City Council Work Session Transcript – 02/14/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 2/14/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 2/14/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:09:24 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right, council, I think we have a quorum. We're going to go ahead and gear this up. Today is Tuesday, February 14th, 2017. It's Valentine's day. It is eight minutes after 9:00. We are in the boards and commissions room down here at city hall. We have some briefings that are going to show up. There are three of them today. They're going to show up at 10:30. That gives us an hour and a half to try and work through the called items. So that we can make sure that we have a chance to discuss those. And then we'll go to the agenda items. The first item that we have pulled is councilmember troxclair. She's not here, so we'll pass that for a second and go to Mr. Flannigan, you pulled item number 6. >> Flannigan: So this is just a general question for everyone. I understand thatna that this multipurpose phase of the convention center is something that was discussed earlier, but if we're also in the context of discussing a fairly significant expansion, does it make sense to spend the funds to improve what's there when it might make more sense, might be more responsible to wrap it up into a larger project? >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: And councilmember, I had exactly the same question and submitted it through the Q and a. So hopefully we'll get a response to that, if not today, then on Thursday. >> Good morning. Rolando Fernandez, interim financing officer. Unfortunately, Mr. Flannigan, I can't answer that question. I'm looking for the convention center executive team to answer that question about the prioritization of doing this work or waiting for the expansion of the convention center. We have received that in writing. Actually, Mr. Washington, do you want to -- >> Thank you. Mark Washington, assistant city manager. [9:11:25 AM] We are preparing a written response, but I did speak with the convention center staff and my understanding is the demand for the kitchen exists both now and will continue to exist with expansion. And of course we haven't gotten into the design phase of what the expansion would look like, but my understanding from staff is that utilization would still be -- the need for it would still exist even with expansion. And there's a subsidy that's being provided by one of the vendors who are the current -- for current upgrades to the kitchen. >> Flannigan: There's a subsidy. Can you explain that? >> He is stuck in traffic. >> Flannigan: If it comes in the written response that's fine. And thank you, mayor pro tem, for being in sync with me on this. But I also want to say that the fact that we need it or that the demand is there already is not sufficient because there's also demand and need for the expansion. So that alone isn't what I'm asking about. It's not do we need it. This is a timing question considering that we're in the process of exploring expansion. That's really what the question is about. But I'll wait for the written response. That's fine. >> Houston: And mayor? Thank you. And I just want to clarify that the convention center is not in district 1, it's in district 9, so all of those need to be corrected. I'm sure I would love to have it in district 1, but it's not. That's okay. [Laughter]. But it needs to be in district 9. I'm not sure how that happened, but it's been that way for awhile. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Next pooled item is - - next pulled item is item number 7. Ms. Kitchen is going to be 15 minutes late, she said. So we'll come back to that one. Item number 9 is Ms. Troxclair. She's not here. [9:13:25 AM] We'll come back to that. Oh, you're back. You were hiding behind the manager. [Laughter]. Ms. Troxclair, do you want to do both five and then nine? >> Troxclair: Sure. So my questions for five may be partly to other city councilmembers and the mayor and partly to staff. I just want to understand, so this is a new master plan for Walter E long park. So how does this coincide with the spirit of east Austin? >> Mayor Adler: I don't know the answer to that, but I had some questions too. And basically my questions go to breadth as well. There was original effort to look at a golf course. There was a question about how we could use that potentially as an economic addition to a park, taking a look at it in terms of seeing if there was any possibility to leverage that property to use to also help drive jobs or housing. Not just look at it as a park, but also as a economic development lever and in fact in the conversation I don't know how that's being addressed either. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: This is a part of -- this was something that was decided two years ago? Two years ago. And it's part of the ongoing trying to develop a planning process for all lands east of highway 183. So the colony park had already done their master -- sustainable community master plan. The expo center has done their master plan. Walter E long is the third of those. They should have been done in tandem, but it didn't work out that way, so the Walter E long metropolitan park is our attempt to see what we can do to make it more of a revenue generator and to add additional amenities, but that's for the community to decide, so that's what this master plan going to address. >> Mayor Adler: Is it possible for this -- I [9:15:27 AM] recognize normally we would do master plans in the park department with the Normal park stakeholder groups and we'd look at it as a park. And that might be absolutely the way to go. But there's also been conversations in the community about looking at that property also as an economic development driver, not just trying to generate revenue, although that would be an important thing to take a look at, but for fling ideas. If you took a portion of that property and went back to the voters and took a portion of the property and made it a corporate headquarters, could you in fact drive significant number of jobs in the eastern crescent? So I think it's real important for us to plan this, but my -- I would like to see interdisciplinary group working on this with a broader scope and mission than just saying here's parkland, what's the best park use we could make of that? And looking at it more in the con architects of that part of -- context of that part of town and saying what's the best use we could make of that land as a city? Is that doable? >> Sarah Hensley, director of parks and recreation. I have Brian block here who was heavily involved in the scoping of this. Absolutely. Primarily the master planning process centers around the actual park and functions related to parks and recreation. But a component of this is also about doing some analysis of how to generate revenue and looking at other alternatives. So I'm going to let Brian kind of speak to that. I don't think that it would be a problem looking at other types of things. As you mentioned, mayor, obviously a vote of the public would be necessary because it is parkland, but that is something that could be done. >> So our focus is a vision and roadmap for the future of this metropolitan park. You know, within the charter and with the focus on recreational programming, [9:17:28 AM] recreational facilities, recreational amenities, we do intend to take a comprehensive approach to the master plan. In addition, we have a strong focus -- we've heard from the community that there's a strong desire for activating parkland in the northeast area, for recreational facilities, for recreational amenities. Also for economic activity. So we have a strong element of the scope built in to focus on -- to focus on implementation. To come out of the master plan with a strategy for implementation we have built in market analysis to tell us which recreational activities and facilities are in demand, which ones might generate revenue, which ones will be successful in this park. And also built in we have a business and operational plan. Based on the master plan and the vision that comes out of it and the recreational facilities, we have asked for a business and operational plan to give us an implementation strategy, ideally in the near term, looking at the major facilities that are recommended and partnership opportunities, management structure, what's the best way to get those done. But it is all within the recreational activity recreational facility. >> Mayor Adler: So is it possible for us -- and I recognize that and I think all the things you're doing are really important and great and may ultimately prove to be the only direction. But I think while we look at that, because it's such a key asset in a part of town that we have competing priorities and goals, to take a look at that property outside of its recreational use, to take a look at jobs [9:19:29 AM] and other things that that land might be able to be used for that might eventually be used in association with park use. So I'm not talking about revenue park use generating revenue, I'm not talking about management plans for parklands. I'm talking about actually taking a step back and saying how can I use this park to generate 10,000 jobs? And that might not show up if we're just focused on the park use. >> The answer to that, mayor, is yes, through the community engagement part there's market demand and a business planning analysis that can be done. And through the public engagement the questions can be asked about the business side of it, corporate offices. It wasn't specifically designed as that, but according to friends in contract management, that can occur. >> Mayor Adler: And I think it's something that goes beyond the community engagement. I'm thinking of engaging the community development department so that they have a co-equal seat at the table so that you're not just getting those comments, but you're soliciting those and soliciting ideas and asking the question of the community, if we wanted to use it to 10 rate 10,000 jobs, what would that mean? And again, I'm not advocating that, but before we set out a path with such an asset like that, I would like for us to have at least run those traps to see what comes out of that. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: And I agree with that and I think that as with the colony park master planning process, this is a part of that economic viability of that area. So I think I see economic development shaking their heads that they will participate in that. >> Mayor Adler: And then add financial services as well. >> Houston: Of course. >> Mayor Adler: So that we get -- what I'm asking for is a very atypical to a Normal park planning process. >> We can do that. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. [9:21:30 AM] Pool? >> Pool: Thanks, mayor. Will the look that our staff is taking in this part of the city also include the Hunton report. >> The hundon report is the market study for the expo center that was completed -- >> Last year. >> And for the park master plan it will really look at the entire park. And of course, it needs to complement and be in alignment with the expo center, but this scope of work doesn't take a deep dive into a second phase of the expo center. We think that would really need its own study with -- we have a landscape architect leading the master plan, which is typical for park master planning. There probably would need to be a different prime firm leading a second phase of study or a more detailed implementation plan of, a financing plan for the expo center. >> But I think what you're asking is will it take into account the report and how -- what we receive from that? And the answer is yes. Their responsibility as a part of the master planning process is to look at not only past reports, current reports and then, of course, complete the other processes that they have to go through. So that will be one thing that they have to look at. They'll even go back and look at that old, old master plan that was done for the park previously. But that tool that was created, yes, they will look at that and base a lot of their input that they look at as sort of gathering for the whole picture. They'll look at that report to see how it all ties in. >> Pool: Mayor, the council hasn't been briefed on the hundon report. Would it be possible for us to get that on an agenda so that everybody can know what we mean when we talk about that? I think there has been a little bit of coverage in [9:23:31 AM] the press, but we haven't had an official presentation of T I think it would be really timely -- >> Mayor Adler: We could certainly set that up. >> Pool: That would be great. And I just have one last question. If you have -- and this is not at all to throw any shade to the master planning for the park at all because as you know, I completely support that, but my question goes to if you have a landscape architect doing the master planning, will that person have the additional skill set required to accommodate what the mayor has just asked as far as looking at that property to generate 10,000 jobs? >> And we built into the scope market analysis, business and operational planning. There is a subconsultant on the team. That scope of work could possibly be expanded. We do have right people on the team where that scone of work could be expanded. -- Scope of work could be expanded. >> Brian is right. We do have the capacity via the subconsultant team to carry on those additional scopes and we have an additional consultant who is doing consultant services, management and consulting. We'll look at that and make sure we have that capacity it in the team necessary. The scope is running broad enough to include some of that look at maybe not to the depth and level that the mayor has been talking about, but I think we can bring that on from the city's side and help with that effort. Looking for a prime in that area, they might be one that we would look at. So I think they would be capable if we expand that scope. Their focus is market analysis, business and operational planning and also financial impact analysis. >> This approval of being able to move forward would allow us to negotiate. Negotiating then and working with economic development to make sure that that component of it with the [9:25:31 AM] sub is a tighter written so that it meets of needs of what we're talking about today. >> Pool: That's great. And also the hundon report had some significant job generation elements to it as well. So I'm glad that y'all will be looking at that and sure to contact the principals of radio Austin because they're very interested in talking with the city about what they would like to do how there and how the city and county could benefit from it and I think it includes many of the elements we're talking about here today. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I wanted to mention one thing about the reporter that you mention -- report that you mentioned, councilmember pool. I think there was a presentation, a lengthy one, at our open space committee. Another option would be to let everybody know what date that happened and then to see if there's a follow-up interest in having that. It may have also been at economic development. I just say that in the interest of doing what we were talking about with regard to our work sessions. I think we've got something like three briefings on today, and preserving this time for discussion is important. >> Mayor pro tem, that's correct. It was also an economic opportunity committee as well as open space committee. >> Tovo: So it hit two different committees. I would submit to you that may have hit the coverage and provide would good opportunities for colleagues who want to go back to that, to go back and view it. >> And it was presented to the county commissioners' court as well. >> Pool: And I would just say I was on both of the committees so I had both of the briefings and have also talked with the principals in my office about the idea that they were concerned that the larger council was not aware of the elements of their report. And we did find that that was a shortcoming of the briefings at the committee level. So I think we're still in a position where if we didn't have the committees we would have brought that report here for a briefing of the entire council. Personally it doesn't matter to me if it's a briefing here or if they meet with councilmembers individually or in the small groups. [9:27:31 AM] My goal is simply to make sure that the information is transmitted because I think there are significant elements that have already been investigated and analyzed in that report that can bring to bear on this - - a wider discussion for this part of town. >> Mayor Adler: Can you send us a note that has the links to those presentations and send it to each of the council offices? >> I sure will. Mayor, we'll send the original report and the link to the slide deck, the presentation. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great. Thank you. Let's handle it that way. Yes? Councilmember troxclair? >> Troxclair: So my concern -- I thank the mayor for asking those questions because those were my questions as well. So because this is such a critical piece of our city and the smart planning of it is so important to the future of east Austin, and although I hear you saying that some of the subs might maybe have some expertise in that area, it doesn't sound like the landscape firm that we're contracting with is necessarily -- or maybe we would have written the rfp differently or maybe there would be another qualified firm -- more qualified firm if we had started with the broader scope that the mayor detailed. So I guess my question is I don't want to go through this process and have it in six months or however long and have it come back and we're still in the same place that we are now. We have questions about the scope was brought enough or deep enough to talk about different business opportunities. So if there was an interest from council in broadening the scope of the rfp, would that be possible and what kind of timeline would we be looking at at that point? [9:29:34 AM] >> Sorry about that. When I look at the scope of work and the kind of questions and the work that we want that consultant to perform, in my opinion as part of the scope of services, we may have modified perhaps the criteria to focus on that level of expertise, specifically for the market analysis, but it was part of the overall task that we were going to be asking them to do. Maybe not sort of the lead task, but it was going to be one of the tasks. If you look at the rca and we spell out in seven bullets the requirements that they need to provide on our behalf, and I look at number 2, the site analysis, conceptual analysis and business marketing plan analysis. That is part of the scope. That said if the council wishes to reprioritize the scope of work we would cancel the solicitation and put a new one on the street. We have a good template to work off of and this may reprioritize some of the tasks in the level of importance and it would probably be about six months. I would have to look back at my workload because we do have a lot of other rfqs on you in the Q right now and so I want to be sure we can there are on those. In six or seven months to put out and come back to council with the recommendation of a firm. If we wanted to council everything, reprioritize the scope of work, ensure that we're taking it to the level of detail that council wants us to do and working with pard and economic development and others, we can do that, but it's going to be six to seven months before we're back with a recommendation. >> Troxclair: Is that typical? I know I was expecting to have a shorter time frame there. Because I feel like when we've canceled and reached it in the past we've been able to do in a much shorter time. >> Typically we can. I'm just -- we have a lot of workload right now. There's a lot of -- we're just really busy and I don't want to commit to a time frame without me going back [9:31:34 AM] and talking to my staff and seeing how we can prioritize. I want to be realistic in terms of the amount of work that we have going on right now. >> Troxclair: And I guess I'll be interested to hear from Ms. Houston, but we -- obviously this was one of the big issues that we took up two years ago when this council was first seated and we talked about the golf course and the and the master plan and we put the community and potential developers through a lot during that time. And I just -- I just feel like we really owe it to the community to put our efforts and resources into making this a successful project as possible. And I don't -- I'm hesitant to go down the road if we're not confident that all the options are going -- if we don't have the expertise that all the options will be thoroughly considered. >> So in the conversations -- >> Mayor Adler: So in the conversations you had this sounds like a kind of question you would go to the prime anyhow. So it might be just going back and talking to them. I think there's some interest in having an analysis that is different, in addition to what would have happened absent this service. But to really take a good look at that. But it may be that the folks you have have that expertise and we don't have to stop because they can. And maybe it's a conversation, you know, for you to have with them. >> That would be my recommendation there is based on what we already put in the scope of work, I'm just having the conversation with them. Our next step would be to negotiate the contract with them. We can clarify and maybe reprioritize the magnitude and scope of work that are already part of the rfq. This is maybe significance that we had given them at that time. They were there, but just making sure that they're prioritized in the manner [9:33:34 AM] that you want us to go. >> Mayor Adler: So the question would be do you have a comfort level that you're back in six months with a product and then we say wait a minute, it doesn't get the question. I want to make sure we're comfortable with that. >> It worries me a little bit, mayor, because I'm looking at the scope of services and I want to be completely honest with you. The way it was written it's all centered around -- and we were partnering with economic development in drafting and doing all this, but it talks about particularly review and analyze current developing economic development efforts in the quadrant of northeast Austin in order to consider parks and recreation facility and program recommendations for the master plan that supports these economic development initiatives. So it's looking at economic development initiatives that surround the park area. Not to say that I think we can't -- we would have to work with the consultant in question here to see if we can expand that scope. I worry about a six-month time delay that would be very upsetting to the community. But I think if we can renegotiate or rework with this consultant to say we need to broaden this. We need to look at even alternatives of parcel land being used for other things, understanding that it would require a vote of the public, then I'm completely comfortable with that. I just want to be clear that, you know, we need to really kind of say exactly what we want and not just use this language so that that consultant knows exactly what this council is looking for. >> And that said, I do think that this consultant has the skills capacity, the tek bench to do this kind of work. We brought them on to do this kind of work around major recreational facilities, so do the market analysis, to do business planning, to look at creative management structures, to get things built maybe with private partners. They were -- we did intend for them to look at [9:35:36 AM] recreational facilities, but it not a long stretch to look at non-recreational facilities if we had that policy direction. I think they're one of the right firms to do that work, so if we could have the opportunity to explore expanding their scope that could be a faster solution. >> Houston: And mayor, just so we have a faster solution, I would like to suggest to my colleagues and to staff that you all go back and have those conversations with economic development and finance in the room so they understand how many acres at Walter E long metropolitan park? >> 1800. >> 1800 acres. Out of the 1800 acres we'll have some that are specifically set aside for recreational issues and they need to look at that, but for that other acreage could something else be developed that would include economic -- a value of economic value to the northeast quadrant from 183 east. So I think they can do that but I think we can just say that and they hear that and then let them go on and do it. Because the community can't afford to wait any longer. Because as councilmember troxclair has said, they've been waiting for two years for this to get stepped off. So we need to do it now. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I really wanted to just ask councilmember Houston that question of how the community would respond to a delay at the master plan, but you've answered that question. Thanks. >> We'll go back then, if that's okay and your desire, working with financial services and economic development, to see about how we carve that out and how we work to expand the scope with the consultant that's being recommended. And then would you like us to then somehow articulate that back through -- >> Mayor Adler: Just send us back a memo and I think that would be fine. Don't want to slow you down. >> Tovo: Or through the Q and a so it becomes a part of the agenda maybe? >> And hearing the comments from councilmember Houston, it seems like even if we [9:37:36 AM] went back we might want a joint prime or we might still want a very strong landscape architecture firm and a very strong market analysis economic impact analysis firm. So maybe we would end up having -- needing to have both anyway. >> Houston: Correct. It still needs to work together on that 1800 acres. It can't be disjointed. It has to be planned together. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Yes? >> Tovo: And mayor, again, just to clarify, it was my understanding from the conversations that have happened multiple times that the community has an interest in seeing a park there on a portion of it. So I just would echo that planning that park makes great sense. >> And I think there are parts of the community that would like to also see other amenities and other things that would help district 5 -- >> Tovo: Correct. I'm just saying to underscore that moving forward with the contract to plan the park makes good sense. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: And I'm totally open and not prejudging anything, but it's hard for me to imagine that the vast amount of that land wouldn't still be a park. It's a a beautiful piece of land and irreplaceable, so I think we definitely still need the park component because I think my gut tells me that. But at the same time there might be an ability to do something in that quadrant in the city that we otherwise might not be able to do because of that amenity. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. All right. So that's somebody 5. We've done number 6. We had skilled over number 6. Ms. Kitchen, do you want to do that one? >> Kitchen: Yes. Okay. So number 7 relates to -- I [9:39:36 AM] just had some questions about process here. I think we submitted these, but I'm not certain. So -- and I didn't see the responses. So basically this has to do with the nominating yeti coolers. And this is for governor's office designation, so it's not for our funding. But my question was are we limited in the number of these that we can approve in the course of a year or over a particular period of time? >> We're not limited. We get nine every two years. Nine designations that we're allowed to work with. And so we -- those that come to us, we submit for the process and develop a process. So we have nine designations. >> Kitchen: Okay. And of those nine, when you say nine that Austin is given? >> Yes. >> Kitchen: All right, yes, ma'am, I'm sorry. >> Kitchen: So what is our criteria? Is it in the order in which they come to us? >> Generally it's the order in which they come through and and we review the application for the strength and the job creation or retaining and the investment and all those things that pertain to the application. Make sure the application is solid. >> Kitchen: Okay. And then I need some sort of understanding of the number nine in the sense of do we -- have we historically used all those nine or no? >> No. So what the state has done is per legislation in the past, more recent past, I should say, is that they will move those unused designations up to the state, which is a competitive process. So therefore the [9:41:37 AM] jurisdiction -- the jurisdiction doesn't use their nine at all, it will roll to the state and the state can still use that for a different jurisdiction that may be rolling them in faster or easier. >> Kitchen: Okay. But the entity has to go to the jurisdiction. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Kitchen: So if we don't exercise them, someone in our jurisdiction can't have access to them, is that right? In other words, if we don't go through the process of designating someone -- >> Yes. >> Kitchen: >> Kitchen: Even if it's rolled up, that entity cannot go to the state roll-up and apply, is that right? Or can they go to the state -- >> You have to be nominated by the jurisdiction. >> Kitchen: They have to be nominated. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: All right. And my final question just has to do with the local financial impact, the implication when we designate. Is there any? >> No financial impact, ma'am. Job creation is what we get and within the retention. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: So this is -- correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a relatively new program? >> No. It's been -- I don't know how long it's been around, but it's several legislatures that enacted this. >> Troxclair: I guess I only remember doing one other of these. So in the past two years have we only nominated one other? >> With 2015 -- [lapse in audio]. And then most recently we did Samsung, which was December 2016. So Samsung is in the process and being considered right now as we speak. So yeti is the current one coming through at this current point in time. >> Troxclair: This is in my district so I'm hugely excited that they're expanding, they're bringing many more great jobs. My question is about the incentive. And I think that this is a [9:43:38 AM] difficult thing about government incentives, I guess, to begin with, is a lot of people think of them as if it weren't for this incentive the business wouldn't be locating here, the business wouldn't be expanding. In this case, again, although I'm very excited that they are expanding, they had made their -- yeti committed awhile ago to this expansion and made the announcement and said that they were bringing all these jobs. It seems to me that they're doing this regardless of this program. So I know it's not city money so there's nothing -- I mean, there's nothing -- if there's nothing for the city to lose, then maybe it's -- there's no reason not to nominate them, but it still is taxpayer dollars that year using as an incentive to attract people to the area. So I want to understand if that's part of our criteria, and if we have a limited number of nominations if the money -- if the nominations are better spent when there's a truly competitive picture where we would not have this business or these jobs otherwise. >> Sue Edwards, assistant city manager. Councilmember, this is somewhat of a different program than our chapter 380 program where you are correct that we try to -- we incentivize individual corporations who are not planning on coming. This state program is somewhat different in that it encourages companies to stay and to expand and therefore gives them tax breaks on their goods and services. So it is a different type of program. >> Troxclair: But if it's meant to encourage businesses to stay in or expand, if the business is already -- like I said, they made this announcement months ago that they were planning to do this -- >> It could be that they wanted to expand. It is not our criteria, it is the state's criteria. We don't have anything to do with this particular type of [9:45:40 AM] program other than to be the pass-through for it. >> Troxclair: So does the department -- if they get a request from a business to nominate them, has the department ever not recommended approval up to the state level? >> Not that I'm aware of. >> Troxclair: So thus far anybody who asks the city it comes up on our agenda and we've given them our approval. >> That's correct. >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Hang on one second. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Just two quick follow-up questions. Does the state program -- does this state program include the criterion that it must, like the but-for clause, but for this incentive they would otherwise not expand? >> No. >> Tovo: That is not one of the criteria. And is it possible for you to provide the criteria? I think I've got it somewhere from past agendas, but if you wouldn't mind doing that through the Q and a, that would be great. And I think that was my only question. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: As I read the material there were also additional incentives to be hiring economically disadvantaged individuals that would be coming through this program, so there is actually an add on benefit to the community beyond just getting the tax incentives from the state, is that correct? >> That is correct, and that is not all of it, but that is part of the criteria that they do hire disadvantaged. So that is a requirement. >> Alter: Thank you. >> As well as veterans as well. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you all for being here and explaining this. Councilmember, I don't know your district as well as I do others, so if you will help me with this. In the backup is looks like the enterprise zone project transit map, if the star is where it's moving to, a transit map stops at William cannon and southwest parkway. Do you want me to put it up on the map? [9:47:46 AM] No? So my question is for the incentive for people who are economically disadvantaged or have differing abilities. How are they supposed to get to work because they're not anywhere close to a transit zone? And unless they drive a car then that's not going to help these folks that councilmember alter just talked about, the disadvantaged, economically and those with different abilities. >> Right. And we can talk to yeti about that situation. We do recognize that and that's why we put this map here, on all our projects to make sure that the transportation issue is visible. >> Houston: But see, I don't want it to be like U.S. Farathane where we did that and we put them out and nobody can get there because they're outside of the transit route closer to pflugerville than Austin. So it really didn't help the people that we thought it was going to help. So that's my concern on the map and where it's located. >> And we can also talk to capital metro as well to see if they would have any solutions with regard to that question. We'll explore it, councilmember Houston. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: Councilmember troxclair, I just want to push back a little bit on this idea that anyone who applies gets the tax credit. I think that sends the wrong message to community. We've never used the number that we're allocated. The state program fund, time not mistaken, is a set amount of taxpayer incentives that gets spent across the whole state no matter how many come to Austin, is that right? >> That's correct. >> Flannigan: So if we're going to -- if the state is going to incentivize business with taxpayer dollars and we have an option to have as much of that come to Austin as possible, that's where I choose to have it. So dramatically different from the three [indiscernible] More variable and impact to our budget and it's a separate conversation that we're having in parallel, but I want to make sure that the community understands that this is an incentive program by the state that is going to get spent no matter what and it takes R. Makes sense for us that the incentives come to Austin if they're going to happen anyway. [9:49:46 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> I wanted to point out that the staff sent a memo to council yesterday that talks about this program and the criteria and the benefits of it. In it it does list that we have approved 13 applications for this program since 2004. So it is a long-standing program that we've taken advantage of a few times. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> Pool: Thanks. I wanted to amplify a little bit of what Ms. Houston was talking about with regard to the bus service. And I appreciate that you're going to check in with cap metro. I would like to see if you could do that before Thursday so we could get some questions answered. And I would just make the point that the 2025 plan is being approved like momentarily. And if this isn't sufficient, but there needs to be some marking of this area for future additional, more robust transit, then that should probably be part of the cap metro discussion. And I don't know. We have three members of the cap metro board here and I don't know if they're able to speak to that or not. >> Garza: Mayor? I kind of want to speak to it on a broader level. This is the problem that cap metro is facing is that we have companies that locate outside of the service area and then ask for additional service. And this created all these little lines that aren't efficient. And so the goal is to have them locate to an area that already has transit because otherwise we already have a very disconnected system. So anyway, I just want to make that point that we can't keep asking cap metro to come to us. We need to bring the stuff to cap metro. [9:51:47 AM] >> Garza: I guess the point is that most of southwest Austin doesn't currently have access to transit. So I guess that's a criteria that says we're not going to have any jobs in southwest Austin. So I wanted to just underscore what councilmember pool was saying in -- (troxclair). The routes suggested in capital metro plans have been suggested to have the service diminished anyway. So I obviously have been advocating for continuation of the services and expansion against the services and I'm hopeful that that will happen, but I metro members to hear the -- that there's a huge facility. I think it's over a thousand jobs. It's a huge -- it's going to be a a lot of jobs there. So I would love to be able to maintain and expand the bus service to southwest Austin as much as possible because I think there would not just because of new development, but a lot of people who are there right now who have an interest in taking the bus, but don't have access to it. And just a quick side note. This is what I spent part of my quarter cent funds on was to expand one of the routes that comes down this way. Before it only ran twice in the morning and twice in the evening and now it runs -- I think there's an additional trip in the morning and an additional trip in the evening and they have seen an increase in ridership in just the past couple of months since they've implemented it. So a lot of times the response from cap metro is that they don't have the rider ship to justify the routes, but that was my purpose was to show that if there was additional service there that people would be more willing to ride the bus. So thank you for considering all that. >> >> Mayor Adler: And I really appreciate the governor's office for making these economic development grants available to cities. [9:53:48 AM] I think these routes help and I want to be an advocate and supporter of Austin businesses who are trying to avail themselves of these state funds. Not that I have anything against Amarillo or Dallas or Houston, but I would just as soon that money come to Austin and go to those other cities and a company like yeti, which is growing, and is really helping to brand the city with new innovations and new technologies and new jobs in this kind of manufacturing areas is a real good thing for our city. Mr. Renteria? >> Renteria: Thank you, mayor. My question is on the enterprise zone, what criteria -- how did y'all determine that this was the enterprise zone that you were going to focus on? Or is that dark color on this map? >> The enterprise Zones are based on the census that comes out in the years that end in zero. So they do that analysis then, those that have a 20% more poverty rate within that area, that is considered an enterprise zone. So that's done by the state. The state does a designation of what is an enterprise zone or not, but it's also part of the census that comes down -- >> Renteria: So this is just state driven? >> Yes, sir. >> Renteria: I was just wondering because we got in such a big fight with southwest parkway years ago when it was developed. I think one of our councilmembers called it the highway to hell. [Laughter]. So I would just -- I was just curious how it was determined because I've been out there in that area and it's a pretty wealthy area there where there's a lot of manufacturers there already. Is you know, they're in my district, their warehouse, so I support them. [9:55:49 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? Yes, Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: Okay. I just had a question about the criteria for the jobs. Were those set by the state or do we have any flexibility in what kind of criteria we look at for the types of jobs? >> Types of jobs? No, those are base -- those jobs are based upon if it's a retention project, those jobs are the ones that are retained that stay there and then the other jobs are those that are -- what we call new jobs. So those are generally what we provide or what they provide to us. >> I'm sorry, go ahead. >> Councilmember, they are all of the criteria set by the state. >> Kitchen: Okay. So the wage levels, the benefits, we don't have flexibility in terms of. Just one quick question because you may know this. Do you know what the wage levels are set at? >> No, I don't am we can find out. >> Kitchen: And also what benefits are required. Thank you. >> Houston: Since all of this is set by the state, do you think they could provide us with a map of where they see those pockets or do they only do the mapping when somebody requests? So if it's 21% -- 21.18% of the poverty rate, is there a man that they developed at the state level to show us where those are? Because maybe other companies could apply for that if they knew that this was available. >> Right. We can ask the state to assist us with that. The computer system brings the map up, shows you what that sister track hazard done in terms of poverty rate, so that's how [9:57:49 AM] [indiscernible]. >> >> Houston: Just as an opportunity for people who aren't aware of this program, if we knew where the blue-purple dot is in other parts of the city, some people maybe able to use it and they never thought about using it before. >> We'll ask. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you very much. Next item is number 9. Ms. Troxclair, you pulled this one? >> Troxclair: Thanks. And I think we may have submitted some questions through Q and a as well, but I haven't seen the responses yet. So the original -- in 2001 the state issued $265 million in revenue bonds to fund the construction of the hotel. And then we issued, let's see, 260 million in 2006 to pay down some of the debt. So this is issuing another 250 million, is that right? Can you just explain like why -- $250 million -- this is such a huge number and I want to try to understand the financial impact before you ask any other questions? >> Greg canally, financial services. I'm joined by art turfuro and Dennis Whaley, the financial advisor. The item before you this week on council is for refunding of existing bonds for savings. This is typical. We do this with other city debt. In this case this is not city debt, but the debt of a corporation that was established by council in 2001, the Austin convention interprizes for the -- enterprises for the construction and operation of the Hilton hotel and garage. Dennis can walk you through how the refunding works. >> So when the item was put on council a month ago, we just wanted to have a not to exceed amount. And the number we chose was $250 million. The actual refunding at this point, the par amount that [9:59:49 AM] we would sell, would be $207 million. So the ACA is granding sales so we have certain not to exceed amounts for par amount and other things, but at this point if we sold today we would sell about 207 million dollars' worth of B million. >> Troxclair: What is this total outstanding debt? >> 2.3 -- >> $223 million. >> Troxclair: Okay, I guess overall is the hotel financially -- I mean, is it hotel successful and meeting the financial projections that we expected? >> Very much so. This hotel created again in 2000 created this corporation. The original bonds were issued to construct the hotel and garage. And since the garage -- since the hotel has opened, the debt service and hotel operations as well as all of the necessary reserves has been funded entirely from hotel revenue, city funds nor hot tax funds have ever been needed to help with the operations. In fact, to help with itself, it's gone and generated $40 million in hot tax money back to the city. >> Troxclair: So can the hot taxes be used to -- can the hot revenue be used to pay down debt? >> We have that question and working with the corporations outside of bond council along with city legal staff to get a specific answer to that question about can it be done statutorily and also the logistics given how our existing hot tax is pledged. We're working on that. We hope to have an answer by the end of the day. >> Okay. My last question is when do we [10:01:50 AM] anticipate the debt will be paid off? >> This refunding again -- refunding does not extend the term of our debt. So this would allow us to have the hotel would be owned full by 2034. >> Troxclair: Thanks so much. >> To that end, we passed a resolution last week trying to get all of the different income streams in play. Just to take a look at in terms of seeing whether or not we could come up with a permanent funding stream perhaps to deal with homelessness and the arch as part of many components that are happening in there. Can we ask you to also take a look at this site? Apparently there's savings associated with this. There's now additional revenue to come. I didn't think to put in that resolution if there's more money than we're earning at the hotel, than is necessary to retire the debts and what it would look like over time. If you could roll that in to the kind of global look if we're looking at the downtown area, I think that would be great. Can you do that? >> Certainly, yeah. As we work on the -- as the corporation looks at the hotel and the operations and the need that are required by the bond indenture and we look at the city contributions, that's logical given the nexus is part of that and the DVD to look at that as a potential option. >> Thank you, any other questions on this? Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for coming down and joining us. I like this when bond council comes in. When bond council comes in we save money. Good to have you here. [10:03:55 AM] Okay, item number 25. >> My question about this is is if I'm reading this correctly, the current budget for this contract is $100,000? We're looking to expand it to $150,000 a year? Am I reading that correctly? >> No. >> This is why I bring it up. Help me understand this better. >> We're wanting to increase it, double it, from $150,000 to $300,000. >> Cool. >> This is digital content. >> So I'm reading funding in the amount of $100,000 is available in the operating budget of the library. This is additional -- help me understand these numbers and how they add up, please? >> Well, I think maybe I can -- I thought I might give you some history since I -- it is a digital content. And it is one of the few digital content vendors that have simultaneous use of what we have. >> I think it's a great service. I support it. And I'm trying to get an understanding of how this lines up with previous budgets and what we're agreeing to as a council to this item. >> I'm not sure. Purchasing can address that. I'm on the other side of it. >> Great service, I want to understand the numbers. >> Yolanda Miller, deputy purchasing officer. You wanted to know, I think I understand the question that $100,000, would that increase the budget for this particular amount? And as you can see in the ica, it is no -- it is not increasing [10:05:56 AM] the budget for the library. They already have the -- >> The library is working within their existing budgets to expand this one contract. Roip yes, that is correct. >> Great, that's all. >> That's it. >> Okay. >> It doesn't really read that way. It looked confusing. It looked like we were expanding the budget outside of the regular cycle. So we brought it up. >> Ms. Troxclaire? >> Troxclair: Now I'm confused. So it's $150,000. This would increase it another $150,000, right? Total of $300,000. But the note says funding in the amount of $100,000 is available in the fiscal school year. So it seems like an additional $50,000 that's unaccounted for here. Where's that coming from? >> The reason for this being an additional one, this is for this budget here, the additional $50,000 would carry over the to the next budget year. >> Troxclair: I think that's what he was trying to get at. We're Al kalting, we're passing this item. We're committing money in our next budget. >> It always depends on the budget, if the amount is available in the budget, just the authorization carries over. It doesn't change the budget amount for the library. >> Troxclair: Sure, but if we wanted to change it, it would be a cut, it would not be an addition. I would be automatically be included in the budget presented to council. It wouldn't -- so, this may be a relatively small amount, something that the library is going to make a priority. I just think it's important that we know when we're committing money in the next school year. >> I had made a note to myself [10:07:56 AM] that depending on the conversation that we would postpone this until after the library department comes to the departmental budget review on March 22. We can probably bring this up again then and I'm okay with moving forward because it's -- the reallocation of the existing budget is not expanding their budget. But I think a longer conversation at the budget works session would be appropriate to flesh this out. Okay? >> Mayor pro tem. >> Since we're plugging for those materials. I'm new to that element of the library. I want to praise you for entering into these contracts that allow those resources to be -- to be available to those who had a public library card and a technology to access them, whether it's a smart phone or other means, like a computer. Been really pleasantly surprised in the last couple of months how accessible it is, how much easier it is than I thought. The first couple of times I've tried it we've been able to get all kinds of materials for school for my children from bluebonnet books and other things so you're doing a fabulous job of making those resources available to library patrons and I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in. Item we have is item 29. Ms. Troks Claire? >> The next item is with the DNA lab. We talked about it with council a lot. I want to understand where we are in the process and if this money -- the additional $2 million is supposed to increase capacity by up to 60 cases a month. I want to have another conversation about how we can get that backlog. [10:09:57 AM] >> And I misspoke, this is item 27 in case anybody's watching. >> Good morning, mayor, council. I'm chief of police. A couple of points, the $2 million we're talking about here, it's the same $2 million we talked about you before. We're putting in a contract with another lab. Because the capacity we're getting is swifts that you all approved a few months back is not at the level we expected it to be because they can't take as many cases from us on a monthly basis. So we're putting in a contract with signature science which is a local company here so they can start processing kids for that as well. We want to keep our capacity up to work current cases while trying to address our backlog. We are using the same funds and if you will recall, what we had was $1.2 million that we committed of our own forfeited funds. And then there was $800,000 worth of grant money that we're currently trying to get approval to use again towards clearing up these kits. >> The same money we've been talking about, we're just giving it now to a different lab. >> We're opening up the availability to use a different lab so we can meet our capacity. Yes. >> Troxclair: Okay. So is this -- is the capacity we were talking about, the additional 60 case, is that to keep up with current cases or is this addressing the backlog? >> We're focused on both. So what we're looking at here is current cases that we would shift -- what we thought we would shift to swifts, if lab up in the Dallas area. They're telling us now the capacity is what they can take is 20 cases a month and we don't want to just let that backlog grow. So we're seeking other contracts at the same time while we're working with all of our partners to come up with a solution here locally within our resources. >> Troxclair: I'm trying to understand the differential. Are we -- is this enough to keep the additional 60 cases per [10:11:58 AM] month. Does that mean we're keeping current with anything new that's coming in? But -- and not adding to our backlog. Are we adding to our backlog because we're getting more cases than the 60 -- even with the 60 can be accommodated. Maybe this is -- we can continue this conversation I guess tomorrow. Are we doing this tomorrow? We can continue this conversation tomorrow. But I want to understand what we can do to make sure that we're giving you the funding to get the rape kits processed as quickly as possible. >> Absolutely. And commander may be able to tell the number of kits that come in on a monthly basis. The 20 at swifts and the 60 going to signature that we're going to be able to keep one the current demand, but, again, we have to address the backlog. >> We're also working with dps on maybe getting 15 or 20 a month through them. And also north Texas university's lab is going to ramp up, take cases from us in a few months. Looking at between 20 to 40. That will be current. We get about 25 a month on an ongoing basis of the -- of the sexual assault case. And along homicide and robberies and violent crimes, that will help us keep up. We're looking at other avenues to reduce our backlog. >> And can you provide us that information tomorrow if you were planning to so we understand going to the next budget cycle how we can prioritize? >> Yes. >> So to clarify, this was an issue that I had been asking about in the last few weeks. So let me find out the swifts contract that we approved wasn't going to be able to spend, to take all of the kits. The challenge that you all are facing for the community that's watching is not the appropriation of money, but actually having contracts to the labs that can take our money and do the work that we're asking [10:13:59 AM] you to do. >> That's correct. We're getting to a capacity issue right now. At some point down the road, a budgetary issue, right now it's capacity. As you spoke, we all are aware, we identified 1.2 million with our own budget with our forfeited funds and grant money to go towards this. We are dealing with a capacity issue right now trying to do everything we can to ensure that we're working the current cases while also addressing the backlog. >> By approving this, you can send some to swifts but then you'll have a contract with signature that you'll be sending some to signature, some to dps, and then soon, some to north Texas. >> We're not currently sending to swifts. They've asked us not to because of the capacity issues. One of the reasons for that is the district attorney's office is using swifts now for our rush cases. That will help with the backlog because some of the cases are going to the district attorney's office to swifts. As -- over the next couple of months, we've heard from several labs that with the Danny grant and those -- everyone is starting to get caught up on those that their capacity is going to increase. >> And what portion on this contract are we committing to sexual assault evidence. >> I believe that will be the lion's share as it was when we came to you. We're focused on clearing up the sexual assault cases. We could have a high priority crime as we talked to you before. If we had a homicide or something along those lines, we want to prioritize that as well. But the focus here is the sexual assault cases. >> And can this lab enter into CODIS? >> On a national level, yes. >> And I guess the -- the last challenge still remains with the capacity issues, I think it's clearly a frustrating challenge for you all and for us that we have the funds available and have created the political will to try to do a technical issues across the state, across the [10:16:03 AM] country. Just do -- I appreciate you brought this one forward and we can keep on doing what it is that we can. We want to be able to solve this problem for the community. And I know you all want to as well. Keep us apprised about it if there's anything we can do to accelerate the process. Because clearly there's the will in the community, there's the funds available. And having funds available and not having people who could do the job is tough. Challenging for us, frustrating, I understand for others. The sooner we get to the timeline that it will be, if we have some of the evidence cleared, that will be helpful to let people know we're on an urgent track to get it done. I know y'all are working hard. It's just -- people want to know how sit that we can vote to do this. It's been challenging to find out it's not that -- it's not so simple. >> This is 2 the first time I've seen you publicly since the immigration raids happening in the community and perhaps in your testimony before the state. I want to say thank you for prioritizing, keeping our community safe, to be able to do everything you can to preserve and build the trust relationship that we enjoy with our force, with the community generally. And focusing on the -- the policing of the crimes that are -- the priority and the work that you do. And over the course of the raids to continue that practice, collecting both your law enforcement professional as well as the the community at will. I want to say thank you to that. I want to say thank you to your force. If you could convey that to the officers as well. >> I will, Mr. Mayor, thank you. >> My question real quick on [10:18:04 AM] this is it seems like there are three streams of DNA work we need to be doing. One is the work that is occurring now. The one -- the one that we prioritized over the summer and in to the fall, which is the rape kit backlog. And then we have the third stream which relates to the DNA lab questions. My understanding is you're part of -- your staff is part of the working group with the d.a.'s office and there's some conversation about since there are limited slots and funds available. We have too many people for the chairs that you have. But are you coordinating also with them to make sure that the DNA Kays that might be associated with the people that have been convicted may be in for a long time are also being handled as appropriate. >> That being done through the workers. That's what they're working for as well. Swifts is doing work for the dvm a.'s office right now so both sides of the criminal justice system here are addressing the needs of this issue. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you very much. Item 29. >> This is the city facilities. And we had a conversation and it was postponed so you could take -- it was withdrawn so you could take it to the advisory commission and now it's back on our agenda. [10:20:07 AM] Has anything changed in that? >> Director for Austin resources. As you mentioned, we took the item to them and they reviewed it. But unfortunately, they rejected it again because they probably have some of the questions were not answered. That they cleared some of the questions. They broke down the cost estimate in four parts. And the four parts were collection of cycling from city buildings, second part had to do with emergency situation. And the third part had to do with special event and last part has had to do with class II and nonhazardous waste. So we included all of those. And we also discussed the -- where the waste was going. We also discussed the options that the commission had that could provide to you. Part of the options is maybe the council could certainly make a decision where to take the waste. They provided the -- two or three, I believe, land fills that are within the area. >> So nothing -- this item has come up before -- this is the third time now that's been on our agenda. Because if I'm remembering correctly. So has anything changed since the first -- now it's denied it not once but twice. It doesn't seem like anything has changed in order to be responsive to the concerns. I mean, I heard concerns about the costs. I think this is 140% increase, [10:22:10 AM] the last contract that seemingly for the same services was $6 million, this one was $17 million. And as well as where the waste is going. I feel like there's a disconnect there. It's been a while since the council talked about this. Again, it's on the radar. I've been on the commission multiple times now and we're getting the same response. So I just don't know where -- so can you explain? The cost increase, if there's a change in services, and I don't know -- if we didn't return to this contract, what would happen? >> The cost increase, there's a difference between the -- what the contract tror is and what the vendor is doing now and what we're asking them to do. So there's some changes such as, for example, adding organics to the mix. There are increases in costs. We're asking them for reporting for diversion. They're asking for a lot of different things that's not in the current contract. Now, one of the things that I discussed at the - - at the convention was that the concern we choose to -- choose to change or have an option to reducing the time, the duration, we could -- you can decide if you want to reduce the scope. We can do any of this. What happens is we have to go back to the contractor that we have now and ask them for -- ask them to provide services for a [10:24:11 AM] few more months or until council decides we need to go back and resolicit this. Or work with different options. >> So was that the recommendation of the -- >> No, no. I was making those suggestions and given those options that they could possibly come to you and let you know what those were. >> Did the swak have a recommendation and say how to approve? >> No, they just rejected the contract. And, of course, they gave some rationale and I included the rationale in my memo that was sent to you. One of the questions that came up this time was, for example, lack of emergencies, we use provision for emergencies. It's -- oftentimes it will be difficult to come up with that. Especially at this point. We can certainly put some information together from now to Thursday to give you some information about that. During the emergencies, for example, what we had during the 2015 memorial day, day flood, we diverted about 95% of this increase. But we knew that was going to be a lot of rush. So during the onion creek flood when water rose about 40 feet in 15 minutes, and the issue had to do with public health and safety. You know? We had to take everything out and collect them. So during that time, the diversion -- our diversion was about maybe 5%f so we can put some information together on that and give some discussion that we have in here. But another question that came up had do with lack of analysis and cost effectiveness of providing the service in house. [10:26:11 AM] But what I explained in the commission was that we're headed down there mainly because we don't want to get into the commercial services or we'll get into that. In other words, we're competing with vendors. We can put some information together. We have done that since the S.W.A.K. I can tell you what it's going to cost, preliminary costs that it will cost $6 million if you want to do it in house. But I won't suggest that because we don't want to get into competing with the commercial license. Unless you tell us to do that. >> Mayor? >> Yes. >> So the contract we're looking at now, that's the result of the rfp process, is that right? >> That's right. >> Would it have been, I feel like in reading through all of the memorandums and listening to the conversations we had in the last couple of months and I appreciate council member troxclaire bringing it up, bringing it to the floor, that you haven't had a lot of ability to maneuver within the constraints of the rfp process. Is it different if you do an open bid. That we have more competition for the work if we chose to go a different path within the proposal? >> Councilmembers, the competitive seal bidding process is the preferred process when ever possible. Because it is the most objective apples-to-apples competition. It's at the price level. [10:28:12 AM] When you perform an ifb or an invitation for bids, the government creates speci specifications. So the government directs it work of a contractor and determines the level and complexity of the work and so forth. That model, the government resumes the risk of a contract and the contract's performance. When we perform an rfp, we allow for the officers to propose an approach to meet the requirements of the government. We give the business community a little more flexibility in terms of meeting the business objectives of the city and allow for a little more creativity in the market and take advantage of their expertise. But if we have hard specifications, we know exactly what we want on products and services and then the ifp is a preferred approach. If we don't know what would meet the city, an rfp is a preferable approach. >> I think knowing some of the concerns that came through the zero waste advisory committee and the questions that have been raised here and the conversations that my staff and I have had with various people involved, we have a pretty good idea about some specific specifications -- that's redundant. That we might like to -- that we might actually like to put in place. I don't know how disruptive would bit if we pull back the rfp and go for an invitation for bid process. And a follow-on question is, and I know you're going to say it's up to us, right? Would that open up for more competition for all of the firms that are operating in the city? And then we can maybe direct the land fill closer into town not be used, for example, because there are some real concerns about continuing to add to the mountains that are on the northeast part of the city. [10:30:15 AM] >> Whether the reissuing will increase competition, we won't know. We can certainly explore this and find out what the obstacles were for the various companies to participate. But certainly, as with any process, we learn lessons each time we issue the solicitation. We'll definitely apply what we learn this one to the next one. It will be a visual tie. We have a variety of contract sources that are having some the services now. Some have sufficient authorization. Others don't. We'll have to follow those on a narrow basis and come back with a recommendation to council. >> Is that some of the requirements. It looks like they'll need to have individual agreements. Am I reading this right? Or is there one outfit in the city that do all of this? Will it look like these would stand out over a number of different private providers? >> The current rca recommends a contract with a single provider with different areas of services to be provided. The option that was proposed from arr was that if council had an issue with one category of service that we could proceed with other categories of service and we could retool the approach to the categories of service that are of a concern. If the entire approach is the issue, we can retool it and go back with a single or a combination of solicitation processes. >> I'm concerned that we might end up paying more for someone because it's a niche if it were bundled. But I would like to have that [10:32:16 AM] conversation maybe. >> And I would just say I would support you if you wanted to set aside this contract and issue a new solicitation. >> And I would support you as well. >> I would also be in that group at this point. I'm concerned about the proceeding of a contract that has large policy implications that we're not fully understanding. And I'm just wondering how this relates to what other cities are doing? Is there a broader con tech that we should understand as we think about this contract that would help us understand what's going on here. I don't have all of the details to illustrate what I'm talking about because I am up in to resource recovery questions. But I am worried we're heading down a particular direction that really involves much larger policy questions than we are thinking about as we approach this contract. So I would appreciate some further context. >> Assistant city manager. I think that is one of the issues that we're struggling with. Is there are some very obvious policy implications that staff needs your help with, your direction. For example, if we do want to -- if council wants to limit some of the land fills, that's a policy direction we need to do as we move forward. If we want to continue to provide subsidies for some special events that we need to service, that's a policy implication that you all need to weigh in on. If you want to resolicit this, we have a vendor that's vocal about not providing bids as long as there's a no contact policy in place. That's a policy decision we need to help us with. %-Pwe're struggling trying [10:34:20 AM] to work together without that instruction seeing that you have questions. I would ask as we move forward help us with that and we can get past this. We've been dancing from these without having direction from y'all. There are absolutely policy decisions that we need help with as we move forward with that. >> I would love if you could prepare a memo with the policy questions. I don't remember the memos from a couple of weeks ago when I met with some folks. There are similar efforts that are being undertaken say in L.A. And there are implications of this that go beyond questions of land fills. And there are small local haulers who depend on this business. There are festivals that like their -- their trash taking care of the trash in a environmentally sensitive way, there are questions whether the bidder can fulfill those things. It's a nonaustin bidder as I understand. We have local businesses here from everything I can tell we're doing a good job directing business to a nonlocal firm. So I think there's a host of issues that we need to be unpacking. >> I agree. This is the item we that just won't die. We just can't hit it across the goal line. Maybe we need to see what are the policy issues that keep heading us off and just keep working our way. >> To Thursday then with some written documentation on the issues and then you can choose how to handle that on Thursday. >> That'd be great. Whether we need to move forward or pause to resolve the policy [10:36:24 AM] questions. Thank you very much. Councilmembers, 10:35, we have one, two, three, four, and five items that councilmember Poole has pulled number 45. We have a consultant from out of town. I was hoping we could get through these by 10:30. We didn't, we have a consultant from out of town that needs to fly out this afternoon. I'm going to call that briefing now so we can get tow the airport. Yes? >> I think I pulled some items that might be better for executive session. I'm involve in the lawsuit that our city is involved in and I don't want to have our personnel from the police to have to stay. However long -- >> We're map I do that. We sent you a memo last night -- yesterday or Friday on that. Answer those questions. If not, I'm happy to talk to you before an exec Ty session on Thursday. >> Is there something I can ask about today? >> Yes. It's on our agenda. We can pull that, we can have that item come to the session. >> I will go ahead and do that. Is that the only thing you're here for? >> Yes. >> Going to be asking for a time certain of 6:30 on Thursday. Okay. >> I pulled 33, the economic development incentive issue. I'm going to suggest we not consider that on Thursday. The group of people that are involved in drafting this also, councilmember troxclaire is taking the lead in coming up with something a little bit more inclusive item that deals with affordability issues and we've [10:38:26 AM] agreed to handle this as part of that. I know that some councilmembers had some additional questions on criteria that they want to make sure that weight was given to. Mayor pro tem, you have a couple that you wanted to add to that. I don't know if you want to mention those now. >> Sure. I was really just asking. It's not clear to me what you just said, I would suggest that for the economic incentives revision piece that it include some related to the revision work that went on in 2013. You know, I guess I regard resolutions as historical documentation for the future. It would be useful to talk about the recent revision process and make changes that came into the economic incentives program at that time to help us understand the contracts and five years from now, help people to recount how and when those changes happened. Are you suggesting that it will be folded in a larger resolution? >> I think there might be a resolution that it's a different kind of thing for affordability or economic development. So this will probably be one component of that. I think the intent is to have the whole group together for the March 3 meeting. >> Can I be clear? Is this the chamber of commerce? Is this based on the chamber of commerce affordability agenda? >> In part. I agree with resolutions being historical documents. Part of the work we're doing on that is to cite -- when we're note changes or elements, we will cite prior resolutions so that both as we do the work and the community reviews it, we know historical context. >> And I think it will include some of the items but not all of the items and not exclusively those items. And I haven't seen the final draft. It would include some of those items, not all of those items, and other items. [10:40:29 AM] Yes? >> Thornton road, I believe we asked for a 4:00 P.M. Time certain for that. A heads up for folks. >> 4:00 P.M. On Thursday? >> The time is 6:00, 6:30, item 63. Ms. Kitchen what was your number? >> I'm sorry. In case anyone was watching from the community, I wanted to confirm a time certain of 6:30 means it will not be heard before -- >> Earlier than. No guarantee it gets heard then. >> Amen. >> It's 56. And 56 for what time? 4:00. >> Okay. >> Mayor, I've had some requests on 18 and so what I'll do is over the lunch break touch base with folks that brought up their time certain and figure out what makes sense. >> We had amendments to clean up on wordings on veg taltive bumper, easements, and shielded lighting. They're recommended by staff or at the request of both the applicant and the neighborhood. >> Mayor? >> Yes. >> First just a comment. I was listening because I was running late in traffic earlier. This very rushed conversation is a concern. I understand there's a consultant from out of town. We're rushing through the purpose of Tuesday work session quickly talking about items because we have to address a briefing. So when we paused, I thought we were pausing and we were going to come back to the agenda. Now it seems like everybody is trying to dispense of all of the small issues. So I hope we can get a better handle on how we interrupt our [10:42:29 AM] work sessionhen the very purpose is to have a discussion on the items. Something that the mayor touched on. I had questions about 33. The same concerns about what this is trying to change and the goal of it and I think it's important and I printed them out, there's a -- there's an extensive stake holder award on the economic incentive deal that had a very good matrix that explained what this -- what it included. So I think it's important for councilmembers to understand what exactly is being reformed. A lot of good things in there already. Living wage, domestic partnership, environmental protections and all kinds of good things in there. So, if we could make sure we have that context of the -- of what exactly is - - is being reformed or what is looking to be reformed, I think it would be good. >> And to be clear, we were taking a pause so that we could do that. I think the people who are coming in saying I can handle this in 30 seconds. But to that degree there needs to be a fuller conversation about any one of these, we're going to come back and do that. So let's go ahead and go to the briefing. We'll make sure we pull 3 back up again to discuss that a little bit more. Briefings, items number two and three. [10:44:37 AM] >> Good morning, mayor, councilman, rob by Gonzales, city services department. We respect the time constraints that council has this morning. We will be brief. Today's briefing is a continuation of the commitment to update council on the progress of the improvements made within the department. I'll begin with the list of topics that will be covered in today's briefing. >> For one second, just before you get started. When we have presentations like this, if it's possible to get these documents before we sit down at the table, if we could get them a couple of days in advance or the Friday before, it will be helpful. We'll come in a little bit more prepared on questions that we have. That would be really helpful. >> We've heard you ask that before. We're really trying and we'll work harder on that and put them in the backup. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I want to recognize team members. Karl ren, our assistant directors in the department. Together with department and staff, we're making headway in regard to service delivery. We'll cover our success matrix. In August, September of 2015, we defined what success looked like from qualitative and quantitative standpoint. We're here to talk about both of those measures. How our continuous expansion of the use of technology within the department, the continued investment in customers and employees within the department, looking beyond the action plan, we were approaching the end of year two of the action plan. And the -- the steps we've taken in that regard. Some influential dynamics on the service delivery within our department. And the development review process. And then a special guest with us today is Jason murado. He's with etc institute. He did the adapt's first ever customer service polling. He may recognize etc institute has done customer service survey [10:46:43 AM] since 2009. Success matrices, they're a companion piece to the two-year road map we developed in 2015. It covered the quantitative and qualitative aspects of what does success look like with regard to the quantitative aspects, we've been reporting on those since April of 2016. We purchased the monthly reports on the website with things such as wait time and intake time. With regard to the qualitative aspects, those are in relation to a survive that was done in the 2015 analysis that posed a series of questions to our customers and other individuals as to the quality and level of services that we provide. As we committed to council, we did the first ever department polling. It was a scientific poll that was conducted late last year. We are here today to present the results of the polling to council. The two-year road map developed in 2016, it was to end in fiscal year 2016-2017. We haven't been afforded the full measure of the budget resource as delineated in the action plan. Last year it was a very -- the current budget year, '16-'17 was a tight and tough budget year and all of the resource requests made it through the budget process. We hope to complete the action plan by September of 2017 and sup Seth the action plan and move towards a targeted, strategic plan within the department that incorporates a lot of misuse that have begun and under way and are completed. Our intent to make continuous influence within the department and a strategic plan for the continuous improvements. One other area of focus was investment in our employees. [10:48:45 AM] Undoubtedly, there was a morale concern in the department in 2015. One of the pillars of our action plans was a focus on our employees, specifically investment and training, investment in the organization structure of the department. We've done internal polling with regard to training and are providing the training that our department employees desire. With regard to a very good indicator of our employee morale and satisfaction, we're pleased to inform council that the most recent fiscal year, fiscal year '15- '16, we had a 99% employment detention rate in the department. That's important to the department and customer perspective. We get to detain the employees that have the knowledge and the experience and the training and we want to keep our employees as long as possible so they can continue to provide and deliver excellent customer service. So we're pleased to say we had a 99.7% employee detention rate in the department. With regard to training, the response you see there is with regard to a poll on our employees as to what training they look to in the department and 22% of our employees responded with regard to what training they were looking to see within the department. Moving on to technology updates. We talked to council about electronic plan review. That is a very significant key technology initiative under way in the department. We are beginning to pilot the electronic plan review both in commercial, residential, and site plan. We anticipate that by spring of this year we will be completed with the private program and we will have already initiated on-line payments with regard to site plan as well. It's significant. It's going to completely change the way we do business in the department by eliminating the paper process along with the paper process, we have to store [10:50:48 AM] that paper. When we store it at our site, we store it which we incur the cost to retrieve that data as well. Everything will be submitted to us electronically. We'll review the plans electronically. We don't are to store those plans offsite. We have those at our fingerprints immediately. >> Would you like us to wait to the end or -- >> Okay. >> Mayor, council. I know we focused to moving the services on-line. Last year in February, I think we moved the permits on-line as well as the payments. We continue to migrate a lot of the other applications on line and develop new tools, most recently within the last few months, we developed a fine line inspector tool which is really important four residents. They can locate on a map there's a specific resident and find who the inspector is that services their area. They will have access to the inspector's e-mail as well as the cell phone number so they can contact the inspector directly. With regard to the Austin build and connect portal, which is our portal for our on-line resources, we've seen a significant increase in the use of their on-line resource with the advent of making those permits develop on-line. A 45% increase in on-line payments. 67% increase in on-line payments issued and 21% increase in the on-line inspections scheduled. We want as much as possible to move as many of the services on- line as possible for the benefit of the department and the benefit of our customers. As I mentioned, the hallmark of our investment plan is in the employees and the customers. Recall the customer service from last week. Councilman directed staff to have an ordinance to implement the standards in the third party [10:52:49 AM] certification. The department is drafting that ordinance and we're helping them with the draft to the ordinance. As I mentioned to council in the '15-'17 process. The fee structure was conducted in house. They've completed the work and we'll have the fee structure along with the ordinance of the expedited point of view. It can have it in early March as requested by council. You may recall that the funding for the program is not available until March 1. The postings for the first team so we can have the first team in place as close to March 1 as possible so we can train the new staff. We have expedited building plan review up and running by the may time frame. Spring of this year, up and running. Last year, early last year, we had heard overwhelmingly from stake holders in a stake holder by the mayor a need and a concern for a project manager system. This is separate and completely different from your expedited building plan review. Expedited building plan review does not. The system that we have is a case manager's system. But the case managers also do plan review. So they do not have the time to do true project management because they were doing the work themselves. They function as a source of collecting all plan review comments and can bring the comments to the applicant. We want to implement a project manager system that will help to facilitate the process. We typically encounter applications that have some serious code complex and there need to be resolutions between partner departments and we anticipate the partner managers [10:54:51 AM] that can help resolve the process and it helps us facilitate the conversations with the other partner departments. The system would be an overhead cost and full cost recovery for the system in place of the fees that we charge. The next two topics deal with facility changes and work space enhancement. I grapple with how to convey the information since I didn't send mixed messages to the council. Because the same time we were talking about a new facility for the department. So we want to unequivocally state these changes are not permanent solutions to the one Texas center. These are merely stop gap measures that were identified in the separate announcements in March of 2015. These are things that needed to be done for the customer perspective and the employee morale perspective. We've had great sick cesc with these efforts. First and foremost, it may seem simple but significant to our customers who could not find parking, we had the entire parking lot with great success. Italoered their frustration and levels. They can find parking relatively quickly. When they come to our offices and visit with our employees, they were less frustrated. They're not talking about having to circle the parking lot for 15 or 20 minutes trying to find parking. They ear talking about the business that they need to be served and so that's a great deal of lowering the frustration level from our customers' perspective. It may seem simple but it goes a long way for our customers. We have reconfigured the space for commercial and residential area to consolidate those spaces. We made new space for the employee positions that were improve in the current budget year and the previous budget year. That's really important because as I mentioned before, we are out in space in the new positions that we had been allot in the budget years, we've had to find and create new space for [10:56:51 AM] them. You think we have been as efficient as possible and we're in the end of our efficiency. These are by no means the permanent solutions for the Texas center. We are committed to improving the finding because even if we do get a new facility, we're still 2.5 years away. 2.5 years our customers are using the building. So we want to improve the finding in the building so we can find the ways on multiple floors of one Texas center. We've renovated some employee spaces and created larger conference rooms. We did not have the number of conference rooms we need at one Texas center. We get that as much as we can to accommodate the large conference rooms. They help with facilitating the staff meetings because we didn't have the space to conduct the staff meetings. With regard to ren vagus in the employee work spaces, we have taken office spaces and doubled up and tripled up in some cases it use of the office spaces. Typically, the office may be used by one person, we have two if not three people using the spaces. We don't want to give the impression there's ample space, we have certainly re-created and reallocated space in as sufficient manner as we can. It is not a permanent solution for what we need to do. With regard to workforce training, we reached out to our employees last year to ask specifically what they needed and we developed a training curriculum based on that and we were pleased to announce the retention rating for our implies is 99.9% last year. In the realm of continuous improvements. We want to thank you all for your support and investment in the improvements that we made within the development services department. With regard to continuous improvements, earlier this year, we approved the contract in the interlocal agreement. They're under way but they're still at work. Specifically they're looking at expired permits and work without [10:58:52 AM] permits. We have a lot of issues with the work being done without permit. We work with Austin code when we encountered those issues. We are looking at what are the staffing and resource requirements to take that program from Austin code and fully implement it within the department and identifying the best practices on how best to handle the two situations and inspire permits and work without permits. Once again, to integrate that program within the development services department. We anticipate we'll have that study completed by the spring of next year so we can work the necessary staffing, the resource requests to the fiscal year '17-'18 budget request. In digitiing our documents. We're at the self- resource center where we store a lot of our own site plans. We have a lot of information stored on site and a lot of information is stored in our mountain in the on site location. We need to digitize that location. Because as we talk about getting want to do is get into a new building with as many records digitized as possible. So this is assessment is being done by Texas state. It's going to help us get into that new digital state. We've also partnered with the city's iteration office. They are helping to in other measures in developing the process. We want to make sure that every angle we are improving the customer end service experience. We also want to make sure that the application of code is consistent not just within our department, but across all departments. And they're helping us with that by taking a very detailed look at the work that we do they are on-site. They are shadowed our employees and shadowing the facility process and we anticipate getting some very good information from the office of innovation as well. Moving on to influential dynamics, codenext. We now have a time frame for the anticipated [11:00:52 AM] approval of codenext. We want codenext to be successful. We want to make sure that we are doing our part, that we are as proactive as possible. We are not going to wait of course for the time of April 2018 approval. We want to work with our partner departments right now and develop what that implementation looks like with regard to codenext. We know for sure that resources are going to be needed across all departments when it comes to implementation. We know our Mandy database is -- our Amanda database is going to be reconfigured when the codenext comes about. We know that. We know we will have to translate what the new changes mean from the old code to the new code, including technical rules and engagement and notification process and we need to of course have an education process for our employees and stakeholders. And so we are actively looking at what that implementation looks like and all the other partner departments that need to be involved in that implementation process so that codenext can be successful. And speaking of codenext departments and Travis county, the new facility is certainly going to help. We want to work with our partner departments to make sure that they are asking for the resources that they need to ensure that we have a smooth development process within the city. And that they are also meeting their ontime reviews with the resources that they were allotted. Looking at other operational changes, as I mentioned throughout this presentation, one Texas center is inadequate for our current needs. It's inadequate for doing the co- locating of our other departments. We don't have that currently. And a new facility will afford those opportunities for us. We want to design that new facility with splent customer service in mind, with attention to the space that our employees need for doing their job and for making it both an employee friendly and customer friendly space. [11:02:57 AM] So with that I wanted to give a special thanks to all the dsd employees who have been involved in the improvement of our service delivery. There are countless others who are involved and one thing that we've been doing is doing a lot of our informational -- information highlighting our employees. I think as part of your packet you will have a trifold as well that owe shows the services we provide. Those are sitting employees in the department and we're very proud to display them and the work that they do and they're proud of the work that they do. So mayor and council, I thank you for your investment and I thank our employees as well for their continued support of all the improvements we're making. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: Just a quick question about the technology update. You may have mentioned, but what is our target for being completely online? >> So our target was September of 2017, I believe, for migrating. I think it was about 90% of our applications online. And I don't know the specific number yet as far as like the end relationship to the 90%, but we have migrated a significant number of our permits online. Most recently we migrated our tree permits online, which was a very big deal for our customers as well. >> Kitchen: Okay. Help me understand what that means in terms of the entire life cycle of the process. Does that mean all of that can be done online with the exception of inspections and things like that. >> With regard to electronic plan review, which we anticipate to be spring of this year -- >> Kitchen: That was the word I was looking for. >> With regard to electronic plan review we will be ready for spring of this year and that includes online submission and online payment. And the other reference I was talking about is we have some minor permit applications that are not site plan related, but migrating all of those online as well. >> Just trying to understand what that means, practically speaking. Does that mean that [11:04:57 AM] everything can be done that way? That a project could be taken completely through the process without having to come down for a meeting? >> It's our goal to have at least the submission, all of that done online. What we do see though is that there will always be a need for meetings from the customer perspective and employee perspective, so that's why conference rooms are so critical in the work that we do. As you all know that we get a lot of our customers who want that face to face interaction to talk specifically about their project. And so we will always have those face-to-face meetings. It's our intention, though, that they can at least submit the information electronically to us. >> Kitchen: Okay. And what is y'all's thinking with regard to meetings via technology? >> I would love to do more of that. We just need the technology. Right now of course identified talked to our need of ctm and he says that retrofitting an existing building is much more difficult. It's much easier to do in a new facility and doesn't of that facility. >> Kitchen: You're thinking you can use that with customers too, not just with staff? >> You would love to do with it customers. Going down to even configuring some of our library places, such as it residents want to go to our libraries and want to have video conferences with our employees they could do that. Some of our small businesses as you know don't have the time to get away from their work. And how can we use online technology so that our small businesses have that available as well. >> Kitchen: Like maybe Skype from their own computer and things like that. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Kitchen: I wanted to make sure that was in the works. And in terms of the technology resources to do all this, is that something that you guys have funded now or is that something that needs to be brought forward? >> Yes, ma'am. Approximately five years ago we implemented what's called a technology fee. It's a four percent surcharge on all of our fees. And it gives us a good significant amount of funding for the technology enhancements that we need to make. >> Kitchen: Okay. So all those kinds of technology enhancements [11:06:58 AM] we're discussing north Texas the funding is available. >> Yes. The funding is coming through that technology fee. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> So the second part of our presentation is the polling results and Jason measure rad dough is going to go -- murado is going to go over that presentation. Etc is a marketing research firm based in the Kansas City area. You're probably familiar from us. We did the statewide satisfaction survey every year since 2009. And this past fall for the first time we did a customer satisfaction survey. The city of Austin development services development. So say I'm going to go through some of the major findings from that survey. So etc, probably most of you are familiar with us, but I'll just mention it real quickly, we're based on the Kansas City area, but we're a national leader providing market research for city and county governments. We've been around for over 30 years and in the last 10 years alone we've done surveys in over 850 communities, in 49 states, and that includes a lot of work throughout the state of Texas. Some of our Texas clients include the city of Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Plano, Round Rock. We've obviously done a lot of surveys in the past for the city of Austin. Of course the satisfaction survey, but then we've also done aquatics study, done a communications study in the past four or five years and a comprehensive planning survey as well. So we definitely know the city of Austin very, very well. So today I'll go through the purpose and methodology of the survey. The bottom line upfront is our main conclusion from the survey. And then I'll go through some of the major survey findings to show how we came to those conclusions and I'll be [11:08:58 AM] happy to answer any questions as well. Sue the purpose of this survey -- so the purpose of this survey subjectly assesses out satisfied customers are with the dsd services. I believe the plan is to do it on an annual basis so that will serve as a baseline for future surveys. Now, this survey included questions related to key aspects of the dsd plan review process, the inspections division, and then also other services, would include online services, the development assistance center, and then the service center. Now, this survey was administered entirely through email to customers who have used dsd services within the past two years. And it was administered over a period of about two weeks from late October through early November. Now, our goal is to get at least 400 completed surveys. We had a really, really good response. Ended up with over 1100 completed surveys. So almost three times more than our minimum goal. And the results of these 1100 plus surveys at the 95% level of confidence has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%. So essentially that means if we did this survey the same way 100 times, 95 times the results would be plus or minus 2.9 percent from what we're reporting. So the results aren't perfect, but really there's a very, very small margin of error. So this chart shows the type of customers that fill out the survey. We had a really good mix. 28 percent were contractors and builders. 26% citizens, 16% developers and owners. 15% licensed design professionals. And then we had a mix of other different types as well. So here's our main takeaway from the survey. Overall the highest areas of satisfaction with the plan review process were how well customers understand the review process, the [11:10:58 AM] technical competence of review staff and then customer service provided by the review staff. And then the areas that rated the lowest in satisfaction with the plan review process when R. Were the time that the process takes to complete and the process being delayed over minor issues. And then the highest areas of satisfaction overall with the inspection division were how well customers understand the inspection process. Again, the technical competence of staff. And then the length of time the inspection takes to complete was actually a strength through the inspection divisions. And then some of the areas that rated the lowest in the inspection divisions were the process, being delayed over minor issues, and then the staff anticipating obstacles and providing options. We also found that most customers are satisfied with how fairly they're treated by staff. And also the technical competence of staff in both the service center as well as the development assistance center. So the first area we'll look at is just general overall satisfaction with the plan review process. So that bar at the very bottom, all survey respondents, that shows that overall 41% of respondents gave a rate of three or better to the overall plan review process. And then the bars above that show the levels of satisfaction for each of these five different types of customers. So applicant agents were the most surveyed, followed by contractors and builders. And then citizens, license design professionals and developers and owners all had about the same level of satisfaction overall with the plan review process. So then we also took a look at satisfaction with the plan review process in five different areas. So this chart here shows the overall satisfaction each of these five different areas of the plan review process. So the area that customers are the most satisfied with is tree ordinance review. 65% gave a rating of three or better on the five-point scale. [11:12:59 AM] The second most satisfied was residential plan, followed closely by commercial. And then site plan. And subdivision had the lowest satisfaction. Now, one thing we also did is we asked customers to rate 11 different aspects for each of these five different areas. So this chart, there's a lot of information here. So I'll just go give you an overview of it. But what this shows is the highest rated aspects for each of those five different areas of the plan review process. Now, there's definitely some similarities among all five areas. For all five areas, customers understanding of the review process was rated as the number one strength. Then all five areas, the technical competence of review staff was rated as the second biggest strength. And customer service by the review staff was rated as fourth highest in the class. And we also look at the lowest rated areas for each of the five areas within the review process and there's definitely themes in all five areas as well of. The time the process takes to deplete and the process being delayed over minor issues were the two lowest rated items for each of these five different areas. So we asked really the same type of questions for inspection divisions. Here we asked customers overall how satisfied are you with the inspection divisions. If you look at the bottom row all survey respondent, 69% of respondents gave a rating of three or better. And then the five bars above that show the results for each of the five different types of customers. Applicant agent were the most surveyed just as they were with the plan review process. License design professionals were the second most satisfied. Contractors, builders and citizens rated about [11:15:00 AM] the same. And developers and owners were definitely stood out from the group as being the least satisfied amongst these with the inspection divisions. So then here we also took a look at the results for five different areas within the inspection divisions. So the satisfaction rating was pretty similar in all five areas. The highest rated one was commercial inspection division, 78% gave a rating of three or better. The satisfaction ratings for residential, tree and environmental inspection were about the same, all these of those areas. And then the lowest rated area was site and subdivision inspection division. So then we also took a look at where the highest rated aspects within each one of these five different areas of the inspection division. And there are also some similarities among all five areas here as well. Understanding customers have of the inspection process, the technical competence of inspection staff were rated among the top three greatest ranks in all five different areas of the inspection divisions. Then we took a look at the lowest rated areas for each one of the five inspection area divisions and there are some similarities here as well. Inspections being delayed over minor issues was the lowest rated item in all five different areas. Staff anticipating obstacles and providing options was rated as the third or fourth lowest rated item in all five different areas. And then some other survey findings. We also asked customers to rate online services, the service center and the development assistance center. We asked some of the same questions we asked with plan review and inspection, but not with the same level of detail. So here is just the overrule satisfaction with these three areas. For the online services, 82% of customers gave a rating of three or [11:17:01 AM] better. 72% were satisfied with the development assistance center. 71% with the service center. In the two areas that stood out in all of these areas is how fairly staff treated customers and the technical competence of staff. Then we asked customers how satisfied their understanding is of how dsd is structured and the role that city departments have in the review and permitting process. 29% are either very satisfied or satisfied. 38% dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. And 33% gave a rating of neutral. So this is a quick recap of the results. The highest areas of satisfaction with the plan review process were how well customers understand the process, technical competence of staff and also the customer service provided by staff. The lowest rated areas were the time the process takes to complete and the process being delayed over minor issues. Those were themes in all five different areas that we looked at. The highest rated areas for the inspection division were how well customers understand the process. Once again the technical competence of staff. So that's a real strength of the dsd employees. And then the length of time the process takes to complete. And then a couple of the lowest rated items are the process being delayed over minor issues and staff anticipating obstacles and providing options. And then we also found that most customers are satisfied with how fairly they're being treated and also the technical competence of staff in both the service center and the development assistance center. So does anyone have any questions or comments? >> And mayor, I might state that we have posted the report on our website so it is accessible by yourself as well as residents of Austin. >> Mayor Adler: So those would be the cross tabs of the poll? >> Yes, sir. [11:19:02 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Great. If you would send that link. >> Yes, we certainly will. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. What is -- in the gradings that we have very satisfied I imagine is five, four is satisfied, one is not very unsatisfied, two is unsatisfied. What's three? >> Three is neutral or kind of an average rating. They don't really lean strongly positive or negative. >> Mayor Adler: Do you have the charts you did where -- you've aggregated three, four and five? >> Right. And we did that to be -- >> Mayor Adler: Do you have charts that aggregate four and five and is there a reason you wouldn't look at that? >> What was shown here is just an overview. The report shows charts that look like what you've seen for the citizen satisfaction survey where it shows the ratings for all five different items one at a time. So here it's just summarized. And the reason we lumped two, three, four and fives together is to be consistent with the way dsd has evaluated other surveys I believe is the reason. >> Mayor, you may recall when we developed the success may tricks in August and September of 2015 W talked about using both positive and negative categories. That was in the longer sheet that we had the longer rankings, we talked about the neutral category as well. And I think does that comport with what the city's survey analysis or were those four and fives. >> For the cities we group the fours and fives together and we're doing benchmarking comparisons, important satisfaction ratings. But the report shows how many each one of those different answers -- >> Mayor Adler: I remember the report when you're looking for a positive indication you're looking for fours and fives. >> Right. >> Mayor Adler: When you're looking for a challenge or area that you can improve you're looking at the one as and twos. It's aggregating the three in with the four and five, the neutral. You could have put the neutral in with the ones and twos, because you're [11:21:02 AM] right, it's a neutral area. >> You may recall that we had developed a goal of 90%, and that 90% was aggregating those neutrals as well. So also within council's information packet, that binded packet, you have a summary of the questions that we talked about in the success metrics, what those scores across those metrics were. Also, even though it's not a fair comparison because he didn't do a scientific polling. We did put in the 2015 results of his scoring using those neutral categories as well. So that way council can have a comparison both at 2015 analysis and then where we compared with at 90% goal. But there again that 90% goal was using positive and neutral. >> Mayor Adler: I think those are all good ways of looking at it. Can you give us what these charts would be just aggregating four and five and one and two and leaving the neutrals out just to see what indications they give? If we could get that that would be really helpful. >> I believe we can do that analysis. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Alter? >> When you opened you said you would be using this to compare us to other cities. Can you speak a little bit to that? Because anecdotally I'm still hearing a lot of concerns. My family ourselves had an inspector, you know, tell us they were coming between 7:00 and whatever, 2:00 on Friday, and not show up. And so I think there's still a lot of issues and I'm curious to compare this with other cities. >> Sure. And I'm sorry about that experience. So we did do some cities that -- we looked at cities and etc does a survey for. And the difficulty with comparing those cities is they don't have the same process that we do. So Austin's unique in that we have a site plan process that other cities don't. And so when you try to benchmark you're going to get some differences [11:23:02 AM] in that comparison. But we did try to reach out to similar size cities that etc institute does in terms of their survey. I think Las Vegas comes to mind as one of the cities. >> Right. We did the same -- similar type of survey this year for Dallas and Las Vegas. So we did try to draw some benchmarking comparisons, but it's not a perfect one because of the way the organizations are set up. It's really very different. We do have some -- somewhat benchmarking comparisons we can make. >> But isn't that presumably what we're trying to understand is how we can organize our system better and so, you know, understanding what's going on in these other cities and if they're doing it better? (Alter). >> We do want to organize our system better. The difficulty is is that their codes are completely different in the way that they operate. Or they have fewer departments that are charged with enforcing the code regulations. We have a multitude of departments that do that. And so we rely on the partner departments. So the scoring you see also here, next time we do the survey we're likely going to also poll about the partner departments as well and gain the aspect of customer service from the work that they do as well. Since all of that is integrated into the development process. But you're absolutely right, we do want to improve the entire process, recognizing that we are unique and that we have a site plan process like no other city. >> Mayor Adler: I have a quick question about the methodology. The respondents you were hoping to get a pool of 400 and you ended up with significantly greater. >> Right. >> Mayor Adler: How did you identify the pool? >> Dsd sent us a list of customers who have contacted the city, worked with the city in the past couple of years. So we sent emails to all of those customers. And there was about 7,000 on the list, so it was a big group. [11:25:03 AM] And we certainly expected to reach 400, but with business surveys the response rate is almost always lower than what we see from a citizens survey. It's been a couple of years. In some cases we weren't sure if exactly all the emails were good. And a few bounced back, but most of them were really good. So we definitely got a better response than what we were hope willing for. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. -- Hoping for. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So when you have a pool like that and you invite everyone to participate and then you count the votes of everyone who participates, do you get a bias for self selection as opposed to picking random a group out of the universe and then just going after that smaller group? Is there a self- selection bias in the poll when you open it to everyone? >> You know, I don't think there is because we did survey every single person. What would be a bias would be if like, for example, for the city survey if we allowed just everyone to fill it out, but didn't give everyone an equal opportunity. Everyone got the same email. Whereas if we put a survey say online and every resident would come fill it out, then not every resident would do it or have the same opportunity to do it. So we followed the same opportunity for every customer. >> Mayor Adler: So you have 7,000 people -- I'll then move on to something else. You had 7,000 people and 1100 reply. So you have 15% of the universe that has responded. >> Right. >> Mayor Adler: And it could be that the people who are the most angry are the ones that are most inclined to respond or it could be the ones that are happiest toy since you didn't hear from 85% of the people. I just wonder from a methodology standpoint if you were to say randomly, I'm going to randomly pick a smaller universe and stay with [11:27:03 AM] that, then you would know that it wasn't necessarily happy people or sad people or there wouldn't be a hidden bias in that because when you had done the poll you had allowed for that by limiting the pool that you pulled. >> I was going to say slide number 4 might also help with regard to the representation of the folks that did fill in the survey. So if we could go to that slide. Which of the following best describes you? And you know, we had 28% contractors, 26% citizens and 16% developers and six percent applicants. And I think that's probably in keeping with the amount of customers that we have almost a parallel of the customers that we serve. So I think in terms of bias I certainly feel that the citywide survey because it is filled out by everyone regardless of whether or not you've done service with us in the last few years is more biased against us or people who haven't used that service. And this one is more specific for individuals who have used the service in the last three years. You know, the difficulty, though, is that a lot of the improvements we've made haven't been in the last few years. Like review times we recently went from calendar days to business days. A lot of the resources we requested we didn't get those until about March of 2016. So if there's a bias it's that we've asked for people to comment on services in the last few years, but we've not had an opportunity to improve our services in the last few years. But I think the representation that you see here is indicative of the customers that we serve. >> Mayor Adler: And finally, I want to make the comment that I think you're doing an incredible job. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: There's a lot of work that's happening and I think you really are targeting and being responsive to the comments that we're hearing in the community. I'm excited that we'll have this tool because I think it serves as a base. And so long as the methodology is followed, [11:29:05 AM] it will be the trends as much as the absolute numbers so you can read the poll differently as it moves forward. But I just want to commend you and your staff on the work that you're doing. >> Thank you. And councilmember alter, I do want to say that one application we're looking at is mobile application for inspectors such that you're not guessing where they're at, but you can actually see in a realtime basis how soon they're going to be at your residence for that inspection. So that way you don't have to guess. And technology is available such that you can get notification to where you don't have to leave your workplace up until the time that you actually need to be served. We're looking at that technology as well. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: Mr. Mayor, thank you for asking for the cross tabs. I was going to ask for that as well. And Rodney, just to clarify, this slide is an accurate representation of the percentage of users of the department? >> Based on my anecdotal look at the customers that contact us and frequent us, it does seem representative. We haven't done an analysis of that customer database per se, but we certainly could, but looking at this, you know, not too many realtors do business with us directly. We get more of the applicant. Certainly a lot of license design professionals. We get a lot of architects that come through our doors, developers for sure. Contractors you will see a lot of that because we do a lot of permits for electrical and plumbing and mechanical. And citizens as well because a lot of them do their own permit applications. >> Flannigan: Okay. So the difference between citizen and developer owner is the name under which they apply. >> Yes. >> Flannigan: And this question 35 is a self-description so people responded to the survey, described themselves in this way? >> Yes, right. >> Flannigan: Is there any analysis to see if I was a developer I would also consider myself a citizen? So I don't know how maybe specific it was -- the instructions were on how to answer this question, but I would love to see even a rough [11:31:07 AM] analysis of how this lines up to the actual usage of the services. >> Sure. And what we would have to find out is when we get those applications -- I'm not sure if we do, if we ask individuals to self-identify themselves in the application. Because that would be the key for us to do that analysis. And if we don't then we can't and we have to rely on the anecdotal information that we have. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Ms. Houston. >> Houston: First of all, thank you for all the work that you've done the last several years to get this up and running. Muchcleaner, much -- much clean E much more customer friendly. I don't get near as many calls as I used to. But I also want to thank you for the Texas state university expired permits and working with our permits on slide six. That's Killin my community because we don't have enough inspectors who are able to go out in a timely manner to stop that. So you all produce some information so perhaps we can have a policy discussion at some point about what are the alternatives are there for us to stop that kind of rogue development on demolitions in certain communities. >> Yes, ma'am, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Pool: Mayor? On the permits -- and thanks, councilmember Houston, for bringing up all kinds of issues that I'm interested in today too. When a permit expires, do we send any kind of innovation to the permit holder to advise that any -- what the consequences would be for continuing on with an expired permit? >> You bring up a really good point because we don't. And that's part of what we're looking at is what minimize the number of expired permits that get transacted on a routine basis. But that's what Texas state is looking at is how best we can handle the expired permits program. What are the resources that we need such that we can handle it efficiently. [11:33:07 AM] Because it doesn't work in anyone's favor to allow an expired permit to be out there. From a resident perspective, you know, they have something that they need to get done, they come in for a permit, only to find there's an expired permit at their residence. And so of course it creates more frustration, it creates frustration on the customer's end and so we want to resolve that and be more proactive. We'll let Texas state of course do their analysis and come up with some best practice recommendations for us. Included in that is how to be more proactive. >> Pool: That's great. I'll be watching for that too. I think that's something that would be really important to fix and could have some really positive results. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Thank you very much. So those two things, the link to the cross-tabs and then the analysis keying on the three and four. >> Yes, council. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Good morning, council. I'm Kim la Varas,. Today we have the results of the 2016 community survey. Fortunately we were able to kind of kill two birds with one stone this morning with Jason. Like has been mentioned before, we've been working with etc since 2005 to complete this community survey so we've been able to develop quite a bit of information from a community perspective. So we also for the last two years now we've been able to provide this information from a council district [11:35:07 AM] perspective. So what we'll do here today is provide an overall review of the results of the survey. Jason will provide that information and then I will follow up with some next steps and any questions that y'all may have. >> Great. Thank you. I won't introduce myself and etc again so we'll just jump right in. >> Mayor Adler: Actually, in case someone comes back to the tape for this subject why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Sure. Sorry about that. My name is Jason murado, I'm a senior project manager at etc institute. And etc is a marketing research firm based in the Kansas City area. And the thing that we specialize in is doing community surveys for city and county governments all across the country. And we've been around for over 30 years. And in the last 10 years alone we've done surveys in over 850 cities and 49 states and that includes a lot of work all throughout the state of Texas. Some of our long time Texas clients include the city of Dallas, fort Worth, San Antonio, Plano, Round Rock. So this is really the type of work that we specialize in. So today I'll go over the findings for the 2016 community survey for the city of Austin. We first did this in 2009 and we've done it every year since then. And we've done a lot of other surveys for the city of Austin as well. We just last year for the first time did the developer survey. We've done a communication survey every year for the past four, five years for the city. We did a comprehensive planning survey about seven years ago. And we also did an aquatics survey for the parks and recreation department a handful of years ago. So we're definitely very, very familiar with the city of Austin. So today I'll go through the purpose and methodology of the 2016 community survey. The bottom line upfront is our main conclusions [11:37:07 AM] from the survey. Then I'll go through some of the major survey findings to show how we came to those conclusions and I'll be happy to answer any questions that come up as well. So there are several things we hope to accomplish with this type of survey. One is to objectively access how satisfied citizens are with city services and to help the city set budget priorities. Also we're able to make sure trends going back to 2010, we've asked a lot of the same questions on the survey since then. And also we're able to compare Austin's performance with other large cities across the U.S., which we'll look at that in more detail in a little bit. So this was the five-page survey, which is very similar in link to the other years we've done the survey. It included a lot of the same questions going back to 2010. The survey was administered by a combination of mail, online and phone to randomly selected households all throughout the city. The survey was available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, mandarin. Our sample included households with traditional landlines and also with cell phones. And on average the survey takes residents about 15, maybe at the most 20 minutes to complete. Our goal is to get at least 2,000 completed surveys overall, including at least 200 from each of these 10 city council districts. And we accomplished those goals, wednesdayed up with a total of about 2100 completed surveys. And we had more than 200 in each of the 10 city council districts. Now, the results of the 2100 completed surveys at the 95% level of confidence has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1%. So if we did the survey 100 times, 95 times the results would be plus or minus 2.1% from what we're reporting. So the results aren't perfect, but really it has a very small margin of error. One thing we always do while administering our community surveys is we check the demographics [11:39:08 AM] to make sure that they match up reasonably well with the actual demographics of the city. So we did that here also. Here is the break down of household income for survey respondents. We had a very good representation of different household income levels. We had a very good representation by race. The blue are the results for the 2016 survey. The red is the data from the U.S. Census so you can see they match up very, very closely. We had a very good representation by hispanic ancestry on the survey. 36% of survey respondents were hispanic according to the U.S. Census the number is 35%. >> Pool: Mayor, could I ask a quick question? Since hispanic is not broken out in the bar graph, it's part of caucasian/white or other? >> Most of the others are hispanic. We break it out like this because this is how it's asked in the U.S. Census. So for this question hispanics often pick "Other" or sometimes they pick "White." If it is one of them they closely identify with. >> Pool: Is there a reason it's not identified with the blue and red bars? >> Just because it was asked as a different did she on the survey. We could have put this data into this -- yeah. >> Pool: Just a little confusing at first. It seemed like it was missing and then I saw it on the next page. >> Sure. We could have put it in there, but we just showed this how it was asked on the survey. >> Garza: Wasn't it because hispanics is not a race, right? >> It's an ethnicity. >> Garza: It's often an issue with identifying because people sometimes don't identify as white or other when it comes to race. >> Right. Exactly. And here a good [11:41:09 AM] representation by age of respondent. A good mix of those of under age 35, which is a hard age to reach. And a good response from each household age group above that. Good representation by gender. We always try to get close to 50/50. Here we had 49% male, 51% female so a good genderwise. And we also had a really good geographic representation of the survey respondents. Now, our main goal is to get at least 200 surveys from each of the 10 city council districts. We also took a look at the density of survey respondents. So you can see we have three maps here. The map on the left shows the population density of Austin according to the U.S. Census. So the darker green that it gets the more densely populated the other. That map in the middle shows the population density of the city overlaid with the survey responses. So the dots are households that completed the survey. You see they are mainly bunched up in the most populated parts of the city. And then the map to the far right, now we've overlaid the population density of the city with the population density of the survey responses. And they match up very, very closely. So we had a really, really good response based on geographic location. So here's our main conclusions from the survey. The city of Austin continues to get great ratings as a place to live and as a place to work much. The city rates significantly above the national benchmarking in both of these areas, which has been the case every year we've done this survey. Now, overall the satisfaction ratings are down this year from previous years, which isn't a huge surprise because that's a trend we've seen all across the country in 2016. About 80% of the places where we did surveys in 2016 saw a decrease in satisfaction, which is very, very unusual. Part of it we think has [11:43:09 AM] to do with concerns about the economy and about public safety. Public safety especially has been in the media a lot over the past year. But a lot of it we think has to do with concerns about the presidential election and all of the negativity surrounding that. The ratings were down all year in 2016 but they got lower and lower as we got on closer and closer to the presidential election. And this survey was September and October, so it was right when the election was about to take place. We surveyed a few other large cities at about that same time. The city of Las Vegas, the city of Durham, Durham county, north Carolina, and they all had a big decrease in satisfaction, which is the first time that happened to any of those cities in the last several years so this is definitely a trend we saw all across the country over this past year. The good news is that although the ratings are down in 2016, overall the city of Austin still ranks very, very well compared to other large U.S. Cities across the U.S. We'll look at that in more detail in a little bit. But the area that especially stands out is customer service. And the reason I say that is the overall satisfaction with the customer service for the city of Austin rated 22 percent above the national average for other U.S. Cities across the U.S. We'll look at that in more detail in a bit as well. We also looked at opportunities for improvement that will have the most positive impact for overall satisfaction in the next year are traffic flow on major highways and major city streets, maintenance of major city streets, quality of planning and zoning services, and then the quality of public safety services. So the first area we'll look at is general perceptions residents have of the city. So here we asked residents to rank their perception of the city. This is asked on a five-point scale. So five is very satisfied, which is the dark blue. Satisfied is the lighter blue, three is neutral, [11:45:09 AM] which is the light. And satisfied and very design professionals satisfied is the one and two, which is the pink. So here you can see the city scored very high as a place to live. 80%are satisfied with the city as a place to live compared with only 10% who are dissatisfied. And also the city scored high as a place to work. 76% are surveyed compared to only eight percent dissatisfied. And also the city scored pretty high in the overall quality of the city again, 70% satisfied compared with 12% stayed. Obviously the area that stands out here as a big concern is how well the city is planning growth. We have 13% satisfied versus 68% dissatisfied. So this chart is for major categories of city services. Later on we ask residents to rank more specific areas in the categories. So this is really asked more at the departmental level. This is often that same five-point scale. So there are five services where more than 70% of residents are satisfied and 10% are less are dissatisfied. So if you start at the top, the airport was the highest rated item overall, followed by parks and recreation, drinking water, public safety, and city libraries all had a very good ratio of positive to negative ratings. Obviously the areas that stand out as having high negative or high dissatisfaction ratings are traffic flow on major highways and traffic flow on major city streets. >> Pool: Of course we don't have any authority on the major highways. They are state and federal. >> Yeah. And that's true. And these are just residents' general perceptions. They don't always make those distinctions. >> Pool: That's true, they do think that we have some oversight. >> So one of the changes we made to the survey questions this year was to break it out to more [11:47:11 AM] specific street types. Before it was just satisfaction with traffic flow. But we wanted to be able to break that apart with regard to major highways or highways and major city streets. So we were able to provide specific examples of what are though major highways or what are the major streets to be able to better guide the residents in kind of understanding what the question is really trying to understand and then it allows us to do better analysis and utilization of that data long-term. >> Pool: And then we can share it with the Travis county delegation. >> Absolutely, yes. >> Pool: Okay, great. >> Then we asked residents if employees of the city are ethical in the way they conduct business? So 50% -- 56% either strong agree or agree compared to 15% who strongly disagree or disagree. So you have almost a four to one ratio of residents who agree versus disagree that city employees are ethical in the way they conduct business. Then you've got 28% who gave a rating of neutral. So now we'll take a look at a map. And we found that overall the satisfaction with city services is generally the same throughout the city. So this is a gis map. And what we did here is we broke the results down by council district. So we took the average rating for residents within each council district and then shaded that district the appropriate color. Now, we did this type of map for every question on the survey that we asked on a five-point scale, so the report has almost 100 of these maps. As for all different types of questions. This one is based on the overall quality of city services. So the entire map is neutral, the same color. You would like for it to be satisfied, some of it to be satisfied, but the good thing here is that the entire map is the same color, which means the city is doing a really good job of providing services to all different districts. A lot of times what you will see is you will see certain areas that break [11:49:11 AM] out where residents are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, so the ratings can always be better, but the good thing is the city is providing services equally in all different parts of the city. >> Pool: So how then does that track with -- is it because the question 1, all the high negative out weighs the high positives so it makes it neutral? Is that what has happened here. I don't understand how we can be middle of the road across the city if we have strong positives and negatives. Maybe that's why. >> Sure. This one is based on overall quality of services provided by the city. So if you go back it's -- so on this chart here it's that fifth one down, overall quality of services. >> Pool: Oh. Okay. Sure enough that does look pretty even all the way across the board. >> Yeah. You will see in a little bit for a large U.S. City you will see here 47% are satisfied with the overall quality of city services. The actual average for large U.S. Cities is 45% so that's still a little above the national average. So we'll also take a look at some benchmarking comparisons to see how the city stacks up against other large U.S. Cities across the U.S. And overall the city of Austin rates much higher in a lot of different areas compared to other large U.S. Cities. So here's some of the cities with the population greater than 250,000 residents that etc has in our database. So here are comparisons for perceptions of the city. The blue line are satisfaction ratings for the city of Austin. The green line are satisfaction ratings for residents in large U.S. Cities across the U.S. With a population of over 250,000 residents. So in six out of the [11:51:12 AM] seven areas, the city of Austin is above the national average. Three areas the city is at least five percent above the national average, which are the items that have the blue arrow, so significantly above the national average. So if you start the top, the city is a place to live, the city as a place to work. And also the overall quality of life in the city, are all areas where the city of Austin is significantly above the national average. And then Austin is a little above the national average in the city as a place to raise children. Overall quality of services provided by the city, which is the one we just looked at. And then overall value received for city taxes. The only area that rates below is how well the city's planning growth. But the city of Austin has been such a fast-growing city for so long that it's not a huge surprise that that's an area that rates lower compared to bigger cities that really just aren't growing very fast. Here are comparisons for major service services. Here is where the city is above the national average. Parks and recreation, 11% above the national average. Public safety is five percent above. And then drinking water, libraries, wastewater and animal services are all between one and four percent above the national average. Then there are a couple that rate below. Storm water runoff and then traffic flow on major city streets. Here are the comparisons for feeling of safety. Austin is on par with other cities with how safe residents feel during the day. Really most people feel safe in their neighborhood during the day. But the one that stands out is how safe residents feel in their neighborhood at night. 70% of Austin residents feel safe in their neighborhood at night. The average for large U.S. Cities is 49%. So Austin residents feel far more safe at night than residents in other large U.S. Cities overall. Here are the comparisons for public safety. There are three areas that are either 12 or [11:53:13 AM] 13% above the national everything. Medical assistance provided by E.M.S. The overall quality of police services. Then the speed of emergency police response. And you will see there are no areas at all that are significantly below the national average. For transportation the area that really stands out here is the condition of neighborhood streets. 58% satisfaction rating for the city, which is 22% above the national average. Now, major city streets rates a little bit below the national average. And then neighborhood sidewalks rates a little bit above. For residential and neighborhood services here there's three areas where Austin is significantly above the national average. Garbage collection, curb side recycling, 12% above the national average. Then the overall cleanliness of city streets and public areas. And again here we have no areas that are significantly low. In fact, no areas that are below at all. Parks and recreation services, some are above and some are a little below the national average, but there are three that are significantly above. The appearance of park grounds, the number of walking and biking trails. And then the overall satisfaction with city swimming pools is 14% above the national average. And this is one of the real standout areas for the city. Customer service provided by city employees. For the city of Austin, 58% are satisfied with the overall customer service from city employees, which you can see is 22% above the national average for other large U.S. Cities. So this is an area where the city is really, really doing a great job. Sew we also did a little bit of benchmarking with communities with a population of greater than 500,000 residents. There's not a lot of cities that fall into that group so our benchmarking data is more limited. What we do have is very, very good for the city. [11:55:15 AM] There's eight areas where the city of Austin is at least 10% above the national average. And this is for major categories of city services. So again, this is really asking really the more departmental level. Fire services, emergency medical, parks and recreation, police, libraries. 19% above the national average. Condition of neighborhood streets. Customer service is 23% above the national average for very large cities with a population of over 500,000 residents. And then code enforcement also. And a am couple of areas that are at least 10% below the national average, conditions of major city streets and then traffic flow on major city streets. So overall the satisfaction ratings have decreased since 2010. Now, in 2016 that is a trend we saw all across the country, especially considering the timing of the survey, which is right before the election. So here are some trends comparing 2016, 2015 and then the average from 2010 to 2014. The one area that's had the biggest decrease is how well the city has been planning growth. You can see that's decreased really kind of steadily since 2010. As I'm sure you know the city of Austin has been one of the fastest growing cities in the entire country since then, which is just part of the issue that the city has to deal with that other cities just don't. Here are comparisons for major categories of city services. In of these areas the results haven't changed that much. The three at the bottom have had a big decrease since 2010. Municipal court services, management of storm water runoff and overall effectiveness of communication. And here are comparisons for public safety. Here we haven't seen any changes for short-term or long-term and this is [11:57:15 AM] a great sign because this is an area that definitely saw a decrease overall in satisfaction across the country in 2016 in particular. Really over the past couple of years, so maintaining where this was in 2010 is really a good sign. So we also took a look at some opportunities for improvement. This is the important satisfaction analysis. And this is a tool that was created by etc over 20 years ago. And it's a great way to help cities and counties set priorities. So this analysis is based on two questions on the survey. First we asked residents how satisfied they are with the city services. And then the follow-up question is which of these services are the most important for the city to emphasize for the next couple of years. So the idea here is that if you want to maximize overall citizen satisfaction, then you want to focus on those areas that have that combination of a low satisfaction rating, but also a high importance. So this one is for major categories of city services. The top priority overall is traffic flow on major highways. Residents rate that as the most important area to emphasize and it ranked last out of these 18 items in satisfaction. The second highest overall priority is traffic flow on major city streets. Residents rated that as the second most important item from this list of 18 and it ranks second to last in satisfaction. So those are clearly the top two priorities. There's a bit of a there's three other priorities that rate pretty closely together that are high maintenance priorities, maintenance -- public safety services we also have this type of analysis for specific areas. This one is for transportation. Here there's two items that stood out as high priorities, very high priorities. Condition of major city streets in a time we have traffic signals on city streets. [11:59:17 AM] For public safety, the overall satisfaction with public safety is pretty high, so nothing fell into the very high priority category, but there's a couple that are high priorities, overall quality of police services, then the speed of emergency police response. For environmental services flood control efforts stood out as the top priority. Then everything else on the list was rated pretty closely together. For recreation and cultural serbss, the one that stood out was safety in city parks. After that there's several items that rated close together but there's a gap between those, safety expo city parks and park facilities. And then for residential neighborhood services, top two priorities here are code enforcement of weed lots and abandoned vehicles and graffiti and then the safety of drinking water. So then just a quick recap. We saw the city of Austin continues to get great ratings as a place to live and as a place to work and also the overall quality of life. Those three areas all rated significantly above the national average. And we did see the satisfaction ratings have decreased this yeah, which is a trend we've seen all across the country. The good news is that as we saw in the benchmark comparisons, in a lot of areas the city of Austin still rates significantly above the national average. In fact the only areas that it really rates significantly below related to traffic flow, maintenance of streets, then stormwater, and there are a number of that are rated far above, especially customer service. Top areas for improvement that will have the greatest overall satisfaction is traffic flow on major highways and major city streets, maintenance of major city streets, quality of planning and zoning services, and then quality of public [12:01:18 PM] safety services. >> Now that Jason has had an opportunity to review all the results with you, I wanted to take just a brief moment to speak about what our next steps, how we're gonna use this information, and also just highlight in a little bit greater detail a few specific topics from the survey. But I do also want to point out the value of the survey. We -- again, we've been doing it for a number of years which allows us a great amount of information to provide trending analysis, as well as the geographic aspects, but we also are able to use this information as we go into the budget development process and use it as one of the menu engagement overall. So the city of Austin is absolutely dedicated to continuous learning and improvement throughout the organization, and my group with office performance management, we're leading those efforts -- or to support those efforts around the organization. I wanted to point out we'll definitely be analyzing these results not only in general but with regard to the recently discussed strategic outcomes that came from your strategic planning workshop last month. We're also looking to implement a variety of mechanisms to use this in combination with other data points for organizational improvement opportunities and then we'll also be working one on one with the departments to further analyze the results to determine ways that we can make adjustments and services and priests. Like I mentioned we have the trending capabilities and we're also doing significant geospatial analysis so we can overlay that information with other information, other factors that may be contributing to these particular survey results. When it comes to the transportation projects, we had conversations with transportation department and we just wanted to point out something we all know, we know the traffic continues to be a major challenge. But we also want to point out that that is a symptom of Austin's growing economic activity and a large number of [12:03:18 PM] regional projects that are impacting traffic flow, for example, all of the construction on mopac. So while traffic flow on major highways, major city streets was absolutely identified as one of the most important priorities to our residents we're also -- we have a number of initiatives underway right now to help address those issues. Mr. Spillar and the transportation department is absolutely committed to addressing the regional mobility issues in partnership with surrounding he is not. You're very much aware of the $720 million transportation bond that was recently approved that is going to target various areas and with that geospatial analysis we've been able to take a look at what are other kind of responses we're seeing throughout the community in regard to where we're gonna be focusing large amounts of those bond dollars. Transportation department is also looking at opportunities to use smart cities and smart technologies to help prioritize areas for improvement. But, again, we will be working with them hand in hand to further analyze this data to help see what we're experiencing with unique traffic issues. From the communications standpoint, the resident perception was that overall effectiveness of communication by the city declined this year. What wassing there and Jason pointed this out, the timing of the survey absolutely has an impact on the results. The communications and public information office conducts its own annual survey as well to dig deeper into various aspects of their communications efforts, and the survey -- their survey was completed many months prior to the overall survey. And you saw a very different response. So in the survey they conducted there was a 48% positive versus the 34% positive in the overall community survey. So, again, that could be reflective of the overall tone of just everything that was leading up to the elections. But we'll be working with ctio [12:05:19 PM] to help evaluate those finds and find different options to improve those numbers. We can aggregate and analyze all the narrative responses to identify gaps so as part of the survey it does give residents an opportunity to give an open-ended statement to us about things that they would want us to work on or are important to them. So we're digging through that information to see if there's any trends there. We're also looking at analyzing satisfaction with communications with regard to other factors, such as was there a concentration of capital projects occurring in a particular area? Are there zoning cases that are taking place? So see what relationships might exist. And then we're also looking at the possibility of focus groups. We do give opportunity to residents taking the survey to provide their contact information if they're willing to participate in a focus group later so we're looking at that as an option to help further look at what's going on with the communications aspect. And to end on a positive note, the customer service, we continually outrank the national benchmark for satisfaction with customer service, and in conversations with Dr. Washington and H.R. We firmly believe that is due in large part to not only just the great work that our employees are doing on a regular basis but also the service with pride initiative. So the service with pride customer service training launched with a pilot in 2015 and the city-wide roll out began in 2016. The purpose of the training has four points. First for all the employees to truly understand what is that customer journey from start to finish, to help employees understand roles and responsibility when they're impacting with customers as well as coworkers. And providing employees with the tools necessary to address [12:07:21 PM] those -- identify and address breaks in customer service delivery and, finally, striving to make each interaction that we have with a customer or coworker a really -- a wonderful experience overall. And that we are able to empathize with whatever their situation maybe. So this point, 20 departments throughout the organization have completed the training. We have eight more departments underway, and then finally seven left to schedule. So we've made significant progress there. We value the customer service that we provide to all of our citizens. We always have and always will and the service with pride initiative absolutely demonstrates that. So if there's any questions you may have, please go ahead. >> Thank you. That was really helpful information. I appreciate it. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to get us what you can broken down by district? >> So I forgot to mention that we do -- so we posted as backup with the agenda when it was posted the presentation as well as the report. We also have it posted on Austin finance online. There's kind of an overall summary of the report that's pretty lengthy but there's also over 600 pages of cross-tabbed analysis so you can have just a blast digging through all of that. I know I do. >> Alter: Thank you. I'm sorry. >> No. That's fine. >> I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -- [ laughter ] >> Flannigan: This is really fascinating information and I pulled up the background with all the maps so all of these questions laid out by district. I was really struck by how many of the questions showed so much uniformity of response. And in fact when you go [12:09:22 PM] through almost a hundred maps, I think maybe more, there was only one that had more than one level difference across the whole city. It was about feeling safe in your neighborhood at night. Do you find that is typical with this type of sphere, where because of math, be it because of just the trend to the mean that you generally don't see disparity in this type of analysis? >> It depends on what detail we break that down into. Some places -- and we wouldn't do it for a city this big but sometimes we'll do it by consensus block group, small levels of detail. Then you'll see more differences but thin some people become concerned because the results are statistically involved. But it still doesn't usually turn out quite like this where it's so equal in all different districts on so many different questions. So that really does mean the city is doing a great job providing services very equally all throughout the city. >> I would say that it's a consistent job. I don't know that great is necessarily the conclusion, but more consistent might be the conclusion. >> Right. >> Flannigan: Also. I hope all of us have a chance to run through these maps like I've done while sitting here. Some of the questions I think have significantly different implications in different districts. For my district in far northwest Austin I have a lot of people that are not underaustin energy so questions about Austin energy may not be relevant to those folks or questions about the quality of park services or recreation services. Many sections are served by private hoa parks where the city is not involved in providing those services and they're pretty amazing, spectacular facilities that maybe the city is getting extra credit for that maybe we [12:11:26 PM] don't deserve or are you satisfied with 311. We're moving people who have never called from 311 from that analysis and does that make the question less statistically significant? >> Towards the end we ask a whole question about utilization of city services so we can do that analysis. For instance have you visited an Austin city park, rec center, called 311, 911, had contact with the municipal court, application so on. We want to be able to judge the overall perception but also break it down between those that have had direct contact or use of those services versus those that haven't. >> Flannigan: I think in general it's gonna be a challenge. I mean, this is really interesting and fascinating information but it's also measuring people's satisfaction to their expectations. And I would suggest that certainly in some infrastructure examples my district, which has a lot more recently constructed infrastructure, may have a hire level of expectation, so the same street in my district compared to another district you might find different levels of satisfaction. Because my folks expect better streets or other parts of town might have become accustomed to worse streets. That's not necessarily a measure of equity of infrastructure when measuring satisfaction and I think comparing this to more consistent measurements of quality are gonna be very important for us if we try to use this data to make decisions or when we start integrating this as possible metrics or indicators in the strategic outcomes. >> The geospatial analysis we're able to do hinted that to a certain depreciation where we can compare the response overview lay with the overlay of street condition and also just different prongs that are going on. So can we get exactly a one to one of expectations versus satisfaction? Not entirely but we can get -- we can start poking at it to a [12:13:28 PM] certain degree. >> I think it's pretty remarkable that citywide, given the pressures that we all feel from being such a fast growing city for so long, that the general overview is not, frankly, more negative. We highlighted transportation last year and culminating with that big bond proposal so it makes sense to me that not only were people sensitized to that fact but they knew that we were hoping to do something significant about it. And that the future still holds that promise and our staff is working hard to build the foundation so that we can deliver on that promise for everybody. But I just -- having lived in this town for 36 years and knowing what it was like when it was a little sleepier and seeing the evolution of the city, I think it really -- and with the massive influx of new people who come here, we don't know from your survey how long they've lived in town? Which would be interesting. Another interesting cross-tan would be how long have you called Austin home. >> Right. >> Pool: To see what the difference of opinions are there. But I just think it's pretty remarkable that by and large this tells us with such comprehensive and even application of -- I mean, you brought in everybody, it looks like. That's pretty impressive. That they come out of it saying, yeah the city is maybe not perfect but we recognize that there's always room for improvement and it feels like they support us in doing that improvement. And then the last thing I'd say is I do think that having individual districts reacting and responding to constituent inquiries has made a huge difference in the lives of a lot of folks, especially in [12:15:28 PM] maybe the more far flung parts of the city who two years ago or three years ago, back in 2014, were saying we don't see our voice reflected in policies at the city like maybe central Austin does. I don't -- and so looking at that and we're out there answering the questions about the way they're dig up the streets or a utility box being put in the middle of a yard instead of at the edge, you know, I mean, we get all kinds of inquiries and we respond to them really rapidly, and I know from talking to previous councilmembers it wasn't necessarily the case with the entire city under everybody, there wasn't really except for maybe an issue that seemed to define where councilmembers put their time. You were identified more by an issue that you were carrying like the waller creek tunnel, for example, as opposed to anything and everything that might happen in a discreet part of the city that is now the district. So I think that this also reflects really well on our abilities to listen to our constituents and respond back to them. I wouldn't want it to be perfect because I don't think we can ever actually get there but we're striving toward that, and I feel a lot of good optimism coming out of this survey, and it also gives us some finer focus on those areas that will have the larger impact when we do address them in a bigger way. So thank you. Thank you so much. This is really interesting stuff. >> Mayor Adler: So the report appears to be real exhaustive. I look forward to being able to work my way through it too. I'm concerned looking at reports to evaluate the information based on who it is that's responding in proportions. And you trued up the poll in looking at the demographics of who is responding versus the city, and there were a couple of them I couldn't tell match [12:17:29 PM] up, one bass the household income, you had to charter the people in the poll but I don't know what the chart is in the city, and I notice the respondents, 75% of them owned their homes and only 25% of them rented their homes and we know that the actual rental population is a little bit more than the homeownership. So that may have skewed some of the results if we're just looking at, you know -- looking at an individual answer. So I look forward to being able to take a look at the cross-tabs to see if there's a difference between homeownership P.M. I don't know if you looked at that one in particular. >> You know, these surveys always skew more towards owners than they do renters. And you probably want it that way at least a little bit because renters maybe haven't lived here very long and don't intend to live here very long whereas homeowners are more invested so you'll get -- you know, the renter is always a little underrepresented but that's why that cross-tab is useful, to see what the differences are, if there are any. Some questions there's not many differences but sometimes there are. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I have a couple of questions. First off, this is very helpful, and I, you know, echo the comments that my colleagues have made. I have some drill-down kinds of questions. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: First off, I think it would be very helpful to highlight the differences by parts of the city. One of them that you mentioned, councilmember Flannigan, was where people feel safe. I think it's helpful for us to understand the parts of the city where we may need to do some more work. Because it just helps us focus and understand where we might need to target some resources. So I'm sure that this tool will be used by our equity office, for example, to do [12:19:29 PM] that kind of drill down. It sounds to me from what you're saying you've got the information. So I think it would be helpful for us if y'all could -- and I apologize if you already have a slide or two that's in the backup, but I would like to see a slide or two that says here are the places where there's -- or here are the questions where there's major differences across the city. >> Right. >> Kitchen: That would be very helpful to have so that I don't have to dig through it and create that myself. So -- >> Sure. >> Kitchen: -- Something like that would be good. And then I'm also curious about there was a slide about how we rate as a place to retire. >> Mm-hmm. >> Kitchen: But I didn't see that one benchmarked against other cities. So do we understand how we're benchmarked against other cities for -- it was on page 13. >> Right. >> Kitchen: City of Austin as a place to retire. Was that benchmarked against other cities? >> I don't think we have benchmarking data for that question because it's not one we ask as often as some of the others, yeah. >> Kitchen: Do other cities ask that question? >> Not very often. I mean, not often enough to where we would really have good benchmarking data for that area. >> Kitchen: There's aarp does -- has recently done these -- I'll get the name wrong but the cities are starting to adopt age friendly place and we have adopted one here and so for future reference, that's an item of benchmarking that would be very helpful for us to understand. >> We could provide some comparisons to specific large cities that have asked that we. >> Kitchen: That would be great. >> We don't have enough overall to have -- to include a national benchmarking but there's definitely -- we could do some specific comparisons. >> Kitchen: That would be helpful. >> We could do that. >> Kitchen: My last question was just if the detail is in the backup you can tell me, but if you look on page 10, the maps where you -- where [12:21:30 PM] the population density and survey responses are overlaid, I'm want to go understand it, looks to me if I could read this as -- you know, I represent district 5 so it's south Austin. So it looks to me like south of a certain area there are -- I'm not sure how to read that. Is that less than three responses on the survey? South of the purple in district 5? If you can give this to me later if you didn't. >> I'm not sure if I can see it in this. >> Kitchen: That's all right if you don't know now. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: I guess my larger question is within destruction do we have the backup that shows us the distribution of the responses across district? >> We do have that. >> Kitchen: Okay. If it's in my backup I can look it up. >> I don't know if it's provided in there but we definitely have that information available. >> Kitchen: That would be helpful because I'm a broken record and I apologize to my colleagues but this looks like south of slaughter nobody responded and I'm sure that can't be the case. I hope it's not the case. That's a very active part of my district, and so I'll drill down into the detail. I just make to make sure the detail was there. >> Sure, yeah, we can definitely look into that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Flannigan: I was gonna let this go because the mayor brought it up but I don't think it's fair to say that renters aren't invested in this community. I don't think it's fair to say that renters can be underrepresented because they're not gonna stick around. I'm a renter and I'm a city council member and I'm not going anywhere. Ment majority of the city are renters. Eight of the ten districts have majority renters and only 26% of the survey are renters and it will dramatically change the responses to reference what I said earlier, the -- we're questioned about the quality of park services. In my district especially it's going to be dramatically different if you're a homeowner that has access to [12:23:31 PM] these hoa parks but if you're a renter you have to go five, six, 7 miles to get to the closest city park so it would make a dramatic difference. I don't think it's fair to say that renters -- it's okay to underrepresent a majority of this community. >> Right. >> Flannigan: Or that renters are going to be leaving expanse that's why it's okay to underrepresent them. >> Sure. And I did -- that is a generalization obviously so I shouldn't have said it that way. But that is why we did the cross-tab and asked the question to make sure we can see what differences there are between renters and owners. And in some cases there aren't any but in some cases there definitely are, like you say. >> Houston: And I don't want to get into a discussion about this, but in some districts, what you say is true. I live in a district that has a lot of renters but they're primarily UT students and so they do transition and they turn over and they combo -- start their careers someplace else. But I think you need to be aware that renters do make up more than 50% of the population in the city, but, again, each district is gonna respond to those in a very different way. >> While the vast majority of the demographic makeup of our respondents was pretty solid, we do see some opportunities for improvement, and so the renter versus owner was absolutely one that we want to do whatever we can to improve upon and we also want to dig down to the demographic information on a district level as opposed to the overall city level and see what options we may have there to ensure we're getting to a good mix of folks. >> Mayor Adler: Any idea whether the cpio poll would be -- would differ so much? >> I'm sure? >> Mayor Adler: Any idea why the community poll that was done by the public information office would differ? >> Well, the timing is -- we think the timing was the biggest contributing factor. But, again, we're digging [12:25:33 PM] through all of the comments that folks left and we're looking at different options to be able to speak too that. Also as well as comparing it to other information sources we have like the task force engagement report and sort of those things so we can use all the resources we have. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you. Good work. Thank you. Anything else? Thanks. Council, I don't know before if you want to try to hit -- there were three things that were left on here. We have some things for executive session, and I don't know how long these things would take. It's items 33, 193-0545. To quickly answer the question that you asked with respect to 33, the intent of it I think was twofold. First was to prioritize areas of the city that needed the most attention, prioritizing the eastern crescent of the city, prioritizing middle income jobs. So but it wasn't intended to take anything off the list, but what it meant is that perhaps somebody who was willing to do a service that we liked but it gets located downtown or it gets located in the west part of town might not be the place that would rise as high on the may tricks as something that did that same thing but on the east side of town where those services aren't there. Going back at taking a look at the metrics I think would be really valuable and we have several weeks now for all of us to do that so I'd appreciate that and it's very welcome, I think it's a really good point and for me for one I'm sure the others will go back to the metrics, both with what you said and the mayor pro tem said, I think the points were really well-taken. Yes. >> Tovo: I would add that, you know, some of -- and I appreciate you bringing that I hadn't had a chance to look it up, councilmember Garza, but I thought my memory was correct, some of the things that have been highlighted as [12:27:34 PM] opportunities in the resolution were -- are actually part of the matrix already, like employing hard to employee individuals, giving extra credit for on-site child care and some other things. So I look forward to hearing more about what's the intent here and, again, whether it's -- are you really revamping the program or is it really just adding additional things to the matrix that would give priority to particular geographic areas and particular kinds of jobs. >> Mayor Adler: I think in the conversations I think that we've had with groups that go out and try to recruit companies, maybe we have too many matrix points or it's two or more in fact and they don't feel like they can go to somebody and say we can feel confident that if we were to negotiate and incent a deal with a company that that company would actually get the incentive deal as it goes through the public process. So I'm trying to true that up. So I think the intent is to actually start actively using incentives to drive primarily businesses in the eastern crescent, businesses that are trying to get middle-income jobs, people that train people for those jobs, and I don't -- and so the question was not prescriptive. It went to the staff. So the question was broader than that. What would we do to the matrix or the incentive or otherwise if we were really trying to actively use that tool because we don't use it very much. And either we don't use it very much because it's not a valid tool or they're not opportunities. What I'm hearing sometimes from people is if they had a really focused deal they might be able to use it more. So I'm not real sure. So it's not prescriptive going to staff but what I would love to have happen is a series of [12:29:37 PM] businesses that were coming in here that were being located in the eastern crescent, training people for jobs, bringing in more middle-income jobs so I'm asking you to take a look at how we you do the incentives to try and push us that way. It aligns with the conversation the chamber had with us when they came in here and gave their report a month and a half ago so now I want to -- I want them to go insofar as they're armed to recruit businesses, I want to go get those businesses is what I'm trying to say. >> Tovo: Mayor, I think that's -- again, I think that's a really interesting area to explore. Some of what I've heard in the years since the new policy was adopted is that some of the proficiencies within it for living wage or others are part of why businesses do not want to take advantage of the incentives program yet I would say as councilmember Garza did, the incentives, the revised ordinance and matrix were the process of an extensive, as she pointed out an extensive stakeholder process, a lot of discussions as part of the economic incentives, special here, but also followed several chapter 380 agreements having been negotiated to include those provisions, and so it was time to make that a consistent part of the policy. So I, too, look forward to the discussion but it wasn't -- it was -- you know, if it caused some question marks in my head as others, it's not that I don't think it's interesting and useful to look at how the matrix and the policy might be adopted, might be adapted to further encourage businesses within that geographic area but I would strongly urge we not eliminate provisions a long time in coming and much discussed and vetted det. With regard to engage some of the other community benefits. >> Garza: Mayor, I appreciate [12:31:37 PM] you saying we're gonna postpone and there's gonna be more vetting of this because I think it's important everyone knows -- I think everyone knows the historical concept of the chapter 380s and that there was a big community outcry saying stop giving incentives to companies, stop using taxpayer dollars to incentivize companies. And so this process, it's my understanding, what was done in 2013, set the bar really high and I think that's where we need to keep the bar. If we're gonna give economic incentives they need to bring these community benefits and I wanted everybody to know what is the current economic incentives, and there's a lot of good stuff in here. And nobody has used it because they -- because -- and they moved -- we've had companies that have said, you know, we -- they're gonna take advantage of it and they thought, you know what? That's too much but we're gonna come anyway. So they've come anyway. I think it's a good thing that we, you know -- that we haven't had to use any economic incentives and we're still -- companies are still moving here so I hope -- you know, there is one criteria here, it says the firm is located in the desired development zone. I don't know exactly what that is, and that is a concern and that's where I see this reform could be helpful, in where is that zone and that zone should be more in the eastern crescent if that's where we're wanting to recruit companies to come. But there's a lot of good stuff in here and I'd hate to see that go away like I said. Environmental protections, living wage, safety protections, domestic benefits and, you know, we don't know domestic partner benefits was required through this and we don't know where that supreme court case is going and so I think it's important that we keep as many protections in place as possible. And I hope we keep that bar [12:33:37 PM] really high if we're gonna be revamping and reforming our economics incentives deal. >> Mayor Adler: I think that's part of the policy question at issue. What I heard in that conversation was not that people didn't want us to use incentives for businesses or in essence coinvest with companies map they didn't want us to do was coinvest with companies that were gonna come here any how and they didn't want us to coinvest in companies that were bringing in really high paying jobs because it scored really high on the matrix. I think we do have a need in this city for middle-income jobs and for training people we have who live here for middle-income jobs and I would like to set the job whenever it needs to be set in order to be able to get those kind of jobs. I don't want to set a bar too high and then not get those kinds of jobs. At the same time I don't want to set it too low. We're not attracting those businesses with this tool and that's the question I wanted to give to staff and find where is the appropriate place. Everything on that matrix list I like and those are really valuable things but I want to make sure that we set our bars in a way that actually get us those kinds of jobs and kinds of companies. That's what I'm asking to take a look at. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor, and councilmember Garza, thank you for the matrix. I'm for all of this in the matrix, but the reality is that there are people in my district, and I can only talk about district 1, who are living in poverty because we can't get jobs there, who are trying to take care of their families and they're working three jobs during the week because we cannot get people who have the jobs to put the jobs in the places where the [12:35:38 PM] people who need them are, people who need them are not downtown and they're not in the innovation zone. We're being pushed further east from the southeast to the northeast, and there's got to be some way -- there's got to be some middle ground to see the importance of getting some manufacturing-type jobs into the community where people need them so that they can live, work, and play in their neighborhoods as well. And this was just an attempt to have staff come back, take a look at what's there and come back and talk to us. You know, I hear all the time we've had this in place. Complaints I've got were about large companies that were already rich on their own getting incentives to come here, not to try to get the kinds of jobs that the people are looking for into the places where they need them. So this is only to ask people to take a look at it and come back with some options. It's not to dismantle this, but if this is not working then we do need to look at it because if nobody is accessing it then it's doing nobody any good. The people that -- I know all of us on this council care about, who are needing employment and who are wanting employment as well as the kinds of protections that this affords. So it's got to be a balance somewhere. I mean, I can sit here and say we got to keep to this level and never deviate from it, but that just means that more and more people in my part of town go without meaningful jobs or training and health care benefits and the things that we're all saying we want for people. So this is just an ask. Take a look at it and come back with us with some recommendations. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: I share a lot of folks -- having been a part of the process in the last revamp and I don't restate those but the one thing I do want to emphasize on my part before we get this bring kicked off when the item comes back is that for me, there are certainly some parts of my district and other parts of the and I where I know folks want to see [12:37:38 PM] things located but I would put the primesy on the jobs where people who need them, folks are not interested in in my district a job center there where a lot of people from other parts of town drive to and folks from nearby can't get access to those jobs. So in the hierarchy of things you mentioned, mayor, I think to me it's much more important that disadvantaged community members get the chance to be trained and get into good jobs more than jobs be placed by those disadvantaged community members who then still can't get the jobs. For me the geography is important because people being able to travel a short distance when -- so that's important but for me, it's much more important that people have actual access to the jobs, whether or not the jobs -- budget jobs nearby somebody that folks can't get access to doesn't do us any good. >> Mayor Adler: Did you want to speak, again. >> Garza: I agree with everything councilmember Houston just said. I think we -- but we also need to remember that our economic incentive deal is not going to solve some of our poverty issues. There needs to be investment in workforce development, and I remember representative Rodriguez, this was an issue they were trying to solve with the different pathways to high school degrees, was that they realized at the state level that even if they bring even middle factory type of jobs, there were not the workers to fill those jobs because of workforce development so they had to create those two different -- there's a lot of controversy on the two different paths to a high school diploma now but it was because people aren't even -- even if you bring those jobs they're not ready to fill those jobs. So I think we're all trying to solve the same thing and trying to figure out ways, but also look at this in the context of an economic incentives deal might not [12:39:39 PM] solve our workforce development issues. It's investing in workforce development, which is, you know -- the other ways -- there are other ways to do that, anyway, we're all trying to solve the same thing. >> Mayor Adler: I think shortly we're gonna get the regional workforce development plan and if we had aligned these so that they supported one another that might be actually the way to get the biggest bang on every dollar we spend. Anything else? >> Flannigan: To clarify, mayor, you sid you were pulling this off the agenda. >> Mayor Adler: Not to be considered on Thursday. >> Flannigan: We're not dealing with the item there because there is a larger effort to combine all of these elements into a single list that we can understand the complementing things that we need to be working on as it addresses affordability. >> Mayor Adler: I think the people that are working on that are councilmember troxclair and Ms. Houston. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry? Ms. Kitchen and myself. So I think there's a quorum there. So if people had thoughts or ideas, if you could post them on the board and get them to folks, that would be great. >> Garza: I think you already addressed it, but I would prefer more detail in the resolution that says who is on that stakeholder -- who is part of that stakeholder group, other resolutions will spell out, you know, stakeholders and also more detail on -- I feel like a lot of -- we leave it open because we want staff to but this is policy direction, and so we really need to be really specific on the policy direction that we're asking staff to undertake. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I have a different -- I have a question on the previous side, on the survey and I just want to let my colleagues now about, I'll post it. But that has to do with the -- I didn't see a question related to satisfaction with providing affordable housing. So we had a lot of other things that we discussed, like -- that we asked about, like transportation, other [12:41:40 PM] city services, parks, et cetera, but I didn't see a question about housing so I'm want to go let everyone know that I'll be asking, maybe it's there and it just wasn't in our roll out but I'm gonna be asking staff to -- and maybe you can help me with that, city manager. Can you help me about that to make sure that I ask that question? >> Yes, I'll ask the staff to send that information out. >> Kitchen: Okay, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mr. Flannigan, you pulled item 34. >> Flannigan: Yeah, couple of questions on how -- if it's a typical process to have neighborhood associations appoint representatives of the associations to advisory boards and then I thought number 6 on this resolution, where a nomination comes jointly from the mayor and the councilmember for that area, if that's -- that seems like a interesting process. I have not seen before. Mayor pro tem, can you speak to that? >> Tovo: Sure. And I would say with regard to the neighborhood associations, I would have to go back in my memory but I think on the single family compatibility task force, which is informally known as the mcmansion task force, I believe there were representatives there from the Austin neighborhoods council on that task force. Maybe not specific neighborhood associations, but there were. And then that task force was also divided into -- again, I'm just kind of going from memory, industry, folks representing industry and folks representing neighborhood associations. So that would be one example where there were neighborhood interests specifically identified in the resolution. >> Flannigan: I just -- generally I get a little squishy when it comes to organizations that don't have the same level of community engagement that elected officials do in terms of making nominations and we just had this long debate about whether or not the mayor gets to make nominations amongst us and I'm more in line with [12:43:42 PM] number 6 where there's this joint opportunity, which sounds like that could work because it's still elected officials who represent whole areas in total. Also on one of the neighborhood associations' website it lists that they raise money from their dues to represent residents in zoning cases. I thought that was a lobbying situation that maybe kind of a weird conflict. But more importantly, the language of the advisory board resolution says that they would represent the neighborhood association and not represent the area that those neighborhood associations cover according to the maps on their websites. And I'm also curious about these associations, if they appropriately represent the amount of renters in those areas, because this is a fairly high renter area interlocal. I think to my mind, it makes more sense to do something closer to the way the mural Mueller commission is formed where the appointees have to live in the areas of a certain geography but certain elected officials making the nomination for us to approve as a body. I'm not want to go distract all of our work but this is something if this continues to come up I'm gonna more and more forceful about how I talk about this. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I have a similar question and just would like tonight mayor pro tem's perspective on that. I'm -- I'm -- it would make sense to me to do this in a way like we did the Mueller, and I would just like to know if there's a difference, if there's a reason not to do that. >> Tovo: Well, I would say one key reason we're trying to keep the number fairly small but have representation from the different city boards. And so, you know, primarily the membership is comprised of the design commission, environmental commission, parks, other advisory boards that are in particular areas of expertise. I would say in terms of what councilmember Flannigan, what you were talking about, both the neighborhood associations in this area and the planning teams both, you know, renters [12:45:42 PM] are more than welcome to be members of either body. And if it would make you more comfortable certainly one suggestion I could take back and run by some of the stakeholders and the staff who have been involved in talking about how to formulate about this would be to switch do neighborhood planning team members because both the south river city citizens area and Bouldin creek area have existing neighborhood plans and could and I think that, you know, the intent is to have them speak to -- you know, to use their capacity as people who are connected with their neighborhood plans and some of the zoning that has been associated with that. >> Flannigan: I'm not -- that doesn't actually satisfy my concern. I have separate issues about these ad hoc groups that we create that then represent communities. I don't know that these groups are necessarily representative. I would be happy just to strike the word "Associations" from number 5 so it's clear that the person being nominated by this group is representing the neighborhood as a map as opposed to the association, which is the way that it reads. And I don't want to get into the situation where an association now feels that they're dictating to this nominee later what they should or should not say or do as they represent the association versus the neighborhood. I mean, it seems small but I think it's an important description and then as we move forward with other opportunities that may look like this I'd like a longer conversation about who is being given the authority to make nominations? And I think elected officials obviously we do this on a number of boards and commissions. I think the Mueller commission is a great example of how we can geographically contain and I think number 6 where it's this joint relationship where in this case it would be between the mayor pro tem and the mayor I think that's an interesting one to explore. I would almost be okay with saying three appointees come from the joint relationship that the mayor and the councilmember for this area were to collaborate with and that would allow you to talk [12:47:43 PM] to the associations and say who do you think that should be representing this area? And at least it becomes a nomination by an elected official and not a nomination by a group that is a self-selected, dues. Paying organization. >> Tovo: So let me you just be clear that nothing like that all neighborhood associations are dues paying and I will to go back and determine whether those two are but, also, one of the things we were trying to do is have consistency with the water front planning advisory board which did have a representative from Bouldin creek as well as south river citizens so we were trying to make some consistency and I'm certainly open to other options for 6. I think it's important to have continuity with that water front planning advisory board and if there's an appropriate council committee to nominate that person that would also be fine with me. >> Flannigan: Go ahead. >> Tovo: Again, it was -- we are trying to have some continuity with the previous board that made recommendations related to this and they did have -- and here's Mr. Rusthoven who could pop in maybe on this and verify that I'm correct in my thinking, that the associations themselves had a representative on that board. >> Mayor, council, Jerry rusthoven, assistant director. >> Tovo: Congratulations. >> Thank you. Don't have to say acting anymore of the platting and zoning department. What this came out of was the south central plan had a recommendation there be something called the south central water front advisory group instead of board.% on page 108 of that document there was a reference to the fact that the water front advisory board or the water front planning advisory board had formed a stakeholder outreach committee as a part of helping with the plan and of course the water front board was disbanded and the plan referenced how much help that they felt that that group provided and so there was a desire to recreate it just for this. It is true that the former water front advisory board before it was disbanded did [12:49:44 PM] have identified members of certain associations to help -- serve on that board but that board was decommissioned in -- >> Flannigan: Don't say that word. >> Decommissioned in 2015. >> Flannigan: I guess I'm not interested in blowing this whole thing up. I think if we could -- and I may make this an an amendment on Thursday to strike the word "Associations" so it's clear the people who serve on this advisory board represent the neighborhoods in total and not just the associations created by dues- paying members. That would satisfy at least my short-term concern and from a long-term perspective I think it makes more sense to have more things along the Mueller commission, nomination by elected as opposed to self-selected groups. >> Tovo: Can you clarify for me where you would -- so you would strike two members nominated by and representing each of the adjacent neighborhoods. >> Flannigan: No, no, I'm saying just in part five, striking the word "Associations," so I'm fine with these. >> Tovo: I see, yeah, yeah, gotcha. >> Flannigan: I want to make sure who they send is representing the neighborhood in total and not just the association. >> Mayor Adler: And I had some questions, too, about the membership and part of it is I need to understand better what the purpose of the group is. So if the group -- if it's a group we're gonna ask to vote on questions and we're interested in knowing what the vote is, then I need to be -- we need to be really careful about who is on there so that the vote -- with respect to the membership so that we're not deciding what the vote is based on the membership that we pick. It seems to me that the really valuable thing of this is not to ever take a vote but to surface for us issues or recommendations or points, and I'd be as interested in hearing if there were three views that came out of the advisory commission. And I'd want to hear all three much more than I would want to hear what four of the seven thought. Although that might anecdotally be useful information. [12:51:44 PM] But things like I understand that there's a -- that the [indiscernible] Has a P.I.D. That overlaps with this. I'd like to know what -- I'd like for them to be part of those conversations and I would like to know what their slews were, again, not that I would follow them but I would like to have different eyes identifying different issues to make sure that when the item comes to us on the council we're aware of what the field looks like. So I'll probably be bringing a resolution that recommends at the very least we add somebody from that as well and I'm trying to think about other divergent views we might also want to have on there. I'll be looking for divergent view people. >> Pool: I'd point on the on the second page under E where it describes what the board shall do in the very first one under there is to serve as an advisory body to the council and city manager. And so to the -- your point about it taking votes, I mean, I don't know how this group would operate because it helicopter been formed yet, but we're not -- helicopter hasn't beenformed yet but we're not giving them policy making authority. As far as voting, my guess is it would be primarily consensus and providing advice because that's what we're asking them to do. >> Mayor Adler: It could be that they report back us to that there were three different points of view on this issue and theory are the three different points of view. >> Pool: Well, right. I was just responding to your saying that you didn't necessarily feel comfortable with them taking votes and I just wanted to point out in here that wasn't necessarily contemplated. They're advisory. >> Mayor Adler: Yeah yeah. >> Pool: I think the recommendation of eliminating the one word "Associations" is probably a pretty good one. It does indicate what I think probably the intention was, was to include everyone -- all the residents in that area [12:53:44 PM] that will be affected in a large way by these changes. And absolutely, we need to have the door wide open for those voices to be heard and considered. So I think this is a good plan to move in this direction. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I'm happy to hear councilmember Casar. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: All right. I think I agree that generally I feel more comfortable not trying to figure out exactly the number of seats and how they're set up if it's not sort of a majority rules type advisory board so I think that would make this item just easier. As far as perspectives that I thought might being there would be one, I think that part of the promise and reason that I was excited about the plan with the south central water front is the mixed income housing sort of opportunities and while I think that each of the perspectives listed would certainly have people that cared about that, I think having somebody that specifically is looking out for that there would be -- would be of interest to me and I don't know if that's something that the group of stakeholders of that worked on this resolution have thought through for a particular reason but I just want to flag that because I think when we adopted the plan that was the majority of our discussion about what was interesting about the plan. Despite the fact there's lots of other things that are extremely interesting and great about it but seem to be a high priority. Then second, mayor pro tem, the adjacent neighborhoods and you would know the geography and names better than I but it seems to me that downtown is also right here adjacent to so much of what woulding going on on the statesman site and other sites so if you could talk us through what the adjacent neighborhoods are and why these couple in particular, not because I have any objection but because I recognize how this can set expectations and precedent for other advisory boards and I want to make sure that we're doing it in a way that if in the end we're doing something on the Home Depot site at my district that folks don't look at this advisory board and go and say, well, how are you -- [12:55:46 PM] if that makes sense. It has less to do with my there in the neighborhoods as listed and more to do with making sure we have some level of consistency as we build these boards up. >> Tovo: First of all, I wanted to respond to your suggestion about housing and, actually, an earlier version of this I believe had somebody representing housing interests and we were trying to figure out how to -- >> Mayor pro tem, it has in there that the director of neighborhood housing and community development department shall be an ex officio member of the board. >> Tovo: I think we also have a community member, I think we were contemplating having a community member representing housing there's and I would be happy to add that because I think that would be a good addition. I would welcome your thoughts. I think I have a quorum so through the message board or on Thursday about who would be the appropriate body to identify that housing person. The community development corporation certainly could accept, I think now their entire membership is comprised of people in particular geographic areas, none of them in this one, but they still might be the appropriate body to identify somebody. The neighborhoods where these two neighborhoods both have this area within its boundaries, downtown Austin neighborhood association would be north of the river. And with regard to the downtown Austin alliance, so I know, mayor, you and I had an opportunity to talk about that and I want to say, you know, the downtown Austin alliance has brought great value to a whole lot of the initiatives that my office has been working on. I think they're very valuable partners for the city of Austin and I really appreciate that relationship. They have a downtown -- this area -- much of the south central, not all of it but much of the south central water front overlay does feed into their public improvement district, and so it would I believe not be appropriate to include them as one of the members of this advisory body because they will -- their P.I.D. Will directly benefit from the development that happens along the south central waterfront so I'm [12:57:46 PM] happy for them to attend, to, you know, talk with us about their recommendations, as they line up or don't with the south central water front -- with regard to this body's advisory opinions, but I don't believe it would be appropriate to have them as an official member of that group. With regard to the question about advisory bodies and whether they take votes, really a whole lot of our boards and commissions are advisory bodies. That's what they do. They provide advice to us or to other commissions. And they arrive at that advice by taking votes. So I don't want to set up a situation where we have a commission that doesn't -- is left without a means of providing us with their feedback. Certainly I think we can encourage them through the directions and through the chapters we set up or advice that we give to our staff to give to them that we want to hear about the minority opinions as well, but they need a mechanism foreplay -- they need a mechanism for arriving at those recommendations or I'm concerned that we won't be getting useful advice and counsel and guidance from them. We did have a commission if you were a -- or a task force a few years ago that operated by consensus and they defined that as needing 100% agreement on all of their recommendations and let me just say I don't think that was a success. Edwire a list of -- we had a list of some very good recommendations, had 100% consensus and then we had a body of very good recommendations that were like 98% supported that we then had to kind of go through the report and dig out and I would rather just set up a scenario where they're allowed to vote and we tell them, you know, we really welcome those minority viewpoints, please send on those to us as well so we can understand there are divergent perspectives what those are. In my office if I see there's an 8-2 vote or 9-2 vote on something sometimes we will reach out to those commissioners or go you back to the tape to try to understand what those viewpoints are but we can be more explicit. We can ask staff explicitly to [12:59:48 PM] help us understand some of those other viewpoints as theyarise. >> Mayor Adler: The vote -- the vote makes sense to me when we are each appointing somebody because then you have somebody from each part of the city. There's a basis for the vote to understand that. When we are just creating something and we're picking a couple of members from this group and this group and this group, then the vote means less to me than it would otherwise, because we kind of set the vote before anything happens based upon what the membership we have chosen could be, it would probably vary on the question that was presented. So without any doubt, I wouldn't want this group to -- to try to reach consensus so things so that we don't hear the base ideas of things. I would like to hear the divergent views. With respect to the daa, for all of the reasons that you gave for not having those on there, those are all of the reasons that I would say that they need to be on there. Because they -- they are looking at - - at this view of what gets developed. A different slant or a different eye perhaps than many of the other people on the panel would. Just from where they come from. It's exactly that interest which gives rise to a different perspective that I think would be helpful to have them in those conversations. And I'll also take a look and see if there are other voices that I think would be voices that we would want to hear from before we've made any decisions to see if they also need or could be in that room. >> Tovo: I would just ask our staff to help us sort out whether, you know, again back to that point we typically don't encourage people who have a financial stake in a decision to vote, even as an advisory body, I never did that, but we do [1:01:49 PM] have rules but my guess is they only apply to the autonomous boards but that would be helpful to know whether we have any city guidance for members of our boards and commissions if they are not on autonomous board, are they allowed to vote on something from which they would financially benefit. >> [Indiscernible] >> Tovo: I know we get -- let me say we have gotten complaints about animal services, some other boards that are not autonomous boards, we have gotten complaints about particular commissioners for that reason. So whether or not it's a hard and fast rule or whether there's any guidance about it, it's typically not something at least members of the public are particularly fond of when they see members on our boards and commissions voting on issues about which they have financial interests. >> Mayor Adler: And if it's the vote that creates that problem, then I'm perfectly happy giving them a charge that says don't take any votes. Which gets us back to the conversation that we had earlier, it's the view that I want to hear. It's the perspective that I want to hear. More than how the board lines up. Because at the end if they have to make decisions, the breadth of those perspectives is what I'm looking for. But I'm very comfortable with [indiscernible] Taking votes. Taking votes or not. I just want the perspectives there. >> Tovo: I guess we just really have to then -- I would have to understand how that's going to be a useful process. I mean, what -- how would that advice come to us? I mean at some point they have to take a measure of the group. We do this with all of our boards and commissions, even though most of them are advisory. >> Mayor Adler: I don't have a problem with a group taking a vote. We would evaluate that vote based on -- I mean, I have no problem with a group taking a vote. To the degree that we're not picking people by districts, we sometimes -- we could predetermine votes based on who we select. So the vote won't mean as much to me. But that doesn't mean it doesn't mean a lot to my [1:03:51 PM] colleagues. I have no whereby with them communicating their decisions with votes -- no problem with them communicating their decisions with votes, not votes whatever. In that room I think we need to have different perspectives. If the reason that daa can't be in that room is because it's inappropriate for them to be there because votes are taken, then if I have to prioritize having a vote or having that additional voice or perspective in the room, I would pick having the additional voice and perspective. And I say that only because that was -- the last point that you made was it inappropriate to have them in the room for when votes are taken. And that's what I was responding to. I would rather have the perspective than the vote. But I have no problem with them taking votes either. I just want the perspective in the room. >> Tovo: Let me just be clear. I welcome daa's attendance in the room. I'm just talking about whether they're a member of the commission. They would certainly be welcome to attend the discussions. I would just say we do have a couple of commissions out there where we don't all make appointees and they do vote. I think the community development corporation is one. I think there are others out there as well. I don't regard -- I'm not a councilmember who has an appointee on that board, but I still certainly value the decisions that come out of it. I think we will have to find our way through these early years of 10-1 where sometimes we have commissions that are in this case primarily comprised of other boards and commissions. And sometimes they're going to be boards and commissions that were primarily appointed by I think the CDC is primarily the mayor appoints those, then we have some neighborhood organizations that make appointments or nominees for the community development corporation. But, you know, we value all of their work. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? You have -- speakers on the next item. Did you want to speak? [1:05:52 PM] >> Casar: We should check in on the CDC, councilmember Renteria probably knows this, but some of that is grant money and federally statutory to have those seats -- >> Renteria: The members of districts areas where the members have to reside on -- but they do come to the city council for approval. We could say -- it's been done before where the community has elected one person to represent them on the CDC. And the city council members decided that they didn't want him to be -- or that person serving on that CDC. And they just voted that person down. So it just -- it basically telling the community that you have to go back and, you know, have an election again and elect someone else. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: I think we should be careful how we use the word elected. Some elections fall under very specific guidelines for access and federal voting rights act and then, you know, electing board members to associations is not the level of scrutiny or the level of access. So we can have groups make nominations, they can choose amongst themselves. Certainly as a matter of convenience it makes sense to research these two neighborhood associations in this instance. But -- to leverage. But I want us to be careful about how we assign the value of elected -- >> Renteria: Well, these are actually the community comes into the meetings and have elections and they vote. >> Flannigan: But there's a difference between an election with two weeks of early vote, multiple locations to go to vote, automatically multiple languages, all of those factors are in play as opposed to who can come to the neighborhood association's board meeting. I think it's different. >> Renteria: It's totally different. But I'm just talking about what the CDC is operating as. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? The last item that we have on our agenda is number 45. Ms. Pool you pulled that? >> Pool: Thanks, I already mentioned but I will do it again, 45 is elysium park [1:07:53 PM] and we have a couple of things that need to be amended to the ordinance in order to clean up some wording. It doesn't change the fact that we are supporting the zoning changes. We just need to codify the wording on height limitations vegetative buffers and shielded lighting. These are all things that both parties have requested or staff have requested. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think that gets us to all of the things that we have. So at this point, does anybody else have anything before we go to executive session and lunch? >> We have one more briefing. >> Mayor Adler: We have an additional briefing? We have the briefing on the -- on the transportation practices and policies, mitigation, transportation mitigation issue. Do you all want to come back after lunch or do you want to -- to postpone this. >> Flannigan: May I suggest that we review the materials on our own and provide questions on our own rather than come back to this session? It would have saved a lot of time to have reviewed the materials earlier and saved many an hour of time, so maybe we can do that with this. As opposed to a full briefing? >> Mayor Adler: Let's -- >> Mayor? >> Houston: I'm just starving. I'm going to have to eat. My brain needs food right now. I agree with councilmember Flannigan that if we had it we could come prepared to ask questions. But I think this is so critically important to the mobility bond that was passed that we need to know what's going on and be able to hear other people's questions so that we can get that kind of feedback. So I don't know what the -- what the scheduling needs to be. But I have to eat something. >> I would like to postpone it. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry. >> I would like to postpone it to another work session. >> Mayor Adler: Let's do [1:09:54 PM] that. Let's -- >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, can I ask about this? So this -- this relates to asmp and our progress towards the -- towards road proportionality and transportation impact fee and also relates to a resolution that we passed last year. So help us with the timing. >> Mayor Adler: There's an item on this that's on the agenda on Thursday? >> No. >> Two Thursdays out. >> Mayor Adler: Two Thursdays out. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> So this, councilmember, this is -- Robert spiller, director of transportation. This actually the briefing today is about the interim mitigation ordinance and so it's just to give us a bridge to -- to a point where we will be able to consider impact fees as a council. >> Kitchen: Basically for my colleagues, we've talked before about the importance of a transportation impact fee, which is an impact fee on growth and the impact on transportation. But we can't get there because of state laws, there's a process. So we've got an interim approach where we are assessing fees that relate to growth. That's what this is primarily about, correct? And it's going to come back to us -- >> Yes. It's not fees that are assessed towards growth, but it deals with -- mitigation, transportation -- [speaker interrupted -- multiple voices] Issues caused by individual projects. >> Kitchen: That's right, I'm sorry, much better said. >> We want to be careful. >> Kitchen: Yes, exactly. So it's going to be on the -- it's for us to vote on in two weeks. So ... >> On the 28th. So as long as you did -- as councilmember Flannigan reviewed the materials, we could do some written q&as in between there. We would certainly want to have a vote on the 28th and not delay that if we can because the growth continues without these practices being in place. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry, it says this is a briefing [1:11:55 PM] and not something to vote on an action. I'm fine and have the ability on my schedule after executive session to come back. And let you make the presentation. It would be then recorded and people could refer to it in the community if that would be helpful. And as many councilmembers as wanted to could -- could come back. Which might be one additional thing to do beyond just posting it. Could we do that? So with your indulgence and your patience, we will come back after executive session for the sole purpose of receiving the report and then I'll adjourn the meeting and as many wants to come back as come back can. We have three things. Thank you. >> Renteria: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: We can text you as the executive session is ending. The city council now will go into closed session to take up four items pursuant to 551.072 of the government code. We're going to discuss real estate matters related to E 2, which is lions municipal golf course, items E 3, E 4, item 30. E 3 is lion's golf course, E 4 is -- is federal state laws regarding undocumented immigrants and item 30 is the -- is the taser contract. E 1 has been withdrawn without objection we will now go into executive session. It is 12 minutes after one. [To discuss legal issues related to open government matters, private consultation can legal counsel, section - - with legal counsel section 551.071 of the government code] >> >>> >>> [3:31:18 PM] We are back from executive session. And wear ready for -- E 3, we also took up legal matters relating to E 3 and E 4 and item 30. It is now 3:30. As described before we went into executive session, we are now back out. And we're going to hear the -- the staff presentation right now on the traffic mitigation measures. >> Good afternoon, I'm Eric [indiscernible] Managing engineer for the Austin transportation department, joined here with rob spiller. I'm here to talk about the transportation mitigation practices and policies, also known as the mitigation ordinance. I will run through the purpose, why we're bringing this to council. Some more details about the code amendment. Some of the concepts of [indiscernible] Proportion proportionality ... Open it up for discussion. Staff has been looking at the land development code. We consider it out of date needs to adequately mitigate transportation impacts. It's going to address quite a few things, but -- but to sum it up into two major points, it would be looking at smaller scale developments that currently do not require transportation mitigation. These are developments that are estimated to generate fewer than 2,000 trips per day. Also rough proportionality which is the state and federal requirement. The city has been practicing that for about two years. We are practicing it, but it's not codified. So in our proposal, we aim to formalize, clarify and define code changes, improve consistency and predictability in how we implement the code and do [3:33:19 PM] our review process and changes that will more or less bridge to long term improvements. This is in reference to the traffic impact fees. They will both be a bridge, but also complement what the impact fees can provide to the city. This just shows that we've had quite a number of public meetings, giving us great feedback and input, which has lead us to -- to today's date. And so -- so to -- to -- a little bit more specific about these code amendments, we're going to formalize the city's process for making proportionality determinations. Also going to clarify the proper he is for reserving right-of-way, also better define the types of improvements that the city can ask for. It's -- so current practice, the way we can -- we can ask for transportation improvements is border street policy, a way to require right-of-way and partial street construction through our long-range transportation plan. We also look at traffic impact mitigation, which is usually in the form of tia, traffic exact analysis or neighborhood traffic exact analysis. That's how we get improvement such as turn lanes, signals, we follow the pro rata methodology. So in terms of rough proportionality, I know that's a term a lot of people have heard. What is it? It's a state mandate. Basically if the city is requiring transportation improvements as a condition of -- of approval, the city must show that the demand placed on the system is roughly proportionate to the -- to the improvements that the city is asking for. That's what we can call a fair and also appropriate. So that's one part of it. The appropriate part is is there a in ex-discuss between the type of development and the type of improvement that we're asking for. If it meets those two considerations, it's considered roughlily proportionate and a fair share. And we use the calculation spreadsheet to provide what [3:35:20 PM] we call the legal maximum and these are requirements, like I said, it's a condition of approval. Basically comparing the peak hour demand created by the development to the supply required by the city. It's the same process that many other cities follow in Texas. So pro rata, that can be thought of as maybe the fair cost. This is proportionate of traffic added did I development in relation to traffic already on the transportation network. Historically the way the city has approached it, a tia would recommend several transportation improvements, the city would more or less hold itself to a certain percentage of all of those improvements. So in the past year, year and a half, we've actually kind of rethought about the way we look at pro rata and before we would take a look at the overall what we call the overall intersection. But now we're looking at a critical movement. So that we feel that's a fair cost. It's more indicative of the impact, like an intersection, now we are able to separate, actually combine separate pro rata calculations to really construct the most needed improvements. Really focus on getting something constructed. >> Mayor Adler: What's missing from the pro rata contribution that is being picked up in the rough proportionality. >> Pro rata we can think of has been the historical practice. The rough proportionality is a legal maximum, they don't necessarily -- pro rata doesn't always equal rough proportionality amount. So the city is going to continue -- >> Mayor Adler: I'm trying to figure out what are the elements in one that are not included in the other. If that's the right way to look at it. At a really high level both of them are measuring the burden of the development in the -- in the numerator, in the denominator, you have some bigger number that is the overall need. So I'm -- what element is missing in one -- [3:37:20 PM] >> If I can add one thing. The pro rata share has been our calculation based on the impact to specific intersections to identify the intersections when the cost falls out from that. Rough proportionality is the maximum. So we have been tutored not to say oh, that's what we can fill up to. That's a maximum and a back check to make sure whatever we're asking of the developer doesn't exceed that maximum amount. Rough proportionality is calculated based on land use, so it can be calculated earlier in the development. Pro rata has to be calculated, again that's an Austin specific calculation, after -- after the trips estimates are made for the development and distributed in the network, so we're actually looking at specific intersections and with the critical movement being affected by that new traffic is and what improvements are made out of that. So what we find is that a large development, stop me, Eric, if I'm misstating this. Large developments the pro rata share ends up, this is anecdotally ends up around 40% - - >> Mayor Adler: I know that one is sometimes more than the other. I'm still trying to figure out what the element is. If you can think of it as kind of a numerator as rough proportionality, I look at the burden created by that development, divided by the overall demand, including that driven by that burden, that gives me a percentage. And then I multiply that percentage times some universe of capital improvement projects that are being done in that region that -- that relate to that burden. And that's a percentage that goes against that -- I'm trying to figure out what is different about the numerator and then the denominator between those two calculations. >> So I would tell you that [3:39:21 PM] the numerator and denominator are similar, but they come at it from different ways. For instance, pro rata share comes at it from identifying the impacts on specific intersections and projects so it's a bottoms up approach. Whereas I would argue that -- that rough proportionality starts with the land use without knowledge of what improvements might be needed. And calculates it in a different direction, if you will. >> Right, so the rough proportionality there's -- there's an assumed trip length and that length is multiplied by you can say the cost to construct a street. With a certain demand on the system. So that calculation is going to be done at any time. It can be done before an applicant even submits a project. The pro rata is -- we can take from say a tia -- say, for example, the development is going to add 100 trips through the intersection. In a peak hour. There are already a thousand vehicles going through that. That's roughly a one to 10. We can say if the improvement is needed a pro rata share of that improvement is 10%. >> Mayor Adler: So I -- I still don't understand how we are calculating then the rough proportionality. Because does rough proportionality take into account more than just the one intersection? Is that the difference? Is it that it's not related to increased trip count? Is -- what's different -- how do you calculate rough proportionality? >> Okay. So there's a unit cost to say construct like a two-lane street or whatever kind of street that's needed. That's multiplied by a trip length that's assumed, it's a mile and a half, we have a stand mile and a half trip lent -- >> Mayor Adler: Explain to me trip length -- [speaker interrupted -- multiple voices] >> Say like an origin to the destination, the destination [3:41:22 PM] being the development, the project. Yes. Then that is calculated -- so it's an assumption to -- to construct a street based on average unit price costs that we've developed internally with the city. >> Mayor Adler: So you now have a cost of a street for a certain distance. >> Correct. >> If I may -- -- [speaker interrupted -- multiple voices] >> I might be able to clarify it. We will try it three different ways. From what I understand rough proportionality doesn't look at what's there now. It just says if it was plopped down that amount of use is going to require this amount of transportation. Pro rata then says okay yeah but we have already got some transportation infrastructure right next for that facility, so it doesn't need that new four-lane roadway for a really intense development. So the rough proportionality just looks atmosphere it and says if you are -- looks at it and says you are going to do this land use with this kind of density, based on that kind of trip length that's the standard, this is what you would have to provide to mitigate that. But it doesn't take into account with the infrastructure already in place. Pro rata looks at existing infrastructure and what is required to be mitigated and then we add on to that. >> What we are finding, anecdotally, larger developments the pro rata share has been running 30 to 40% of rough proportionality. On smaller developments, because of the real estate cost of right-of-way, those are two coming much closer together. So, you know, again if a development needs to add a street, the cost of that right-of-way that they donate is part of their contribution and so -- so the smaller the development, the bigger of percentage of -- of that right-of-way contribution is of their overall pro rata share. [3:43:22 PM] >> Okay. Thank you. >> So moving on to more aspects of the code amendments, also looks to authorize the city to obtain certain off-site improvements and don't administrative guidelines regarding those improvements. Without a tia or nta, the code says the director may currently require mitigation. But -- but frankly the code is a little bit unclear. So we're aiming to -- to propose a code that clarifies where and what can be required. So in terms of where and what, we're really focusing, if the tia is not required, so under 2,000 trips in a day, we are focusing adjacent to the site or approximately one quarter mile from the site. Now we do say we could consider up to three-quarters from the site if there's a logical improvement from the development to, say, like a school, a bus stop, a major arterial that -- that for example or a sidewalk would be needed to connect the two points. >> So the -- so the city gets hundreds of site plans per year. The amount that actually gets tias, we have estimated probably does not exceed about 20%. So this slide kind of looks at what we're calling the uncaptured mitigation. And so what we find is because that 2,000 trip threshold is sort of the magic number for the tia, he lo and behold we get a lot of developments that come in at 1900 and change. And so these are six common land uses that we've seen with -- with I could say common intensities. For example, multi-family we get a lot of 300 unit apartments. The dollar figure associated with this is just the potential maximum legal limit in terms of demand. That's placed on the system. [3:45:23 PM] That doesn't necessarily mean that the city would go for those maximums in every case that we would be looking for that much mitigation. Kind of gives you -- we talk about the cumulative impacts over the year where a lot of these developments haven't been required to have tias associated with them. So after -- after so many years the cumulative impacts start to build up. So -- so what staff is limiting itself to require without a tia, nta sidewalks, curb ramps, traffic calming devices, traffic signs and markings, bike facilities, urban trails. Measures to help pedestrian crossings, this is what we call a rectangular flashing beacon, a pedestrian hybrid beacon, refuge island. Measures in transportation demand measures, earn always increasing supply -- rather than also increasing supply, picture [indiscernible] We also continue to look at right-of-way dedication and other measures that staff has identified. Kind of step you through the review process. [Indiscernible] >> Houston: Are we waiting for questions until the end? >> Mayor Adler: We were just letting people run through. If you have a questions there's so few of us -- >> Houston: On page 13, slide 13. So. >> What is the cost of the hybrid beacon, $100,000 or so. >> The rule is 75 to 100,000 or so. >> They would not pay for that in this mitigation options without traffic impact analysis? >> It's possible that we could determine a phb would be needed even without a tia or it could be continued to [3:47:24 PM] be required with a tia. >> Some of these others are just painting the streets. That's not a whole lot of costs. >> Right. >> Houston: Talking about pedestrian hybrid beacon, I don't know how much the signs cost, seems like they should be paying into that as well instead of having it free. >> I would say out of these examples, the phb would be sort of the higher end in terms of improvements. >> Houston: Okay, thanks. >> Staff would look at the case and determine improvements. Based on transportation plans and engineering studies, these can be adopted, sidewalk and bicycle master plans, for examples. Other studies that staff has completed we have dozens of -- of requested located for pbs, for example. We have done preliminary rankings and analysis. You know, we would also draw on our knowledge of the way the network operates in our engineering judgment. As always, we would check it against rough proportionality and nexus. Everything -- everything we would draw upon is -- is public -- publicly available. You know, the plans, even the -- even our rankings for pbs, it's on our website. So as an applicant, while we can't necessarily guarantee what would be needed without a tia, at least some direction can be provided. Like I mentioned, we can focus those improvements adjacent to the site. So our current process for requiring tia, the development assessment is made, staff says okay, tia is needed, an applicant submits recommended improvements through a tia, pro rata costs, there's only one box reviewing, but oftentimes this goes back and forth with comments, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they are pretty straightforward. And then staff determines the required improvements, checks it against rough [3:49:24 PM] proportionality and tia memo is issued. So a similar process for the proposed process for projects not requiring a tia. Rather than a tia being submitted, staff would take the lead on determining what's required. And -- and issue its determination. And so as an example, this is -- this is something made up, but it's -- it's a good case where here's under 70,000 square foot office building, generates just under 2,000 trips. So tia is not required. But in this example, it's -- it's bounded by two streets, one being a major street, we'll call it an arterial, the other a more minor street, but in both cases staff has determined that pedestrian crossings would be expected. So for example here's a site plan on a network, the boundaries is located in red, so focusing on adjacent to the site okay we would recommend a phb here, refuge island there. And then we would check it. So legal maximum being over 900,000 for these two improvements, for example, 100,000, so okay, required improvements don't exceed the legal maximum. Same thing for nexus. We anticipate a pedestrian -- need to cross the streets and the nexus between the improvements and -- and the development. So this is an actual example that staff worked on last year, here's a much larger office building that generates 18,000 trips. Nine study intersections greater than a mile from the site. This particular example includes both city and txdot streets. Tia was submitted and it has a number of improvements. Like I alluded to before, staff actually combined the separate pro rata costs and to really focus on -- on improvements that are most critical and needed. So site improvements, which [3:51:26 PM] we could call maybe on site improvements, those are most critical to the development itself. And in this example staff required a new traffic signal and then system improvements which can be thought of as off-site improvements, there's new lanes and signal improvements. In this case the cumulative pro rata for these improvements was 470,000, rough proportionality was a million and a half so it fell under rough proportionality. So to help visualize sort of that relationship between rough proportionality and pro rata, if we think of -- if we think of rough proportionality as the red line on the top, which is legal maximum, and then the yellow line being required mitigation, which is typically the pro rata, that's sort of our baseline, where we start. That's made up of the required mitigation, boundary street, right-of- way dedication. At some point like rob was saying, that distance, if you will, between the red and yellow lines fluctuates, but in general it's -- it's coming to be about 30% of that red line. As far as affordability, we predict this could have an impact on development costs, as it also relates to affordable housing and smart housing. We have been meeting with neighborhood community development and also their -- also their stakeholders to -- to draft language that we think would address these concerns. Another issue was predictability of development costs. Some people were concerned that, well, this gives staff an ability to -- to request all types of improvements. Well, we are still sticking with the to guide our expectation about what's needed for contribution. You know, if a tia is not needed, we are focusing near [3:53:28 PM] the site. We've also limited it to the types of improvements that we would ask for in everything that we refer to, plans, programs, all publicly available. Along those lines, we have issued tia guidelines, I think that's really helped in the last year. Staff has given a lot more emphasis on review and required mitigation. I think the tias that have been submitted, I think everybody is coming along and really knows what we expect. I think sort of the natural bumpiness that started, things are resolving, I think things are moving a lot more smoother and the expectations are out there. We are getting better quality tias. The land development code we presented at utc, urban transportation last month. One issue they brought up was this 25-1-141 which says the director shall deny a case if a development is estimated to -- to generate traffic that would put -- that would put the number of vehicles per day over a desired operating threshold. So they asked staff to take a look at modifying that and staff can be ready for our presentation to council. >> Mayor? A question on that last slide. >> Casar: So I appreciate you all meeting, especially with the income restricted lower income housing development folks. And it's my understanding that y'all are working to figure out what -- what -- how to minimize the impact on those developments, is that right? >> That is correct. We think that we have a plan to bring back to council when we are read to bring that to council. >> Casar: My understanding is obviously their concerns is it may price out some of their developments. My understanding also, y'all a's concern, which I would say, would that result in having things like more pedestrian hybrid beacons [3:55:28 PM] around housing that is around lower income parts of our population? >> Yes. In a simplified format. If a beacon is needed or a signal is needed, it's what we call warranted and so then it goes on to the list of warranted signals and we build those based on how much money or budget we have every year to get to. And so it's ranked relative to risk of all of the other signals or other phbs that we need to build that year and it falls back to -- to -- to either our transportation user fee or our capital budget to build those projects. What happens is when we recognize that a signal needs to be built and it's warranted and we're ready to build it, then we go and look and see if development fees have been saved from other developments that he we can then apply towards that signal. The difference has to be made up by the taxpayers either through the transportation user fee or through a bond election. >> Casar: If we choose to go forward on the path of trying to figure out how we didn't cut out some amps builders being able to do what they do, but we also want to make sure we are not inequitablely serving residents on traffic mitigation, what we have to be thinking about when we make these sorts of changes, what's in the existing bond program, capital program, how do we potentially look at those priorities so we know some of those gaps might get created and we can address them. >> This is where those two council priorities intersect. If you will. So in blunt terms, if -- iffies are waived or -- if fees are waived or reduced in one type of development, that shows up in a demand for more tuf or bond money in a future -- >> Casar: Or even within our prioritization of existing tuf money or bond money, we might need to think about well these particular kinds of developments, which is maybe half a dozen to a dozen a year, we need to make sure [3:57:29 PM] that we are setting aside some money to bring to the table, projects for those that may not generate as much in fee. >> I think the answer is yes. With those risk based programs like signal warrants or signals, I think we would be well served to just factor it into the priority because we don't want to be building a lower priority based on risk than a higher priority regardless of where it is. But yes. >> Okay, that's refusal to understand, thanks. -- That's helpful to understand, thanks. >> Looking at our next steps, the codenext, the -- the initial draft just released but we do still have the opportunity to recommend other changes to the code. We've enlisted the help of a consultant to look at our current practice, compare that to national best practice. And the impact fee ordinance, the atd started this year looking at the process for -- for establishing impact fees, started the stakeholder meetings and doing the technical analysis. Impact fees focus more on capacity improvements. So tias can still be required looking in the future for example -- for example if somehow the capital improvement plan is does not necessarily speak to pedestrian hybrid beacon, the staff would still have the ability to take a look at the development through the impact fee structure. So our anticipated council ask for March 2 is the adoption of this mitigation ordinance with the desired outcomes that we have discussed here. So if -- if you have any further questions -- >> Houston: Can you tell me who is included in the stakeholder meetings? >> The ones that we have already conducted? >> Houston: Or the ones that you plan to? >> At this point we've had a number of public meetings [3:59:29 PM] that -- that commissions -- committees, we've also had -- had reached out to the public, we had a public foreman here at city hall. We've had a -- many conversations with the development community. Engineers who actually submit these tias, their own set of questions, more technical based. >> Houston: So the people who live where the -- where the traffic impact analyses are not done, are they included in that? >> Well, they are certainly free to come for the public meetings. But in terms of going out to different areas of town, I can't say that that's not the approach that we took. It was mainly public meetings held here. >> And when were those meetings? I'm sorry, I must not have gotten that. >> Extending all the way back to 2015. Most of them were last year in 2016. >> Houston: Mayor this always concerns me with transportation. Is that there's a stakeholder process but it's -- it's pretty exclusive. And the -- the people who are impacted by whatever plans you put in place are not at the table. I know that you say that you have public meeting and they are welcome to come. But welcome and being welcomed and being intentional about that are very different things. So I have concerns about when we make these kinds of really serious recommendations, not only to the development community and what it impacts on housing costs, but to the people who actually live where these developments are going up and what that impact does on them. And maybe it's too late in the process to have that conversation. But I've been talking about a cumulative traffic impact analysis since I got on the council. This sounds like you are kind of getting to that point where you look at intersections. Like 51st and Springdale is the one that I bring up all the time. But nobody in that neighborhood has been invited to talk about it or even hear the presentation. They could have come -- it was public, they could have come. But you have to invite people into your space. So that's -- we'll try to [4:01:30 PM] see if we can get this out to people. Who would they send any comments back to? >> We have the -- I can share the website, but the development services department has a website set up right now where comments can be -- can be taken. >> Councilmember, they can also call the transportation department directly should they want to do that. >> [Indiscernible]. >> If they will call the main number, they can ask for me and I will make sure that they get to the right person. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: If you could send councilmember Houston that link so it's easy for her to being able to stick a phone number on it, just so it's easy for her to get it out. >> Absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great. Do we have anything else? That being the case then it's 4:00, we're done. We'll stand adjourned.