City Council Work Session Transcript – 03/21/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 3/21/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 3/21/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:08:09 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. I think we have a quorum here so we'll go ahead and gear this up. Today is Tuesday, March 21, 2017. We're in the boards and commissions room. This is our city council work session. The time is 9:08. We have some items that have been pulled, six of them. In addition to that being pulled is number 18, which is the manager hiring process. Also item 52, which is health south. Also is 20 and 21. >> Tovo: Mayor, would you indicate who pulled 18, 20, 22 and 21. >> Yes, I pulled 18 and 52 and councilmember Garza pulled 20 and 21. We also have two briefings. One on the manager. >> Mayor, mayor? >> Mayor Adler: The affordability project and the efficiency discussions. Yes? >> Garza: Since 20 and 21, I just pulled this morning, I just wanted to speak mostly to -- I will be requesting a postponement if staff will not be -- so I don't necessarily need staff here for those, just the ability to talk about that when the time comes. For 20 and 21. >> Mayor Adler: You're saying you don't need staff? >> Garza: Correct. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's quickly go through if we can the items that we've pulled. Mr. Flannigan you pulled item 22? >> Flannigan: Yes. I had a couple of questions [9:10:10 AM] for staff if they're here. So is there anybody from -- I understand the nature of the transaction. I'm more concerned about the number of spaces we're asking for and that process. And right now I don't think that's your job, right? >> Yeah. I do have a reason in my file, though. >> Flannigan: But the other question is I saw in the backup is talked about adding a crushed granite walkway. Is there a cost for that? Is that included in -- >> Yes, it is. >> Flannigan: Okay. That would explain why the first contract is higher than the extension. >> Yes. >> Flannigan: That's the difference? >> Yes. >> Flannigan: Mayor, I guess we can wait until there's ae people to talk to. Thank you, Lorraine. >> Mayor Adler: That would get us to item number 23 which was pulled by councilmember alter. Dr. Alter? >> Thank you. I wanted further explanation of an item about why we're taking action at this time and is this tied to a specific zoning case, how high does a building go if we add this density. I'm just having trouble understanding. There seemed to be some stuff missing in the backup for this item to provide further clarification. And maybe you dealt with this last December or November and I'm just not familiar with it, but I was not clear on what we were discussing here and why. >> Councilmember, I don't have the specifics on this, but I think what I can do is [9:12:12 AM] get a copy of the site plan that's associated with this and get you those specific numbers as far as the height and square footage. Actually, I thought we had a copy of the plan attached that could give you a little bit more detail, but I see I don't have that right now. We can follow up in the Q and a and provide council more detailed information. >> Alter: Okay. And can we also have some specifics if we were to require affordable units versus the fee-in-lieu. What I understood from the little information that we had, there was no residential as part of the this unit, if I'm not mistaken? So that may not even be feasible, but I would be curious to know how those calculations are being made given our conversation a few weeks ago about the cap metro, plaza saltillo buildings. >> We can provide that information as well. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Next item, item number 25, Mr. Flannigan, you pulled that? >> Flannigan: I can take them at the same time. I had questions about the 1115 program and how the funding works. I don't know if staff can help me better understand this. When I look at the backup, especially on number 25, where it shows the same amount of money approved, but we're adding five ftes so I'm trying to figure out what does that mean. >> So Kimberly Mattox, assistant director for public health. So the 1115 program is an incentive program that the federal government has been doing that's approved through December of this year. We draw down dollars. We draw down more dollars than what it costs to run the programs. So we've accumulated a small [9:14:13 AM] balance to be able to continue the program beyond the end of the federal government's program, December. For this particular program threes are community health workers and they've been on our payroll as temporaries. So this is just making them an actual fte so that they can -- we've had them as temporaries for the last couple of years, so making them actual grant funded ftes. >> Flannigan: So these five ftes, we're already paying them, we're just converting them into a full-time employee? >> That's correct. >> Flannigan: I don't see that anywhere in the backup. It just looks like we're adding five employees and my concern is that we want to make sure that we're putting accurate information out into the community. The programs are great. It's not about the programs. I love the programs, but in terms of how we're tracking the money when we show a fiscal note that says nine million approved, still nine million amended, but somehow we're inventing five ftes, it's not clear where that's coming from. The way you've explained it it's a very simple thing to approve, right? We're not really changing anything to full-time, but that's the kind of information that I think community wants to know as opposed to it just looking like we're inventing nine new full-time employees. Thank you, that's it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. That gets us to item number 42. Ms. Houston? 47, rather. 47. I misspoke. >> Houston: Good morning. I had a quick question. And the ordinance that I have in backup is different than the one I was looking for so that's the one I'm trying to get brought down here. But the issue is why did we reduce the goals for -- on I [9:16:15 AM] think it was -- that's the one I have. Can you explain to me why we've reduced the goals under the -- I think it's 6.5 table that was in the larger document. >> So councilmember, Veronica [indiscernible], small minority business department. The draft ordinance did propose to change the goals. What we are recommending instead is that we not change the goals at this time, to keep them as they are at this point, and then instead extend the program for a year so it would extend the program until March 31st, 2017. We also sent to your offices and it's now included in the backup in the system a memo explaining what we're going to do for next steps during this year. I can certainly get a copy of that memo to you so you can see it. Mount I'm sorry, the memo is -- >> Houston: I'm sorry, the memo is here, but it doesn't say why we were going to look at reducing the percentages of the [indiscernible] For minority owned businesses. That was never clear why we would do that. >> Sure. So initially we had proposed the revised goals based on the variability in the disparity study. As we've been working with stakeholders we've become aware of some information that needs to be addressed within the ordinance when looking at those numbers so we are now going back to work with the consultant to clear up those numbers. So it may be at the end of the year there will be revised goals proposed, no later than a year from now. But at this point I don't know what those goals would look like. We're going to take a look at the data in the disparity study and revise our proposal to council. >> Houston: Okay, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Next item is item 83. Miss alter? >> Alter: Thank you. I'm looking forward to us having an opportunity to talk about Austin oaks in the daylight hours. [9:18:17 AM] [Laughter]. This week. Which it looks like may be possible. So what I've handed out here is just some of the information that will be going into the request that we're going to be making with respect to traffic mitigations. So what you have here are the responses to the Q and a from several weeks ago where we asked staff to provide what the next priorities would be with respect to traffic mitigation. You can see, although the total amount that was in the tia was over two million dollars, there's an additional 685,000 over the 805,000 that we will be looking at requesting and asking you to support as part of any moving forward on second reading. And then in addition I wanted to make sure that you're aware that the rough proportionality numbers for this case are $5.6 million, and I wanted to point that out in particular because a few weeks ago when we were talking about traffic mitigation it was made very clear by rob spillar that in spaces where we are trying to understand the relationship between pro rata and rough proportionality, that when we have smaller amounts of land in question we're getting more equal so that pro rata and rough proportionality tend to balance out when we have smaller tracts of land, but in cases where we have larger plots of land we were getting closes to 40% of rough proportionality. If you take a look at what we're getting in this case, which is a pud which is supposed to be superior and traffic is the thing that the neighbors care most about, I want to point out that $805,000 is 14%, not 40, 14% of rough proportionality. So if we're trying to think about how we're addressing traffic issues, I'm really having trouble seeing how under any scenario what [9:20:18 AM] they're proposing with respect to traffic mitigation is superior. And there is no doubt in my mind, having spoken with the neighbors, that traffic is its number one concern. And this proposal is quadrupling the traffic in its proposal. And even if it was fully mitigated, you would still have many, many failed intersections where you're waiting multiple minutes to move through those lights. And this is at a spot that's going to be critical to the success of other traffic improvements that we're looking to do in the city such as the changes on 360, the changes on spicewood springs that were part of the mobility bond, as part of the regional mobility, and also the opening of the managed lanes I want to point out for everyone that the exit that comes just after greystone there is right where you will be entering the southbound managed lanes. So if we do not address the traffic that's going to be coming from this particular proposed development, we are going to potentially be causing problems throughout our system, which we've been working so hard to improve. And the last thing I wanted to point out with respect to the traffic is that we found a discrepancy between what the developer is proposing with respect to its key traffic improvement of a light at spicewood springs and hart lane that they did not include the design and engineering, the full cost of design and engineering according to our staff. And our staff have indicated that the true costs will be something closer to $560,000 versus the 420,000. So we will be asking for that difference also to be included with respect to traffic mitigation. In addition, I do have some questions for staff if there are staff here to address Austin oaks. [9:22:32 AM] One of the things that we hear a lot about with this pud and we hear about in a lot of these cases is the baseline. And so far as I've been able to tell the baseline that we've been working off of is something that was prepared by the developer and we have yet to see a baseline that's been prepared from staff. And I'm wondering if you have those numbers and your calculations and if you can share them with us either today or in the backup because a lot of what they're asking for is based on, well, we're only asking for 10,000 square feet of acre and things like that, and if you don't have the baseline right, that is potentially changes the way that we look at things. I don't know necessarily know that their baseline is wrong that they're presenting us. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we were using numbers prepared by the city rather than by the developer. >> Greg Guernsey in planning and zoning. We'll go ahead and verify those numbers based on what the existing zoning is and we can get that and confirm that and get it back to you. >> Alter: Can you also make sure it takes into consideration the restrict is on this property that has not been shared with council. >> I'll look at that too. >> Alter: Thank you. And then I had some questions. I wanted to clarify where my fellow councilmembers were. We talked last time about some potential amendments and touch base since we're not allowed to talk to each other outside of this forum and also be able to let the community know what's coming if they're going to show up. So I would love to hear from my fellow councilmembers what they're thinking about so we could have some discussion today on that. And there may be some questions related to that [9:24:33 AM] for you guys as well. >> Mayor Adler: Does anybody want to address anything else? Yes, Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: This is great stuff and I'm looking forward to digging into it. I'm relieved that traffic is the number one concern because we can get a lot more funding to mitigate that traffic by building additional heights. If that's the trade-off we're willing to go for, it's certainly something we're willing to support. And I think there's been some opportunity to do that on this project, so I think we're all concerned about traffic and there isn't a project that comes before us that isn't concerned about traffic. And I think the math on that is going to be interesting to look at on Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: And I know that folks are still trying to sort out how to do both getting this development here and making sure that we take advantage of the opportunity to include income restricted housing at the site. I look forward to trying my best to make sure we more than double the income restricted housing at this site from the proposal it that we passed on the last reading. So my office has handed out that spreadsheet and is still happy to work with staff and other council offices to figure out what the right combinations, but it seems like we get the most bang for the buck out of adding the new residential building and moving some of the office uses over. And I still think that we can get to more than double of the existing -- double the amount of affordable housing on this site without increasing traffic. So any motion that I would make on that I would clearly indicate that the traffic cap as we passed it on the last reading stays intact and stays the same. [9:26:35 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza? >> Garza: I guess building on the two previous comments, it is great to know that traffic is a main concern. I've heard several different things during this conversation. I've heard schools being at capacity. I've heard concerns with affordable housing and wanting to specifically have a certain type of occupants of those affordable housing units. So I think one misconception often with traffic issues is that residential is less traffic than business and commercial. So if there's a way to find some kind of balance here where we, you know, instead of doing as much commercial and office space we add more residential, I think that would be great. If that change could add to any kind of traffic mitigation, I think that's -- all of this is a trade-off. There's trade-offs here, but I'm definitely supportive of anything we can do to add additional affordable housing to this. And if traffic is a main concern, then maybe we can lessen the open space a teeny bit to add more residential. So I look forward to the discussion on Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Pool? >> Pool: Thanks. So can staff tell me what the original intention of the developer was for this development? >> Are you speaking when the application was submitted? >> Pool: Right. Maybe talk a little bit about what's there now and what spire is intending? >> The existing project right now is mainly an office project that's been [9:28:35 AM] developed many years ago. And the idea is to come in and to do an enhanced project that would allow for more square footage. In this case they have proposed some additional square footage that would allow for apartments to be constructed on the property. They had originally proposed a hotel, some retail, lounge kind of uses on the property, but I think with the first reading of council those uses may have been removed in lieu of providing some additional office. I don't know that the details -- we could certainly get a comparison of maybe what they started in the charrette versus what was actually submitted, if that's what you're asking. We can probably do a comparison and put that in the response with the questions and answers. So you can see what they originally asked for before the charrette versus what they turned in with their application. >> Pool: Right. So what I'm trying to get here -- to here now is the conversation has been adding places for people to live. Are there market affordable apartments in this area? >> It was represented I think at the prior meeting that there are by the neighborhood, although I don't think my staff and I'm not sure if our housing and community development office checked the communities nearby, but it's been represented by many that there are some older existing office buildings that have been stated by several neighbors as being more affordable. >> Pool: Do we know how many units are in the vicinity? >> No, but we can get and idea of how many are on the adjacent properties. >> Pool: And do we know what the going rate is for the various size apartments? >> I don't know if we can on obtain that information, but we can look into that. >> Pool: I think we do have some of that information. I have seen a list of the [9:30:37 AM] apartments in the area, how many units are in the apartments, how long they've been there and what the -- if you were to call up or look on the websites what the rental rates are. So in this part of the city there's significant amount of housing, both rental and ownership. And the development was originally intended to be an update of the existing office structures. >> I believe that's [inaudible]. >> Pool: And I wanted to draw this to my colleagues' attention because with the conversation about the additional affordable units and raising the heights, this is not in fact what the developer had originally intended and not had been presented to the neighbors, many of whom have very actively organized and are actively motivated to ensure that their voices are heard and the final development and approvals coming out of this body comport with what's there now and doesn't overwhelm that part of the city. So that's really important to note. I think it doesn't help anyone to start changing elements of the development significantly from how they have been offered up during our first reading. There may be some things that we can do to change things around the edges, but significantly adding affordable priced units absent a plan for how that would be paid for, where they would be located and the effect on the surrounding neighborhood, which does in fact have a significant amount of market [9:32:39 AM] rate affordable rental units is something that we really need to be very clear on before we make any significant changes in THA fashion. I have another question. There was a comment about traffic and that we can ease traffic or the cost of the mitigation by adding floors to the existing buildings. Can somebody explain that? >> I think that was my comment. -- >> Flannigan: I think that was my comment. I'm happy to explain it. >> Pool: I was actually going to have staff kind of weigh in a little bit on how that usually works. >> Flannigan: Greg, can you read my mind? >> No, I'm not sure if I could. [Laughter]. >> Pool: But thank you, councilmember Flannigan. Mr. Guernsey? >> So you're saying if you add more office space that the number of trips will go down? Is that what you're asking me? >> Pool: I think there are a number of different things that can happen if you could maybe explore them for me. >> I think by removing some of the uses, maybe the restaurant and the hotel, that may free up trips that could be used for additional office space. If that's what you're asking. I'm not sure just by purely adding additional office space on top of everything else that's on the proposal would actually reduce the number of trips. Peak hour trips would certainly change as you add more office space and start removing restaurant and hotel. I think as you free up space in lieu of the restaurant and hotel uses, yes, you could maybe get an overall reduction trip count with an additional increase in office square footage. >> Pool: All right, but not for housing. >> Well, housing you would have to take a look at that. It might actually certainly generate less trips than the [9:34:40 AM] apartments than the hotel type use. >> Pool: And how much money would we get if we were to add a story to a building? Do we have a number in the backup? >> I don't know if I've got a number that I could give you about how much additional affordable housing could be obtained by increasing office space. >> Pool: No, I just want to know how much additional money would come in from the development. I think my colleague was saying that we could get more money for traffic mitigation by raising the number of stories. >> I would probably have to work with transportation staff and work with the developer to get that for you. >> Pool: I think the number may be in the backup somewhere. >> Flannigan: I don't know the specific number. My recollection is as you add floors to the existing proposal it's a much greater addition to the traffic mitigation dollars than the first set of floors that are there already. So it's kind of a very increasing number that the developer was willing to add into the traffic mitigation for the next floor and the second floor after that. I think that's where I was headed. >> Pool: Right. I think other things happen as well. It gets more expensive to build because you have to be able to -- you have to build the lower stories to be able to support the weight of the upper stories. And then there are more trips generated by the additional stories. So if we can get a good feel for a fairly complex set of circumstances, I mean, this is the same in most developments. That would be really helpful. And I do have -- let's see... Does anyone have -- I don't know maybe if councilmember alter has the information on the cost of the apartments in the area? And their locations? >> Alter: I will have to [9:36:40 AM] ask my staff to bring it down, but it's fairly close compared to what we've seen in other situations to the 80% mfi rates, you can definitely rent one bedroom apartments and the 2,000 plus apartments in the vicinity for under a thousand dollars. So there's quite a bit of market affordable and even -- they're not income restricted housing, but housing that is available even at the mfis that we're targeting right in that area. There are a lot of graduate students, young families and refugees who have chosen to live along that. It was planned that way that there were a lot of apartments. If you actually take out a map and we'll try to have a map there for Thursday, you would be very surprised at the number of affordable units, market affordable units that are there. Even in that whole area it's about 50/50 between apartments and housing that's available for that whole northwest Austin area. I don't want to take over the floor now because I know there are other folks who wanted to speak and I wanted to hear from them. I did just want to comment on the swapping of uses and what that affects on traffic. What you're proposing adds to the traffic because you're substituting office into a hotel, which has lower traffic than office. Residential has lower than office, but the developer is not giving up any office in this process. And so you're actually adding to the traffic problem in this process. And there's nothing about this -- and the problem is that we're not even mitigating fully what they've already got and you're starting to add things in. So you're getting more money, but you're adding more traffic and it's a rather slippery slope there on that point. I have a lot of other points, but I'll let other people -- >> To that, like I said, the traffic mitigation fees that we get for this first set of [9:38:41 AM] floors -- and I don't recall specifically the number of floors, whatever it is, and the trip counts that that generates, is a different ratio than the next floor. So yes, you will add trips, but the amount of traffic mitigation fees the developer is willing to pay goes up a lot faster. >> Alter: But this is not a question of what the developer is willing to pay. This is a land use decision that we have to make. >> Flannigan: But it's also economics. >> Alter: There is economics, but there are also economics for the taxpayer who has to foot the bill for all of the traffic mitigation that doesn't happen. And this is -- if they were doing what they should be doing in order to be adequate, which we still don't have a full sense from transportation department that what they're doing is adequate, let alone superior, then we could have some conversation, but they're not doing that. >> Flannigan: Well, I think it's important to remember that there's not an unending amount of money you can extract from a project. And if we're going to base whether or not we build things on additional trip counts, then we will end up building nothing. I'm sure that's not what any of us are trying to accomplish here. So we have to be realistic about what we're doing and if we want to get farted down that list of developer paying for traffic mitigation devices, then there's a trade-off to be had that the next 1,000 trips gets you two or three more of those devices that may be more than mitigate what that additional trip count was for the additional floor that you added. And that's the analysis I'm hoping to get to at some point. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> I'm so done. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Go ahead. >> Pool: Just one more question. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the traffic signal that's planned at spicewood springs and I guess hart lane. Can you talk to me a little bit about how much it will cost to redo that intersection and what the amount of money is being offered by spire? [9:40:45 AM] >> Good morning, Eric bollock, Austin transportation. So the applicant with the tia came up with an estimate of 420,000 to construct the signal. It's more than just a signal at spicewood springs and hart. It's also adding an additional turn lane, an advance signal warning and removing some pavement that's out there right now. It's a pretty significant project. It's more than just adding a signal at an intersection. So staff looked at the estimate, I think as councilmember alter said previously, the estimate did not include design of that intersection, which we estimate is probably another $65,000 or so. >> Pool: It's 15%, is that correct? >> Right, 15%. And staff also added a contingency in case it takes longer than expected to actually construct it. That's what brings up the cost to over 500,000. Typically the city will have an estimate. If the city overestimates, you know, the cost winds up being less than we estimated, we give the money back to the applicant. It's just the way to cover our unknowns and the contingencies in case it takes longer to construct the signal. >> Pool: What happens if we come up short on the money? >> I guess it depends on how it's written. I guess it can be written that the applicant is expected to cover all the costs or if it's not written that way, typically staff will -- atd will find a way to make up the difference. >> Pool: And what do you mean by find a way too make up the difference? >> We have money for operation. We design signals in-house. So it would be a matter of using our existing staff to design the signal. >> Pool: Is the city planning to do the design and the implementation and the build? >> As of right now we're planning to design it. We also looked at the actual [9:42:48 AM] construction costs of the signal. They estimated 420,000. I believe ours was 429. So it was very close. So we have confidence in their estimation. It was just that the design component and any inflation and/or multiple year costs that were not included. >> Pool: So if we do the 15% cost of a design and the intersection that's priced in 2017 value, but it doesn't get billed for, say, eight to 10 years, but we have 4 how many? >> 20,000. >> $420,000, then the present value of that 420,000 will be significantly less. And who then makes up the cost for building that intersection? I would say it's the citizens of the city then through the Austin city council and the city's budget. >> Yes, that would be -- or in case other developments are proposed in the area, we collect mitigation to cover that cost. >> Pool: How's our history in that? >> It's getting better in that we're combining costs into actual building projects. >> Pool: When is the last time we actually had money to do complete mitigation on traffic from a development? >> To actually fully fund? >> Pool: Uh-huh. >> I think there have been cases in the last year. >> Pool: Really? >> Yeah, I can't name specifics offhand. >> Pool: I would like to see that documentation, please. And I'd like to go back 10 years and so, you know, what we have been able to accomplish. I remember on the Garza tract, which was one of the first zoning cases that this council took up that was more complicated, one of the most complicated ones, there was a very low amount of payment required of the developer. And it was explained to the council and we were very new at the time, how infrequent it was for the city to be [9:44:50 AM] able to collect sufficient money to do complete intersection mitigation, especially considering how much time it takes for the developments to happen and for the money to be paid to the city. So in fact, those mitigation -- the expectations of the people in the area were rarely met. And that was a serious concern to me, and I think many of us on this dais. And I think that's also one reason why we've moved toward I think rough proportionality in order to try to get a better payment out of a developer so that we could in fact move more down the road to having development pay for itself. So what I'm asking here from the staff is to understand how much would it cost to fully mitigate that intersection that is key for the residents in that area, no matter how many of them live there now or may move there in the future, that traffic signal will be a significant part of their life. And it will cause them -- it will make them happy or it will be an annoyance. And I think it's up to the council to ensure that we mitigate for annoyance as well. So I'd like to know how much it would cost for the city to do that and I would like to know if we could put in our discussions with the developer that that work be done sooner rather than later if we're going to phase in the development, and what portions -- I think this will be a phased in development because I think there are leases existing on the site. So not all of those buildings will be changing over at the same time. I think it's important that the developer in this case and especially at this intersection fully fund the mitigation that is necessary. I'll have more questions, but I guess that's enough for right now. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: I want to reemphasize because I think I made the point earlier, but in the later [9:46:50 AM] conversation I think it got lost, that my intention of any amendments to add residential or to add stories of office would also include specific direction not to lift the traffic cap. So I believe we can maintain that traffic cap where it's set and if the developer wants to add additional stories of office, then the developer has to work within their other uses to organize themselves to make sure they don't bust that traffic cap. And if they would, then they would be constrained from adding more office space. So I just want to be really clear that what you have on my spreadsheet would be to add additional and/or stories of office in order to put more leverage behind affordable housing. Of course, this dais could choose to take some of that and put it to traffic mitigation. I think that there is money -- a significant amount of money going to traffic mitigation in the current proposal and I don't see enough for affordable housing, and I think we should do more in that area by adding new office stories or adding residential we do not have to lift the traffic cap. The developer would just have to figure out their uses. Do less medical office, do less intensive office uses in order to stay under that cap. My question for the probably for you, Mr. Guernsey generally. The staff has recommended this project. >> That's correct. >> Casar: So given -- and that's given the existing transportation and traffic contributions. >> That's correct. >> Casar: And can you sort of talk us through that part? >> Yes. This project, we looked at the benefits, and this is also in your backup. And there are benefits that contributed in addition to what you would find in other puds. There was parkland open space, an environmental component, limiting [9:48:50 AM] impervious cover and going back and I guess you would say naturalizing the concrete channel that was there. Providing additional setbacks for that. There was the affordable housing component we talked about earlier. There was green building. I think it met the requirements for transportation. I'm sure it exceeded in that regard. But those are some of the items that were seen as benefits and superiority that staff recommended. >> Casar: So I think the place that we're at is according to staff this pud is superior in various areas and it meets the requirements for housing and it meets those requirements for transportation. And from my point of view this is a unique opportunity to make things even better on the housing front where I see this as a potential missed opportunity to help on housing. So that's why anything that I would change would be to add to that area. And it sounds like what other folks think, it's just meeting expectations on transportation instead of going above and beyond as one of the key concerns. And I think that's just what we're trying to sort out. I would disagree with the idea that it doesn't help anybody for us to add extra affordable housing here. In fact, I think it helps -- it will help specific people, 10, 15 years from now, who are looking for an affordable place to live in this area. And while I recognize the importance of existing apartments there, I think we all know that given the price of housing in that area, that it's only a matter of time regardless of what we do, that that will not last. I've seen that happen in lots of parts of not only our city, but cities across the country, where you have market rate affordable units that get renovated and then priced up or that get fully redeveloped. So we have to in my view making the decision to have income restricted units is really important because that's how we guarantee that for decades to come those opportunities will exist for [9:50:50 AM] people. And so even if there are market rate affordable units there now, if they aren't income restricted we have no guarantee. As a matter of fact, I think we have a guarantee otherwise that if we don't start doing things like this now that there will be no affordable rental units in this area if we don't take action. So I do think it will help folks and that's why I think we should at least double the on-site affordable housing units through any of the mechanisms that we've laid out. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor? I just have a follow-up question. It would be helpful if you're expecting specific amendments to make those available to us. I know you provided that information and I guess it was two weeks ago whenever the different options. But if you're thinking to propose something in particular, it just gives us more time to think about it. >> Casar: Sure. And I laid out the array of options and what I've said that I want to at least double the amount of affordable housing and I would leave it up to folks that the reason those options are all laid out is because you could do it in different ways. >> Kitchen: Right. >> Casar: Be it adding to the office and adding a new residential building. Be it adding a new residential building and adding one floor to the four-story residential building that is on the other side of the park. So for me it is more about getting to that outcome. And I know that there are folks that have concerns about getting -- adding potentially an additional story in order to get traffic mitigation. So if that indeed happens I still want to try to double the affordable housing so we might have to use some of the other options to get there. Does that make sense? So as a starting point I guess I would just say that I want to at least -- to option a and option B or option a and option B and a story of office in order to get over that 100% and that amendment is just basically clearly laid out as what this is. Now, if you want the language that -- for the law that would actually get us [9:52:52 AM] there, we could post that, but I just don't think it's nearly as clear as saying we're adding a story of residential, we're adding a residential building, and we're moving the office that we displaced over to the other office building. >> Kitchen: Okay. For clarity purposes then I was thinking that I might have heard you say that you're thinking is that the amendment just might specify that -- that you bring forward just might specify the goal without the how. And so I guess I'm just trying -- maybe you don't know yet. >> Casar: Yes, this specifies the how. I guess I just also recognize that I'm not -- that there's other folks who are working on things here. So that's part of why in these work sessions I was hoping to hear where people were at. Because for me they're a multiple house and I'm less dedicated to the how than making sure we get to the goal. And I'm happy to do these how's or those how's depending on what people's preference is. Does that make sense. Along with the specification that bottom line we would not raise the traffic cap. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Casar: So there would be no additional traffic beyond what we passed, and any additional traffic mitigation dollars I would want to making sure that we understood from everyone that was voluntarily agreed to by everyone so that -- I wouldn't want to do anything that results in us getting no affordable units because we bust the deal. >> Kitchen: So in other words, the amendment you will bring depends on part of how the discussion goes, but what you're saying is the parameter of any amendment that you bring would include what you just said, you know, in terms of the caps on traffic and you may or may not specify how it is accomplished because your first priority is the goal. Did I hear that right? >> Casar: That's right. I could easily start with a how. I could easily start with saying we should add a residential building and add a story residential and potentially of office. And that would achieve that goal. But if people picked other how's from this spreadsheet that got us to a similar [9:54:54 AM] goal, that's -- that's not as much of a concern for me, unless, of course, it's bad land use planning or an unreasonable proposal. But ultimately I'm trying to get to an outcome and I have a few options that get there. And whichever one the panel feels most comfortable with I'm -- I generally feel comfortable with all of these. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thanks. Thank you for the clarification. I have one more point. I also wanted to just say that -- just so that we are all getting out where we're coming from on here. I also understand the concerns that councilmember alter is bringing forward with regard to transportation. So I'm likely to support or will support the efforts that she's making to get additional dollars for the transportation. >> Mayor Adler: Did you -- >> Troxclair: I was going to ask councilmember Casar if he had copies he could hand out of that spreadsheet, but my staff just brought it. I think it would be helpful if we looked at it. I do have it, but I think other -- >> Casar: I handed it out last time, but I will have my staff print out more in case people would like it. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Okay. I had a couple of questions about the units and this may have been handed out the last time. So councilmember, please forgive me if I'm asking something that's already being handed out. As far as the residential use on-site, how many of those and at what price points and what is the square footage? >> Alter: I think those are excellent questions. At this point we still don't know the answers because in the current plan that there were 250 units it has now mysteriously gone down to 200 units. We have a question that's prepared for Q and a that asks about the square footage of that. In terms of the price points we haven't been told that. It's clearly our understanding that this developer plans to have somebody else do the residential. [9:56:54 AM] We don't know that. Something else we don't know is whether or not, you know, six months or a year some other developer who buys the property for the residential is going to come back to us and ask for fee waivers to build their housing. So we do not have answers to those questions as far as I know. Perhaps staff has more. >> Houston: Thank you. Mr. Guernsey? >> I don't think my staff has the information regarding the proposed price points of the units. We can verify the number of of units and if that's changed recently I'm not aware, but we can go back and ask that question again of how big are the units and exactly what's the cost per unit. >> Houston: I would appreciate that because what happens so often is that we grant exemptions for affordability's sake and there's 629 square feet and they still cost a whole lot of money. So that's not what we're talking -- what I'm talking about as far as trying to have some family units for people with children when we have 630 square feet. So that would be helpful. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I think to that last point, I know councilmember alter you said you prepared a Q and a about the square footage. If it's not already a part of that, if you could add to that the bedroom count S that already a part of your question that you're submitting? >> Alter: I don't think it is, but I don't know if those have been submitted yet. But we can certainly add a question with respect to bedroom count. >> Tovo: Or send one in or we could just ask the staff to make that part of that. I know that was a discussion early on about having a lower bedroom count because of the concerns about -- about the schools, but as I indicated, in our first hearing, it's -- I think we [9:58:57 AM] should be encouraging people to build units with higher bedroom count. I just think that that's part of the goals that we've set for our self as a city. In any case I would be interested in that information to see what those bedroom counts look like. >> Mayor Adler: I think my issues are the ones that have been raised here. I'd like to see affordable housing on this site. I'd like to see money to be able to do traffic mitigation. And I also -- part of my consideration is going to be honoring the work that was done by the neighborhood that was out there, >> Recognizing that that doesn't bind us or control us. While the neighborhood and owner were there, the city wasn't there. Bye at the same time, a lot of people spend a lot of time on that, and until we get through code next and have greater direction, I will certainly give some way to that process. Mr. Garza? >> Garza: I just wanted to add, I'm having a hard time with the point that there is more -- there's plenty of affordable housing, market rate affordable housing. I don't -- it seems bizarre to me. I think it's wonderful that there is a lot of market rate affordable housing here, and I don't -- you know, I hear a possible list being asked for to show exactly where those -- I remember seeing a map of where the affordable housing is, and market rate affordable housing is, and that there's plenty in this part of town, and then there's a side of me that feels a little bit offended by there's enough of those kind of places here, but I'm hoping it's not what the intent of that point is. [10:00:58 AM] Because I think this is at the end of the day a land use decision by this council regardless whether the developer intended and like the mayor said, we also want to honor the process and try to include as much as possible. At the same time, it's a land use. We had a lengthy discussion about what we're doing, and we had an opportunity, and we need to take the opportunity to add more affordable housing. If somebody can explain the thinking behind what sounds to me, we have enough market rate affordable in this part of town. May junior? >> I'll go ahead and take that one because I was talking about the number of apartments in the area. I brought that up, because I think it was being represented here that there were no apartments or very few in the area, and so having lived in that -- west of that area for some time, and that used to be a main route that I took to get downtown was on spicer springs road, I'm familiar with that area, and so there are -- there's 2,629 units, rental units in the area between spicewood and far west mopac and hart. So, there's 2600 units of housing. Oak hollow is an affordable housing development and it's on wood hollow drive and there's 409 units there, and their efficiency is 7( $00 and a two bedroom runs from $900 to $1200 and a three-bedroom is $1100 to $1400. My concern about a new development just coming in new, [10:02:59 AM] is it will tend to inflate these rents here, which are currently fairly low. In the general area, if you include north hills drive and spec avenue, there's over 3500 rental units in this area, and that's June percent springs, the ridge, west elk creek and park point, wood hollow, bent oak, oak ridge, and so fort. And these numbers are as of the end of February, is when this data was collected for me. So, what I was -- what I wanted to convey was this isn't an area that's bereft of rental units. In fact there's significant rental units. What they don't have is three-bedroom, June percent springs and teresina. There are only two out of 13 complexes that have three-bedroom units. Lots of efficiency, as you might suspect and usually it's hundreds to one, and the rental rates run from I think that affordable housing unit at oak hollow, I'm looking to see if there's anything cheaper than that, then the high, 1459 -- 1552, 190 juniper springs has just under $2,000 a month for a three-bedroom. >> I appreciate that explanation. I guess I never -- I was never going off of the point that -- [10:04:02 AM] there wasn't enough affordable housing. I look at every single pud opportunity to include as much affordable housing as possible. I remember this point was made during the discussion with council, that when you add -- if you add more supply, prices go up and that is directly opposite of how the market works, so that's another bizarre -- well, if we had more affordable units, it's going to make the prices in these other ones go up. My assumption would be people want to be in the newer units and the prices would go down in the older units, but I don't claim to be an expert on that matter. And so, you know, in my district which is one of the last affordable places to live in the city, I could say, we don't need any housing here, we have plenty of affordable housing, and I could name 100 apartment complexes with affordable market units, but any opportunity, in my district, to add any, it's also my understanding that district 10 doesn't have -- has a lower percentage of income restricted units in any part of the city, and I know that this was point made several times by a previous council member of this district saying that she wanted more affordable housing in this part of town, because there wasn't enough. It just seems a very bizarre point to make, but anyway -- >> >> Casar: Briefly, I would agree and ask if my colleagueses went to my district and said if there are enough affordable housing units in west Austin where a lot of them work, you'd be looked out of the room. I mean, we can't -- there are not, in my view, certainly not enough income-restricted housing or affordable housing, in the [10:06:03 AM] central western and certainly west of opac parts of our city. Just because there are some that exist, doesn't mean we have enough or there isn't good reason to have more. Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I want to say that was what I was going to say. Also an interesting comment about the area already has enough rental units and I think if we embark on a much bigger project headed toward April with code next, that would lead me to believe we need to put more rental units where currently exists ownership units. That's a whole separate pan door Ara's box. I don't think one area of town in one area of town is reason to add more rental units because there's other things you can go down that road with. And staff looks like you're off the hook. Council member pool already had the list. Council member pool, if could you share that, that would be super interesting to look at, because I'm curious about the number of units that are available in certain areas, and more of a logistic question, I see on the Q and a response that the list of transportation projects that aren't included in the base number, this additional 18 improvements that do not include the six agreed to. There's a column for percent of site traffic, so the very first one on this list says widening hart lane has 11% of site traffic. So, does that mean that only 11% of the trips generated by this are going through that section of hart lane? Is that what percent of site traffic means? >> It generally means, yes, percentage added over existing traffic, if you calculate the estimated increase from this [10:08:05 AM] proposal, it would mean 11% of future traffic is contributed to this development. >> Do you know what - - since that's the segment that presumably intersect was this, what percent of the trips from this development are going through the intersection at spicewood and hart? Because I only -- on the q&a, I only see the ones that are conditional. I don't see the four that are included. Do you know that number roughly or where I can find it? >> We can provide it to you. If I don't have my notes right here. >> Council member alter, when I look at the map, it seems the majority of trips come from opac and from the access road. I wouldn't turn on spicewood, then hart and executive center. I would turn on the access center and go to executive center. Can you tell me about the actual use of hart hart and spicewood? >> Sure. This was indicated as the primary traffic improvement that they would make. And I don't have in front of me all of the traffic counts. It is an interesting intersection, and part of the - reason it is so costly because it's not a Normal four-way. There's median, there's buildings in the middle of spicewood over there. You have traffic that's coming apart from the jcc which is another pud in the area, and because mopac is often very crowded, you have a lot of traffic that's coming through the neighborhood using ways and all of those patterns are shifting and changing and there's currently no light there. Obviously they wouldn't be putting it there and you have very long wait times at mopac and spicewood springs. Since you asked this question, I will add that one of the things that's very frustrating about this process is this traffic impact assessment had a very [10:10:06 AM] limited scope as far as anyone who lives or works in the area would say. So, it didn't count any traffic issues east of mopac, even at Anderson lane, where we were projecting to have an imagine Austin neighborhood center. We have a tia that has folks going down to far west and going back unand around so they can avoid the times of waiting at spicewood and mopac. That is not a tia that gives you a lot of confidence that even if you did everything in there, that you'd be fixing the problems. It doesn't look at spec, which is just one section north on the road. There's no modeling there of how any of that impacts. It model the fact that you enter the managed lane right there and how that's going to change all of those patterns of traffic in the area. It doesn't model the change of 360. We're going to change 360 so all of the traffic dumps right on to that road and has to wait at that same intersection. So, I will just add that was well. >> Miss pool? >> Just to reiterate, I don't think any of us here said that there was enough affordable housing or market affordable housing in the area. My goal was to highlight the fact that there is a significant amount I'm not passing judgment whether a significant amount is sufficient. There's 3500 units in this close-in area. I would, council member Flannigan, thanks for telling staff that they don't need to do something that I would like to do. But I would like to ask staff to confirm the numbers that I have here. And it is a little bit dated. [10:12:07 AM] I will admit this is from the end of February, so it's a good month old. So I'm happy to have my staff provide this data for you all, and then you guys can confirm it. And I would like to make sure that this is in the back-up, too. Thanks. >> I think I was responding to council member pool's question in providing the contacts for this. But I do think it is relevant to understand that the market is providing affordable housing in the area, and what we are essentially talking about is giving a subsidy to the developer to provide what is essentially market rate housing at some level, because if the market can provide this in the area, then this becomes a land use decision and not something we should go and be subsidizing the developer for. And so, for me, that is the concern and I want to kind of separate some of the questions that we're talking about. It is definitely our role as council to have a land use discussion about whether residential office, hotel, would be the best use at this property. I am inheriting this case, and I would like to think that if I had been there from beginning, we might have had different conversations and we might have factored in different things to come up with something that's truly compact and connected which this is not. I am, however, inheriting this case, and have to deal with where we are, and all of that that has gone on with the neighbors and the process from where it is. But I want to be very clear, I do believe it is our role as council to make a land use decision. What I disagree with, I do not think it's desirable as a council to ensure that the developer makes a profit on a development. When they bought a property that didn't have the entitlements that are required in order for them to get -- to make a profit. So, I want to point out a pattern, and maybe I can see it, because I wasn't on council, but you have Austin oaks, and you [10:14:08 AM] have the grove and these are both cases where the developers brought the properties and there was a lack of clarity about their entitlements, and it created all sorts of corn fusion, it ate up all sorts of time of city staff, it ate up all sorts of time of council. Let's talk about the amount of productivity that was lost from the citizens that have to be involved, then we go as a council or you guys did, because I wasn't there fort other and you say, we're going to try to make a profit on something, when you took this business risk. It is not our role. They took a business risk. They made a bet on the entitlements. It is our role to decide what the best land use is. It is not our role to make sure that they make a buck when they have already bought this property. We have to have rules and make it reasonable so so that they can make a buck. But we do not have to, in any given case, when they took that risk and we decide there's reasonable land use that's different, to do otherwise. And I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been talking to a lot of developers and over and over again, I keep saying, trying to understand, why are we in this place? We're in this place because the developers chose to move forward without having their entitlement and again, and again, I'm told that a good developer will have their entitlements in place before they purchase the property. That is what is causing the problem and now we're going to turn around and do this little game that we're doing and reward them because it's our job to make their numbers work. It's not our job to make their numbers work. It's our job to make land use decisions. And if we want to have a land use decision and discussion, that we should have more housing in this area and talk about that, that's fine. What I'm very uncomfortable with is this notion we're going to have a land use discussion and we have to reward them. If we say residential is a better use than office or better use than hotel, then that's our decision. We don't have to give them [10:16:09 AM] another floor over here or another floor over there. That is a risk that they took. It is not one that we, as a council, have to met gate for. They, however, do have to mitigate for the cost of their development and its impact on the community nearby. And I'm very cornered about us conflating those things because we can have really important conversations how we get to compact and connected but not if we're stuck making numbers for the developers in every individual case. I want to go back to some of the questions, try to switch gears here and cover a lot of different pieces. It was asked before about trying to compare things, and Mr. Guernsey, you said, I think part of the context, those of us working with the neighbors. That's already the compromise that come people reached on this develop. There was a prior version of it, which had two 17-story hotels, not hotels, office buildings and there wasn't a residential as part of it. The residential that's there is already an attempt to insert a land use of more residential into this particular property. From the perspective of those who have been working on it. I'm very concerned, as we talk about the residential, about trip cap issues and also about the fee waiver, so we're going to give all of this other office because of the residential and this other developer is going to be able to come back in five years and ask us for fee waivers. I'm very uncomfort wimbledon that, because that's just adding more entitlement. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that anybody can see that you can develop your office and hit your trip cap and say we can't do the residential because we missed our trip cap and then [10:18:10 AM] council will grant them a higher trip cap. So, there has to be very clear ways, how you can get your trip cap without building your residential. I also want to mention the developer said to me, they need three more feet of height because they messed up on the garages. We're supposed to roll over and give them three more feet but they don't have to give us anything otherwise. I just don't get that. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I want to clarify my earlier remarks when I said my I meant to say my focus on second reading was on traffic, and when I talk about traffic being the key concern, it's one that all of the parties who are involved in this, from the community's perspective, agree on. It is not to say we have other concerns that we're concerned about, so people are still concerned about the height. They are still concerned about the industries. They are they are willing to talk about more residential, and they feel they're at a compromise, and it will have impacts on the community, not because of the people that are coming, but because the schools are at 140 to 160 percent capacity and yes there's a facility bond proposal in the works that might have another school, but you're not going to solve the problem with that. You have an entire sixth grade that is in portables. These schools are good schools but they are way overcrowded and when you add more children and we do have a way to coordinate. That is problemtic, and it's something that we, as a city council, have to keep in mind as we make these decisions. The traffic cap, yes, there needs to be a traffic cap but this 19,000 number is inflated [10:20:11 AM] because it includes a lot of medical. They can do these swapping out because they gave themselves huge amounts of room in there. You know, I just -- you know, as we think about all of these moving pieces, we have to understand that there is a pud, it is supposed to be superior, it is supposed to be superior on many levels. Yes, it should be superior for the city, and maybe the city should have been speaking up for itself in what it cared most about earlier, if that was more housing. But it also should be superior for the community. And it should be superior on the things that the community cares most about. And in this case, it is the traffic and the height and the trees, and all of these proposals kind of bust that up. You know, I'm looking forward to our conversation on Thursday, and I appreciate the opportunity to understand where people are coming from. But when we think about the choices that we make, let's not just think about making the developer make enough money so that they can do this, let's think about the economics of the choices that we make. So, we talk about affordable housing. I don't have the spread sheet in front of me right now, but I remember it was something like a $300,000 subsidy and the person still has to rent it. I can buy a condo in this area for $162,000. Okay? So, there's something wrong with the economics that we're working here. I haven't gotten deep enough into the affordable housing to figure out what the answer is, but, I just can't stomach the idea that I'm going to give them a subsidy of 300,000 plus, in the form of these extra floor, when I could go buy $162,000 condo and just pay condo fees for the rest of my life, and it would be mine or it would be this person who needs affordable [10:22:12 AM] housing. It would be their house for the rest of their life and instead, we're going to give them $300,000 to provide something the market is already providing that we can provide at market rate in some instances, and I just -- there's some economics that I'm not getting and unless I have that clarified, there's no way that I can support that, and I'd be happy to have conversations about that, but we do havefy deuce year responsibilities as well. If we want affordable housing we should get as much affordable housing as we can for our dollar, too. And I don't see that playing out in these discussions at all. >> Miss Garza? >> Garza: First I love the passion, even though I disagree with it. I don't agree with the characterization as us rolling over. I wish it was that simple but as council stated, there's a ton of moving pieces and it has to be a two-way street. I would rarely come to the defense of a developer. You know, I wish it were as simple as we were just helping them make more money, because it would be easy to make the decision to vote against any additional entitlements, but it's not that simple. It's -- there will be jobs provided here. There will be medical care provided here. There will be hopefully homes that are affordable to people and that all helps our economy, so, this is -- it's -- I wish it were as simple as we're making decisions here that help the developer, because it would make my decision easier, but it's not. It's not that simple. It's about providing amenities that the city needs and it's a two- way street. I'm as frustrated as anybody else when trying to understand the metrics and development and [10:24:13 AM] understand, maybe you can make a little less profit and I'm totally on that side. For me, this is about providing services and jobs and homes, and so I would disagree with the characterization that we're just rolling over. >> Mr. Casar? >> Casar: And I probably won't go through each of the points raised. I think there's an important one that there is going to be -- I think there already is in the ordinance a trigger, that once the square footage is built, the residential has to go, has to get built. So, I don't expect that we would be seeing anything like somebody coming back and asking for an increase to the trip cap. I think I've been pretty clear of my intent to keep the trip cap where it's at and the residential has to get built pretty soon on the development process. I think that's already in the ordinance. Second, you know, I think purchasing, property in the nearby area with the money that we get as opposed to putting it inside the project is an interesting question. We had that question up, and if there were lots and lots of $170,000 condos in the area that woo could buy, I think that would be a real interesting option for us to take up, or even if they were just several, I would be open and interested in having that conversation about whether to have them on site or offsite. Fact of the matter is, the market is not providing at 60% mf hi units in the area. What is in the area is a certain market rent. What we're buying through this pud that's unique is units guaranteed for decades to be at the mfi level, instead of units like tomorrow, are renovated and doubled like we've seen all over the city. I won't add too much to council member Garza's point, cases that you've mentioned, Austin oaks [10:26:17 AM] and grove are both put, we are in a difficult position, because we are voluntary zoning programs that ultimately are us trying to get the best value that we can for the city and then decide whether the land use components and develop Earps side makes sense. So it is not my interest in the least. It's easy to vote against any pud. The question is, as part of our charge and responsibility to decide whether or not pud zoning will provide a greater benefit than the existing zoning, so we could vote this down and developer can work with the existing zoning, and do a deal that is sufficient, would I vote yes on a pud where I think it's actually better for us to build under existing zoning and right now I'm not prepared to vote yes. I would only be prepared to vote yes if we have to do some things that I described. >> Just to clarify, the existing percentage of affordable housing in this area is 15 1/2 percent and that's 409 units of 2,629. Could you just repeat that? >> Yeah. The reason why I mention this. A lot of times we can't get more than 10 percent in a development and a lot of times it ends up being less than that. We have 409 units at oak hollow which is an affordable housing development where the efficiencies are $700 and a three bedroom high end is $1400. That's 409 units at oak hollow of the area that is directly [10:28:17 AM] adjacent that's between spicewood, far west, mopac and hart. That's directly adjacent to this develop development and there's 6,029 total units in that area. I think I have a lot of opinions, but I'll save them for now. I hope all of this housing stays affordable and stays where it is, and continues to provide opportunities for people in this part of town, but I am I think the market doesn't necessarily support that outcome. Barely does. That's one of the reaps it's so important as we look at code next, we look at it very carefully and make sure we're not incentivizing the demolition, or significant renovation, and increased costs in our multi family housing. I know there's one project on this list that has notified its tenants that it is raising its prices, in part because it's using a loan that we enabled them to go seek. That's a problem we're going to need to deal with separately, but I just -- it just signals to me that the housing prices and I appreciate all of this information, I think it's really useful, council member pool, but we can't count on these rents being stable 0 over time, maybe even in the near future. >> Anything else? Yes, miss kitchen >> Kitchen: I have to express my concerns, too, as mayor pro tem mentioned, I'm looking forward to us adopting the strategic housing plan and having a thorough discussion about that because it's very tough for us to think about these housing issues in a one off way, but I am also concerned [10:30:19 AM] that -- I'm actually very aware of that housing, all of the departments over there. I actually lived there at one point. At this point, we don't have any guarantee that those things will stay affordable so that's something I really have to weigh when I consider options to, you know, to guarantee affordable housing. >> Anything else? >> Okay. We'll move on then. Do you want to call up item 22? Is staff here? We didn't pull it because we didn't have staff present. >> We didn't have ae staff. But we do now? >> Good morning. You have to hit your microphone. >> Good morning. Mark dobrows ask Y. >> Thanks for making your way down to the work session. >> The back-up said 50 machine in employees and this is adding 83 parking spaces which is a convenience factor. >> There's a couple dynamics going on here. We have about 240 employees, with 304 parking spots. And we're adding 50 employees. Some will be there temporarily. There's customer service representatives, folks that call the utility that answer the phones. But our service control center is also used by many other departments as well as Austin energy, for meetings and conferences. We have large meeting rooms and technology rooms. So it's not infrequent for us to [10:32:22 AM] have multiple visitors at that building and parking lot quickly fills up. So the idea is, at least on a temporary basis, cordon off what we can from Tokyo when we're not using it, free up parking both for visiting employees and visitors in the S.E.C. We have a long-term strategic plan to address the logger term needs. Is, when I did the math on this, it's about 50 bucks a month per space? >> Right. >> That seems like a lot of parking in an area with a lot of Greenfield. >> We did a fair market study with independent. They came out, the low end was 47, the high end was 60 for this type of parking. And so we went and negotiated the very lowest end of the range. >> I understand that is likely going to pass. I am going to vote against this. I have a lot of issues paying out of our pocket for additional parking when there's bus lines. Don't we have responsibility as a city to, as we grow and as we expand, to model a way of encouraging telecommuting and encouraging bus ridership? I understand you guys are trying to solve a short-term problem, but this is quite a bit of money that when we talk about other things in the budget that are even less than this, and we will fight desperately for things that are less than this amount of money, to spend this kind of cash on 83 parking spaces. When you said some of them are temp employees. >> No, they are not temp employees. They are down there because our call center is full. The number of customer service reps is really response to number of phone calls which is typically the number of customers. We are now 470,000 customers. That's on the electric side. [10:34:22 AM] And so, we are growing. We are looking at longer term strategic plan. When we came up with this parking solution, we took a number of things into consideration, including the number of our employees that do use mass transit. We also looked at building permanent parking and building temporary parking and the cost of those are both prohibitive compared to renting in the short term. We did an alternatives analysis and we believe this is most cost effective to achieve what we need. >> Flannigan: I'm still going to vote against it. Here we have what happens in front of us what happens if we go and not building a good transit system or encouraging people to use transit, because we'll spend $150,000 roughly the first year and over $100,000 each additional year. The city is growing and that number is only going to get bigger. It's an unsustainable way to move forward. I appreciate the hard work you all are doing. You're trying to solve a problem. It's not about that. It's about a larger policy conversation. This is an unit to how to ease parking in the city. Thank you. >> Thank you for bringing that up. Those are some really good points. In other big cities, parking is not part of their -- parking is -- people have to pay for parking like in big cities and that's part of their -- I mean, that's a good discussion for us to have about city employees. I know that would be a concern for people who live way out, but we should be encouraging the use of public transit. Thanks for pulling that and making that point. >> Mayor? >> Miss Houston? >> Houston: Somebody may know this. But I was just interested, did the city of Austin give any kind of incentives to Tokyo to come to Austin? [10:36:22 AM] >> I don't know. We'd have to check with economic development. >> I don't know about that. But we called this a Tokyo electron site but it's not owned by Tokyo electron anymore >> Houston: Who owns it now? >> It's owned by Riverside resources. It was sold several years ago, so, it's just known as Tokyo electron site. >> Okay, so Riverside resource, what do they do? >> They are a real estate development company and they are redeveloping the facility. >> Houston: The site? The whole site? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Miss pool? >> Mr. Dombrosky, could you tell us if the city of Austin has any kind of are incentive program for people to take mass transit? >> We do. We have several programs to encourage our employee whose use mass transit. Obviously it depends where the employee is coming from and what the location site is as far as the number of employees that do that, but we do have a number of programs for that. >> Thanks. Anything else? All right. Thank you very much. We have four more items that got pulled. No. 18 was the manager one. I just pulled that just to highlight that for everybody. We're going to have a discussion item about the city manager. This would be an appropriate time for us to have that conversation that's been Teed up about whether or not we make public the last few candidates or whether we decide that as a group. That's also where we'll talk about forming the group and whether or not we want to try to create a smaller group by consensus, and if not, then an 11- member group is still the process that we want to follow. [10:38:22 AM] But I just point this out so that people think about this at -- think about maybe some names, that you have those in your back pocket and people that you might want to have considered so we can think about this one before we arrive on Thursday. >> And we are going to have an executive session about it shortly. >> Okay. >> Next item that I pulled was item no. 52, the health south. Miss Houston, I support and concur with asking our real estate people to take a look at the use of that property for affordable housing. I would also like, and if no one else does, I would probably bring an amendment to widen the scope of that investigation of that site to take a look at other uses that site might have in terms of, you know, if we sold it, what would we do with it. It's outfitted as a lab. Is there value associated with that, I think it's important for us now that we own that site to have a real thorough investigation what the best use would be for the city given all our priorities and I want to make sure, for me, I would like to have staff take a broad look and come back to us with what the highest and best use of that project might be for the citizens and residents of the city. Miss Houston? >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. And I certainly appreciate and understand your ask of real estate to come back with some additional information. This is the one opportunity that we have in the center city to provide what we all talk about we want to provide, which is affordable housing and the only place we can do that is on city-owned property or some governmental public property. And so this was not about how do we negotiate other things, but a [10:40:24 AM] property is about how do we live by what we say we are going to do in imagine Austin, which is we're going to provide housing that people who will be employed at the health center, who will be hired eventually, at the health -- central health development who are low wage employee, who now cannot live down in the central city, because there's no place for them to live, this would be the one opportunity that we have as a city to say to everybody, this is what we mean when we talk about affordable housing. We didn't do it with satisfy home when we had an excellent opportunity to provide that kind of development and vision to develop. And this is the only place. I understand that you're asking for additional information, what's the highest and best use, but it's my opinion this is in fact the highest and best use. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> I'll completely concur. I'd add a couple others to that list. The greenhouse. I watched some of those opportunities on the other side of the dais mostly go by in terms of the provision of affordable housing. Providing, looking toward our public lands to provide affordable housing has been a stated goal of the city council and various documents dating back decades in various housing plans. Almost every year it ends up in some sort of planning document, so I many am so proud of this council for moving forward several resolutions, asking our staff to look at our public lands and I really hope we will have some projects on the ground that we will work with aid and with our other projects that we have. And this s-as council member Houston said, one of our very best opportunities to get some of that affordable housing downtown, close to where people [10:42:25 AM] work. As we all know, housing downtown is not affordable for people working in the service industry and a lot of jobs that exist down here are in the service industry and of course in this area of the city, we will have more service industry jobs coming online with the advent of the medical school and new hospital. I know having had the opportunity to tour last fall, to tour the health south building, I think it's really a unique property and it's set up with lots of different rooms with communal kitchens on each floor, communal laundry facilities. It offers a commercial kitchen on the first floor. Lots of office space. I think the possibilities are really very great. I'm not sure what you meant by a lab. I'm not sure whether or not there are lab facilities on that property, but it is in great shape, it just is well located. I think it offers a great -- affords the city of Austin a really important opportunity and I agree that while that -- while it may bring a high dollar on the market, it sold the highest and best use, I believe is the one that's identified in the resolution. >> Mr. Casar? >> Casar: I think if I were to amend this or think through what I would like from this, is to see if what the best use for affordable housing in this building is, it may be the best place or to see what is the best way for us to use this property to get high quality affordable housing in the central city, because we do have, for example, foundation communities, project capital studios downtown that is not on publicly owned property, but does provide very deep affordable housing near the central city, right across the street from the capital virtually, so if -- I would just like to know, okay, how much affordable housing and at what quality and what cost could we get in the health south building or, for example, if that building were sold, could we get [10:44:27 AM] significantly more or significantly better or same amount of affordable housing in the central city at less cost. I just want to know what those optionses are before choosing any one particular option, so, if the mayor's amendment gets us to that same place, I would be supportive of that, or something that just said, clarified, I want to use this site for affordable housing in the central city, be it right on this site or actually using this site economically to achieve the same goal. That way, I just want to know what the options are before choosing any particular option. I don't want to blind myself to potentially better options for affordable housing in central city deliberately. >> Houston: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Miss Houston? >> Houston: Thank you. There's a lot of difference between what this resolution is proposing and what foundations community provides. They provide wrap-around services for people who have different levels of needs and support systems. This is for people who, like my daughter is a waitress and gets $2.18 an hour and can't afford to perhaps live in a house or a home or an apartment, because they make less than $25,000 a year. It's not the same comparison, and so, although I applaud foundations community for what they do for the people that they do serve, that's not what we're talking about in this area. We're talking about the people who will be cleaning the residential units at the central health development. We're talking about people who will be the night people over at the medical school who have jobs but can't live in the city, so it's a different comparison all together. I don't want people to get them all confused. They are not the same population, so, I just say that. >> Mayor Adler: Miss alter? [10:46:29 AM] >> Alter: I would support your amendment, mayor, I think in order to make this decision, we should have full information and we may welcome out at the end and decide that affordable housing is the choice that we make but I would be uncomfortable making that decision without having the fuller picture of what the opportunity costs and what the trade-offs are. I also do want to take a second to applaud real estate services for having the foresight to purchase this property and to give us this opportunity to make this decision. I think that was an innovative way of taking advantage of the circumstances to provide us an opportunity to make a choice, and no matter what we choose, we have an opportunity here to do something that is of greater use to our community and I think that -- I just want to thank them for taking that initiative and moving forward in that way. Mr. Casar >> Casar: Oh, sorry. >> Mayor Adler: Miss Houston? >> Houston: And I was going to say, I appreciate all of that interest in this particular property and its highest and best use, I've watch the inned over the years when I watched city council work, when we talk about best use, that means that the people that we say we are most concerned about get pushed further away from the central city because there's always going to be a high and best use of something that's right across from the new and revised water creek, Waterloo park. We have the bright shining buildings. We have the zone right off 15th street and all kind of new things coming in to play. When we say that, we have to look at, how do people that are going to live downtown and work downtown, how do they get to [10:48:30 AM] work? Are they going to ride the bus? And how many buses do they have to H take? They live in colony park and work at the medical center, it takes an hour and 15 minutes to get downtown. This is an opportunity. Yes, it's an expensive opportunity, but that's one of our core values. We've been talking about that all morning about housing that is affordable to people at the low end of the income scale, not people that are disadvantaged in other ways, then this is our opportunity, so are we going to stand for that? Are we going to start saying let's negotiate this. Let's see what it goes for on the market and then maybe we can use that money to build something out of Mckinney lane or some place in for east Austin which something we've always done. We've never taken that step to say, okay, we sigh we want everybody else to provide it, we got to provide it ourselves, so, council will do what it does on Thursday, but I'm just saying that there's nothing else in this area that we can build on, at the money that we have now. Certainly in my amendment, if I brought it or if somebody else brought it, I wouldn't see substituting affordable housing in far east Austin as being comparable solution, I just think there might be something that's not far east Austin that I would want to know whether there's more centrally located properties, where you could provide a lot more families the opportunity to be located centrally downtown. I'm just asking the question and I think that's an important investigation to look at. Yes, miss Garza? >> Garza: I think we're all saying the same thing, really, because the city is not a developer, so what this asks for is, using that space to develop affordable housing, and the city [10:50:31 AM] doesn't do that, the city would have to go to organizations like foundations community or Guadalupe, all of those different -- the non-profits do that, so -- and foundation communities doesn't -- the residents there have access to wrap-around services but not all of them need them or use them and specifically, the one near downtown was the purpose was for like musicians and, you know, and wait staff and those kinds of -- folks that have those kinds of jobs and to be able to live downtown, so, I think we're all really saying the same thing essentially. I mean, I absolutely support keeping the language as restrictive as possible to make sure that we're using -- that we want to use this piece of land for affordable housing. At the same time, I totally see council member Houston's point. Is there any other piece of land anywhere near here that we can possibly do that? Probably not. Anyway, I think we're all saying the same thing. >> Okay. Anyone else? Is. >> You just want to make one more comment which has more or less been made. I think foundation communities project was extremely unusual. I can't remember what the data was, but it was like the first affordable housing created downtown in, I don't know, decades. The only other one I can think of is lakeside apartments which is owned by the housing authority and I worry about whether or not over time they'll maintain that there on that site. I certainly hope they will and I believe it should be a goal of the city's to encourage that. We have an adopted council goal of creating housing for all kinds of people in all parts of town and there is no doubt it's more expensive to create affordable housing in certain parts of town which is why we very often have heard this kind of equation set up where if it's more expensive to create it downtown than in other areas, [10:52:31 AM] and if we cash out this investment it would be cheaper to build it in any one of the districts surrounding it. We will not have another opportunity, I don't believe, for a downtown site as well located as this one in concert with all of the changes that are happening in that area. This is not an opportunity that will come again and again, there is no doubt in my mind that this would not be a more -- a valuable asset. We have a stellar real estate department and I completely echo council member alter's commend igs of our staff for seeing this for the value of what it is. It appraises for more. We have a sense of the value and what it would bring on the open market, that some of the businesses in town are interested in locating near the medical school and medical zone wouldn't be interested in it. But the fate of this property says a lot about what we value as a city. Are we willing to do as others have done, what we asked developers to do with their projects, are we willing to take an asset that the city owns and use it to create an opportunity for Austin residents. I believe we authd to cease that. Just as a reminder, we're asking for evaluation what that would look like. We aren't making a final decision today or Thursday, we don't know what the funding would look like. Asking staff, saying we believe enough in this concept that supports the values that we stated. We want to take a careful look and have a careful analysis of that option on this tract. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? It >> Casar: I guess my question for those uncomfortable with the amendment to this, for folks, why would we not want to know what the other option would be, for affordable housing centrally H located. I think opportunities may be [10:54:32 AM] rare around the capital. But council member Garza said, what I've been hearing and know in my heart, we all have very similar goals on this. I want that if we're sending staff out to do an analysis, I just want to know what some of the other similar options might be rather than to load down amendments to make sure that we don't ask. I mean, I would -- perhaps we can sell the site and get twice as many units. I don't know, in Clarksville, right? Which is still by downtown but not as close to capital as this site. I don't know. But I don't know that and I would like to at least ask, if that makes sense. I would want to hear from folks what the concern is with us finding out, because it potentially -- of course, the answer is going to be, we could get "X" number more units if we put it here and even more unit fs we went further out and that doesn't mean that we will not necessarily choose those options, I just want to have them on the table so that I know what I'm -- know a little more of what it is that I'm doing when I do it. I want to use this opportunity for affordable housing and I just want to know if we put it on this site or if we utilize this site to leverage opportunities other places, what the choice is. >> Mayor? >> Mr. Renteria has not had a chance to talk yet. >> Renteria: Yes, mayor, I think it's a good opportunity especially with the quote that's going to happen in that area, that we should look into it for affordable housing. I believe the same way, that we're -- we'll lose out on the opportunity, especially with the growth that's going to be going on, especially there in that one area. We try to retrain as much land as possible for affordable housing. You know, all of that comment [10:56:33 AM] mentioned about the real estate, brought a smile to me. You know in the '90s when we were fighting about the Austin energy building, everybody was ready to run the city council out of town for buying these buildings and I just recently spoke with a low level manager there, he was saying, you know, Austin was smart for buying this piece of land. It was about the smartest thing they ever D id. And I just kind of chuckled on that. I said, you know, you don't realize how much trouble we went through getting that piece of property there, so, yeah, we -- it was an excellent move and, yes, there will be a lot of critics when it comes down -- when we're doing these kind of purchases and decisions, and then there will be in the future, when Austin grows, high density, and we have these units right there in the middle. These high dollar value luxury apartments and condos that are going to be in that area, that we have low income people also living there. >> Miss Houston in >> Houston: Just one last thing, I appreciate council member Garza's statement that we're not developers, but we have done that kind of development. Look at Mueller development, so that it's on city-owned land and we had a private, not a non-profit. We have partnered with non-profits -- I mean, with for-profit entities to be able to develop land where we need to get some thing and I think I lost that one. I think it's gone. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: And I think councilmember Houston has information about other properties outside of this area, but I think certainly we could submit a question through the Q and a asking for other downtown properties and what some typical sales prices are [10:58:34 AM] just to get a sense. I mean, again, we know what it appraised for. Getting a sense of what other properties downtown ever currently selling for might meet that information gap that you seem to be speaking to. Burr again positive me that's useful information. I don't think we will find other sites downtown that are super affordable. I think one of the really appealing things to me is that this building is next to a parking garage that we also own, which also next to the sobriety center which can may be good use of parking overtime. I think there are a lot of synchronicities of having this building with its current amenities in place that might reduce the cost of whoever was able to develop it for affordable housing. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I think this might be a question for staff, but was the appraisal done on it, was that with the current entitlements, or have we contemplated what other entitlements we could possibly put on the property what happened the value would be with those entitlements in the case that we wanted to sell the property for the maximum value and use that money for R. To maybe leverage in other parts of the city? >> Yes, councilmember. I do have a current appraisal for the highest and best use of both the building and the parking garage. >> Okay. Highest and best use, not necessarily the current entitlements. >> I think it looks at both things. I think the appraisal looked at different types of uses for the property, but I think what they came up with the highest and best use as of right now is the continued use as a medical supply -- a medical building because it's set up like a hospital rooms. So it's got 44 rooms in it that were hospital beds and [11:00:35 AM] they can Hughes two or more people -- can house two or more people. >> Troxclair: I guess my question isn't the highest and best use of the existing building on there, but the land as a whole. Are there entitlements that the city council if they so chose, and I'm not suggesting that this -- mayor, this is just an idea that I had. If the city council chose, we could add additional entitlements to the land itself and something else could be built that might be more valuable than what is there. >> Just to know right now, there is on the building, the hospital itself, it is impacted by the current capitol view corridor, but the parking garage is not. So there is a lot of entitlement currently on the parking garage site, and at some point that site may be redeveloped and have parking incorporated into it for another use that could also cover the parking for this building, but I think the highest and best use is to try to use the existing building in some form. Because it is in the view corridor so you can't go up very much higher. >> Troxclair: And this resolution does not include the parking garage. >> It does. It includes both pieces. >> Troxclair: It includes both pieces. So that's information that council was interested to know, would we just amend the existing -- the resolution to find out that information or is that something that you can provide us regardless of the -- >> I don't have all that information. I do have portions of it that I can provide, but there's some parts that I would need to do and some additional analysis on. >> Troxclair: Okay. I guess, again, just one idea sitting here. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you. And I think we would probably have that conversation about that -- the market study in closed [11:02:35 AM] session, in executive session rather than here, am I correct? What the -- >> Mayor Adler: Also the price we could. >> Houston: The price. I'm only talking about the price is what -- with the current entitlements on the parking garage, what would that do to the increase in highest and best use is what I'm saying. And I don't know what those entitlements are on the parking garage. >> Mayor Adler: I guess for me in terms of this discussion, I think my sense is that a strong majority, if not all of us, want to have housing that's affordable in all parts of the city. And I think we're only trying to figure out what's the best way to be able to do that. What I don't know is whether you could get three times as many families being able to live downtown, if you said either in this location and within two transit stops within this location. And I don't know what that alternative would be or how we would weigh those, but there was a significantly greater number of families that you could plant downtown, not necessarily on this site, but a stop or two away, then that would be something that I would want to consider. I don't know whether the best use of this property to be to send out an rfp and let somebody come in and buy this property with one of the conditions is that they have to put in as many affordable housing units as we would otherwise get on the property if we didn't do that. And whether we could get more affordable units that way or deeper affordability units that way, or do it in a way that generated the city, money spent on affordable housing projects in other places. In addition to downtown. Whether we could get a two-fer or three-fer with this property. I just don't know the answer to those questions. And it seems to me that if this was an asset that we held, we have fiduciary duty to the people who live here, [11:04:36 AM] I would want to know what all the valuable option -- available options were so I could make the best choice rather than just narrowing down and picking a direction before we see another thing. That's all it is. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to using this site exactly the way it is for affordable housing. I just don't know that. I would hate for us to do that when there was a better option, but we just didn't know about it because we didn't pause to ask. >> Houston: It's come back to me now. You were talking about, you know, con Sentra kel sells as we get further and further out in the conversation about people who make $25,000 and have a -- and don't have a car, transit. We have to also look for transit stops who go out further and further. How far would people have to walk. It's my understanding from listening to capital metro and councilmember Renteria and Garza and kitchen can certainly correct me, that people will only walk eight blocks to get you to a transit stop to catch public transit. So we also have to think about as we look how far out people go and out of out we look to see where there may be property that we can triple or quadruple the number of housing units that we can provide at this level of affordability that we own, so that's the cost is that we own this already. We also need to look at transit because it would be hard for me to be able to vote for anything out on Koenig lane and say that that's central city. And how long it takes them to get in from Koenig lane to downtown to where they work at the medical school. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza and then Mr. Casar? >> Garza: Just for clarification I want to say that Mueller is a non-profit foundation. It's the Mueller that runs [11:06:37 AM] the affordable housing in Mueller. Maybe there are for-profit developers, but I know that Mueller is a non-profit. And I also wanted to say maybe what will help the -- those who are opposed to amendment - - I'm not sure where I am. I could honestly go either way on this one. Maybe if the mayor pro tem proposed boundaries for where we would specifically look, that would help. That would make councilmember Houston more comfortable because -- I agree, I doubt there's anything close that would get us more affordable housing, but just an idea if there were boundaries proposed. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: And the mayor pro tem had suggested asking in Q and a whether or not those opportunities existed. If they were able to turn that information around by Thursday, then I think a lot of those questions would be answered, but it turns out between now and Thursday they can't answer the question of nearby could we refer Raj this for better opportunities, would there still be an objection to asking that question, essentially saying could we use this site for affordable housing or would we use this site for affordable housing very nearby. And I don't know what the boundary would be. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? >> I guess the question if you're comfortable answering, if they aren't able to get us those answers by Thursday is there still objections to asking them as part of the resolution? >> Tovo: I just sent off the question. My assumption is that's probably pretty easy information to run on a database. >> Casar: But I guess the question isn't the sales price of the nearby properties, but could we utilize this site for affordable housing on-site or utilize, what are the best options for utilizing this site for affordable housing nearby? >> Tovo: I think that gets back to the question that eve already addressed. I submitted a question asking for information about other available properties [11:08:39 AM] within the central business district and available prices and square footage. So that's the information that -- >> Casar: [Inaudible]. >> Tovo: We may be. The question I heard you asking before is that whether -- because you were talking about foundation communities, to me I guess I fall with councilmember Houston. I mean, we know there are other available properties. If we sold this property we could take that money and purchase something else, but Koenig lane isn't the same as something in the area of the medical center district. If there are other available properties within the central business district, that is a comparable maybe, maybe it's a comparable. >> Casar: And I didn't suggest Koenig nor did I suggest that it has to be exactly the kind of property at capital studios where you don't go over 630 or 650 in rents or whatever it is. All I suggest is knowing before we choose to build it exactly on this site what the opportunities are for any other option nearby. And if you're right then the answer is none, or the answer is this would what it would be and it would be this much worse. But if they were to say a few transit stops away here is another opportunity that's similar, then we least get to make that choice instead of not ask asking. That's all. >> For me the questions that I have is something we could answer in two days. I would like to know if we want to build affordable housing on this site whether or not -- if we did an rfp to the community, but said I don't know how many units we could get on that site, 80, 120, however many there are, but if we issued an rfp that said we want someone to deliver to us that many units on this site that have these number of bedroom counts or whatever, what might that, not using this [11:10:39 AM] particular building. Or to issue an rfp because there may be opportunities for pieces and land. I knee when we were looking at courthouse locations or other things, people that turn up properties that were downtown, where they came in and said you might not have known this property was available, but I'm willing to make a proposal on here to deliver those uses to you within the parameters that you set, I would like to give ourselves the opportunity to see whether or not any of those kind of things also exist. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: And again, mayor, I appreciate all you're saying and all the concerns everybody is raising. If you look on the be it further resolved, where it says we were asking the real estate folks to come back with some suggested configurations, how many people could live there, how many rooms could be developed there, what kinds of rooms would be developed there, to do an rfp at this point to make that request at this point, seems to me to put the horse -- cart before the horse because we've got so many things that we need real estate to come back and give us some information on before we can even talk about what an rfp might look like if that was the route that we wanted to go. So this I think asks the questions except what you're asking about is there property nearby in the central city that we could sell this property for at the highest and best use and then relocate by something else somewhere in that vicinity, not somewhere else, not in east Austin, not in way south Austin -- >> Mayor Adler: Or on Koenig lane. >> Houston: Or in west Austin, but in the central core of this city where most of the people who make minimum wage and some of of that is not the 13 hour minimum wage, but the seven dollars or the $10. Where they can live. [11:12:41 AM] So that's what we're asking them to do, just bring us information back. So I think she probably has that information that you're asking for where there are some properties located in that central core, what would be the cost of us to buy it at this time. So I'm not -- I understand you all wanting more information and if that's what we do on Thursday then that's what we'll do. >> Mayor Adler: Dr. Alter? >> Alter: I was wondering from Ms. Rizer if in the interim that we're waiting on any decisions, and again I favor having more information, but I understand that the city is paying for the upkeep of the building and stiff and there may be some interim uses and it may take awhile for us to make any decisions, is there any direction that you need from us or is that something that you're going to be coming to us for in a subsequent meeting that we should be aware of as we're thinking about this for this week? >> The office of real estate is carrying the holding costs of this property right now and we did try to try to carry over as many of the services to the building. For instance, the elevator, the security and everything so that way the building stayed in good condition in order for council to make some things -- but one of the thoughts out there, should council deciding to that way is having to do a short-term lease out there and then use that money to offset the cost of the building. Otherwise the city just absorbs the costs until a decision is made. >> Will you be coming to us with some sort of request for that or is that something that we need to somehow need to make a part of our approach on Thursday? >> I could make some recommendations when we bring the property -- when [11:14:41 AM] we bring the study back forward. We could make -- or council could direct me. It could be really either way. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: And I think the resolution contains a short-term clause while this is being studied. >> Tovo: I wanted to make that point that it asks for that suggestion. It asks the staff to identify potential entities to partner in creating that funding. I think it captures some of what you're saying, mayor, about whether an rfp would be the better option. Those are the kinds of things that we are asking staff to do, to come up with some suggestions about how we would proceed with a project of that sort and what some different financial mechanisms for achieving it. And lastly I'll just point out, this is not a different -- not different in scope from the analysis that our council asked for with regard to the winnebago tract. We asked for a particularly narrow focus for that win bay go tract. The prior council asked for the same to be done on the Austin energy site up in crest review, that that site be analyzed for particular consideration. It is consistent with past practices to ask for, hey, what could we do with this kind of a purpose on this tract. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? We'll go to the next item, which is 20 and 21. Mayor pro tem, can you take -- >> Garza: I pulled 20 and 21. They are proposals to do additional buyouts in different parts of the city. And I'm going to be asking for a postponement and I would ask for your support on that. I'll give you the very short version, but there's lots of details about, you know, the [11:16:42 AM] the current buyouts that are going on, but mainly there's a portion of the onion creek buyouts now that staff is now recommending to not be bought out. And these families have been waiting to be bought out, they thought they would be bought out and now there will be a recommendation to not buy them out. So my concern is I'm in the sure exactly the funding for the new buyouts. I'm not saying that the new buyouts aren't justified. I just want clarification to understand all the moving pieces before we make a decision on Thursday. I'm just asking for a two-week postponement and then I will have better clarification on how to address some of the concerns of the families that were told -- one of these families was at the closing table and then something happened and they had already bought another home. Now they have two mortgages. So I'm trying to get some detail and figure out a way to help these families that -- for about four years now thought that they were going to be bought out. So I'll be asking for a postponement and ask for your support. >> Tovo: Councilmember kitchen? >> Kitchen: I'll support that. I had the same question and I just had questions about these two areas. As you know, the count also approved some -- a very small amount of funding for upper onion creek projects that -- upper onion creek buyouts that were also impacted during the flood. Of course the dove spring lower onion creek where were the -- were the higher priority. But we've also approved a small amount and are determining that we may need some additional dollars. So I'm not sure where these two are coming from and whether they were previously approved. I certainly don't want to approve any new buyouts when we have buyouts on the table that have not been completed or fully funded. >> Tovo: Councilmember Houston? >> Houston: Thank you, 11:18:42 AM] mayor. And watershed was here earlier, but I'm concerned that we would postpone item number 20 because if we have the -- can you pull up the picture of -- people talk about and I certainly understand the horror in onion creek and upper and lower onion creek, but we have as a city forgotten that there are other watersheds that are impacted by flood waters. And district 1 in February -- on February drive is one of those. And I just want to show -- can you pull that up for me, please? We don't often talk about the flooding in other parts of the city. And this was on February drive, the last time. And it flooded in 2013. And this was in 2015. And nobody has talked with them about any kind of buyouts. And I think if it serves me correctly, watershed got a grant from FEMA to help buy these properties out. So that's why I'm not sure why we're going to delay 20. I can certainly understand the issues with the people who were scheduled to have buyouts and didn't, but this is from a different pot of money. And this is in far north of district 1 off of Cameron road and this is what it was in 2015. So I just ask you not to delay that one. >> Pool: Is that walnut creek? >> Houston: Yeah. >> Pool: And there has been -- the Tannehill branch of walnut creek has also flooded in the past. >> Houston: It has flooded, but not as bad as these houses have. >> Pool: I guess this isn't really on our agenda to talk about, but can I ask [11:20:43 AM] the FEMA buyout monies for folks, do you know if that was sufficient? You don't know? Okay. >> Houston: I don't know. That's why I was hoping that watershed would be here to explain it, but they've got a grant from something. >> Tovo: So I think they're not here to explain it because it wasn't pulled yesterday, but I think our city manager has a comment and then we'll go back to councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Thank you. The backup indicates that a million dollars will be provided in funding from the drainage utility fund capital improvement projects and 900,000 from the regional storm water management program capital project. But then in addition to that, watershed has applied for and received and Texas division of emergency management hazard mitigation grant for up to $567,007,063 for acquisition of the two properties. So once that grant is received, they wouldn't need the full million nine from those other two city funds, and we fully would intend to use the grant to the extent that we can for the two properties that are eligible. >> Tovo: And then councilmember Garza. >> Kitchen: I certainly do not want to ignore a part of the city that needs assistance as we've just seen from the video and as the councilmember has let us know, councilmember Houston. But this is a larger issue. I mean, we have some -- some properties that have already been approved that we haven't even funded. So maybe -- I don't want to delay it, but maybe we just need a conversation to sit down with all these on the table. I don't know what the status is of the one under item 21, but this is -- from what the [11:22:45 AM] city manager just mentioned, this would be designating city dollars. I see watershed here. Maybe we could speak to our questions? >> Tovo: Mr. Battalion. We apologize for the late notice on this. Thank you for joining us. >> Kitchen: So I believe our questions are simply we're wanting to understand -- I'm certainly not disputing the need for the Terry councilmember Houston just -- the area that councilmember Houston just brought to our attention, but I want to understand where we're at in terms of the existing properties that have already been approved. Councilmember Garza raised a question and you're very familiar with the questions that we've had for upper onion creek. This just looks like it's taking some dollars that maybe should go for other areas. >> Sure. Joe pantalion of the watershed protection department and I'm joined by Pam curfa of the buyout programs. The two buyouts on your agenda today or will be on Thursday as well, are the highest ranking projects that have made it through a study phase which point to buyout as being the preferred alternative. So when you look at February Drive those areas are in our top 10 big flood creek problem area. The Charing Cross was our number 1 flood priority area for localized flooding in 2012. When we started that effort. So both of those have gone through an preliminary engineering report, that identify buyouts as by far the most cost effective strategy. When you compare that back to say maybe the upper Onion where Council approved approximately 1.25 million to purchase two homes. That is an area where the study has not been complete. So we don't know if the alternative of choice will be buyouts of that entire neighborhood of just a portion of. But certainly from a recovery standpoint Council has moved to identifying funding for that area. [11:24:50 AM] (Kitchen) Well I know Council member Garza has some questions. We actually approved 5 million. We said go find dollars for 5 million we thought we could use less. We identified the 1.25 million but we had an earlier vote. That designated the 5 million and I know you guys have been working on that. I wasn't aware that there were other properties that were in the cue we needed to be concerned about dollars for. So, this is good information for me to have. I think we need to talk about all these in the context of what the available funding is. Because we go some expectations occuring in any of these communities. We have some dollars we need to identify. So, I know Council member, Garza had a question or two. (Garza) I don't know if I have any questions, just mainly comments. I hate for this. I don't want this to turn into a dueling district of who gets what money. Because I can show videos of what happened in Onion Creek. And I can show the families who lost family members and I don't know where that happened [11:26:50 AM] in other parts of the city. And I can show testimony of children who were scared every time it rains. And when I -- I'm asking for a two-week postponement. And before I was sworn in I took a meeting about these buyouts and I was told by city staff you have to wait for the policy, you have to wait for the policy. These families have been waiting for years and I'm asking for two weeks. I don't think it should be that big of a deal. >> Tovo: Councilmember troxclair. >> Troxclair: Have all -- I guess have all of the properties in both of these items, has every house actually flooded? >> Yes, they have. [11:27:45 AM] >> Troxclair: Okay. Do we still have houses in the queue -- my recollection is that the last -- one of the recent times that we approved more money for buyouts we included a group of properties that have not -- that are at risk for flooding, but have not actually flooded. Is that true? >> That is correct. And in fact, we sent in a memo to council on March 14th that gave the status of all of the buyouts, including those in the onion creek watershed, lower onion creek where we purchased about 90% of those. And there are some that are based on updated floodplain mapping, are no longer located within the 100 year floodplain. And were not subject to creek flooding for either the 2013 storm event or 2015 storm event. >> Troxclair: I'm sorry, I haven't had a chance to see that memo yet. Are you saying that those properties are being removed from a buyout program now or -- >> Right now we are not planning to buy those since they don't meet the eligibility criteria that council said that they would be at risk for flooding of the 100 year risk storm event. [11:29:03 AM] This is unfortunately a matter of having a study that was ongoing to update the floodplain maps during the course of a buyout. And with that best available information now, some of those properties are no longer in the 100 year floodplain. And did not flood for either of the two large storm events from onion creek. -- it was a council decision to allocate more money for those properties that hasn't flooded, so I'm not questioning the owe I'm not questioning that. The council made that decision. But are there still -- for my own informational purposes, are there still properties that are in queue that have already been approved for buyouts that have not flooded? >> No. >> Troxclair: So the last time when we approved money to include homes that have not flooded in biteout program you're saying that all of them have now either been removed -- that they've all been removed? >> The ones that are no longer at risk for flooding in the 100 year floodplain based on our models. I know you're asking about previous flooding from those events and I'm pretty sure that will ones that we remain that have planned the buyout will have actually flooded. >> And to add, there are some properties in that lower onion creek buyout area that we don't have evidence they flooded. They were part of the council approved buyout area and they have accepted the buyout offer. So we're not going to rescind that offer from them. But of the other active buyout areas, the upper onion, the property that we're working on there that have flooded, February drive and charring cross, those properties have flooded. And the ones in Williamson, the way city council approves the buyouts in middle Williamson, there were a couple of tiers for eligibility. One was if the property flooded, or if there was flood water around the property in such a way that it was deemed to be risky. That was the criteria that you guys set for us so that's what we're moving forward with in that area. 11:31:09 AM] >> Troxclair: Okay. And again, I don't mean to question. That was the direction that the council explicitly gave you. So I understand that there are people who maybe haven't flooded, but they've gotten a buyout from the city and I'm not by any means suggesting that you change that. I was just curious. And one more question. How do projects -- I know we've been focused on individual home buyouts. How do projects that would prevent future flooding that aren't necessarily buyouts, but I guess flood diversion, the correct phrase isn't coming to me right now, but flood diversion projects, how are they factored in. I know y'all be familiar with the neighborhood in my district, oak park that is consistently flooded and is on the list for a flood mitigation project. They're waiting for funding for that. So how do those kind of projects factor into our funding decisions when we're talking about whether -- whether we buy out individual homes or whether we invest in flood mitigation programs? >> Sure. Our funding decisions really follow the prioritization protocol that was adopted as part of our master plan. It was the product of a three year citizens advisory group and staff effort. Essentially we start with the worse problem areas. That the areas of flood that are worse are addressed first. So when you go to the rain -- oak acres is a top area. Each area undergoes a preliminary engineering analysis to determine what is the most cost effective solution, flood mitigation solution and then the majority of cases we find a structural solution, you can build a detention pond or a flood wall. And when we get to buyouts being the most cost effective we only recommend those when they are by far the most cost effective solution because certainly we don't want to go in and buy out homes that for the same price we could have improved the storm drain system and keep that housing stock in Austin. [11:33:18 AM] So when you get to a point where the study is done and buy outs are by far the most cost effective, that's when we would initiate the request for council to move forward on those projects. >> So I guess what I'm trying to understand is are the flood mitigation projects and the buyouts all in the same list, coming out of the same pot of money or is it two separate lists? >> It's all one list in terms of flood problem areas in the city. And then it's just a matter of depending on where they're located, whether or not staff and working with our stakeholders have been able to acquire federal funds like for the corps of engineer funding or in the case of the February drive we apply for department of emergency management funds and we're able to get about $750,000 for the purchase of two homes. So again we have grant funds that we use to further these solutions. >> Troxclair: Thank you. >> My light was on. >> Mayor Adler: That's okay. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Can you remind us about charring cross? I vaguely remember something on our agenda and the council not moving forward at that time. Did it coming bah and we approved the one house and not these? Can you recount that history? I didn't see a that piece I was looking for. >> That was exactly correct. This did come before you early her and there was a concern about the buyout policy and amount of relocation to be made. I believe an audit report was presented to the audit and finance committee identifying the amount the city had paid under city had paid under cap scenario and under the uniform relocation act. Now that's been brought forward we've highlighted to city council that we will continue to work with real estate to bring forward these buyouts under the same relocation policy that council has approved in every one of the previous buyouts and it's also consistent with the recommendation from the flood mitigation task force. [11:35:24 AM] So having the task force recommendation in hand, having the audit committee of council, hearing that recommendation, we are now bringing these forward consistent with that buyout policy that was recommended. >> Tovo: So when were the charring cross houses on the agenda the first time? >> I want to say about two years ago, I believe. >> Tovo: So all five of these were actually on our agenda and got postponed? >> Actually, we started to move forward with five and ended up by bringing just the one. The one that was probably the worst case that we felt really compelled an immediate response. I believe Lorraine with real estate provided an explanation of the situation of that particular homeowner and council chose to move forward with that one. >> Tovo: Thank you for that reminder. There were five on, we decided not to move forward. But I think there was a request from the council as I recall that that one come back. So that's why that expect one came back and these five came back. >> That's correct. >> Tovo: Thank you so much. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: I want to thank you for all the work you're doing. And I apologize, I realize I have the memo that you all sent, but I didn't have a chance to look at it before now. I have a related question, though. I remember that one of the recommendations I believe out of flood mitigation task force was for the council really a to-do item for us in terms of examining our flood buyout policies as a whole. And I don't know that we've done anything about pursuing that. I'm trying to understand what the -- I'm trying to remember what the status of that -- >> As far as the policy is concerned, their strong recommends was to keep the relocation policy consistent with what the city has done in the past. As far as prioritization, think asked that -- they asked that we continue to -- we address the worst problems first but then also maybe look at just individual homes or create a program to where people could approach us and we would have essentially a pot of money at the ready for anyone who came to us. [11:37:29 AM] And certainly we're investigating that. I think we do have some concerns that just having a pot of money sitting there in case someone comes up may not be from a fiduciary standpoint as responsible as us actively going forward and moving down a prioritized list, but we are still evaluating that recommendation. >> Kitchen: Okay. A recommendation that required a next step on the part of council and we just hadn't done it yet. Because I know that there were some recommendations in that task force report about examining some of our policies. >> Right. >> Kitchen: So this is not one that we haven't -- >> No. I think the next step will actually be when the real estate office brings forwards amendments to the relocation policy ordinance and that has started. >> Kitchen: All right. Thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Dr. Alter? >> Alter: Thank you. So I had -- I didn't realize this was going to be controversial so I don't have all my data. So I might ask you some other questions. So it's my understanding for item 21, number one on the localized flooding. And they're experiencing flooding in sort of just a Normal rain. Is that what I'm recalling correctly? >> That's correct. I mean, in this area for charring cross and dk ranch road it was ranked number one in our 2012 listing simply because they flooded at even less than a 10 year storm event. It didn't take a 25 or 50 year storm event for this cluster of homes to flood. And one of the reasons they do flood is when the storm drains fill up this area is located kind of in a depressional area so the storm drain overflows into this bowl and these five homes flood. >> Alter: Okay. And it's related to how our I don't remember water system is set up and that the structural fix was very expensive through these suds so this was the best alternative. >> That's correct. When you look at the amount of the buyout being at roughly 2 million to upgrade this segment of the storm drain system it's looking closer to five million dollars. [11:39:36 AM] And even if we upgraded it at a five-million-dollar cost we could be creating some additional adverse impacts downstream since we're more efficiently moving the water downstream. So it's rare that we would bring buyouts as an option for a storm drain project, but but again after we've been gone through the evaluation we're confident in the recommendation. >> Alter: Thank you. And I want to share with my colleagues that my office is hearing too from the folks affected and they're families with members that have disabilitied who have had to be rescued after a regular old rain event in order to leave their home. So it's very much affecting these families. Notes caused by creek flooding. It's caused by the city system and how we're managing our drainage. I guess my other question is, because I do understand where councilmember Garza is coming from and simply wanting to weeks. But I don't understand the broader picture of the pot of money and I'm just wondering if that's something that you could communicate back to us right now that we don't have to wait for that on making these decisions on how these are interrelated. This is the number one localized flooding and I think the other one is the number one creek side flooding. Is it simply that those other studies haven't been done? I mean, how do we understand that? Because there's a real concern that councilmember Garza and councilmember kitchen have expressed for their flood mitigation issues in their districts to be addressed as well. I would like to understand how to -- >> Sure. I think the easy answer is these pots of money are separate for the two separate areas. This -- for charring cross there's a fiscal note that points to the drainage utility fees, the rsnp funds and some 2006 bond funds being used to pay for this project. The onion creek project is being paid by the $60 million of cos that our general fund supported. [11:41:40 AM] So that was a separate authorization from council as we entered, I believe, the fy15 budget year. These are two separate pots of money and this is not a redirection of money between one area to the next. >> Alter: Thank you. I don't know if that addresses councilmember Garza and councilmember kitchen's concerns. I could see if it was all one pot of money that we might want to postpone, but if they're separate pots of money and the restrictions on those funds are such that we couldn't think about it in that broader way, I would like to see us move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza? >> Garza: And I guess I need more clarification on that point because I remember during this discussion before I was on council it was co funds, but it was also drainage utility funds because I remember it people talking about the controversy of having to raise drainage fees by 75 cents, and I remember there was like a dramatic moment where somebody brought 50 cents to the dais in front of the mayor and said here's my 50 cents, I'll pay for this. So is there a drainage utility funding for any of the onion creek buyouts? >> There is 35.5 million of cos issued that are supported by the drainage utility fee, but I believe that is for the 25 year buyout, not the 100 year buyout. And I believe the concern about the certain properties being excluded from the 100 year buyout is associated with the G.O. Monies, not the drainage fee monies. >> Garza: So council hasn't made a decision on -- if I can hear safely on the record that -- because my understanding is the recommendation is to not buy out 1700 homes in my district, but we haven't made that decision. So are you saying that regardless of what happens with this decision if council chooses to still buyout those 17 homes there will be money to buyout those 17 homes? >> That's correct. [11:43:42 AM] Unless council takes action to reappropriate that money or to move that money elsewhere. It's two separate properties of money and with these votes that money would still be there. >> Garza: So then I guess my last question is why has -- why is this -- and I appreciate mayor pro tem tovo, that this had been on an agenda before two years ago. One of the items, not the other one. But there's just significant concern. And I think it's valid that one part of town has waited for years for a buyout and these -- granted with the new information that one of these was on the agenda two years ago, other ones have just kind of popped up. So can you help me explain to my constituents how, you know, one part of town had to wait years, over a decade, the 25 year floodplain, very dangerous area, while another part of town has something on the agenda and we can't postpone it, we can't postpone it, we need to do it right now? Can you help me explain that to my constituents? >> I think it's a matter of when you look at the provision of council funding, quite frankly. When you look at the fact that when we were working with the corps of engineers and the city chose to wait for a few years hoping for reimbursement from the corps. And after the 2013 flood started decelerating that flooding and including council approving the 35.5 million in cos and the 60 million in cos in the fy15 budget, I can tell you that we were also putting the 2006 bonds, the watershed protection department recommended that we include the 2006 bond monies to support buyouts in onion creek and that did happen. At the same time, there were other projects on that list, including drainage, localized drainage projects. [11:45:47 AM] So all of these projects move in parallel. And when you look at charring cross, this charring cross just didn't pop up. We completed the study in 2012. We had been studying it beforehand. And we were criticized by some of those property owners that they were flooding at less than a 25 year storm event. And yet, the city was buying out properties in the 100 year storm event. So I think in all fairness it's a matter of working in multiple areas of the city based on priorities that are amongst the highest. We have thousands of drainage complaints across the city Rand we work on a top 10 list out of thousands and they work all in parallel. >> Garza: And I appreciate that response, but that still doesn't really help. Much of the concern, especially since onion creek has been since the late '90s, everyone knew was a very dangerous area and this last flood event is not the only time people have died because of flooding. It just looks -- I know we have privy to more information than the public does, but it just seems like-- it paints a bad picture that the fight that had to happen to get funding for an area that was the number one flooding area, years, years it took, and then we can find -- well, it's only 1.5 and these areas have been flooded too. We can find that money so quickly when we need to. So that's just -- it's just a big concern and it feels like a huge equity issue for my district. It often feels like they've been left out and they have been neglected. So if I have the assurance that this is a totally separate pot of money and we could -- if we choose to continue to buyout those homes, many of them thought they were going to be bout out and we still -- bought out and we still have the money right now, then I could see going forward with these two items. [11:47:58 AM] So can you just repeat that if those 17 homes, if we approve their funding to buy them out, there is funding for that? >> If those 17 homes are recommended by council to be pursued through a buyout and council chooses to use the remainder of that 60 million, then that will be available. We are not planning to use that money until which time we would be reappropriating it, but of course it wouldn't be until council direction. >> And I guess I just have to say same still uncomfortable with -- I'm still uncomfortable, you know, with moving money around, even though I've heard that it's a different pot of money. I just feel like to best represent that area, before approving additional buyouts I feel like there should be some closure on the ones that are kind of open right now and we're not there yet. And so I feel like I could get to that closure in two weeks because there are really just two families in this area that we're trying to address their concerns. And I'm not there yet with those two families. So it's hard for me to vote to allocate more money even though it's from -- is set from a different pot, when we haven't even had closure on some open ones. So I will either vote against this if we have to vote on it on Thursday, or I will ask for a postponement again. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: You know, since this involves families who may want to come testify, it might be good to get a sense of whether there's general support for a postponement or not. I mean, it sounded like we heard different opinions. I'd have to say -- I would ordinarily support a appointment and probably will in this case unless I hear a strong sentiment that it needs to move forward. Councilmember Houston, I want to be sure I understood what you were saying, that you wanted to see 20 move forward? Okay. [11:49:01 AM] Councilmember alter, is that what you were suggesting as well? >> Alter: You know, in my opinion, either they're both postponed or they're both voted on. I don't see -- you know, they're both number one in their particular category via the process that has been set up, and if they're separate pots of money -- I'm not seeing how it helps with the resolution. I'm not saying that the questions that councilmember Garza is raising are not important questions that need answers, I'm just not sure that they -- I don't see how resolving them affects the decisions on those two cases. But, you know, if it is the will of the council to postpone, then we will postpone, but I'm just not sure the connection in getting to a resolution there. On that. >> Mayor Adler: And I apologize for having missed the beginning part of this debate, but generally speaking when a councilmember asks for a week or two delay I would be inclined to do it absent there being prejudice. So I didn't hear the first part of the conversation. I'll go back and look through the tape and talk to my staff to see what the prejudice would be, but otherwise I would accommodate a councilmember asking for a week or two delay. Anything else? Any further indication? >> Garza: Councilmember kitchen said to me before she left that she would also support a postponement. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I don't have anything more on this issue, but I wanted to circle back to the item that Mr. Flannigan pulled and the conversation that happened about possibly making people pay for parking spaces so that we encourage them to ride public transit. And I understand that if that's a conversation that the council can have -- wants to have, but I wanted to point out that a lot of parts of the city don't have public transit and I know councilmember Garza knows from her service on the cap metro board that -- that bus routes in southwest Austin are not only few and far between to begin with, but have been kind of earmarked for further reduction. [11:51:27 AM] So just if -- I just wanted to put that out there in case that was a conversation that you were planning on continuing maybe behind the scenes. If everybody had access to -- equivalent access to public transportation in the form of bus routes, then maybe that would be something that I would be open to, but it's just a really difficult -- really difficult thing for me to consider for my district. >> Flannigan: You know, I don't think you have to convince me that some districts don't have a lot of public transportation. But it's not about every single person that works at that office can take the bus. It's about some of them. And so it's not about people who live in district 8 being forced to take a bus to that location, but if we could get 10%, 15%, which not everyone who works at that office lives in my district or your district, but if we can just get parts of the workforce on to public transit, then I don't have to spend $150,000 to write parking. So that's the balance between the fiscal responsibility of leasing parking spaces and the realities, the chicken and egg of ultimately of you don't expand your transit because there are not enough people riding it, but then you have worst transit and less people ride it and you shrink it more and less people ride it. It's a balance. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Okay. Council, it is eight until noon. We have four items to consider in executive session. And we have two briefings. Do we want to break, go to executive session and then lunch and then come back out for the two briefings? The two briefings are efficiencies, staff recommendations, and also the affordable inventory project. We could also postpone and pick up those briefings some other time if people didn't want to am could back after lunch. What is the council's pleasure? [11:53:28 AM] Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Mayor, I'd like to suggest if we could spend maybe five minutes thinking through Thursday's meeting and any other issues that are potentially going to be postponed or just reviewing the time certains. And then I would support going into executive session because those items seem to me time sensitive and I would also support postponing the briefing. And that's somewhat motivated by my anuclear December, which I have an ongoing time commitment in the afternoon. But the other reality is I think that we'll want to spend a lot of time talking about the meeting, the potential meeting revisions and I think that has the potential to be a two-hour discussion if we really thoroughly engage with that matter. >> Mayor Adler: With respect to next week on Thursday's agenda, you will recall that we had the Austin oaks people wait until very late at night and then we stopped. We told them what we would do is we would call that at 2:00 or as soon there as we could so that people who were there in the afternoon would be able to testify. And that after dinner we would call them as the first item up after the dinner break for a public hearing. So I would intend for us still to do that, that same thing. I think that really as you look at the agenda, is the big thing on the agenda. The Vinson oaks issue, as you recall, the owner of the property was going to be out out of town, but would be back by 7:00. So Vinson oaks will come on at the end of Austin oaks and not before that. >> [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry, Vinson oaks is 78. Austin oaks is 83. [11:55:30 AM] Anything else? Okay. What's your pleasure? We're going to take a break do you. Do you want to come back and do the briefings or do you want to reschedule the briefings? >> Garza: Is there a way to do -- it seems like the budget presentations have been -- no? >> Mayor Adler: We're not posted to meet and discuss it. >> Troxclair: I'm available to coming bah and have the rest of the briefings. >> Flannigan: I would point out that one of the briefings is meeting efficiency so maybe we should prioritize that since we keep getting into this situation. I think we should have that briefing. We should have that briefing for sure. Now, the affordability one we have just gone through a couple of rounds in the square on that, so I'm willing to take a beat on that one, but we could keep postponing meeting efficiency and then never get around to it. [Laughter]. >> Houston: I'm willing to stay. I'm willing to come back this afternoon and listen to the briefings. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So let's come back in the afternoon. We'll go do executive session, come back and do that one briefing, we'll postpone the other one and then we can get the briefing so that it's out in the public and we can decide then whether we act on it at this point or whether we hold it open. >> Troxclair: So did I -- I'm okay to stay for both briefings. I don't know. But you said we're only going to take up the one on meeting efficiencies and we'll postpone the affordability briefing? >> Mayor Adler: I was suggesting that, but I'm fine coming back and doing them Bo both. I had the time available. >> Troxclair: If we postpone the affordability briefing, when would we get to it? >> Mayor Adler: It would not be next week, but the week after that. >> Tovo: I would just suggest that if -- I mean, by the end of Tuesday we tend to lose, you know, three or so or four of us, and I think that if we're going to have an expectation that we're meeting all day on Tuesdays, we need to be really clear about what that expectation is. [11:57:40 AM] It just -- it's unfortunate that there are -- there have been several times, including recently, where a very important discussion has come up after several of us were gone. So I'd really like to participate in the meeting efficiency. I have some very specific feedback, but again, I have an ongoing commitment that I have made late on Tuesday afternoons that I cannot miss. And so that means I am beginning to regularly miss he's peases of this. And I'm not alone. We've already lost another councilmember here today and we may lose others by the end of the day. So again, if we're going to have -- I hope that as part of that conversation we have a clear expectation of whether Tuesdays are also going to be like Thursdays, sort of a full day event. Full day event and not end at noon. >> Houston: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Just to let the council know that my office has told me that some of the legislatures that I've testified in front of have asked me do come by their office so I'll be gone from 1:30 to 3:00 so I'll be gone during that block of time. The council can certainly meet without me but I won't be here. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: I was going to suggest we take a shorter break and those of us who can come back can come back and hear both presentations because the audit has been working on the affordability piece for a long time, and it would be nice to have them present, as well as meeting efficiencies. So I'm willing to stay, not all day, but till -- [ laughter ] But to give y'all enough time to really have at least brief us on what the issues are and then we can think about it and ask questions. >> Mayor Adler: And I would also be fine looking at the videotape afterwards if staff presented it today. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: Let's see. We are going to go into executive session, right, and have our lunch while we have our executive session. Do we know about how long that presentation will be? Maybe an hour, hour and a half? [11:59:41 AM] There's four -- >> There are three executive sessions and I would take -- assume they would take at least an hour, probably an hour and a half, given -- >> Mayor Adler: Our propensity. >> Pool: Right. >> Thank you. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: And the issues. >> Pool: What's difficult for me on Tuesdays is to kind of gain how long we will be sitting here and historically work sessions were over at noon and that isn't really what we've been able to do. I have to leave at 3:00 myself today, so I'm able to commit the additional hour and a half if we have an hour and a half executive session to come back here and listen but I also think there's a lot of value to having us all around this table when we have these briefings, especially if we're talking about changing procedures. I really, really want to hear from everyone, and so I -- maybe we do the affordability inventory piece and save the committee discussion for when we have a larger number, more complete group here, because I think that one -- we all need to be hearing each other's positions on what the staff is recommending on the committees. >> Mayor Adler: I would also be fine with the staff making the presentations because we can see them and then when we come back we can discuss them as a group if we didn't have a critical mass here to be able to -- >> Pool: If we could be sure to have that discussion, I think that's the piece that we would miss, unless we do that. >> Mayor Adler: Further discussion? Then we're gonna do the executive session, we're gonna breakers we're gonna come back to have both presentations, and the councilmembers who are here for that can decide to what degree they want to have a conversation as a group, you can decide that. I'll be back as soon as I can. The city council will now go in closed session to take up three items pursuant 551.071 of the government code, e2, 2017 labor negotiations with public safety, e3, search and appointment of new city manager and e4, dripping springs application for a permanent discharge. [12:01:46 PM] E1 has been withdrawn. Without any objections, hearing none, council will now go into executive session. [ Executive session ] [2:27:50 PM] >> Tovo: Good afternoon, welcome back. I'm mayor pro tem Kathie tovo filling in for Mary Adler, -- mayor Adler. We were in closed session. We discussed items E 1, E 2, E 3 and E 4. We still had two briefings in front of us and we'll start with the affordability inventory, city auditor. >> I scared myself. You may recall that last year council requested this project and it was in two parts. The first part was to identify household expenditures, gather district level data on those expenditures. You may recall that last December we delivered that report that looked like this with citywide information on household expenditures as well as that same information broken up by district. The second part was in a you asked that we summarize current city programs and initiatives that affect household affordability and that is what we will present today. >> Good afternoon. I'm Katie Houston, assistant city auditor. As corrie mentioned, our charge was to put together an inventory of city programs and initiatives that affect affordability and we identified 85 items through that review. Shown here is a breakdown of those 85 programs based on cost driver. What you see here is that there are 27 programs designed to help households with housing costs. [2:29:52 PM] There are two programs designed to help households with transportation costs, et cetera. And five ofthe city departments are responsible for the majority of these programs. These five city departments are listed there. I should note that the inventory we put together includes programs that are already existing. It does not include programs that are underway or that are pending or in the process of still being implemented, like codenext or the 2016 mobility bonds. And depicted here is a table that shows again the cost drivers as outlined in the district profiles and then a couple of examples of some sample drivers that relate to to the cost drivers. It's important to note that the number of programs does not necessarily relate to dollar value impact. For example, Austin energy reported the customer assistance program serves approximately 40,000 customers a year. And on average families saved about $800 in fiscal year 15 through that program. Conversely the housing department reported that 75 individuals received help through the tenant assistance program in 2016 and average assistance amounted to $6,300 per person. So that's a good example of how the dollar value impact does not necessarily equate to the number of programs. As we put together this inventory we identified five major themes of the city's effectiveness. The city has historically lacked a vision or strategy for making Austin more affordable housing around certainly recently there have been some efforts underway to address these issues and address the council historic outcomes. The city has not defined affordability and there are currently no citywide goals to guide department's work in this area. [2:31:52 PM] And without this department's operate within silos on affordability issues that may limit the performance measures and what progress is made overtime. Secondly information on city programs may not be easily accessible. The city does not have a comprehensive centralized tool or web page that residents can go to to access information on affordability programs. They may have to search through many different programs they off times cannot find information on income threshold that may make them eligible for certain programs, customers can't apply online in many cases and all of that may make it so that residents are discouraged from actually accessing the programs available to help them. Third, available data is inconsistent and maybe unreliable or incomplete. Data that is collected is often not done in a consistent manner. For instance, some programs track the individuals served while others track services like immunizations administered or number of kilowatt hours of energy saved and that makes it hard to compare programs citywide. We saw in audits and again in this project that citywide data is unreliable and incomplete so it makes it difficult to determine the return on investment or the value we're getting in exchange for the dollars we're spending. The positions may affect affordability, for example special effects, certainly benefit residents who attend those special vents, they boost telltale occupancy revenue, they provide a revenue generating opportunity for people who are able to rent out a portion of their home or living spaces to out of town guests. But at the same time those same benefits may create -- have negative impact for other Austin residents. [2:33:54 PM] They may lead to increased 62 desireability of certain areas or living spaces which may result in higher rent Ora Houston property taxes so what is good for some are thes may have a negative impact for other residents. And lastly we saw that certain affordability related expenses and that's primarily housing composts are outside of the city's school. Property tax circuit breakers and mandatory inclusionary zoning are not using inclusions up to state law. And another are community land trusts, but Austin has made minimal use of these so far. Lastedly I would say there's more information on these messages. The complete inventory of the 85 items we put together and also the literature we considered as we worked on this project in the report provided to you. So that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> Troxclair: I would think that overall Austin is one of the more expensive cities to live in in Texas, so within Texas cities are there tools that other -- that other cities are using like Houston San Antonio, that are improving affordability that Austin is not making use of? Do you know? >> We didn't do a peer review against other Texas cities, however to reiterate what create said, some of the -- Katie said, some of the other tools used by cities outside of Texas are not used in our case because of state law. [2:35:58 PM] So we didn't look specifically to see if there are other things that perhaps Dallas, San Antonio and Houston may be using. >> Troxclair: So I guess so you -- I haven't had a chance to digest this entire report yet, but first of all, thank you for your work on this. I think it's really important that we're continuing our conversation about affordability and it certainly-- some of the findings, I'm not surprised by some of the findings that you made, but I think that it's really important that they're brought to light and that we talk about them as a full council. So in addition to identifying the problems, for example, that we've historically looked an organizational vision or strategy to making Austin more affordable, are there particular recommendations within the report beyond just saying we need a strategy? >> I think one thing on report, so we didn't do an audit of this and we were really just looking at -- we started out just to assemble the inventory, so I think the initial product we tried to bring back to council was really the I-35 items and kind of where those were and we didn't do an audit or in-depth analysis even of the information provided here, we verified that it was correct, but we didn't do a lot of additional analysis in order to do a finding or additional recommendation. >> So is that a future step or is this the conclusion of the existing project? >> This is the conclusion of the existing project, although I would say there's one sort of next step or related next step, which is we had an audit project place holder on our audit plan this year for an audit of some area identify through this work. [2:37:06 PM] What we identified is taking a program or group of programs and looking more in-depth at the outcome and effectiveness of the particular area? So I expect that to be the next step, but when -- let me think back. In the budget last year I think there was an original vision of conducting this work and then having an outside party do some additional work and have some findings and recommendations and we decided not to pursue that. Not we, but we as the city of Austin decided not to pursue that. >> Troxclair: Was that a specific council vote? >> It was a line item in the budget. There was an amount of money set aside and there was a decision to unset that money aside for that second part of the project. So the actual analysis of what kind of -- what can we be doing differently. >> Troxclair: I guess I would be interested and we can talk another time about that. But I would be -- the work that y'all have done is only valuable if we do something with it. If we do something with the information that you've found. So I think it's really important that we are able to digest the information and ultimately culminate in doing something to address affordability just because making the list is only one step in my opinion of getting to the ultimate goal and improving affordability outcomes in Austin. So I would be happy to talk in another time what -- with you about what next steps might be most beneficial. And my last question is about property taxes. Do -- are property taxes -- the list identifies specific programs, but I don't see a property tax -- are property tax rates listed somewhere? >> They are. >> It's item 48. >> Troxclair: I see it. Perfect. [2:39:06 PM] >> I'm not doing well with the on and off button here. You will notice that some of the programs in the inventory are kind of sets of similar smaller programs that have been rolled up. For example, we have one item for rebates that are offered by Austin energy. So property taxes are an example of that. We have one item for property taxes. We didn't split it into all the different jurisdictions. >> That makes sense. >> Thank you. >> Houston: Thank you so much. Thank you for all the good work. This is a great starting point. On the examples of programs and initiatives, I missed what you said about the number of unique individuals in - - I didn't get the number. In the down payment assistance program? >> So the example we used for the -- I don't think it was the down payment. It was the rental assistance program. Houston, Texas maybe that's why I didn't get it. >> The comparison was the utility customer assistance program, which served 40,000 people and they got about $800 per family. The rental assistance was about $6,300 and it was 75 individuals assisted. >> Houston: >> Houston: What was the amount again? >> It was 6300. >> Then for clarification it was fiscal year 15 for the program and fiscal year '16 for the rental assistance program. >> Houston: Is that information from this document? >> It's in the report, yes. >> Houston: Thank you. >> Tovo: Councilmember Flannigan? >> Flannigan: I might argue that the big difference between Austin and Houston and Dallas is that we address affordability and they're not as good as we are and it drives supply and demand. [2:41:13 PM] I'm glad to see that on page seven. Certainly it is something we are trying to wrap all our heads around. And also I want to give you kudos for the report. In listing the strategic outcomes in the inventory. I appreciate seeing that. I think just spot-checking a few, it shows how broad these outcomes really are. And there are some that for whatever reason you've chosen to list as cultural and learning opportunities, but I think are probably more accurately economic opportunity. There's a couple of job training ones that you could probably argue either way. The end game here for me is really thinking about with all these programs how were we accurately measuring their effectiveness and their breadth and getting to some kind of roi. And even looking through this list, obviously some are going to be difficult to accurately measure. But even just a measure of the number of people served is going to be an interesting one as we look to make some hard choices in this budget moving forward. You said that there's a phase 2 to this that's going to further explore a part of this. Can you explain to me what it was you actually said? >> Absolutely. When this project was originally proposed, now more than a year ago, it was proposed in two parts, phase 1 being these two things, the district profiles and the inventory to be done by our office. And then there was vision of a second phase of what would involve external sis sense of some sort. That part the council decided not to do through an external party. At some point during the budget last year. I think from a funding perspective really that that money was better used to address affordability elsewhere was the discussion that occurred at that time. The second part from my office, though, is that we do have a place holder this year to do an audit of program or a group of programs and to look at trying to what are we getting kind of the outcomes. [2:43:26 PM] Are we getting the outcomes that we planned. I would say we actually have a couple of projects already underway that tie to the inventory or the programs identified so we have a homeless assistance project that's underway, looking at those programs that the city offers. We have a workforce development contract audit underway again looking at what the city is already doing. So those two are underway. Then we have a third place holder for something that's on this list. So whether that's a priority area for the council. >> So we're going to have to give you direction on what those place holders turn into? >> That would certainly be helpful, yeah. >> Flannigan: One of the things I'm curious about as we purr affordability is that we -- pursue affordability is that we capture not only the terms of affordability, but how we determine those at the range and income levels. We need to help those most in need, but we need to also make sure we have a middle class because ultimately they pay for those programs by having a robust middle class so how are we ensuring that it's not necessarily subtan tiesization that creates a middle class, but that we're addressing housing supply, mobility, and really honing in on the breadth of programs that will do that. >> If I could justice us respond to your first comment, councilmember Flannigan. The nature of this project was really to look at affordability so probably every program on here we could have assigned to the economic opportunity and affordability strategic outcome. But for those we figure that wouldn't be useful to assign to that category. For those where the description we got did lend itself to the outcomes and we tried to assign it that way. >> Kitchen: I have a question and I apologize if you've already addressed this. With regard to -- did you talk about the budget process and how this aligns. So my question there is we're work through our -- we have another retreat coming up and we have a set of buckets for the outcomes. [2:45:32 PM] And we'll be working towards metrics to tie back to the indicators and the outcomes. So one of the things I've been thinking about is the extent to which our affordability programs tie back to metrics and indicators and outcomes. So my question simply was if -- you haven't done that because we're still defining the metrics. Do you think this work can align with that in some way. >> We do. And in fact, having attended the first round of strategic planning retreats -- >> Kitchen: Great. >> We had already started this work and we said oh, great. It would be more useful if we could align those to the strategic planning outcomes. So we have them aligned from that perspective. I think one of the challenges that we point out and that I think is going to continue to be a challenge in that strategic planning is having the reliable, repeatable data to support those indicators and I think that's a challenge for us citywide, but I think once those indicators are identified -- >> Kitchen: So maybe the next step -- I see that you've got them aligned right there, so the next step is to bear that in mind as we're thinking about our metrics. Does that make sense, I think? >> Yes. >> Tovo: I need to actually turn the chair over, if she's willing, to councilmember Houston. >> Houston: What are we doing? >> Tovo: I'm turning over the chair to you until mayor Adler, who will be back soon, comes back. But I wanted to say one thing. I appreciate this work. I think it's helpful to have the inventory and the specific comments about how we can better, you know, move forward in terms of communicating our programs and responding to your findingsings is really useful as well. I wanted to say how much I appreciated the inclusion of some programs that aren't always talked about with regard to affordability, say the summer playground programs, which is a free program offered by the parks and recreation department as we've talked about several programs recently, childcare for families with children is very often their second highest expense. So those programs that we have within parks and recreation department are absolutely a part of how we're trying to address affordability issues with regard to Austin families. [2:47:42 PM] The other one that I was really delighted to see within there were some programs from the Austin public library. You know, very often we don't think about the Austin public library as part of our strategy in combating rising costs for Austin families. And again, too, you talked about their job training programs and some of the computer resources they provide on-site. I would say the book and magazine and online resources are absolutely part of that as well for so many, for people's work, for their schooling, even k-12 schooling very often now it's required for families to purchase materials for their children, different books that they need to read throughout the year and for many of our families that would really be a challenge. So having those resources available within the public library system is really important for their family budget as well. So thank you. I appreciate the broad -- both the thoroughness of the work, but also the broad lens that you used in approaching it. >> Houston: Before you go, can I ask more question? >> Tovo: You can ask as many as you want and now you get to lead the meeting. >> Houston: Thank you. You did not look at peer cities in Texas to see what they're doing because their affordability costs are not as high as Austin. So is that part that you could kind of tweak and give us some information on? >> We could certainly provide some information on that, see what they are doing. I think we did a literature review and I don't remember -- we looked at a lot of different kind of articles and summaries of things people were doing and I think some of them may have touched on other Texas cities. So we'll look through that, see what's in there and see if there's other information about what Texas cities are doing. >> Houston: That would be helpful. This morning on CBS this morning there was a little snippet about affordability and I was getting [indiscernible] Because I didn't really have a chance to look at it. But I plan to go pack and find it and look at it. And one of the things they said, councilmember, is that for those communities where there is a lot of interest, then it does raise -- no matter what the supply of housing is, it does raise the cost. [2:49:55 PM] So it does not -- if we increase the housing stock it does not bring the cost down, but I'm going to have to go back and find that. But it was CBS this morning and I think it was -- I'll have to think about it, but it was something about housing and the most affordable places in the United States to live. It started off like that. So I just was catching snippets of it. I'll find it and send it to you. And thank you all. Any more questions? Thank you so much for all the work that you've done and for the presentation. We really appreciate it. Our next briefing is council meeting efficiency and deliberation. Who is presenting? >> Good morning, council, ray burrrae, joining me is Jannette Goodall. So what we're bringing forward today are staff recommendations relating to council meeting efficiency and deliberation, which the council directed the city manager to do at your February 9th council meeting. In developing these recommendations staff took into account the importance of public participation and transparency. At the same time the council also asked for ideas and suggestions on the formation of task forces including a history of task forces here at the city. And finally the council asked for ideas and suggestions to improve the council committee process. [2:51:58 PM] Right after the February 9th council meeting, both the city clerk and I assembled a project seem as you can see on this slide, with participation from staff in various offices and departments to include the agenda office, the city auditor's office, the city clerk's office, the city manager's office, the innovation office and the law department. So as we started with our work we really sat out to -- set out to accomplish several goals. First we wanted to identify where were the pain points or as I call them the bottle necks by looking for possible efficiencies within the agenda process as well as the actual structure of council meetings. Next we looked for ways to increase the council's time to prepare for council meetings. And then we collaborated on how to maintain the city's desire for public participation and transparency all with the goal of trying to come up with short and long-term recommendations. Just to kind of give you an idea of what our work entailed, staff went through an exhaustive project analysis that included reviewing existing council rules to see if there were any ways that we could streamline the rules, looking for inconsistencies or maybe some shortcuts. We reviewed the proposed changes that were put forward by the mayor, the mayor pro tem and other councilmembers. We also reviewed the 2014 auditor's report on council committees and meeting practices. We also took into account the discussions that you as a council have had during council meetings and your postings on the message board. We have reviewed the current agenda process to try to see if we couldn't find efficiencies there. I know that the city clerk gathered public participation statistics from last year. She'll talk about those in just a little bit. We also researched current practices relating to task forces in city code, chapter 2-1. And then we also finally studied the history of task forces appointed by the current, but also present mayor. [2:53:09 PM] As part of our work it was important to really look specifically at the pain points because we all know that council meetings are generally long. So we wanted to find out what is causing them to take so long. We're aware that there are often dead air times between time certain items so we wanted to look at possible solutions to avoid this, but we also heard from councilmembers that you don't have sufficient time to prepare for council meetings, you don't feel like you're getting the necessary information and getting it in a timely manner. That there isn't enough time at work sessions for you as a body to talk amongst yourselves about policy issues. That you're also seeking clarity on the role and the purpose of council committees. And then, of course, I think we're all aware for your staff or our staff the amount of time that is spent preparing for all of these council meetings. So as we again with our recommendations I'm going to start with the agenda process. We also have recommendations for the council work sessions, for the council meetings and then I'm going to get into ceremonial items and that will be that portion of my presentation. But as you know, the agenda office posts the final agenda on the Friday before the following Thursday's council meeting, which is about a week out. In order to create some efficiencies in agenda process, staff is recommending first of all that we post a preliminary agenda, but instead and in place of that we recommend posting the final agenda two weeks in advance. Now, if an item is time sensitive and becomes an emergency, then an addendum it be costed from the break time of that agenda being posted out two weeks out to within three days before the council meeting. These changes, staff believe, would give the council more time -- in this case you would have an additional one week to review the council agenda. [2:55:11 PM] It would also give the council two work sessions instead of just one currently to discuss items of high public interest or controversial items and would also give staff more time to provide you with the necessary backup documentation so that you have a more full agenda packet. The changes that I've just mentioned would require a change to the ordinance under chapter 2-5. Also related to the agenda process, it is currently our practice that iocs can be placed on the agenda with only posting language and an accompanying resolution. If the council approves moving the posting of the final agenda two weeks in advance, then staff is going to recommend a parallel measure moving the deadline for ifcs to the weekend before the final Friday posting, which is 11 business days before the meeting, almost two weeks. At the same time staff is going to recommend enforcing the requirements that are currently in the code for ifcs that really require a fiscal and operational mexican-american know under 2-a-2 and also supporting information as required under 2-5-26. We believe that these changes would give council and staff more time to review the ifc or the proposal as well as reduce the number of questions regarding the costs and the resources needed to carry out the ifc. Moving this deadline to two weeks would require a change in chapter 2-5. An additional recommendation pertaining to ifcs, staff is recommending that any ifc that directs the city manager to do something, for example, to come up with policy recommendations, it would first are posted on a Tuesday council work session. There wouldn't be any action on that same Thursday of that week, but it would move towards final adoption the following council meeting. [2:57:20 PM] Now, you would also have at the same time an additional work session to discuss that ifc as well. We believe again that this would give council ample time to discuss the ifc before final adoption. >> Houston: Before you move on, councilmember alter? >> Alter: I would just concerned about what the requirements would be for backup? Because this only works if we have the backup two weeks in advance as well. And I didn't see that mentioned here. I don't know if that was assumed or not, but I'm curious. >> So what we intend to do is if we do move it to two weeks and we post two weeks in advance, it is our commitment to get you pretty much all the backup when we do the final posting. There may be some late backup, but our goal is to get it to you as soon as we can. >> Alter: And I would ask that if we have late backup that when it's sent to us that it's very clearly organized and we don't have to be going and searching back in the agenda and finding the backup, whatever, that we can just really easily click and find the late backup because it just takes up extra time as well for our staff. >> He would endeavor to do that, yes. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Houston: Councilmember troxclair? >> Troxclair: So I want to make sure I understand the proposal. So the staff or the -- or the rca's would be required two weeks in advance, but the ifcs would only be required 11 days in advance? >> It still would be the two weeks. I think I said 11 business days. So it would still be the Wednesday before that final Friday posting, which is in a sense two weeks. >> Troxclair: Okay. So ifcs would be due on Wednesday and the final agenda would be posted on Friday. [2:59:22 PM] >> That's correct. >> Troxclair: The final agenda including ifcs. >> That's correct. Total and the final recommendation that direct the city manager, are you saying they would all be posted for the work session? >> They would be working for the -- well, I would say that if it was like a fee waiver or something, we wouldn't have to worry about that, but anything that would require the city manager to come back with policy recommendations, that that would then be posted on a Tuesday work session, but you could take action until the following council meeting, which could possibly be the following two weeks. >> Troxclair: Okay. So far I'm excited about the recommendations because -- >> We also have recommendations on recommendations that would provide for efficiencies. For example, for the work session we're recommending a standard set schedule that begins promptly at 9:00 A.M. And because council has mentioned that it wants more time to discuss policy issues amongst its members that from 9:00 to 11:00 councilmembers would discuss items on the Thursday council agenda, just like you do on preselected items. Then we would have at 11 a hard stop and then have staff briefing that could a last up to an hour. In these cases we would ask staff to only give the highlights, about 15, maybe 20 minutes, to ensure that you have enough time not only to ask staff questions, but also for you as a body to discuss that issue amongst yourselves. After that council would then have another stop at hard noon to go into executive session. Again, there would be just a maximum number of one briefing at the work session. [3:01:23 PM] Now, if council, however, wants additional briefings on other issues, the council might consider devoting maybe one meeting a month specifically to briefings which could be held during a non-council week. Another suggestion, to reduce the time spent in work sessions, we would recommend moving most briefings to council committees. We also have some other work session recommendations -- >> Houston: Mr. Baray, hold on. >> We also have some other work session recommendations. For example, to maximize the the time that councilmembers spend discussing items with each other. We recommend that if you only have questions for staff about an item that you use the council Q and a process as much as possible. That would help to maximize the time that all of you would have to discuss other items amongst one another. Also we would encourage the use of informational memos to council rather than staff briefings. However, briefings or issues of a complex nature or high public interest like a codenext would be reserved for staff briefings. Councilmember alter? -- >> Houston: Councilmember alter? >> Alter: I'm excited to see the direction this is taking and I have one sort of broader comment that I just wanted to share with my colleagues on kind of how I view this. And yes, we want to have efficiency, yes, we want to solve the time problems and not take up staff time, but the goal of all these changes in my mind is to help us make better decisions. As we're evaluating these things, that's one of the lenses that I'm using. It's not just to save my time so that I can take better decisions and so that my colleagues can as well. One of the things that was mentioned under the briefings that concerns me is moving most of the briefings to council committees. [3:03:24 PM] I think it's really helpful when we're all on the same page and one of the things that I think is the biggest impediment to us actually being able to get things done on time is that we can't talk to each other. So by having the briefings happening and having that opportunity, we at least have an opportunity to hear where other people are on particular issues and their questions. And it's not to say it will only happen in committee or at an earlier stage in committee, but I define value in the briefings, but not so much when we're having a work session and then doing it after 3:00 and we haven't adequately planned for that time in our schedules. >> Houston: Councilmember Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I really like where we're going here. I think the two-week posting is important because I have often found myself pulling things for work session when I've just had staff questions because I felt that it was the only chance I really had. And by the time I got a Q and a response it wouldn't necessarily get seen by everybody on the dais, but it wasn't so much a policy debate we needed to have, but bringing stuff to light. I think if we could hold ourselves accountable to a two-week limit because a lot of this is -- we just have to hold ourselves accountable. But I think that will really help and constantly remind ourselves that the point of the work session is to enable that conversation that is so difficult, if not impossible to have otherwise. I think that would really help avoid some of the 6 to 5 votes where it was really about a miscommunication or we didn't have time to think about it. Or if I had known one or two of my colleagues had defined that term differently, then it would have made me move things differently. So I really like where this is going, but I think the two week is really partly what makes that possible. >> Alter: And I think it also -- >> And I think it also allows staff to have more time to respond to your Q and as in advance of the Wednesday before the Thursday meeting when you don't have time to digest the response. [3:05:27 PM] >> Right. >> So next I'll turn over to council meetings -- >> Houston: Just a minute. Councilmember alter, do you have another question? >> Alter: I just wanted to clarify with then -- would then the Q and a be kind of rolling and you just answer them as soon as you can once those questions -- >> Yes. As soon as the agenda is posted you can start asking your questions right then. They are two weeks out and we'll try to get a response as quickly as we can. Send it out to everyone and you will also see a final report right before the council meeting. But again, as the responses -- as we get those, we send it out to everyone. >> Houston: All right. >> As for representations to council meetings, we do understand that there's been some discussion about starting council meetings maybe a little earlier in the day, however we would recommend keeping the existing start times for the Tuesday work session at nine A.M. And the Thursday council meeting at 10:00 A.M. The premeeting time is very important because it allows staff to use the morning to prepare for the meeting as well as to allow the public to be able to register to speak for your Thursday council meetings. For the consent agenda on Thursdays, we would highly recommend that if there are any questions relating to a consent item, then any discussion of that item really should be deferred until after the vote on the consent agenda. That would allow consent to be disposed of quickly. Hopefully within 20 or 30 minutes, by 11:00 A.M., thereby allowing citizens and staff, many of whom are here just for the non-controversial consent items, to go ahead and leave and depart the chambers. Finally, we would urge the council to continue using the practice of confirming that citizens are present in chambers prior to pulling an item for speakers. >> Alter: Can I ask one other question on consent? [3:07:28 PM] When we do consent and it's fee waivers and because of like the five councilmember rule of somebody talking and there may be additional fees and we haven't seen it -- and right now this happens partially because we're on the one week, but you're happy to contribute more or it didn't get in, but you have to sort of take that time to state that at consent. Is there a process -- maybe I'm just not aware of an existing process, but I hate to take up people's time for something like that. Or if there was a clearer way, maybe we would be waiving more fees for groups that -- >> Probably if we notify the agenda office and we could do it through changes and corrections. We could do it that way. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Houston: And one of the things that I wanted to say under council meeting staff recommendations is to commit to start on time. I wanted to read that into the record. [Laughter]. >> On time certain items, staff recommends moving board meetings like your Austin housing finance corporation or Mueller development corporation meetings as well as staff briefings, bond sales and tone zoning to 10 H 30 in the morning. What we found is that there is often dead air time between time certain items. Now, this wouldn't require a change to your council rules because the code identifies specific items that have to be set at a certain time, but it doesn't establish what that specified time has to be. This could be a quick change we could do through the agenda office. If you so approve. Staff is also going to recommend establishing set break times during the council day. For example, you already do a hard stop for citizen communication at 12 noon, but right after that we ought to probably -- and we're recommending lunch maybe from 12:30 to 1:30 and then dinner from 5:30 to 6:30. This would allow staff and the public to know with certainty when to be back in chambers. And really giving them sort of a break. [3:09:32 PM] During the day. Another is to take up other items up at 10:00 P.M. Or the following day. The way we were talking about in the staff project group is that by 6:30 we generally have an idea of what items it would take to get us from 6:30 right after the dinner break until 10:00. What we could do is basically move through those items, we could also mention or tell the public that we're only going to do these items between 6:30 and possibly 10. And everyone else can then go if you want to go ahead and postpone until the next day or to the next council meeting. If you finish up at nine you get to go home early. If it lasts past 10 you know you're on the last item for the day. >> Alter: I wanted to clarify on the existing specified time certain items, for the zoning I have some reservations about moving that to 10:30. It's harder for the citizens if they're trying to figure that out. >> What we'll do is move zoning consent to 10:30, but zoning discussion items would still be at 2:00. >> Alter: Is there a way to do that that we've already pulled in advance what we want to move from the zoning consent agenda so someone is not coming at 10:30 and having to come back again later because somebody doesn't know that a councilmember is going to be asking to remove something from consent. We seem to have a lot of things on consent and they don't end up staying on consent and just want to avoid creating situations where people have to come back even more often so I don't know how we would communicate that and maybe if it's two weeks in advance we have more time to be able to alert folks, but I think that would be helpful. [3:11:42 PM] >> I think we can work with planning and zoning staff and see how we can make that work to take care of the very situation you've described. >> Alter: I'm concerned because we have citizens who are coming to talk about their caseys and then -- cases and then you have developers who are paid to be here and their lawyers who are paid to be here for whatever hours. And it creates just another imbalance in the process if there's uncertainty about when things will be coming up. >> Let's do some more work on that and see if we can get that clear and find a way of making that happen. >> Houston: And I think that two weeks is great so that way we know what's been postponed or withdrawn earlier. Sometimes we don't know that until that day. So that would be helpful. And then we would just breeze through the consent calendar. >> Absolutely. >> I want to make sure I understand. If we put zoning consent at 10:30 and then we-- and a councilmember decided to pull an item, it would come up at 2:00 or 4:00, whatever that time is. So we wouldn't take up pulled consent zoning at 10:30. If it was pulled it would go to the regular time. >> Alter: I was just concerned -- like somebody has to come at 10:30 to find out it's pulled, but I might know that five days in advance now that I'm going to pull something at 10:30 and if I could alert them then it's going to be pulled -- there's a lack of clarity for zoning for people for when they need to show up for things already and people end up wasting their time trying to be there. A certain amount that's uncertainty about the time, but then there's a certain amount that we're just building in to the process. And I don't know that I have enough experience to say exactly what the solution is. I can tell you that's a scenario that I'm trying to avoid because for some people coming at 10:30 in the morning is hard, coming at 2:00 is hard. Staying all day is hard. But I want to avoid them having to come at 10 H 30 and having a surprise because maybe it's not their councilmember that's pulling it who has been talking to them, somebody else pulled it and they have no way of knowing. [3:13:50 PM] So I'd just like some mechanism so that we can -- to let people know. >> Flannigan: And maybe this happens and I don't know it, but if it's on consent, why do they have to be there? >> Alter: Because if I pull it off of consent for discussion, they may want to testify, they may want to do - - >> At 2:00 our 4:00. >> Flannigan: So they wouldn't have to be in the chamber at 1030, but know to pay attention to the livestream or their Twitter feed or whatever. They could call in to staff at 10:35 and say did my item get pulled? I'll go down there at 4:00? >> Alter: I think there's some technology fixes, what I'm trying to do is make sure we have a process so that people can be informed. I didn't have a resolution. >> Flannigan: Sure. I don't know that it's possible for us to prevent any one councilmember from pulling a consent item the day of. >> Alter: I'm not trying to prevent them from pulling it. I just want some mechanism so we can be as mindful of other people's timed. A when we know that. I'm not taking our prerogative to pull things at all. I think if it's in my district and I'm hearing a lot of stuff from people, you know, I may know in advance that I'm going to pull it and we should have mcniches for communicating that. And that's something we don't have to necessarily have right now because it's all at 2:00. >> Flannigan: We're on the same page, I think. >> And I think if this is an item that you want us to proceed with, if we wanted to, we could leave zoning off the immediate list to move to 10:30 and leave it at 2:00 until we get all of the -- how do we communicate that information back out to the public in advance. >> I think it's better to clear out consent early, like you're saying, like staff is recommending, so that you don't -- if you're on consent and you're nervous that there's a councilmember that's going to pull it, don't have to show up at 4:00. Did it get pulled? No, great. Go ahead, I'm going to have lunch. So I think it's better to do as much consent as we can and get it out of the way and provide some reliable consistent identifying communication technique that allows someone who has got an agenda item to check in and see if they have to on come back, show up ought all in the afternoon for testimony or whatever. [3:15:03 PM] >> Houston: Just a moment. Ms. Morgan, thank you. >> I think we can work on this a little bit, but I think too it has to do if there's a public hearing. If the public hearing has been closed then it can be set earlier. But if there's a public hearing then people will be allowed to am could and testify. So that's a distinction we'll have to work into it as well. >> Alter: Just to make sure that I'm understanding how this would work. So we would do the items that were on our regular consent agenda. We wouldn't then take up items that got pulled from the consent agenda. We would move to board meeting, staff briefings, bond sales and zoning before we got to anything that had been pulled from consent? Or would we be moving through our consent agenda leftovers first? How would that work? >> I see it as it really gives you the flexibility to decide that day do you want to take up the items that you pulled from the 10:00 A.M. Consent or do you want to move to the zoning consent or do you want to move to this one or to that one. You have more flexibility because you're not locked into a specific time. >> Alter: All right. That feels like -- I have to think that through. It does feel like that introduces a lot more uncertainty. And it may be that it's a particular order in here makes more sense like it seems to me like let's get the consent agenda going -- the regular consent agenda and maybe we do our board meetings and our bond sales and then we come back to the zoning consent. I'm just trying to -- if it's zoning consent and it's truly everything is going to be on consent it could go right after. But I don't love the idea of having too much flexibility in there. It does create opportunities to manipulate it and it does create, you know, more confusion for the general public. [3:17:11 PM] So I would prefer being less flexible in the order there. And maybe we have flexibility of the items that are not on consent to call something earlier, but if we're doing to move this order and it's to facilitate getting people back out to their offices, we should try and stick with a particular order. >> Houston: And one suggestion I'd like to make, you just have zoning. You don't say zoning consent items. So that -- >> We'll make that clear. >> Houston: Anything else? >> Yes. So -- >> Houston: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: So on the last item about council meetings, so no change to existing council rules. So what would you recommend that we do, just a resolution or something to make these changes or just -- you don't need anything formal is what you're saying? >> No, we won't need anything formal. >> But I think you will have a comprehensive discussion and you might want to make some changes that will require an ordinance change and some that won't when we get to the end of the process. >> Kitchen: Right. But I'm -- we're not suggesting we put things in ordinance that aren't in the ordinance right now, right? Okay. >> All right. This is my -- hold on. Okay. So we also took a look at ceremonial items on the council agenda and we are recommending that we remove live music at the council meeting and reinstate live music on the plaza by holding it at the times that you see here on either Wednesday or on Friday. That would save about 30 minutes on a regular council day. Another recommendation that we have is to keep proclamations at 5:30 P.M., but we would recommend either reducing the number of meetings at which proclamations are presented to two meetings a month with only five per meeting, and/or limiting each councilmember to no more than 10 proclamations per council office per year. [3:19:13 PM] This would save some time, maybe about another 15 to 20 minutes from the council day. We certainly understand as staff that council wants to celebrate and honor the great things that are being done in our community, and we would suggest that council look for other ways to accomplish that same goal of honoring those achievements. Finally, staff is recommending holding special called meetings on issues that are of high public interest or that will likely generate a large amount of public testimony like the grove at shoal creek or codenext. That would be preferable so that council can concentrate on that specific issue instead of having it compete with other items on the agenda for time and discussion. Those are the recommendations I have so far on my part. I'm going to go ahead and turn over the next portion of the presentation to the city clerk. >> Houston: Councilmember kitchen has a question. >> Kitchen: Oh, just wanted to state my thinking on this, on the ceremonial items. One of the values of the live music in the chamber is the fact that it's broadcast. Which I think is really important for the public and also for those music -- for the bands and for the people that are highlighted. So I don't think we -- as far as I'm aware, we couldn't accomplish that if we did it on the plaza. So to me that wouldn't be worth moving. And then the second thing I would just say, I wouldn't want to limit the number of proclamations per council office. I wouldn't limit the number of proclamations per council office. Now, I like the idea of presenting twice a month, maybe a certain number each time, which has a similar effect, but I really don't think we should limit the amount of proclamations. There's a real value to proclamations that I think is important. >> Houston: I have a question. We couldn't livestream the live music on the patio? >> We might be able to do that. I would need to speak to the folks at axtn, the public information office, about the feasibility of it. [3:21:21 PM] I believe we've done it before, but I would have to check. >> Houston: Let us know. Thank you. The mayor has returned. I'm turning the chair back to him. [Laughter]. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I was just thinking back for the points about the two weeks with the agenda. And I'm just trying to understand how that rhythm works when we have council meetings that are week after week after week as we do now. I think that would be, you know, a perfect solution if we had council meetings every other week. I'm just wondering how that two-week rhythm will also play with having, you know, three councilmembers in a row. And I don't know if there's a way to avoid that by like eliminating a meeting in between because we're so much more efficient, which would be my goal, but I'm just trying to play out, you know, now you've got two council meeting agendas that you're dealing with. How much will we resolve with that? And I don't know how much thought was given to that. And I'm just curious what feedback you have on that. >> For that one I would probably go ahead and defer to our agenda office and Katie powers since she's the one doing most of that work. >> So we did think about that and it's certainly something that we would all have to learn to balance, kind of keeping track of two agendas at the same time. But I think the benefits of being able to look at the stuff ahead of time would kind of outweigh the down side of keeping track of everything. As far as eliminating meetings, I think that would be great, but I don't know that it's something that we can actually achieve. But we're more than prepared to juggle those meetings and we kind of do it now off nine anyway. [3:23:25 PM] >> Houston: Councilmember pool. >> Alter: I'm saying if you want to reduce the number of council meetings I would not object to that. [Laughter]. >> Pool: So it sounds like if you do away with the draft agenda and instead of just go with a formal agenda that you are in effect providing the agendas two weeks in advance now anyway, right? So it would be more requiring staff to have all its backup, all the backup prepared so that you can do those links. >> Yeah, exactly. So it would just be -- it would allow you to look at an agenda that's final. The backup is not changing. The numbers aren't changing and hopefully the late backup or revised backup is still kept to a minimum. But you would still be ceremonial getting and agenda to look at at the same time. It's just now it would be final. >> Isn't there something in here that says if some of the backup were late or came in late that we would then automatically postpone an item to the next meeting? Did I make that up? >> You made that up. >> Pool: How much of it, though, did I make up? [Laughter]. There was something in here that relates to that about backup coming to us late. >> I think that was a comment that I think that we have -- what we've heard from council is that you have expressed that many times you don't get backup until sometimes the very day of the council meeting and you wanted to try to avoid that by doing to two weeks in advance. >> Pool: I found it. It's on page -- it's agenda process. It's towards the front. And it's the little item in aitalics with the box. Items would not be able to be postponed one week except for emergencies. Any addendum to the final agenda on Friday before the meeting. Addendums would be reserved for emergency items only. Okay. So then if we do have late backup, what happens to that? [3:25:29 PM] >> So I think it would just be at y'all's discretion. If you felt like the late backup came in too late and you didn't have time to review it then you could postpone it the same way you can now. >> Pool: Which is what we're doing now. >> Yeah much the only difference is if you felt like you needed to postpone it one week it would be an addendum, which we try to reserve for emergencies. >> And I think the purpose of doing the addendum on Friday instead of Monday is on Friday we're still able to meet the 72 hour posting requirement so you could actually discuss the addendum items in the work session, which now when you get posted an addendum on Monday you can't discuss those items on Tuesday. >> Pool: That sounds like a good change. I -- I would like to try the best we can to preserve our interactions with the community in the kind of more -- in the recognition pieces and acknowledgment, the proclamations. I think that serves a really important role in Austin where we lift people up and talk about things they've accomplished. And it's a nice break for us sometimes too, the time of day when it happens, if an agenda may be kind -- the meeting kind of contentious, then we have this ability to kind of shift gears and do something that can reset everybody coming back after dinner. So I would tend to fall on the side of continuing our proclamations and the music. You know, if we lose the piece about music, that's really important I think to the community too, it focuses on the bands that come and play for us that can also provide a real nice -- >> I think what we want to do is to take a look at every portion or component of the council meeting and just offer that up as an option for you to consider. >> Pool: Right. In the past there was music on the plaza on Fridays, is that right? [3:27:31 PM] >> Yeah. So in the past >> In the past, in addition to music at the council meetings, there was music from the plaza, Friday at -- during the noon hour. And it would be one group or one person or a band that would come in and so they would get a -- well, basically, not the whole hour because they would have of course start time and -- but they got to do more than one association where at the council meetings they're kind of limited to one song. I believe in the past we televised those as well or reported those as well. You know, we could still do a proclamation and kind of rotate, if you wanted to do a proclamation that day for the band and declare that day to be the -- you know, the -- deadheads or whatever band happened to be playing that day. So I think there are ways that you can accomplish that, you know. At the noon hour, in the past, we actually even -- they arranged for food trucks to come or locate vendors to come to sell food during lunch. You know, if you did it in the evening we could market it as stay out of rush hour traffic, come listen to live music, go shop downtown, go to dinner downtown. So it's just an idea for y'all to kick around as a possible option that might actually give some local bands a little bit longer play time than just one song at the council meeting. >> Pool: Do you remember or does anybody know why we stopped doing it on Fridays? >> I've heard rumors, but I don't know the official reason. >> [Off mic] >> I don't know whether or not it was funding or not, but we could certainly find out. >> Pool: I would love to know the history of that. [3:29:33 PM] >> We can find that out. >> Pool: Because there may be some things we would then run into if it turned out to be the same things, then -- >> Right. >> Pool: Yeah. Because I'm thinking, too, in the summertime it can be pretty hot outside, especially at noon, and I guess 5:00 is about the hottest time of the day. But I do like the idea of connecting it up with the local -- the local connection with food trucks and maybe having people stay downtown a little bit on a Friday to be -- you know, let the traffic die down. Like you say, that's so -- yeah I'd like to know what may have stood in the way of it. >> We'll get that to you. >> Pool: -- Continuing previously. >> Mayor Adler: Apparently there was a recommendation. We have the grateful dead play on the balcony every Friday. I vote yes for that. [ Laughter ] But I've just gotten back. >> As long as we can throw some meatloaf in there, I'm with you, mayor. We were just having that discussion in my office, some people were, like, meatloaf. [ Laughter ] [3:31:40 PM] >> I think he is. >> He is, he is. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Just, you know, just saying, that brought back memories. So our next section is about citizen communication or citizen engagement. So really what I'm gonna do is just kind of start out by just giving you some numbers so that you have kind of an idea of some of the time and volume. I'm not sure I necessarily have any specific recommendation other than to -- for y'all to decide what you want to do as far as citizen participation. And kind of standardize and make sure it's very clear for everybody as to what the expectations are. Florida so I looked at -- so I looked at last year's meetings, and I think the consultant at the retreat gave you some stats on the number of hours that you spent in the council meetings, et cetera, but I think he may have pulled out the time that you spend in executive sessions and different things like that. [3:33:42 PM] And so I took a slightly different approach in that I just looked at the number of hours from start to finish and so this was for council meetings and work sessions. And so in 2016 you actually spent 557 hours in a meeting of some sort. 133 hours were in work session. 75 hours were spent in budget work sessions or other council discussions. And then 348 and a half hours were spent in your council meetings. And that include the budget adoption meetings, just to kind of give you an idea of how much time y'all are spending together. So I looked at the same type of numbers for the speakers during 2016. So in 2016 we used speaker sign-up for 33 of the council meetings. Now, what I did not go back because it would have taken a enormous amount of time and probably hundreds of staff, is to actually look to see if the speakers actually used their three minutes or if they were under or if some of them went over because we know that occurs both ways. But in 2016 you had 2,386 people who wanted to speak at your council meetings. You had an additional -- a little over 1500 that registered their opinion but said they didn't want to speaker, and then you had another 775 people who donated time to the speakers wishing to speak. So you had a total of 3,161 people that were actually giving time to speaker at your council meetings. So that averaged out to about 119 hours for people -- for the primary person who wanted to speak and an additional 39 hours that were -- that was donated in time to them. [3:35:54 PM] And that is strictly based on everybody getting three minutes and the donation of time being three minutes. So that totaled 158 hours of your council meetings. So approximately 45% of your council meetings were technically spent with citizen communication or engagement. So I looked at a couple of -- at the meetings to see how many items had 60 or more speakers, and so last year we had four items that had 60 or more speakers. There were 13 items that had 29 to 59 speakers registered. And then the remaining items were 19 or fewer speakers registered. So then we looked at how many of the folks who were donating time, how many speakers got time donated to them by one person or multiple people. So you'll see that 208 speakers received donated time from one person, 154 received time donated from two individuals, 105 received time donated from three, and 252 received time donated from four, which is the maximum but you'll notice that 25 -- 25 actually received time for more than five, and that's a little glitch in our speaker sign-up system, when you have multiple kiosks to accommodate people people signing up at the same time sometimes they will actually be signing and donating time at about the same proximate time and the system can't keep track of how many and so it just saves them all. [3:37:54 PM] So that's something we'll try to figure out if there's a way we can fix that. But sometimes they're a little quick on their registration. So the next slide I'm not gonna spend a lot of time. I just looked at if you reduce the time donated to two minutes or one minute, what that might look four. What I can't guarantee is that if the time is reduced, that the people just won't sign up to speaker themselves and get three minutes. But it does give you an idea. You can also look at reducing the number of people who can donate time. Instead of right now up to four people can donate time so that one individual could have a maximum of 15 minutes. You could look at either reducing the amount of time that is allowed to be donated or the number of speakers that can donate time. So I think you have a couple option there's if you want to explore those. I looked at the March 2, 2017 meeting, just to kind of give you an idea of how much time you were spending in some of the big categories of your meetings. So as you know, that was a fairly lengthy meeting. It was actually about 14 hours eight minutes. From start to finish. So you spent about 18 minutes on your 10:00 A.M. Consent. That included two speakers. Zoning consent, about 19 minutes. Items pulled from the 10:00 A.M. Consent, you spent 156 minutes. Addressing those. Items from council that you pulled from consent, I broke those out separately from the items from staff that were on consent. And so you'll see that in addition you spent 139 minutes talking about ifcs that you pulled from the consent agenda. [3:39:58 PM] And then your zoning discussion I'm sorry, of course we had a big one that meeting, and so it was 285 minutes. Public hearings were another 60 minutes. Live music and proclamations were about 30 minutes. General citizen communication was about 17 minutes that day. And then your lunch and different breaks. Dinner breaks. That just gives you an idea of how the day broke out for you. I did round up and round down, so it's not an exact time, but it's within ten minutes of each. These are the stats from the March 2 meeting. You had 107 people wish to go speak, 37 not wishing to speak, 40 that donated time, so it just kind of shows you what you can do and what it might look like if you reduced the amount of time that someone could donate. One discussion item that has occurred in the past, when do you close speaker sign-up. Currently we open sign-up noon the Monday before the council meeting and items stay open until technically, according to current rules, until the last person registered begins to testify. Now, I will admit it's rare that we then go in and close the item because it's just an extra click that we have to do when you're gonna be hopefully finishing up the item quickly, but we can begin doing that if you want. So I don't really recommend any change to that process. I think if the concern is that we got people running out at the last minute registering -- I actually did do this at the March 2 when I remembered to, and we only had two people that either wanted to or tried to register after the last speaker had begun. [3:41:04 PM] So I don't think it's a big issue that if we start closing it you're going to get a lot of complaints. But then it's also not a big issue that there's a lot of people doing it, necessarily, on a regular basis. What it can do is kind of disrupt if y'all have already started the discussion and disrupt your flow in discussion of the item. There are a couple things that we might be able to do to help citizens, is there are items that are on the consent agenda that, per the changes and corrections we know are going to be postponed or withdrawn, we could go in that Monday or that Thursday and close those items so that people don't register to speak on those items when they're going to be postponed or withdrawn. And we could put a note in speaker sign-up that says item has been withdrawn per changes and corrections. So speaker sign-up, currently your first -- you have three different things in your current rules that I think cause us some confusion. For citizens, staff and probably make it difficult sometimes for y'all to manage a meeting. Is currently each speaker gets three minutes and can have time donated by four speakers for up to 15 minutes. You also have a section in your code that talks about the first 20 speakers can get three minutes and everybody after that gets one minute. You also have an item in your rules that talk about for the public comment may not exceed 90 minutes. So a lot of times citizens are unclear if they're going to get three minutes, one minute, if it's gonna be limited to 90 minutes. So really our recommendation is just for y'all to have a discussion and come to a decision on how you want to address citizen communication and I would just recommend that you establish a set time for your primary speaker, decide how many people, if any, that you want to donate, to be allowed to donate time to that primary speaker, and how much time is that donated -- donation [3:43:28 PM] [indiscernible] And just establish those rules and go with it. To make it easier. That's really I think my recommendation. I'm not gonna speak for the mayor, but I know just from watching sometimes and working with the citizens, sometimes it gets really confusing if you're doing the first 20 but they got donated time but they got time donated speaker 58 but because they were speaker two, 58 gets three minutes, their time three minutes, but -- time is three minutes but if I'm speaker 40 and I had time donated from speaker three I only get one minute. It gets a little confusing I think for citizens to know what to expect so that's my recommendation, is just to standardize it and make it as simple as you possibly can. >> Flannigan: Mr. Mayor. One of my concerns about some of this, and I understand that -- I don't know that we've ever actually enforced some of this one minute to the 21st speaker thing, but any time that we're making determination on who gets to speak based on the order in which they've signed up is very problematic for me and my district where it takes the most amount of time to get to city hall. So that -- my perspective on that is challenging because my folks, there's almost no way for them to get to city hall until after the traffic has cleared so it doesn't seem fair to the community that if you live close to city hall you're the one ho gets to sign up in the first 20 because you're not waiting an hour and a half in traffic on mopac. The insofar it's the same for everybody the better it is certainly for my constituents. >> Yes, I think consistency will be your best friend. General citizen communication, which occurs at noon, as y'all know there are currently ten slots available. [3:45:30 PM] So we looked at 2016, so there are ten slots but no speaker can register more than once every three meetings. So in 2016 we had 29 meetings where we actually had general citizen communication. 40% of those meetings actually had fewer than the ten slots assigned. Taken. You had 231 speakers registered, 20% of which did not show. Of the 230, 17 actually registered using the current rules to speak at multiple meetings throughout the year, including four that registered to speak at six or more of the meetings. And so I won't name any names, but I think everybody can probably figure out who those four are. So I think if you're -- if you're wanting, to you could probably look at increasing the amount of time that a person could register to speak at a noon citizen communication. Anywhere from four to six meetings instead of three, without really having a negative impact on the average unique citizen who wants to come and speak to you at noon. And leaving it at ten slots and that way if there's a hot topic you could have, you know, ten new people come down and speak to you at one meeting. Another option is moving it to later in the day, like, at 5:30. But I don't know how that would work depending on what you wanted to do with proclamations and live music. So I think you have a couple option there's that you could consider as well. >> So some of the additional options that we're listing as future because I think we, one, need some better feedback from you and/or would require some technology or some more in depth analysis of your meetings, the -- as you know, we are currently going through the process of replacing the existing agenda management system. [3:47:49 PM] The new agenda management system has the potential to provide for comments, to allow citizens to submit online comments on an agenda item before the meeting. I think that works well if we look at moving the posting times because then we could set a specific time period that lieu online comments so that you get them far enough in advance that you have time to actually digest them if you want. Rather than, you know, getting them the Wednesday before the meeting and expected to read through the meeting. So I think with a two-week posting you have a little more flexibility as to how long you keep that open to give you time to review the comments. Speaker sign-up, we could look at modifying it to either include some comments or allowing them to register their opinion only or to register to speak only if y'all have comments from them or questions for them. So I think we could do things there, but it would require a modification that to that system -- to that system as well. We are looking and will be doing some upgrades to the council message board that hopefully will make it a little easier for y'all to use, and so hopefully it will be used a little bit more and more frequently. There are other things that we're looking at that we could possibly come back in the future with items or recommendations that you're -- things that are occurring at the council meeting that you might be able to do outside of the council meetings. For example, appeals that are going to council. It may be that with some modifications through codenext, maybe you delegate some of those to a hearing examiner officer rather than coming to council. [3:49:56 PM] So I think there are some options that if council is interested we could explore there. Fee waivers, it might be that we could reduce some of the fee waivers coming to council by changing how the ordinance addressing fee waivers and the budget process is written so that all of your fee waivers don't have to come to council. Look at what would increasing the threshold for the city manager's approval on contracts, what would that look like and would it reduce the number of contracts coming to you, if that's something you're interested in? That would require, I think, a change to the city charter because the threshold is actually listed in the city charter. But it's a long-term thing we can look at because I know there are discussions about other changes possibly in the charter. So I think it's something that we could look at as well. The next recommendation is we do have the open government partnership commitment, number 4, which addresses city public meetings. So I think that would be the time where we could actually have some more detailed analysis and conversations about how we get to the question councilmember alter brought up about are your deliberations the most effective and are there ways that we can make the meetings more efficient for you so that you're more comfortable and confident that your decisions are coming out with good information and that you're spending your time and resources in the best way. Task forces, I won't spend a huge amount of time on. But I have a -- >> I'm sorry. I have a quick question. Maybe this is what you meant. On the future recommendations, were you talking about and did you look at the recommendations from our task force that we had on -- the public engagement task force? [3:51:06 PM] >> We did not look at that one. >> Casar: I don't remember exactly what they had in there but I think we should review them, okay. All right. The last question would be on the new agenda management system with the potential to provide for ecomments,, tell me more about that? Is that a current function? >> So the vendor we selected for our new agenda management system is the same vendor that Pio office uses for citizen engagement so we would be able to kind of, without spending any extra money, kind of combine those tools. It's something that they already use and a -- in a couple other cities. From what I understand it's flexible in the way that we can set it up to just express a yes or no kind of thing. We can open it up for comments. We can auto screen it for certain words so they don't appear online if there's slurs or things in there and then we can close them and generate essentially a PDF we could send out to people and view it. The new agenda management system won't be coming online until about August and we're not tied to doing the speaker comments or the online comments, it's just an option that we're having. >> I'd be -- so it's an option for people to publish -- to comment online? >> Yes. >> Essentially. It will be interesting to see if there was any comparable kind of recommendation from the public engagement task force too. >> We'll look at those. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So the task forces, so we took it kind of a quick look at the task forces and for task force that's consist of councilmembers there's not really any clear definition in the city code on how those work, who gets to appoint them, et cetera, and I know that's the discussion that y'all are having. [3:53:07 PM] Chapter 2-1 does define them for the boards and commissions. And so I've provided you with those definitions in case it's something you want to mirror and/or use. We also did kind of a breakdown, and you have a separate full sheet of this because I'm sure it's hard to read on the screen, of the types of task forces that are currently being created and how they're created, who does the appointments. So you'll see the left-hand column talks about council only. Currently and the only really example that I had to really kind of base this on was the task force -- or the working group that y'all created for your transition. Work group that you had last year. Two years ago now. The council transition working group. So I lumped that in there because you don't -- you haven't really created a task force. So, you know, there I believe you're members, you volunteered who was going to serve on the -- >> [Off mic] On the left hand, first column, that's where I just listed the councilmember only, and the only example I had was the transition -- >> [Off mic] >> Councilmember only. The second column were task force created by council. >> Pool: On the first column that transition working group, that wasn't codified because we came together to do that work even before we had been inaugurated. >> Right. So it was really kind of just created informally. There was no document that actually created it. [3:55:08 PM] Y'all just volunteered who was going to be the regular members and then other people kind of came in and out as they wanted to participate. We did possess the agendas -- post the agendas and it was a public meeting. And then y'all did a report back to the council and then it unofficially dissolved because it wasn't officially created. So then the next column are task forces that council creates and does the appointments. And traditionally they are either created by resolution or ordinance, and the members are nominated by council and then approved by the full council. The resolutions or ordinance sometimes specify which requirements under chapter 2-1 apply. Are they going to be subject to Toma? You know, different requirements. And those can be customized. The resolution or ordinance sometimes establishes when it's gonna be dissolved, either by certain date or when a final report is issued. And then the city manager assigns staff support, and then the office of the city clerk creates a web page where the documents reside. Then there are task forces in the third column that are create -- yes? >> I'm sorry. Never mind, go ahead. >> Okay. [ Laughter ] Then the third column, goes through the same process for task forces created by council but appointed by the city manager. Typically by the city manager but occasionally may be appointed by someone else. I appointed one for the board and commission task force, transition task force, but so the same process kind of goes through. Then the next column are the task forces that are created by the mayor, and then there are also joint task forces that typically are between council and other jurisdictions, and then the final group that we have in the city is occasionally a task force will be created by the city manager or department with the purpose of soliciting feedback in preparation for a recommendation that the department comes back to council as far as a potential policy direction. [3:57:40 PM] So those are kind of the flavors of task forces as they exist now. Yes? >> Kitchen: So my question is -- and I think you answered it, but so for these different types or approaches or whatever, I'm trying to think about how those tie back to our existing ordinance. My thought is that we don't have any -- have an ordinance that addresses any of these. The ordinance that we have that you mentioned before is over in the bucket of -- >> So the ordinance that really addresses and defines task forces and working groups right now is under chapter 2-1, which deals with boards and commissions. >> Kitchen: Right. We don't V any -- >> So you don't really have anything in your council rules. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> -- That addresses task forces at this level. >> Okay. So these -- all of these are just -- this is the practice. >> Yes. [3:59:40 PM] >> Kitchen: This is what's been done in different ways. Okay, thank you. >> Pool: And so looking at the break-out of the boxes here, the only two where I see official assignment of staff support would be the citizen task force created by resolution or ordinance either appointed by council or appointed by the city manager. >> Right. >> Pool: Is that right? Okay. And that tracks then with what our informal conversations were about who appoints them and whether -- absent a resolution or ordinance, whether you have access to city staff and city resources. Okay. And it underlines the fact that appointing by resolution an ordinance then gives you access to city staff and city resources. >> Typically. Because then it allows you the opportunity to direct staff to either provide support, create a web page, provide whatever it is you need. >> Pool: Right. And it also gives more clarity on what the mission of the ad hoc task force work group might be. [4:01:41 PM] >> Yes. Typically the resolution or the ordinance will establish what the purpose or what the result or what -- what it is you want back from that group. >> Pool: And time frames, for example? >> Yeah. >> Pool: Okay, thanks. >> So in looking at the history of the mayor's task forces, you gave us kind of a list of some of them that we went back and looked at. So the next slide I have some of that, what we found was in searching for the task forces created by the past mayors, you know, it kind of varied depending on the mayor. We had some difficulty on some of them to go back and establish when they got created, who created them, who served on them, what the goal or purpose of them were, and sometimes whether or not a final report coming back to council. It really kind of varied over -- over time and depending on the group. So this is the list that y'all mentioned at the council meeting that you discussed this, so we went through and basically tried to go back quickly to find out what we could find about them. There may be more information, but that would require us to go back and look through all of the hard-copy files from the past mayors to see if we could find those -- any reference to those in their paper files, and so we did not do that. This is what we could find electronically for these. So we weren't able to find a lot of them. A lot of information about some of them. And so some of them we -- you know, like you'll see the task force on crime, drugs, and gangs, you know, it was created someone sometime around 1990 or I really, 1990 was the first time I could find a reference to it. [4:03:47 PM] The street smarts, the only mention I could find of it was in a report, and so that was in 2007, so it was created sometime before August 2011, but I'm not sure -- --August 2007 but I'm not sure when so it is difficult to find specific information on some of these task forces. I think our recommendation and, you know, we don't necessarily have a recommendation on whether or not all Travis -- task forces have to be created by approval by the council, but I think it would be helpful if you decided how you wanted to manage the information so that it is maintained going forward. So there are a couple things we could do to assist you, is we could come up with a checklist of things for you to consider when creating a task force. Such as are you goofing them subject to the open meetings act? Do you want a website? Different things so we can help you to prepare to preserve the action that's that task force is undertaking. And so the one thing about having -- creating a website is at least those documents would then come to the clerk's office to get post to the website and so we could at least manage, you know, when it got created, who served on it, what the final report was. So that's my overall recommendation on your task forces. >> Kitchen: There's a lot of different ways we could address forming these, but from a process standpoint, I really think there needs to be some clarity because we don't have an ordinance that really specify how we create a task force, and I think that would be useful to to have so that's what I would say to my colleagues. [4:05:50 PM] We've had some discussion about what they should look like and I'm sure that after more discussion we can reach an -- you know, an agreement at some point of what we want that to look like but I do think it needs to be clear because we've got all kinds of different practices in the past and, you know, we've got all different kinds of things that we've done, so -- so that's what I would suggest, is that we actually have an ordinance that clarifies what we're gonna do on a task force. >> I think you could do that fairly easily once you decide what that process is going to be. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> I think between the city manager and the clerk's office, we can provide you the resources to actually implement that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And preserve those task forces going forward. Because some of the task forces may have come up with some really cool and very informative recommendations. >> Kitchen: Mm-hmm. >> It's just they're lost in history, which is kind of always -- so I say that as the records manager for the city, kind of sad. Council committees, again, all we're doing is really giving you stats on how many people are coming to your council committees to kind of give you a flavor for interest in your council committees. Overall, our recommendations is as you finalize your strategic goals to align your committees with those goals, not necessarily saying that each goal has to have a committee named the same, but at least a way to link a goal and a committee to a goal. There was some discussion of maybe having meetings more than once a month but I think that might be something best left up to the individual committee to determine how much they need to meet in any given time depending on the workload. [4:07:51 PM] Some may only want to meet quarterly. Some may want to meet every two weeks because of a special project. Then we also agreed that maybe creating some bylaws or charters, whatever you want to call them, might be a good way to kind of establish what each committee is going to do. That's the end of my part of the presentation. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for crunching the numbers, interesting to see those. Thank you for the suggestions. Any further suggestions? Ms. Pool, you have your light on. Is that intended? >> Pool: No. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody have anything else -- further? Yes, Ms. Troxclair. >> Troxclair: What is the plan going forward? I mean, I heard some comments, at least for councilmembers here, there was consensus on, like, the two-week -- getting the agendas posted two weeks in advance, some of the things you talked about earlier in the presentation. Is it possible for us to request that this staff put together potential -- like, if you were going to adopt our recommendations here is what the resolution or ordinance changes would look like, or what is -- I want to move forward in adopting some of these recommendations. What's the best way to do that? >> And Ann could correct me if I misspeak because occasionally I do. I think we could do one of two ways. You could come back with a resolution directing staff to bring forth an ordinance that would -- for any of the items that require a modification to the code. For example, changing the posting time, I believe that requires a modification to the city code. [4:09:53 PM] Or I don't -- Ann can tell me if I'm going to misspeak right now. Can they give us direction today to come back with a draft ordinance? >> I think that we're going down a process of making changes and the manager could bring back -- I mean, these are staff recommendations. You asked us to do this, if we could turn this into an ordinance. >> Mayor Adler: If you could do that and just post that and everybody can see it and think about changes and that gives everybody a document to work off of. Does it need to be a change to -- there was someone who made the suggestion, I don't know if it was councilmember kitchen, somebody made the suggestion that these rules shouldn't be an ordinance, they should be in kind of operating rules of the body. >> Pool: Right. That was something. >> Mayor Adler: The ordinance structure and say by ordinance that the council can adopt rules for running its meeting and organizing and then we just adopt rules as I recall might be an easier way for us to be able to work with them and move them or reurge them. That made sense to me to adopt that kind of structurally recognizing that the first time we probably have to go back in and make ordinance changes to allow for that. But that was a suggestion someone made that made sense to me. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: And as much as I'd like to just jump from here to -- from the get to the go, we specifically said this afternoon because we have less than the full cohort here that we will only taking this information in and we'll discuss it later. I think there are some real easy things in here we can find lots of consensus on. I like the idea of having an operation, this procedural manual kind of thing, so if we can set up the code to adopt that I think that would be a good thing to do, make tweak our procedures a little easier in the future, but I would urge that we not make any decisions or even indicate that we're gonna make a decision because we have a number of people who are not here. [4:11:53 PM] Right now. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't they are as a suggestion we adopt anything particular, just get a document now circulating for people to make -- >> Pool: We haven't even had the discussion with everybody around the table. That was one of the things that I specifically talked about earlier this morning about if we do have this briefing this afternoon, we won't have the full group here to have the conversation that we need -- and we need to have the full group to have that conversation. >> Mayor Adler: Dr. Ailedder. >> I'm wondererring for your concern if that's over everything or particular to the chi. There's certain things, for instance, on the timing that we could just try. We could try for our work session in two weeks that from 9:00 to 11:00 we have a discussion of upcoming council agenda and staff briefing from 11:00 to noon and executive session at noon. We don't have to change any ordinance. We could just try it and see if it worked better, you know, we don't need to change something for that. I think there were -- starting on time and just making that, you know, a practice for our work sessions and our council -- we don't need to change anything. I think there are other ones, like, the two weeks, I don't know if that's something that we have larger concerns on or if it's more about the committee structure. >> Normally I would be all over that and say absolutely let's do that but we're missing four people and they're not hearing that would be something that we would need to try to do, so if there's someone here that would make sure everybody listened to all of this and knew what we were proposing to do so that we don't leave anybody behind, we have a significant number of our colleagues who aren't here to know that we would be moving in that direction. Otherwise I'd, like I said, I'd be all over that and we still may be able to do that but I'd like some confidence to know that everyone knows that's what we're going to be doing, especially starting on time, it would be useful for everyone to know that that was what we were want to go do. [4:13:03 PM] I think generally we want to do that anyway, but you see my point? >> Alter: I see your point. I'm just concerned if we keep waiting forever for everyone to be there that we won't make the changes and it seems like there's certain things that maybe we're not voting on anything but sort of beginning to get a draft that could be posted somehow in the appropriate way that we could react to it on certain portions of it. My estimation is that there was some questions on the ceremonial that had come up, a few logics to work out on what we would do if we did the agenda and controversy over exactly how we're handling the chi. But I do think we don't have to get everything perfect to begin to move forward. And so it may be that it -- that a next step is to begin this draft process and it's not something formally coming to us without further discussion but that that language could be the next step in what we've already asked staff to do. >> Pool: How about this, how about this since I'm the one raising the objection. Maybe you and I could work on the items that seem to have kind of easy -- the easy piece to do and I will put up a message board posting and inform everyone and we could also draw people's attention to the fact that we're going to do potentially implement some things and then maybe we have an opportunity to talk about it before we would implement them so we would have their input. I think the mayor pro tem for sure would like to have some input and probably so would councilmember Garza and Renteria and Casar. But, yes,. >> I just want to make sure that -- >> Mayor Adler: My sense is that there's somethingsome things on here we can try to do or reaffirm that. I will raise some of these issues at the next work session, trying to budget the time we, do we do that already, so I'll raise that, all be here as a group and we can either endorse it or not, starting the meeting on time, I think we're doing a better job of getting critical mass here closely. [4:15:10 PM] We're still waiting for the last quorum person to come in but I think we're getting better at that expectation. And maybe there's some other things that we can just do as you're saying. But bring them uppity next meeting to make sure -- them up at the next meeting to make sure there's consensus to do it so they're not just done. We can go through that and see but I think they're pretty much self-evident. I think that's a good point. >> Pool: I think that's great and maybe we could -- >> Mayor Adler: I like the part of it too where I can just do it at the next meeting when we gather together as a group which would be fine too. There aren't that many of those. >> Pool: That sounds good. >> Not to speak for the manager but I think we could probably put something on at the next council meeting to say discussion regarding this and take potential action and y'all can give direction from the dais then. >> Mayor Adler: Right. I think we should put it back on the next work session that we have. >> Would you want it on an actual council meeting 6:00 take an action? >> Mayor Adler: I think -- I'm not sure because I don't want to ask you to come back with the item anyway at that point and I think it probably would be -- well, let's see what the group says but let's have a discussion so we can give you direction. Further discussion on this? Ms. Houston, your light is on. >> Houston: Yes, it is. Oh, I remember. Do you -- councilmember alter made a good point. We've got three council meetings back to back. When did we start going to three meetings a month? Has that always been the practice? Could you give me history on what's -- >> [Off mic] >> I'd have to go back and refresh my memory. It may have been when y'all came in to office, but I'll confirm that. >> So I make the schedule. Create the draft schedule. And the first year you were in office we had a lot of special called meetings, and so when we transitioned to having zoning every second council meeting, we needed to have at least two regular meetings a month for regular agenda items and then a third meeting for zoning items. [4:17:24 PM] So it was kind of a two reasons why we were having a lot of special meetings and then we separate understood regular and zoning meetings so that's how we got to three meetings. >> Now it seems like we have zoning almost every meeting. >> Right. We got rid of that change. >> But we -- >> We didn't change the schedule. >> Houston: We didn't change the schedule. >> Right. It's a schedule that's set by council ordinance so it's always something that can be amended or changed when it's proposed later this year for next year. >> Houston: Yeah. It's the -- every two weeks is wonderful because that gives us time but then we've got three back to backs so that still puts that pressure on that third meeting to be able to get the information in time to review it prior to the meeting because we're still in that second meeting. >> I think some of it may depend on your preference on do you want three meetings a month of that, you know, 50 to 70 items on the agenda or do you want two meeting a month that maybe have 100 items on the agenda? So I think as we proceed that might be something that also kind of comes up in your discussion, how you want to manage -- >> Houston: It doesn't feel or seem to me it matters how many agenda items are on there, seems like we're still there a long time. So it doesn't matter whether it's 70 or a hundred, we're still spending whatever this average amount of time is from 10:00 until whatever time we finish. So I just didn't remember so thank you. >> Pool: I think I remember something just to add to that when we shifted away from having a zoning only meeting, we told staff to turn that into a regular meeting. And so I think that that caused us then to continue to have that meeting but it wasn't specifically zoning so it was just a regular meeting. We didn't ever draw that and last thing I would say is there is a recommendation in here that says items that aren't complete or haven't been taken up by 10:00 at night would then be postponed. [4:19:36 PM] So if we -- we need to think about all of these different pieces, so if we have 26 meetingsish -- well, not 26, but every other week, and we're going to stop at 10:00 at night and postpone things, that will have a direct impact on how much work gets accomplished and how many decisions we're able to make. So that's also something we need to think about. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, troxclair. >> Troxclair: Maybe you could add that to your future items to talk about, as far as going to meeting every other week, because one of the reasons for the previous council had meetings every other week and one -- when this council came in we in an effort to try to shorten meeting times we decided to have more meetings but that didn't really work. I think if we institute -- to councilmember alter's point, if we are able to institute some changes to our meetings and our processes in order to make our -- them more efficient and allow us to make better decisions at the same time, then we might get to a point where having meetings every other would week is manageable and we're -- we can get out at a decent time. It seems like we would have to -- it's a multiple step thing, like we would have to become more efficient first and then make that transition. So but I think it's worth us -- like, it's a worthy goal of us discussing. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: To councilmember alter's point these changes are about doing better work for the people and doing it faster doesn't mean doing it better. I think by design we do things slowly because we do a lot of public and I wants that part of our culture and part of our values, to do every other week ending at 10:00 P.M. Might mean' can't get as much done but I think the stuff we get done will be better. I think that's the right trade-off to make. >> Mayor Adler: Roberts rules also allows us to limit the number of times on the dais each of us can speak to an issue. [4:21:37 PM] That's also a possibility as well. >> I will say a couple of your staff members did suggest we come back with a recommendation for you to limit yourself, but we did not make that recommendation. >> Mayor Adler: Because you thought it wasn't a good idea or you were just scared? >> I'm not close enough to retirement yet. >> Mayor Adler: You don't have to answer that. [ Laughter ] Anything else? All right, it is 422. This meeting stands journeyed. Journeyed -- this meeting stands adjourned. [ Meeting adjourned ] [4:23:35 PM]