City Council Work Session Transcript – 04/04/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 4/4/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/4/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:10:07 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. I think we have a quorum here to get started. >> Tovo: The banking item. I apologize I didn't pull it so I don't think we will have staff here. I do also have a question about that in executive session. Do we have executive session today? >> Mayor Adler: It's number 18. 18, 49 is housing and banking. And you want to talk about that in executive session as well? >> Tovo: If possible. >> Mayor Adler: All right, council, we have four items that were pulled, plus two. Item 2, 22, 23, 29 and now 18 and 49 as well. We have we have three briefings, a legislative update, a bond development update, the next bond possibility, and then we have the task force on institutional racism. That one is set for 1:00 P.M. And the president of HT and the superintendent will be here at 1:00 to describe that, lay that out, deliver that to us. Let's start with the pulled items and then we'll do the briefings. Item number 2, councilmember troxclair pulled that. She will be a little late this morning so we'll come back to that. Item number 22 T Ms. Pool? Fooled thanks so much. I pulled these two items, 22 and 23, just to draw your attention to this is the requested expansion on the anti-lobbying waiver for the -- for recycling, [9:12:11 AM] organics and our biosolids work. That's the work that we put the ad hoc committee together last meeting. We're going to dig in and offer some policy overviews and recommendations and we will be working closely with our staff. Acm Goode is heading that up. We'll be working with the contracting staff and also our stakeholders and our citizen commissions, of course, and then the firms that are specifically affected by this we will have a public hearing and working out all the specifics on what's going to happen and then. I pulled this to let you know there are two versions in your backup. The staff advised me that because we postponed it we are required to repost the item that we didn't take up and then a new item has the changed language in it. But it does affect the requests that we submitted in order to broaden it out to make sure a couple of specific contractors were not excluded. And then I had a couple of questions from one of the representatives M whellan had asked a couple of questions that I can pose to staff if they are here. Probably law. Hi. Thanks for all the work you guys are doing to get this nailed down and ready to go. Let's see. There's -- he is asking on paragraph 7 of the draft ordinance -- this is on item 23. It talks about that no anti-lobbying complaints were filed in connection with two rfps and stating that, quote, the city has not received any anti-lobbying complaints on these solicitations. And then the new language is since council's action on the items. [9:14:12 AM] And he is saying that two relevant anti-lobbying complaints really filed before council action. So do you think that we should either add language to the ordinance to recognize the additional two complaints or take out that statement altogether? >> Good morning, mayor and council. Cindy crossby, assistant city attorney. The two complaints were addressed to city council previously in executive sessions and the city council took action to waive the ordinance at that time. And so therefore that language was not added to this draft because the complaints were taken care of and resolved. We just wanted to clarify for the record that since that council action no other complaints had been filed. >> Pool: Okay. So you think we should just leave that language in there as is? >> It's absolutely in council's discretion, but this language is correct as is. >> Pool: Does it do any violence to the intent of the language if we take that one statement out? Does it hurt anything? >> It does not, but I would ask to add clarifying language that council did waive the ordinance previously and resolve those issues. >> Pool: Okay. And then the second item it goes to the language and passed or second or. That's in part 2 of the ordinance. We just had that which broadens things. So you have a copy of that? Okay. Did you want to answer that? >> So in the email from Mr. Whellan he referenced one of the solicitations that had been terminated by staff in February of this year. That was a solicitation that was never going to come back [9:16:13 AM] to city council and therefore anti-lobbying ordinance does not apply to that solicitation. So it was not included in this draft because it wasn't subject to the anti-lobbying ordinance. This ordinance was to just waive the ones that were subject to the ordinance. By adding the language that he's also recommending of all past, current and future solicitations, I think it may open up the door solicitations we weren't expecting to waive the anti-lobbying ordinance. Again, it's always in the council's discretion, but for the past ordinance we believe that it might be clearer to be very specific about the ordinances that are will be waived, which ones have expired, and then when the working group comes back maybe that's when council wants to waive future ones as well. >> Pool: Okay. All right. So those were the two questions that I had, mayor. And happy to answer any other questions, but we'll proceed with recommending adoption of I think it's item 23. We'll either not take up -- probably not take up item 22 I think is how that works procedurally. >> Mayor Adler: Take up item number 23. >> Pool: On Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on 22 or 23? Okay. Item number 29. >> Pool: Thanks so much. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza is not with us yet. What about the banking question, mayor pro tem? Do you want to raise that, number 18? >> Tovo: Yes, thank you. I apologize for not pulling this in a timely fashion yesterday. I had a couple of questions about -- relating back to an [9:18:19 AM] earlier resolution that councilmember Morrison had sponsored in 2012. (Audio garbled). ... And I see from the resolution that there was a report back [indiscernible]. I wanted to talk to you about what the opportunities are for doing that, what you've explored, what is possible and give then this is back on our agenda without our having had a combustion that, are there any opportunities for delaying what's on our agenda for Thursday? >> Mayor pro tem, Greg canally, interim cfo, I'm joined by art Alfaro and James Scarborough. We have before you this week for our depository contract. This is a requirement of state law. We have to come back and have a contract that can't be in place for more than five years. A lot of our banking is dictated by state law, our financial policies, local government code. We have a memo that will go out this afternoon that will walk through some of our complex banking needs as a city organization for many different requirements that we have. So we'll get that out this afternoon. I will say that we have always looked to partner with local banks and regional banks. When we put our solicitation out on the street, and in fact this solicitation has been going on really since last January when staff started working on it because it is a complex -- it is a complex effort. And we reach out to all banking institutions and put our requirements out there. Having gone through this five years ago, the conversations that we had, for example, with local credit unions, they did not respond to our solicitation. And the reason comes that they are primarily consumer focused institutions. One of our key issues that we have in our banking is for banks to collateralize [9:20:19 AM] up to $10 million in city of Austin name, and that is a challenge for local credit unions who really have member -- it's really member funds that are at stake. So for them to put $10 million of collateral in the city of Austin poses a challenge. So we are working with local banks and financial institutions. That ranges from velocity has worked with us with Austin energy, the clean energy program that we've had, revolving loan fund. We've done some private placement loans with -- for some of our debt with prosperity bank. And even recently we've been before you as we continue negotiating on potential new planning and development center. The team that was selected, their capital partner is a local regional bank is frost bank and that was actually one of the key reasons. So we're always looking for opportunities to do that. When we put our solicitation out on the street we do put our requirements in there and we try to sped the word out to all the banks in the region about the opportunities to work with us. >> Tovo: Can you help me remember what -- I remember this conversation not terribly clearly, but what I do remember about it is by the time it was on the agenda there was an interest in exploring other opportunities, but it appeared that there wasn't really time to do so. So that was one of the reasons for the resolution to kind of ask for that work to be done ahead time so the next time the city was in the process of selecting a bank to do the depository banking, we might have some other options in front of us. And so can you help me understand what happened as a result of this resolution? Was there a report back to council within 60 days? And if it came in the form of a memo, could you point us to when that -- and maybe redistribute it? >> Certainly. We can go pull that prior resolution and our response [9:22:20 AM] to that and get that back out to the council. >> Tovo: Great. And if anybody is interested in looking at the resolution, I have the number. It's 2012-03-01-48, but it was the memo that I'm having trouble -- >> Mayor Adler: What was that number again, please. >> Tovo: 2012-0301-048. And I have one extra copy if anyone wants it. We could do a raffle. >> We'll redistribute the resolution along with the memo that went out at that time. >> Tovo: Thank you. So if -- so what is the time frame on the contract? I mean, is this a decision that we need to make this week? I understand that with you've had the rfp out for a year. >> The existing contract with our current depository expires on may 31st. >> Tovo: So can you tell us just by way of discussion whether you've had outreach to different local banks and regional banks and credit unions for them to respond to the rfq or rfp? >> Yes, mayor pro tem, art Alfaro. After that memo came out in 2012 we reached out to the credit unions to see what the challenges were. As Greg canally explained it was mainly our collateral. It was something they couldn't get members' money and they would have to put it aside to collateralize. We used to require 20 million. We lord it to 10 to bring in even more regional banks. But we had discussions with them to try to figure out how we could work with the credit unions and that's when we decided, well, maybe not on the depository bank, but we could in other projects around the city. So we continue to reach out to them whenever possible. >> Tovo: So them teaming up or working as a conglomerate, that doesn't get you around the collateral issue because they still need to able to collateralize up to ma [9:24:20 AM] amount? >> Correct. >> Tovo: And those were the main local banks you reached out to, the credit unions? >> The credit unions. >> Tovo: How about regional banks. >> By lowering from 20 million to 10 million that helped them to be able to respond. For whatever reason they did not respond this last time. But since the rfp was still out on the street we figure after the contract signed then we can go back and contact banks and figure out why they did or did not respond, whatever the issues were. But during the blackout period we can't be talking to them. >> Tovo: I think that would be useful information to have. And if that requires a resolution much like the 2012 to ask you to continue to explore this, I'm certainly happy to bring something like that forward. I do think this is an area that Austin should consider and it is really challenging when it's every five years and it takes a fair amount of lead time and it just -- just came upon us here. So thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on that? Thank you. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you. So you're going to send us the information this afternoon and we're going to vote on it Thursday. Could we postpone it to the following week since we have three council work sessions? So that gives us time to review all the information. >> Certainly. I think we can move it to the -- let us get all the information out to you and then I think we have an agenda for the 13th that we could put it on. I think that would be ameanable to us. So you can digest all the information from the old resolution, our responses, as well as what you will get today in terms of kind of explaining -- walking you through some of our depository needs as a city. >> Houston: I would appreciate that. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Manager? >> I wanted to mention also that in this five-year period we have looked at other ways that we could work with local banks and regional banks. We've had a few private [9:26:22 AM] placements of small debt that they were able to pick up and do the work for us. And I don't think that Greg mentioned that. I wanted to point out that that was something -- a different action that we would have -- than we would have normally taken that spread some business to the local regional community. I wanted to point that out. We'll make sure it's mentioned in the memo. >> Tovo: Mayor, I wanted to say thank you. I think that will be really interesting information to have and to some of those in our community who have followed this issue, I think that will be useful to them too. So on to the extent it's in the memo that will be great. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Let's go then to item number 49. The housing item. Who wanted to pull this? Yes. >> Alter: Thank you. I apologize for pulling this late. I understood it was going to be on the agenda today and I appreciate Ms. League making it down here at the last minute. I have a lot of questions, but I want to try to confine myself to over the last several days I've been hearing from a lot of folks who are concerned about the way this was posted and its implications and not being specifically aware that where we were heading was to adopt the strategic housing plan into the comprehensive plan. And if it's adopted into the comprehensive plan it has a wait that not every plan has. So I wanted to spend a few minutes asking the staff to please explain that process and what that legally might mean because I think a lot of the public is not aware of that potential step that we may be taking. So if you could explain, you know, for folks who are watching, the relationship of this plan potentially to the comprehensive plan and what that legal import means for whatever is in the plan [9:28:23 AM] moving forward. >> Hi, good morning. Erica leak, city of Austin neighborhood housing and community development department. So the strategic housing plan would be adopted as an amendment to imagine Austin, but I think it's actually very similar to the way other plans are adopted as amendments to imagine Austin. So I just checked and since imagine Austin was adopted, and it would have been adopted with other council adopted master plans that had been already adopted by council at that point, but since that time additions and amendments to imagine Austin have included a number of other things, but it has included a digital inclusion strategic plan, the vision zero plan, the colony park master plan, the south Austin neighborhood plan. And I'm fairly certain that it would be similar that when the Austin strategic mobility plan is complete it would also be adopted as an amendment to imagine Austin. So this is very consistent with the way that we adopt master plans of this nature. >> Alter: So maybe this is something that legal needs to share, but the city charter article 10-6 says the legal effect of the comprehensive plan says upon adoption of a comprehensive plan by the city council all land development regulations including zoning and map, public improvements, public facilities, public utility projects and all regulatory actions relating to land use, subdivision and development approval shall [9:30:23 AM] be consistent with the comprehensive plan element or portion thereof as adopted. For the purposes of this, the various types of local regulations or laws concerning the development of land may be kind in their totally into a single ordinance known as the land development code of the city of Austin. So it's one thing to say it's just like these other plans, but I think when we got a plan like this, which we've had some discussions that there may be interest in having an implementation plan to go as a next step to the neighborhood plan, I'm trying to understand what kind of guidance that provides us later as we move forward and are trying to make other decisions like on codenext or the implementation of the institutional racism plan. If we already have this housing plan that doesn't give us that implementation direction, what does that mean from a policy perspective and then can anything and everything be consistent with the comprehensive plan. So I don't know if legal can speak to that or one of my colleagues who has more knowledge on this. I think there's a step that even some housing advocates are concerned about in taking that next step of adopting the plan and putting it in the comprehensive plan. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor? First off, just a clarification. So it's a public hearing this Thursday and we're scheduled to vote on the 13th. Clarity for the public, we're not voting this Thursday. The second thing is that my perspective -- one other to add to your list. The age friendly master plan was adopted into the imagine Austin. Then here's my perspective on imagine Austin. I think it's really important to adopt the housing plan -- the strategic housing plan into imagine Austin. [9:32:24 AM] Imagine Austin sets our -- imagine Austin is the document that sets our goals and vision for what the city of Austin is. And this strategic housing plan is consistent with the higher level goals that are already in there. So the detail of which were working with now in terms of what should be in the strategic housing plan and we all may have changes to what is proposed. But the point being is that the imagine Austin guides us at 100,000-foot level and these plans that we've been adopting give us more detail in terms of the goals that we're going forward for. So I don't know if it's helpful, but I think it is consistent to have this strategic housing plan adopted as part of imagine Austin and I don't -- because imagine Austin is our guide and the strategic housing plan should be also. So I don't see any inconsistency with how we've done things in the past. I don't know if that's helpful. I think what you've read, councilmember alter, is the point. The point is that the strategic housing plan should be carried out throughout our land development code and throughout our other codes. So of course we want to get it right, whatever we adopt. We may have changes to what's proposed, but I think the appropriate place for it is imagine Austin. >> Pool: I think the mayor pro tem's hand was up before mine. I'd be happy to go after her. >> Tovo: Thank you. That's very kind. I didn't have a chance to talk or ask questions about it last time so let me say this is great. I'm very excited about having a strategic housing plan and I think it's going to be really useful. I have some questions -- I have a lot of questions, some of which I'll do through the Q and a and I do have kind of -- I want to talk about the funding piece [9:34:25 AM] hopefully today before we leave this. But I want to just address the issue that councilmember alter raised. In looking through and reading it more carefully I was a little surprised to see some particular land use recommendations within the housing plan that are, I believe, in conflict with things we've already adopted. So I will -- if we are adopting this as an amendment to imagine Austin, I believe that it probably contradicts some of our existing neighborhood plans, which are also part of imagine Austin and possibly some other issues -- some documents in -- some other recommendations within imagine Austin. I would also just say product of lots and lots of stakeholder discussion and balancing and compromising. I would say occupancy limits are one of them. The recommends in here is pretty clearly to change them and there are some assertions about it reducing opportunities for co-op housing and other things that we in adopting the occupancy limits took into account and made it prospective, made it about new house, not about existing housing. So at a bare minimum I think that language needs to be very clear about the fact that existing housing was not -- is not subject to the same occupancy limits as it was moving forward. I would also say parking reductions are something I want to talk more about. There is also a comment in here about numerous regulations regarding accessory dwelling units needing to be relaxed. That too is something we -- this council spent a long time talking about and did relax regulations regarding accessory dwelling units. So I'm not sure what the day is to have that conversation or whether maybe on those elements the easiest thing to do is to continue to evaluate those. [9:36:25 AM] I don't know if some of those recommendations were done before we actually changed some of the policies with regard to accessory dwelling units so some of that language predates the actions we took to reduce the regulations, but it would-- I guess I would have the same question -- well, the question I would have is sort of what happens if we adopt this into imagine Austin? Is this the guiding policy then and those trump the other kind of work we've done with regard to land development code. >> I would like to actually point everyone to appendix B of the strategic housing plan, which is the implementation matrix. And it specifically has a column that talks about policy making. So many of the recommendations that are included in the housing plan that do require additional action, either on the part of city council or on the part of the state legislature through potentially the city's legislative agenda. So there are many actions and recommendations in the plan that will require additional follow-up. And so I think it would be helpful for people to take a look at that section and note what type of follow-up we think would be required. >> Sure. I get to adopt further code regulations we would have to change the code again, but I do think that in talking about -- if we have adopted this as the plan, as the amendment to imagine Austin, we have in my mind, you know, that may signal to people that we've made a commitment to do those things, to reduce the parking regulations, to revert back or to change the occupancy limits. Those are specified and I'm sorry I'm not getting to exactly the pages I need, but the language in here is pretty directive in some of those instances. So yes, while further action [9:38:25 AM] would be required, my point still stands, I think it's not in alignment with what we've done and it doesn't necessarily acknowledge some of the real substantial balancing that we did to get to the place we are. >> So I just want to comment. Rebecca giello, neighborhood housing and community development. In a perfect -- I think there's a lot of sinner jet tick relationship with the housing plan coming forward at the same time that codenext is being culminated. And we would not expect that the housing plan would stand on its own and not inform codenext. So I do appreciate your concerns and we will go back and take note of that. Although the housing plan definitely informs codenext, I think codenext would be where a lot of the regulatory issues would be that you've just specified. So I think it is an excellent timing that the plan is moving in tandem with codenext, but I don't think it would have any authority outside of that. I don't know if it's helpful or not, but we certainly contemplate that it would be a driver for policy to be obviously most influenced by codenext. >> Tovo: I guess if we're reopening some of those issues that we've already spent a good deal of time talking about in very recent years, I'm not sure that between now and the adoption next week is the time we want to do that. Do we really want to be having a conversation about redoing occupancy limits, parking reductions? I mean, perhaps the best path forward is for me to propose language that I think is a little less directive in each of those sections. And that might be the best path. >> [Indiscernible]. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I just wanted to [9:40:26 AM] go to process a little bit and master planning process and adoptions when we have a larger overarching policy document. What's been the city's process in the past? If we have a new master plan do we immediately append it to an existing plan or is that something that happens piecemeal or what was it about this particular piece that had you requiring or stating in here that it would be adopted? What I'm trying to get to is is this a typical process for us? And about some of the other ordinances that we have that weren't part of the imagine Austin that had to be added later. >> So I would to defer to Erica, but I want to say on an overarching conversation and I appreciate councilmember alter that you're hearing also from housing advocates who have concerns about it being an appendix to imagine Austin. So I don't want to not validate that with my comments. And most often when we work on overarching plan that will drive policy, it is presented to us as an opportunity to ensure it gets anchored to a larger document where it can breathe and live and influence overarching direction being given by the city. So another example is the permanent supportive housing strategy we were asked to ensure that we moved forward in a larger way and be adopted by council in some capacity. The fair housing action plan has come under our spotlight by our advocacy to ensure that that gets attached to something that can help drive it to its outcome. So there was no different and it seemed like a logical thing to do to look at it as an appendix to imagine [9:42:27 AM] Austin. So there's always a lens from our advocate or stakeholders to see how can we get really excellent direction attached to something that is going to see it to its end. I don't know if you have anything to add there. >> Nothing specific to add other than in general, strategic plans and housing -- strategic plans and master plans have been amendments to whatever the city's comprehensive plan is at that time. >> Pool: Right. And I acknowledge that. My point was the timing on it and the steps of the process. So for example, I just pick one. You mentioned vision zero. When we looked at that and we approved that, the report that had come -- did the posting language for that also include its adoption into imagine Austin? >> Yes. >> Pool: Because I don't recall that. >> Kitchen: It did. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but you were asking a question and didn't know the answer. It did. >> The other thing I would say is that so we can appreciate the timing aligned with codenext and it actually works to the advantage I think in some respects, but I want to remind folks that might not be following the journey of the plan, so it's been December of 2016 or '15, call that the housing board text, you lose years. But it has been a direction that came actually out of the affordable housing audit. Some of you may remember, some that were on council, to develop a strategic plan that would be overarching policy guidance that would ensure that values and goals and numerical targets, et cetera, were driving our investments. We don't look at obviously our investments as departmental investments and they have such an influence [9:44:28 AM] overall in the community. So this has not detoured necessarily from our overall goal the last roughly 18 months to get this to you at this time. It just so happens there's a lot of policy and regulatory conversations occurring right now. For us it did make sense, but this is not necessarily been a detour on our path. >> Pool: Gotcha. And if I could reflect back for a general comment when I am also hearing from the public. And that's that with the large number of large initiatives that are in front of us, the people are working overtime to integrate them altogether and see where there may be some conflicts, where there's supporting efforts that align nicely, and I think more than anything else it's just the large number of large plans and reports that are coming at us right now that are giving rise to a sense in the public and our communities that they would like a little bit more time to absorb and think about the elements that we're being presented with. So I think that's why we're being asked to kind of slow down a wee bit on adopting into some of our larger overarching documents, especially if they need to align with the even larger effort, the rewrite of the code. And you were talking about validating feelings about things and I completely validate that. I think we should acknowledge that we are -- we're working really fast, we're moving really quickly and part of our job is to make sure we don't get too far out ahead of our communities and make sure that they have time to absorb things. It goes back to, for example, if we get a change to -- don't have backup on a Tuesday for a Thursday, we say can we have another week to look at something. And that is a policy direction we're trying to move into procedurally to make sure that we on the dais have enough time to absorb things and formulate [9:46:28 AM] good questions and get good answers, but also so people who are watching us, and there are lots of people who are watching us and who are concerned everyday in the decisions that we make. So I understand and support the calls from the community that we are moving real fast on this. So I just want to get that out there. And I realize that it's a public hearing and that we'll be talking about it more after that. I think we need to draw everybody's attention to fact that we have the public hearing on Thursday and that we'll be discussing it further on the 13th and possibly future agendas so that that pace, if we continue with that pace, people can acknowledge it and give us the benefit of their good thoughts. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar? >> Casar: So I first want to address some of the questions raised by the mayor pro tem and then the most recent points. I think that we all agree that our plans and things in the comprehensive plan are aspirations that are always going to be greater than what it is that we have on the books as our ordinances and existing policy. I think that's natural for our ordinances to not be total R. Totally in concert with what our plans are. I think there's some driving force towards where it is that we want to go. I think it's right and appropriate for our strategic housing plan not just in the big numbers that we've been focused on, but also in the areas where we want to attack impediments to fair housing for those things, to potentially till be in conflict with some of the rules we have on the books because it gives an idea of where it is that we want to go, which is to change -- improve regulations and funding practices to make our city more integrated. And we've actually had a report that the city has submitted to the federal government back in 2015 that we've referenced multiple times where we have laid out all of the different things that we have in our land development code that are land use rules that are [9:48:29 AM] impediments to fair housing and we haven't dealt with all of them. And I think it's good for us to be aggressive in our strategic housing plan to say we want to address those. That doesn't change ordinances, but it does set us on a path of saying we want to address the impediments to fair housing that we have. Of course in our comprehensive plan we also have goals, issues of the environment and of infrastructure and of fiscal responsibility, and those come into conflict and that's the sausage making we have to do when we actually take votes and change ordinances, but I wouldn't want to water down our aspirations in the strategic housing plan preemptively. I think the watering down and the figuring out and the sausage making comes when we actually craft ordinances a and do the land development code itself, but in the comprehensive plan I would just -- I appreciate how in the strategic housing plan, which is an amendment to imagine Austin, we are sort of putting our best foot forward on this is how we pursue fair housing and address our housing crisis, acknowledging that there's many other things in the comprehensive plan that may seem conflicting and challenging hurdles to get over and that's the work that we have to do is to figure out how to balance all those things. So things like parking regulations and being restrictive on particularly kinds of occupancy have regularly been cited by our staff and vetted by the federal housing and urban development department as impediments to fair housing choice. And we just need to figure out how to work those in accordance with our other priorities and goals. And as far as rushing on this, I understand that for some of the -- and I think this is just something to be addressed as we talk about committee system and the like is that for some of us I feel like we're several months behind because we heard this in the housing committee maybe like three different times minimum and I know it's gone through the community development commission and the planning commission. So I -- this is not to say [9:50:32 AM] that it's not new for some folks. Obviously as it gets closer and closer to a council vote more and more people in the community prioritize it so I recognize and respect that, but at least our housing staff I think have done a good job communicating to those of us on the housing committee and to the council that from the very beginning that this was going to be an amendment to imagine Austin and we've sort of seen the iterative processes as its gone forward and you've put together meetings in the community, including at least I think a couple in my district that we've invited folks out to, and I anticipate you've done them all over the city. So I appreciate the work that y'all have done and the same that you've taken, but of course the way things work is once it gets close to being added to the comprehensive plan it elevates an interest. But I just wouldn't want the impression from folks watching to be that this is something that has all of a sudden come up to us last minute. You've been communicating to us very thoroughly and letting us know that this is an amendment to the comp plan just like the other plan. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I want to add my thanks as well. This has been a report that's been a long time in the making, a year and a half. A lot of people around community weighing in on this. It's an important thing for us to do. When we did the imagine Austin plan, imagine Austin specifically called out for this kind of work I think to be done in order to be able to realize those kinds of goals. I would imagine while this is a separate and independent track from independent track from codenext process, which is also going on, obviously there's overlap of issues. I would expect that if staff is recommending as part of this report that we be able to achieve 135,000 units built into the city over the next 10 years. I would hope and expect that the maps that we're about to see on the 18th of April will be consistent with that staff recommendation since [9:52:33 AM] the maps are a staff recommendation. And it would seem incongruous to me if the staff was recommending one number somewhere else, but then was recommending maps that didn't let us get to that place. So I hope that the maps when they come out are consistent, that the staff recommendation is the same. And I think as a city one of the biggest issues that we have in this city is we're losing people and we're losing communities and we have housing costs that are going up four or five times faster than incomes. And us being able to develop goals with respect to housing and then to figure out what we can do to be able to achieve those goals I think is a real important thing for us to do and conversation to have in the city. And I was pleased to see the overwhelming support that this had from the planning commission when it was presented to them for their vote and their recommendation back to us. So thank you for that work. But I do hope and expect that we'll engage either as part of this or as part of ordinance changes when we figure out how it is we actually achieve that, those issues plus more issues. I'm not sure that we have to decide those substantive issues as part of this plan either, but I'll take a look at the language in terms of prescriptive natures as well with respect to that. Ms. Garza? And then Ms. Houston. >> Garza: I think Greg explained it well, I just want to give an example of when we were adopting vision zero and I had very similar concerns because I thought, you know, one of the main factors was mental health is what a lot of the pedestrian deaths or homeless, and I said, you know, in a perfect world the way to solve that is to increase funding to [9:54:33 AM] health and human services, which of course I would be supportive of, but I know that we probably would never get there. And vision zero is a very similar thing. It was a goal -- it's still a goal that the name in and of itself is to have zero traffic deaths. And as hopeful as I am that we could get there, we know what the realities are. So I feel like we're -- some of us may be looking at the detail a little too closely to repeal all these regulations. We've had long discussions about. I'm not viewing this as that. I'm viewing this as a goal. I can't imagine anybody thinks that we have enough housing units. I definitely -- I don't know who would say we have enough housing right now. So I think this is a great step and I think we should really move to adopt this and try to reach that goal to keep our middle class and working class families in here. We can keep saying we want to do that or we can really try to implement housing policy that gets us there. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you. And I want to thank you for all the work you've done over the past 18 months. I however have a different understanding of what you've presented to us. It looks like a compilation of all the things that we've talked about over lo these many years that have never been implemented. I know you've tried some things and some things you can't do because of state regulations. The goals that you talk about for housing are the same goals that we've talked about. I know as most people in my community understand that when you talk about linking something to imagine Austin, imagine Austin is perceived [9:56:35 AM] as the bible of the comprehensive plan that Austin has put forth and has adopted. So when you link things to imagine Austin and they too become part of that bible. So even though regardless of what we say on today April the whatever it is in 2017, four years from now when we're still trying to get there, this is going to be the bible. And that strategic housing plan, although very thoughtful and you went before people all over this city and planning commission and they were adopted, there's some gaps there. For example, we have today before us the mayor's task force on institutional racism and systemic inequities. There's a lack of any information in the housing plan that addresses some of those issues. It's kind of benignly talked about. We don't talk about displacement, we don't talk about gentrification. On page 26 of their report they say modify the growth concept map in imagine Austin to enable growth and redevelopment ewittably throughout the city and enact zoning in neighborhoods west of I-35 to allow for smaller lot sizes and encourage accessory dwelling units. Those are the kinds of really statements of purpose that I don't find in your strategic plan. And there are others in here. Because if you look at housing, the section on housing and affordability -- let me make sure it's the right name here. Real estate and housing work group. If you look at their -- there are things in here that could be in fact added to your strategic plan that would make this much more real and much more reasonable and so people would say the city is really paying attention because part of the way we got to where we are is because of some of the inequities in how this city was laid out. But that's kind of talked about benignly in your plan, but not anywhere addressed in the kind of forcefulness [9:58:37 AM] and detail that I would appreciate. So I would like for you before we adopt anything and add it to the comprehensive plan, I would like for you all to be able to look through this document and see if there are things that could be added to make your document much more thoughtful and much more strong in thinking about the displacement of individuals and how we can start correcting that. Like there was something about allow you to stay where you are. I just read it last night so it's not engrained in my brain. But there are some things in here that could be -- to say that we're really paying attention to this. And we don't really have a conversation about that in your plan. >> Mayor, may I add a couple of things? Councilmember, I want to validate all of that. It was actually helpful for us to see that draft report come out. And we are reviewing it actually right now. A memorandum is going out this week related to what we are looking at and what edits are underway. And that is one. Absolutely. We actually have found that to be very helpful. Mount thank you. -- >> Houston: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: >> The second point I wanted to make echoes what councilman Houston said and would call my colleagues' attention to this task force report and the section 2 on housing. I'm glad to hear you'll be incorporating that. That's one of the reservations I had. Really important ideas and very concrete steps that are in that report that I would like to see in the strategic housing plan. And I want to clarify in bringing up this question of, you know, whether people are aware that it will be adopted in the Koch comprehensive plan. I did that because we do need a strategic housing plan. And the question is whether this is strategic enough and whether there's enough in here to get us [10:00:37 AM] to our goals so there's also a question of how people were thinking about their engagement with this report. And in a very short time I've heard from a number of people who are very engaged with housing. They were not aware of it. It wasn't for the community the hearing that was on December 9. It was posted as part of going to be what's put in to imagine Austin. I think we'll hear from folks on Thursday about this. I want to make sure people were clear. Yes, this is done for 18 months. Very important we as a city work on housing and some kind of housing plan should be in the comprehensive plan. Not sure we're there yet to hit our goals. I know a lot of work has gone into this. I do have some reservations and looking forward to hearing from the community about what their concerns are and, you know, not really real problems with housing and we need to be moving forward with solutions. And there are many in the housing plan. I would like it to be more toward the implementation site than it is at this point, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: A couple of items. First, a couple of questions that mayor pro tem raised in terms of the -- you didn't ask me specifically but it raises in my mind the question of neighborhood plans. Specific questions in Austin about neighborhood plans being -- forget the exact language, but them being honored and respected and from a legal perspective, we can ask our lawyers and submit questions. But I do not think this would override. The language in imagine Austin is very specific with regard to the neighborhood plans and so I [10:02:42 AM] don't think any aspirational goals that we put in place will be interpreted to override the neighborhood plan. That's the question to ask our attorneys. The second thing is that my perspective is we're not being consistent with the existing ordinances. I can see raising the occupancy limits in the parking. But this language in here is simply pointing to some approaches that we can take to ease the problems. The appendix B does state that we would have to take action on more detail. So perhaps the language you suggested that makes it clear that these are recommendations for consideration might be helpful to the question that you're raising. But it's not any different from what's being raised as part of the code next process. It's a big issue that you have to grapple with. So these are just aspirational goals in terms of making sure we examine our parking policies and make sure we're right sizing parking and things like that. This doesn't say how we do that. Now it doesn't say that we will reduce -- it says we consider an appendix B says we have to make code changings. When we get to the actual code changes which would be in the land development code that we would make these changes. Again, there are ways of dealing with the concern about it by addressing the Lange fwhaj a way that's in consideration of these things. Last thing I would say is that I do think that -- I think our timing is really important here. Because I think the housing trust fund -- the strategic housing plan is long overdue and you guys have been back and forth for over a year and a lot [10:04:43 AM] of back and forth with the housing community. You've worked hard with them as well as different commissioners and things like that. So this needs changes. We've all talked about different things we'll bring forward to do that. But I would encourage us as a council to not delay. Not delay for a long time in terms of adopting this. It's really critical and it will help to inform our codenext process. I would also say that I'm reluctant at the moment to tie this so closely -- well, you know I raised questions before about the $135,000. I'm not using that term until we decide as a group what the number is. So I know that's what's recommended. We talked about my concerns about maybe that's not quite hitting the target. So I caution us to not confuse the public with a number that we haven't adopted yet in terms of the goal. So that may be me. But that's how I'm thinking about it. So thank you for bringing this forward. I'm excited about having a housing plan. And finally with regard to implementation, I posted on the message board that I intend to bring forward a resolution to ask as a next step after whatever meeting we adopt the housing plan that you all go away and adopt a specific plan with time lines. I invite my colleagues, anyone who's interesting -- I think [10:06:43 AM] councilmember was interested in co-sponsoring that but I'll let everyone know I'll take a resolution which is the next step which is the more specific implementation time line. I know you guys had or staff had in mind. >> Thank you, mayor. I support our colleagues on this. We have waited years -- we're talking about decades of trying to get affordable housing through all of Austin. I have a district where it's concentrated with affordable housing. I think every section where we can have affordable housing in all west of 35 especially west of mopac. Those people are wealthy and they're put a barrier to poor people. That's the way I see it. I see it as keeping poor people out. That's how I take our housing policy as soon as possible. That's how I'm going to be doing. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pope? >> Pool: Glad to see the recommendations are included in the backup. They made very specific suggestions and recommended for us to incorporate in the plan. As far as the implementation plan, we had a phone conversation in my office on that on Friday and I look forward to seeing the plan on top of the strategic housing report. And I think my staff may be in touch with your office, councilmember kitchen, the add my name to that -- to that effort. I do have some comments on the recommendations from the planning commission that I think in the interest of time I may [10:08:43 AM] share them on Thursday at the public hearing. We'll have an opportunity to talk about this report on Thursday. Is that right, mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Say that gone. >> Pool: The public hearing -->> Mayor Adler: That's correct. >> Pool: We'll be able to discuss it. I think I'll save my questions for then. We'll have more people in the audience. My concern is making sure that people who may be tuning in closer to the time of our action which happens on most every issue that they're also in the audience and can hear staff's responses and what they may do is share them with you in advance so that you're prepared and can bring us good information. Specifically the two items I'll be looking at are family friendly housing and displacement, thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem and Mr. Kast sar? >> Tovo: I have some questions. I'll submit them through q&a. This is a bigger policy issue. I wanted to see if I was understanding it properly. Not to belabor the point, but councilmember kitchen, you said these sections don't appear to be showing how to implement it, but when I see language like they should reform parking policies and there's details of clarifying the transit service, reducing parking requirements for mf housing within a quarter mile of transit, those are pretty specific. So I think the best -- I mean, the -- in my mind, if we don't want to have a conversation with this context about taking all of those actions, I think we do need to have Lange want that says these are issues to look at but not necessarily weighing in on the restriction -- the reduction -- the parking shouldn't be reduced in these [10:10:44 AM] ways in these areas. >> Kitchen: We're just reading it a little differently. That's fine. I have no problem with language that makes it clear these are recommendationings. I read it in conjunction with appendix B which means we will have to go through the details. We will. This is highlighted as an issue for the land development code. I'm happy. I have no problem with language that makes it clear these are to be considered. >> Tovo: I'm sorry. I have a couple more things. Two, I'm going to try to add in some language that I think provides some con tech. The occupancy discussion came in part out of real concern about the kind of construction that was replacing what had been existing structures. So, you know those weren't happening, the Hyatt -- what began as south dorms and got renamed in the long process high occupancy housing. We're replacing, Democrat leagues were coming in and maxing out the space and coming in much more expensive rental housing. We had a study of the economics of those. These are not black and white issues that if we didn't address the occupancy limit, we would suddenly have lots of affordable housing. The units that were replacing the structures were much more costly. That is one attempt recommended by staff to deal with it. The other suggestion that our staff gave us to deal with the phenomenon was a rental registration program that I introduced and couldn't get a fourth vote for. You do what you can. This was a strategy that was recommend and I think has had some success in curbing, cur bing that issue which was not resulting -- was an affordability issue. Another area where this is present in the document is building on small lots. That can be a great affordability strategy. Unless it too is resulting in the demolition of existing [10:12:45 AM] housing stock and the construction of much more expensive housing stock. I'm not sure we end up ahead. I would like to see some emphasis here on retention of existing structures because -- not just from, you know, I think there are multiple benefits with that, including that it supports our zero waste goals and the commitment or at least the conversations we had about the importance of neighborhood character. But I think it's also an affordability issue. The housing -- I look at some of the neighborhoods I represent and have lived in for years, when the smaller bungalows are removed and the new structure is put in there, I have experienced the loss of long-time neighbors who were renters who were -- who had been living in the neighborhood for many years and I can give you some concrete examples that did not result in cheaper housing, it did not result in more density. It resulted where two people living where one person had lived and the replacement of a modest bungalow with two $ 50,000 units on either side. You have one or two more people in the housing costs escalated dramatically. These are some of the things that I want to talk about or we'll try to introduce language to, to I think create a little bit broader sense of context. On page 36, this is an information question. It links to an ongoing policy conversation that I'm not sure we as this council have had ex-tensively. There's a comment that the policy should be amended to prioritize a graert existence in areas currently served by public transportation. And by that, do you mean the rental house or developers at the rhga assistance? [10:14:46 AM] >> That's correct. Looking at the employment of the funds and is the distribution of the funds being procured most effectively to meet goals that will be laid out that we would be looking to as policy direction. So, for example, it might be if we're giving priority to housing and specific areaings like transit, we might look for requests for proposals as a request versus an application process. I want to say we wouldn't necessarily get rid of one procurement practice over another but we would look strategicically at how the internal processes needed to change to meet the goals. >> Tovo: I think as it's laid out here, I think it makes sense. As we move forward with that conversation, we ought to consider getting -- achieving housing diversity is going outside of areas where there's certified public conversation. We had a long conversation as part of this council as to whether to support the community proposals coming forward that were not in areas as I recall that were well serveled by transit but they were in west Austin where we had a real lack of affordable housing and they were intended as family-friendly housing and, you know, we had information from foundation communities that the fact that many of the families have cars because they need them to get to the jobs, kids' doctors appointments, and other things that it was a higher benefit to locate it in an area of town where there were jobs that those families could access and a hard and fast rule on having italo kated -- having the investments in close proximity to public transportation could have prevented our support. That project, various other [10:16:47 AM] things happened. I don't want to draw a hard and fast rule on the projects we invest in, because sometimes there are good reasons to invest in projects or score highly on the criteria of projects. So with this I guess I would ask you, if the language is in here or the direction you see us going makes accommodation for others kinds of projects. >> It does. >> Tovo: Super low on the criteria. >> It does. And I think we've been able, actually, to make movement on a potential goal of 10% of the income- restricted housing in each of the districts when we look at some of, to your point, foundation communities and the work they've done, for example, in district 6 where we know that income restricted housing has been a consideration for us to try to invest more. So that 10% goal around rental units is something we would be prioritizing. In many ways, there are a lot of goals that give us solid direction, that would modify our practices and modify our scoring system. But I think there is also a lens to fair housing and a lens to the aspersion of the fair housing that provides that balance. >> Thanks, I think that's helpful, as long as there's going to be a balancing of those. At one point we were considering a pretty hard and fast rule, I think. I want to be sure we don't move in that direction. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember [10:18:47 AM] kitchen would like to work on that resolution. Mr. Mr. Casar. >>. >> Casar: We have not done enough and not yet doing it enough to put the city in gentrification. Having looking at this report for sometime, there are strong rules as far as gentrification. We're talking about 60,000 income restricted units, many of which we don't know how to fund with their existing tools in this report. And I think the point was well made with the goal of making sure they're all over the city. I would be supportive of folks coming up with more ideas of how to strengthen that message further here. But I do think that it's really fair for the community to feel like we are behind on what it is we're currently doing. But I think the strategic housing plan, very clearly to me, talks about how it is that this plan is met specifically -- I wouldn't be voting for it if it wasn't specifically a very big step in the direction of gentrification and fighting displacement and intergrating the city. The thing that worries me is how to get to the funding levels necessary and for us to strike the hard balances necessary to be able to achieve what's already in the plan. But I am open and supportive of us adding more. But I just think -- I just want with my reading of it, the part of the biggest reason I'm voting for it is it's a big step in the direction of saying we're not even doing enough to making sure this city is for everybody and this is a bold step towards that direction in my view. >> Mayor Adler: Councilwoman Garza. >> Garza: I have, but so have you. >> Mayor Adler: We'll get to you both. >> Garza: Oh, just something I thought of after councilmember [10:20:47 AM] Houston and mayor pro tem spoke is the -- the problem -- I mean, there's very -- obvious evidence, anecdotal evidence how some of the things we meant do had unintended consequences. But the way it has been addressed particularly in central Austin is we treated central Austin different so you apply different rules, you apply different occupancy levels. We're concerned about central Austin because of the unintended consequences of the tear-downs. But those rules applied in other parts of our city have different consequences, have different results and those results are helping affordability. So I guess nothing in the housing plan will ever help me become the mayor's neighbor, you know? There's barriers to living in downtown Austin, and nothing is going to solve that. But something in that housing plan could help somebody in Dell valley become my neighbor and that moves them closer to Austin. And going off of what councilmember Houston said, that's part of the problem. We applied different rules to different parts of Austin. In a way, that's what the neighborhood plans have done. We have applied different rules to different parts of Austin and it keeps people out and it creates the situation that we're dealing with. Working in social services and child support, there were often people who bad mouthed services and people abuse the system and take advantage of it. Yes, there's always going to be those instances where there are rules and there are people who abuse the system and take advantage of it, but you can't do away with all of that because it does help some people. So I hope that we can think about that as well. But some of the rules we're trying to change are to make it more equitable. [10:22:47 AM] Are to give people the opportunity to maybe not live downtown Austin or by campus but to move closer to the core so they're not driving 20 miles to their jobs. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you, mayor, thank you, councilwoman Garza. I wanted to speak to the comprehensive plan and the fact that east Austin is designated in the desired development zone and that forces all of the development to a specific part of town as councilwoman Garza says does not have the same regulations or deed restrictions or home associations and other parts. So we near the bull's eye. That's where it's all happening. And there are developers who are dishonest and demolish properties without permits and build properties without permits. So I know that's not part of the housing plan. But there are things that have occurred in this community east of I-35, because of the lack of resources, lack of expertise to fight back, the lack of wanting to be good neighbors. I said that before. That this housing plan will directly impact even if you say 10% of each district, I have 22,000 units in my district. I don't need another 10%. I need amenities in my district. I don't need additional housing there. And so when you say served by transit, it's a disparity. Because transit is only in certain parts of the city in high occupancy areas as we heard from 6 and 10 and 8. We can't get people there, there's no transit there. All of those things work together. I don't see where that's coming together in this plan. We have a transit plan and a housing plan and we'll have a this kind of plan. But sometimes we need to come together and make sure that those plans are connected and/or [10:24:48 AM] looked at not as individual silos, but how they work together to make what we're thinking we want happen. In this city and in the future. One of the things that happens on unrelated individuals, back in 2009, the community started on trying to find a way to provide Bert support services for people living in unregulated homes. We worked on that with the current criteria we have. We now have something in place so that if there is a home that has more than seven unrelated adults living there, who have behavioral health disorders or challenges, then we can register and expect them. So if you push one button over here, something else pops up over here. Unless you look at it holistically, we're not sure this mail, in fact, impact what we took in 2009, not 18 months, this started in 2009 that we just got in place last year for us to be able to register and inspect those homes. So you've got to be careful. It's again a very complex city and complicated issues. Those are the things that you have to have happen if you're going to say decrease the number of people or increase the number of people who can live together. So that's my comments. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. We'll pick this back up on Thursday at the public hearing. >> Tovo: I had a question for councilmember kitchen. I don't want to belabor this point. But let me say central Austin is -- it depends on whether you're talking about central Austin in district 9 or central Austin that's district 10. District 10 was excluded from some of the regulations that we made for accessory dwelling units. Most of the neighborhoods in district 9 were not. [10:26:50 AM] They are -- well none of them were with the exception of the area that already has a neighborhood conservation conserving district. And several of the neighborhoods within central Austin have already adopted smaller lot sizes prior to making the changes. There are just different conditions. We want to make sure we're not generalizing about central Austin and the regulations. It extends from 183 to Ben white and I forgot the east and westboundries. Way beyond what people regard as central Austin. I mentioned this as we started to Auch about code next and the different maps, I hope we can all spend some time understanding what the regulations are and I think we talk in generalities about these issues and it's not always matching. The Hyde park, the cop serving district actually allowed for some additional density as does the neighborhood conservation conserving district along east and 12th, right? They use their conservation district not to reduce allowances but to broaden to allow more entitlements than would have otherwise been on the ground. So it really is just a complicated thing. My question is, for councilmember kitchen, your implementation, your resolution to bring back the implementation plan, is it aimed at also getting the staff to come up with the funding plan for the affordable housing piece. That sort of the big question. We have fabulous goals in this plan. And I want to -- I want to go to the next step and see what the funding plans look like. Or the funding aspirations at least. >> Kitchen: I would have expected to bring back the solutions to all of the funding. This is -- I've been thinking of it along the lines of what we did with -- with the development [10:28:51 AM] department which Mr. Gonzales has been -- gave us a specific plan for how he was going to have the implementation. He's going to report the recommendations for the Zucker report, for example. Basically what we need is to understand, you know, by each year, what specific steps will be taken to implement the plan. So I'll be happy to share the language once we put it together. That's as far as I've gotten at this point in time. I think this is the logical next step. I know staff has been thinking of. I know if we just set some goals and bring forward some ideas, we won't get there and I think it's important for the council to understand what the time line is and what the goals are working in partnership with their staff. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar, Ms. Houston, then Ms. Garza? >> Houston: I think now I have to respond a little bit on my interpretation of what councilmember was saying that you might -- I saw your light went on. Maybe you were going to state that point. But I think nobody is arguing. That a single family house being replaced by two new houses market rate that those new houses are going to be especially in the housing market be affordable. I never heard that from any of our council colleagues or advocates that have advocated for that point. I hear coup sill Garza's point is that the additional new housing in those places can really develop pressures on people in more outlying areas. In the same way that while I understand that occupancy limits in the work that was done was trying to regulate some of the forms of what was happening in developments in certain parts of the city, it's still important to acknowledge, I think, what it says in the report as far as how that may have trickle out effects on other parts of town. How important is it with [10:30:52 AM] impediments to repair housing that some of the limits may have adverse impact on persons with disabilities who reside together and we need to make reasonable come dagues to avoid housing violations. There's a continuing balancing act between those regulations and how not just the particular neighborhood is affected or a particular street is affected or the cost of a property that -- or a cost of land on a put-together property. But how our ordinances affect fair housing and affordability citywide. So I just don't -- I don't think that anyone is arguing that we need to change occupancy limits in order to replace a particular bungalow with affordable housing. Because oftentimes you're a deal, you're a single expensive single family house, or a really expensive duplex or rented out to multiple people. How do those sets of regular lags impact broader parts of the city outside of the most core neighborhoods? I think that's the honest debate that we're trying to tackle and I think that people are caring and thoughtful on all sides of that, at least the folks I listen to. I try not to listen to the folks who aren't thoughtful on that debate. I want to have a fair conversation about the smaller sizes or the flexibility on occupancy can bring about affordability. I don't think anybody is saying it's trying to bring about more affordability by replacing a single family bungalow with affordable unit. We would have to have some sort of government regulation or funding for those units in central Austin to be affordable. Affordability comes in to play for other people in the system. Folks with disabilities, the folks who live on the edge of town, etc. >> Tovo: I get that. I think that's a conversation we need to have. I'm number one suggesting we're not trying to have that in the [10:32:54 AM] context of this plan -- that's why I was proposing adjusting the language so we do not add that to the context of the plan. The point I said about the replacement of structures had nothing to do with any comments anybody has made. I was suggesting to staff that in those sections about lots, number one I was saying it's part of the context to understand the occupancy limits, because it was part of a context. And that in the discussion about small lot -- about building on small lots, I would like to see some consideration of the preservation. That had nothing to do with any comments. Any of my colleaguings had said. In fact, it was said before, councilmember chuck -- councilmember mentioned it. >> Thank you, mayor. And I'm just wondering, in district I, we had all kinds of duplexes, four mreks, secondary units. And we've had a lot of demolitions with it -- is there any way to get data to be able to show that oh the demolitions that have occurred in se district I as a pilot over the last four years or three years. What has been built, and what is the cost to see if in fact the increase in supply has, in fact, increased the affordability. So you started a secondary unit. Let's focus on demolitions. A lot of our lots, small houses that are affordable have been demolished and what's the result in build on those -- on those lots where there was once a small affordable house, what's there now? Is there any way to find that out? We have the data -- we're all talking about -- I'm talking from anecdotal experience and what I drive through my neighborhood what I see, from the north-south, the south-east, to the west. So I would like some data to be able to capture that better. >> Sure, we've been working with the development services department on questions like that. We will try to articulate that [10:34:54 AM] question. But feel free to drop that question down to us so we don't misrepresent it. So they've been very helpful pulling data to respond to a number of questions to the community and council. >> Houston: My last question is to the chief attorney. Let's talk about the comprehensive plan for a minute. As we add the additional plans to the comprehensive plan, imagine Austin, do they become legally binding? >> I think we need to address this in a larger way with all of you the various things you've brought up about what's binding, what's not binding. How a blend together and how it works with the charter. So we'll follow up on that. >> Houston: Thank you, that would be very helpful. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza? >> Garza: I just want to respond. I appreciate the mayor pro tem, she has more knowledge, especially with the history of it. My point is similar to what Greg said, councilmember Casar said. Smaller lot prices in central Austin does relieve the pressure in parts of the town as well as two smaller lots in central Austin, my assumption would be $2 million houses. Two smaller houses in my district, probably two, $250,000 houses. The same regulation creates two scenarios in two different parts of town is my point. We could regulate different parts of town differently because of that. That just adds to the problem of regulating different parts of town differently and the problem with that. She's walked out now. But I think what councilmember Houston was saying, what councilmember Casar was [10:36:57 AM] responding to, yes, you're going to get a brand new affordable unit, it's a brand new home. But it will maybe allow somebody in another part of town who's not central Austin to be able to not have -- homes in my neighborhood aren't being torn down. The investors go put in about $4,000 and sell them for $350,000 which blows my mind they're selling them for that in my neighborhood. It's twofold. I know it's a dynamic conversation and different things affect different parts of town differently. But it is -- my point was specifically when mayor pro tem when you made the point about the lot sizes and what that creates, it creates a different scenario in different parts of town. That's my point. The same regulations create different results in different parts of town. And I hope we don't move to a place where we're regulating different parts of town differently. That creates a problem in my mind. And I have concerns about occupancy limits. I really always have. And I'm going to look into the extent of the mcmansion boundaries. And I will look into that. >> Mayor Adler: Move on to briefings. One more item that wasn't raised, item 22. Councilman troxclaire pulled that. >> Troxclair: I have a question on 22 as well. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry. >> Tovo: I have a question of 29. >> Mayor Adler: Yeah, we'll go back and do those. First item, 22, Ms. Troxclaire. >> Troxclair: I wanted an opportunity to talk about this item. What - - it seems just reading through it, I just want to make sure I understand what -- we're increasing the fees from the first offense in the administrating hearing process from $20 to $250. That seemed like such a huge and [10:38:58 AM] significant jump, I wanted to understand what kinds of -- are they code vie lags, people protesting their water bills? Can you just give us some background? >> Good morning, interim director for Austin code. And, yes, I would be happy to walk you through what this particular proposed code amendment involves. First of all, we're talking about the administrative hearing program, which is already in existence and has been in existence for three years. It's an additional tool that the code department can use to address vie lags of various types. And I'll Faulk -- talk about a couple of examples. The amendment proposed before you on Thursday will accomplish five things, the first thing is that it's going to add a provision to an existing program, the administrative hearing process, which will allow citizens to come and to offer testimony or evidence around a particular code case. This, as I understand, something from about a year ago that we might be able to add the ability to allow the hearing officer to hear from the neighborhood. Secondly troim -- >> Troxclair: Okay, sorry, I want to understand -- are you talking specifically about short term rentals. Are these the only people going through this process? Or is there an appeals process for someone who is protesting their utility bill that they were overcharged. What, what kinds of -- >> The process -- here's a variety of code vie lags. It can expand anywhere from tall weeds and grass, debris, maintenance kinds of violations. It can also improve property maintenance issues like sanitary drainage system problems, etc. [10:40:59 AM] It includes short term rentals. >> Troxclair: Sorry. Sorry. >> No problem. >> Troxclair: The first point you mentioned, you're saying it allows somebody -- only the city and the person who is receiving the violation can submit, I guess -- I don't know if it's evidence. But talk about other -- defending themselves. The city can say your grass is 1 inches long and you can have it 6 inches long and the resident can say, I mowed it last week before you gave me the citation. I don't know what the situation is. But the first change you mentioned would allow a neighbor to say, no, I saw his grass was 12 inches long and I took a picture of it and submit it as evidence. >> Patricia, assistant city attorney. The issue came up in the context of the short term rental discussion in 2015 and 2016, concerned about making sure the neighbor's evidence is able to be used in the hearing. The hearing officers have not had any issues with it. But it clarifies in the code they can consider the evidence presented from neighbors. >> But I'm hearing it applies to any code. It's not specifically for short term rentals. We're expanding it to any potential code violation. >> It applies to code cases, not just short term rentals and so it would apply to the process as a whole. >> If you say you haven't had any problems with it, can you explain what you mean by that? >> Some of the cases, neighbors have appear in the hearing and the hearing officer is taking the testimony and the evidence from those neighbors. And this is just to ensure that that continues. >> Troxclair: So, so far, on the short term rental issue, there has not been an issue with neighbors able to submit testimony or evidence. >> They have been able to do this, yes. [10:42:59 AM] >> Troxclair: So why are we changing the code in a way that would -- that broadens that ability so much to the variety of other code vie lags which I see is a really long list. >> The hearing applies across the board to the cases that the administrative hearing officer hears. They have been short term rental cases, not other cases that code has had. >> Troxclair: Okay, I guess I'll let you finish. I know you only got through the first five things. >> That's the first thing. The second is that the code would require the administrative hearing officer file his or her orders in city clerk. The third thing, this is getting to the discussion that we were just having, it addresses two categories of violations. The first -- let's talk about nonzoning violations. Those are the ones I was mentioning before, tall weeds and grass. No signed permit, work without permit. One is able to take cases that meet that characteristic to the administrative hearing process. And in doing so, the proposed amendment enhances the violation such that the first violation would be instead of $20, the minimum would be $250. Now one of the things you may be thinking is what is the average penalty that we're seeing in the administrative hearing process and what I did ask staff in terms of the last year or so is that typically the administrative hearing officers will issue about $250, that's really the lowest level that they've been utilizing. So the $20 minimum amount of a penalty that's assessed, for, say tall weeds and grass is no longer current. So the first violation would be instead of $20 for the first [10:45:01 AM] time violation, it would be $250. For a second violation, it would be instead of $250, it would be $500. And for the third violation and subsequent violations instead of $500, $700. And for subsequent violations as well. >> Troxclair: So what happens if somebody can't pay -- what happens if somebody can't -- we have a lot of people in this city who -- yeah, might let their grass grow out and if a neighbor complains about them and the city fines them $250 on their first offense, they might not have the ability to pay that kind of penalty. >> I did look at that data. We have several individuals who have gone through the process who have not been able to pay for various reasons. The city will consider the gravity of that violation and the amount that's owed to the city. And pursue, if it's higher, levels of violations or penalties will pursue collections. But generally speaking -- I'm checking to see what's done in the past when people have not been able to pay. >> Troxclair: And in the meantime -- is there a way for us to limit this to just short term rentals? I'm just concerned that we're -- I'm concerned about a few things. Number one, we're create agriculture where you are creating an opportunity for animosity between neighbors for something like somebody not cutting their grass. And then I'm concerned we're raising fees to such a: Significant level, $20 to $250 is significant and we're including things like tall weeds and grass and people don't have the ability to pay. I would be curious to know if we [10:47:03 AM] can limit it to short term rentals or if this is necessary. If -- I know this is something we take a lot about in short term rental discussion. If this hasn't been an issue, I'm wondering if this is necessary or not. >> I didn't want to interrupt your string of questions but it was relative to what you were asking. Which is the administrative hearings officer, if someone testifies to the fact that they would have trouble paying a particular fine, change, go down below, 250 under what's current -- what the current ordinance code is. >> If the council changes the minimum find to $250, no. >> So under -- tell me if it's right. Under the current system, if the administrative hearing officers traditionally fining $250. But under the current system, if someone were to state that they can't pay $250, the administrative hearings officer could say I'm going -- because I heard this particular testimony, I'm going to charge you 70. But if we change this, we would be taking that offense away from the hearings officer. >> Correct. >> I might have concerns about the same point. If right now, if our current rules aren't restricting the hearings officer from charging $250, then this change would restrict the officer's ability to charge less in extenuatingf circumstances. That causes some concern for me. Is part of the drive to have the level be $250 some level of transparency to the public is that what they're likely to be fined? Can you help me understand what the benefit is to the public of having the $250 minimum. >> I will describe from an enforcement standpoint, by the time the case moves forward to the administrative hearing process, the property owner has been issued a notice of violation and is given an [10:49:03 AM] opportunity to come in to compliance. And beyond that point, you'll move the case to the administrative hearing process to be able to resolve the case. Typically the amount applied to now has been in the discretion of the administrative hearing officer based on the evidence presented that day. The hearing officer has full range. For many other types of vie lags -- violations, what we've looked at is the minimum amount, when you take a property to the administrative hearing process for $20, it does not provide a disincentive for a property owner to come into compliance. So the likelihood of them if they've been noncompliant up to that point will likely to be noncompliant. I do see your concern about moving forward with an amendment that would increase the minimum penalty to a higher level. But, again, generally speaking, the -- based on the decisions that are made by the administrative hearing officer today, most of the penalties have been beyond the $20 and in most cases, the types of violations that are being taken forward are typically not by in large the lower level kinds of cases like tall weeds and grass. I only use that as an example. >> Yeah, thank you. I think that I guess ultimately the benefit is that we can state the minimum is $250 so we can state that's the minimum. >> For more serious cases, yes. >> I would be interested in hearing the answers to the questions to hear the scope of these vie lags or str violations. $250 violation is a disincentive -- is not a disincentive who for someone with $250 is not a big deal to [10:51:04 AM] pay. And a $100 ticket could be a huge disincentive to someone who really, really can't pay that. I can understand that we can't have fines based on a person's income. But that's a challenge that you grapple with just like us. But I am having trouble. Maybe Thursday you can help clarify this having trouble understand how the benefit of a $250 minimum, for me it's hard to think it outweighs the cons of the flexibility of the hearing offices are on such a breadth of cases. If we're trying to look at more serious violations or just str violations, then I might be more comfortable in that realm. But it's taking away the administrative hearing officer's discretion in a broad range of cases. That seems to me has some draw backs that I'm not sure I can get over it by Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Thanks. I wonder if you could provide us with the information about the kinds of cases that have been going through the administrative hearing process and how frequently it happens that they're nonshort term rental. I would support it. If there are a significant number, then I would support narrowing it if it's the appropriate action. But I think it's important to send a strong signal with regard to the short term rentals. When we had that conversation, I think there was a lot of agreement about making sure that those who are bad actors are being responded to appropriately. I have several in my district that are -- that I would classify in that category. One that is operating without a license at all. And, you know, the -- it -- if the fine is quite low and they go through the administrative hearing process, that just becomes the cost of doing business. And so I do think -- for those who are operating outside of our regular lags, I think we -- [10:53:07 AM] regulations I think they need a much stronger signal and need to be accountable for following the rules of the jurisdiction. However, to accomplish that, I'm supportive of if we need to screen out the others. >> We can provide that information. >> Mayor Adler: Can you set a fee schedule that has a minimum fine, but allows for discretion to the hearing officer upon a showing of inability to pay or something like that? >> The code enforcement is an area that's difficult for you all. You need to have consistency in the way that you proceed. You can give discretion to the hearing officer to make decisions but you want them to be consistent. If you don't want to have a code that says having tall weeds is a aviation, then you can change the code. But if we have a code that's in place and we ask our code enforcement to March forward and to prosecute those kinds of cases, then they need to have a consistent way of doing that. And the cost of doing business is something that comes into play. So the answer, the short answer is, yes. >> Mayor Adler: We could set something that had a higher limit on its face would be the term and the minimum there would be large absent the concerns that have been raised. You can set that standard? >> We have to have good guidelines. You don't want it to be too subjective for the hearing officer. >> Mayor Adler: I understand. Anything else on this? Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Thank you, thank you, mayor, staff, for bringing this forward. I'm in support of increasing fines because what I've found in district I says it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. I see red tags on things because they're demolishing property. The fine, I think, is maybe $200. That's maybe not a big deal to developers. [10:55:08 AM] I'm sorry you used the high weeds. Everybody is focused on high weeds. There are developers who come in and buy property in neighborhoods and they don't keep up -- the person who lived there before was very immaculate in the way they kept their yard. They just let it go to seed. There's nothing you can do. I write them and say can you please cut the yard? Nothing. Then it makes our neighborhoods look blighted and uncared for and not loved. I'm in support. I understand that you need to have some range, but if you're going to have jurisdictions, have regulations, and people don't flow them, they need to be fined and has to be something to catch their attention and not just to say a slap on the hand. Roundtree is one of the examples of that, we went all the way to municipal court. It was illegal. The fine was so simple that there was no way to get their attention with our administrative fines. So I'm supportive of this. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclaire? >> Troxclair: I wanted to mention as far as a deterrent for doing something again, the initial fine is $20, but the second violation is $250. It does jump up significantly. That's the -- I would think that is the impetus for someone not to have a violation again and to councilmember Houston's point, I mean, it's -- if there is someone in her district that's not mowing their yard consistently, then they are already being -- they can and should already be fined $250 for the second violation and $500 for the third violation. I know I don't want to take up much more on this, but I have two more questions. What is the understand what is the difference between the penalties that are outlined in subsection a and the penalties [10:57:10 AM] outlined in subsection D, one starts with $250 for the first and $500 for the second and the other seems to be establishing a new chapter for zoning. >> Yes. >> Troxclair: That starts at $500. What falls under zoning? >> Short term rentals fall under zoning. And nonsanitary commissions would be nonzoning vie lags. >> Troxclair: If we wanted -- if this is a response to short term rentals and we could focus on short term rentals, we don't need to have -- it doesn't sound like we need to have the changes from subsection a, we need to a subsection B. The first violation would be $500, not $250. >> I understand what you're saying. The recommendation that staff is proposing is that the -- the escalating fine of $20 to $250 to $500 for a repeat violation may not be enough incentive for most of the cases that we see. In the administrative hearing process. And by adding the zoning violation, it allows us to add illegal businesses, occupancy problems, etc. So by adding one, it doesn't necessarily take away from our ability to address unsanitary conditions, for example, in the nonzoning categories. >> Troxclair: Okay. But just to be clear, if somebody has a complaint about a short term rental operating without a license. >> Yes. >> Troxclair: That would fall under D? The penalty that -- >> Yes. >> Troxclair: Specifically for zoning that starts at $500. >> Yes, the first violation. Sthaeshlth. [10:59:14 AM] That's correct. >> Troxclair: Well, then, I might suggest on Thursday that we removed the first portion that's talking about the important movement -- >> Councilmember. 21323-d really adds to this particular provision. The zoning vie lags prior to that. We were allowed to do -- we were allowed the take short term rentals forward. This is a proof of the ordinance so that we might be able to carry zoning violations as a part of . Prior to that the subsection a existed. >> Troxclair: So it seems to me if we're wanting to codify higher penalties for short-term rental issues, which is what I'm hearing is the impetus for this change, that we can keep subsection D, but they don't need to keep changes to subsection a, which is the section that would apply to tall weeds and grass and having trash on your driveway or other code violations that I'm hearing are not the main things that are going through the administrative hearing process anyway. >> And if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying for section 21323-5 for the non-zoning cases you would propose to not move forward with that or you're proposed to leave it at the same levels. >> Troxclair: To keep it the same. To not make changes to that and to instead only make changes to the zoning section. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's see what comes up. Ms. Garza, 29? >> Garza: I don't know if you have an ask and answer about the makeup of the task force and there was a lot of academia folks involved so I'm sure they have this information already. But I was curious to know the gender makeup, which I'm sure I can check by the names, but also the race, [11:01:16 AM] ethnicity and break down by district on the task force if it was possible to get that information. >> Mayor Adler: I'll ask and see. I asked the chair to put together a panel and work on this and they put together this group. So I don't know that information, but I'll see if I can getx that information. >> Garza: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: I think those are all the items we have so if we could go to a briefing. If we could have the legislative briefing. And then, Ms. Garza, it might be a good question when we have the president of HT and the superintendent here at 1:00. That might be a good question to ask them. >> Good morning, mayor and council. Intergovernmental relations officer for the city of Austin. I'm here to provide you with a legislative update on the 85th legislative session. As you guys know we're already off an running. We're about halfway through. So just to give you a quick look at what we have. We are seeing the trend so far with the total bills being filed, about 400 more bills filed this session than last session. We are seeing the number of city-related bills to be on the same upward trend of around 1900. We will have final numbers -- you might see these numbers fine tuned at the end of the session when I present to you all because some local bills can still be filed. So -- and these are rough estimates at this time, but there is an immense amount of legislation that we are tracking and reviewing. In terms of the capitol related to city issues, as some of you may have heard recently governor Greg Abbott spoke about his desire to see an overriding [11:03:21 AM] state effort on preemption and local regulations and he called it a superior and more elegant approach. What that would look like we don't know. We don't have anything that we know is from his office, but it does speak to a different approach and looking at local issues and the relationship between the state and local government right now. So the rest of my presentation I'm going to go through a number of issues. I'm going to move through them quickly for your guys' time sake and everyone else, but if there's anything you want to specifically comment on please just stop me and we can take some time to speak about each of these issues more specifically. So as you guys know, revenue caps is front and center. It has passed out of the senate. It has been referred to-- it has not been referred to committee yet. I'm sorry, correction to that slide, is referred to ways and means. When the senate passed it out, it changed the cap from 4:00 to 5:00, so what that calculation does is say that the typical median Austin homeowner with a median home of about $250,000 would pay $24 less on their city tax bill and the city would start with $11.4 million less if we were held to the five percent. The house has a similar bill, hb 15, that is similar to the senate in relation to the cap starting at four, but it also had a provision about non-voter approved debt and how it's paid, which was cost an additional 20 million to the city from our operations budget. Also to give you some background, there are a number of associations. This isn't just a city versus state issue. For instance, the people that testified, some of the groups that testified for revenue caps included the Texas department association, the Texas association of builders, the [11:05:21 AM] Texas association of manufacturers, oil and gas and of course the Texas taxpayers and research association. Sanctuary cities is still pending, was voted out of the senate and is still pending in the house state affairs committee right now. The bathroom bill has been voted out of the senate and it is also waiting -- right now it's awaiting referral to a house committee. Has not been referred yet. Transportation network companies. Right now the two bills that are moving are hb 100 by representative Patty, which was voted out of the house transportation committee. I believe the committee report hasn't been printed yet. We'll double-check that, and is on its way to calendars. And senator nickels bill was reported favorably out of business and commerce and has not been put on intent out of senate. Right now the leading bill on tncs that would preempt our ordinance would take tncs and put them under state regulation is house bill 100 in the house and senate bill 361 in the senate. Of course, we still continue to monitor the other bills related to that issue. Short-term rentals, which you guys just discussed, sb 451 has passed out of the senate business and commerce. It could be eligible for the floor as early in the senate as Thursday. And meanwhile hb 2551, its companion filed by representative parker, who is head of the Republican caucus in the cause is waiting in urban affairs. Fair chance hiring is still pending -- hb 557 is still pending in business and industry. And we're closely monitoring that bill as well. Coming up Tom will be a big day on annexation in both the house and senate. All three of those bills will be heard tomorrow related to annexation. [11:07:23 AM] These bills all significantly curtail the city's ability to annex, depending on the number of owners -- property owners being annexed. So if it's an area with less than 200 owners, the city has to go out and get a petition from the landowners, so the city actively goes out and gets a petitioner. If it's more than 200 landowners you have to allow those people to vote to approve the annexation. And the interesting thing on the voting, it's not just residents who get to vote, but landowners, so for city administration efforts for that vote it's very unclear how we would verify a landowner versus a registered resident who has a voter identification card. Linkage fees is also bill hb 1449 that would effectively prohibit linkage fees, it also has some language in there that we're examining and looking at related to other density bonus incentived offered by cities. It's right now negative in that we're going to try to work with others to address. That is pending in the house ways and means committee. The chair of house ways and means who is responsible for the house budget, chairman bonnen, is a co-author on that bill. Senator Nelson, who is chair of finance, has the bill in the senate. Also related to housing issues we have the homestead preservation district bills that representative Rodriguez has filed to help address our population bracket that wasn't correctly fixed during the last census round. So that's hb 3281. That would do that so that you all could move forward with creating these districts. We created one district when we had our population bracket correct. We now need to correct it. But also similarly we'll have to track representative Isaac has filed two bills [11:09:23 AM] related to homestead preservation districts that would undo our ability to use homestead preservation districts as a tool for affordable housing. Also on the bill to fix our bracket, senator Watson has filed that bill in the senate. So we will be working those as well. Small cells. So this is an issue that came up in the middle of the session. This relates to basically the small cell deployment plan you guys have recently authorized and negotiated with a number of the small cell providers. It would have significant changes to the city's ability to regulate and to monitor and administer this program. It would change the timelines that we have to respond to installation requests by small cell providers. It would allow them more access to lines and poles and so forth for maintenance without having to coordinate with us as much. It would also change the fees that we would be allowed to charge for use in the right-of-way, for use of private utilities in the public right-of-way. So right now I believe the cities -- I might be wrong on this and others might correct me, approve an ordinance at 1500 and this would reduce it to 250 statewide. On so this bill of course is being led by AT&T. And has been voted out of the senate committee already, will move to the floor. Then also will track a KXAN non-in the house that will monitor state affairs. But that is a big issue for the city's ability to determine where these go and what they look like. And not just in commercial areas, but in neighborhood districts as well. Speed limits was something that was added to the legislative agenda and representative Israel has filed bills that would give the city more ability to reduce speed limit -- speed limits, and senator [11:11:24 AM] Rodriguez in the house has also filed that bill. So far we haven't seen any movement on it, though. Tomorrow's also going to be a by Austin energy day. Hb 1460 by representative workman is going to be heard in state affairs. And actually the mayor and general manager of Austin energy will be testifying. This would be the bill, the Frazier bill from last session for those of you who might remember from last session and this bill would dereg Austin energy. It basically undoes all the work that you guys did on the rate case recently. It doesn't have a companion in the senate, so we will be having testimony on that tomorrow as well. There are a -- as you can see up there, representative workman filed four bills related to Austin energy and two of them, senator Buckingham who replaced senator Frazier in the senate, picked up and has the companion for. There's also as you guys might have seen, there's a bill pending in natural resources by chairman Estes related to lions municipal golf course. It would transfer ownership of the golf course from the university of Texas over to the state parks and wildlife board. And representative Larson has a companion in the house. And I think this might be close to my end. Historic preservation bill filed by representative Elkins, this basically would determine how many votes are required by any city commission or council related to the historic preservation districts. It would say it refers a three-fourths vote. It would also say that any historic event would need to be an event that is widely known, which they don't define what that means. And by whom. There's also a number of bills related to water and watershed protection issues [11:13:24 AM] that we're closely monitoring negotiation with the -- neighborhood association with the Austin water utility and the Austin watershed department. Some of these bills, for instance, as you can see, representative workman has filed a couple of bills related to new districts. He would propose to create and also representative Isaac refiled some bills that we saw from last session related to wastewater discharge permitting and where we provide services in the etj. So we're closely working with our departments and monitoring these pieces of legislation as well. And finally, they are working on budget. Just to give you -- let me find my budget notes. A couple of highlights from the budget. There's about an eight billion dollar difference between the house and the senate on the budget right now. There is just to warn you already talk about special session because of the budget. Remember the budget is the one thing they have to do. So if they can't get that done, there potentially could be a special session which also opens up a second try on a number of the legislation I just went over. The significant difference in the budget as you would imagine relates to education, public education makes up the majority of the state's budget. It relates to that. It relates to the number of enroll the students they see as being different. So the house funds more enrolled students than the senate version. It also relates to school finance. The house puts in more money only if they address the school finance system, which right now as you all know they are not under a court order to fix. So we'll see how this continues to move forward and how it changes timelines, how it affects other bills in the timeline and so forth. I want to discuss with you all how often I should come forward with updates like this. I can propose doing this in another two weeks. [11:15:27 AM] We've got 55 days in session, and yes, I am counting. So I'm happy to come forward, of course, at any time to provide updates like this to you all. Are there any questions? >> Casar: Mayor? I didn't want to interrupt your presentation, but I wanted clarity. So far on the revenue caps bill you said that the Texas apartment association was supportive. >> Uh-huh. >> Casar: When you say the builders, is that the home builders? >> The home builders. >> Casar: And the manufacturers? >> Yes. >> Casar: Was there any other statewide? >> The oil and gas association. >> Casar: And those three organizations are affiliated with local affiliates here in Austin? >> Correct. >> Casar: Have they been notified of the devastating effect that this policy would have on their community that they supposedly work in? >> I would hope so. >> Casar: I would encourage the city to do that and anybody else to do the same. On linkage fees I'm aware that the statewide home builders were supportive of that preemption bill. Were there any other note annual groups that might have a presence in Austin that were supportive of that bill? >> The home builders brought forward a number of individuals on that. There were, interesting enough, that's an -- that's a bill that creates an industry difference. There were also folks representing apartment developers that spoke in opposition to the bill, but primarily it was the home builders that are in favor of that bill. >> Casar: I won't keep you much longer, but annexation in Austin and Austin energy, we haven't had hearings on those yet? >> Those will be tomorrow. >> Casar: Are we aware of any particular groups that have presence in Austin that are supportive of any of owe the other of those preemptions? >> Related to annexation, not that I'm aware of, but I will monitor and get back. As you know, I'm trying to provide you with updates through emails and memos and I can update that after the hearing tomorrow. [11:17:27 AM] Related to Austin energy, I would hope that all of those who signed on to the agreement would continue to support moving forward with that rate case that you all worked so hard on and I imagine those that did not might be there. >> Casar: I appreciate that. Once we have those hearings, I might ask similar questions because of course statewide associations should hopefully do their best to listen to some of their local membership who hopefully care about the well-being of our community. >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Are there any issues that are coming before the legislature that you need council direction on in terms of positions or anything? >> You know, I'll leave it to -- the majority of the slides I presented I have direction on. I'd say the one that might stand out right now would be the lions golf course. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So let us know. So you're being guided and directed at this point by the legislative agenda that the council passed. We have an ad hoc group helping to facility those questions, but obviously that group can't take positions on behalf of the council. So let us get back to you with direction on that issue. >> And of course if you all want to offer anything up at any council meeting that provides further direction on any item, please feel free to consult with my office and I'd be happy to provide any guidance on that. >> Renteria: Just one question. On the general fund transfer from Austin utility, on the cap, what are they [11:19:28 AM] proposing? >> The general fund transfer is similar to last session. I actually might need Jamie Mitchell to come up here and help me with the specifics on that. >> [Inaudible]. >> Jamie Mitchell, Austin energy technical wizard. Hb 1458 I believe is the number by representative workman. It's identical to a bill he had last session. I won't say the number off the top of my head. >> It's 1459. >> Excuse me, hb 1459 is the general fund transfer bill, representative workman. What it does is sets in statute the local government code, the current cap that the general fund transfer from Austin energy is -- goes to the city. And then it puts in the local government code specific language which says that they have -- it has to be extremely limited to direct expenses of the utility itself. It puts in concerns about how the city uses that money for community support, community sponsorships, running a city. >> Renteria: So all of this -- so it would basically restrict the amount of money, how we could use that money. Once it gets transferred it has to be referred to just utility purpose? >> Yeah. It would make it very complicated. For instance, Austin energy uses the fleet services department rather than having a whole separate garage, we have one garage for all city departments. It would make that transfer capped in state statute. It would also heed the [11:21:29 AM] city's ability to modify the transfer as we did in 2012 when they actually made it, less money coming out of the utility going towards the city. So it would set in statute limitations and to make it very hard to adjust as we have to city concerns about that transfer. >> Mayor Adler: I would mention just as an aside and if I have an opportunity to talk to the legislature, I will. We were in front of the legislature two years ago on these issues and spoke to the committee at that time. And in response to many of these matters we said in testimony that we anticipated that we would have a rate hearing in the case and that we would try to propose a rate hearing that would be more open and transparent than anything that any peer contemporary menu owned utility had done. And that we would try to get as close to the state perceiving as we could. And we said that we would make it very open, we would make the data very open so that everybody could see the data and share the data so make sure that it was available for both the participants and the public to be able to react. And the legislature -- the sentiment to us then was to give us timing to do that. And quite frankly I was warned about coming back to them, having failed to do that. But in fact we did do exactly what we said we would do. We had an incredibly open process. And we had virtually everyone except one entity I think agree with the result that resulted in a large [11:23:31 AM] rate cut, and if I have that opportunity I would intent to explain to the legislature that we in fact made good on what at that point we said that we would anticipate might well happen. On a separate issue with respect to the many golf course, I would say in terms of trying to get a sense for the council that I would support the efforts to try to preserve that property. And a good vehicle to do that is to have kept as parkland and given to the parks department. That is something that I would support. >> Tovo: And that may even be as part of the resolution that we passed. It might not be cited as part of our legislative plan but we do have a stated plan for the preservation of many golf course that may serve as the background you need to sign off on that issue. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great. I think if we could find that that would be helpful. And I'm told it's also okay sitting in this work session to express to bree our views on that. >> Tovo: I had a question on a different one. But if we want to talk about many -- >> [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: Let's stay with these two and we'll come back. >> So I would definitely support sb 822 to transfer many to Texas parks and wildlife. I did want to report that it was passed out of the senate committee this morning. And there's a lot of momentum for this and I think it's a great way for us to preserve that open space and the history of lions. There are a lot of community members who are committed to help with the upkeep and any [11:25:33 AM] reservations -- renovations that would be needed to the golf course. And I think that that the golf course provides it for that part of the city and I think it's a good mechanism for the city to retain what is a cherished park of Austin and important for our history as well. >> Mayor Adler: Manager, did you want to say something about the rates? >> I did. I just wanted to follow-up on Jamie's comment about the 2012 change in the general fund transfer policy. That policy was to benefit both Austin energy as well as the city of Austin. And as a result of the change in the policy, we held the transfer amount to the general fund flat at $105 million for five years, thus putting additional pressure on the city for reliance on its property tax and sales tax. So going forward future transfers are based only on increased number of customers, higher usage by those customers and rate increases. It does not have anything to do with any of the fuel revenue. That was pulled out of the transfer calculation. And so that was something that I felt important to mention should the transfer amount come up in discussion at the meetings. >> Thank you, madam manager. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Other comments on -- yes, Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: So I just had to say quickly that I disagree, of course, with councilmember Casar's characterization of people who supporting sb 2 not caring about the well-being of our community. I think that probably those people and organizes, including myself, just have a different view of what will lead to a thriving and prosperous city. [11:27:37 AM] I wanted to clarify for staff in -- for the things that have been voted out of committee, some of them say voted them along party lines and then some of them say something different. You know, that somebody was a no vote. So can we assume on those issues that there was bipartisan support for I think the ride sharing and the short-term rentals make a note that a couple of people -- one or two people voted no, but there's more than just two or one Democrats on each of those committees. >> I wouldn't -- if you said can we assume there was bipartisan support. >> I wouldn't assume that in each of these items. >> Troxclair: I can go look it up. You said senator zaffirini the loan vote. Senator Whitman was also a no vote. If it's not noted another absence -- >> I don't know if he was -- he was there for the vote, yes, and she was the loan nay vote. >> Troxclair: Okay. And the same with the ride sharing. Well, I'll go look up the ride sharing vote. Okay. What else was I going to ask about. Muny, for me, I don't know if we're expressing our opinions now, but I want to understand, my understanding of the original way that many came to be a part of the UT system is that there was an individual that donated the land specifically for the benefit of the university. I want to understand -- I of course think that many is a great treasure to our city and have supported resolutions in the past for its homework preservation and things like that. But I would want to understand before I could speak to the legislation [11:29:37 AM] about transferring it over Texas parks and wildlife service over how that can co-exist with what I believe has a new specific grant to the university by an individual. So if you have any background on that, maybe not now, but another time, that would be great. Then, I wanted to ask mayor, about how often to have the updates, is the ad hoc committee meeting on a weekly basis? There's a smaller group of councilmembers that I think are getting more frequent updates on the conversation. >> Mayor Adler: That's true and many are happening in realtime as the legislature is working, so it was Leslie and Ann and myself mostly now on these issues. Certainly some of the individual issues that a member has expressed interest in like the many matter. Dr. Alter is involved in those conversations. And I think that it's probably getting together weekly or biweekly, but being called on the phone more frequently than that. But we can certainly have these updates to the council as often as we like to have bree come to us. Yes, councilmember? >> Pool: To answer how often to come -- I want to thank you for coming as often as you can because I think in the past we haven't had as many and as frequent during the session updates. I think that every other week for right now is probably really good. I would like as soon as we get out of April, then into may, we may need to -- you can probably advise when the pace steps up. Maybe every work session up to sine die would be very helpful. [11:31:38 AM] I would like to thank her for the work because it's made a difference from the last session, the first in 2015, the first I was on council for, and it's a world of difference with the instruction and the direction and the information and just the recognition that we are seeing as a panel for the best of the community and we funnel that through our staff. And I just really appreciate the great work that you guys are doing. And I know it is not easy. >> >> Mayor Adler: Yes, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I had one or two quick questions and comments and then a general comment. With regard to the timing, I'd love to hear these presentations frequently, but I'm mindful that you also need to be at the capitol and when you're here presenting you can't do the other important work. So if it's a matter of balancing, I guess I would rather you be there informing us via emails and other things that you can do while you're waiting. I just wanted to introduce that consideration. I also wanted to say with regard to the Austin energy bill which we were talking about before, as I recall, most of those who were involved in the rate case did sign on to the settlement agreement and in fact at least one of the major players offer that they would indeed support the city of Austin down at the capitol and I hope they will be there tomorrow. Doing so. I wanted to ask about the density bonus bill that I introduced. I didn't hear anything about it. And then I have one more general comment. If you could describe the density bonus -- I just heard there is a bill in the house -- >> Basically what -- >> [Overlapping speakers]. >> What hb 1449 does is prohibits any municipality from implementing linkage fees as a method of addressing affordable housing. As part of that, though, they included language in there that said, well, you can continue to use your density bonus zoning programs related to, for instance, height, is what [11:33:39 AM] they first -- the first draft said. The second draft the committee substitute that was laid out has different language to address those programs, but we are reviewing with legal right now that language to determine if that will encompass many of the programs that we do here currently in Austin. And that even other cities like Dallas and Fort Worth do as well. >> Tovo: I didn't realize that was the same as the linkage fee bill. And thank you for all the work that you're doing and a really challenging environment. As I hear this presentation and I think probably my colleagues agree, many of the -- many of the policy initiatives that we've worked on and that I'm most proud of being involved with on this council are -- are facing threats at the legislature this session and so I appreciate your good work. I have served on the city council since 2011 and I have been on the end of losing votes and some about issues I really cared about. And I responded to those by -- by sometimes reintroducing the discussion here at the city council and hoping for a different outcome. What I didn't do at any point is to go down to the legislature and ask another governing body to undo the work that we the duly elected leaders of this community had done. And so I just need to express my real grave disappointment. We all have freedom of speech. We all have an opportunity to go down to the capitol and have that conversation with our elected leaders, and I understand that, but I would hope that as a diverse body we pass policies, and once we pass them with a majority vote they are the policy of this city council. And again, we are elected by [11:35:40 AM] the people of Austin to make decisions for the people of Austin and we know their needs and the issues in our own community and it's one of the reasons that I believe so strongly in local control. And I just need to express my grave disappointment that a member of this body would go to the legislature and ask to have specific provisions and policies that this council adopted be overturned. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: I feel compelled to respond since I assume that I'm the one that that comment was directed to. And just say I of course try to remain respectful in my dissent, not only within city hall, but when I talk about these issues to my district and to the people who serve me at the state capitol that include my state representative, my state senators. And I have made -- any time I have felt compelled to go to the capitol to speak on these issues I have done so on behalf of myself and I have made it very clear that I'm not there representing the city. And in fact, the city has often adopted a policy contrary to my specific belief and I appreciate the -- the -- I guess the pointing out that I -- just because -- that I don't give up my ability as a citizen of the state and this country to speak out on any issue that I deem fit as I respect all of your abilities to do as well. And often my district -- although we were all elected to represent the city, I think we are also each elected to represent our [11:37:41 AM] district. And as you know, my district often has viewpoints that are contrary to the policies that are -- that are adopted by council. And I have been encouraged and applauded and appreciated by many people who live in district 8 who are glad that I am speaking on their behalf. So of course each of us -- each of our views doesn't align with every single person in the city or every single person in our district or even every single person in our individual households. [Laughter]. In some cases. But I do -- I have only chosen to speak. I've been asked to speak on a wide range of topics at the capitol. I have chosen to speak on a few that have been very important to me and that I have been outspoken about during our discussions at city hall. So please don't take it as anything other than me fulfilling what I feel like is my duty to be consistent on the things that I ran on. Like affordability and the things that my constituents have voted to support, like ride sharing and other things that I have been outspoken about and feel passionate about. I hope that we can continue to have that respectful dialogue, whether it's here or at the capitol. >> Mayor Adler: I'd like to expand real quickly on something that the mayor pro tem said that I think is real important because now it looks like there may be actual media coverage of this and people might be looking at this and I think it's important to say. Every city in this state is different. Austin is different than Houston, is different from Dallas, is different from San Antonio. And that's wonderful and [11:39:42 AM] it's an asset that we have and it's part of what makes our straight as strong as it is. We have different economies. Houston is an energy economy, Dallas a financial economy, San Antonio a tourist or medical economy. Austin has a different kind of economy. And I think that it is good for the state to have a diversified portfolio of cities. And I think that one of the benefits that this city contributes to the state generally is that we're weird. And what is weird to some is home to creative and innovative and entrepreneurial people. There's a reason why the people of Austin, why we only represent seven percent of the population, represent a third of the patent and over half the venture capital. And I think it's important that Austin be able to maintain the culture and the values as expressed in the ordinance we pass. The companies that come here like Google and anticipate apple and others that are here and have people working for their companies want to work in Austin Texas because of who we are. And I would urge our leadership up at the legislature to keep in mind that to the degree that Austin becomes a different kind of city, then people that are attracted to the city will end up going to Nashville and Charlotte or Albuquerque. And that it is real important for the economy of this state that all of our cities are able to take fullest advantage of true local control, and by local control what I mean is the government that is closest to the people I believe is best able to express the [11:41:43 AM] desires and priorities of those people. And I think that's what this council does. Anyone want to say anything else on the legislative agenda? >> Alter: I do have one more. When you asked about further direction. Some of the water and watershed bills are new, as I pointed out with the districts. And I wanted to give the council an opportunity to -- if they wanted to comment or provide me direction on any of those, particularly related to the bills that would create any districts. We can pull up the slides. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor? Before we proceed to that, I would just like to say that I support the comments of mayor pro tem. I think that although we all have our own ability to speak, we are not seen that way. Nor is our testimony presented that way or viewed that way at the capitol. So I'm disappointed that a member of our council feels the necessity to go down to the capitol on very sensitive and hard fought issues at a local level and testify in a way that is contrary to what the people of the city of Austin have expressed. So I just want to thank mayor pro tem for her comments, also the mayor for his comments. I think it's a point that's very important to the larger context of what we're dealing with on the capitol these days and I want to thank you for your remarks also. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Yes, councilmember pool? >> Pool: Thanks, mayor. I wanted to add my disappointment and concerns as well to the points that have been raised by the mayor pro tem. When we as a body come together and adopt a [11:43:45 AM] legislative agenda, my understanding was that it was in fact a reflection of what we would support or oppose. And that's a long-standing tradition at the city of Austin, even if we do have little closer contact with our governmental affairs staff than previously. That also doesn't stand in the way of each of us as individuals having personal opinions and showing up and expressing them, but it is impossible, I would submit, it is impossible for any of us to stand on the steps, south steps of the capitol with another -- with a respect from the -- with a representative from the state house in support of a bill that is in direct opposition for something we have fought for and voted on here previously. And have adopted it as part of our agenda. It's impossible for the community to look at a panel of people testifying on any of our acronym pieces of legislation where one councilmember is opposing the legislation and two seats over on the same panel is another councilmember supporting the legislation. So what is the community to understand? We had votes on these various issues before they came to be part of our agenda. I am kind of curious frankly whether the number of austin-specific bills are more this year than ever. It feels to me like they are. And so I think that we make a choice as elected officials which body of ordinances we will support and what our role is. I have cast my lot with this body and I have gone to the Matt on a number of decisions we've made, even when I haven't necessarily disagreed with them, I have tried to explain why we did [11:45:46 AM] what we did. I think that's my role. And it is also my role to up hold the legislation that we have here. And if I don't agree with it I can work here to try to amend it or adjust it. So I think that's all I'll say on this topic, but I too am quite disappointed. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. You've directed us to the water and watershed protection. Are there issues here that council has not taken positions on? >> Well, normally the legislative agenda directs on new districts. I wanted to just comment on each of those new districts being proposed of opposing legislation that would create new districts in menu boundaries. A flood control district would be within the city limits. Right now the Travis county special utility district has been amended to not include our etj or city limits, but it does include the protected lands out in southwest Travis county. The 4304 also relates to land that are also just entirely within the city so I wanted to bring those to the council's attention as to the authority and direction given to me by you all related to those votes. >> Mayor Adler: Today its my position on those. Ordinarily we would propose a district that would have an additional governmental entity overseeing land that we own or had within our city boundaries or that was beneficial to us. But some of these may also be speaking to trying to deal with a flood situation, flooding situation in the city. So on the other hand it might be something that is good for the city. So I'm trying to figure out how in realtime we daylight that issue to the council, [11:47:47 AM] that push-pull. That we let staff come in and advise us on the position that we should take so that you have direction when there's a potential push pull like that so you know what to do. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, could I speak to 2851? Let me just say that I haven't brought this forward because it may be moot at this point. I have met with object R. Our staff and I think our staff is comfortable with a flood control district with the amendments that we proposed, however, it's looking like this bill will not move because it's not necessary because we are talking with Travis county and with hays county, at Travis county's initiative, to create an interlocal agreement, which would handle the what needs to happen. The underlying issue here is that this involves the onion creek watershed and our largest watershed and starts in hays county. And onion creek is the creek that was responsible for flooding both upper onion creek and lower onion creek that we all -- councilmember Garza's district, that we all dealt with I guess a year and a half, two years ago with the Halloween floods. So flood mitigation on this watershed is critical for parts of Austin. And the initiative is how to best collaborate with hays county, whether that's a -- you know, an interlocal agreement or another forum. So since this last came up I have talked with judge Eckhardt and we've also talked with hays county as well as met with our staff. And it's looking like an interlocal agreement will get us there. Once we have a little more information on that, that of course would need to be approved by the council. [11:49:49 AM] And once we get a little more clarity on that, I'll bring that back to brief everyone. And then I would be bringing forward a resolution. This particular bill has attached to it a rider that would allow five million dollars in state funding to be used for the planning by our respective jurisdictions, you know, city of Austin, hays and Travis county to plan for flood mitigation in the onion creek watershed. But there's efforts being made right now to make sure that that language could apply the funding to an interlocal agreement or some other collaborative type arrangement. In any case that's where it stands right now. I don't know that there's any action that we need to take at the moment on this bill. I would say that we - - it hasn't moved at this point. I think we continue to explore with Travis county and hays county and with, you know, with the other issues that I mentioned with regard to funding. And then see very shortly in a week or two if there's any need to move it forward. So too long the status. >> Mayor Adler: So this is a local bill and if it does move it would move quickly. >> Kitchen: It's a local bill. >> Mayor Adler: But what you've represented is that our staff supports the bill if that's the vehicle rather than an interlocal agreement. >> Kitchen: With the changes that we have proposed that makes it clear that this bill does not -- that this creation of a flood control district would not supersede the city's authority within their existing authority for what they do. So that's part of the deal. But the only reason do it would be -- the thinking is the best way for us to collaborate and still have access to funding. >> Mayor Adler: And it seems as if an interlocal agreement is the best of both worlds because we're not creating a new entity that has control. [11:51:52 AM] >> Kitchen: Right, if we can get access to the state dollars. >> Mayor Adler: If that doesn't happen and it's determined that an organization needs to be created, I want to make sure that because that will move really fast that we're ready on that. And what I understand you saying is that the staff is supportive of this with those changes that are made. >> Kitchen: Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Any further discussion on the legislative agenda? >> [Inaudible]. >> Tovo: Were there other bills on this list that we should discuss in the event that you need feedback? >> Those are the -- the bills on this slide and going back to lions are the majority of ones that I need clear authority from you all as you guys have gone through. I was looking in the crowd to see if we had watershed or watershed here to see if they want to ask questions. >> Mayor Adler: Do you want to speak to this one real fast? >> Tovo: And hb 3004 -- >> That was refiled from last session. >> Tovo: And that sounds in conflict with our city ordinance. So I'm not sure whether you would need -- whether you would need -- not our city ordinance. Our city -- yes. I think it is our city ordinances that requests that the city protest any -- >> Right. >> Tovo: Discharge permit. [Overlapping speakers]. >> I'm assuming you would need an ordinance for that one. >> Tovo: I'm assuming you have the authority to state the city's clear opposition to that one. >> Correct. >> I'm Darryl Slusher, assistant director at Austin water. There is one up there that's fast moving that they're not all on there, but there's a bill that was filed by representative workman -- representative Isaacs that would require Austin water to provide water and wastewater service to the city of hays, which was [11:53:53 AM] 2959. I'm sorry. >> Is that it? >> And so just -- there's a hearing on that tomorrow and we're planning to testify in opposition to that because it's outside of our ccn. That's the primary reason. And it would -- we think those are the kind of decisions that should be made between the two entities rather than have the legislature impose that on us. That's basically our position. On the bill. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes. Councilmember pool? >> Pool: This is a curiosity to me that they want us to provide watershed outside of our -- out of our service area and yet they don't want us to provide service to people. I don't understand how this fits into the larger fabric of where the legislature wants us to provide or not provide services or charge for the services that we provide. >> Yeah. And I don't think I can explain that. [Laughter]. >> Pool: One of the big mysteries of the legislature. I do have a question on another -- on the tnc bill. >> Let me just say too, these aren't all the bad bills. By no means could I fit them all on here. Or all the austin-related bills. So when I come back as I see one is rise to go the top or any direction I will continue to bring those forward. You wanted the tnc? >> Mayor Adler: Did you have water wastewater? >> Tovo: I wanted to make sure we were providing the staff with the direction they need on those bills and I certainly support the water utility's position on -- I think that's that last one, 2959. I think it's very much supportive of the way that we typically make those arrangements. Are there other particular bills on this list for which you need feedback to move forward and state a strong stance or are most supported [11:55:53 AM] by existing ordinances? >> We can talk about 4304, which is filed just last week that would require that there be no parkland and habitat conservation plan, that would be pretty devastating for our bcp because of -- the balcones canyon land conserve population plan. As you may or may not recall, when that was put together in the early 1990s, the city saved money and kept -- they went into other things by declaring some parkland as dual managed by endangered species land and parkland. This would now require the parkland -- the ones that serve dual purpose to be just parkland. So presumably we would have to buy more land to stay in compliance with our permit. Of course, there's -- there are big questions about since it's a federal law, exactly what the state authority is in that, but if it passes and stood, we would have to take that parkland out of the bccp and presumably replace it with other land. >> Mayor Adler: Did the ordinances that the city has passed provide you with the authority you need to be able to take the position you're taking with that? >> I think we would oppose that unless we hear otherwise, yes. >> Mayor Adler: I think it's also consistent with the actions that the city has taken in setting up the bwwp. So I think you have direction on that. Ms. Alter? >> Alter: If we're done with water and watershed, I wanted to go back to many -- >> Mayor Adler: Let's check and make sure. Does anybody else have anything on water or wastewater? >> Alter: Watershed. >> Mayor Adler: Watershed. Okay. Thank you. And there was someone who wanted to go to tnc and then we'll go to many. Tnc? >> Pool: So on the tnc bill and bills, my understanding is that the regulation, so to speak, or [11:57:54 AM] the oversight of the tncs would go to the Texas department of licensing and regulation, is that correct? >> For Patty's it definitely does. I would have to check if nickels does the same thing. >> Pool: Does tklr have the same thing like the police department and so forth. Those folks are on our city streets and if they see a violation they have the authority in state law and in our ordinances to issue a ticket to note a violation. So if we have tncs on our city streets, but they are being regulatedish by the state, then how -- who do we look to for if there are complaints, if they're violating laws? What's that process? >> The bill is very silent on those issues. As you know, dps isn't, for instance, a part of the Texas licensing and regulation that would be on the streets regulating this. That in itself is an issue in the bill that lacks to speak to enforcement and how complaints would be addressed and how complaints would be addressed, especially during the interim. So the only time that something would be done, I imagine, is whether through the sunset process, the commission would go through their sunset process, which occurs every seven years, or if a legislature comes back -- legislator comes back in the next session to say I don't feel that you guys are doing enough for enforcement or you're empowered enough to do the enforcement. And it's one thing to do you do by permitting, but do you empower the agency to enforce is the other issue? And the bill is >> Hb100 is silent on it and sbc61 does not speak to it at all. >> Pool: Do we know from the testimony or the discussion in the committee what venue there would be for, say, a complaint [11:59:56 AM] of attempted rape in a tnc? What would happen to -- >> I believe the view for these -- for this legislation is that that's just a local pd response and that it is not a response required by the tnc where that event occurred. I will say in the testimony there were a lot of cities and members that spoke out from the community about this very issue, and about the fact that regardless of where you put it, people will still call the city. We know that. We know they'll still come to us to say this is happening, you know, why don't you do something? And with these bills, not only will we be unable to address those issues, it really sun clear whether they are empowering the state agencies that they send these to to address them as well. >> Pool: Is there any staffing or budget attached to this bill? >> Hb100 has a fiscal note, actually, because the fees that they attach to the bill that they'll have the tncs pay don't cover what the commission -- the agency believes they'll need to properly staff this. So it has a fiscal note of about 150,000. And there has been a lot of discussion about how this agency itself has had -- has gone through some changes, has a new director and also is addressing staffing issues now with what they regulate. So there will -- there is right now -- it was a bill voted out that doesn't cover the cost that the agency feels it needs to do -- to regulate this industry. >> This may be an unfair question because you may not be a student of what different topics and issues the various state agencies oversee or regulate, but do you know, for example, are they plumbers or elections or air conditioning technicians? [12:01:57 PM] What are the kind of industry families that tdlr oversees. >> My knowledge, which is enough to be dangerous, is that it's occupations like those that aren't covered by other agencies, by agencies. >> Pool: Are there any law enforcement agencies measures their purview. >> Not that I'm aware of, no. >> Pool: I'm so glad we are opposing this bill. Of course we are we worked really hard on this for a long time during 2016 and our community rose up in a large way, in a may election, and against a very large opponent who is incredibly well-funded and it's a deep concern. I have such a deep concern over the approach that's being taken on these issues, especially tncs at the legislature. It is as if they don't recognize the actions that communities have taken and the voices that have been raised and stated. It feels kind of abusive, actually. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember alter -- I'm sorry, anything else on tncs? Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I would just like to follow up on a point that -- or a question that councilmember pool had related to an instance of rape and enforcement. I'm also concerned about the data part of that. As I'm understanding these bills do not require data to be kept, much less be shared with the city, which is a serious concern to our public safety personnel because that kind of data can be very necessary and helpful in catching a rapist or catching someone who has committed a crime and that data is not required to be kept for I think it's two years or something like that. I'm not certain, but it's certainly not required to be shared with the city. >> That's correct. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on tncs? [12:03:57 PM] Ms. Alter. >> Alter: Thank you. Ms. Franks I want to thank you for being very open to talking through certain issues with me, my staff, and also with some of my constituents that had particular concerns, typically about strs so thank you. I want to make sure you had the guidance you needed on puny it periods my understanding following -- it's my understanding following mayor pro tem's comments we believe we have direction with respect to preserving muni. Is that correct? >> I will look for the resolution and report back as soon as we track it down. And if I don't find it then I will come back immediately. >> Alter: Can you either way confirm with? Because I'm sure I'll have constituents who would want affirmation. >> I will let y'all know. I will report back to you on all of that, one of the memos that you get from me that have great news all the time. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: We might want to take a look quickly, I did forward it as we were sitting here but it was in support of the national register historic district and so let me just very quickly pull it up and see if -- not to belabor this point, but I wonder if you need me to -- I don't want to miss this munt -- opportunity if this is our opportunity to weigh in before tomorrow by having everyone think that the resolution covers us if it doesn't. So if it's useful, I can read bit, therefore, resolved, the city council supports Travis county historical commission to the Texas historical commission for historical marker at the lions municipal golf course in recognition of the lion's municipal golf course by the desegregation of the golf course in 1951 there there may be previous resolutions that were more general but that was the most recent one. It was particular to -- or it was specific to the application to the Texas historical commission, so, you know, I voted for that out of support for the preservation of that golf course, and so the bill that's being considered seems consistent with that. But this might be -- [12:05:58 PM] >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry, what? >> I'm gonna say you can certainly give direction here and indicate that you want to amend your legislative agenda, you can put that on a council meeting at any time. That would help I think before the issue goes forward. >> Mayor Adler: To the degree you said this is an opportunity for us to be able to speak to our lobbyists, I will also reiterate that if this is a property that could be put into park service so it can be kept as that measure of green space for the city I would support that as well .Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Yes, mayor. I want trying to stay out of this one, but I will support the move to parks and wildlife because we've heard from parks department that we don't have the resources to take on anymore golf courses. We're not breaking even there. I mean, we're underfunded and -- so that's something that the city just doesn't have the capacity to take on right now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anybody else want to weigh in on this issue? Okay. Yes? Mm-hmm. Legislative agenda. Anything else? This issue or anything else on the legislative agenda. >> Casar: Mayor, briefly. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Casar: The linkage fee issue has not been heard in the senate yet, but my staff's close note taking of the hearing was that they were representations made by people supporting that bill that were far outside of what the representations this council has made as far as how much we intend to charge. I think we intend to do a study to not only see what the constitutionally allowable amounts of an affordable housing would be here in Austin but also what fees would be -- our own resolution to what fees checked charge that would allow for significant enough development for us to collect a fee, a [12:07:59 PM] significant amount of fees. I think the testimony that was provided was characterizing the city's intent very differently in what the city council has voted on and compared the fees that we were considering to the high fees of coastal California cities, which I think is just flat on its face in contradiction to what we've done so I hope in the senate we potentially -- and if we need -- I think we have passed several resolutions on this that can present that so that those sorts of representations can't be made twice. >> Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on the agenda? Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I think this is a brief -- there's a briefing on the bond issue. >> Houston: Mayor, could I get some feel for being back at 1:00 to receive the report? >> Mayor Adler: I think we're gonna try to do that -- I understand this is a very brief briefing. >> Houston: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: And that should get us back to lunch and to executive session pretty quickly so we can get back here I hope by 1:00, certainly by 1:15. So brief briefing. >> A brief briefing. Thank you, mayor, Greg canally, interim cfo, joined by Carlos and Katie. We really wanted to provide just a quick check-in on the work that we have been doing with the bond election advisory task force and our at a comprehensive bond program like this council has asked us to look at, one we have multiple propositions ranging across the different services that the city provides, we have typically looked at quite an extensive process to go through that phase one is where we get started. I can go through this in detail and then the program [12:10:01 PM] development part working with the bond team and finally coming back to council. As we look at that in more detail we're looking at four to five months for the initiation, the creation of a bond task force, which this council has already done. And then the developing of a bond program needs assessment, which is what we are currently working on very diligently and rigorously over these last several weeks and are wrapping up as you'll see. Then when we're through with that we would turn that over to a bond -- the bond election advisory task force and they go through their extensive process, which I think has proven in the past to be very valuable, as that bond committee, as your task force, engages with the community, devices into the work we will -- dives into the work we will provide to them, let's them do all the analysis they need do. Finally when the bond committee is done that comes back to this body to update, amend, change, take that recommendation from the bond committee and move forward in setting a timing for a bond election itself. So typically about 15 to 18 months we've seen in the past. And we think it is certainly appropriate to make sure that the community is engaged through the entire process. So just one way we're informed by that is what we've done in the past. So what you have here is what we did in 2006, 2012, again, the most recently multiproposition bond programs, both very large programs, large scope. You can see the amount of meetings I would focus there on the meetings that a bond election task force has in addition to the regular meetings, they typically form subcommittees so they can become expert and dive on specific areas, whether that is transportation on parks, on open space, on housing. And they really -- we overload them with lots of information and lots of data so as they interface with the community they can listen at a public hearing. That's kind of how we get to [12:12:01 PM] that -- the extensive process from our experience, our positive experience in the past. So what have we been doing? The bond election advisory task force had been appointed over the fall. We had our first full meeting in December. That was our kickoff meeting. What we've been doing in February, March, and April is really having a series of context discussions with the committee. In the past I think some of the committees had been given day one here's an entire needs assessment and go forth and figure out what you're doing but we really thought it was valuable to do kind of a deep education on various topics surrounding bonds, first of all how debt works. We're talking about our capital projects and programs, how the life cycle of a project, and finally what we will be doing next week, right? I believe I have my dates correct? 27th, sorry. It is on the bond programs, our existing bond programs. They obviously provide context to moving forward on another bond program. Finally, in may, as we wrap up and that's really the date we want to focus on now, is taking the bond needs assessment, taking that to both the council as a stopping point and then ultimately to the bond committee. This bond program needs assessment is really gonna be a starting point for the bond election advisory task force to do the -- August the work that they have in front of them. The way that staff works on that and we have been working that is taking a myriad of information that exists within the city, target first and foremost with council policy and objectives that you have stated but also all of the work that in some instances you have directed staff to work on and other ones that staff works on kind of day in, day out, and that involves master plans, neighborhood plans, facility and condition site assessments and a that all gets encapsulate understand our rolling needs assessment. I will say in the instance of master plans and some of the neighborhood plans there is embedded in each of those are some extensive public [12:14:02 PM] processes. For example, the aquatics master plan. That has been going on for quite a time and had significant public input. As they develop that plan, we begin weaving that plan into the overall needs assessment, and that is replicated, for example, in the flood mitigation task force as another example of a community effort that can potentially lead to items being included on a bond program. So we are taking all of these and that's the process we're in right now, looking in a -- under kind of a rigorous microscope, looking at some of the data we have to support improvements and changes to infrastructure, looking at cost estimates, and kind of blending that altogether. That's the work that's -- in the process of wrapping up and coming back in may. So this is the remainder calendar again we started in December through April where we've been having a series of meetings. Staff is very busily working on the bond assessment needs assessment and in may, targeting may 16, a work session, and we'll be working on calendarring for that. Where we would present the bond program needs assessment, which would be a starting point for the bond committee. We think there's a value in presenting that publicly to this body. The task force would most likely we would have them attend as well so they can see that and from there they would be off and running and we would be -- our role would be in support of that bond election advisory task force, providing the information, making sure they have all the access to city staff and helping them get through their process of community engagement. And as I mentioned, we would imagine, again, the size of all the needs that we have, and you've heard it in the past. It's very large. We would expect that the committee would break into subcommittees so they can do that kind of roll up the sleeve work and then the public engagement work as well. Going back to our overall schedule, we would look at them taking the rest of the [12:16:04 PM] spring through the summer and the fall to complete their work and be ready to come back to this body in December with a final recommendation for you to have and begin your process. I will say concurrently, not inside the city, but we know some of our other governmental partners in the area, aisd and Travis county are also kind of jammed up on their bond program processes. They have not officially called any elections but we know that they are considering looking at elections for this November. So in the context of what we're doing, there's a lot of work going on in our bond committee. We're excited. It's been a great group of people, and they're getting really engaged and we've warned them. I think we gave them a giant notebook that's about this domestic so far it's only this full and it was just more of what the future lies over these few months for them. Again, council, just a quick check-in. We'll be back here in may. We just wanted to provide kind of a public -- a public opportunity for us to let you know where we are. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor? Thank you very much for this. This is so helpful. I have two questions. First off, do we know the date in may that this will be coming back? Do we have it on an agenda yet? >> Councilmember, it's not an agenda. We are looking at may 16. As we work on the agendas for those upcoming weeks, we'll working with the city manager and the agenda office to work around that. It would be a more extensive -- much more than a quick presentation. >> Kitchen: I think that I just want to reiterate we not slip on the may date to -- because I think that when we look at the time line we have this coming back for final recommendation in December. I think that's absolutely necessary to give the public enough time during the spring of the next year if we're [12:18:04 PM] gonna put it on the 2018 bond election. The needs that we have are really great for infrastructure. You know, flooding among them, housing, many other needs. So I'm hoping -- I'm really asking right now that we not slip that date, that we keep it on the may agenda. So then also I have a question. I understand that at the point that the needs assessment comes back to us that we can provide some direction to the committee, to the bond task force, some parameters. If I'm understanding correctly, customs in the past have done things like that, whether they're broad parameters or more specific parameters. Can you give us an idea of what's been done in the past? >> Certainly, councilmember. As we present -- as we present the bond program needs assessment, certainly it will be an opportunity for this council to react to our, again, what will be a starting point. We would expect the bond committee to -- if they can attend, we'll make sure that we download that information to them. Certainly it is an opportunity for city council individually to discuss kind of their priorities. As in the past, that has happened both on the front expend the back end, in terms of setting guiding principles. I think the time that we've allowed here -- and I agree with you, while we are focused on may because we want the task force to get to work and we think December is a good time. It allows them really even yet another round of public engagement from -- at this body's level. Obviously the bond committee will have multiples and different than the last time. This will be the first bond multiple proposition bond election potential under our new 10-1 system so I think that public engagement may look different. But if we get back in December it's an opportunity again, as you receive that recommendation and begin [12:20:04 PM] working towards crafting one, to also reiterate kind of an overarching guiding principles about where you would be going. I think there's an advantage to that, to let the bond committee go through a process, see where the community is as the community has this kind of deep involvement. For example, opportunities where we can leverage, even internally in the city to make sure that we're leveraging but leveraging externally as well. >> Kitchen: Okay. Could you share with us or just point us in the right place to see what kind of guiding principles previous councils may have provided? >> Sure, absolutely. We'll get that to you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Pool: Thanks. Do you expect to have the committee -- are you gonna break down the committees like have been done in '06 and '12? >> That was done at the committeeses, the decision that the committee makes. We have informed them of what's happened in the past as kind of a best practice, and we believe that that has served the community well in the bond -- and the bond committee well, so you can create -- having sat through many of them myself, the amount of information that we provide and want to provide and want to share, it requires kind of a dedicated approach to that to work well, so we've shared that with the committee and we will work with them as they see fit to make sure that they are as successful as they want to be. >> Pool: That sounds good. I think that's a good approach too. We'll have -- how many do we have on the bond committee this time? Is it 11? >> 13. >> Pool: 13, okay. All right. Okay, good. That sounds great. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I wanted to just clarify, can we go back to the slide how is a bond program developed. Later this afternoon we're gonna be receiving the mayor's task force on institutional racism and systemic inequities, and I think one of [12:22:05 PM] the big challenges to moving forward on this is funding and I just wanted to make sure that this report qualifies as something that would be -- have things that are eligible in it for bond funding. >> Councilmember, certainly we will -- as that brings itself forward and finalizes -- I haven't quite read it, but, again, as we look at what we've done in our infrastructure planning, we want to make sure we create a process that is agile from this point forward. And it has been. So that because your work won't stop between now and next December and so that as new ideas and new plans get developed, that they also either get embedded as the bond committee is working through its effort. We can give opportunities to update them. As we work -- as the council works through its strategic planning, you know, we have some efforts coming. So if they're being informed of what's happening and efforts like this can get integrated at the right time so we will make sure as we get that, specifically, will look at it and make sure that the bond election advisory task force has it as well. >> Alter: I suspect there will be a next phase of this with implementation and it would be really helpful to make sure that if there are things to be put in the bond that need to be framed into that, that that's happening, you know, in realtime so that we have that opportunity. >> Okay. >> Alter: The second question I've been hearing from my bond oversight commissioner that the bond oversight commission would like some clarification on its role with respect to any future bonds as opposed to the bond advisory task force and in February they sent a request for clarification and I was wondering if we had -- what the next steps are to [12:24:09 PM] provide that clarification on what their role would be. >> Pool: I just raised my hand because I think the intention came from the council. >> Yes. >> Pool: Would you -- so it can be a little bit confusing because what we have and have for a number of years had two different groups, one that continues on, and that's the oversight implementation committee. And those folks track bonds of that passed. So their remit would include up to the 2012 bonds. And then because it's a lot of work and pretty intense and also because we want to include more people in the community we have a separate group of people. There may be some duplications, some people who are on one are also on the other one but this is a short-term group that comes together and will dissolve once the -- I'm trying to remember when it was, I guess when the council -- when they submitted the report to council they help with the education of the public and then once it is set for an election, that action, that activity goes away because they can't, under our rules of the city, they can't advocate or campaign for passage of the bond and that's where a separate campaign committee would be if there was interest in that, would be separate from the city, the official city. So there's actually even a third group that might engage just like any other political campaign, issues campaign. But the two groups are intended to be separate because we can't -- that's a lot of work to ask of one group. And the dividing line is whether the bonds have passed and are in implementation, and then whether it is a formulating of a new array of bonds, if that helps. >> Alter: It helps me. I just know that the commission passed something where they wanted more clarification and I wanted to make sure that we were delivering that to them. >> And I'll say that that's -- how councilmember pool laid that out, that is our working -- that is how we are [12:26:09 PM] working through the process, and historically that has been the case inside the city, where the bond oversight committee does a tremendous job at overseeing the overall bonds and I'll say that this bond oversight commission, unlike ones in the past, with the passage of the 720 million mobility bonds, their workload will be huge. The value of the current makeup of this council, how you -- council appointed this committee -- I think there's one official representation of the bond oversight chamber of commerce we actually have two members serving on the bond oversight chamber of commerce so it does create that conversation as they go back from the bond task force over to bond oversight they can keep their members updated on the progress of what's happening. But our focus will be on -- for this task is working with the bond election task force. >> Manager. >> I wanted to point out for each of our boards and commissions there's a section in the code for each of them that defines their membership and what their roles and responsibilities and duties are and that information should have been shared with the bond oversight committee long ago but we can get that information to them because that should be their clarification of what their duties are. >> Kitchen: Could I add something too? >> Mayor Adler: Hang on a second. >> Kitchen: This is relevant to what we're talking about. >> Alter: As long as you come back to me after. >> Kitchen: This is just to follow up. We had a long discussion about this when we created this bond task force back in September because it was something we were trying to figure out how to make that work, and as councilmember pool described it, that's what we arrived at, and to try to help make that connection we -- as Mr. Canally explained, that's how we connected the board. So, yes, so it is an issue we talked about back in September when we created the committee and that's how we arrived at a way to have them synced up. [12:28:10 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. And I will invite my commissioner to share this audio/video with his fellow commissioners if that will hopefully clarify their concerns. The last question I had is, as we talk about a future bond, I understand that there are still parts of the 2012 bond that have not been spent yet. Can we get a report on that or maybe there's one existing that I'm just not already aware of, of what's not been spent and the plans to spend that before we get to the next one? >> Absolutely. In fact as part of our next presentation to the task force, that is information we wanted them to have before so we'll get that to you. We do do reports that are published on our website, and then I would imagine when we are back in front of you on may 16, from a context perspective, before we dive in on the needs assessment itself, we will provide some context about financing overall, our debt -- and our debt position, as well as our historical where we are in all of our bond programs. We always feel that's valuable, not only for you as a body to see, but the community. So we will get you what we have right now and keep you updated as that changes. >> Alter: Great. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you all for presenting today. And you probably have sent this to us already, and I just don't remember. If you could resend who are the members of the bond election advisory task force and what they represent, I would appreciate it. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? All right. It is 12:30. We're gonna go now into executive session and lunch. Shoot to be back here at 1:15. We have the receipt of the report on racism and we can have a discussion about the city manager task force if people want to suggest names. [12:30:10 PM] City council will now go in closed session to take up two items pursuant to section 551.071 of the government code, council will discuss e2, kulisec investor city of Austin, Travis county district court and item 18, negotiation, execution of contract with JP Morgan chase Bank. Without objection we will now go into executive session. [ Executive session ] [1:37:55 PM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. We are out of closed session. In closed session we discussed items in E 2 and E 13. We are back and going to call up the presentation of the task force on institutional racism and systemic inequities. We have two wonderful guests with us today. If you all want to come to the table in front of you. So we -- myself together with some of my colleagues on the council participating in the conversations, as I'm sure we all did last year about prejudice and racism, initially in the context of some police shootings, where that conversation surfaced and arose. What we wanted to do was we wanted to recognize that issues did not exist just in criminal justice, but they -- civil justice, but also access to capital and also housing and health care. That we wanted to have a broader conversation. When I looked at what other cities were doing, most of the responses to similar kinds of events were focused just on looking at criminal justice. So we wanted to see if we could have a broader conversation. We had -- I approached two of my friends and colleagues and the president of HT, huston-tillotson, and the [1:39:57 PM] superintendent of schools, and asked them if they were willing to be drafted, scripted into service on behalf of the community to figure out how we might look at the broader issue with an eye to moving past just having meaningful conversations, which is a wonderful thing, but to see if there's a way for a large community to evolve and to do something. I just wanted to say thank you and thank you on behalf of the community for what you've done. And I'm going to let you kind of lay out what it is that you did and how you got there and what we have, but then I'll speak when you're done. And Brian, I don't know if you want to sit up here now or whether you want to join when they're done with their presentation, whatever feels right to you. And again, I just wanted to say thank you. Your floor. >> Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Collette pierce burnet, president and CEO of huston-tillotson university. And I've personally grown through this process, professionally and personally. And I thought -- I live with being a black female every single day of my life so I thought I was very conscious when it comes to rate and innate bise. I grew up in an area that I envision very similar to east Austin. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, a very urban area. Through this process I've personally grown. When mayor Austin -- mayor of Austin -- when mayor Austin -- mayor Adler called me and asked me would I -- he did draft me. I'm not sure if he asked me to be the co-chair or asked me to be the co-chair. While the mayor was talking I knew where he was going [1:41:58 PM] from the conversation and my mind was processing there's not another thing that I can take on. That's too much work. But I have spent my adult life encouraging people to be warriors for justice and to have the will to do what's right. So here was my opportunity to be a player in a city that I have come to love, a very prosperous city, but I've seen that it's not prosperous for all. So it was a personal charge for me, so I willingly accepted the invitation to serve as the co-chair. And working with Dr. Cruz has been a real plus for me. So the first tasking for us was to form the steering committee, and quite a bit of work went into asking individuals to be on the steering committee. And just on a personal note we each called people to see if they would be on the steering committee. We came up with close to 60 people and I received various responses. There were people that were skeptical, saying we've done this exercise before, but okay, let's see if this time we can get it right and move from talk to action, move from talk to action all the way to, yes, you don't even have to tell me on it. So some skepticism and some enthusiasm, but as the progress progressed I saw people grow into it because the first thing we learned is change has to happen at a personal level. It has to be very transformational taiaha high level. And the people we got in here invested themselves at a high level which is a catalyst or indication that it's a continuum of what Austin has done in the past, but it's different in that I see people doing the hard work. It's hard work and then it's heart work and I see people doing the heart work. So we went to the table in the first meeting that we held with the steering committee. First of all I'm trying to come up with a time frame to meet, was impossible, but we did a survey and we found a time for it that was convenient to the majority. [1:43:58 PM] I think we had almost 95% participation. I can't think of anyone that missed that first meeting, which is another indication of how people were really engaged and interested in this. We came up with what we considered to be five pillars, they were education, real estate and housing, health, finance, banking and industry. And we also had public safety. And one of the things that happened at that first meeting was we had a judge who is serving on the steering committee point out to us that public safety was really a symptom of a larger problem and it should be the civil and criminal justice so we changed that fifth pillar to be civil and criminal justice. And trying to dismantle what we call in a letter to the mayor twin evils, institutional racism and systemic inequities. The first charge for us was to form the working groups and to identify co-chairs for the working groups and that expanded that 60 people to over 200 people. I'm not sure of the exact number, but we had large working groups. And these were committed and dedicated citizens. Some of them expert in their particular area like a finance expert or an economic development expert. And some that have been in this fight for a very long time and brought a lot of passion to it. And the working groups, when we first got the individual reports, each working group had its personality. The finance, banking and industry report was very numbers driven and was very different from the education report. And Paul and I are in the realm of education so we're very thoughtful people and the education group I think met more than any other group because we like to talk about things for a really long time. And the mayor had given us a hard timeline which I came to appreciate. It was difficult in the beginning, but the hard timeline forced people into action as opposed to -- because they already brought things that they were working on in their [1:45:58 PM] individual respective spheres of influence. And one of the common conversations that I heard people say just in my walks around the city as people this were these working groups is they were finding people doing this other exact same work across the city and they had no idea that that person was in the fight, if you will, or doing those things at the same time. So it was an indication that if we could have some kind of collective impact as a city, like a blue, if you will to come from, we will make much more progress. I have a lot of passion about this. I could go on and on. We are both as co-chairs committed to staying engaged in this with the support of obviously this body and the city. In my own personal opinion citizens have to embrace it because as I said earlier, it has to happen at the individual level. Then you go to the institutional level, then the structural and then the systemic level. And we did -- we had to find a common language when you talk about race and innate biases and the training, if nothing was to happen from this point forward, which I -- knowing Austin as I do in my time here and the individuals that I work with on my campus, the students, the young people that I work with and how they engage in Austin, the training that you have all these people that went through to have the courageous conversations about race, that in itself was progress about city. Just this morning I went to an event that St. David's's had and I saw one of the co-chairs there and she was saying that it has changed the entire way she looks at her organization as the president and she had never really thought as a white female how she can use her leadership to get people to process inequities and process innate biases. So just that alone, just from the courageous conversations that we had. And the second part and I'll stop with this, is when the mayor, Dr. Red dick and I did south by southwest, an individual stood up and said [1:47:59 PM] he was pleased to see the city where someone can talk about race and use hot button topics without shun someone shutting down because we have to force our way through to have the hard conversations and then from the hard conversations we can then in effect see some transformation and some change. And all of the recommendations were included in the report at the mayor's request. So there was -- so every voice was heard and is included in that report. >> Thank you, Dr. Burnet. My name is Paul Cruz. I'm actually a special assistant to Dr. Burnet and I really like that job hanging out with her because she's really smart, very thoughtful. I've learned so many key things from her about the hard work and the heart work and that's really what this is. It's not a checklist, it's not a check the box. If it is we're missing the boat. It isn't. These are true systemic issues that we need to face head on and it's really been a very pleasant in the working relationship with Dr. Burnet to go through this also. We want to face our colleagues, Ashton and kp and alba, who are also part of this working group where we meet every Friday. And continue that conversation. I want to thank the mayor and thank you mayor pro tem and city councilmembers. To be here before you today, to talk about this report, to talk about our best thinking. I do want to thank the mayor for allowing this opportunity. I was really excited when he first brought me into his office. I had no idea what he was going to say. I thought I had done something wrong. I thought oh my gosh, why does the mayor want to me me!!?? But I've learned in school you never give it up until he actually starts talking first. [Laughter]. So I won't fall for that. Tell me what I know. No, I taught. I'm a teacher. But really when he asked me about it, I was of course, of course, this is [1:50:01 PM] important. When I really thought about it again, I said this is not going to be easy. These are tough conversations and they need to be. There's no other way to do this work. It is a hard conversation. If it isn't, then we're probably not doing it right. So with this opportunity I do want to thank mayor Adler for allowing us this opportunity for the discourse and dialogue and sort of put our best thinking forward along with our other colleagues and many different facets of the Austin community. By just bringing the issue to the forefront and calling it out, I think we've made tremendous headway. I see this -- this is headed in the right direction because it's something that we need to do. And it is about learning. I will share with you I probably have more questions now than I did when I actually first started, but that is true learning. Once you get more contextualized learning and learn what you do know or reinforcement you do know and learn what you don't know, that truly is learning because we come up with more questions. And I do think that's important. I found my why in this work from my perspective as a citizen of Austin, as a father, and as a teacher, as a superintendent. I want so make sure we're preparing our students for an equal life chance. When our students leave school, this is not about aid, it's about Austin. When kids live in Austin and then leave the public school system and they walk across that stage, they need to have that equal life chance. We can get them there, but then after that there's going to be higher education, postsecondary studies, employment or both or other opportunities, but they need to be there for them. That door needs to be open. If kids are ready and the door is closed, I think we're missing something. And that's just not acceptable in Austin. I know many of our kids know all the thanks we love about Austin. I'm really proud of that and I really do think in the [1:52:02 PM] Austin area -- again, this is not just about aid. There are many -- many of my colleagues were engaged in this work as well. We know that so many kids know all the Austin things that we love, the restaurants and the -- you know, the music and the outdoors, and that's great. And we do so much good for so many of our kids. And that needs to continue. But we also realize that there are many kids who don't know that Austin. And don't know when we talk about the type of life that many of our kids lead -- sort of lead here in our community. And that's not acceptable. But to do something about it we have to look at it in a systemic way. We don't have all the answers. When we met just a few weeks ago here with all the leads of all the different task forces, we realized we don't have all the right answers. There are a lot of smart people in the room. I will say that. I mean, that was really quite humbling for me to be in the room with individuals who I have tremendous respect for. But we all realize that we don't have all the answers. There is more work to do. We know it's a beginning. We also know this is Austin. We need to include other constituencies in this conversation and in the improvement efforts. Nothing in here I don't think is a slam dunk. I think it's going to take time and it takes thoughtful -- thoughtful comprehensive work to address these issues. I also think it necessitates careful reflection on what's happened in our past. We don't want that to happen again. The good thing is yes, the things that aren't so great, no. But the only way we can do something about it is actually to face it, to look the other way is not the way we're going to make improvements. What we've learned is actually in the cover letter, sort of the entry, sort of the synopsis of what we've learned, and as Dr. Burnet mentioned, all of the different -- while there are different task forces around affordability, about [1:54:03 PM] education, you know, criminal justice, each one is interconnected. If we only looked at one we probably wouldn't accomplished our expectations and wouldn't realize our -- eliminating racism, institutional racism. It really is multidimensional and it truly is systemic. We also learned that it's not a myth. It's real. In these conversations you have to keep it real. We also learned that we need more data. And when we came together and we said what about the data point for this group or that group, well, guess what? It didn't exist. That tells us something. That really told us something. So we know we need to do more. We also realize it's Austin and we love input and we love community engagement. So obviously we need more people at the table as we sort of hash out these recommendations and actually really develop those and make sure we're doing the right things. We also learned that it is really a regional approach. While we know that there are random -- there is randomness of excellence, that is true. I mean, that's why we love Austin. But it's not addressed in a systemic way. So it needs to be much more -- much more of a regional approach even though it's multifaceted in all these task forces, we have to take a much more regional approach to make these types of necessary improvements. We also talk about our commitment. I do think as -- we've talked about that it's not a checklist. This is really something that has to be internalized. It has to be processed. I don't think anyone can say yes, absolutely I see myself in that. I don't know that I saw myself in everything. Some things I did, some things I didn't, but just like Dr. Burnet, I learned from that. But now that I know that, I can't turn away. We have to move forward with this. And as leaders of institutions, we have that opportunity to really look at our own systems, look at our own -- look at our own [1:56:03 PM] designs. I have the opportunity to meet with other superintendents in the Austin area, to reflect on what I've learned and share those experiences with them. We also have very specific, what's the next step about perhaps it will be inequity self assessment which we've done in aid. It's also about training and development, which really challenge our own thinking, challenge our own mindset, perhaps. But it's all about a change and a change approach. Within Austin and I think with our work here we're poised to continue this work by sharing what we've learned, working with the Austin community to improve our actions and solidify our group unity of purpose. All means all. That's important. All doesn't mean some. When all means some, I guess anybody can do that. But this is Austin. All means all. And it is excellence for all. And it is that equal life chance for all of our constituents. So with that, again, mayor Adler, I want to thank you so much for the opportunity. We want to thank our city councilmembers, mayor pro tem for allowing us this opportunity to share with you the collective good thinking from our different leadership throughout the Austin community. >> Mayor Adler: Again, thank you so much. Brian, do you want to give us your thoughts or perspective on this? >> >> I'm technology challenged here. I'm Brian Osten, chief equity officer. I want to thank Dr. Cruz and Dr. Pierce on their leadership and their hard work on the task force. I mean, the amount of input and the different committees that they were able to form in such a short amount of time to really be able to produce the report is really outstanding, tremendous, and I think you all really need to be congratulated for your hard work on that. As the chief equity officer, you know, I had a chance -- an opportunity to kind of review the report at a high level and one of the things [1:58:06 PM] that I wanted to sort of ask council about is to get an idea of your expectations in terms of the process and how we sort of actually integrate some of the recommendations in the report, into some of the actual things that we're doing from the 2015 resolution that was passed, council really expressed a will to develop the equity assessment tool that our departments would utilize. And that was a process to begin to sort of unpack our departments as we look at institutional racism and really sort of identify the opportunities for improvement for us, and then be able to begin to make recommendations on how our departments could actually improve their performance and actually lead to better sort of equitable outcomes as it related to the community. And so one of the -- the things that I've seen in the report is that -- I hadn't had a chance to count them all, but there are roughly over 200 recommendations that are in there. So thinking about what do you think about in terms of the process for those recommendations that actually pertain to the city of Austin, what that process should look like for us, how do we sort of begin to sort of vet out which of those policies align with the proposed six priorities that you're thinking about as a council too, and really sort of looking recommendations that could really drive the highest level of impact for us speaking as the city of Austin, as an institution itself. But really just wanting to get your thoughts in terms of the direction that the equity office was originally heading, which was for us to work with our six core departments to first begin to do this sort of break down and assessment so we could really evaluate our system and institution. And then sort of move on [2:00:09 PM] and then move on to that next step of those potential opportunities we have to sort of move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Thank you for also monitoring this, participating in this effort. All we're doing today is receiving the report so that no one here has really had a chance to really read it, as the community hasn't. I want to also express my appreciation for being able to participate in the process. I wish I had been able to participate more. I know some of the council offices did, did as well. The training that took place that Glen singleton conducted I thought was very meaningful for me I'm not sure I've been to many as great trainings on any subject by I thought it was as good as [indiscernible] -- Given my background in the city [indiscernible] [2:03:18 PM] That conversation -- at a different level, at a different way probably than I've had in the past. For me I thought that that was a real valuable and probably has me also, as you said, Dr. Pierce, looking at that issue differently than I had in the past. This city has done a lot of really good you things and strong things in this area before, and I'm proud of those things. But I'm not sure we have ever really treated this as systemically as -- and is as -- as institutionally as the opportunity that exists. I found myself wanting to point to a lot of things happening around the community and I had someone look at me ask characterize all of them as random acts of equity and I think that was one that was hard to hear, but I was trying to tout -- describe it that way but I also think it was probably very true. In the conversations that you had in this group that took it to a much broader place than anyone -- any one smaller place because it was the meaning across departments, across disciplines that really began to hit with the magnitude of the moment. I appreciate that in this report you have pulled together both majority/minority views altogether because what this represents is just a compendium of thoughts and ideas. Some of us will agree with all of them. Some with none of them. Most of us with some of them but not all of them. And I think that's a really good document to be able to take back to the community. I think it's kind of interesting that this report hasn't even been out yet and already in our morning's discussion about the strategic housing plan, some of the thoughts or suggestions were already workingheir way into the conversation I greatly [2:05:21 PM] appreciate on behalf of the community your willingness to stay engaged in this process because it really is about what happens next. It's really about moving from conversation points to actually actually doing stuff. I know this took a tremendous amount of time. I know the deadline that was imposed gave you and the group virtually no time to get this done and the fact you have handed us something today is near miraculousuous given the deadlines that you had to work with. Again, thank you, and thank you to the colleagues on the council that also helped participate by giving names and participating in some of the trainings and the like and then finally as an aside because they spent so much time, aba, serana and gazika and Ashton, I know the amount of time that this took and time outside of work hours that it took to work on this, to pull this together, and Jeanine Clark in my office as well. So thank you. Mr. Casar >> Casar: I wouldologic to echo everything the mayor -- I can like to echo everything the mayor said. I think the way the report acknowledges in a comprehensive way the damage that institutional is it this racism and oppression and violence hurt our community is really important for it to be in a document that we're receiving. And I do really appreciate how it is -- takes that umbrella approach, even knowing you can't catch everything under an umbrella in just a few months to put something together. I think it's tremendous work, elevates the work of the equity office and want to get with the equity office to answer some of your questions about how we move forward later. One thing I do want to do, because I have had a chance to scan through a decent amount of the report is to provide [2:07:22 PM] sort of just three nuggets of feedback. That's largely because if I thought this was going to be talking and y'all weren't going to be doing action I might not give any feedback, so it's out of respect for the leaders that are involved and the expectation that y'all will be continuing to do work that I want to sort of give you some of my first passing thoughts because I know it matters and you don't have to do anything that I feed back to your recollection it's just to make sure I put it out there and hopefully -- and maybe it has some influence or some impact. So first I really do appreciate and I know it was really intentional on the mayor's part to get many powerful people with clout and experience and resources involved in the task force. I think that that was a critical part of its making and actually something very special about it to get those sorts of folks in the room and into those conversations. I do think that for me, one important part of recognizing that also as a person of power and privilege on the city council, is to make sure that as we do this work we think about not just policy change but how we redistribute that power itself as well. Because I think in many other communities you have a much more vibrate set and better resource set of working people's labor unions and tenants associations and communities of color having sort of stronger levels of political organization and ultimately representation that makes it so that we -- in figuring out how we put our political energy and the power that we have into doing some of that power redistribution in and of itself I think is really important. And something important for us to think about. My second piece of feedback is I actually really appreciated what was in the -- deeply appreciate what was in the housing section of the report. I appreciate actually John's sort of right to stay ideas and right do remain ideas being uplifted there, highlighting the equity offices and actually housing department's fair housing [2:09:23 PM] analysis of codenext being inside of that, I thought that was important and something I thought was great in the report was the way you share particular people's stories and the stories of gentrification I think were very powerful. One worry you have is how oftentimes we tell stories of homeowners being displaced or having their quality of life deteriorated and that's very important, obviously an experience many share and I hear about all the time in my district. Also I worry about erasing the stories of tenants that are displaced through gentrification. Because oftentimes those tenants, when they are displaced, have no equity or no wealth and I regularly have conversations with constituents who if the rate goes up a hundred dollars they don't have anything to sell. They just bounce with nothing. And more often than not, right -- I think it's really important that as we talk about gentrification and displacement we highlight both stories, not saying that one is necessarily more important than the other, but I just find that oftentimes in Austin's narrative about the challenges we face we don't highlight that second story, which is very important -- a very important part of what we do. The third thing I wanted to mention and I'll let other folks hop, in I wanted to make sure not to do one thing but I'm -- which is to talk about things that are not in the report because you have -- you have such limited time and there's no way you could get everything in there, you know, for example, for me it's no secret that thinking about how our immigration system perpetuates racist systems is of particular interest to me but you probably didn't have time to and if you did that you probably wouldn't be able to do something else. I have no feedback generally to what is and isn't in it, except for one thing, which is kind of surprising to me, which is that the -- my understanding of the mayor [2:11:23 PM] launching this initiative is that in part it was in response to the intents related to Brion king and David Joseph in our community so I expected or suspected that more mention of how we can address use of force issues and police shootings in our community would be more -- just more addressed in the report, and so much of the task force takes on -- tackles very different issues head-on and this of course is an issue that's very difficult in our community, it's difficult for law enforcement, it's difficult for all different kinds of community members, and it just seemed that there was maybe one recommendation around the escalation training and then -- and not as much in that area and I guess I would be interested in hearing either today or some other time what those conversations were like since there isn't that much in this report or if there's somewhere elsewhere sort of those conversations should be highlighted and had. Because you had so many, and I knew that you couldn't have them all. But that was sort of one that given where this report came from, I know that it really was a -- was a key part of what I think some community members might be expecting this report is about. But, again, it's with tremendous respect for your efforts that I provide those pieces of feedback and I echo all the mayor's sentiments. I just wanted to sort of give you my first thoughts for whatever they're worth after reading the report quickly over the weekend. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody have any other thoughts? Again, I want to -- >> Because it doesn't really turn on, does it? Yeah. You're right, and I appreciate the feedback. Because I do think there are other things, other issues that need to be addressed, and I do think that's gonna come out in more conversations, community conversations. [2:13:24 PM] Specifically in that particular report. What I will say in the education piece where it was not just about academic performance, certainly that was the core but another part is what happens with our students in schools and the disproportionality of students who are actually suspended. Why is it when one student does something it sort of -- it's a misbehavior but we can deal with it but in other situations it isn't and it's dealt with in a very different way. That's punitive. And that part was in the report and there's actually a really good chart we have in there from one of our research institutions that actually addresses what happens before a student is -- somebody -- a citizen out in the community. I do think that was looked at in a systemic way in the education group because we know that's real. And there is significant disproportionality we need to address across all systems. While that doesn't specifically address the issue I think we're saying that we agree with that and that it has to be addressed in how we actually deal with student behavior while we still have students in school, whether they are 3-year-old, 4-year-old or 17 or 18. >> The only thing I could add, and I really appreciate your comments. I felt that way in education, that there wasn't a lot of emphasis on higher education. [ Laughter ] So I totally appreciate that, and that's -- you know, we went -- we listed recommended next steps from the task force's perspective and from our perspective as co-chairs. And a part of that is a recognition that it's not all-encompassing and that we need more data, aggregated and disaggregated. A part of the conversation to go from public safety to criminal and civil justice was to try and approach that at a very high level and drill it down, which is where the recommendations are. You're spot on that we're not going to -- we didn't get it all, but we got a beginning [2:15:24 PM] and this is a continuum. You know, this is a journey and one step in the journey so I appreciate that feedback. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. And thank you for forming this task force, and I want to thank the co-chairs for their diligence and thoughtfulness as you went through this process. In a city that is very liberal and very prosperous, it's hard to talk about institutional and systemic racism and y'all were able to do it with grace and have -- and be able to listen to some of the concerns that people have expressed. I was glad that you talked about language access because not everyone in Austin speaks English or Spanish. There are many different people -- populations, and they can't access the services of the city or they do a better job with the school district. But there's some things that we can't access because of the lack of language access, and then you also talked about just a little bit about that model majority myth that we have about Asian populations, and so not everyone fits into that and we studio type people to -- stereotype people to assume everyone is in that particular strata. I thought it was a great job. This is something parts of our community have known forever but y'all put it in a document, a document that has, from my brief reading last night between watching the school board meeting and trying to read this, has a lot of things that people have denied for years. And it's right near black and white, and for that I appreciate all the work y'all did. >> Mayor Adler: Before we move from this topic, just by way to both book end it and to indicate a path forward, mayor [2:17:30 PM] Trevino died just a few moments ago oh. >> Mayor Adler: Peace fully at his home. In the community we had someone not only was he so beloved and liked by so many people, he will always be remembered as being one of the loudest voices for creating opportunity for small minority-owned businesses. He really did pressure the city to increase hiring of women and people of color. He led efforts this this city to increase access to health care for the poor and the needy. He pushed relentlessly for more equitable distribution of social services in this city. He promoted better representation of women, people of color on boards and commissions in our city. If there ever was a door closed to people of color, mayor John Trevino junior sought to open that door, and he opened many of those doors. And I think it is real fitting that on the moment that he would pass the city council would be having this discussion at that time because this is the work and the direction of his life. So thank you so much. There will be an item on our agenda this week to have -- ask the city manager to have staff take a look at this report and see what might be of value there, and we look forward, chairs, to having this move forward so that at the end of this process we can look back and say we acted at this time and in this area. And then certainly, Brian, in [2:19:30 PM] terms of how you're setting up your office, I hope there's information here and that you stay engaged or as the council might see fit take a more greater leadership role, whatever happens next is not being determined as we sit here right now, but there's a lot of work for us to do collectively as a community. Anything else? Is your light on? >> Kitchen: Well, I was trying to understand. What you just mentioned in terms of is there a -- is this on the agenda to adopt or what is the -- >> Mayor Adler: There's a resolution for Thursday, item 29, just to receive it. >> Kitchen: That's what I thought. >> Mayor Adler: Then it asks the city manager to take a look at the report to see if there's anything actionable that the manager would recommend we pick up. But this work will continue parallel and there are a lot of recommendations in the report, a lot of next steps and they'll stay engaged in this conversation as well. >> Kitchen: Okay. I want to make sure we had a path for, you know, actually acting on it. So the path is the city manager will look through it and bring some things back to us. Is that -- >> Mayor Adler: I think so. Hi hope is there will be corporations in this city that will also read this report and each of us, I know that certainly I will be reaching out to folks that are not in government about this report and about things that we could be doing in different organizations within the city. This would be a good report for everybody to read, to find things they could be doing in here. But with respect to the city, I know we have the -- with this asking the manager to take a look at it and in the broader scope of -- our chairs have promised that they would be part of the process going forward as well. Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: To your point, councilmember kitchen, I also think it's important and I know that you would agree with me on this, that we not assume [2:21:31 PM] that the city manager will come back with a list of things we pass and then we're done. That every decision we face, every ordinance, every resolution, every action, every task force we form should be operated through an analysis of this report and the ongoing work of the equity office and I think it's really an amazing step forward on how we're gonna address these concerns in the city. I'm very proud of the work that you've done. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Houston: Mayor, one last thing. I just want to second your comments about this is not just about city of Austin government. This is about all of Austin, public, private, including the state of Texas, and funding for things and funding that we don't have for some other things. And so this is much broader than the city. This is a roadmap for a lot of different entities, especially the private sector, so thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: Councilmember Houston's comments make -- have prompted a question for me, and given the level of diligence and the good organization of information that you've put into this, is there an opportunity for this report to be presented in other arenas? Like aid, Houston Tillotson, at UT, at the state legislature? [ Laughter read because it spawns you to think at your own space. >> Pool: Even some organizations like the municipal league and the international city/county manager's association, you know, there's a raft of networks out there that this could be possibly fed through. I don't -- maybe the [2:23:32 PM] conference of marries and so forth and so -- mayors and so forth and so on. I do think that there are larger -- there are universals in here, and I'm glad that councilmember Houston said -- and the mayor said, this isn't just Austin city government. This is not just our municipality, where we set this needs to be looked at and reviewed at all levels. So if there's anything we can do to help foster that, that provision of information, I think that would be great. >> That's a really -- I'm sorry. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead, please. >> I'd say I really appreciate the comments about that this is -- it's more than just the city because -- >> Pool: Not just us. >> Not pure city of Austin, what are you gonna do. It really is not that. I respect that because that is so true. This is really about Austin and just in our -- the membership of the group that also included other superintendents of the surrounding area, I can speak to the education or other outside organizations that are not part of some type of state institution. It also included Richard Rhodes with the Austin community college, also included representatives for the university of Texas. The way we see this one is that lead for that organization, that institution, has to make sure that it actually then is shared with that particular organization. But the other piece and these natural connections like I will be having a meeting with superintendents from the area, is that I will share this report. They already know about it, but now I'm saying this is what we can do. Here are just some initial steps. Understanding we're all gonna be at a different point and acknowledging some of the issues that we're calling out here. So I do think that's gonna be -- that is part of the process, is to share with others as well. Not only our own internal organizations and understanding that these are also very large organizations, but also look -- you know, looking at this across other organizations as well. >> Pool: The institutional piece isn't just the city as an institution, but it is -- >> Correct. >> Pool: -- All other institutions, public and private. >> Mayor Adler: In fact my [2:25:32 PM] understanding was is that people that you had sign up for the steering committee, to serve on the steering committee, at the time they signed up to serve on the steering chi were also agreeing at that point to serve as kind of ambassadors to be able to take it back to different organizations, the training program that I mentioned, that you mentioned in your opening comments, I understand that the university of Texas is now moving forward to bring him back as well as some of the other institutions and entities in the city. Frankly, I'll be recommending to some of the corporate entities in our city that weren't able to attend this, that it would be worth them bringing him into their shop and it looks like he's gonna be here quite a bit any how so that opportunity might very well exist. >> Renteria: Mayor? And I really want to thank y'all for this report. You know, growing up in Austin, which I did, it was a segregated city. You know, we were divided. When we went downtown there were certain places like [indiscernible] Where African-American kids were not allowed to participate or go in. You know, we had -- it was swimming pools were segregated when John Winn park there, where UT is now, the African- American kids weren't allowed to go swimming there. The police really -- was really brutal with us, including the brown and the blacks. And we weren't allowed to be caught at night west of congress avenue. We were really not allowed. When I finished high school and got a job in, I tried to [2:27:33 PM] move -- my wife was anglo so she called this apartment there on sixth street, west sixth street, they said, yeah, we have room, sure, come on down. When they saw me, they said, no, we don't have anymore rooms. So this is the way Austin was, growing up in Austin, that's the way it was, you know. Luckily we had the leadership of Richard my yeah John Trevino, who broke that barrier and gave us hope and opportunity. I'm really proud we've finally gotten to this stage but there's still work that needs to be done but I really want to thank y'all for taking this step because it's gonna give us the power and let our generation know we're not gonna give up until the equity is even where everyone can enjoy, you know, the feeling that they belong here and they have rights as anyone else. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Again, thank you very much. Councilmembers, it is 2:30. As we know on tugses we'll lose the mayor pro tem at 2:45 we have two things left we can talk about, one is some of the meeting management things but as you'll recall we started that conversation and then held it in abatement in part because we needed to pull that up sooner, earlier on our agenda. So my suggestion is that we put that off now and bring it back. But we did talk about suggesting names for the citizen task force on city manager work and I've given some thought myself and have someone that I would nominate [2:29:35 PM] to that extent and I'm ready to share that name. If others of you want to share names at this point. What's y'all's pleasure? Yes. >> My recollection is that the consultant was going to provide some combines on the types of -- genes on guidance on the types of skills that would be useful? Am I remembering that correctly? I haven't gone through and thought of names yet because I thought we'd meet people with this type of experience, people with this type of experience. Was it -- >> He did email us today and I'll have to find the email but I think he said he would be certainly happy to provide guidance if anyone wants to reach out to him. Was that the substance of his email? >> Kitchen: Basically he asked if we needed more information or guidance. >> Flannigan: I didn't know if I missed it, if that type of recommendation had been sent already. Maybe not. Okay. >> Mayor Adler: I don't think so. Yes. >> Pool: I've given a it a lot of thought to an appointee from district 7, and have reached out to -- in some areas in my district and have a terrific person to nominate if we get to that point. I think knowing what I know about how we go about appointing people to different things I think we will come up with a good group without, like, having to even check a box. Because I think most of the people that we'll be looking at probably have an expansive experience and expertise we can bring to the table and I'm a little bit -- at this point would kind of like to move forward on this piece so that whoever we're appointing can then get together with staff and the -- and Mr. Newton so that we can keep moving deliberately toward, you know, [2:31:38 PM] crafting the certainly that they'll be looking for. The one -- so I'm ready to go ahead and offer up -- >> Mayor Adler: Another alternative for us is we have boards and commissions that are set on the agenda on Thursday. We have a relatively short -- >> Pool: And pick names on that? >> Mayor Adler: We could also come back and have the fuller conversation on Thursday. But I would also be happy just -- to share the name I have. Mayor pro tem, I don't know if you're -- I mean, the person I'm gonna nominate is probably gonna be -- will be Laura Huffman, a fortunatelier assistant city manager in the city, now with the nature conservancy who has [indiscernible] Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: And I am gonna very excited to nominate Sandra Kirk, who is a life-long austinite, has been an active community leader here in Austin, really her whole life. She lives in district 9. She served on lots of different city boards and commissions, including the planning commission, but she also participated in a leadership role in the last city manager search so she'll bring also a good body of experience and expertise and passion to the discussion in addition to being really just a stellar person. So I'm really excited that she's willing to serve in this capacity. It's unclear to me whether we can just add them. I guess we can just add them to the boards and commissions. Is it understood that we created -- that we created the task force with our last action? I would suggest if that's the case that's terrific but I hope that we can spend some time really articulating what the role is for this group in just a little bit more thorough fashion here today or another day if we're not bringing forward a separate resolution. >> Mayor Adler: I'd be good with that too and I'd love for that group to be able to sit down, too, and maybe that group also come back to us with their recommendation on [2:33:39 PM] how they would do an outward facing engagement process. Yes. >> Garza: Are you gonna give your person? I think it's important if we could give -- I guess if any of concur people represent a minority group, y'all are two women, I see it, I know who Laura is but I don't know -- I think it's important that the group reflects the diversity of Austin. So if you're going to announce your person could you also indicate if they represent a minority group. >> Pool: I'm happy to do that. The person that I'd like to nominate to represent district 7 lives in district and it's Gary bled S so you, president of the Texas naacp and held that position since 1991. He's an attorney. I think I first met Gary back in the '80s when I was working at what used to be the Texas employment commission and he was doing employment law. He's got his own office, a member of the naacp board and state president and a regent of Texas southern state university. I do have a bio that I'm happy to pass around but I think Gary would be a very strong add to this group. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Mr. Renteria. >> Renteria: I'm also gonna no, ma'am, name era colosal, in my district 3. She's a real active person. I believe most of you also know who she is, but she's right now working with central health and I think she will make an excellent person. She's a nominee for a board member. She has a lot of experience with the city of Austin and she even ran for city council at one time. So that's gonna be my nomination. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes? Councilmember alter. [2:35:39 PM] >> Alter: I would like to nominate Jan layman, founder of layman associates. She represents the strongest shingle executive recruiter in the region. She's served as I director in the community on numerous boards, St. David's foundation, north Austin medical center, KLRU, Salvation Army, Austin community foundation. She does not live in district 10. I don't actually know which district she lives in. I just thought she was the right person for the job. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. We can bring this back up on Thursday when we discuss boards and commission at that time. Yes? >> Pool: Then I'd like to get some clarity if we can over I think we mentioned the role of the group and how -- what they'll be able to do at the -- or what we expect them to do. At the end of our conversation from the dais, when we voted on option one, I mentioned that I really wanted to have -- to create the opportunity for this panel to be able to talk with whomever our finalists are. And at the time Steve newton indicated that we'd find a way to do that, and I think really is us finding a way for to do that so I wanted to bring that back to us because I think the people we're appointing really will want to know what the scope is we're asking of them. There's that tension between confidentiality and the public nature of the information and I think there's -- I think there are possible positive ways to have the panels, including some of our staff talk with the finalists in such a way so everybody kind of knows what the job is like, the panelists. The interviewees are gonna [2:37:39 PM] want to have conversation with the folks here in Austin as well and I do want to see if there's a way we can make that happen that maybe isn't so public that it's at the convention center like a beauty pageant but that does give people and the community opportunity to have some conversation with who the finalists might be. >> Mayor Adler: So my sense was when we talked before is that the issue in front of us was whether or not we were going to open up at the end of the process the name of the finalists to the public generally. And we've decided we wouldn't do that was my understanding of the process. I would add as an aside that that sense we -- since we have done that, it's been brought to my attention that Charlotte is also doing a city manager search at the same time that we're doing one so we'll be in competition with them maybe. But they last hired a city manager in 2013 and at that time the public was invited to meet their three finalists in the process that they're putting on right now, they're taking a different approach. And they are this time just going to have a councilmember and mayor interview the city manager candidates directly. As an aside, I would point out that Norfolk also is doing a city manager search as we're doing one. Hired Robert burg Bergstrom burg who isone of the consultants we had in our final group as I recall. I think he might have been the public entity, said that the names of applicants and finalists will be kept confidential and interviews will be behind closed doors. Burg said this will help Norfolk attract better candidates. Quality people don't want their current employers to know they're looking for new jobs. He said his firm, raffle [2:39:41 PM] Anderson associates also finds city managers in states with strong open records exacts he mentioned Texas were the names of finalists generally have to be released. The third one I found was Tucson, and Tucson has named two finalists for the public. So I just give you that information. >> Pool: If I could just add to that, I think there -- I'm talking a gradation. There's a difference between a wholly open where -- and I use the term beauty pageant, where the finalists are literally on a stage and anybody and everybody can come and see and talk to them. There's also the opportunity for the panels to meet with whoever the finalists are and request the confidentiality. And I think we need to find a way to allow this group of pretty high power people that we're gonna be bringing in to have that access. I'm happy not to decide it now, but this is -- this has continued to linger for me since we had the conversations, and I did mention it from the dais when we did the vote, and I voted for the option one, but I did offer up a caveat that I would like to find a way so that there could be that connection, and I think it should also extend -- >> Mayor Adler: For this group and staff to be able to meet with the applicant? >> Pool: And staff also was a group that I thought was really key because people need to know who they would be working with or for or -- yeah. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in here because I unfortunately will have to take off in a minute. And it was -- I should have said this before we made the last decision and I apologize that I simply misunderstood that we were actually making that determination at the time too, though I did go back to the transcript and in the mayor's summary comments did he address this point. When I started seeing the reports come out that day that we were keeping the entire process confidential, I thought, what? I thought we had made some choices about how we would handle the citizen task force and what their role would be with regard to interviewing and I was comfortable with that but I actually am in [2:41:43 PM] favor of having the final candidates be introduced to the public in a public setting. I sense that that may - - you know, we certainly have heard concerns from our -- I mean, I've gotten email advocating something different, and I think that may be the will of this group and that's fine. If that's -- if we're gonna stay where we landed. I just wanted to put in -- just put in a little advocacy for that model. I think it is useful because we get public feedback about those candidates and we get to see them and the staff get to see them and the public gets to see how they perform in that setting, which is so critical to their success, to a city manager, a successful city manager's tenure and success here at the city of Austin. And I wonder, too,, you know, since that is typically the way our city has handled it, doesn't mean we have to handle it that way again, but I think it may be a public expectation. I'm not sure. But I wonder how if it is -- if we come forward as a council and announce who that candidate is, whether we might not have eased that transition by having that kind of public -- by having that kind of public -- the opportunity for public feedback toward the end, that that might actually be a really useful way to ease that person's transition into this job. So I just offer that perspective. Again, I understand that that -- that there are very different opinions on that and it sounds like maybe it's a trend to move in a very different direction with these kinds of searches for good reasons. >> Mayor Adler: Do you remember, someone asked me this question the other day. When we did the search for Marc Ott, the finalists were announced and the public was involved. What about the two before that? One was Toby and one was Jesus Garza. Someone suggested to me in both of those cases there was not a -- the council just [2:43:44 PM] picked and appointed. >> Pool: I remember sitting in a restaurant and I happened to be at the table over from where Mr. Garza was sitting, although I didn't realize it while we were sitting there eating, I guess someone came and told him, I think this was before cell phones and he had been picked as the city manager and he stood up and people clapped and it was like I didn't even know that was going on. So it was kind of interesting. So it may be that we haven't been as public as we were with the selection of Mr. Ott. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Mayor, if I could give more insight to that question. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, please. >> Julia hays, human resources director, I'm having the process for Jesus confirmed. We do know tobaccoy was appointed so there was no public process. We also at your request looked at the process for Mr. Ott. I know we've had general conversation about that but I wanted to bring you specifics as you frame this conversation. And N 2008, they brought seven candidates in for a day process. The first day they met the seven -- the seven candidates met with each councilmember individually. On the second day, they met with the council as a whole in executive session, and each of those people were responsible for coming with a powerpoint presentation and a q&a period. That evening, they had a private event at the headliners where they brought in department directors to allow them to meet those seven candidates and provide some feedback. One week later, the council took from seven to two and those two candidates came back about 14 days later, ten to 14 days later for a public town hall meeting where those two -- those two candidates then gave what was then an elevator speech of sorts to formally introduce themselves to the community. So I wanted to give you the details of the oa process as you have the conversation. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Garza: Mayor, can I. [2:45:47 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I also thought a different idea of what we decided the other day. I thought the discussion was the initial seven or whatever would be would be private and then we would reassess, you know, what we wanted to do. I'm wondering, I don't know if this is a horrible idea. I'm wondering if when we have those one on ones with the seven that we want to keep private, because that's -- we have definitely decided that or whatever that number is, I'm wondering if at that point we can ask them that question because my experience, you know, when we're picking central health appointees, some of these are all so well-qualified and so close to each other and that may be an area where we can say, you know, kept a, candidate B, for some maybe that will be an important part. If candidate a says you know what? This will be devastating for my career if my employer finds out, I think it's important that we consider all that and we can reassess at that point, you know, depending on when we're making that decision at the end that could be a deciding factor. We could ask each one, you know, how long this affect if you this is made public? And that could, you know, help us in our decision. I don't know. >> Mayor Adler: My sense from what we have been told from the consultant was you need to give people notice up front as to whether or not their names are gonna be disclosed if they're not offered the job so they know whether or not to get engaged in the process. But certainly if we got down to two people and both said I don't care, then we could probably reevaluate it that way if the last two didn't care. But I think we would probably need to honor without prejudice someone saying, no, I entered into a process one way and I'd like you to keep going that way. >> Garza: I thought he had said - - we had several conversations so it's all kind of muddy but I thought the consultant said they let all candidates know that they will do the best of their ability but that every candidate knows [2:47:49 PM] that you cannot control all the, you know -- the different people meeting you and seeing someone at the airport and explaining why you're there. >> Mayor Adler: And I think in that sense he was talking about kind of inadvertent stuff, we'll try our best not to make your name public but obviously we can't be a guarantor of that but that would be different that coming to them at the end and saying now do you want to have a public meeting and holding it against somebody who had said no, wait a second, you said you would do everything to keep me from coming out. >> Garza: I guess I didn't mean to hold it against somebody. I thought maybe that's a -- that could be a factor for one councilmember and, you know, if -- just as an example. If that's really important for councilmember kitchen, then she can base her decision on that. Anyway, we'll do that with everything so. . . >> Mayor Adler: It's a quarter till. Do we pick this back up Thursday? >> Kitchen: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Just a process question. You are posted today to talk about this broadly and you can pick your people on Thursday under the boards and commission piece. But if -- I'm hearing something different from what you talked about last time so I think you really need a resolution so it's clear what it is that you want the tk force to do and then what process you're gonna use because I don't want to put words in the consultant's mouth or to Julia's but I did understand that they wanted to be clear in the beginning about what the process was gonna be for your candidates. >> Mayor Adler: I'll move this to the message board. My understanding is that what we decided last Thursday was we were gonna keep the names confidential at the end to the best of our ability and as I repeated and we were going to tell the candidates that that was going to be our intent as they were recruited. I think that's where we were collectively as a group with the decision that we made. Ms. Garza raises a different question, which is if when we get to the end, if everybody involved is happy to open it up, do we open it up? And [2:49:50 PM] then there's the question that Ms. Pool asked, which is depending on the people that are appointed or otherwise, do we let that group talk to them? I think we decided -- I think that question was also in front of us last week and we decided, no, we were going to just ask this group to do the outward-facing approach. So I think that's the state of where we are. I would suggest that we take a conversation to the message board if people want to revisit that or propose an alternative, and then on Thursday the conversation that we could have would be who is serving on that panel. We'll put it back on with the agenda for us to discuss this next Tuesday as well at work session and we'll probably keep it there every time so we always have the parking place to be able to have that conversation. >> Kitchen: I wanted to determine whether we had the strategic housing plan at a time certain on Thursday? I apologize if I missed that. >> Mayor Adler: We did not set it for time certain. >> Kitchen: It's a public hearing, we're not voting but I thought it would be good for the public to understand. Is it down for 4:00? That means we will do it at 4:00. Generally speaking. >> Mayor Adler: It's set not to come up -- actually, it's -- actually it's 49. I'm just looking for the time. Was it 2:00? >> It's set for 4:00 right now so it wouldn't come up before 4:00. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: Do we have anything else set for time certain? Is anybody requesting any time certain for anything? >> Mayor Adler: Not yet. >> Garza: I was gonna ask just a heads-up I was gonna ask for time certain of 3:00 for 30. I think it could go on consent [2:51:50 PM] but I've heard from stakeholders -- >> Mayor Adler: Which one? >> Garza: 30. They would like the opportunity to speak before council and I would like the opportunity to hear them. Labor peace agreement. >> Kitchen: Got you. >> Did you say a time? >> Garza: 3:00. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. And the other one can't come up earlier than 4:00. With that said I think we've taken care of all our business. It is 2:50, this meeting stands adjourned.