are three one-year extensions. We can stop at any point of those, we can go back and resolicit if we need to, if you all wish to do that. So we can stop at any of those points. It's a new program just like our recycling we had back in 2008, we had some issues with that, we still do, but we have to work through this. >> Troxclair: And is this similar business model being used in our cities? I mean are we reinventing the wheel here or is there another city we can look to -- see how they've addressed this issue and the data they found? >> There are other cities that use this and have Mr. Adam Winfield with simple recycling also here that could answer some questions. Some of the information, as I [10:15:42 AM] understand what happens with the -- with the material that goes to the simple recycling, about 5% goes to landfill, maybe 20% to 30% resold and 60% reused internationally and the balance is used as rags and insulation. >> Troxclair: I guess I was more meaning the potential conflict between simple recycling model and the nonprofit model in other counties, how they've resolved that conflict. If you don't know, that's okay. >> I have to talk to Adam, Adam Winfield of simple recycling to get that answer. >> Troxclair: Well hopefully we'll figure it out. Maybe the solution is just coming up with a date that is sooner than 36 months so that we can have a for sure resolution at some point in the near future. >> Absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: I'm not sure the resolution would extend as far out as a year because I think there's a lot of concern about the additional activities that the organizations do locally, and I hear some of the things that you mentioned as good things, but my sense is that if they were to co-exist, we're going to have to be more creative and go farther from that and have a greater impact. You know, creative ideas. If it doesn't fit with the business model is there a change in price that would help make the suggestion that they could be working under -- these organizations could be working together to look at the stream. I know that's not the business model, but I think that the owner will probably run into this situation in other places and it might be good to use this as an opportunity to figure out what model it is that really is scalable into the larger cities. Communicating to the homeowners on the bags and materials that simple provides to all the homes that perhaps [10:17:45 AM] could at that point of use direct people to the local entities for particular -- my hope is is that we can be more creative and more meaningfully address the concerns. >> We absolutely hear you, and the key component is working with the stakeholders. The commitment we did make was 45 days to get on the background and provide information regarding the reuse industry. That doesn't just limit us to advertising or the standard approach. We plan to heavily deploy our block leader program who is in support of reuse. They are people who live in the community. They are 200 strong and growing, and they are very supportive of zero waste efforts and the reuse world. So we hope these individuals who live in your neighborhood and know you personally can reach out to you directly and to all citizens of Austin to promote the organizations that are in their area. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I'm glad to hear about that. I think that could be very useful and I hope we'll use channel 6 and some of the other city resources that we have to really beef up our promotion of the reuse community, as you said. My concern is if there are to be changes the longer the contract is on the ground the harder it becomes to make a change to it. So I would lean toward, you know, a really soon look at it because otherwise we'll be here in six months talking about the number of jobs that are going to be lost when we cancel this contract, and I think that makes it a harder choice. So I would ask that we take a look at it sooner. The other thing that I would like to ask that you provide through the Q and a are the percentages you just offered about -- was that for simple recycling, where those textiles land? >> That's right. >> Tovo: Did I hear you say [10:19:45 AM] 50 to 60% are sold internationally? >> Yes. >> Tovo: I would raise to my colleagues this is an area I know a lot but I have had discussions with people concerned about that element as well. Because when a lot of textiles are sold to countries that had a textile industry, then we're competing with people who are making a living by making textiles. And so, you know, I think it also -- we are also then impacting the livelihood of individuals in some of those places who have long traditions of textile making. And so I would -- again, this isn't an area I can really speak about articulately, but I hope we take that into consideration as well as hear from some people who can speak about the global impacts of donating our textiles to countries that already have had traditions of textile making. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this one? Thank you. Let's move to item number 44. This was pulled by councilmembers Garza and Flannigan. >> Kitchen: I would like to lay it out first and then we can raise the questions. We also have staff here that can answer any questions you guys have or comments. Basically just to remind people what we are doing in this item, this is -- this was an opportunity that presented itself in a grant that the -- that the city has received related to services at Austin public library. So it's an opportunity to add to the expanded services through that grant. One of the recommendations from our community engagement task force, which was to -- to look further into using video conferencing for general citizens communication and build off the wonderful work which councilmember Flannigan is building on in district 6. [10:21:48 AM] So what happened here and our staff can speak to it more is that Google chat identified seven public libraries with video conferencing capabilities and awarded funds to provide heart wear and software pore -- hardware and software in those locations. This is about more than just the citizen communication, but the kinds of services we're talking about adding are things like video conferencing for military families, community organizations and small startup businesses and promoting civic engagement such as through connecting home bound individuals to community meetings held at library locations, as well as, you know, enabling participation through general citizens communication. So in doing -- in moving forward with this, we also wanted to be sure and -- and look to the capabilities specifically related to citizen communication, but the other capabilities across the whole city. To thank councilmember Flannigan for his ideas related to this language, was that we wanted to be sure as part of this process to not only extend these services to the libraries, the seven libraries that had been identified, but to recognize that -- that we need to do have a not oddology to look at -- methodology to make sure the service was equitiably available across the city. There's a be it resolved related to developing a methodology for determining where there might be geographic gap areas, and then to come up with plan to adapt those areas also. So there's language in here to do that, and that's to consider methodologies, for example, about number of residents that may have increased access due to their [10:23:49 AM] location near a facility, looking at travel patterns and available travel options, parking, hours of operation, flexibility and meeting spaces and other related factors. That's just to lay it out. I know folks have comments they want to make or questions so -- >> Mayor Adler: Let's find out why this item was pulled. Mr. Flanagan or Ms. Garza. >> Garza: It's more concerns than questions. A question is what were the metrics used to determine the libraries that were picked? >> We started by looking at how we could ensure that all citizens would have access to the video conferencing capability. We have divided the city into four library regions, so we started by ensuring that each of those regional branch libraries would be included. And then we looked at the city to see if there were any gaps where we felt that citizens would have to travel an unreasonable distance in order to reach their regional branch library. We have two branch libraries that sit on sort of the far outskirts of northwest and southwest Austin. The Hampton branch at oak hill and the spicewood springs branch library, which are a significant number of miles from the regional branch library, so we added those. We also considered parking situations and that we needed a central east Austin location that would have adequate free parking and had enough meeting room space that we could continue to make meeting rooms available to the citizens while still making the video [10:25:49 AM] conferencing capable and that added the carver branch library. Hat' how we determined the so that's how we determined the seven. Now, we were always prepared to consider adding more at a later date if there's a demand for it. But since we have never offered video conferencing capability here in Austin previously, we don't know what kind of usage we're going to get. Once we implement it we absolutely plan to publicize it and then determine if we need to add more locations. >> Garza: Okay. I appreciate that explanation. And my concern is you're adding more that might be done on -- if there's demand. And that's concerning to me because I think one of the -- if the purpose of this is to increase engagement, that's what we want to do, I don't know why metrics like voter turnout weren't used and engagement period. And I think if we looked at those kinds of numbers we would see districts like mine are -- don't have high voter turnout and they don't come to city hall as often. I think it would have been good to look at our citizens communication and see where we have -- people can list what district they come from. And very few times, unfortunately, I see district 2 on there because I understand that these are working families who are having a hard time coming to city hall and they're working several jobs. So I'm concerned about the metrics that were used. Councilmember Flannigan's office did a map of where the libraries are. And once again, and this happens so often from my district, district 2 is left out of this program. It happens with cap metro. I've been trying to work as a member of the cap metro board, so I don't want to sound ungrateful for the funding that was provided and I understand that it was specific for libraries, but [10:27:50 AM] we have to solve the issue of if we're just putting them at libraries we're only going to get them in an area that has a library. And there are parts of the city, mine, that don't have those facilities. And so I can't -- as written I can't support this because it does -- I just did a map from one of the furthest points in my district to downtown to here and it's 15 miles. So if distance to where getting to city hall was a metric, my district is one that should have been number one on that list. So I wish there was a way to configure the funding and the thought had been put into it to -- instead of maybe putting somewhere to, adding that funding and providing some sort of collaboration with del valle ISD, one of their libraries, one of their facilities. But I can't support it as written and I'm thinking of adding some amendments that specifically speak to -- I know it says there will be expanded services to southeast Austin, but Ruiz library is considered the southeast branch and I would say Ruiz library is about four miles from downtown. So I can't support this as written. Mostly this is more for my colleagues. But I will be happy to hopefully provide some language that will make it better, but it's a big concern that once again southeast Austin is left out of an initiative, especially an initiative that's supposed to get more engagement. And this is a district that can use every -- any aid available to get them more engagement. >> Kitchen: I would say that I absolutely agree. So certainly open to changing this language. I'd be happy to add another location right now. The language that we have has us addressing a plan by may 4th, but certainly happy to add it right now. I couldn't agree with you more. You know, we have similar [10:29:51 AM] issues in your next door district in south central, so certainly happy to add language. >> Garza: I had a quick question. I thought the grant was specific and identified those. Can you say we can add a branch? >> I don't know. I'm saying I'm open to whatever language you can add. I would have to ask about the funds. >> Garza: Can we change the branches that were picked? >> The grant funding is a separate issue. The library received this funds through the libraries friends foundation as a grant from Google. The huge from comments at city council meetings was not part of that at the time. What councilmember kitchen mentioned was the reasoning behind that grant. So that's a separate issue. Relocating the equipment from the locations they are now is really not feasible. Adding equipment at another location might be although there would be some cost involved. >> Garza: I would be very supportive of maybe a be it resolved that directs the city manager to find that extra funding because I don't want this to turn into fighting against other libraries. I would prefer to add a location and preferably in far southeast Austin to where they built understandably so very neglected by our city. So I'll work on some draft language. >> Thank you, councilmember Garza and thank you, councilmember kitchen for collaborating with my office on this language. One of my thoughts was that [10:31:51 AM] the resolution is too print active, that it might be better to take the first three libraries as a pilot program, strike the middle part where it identifies the next four and just say to staff roughly figure out how to cover the rest of the city. My concern with the four is that it suddenly makes the parts of the city not served a minority of votes. And if we do the pilot program with just three areas, there's still a majority of council yet to be served, which can then have the votes to authorize the funding to make sure that it rolls out. So my thought was just make the pilot program the first three. And staff, I would encourage you to be careful what you refer to as the far outer reaches. Spicewood springs branch is barely in my district. My district goes way further out an spicewood springs branch and it is not outer reaches for us. Understand that for me, please. But that is what I would like to see. That's why I stayed on as a co-sponsor. If we could change it to have the first three as the pilot and then a majority of council still is going to be ready to vote and find funding and support the expansion, that that expansion be done on a map and not in text. Where we can see it laid out on a map where the next round of location will be with a circle drawn around it and the number of residents who will now get access to these services. Busy as a clarifying -- but as a clarifying question, the grant funding has already put equipment into these branches, is that right? >> Yes, sir, it's all installed. >> Flannigan: Okay. So the resolution is about expanding the use of that technology for public testimony? >> Correct. >> Flannigan: I don't think we have to worry about these libraries not getting service, but if we're going to provide access to the community, I think we're safe in limiting the first three as the pilot and the majority of us will still [10:33:52 AM] have the desire to find the funding and resources to make sure that the rest of the city has access. Ms. Alter? >> Alter: I wanted to clarify that I should have been listed as a co-sponsor on this. I think it's very important that we pilot these projects. Hopefully down the line we will move not to just be able to do this in libraries, but to allow people who do have access to do so from their home and that will also free us up to be providing services where people do not have that access, I think it's important as a city where we want to do the public engagement that we are trying to be innovative and we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. We have to figure out how to make this work in some places. And I think that's why this is a pilot and hopefully it will work well and allow us to expand. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. , Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I just want to understand the equipment is in these branches and already been paid for. But is that all the funding or is there -- is there additional funding that is going to be rolled out in other libraries at some point in the future? >> This was the total funding from Google for this project. It was to put the video conferencing in seven branch libraries plus the new central library. >> Troxclair: Seven. So it was more than just treat that are identified in the first be it further resolved. >> The other four are mentioned further into the resolution, but those are the total seven locations that have already been installed. The equipment is installed in all seven locations today. >> Troxclair: Okay. I guess I misunderstood that the equipment has already been installed in all of [10:35:53 AM] these branches. Okay. And are we -- so the pilot program is just to see if it is a successful means for citizens communication specifically. >> Yeah. The pilot is to -- so we did a pilot initially with district 6 office and so this is to now look at multiple offices coming in to the city and how we manage that. So yes, it is a pilot for not the technology, but how we manage the citizens communication at a council meeting from multiple sites. >> Troxclair: The equipment in those seven branches has been paid for and is going to stay permanently. That is not a pilot. >> That's correct. >> Troxclair: The pilot is whether or not it's effective as a use of citizens communication for council meetings. >> Correct. >> Pool: Mayor? And I think -- and maybe Mr. Elkins can talk a little bit further to expand on that last point that councilmember troxclair was making. It's a matter of how our staff is able to switch from one feed to the next and then put it up on the screen so we can see. So I think limiting the pilot to a smaller number makes sense because there will be some logistics that have to be worked out and staff has to figure out if we drop somebody inadvertently or things overlap or we don't even know how the equipment -- how we will perform with the equipment. Is that correct? >> Sure. Actually, -- you actually explained that fairly good. Is that we did one site and now it's a matter of queuing up, having people ready, having the technology switch timely so that there's not a large gap in communications. >> Troxclair: I'm sorry, I wasn't quite done if I can ask one more question. So the second to last be it further resolved where it talks about the developing a plan -- the city manager is directed to develop a plan for extending the expanded services, but beyond the [10:37:53 AM] initial seven libraries. Is that a commitment to having to find additional funding? >> Well, the way it's written right now is to develop the plan and bring it back to us and then we would find funding. But I'm hearing a desire to speed that up and perhaps put some language in this to actually direct the staff to find funding. As it is written right now it is to come back to us with a plan. >> Troxclair: And I guess my initial thoughts is the opposite way. To slow it down. I don't want to commit to expanding a program before we even know if it's going to be utilized. I'm sure that maybe there will be excitement at first and maybe it will be used, but if in a few months the novelty has worn off and there's nobody showing up to do citizens communication -- I don't want to commit to funding a program before we even complete the pilot, before we even know if it's effective or useful. >> Kitchen: Well, that's a good point, but let me also mention that the plan to expand includes having the video conferencing capability in other locations, which actually is useful beyond just citizen communication. So to councilmember Garza's point, if we don't -- if we wait -- if we wait before we even have video conferencing capabilities throughout the city, then we're impacting more than just the usage of the video conferencing for citizen communication. We're impacting the use of video conferencing for the other kinds of things that were mentioned, that I mentioned earlier that the grant funded. So basically video conferencing capabilities is the technology tool. There are multiple uses for that technology tool. And the parts of the city like councilmember Garza is talking about that don't even have the technology tool are losing out not just on capabilities around citizen communication, but on other capabilities too. So that's the concern [10:39:54 AM] about -- I understand what you're saying about checking out a pilot first, but that is the concern about waiting too long. >> Troxclair: Yeah. I guess I understand that too, but since this resolution speaks specifically to a pilot and says that -- you know, the funding has already been provided for certain things, I want us to be really clear what has already been paid for and what new services that we're committing to. >> And councilmember troxclair, I want to assure you that as councilmember kitchen and I and others work on this, it is not a commitment to spend more money right now. It is a pilot to see not just can staff at city hall switch between feeds, but also no libraries are doing this now. So can library staff handle it? Is it disruptive to providing library services? It's going to be different than doing public testimony from a council district office. So it's also a pilot on the process side for the libraries to handle. And my intent is to limit the pilot to three because it will then require all of us have this conversation again when we think about expansion beyond the other four we will have to talk about it as a group. I want to assure you that's my intent. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Are we ready to move on. We're halfway through the list. Ms. Troxclair wanted to know if you had a comment for this before we move on. >> Just, are we going to continue to pilot both at the spicewood springs branch in district 6 and the district office? So we would just do the library branch as part of the pilot. Thank you. And then finally I just wanted to clarify that the initial pilot in district 6 was at the council office, but it required different technology than at the library. The staff had to physically [10:41:56 AM] go out to the site every council meeting to set up the technology. So when we came back we wanted to take advantage of existing technology that was already embedded in the various infrastructures of the city facilities and that's how the seven sites were located because they were already equipped to do that. But we can certainly continue to explore other options. And as we identified in the memorandum that the expansion costs at any other location beyond those seven should not exceed $5,000 per location. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: One last question since we're talking about referencing funding. What is the cost of expanding the video conferencing? Do we know, Mr. Elkins, generally speaking? If you don't have it right now that's okay. I just thought order of magnitude. >> The equipment itself is about $3,200 per location. There might be some additional cabling costs and all, but it should not be excessive, depending upon the location. Some of our older buildings have an excessive amount of asbestos and there might be some additional cost at that point. >> Kitchen: Okay, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you very much. Next item pulled is item number 45. Ms. Pool? >> Pool: Thank you. I just wanted to pull this to draw your attention to the fact that two days ago was the 44th anniversary of the supreme court's landmark decision roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion and a person's constitutional right to privacy and a woman's right to make health care decisions on her own. So I have a resolution that was brought to my office from naral, and we have collaborated with naral and planned parenthood, also at the county. And I believe my staff also contacted folks with central health and I've heard from [10:43:57 AM] national political women's caucus in support of recognition of roe vs. Wade and of course the national organization for women. So it's a really important date in history. I actually -- I remember 1973 and I was graduating high school. And this was a really important change to the landscape for reproductive health in my life where it was really important for myself and my student friends who were also women and also the men there. So I wanted to raise up the recognition of January 2,244th years ago. So we just have a resolution that has gone through a number of edits. I appreciate the input from the mayor's some, councilmember Casar's office and councilmember kitchen and I hope to see this approved on Thursday. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: Mayor, I don't know if this will be encompassed in our next discussion on committees and council meeting times, but I thought it might be appropriate for us to talk about the length of citizens engagement on this item. I'm concerned that this -- that we will have a lot of people showing up wanting to speak either for or against something that maybe is not the primary duty -- is mostly symbolic and maybe doesn't have a tangible impact. And we have a lot of other things on the agenda. So I just want to understand what our expectations are for citizens communication on this item. >> Mayor Adler: I think the way that it's set up on our rules right now, absent taking action, we have 20 people that would speak, 10 on each side for three minutes each, and then after that people would be called up to for either two or [10:45:58 AM] three minutes for an additional 30 minutes to get up to 90 minutes. >> Troxclair: I would suggest that we consider having a discussion right now about limiting the debate on this item so that it doesn't encompass too much of our day. >> Mayor Adler: Do you want to propose something? >> Troxclair: I don't know what would be appropriate. Maybe 15 minutes on each side and so for a total of 30 minutes? >> Mayor Adler: Council? Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I don't anticipate -- possibly you have some information that I wouldn't, but I think this resolution is very strongly supported by the Austin community. I'm okay with limiting the amount of time that we spend on it given the fact that we have 90 odd items on our agenda, but I was not anticipating that there would be a massive outpouring. We did have a strong representation in support of women's rights and human rights on Saturday. There was a massive, massive March down the streets of Austin and the estimates of the people who came to that was estimated to 50,000 and 100,000. I don't anticipate that many people coming in support of this, but I think they do support this resolution. >> Casar: I think I would be open to that resolution when we get there on Thursday, but to councilmember pool's point let's see what it looks like on Thursday and just talk about it. That seems a bit premature. Unless somebody knows that there's a lot of people coming up, and I haven't heard that's the case. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I would never underestimate our community's ability to show up and talk, but I think [10:47:58 AM] similar resolutions were going to be passed at the state -- or proposed, I should say, at the state and county and those have all been postponed or canceled. So if that means the city of Austin is the only one doing it, it might focus the energies more at our council meeting than they might have otherwise. I fully support limiting testimony, especially -- and even on a broader sense on anything that's not a substantive policy, I think it might be a wise conversation. I don't know if it makes sense to do them ad hoc every time. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: I support councilmember Flannigan's direction because we do this every time depending upon the issue. I think we need to be consistent when there are issues that are brought to the council's attention that everybody knows how we're going to respond to their public testimony. We've done some that we go on and on and then some we've limited. So we need to maybe -- at some point we need to have that conversation, but for Thursday we need to know because it's possible. Thank you for that information. I didn't know the state and county had withdrawn theirs. So it may be that this is the only place for a massing of people who support roe vs. Wade. And again, I support it, but everybody in Austin does not support it. So when we say the city of Austin supports it, I think we do a disservice to the citizens of Austin. Some of us do, some of us don't. And that's kind of how we find ourselves in the positions that we are in now. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: Okay. Well, sorry, I didn't realize my light was on, but I think the proposed -- my proposal was a total of 30 minutes on this item, that way people don't show up on Thursday and are upset if there are a lot of people. I think it's appropriate to set the expectation as we have on other items going forward, if we don't have as [10:49:59 AM] many as that show up, that's fine, but my proposal was 30 minutes, 15 minutes each side. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody have any objection to creating that expectation in the community? >> Tovo: I do. >> Mayor Adler: 15 minutes each is a side. We could have 15 people on each side that spoke for one minute. We could set that up however we wanted to. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I appreciate the discussion and I think we still have more conversation to have around public testimony, but for a lot of people this is coming and being able to speak to their elected officials is an important and -- an important right to them. And I really am probably, you know, going to err on the side of providing as much public comment most of the time. I too would want to wait until Thursday to see how many people we have because I don't want to limit them to 30 minutes if we can accommodate 45 speakers on each side at a minute each I'm going to work to make that happen so that everybody who shows up as has an ability to talk even if it's for a significantly apreviousiated period of time. I think as much as possible I would like to see the people who come and want to speak have an opportunity to speak, even if they don't always have three minutes. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool and Mr. Flannigan. >> Pool: I would point out when we make equal amounts of time for each side, it sets up an optic that looks like an issue has equal support or opposition and I know in Austin, for example, that that -- and frankly, I think nationally that that isn't the case. There are some people who oppose roe vs. Wade, but there are many, many more people, many, many more people who support it, especially here in Austin. And so if we are going to limit -- which maybe we end up not doing it. I would tend to want to make the cut based on what the percentage of people who support it, who may have showed up, a percentage of that based on and then the people who didn't. It would have to more accurately reflect the [10:52:00 AM] actual feeling in the community, not the number of people who come. >> Flannigan: I would definitely confirm the perception situation. I know that my community often falls under that, the lgbt community falls under that, falls that there's an equal side to the opposition. So I think a more nuanced perspective on how we divide up debate on is good idea. And to mayor pro tem's point, I don't think anybody in our team here wants to say we don't want to hear from the community, but I think it's also a service to the community to make sure they know the best place to spend those efforts. If 150 people want to talk about roe vs. Wade they should really find the committee at the stage Lege that's going to talk about it and not think that coming and yelling at us is the right place to do it. And there's a longer conversation that councilmember Houston and I will probably pow-wow about, but to think about that so that the community doesn't by default think the city council is the place where all testimony has to go when in effect there's only a handful of things we can do. >> Mayor Adler: And I sure would invite, if you guys would come back with a proposal, be talking about committees and meeting structure here, but things like that that we can uniformly apply, I think it would be helpful and maybe it will come up in the conversation we're about to have. So there's a proposal to have it 15 minutes on each side. There's also a conversation about deciding this question when we're together. Obviously we can't take actions at a work session. We're not allowed to do that. So we're trying to get a feel and the public is trying to get a feel. I think they could watch this and see very clearly that whatever we do, there [10:54:00 AM] could be a significant limitation on either the number of people or the amount of people that get to speak. Anybody else want to express anything from the dais? >> Troxclair: We don't have to do it right now, but I think before the end of the day, whenever we've done this before -- I'm not trying to make this a political issue. I'm just -- I don't think the testimony, although I respect people's ability to come and speak, I'm not sure on this issue it's really changing anybody's mind or is the appropriate place to make a community statement. So mayor, I'm going to leave it up to you to run the meeting as you see fit, but if we're going to limit debate, we've always said it publicly at this work session. It's not a huge deal either way. I just wanted to bring it up. >> Mayor Adler: And I think we can say that my sense is that that council is we're going to limit debate on this issue and we're going to limit debate either the total amount of time or the number of speakers or the amount of time they have to speak, but my sense also on the dais is that people want to wait and see what the group looks like that shows up to be able to craft that when we're there, but I think the public should be put on notice it's going to open. And I think there should be a consistent rule on this, which I also agree with. I'm just not sure we're going to do that right now. Mr. Casar? >> Casar: So when we limit debate on an issue and have this conversation during work session it's often times because we anticipate there will be a lot of people and nobody has told me that that's their anticipation. If you know that there's going to be a lot of people, just let us know that and -- >> Troxclair: Any other time that we've talked about abortion at city council there's been a lot of people showing up. I don't know if that's what this conversation is what he's covering, but I see media here -- >> He said no. [Laughter]. >> Troxclair: Any other time we've talked about abortion at city council we have a prolonged conversation about it. >> Casar: Sure. [10:56:00 AM] And second, if we are going to talk about on things that are certainly not substantive city policy, but have symbolic value and us wanting to -- I understand potentially restrict the amount of time we spend on that and expand the amount of time we deal with other issues, I think it makes sense as people have indicated for that to be a conversation outside of any particular resolution. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: And I just want to be clear that to limit the testimony requires a vote of the council. So one way or the other we have to have a vote about it on Thursday. About limit -- we can give signals to it, but it's not -- it's not any one member of this council's decision and it's something we have to vote on. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza? >> Garza: We have limited testimony at this level, but it's because we all agree on this level. And this is obviously a place we're not agreeing on it. A zoning case and we say hey, and everybody usually agrees. And we're not agreeing here. And I mean, I'm very -- I'm torn in this situation because I too have concerns about people coming down here when they should be -- it's a better place is at the legislature, but at the same time it's important that we recognize here in a climate that many need to raise their voices. And I think as local elected officials we should honor that and listen. And regardless of whether we should look at this issue or not, if they come to city hall on Thursday, I think we give them some time. We give them a minute, but you know, yes, it is symbolic, but we have to recognize the time we're in. And people want to hear -- want their voice heard and I'm okay with that. I say I'm okay with Thursday, but anybody who shows up should be given the opportunity to talk. If that's for one minute then time fine too. >> Renteria: Mayor, every [10:58:02 AM] Thursday I come ready to stay up until 3:00 in the morning. >> Mayor Adler: All right. I think we're going to move on to the next item now. [Laughter] That gets us to item number 46. I pulled this item. Mayor pro tem, I think it is yours on the demolition. Colleagues, you know this came up earlier. When it came up earlier I shared the same concern that many people did that we were having in essence default decisions made at the landmark commission. And that did not seem to be appropriate. We actually want to make the vote. There was some conversations at the time about changing it so that a super majority wasn't required at that level to declare a property homework. I have problems with removing the super majority restriction. If we're going to take a look at super majorities generally how we do them in this city globally, I'd be happy to participate in that. But changing them kind of one offs, I have difficulty supporting. And it seems to me that really the issue here was attendance at the meetings. We just didn't have the right -- enough people show up to be able to get the votes that people thought there might be if everybody was there to be able to execute stuff. So I just wanted to let the council know that consistent with what I've just handed out I would anticipate suggesting that we address the attendance issue the way we do, say, on like board of adjustments where we have alternates that are appointed so that if we don't have the requisite number of people there to be [11:00:02 AM] able to vote, that it's easy for the chair or easier for the chair to be able to make sure that there are 11 people there and able to vote. And then further putting in a clause -- I was going to suggest that it says specifically that if there are absences at that meeting, such as to have prevented -- such as might have impacted the numbers of the vote, that the matter be postponed to the following week so that the fault is that properties just get demolished. I would also point out one of the advantages of doing so it's something that could take effect within a couple of weeks and be available for their February 27th meeting, as opposed to the ordinance change which should go back to the planning commission, back to us. It just seems to me the first thing for us to try to fix here is the attendance issue which seemed to be the problem. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: With all due respect, mayor, I appreciate your creativity on the subject, but the problem really isn't just attendance. As we started, I think certainly the absences gave rise to some of the issues that brought this to the level of counsel attention, but there are -- there are some issues beyond attendance, but I would say, you know, in looking -- one of the things it did for me was to highlight the fact that we don't have this threshold, we don't create this threshold for any other board and commission that I'm aware of. You know, we have -- we have a situation where a valid petition against a land use change, against a zoning change, requires a super majority at the council. Now, if you have a valid petition in place and you're going through the planning commission, that issue doesn't stop at the planning commission if the planning commission fails to achieve a three-fourths majority of votes. So this is the only body that I'm aware of where the super [11:02:06 AM] majority or -- this is not a super majority but more than a simple majority kicks in at the level of the advisory body, and I just don't think it's appropriate. And, frankly, I think as I look back to the demolitions that have occurred just in a couple months where we've been talking about this issue, they are significant, the let me listing the demolition permits that have been released I think creating attendance issues, but do we pick alternates? Do the alternates attend every single meeting in it's not clear how those would function. We have had a series of problems in the last couple years with our historic landmark commission. We had a commissioner, from comments and votes, doesn't appear to be supportive of a historic preservation program. We've got one other commissioner who, when it came time to make assessments about the historical significance of a building, instead of using the criteria called out in the code, would talk about how -- how preserving a particular building would impact density. You know, we have had commissioners who are making decisions for reasons that are outside what our code specifies, and so I want to TRE the landmark commission like any other advisory body. I want -- I want the issues to actually make it up to the council where we have the authority and the responsibility to make land use choices. And so to me, that means addressing -- addressing the discrepancy that exists right now with the landmark commission and their authority. >> Pool: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. >> Pool: Yeah, I just wanted to echo some of the remarks that the mayor pro tem made, and I have met with Mr. Sadowsky to try to get my arms around the fact that the landmark commission became unworkable in the last two years, and it was ideology that drove the results in this commission. They were people who tried to [11:04:08 AM] undermine the mission of the commission. So that led to contention in those meetings, and when you are a volunteer on a commission and you're putting your hard work on a volunteer basis, coming in after a long day at work yourself, and sitting in a setting, public, where there's active disagreement over the mission of the commission, which should not have been the case because it's clearly spelled out what the commission is intended for, as are all our commissions, that led to a drop-off in attendance. I mean people were asking themselves, why would I want to spend my -- a couple of hours every month and have to deal with that? So my hope is that the landmark commission, historic landmark commission is on a new road to healing, to coming back together, to supporting the mistings commission. I don't think we'll be able to undo the many, many, many demolitions that occurred over the last two years, but the mayor pro tem's attempt to raise the bar for demolition was both in response to how simple it is to simply eradicate important pieces of our city's history and wills to help heal what's going on in that commission and bring people back to the table who understand their votes matter, the debate in that commission matters, to the long-term of our community and recognizing the history of this community and trying to preserve elements of it, not only that are iconic and cultural, but also that continue a level of affordability in our housing. So there's a lot going on that -- this may seem pretty simple on the surface but there was a whole lot that was going on underneath it. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flanagan. >> Flannigan: I would like some more time to think about this, but I would be nervous to change the rules from the -- if the cause is because the people who serve aren't doing a good job. [11:06:14 AM] And those things change and elections have sequences. And I think you live with those sequences. And as a council, people could have been removed, and they weren't. So I think -- I would like a little more time to think about, to your point, mayor pro tem, that is this the only commission that has a two-thirds requirement? I didn't know that. I would love some more time to think about it and see in a broader sense, what is the moment when we require two-thirds, what is the moment when we require three- fourths, is there a unifying theory around when we require commissions to have more than just a simple majority. I don't -- I think I would like councilmember alter and I to have an opportunity to put some different representations on commissions. I think we're both going to be doing that. I'm going to be doing a lot of it this week, including on historic landmarks, so I think I would like a little time to consider these changes before we move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I just want to clarify one thing. Councilmember pool, you talked about raising the threshold for demolitions. I'll say the original resolution I brought forward in determination early December, did talk about raising the threshold for demolitions. I had erred from members of, in part, the development community that they had concerns about that, so I tried a different approach out of consideration for their comments. I still think, as a community, we absolutely need to locate demolitions and how we stem the tide of demolitions, which I'm pretty sure are at a record level and we're losing structures. I believe the figure I cited in here were, there are 50 demolition permit requests every month. We are losing structures in some of our oldest neighborhoods and it is of grave concern to me in terms of the kind of city that we are going to be ten years from now if we continue to allow our structures to be demolished with very little -- very little [11:08:15 AM] discussion, frank. So I appreciate -- councilmember Flannigan, I really appreciate you are actively looking toward appointees. And you know, certainly, the individuals who are serving gave rise, and their adherence to the code I think gave rise to some of the questions, but for me, it really was -- it was, again, the absences and other issues just helped eliminate an issue that I think is inconsistent with the rest of our boards and commissions and our practices. And so I would really urge that we move forward with making this a standard -- a standard process, standard in terms of our other commissions. I also want to say, and I've talked with a couple of my co-sponsors on this, I am working on -- my office is working on a mitigation policy for demolition that would be modeled in part after our heritage tree ordinance. I look forward to bringing that too. We thought about trying to combine it with this, and we thought this is something simple, I thought, that we can kind of move forward with and then, you know, take a little bit more time to develop a mitigation policy that would more fully address some of the issues we're seeing throughout the city. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I really am torn on this one. This is one where I hear one side and I say, yeah, that sounds right, then I hear the other side and I say, yeah, that sounds right, so I'm going back and forth on this one. I guess -- I'm torn, but the fact that this is the only one that requires a super majority, I don't think, is a fluke, it's because this is one commission that can require you to do things with your home. And so against your will -- I feel like it's the only commission that can enforce something against a homeowner's will, and I think that's why it requires a super majority. And similar to a valid petition, it takes a super majority of the council to overturn a valid petition because it is such an [11:10:16 AM] impactful thing. So, anyway, I just wanted to make that point, that it is -- that's the reason why it's a higher threshold. And I'm still listening to all the arguments, all the perspectives on this one. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: And, mayor, this might be a question for folks that know land use better than I do, but we have some sovereign boards and commissions who have as much impact on a homeowner's ability to use their probability in a way they want to, and they don't require a super majority, do they? Is it zoning and platting or -- which one is it that's -- which ones of the sovereign -- board of adjustments is the one I'm thinking about. Do they require a super majority? >> Greg Guernsey, planning and zoning. So on variance requests, they do have a certain threshold of votes that they need. I know in particular when there's an interpretation request, it requires a super majority. Certainly, on a planning case that comes before the commissions and council, that has a super majority, a three- quarters vote, and that would not go away with a proposed resolution, that would still remain in place. The action taken by the landmark commission initiates a zoning case which would not be something that other, necessarily, boards and commissions may not necessarily do. Planning commission can initiate a case, city council can initiate a case, and the landmark commission can, with the two-thirds majority vote, as it's written today. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Alter? >> Alter: I'd just like to ask a clarifying question. So is there a way to do this as a pilot? We've talked about a lot of pilots, so that we could see how this plays out. So my concern is that too many cases will come to council then [11:12:17 AM] and we will get bogged down in council with these cases. It's my understanding that they can come to council if the majority of the landmark says that they can't demolish it, and the owner objects to that. So I'm not so worried about they're not being the two-thirds at the landmark because there is an appeal process through council, but I would be concerned if too many of those cases were coming into council making it difficult for us to get our other work done. But I'm not sure if we're changing this in the code, if we can do this on some kind of pilot basis and try it and see if it's working better and accomplishing the goals that are there, and then if it is not doing that and it's creating bottlenecks at council, then we need to rethink it that we have that opportunity or we have that reappraisal of the process built into how we move forward. But I'm not fully familiar with the rules here. I was just wondering if that is a different way of thinking about it so that we can move forward with the lower threshold, but have an opportunity to assess whether it's working for us, built in. >> Mayor Adler: My sense, mayor pro tem, if we're going to try something, the first thing I'd like to try is getting your appointments on and Mr. Flannigan's appointments on. My sense was, I agree with Ms. Pool, that there were a couple of people on this past one that the rest of the council didn't think they could engage in a conversation. And, therefore, for that reason or other reasons, other councilmembers stopped -- I mean other commission members stopped going, and then we would have votes where you would need eight to stop a demolition, and it would be six to one or seven to one. And it looked as if the other councilmembers that were there, they would have been able to act [11:14:17 AM] the will consistent with the ordinance. So if we're going to try something first, I would probably, for the same reasons that Mr. Flannigan gave, I would get the new appointments on, I would see if that fixes the problem. If that doesn't fix the problem, there are other issues, then I would be more likely to engage in the conversation. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I was just going to say I would support, you know, a sunset clause or something like that, looking at it. I don't think what we want to do is send on a lot of cases that aren't going to be supported at the council level. But we do want to allow for those to be -- you know, to have a hearing. And in some ways, councilmember Garza, it operates the same way. If -- you know, the city has a right to rezone properties, any property, and so if I, as a -- if, you know, my property is going to be rezoned to, say, I don't know, cs, and I as a property owner launch a valid petition, then it will require a higher level at the council to require a super majority, but it wouldn't stop at the planning commission, is my understanding. I mean, a super -- a valid petition doesn't -- doesn't kick in until council, even if it's in place earlier in the commission. So, again, I would just suggest that it's still different. You're requiring an advisory committee to achieve a higher threshold, where usually we, with land use issues -- which this is, it's just a rezoning -- it doesn't kick in until the council level. >> Mayor pro tem, that is correct. The three-quarter majority vote only would come at the end, actually, at the consideration of only third reading of the city council. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: Well, I think the mayor pro tem answered my question. Essentially, what we are trying to figure out is whether we want majority vote at the advisory level, still three-quarters at the council level, or three-quarters and three -- excuse me -- two-thirds and two-thirds -- two-thirds and three-quarters. [11:16:18 AM] So whether we want -- yeah, 50% plus what at the advisory level, with three-quarters at the council level or two-thirds and three-quarters. Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any other further discussion on this? >> Renteria: Mayor, I just want to make a comment. I supported this, and my push is to -- it's really to preserve these historic homes. I mean, we just had a case on 6th street where a beautiful historic home lost because there was a valid petition by the owner. And now we have this beautiful historic home sitting there with the possibility of being demolished. Now, what the big problem really is to some of these people is they want to move it, but the cost that's associated with moving, there are non-profit corporations out there that are willing to take these homes, but there's not an ability -- they don't have the money to move. And most of these moves cost anywhere -- about 120 to $140,000, just to move it and set it up, where they could, you know, use it and sell it to a family, a low income family. So I have -- I don't know if I should amend this or bring my resolution up about saying that we should have the city figure out how we could come and raise enough money or make -- we split the cost, the non-profit, the owner, and the city, or something like that, that we can afford to move this -- they can afford to move these homes to affordable housing, and it wouldn't cost us as much if the non-profit could kick in, the owner, and the city, to provide affordable housing. And Guadalupe has already proved they can do that because they moved a lot of the rainy houses but it cost them a lot. But those homes are beautiful and they are selling them to people that are -- that can qualify at 80%, they're selling [11:18:18 AM] them for 120 because they use the land -- ownership of the land. So that's what I also want to see if we can work on something like that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Yeah. I'll just say that was exactly the mitigation policy that I was -- had in mind. And I hope that you will -- that we can work together on that because I do -- I mean, I think we're both talking about a similar house, or the same house, where there is an interest in moving it. You know, I believe, as I understand, that's a case where they requested a demolition permit because the owner wants to sell the property and thought it would be more saleable with the house off it. So these are the kinds of things that are happening again and again in most of our districts because we have -- we do not have strong policies to encourage people to retain those structures. Regardless if they're historically significant, we're just not making it through the process that's designed to try to recognize that. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you. I'm a co-sponsor on this as well because at last count, district 1 had more demolitions than any other district in the city, and we don't seem to be able to get through the historic landmark commission, very few, very few houses are -- structures, are we able to get through -- valid petitions are good in some areas. On 12th street, I have a developer that owns 37 pieces of property, and so even if we try to get a valid petition on some of those historic houses on 12th street, they're not going to be able to do it because the developer is already acquired and continues to acquire property. That's the development push we're under in places where you can still build homes. So we need to do something, and this is a good first start in trying to get some of them landmarked so that there's a higher threshold to demolish and use the land for its best use, when the built environment is [11:20:22 AM] gone in central east Austin. I hope that we can work out something to make sure that we have -- I understand that we're going to add new members. That's a point. But there's some policies that need to be happening as well. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? Okay. Let's go to the next item. Item number 50. Open space pulled by alter and Flannigan. >> Tovo: Mayor, before we move on to the rest, can I just get sort of a time check? I think -- are we intending to break at noon, are we going to just kind of continue on through the agenda? Some was may have had tentative commitments to attend to lunch, and I just want to get a sense -- >> Mayor Adler: I think we should still break at noon just as a matter of course, then we could decide what time we would come back. It may very well be that if we're breaking at noon, we could get through these four items, then we could come back just to discuss the committee and the meeting agenda issues, if that's something that worked with everybody. All right. So we're going to take a break. Let's push on through here. Open space. >> Well, I'll be very brief. My concern with the parkland events task force final report is to make sure that we honor the hard work of this group that's spend hours and hours and engaged with the community and really came up with a lot of concrete things that we can move forward on. I want us to do more than just approve the report and let it sit on the shelf. I am going to be working with my staff, such as it is at this point, and with the parks department to have a formal resolution that allows us to allow them to move forward with the pieces that are on your matrix that are administrative that don't require counsel approval of ordinances and ask them to move forward with [11:22:22 AM] drafting the ordinances that are required to keep the ball moving on this. We will still get to see that when it comes back, but I want to make sure that we have clear direction, and so that we're not just accepting this report and letting it sit on the shelf. I think these issues are very, very important to the future of our parks and to our economy, and I think there was an incredible amount of work that went into this process. I apologize that I don't have that drafted for you today, but we will have every effort to make sure that we have something on Thursday. It is not going to be anything very complicated, and it will still be coming back to council. But I did want to give a heads-up on that so that I'm not surprising you on the dais with that. And that's all I have. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: My concern, or question really was about the alternative venues. You a of the alternative venues listed in this report are in east Austin, so I was curious about if the process were going under -- limits the staff to only look at those four alternative venues, or are there opportunities to look beyond those four venues? Are we, as a city, considering that some special events might be held at the cedar park center or the Round Rock express stadium? No. Ballpark. Let's get the word right. Because I think it's important that we think about what the quality of life impact is, not just about that everything's got to be in the city limits. I mean, if you throw an event at cedar park center, they're still staying in hotels in Austin. Despite how many times the mayor says build a wall between us and Round Rock, there is no wall. Which, by the way, I said that first. You don't know that. I did say that first. That's my question is, are we limiting ourselves to these four alternative sites? Because I see that it is in the matrix, or is it something [11:24:23 AM] that's open for discussion as we move forward? >> Good morning, mayor and council, Jason Mauer, Austin parks department. I'll introduce David king and Russell, the task force co-chairs. This is the work of the subcommittee and their priority was looking at city properties first, of course, that were most ready for development. Of course, that does not limit us to other items that may have other nuances, but in the course of the meetings over the year, they did have to, in fact, come up with a short list of recommendations. So that is your short list. We're not limited to that short list. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. >> Pool: Yeah, I just wanted to thank Jason and James and David and all the other folks from the community who spent a lot of time working up these recommendations, and I wanted to let councilmember alter know that I'd be happy to work -- and my staff would be happy to work with what staff you do have, so that we could come forward with a friendly amendment to add to the adoption because I'll be moving to accept the report, and I would be -- I would so welcome an additional amendment to say to our staff, go do, go implement in those areas where you can. I mean, why miss that opportunity? And then we can work more fully on other categories where we may need to amend an ordinance and it's non-controversial, or we may need to amend some ordinance amendments but we may need stakeholder involvement. Mostly, I just wanted to recognize the tremendous effort from all parties involved, and thank you, thank you so much for taking the time and the inspiration that went into the report. I'm real pleased with it. [11:26:23 AM] >> Houston: Thank you. And I also want to lend my support. You all did a fantastic job and did a lot of stakeholder engagement. There was one point about a parking permit program. Did you all -- I don't see on here -- maybe I don't know what number it is. It was supposed to be a pilot program for parking permits. Did you all get that done? Or where are we with that? >> We will be prepared to speak to the pilot program and we can get you information before Thursday. >> Houston: Before Thursday. >> The pilot program for parking in the neighborhoods obviously will be a collaboration between transportation, municipal court, and also the law department, so there are several steps they have to conquer administratively to get to a pilot, including some stakeholder engagement in the neighborhoods that will try all those programs first. >> Houston: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I agree with what you're saying about honoring the work, and I want to thank the chair and, through them, the committee for the time that it took, and the staff for working on this. Thank you very much. This is a big topic and there are a lot of real important issues. I think that I would be uncomfortable going beyond accepting the report this Thursday, just because it's just come out, and I think that while there are folks that have been engaged in it, there's probably a large part of the community that really hasn't seen it or looked at it. So when we put something on the agenda, it's just part of the conversation I think we'll have late this afternoon, I just want to make sure that when something shows up like this, before we actually act on it in a substantive way and be prescriptive about solutions, there's an opportunity for -- for us to be able to vet it with people that we want to vet it with, but also for the community to see it and be able to come in and weigh in. So if there's a way to push the ball forward in a non-prescriptive way, that's -- a lot of times what we've started doing on the council is we say we want council to come back with recommendations or -- in this area, but we're not prescribing what it needs to be, [11:28:25 AM] recognizing that as it works its way through, when it comes back to us, we can change it, or -- but so that we're not -- we're not indicating a policy decision, initially. Yes. >> I was just thinking you upset David. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't mean to upset you, David. >> That's okay. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I'm sorry, I had to walk out, but what I seem -- so you're asking that we don't implement the recommendations? >> Mayor Adler: Usually when we get the report like this we accept it and that puts it in the public domain, it shows up, now it's out, and they can lead to wide community conversations about what's good or what's not good. I understood councilmember alter to say that sometimes when that happens, it ends up sitting on a shelf and nothing happens with it. And that she was going to potentially bring something this week that would advance the ball. So in terms of looking at how it is that councilmember advances the ball, I was just expressing that concern. I don't know that that's what councilmember alter would be doing. I was just expressing that -- that issue for me. >> Garza: Okay. I guess I want to add, if this were the last item, this would have been a perfect segue into the committee system because this was heard -- this is not the first time the community has seen this. It was heard at the open space, it was presented at open space, it was -- and so I guess I'm just trying to make a point about the committee system. If we're going to keep them -- I don't know if we should be saying at this level it's the first time we've heard it. So it has been -- the public has seen it and the public had the opportunity to come speak it at the committee level, and -- anyway, I just wanted to throw that in. >> Pool: Well, I think that's good information that the rest of us aren't aware of so that's [11:30:27 AM] the kind of information I want to hear from the committee so that helps me a whole lot, moving forward with this. >> Councilmember kitchen, I'm sure we're going to have this discussion but I wanted to point out that we had heard this presentation and discussions about the committee, and what they were for, councilmembers had the ability to watch the video if they wanted to later, and that goes what -- those are the factors we said were available during the committee discussions. >> Kitchen: Well, and my question is specifically about this, about the parkland task force. So if you all could -- I mean because I also am ready to move forward with it, and I -- I appreciate what you're saying, mayor, but I also appreciate what councilmember alter is saying, and I'm perfectly happy with moving forward, and we have done that, with some of our other task force. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter actually hasn't come forward with anything yet so I don't know that I have objection to what could come forward, but I -- and I appreciate that it's gone to the committee, and for that reason, I wouldn't want us to redo work that was already done at the committee. And I believe in committees that way. But I also -- you know, there are people who are more -- not everybody pays attention to every committee that we have or every area that we have. So the people who are most interested in public spaces or an area would be much more inclined to have watched or participated in the committee meetings that were happening or even the stakeholder processes. I just think we do a different thing when we actually put it on the agenda for the council to take action. And even though it's Whitney is been it's been to a committee and there's been stakeholder, I think to the wider city of Austin, to say this is something the council is taking action on, for those of you that aren't key to open space issues, public park and [11:32:28 AM] open space issues, may not have had the opportunity to, at this point, look at the videos of the park. I'm really happy that the committee met and I think we should honor that work and use that work. I'm just concerned when an action item comes before council that quickly. That was the issue. >> Kitchen: And I'm not trying to get into the committee discussion right now. I'm simply saying that for myself, I really appreciate all the work that has occurred in the community, and -- with the open committee and I'm open to move forward with it, and I'd like to see the specifics of the language councilmember alter is talking about, and councilmember pool, but I'm ready to move forward with it. I don't think we need to wait. >> Pool: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. >> Pool: I may help by saying that on Thursday, we can ask our staff to highlight the administrative items that would be easily adopted, and so -- and since that is the intention of councilmember alter and the conversation that she and I had, maybe we can direct staff today. I think they'll be prepared to tell us those things that we can -- should we direct them to make that adoption, the things that they can move forward with. Because there's definitely a category of elements in here that staff is ready to move on, and it doesn't require any additional direction from us except to say go do. And that's what we'd like to focus on. >> Mayor Adler: There are a lot of things, about half of it could just be administratively, half requires council action, and half would require council, that would involve money. I haven't looked at it to see how it breaks out. For me, it's question of just wider public notice that the council is going to be taking action on something so they have a chance to -- a wider segment of our citizenry has a chance to look at it. Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I would just add one other point. This is similar to what we did with the flood mitigation task [11:34:28 AM] force report because it was similar in terms of being divided like that, and so we immediately went -- if memory serves me correctly, I believe we immediately went forward with the administrative items. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Further discussion? Mr. Renteria, then Ms. Alter. >> Renteria: Yeah. I'm really -- having gone to that hearing, I know that I passed a resolution about that redevelopment and using the festival beach power plant. So I really want to see where that's involved and put into that report also, because that's a big concern for us. I think there's a lot of potential there to -- for us to be using the old powerpoint warehouse. Those kind of facilities are in big need right now, especially between our creative people. And I want to also be able to help my community there in east Austin because we know, ourself, that we have a big need. That's one of the reasons why we work so hard for the Mexican American cultural center. But then we found out that it's such a beautiful facility that there's no place there for artists to really get involved with the building. And those old buildings over here have a great potential. So I'm really going to be looking into that. I'm excited about all the work that y'all have done and want to thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this item? Again, thank you very much for the work that you did for the community. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Item number 51 has been pulled by Mr. Flannigan. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I have -- kind of a larger question about when we do these types of annexations. The location of this is, to my mind, clearly sprawl. It is on the far outer edge of the city. It's getting closer and closer to pflugerville. I also feel like there's an understanding that sprawl is [11:36:29 AM] unsustainable. And so when we consider annexations on the edge of the city, I don't feel that we are truly accounting for all of the additional costs over the long-term. For example, the backup says that if we don't annex, we will miss out on $35 million in tax revenues over 30 years. It's not clear to me that the 35.7 million is calculated as a time value of money, or is it a simple sum over 30 years? Because collecting tax revenues 30 years from now is different than collecting it today. Also, there's a long list of services that we're going to have to now provide. There's a service plan. Nowhere in the service plan does it say how much it costs to provide additional services to these annexations. And I'm concerned that 37 -- $35.7 million over 30 years does not accurately cover the costs it is to provide those services. And this is something that's of special interest to my district because we are in that situation today, where my district -- most of it was annexed in the last 20 years, and because it was annexed in the last 20 years, our tax revenues -- they weren't put in a bank, they weren't put in a lock box, to then pay for infrastructure improvements. I had to go and get a bond, which arguably served cedar park more than it serves the city of Austin, but I had to get five and a half million dollars for Anderson mill road. This particular annexation actually loops in an etj area with city on all sides, which my district also has areas of etj looped in on all sides. And those residents are extraordinarily frustrated. And it doesn't make sense, fiscally, for us to annex those areas, they don't have my mud infrastructure, there's some mud, there's some septic tank. My concern is that we don't truly do a cost/benefit analysis around annexation. We look at the additional tax revenues that we might, quote, miss out on, but we don't actually evaluate the costs to [11:38:32 AM] provide appropriate services. Then you end up with areas like my district which pay higher taxes but then get less services as a result, and less in comparison to, say, the sheriff's department providing paroles in their neighborhoods, or the time it takes to get response from public safety. I -- I don't feel that I can -- I don't feel that my constituents will allow me to support annexations of any kind without a full evaluation of the cost to provide those services over 30 years, not just the tax revenues we'll collect over 30 years. >> Mayor Adler: Any other comment from the dais? >> Alter: I would just like to second that I would like that information when we're making annexation decisions so that we understand the costs involved. >> Mayor Adler: Do you have that information? >> I'm verge Collier with the city's planning department. I'd like to point out for these areas that are undeveloped, that kind of analysis would be based on all kinds of assumptions. The developer has provided some assumptions based on the schedule of his build out and the phasing and cost estimates that he's intending to sell his products for. So that's what -- a conservative estimate that I use to create that $35 million estimate. But you're correct that, you know, the cost of service would increase over time, and it just kind of depends on how things come together. A lot of the analysis assumes that the taxes and the tax rates that the city council, you know, approves each year pay for the expense of providing those services to these areas, just as they provide service citywide. So unless there's a large capital investment, like the city is going to build a fire station that provides service only for this area, or there's -- you know, some other capital project involved, the cost of annexing these undeveloped areas that will build out as they're in the city limits and in the tax -- in the city's tax base is neutral. [11:40:34 AM] >> Flannigan: So I acknowledge that the analysis I'm asking for is difficult and that it is imprecise, and it might cost more to get good numbers than those numbers might be worth. I acknowledge that. However, just looking at one road in my district, Anderson mill road, that road was built by the counties original, Travis and Williamson because it straddles the county line, but the redevelopment of that road ultimately to serve cedar park is going to be borne by the cost of Austin taxpayers. And not just my Austin taxpayers, all the Austin taxpayers. And this proposed annexation is coming right up on pflugerville. And is it really going to be all of Austin taxpayers' job to consider the increased infrastructure required when pflugerville starts using this neighborhood as cut-through traffic, which is what will happen, because every neighborhood is cut-through traffic, because we can never build enough roads to serve all of our communities. The state couldn't do it; we can't do it. So I acknowledge that it's a difficult analysis. But I also feel -- and I'm looking forward to having the time to find the additional analysis, but there is a -- kind of a unifying theory around the unsustainability of sprawl development. And I don't know that it makes sense to continue annexing areas when this -- there's no commercial, for example, so annexing this land doesn't increase the sales tax revenues, it would only impact property tax revenues, but it will impact all of the areas that sales taxes pay for. Whether or not we annex this land, people move in whether or not we annex this land, part of those people's sales tax revenues will go to pflugerville, part of them will come to Austin, regardless of [11:42:35 AM] annexation. So this is the level of analysis I'm looking for. I also think this is valuable analysis when we talk about zoning changes, and whether or not we approve zoning up or what the impact is on costs, what the impact is on tax revenues. We do a very good job because it's easier, I acknowledge that because we do a very good job at evaluating the initial tax revenues but I don't feel we do a good job evaluating the additional tax costs, with most of what we do at the city in terms of zoning and planning. And like I said, until I feel sure that 30 years from now, I'm still an Austin resident, 30 years from now, I'm not going to have to increase my taxes again to redevelop this road to serve pflugerville, that's -- and I understand, it's not easy to do the thing I'm asking for. But until I feel confident that that analysis has been done, I don't see how we can justify doing additional annexations. >> Councilmember, Greg Guernsey, planning and zoning. We'll take a look to see early just the income that may come in, may not be the sole reason that we annex. We've annexed for purposes of making sure the houses that get built in that neighborhood meet certain city of Austin standards for building codes, for visibility, to make sure that they are accessible units. Our fire department has reciprocal agreements with most of the emergency districts around us, so a lot of times we do have fire apparatus from the city of Austin that may actually go serve to say areas in the county. We also have land use controls, which is one of the main reasons, and I think there was an issue that arose recently about a hotel outside of our city limits. In the etj, we have no land use control. The county certainly has limited land use control over businesses, landfills, salvage [11:44:36 AM] yards, but there could be businesses that would spring up in these neighborhoods that the homeowners association or private citizen would have to go and try to enforce. So we do have land use control that would come to these areas. So there's some things, reasons why we might serve this. City of Austin certainly has served areas where we've had failing septic systems that have come before where the city completely surrounds a tract of land to be annexed, and for public health reasons, also for water quality reasons, for those failing septic systems that were -- nearby creeks that would flow into the city, we've annexed those areas as well, even at a cost to the city. But we'll get with our finance staff and take a look at these issues. With every legislative session, annexation becomes more challenging and we may have citizens that demand more services, just beyond our city limits, begging us to annex them later, and if the infrastructure is not being maintained in some cases by the city, and it's left to the county, not to disparage the county, they may not be able to keep up as well as we can on some of those maintenance, which makes it even more expensive for us to annex later on. >> Flannigan: So I'll just address this comment to my colleagues because I feel like that's the point of the meeting here today. I don't know that it's our job to worry about people who live in the etj. They're not taxpayers, nor are they voters. And that -- an annexation would create more voters, is not reason enough to annex because what I'm saying is that the people who live in Austin now, who rerepresent, are going to -- who we represent, are going to have an increased tax burden of proof because we're annexing sprawl. That is the bottom line. Whether or not we feel the responsibility at a higher level to ensure that our land use codes and our building codes and our visibility ordinance, whether or not that that is applied in etj areas, that's a perfectly fine conversation we can have, but that's not in the backup. What's in the backup is, we're [11:46:37 AM] going to lose 3,537,000,000 -- $35 million. My point is that I don't know we're going to lose $35 million, we might annex this and be net negative over 30 years. And I feel like my district is the example of what happens when you -- when there was a big push for annexation over 20 years ago, that's what created district 6, and now you can't go to a single neighborhood in my district that doesn't feel like they get less service from the city now than they did when they were just in the county. So, yeah, the county provides less services but the voters in my districts liked the county services better. And I think that's the conversation that I would like us to consider. We have some major infrastructure we're going to want to build in central Austin. We've got to think about high capacity transit. We've got to think about a lot of things. And those will also not serve these annexed areas. It's not a given that you can say 35-million- dollar, and that $35 million is going to be applied somewhere else. I would argue that there needs to be an analysis that we are all on the same page of that says maybe -- maybe there is a positive, but it ain't $35 million. We're going to have to hire more police, we're going to have to hire more firefighters, we're going to have to hire more ems people over time. And just like with codenext, we fail in this endeavor when we measure these things one plot of land at a time. When we zone one plot of land at a time, we don't have a wider view. Just like when we build one road at a time, we're not having a wider view of the transportation network. When I talk to my district about codenext, I emphasize the opportunity we have about looking at our land use as a system, just as we need to look at our transportation as a system. And I think annexation, as a concept, we need to reevaluate because I would argue that we have already extended ourselves beyond the tipping point, where future annexations are no longer fiscally responsible to existing taxpayers. >> Mr. Mayor? [11:48:39 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> I also feel we need to have a broader conversation about annexation policy. We've had conversations in the south, we've had a couple of issues come up just recently that have sort of been the poster child for different aspects of annexation. One of them related to the one that Mr. Guernsey is referring to, and that is the ability to have some -- the ability to have some control over the types of building that is going on, which is critical when you have unannexed areas building right next- door to neighborhoods that are annexed, and there's no ability to think about compatibility and other things like that. So that's an issue. Another issue is, what happens to the individuals when they're annexed? And we had a recent case where we had a small group that was going to cost them more, and they were a lower wage, lower income neighborhood. So that's -- you know, that argues against annexation. So the point being is that I think it will be important to talk about our annexation policy. It's probably time to update that. And, you know, and so I've talked to our annexation staff, and I think that, you know, we -- we just need to find the appropriate time -- I don't think it's right now, but, you know, over the next situation months, maybe, or so would be appropriate to have a conversation about our annexation policy as a whole so we're looking at what we're doing as a whole instead of, you know, one- off kind of thing. And I think there's an interest in doing that. >> Mayor Adler: In fact, we were on the dais discussing annexation on the last annexation where there were questions and we put it off for a year, with the expressed purpose of actually getting an opportunity to learn and formulate a policy with respect to annexation. So if there's one side ones coming in I think it would be reflect. >> Thank you. I'm assist city manager. I think most of you who have [11:50:40 AM] spoken took the words right out of my mouth. One of the things we know is we're working under a policy that was created many years ago by a different council, and what I have noticed, as councilmember kitchen has said, is that since we have brought annexation to you, there have been a number of different questions about why we do annexation, and what is the purpose, and how do we calculate those costs. And I would really appreciate -- and one of the things I wanted to say was to ask you if, at some point, it would make it much easier on all of us if you would consider talking about the policy and really coming up with a policy that seems to suit this day in time and this particular council. So I know that even though I may not be here, I know that this staff would be happy to put together for you a number of the issues and items that you could discuss and come up with a policy that would be beneficial to the community. >> Mayor Adler: I think we should set that and figure out how to do that. That's a recurrent issue. Both issues. And also, I would also like to have a staff recommendation on a policy, but for us to be able to decide one. Anything else on this? What is -- >> I just want to foreshadow that might be a really great topic for a committee. >> Tragically. >> Mayor Adler: With respect to this annexation, what other otherprogramifications of acting on this, and later in the year? >> The way tax rolls work, in properties are in the city January 1st, they're added to the tax base for that year. Since we've passed January 1st, adding a property to the to being roll January or February wouldn't be any different than [11:52:41 AM] adding it to the tax base in November or December, when our typical annexation program comes underway. The change -- the difference, I guess, mainly would be something that you wouldn't calculate, it would be if homes are built in the area prior to annexation, then those residents would be causing to through an annexation process. So ideally, we would annex an area before homes are built, consistent with the neighboring subdivisionses, the tracts that were annexed in 2012, between 2017 and 2012 and some of the other areas -- between 2007 and 2012, and some others that have come in over time adjacent to this, it would be a logical extension to add this area before those homes are built. >> Houston: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem, then Ms. Houston. >> Houston: I just want to remind everybody neutrality is something we dealt with in December of last year and we passed it on first and second reading because there is a county -- a county public improvement district that the developer is going to Travis county and we don't know where that is at this moment. And so my concerns are the same as they've always been about annexation. There's no transportation, there's no services, there's no amenities, there's no health care. So I will be voting against annexation on Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I want to understand something about the timing. So if we decided not to take third reading on this, which is -- it's not a position I'm supporting, I just want to understand what would happen, you would need to renotice and start the annexation process all over again. So we have until the end of this year, this calendar year, but you would basically have to start the whole thing over again, go through first reading, second reading, make it to third reading again. >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. [11:54:41 AM] >> Tovo: I'm sorry, I had one other question. Is there a chance that this tract -- is there also a chance that the tract could start to be developed in this interim? >> Yes. Right. >> Tovo: Okay. So those are the two things that are a disadvantage to not moving forward if we -- if there's a majority desire to annex it, those would be the two things that would be disadvantages. One, you'd have to start the annexation process all over again, and two, we might miss the opportunity to -- some of that tract may be developed. >> Right. >> Tovo: Okay. Thanks. >> Houston: Mayor, may I ask a clarifying question? How would you know that? I've talked to the developers almost weekly. How do you know that they would develop it before they go to the county to get their public improvement district? >> I'm just saying that it's a possibility. >> Houston: Oh, it's a possibility. >> Right now there are no residents in the area, so it's ideal to annex an area before you have a bunch of homeowners that just purchased their homes, then they have changes to their tax bills immediately. >> Houston: But I thought you heard they might start building before the end of the -- end of the year. >> Well, they do have approved preliminary plans so they are well on their way. And that's part of what brought this to our attention, is that this project is moving forward, and it's getting ready to start, you know, building homes. So that's why we put it on the annexation schedule last year. >> Houston: And are you working with the county to see how that public improvement district is, or are we just going on our own tract? What's the relationship between the public improvement district that they're requesting from the county and our annexation? >> So the staff's annexation recommendation is based on the guidance in the city's comprehensive plan. The developer came in asking to support a public improvement district. If the county supports the district and the city does not object to the creation of the district, then that district would have several steps before it went forward. But regardless of whether or not they have a public improvement district, they have a subdivision plat and they're ready to move forward with building these 850 homes. >> Houston: So I just want to remind my colleagues that we had a situation where we had annexed a property, and the county [11:56:42 AM] placed a public improvement district within the city limits inside of our planned unit development, and this may be a similar situation. So I just wanted to remind you that that's a possibility. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Pool? >> Pool: So I know that the public hearing is closed on Thursday, but there are some questions that the developer might be able to answer for us. And one of them is the status of the pid. And I know when I met with them, they were interested in the city supporting the pid because we do of the king's X on the county's approval of it. I don't know if that is another -- is that another item that's on our agenda, other than -- or is 51 the only one that's on our agenda for -- >> I'd like to address that. >> Pool: Okay. >> The city's consideration of the pid petition to Travis county is not on this agenda. Typically, what would happen is, they file an intent to petition the county for a pid, then we are noticed that they are intending to file that petition. We've received that. To my knowledge, the county has not officially accepted their application to create the pid, and so they've not had any active public hearings on that. We are in communication, our finance staff works directly with the county staff on that. Once the application is accepted, the county would start the due diligence process in looking at the feasibility of the pid and looking at -- asking the developer for additional public benefits to justify the pid. And so it's my opinion, as well as finance staff's, that it's inappropriate to ask the city to preapprove a pid when we have no idea what public benefits Travis [11:58:43 AM] county is going to ask for or get. I know that the law allows that once the pid is created by the county, the city has a very narrow window of 30 days to object to its creation, but that is what the law provides, and that is the appropriate timeline for the city to review that pid creation, although we work hand in hand with the county over the months that they're looking at it, so we're in direct contact with county staff. >> Pool: That's really helpful, that explanation. Putting aside the philosophies and policy of annexation on the larger -- the larger conversation, I -- I would rather we either delay approval of item 51, which is the request for annexation on Thursday -- I would rather that we either delay it or deny it because we don't yet know what community benefits are going to be coming or proposed under the pid, and it is possible that those community benefits could be negatively affected by our annexation action. And so I would like to understand the connection there and if it does negatively affect community benefits proposed with the P.I.D. That would be an important piece of information for us to have with regard to the annexation. I think item 51 may be not ripe yet, I think it may be too soon for us to approve it. If it does continue, if it's not postponed, I will likely vote against it. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I guess I've certainly heard the argument for delaying it or denying it from the aspect of community benefits. I think it's really important that we line up those potential community benefits against the lost tax revenue that I think is really [12:00:43 PM] significant and is a key element of how I assess these annexation cases so I appreciate that it's complicated but that's kind of where I'm coming from. >> Mayor, council, just to note, if no action is taken, either this Thursday, there's not really an opportunity to postpone because of state law requirements so we -- an inaction or a request for postponement would basically mean that it is denied for this application and we would entertain this perhaps later in the year, late in the year, again, at a later date. >> Mayor Adler: Is that because the state law requires final action within a certain period of time of something else? >> That's correct. >> Mayor Adler: Do you know what that is? >> 90 days. From first reading. >> Mayor Adler: From first reading. Thank you. Did you have something, Ms. Pool? Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. We'll go to the next item then. We have two left here. Item number 82, Mr. Renteria, you pulled this. >> Renteria: Yes, mayor. Before we ask the questions here, I'm also want to go announce that I'm gonna recommend postponing 73, 74, 75, that's all pertaining to saltillo, the neighborhood called me and they want to postpone it for two weeks so they can try to work it out. And I have faith on east Austin, Cesar Chavez planning contact team that they will sit down and try to find a solution to the housing problem. I think that they might have a little -- some problems with the [indiscernible] They might be willing to accept that if they could get some more affordable housing and plus they -- we don't even know what the floating units that they're proposing, you know, they're proposing 41 2-bedroom [12:02:43 PM] apartments there, where they're floating a need can be I need some more time to really try to figure that out, where they don't know -- they're not gonna assign units for affordable -- the affordability part. It's just gonna be floating, where if one comes up, then they're -- they can provide that to a low-income person. But if it's -- if no one applies for it they'll rent it out and wait until the next unit comes in. So there's a lot of confusion in there and the neighborhood really wants to really grab that, so that's why we're asking -- I'm gonna ask for two weeks, because they said they just need to sit down there with the developer and capital metro to try to figure out what they're really proposing. And also the questions of, you know, is 40 years of affordability, but there's some of the houses that are -- the low-income housing part of it is not gonna get done. It's gonna rely on a tax credit and they're proposing that it wait -- it's gonna take them five years. So that's another concern that the community is facing. Hopefully they can sit down there and work it out and in two weeks they're gonna come back and say either we're gonna -- I'm gonna recommend passing it all in three readings or I'm gonna either make a recommendation that I can't support it. But I just want to let my colleagues know that. Also, 76, 78, that contact team I think Ann kitchen had been also working with them, they want a couple weeks postponement so that they can work it out. >> Kitchen: Is that 86 -- 76, 78? >> Tovo: I think it's just 76. >> Renteria: Yeah, my mistake. Okay. On 82, I basically -- the question is, according -- the neighborhood team wants to -- [12:04:45 PM] are really concerned -- oops, they're really concerned about the wastewater line there. They want us -- their biggest concern is whether their current wastewater line will be able to take on the high demand that is -- the upcoming development. And there's a -- some information that the city is also looking at replacing the waste line at this point and will it be completed at the time the new development is coming online. The other question is if there is a break in that waste waterline or an overflow, is there protection taken in where it will stop that from leaking out into the creek there, Williamson creek. >> Councilmember, I understand that there was -- that was actually submitted to the q&a process and so a water utility has provided a response. It might be a little bit detailed for me to run through it, although I'm not sure if they addressed the question regarding a break in the line. So I'll follow up with the water utility and we'll provide an additional response to the q&a process about what happened, if there was a line break. >> Renteria: All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this item? We'll go to the next one then. Item number 87 Mr. Plan began you pulled this one. >> Question about the conditional overlay and if there was a community around this site desire to prohibit some of these uses because almost every single one of these uses exists within a half a mile from this location. >> I'm not aware there's a lot of neighborhood input on -- >> Looks like there wasn't. [12:06:47 PM] >> There was a couple commissioners that voiced some objection to it. I know that -- I think the applicant Ron thrower had offered some of the uses as being prohibited uses that might help appease the neighborhood. I know this is kind of an entryway I think in this particular subdivision, residential subdivision and it's bordered by I think a retirement community and multi-family across the street. So there were some uses which I understand the applicant is agreeable to, to probable that may be seen -- prohibittable to, that may be seen as objectionable. >> Flannigan: No one from the neighborhood was consulted I'm sure of it and I doubt that anyone from district 6 -- and it's kind of close to district 10 to be fair to councilmember alter, but it is in district 6, it just seems unnecessary. I'm not proposing that we deny it or that we go around it. My understanding is that the property owner wants to build an automotive parts store. There's another one walking distance from there so clearly this is a use that is appropriate for Mcneil road, but there is a BMW dealership, there is a car repair shop, there's a car washing facility just up pond springs road. I mean, it just seems unnecessary to further complicate zoning when it wasn't what the applicant asked for, it wasn't what they were trying to build and the neighborhood didn't say anything about it, there was no valid petition, there was no petition at all, I doubt there was even a meeting held with folks in the community, there's multi-family retirement center, dog training. I mean, my -- the reason that I pulled it is because I think it's important related to how wi move forward with codenext. Because this set of overlays, conditional overlays, might make sense in other parts of [12:08:49 PM] town. I would not propose that I speak for other parts of town. But in my part of town, these uses are very common and they serve a community benefit to provide these opportunities. And I'm one who would prefer to see less complex zoning Riles than more complex zoning Riles rules, and that's hopefully where we're headed next with codenext, to simplify what has become conditional overlay over overlay. I don't need it to be pulled on Thursday, I don't think we need to talk about it any more than this, but I do think it's born that we don't just by default throwing out conditional overlays over properties when nobody asked for it but commissioners that don't live anywhere near the property. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? All right. That takes us through everything we have. That leaves us the -- yes. >> Pool: One additional thing, item 72 is on our agenda for Thursday, and that's a zoning case in the north woods area of the city. And you don't show it reflected there because we just got a notice on Sunday, but the applicant is requesting a postponement of I believe a week and the -- the neighbor parties are in agreement to this, and I think staff has gotten that. >> Yes, staff is aware of both parties and so there will be basically -- I'll offer that for consent on Thursday for postponement. >> Pool: Right. >> Item 72. >> Pool: Thanks. Right, I just wanted everybody to know. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Mayor, we had another -- I received another -- I received a request for postponement of another item. I don't know if some of my colleagues may have too, that is item 16, which is -- which are some changes to our city code with regard to ethics and financial disclosure. I haven't had an opportunity to circle around and talk with [12:10:49 PM] our city auditor about whether that delay would pose any issues from their perspective, but we did receive a request from asme to postpone that. >> Pool: Mayor, I believe weigh in on that. I also talked with asme and I talked with the city auditor, and it was a matter of not all parties had seen all the changes of that come back from law and the thinking currently is that a week's postponement would be sufficient with the understanding that if it isn't then they'll request an additional postponement. But so far we are just looking at a one week. >> We'll postpone it. We'll do it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So it looks like that will be postponed. Okay. Anything else? It's 1:10. Yes? >> I was wondering what the plan was. Are people attending a luncheon is this so if nobody is attending a luncheon, I don't think the committee conversation is gonna be more than 30 minutes because I believe the two sides that maybe we're agreeing the least have come to some kind of understanding. So I'm just concerned if we leave and come back people are not gonna come back on time and this is gonna get pushed back, this discussion is gonna get pushed back further and I think it's important we have this discussion as soon as possible. It wasn't just about committees. I asked at the retreat if we could talk about backup procedure and stuff like that this meeting as well. >> Mayor Adler: It could be committee, backup procedures, meetings in the agenda that we set. I question whether it's gonna be a 30 minute conversation. We could certainly continue to meet and we could break for 30 minutes since no one is leaving and come back at a quarter till to pick it up. My sense it's gonna be longer than 30 minutes. >> Garza: I'm fine with that. I guess I want confirmation from my colleagues that we will return and we will have this discussion today. >> Tovo: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: What's [12:12:49 PM] people's preference. >> Tovo: If I could propose a middle ground. Maybe we could go grab a lunch and come back here and work through it? And maybe take no more than ten minutes or so to kind of go grab our lunch. I know that's not ideal to eat in the middle of our televised meeting but that would allow us to get down to business more quickly. And then the other thing I would propose, I understand there are a lot of ideas about the meetings and others, but as councilmember Garza said, you know, we added this to the agenda, we added it to the retreat agenda, didn't get to it, I would suggest we really narrow our focus today to be about committees and maybe backup as well and try to tackle meeting -- >> Mayor Adler: My concern is they're interrelated to me when I look at the goals from what we're trying to accomplish with the committees I think we can accomplish them if we do some things with meetings. So I see it involved, and at the same time that you have consistently been asking for this stuff on the committees I've been asking for the conversations on the meetings and I think that the backup also deals with these same kinds of issues. >> Tovo: I think realistically that's a two-hour conversation is my guess together. Maybe we'll be surprised but I don't think we can accomplish hitting all of those questions that we wanted to pose with regard to the committees and then trying to talk about potential meeting reforms. In less than at least an hour and a half. >> Mayor Adler: I think it is a long conversation as well,. >> Pool: What I'd like to propose is that we first focus on the committees because that was the piece that we were prepared to talk about and it got whittled down to less than 15 minutes at the retreat even though it started at 90. I do have some handouts just to show people our current council and our current intergovernmental committee assignments and there's rooms for notes and everything. We just -- we need to tamp this piece down because there's some uncertainty at [12:14:50 PM] the professional staff level as to whether committees will continue and, if so, when. The Austin energy oversight here, I was the vie chair of that and I've just moved into as acting chair, I've met with our Austin energy staff. They're prepared to meet with us Monday morning at 9:00 A.M., which was the date approved by us all last year. We've paired it down to -- pared it down to a two hour time frame and I'll be working, based on what we end up with on committees, I'll be working on trying to find a more accessible time of the week for those meetings, and I don't know if they will even be monthly. I'm gonna try to pare those down too based on our work as the board of directors. So I wanted to signal that meeting I was intending to go ahead and hold January 30 and staff is prepared for that, just two hours, from 9:00 to 11:00, and it will be in this room, moving it out of the council chambers to have a slightly less formal setting for the conversations with our electric utility. So there are some other committees that may be kind of holding their breath on whether they should continue, and I think the chairs of those committees should make a decision based on what their committee members want to do, but we have to get past this review and analysis and updating, and I really amhoping we do that today. >> Kitchen: So 2 responses -- >> Mayor Adler: Hold on a second. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Public health and -- humanservices has outstanding issues we need to deal with, one is appointing the city's representative to the board of managers of central health so we will have a meeting on February the 8. There's also some outstanding -- two outstanding resolutions. One was passed to the public safety committee that didn't get dealt with, and the other one was passed from the human [12:16:53 PM] rights commission last year and didn't get dealt with so we will meet on February 8. >> Kitchen: Mobility committee is meeting February 1. I've been working with the members and the folks that are there had in being members on the agenda for the year and I've met with staff and talked with them about that. One of the things that we've talked about which we haven't done yet because I haven't given a draft to the other folks that are interested is a charter that actually kind of makes sure that we're all on the same page, knowing those issues that we want to address and that we can share that with the file council, but we have our next meeting on February 1. >> Garza: I feel like we've gotten to the substantive conversation and this was about a break. >> I think we'll all be happier to have this conversation with food in our stomachs so I would go with Kathie tovo video's suggestion we go get our lunch and go to the restroom and come back and plow through as much as we can get through. >> Pool: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Say it again? The question is how long do we break now? Yes. >> Perhaps to have this conversation you could decide when you want to finish this meeting and then you can decide what you're gonna start your conversation with, if you want to talk about committees fairs and see what you're gonna get to. That would help us plan to know from here, online you want to evalutate but what time do you want to walk out the door. >> Mayor Adler: What time do we want to stop? >> Finish the work session. >> Mayor Adler: Pick when we're gonna end this conversation and work back from that. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: No later than 3:00. >> Mayor Adler: Are people comfortable going until 3:00. >> Tovo: Mayor, I have a standing conflict every Tuesday so I will need to leave no later than 2:45. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Everybody okay going till 2:45? We'll go to 2:45 today and the question is how long a break do we take now? It is 18 after. We're gonna go till 2:45 you [12:18:56 PM] want to do 12:30 or quarter to 1:00? >> Tovo: I would really suggest 12:30. >> Mayor Adler: She said 12:30. I'm just not sure that's realistic. I would suggest a quarter till 1:00. Is that okay? All right. We'll come back at 12:45. [12:29:03 PM] [ Recess ] [12:52:36 PM] >> Can we start? >> Oh, yeah. >> I think we have a quorum. Can we start? We said we were going to be back. >> Mayor Adler: We ready to gear this back up post-recess? So there are probably, you know, lots of different ways we could go about doing this. This is the first time we've had this kind of transition in committees. Obviously we have to decide the committee issue. My suggestion would be that we do something that begins with what our goals are and what it is we're trying to accomplish. I handed out something that I had posted on the board earlier. There's a page called "Goals and concerns." So we know what it is that we're trying to accomplish, which is where we began the process two years ago when we were beginning that. I've also attached -- handed out to everybody a copy of possible things to consider with respect to the meetings. And I know that there's been a handout with questions about the committees. Want to remind everybody of the existing ordinance that's we have when we passed the ordinance. We identified the committees we would have. We said there would be four people, four each. Our ordinance gives the mayor the duty of identifying membership and chairs and vice chairs. Which then that slate goes to the council, and it has everybody's term being a two-year term, which means at this point the two years have expired so at least under the ordinance nobody is appointed to any committee. [12:54:36 PM] At this point. In my mind, you know, I've listed what I think the goals and concerns are, and first the goals that I think that we started out with last time, and then the ones that I think have added -- come up this last time with the concerns of the committees that people have articulated. Some of the goals and concerns I think can be met if we wanted to do it outside of committees, with how we run our meetings. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: So that all sounds great. I think if we want to try to focus on walking through the committees and the situation that we have in front of us, let me just pose a couple of questions, and then we can kind of kick it off and see what everybody is thinking. It's possible that we have a lot more agreement around the dais than we know. So I think just right off the top, I'd like to pose three specific questions, which committees should continue for the next two years, 2017 and 2018? Which committees could convert to more limited purposes? And this feeds into the mayor's conversation on either ad hoc or task force. And then the real big one that I hope we can drive toward by the end of our conversation today, what committees do councilmembers have an interest in serving on for the next two years? So I will describe a document that I left at your place when we took our recess. It says at the top "Council and intergovernmental committees," and it looks like this. It says draft. And what this is is the existing assignments, and I'll see the council committees -- committees then the next name is the chair, second is the co-chair and the next two [12:56:38 PM] names below there will be the other people on the committee. You can see where the vacancies are. There's some space for notes and changes and new assignments, which I hope will be full soon. On the back the intergovernmental committees. The mayor posted some suggestions to fill the vacant slots which I didn't include on here because I draw this up before today. We can talk about those today. There's a new assignments column. The last column I did populate it with a couple things I knew from our message board conversations and just two specific things. Well, I put down what I would like, just for myself. I'd like to stay as co-chair of the balcones land coordinating committee and remain on the city of Austin employee retirement system. And then councilmember Garza has noted that she would like to cycle off of campo and I note that I would like to cycle off of the hate crimes task force and then the last thing the mayor pro tem updated the new name for the sobriety working group now that it is an actual entity, it's now called the sobriety center local government corporation, and I think I heard her say that she hopes to continue to stay on there. I think you're a director or something like that. >> Tovo: Yeah, that one operates differently so it's not part of our -- and y'all just in adopting the interlocal appointed me to the board and I don't know, last fall. >> Pool: Then as I was pulling these items together, some questions arose for me. For example, the pecan street project, I don't actually know what the nexus is between pecan street project and the city of Austin. I know that we have an appointment on that board, but I don't know enough of the history about it to know whether that's something that the city has a role in to continue. It's possible that we do. And I think we would all gain [12:58:38 PM] by learning. And the same thing with lone star rail. There may be a refocusing on lone star rail. I don't know what the status of that is. Maybe councilmember Renteria could speak to it because it's appointed to. Just because of some of the changes that occurred with the funding I wanted to highlight that so that we could get up to speed on what the future of that is. Probably -- so those are just my questions. And I think probably the simplest side of this to go for directly is the -- our assignments for the council committees. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So we're all talking now about how we want to approach the next couple hours that we have with each other. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I think councilmember Houston had hers up first. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you. These are all very valuable things that we need to talk about and have needed to talk about but it's interesting that we spent two days over at the AT&T center last week and although everybody did not agree we all thought there were things we had identified that we need to align everything that we do too, and yet that's not here. It's how we can align the outcomes that we talked about, and we didn't vote on them. So, you know, that was -- we didn't -- that's not policy. But I think we all felt that that was a way to do business better in the city of Austin. But that's not anywhere on here. How do we mesh up what we did, spent two hours last week doing, and asked staff to come back, doing the budget in a way that aligns with those kind of outcome measures and we don't even mention it in what we're about to do today. So it was just a curiosity on my part. >> Mayor Adler: >> Mayor Adler: I think that's a good point. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I'm so glad we're having this conversation and I guess my approach to it at this point is I wanted to [1:00:39 PM] say I think all of the committees brought value. I think for me it is a matter of what are the highest impact activities that we can do with our time? So it's not that any of the committees were, you know, less useful than others, but I think we need to look at -- in my opinion I try to consider my time and my staff's time and the public's time as really a taxpayer resource. How I spend my time really matters because it's time I can't spend meeting with constituents or it's time I can't spend going to neighborhood meetings or time I can't spend working on policy or informing myself by doing reading and sometimes it's time I can't spend with my family. There's always something I'm not doing so I try to be really careful about how I allocate my time. So that's kind of my approach to the committees. I'd like to suggest that we really start and look at the committees and say which are really essential to our doing business? Which are the most valuable ones, either of the existing ones or of newly proposed ones, which are really going to be important to the work that we're doing, work that we can't do with just a couple other councilmembers, work that we really want to involve the public in and work that shouldn't be more appropriately done at the full council? If it's something that everybody has an interest in then I think we need to make timety work session or council meeting. That's kind of the approach I took coming into this meeting thinking about how I might respond to some of the particular committees. >> Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: I definitely agree with councilmember Houston. I found the strategic retreat incredibly valuable and my office just as a demo started aligning all of our activities along these six strategic outcomes. And when we held a public input meeting about the lgbt quality of life commission we had six tables that we started testing the theory [1:02:39 PM] and it was incredibly effective. I think councilmember kitchen and I have had some conversations and I don't want to -- if you have stuff you want to say -- >> Kitchen: No, it's fine. >> Flannigan: My thought is we need to first complete the strategic outcome conversation. We need to finalize that language that we're all in agreement on what they are and thin we need to align our committees with those six strategic outcomes. And one of them. Audit and finance might serve as the good governance one. It's not necessarily six more committees, right? I also had a thought that I was talking with some of my new commission appointees about the role to our committees play compared to the role that commissions play. And the thought came up that the committees -- and in a conversation with councilmember kitchen. That the committees could serve the role of long-term planning. That I think we struggle -- as I'm thinking forward in this role I'm struggling with when do we get to have this conversation more than just about what's on the agenda? So committee meetings might be focused on things that are not on this week's agenda specifically. That we would hold ourselves accountable to it, but it would not be the things on this week's agenda. That it would be long-term issues that we would organize under the strategic outcomes and that be might invite commissions to send a representative to sit at those meetings right here with us like we did with strategic planning where it becomes an integrated conversation, no decisions are made. It's not a place you go to get something on the agenda. It's something that would allow us to invite the community in to vet the information. I find that sometimes we find -- we see things on the dais and the major complaint is you're making a decision based on flawed information or the information you're using is wrong or can't be trusted or whatever. That we could leverage our commissions to vet information and make recommendations to the [1:04:40 PM] extend that they do that the committees would integrate under the six strategic outcomes those commissions that are most related to those outcomes. There would be no recommendations -- I know councilmember kitchen and I have some kind of disagreement on this, but that my theory is that no recommendations come out of committees because then you don't necessarily are to do huge public testimony, which are just going to repeat again at the full dais. I think the committees should not have public testimony. I think they should be a place where we vet information, where we have an opportunity to direct staff to get some more information and then the decision and the public testimony happen on the full dais where it's going to happen anyway no matter what we do in committee. Councilmember? >> Kitchen: Let me speak to that for a moment. I think it depends. I think it depends on the committee and the subject matter because I think one of the values of committees is that it's a public forum. So there needs to be an opportunity for the people to speak to us. If we're just talking about issues in work session, then there's not an opportunity for people to engage in the long-term planning in a public way. So whether or not there's recommendations, I really just think depends on the particular issue and the particular committee. I would say probably most of the time you don't need that, but there may be an occasion -- I wouldn't want to foreclose it because there might be an indication -- let me give you some examples. I talked to Robert Goode who is sitting there and I'll put him on the spot if he wants to speak, and we were talking about the kinds of issues that are important, bigger issues, longer term issues for mobility. And there could be a role, depending on the issue, for the committee to sort of suss through the options and bring information back to the full council for the full council to discuss and it might be a circumstance where the committee wants to say hey, here's all the options, but you might think about this one as your best [1:06:46 PM] option. Or the committee might say here are the options without a recommendation. I don't think we need to be that prescriptive, I guess. I think it's okay for committees to think about that as it comes up. >> Flannigan: And I think a lot of what you're saying is valuable. I think I'm talking specifically about committees taking a vote. I think it makes a lot of sense for committees to rank order options with a matrix and that the committee saying this matrix, we vetted the numbers and it makes sense to us. We didn't take a vote that option a is supported four-three or whatever the numbers like like, but that we're going to rank order vetted information. We vetted it not just with the four, five or six of us that are on the committee, but also with the chair of the urban transportation committee, the chair -- whoever those commissions appoint from downtown, from planning, from whatever. That the committees serve as a place to clarify information and it's not that you would prohibit anyone from speaking but it would be more in the context of invited testimony because no matter what is in the committee they're all coming back to the full dais. And from a streamlined perspective, it would provide clarity, those of us who don't serve on any one committee, to know that the data that comes out, that the analysis or report or however we phrase it, that it's been vetted, that there's been some commissions involved, some councilmembers involved, but no decisions were made. And what I feel passionately about that -- and this happens for commissions as well. They make a recommendation and then we ignore it. Or it might happen from a committee when the votes aren't there. It seems that it would be more valuable to our volunteers to know that we respect the work that they've done not so much that we're overriding their vote. I feel their work gets boiled down to the recommendation and when we override it we've invalidated all the hard work they've done instead of [1:08:47 PM] saying here's a matrix of things that seems to make sense for this commission or this committee. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Alter? >> Alter: I agree a lot with what the councilmembers have set and councilmember Houston's sentiment. And that our committees align with the six areas that we identified. I want to flag something that comes from my academic experience here studying legislative organization and I think we need to get on the table and resolve before we decide which committees. And that is what parliamentary rights and ours are we willing to allocate to committees under whatever circumstances? So if nobody on the dais is willing to delegate parliamentary rights that would allow a committee to make decisions in lieu of the council, there are going to be limits to certain things that the committees can accomplish. And I haven't heard anyone saying that they want to delegate their authority to the committee and not have that ability for things to come before council. That choice, if we decide that that is where we are, is going to affect how effective the committees can be at certain things and we should get that right out on the table and agree that we're not willing to do that. Now, I'm wondering if there are any subset or decisions, since I have not had the pleasure of going through this week after week, that whoa we really don't necessarily need the full council, but we need eyes on. And maybe there are things coming out of audit and finance that there still might be some value in that, but I don't know what those are. Another thing that helps committees function more efficiently is resources that they have to do investigations or to subpoena in the case of congress. We're not really going to be subpoenaing in our committees, but we might be asking people to come for testimony. So one of the problems we had with the committees was that staff was was penned spending time doing the same thing over and over again. What if we are allocating [1:10:47 PM] staff in some way to these committees where they are pushing forward on our six goals and then that is something that you get if you're in committee is not only do you get to have the conversations with your colleagues, but there's some kind of staff resource that the committee commands to help them investigate different options that might go into this matrix or the recommendations. And I think those two things are important to keep in mind because the committee decisions -- the effectiveness of the committees is not made by what the topic is of the committees. It is made by this whole string of other things that we decide decide through the process. >> Flannigan: Mr. Mayor, I have a legal question. So if there are five people on a committee and they have a conversation about a topic in this room under the lights, is that the quorum that can talk about it behind the scenes? Or because it was in open meeting you can then go and talk to other folks? >> Garza: -- >> So you want to make sure you're below a quorum? >> Flannigan: No. The scenario I'm envisioning is you have a committee of five and you have this really great conversation, but if I'm not on this committee I really wish I would have the opportunity to talk to councilmember alter who served on that committee before I see it on Thursday so I can check in with her and say hey, I know you're on that committee. You heard testimony from xyz, you have no data on it. Because there were already five people at the table in the open meeting, does that mean that those are the only five people who can talk about it behind the scenes? >> That would be a problem, so that's one of the reasons there are four people on the committee is to try to avoid that to begin with. You could certainly -- >> Mayor Adler: So if I have a full council meeting, if full council meeting and one person is not here and we discuss a topic at a council meeting, after the [1:12:50 PM] council meeting is over I could go talk to that one person that wasn't here without violating the open meetings act. So I think the gloss that Jimmy is putting in that is if the initial conversation is a public meeting, shouldn't that not count at all against your quorum for your conversations that are happening that the public doesn't see. >> You can certainly ask a question of somebody who was there and I think what you want to be careful about is working on the item together because you want to stay below a quorum if you're working on something, crafting a resolution, crafting an ordinance, that kind of thing. But you could certainly talk to somebody and learn what had happened at the committee. >> Mayor Adler: So what happens in the question that he asked about if you have a full council meeting and everybody talks, but one person is not there. Could you go work with that one person who wasn't there in detail on what was the subject matter of the council getting together? >> Sure. >> Mayor Adler: So if I notice a meeting with five people, why can't I leave that meeting of the five people and go talk to someone this same way? >> You can talk to them. >> Without limitations? >> Well, if the five people at the meeting have decided to work on a resolution together and you want to -- the sixth person wants to then get involved in that, that's where we would say please don't do that. >> Pool: But I think what he was saying is there -- Jimmy -- what I was hearing was there isn't any resolution, there's no ordinance, there was just a meeting of five people in public that was posted. And then they haven't agreed to be any kind of quorum together, and so each of those five outside of the meeting can have a talking group. >> If that's your question, [1:14:51 PM] can you ask somebody about a question about what happened at the meeting -- >> Flannigan: No, let me paint a picture. Mobility committee and -- is the four of us or is the five of us. We'll make it simple. It's the five of us and we have a public meeting and we bring in representatives from transportation department and we bring in some public testimony and we're talking about two or three different high capacity transit options. But in that meeting of five I find out that Greg and I don't agree, just based on the way we're asking questions. So when I go to craft an ordinance I don't want to talk to Greg because I know he doesn't agree with me. Can I, because there were five of us in the public meeting, can I craft that ordinance with my four colleagues on the other side if I leave these folks out? >> Yes. >> Flannigan: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: So the -- so people that you meet with in a public setting, in a noticed meeting, don't count against your quorum for private conversations? >> So I think the way you're asking is is not exactly how I would say it because if you're working together on something you need to stay within -- less than a quorum to do a resolution or ordinance or whatever you're working on. But -- you're having a meeting here. The point of this meeting is to be in the public having a conversation about what you all think and then some of you may go off from this and say I want to work on a resolution concerning the historical landmark commission. And you are age to do that with less than a quorum. >> Flannigan: Is there a difference in doing that with less than five people or 10 people or 11 people. If I call a meeting and there's only five names on the agenda, that doesn't matter? >> Tovo: Can I make a suggestion. There are a lot of different permutations of the same question and I think it would be helpful to schedule time to have that maybe in a public session, some in an executive session because I think we're -- I have some questions that I think would be -- that I'd like answers to, but because we're talking about it quickly in the context of something else I'm really concerned [1:16:51 PM] that we're going to walk away with different understandings of this. So I'd just like to suggest we do this -- this piece of this conversation at another time. >> Mayor Adler: After we've had a chance to think about it. >> Casar: I think the point is well taken about committees being useful working sessions and I appreciate, just getting a good reminder of the format. But I did want to get back to councilmember alter's point because I think it's something that the consultants were trying to communicate to us at the end of our retreat as we were rushing to the finish. Which is not -- which is not just about aligning all of our work, including committee work, towards outcomes, but that it's not just about the category of work that the committee works on, but the specific tasks that the committee is going and whether or not it is high impact enough that it's saving us time. So I'll use the public safety committee as an example here, which I've heard from some folks that folks have an opinion about whether we should have a public safety committee or not. To me that question is less interesting than, for example, if the public safety committee was working on the appropriate staffing level for the police department, I think that would not be high impact and would not have saved anyone time because the whole council, every single individual councilmember, has a huge interest in the amount of staffing on public safety. So every conversation we had about that in committee really it didn't add very much, it didn't support the council very much. But, for example, in the interviews of the municipal court clerk, there was hours and hours of work that the committee did. The responsibility was not delegated away from council to the committee making the decision, but the recommendation from the committee carried a lot of weight, and lots of other councilmembers didn't go and interview those five or six candidates that took us all that one Friday. So for me -- and I think this was where the consultants were getting to media was out of the room, but not really out of the room. Is that I think the topics are important, but I think what's even more important is for us to figure out from a large majority of us what [1:18:52 PM] things we want and trust some small group that doesn't include us to go on? And so for me it's a little bit less about what communities I want to be on and more about what things I want other people to go and work on that I generally will trust and appreciate some work being done on that I'm not doing. So I'm trying to think about it the other way around, sort of what do I trust and think is important for other people to go work on that I'm not going to be that involved with? And if we can get to that then it's less about should there be a public safety committee or should there be a committee on interviews for appointments to the council and more about what kind of stuff do we want a group of people that isn't us to go work on for us? And even though -- I know by ordinance we can't just approve committee's recommendations, but that if the work the committee is doing isn't impactful to the full group we shouldn't have them. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen -- I'm sorry, Ms. Garza? >> Garza: I don't disagree with anything that anybody has said, but to try to get and I hate to segue, but how this was brought to us is the charter allows councilmembers to bring things before work session and it dictates a councilmember and a sponsored item. So councilmember tovo and I asked -- mayor pro tem tovo and I asked to bring this before and I'm wondering there's a way to improve the way it is on the work session agenda because it seems like this got melded into one giant thing that's created this conversation that's going like this right now. So my request would be when a councilmember asks and gets a sponsor to have a subject matter placed on the work session agenda, it be placed as it was requested because that's what the charter says it's supposed to be, and then it will say mayor pro tem tovo and councilmember Garza sponsored this. And if anybody else wants to [1:20:54 PM] add something to that, the mayor wanted to add meetings, then the mayor -- the mayor brings that and it says. Says mayor Adler wants to talk about this too. That's a concern of mine. So with regards to this, because mayor pro tem tovo and councilmember pool have been -- we have been working on trying to come up to make this most efficient we thought these six questions would get us closer. I was like we have different opinions on strategy. I get that the strategic outcomes should be a part of this, but they're not baked. They said they're not going to be baked till March. So I feel like we wait until March to have this discussion when as the consultant literally jumped up and down and screamed, all of you agree that the committee system is not working. So my question is can we work off this six question list and see if we can get there? Because I do think we have a lot of agreement. I really do think that we'll have a lot of agreement. And I think as a result of that it will hit on every single one of these things that people have showed concerns about. And then when we have that agreement we can bring in those charters that explain this is what this committee should do and then once the strategic thing is baked we say this is how this lines up with the strategic. Because I think there is a real agreement on where people feel -- I, for example, I think a way to do is is go by each chair, go down a list of the committees, go by the chair, ask the chair's opinion. My opinion of public utilities, it could be dissolved. It has several citizen commissions that are much greater experts on Austin energy, other committees. I can't think of the citizens committees right now, but well staffed citizens committees that bring us recommendations. I think it's duplicative so I would propose doing away with public activities. [1:22:55 PM] Public utilities. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I think that councilmember Garza has laid out a good way to proceed. We could spend a whole day talking about the larger policy issues and those are important. But if we start with the the concrete about the committees and for those committees that people feel like should be continued, the chairs can go away and come up with draft charters and bring that back to the council and then we can talk specifically. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I think once we do that, and that's the approach I would like to take as well, we can get to a point where we can track them back to the six strategies, trying to form committees under each of the strategies will I think cause -- it will be difficult, but what we can do is within each committee we could say this item tracks to this strategy, this one tracks to that strategy. We can still do that. And I did some time after our strategic retreat, because we were already engaged in this process. So I think that is an additional layer that I would not want the committees to tie back to the strategies, but rather the work that the committees do to tie back to the strategies. An example is a department. A department doesn't fall into one strategy. They will have programs and activities within that department that they'll track. That's how we reduce the silos and have cross-program pollination. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: I see where you're going with that, but it seems to me that the strategic alignment priorities should help us decide what committees we need and they should not break down the silos, should encourage that but not use the traditional models that we're using here. And there are some other committee structures and other names that help us align and that helps then the boards and commissions [1:24:55 PM] beard align because they're not in alignment either. They're going to do their own thing and then we get a report and we either ignore it or we don't, and we work all of that. When I was voting for the committee system it was so that people have an input into resolutions before it got to the point where they would either have to fight for it or against it at council so they would feel like they're able to help craft that resolution as it came up. But that's not working. So I think the whole thing needs to be rethought and not just do we have this committee or this committee, but how do we get that input into a process earlier so that the people who these decisions will impact have some ownership of it before it gets to us and we passed a policy that then they have to come back and fight for it or against it. >> Mayor Adler: My view on this is -- certainly I view to the will of the council. My thoughts are similar to Ms. Houston's in that I don't know how we decide which committees we want if we're not deciding what we want the committees to do, which goes to Ms. Alter's point. And I know some people think their committees are doing good work and are really functional. And I don't know if we're okay with having one or two committees that work really well because the people on that -- I'm looking for some sort of common source. If our goal -- and I think it was initially was to make sure that there would be some vetting before things were considered and they showed up on the agenda, and if committees aren't the way to do that then I would want us to have a discussion about what would be the way to do that. If it was to get public testimony earlier or public involvement earlier and the [1:26:55 PM] committees weren't the able to do that, then maybe looking at the boards and commissions and how we interact with those might be the way to address that issue. So part of me wants to go back to what it is we're trying to accomplish and then make sure that we have the system that best meets that. And it could be that I'm asking for committee reform that's too much or I'm asking us to iterate too far from where we've been, but to just pick the committees. And if that's what the council wants to do and they just want to pick the committees and do it that way, I'm just not sure that will -- it will advance the ball as meaningfully as I would like to have it advanced in terms of how we efficiently use our time. And I think it leads into how much time we spend at council meetings and otherwise. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I guess I would say if we're really going to work through the policy and the rationale and whatnot, I would strongly urge that we not start committee meetings again until we finish that conversation. Councilmember kitchen, I see that you disagree and that's fine. Here's what I don't want to happen. We have the status quo, which for some of us seems extremely inefficient, and not just inefficient -- not just of my own time, but of our city staff time. And which again I would just underscore is a taxpayer resource. So if we're asking our city staff to support committee meetings that aren't as productive as other kinds of activities then we are wasting taxpayer dollars in my opinion. So it's really important to me to either decide that we're going to talk about the policy for as long as that takes and then come up with the committees or that we make some agreements on which committees are critical soon before we start this process. I have to say we've gotten -- we know have -- it used to work out to about a council meeting every other week in the course of a year. We now have an expectation of a council meeting every week. There is no week almost where we're not preparing for a meeting. It has dramatically changed [1:28:56 PM] kind of the shape of our time on a regular basis as a councilmember who served in two different systems, I can tell you I spend a good deal of my time on meeting preparation. When you double the amount of committees and increase the time from two hours to three, that significantly impacts. And again it's not just the councilmembers' time and our staff who have been impacted, it's the city staff who have a variety of other responsibilities. I don't think the value we've gotten from all those committees, while there has been value, I don't think it's commensurate with the time and the resources used. I really think we need to make some changes. I suggest we do what's been suggested, we try to talk about the committees and then we circle around and look at each one that we think is critical to save or to keep or to add and then think about what is the purpose each one of these is going to solve. What is the purpose? Are we sell gating? What -- delegating, what of those goals is each committee going to fulfill? And it may be different for each one. >> Garza: Mayor, I understand you not wanting to advance the ball because those are very valid concerns you have, but I think we need to start pushing that ball. I think for those of us who are serving on committees and chairing committees, I think our input is important and I think that if we start the process -- and I'm not saying it's the best one. I'm saying it's a process to start pushing that ball. If there's consensus on a couple -- if we get rid of -- if we say right now we have public agreement that no one thinks we need to keep public utilities, I don't know how many hours of staff time, my staff time we have just given back to people for one committee. So I respect the wanting to wait until the strategic plan is fully vetted, but another way is we can eliminate the ones that [1:30:57 PM] there is no strong commitment to keep right now and then once that strategic plan is baked we come back and we say okay, here we have the strategic plan, here's the committees that we saved. Do we need more? Do we need to bring back public utilities because of blah, blah, blah? I would ask that -- I will start off. I'm curious, does anybody feel a strong need to keep public utilities committee? I feel like that's one agreement right there. That we've just saved hours and hours and hours of staff time. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Alter? >> Alter: I was going to go down a similar path as councilmember Garza. I'm not hearing the council as being all that far apart. I think everyone is frustrated with the committees. I think everyone wants to reduce those. What I'm hearing is people will be much more comfortable with this process and creative if we can eliminate certain things off their plates that we know are inefficient. And maybe that's what I'm starting to understand that is what we need to hear. So councilmember Garza says public utilities. I have heard that we could do open space and environment could not have a committee because the council wants to be making those decisions themselves. Councilmember pool, I was just talking -- councilmember pool? Excuse me, councilmember pool, I was just talking about eliminating open space environment as a committee so I wanted to make sure that you heard that so that it wasn't missed. And so I've heard some desire to get rid of the public safety, but that there's a need to review judges. That would be something we might be willing to delegate so that we could probably eliminate the public safety committee, but retain some group having that communication. I am wondering if there is a need for the Austin energy oversight committee, if we already have a committee as a whole and we have the commission that there may be a need for an ad hoc committee every several [1:32:58 PM] years when we do the rate case, but maybe we don't need to have that all the time. You guys have a lot more familiarity with these. I'm just trying to eliminate things. I'm wondering what planning and neighborhoods does as a committee. We seem to do all the zoning all the time. So maybe that time we somehow combine housing and community development, planning and neighborhoods and it's something about affordability and that committee is focused on those long-term goals that councilmember Flannigan was highlighting should be the role of the committees. Mobility, I know there are people who feel really strongly that we have to have a focus on mobility, but I don't think the mobility community's role is which sidewalk gets built, but rather the broader system issues in the longer term. Economic opportunity, that falls under both affordability in terms of our six and also under enrichment, and it just might not be the right package for it. Audit and finance could be the good government committee, and we need to keep that. So that leaves us can audit and finance as our good government. We have gotten rid of Austin energy. Economic opportunity is going to go under -- I don't know if you can do that. It's just what I'm proposing. Then economic opportunity goes under some to be named committee that represents some things. Health, health and human services. If we need that committee would be under the health umbrella. Then we have an affordability umbrella, we have mobility and we're uncertain whether we need a safety committee and we need a function that is to review our judges. >> Mayor Adler: So if I could clarify real quickly. I wasn't recommending we don't do anything. And I certainly don't think we should have committees operating that people don't [1:34:59 PM] want to serve on and I'm not sure any of these committees were. Which is why I propose we move to a more task force organization which is what we might do. So if we were to move through this and say over the next three months while we're figuring out what the priorities are or so that we can talk about it for a three-month period of time, if there were one or two or three of these committees that wanted to meet or health and human services, health and human services wanted to meet for the purpose of making that appointment, then that committee could meet for the purpose of making that appointment. And it doesn't have to stay in power to do anything else other than to make that appointment. And if there was a broader agenda on mobility and people want to serve on that, then keep mobility. We would go through and I think if we did that we would lose almost all of these committees except for audit and finance is required by the charter and mobility that's been spoken to. And then specific task functions. And then I think we've handled this. I just don't think we've done very much after we've done that other than to free people's calendars over the next free months, and that is a significant thing to do. So I'm all in favor of doing that. But we then have a huge gap in the efficient operation of a city council and how we could process information and engage the public and provide opportunity for the public to take notice and to be able to run efficient meetings. So I don't have a problem with us scrapping the committees, as I just described. I don't have a problem with that at all. I just don't think it gets us to affirmatively what we're trying to actually get to. It takes away something that is a sore point, which we need to, as we agreed we would. But I would still want us to try to figure out and stay engaged as to what we do to actually make this body work beard? I know two things. [1:36:59 PM] I don't like the way that it worked before we got on council, so I don't want to go back to that. And I don't like the way that it's worked with the committees while we've been on council, so I don't want to perpetuate that. >> Renteria: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Who hasn't had a chance to speak yet? Mr. Renteria? >> Renteria: I have -- I'm chair of the housing committee and community development, but I have no problems with-- I reduced my meetings to six this time because there's a lot of the discussion of the housing, the strike fund, the preservation district. That's -- we have already discussed that and we know what we need to do there. So I do really believe that we could consolidate that with the planning and neighborhood subcommittee because we're -- that's going to be very important when we're coming back. I don't know how you want to handle that, but that's going to be codenext and we're going to be dealing with that coming up here this year, hopefully this year. I don't know. The way it's going it might be 2019. I hope not. But that's going to be something that -- and again, with the strike fund coming, we're going to have to have a lot of discussion on that. But I don't know. I don't have any problem in the way I restructure the committees as long as we have the ability to listen to what's coming down from other committees that are meeting to -- especially in housing and codenext. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool, Ms. Houston, Mr. Casar? >> Pool: I wanted to expand on what councilmember Renteria was -- he stated the ability to meet with the citizens advisory group and I think that the discussions of codenext definitely need to be a focus. [1:39:00 PM] And I think we benefit as the entire council from those conversations so I would like to see that continue and I would like to see it be structured. So that's something that we plan to do for the next year or 18 months or however long it takes as a committee as a whole or as the entire council. I don't care who chairs it. >> Mayor Adler: Which we could do. We could just call it a work session if it were a committee of the whole and we could set those as either part of our work session or at other times if we wanted to. >> Pool: And then I wanted to confirm on some of the suggestions that councilmember alter had offered up as some of the committees to do away with, knowing that we could have program or issue specific committee task forces as needed. And I didn't know if you would be okay with letting go of open space because that is clearly an area where you have some specific knowledge and in looking at these, if that one continued, I had hoped that would be something that you would take on personally. I'm fine with discontinuing it. I was going to step away from it anyway as chair. But I think that you have nailed the ones that I was thinking of, including open space. Again, I was just going to defer to what you wanted. But on the ones that you listed as either doing away with, we've had a number of hours of conversation between councilmember Garza and the mayor pro tem and I on what to do. And I think clearing the decks is probably the best way to go at this point and then building back up from there. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Before we began our terms of office, there was an effort to streamline the boards and commissions and so when we came on board we had -- they had streamlined them down to 60. One of the interesting things is that public health has no board or commission to vet any of their information. [1:41:00 PM] So they bring all of their information to the public health because they've changed their name now. So it's public health and human services. So they bring all their issues to the public health committee. If there had been a board or commission most of that work would have been done there. And we wouldn't have to deal with that. And some of you all were here when that happened. If you can tell me why health was not encapsulated in trying to find out where is the board or commission that all those health issues could go to so they could be vetted, I would love to hear it. So that is only to say that through our boards and commissions structure those -- that's the pipeline that they use to get resolutions to us as a council to act on and so how will that function now? We have resolutions that came out today that are coming up to the council. Does that go to the committee or will that go to the full council to discuss? So those are some of the in between things. There is no public health board or commission to vet anything from public health. And it's a large part of our service delivery system. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Mr. Casar? >> Casar: And I think on the day of the retreat or the part of the retreat that councilmember Renteria wasn't able to be there for we did have a very brief discussion about bringing together planning and neighborhood and housing and I think we should keep talking about how that would work. I think what is important in that charge is figuring out which work it is that the council wants to delegate authority to a committee on such important -- on those sorts of topics because things like codenext I agree if there's not -- there's not having a hearing in the committee, the hearing will be redone in front of the council, that [1:43:01 PM] doesn't seem to do much, but I think there were issues in both planning and neighborhoods in the last years where we did save some time and get some work done. So I think what we will need is as we think about how that merge might occur, continue direction from rest of the group as to how we can continue to work to save time. And I think with the passage of the mobility bonds there may be some places and opportunities where it's not just about the transportation as we laid out in the bond language, we also want to leverage opportunities for there to be other public improvements and neighborhoods and new housing opportunities. So I think that again if that is the kind of work that a task force or a separate group might do it may actually just be able to fold into the work that either planning and neighborhoods or housing would have done. So again, it's I think a little bit less about what I would like to do in planning and neighborhoods or what councilmember Renteria and the other members of the housing committee would like to do and more what the council would like to see that committee working on. >> Tovo: I appreciate that. I was initially thinking that a merger made sense and then I started thinking about the joint meetings we're having with the cag. And thought, you know, I think planning and neighborhood sort of has kind of transformed into those joint meetings with the cag. And that is going to be the next kind of planning focus. And if we are going to continue doing those as a committee of the whole, maybe that is the function that continues as planning and neighborhoods. And as I started to think about the planning resolutions that have been done over the last couple of years, definitely the housing committee brought some forward, but a lot happened outside because it's such -- it's such a critical area for those. Whether the committee is a best way to handle our focus on housing because I think so many of us share it who may or may not serve on the committee. I think there are examples from the past, like the economic incentives task [1:45:01 PM] force which are a function of the prior council. It was something that came together briefly. And there were four councilmembers. I served on it. It involved a lot of public hearings, a lot of stakeholders came in. I think it's a great example actually of how we might move forward and have task forces that deal with very specific and targeted areas of focus. I think there tends tore more public participation because there's an end in sight. You're trying to tackle one issue over a short period of time and I think it's a pretty good model. As I think about our committee I think the ones that are successful -- one of the ways they've been successful is to do the nominations. As one of you all said before, to review and interview the candidates for whether it's central health board or the municipal civil service commission or some of the other -- the judges. Soiled see that as a continued function of the committee as I think we have all have a strong willingness to have that on the committee. I think that's important to continue. So generally I think as the committees were laid out, councilmember alter, you suggested some, and I don't hear a lot of disagreement about which ones people are comfortable losing. I would just say Austin energy I suggest we keep as a committee of the whole because it does tell the public that we're really serious about being the board of directors and we'll continue to stay abreast on those issues and it's certainly something I heard a lot from the community about five or so years ago when I was running the first time that they wanted to see more active involvement in Austin energy issues from the council. And I think our council and the previous one has really moved in that direction and that's a good thing. >> Mayor Adler: >> Alter:? >> Alter: I wanted to say that I thought Austin energy was a separate one, but I do think we need a committee of [1:47:02 PM] the whole when it's appropriate to be doing that. I want to just dream for a second about functions that these committees might serve, that they may or may not already be doing or also throw out some task forces. So while I'm totally fine not having a committee on open space, that doesn't mean I don't want to work on open space and don't want to combine with colleagues to do that. One of the things we have as a double need is we have a lot of state-owned land that may be coming for sale. I'm not going to be in a position necessarily to work on this in the next month or two, but I would like to be part of a working group that focuses on solutions that we can have and be ready for when there are state-owned lands that are coming up, with one eye of that being environmental open space kinds of things or when there is open space kinds of things that would add to our parkland where parks has a certain amount of money, and maybe they need some on the part or broader things. So maybe that's an area where the task force would work. I know the work that councilmember troxclair is doing with the hotel occupancy tax, that's really a policy decision and we need to have some brain power and focus looking at that. I could imagine that there are policy areas whereas a councilmember it would be really helpful to have a comparative understanding of what these cities are doing and what pieces might be applicable and somehow we could get that matrix that councilmember Flannigan was talking about, but if you had a committee that was working on that could draw on the community that has expertise, but also had some staff that were able to take some of those things and dig a little deeper. And it's a function that's different than the auditor's office. It's a policy function and it gets back to our role as policymakers that if we structure these committees right and we provide them some staff resources, it will allow us to be providing the guidance that I keep hearing city staff asking for in terms of a whole slew of policies where they are not necessarily feeling like they have the guidance that they need to be as effective as they would like to be on behalf [1:49:03 PM] of the citizens of Austin, but we have to be at a point where we can make that policy. And some of that is basic research and getting the information, thinking about how it applies and getting that out of the community, getting people engaged to give us that information. And that's not really well done on the council dais. You know, you can -- you can do it in a mix of public engagement and bringing in the public to have those conversations, but one of the things that makes Austin great is we have all of these really smart people who want to do innovative things and we have to invite them in to the conversations and the brainstorming, problem solving. We have an innovation office. I bet you if we asked the innovation office to come up with a new design for our committee system, they probably would be able to do that for us. You know, if we wanted. I just wanted to throw those things out. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I'd like to -- I think we're making some progress on the specific committees. So I'd like to speak to that. I think I agree with what everybody is saying. I would say -- because I think we're back on keeping the Austin energy oversight committee as a whole. I think we're back on that. So that's fine. And I don't have any disagreement on any of the others. Health and human services I'd defer to our chair and continue that one if that's one that would be important. I can see the value of that. , Housing and community development, combining that with neighborhoods, I think that would work. I would support that and would like to participate in that committee. Mobility committee I think goes specifically to one of the outcome areas and there's a large number of important longer term issues to address, so I think we need to keep that. The public safety, I agree with getting rid of that one. Public utilities I agree with getting rid of that one. What I would propose, it [1:51:04 PM] sounds like we have some -- that we really have some agreement around these committees and so what may be useful for us is for the chairs of each of these committees or some point person for each of these committees to go away and put together a charter for us and bring it back to us. I don't think that as -- I don't think as a group of 11 we should try to write a charter. But to me a charter includes what's the purpose of this committee, what are the issues this committee is going to address over the next year? In addressing those issues what is the committee going to do versus what is the committee going to bring back to the council to add value? And then what's the committee's schedule? Coming up with that information, which gives us something concrete to react to. And then the high school can say okay, that makes sense for that committee because that committee is proposing to address xyz issues and to interact and add value back to the council in this way. So I think that's the work that kind of work is best done not as a group discussion, but as each of us taking away for those committees that we want to work on, doing that work and bringing it back. Then I think we could have a much more focused conversation about the specifics so that would be my proposal as a way to take the next step because I think that -- I think we're making progress here on what that group is of committees and then we bring it back with the details around those committees, which would help us determine, yeah, we were right in keeping that one, or maybe not. Does that make sense? >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza and Ms. Alter? >> Garza: Mayor, I appreciate you agreeing that we're moving the ball and that's a good thing. I guess I would agree to disagree that it's a small thing because I tell you what, if we have just [1:53:05 PM] eliminated the public utilities and open space for the next three months, you have given my family, my staff, city staff so much time back. So it is a big thing I think to those of us who have been working on these committees. May I mover us forward and ask may we go chair by chair and ask so we know exactly where we are on what committees there is a strong agreement to keep? >> Mayor Adler: We could certainly do that. And we'll recognize the people that have talked. I also want to make sure that this is not all that we are doing. >> Garza: And I agree. This is just the beginning. >> Mayor Adler: I think to undo something that we know we need to change, but I don't know that it's getting us to where it is that we need to go. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: So I asked a question and I don't think I got an answer about when the boards and commissions were streamlined, why public health was not given a board or commission? Because I think that's the issue for us. I think public health is -- health is a strategic priority and so we could align some of our work under there, but as long as we spend most of our time vetting everything that comes from public health -- so I would really like to have that -- somebody give me that information if not today, some day, and then maybe we as a committee could talk about how we could do central health or focus on some broader policy issues as it relates to health. So thank you. I didn't see it behind me. >> Tovo: Can I mention animal advisory commission is one of the boards that feeds into the work that we were doing on hhsc, but that's a really good question about whether there's ever been a board about more blood cell issues. >> Houston: And we have so many things put into health and human services because [1:55:05 PM] they didn't go -- we've got immigrant rights, we've got all of the ethnic quality of life commissions. It just seems like they ran out of places to put people and then they put them in public health and human services. >> So on the board and commission task force, one of the things they were looking at was trying to make recommendations to the previous council to streamline the existing boards and commissions. So the task force was made up of members of -- or volunteers that were members of existing boards and commissions. And so I don't think anyone on that task force -- and the clerk's office provided the staff support to that task force. I don't think anyone on that task force realized that there was a void in the health and human services area that things were getting funneled directly to a council committee because there wasn't a board and commission. I don't think that information -- it never dawned on anyone to ask. And they discussed briefly looking at the boards and commissions and how they supported and would kind of report up to the different council committees at that time. It's just they ran out of time to do that because they had a fairly short window to get a recommendation back to council. So they kind of set that aside and didn't address it. Had they had time to do that alignment with all of the council committees, they might have noticed that there was a gap there, but they just didn't have enough time. So I think that's the short answer. [1:57:08 PM] >> Pool: And mayor? I would just tack on to that that I'd be happy to work with you if you want a lead on trying to -- if you feel like there is a need for a broader commission to capture all those other activities. But I would think that that may be of specific effort for us to take as individuals rather than at this point. >> Houston: And I appreciate that, but I think I would like to talk to the committee, the current members on the committee about where their interests lie in how we can reconfigure what is currently called public health and human services and do something different. So if I could have that time to talk with the four of them, rather than me making a decision for them. >> Pool: I was talking about your question about why it's a central board or commission. That's what I was talking about, not the council committee. >> Mayor Adler: Do we want to then go around and talk about each committee? Turn? It seems to be a direction that people wanted to go, the chair or the other committee members speak to it? >> Alter: I just wanted to throw out a couple of things and ask a question. So one thing that the committees could do that I think would be a valuable to push forward the strategic planning process is we have at least six committees that are responsible for the six areas they could do a first deep dive into the indicators to give us a first pass at what those indicators might be and what different -- which slice a different indicator might be providing us with. And that is something that would be moving the ball on things that we care about. I think that from what councilmember Houston said we have to have some group looking at creating this public health commission. I would be curious to hear from the city manager if there are committees that the staff thinks we should have that we're not thinking of. And then the other thing is I don't know what the procedure is. I see a whiteboard. I'm a [1:59:10 PM] former professor. I feel like this would be really helped if I could just map out what we've agreed to and we could see that we've actually accomplished a lot today simply by writing it down up there. >> Mayor Adler: You're certainly welcome to come up and do that. Do we want to have people talk about the committees that they have so that we've touched on that? Yes. >> Tovo: Could I suggest that we go committee by committee rather than chair to chair? Because I don't want to be in a is position -- in a position that we -- I want to as much as possible separate it away from the people who are chairing the committees into the topic generally because I think we all have something to offer about which committees are useful to the council overall. >> Tovo: I think it's been identified that this is our good government committee. I think too if we eliminated economic opportunity there's a possibility for that absorbing someof that function. >> Mayor Adler: Oughtly, I'm not convinced because I don't know whether the way we do the most efficient use of people's time is to actually have committees on each of those six areas. One, I don't know what the committees are doing and I don't know if it's better to have people spend time, I guess everybody could decide themselves whether they wanted to be on a task force that was specific project oriented shorter term deal, trying to -- or a longer term policy question, like annexation or state owned land, cop plate a -- populate a committee or task force or none of them. >> Tovo: I would agree. I think it's hard for me to imagine -- I'm not going to suggest that there be a committee necessarily for each strategic priority. I'm just trying to make that connection. I also want to say since I've chaired it I'm happy [2:01:10 PM] not to and to support and nominate the current vice chair if she wants to serve or consider supporting somebody else. >> Okay. I guess one of the things that we could do is -- is to find who wants to serve on those committees and part of the issue with that is -- is, you know, my personally I would rather be probably on some of the task forces that have been identified that are specific projects. Probably would go into a decision of where I would spend my time. It may be a similar type of thing for other councilmembers, too. In other words, again, as we move through the committees, it's -- it's -- by small, I didn't mean it wasn't significant. I just meant that -- that it's a bigger thing than -- than just this. This seems very incomplete to me in terms of the -- what we need to try to do. >> I just wanted to second the comments of mayor pro tem tovo. I have enjoyed serving on the audit and finance committee, I would be interested in continuing to serve there. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody else want to say anything about audit and finance? Anybody want to say anything about Austin energy oversight committee? >> We have to keep that. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. Mr. Flannigan, Ms. Pool. >> Is Austin energy oversight a required committee? >> Mayor Adler: No. >> Required by charter is the audit and finance. All of the rest of these are in your code, have been created by council so you can do anything that you want with them. I understand it feels very duplicative of utilities. Is there any reason it's not Austin water management and -- >> Austin water was addressed under the public utilities committee as that smaller committee. Austin energy was the committee of the whole. [2:03:14 PM] Whole council. >> There's some more reasons. >> Flannigan: That's what I am asking. >> Pool: There was a challenge to us retaining the public utility as a stakeholder of the city of Austin rather than as opposed to allowing is to shift to a private board of directors. Of there's also been legislative interest in how we've managed our rates. So -- so previous council had formed the Austin energy oversight committee, the whole, because we are the board of directors. It's similar, but not the same to the Austin housing finance corporation where you will see the mayor will recess a regular council meeting and bring the housing finance corporation into -- into -- he will convene us, we will take action formally as that body because we are also that board of directors, then adjourn and go back to council. It's different from that in that the -- the issues that we deal with, with the utility -- with the electric utility are pretty darned complicated and far-reaching and so that's why we don't have Austin energy as part of our council meetings. We thought through that, also, the small group that I was working with, thought through about whether we would, you know, just move our Austin energy oversight into a council, but the information that we have taken from them and the learning curve that the council that you are joining has been engaged in the last two years has been pretty darned steep, including a rate case. There are more complex and complicated issues on the horizon this year. So we came down on the side of because we are the board of directors, because we depend a lot on how the rate structures are managed and how we serve beyond the city limits, with our -- I think beyond the city limits? Is that right? Yeah. That we -- and there was a real interest in everybody knowing what's going on with the utility because we are individually responsible -- >> So are you -- is the -- the implication that the [2:05:16 PM] issues related around Austin energy are just orders of magnitude more complex than the water utility and the external pressures on the electric utility are different than they are on the water utility? The second one I get. >> Pool: Previously they were separate. I don't know if -- previously they were different. I don't know if that will continue to be the case. The electric utility has had a different profile in the community than the water utility. I don't quite know why. And I served on the water and wastewater commission and so I have kind of mused on that for a decade and more. And you would think there would be more alignment or more similarities, but there just isn't. I think that we do bring the water issues directly to council, so we all review it. But we're not a board of directors. That's also a department but we serve in a slightly different capacity. >> Just to be clear, the board of directors may be a little bit off. You are in charge of Austin energy just like you are in charge of the water ought auto. I think it's just been a time and space that you all wanted to talk specifically about the utility, but there's no reason that it's set up that way. >> Mayor Adler: It's a department just like the water department. I think one of the reasons we do is because a billion and a half dollar revenue company we wanted to make sure that we were putting aside time to actually devote to it. And the other two reasons that you gave were you also extant as well. >> Mayor, I would suggest that you maybe consider chairing the Austin energy committee. >> Mayor Adler: Again, I'm at the will of the -- of the council. I'm perfectly comfortable with Leslie taking that if that's something that she wants to focus on. >> I guess that I must have missed that discussion. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Economic opportunity? Anybody want to say anything [2:07:16 PM] about that? Okay. [Multiple voices] >> Tovo: I already did. I wanted to reiterate, seems to me this could be one that we might could remove. >> Is there any strong -- I can't think of the word? Dissent to remove that? >> I think maybe it would be better served, I don't know what exactly the divorce -- I don't know what exactly it would morph into. I think there are really important issues that could be included in economic opportunity like the downtown plan that you've talked about like the hotel -- possibly reforming the way that we're spending hotel occupancy taxes. Those kinds of things. I think those fall under economic opportunity. I just don't know if there's the music omnibus, seems so many things that we're doing really connect to that issue. I don't know if there's a better way to rename it or if those things are better as specific task forces. >> Mayor Adler: One of the frustrations that we ran into, we had the open ended charge, people weren't really sure what the committees should be doing or not doing. It seems like a lot of people came to that committee because they had expectations it wasn't necessarily the committee that was setting its agenda for what it was spending its time on. The concept of having a group of councilmembers that get-together to say I really want to put some time against this and I want to think about it and I want to advance the ball was how I got to kind of the task force thing. But I agree with you, you know, to have some councilmembers that were working together rolling up their sleeves as you and I have already started working on the downtown stuff, in conversations, I think that might be a way for this kind of thing to be able to -- to -- >> Houston: Let's not forget spirit of east Austin. That has a very strong economic development component that we've not been really addressing. I just want to remind the [2:09:20 PM] mayor and councilmember troxclair probably knows that, but mayor pro tem tovo and I share down and have been pretty much out of the loop. We would appreciate getting in the loop. >> Tovo: I would add my office personally has been working on every issue in the mayor's downtown post for at least the two quarters on this council. >> Mayor Adler: I understand that you haven't missed anything. All I did was go on the bulletin board and say I think these elements are connected. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: To expand on a couple of other points that were made. There were a couple of other issues that we could, in fact, focus directly on. I think, with the task force approach that come out of the economic opportunity committee and more -- be more laser focused on -- on the -- on the technology issue. There's interest in -- I'll be meeting with some folks in the tech community to understand what they are looking for and I -- I would be happy to bring that back and then we're still trying to find our way with our minority and women- owned business contracting. And I think because that was a specific focus of the committee previously, we -- we should -- we should -- renew our efforts to try to work on the goals. Specifically for our -- for our m/wbe firms in town. So those are the two pieces that I would pull out of economic opportunity and then I think heading into each of the other things like spirit of east Austin and downtown and the hot taxes and so forth, that seems like directed work group specifically and then we don't lose the fact that we're working on those. So I would vote to separate out the issues that are pending and that are important to -- under economic opportunity, focus on them specifically and then do away with the committee itself. >> Mayor? [2:11:21 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> Renteria: Will that also include the expansion of the convention center? Under economic? We need to keep that in there, I think. >> Tovo: I guess I'm not really prepared to talk about all of those issues today. Again I want to reiterate several of us were talking about the convention center expansion and palm school and in fact our working with the county to organize a meeting. So I would just ask that we hold off on sort of a decision here today about how we're going to structure those dialogues. Most of which are already in progress in multiple areas. >> Garza: Maybe just in the effort of progress, spirit -- spirit of progress, maybe we just table that one and -- come back to it. >> Mayor Adler: I don't hear this conversation to stop any councilmember from continuing any work that they are doing in their offices or otherwise. I've -- >> I just wanted a clarification. Is there a reason if we had a task force and we had more than six people who wanted to participate on it, as long as our meetings were public and open and that was, you know, trying to drive towards the policy thing, is there anything to prohibit us from doing that? Let's say the we had a task force on homelessness, there are more than six or us that want to do that, as long as those meetings are open, public, we're not taking votes that our colleagues are excluded from, is that okay? >> Absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: In fact, I think the way we've done the committees in the past, we have noticed each of them as full council meetings. So anybody on the council could go to any one of the committee meetings that we had and then participate. Anybody else want to say anything about -- about economic development? Should we talk about health and human services? Let's go to health and human services. Anybody want to say anything there? >> Renteria: Mayor, we [2:13:21 PM] also need to look at, you know, we -- the community development commission overlooks a lot of this money, also. Because of the way the funding that we get the funding from the federal government. Their responsibility was to oversee and make recommendations to the council. And which included -- some of that money for our -- for our human health services like AIDS and special -- that's funds so we have -- there's funds so we have to make sure that when we do form that health committee that you're going to have more than one department making presentations to you all and we really need to look at that. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> I will be talking with Mr. Jones and seeing -- and members of our committee to see how we form a commission, what's the process to form a commission to be able to kind of vet all of those things that are coming forward, so that they're not all coming to the -- to the ad hoc task force. >> Mayor Adler: If we were to -- to remove the health and human services, obviously we would need to have a task force charged with the -- with the review of the central health board appointment. >> Houston: Not only just central health, but Dell medical school. We review them quarterly. What's going on there because that's in the district, so there's several things that relate broader to city-wide health initiatives. That we take a look at. The lack of any clinics east of airport boulevard for primary health care, I mean, there are things that need to be -- to help central health and the Dell medical school understand their priorities. >> Mayor Adler: Do you all want to continue going through the committees? >> I would like to comment on the health and human services. >> Kitchen: If there's room on that committee, that's one that I would be interested in participating in. So I'll talk to the chair [2:15:23 PM] about that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So -- I wasn't sure if that was a committee that was rolling off except for the task force issues. >> Kitchen: Sounds to me like there's an interesting in continuing it. Councilmember Houston is interested in talking to her committee members to determine whether it should continue. That's what I heard. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Health is one of our goals, so -- that's not counter. >> Mayor Adler: Talk about the next one? >> Tovo: If I could, I just want to say I think it's a good opportunity to talk about the membership and also to, you know, make decisions about the chairs. I think when we have these conversations, periodically as a council, we should do that, too. I'm -- I'm supportive and will nominate councilmember Houston to continue. But I think we should -- some people may not want to continue serving. Some people might want to change. So I think that's one of the reasons why we have the questions on there about membership. >> Mayor Adler: It's hard for me to do that when the group hasn't had a chance to meet yet to see if they want the committee to continue, number one. And it seems to me that before -- again, everybody can sign up or do whatever they want to. But it might be good to know what the universe was of what the choices are as best we had them before we were doing that. But of course anybody -- >> Houston: For example, the sobriety center local government cooperation, mayor pro tem has been the -- the star with -- champion of that for many, many years now. But it's also located in district 1, so I would like to serve on that, be kind of like her -- her alternate, if there's such a thing there. Will so that I know -- so that I know what's going on and we are in alignment with what we think is the best use for that property as we begin to develop the Brackenridge tract and they've asked for so many entitlements so this particular center might get moved or pushed and so we [2:17:24 PM] need to be there strongly to say no, it needs to stay where it is. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think as a council we have already appointed mayor pro tem to our -- we have a one slot on that. But if there's an opportunity to appoint an alternate or something like that -- >> Tovo: There is, we actually created that for just that reason when we created a council spot, I wanted to be sure we always had somebody voting and our schedules get busy. So we do have an opportunity for proxy, I think that would be terrific if we shared that responsibility. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any conversation about housing and community development? Conversation about combining that with planning and neighborhoods. >> Renteria: I have no problem with combining it. I have reduced my meetings down to almost five -- two meetings -- one meeting every two months. So I don't have any hangup about having to be the chair if we combine this committee with the planning and neighborhood. So I'm -- however you all want to -- I'm open for that. Okay capital metro does take a lot of my time now. You know, so -- and I won't mind being still -- I still want to be on the -- on this committee here. But I don't have any problem wherever mobility lands because of my responsibility now with capital metro I would like to be able to serve on that, also. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mr. Casar? >> Casar: I do think likely there will be working with members, still important work to be done in such a joint setting and I think mayor pro tem in your last comments I concur that having the committee shouldn't hold up people from bringing forward items to the full council related to this work and I think we have done a pretty good job [2:19:25 PM] at that. But there has been important work done at the housing committee that has really Teed up work that's coming to the full council. For example, when we were trying to figure out which funding streams and how we could combine them for homestead preservation day. That didn't have to get hashed out here in front of everybody. I think that did take us two or three times in the committee meeting. We did get that piece done, but I think there will be other work on such an important issue, having being hashed out over a period of time. So I'll talk to councilmember Renteria to confirm with other folks to figure out what that charter might be. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: If we're going to continue the housing committee, I would like to serve on that that's certainly one of my kind of key areas. And just getting back to this idea of combining planning and neighborhoods, it feels to me like the planning function of planning and neighborhoods has really shifted to that joint cag, so it may make [2:21:24 PM] better sense just to have a housing committee focused on housing issues. >> Mayor Adler: I don't know that there was an expectation that the joint cag was meeting other than the two meetings that were set. >> Tovo: Oh, okay. >> Mayor Adler: There hasn't been a discussion about continuing that. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Casar: And the cag will go through late spring and early summer months and so we'll have to -- I think that it's important, again, to set the expectation, and I think we set it pretty early on that it's not like we're going to have most code amendments going through a committee, because most of those code amendments are either noncontroversial and would pass quickly or controversial enough that we wouldn't want a committee handling them unless the council really wanted us to. But I think there's other really important urban planning work that relates to housing and relates though community investment that really kind of overlaps between mobility and community development and neighborhoods and planning that -- that we should discuss this year, especially in relation to our major public works investments. And so I think there will be work that a small number of us can help the council with. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> I'd like to continue to work on that committee. I'm on housing right now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mobility committee? >> Kitchen: I think it's -- I think we have general agreement to continue with that committee, and again, committing to put a draft charter together for the committee members and the rest of the council to react to, so working on that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? >> On the mobility, I am happy to serve on campo, and I think it makes sense to the extent possible that those of us who are serving on some of these other intergovernmental committees that are related to mobility are also participating [2:23:25 PM] regularly in the mobility committee. >> Mayor Adler: And I posted something when I was proposing that council member alter and council member Flanagan get put on the campo board. It was my intent to put that on Thursday's meeting. >> Okay, I also think -- well, we can get to this at the end. We have our mobility committee meeting on the 1st, so we can talk about whether we can go ahead and make those appointments and include council member Renteria. So -- >> Mayor Adler: I'll do that as well. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Tovo: I thought that our intent was to kind of make -- come to those agreements as a council on who would serve on different committees. I think two years ago we had a shift, and there was a general agreement that for that time the mayor was going to make those appointments, but I think in terms of setting in place kind of sustainable practices that will carry our city forward, I think we should get back to the practice of having the council not just affirm but also come to an agreement on those appointments, and so I mean, we could achieve all of those things, I think, if we kind of see a show of hands of who wants to be on the committee and then we know and could move forward. >> Kitchen: And we could bring forward a document on Thursday to make those appointments. >> Mayor Adler: You can certainly do it that way. My suggestion would be that there are a lot of reasons why we set up the structure differently, but in any event we have an ordinance at this point that specifies how it would happen, and if we want something to happen on Thursday, then we need to do it consistent with that ordinance. Certainly we can change that and we could notice it and put it on the agenda to do that, but if we're trying to get someone appointed quickly, I would suggest that before we made that kind of change, that we once again get a feel for what the larger structure is, because while we get along with each other really well right now, I'm not sure that that necessarily would always be the case. [2:25:24 PM] And I think that the appointments that were made two years ago were ones that worked really well for people. But in any event so that they can happen on Thursday I'll make those recommendations so that they can happen. >> Tovo: Sure, and I want to concur. I think you made an excellent battery of choices and set up committees in a very thoughtful way and very balanced way and this is not to suggest that that wasn't the case. But I do think that there are -- one, we will need to make changes to our ordinance because we're eliminating some committees, so we certainly will need a battery of ordinance changes. And again, you know, I guess I just regard my time here as limited because it is, and I want to come up with procedures that I think are in line with our charter going forward with regard to committee selection, and I think we could -- you know, a committee discussion ten years from now, if there's different -- if there are disagreements, can be settled the way we settle most other policy matters, by voting. So I guess I would like to move back to that practice of having it be a little bit more in the council's control, again, not out of disrespect to you or a lack of confidence in you but just as a matter of trying to set the council on a path of, you know, respecting the individual vote of the districts. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, Ms. Pool? >> Pool: And to the extent the committees meet before we actually get this ratified and codified, just to use my colleague council member Renteria as an example on mobility, he certainly should go to the meeting, you know, whether formally appointed or not, so anybody who wants to be on a committee should be empowered to show up and be there, even if not yet formally appointed. Wouldn't you say that that should work okay too? >> I think the way it's set up now anybody on the council can -- of course we could change that also. We could say that -- >> Pool: Well, we can talk about that in a little bit. We're almost done with this list. [Laughter] >> Houston: So mayor, could you help me understand why [2:27:15 PM] we have to get something on the agenda for Thursday? >> Mayor Adler: The campo appointment, so that they would be on the campo boards, was the ones that I did. There were two other intergovernmental entities, I think, that we had vacancies on, so it was to get that, and because Ms. Kitchen wanted to have people appointed as members of the month deal. That was an easy thing to accomplish. >> Kitchen: Yeah, I want to avoid any -- I want to -- I've been trying to reassure the staff that we can meet so -- that we don't have a quorum issue. So I've told the staff we're meeting, and we can meet, but we only have two official appointees. And actually, unfortunately two official appointees, actually unfortunately as you mentioned the materials are two years for all of us, so technically speaking, nobody is appointed to any committee at this point. So -- so because of the way that ordinance is written and it expires at the end of January, the term does. So I don't see why we can't just bring ordinance changes on Thursday, too. Or I guess maybe we need to notice that. Never mind. We can notice those for next week. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I guess I don't want to get too sidetracked because as councilmember pool said we are almost done with this list, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I would -- if we feel like there needs to be rearrangement, I am comfortable with you in -- the mayor in perpetuity taking input from councilmembers and then placing people in -- in places where he and the council member thinks they would be the best fit. I don't -- that's in other political institutions where I've worked that's kind of how it's always been done and I think it again, speaking as someone who is in the minority now, I think that we're all friends, but in the future if there is a case where there's some divisiveness between members, I think it prevents maybe one person being marginalized or not being able to serve on committees if they don't always have the majority of the council on their side. >> I would agree, I would actually describe it differently. I think that it just streamlines the process. Let the mayor take the input, make the assignments, we affirm it as a council, I think from a timeline perspective we could sit here for a long time and talk about it, I don't think that's necessary. Especially if we're constructing committees where people can just show up, you can just show up. From a process perspective I don't think we have to make it too complicated. >> Mayor. >> Mayor. >> I'm sorry. Anne? >> Kitchen: That's just -- >> That's something that you will have to rewrite in the [2:29:15 PM] code as well. Right now it's a slate that the mayor does. The mayor appoints everybody to all of the committees all at once, everybody has to agree all at once. >> Pool: I just want to say that I would rather that we come to an agreement as councilmembers because we are autonomous and answerable to voters specifically, then we all vote to approve what the positions are, what the appointments are. Then the other point that I just want to make sure is the reason why we do the committees the way we did two years ago is because we had not yet been sworn in. I think we had those conversations >> Mayor Adler: We had the conversations for committees after that. In executive session I had conversations with people then. >> Pool: I wanted to say it worked really, really well previously and we were very important because of the people involved. I'm actually on the other side of the issue about continuing it that way into the future when we're not here because we don't know if one person should -- if the mayor should decide all the appointments for the other 10 councilmembers when there may be issues there. And so just kind of flip it the other way. I will strongly support us continuing to make the decisions and volunteer among ourselves. We'll ratify it and put it into the ordinance language and everything, but I think that really the energy needs to come from each of us as councilmembers. >> Alter: I'm not sure that we're disagreeing if we should go on the committees. I know that for campo, councilmember Flannigan, councilmember troxclair and I had all expressed an interest in being on campo. We have two spots, and there's a proposal for Flannigan and myself to fit [2:31:17 PM] into those spots. So if we can -- if the committee agrees to that or if councilmember troxclair wants to say something, to suggest otherwise, then we can decide that. And my understanding is we have to go through -- >> Mayor Adler: We can't take a vote here. >> Alter: But we can have a discussion so we can move forward. It seems like procedurally the mayor has to be the one to do it through January if we're going to be -- and then the ordinance dies. So in order -- >> Mayor Adler: The ordinance doesn't die. The term ends. >> Alter: Okay. If the ordinance is still in effect until we change that ordinance, is it up to the mayor according to the ordinance? >> Mayor Adler: I'm supposed to submit a slate to count to approve. >> Those are for the council committees. I'm not sure with incidentter governmental committees they're not in the code and I don't know off the top of my head but I can look at that. >> Alter: So does that even have to go through council at all? Okay. >> Mayor Adler: That's how we handled it last time. >> Alter: Thank you for the clarification. >> Garza: I don't know if I have an old copy of the committee ordinance and everyone talks about a two-year term and I see a 183. It says the term of a committee member is one year on the date the committee appointments are ratified by the council. So my next question is did we reratify folks last year? [Laughter]. >> Mayor Adler: Mine might be old. I'm looking at [indiscernible] >> Garza: Yours says two years? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. So does the city attorney's. >> Garza: I must have an old copy. But does it still say -- okay. Does it still say that the term two years from -- when it was ratified? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Garza: And my assumption would be it was ratified at our first meeting? It was like our second meeting. So I'm thinking that we're [2:33:18 PM] okay in the mobility with us two -- I was thinking it was the second or third meeting we ratified that. >> Kitchen: I would have to go back and look [inaudible]. I could be wrong. >> Garza: I was thinking about the issue we had. It says the mayor can appoint on his own two people to fill the vacancy. So that might help in the interim. >> Kitchen: All right. >> [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: I don't remember. I think it was in February when we offered the slate. >> Mayor Adler: Do we want to talk about any more committees here? Want to talk about the next one, open space, environment? >> Pool: Well, that committee is of course near and dear to my heart and I think we did some super good work out of it. As I said earlier, I was going to step aside as chair and the natural successor I thought would be councilmember alter if she's okay -- if she's okay with ending that committee, we could certainly continue the good work that came out of that committee directly at the dais or in work groups and there's plenty of work to be done. I won't promise the staff they won't go unnoticed or anything, but I'm okay with letting that committee go. >> Alter: And I will just say that I'm okay with letting that committee go, not that I don't think the issues are important, but I think they're going to come to the full council and I think there are some very specific issues that I know that I want to be working on and I would like to focus on my priorities rather than priorities that other people are dictating to me. And I think that will be better served in different arrangements, but -- and I also have a lot of confidence in the boards that are underneath there to be doing their jobs, whether it's the parks board or environmental commission, for instance. And I'm sure there are other ones that I'm not mentioning [2:35:20 PM] that are doing great jobs and that we can rely a little bit more on them in that regard. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any other comment on this? I think we talked about planning and neighborhoods already and the context of housing and community development unless anybody wants to talk about it separately? Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I would be interesting in working on that if that's one that continues on the code issues, codenext issues and urban planning. >> Alter: I would also like to work on the code issues. >> Mayor Adler: I agree with [indiscernible] That pretty much the code issues, the codenext stuff will come to the council because either the issues will be small, meaning no disagreement, and they're easy, or they won't be, in which case they'll be coming to the council. So I'm not sure the codenext really works going through a committee. >> Pool: Did we talk then about continuing the work? >> Casar: We talked about finding other issues that -- I think there are several that you don't have to look to find that the council might be interested in delegating in committee form. I had mentioned that councilmember Renteria and I haven't had time to get together, but we might want to do that to come up with some of those ideas and put together a charter similar to what councilmember kitchen noted, but again I think that given that codenext is going to be a draft code going to be released, that there's going to be extensive public input happening out in the community, I wouldn't want to be having hearings here when we're trying to communicate to folks to go to these various meetings in their districts and neighborhoods and the maps will come out and there will be meetings out in the community. Then you will be at the planning commission after the cag hands off the work to the planning commission and that will be where the public hearings are being held. So I don't -- I don't anticipate that it would work well for us to have a committee handling something where the staff and consultants and committee have worked very hard to sort of lay out what that process already looks like. >> Pool: So that committee [2:37:23 PM] then goes away. >> Casar: Right. I don't think we're going to have a committee on codenext because there are already these planning issues. There already is a plan for how to deal with that public engagement piece, but I do still think there's room -- I think there's important work to be done on housing and planning -- >> Mayor Adler: Would you look at what that charter might look like and that would be helpful for the council. Public safety? And public utilities? Anybody want to advocate for them to continue? >> Pool: I would just say that the interviews that we did on a number of occasions were necessary and previous councils had had a judiciary committee to handle those. So to the assistant we don't have any of those in front of us right now, but they will crop up, then we would form a task force or a work group to handle it. >> Houston: Mayor? We will still have issues around body cameras and bulletproof vests that we will need to deal with. That's been going on now for several years now. We still have not got a resolution on body worn cameras. And then I think the other thing that I think will pop up periodically as we get a new police chief, that committee might help guide the process to how we do community engagement for the next chief of police. So I could see that they would still be needed as a task force to do some of those things. >> Mayor Adler: And I agree. I posted some, but I think there are also important task force related issues, but just from a budgeting standpoint we look at last year's budget, but I think a lot of the community policing and phasing in, I think it would be helpful if there was a council task force that looked at a five-year plan for budgeting public safety expenses in the city. It was included in the list [2:39:23 PM] that I had posted earlier. So we've gone through these. Does anybody want to talk to any more of these anymore? Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: Since safety is one of our six whatever we're calling them, is-- do we need a public safety committee or it's not necessary? If we're saying that that's one of our strategic outcomes, it seems weird that we're getting rid of that committee. I wasn't on the committee. So I'm not really advocating for or against. I'm just bringing it up. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem and then Mr. Flannigan? >> Tovo: We have a very active public safety commission and so I feel they handle a lot of that work except for some of the pieces that councilmember Houston said might need a shorter term task force. >> Pool: And I was on the committee and I would say that the more important work was actually done at the public safety commission level, not at the committee level. >> Flannigan: I think there's another conversation to be had about alignment without outcomes. We haven't had the outcomes yet. We need to prioritize figuring out our priorities to phrase it in a clunky way. In addition to all of this, we have got to be serious about approving what that was and finalizing the document that came out of those strategic outcomes. And I tend to agree with councilmember Garza that we probably don't even need these committees meeting very frequently except in specific issue instances until we're clear about our outcomes. And once we get to that point then we can have a better conversation about the larger theory of committees and commissions. >> Mayor Adler: That was my sense too that goes back to an earlier comment. I think we've done a stopgap measure here for the next few months so that people aren't having to think about committees that -- so that people can clear decks for two months. But the question of how we set up committees or not with respect to the [2:41:25 PM] priorities I think happens as part of the priority conversation. We're running out of time here. We had a hard time at 2:45. The questions are still open for me are the the ad hoc committees. I mean, there are things that I'm going to be working on that I would love to work on with other people and we'll either post it on the board or approach it and it can either be ad hoc, ad hoc or informally or whatever. I'll continue to work on those things, but I would rather not work on some of these things alone so I would love to have colleagues that would work with me. I'm sure everybody feels that way about interests that they have. And the other thing that we're not hearing here is I think is important is with respect to, you know, letting the committees go to me, a real important part of that was making sure that we didn't have ifcs that showed up on a Friday afternoon where people were expected to vote on them on Thursday. And I think we need to come up with whatever the procedure is so that the general public ma may not have been working on something for four months has the opportunity to see it. And we can either do that culturally in the way the Travis county does where things get -- never get approved on an agenda the first time they're on an agenda. I'm fine doing it culturally like that. I would be fine coming up with more -- a stricter policy on that. So with respect to posting requirements, I would like us to take a look at that and I would like us to take a look at one of the reasons we did the committees was to shorten the time. That didn't work, but I would like us to take a look at and discuss hard stops on council meetings. I'd like us to take a look at other ways we can achieve some of the goals that we had of committees and whether that's for the limitations on councilmember opportunities to speak or [2:43:27 PM] whatever. I would want us to go back to those things because I think that we have -- I think it was a tool to get bun what we did not get done, but we now do not have a tool to get done what we wanted to get done, and I would like to see us get that. Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: This is for further conversation later, but in regard to the ad hoc, my understanding was that ad hoc committees would -- ad hoc task forces or whatever we call them would operate in a similar way to committees in the sense that they would be created and that the council would approve of them because they're using the resources as opposed to going out and creating ad hoc committees. That's a conversation we can't have right now, but I think I would have to keep that as a place holder because I don't think we said that ad hoc committees are task force or something that people don't create. So there's that. And then a final thing that I would like to say is that I really -- and it may just be me. I think what we've done is we've refined our approach, we've learned from what we've been doing the last two years and we made some changes. The -- I would never characterize our committee system as not working. And I would never characterize it as that we have thrown it out and that we have now not following any -- have not accomplished any of the things that we said we were going to accomplish. I think the way to think about it is -- the way I think about it is that we've made improvements, but I think it's important for the public that we be careful about how we talk about it. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool and then the mayor pro tem. >> Pool: Thanks for those comments. I agree with that. [2:45:28 PM] And we did commit that we would refine and revise and reform as necessary. And I think the mayor pro tem had pointed that out. And I think it's a strength of this panel that we are willing to look really deeply at our own processes that we set up, and be willing to say they're not working the way we thought we might. And then try to change them. And I think we should also be open to checking on this too in two years to make sure that it's also working. Should we have the Austin energy committee meeting on Monday morning at 9:00? >> Mayor Adler: We do have things that are -- is it useful? >> Pool: Yes. And I've worked with staff to keep it to two hours and they have provided everyone with a backup as promised a week in advance. That was a real strong request that we had made of staff and they complied and we're we've worked hard to do that. >> Mayor Adler: Then I would suggest that we still hold that meeting. >> Pool: I will try to find a different day of the week since we have some spots available. I'm going to try not to have a nine A.M. Monday morning meeting meeting for the council and staff. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody else have something they want to discuss? Ms. Troxclair? >> Garza: I just want to know what the next steps were. It appears we ratified the appointments on February 12th. That means all the committees, if you are having a meeting, I would assume through February 12th, you have your meeting. But I guess my desire would be at the next council next week the city manager, staff bring us some kind of ordinance change that reflects the work that we did here today. Is that the next step? >> Kitchen: I would suggest the next step is bring an ordinance change, [2:47:28 PM] but also each of us who said we committed to bringing charters back to do that. >> Garza: Is that something, manager, that we can have staff do? >> Kitchen: No. I think it's up to us to create the charters. >> Tovo: I think she meant ordinance changes, did you, councilmember Garza? >> Garza: Yes. >> The ordinance change for chapter 25 we can work on. There may be substantial changes so I'm not sure we'll be able to get it accomplished before the February second meeting. So if we could have an extra week that would be helpful probably to get that done. If you want us to bring it as opposed to being an item from council, I'm happy to do that. >> Garza: The February 9th meeting would happen before the February 12th expires. >> Kitchen: I would think we could bring it as an ifc. No, you don't want to bring it as an ifc? >> Tovo: I'd be happy to work on that except we would have to finish it up in the next three days. I know you did -- >> Kitchen: I did a draft one. >> Tovo: We can maybe talk about that. >> Mayor Adler: And to -- without seeing the charter, which is one of the components that we had, I don't know how we would decide these questions. So maybe it would be ready for us to be able to vote on it then and maybe not. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: So we need to meet on the 8th of February. If we've been dissolved, can we just post for a meeting -- >> Mayor Adler: You haven't condition dissolved. You can still -- you haven't been dissolved. You can still meet on February 8th. >> Garza: And you write this code, this is your code and we obviously want you to respect it, but you can waive provisions if you all want to continue to meet. There are ways for you to do that. >> Garza: I will happily start working on a draft that reflects this today. [2:49:31 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I want to talk quickly about this other sheet that you handed out and meetings and agendas. I was really interested in a lot of the suggestions that you made so I want to see what your thoughts were on that one, what your steps were when we would have a chance to talk about that. >> Mayor Adler: Well, we ran out of time here. I would put it pack on the next work session so we can put it on the next session. >> Troxclair: We have 10 minutes? >> >> Mayor Adler: No, we said a hard stop at 2:45 and not 3:00. >> Next you have a briefing on codenext and the city manager's search and I would remind you that next week while you will have the ae committee meeting on Monday from 9:00 to 11, you will also have a budget work session from 9:00 to noon on Wednesday. And we will get you the backup material on Friday before you leave for the day. So that you have time to look at it before the work session. And the topic is emergency medical services department. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Anything else. I'm going to put it on the next work session. So that Tuesday it will be on the calendar. >> Troxclair: Okay. I just want to make sure that we get to it. >> Mayor Adler: I think so too. It's other part of the conversation. Okay. With all that worked on, this work session stands adjourned.