City Council Work Session Transcript – 08/01/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 8/1/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/1/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:06:43 AM] >> Mayor adler:I think we have enough people back to get started here. I want to welcome everybody back. Today, excuse me -- today is August 1, 2017. It is 9:08. We are in the boards and commission room here at the city hall. This is our work session. What we will do -- we're now beginning to get items pulled both on the agenda for that week as well as for the agenda in two weeks because now we have the agenda two weeks ahead of time. What I'm going to do is call up the items that have been pulled on this week's agenda and then we'll go into the briefings and then we'll do the items pulled on next week's agenda. I told the staff, I asked the staff to be here roughly about 10:00 to go through the briefings. If we have a few minutes before we get there we may do next week's pulled items if we have that intervening time. So let's go ahead and get started. Does anybody have anything? >> Alter: I just have a question >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead >> Alter: If we have additional items we have questions on for the August 3 agenda, when would we bring those up? >> Mayor Adler: Say that again >> Alter: So if we have an item that wasn't pulled but we wanted to discuss it for August 3, when is the appropriate time -- >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you tell me now >> Alter: Number 57, please >> Mayor Adler: Five, okay. What does 57 deal with? That's the low-income taxing house credit? Okay. I think that was -- was that -- no. I think that was Casar >> Housing tax credit programs. [9:08:44 AM] >> Mayor Adler: I think that was accessory's and Renteria's. Let's do the ones pulled initially. Let's see if Greg joins us. Ms. Houston, you pulled the first couple items. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Welcome back. I'm sorry that you came back a little horse. >> Mayor Adler: It's just early in the morning for me. >> Houston: Oh, early in the morning, okay. [ Laughter ] Know if -- we've got our legal counsel here. She can answer. I understand about sidewalks, cafe sidewalks, but if I am the fee title owner, I can make a request to have a sidewalk cafe. There's nothing about the people on either side. Do they have -- do they get to weigh in or is this just an individual owner's decision? Because it may have impact on their businesses as well as if a cafe is put in the middle of a sidewalk and there doesn't seem to be anything in here that speaks to that. >> [Indiscernible] Is going to answer your question. >> Good morning. Assistant city attorney. With the fee owner or somebody that leasts all the property, they can have the sidewalk cafe without getting permission of the adjacent property owners under this. >> Houston: So if I'm an adjacent property owner and I have -- and the business begins to dish can't weigh in at the beginning. And the business begins to provide some negative options for my business and then what are my options? >> Yes, councilmember, Robert spillar, director of transportation. Of course this is an annual permit so if an adjacent property owner has concerns they can certainly come to us. [9:10:47 AM] As the department we can make an administrative decision not to extend that permit or provide that permit. As you know, we try to reach out to other folks along the block and certainly hear their concerns. But under the regulations now and in the future, only the property occupier, if you will, in front of an intended sidewalk cafe has that initial choice to do it. So our ears are open for sure. >> Houston: So, Mr. Spillar, you say we reach out to other people on the block but there's nothing in there that indicates that you do that. >> Mm-hmm. >> Houston: And so I'm a small business owner, and the impact of the sidewalk cafe may not be known at that time and so that would be a -- you know, you wouldn't have to reach out to me. But I think it's important for us in the interest of transparency to at least say that we will contact folks not just will listen to them. And I don't know where that is in this ordinance. >> Councilmember, I'll work with our attorney to add some type of notice process in there by which they could contact the director and make their thoughts known. >> Houston: I would appreciate that as a small business owner. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Good point. The next item, item number 51, Ms. Houston, you also pulled this one. >> Houston: Coming too fast, mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Sorry. [ Laughter ] Coming at you fast and furious. >> Houston: Fast and furious. Okay. I understand that this is an attempt to start using the mobility bonds in a way so people can begin to see what good work we're going to be doing. But I think that when the mobility bonds passed that many people thought that the idea would be to start working so that the congestion would be alleviated and that the traffic would be smoother. [9:12:55 AM] And I don't want to delay this, but I am concerned about two things. One is when will we start seeing any activity on our corridors and our arterial -- artillery -- that word, yeah. [ Laughter ] And then the other part of that is embedded in all of this is things that perhaps communities might need to be consulted about, and I don't see anything about how you make the decisions about where the great streets, frank where -- for example, where are they going to be implemented, in which districts. Some streets are ready for great streets other people are not rad. There is a lot of things embedded that have unintended consequences in areas of the city that may be different and how will that be handled? >> So, councilmember, again, Robert spillar, director of transportation. As you know, the 2016 mobility bond had a number of measures, and one was for street design local mobility type issues as opposed to the corridors. The corridors are currently under review in terms of prioritizing individual projects. Mr. Goode might want to talk to that. We move to destruction or at least the design and construction, that will be a parallel process on the major corridors. With regards to the local mobility, many of those projects have already started. In fact, you may be aware we celebrated the first sidewalk construction, happened to be in south Austin. So we're trying to front load projects that we can right now throughout the city so that residents see some of their early monies going into direct construction. This contract augments staff and allows us to keep up with the anticipated pace of design and outlay of projects as we go forward. [9:14:59 AM] That ranges from safety and vision zero type projects to sidewalk projects to alternative mobility, like bicycle and other things, trails and so forth. So it gives us the design capacity to get that done. I think one of the questions I've heard asked is doesn't the city have this expertise in house? And, yes, we have some of the alleged experts I think in the country in terms of design of local mobility, but we don't see that capacity out in the consulting community. And so I don't know that we have the capacity to keep up with the bond. We certainly have the expertise, but not the capacity. And so by reaching out nationally and bringing in what we've identified as an outstanding local mobility design firm we hope to bring another firm to town that would have that capability and could continue even after the bond to expand that. You mentioned the great streets project. You know, the great streets is a policy council set related to downtown. Certainly some of the other street designs that are in the corridors look like great streets, but they're not specifically related to the great street program downtown. We continue to reach out through council offices and we'll continue to reach out as project opportunities are identified under that. We certainly have a list of local mobility projects depending on what flavor, if it's sidewalks or bicycle lanes or street reconstruction planning that were identified through the bond process. But as new opportunities that fit within the bond come up, you know, we work with council districts to make sure that the words are getting out. >> Houston: So my emphasis is that I would hope that y'all would work with the council district offices before you start making those decisions, not after the decisions have been made and we're just notified. >> Right. >> Houston: And then the other thing is that I just mentioned safe routes -- I mean, great streets program as an example. [9:17:04 AM] >> Right. >> Houston: Stuff that's embedded in here. We couldn't find any of these people in Texas? All of them seem to be outside of the state. We don't have any that -- >> We put out a national request. Certainly there were some local companies that submitted, and I think [indiscernible] Can answer that but they didn't rise to the top. And so the opportunity to bring in new expertise from outside the state really was an opportunity that floated to the top. It wasn't one of our original goals. But when we look here in Austin, I would tell you atd staff is the primary staff doing innovative sidewalks, innovative trails, innovative bicycle designs and street designs as opposed to more of the traditional auto centric design. So I think by bringing in a firm, I think we'll increase that awareness within the community of different options, the community of consultants and bring real power to this region. >> Houston: Okay. Other people have their lights on. I'll -- >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen and then Ms. Alter. >> Kitchen: Okay. I have a follow-up question. My understanding was that the only projects that were approved to go forward at this point were those early-out projects, the first-year projects. And that you guys would be copying back to us -- coming back to us with a list of projects and the order in which they would be proposed for future years before they were expended. This goes to councilmember Houston's question, so that we have the opportunity to provide input on the next round of projects. Is that still the plan? >> I'll go ahead and try to answer that for you. So what we're putting together is the local mobility plan to bring to you. That's sort of the next tranche. This is still the first tranche. >> Casar: Right, I thought so. [9:19:05 AM] >> This item on your agenda Thursday is to help us start designing that early out. >> Kitchen: Right. >> You're on path, you're correct. So we're putting together a local mobility plan, which is a coordinated effort on all those buckets, bikeways, sidewalks, the trails, all the things that are the components of the local mobility, we're bringing that to you as soon as we have all that coordinated for the next one. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> This is just to help us get there. You'll see that. I think we're talking january/februaryish is when we bring that next tranche of here's the way it looks the next years and the years after that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> We are on track. >> So this also builds the capacity of your continued effort. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> As councilmember Houston said that's how we'll be working with each council office. For example, the sidewalks you've got all kinds of missing sidewalks in your district, what are your priorities? So we can work with you to coordinate. It's a huge coordination effort and I'm really proud of staff for doing that but we need your input on the front end so we can coordinate those projects that are high priority in your district. So that should be occurring here in the next few months, work on that plan. >> Kitchen: So the local mobility plan you'll be working with each of us individually. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: But that plan will come to the full council for discussion before we start approving those projects? >> The next tranche. >> Kitchen: Yeah, I'm not talking about the early out, I'm sorry. The early out is in play, it's happening. I'm talking about the next tranche. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. Then the corridor planning I thought that was coming to us in October or so. >> I can speak to that, Mike -- as you recall, withthe contract with the voters, council gave us several priorities to use in the short listing of projects based on the funding we have. We'll bring an overview of the model we'll be using and also talk about some of the next steps to get to bringing a recommended corridor construction program back to council around even if/march of next year. [9:21:09 AM] We're working through a viable construction program to bring back to council. >> Kitchen: Okay. I think I heard you. So the corridor construction plan requires several steps, and the next step for us to see is your proposed approach to the prioritization criteria that we put in the bond that was passed. >> That's right. >> Kitchen: Okay. That's October or so? >> Yeah, about October. >> Kitchen: Then after that you'll bring back us to the actual list of projects in the priority order that's being proposed? >> That's right. >> Kitchen: Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Just note real fast, just a second, councilmember Houston, a couple things I've seen that I think are just really encouraging and really affirm the delivering on the task that was herculean for y'all to do. The first is that I had the chance to walk one of the sidewalks with the mayor pro tem and with councilmember Casar, one of the first in, and at that point it was discussed there would be 30 miles of sidewalks planted before the end of the calendar year and I think that's a phenomenal number. There should be sidewalks in everybody's district. Make sure you let the councilmembers know when those sidewalks are going in so then be there to help celebrate those. The second is the reporting. We had told folks we would have kind arrive dashboard so they could see where we are with respect to spending and then performance with respect to the projects and then the early look at those that you gave to council in one of the updates also looked just phenomenal. In terms of letting us as councilmembers, as well as the community, be able to monitor in realtime how these things are progressing, and we had promised both those to the community and it's great to see them happening. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: One last question. As we begin to roll this out, it seems as though more people are now wanting to put more items into the plan. [9:23:13 AM] So more trails, more bikeways, and so they're working their way through various boards and commissions. How long we handle those as we're doing this early kind of rollout? Is that clear? I mean there's an online petition now to get a new -- yeah, but that was a late addition to what we had talked about initially. So how will those things be handled as they work their way through the commissions? >> Yes, I'll do an initial significant then rob and we have Richard Mendoza here as well that can talk to the programs. Each of the programs has its own ongoing program. Obviously we did the year one implementation plan which we brought back to council and are implementing right now. These programs continue to have public engagement and receive input, continue to work with council offices as well both in the implementation of the existing plan but then also the development of next year's plan. So I think all of that is feedback and inputs that helping to develop kind of the next tranche of projects that's going forward. >> Councilmember, where the -- I mentioned earlier that the 2016 mobility bond had different bond measures. Some of those have a little bit more flexibility allowed in terms of where the individual projects we might invest in, for instance, perhaps in the past you've heard about bucket financing. There's some flexibility in the local mobility, different buckets, that allow for identification of like projects in assignment of an assigned monies. That process is an organic process. It comes from the community. It comes from our professionals finding opportunities to coinvest with other agencies. We'll be bringing a concept forward here for -- and hear local agreement with txdot to make a major bike location across the lake that could offer real benefits that fit sort of in that mold of here's something we didn't think was possible but now might be possible. [9:25:24 AM] So that will come from staff. But we are receptive to comments from the community through the boards and commissions. We were made aware of new projects. We evaluate those for how they perform against other projects. >> Houston: So the thing that I'm concerned about, Mr. Spillar and everybody, is that I have 46 square miles of geography and historically we've only focused on the central city of my district. There are things that need to be done out in the far northern part of the district that may not meet with whatever your engineering professional opinion is, but the people out north need those services and need that connectivity. And I don't need to have folks just focusing on what they can see and ignore the parts of my district that you don't see. So that's why I'm really concerned about how we weigh what we've already discussed with the new things that are coming up the pipeline because there are things that need to happen out Howard lane and DEST Soll road that we don't necessarily need to do right downtown because we're pretty connected, there are transportation options people can get to where they need and out there they don't have anything. I'm cautioning us not to give people a false sense of hope about being able to spread this money so far so quickly and ignore the places that don't have anything. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: One other follow-up question. I'm trying to think about when we'll have this discussion. So, you know, at one of our mobility committee meetings, we talked about the sidewalk issue. It was brought to our attention by Ada P and the disability community that the interpretation was made the mobility bond could only be used for new sidewalks as opposed to repair of sidewalks that essentially can't be use zero by the disabled community. At that time we had a discussion about how we would bring back a discussion of that interpretation. [9:27:32 AM] In my mind that means this local mobility plan when it comes back to us, that issue of interpreting how those mobility bonds can be spent will be discussed at that time. That up in my head but I want to make sure that we have a placeholder that we're going to talk about that interpretation because the bond language that people voted for talked about sidewalks. Didn't talk necessarily about new sidewalks versus repair of sidewalks, and our community that depends on sidewalks to get around in wheelchairs we need to listen to them and think about what that means in terms of where we spend. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: Am I correct in thinking that when this local mobility plan comes back to us in january/february or whenever to talk about the next tranche of projects that we can have that discussion? Or do we need to have that discussion prior to that? >> Yes and yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> In the preparation of that plan, we need to work with each office. As I mentioned earlier. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> As those issues rise to the table we'll prepare alternatives for the plan as we move forward. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So that is the venue. But we don't want to come with a plan that's already cashed in concrete, pardon the pun, and y'all want to make changes. We want to work with you before we get to that point to some alternatives. Mr. Mendoza is already putting together a plan on not only -- we use other funds for the repair as well. He's got funds in his operating budget and then we're planning for asking for funds in the 2018 bond program. So we'll package that all together and then we'll -- y'all can give us alternatives on how to move forward. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I think that the council will need to weigh in. Because the mobility bond is money that we've approved. 2018 we haven't approved yet and there's a lot of competing interests for that so I just want to make sure that we all understand as a council that the interpretation of that bond money is not limited or at least not in my mind to new sidewalks, and then in some circumstances it may be appropriate for repair. [9:29:35 AM] >> That would be the venue to have that discussion, you bet. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? Okay. Thank you all very much. While we're -- this week's agenda, I guess the next item we have pulled here is item 56. This is the renaming issue. >> Yes. So the family for the hancocks is planning to attend so I'm asking for a time certain at 11:00 A.M. In the morning after consent agenda is finished, we can recognize the former councilmember and move forward on the renaming. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds good. We'll go ahead and do that. Ms. Alter you had pulled item 57. You want to talk about that one. >> Alter: Yes, thank you. First of all, I wanted to say that I'm very supportive conceptually of this. I just wanted to ask for some clarification on how this plays out and how this interacts with the strategic housing blueprint. The first several be it resolved clauses, they seem a little bit separate from the full portfolio of the strategic housing blueprint, but as you move down in the resolution it seems to overlap a lot with things that we've already included in the strategic housing blueprint, and I wanted to first of all hear from councilmember Casar how you were thinking about this with respect to the strategic housing blueprint, a to try to understand if there are strategies that we favor if we need to be now putting forward special resolutions to move those forward or, also, you know, in the case of trying to encourage development in high opportunity areas, one of the strategies that is very important for making that happen in my district would be the acquisition of state-owned land. And I'm just trying to understand what kind of direction we're actually giving staff because we had a whole blueprint that had a bucket of strategies, so if you could speak to that I'd appreciate it. [9:31:46 AM] >> Sure. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: While I think it's really important work for us to put together, plans and task forces on lots of pieces of work, I think from my perspective, right, we could decide any protocols as a group, from my perspective it's important for us to continue addressing the constant housing issues that we hear about in the community and one that I've been hearing about in my own district and actually has been regularly discussed on council is how so many of our for% tax credit projects are in lower opportunity areas and at least two of those, as of late, have been in my district or nearby and I've supported them and worked on them to try to make sure the best projects possible. We have another one up on this council agenda that has drawn its share of criticism, and so I think that it's really important for us to bring for percent tax credits online because it's an important tool but also to start recognizing that there are potentially things that we need to do or that we can do if other agencies won't do them to bring those projects into -- to have those projects economically -- or disbursed across the city and to serve as a tool of economic integration. I think the 9% tax credit projects because of the recent changes that the state made to how those projects are scored, we are seeing this year a lot more of those in higher opportunity areas being awarded. I know that's also on our agenda this week so that's exciting and important. As far as those 4% tax credit projects go we're seeing them largely in some far flung edges of district 1, district 4, the etj, et cetera. While projects are needed, oftentimes in those areas as well, I think there's more we need to do. So that's all to sort of say what the intent of the resolution is more directly to your question of the strategic housing blueprint, my preference is for us to continue to be able to keep on chugging along on a variety of housing initiatives because we know that it's a crisis and we need to be addressing that. [9:33:58 AM] But if there are ways that those initiatives can make sure that they're not being overly duplicative or are ultimately cutting out another initiative of course we need to be thinking broadly, but I guess to -- maybe to answer your question I see this as not -- this is something that has been an issue at council long before the housing blueprint, has been affecting people long before that, and at this point it was sort of just about time for us to start talking about with our housing department and with people that are trying to do these 4% tax credit projects not just in lower opportunity areas. I don't know if that gets to the core of your question. >> Alter: I think it provides further background on the impetus for this particular resolution but we've been having discussions about the budget and as whether we want to have individual resolutions or the concept menu and we haven't really come to resolution with that but it seems like a similar process is now unfolding with respect to the strategic housing blueprint, and there -- and I'm still confused as to whether, you know, if I care about X I now have to -- it was in the strategic housing blueprint, they're spook coming back with an implementation plan which covers all of these things and yet we're coming them additional direction, other parts of this resolution that don't fall within that, and then there's parts of it that do seem to really fall into that. And I don't know -- I don't know if we were able to get anyone from housing down here or not. We pulled this late. But, you know, we may ask some questions of housing then in the q&a to get their perspective on how this fits so that we can move forward with a coherent process and a clear understanding of moving forward. The other thing that I've been trying to understand is how do we define high opportunity, moderate opportunity and gentrifying areas? Because I'm trying to understand which part of the city we're excluding in this process. [9:36:02 AM] And I just would appreciate some clarity on that. >> Casar: So on how we define opportunity area, I think in the housing blueprint we're talking about the opportunity mapping they do of the city. So I think they've -- I'm sure staff can float up that but I think the map may have even been in the blueprint but we have to make sure that's regularly updated. As far as exclusions of areas, I tried to be really explicit and worked with cosponsors to ensure this is not talking about saying that there are areas that -- that this is not about blocking off areas from affordable housing but rather trying to make sure that we increase the overall number of tax credit projects inside of the city while also increasing the dispersion overall and getting them more into moderate and high opportunity areas because our 4 percent tax credit projects largely have not been in those areas since we've been on council. Like really regular, like every few months that we've got these projects up on the council agenda, and so I would be hesitant to -- I'm not saying -- implying that this is what you are suggesting that we do but I just want to state that I would be hesitant to hold -- to hold up and hold back some things because the -- because our staff is trying to put together a really comprehensive look on housing issues, because we are consistently having to deal with these 4 percent tax credit projects and we may be missing opportunities to getmore more of those projects into areas of opportunity. >> Alter: So can you help me understand, though, what is excluded? If we have high opportunity, moderate opportunity, and gentrifying areas. >> Casar: Low opportunity, there's low and very low opportunity areas in the maps. This is not a resolution directing that we give absolutely no funding or support to projects in low opportunity areas because indeed I voted for a couple of projects that are in parts of my district or adjacent to my district that are categorized as low opportunity, but had there been potentially more city funding at stake or more city incentives or support with certain programs, maybe those affordable housing builders would have had the opportunity to go further south in my district where it's cat raised as a moderate or high opportunity area if that makes sense. [9:38:38 AM] Instead of being at -- if they could have been down in Windsor park by Mueller, again, I was supportive of it being at Cameron and rundberg but if there was something to bring it more central to more services and even higher quality school, I wouldn't want to miss that opportunity. My understanding from working with our staff and talking to advocates is that there are things that the state could be doing and that the city could be doing to make that more of a reality but we're not running the state. And so we have to do what it is that we can. >> Alter: How are you defining gentrifying areas? I don't remember that being something we had clearly defined in the strategic housing blueprint. >> Casar: I'll leave that one up to our housing staff to give you exactly the metrics that they've used in the past but we have dedicated money when we were doing the homestead preservation district money, as well as the funding from the formerly city-owned land that we dedicated a certain amount of money to gentrifying areas and a certain amount of money to moderate to higher opportunity areas. So I think our city staff has a map of areas that they believe are gentrifying or at risk of gentrification. Part of the reason for investing there is that in order to comply fully with the letter and spirit of the fair housing act we need to be investing, you know, not -- overconcentrating low-income housing but if that means that we don't invest in areas that we think will become expensive it's essentially us building a sort of safeguard where we don't want to not be investing in certain low-income areas because they're low- income now if we know they're not going to be low-income most likely in five or ten years and there's so many opportunity in those gentrifying areas because land prices are lower and we know eventually it will be a very high opportunity area and we'd be foreclosing an opportunity. So I think it's obviously complicated but to some extent but to another extent we generally know where those areas are, where all the permits are being pulled, places are being remodeled and folks are being pushed out on the closest and edges of the eastern crescent. [9:40:51 AM] >> Alter: Thank you weapon -- I appreciate the clarifications. We may have more questions. I want to clarify I'm very supportive of using -- the idea of using these in a more strategic way to get housing where it's going to evolve to be for the better of the city and there are clearly opportunities with these tax credits for us to do more than just approve them. But I do think there are larger procedural questions here that are worth pausing and reflecting. >> Casar: I appreciate that, and thanks for asking the questions. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Kitchen -- hold on a second. Ms. Pool. >> Pool: Thanks. Little out of practice about the red light. I wanted to say, Matt Dugan, who is one of our planning staffers, sent a link and a document to me and my staff that talked about a gentrification committee whose work was done in the early 2000s and it was based on some studies that had been done prior to that. So I've been meaning to get that link up on the message board to attach it to the gentrification and displacement academic study and mapping that I'm going to be proposing in a couple of weeks. It's got a definition of how you can see the gentrification is occurring, and they have, like, two or three or four specific things that have occurred that would then define that. And the one that stands highest in my mind is that people with greater means are buying up the properties of people of lesser means. There's some other things that go along with it, but I'll make sure to get that link up for everybody so we can be working with a definition that was used previously and also so that you can see the results of this study. [9:42:53 AM] I think councilmember Renteria remembers it too. I think he was on the community development corporation and appointed some people to that task force back in the early 2000s so there's historical work that's out there that can provide us a foundation I think for some of the questions that we have now and then also continue to -- we stay within the framework of how we've defined it over time. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: Councilmember Casar, I think this is a friendly amendment that I'll bring forward and would like to have your take on this. And, again, I share the concerns that councilmember alter in terms of aligning this with the process that we have in place for the blueprint. So I see your first be it resolved as an effort to make sure that we get information back when we're considering these types of tax credit applications. So you'd be thinking in terms of -- and you've already got language in here about how the proposed development is consistent with the fair housing act and aligns with city analyses. I would just propose to add language about aligning with the city's analysis of impediments fair housing action plan, the strategic housing blueprint, or assessment of fair housing as applicable. All that does is gives us more information. So the second be it further resolved, you're requesting the staff to explore certain programs and incentives, which I think is great, but I would suggest that they provide recommendations back as part of the blueprint implementation plan. And the reason I suggest that is the time frame you have of November 30 is about the same time that the implementation plan -- for the blueprint is supposed to come back to us. I'm not remembering exactly when that implementation blueprint is coming back to us but it's around the same what you're talking about is in the blueprint so it would make sense to me to have them bring those recommendations back as part of that blueprint. [9:45:02 AM] And then the last one, further resolved -- your last be it further removed about additional protections for tenants, I would -- I have to go back and look but I would think that that's part of the blueprint also. And so maybe this is providing some additional direction to staff to make sure that the implementation plan they bring back with regard to the blueprint addresses this specific item. So you can think about it but you'd be curious of what your initial take is on that with those kind of amendments. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: I can't speak for my cosponsors but it seems to me your amendment in the first be it further resolved to add the blueprints to the list makes sense to me. You know, these -- the compliance with the fair housing act, the stuff already on the list kind of drills deeper than the blueprint and the blueprint is a higher up look. But it seems to me that adding it to the list makes some sense. If you would post any suggested language you have to the message board that would be great. But otherwise we could try to put something together. Then your second question, I would want a chance to touch base with the staff but if it's all coming at the same time then it maybe less -- maybe less confusing or cumbersome. Then again if staff has recommendations they already have and would like to deliver that to us beforehand because they already have ideas that could help us with projects that may be upcoming I'm not sure I'd want to preclude them from that but that may be theoretical until we have staff here to ask them that question. So if I -- if you could post your question up, your language up, we can bounce it over to staff and hopefully have that all figured out friendly for Thursday's consent agenda. Thank you, all. As a final comment here, I think this resolution really has been challenging in some ways because it speaks to I think a challenge we all face on the housing front, where there's such a dyer need for -- dire need for units and the number of units and the fact that units are cheaper to acquire in certain parts of the town at the same time we have this legal and moral responsibility to integration and fair housing act and oftentimes this is pitted as we have to choose one or the other when ultimately we need both. [9:47:18 AM] We have to be able to provide folks what is in our ordinances their inalienable right to housing while at the same time complying with the fairs housing act. It's really hard to do both, and I think that that's why this work is -- can be so challenging. So as we move this resolution forward, it really is about bringing back ideas, and I don't think there's going to be easy answers. And so I think this is going to have to be a team effort for us to figure out how we do both because some -- there is a good question as to, like, well if you have 300 or 400 units in a giant block at -- in the etj, you know, we're going to get more than if you have a smaller number of higher quality units in a higher opportunity area and neither one of those is objectively better but we have to figure out some way of dealing with this question. And I just appreciate everyone's thoughtfulness on it because I don't have an answer to this one and I don't think our staff does either. So thank you, all. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Troxclair. >> Troxclair: So I think that you answered my first question, which was so you're asking the staff to identify -- I understand the goal. You're asking them to identify potential programs and incentives, not necessarily -- we don't necessarily know what they are yet. >> Casar: That's right. >> Troxclair: Okay. And does this -- would this include, if the staff thought it was something useful, looking -- I've been told in conversations with low-income housing developer who works a lot in the city, she mentioned that a lot of other cities have, like, kind of matrix evaluations for I think particularly the 4% programs where you're taking into account, you know, transportation amenities, all of those kinds of things. And the impression that I got from her was that that really kind of helps the best developments and the best developers rise to the top rather than kind of desperate for units that anything goes. [9:49:32 AM] Is that -- and I don't know whether or not that that's a strategy to use but I'm interested in learning more about it so would that kind of thing be contemplated in this resolution. >> Casar: Yeah. My hope is to have the whole menu of potential options available. Because as I said, I don't know which ones the answers are. And I've heard sort of throughout the last couple of years, while we can do this, we can do that, instead of drafting a resolution directing our staff to do this one thing that will fix it, you know, I think we just try to set the goals and parameters of we want and clearly need more affordable units, income-restricted everywhere in the city but with some of these projects we're just getting them in one particular part. What ways can we -- can we address both issues at once? What might be some of those options? So I anticipate that, yes, measuring the amenities and figuring out which ones comply better with the -- affirmatively furthering fair housing, most likely I would anticipate our staff would bring us objective scoring matrixes and things like that as one potential option but I'm trying to not to preprick date that but my reading would not exclude that and you've heard those sorts of ideas so I imagine our staff would be informed about those. >> Troxclair: Okay. Would you be opposed to me trying to come up with some language that talks about kind of looking at what other cities have done in regards to that? >> Casar: Yeah. Yeah. Put it up on the message board and that would be really helpful. >> Troxclair: Okay. Thanks. >> Casar: I think scanning other cities' practice is hopefully what our staff is considering doing and, therefore, I would I don't think would be anything to explicitly put on the resolution but I would want all the cosponsors to be able to look at it. Thank you. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Councilmember Casar, I certainly agree with that, but I have -- and I have not read that particular resolution 57, I think it is, item 57. [9:51:36 AM] So I need help understanding the process. By the time the request for tax credits gets us to they've already chosen their site, so is there -- in your resolution is there some information about how the city did get ahead of that process so by the time that the application gets to us for either yes or down vote, then all of that negotiation has happened? >> Casar: I'm going to pretend the mayor called on me. [ Laughter ] Yes, councilmember. I think that the first be it resolved is trying to get to that before the site is picked part of the process by trying to set up programs and incentives to get people to pick different sites than the ones they're picking. Then there's also a be it resolved that addresses the beginning of the process -- so I got that flipped. I think the second one addresses that. The first be it resolved addresses ones they've already picked the site and does a fair housing analysis of what they've chosen. And then once they've picked it, grading that against other potential sites. >> Houston: Thank you. >> Casar: And I appreciate -- I know that you have been someone who has brought up this issue consistently to the council and would really -- once this resolution comes back and they come back with the options I'd be really interesting in everyone's thoughts but yours in particular because so many have been in your district, in your area. >> Mayor Adler: All right. I think that's good. Let's go to the briefings. Is staff here to take us through the aquatic master plan? Let's go ahead and do that. We had a question, Ms. Troxclair, you pulled on this issue. [9:53:38 AM] So probably be appropriate to have that after -- as part of this briefing, at the end of the briefing. >> Troxclair: Yeah, I didn't realize at the time we were going to have a briefing. I thought it was something we should have an opportunity to air questions and concerns on before next week. >> Mayor Adler: I note that the mayor pro tem has put a notice on the message board saying she's not going to be here next week and is asking that we postpone it and not discuss it while she is not here. And that she hopes to bring a resolution to have a little bit greater community task force take a look at it as was recommended by the parks board, I think. We can talk about that later. >> Good morning. Good morning, Kimberly Mcnealy, acting director for the parks and requisition department. With me today I have Jody Jay, division manager for aquatics and nature-based programming and ray Hernandez, who is the project manager for the master plan. So today we'd like to give you an overview of the master plan. And answer any questions that you might have regarding the work that we've completed. Just a quick brief overview for some of you, in 2012, we started, embarked upon a very comprehensive process based on a resolution that was received, a three phase process that included aquatics assessment, and that was a mechanical and structural and physical assessment of our pools. We did a very extensive community engagement in phase two, which was called swim 512 and then phase three is now the master plan process. All three of those items combined gave us this lesson. The community is very passionate about their swimming pools. There's no doubt that individuals adore their swimming pools. Also, we learned that our pools are not operationally fiscally or environmental sustainable. [9:55:42 AM] And unless there's substantial financial investment in the general fund and a financial investment in the capital funding, we are at a point where we cannot continue to run this operation as we have been, and so we're at a very critical decision point, and I'm hoping that this particular plan will tell you a little bit about how we came to that conclusion and some ideas as to how we can rectify the situation. So you're seen this slide before I believe in a previous -- I just want to do a very quick review of this. Fiscally, our existing pools, in order to fix them at the very, very base minimum amount it's about 48.6 and will we ran a quick calculation again this morning and it's actually 52.5 million, that means we would repair all pools as they currently are without improving any of the amenities. If they don't have restrooms they wouldn't receive restrooms. If they're not Ada compliant, meaning that we don't have the right kinds of drinking fountains and those sorts of things, this particular estimate did not take that into account. So we're talking about no improvements to amenities. We are currently losing 350,000 gallons of water per day, at least that was our last estimate with our last leak detection. That means approximately one point -- I'm sorry, 10.5 million gallons a month, equivalent to 1800 households, approximately. And to give you a monetary number with that, that costs approximately in waste and water, just a very quick correlation, approximately $198,000 in water use and then approximately 244,000 in wastewater costs. We average an overage of $400,000 in our budget, which means that we are allocated a certain amount for maintenance and every year we go $400,000 over. [9:57:49 AM] And if you add it up, the water and the wastewater that we're not able to fix right now because of the lack of funding, but if you added those up in that 35,000 gallons of water it's equal to approximately $400,000. Currently, our age of our pools is an average of 50 years old and the useful life of swimming pools is between 25 and 30 years. We have 29 pools that are over their useful life or in the middle of their useful life. With regards to Ada compliance and health codes, we have difficulty maintaining our chairlifts for individuals because they're not climate controlled, and so at any given time we might have a chair lift that is not working to its appropriate capacity, which means if we don't have zero deaf entry it's difficult for an individual with disabilities to be able to get into our swimming pools. We currently have -- while most of our -- all of our swimming pools are equipped with Ada accessibility, getting from the parking lot to the swimming pool is difficult because we're missing some ada-compliant walkways in parking lots that allow folks to get to that space. And also it's approximately a seven to $9 million investment just to fix those issues in order for individuals to be able to get to our swimming pools. A lot of our water fountains are not at the appropriate height and a lot of our soap dispensers in the restrooms or even our restroom stalls are not Ada compliant. Our summer hours, it may be interesting for you to know that within our summer hours our staff is working seven days a week and about an average of 60 hours a week in the summer to be able to keep up with all of the things. We spend about $10,000 in overtime just in the three months for our mechanics. Please know that our pools are lacking some amenities for our lifeguards, which means that they don't have a space to get cool. [9:59:55 AM] While we might have a space for people to use the restroom we don't have an appropriate space for individuals to cool down. They might have to actually exit the facility to go sit under a tree to be within shade. We lack refrigeration, we lack air conditioning, we don't have a place for individuals to store their valuables in many of our pool facilities. I wanted to also point out that in 2014 there were seven pools that were considered critical pools, and I think you've heard this before. That meant that they were predicted to fail within the next five years. And of those seven pools, four of them have either failed or had some major things that had to happen to them in order to keep them open. One of one of them being givens pool, because extensive repairs that had to be done couldn't be done in the summer season. We know that del valle was closed, it was scheduled for rebuilds. It would have been over $250,000 for us to get it up and running for this summer, and we know that northwest had some significant investment, and it is actually in the -- we're actually noticing that it's having some pump issues. So regardless of that significant investment, there's going to have to be additional investment in that pool that was named. I also need you to know that Mabel Davis was found to be losing 217 though,000 gallons of water, and again, that repair was so extensive for this summer, requiring engineering, that we weren't able to get it open for the summer, and it's going to require a significant investment for next year. And the reason why that is important is because, as we had discussed earlier, we only had approximately $450,000 in capital investments for next year, which means we're going to have difficulty making sure that we get all of our pools up and running next year, because we won't have enough money to do so. [10:01:55 AM] I want to give you a little bit of analogy because when we talk pumps and chlorinators and all of that, it may not be something that you're very familiar with, but all of us have cars and we know that a car requires some regular maintenance, oil changes, brakes, tires, the battery needs to be changed, and usually that's less than 2,000 miles. When you get to 150,000 miles, there's a few more things that have to be done to your car. But when it gets to be about 2,000 -- 200,000, greater than 200,000 miles, we start to see significant things happening, sometimes it's about your engine, sometimes your transmission. When we're taking a look at your blue book value, you have to make the decision, do I invest this repair, because is it going to -- as the repair more than the car is actually worth? Will it give me a significant amount more time for my car to keep running? And you have to go through that decision-making process. And that's the exact sort of decision-making process that we're faced with when we talk about our swimming pools, except that the pool -- the department has 29 of these. 29 swimming pools that are over their useful life, right, that are probably, when you take a look, we'll have to be looking at their blue book value. The repair sometimes costs more than the pool itself is worth. And not only are we having those engine problems and those sort of things, but our pools are rusting out, which means that the actual structure of the pool, the pool shell is actually having structural issues, where we're seeing cracks and -- and separation of the pool walls. So if we ten down the path we're on right now, we're talking about 50 years of the same story. We will be coming to you every year and telling you a very similar story about the situation. 50 years plus. And so right now, just to give you a bit of understanding, since 2006 and the 2012 bond, we've been able to invest approximately $23 million into our swimming pool system, and that was -- that's over an 11-year period so it's approximately $2 million a year, a little over $2 million a year. [10:04:03 AM] And we've had very significant -- not a very significant change in the story that we've been telling you. We still have swimming pools that are having significant repair issues. The aquatics master plan recommends a capital investment which is significantly more -- somewhere between eight and ten million dollars a year, which equals approximately a minimum of $40 million, if a bond package is five years in length, $40 million per bond package. And if that's the case, then that would mean that take us about 20 years with one scenario, 20 to 25 years to fix our entire system and make it more sustainable at $40 million per bond package, approximately. I also -- when we talk about a significant investment, one of the things that we need is part of our general -- our general fund investment, is we need to have what I'm calling a working capital, for lack of a better term. We need to have the money to invest in not just the preventative maintenance or everyday maintenance of the -- of the oil changes, per se, but also we have to replace pumps at a certain time and chemical feeders and the technology that goes along with chemical feeders. And we have to sometimes replace motors. And those are very specific time -- you can estimate, every five years you need to replace a motor or every so many years you need to replace a chemical feeder. What's happened, over time, we've deferred that maintenance and gotten to the point where we are right now. So that estimate, in order to keep that regular maintenance opportunity happening, is about a one to $1.4 million investment into our general fund. So, the master plan has been put together , and it has been put together to provide us some recommendations and also some decision making tools, because I don't think the story I just told you makes anybody two excited. [10:06:03 AM] It's a little bit greasing but we have some ideas of how we can make it through. First of all, the recommendation, there's a recommendation in this master plan to improve the existing system, exactly the way that it is, meeting very specific criteria that we receive through community input to categorize pools or classify pools in a certain way, and then provide them with the upgrades that are in he is to make sure that if we call a neighborhood pool a neighborhood pool, they will look the same throughout the entire system. If we call them a community pool, it will look the same throughout the system. And that particular cost is $136 million. And that is to take a look at all the swimming pools, exactly where they are in place, and completing the upgrade so that they are Ada compliant, they have the newest technology, they become more sustainable. The one thing that's important to note about that recommendation is it doesn't provide for equity. Right now the distribution of our pools throughout our system is not equitable. There are more pools in certain areas, which makes it more difficult for some individuals to access swimming pools than it does others. The second recommendation is to create a more equitable service area distribution, and in some cases, we're expanding pools, in some cases we're consolidating pools, and in some cases, we're decommissioning pools, and that's a $96 million price tag. There's a recommendation for making sure we provide for the service gap, which means we've identified areas that are underserved and that probably need a swimming pool in order for them to make our system as equitable as possible. And to build those five new pools that are estimated right now is approximately $44 million. So the total investment is somewhere between 140 million or $180 million, depending upon the choices that we make. In absence of being able to make that significant of an investment, there are some decision-making tools that help us decide how to determine whether a swimming pool that is failing or showing significant need of repair, whether it's wise for us to make that investment, if it's past its blue book value, or whether or not we should consider a different choice. And so we're going to talk a little bit about those decision-making tools. [10:08:27 AM] I needed to let you know that in this process, there was a community engagement that included 13,000 participants. We had a technical advisory group, community stakeholders and partners, it was made up of eight individuals that have a specific knowledge about swimming pool operations or the environments. We had a council district appointed representative group, which consisted of individuals that were -- that represented each of the districts, and there were 9 to 11 individuals that would come to that particular -- or would come on a regular basis. Then we have an aquatics advisory board, which is a community-based board that has been historically advising this department for a long time, and it's made up of seven individuals that participated. And altogether, those 13,000 people came up with an idea that we needed to have classifications for pools. If we're going to create an equitable system, we need to make sure if we call a neighborhood policy, it has similar amendments. We call pools different kinds of names but don't necessarily have similar amenities. Some are bigger, some are smaller. So they put together classifications for these pools, a regional aquatic center and year-round facility. In chapter 5 of the markers you'll see these are defined. Basically a neighborhood pool is a 20-minute walk, a five- minute drive. It's between 3 and 5,000 cosecants it has zero depth entry, which is like a beach entry, which is another way in which we can provide access for individuals with disabilities. And then it has activity space. When we say activity space, I don't want anyone to think that that means that there's some large apparatus that has a lot of squirting guns associated with it. That can be simple things like shade structures, that are over the pool with gentle bubblers, so people can bring their toddlers to that space. [10:10:38 AM] When we say activity pool, there's a lot of different amenities that could go in that space. I don't want people's minds to immediately go to slides and large apparatus. Just for -- in comparison or contrast, when you talk about a regional pool, a regional pool is more of a 15-minute drive. Regional pools we would like to be in spaces that are along transportation corridors that people could take public transportation or ride their bike to, and that they would be between 7,000 and 12,000 square feet. They would also have six to eight lap rains. Lap lanes. They would have more interactive features. If you're familiar with Bartholomew pool or had an opportunity to visit my park my pool, that is a pool that would be close to being a regional facility. It was hard to see in the dark, but there are slides in the back, if you want -- at 10 o'clock, you probably didn't even realize there were slides there. So as we talked about, in absence of being able to have that substantial amount of money that is needed, the aquatics master plan provides us this decision-making tool. And this is really outlined in chapter 6 of the master plan. And, basically, what this tool says is that there's a baseline cost that each pool should cost us to run that pool annually. And if a repair requires us to spend between, for example, zero and 15% more than what the base cost to run that pool is, then this particular chart at the very top tells you, wow, that's a good investment; that makes sense, as long as all the other factors about this pool tell us that we can maintain it at a sustainable level, then we should go ahead and make that repair and move on. By contrast, if you go down to the very last -- the last item on this page, it will talk about a pool repair costing more than 50% of what it would -- what the base cost of running that piles. And at that particular point in time, that means that we would have to consider how much time or how many years are we going to get if we make that large investment into that swimming pool. [10:12:45 AM] And are we going to be able to keep it sustainable, or will we have to put more money into it year after year, because of other problems that we know that are on the horizon with regards to that pool. And if we came to the point where maybe that's not a wise investment, we've had a tool that we've obviously used that is not arbitrary, it has some very specific points, and we could go on to a different decision- making tool to help us determine the long-term health of that particular -- that particular facility. And that is where we wanted to talk about the site suitability. And this is the part of the master plan that all of you have received multiple phone calls about, and so we'd like to spend a little time explaining that. The site suitability is a methodology for us to determine whether or not -- when a pool is in a major -- having a major issue, what is the most appropriate way for us to proceed. It's also a methodology for us to take a look at future site developments and professional -- I mean potential opportunities for expansion or consolidation, and it's a guide regarding the future decision. The tool itself is a snapshot in time, and I'm going to explain that a little bit as we move along. But it's a snapshot in time. In five years, the snapshot could be completely different than what we're showing you today. This tool was based upon suitability ranking categories, and what happened was, as we talked to all of those 13,000 folks and said, what's most important about -- when we're making a decision, what are things we need to take into consideration, what's the most important things to take into consideration when we're making a choice about a swimming pool repair or a swimming pool that might have a long-term closure? And they said demographics. And when we talk about demographics, we're talking about everything from the population statistics, how far it is for people to walk to that particular space, paying very close attention to the senior population and to the youth population. [10:14:53 AM] We're looking at social needs and conditions, like household income, individuals around that space that may be living in poverty and may have less access or opportunity to be mobile. We're talking -- looking at how many single parent family households, unemployment, the crime rate, the population density. We're also taking a look at what's the predicted amount of growth in the population. And that was the most important thing. And when we go all the way down there, you can see that there was 14 elements in demographics. And each of those elements, those each were weighted to have a certain significance. So some individuals -- for example, they decide -- the group decided that it was more important to take the -- I think that's social index, the social part, the social conditions should be more important than perhaps the pool attendance. So they're each weighted. They're all important, but some are weighted a little bit more in that -- in that particular criteria. And then as you can see, even the criterias themselves are weighted differently. And ray is actually the individual -- I can see some puzzles on your face and he's the individual that's going to be able to explain it a little bit further because he's our mathematician. Well, pseudomathematician. When you take a look at the site suitability ranking, we took these demographics, were the most important thing. Operations were the least important thing. Operations was least important and had the least number of criteria in it because that's what our community said was not as important to them when we're making decisions about swimming pools, and the was, if you were to fix a swimming pool, that's the operations would become more efficient and that would become less of a concern to everybody. Environmental was a little bit lower down. There's 11 elements in the environmental criteria, but it's a little bit lower on the list, based upon what the community engagement said. [10:16:55 AM] And so we came up with the suitability ranking, and this is a snapshot in time. And this is very much outlined in chapter 7. And this is a particular matrix for today. If any conditions around a particular pool changed, for example, a bus stop was -- was implemented or was installed, or a new school was put in around that area, or the population increased or decreased, that would change the ranking of any given pool. So next year, if there's some given improvements to an area, we would have to rerun this particular -- we can replicate this by running it through our criteria, and we can replicate the process, but probably have a different outcome as to whether -- what's suitable or what's not suitable. And so if a given pool were to have some problems, we could decide whether we should be considering an immediate repair of that pool, whether we should be considering if it's around other pools, should we be consolidating that particular pool with something else, and then building something that could provide for a larger service area. So it's just a snapshot in time. This tool is used in partnership with the previous tool. There are some double numbers on there, and that just means that when we did the site suitability, when we ran the numbers, those particular pools ended up being tied with one another, and so we gave them the same score. And I want to stress that we are looking at this particular tool as a tool that we need to use in absence of that large significant amount of money that we talked about, that large investment that we said that we needed, because if we don't have the large investment and we know we only have, for example, next year, $450,000 to invest, and we want to create -- or invest in the repairs, and we want to create an equitable system, it may make more sense for us to maybe have a long-term closure of one pool based upon the site suitability, and invest whatever money we have in another pool, based upon the fact that this tells us that particular areas of the city are more suitable or in more of a need of that particular amenity than other areas of the city, if that make sense. [10:19:23 AM] If one that we're showing you is specifically for neighborhood pools. One thing that I want to point out in here is that we did run colony park, which is a swimming pool that does not exist today, and there has been feedback that that should probably not be in here and we'll be removing it from this. But when we ran it, our thought process was that without even some -- without even colony park being open, without it actually having some operational, it scored fairly high in this category, meaning that it gives us even more of a reason why we rated it number one for the future pools that need to be -- need to be built. But we're going to probably remove this based upon the feedback that we've received. This is the site suitability or the ranking for community pools. So that means that some swimming pools do not have the adequate space or the environmental conditions by which they can be expanded, so of the pools that could be expanded in a given service area, these would be the ones that we would want to consider for community pools, and we would want to consider for expansion. So if you take a look on the first page, you would see that dick Nichols rated pretty high as a neighborhood pool, but it also rates very high as a community pool. So if we needed to make a decision about dick Nichols, it would be one that we said we need to keep around the service area requires a swimming pool in that area, but we also have the opportunity to expand if we were given appropriate funding to do so. And this talks about regional pools, same issue, or same process. All of these can be replicated, it's just a snapshot in time. We also have recommendation in the master plan that talks about pools that will need to be built to provide for the service gaps, and right now, based upon the information that we've received, we've used -- analyzed population growth estimates, we've taken a look at current mapping of of -- mapping of pool access, and when we talk about pool access, you'll notice green or blue dots that represent city pools, you'll notice pink dots that represent public swimming pools or public spaces, public pools that are part of hoas so they're not open to the entire public, but if you live in that hoa, you would have access to those swimming pools. [10:21:45 AM] And you notice that more on the western side of the map, there's a lot more hoas that provide access to individuals, and on the eastern side of the map, there's fewer hoas that provide access. And so that map was one of the things -- or the mapping of access is something that we took into consideration. We also took into consideration the mapping of social needs and conditions and we specifically took a look at where seniors are living and also where youth under 14 are living. We took a look -- the reason why we came up with the colony park or the northwest area, the colony district park area as our number one is because they have a master plan that talks about a swimming pool. We also have a park that's in the middle of development, and we know that there is space for a swimming pool. We know that the population growth out there is expected to expand with some future new developments that are on the horizon, and so it is the reason why we chose it as the number one selection of new pools to fill the gap, when we -- if that were to be something that the council could be supportive of in the future, when we were going to build another pool, we would obviously try to replicate this map by running all the data again, and the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 may move around, they may go in a different order. We may find the populations have shifted, too, so we would have to move our circles maybe a little north, south, east, west, but we would be able to replicate this in the future to find out what does the future look like so we can make an appropriate decision. I know that some folks might be looking at this map and saying, well, it doesn't appear as though you're filling all the gaps here because I can see a lot of pools concentrated in one area, and I can see some pools that are more spread out, and if we were to make the decision to create a system that was more equitable at the $96 million -- at the $96 million price tag, then some of those pools would be consolidated, and while the service areas would remain, there would be an equitable service area. You would see less green dots concentrated in a single area, which would then provide us with additional opportunity to create the equitable system. [10:24:09 AM] So just in summary, the system wide -- there's a citywide system that's described in chapter 5 and 6, and the master plan recommends what that system should look like. It recommends the facility types and locations. There is an individual pool site recommendation in the index of E and -- I'm sorry, the appendix E and the appendix F. It's very detailed. It will tell you every feature and the cost of each of those features for the swimmings. 2348, it includes the types and time frames for those improvements and provides the estimates I've already told you about. This master plan considers an indoor facility concept to provide year-round training and swim instructions, and there are a couple of areas that are recommended for us to consider that, and that's in chapter 2 and chapter 4. It also provides us with a development of decision-making tools that we went over extensively, and those are in chapter 6 and 7. And it also talks about the maintenance, operation, and programming recommendations that are in chapter 2. And one of those recommendations with regards to maintenance is about us becoming more technological advanced. One of the things that we talked about is how our maintenance mechanics are working overtime and how we have to work approximately 60 hours a week in the summertime, but if we had the ability to have technology where individuals could, at the touch of their computer, be able to manipulate the chemicals or manipulate the system, we wouldn't -- it wouldn't require individuals to have that much drive time. They wouldn't have to be behind the windshield so much, and so that's one of the recommendations that you'll see in chapter 2. And so we are available to answer all of your questions. >> Mayor Adler: First, I think I misspoke earlier. Mayor pro tem is going to be here. She couldn't be here today. Her posting said that she was going to post for the meeting on the 17th, the motion to move off. [10:26:12 AM] Second, I want to -- the event at Bartholomew pool that you had this weekend was just wonderful and beautiful. Councilmember Renteria did a phenomenal dive. The judges gave him a 10. [Laughter] That video is posted and available for anyone that wants to see that quite impressive. Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Well, I think you explained it, but because, you know, we're receiving questions about it, I just want to make sure I'm clear. So I'm looking at the site sustainability ranking summary of neighborhood pools, and as you might imagine, the pools in the red are causing some consternation to people not only because they're in the red, but -- you know. So I just wanted to make sure we understand what red means. And I particularly have questions about big Stacey and deep Eddie. The related question is, I know all the numbers are here, but I can't tell which of the criteria were the factors, in the case of those two pools, that put them at the bottom. In other words -- so maybe someone who's more familiar with the numbers can say, okay, with big Stacey, it's really because of this factor, this factor, and this factor that they ended up in that ranking. So -- >> Sure. Ray Hernandez, with the city of Austin parks & rec department. To answer the question about what the colors mean, red, green, and yellow -- >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> The title of the table is site suitability ranking. So what this is actually telling us is whether or not a particular facility is capable of being expanded upon. So red indicates that the feasibility of expanding that facility is very low. The green would mean that it's high. And the yellow would mean that it's potential to do so, but there might be some difficulties. [10:28:13 AM] In relationship to big Stacey, I would have to go through the actual ranking process that we went through to provide you that answer because I don't have that at the moment. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well, if you could, for both deep Eddie and big Stacey, if you could just send me a memo, I'm sure others might want to have that, too, to help us understand, what is it, you know, what is it about these two pools, considering these criteria that puts them at the bottom? But let me ask a question about the red. You mean capability of being expanded, not maintained. So this doesn't tell me - - this doesn't tell me anything about whether these pools should be repaired the same as where they are right now, if they have a problem? >> No. This table is specifically communicating the ability of those facilities to be expanded upon. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Alter: I would like to add, however, that if you have pools that -- obviously -- >> Kitchen: Well, the concern, of course, is that these -- I'm sure others could say the same thing about other pools in the red, but, you know, deep Eddie is an icon in the city. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: So to have it listed as a red leads people to believe that means we think it doesn't need to be maintained. So if that's not the intent of this ranking, then we need to make that clear. >> Alter: I would also say to you at the deep Eddie, if I could add to that, deep Eddie is on a well system. We're currently -- we had a blowout of our wells this we could. We weren't able to open all of deep Eddie this weekend because the wells were not pumping appropriately. We've had problems or situations in which the water that's coming out of the well is not appropriate for folks to swim in we've had -- last year we struggled on a daily basis with getting the swimming pool open and being able to appoint for the hours of operation based upon those well operations, and at some point in time, I don't know that those wells will be capable of continuing to supply the water that we have. [10:30:27 AM] And so when we talk about the site suitability, I think it's also important for us to think about the reality of, what are going to be the costs associated, and I don't just mean the fiscal costs, but the environmental costs associated with maintaining a swimming pool like that over and over, of draining a well or something of that nature. And so while we're talking very specifically about expansion, I also think that some of these are talking a little bit about or indicating to us that the operations of those pools are not as efficient or effective or maybe not as environmentally friendly as they can -- as they should be. So while we're talking then about site suitability for expansion, we also need to take a look at -- to your point, if you're looking at the actual criteria, what's going on with them environmentally, what's going on with them infrastructure, and we also know deep Eddie has a major crack in the wall, which we've had to engineer and keep it. At some point in time, that engineering is going to have to be redone again, and we're going to have to make a decision about, is that investment worth it. And to your point, this council may say, this is an and I iconic swimming pool, we need to put all our resources into deep Eddie, but that will be at the expense of something else. What can we do with other pools that we could afford to fix? There's going to be a certain financial capacity criticisms yes. The question from a process standpoint for the public is, when is that decision being made? Because I think that part of the concern that I'm hearing is that if we adopt this plan, we've already decided that this pool is in the red and is one that we're not going to fix and -- you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we need some clarity for the public will what we are deciding with regard to this plan. So that's one thing. And then I understand what you're saying about -- you know, about deep Eddie. [10:32:28 AM] What about big Stacey? Is there anything that you would say about that one? >> Well, big Stacey is a unique facility in the way that it operates year-round. It's a heated pool. It's heated from a hot spring that's underground. The way that that is done is very unique, and we have to work very closely with the health department, very closely with watershed protection, because it basically turns into a flow-through pool in the winter, which means we're filling it up with water on a constant basis, we're adding chemicals to it, and then you have to dispose of that water every minute of every day. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> In an environmentally friendly way. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> And that becomes increasingly difficult every single year. So the reality is, at some point, considerations need to be made on how that facility is operated during the winter because there are concerns environmentally on how to dispose of that water on a daily basis. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well then last, I would just say that the mayor pro tem has indicated that she may bring a proposal that acts on what the park's board recommended. I think that's what she's saying. I haven't seen it. If so, I just want to let people know that I'll be supporting that. >> And I do, to your point, councilmember, we need to -- I think that's great feedback about providing some better clarity, and we absolutely can do that because the public deserves that. >> Kitchen: Yes. And I'm thinking that these kinds of decisions perhaps should be -- should be vetted more now -- I mean, you've done a great job. I really -- this is no criticism of the process that you've gone through, and that's the feedback that I'm getting, is that you guys have done a great job. It's just the broader discussion maybe should happen now, which I think is what the parks board was perhaps saying, as opposed to adopting a plan and then later having those discussions around the pools. [10:34:35 AM] So ... >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this? Mr. Casar.mr. Renteria, then Ms. Garza. >> Renteria: What I would like to know is that I know y'all are -- y'all charge nor neighborhood pools, but you charge an entrance fee for community pools? >> Currently we don't charge for neighborhood pools but we charge for what we call municipal pools, and municipal pools include all of our year-round pools that we only charge during the season, which are big Stacey -- no, I'm sorry. I'm going to let Jody answer that. >> We charge at our municipal pools, Barton springs, northwest, garrison, Mabel Davis, of course, when it's operational, spring wood, Bartholomew, just our municipal pools, our larger facilities with more amenities. >> Renteria: I would like, if you could give me a report on how much each pool generates, revenue. >> Total revenue is about 1.2 million a year. That includes Barton springs. But I don't get a break down for each facility. >> Renteria: Do you invest that money back into the pool itself? >> No, that goes to general fund. >> Renteria: General fund. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I guess my -- oh, I have two questions. My overall one is, why are we in this position? Is every city -- is this unique to Austin? I would assume that this is some infrastructure issue that every city is facing, and how are they dealing with it? Is it a maintenance issue? Was it, you know, directives from council? It just seems like a very strange position to be in. >> I will start and then allow my team to add to it. I would say that we are not unique. Deferred maintenance, back when we sessions came about, deferred maintenance has been something that multiple cities have gone through. [10:36:41 AM] I would say that Austin is unique in that it has more pools per capita than the majority of cities that are our size, than all of the cities that are our size. And I would say to you that in other cities, what they have selected to do is either to close their pool or to privatize it in some way with sponsorships, advertisements, naming rights or those sort of things. So most of the cities that I'm aware of have done a consolidation or a closure of their swimming pools, but I'll allow Jody to add to that. >> Yes. Specifically, I can think of specifically Dallas recently did a master plan and they did something similar where they consolidated pools. But per capita, Dallas had a much smaller aquatic system. We're one of the largest aquatics division in the nation. In, the Houston is the only city that has more facilities than us. So it -- we're in a unique situation in the fact that we have so many. Most cities don't have this many. >> Garza: Okay. Then a specific question, the amount that you showed that has the, you know, possible future ranked, I think our staff is great I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but oftentimes when I ask about del valle, the response I get from staff is, that's not in the city. And it is in the city. I don't know their address is del valle, Texas, but they are Austin residents. And so, you know, there's the area that says 15 minutes from pool, and I'm just curious how that was -- is that with no traffic? Because -- it's like we should do miles more than 15 to 10. But -- >> Well, that's good feedback, and we can -- >> Garza: Yeah. Distance probably would be better. But if you see, you know, very clearly, del valle is not -- and parts of del valle that are Austin, city of Austin, are specifically out 15 minutes away, they often get forgotten because they're on the other side of the airport. [10:38:51 AM] That is one of the main things I ask for, we have no rec center, we have no pool, we have no city facilities up here. Was any criteria, you know, used to rank them? >> The criterias that was used throughout this process rated all of the areas within the city limits. We also at one point thought of expanding it into the jurisdictional area. >> Garza: Okay. It is the city limits. >> Okay. >> Garza: Del valle is the city limits, just to be clear. >> Okay. So govalle did go through this process. >> Garza: Del valle. >> I'm sorry. Del valle did go through this process. >> Garza: Okay. Is it because there's not enough rooftops, so to speak out there? Because that's the response we get. >> The largest criteria we looked at was demographics, and that information came to us through a variety of sources, and primarily it came to us through the city demographer. And included in that information was the potential for that area to increase in population, which, of course, would mean increasing households and so on, population, children, and senior citizens, and that area didn't rate as high as the other area, especially northeast Austin. >> Garza: So where -- is that information we can look at? Because that's interesting, because much of the families out there are young families, because that's the only place they can afford to live. >> Yeah. That information is part of the appendix B. >> Garza: Okay. >> -- That's in the report. >> Garza: Okay. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. >> Pool: So why isn't it asking for more than $450,000 in this year's budget in. >> $450,000 is part -- $450,000 is what is left over in our capital budget. So it's left over from the 2012 bond, allocated specifically to swimming pools. And so as I think the entire council knows, or at least I thought that you knew, that we were not -- it was not viable for us to bring forward any unmet needs during this budget process. [10:41:01 AM] And so that -- because that was not included in our budget process, it was not something that we've asked for. Is that -- we did receive, however, through conversations with our budget office, because of the number of pool attendants that are required, we did receive a $350,000 proposed increase to our general fund budget to pay for those attendants. So I don't want to give the impression that our city management is not sensitive to our situation. They absolutely are. But that $450,000 that I was referencing is specifically capital dollars that are left over from 2012. We tried to spend them incrementally, and because the bond program has been -- will be happening in 2018, we have a $450,000 left in that -- >> Pool: From the 2012 bonds. >> From 2012. >> Pool: Okay. I'm jumping around a little bit, page 2 on the slides, is that leaks only or also drain and refill that's done daily on our pools? >> It's leaks only. We do not have any drain and fill pools left in our system. >> Pool: Is Ramsey not a drain and refill? >> No, ma'am. >> Pool: Okay. When did that one change? >> Probably in the '80s. >> I would say that the only exception to that is the deep Eddie situation, it's well water that's filled up, but then it is -- goes into the creek. >> Yeah. The last of our fill and drain pools were converted to splash pads between 2010 and 2012. >> Pool: Okay. All right. Because I remember being told that Ramsey was a drain and refill. >> Years ago. Yes. >> Pool: Okay. So slide 12, there's a pool called spring woods. I understand that's up in Round Rock. Just so we can have an appreciation of how it is that the city -- [10:43:02 AM] >> It's in Round Rock ISD, but the city of Austin. In my district. Yeah. >> Pool: That's not where I was going with this. I would like to get some understanding of the agreement that the city of Austin made with Round Rock when we acquired that pool. >> So springwood came from the annexation of springwood municipal district. >> Pool: Uh-huh. >> So that -- I'm not -- the year we did that was in the last ten years, where we annexed the facility, and then the operation of that facility became our responsibility. >> Pool: Right. >> There were several years in a row that we were not budgeted for the maintenance and operation of that facility, so we attempted to contract that facility out, but in recent years, we've been able to fund it and operate it to the public. >> Pool: Okay. >> There is another pool in that community, which is canyon vista, which you might be referring to, and the fact that we lease that facility from Round Rock ISD. It is not owned by the city of Austin. >> Pool: So as I was learning about all the different pools, and this is not any kind of a disparagement all for where they're located, I'm just trying to get my arms around where do we have them and what are our operating agreements. And I think that would be really helpful for all of us. So if you could get us some information on those two pools, that would be really helpful. You can send that to us. >> Yeah. So just for clarification, the city of Austin operates all pools, and they're all owned by the city of Austin, with the exception of canyon vista, which is owned by Round Rock. So we can absolutely send you a copy of that agreement. But that will be the only one that's the exception to -- >> Pool: Okay. >> -- As owner/operator. >> Pool: But there would be some details when we did the annexation and acquired springwood, was there any discussion, when we did that negotiation, about receiving some operations or maintenance money? [10:45:13 AM] >> We can send you -- we can send you the details of that, absolutely. >> Pool: That would be great. So the rankings just generally, I'm looking on 12 and 13 and 14, and Ms. Mcneeley, you said that the rankings would change -- they'd be recalculated from year to year, so what happens if a ranking that's hit the bottom -- there's some change to it, and like the demographics changes or something, and there's a lot of attendants and all of a sudden everybody is flocking to particular pool, based on the assessment that's in here, which I should say I don't -- I do not endorse it and I'm not sure at this point that I'm willing to adopt this report or to accept it, and I think that's kind of the process that we need to be engaged in between now and when it does come to us on council, what happens if conditions change for pools that are ranked at the bottom? And how quickly would that safety net be deployed in order to save a pool under this regime? >> So that's a great question. One of the things that we didn't have the opportunity to do most recently was to look at Shipe and govalle as part of this process. And when we did go through the process for Shipe and govalle, those two pools actually didn't rank as high. And so the expenditure of those funds probably would have been better used at other pool locations. What's going to happen, if things do change, and when we redo these numbers, is that it gives us a better idea of what's happening in that neighborhood in terms of the demographics, and in terms of the accessibility to that particular facility. So if those numbers for example shift up higher, what that tells us is that the pool facility at that particular location is actually an equitable facility, so we probably should maintain it. [10:47:15 AM] If the numbers go down, then we have to go through the process of examining that particular facility to determine what should happen to it. And the possibility then may be to decommission it. >> I would add to that that once Shipe and govalle are renovated, they're going to have much higher scores with regards to operations. Some of those scores with regards to infrastructure are going to increase because they'll have a brand new facility, and so their ranking or their rating will increase. And so that's why we were saying that at any given point in time, we can replicate this to take a look at what does our system look like, where are our newest pools, how are they operating, are they serving the community, and then are there demographic changes that we will take into consideration which will make one pool, if there's a -- if folks -- a whole bunch of people move into an area, it may mean that another pool becomes more us to take a look at because there's more individuals living in that space and because demographics is one of the most important criteria to the community. >> Pool: And the demographics ranking, you said that was also where a pool is located? It depends how many people then come who those people are, but then you have site location as two separate criteria. Is there any crossover on those? >> So when we talk about site, we're talking about the actual space, the site that it's on, so how many parking spaces does it have, does it have any constraints with regards to the grades or the slopes of the area, does it have any designated historical features, does it have any health or safety issues like Ada access issues. When we're talking about demographics, we're talking about attendance, growth of the population, the actual social determinants of the individuals who are living in that given area, like poverty, crime rates, education, those sort of things. So that when we talk about site, we talk about the actual space, the actual physical space. [10:49:17 AM] When we talk about demographics, we talk about the people who live in and around that space. >> Pool: So it sounds like the -- when you were talking about site, there was a bias toward expanding the facility, which is why you would go into topography and parking spaces and that sort of thing. Why would there be a buys in the ranking toward making the parks larger? That is also the definition of sustainability, which I would recommend we find a better word, because sustainability isn't, I don't think, generally accepted to mean it's suitable, it's sustainable because we're going to make it bigger. Yeah. Anyway, it looks to me like there is a bias toward growing the pools, and I don't think that question has actually been asked of the. >> So as an example for Shipe, which we just recently completed the design and we're in the site permitting process, if you were to look at the site conditions for Shipe, the -- there's a designated historical feature at that location, which works against that being -- that particular site being expanded because there's a historical feature that we wouldn't be able to touch or move. The other thing to consider is the site area in terms of acreage. >> Pool: Well, let me just question you. >> Sure. >> Pool: Because I understand that historic features at the pools was also considered a negative, and I don't understand that at all. >> It's considered a negative because if you want to expand a particular facility. >> Pool: Okay. So there is a bias toward growing these pools and expanding them when that question hasn't actually even been asked of our community. We are having trouble even maintaining them as they stand, but we're talking about making them bigger. >> So I don't know that there's a bias, but I would say that there's a criteria that our community told us that they believe is appropriate, when we are -- when we are categorizing neighborhood pools, I believe that our community told us that they would like to see neighborhood pools be exactly -- not exactly the same, but be very similar across -- across the entire city, which would mean that a neighborhood pool would have very specific features or would have specific square footage so that a neighborhood pool in one neighborhood is equitable to a neighborhood pool in another neighborhood. [10:51:39 AM] They're very similar in size. They're similar in what they have to offer the community. And so if you have a particular site that constrains the ability to create that space at the -- in the category that our community told us was important to them, then that does become a bit of a negative because we can't make that pool look like all the other neighborhood pools. >> Pool: Well, we will be talking about that, the mayor pro tem wants to put together a task force of citizens to dig into that before we come back to accept the report, and who knows if we will accept the report, but I think a follow-on question to that would be, if having your pool look exactly like the pool five miles away means closing it down or maybe not even having it, then would you still be voting to have your pool look exactly the same as the pool on the other side of town? >> So I don't want to make it sound like we're making them look exactly the same, but if we're concerned about providing people the same type of service, we need to have a baseline of what each of those pools offer. Because otherwise, we'll have entities that have a large square footage of space and we're calling it a neighborhood pool, but somebody in a different area, in a different space throughout the city, will have something much less. And we're still calling it a neighborhood pool. That's not necessarily a fair situation. And while we might say that that's what the neighborhood wants today, we could get ourselves into a situation down the road where people are saying, why did you put this over here? This doesn't even look very much like they have over there, why are you treating them differently than you're treating us? So it was important to our community to define what do those -- what do those pools -- what should they look like at a minimum? What should they look like at a minimum? What should the square footage be, what kind of amenities should they have, so someone doesn't have a pool that doesn't have zero entry, which other pools doe. [10:53:41 AM] That means individuals who live in a community without zero entry, have an opportunity for swimming lessons at a particular level or less opportunity for their toddlers without having to travel some distance to access that. >> Pool: So the Lee lowest ranked pools are northwest, Ramsey and -- what are the three lowest ranked pools? According to this calculation. Which I don't necessarily accept. >> I think we got that message. But I appreciate you telling us. >> Pool: I just want to be clear. >> I understand. >> Pool: I'm not done yet. He's looking for the three lowest ranked pools. >> So based on the site suitability ranking process, the three lowest ranked pools are number 32 is gilli ser number 33 is reed. And number 34 is little Stacey. >> Pool: Okay. I thought that northwest and Ramsey were on the list of low-ranking pools. It doesn't really matter which ones they are, but I do know that if it were northwest and Ramsey, so my question went to that, I know that they are some of our highest attended pools. So it seems counter intuitive to me that how much attendance you have at a pool isn't necessarily tracking as far as the rankings go. >> Yeah. I appreciate that feedback. You know, it is a snapshot in time. And I do want to make sure that everyone knows that we do have a recommendation for being able to have the system exactly as it is in place, and the price tag to that is $136 million. And so I know how beloved the swimming pools are. And if we are -- if we choose, that we don't want to go through the process of consolidation or creating a different kind of system, we know how we can make the system work, and the department is happy to take that direction. [10:55:48 AM] >> Pool: That's great. You were mentioning Ada compliance with the pool sidewalks and entrance into the pools. Have we provided a list of the Ada needs, as far as sidewalks and accessibility to our transportation department, so that they could put those sidewalks on the list of necessary improvements that we could use our mobility bond funds for, or maybe even some of our quarter-cent monies? >> I could look into that, but I think most of our issues are within the park, which I don't believe would be -- make them eligible for transportation to help us, but let us look into that because -- >> Pool: I think we're all the city of Austin, and that to me would be a really obvious way to make some improvements that maybe have been overlooked in the past. My staff is talking with some of the pool staff about an automatic or remote low chlorine indicator. I think that system costs about $5,000, but they can be installed at the pools, and when the pools are low on chlorine, it can go off on a phone, remote access, you can employ the chlorine, remotely, saves you having to drive to the pool or increase the pool, saves time and money, and make sure we can continue the operations pretty much seamlessly. I'd like to look at that and that may be a low-cost fix we can employ the during our budget deliberations for fiscal 18. >> And it is included. It's one of the projects we'd like to looked if we have a 2018 bond, too. But I would like to clarify that with automatic systems, they're great, but when you're continuing to lose 250,000 gallons of water a day, it doesn't matter what type of system you have, you're still going to lose bleach. You're still going to lose water. And you're still going to have down time at facilities because they can't keep up with the amount of chlorine that they need. >> Pool: I think some of these will be bandaids, and I think we should probably be looking at trying to keep the pools open for this summer while we work toward a longer range fix in the future, and it may be that the chlorine dispenser idea is a low-cost, effective way to go. [10:58:07 AM] >> We can certainly run some numbers on that. It sounds like you have an estimate, but we'll double- check and make sure we have the most accurate number possible. >> Pool: I want to get a little bit more information on another idea. We don't have enough money to pay to fix the pools that we have now, is one of the things that you're stating, and yet this report is recommending that we close local pools and then put two or three indoor swim facilities somewhere within the city. I want to understand how that -- what the financials are on that, and how that is a benefit. I think the really special thing about our neighborhood pools is, especially in the summertime, which is basically when the neighborhood ones are open, kids can just jump on their bikes, or walk to the pool. If you have to get in a car to drive 15 minutes or 15 miles to get to a pool, it's an entirely different operation for a family, and it may even prevent people from actually making that trip. So I think there is a high value placed in the fact that kids and families can just walk to a nearby swimming pool and spend a Saturday afternoon there. And I don't see that reflected in these criteria. But that's actually the value of a neighborhood pool, is the fact that it's right there. And we really do have -- put a high value on our pools and our parks and our libraries in this community, and I want to see us carry forward that desire in our community to make sure that these community assets are sustained properly, and so I'll be working toward that end. I have -- I have other questions that I'll I have other questions before we bring them up because I guess this will be delayed for a week, which is a good thing, but thank you. We are getting a lot of emails and letters from folks that got a -- I've got a packet here my staff printed out from just the last couple of days, people have serious concerns and they're making offers like let's do an adopt a pool program. [11:00:18 AM] There's ideas in the community about how we can all come together and build community around our swimming pools and continue them on. >> I appreciate that feedback, and just for your information, there has been a group of individuals who have contacted the department that I'll be meeting, with hopefully by Friday but our schedules are not matching up for exactly that discussion, individuals who say we'd like to start a conservancy, like the conservancy already in existence but specifically for pools so we're going to have that conversation also. >> Pool: Then just the last thing I'd say is I do think we need to recalibrate when we have our bond committee, the bond election advisory task forces that doing their work right now. I've talked with a couple of the members, my appointee and the chair, about shifting around -- the staff has provided buckets of money but they're not stag, they can be adjusted. I would like so see, I think transportation is asking for 190 million and parks and pools are asking for much less. We just did a bond for 720 million last year that was a big success in our community. My understanding was we would be looking at all the other needs that the city had since we had put so much money into transportation, so I'll be looking at shifting those monies to these areas where we really, really have unmet, for a long time, some serious unmet needs. >> Thank you. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Let's go ahead. Some other people have their lights on. Councilmember alter. Then we'll go to this side of the table. >> Alter: Thank you. I share a lot of councilmember pool's concerns here. I wasn't here last week, but I understand it was 105 every day. We need our pools. People all over the city need to have access to pools. Having served on the parks board, I'm aware of all the enormous amount of effort that has gone into this plan and the various stages. The policy challenges and the policy guidance that you're asking for putting forward this plan every year you're asked to make decisions about particular pools and whether you make this investment of $60,000 in repairs when it's really not going to be long-term and you have to made trade-offs and you have a limited budget, I understand the equity issues across the city. [11:02:39 AM] There are parts of the city that don't have neighborhood pools. So this is not an easy thing and you have limited resources. I want to ask about those resources, and I'm wondering to what degree have we explored whether Austin water has any way of helping us meet some of these needs where there are leaks involved. It seems to me this is analogous to the questions we were asking about park lighting, but, you know, Austin water I believe helps people all over the city deal with leaks in various ways as part of some of their programs. This is a city program that has huge amounts of leaks where you can have an enormous impact on water usage just by fixing these like that and have a benefit rather than helping, you know, private business, maybe we should be investing some of that money into our city and have multipliers of that money. So can you tell me how you've explored that avenue for funding? >> The department met several key folks from our aquatics section and some key folks from our water -- Austin water met, and we talked about opportunities for partnering. And while there are many programs that our department would not be eligible for, we don't have -- that we don't meet the right criteria, there are some things they can help us with, specific to metering and to some irrigation issues, which irrigation issues don't necessarily have much to do with the swimming pools but it's going to help us in other areas of our department. So we have worked with them, and they have been very gracious and very generous of their time and of their expertise, but in many cases the leaks that we have are not something that they -- that really meet the criteria for the programs that they have to be able to help us. >> Alter: So is there an opportunity to create a program to do this that still meets requirements, state requirements on Austin water and how it can proceed? [11:04:40 AM] Are there opportunities that were the council to say we want Austin water to help with these leaks, this meets two goals at once, which is better use of city funds, is there an opportunity to do that. >> I mean, we could explore that with them. We did not ask that question. Like I say they were generous with their time and expertise and so we took what they gave us and we're attempting to implement those in other areas and what we can do for swimming pools but we didn't ask that question and we certainly can. >> Alter: My office would like to work with you on that. I know that it might have an run but I think it will also have big environmental impacts and create greater access for our pools. I, too, share the concerns about this idea of expansion and whether it can be expanded as being a relevant criteria about whether we should close a pool. This is very difficult for people to understand. I am most familiar with Ramsey. We've done many, many, many public information engagement processes and not one person has ever said that they wanted zero depth or that they needed the pool to be bigger. They like our locker rooms, they'd like it to be colder, they'd like it to be open more hours, and if you were given an opportunity to have something that was the same as Bartholomew at Ramsey or have it closed they would choose to have it open at the smaller level without those other amenities. I've also been to many, many of these sessions, and what we watered over and over again was keep our pools open, keep them open longer. There is an underlying assumption in the approach of this master plan that as a mom I am confused by. If I have an option to walk over to a pool and dump my kids in the pool for 15 minutes and then come back home, I'm going to choose that every single time over getting in my car and driving 15 minutes, having to strap the kids into the car seats, pay money to get in and on top of that I've got two kids and I've got to watch them at this enormous pool and figure out where they are. [11:06:50 AM] It's not going to meet that everyday need. It's good to have some facilities like that, but that is not what I heard from people who were there. We need to have pools that are available to folks. I have lots of questions about the engagement process and the questions that were asked. I haven't had enough time to go through the 156 pages to really bring those out. But there are questions where we say do you believe there should be a series of multisport aquatic facilities? But then other place it's says how likely you would support? There seem to be inconsistencies in how these questions were asked, and I don't think anyone was ever asked, would you like a regional facility or your neighborhood pool if you were given that choice? And so I am concerned about that. I don't think that we are ready to vote on this next week. As I understand it, this draft is the first draft that anyone has actually seen of the plan in writing that came out, you know, July 21. It's 156 pages. I don't even -- from what I've seen so far, how do I know which are the top ten pools likely to be closed and when? You know, I under -- that is what people are concerned about. This is a plan that is decommissioning pools that has a dream of having these regional aquatic centers, which might be nice to have, but there's no funding for either of them. And so I'm trying to understand the role of this plan, and if this plan is to tell us then which pools we're going to decommission then people need to know based on the criteria that you have right now and if we were to adopt this criteria which pools are on the chopping block and why. And this suitability ranking doesn't seem to be that part, so can you tell me which ten snooze. >> So this is not a decommissioning plan. This is a plan that says if we would like to keep the system exactly the way that it is, we can do that. With an investment of $136 million. [11:08:51 AM] And the department will take that direction and we will make that happen. If it is not the desire of the council or if the council believes that wow, that's a pretty big investment, we have an option for a system that we believe is equitable, that is a mix of different types of pools which does require consolidation and maybe some decommissioning, and that's a price tag of 96 million. So there's no pools that we have on the chopping block, but what we are saying is in absence of that significant investment, when we are -- when we are faced with a pool failure or we are faced with a major -- a major repair, we are going to have make a decision about how do we move forward? Do we repair that particular pool that's a major failure, or do we invest that money in a pool somewhere else until which time we can come back and make that? Because we're not going to have an infinite amount of money to be able to do that in any given year and we know unless there's a substantial, 136 million over a certain amount of time, we're not going to be able to do that. So this isn't a decommissioning unless that's the direction that we give. What we're saying is there's an option for keeping the system exactly the way that it is, there's an openings for reducing the number of pools within a system that we still believe to be equitable with a variety of different types, and that has another price tag. And in absence of that, when something breaks, we are going to have to run it through our decision-making tool to decide whether we can repair it right away or whether it's going to have a long-term closure. We know in some of the swimming pools that had long-term closures they haven't opened again because we can't afford to get them back up and running. We're at a critical decision point in that there's a finite amount of money and we know we're going to be faced with some really hard decisions and so we're looking for direction from you, but we don't want anyone to believe that this is a decommissioning. [11:10:57 AM] Those are just -- that's just to help us with the decision-making when -- if and when something happens and we cannot repair it. >> Alter: So if you were to -- thank you for the clarification. If we were to move to the 96 million, which of the pools that would be closed by this criteria? And I think that's what people are having trouble understanding. Because there is an implication that if we did go with the 96 million option, that there would be pools that would be closing. >> So we can map that out for you and make that more clear and absolutely provide that answer tow all of the council -- to all of the councilmembers so you can see what that system would look like if we reduce the number of pools. I understand the question now. >> Alter: Yeah. I want to also reiterate, again, that I'm very uncomfortable with part of that ranking being this need that every pool has to be the same. Because you don't need to have zero entry to have a pool that is helpful and useful and integral to the community. And so that's an assumption that's built into this mechanism that I question its value. I understand there is an equity issue about whether you have a pool and a place to go. That is a different issue in my mind than whether my pool looks exactly like your pool but we both have pools. So I think those are -- I would look at those questions -- >> So I'd like to just respond to that. I think from an industry standard, from a best practice standard and from an expert -- you know, from expert opinion, I would disagree about certain features that belong at a swimming pool. Restrooms, obviously, need to be upgraded. That's a no-brainer. I would say that when we're talking about things like zero depth entry, they provide for -- while I know you're saying that it's not necessary, it provides for a certain experience for a certain age group and for swimming lessons which is really very important to this department, to be able to make sure that -- it's one of our goals that children have an opportunity to have the very basic skills should they be caught in a situation that they're able to swim. [11:13:10 AM] And so I hear what you're saying, but I don't necessarily agree with regards to industry standards and from our experience with regards to providing those spaces and providing swimming lessons. It also is a -- as Sarah reminded me it's also about accessibility. >> Alter: Yes. But I think -- I agree that it is accessibility and all of those issues, but I think, you know, we have to remember sometimes we're dealing with stuff that's already there and the question is what we do with it. Then there's the stuff we're creating from new and we sometimes need to keep those differently. I've heard a lot about the indoor pools from your presentation I wasn't sure how much those cost. So my first question is how much they cost and which of these numbers are those captured, if at all? And then I've heard that those are designed to be able to do swim meets which would put more heads and beds in the city and I'm wondering whether the hotel occupancy tax could be used for those. >> So in regards to the facilities, the master plan speaks to two specific types of facilities, one being an auditorium that would be able to host regional/national/local swim meets. The other one is a smaller year-round facility that would allow for programming. This -- that facility would allow for us to continue programs that have been successful like project safe, where we take children from aisd schools and we provide them swim lessons free of charge. We have limited ability to do that now. Those children that we put through swim lessons then become lifeguards for us. It also allows for us to provide year-round lifeguard programming and year-round lifeguard training and ability to expand programs that have been so successful like swim atx where we're training lifeguards from our high schools. [11:15:14 AM] So that type of facility is in need for those type of programs to continue and to expand. The maditorium, I'll let Kim speak to the hotel tax and if it would qualify. >> The answer is we believe it would qualify. We also believe if that were a step we wanted to take we needed to have a lot of community partners, ihie aisd may be interested, there may also be an opportunity to partner with local health care. It's also about a therapy area. While we think that -- we think that particular kind of pool has some merit, it is not something that is number 1 on our list and it's not part of the figures that I've provided to you today. It's a -- an glad we would need to explore more. It's certainly something that could bring more heads and beds here. Certainly something that could be a feature for Austin, but it's not something that's necessary to complete the system. >> Alter: To be clear, it's not included in the money that's listed here at all? >> It is not. >> Alter: And how many -- in the 96 million, how many of the -- I don't know if you're calling regional pools or community pools would be created? >> We're going to get you that information via the map. >> Alter: Okay. >> Per your earlier question. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair. >> Troxclair: I guess I'll be curious to listen to the rest of the questions. I maybe have I guess different take-aways from your presentation. I just -- this is a really difficult issue and it's something that we know is a challenge. We've known about it for many years. It's going to be a difficult decision for this council to make, but it's -- I mean, y'all have consistently told us that what we are doing is absolutely not sustainable. And, I mean, I think the analogy to the, you know, car, once it gets over 200,000 miles, once it is not safe to drive, yes, there's an interest in revamping the program and making sure that we can continue -- continue to have amenities for our community. [11:17:38 AM] And I am -- I feel like some of the questions have put y'all in an offensive position and I'm just not sure that's fair because you're -- as you're saying we have two options. Either the council and the city gives you you to funding you need to keep things exactly the way they are or we make the difficult decisions. And I know that it's easy -- I know it's easy for me to say that because I, obviously, dick Nichols is very important to my community and if that was not one that was kind of identified as one that is appropriate for potential growth, to become a regional or whatever the right name is for it, I'm sure I would be upset as well and questioning the methodology and all of that. But the reality is that something has to give. So, you know, I don't -- I guess to -- to questions about do people know that the choice was between closing their neighborhood pool -- the -- that they didn't -- I don't think that that was the -- the choice isn't do you want to keep everything the same or do you want to have this pool closed in order to build a bigger regional facility. I mean, the choice is -- there is no choice that -- there is no feasible choice to keep things the status quo, to keep things how they are. So I guess I just want to add my kind of voice of encouragement that y'all have gone through a really difficult process. I think the community has gone through a difficult process. I think there are gonna be questions and concerns from any part of our city who feels like they have an amenity that may not be identified for future funding, but how can -- so let me ask -- but I just want you to continue giving us the professional feedback and information that you are. We obviously all can't be experts in all different areas and we have to depend on you to do the community engagement in addition to what we -- the community engagement we do for our offices to -- to understand what's working in other cities, to understand how other places have addressed these challenges and I think we have to depend on your expertise and recommendations and advice. [11:20:00 AM] So to the extent that if the report just came out and people need more time to read it, absolutely, you know, the council and the community should be given that time. To the extent that we're just going to kick the can down the road because we want to put off important decisions then I'm going to push back against too much further delay because I think it's too important for our community to not have this issue resolved in a sound financial way moving forward. So that's just my initial feedback, but I'll ask a question really quickly. The $1.2 million that councilmember Renteria asked about fees, I'm guessing that -- does that mostly come from Barton springs? Okay. I know that -- I'm sure there has been discussion about charging fees at all pools, and I know that that's probably also a difficult discussion to have. Was made to do that, does that help solve the problem or really a couple dollars for an entry fee is not a solution anyway? >> Well, the facility first would have to be addressed in infrastructure, our ability to accept the fees, have internet access, those type of things. Second, where the funds go would have to be addressed, if it went into general fund, no, it's of no help. If there is a way to capture those funds and reinvest in the facility, yes, I think that would be a help. >> If I could add to that. The general feedback that we received during community engagement is people were willing to pay a nominal fee for all of the swimming pools but to Jody point, we don't necessarily have the infrastructure to collect those. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that the parks board was interested in having that conversation, a more robust conversation about fees, and I think that -- I don't think. I know it's their suggestion to have it on the next parks meeting so we could definitely provide council a memo that talks about what the outcome of that discussion was with regards to fees. [11:22:00 AM] >> Troxclair: When you say infrastructure, is that to collect fees, is that not something as simple as a square would solve? Or -- you know what I'm talking about? >> Yes. >> Troxclair: The square thing. >> It would require -- a lot of our facilities don't have restroom facilities, they don't have entrances where we could have power, where we could have wi-fi. There would be a significant investment in the need to do that. >> Troxclair: I guess even if we did do that then the fees aren't necessarily being dedicated back to parks and pools? >> Correct. They go to the general fund. >> Troxclair: I mean, that's another decision that the council could make. If we decide that this is -- this is a priority and we want to make sure that fees that we get not just from special events in our parks and other things but also from pools are going back to the parks department we could but the council has chosen to use that money for other -- for the many other needs that we have in our budget. So I guess the -- and my last question is about -- like, the idea of attrition. I mean, it seems like instead of -- well not instead of. Have you thought about -- it sets up such a difficult conversation when you respond to the question that was posed like well what ten pools are going to be closed if this goes into effect or if the council chooses this direction? Because it pits communities against each other and it pits council against each other and there's no -- it -- it's a win -- it sets up where there's going to be winners and losers. Is there -- maybe this is what you're trying to do with this, but is the better way to think about this plan is when pools get to meet certain criteria -- or fail to meet certain basic criteria, when they're losing this amount of water per day, when they're -- then they're going to be identified for I guess decommissioning just through attrition, not necessarily on this date we're going close this many pools because they didn't get -- they didn't score high enough in our ranking. [11:24:20 AM] I mean, help me in how I should think about that for that's what y'all are going for. >> So the intent of developing the master plan, two points to keep in mind. One of them was to create a system that is more equitable throughout the city and then also to have that system sustainable. So it needs to be sustainable in terms of environmental factors, it also needs to be sustainable in terms of how much does it cost and how much maintenance and operations is involved in it. I think the more difficult question is how do you define equity, making a system equitable to everyone. So what we're trying to accomplish through this plan and what we tried to accomplish through the public engagement process and the process that we developed was developing the tool that would help in answering some of those questions. So when a facility does no longer function for whatever reason, we have a document to go to that contains facts. And based on those facts we should be able to come to some reasonable direction as to what happens to that pool facility. So that's the purpose. But it's still -- the process of talking -- of the discussion, the process of additional public engagement still needs to happen because that's part of the process. >> Troxclair: I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there a way to take -- to take that angle of kind of competitiveness between communities out of the conversation or at least reduce it by just setting minimum standards that once a pool reaches -- and it might be over time. It's not we're going to close ten pools next year or it's not here's a plan where these ten pools will be closed over the next however many years. It's just minimum standards reaches this -- fails to meet this minimum level of standard, it's identified for possible decommissioning and over time will free up money to invest in the pool system in a way that will allow us to have a more sustainable system that provides better for everybody across the city. [11:26:46 AM] >> So what you just described is what this plan attempts to do with one -- with one addition, in that when something meets a particular criteria, when a pool meets a particular criteria, if removing that pool from the system would create more inequities than the decision has to be made as to whether it's better to invest in that space and think about not investing in another pool so that equity is -- so we continue to create an equitable system. So what you describe is what we would hope that this plan would help us do. And I don't know that there's any way for us not to to have communities feel as though they are pitted against one another because if you love your pool and you want to be able to use it on a regular basis, any suggestion that it wouldn't be available you to hurts -- you know, it hurts. It makes people feel not happy. >> Troxclair: I guess I would suggest to the extent it's possible for us to all agree, for the community and the council to depreciation here are the minimum standards that we have -- council to agree here are the minimum standards that we have to have for a pool to be viable, I think if you start from that point, it helps everybody to find common ground and think of it not as my pool investor their -- my pool versus their pool and think of it as you're right, we can't be investing that much money, regardless of what part of the city it's in or we can't be losing that much water per day. I just -- I don't know. It might be too -- it seems like that conversation -- it may be too late, but it seems to me that the more that we can kind of focus on having agreed upon basic criteria that that would help us to navigate the conversation. >> Taking that feedback, it sounds like we need to make that more prominent in the master plan and we can do that because that information exists. We just need to phrase it in a way that obviously would make it more understandable to more people. [11:28:52 AM] Whether folks agree with it that's a different story but certainly we can make it more prominent and more understandable. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar and then Ms. Kitchen. >> Casar: I want to speak to two points. One to acknowledge your process here and then, second, to address this regional versus neighborhood pools question. Process-wise, I really appreciate the really hard work that y'all have done. I don't need to go into the challenge that it is we're facing, but I think you've modeled here really important work for staff to do when we have an intractable problem where the status quo is not acceptable and it takes some level of bravery to put together a plan, whether we agree with particular ways it's put together or not, I mean, it's ultimately up to us to look at those metrics and values and figure out what we want to weigh more and less. But for this process, I want to appreciate what you guys have done. And I challenge us to -- and any citizens work group to figure out how we deal in the knobs but not just for the parks department but to -- I mentions to the manager that I personal appreciate since we have limited staff in our council offices we can't tackle all the intractable problems and come up with the brave ideas for how we can deal with the status quo, so I just appreciate that and wanted to acknowledge that. I also really appreciate the focus on social needs and where, you know, low-income seniors are and kids because I think that that is really important in this process and appreciate y'all addressing that as a, quote, issue in your criteria. And that sort of takes me to the regional versus neighborhood pool question, because while I recognize that there are going to be lots of folks that want to do everything they can to and acknowledge that -- there are the vast majority of kids in my district and I know in many parts of the city don't have a neighborhood pool that they can bike to, they don't have a neighborhood pool to defend or protect from consolidation. [11:30:57 AM] They just don't. They don't have one in the first place, and I want to respect that tension of figuring out how with limited resources we deal with defending the existing pools while acknowledging that there are lots of kids that just don't have a pool their parents can walk or drop them off to in the first place and to -- but I think our city has dealt with that in really -- that issue head on in some ways with Bartholomew pool. As a glowing example of a pool upgrade and made a real regional amenity at the corners of district 1, 4, and 9, that this weekend had a line. You had to wait in line to get into Bartholomew pool, like it was Barton springs, which is an incredible thing, one of the most economically integrated places in the city, one of the most vibrant places in the city. It's hard to give burnet a run for its money but Bartholomew really tries and that is something that parents that don't have a pool that they can walk and drop their kids off at are willing to drive to because it has the level of amenities that their kids need and that seniors will find a way to get to because it's got things for them there too. And so I think that while I would love for us to have neighborhood pools all over the city, we have limited resources and with those limited -- you know, how hard it is to deal with our limited resources given quality of life issues we want to address and life and death issues we want to address. So given our limited resources we can't get a neighborhood pool to everyone, then I would like to have a Bartholomew pool somewhat near as many people as I can. And that seems to me to be part of this conversation that we're having that's a bit missing because I think the $150 million option to fix our existing pools is totally unacceptable, not because of the high price tag but because we'd be paying a very large sum of money to maintain an inequitable status quo. [11:32:59 AM] We'd be paying $150 million to keep the pools where they're at and keep -- make sure that -- and that would leave no money for kids in del valle or kids in heritage hills or kids in colony park to have a pool nearby them. And I haven't heard anybody here say they're for the $150 million option. This isn't me saying I've heard anybody say that's the option that they're for, but I don't -- but I want to respect the fact that this is going to be a hard conversation and keeping -- that part of the reason I appreciate the community and staff pushing for something is because we can't keep things the way that they are because there's -- then there would just be no resources for people who have nothing to defend from getting closed down. So I appreciate that. I'm not saying that we need to pose all neighborhood pools and go only to regional pools but the fact of the matter is if we wanted everybody to be within distance of a neighborhood pool I imagine the price tag would be much greater than 150 million. That sounds like an ideal, great situation if we had infinite money, but given limited resources I'm interested in figuring out with the community how we get enough people close enough to a Bartholomew because that seems to be what we're doing well and it goes to show that in communities like that one in northeast Austin there are plenty of you kids -- of kids with no yard, no pool, no summer camp but if you give them a pretty good pool it will be full and we need to figure out where those places are and I appreciate y'all as I hard work on that. Some of it has to do with our housing strategies and housing issues too, right? When councilmember Garza asked how we got in the situation we're in, if we had figured out how to keep more affordable housing available to families near some of this desisting infrastructure we might be in a different spot, but now that we are where we're at, I just appreciate that y'all are bringing forward something, and I haven't dug deep enough. I'm sure there will be places where I disagree with some of the methodology but I do appreciate our staff at pard but then just generally bringing forward, you know, big and sometimes potentially unpopular with -- and rightfully so unpopular with certain parts of town's ideas because part of why we're at where we're at is because we haven't answered that question over some period of time and now we're here. [11:35:19 AM] So thank you all. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: Couple of things, and I'm looking at this slide where you're talking about -- >> You turned your mic off. >> Kitchen: Sorry. So a couple of things, and I'm looking at the recommended new pool construction. First thing is, I think we're talking about resources before we've made the decision about resources. So, yes, of course we have limbed resources but we don't have any idea how much resources we have because we have a bond discussion that's upcoming and I think it's premature for us to suggest that we don't have enough dollars because we haven't gone through the conversation process on the task force. And, also, I would say we just spent $720 million on transportation and we didn't blink on that. Talking about 136 million or so on pools. Maybe that's too much given our other considerations, maybe not. We have not had that conversation as a community yet on where our values are, on where we should put our dollars. So I don't want to -- you know, I don't want to -- I'm really reluctant to adopt a plan before we understand what our potential is so that's just one question that I have. So my question related to that is, what is included in the proposal that was submitted by staff to our bond task force with regard to pools? I don't remember. We have seen -- you know, we've seen -- we've seen a list, you know, and we've seen the rollup for facilities and I know pools are under those facilities, but I'm not sure what the staff recommendation was to the bond committee for the dollar amount for pools. >> So keeping in mind that the department has $700 million worth of infrastructure needs, investment needs with regards to capital investment, the department has submitted $15 million specifically for aquatics but that did not -- [11:37:21 AM] >> Kitchen: 15. >> One, five. But that did not include funding for a new structure, which is concluded somewhere else in the bond program. >> Kitchen: Okay. So we're talking about right now about all of our needs, whether it's needs for the status quo or needs for some level of change, and we didn't even -- and it sounds to me like we did not even submit any part of that to our bond task force. And I'm not talking about -- I'm not railing on you guys. To me that makes no sense that we're having a discussion -- we're going through a discussion with the public on major issues about where the public may want to improve bond dollars and we're not even asking for that. So I wanted to let you know that I will be -- I think councilmember pool mentioned that. I will be talking with the task force for -- for them to at least consider and talk about with the public what level of investment is important for our pools. So I think that's the place that we need to have this conversation. I don't think we should make the assumption that the bond task force doesn't address pools. >> Councilmember, I appreciate the opportunity for this council to allow us to bring forward this briefing because now at least you have some numbers to work with. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> So I appreciate that opportunity. >> Kitchen: Okay. And the second thing I would ask is, did you guys -- you know, we've had a lot of discussion about equity, which I think is critical, it's important, and we know as we talk about equity across the city that we struggle with what that means. So was there any involvement of our equity office with the development of this plan? >> I will have to go back and think about that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I do believe that our consultant did contact our equity office. >> Kitchen: Okay. I would like -- and I know our equity office is getting up and running, relatively new, but I think it would be Travis county to make sure that our equity officer weighed in on what we looked at in terms of criteria. [11:39:30 AM] So -- and then let's see. I would also want to understand -- well, I may have to think about this some more and send you a question, but I'm hearing this talk about 136 million. I don't think you said 150. But 136 million for status quo versus 96 million for some mixed type. Which sounds to me like this or this. And I'm wondering if there's some middle ground. So I may be asking you to price some middle ground for us. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: Actually, for a combination of us and the bond task force. And then, finally, the criteria -- help me understand the five areas that are identified. You can just point to the report, and I can go read it, but I'm wondering where I can understand what the criteria were for these particular areas. >> So I believe that's in chapter 8, but I do have to let you know that upon additional feedback we received we're making revisions, so community feedback, we're making revisions. If you would allow us the opportunity to make those revisions. We wanted to have today's discussion before we posted something revised but I will give you -- we'll post it on our website with the revisions with regards to our decision-making process because the public told us or the community told us this does no -- is not giving us enough information so we made it a little bit more robust and I will post it and we can let all of the councilmembers know when it's posted so it can be reviewed again. >> Kitchen: Okay. And the thinking on this recommended new pool construction, is the thinking that these would be neighbor -- would be the -- not neighborhood. What's the other word? The community pools. Or is there any decision about that? >> That doesn't hasn't been made yet. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> This is just -- it tells us where the need is. >> Kitchen: Okay. [11:41:30 AM] Let's see. Forward, whatever we end up with in terms of a plan, I think we need to look at it in light of transportation to the pools. So things like sidewalks, bike paths, bus routes, you know, things like that. So I think that we should understand what the options are in any kind of discussion we have about how people get to the pools. >> Absolutely. That's part of our determinants, but we can certainly point that out. >> That's under accessibility. >> Kitchen: So under accessibility then was there analysis of how people get to the pool? Is that what's -- >> Yes. We included transit access, trails, bike trails, overall connectivity. >> Kitchen: As part of that we identified areas where there's needs? >> Yes, depending on the rating that told you there was a need for those types of -- >> Kitchen: I'm curious if we addressed a need or a gap what that would do in terms of the rating of that pool. >> It would change the rating. >> Kitchen: That's important because I think councilmember pool may have brought that up, somebody brought up that, that there is the opportunity to look at our other infrastructure funding, you know, in terms of sidewalks, bikes, and that kind of thing and the impact that could have on the rating, and so that we're not making the assumption that a pool needs to be ready here when if we simply looked at another type of infrastructure that could raise the rating. >> True. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Pool: Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool. >> Pool: Could you post the initiating resolution from -- >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry. I called Ms. Houston up next. >> Pool: I just wanted to ask that -- I just had the one question, would you please provide us with a 2012 resolution? [11:43:31 AM] I want to make sure that the things that were asked in that resolution were the things that this report actually answered. >> Yes. >> Houston: Thank you. And, first of all, I want to thank you all for the hard work that you've done over these many months and years to bring forth something that can help guide a process for determining when is end of life. It's hard. And I understand the difficulty. But at some point we get to a place where we pay this is an end of life kind of decision that has to be made and so we have to pool the plug. Some of these pools are at that end of life according to what I've been able to read. The groups that worked -- y'all are probably one of the city departments that work really hard on community engagement, and I want to thank you for that and compliment you for that. You make sure that people are engaged and you listen and you make changes based on what the feedback that you hear, not -- not from special interest groups, but from the community at large. I want to thank you for that. That being said, I want you to understand I'm not a swimmer so I don't have a vested interest in this but I heard you say you get about a million five from fees, primarily from Barton springs, that goad back into the general fund -- goes back into the general fund. Tell me some of the other fees that you generate that go back into the general fund. Tell me about waivers that y'all are probably the highest department that experiences waivers from council. How much do we lose from you guys in the waivers that we -- every week or every council meeting. I would suspect millions but if y'all know what that is. >> Councilmember, unfortunately I don't know that figure off the top of my head but we can get that information to you. It will just be a matter of having information from our financial folks and they'll be able to provide us accurate numbers, and I can provide that information to you. [11:45:32 AM] What I think I heard you say is how much money we are not receiving because of fee waivers and also I think you would like to know how much other money we're receiving in general fund and what we're getting -- what fees those are -- who is generating -- what programs or admission fees are generating. >> Houston: Correct. And then those go back into the general fund. Then I guess that -- the last part of that is -- inquiry is what can the council do to allow you all to keep the money that you raise into -- I know it won't even begin to match what you're saying you're going to need even if you take the low number and not the highest number, but what funds would you generate to be able to maintain it in the parks department for utilization to supplement the general fund budget that you get? And if you could just send that to everybody, I'd appreciate it. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Houston: And, again, as one of our other councilmembers said, everybody doesn't have a neighborhood pool to walk to, so we really appreciate what we used to call district pools that -- or municipal schools now we're going to call them something else so. . . >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I just wanted to add my comments on this just real quickly. And I agree with a lot of things that a lot of people have said here today. Beginning with this is a difficult, emotional issue to be raised for community conversation. One of the reasons why I think we're in the place we're in right now is because it is a difficult conversation. So when the conversation comes up, I've watched other councils get into the conversation and then, you know, kind of lay it aside because it is a hard conversation to be dealt with. The second thing is I think it's real important to characterize correctly what it was that you've done here today. You have done two things. You have said if we want to maintain the current pool system that we have, this is what it costs. [11:47:33 AM] That's a really useful number to have. The second thing you've said is, if you don't want to maintain the current system, this is an alternate system and that is what this costs. That's really good information to have. As it would be to have what the costs would be of other options, some of which were requested here today. That is, again, useful information for us to have. In the event that the community decides it doesn't want to spend that money, then something has to happen because we're having people that are expecting their neighborhood pools to open up, they're not opening up. So we need to have some kind of vehicle that says that if we're not going to spend that much money, what do we do then? And how do we navigate that forest? So I appreciate you coming out to us today again with a suggestion on how we might navigate that forest if that's something that we wanted to do. I think that some of the issues that have been raised by some, including councilmembers pool and alter, I think are valid in terms of taking a look at some of the criteria that are used because I think it's real important that the community get comfortable with whatever that criteria would be if we were to want to navigate those woods so that we agree on what those criteria -- what that criteria would be. And I think it would also be helpful to -- for the community to agree on that criteria and to see what that would look like because that might impact the decision about whether or not we spend the money to keep the pool system that we have. People might not want to spend $145 million until they see that they're going to be losing their pool as we navigate the woods, in which case they become a really strong advocacy group in the bond -- citizen bond commission to say whatever you do you've got to put in more money for pools because we don't want to lose our pool. [11:49:36 AM] We've seen if we navigate the woods we might. So I think that's a real important conversation to have. And as we look at the bond commission work and the priorities that are being set, I think that real serious consideration has to be given as the question that councilmember kitchen raised to looking at whether we should put more money for pools than -- than that, take a look at that because it's something that is emotionally charged and dear to so many people who live in this city. This was an impossible challenge to pick up and address, and you did it and you gave some really useful pieces here and a range of useful pieces here, and it is my firm hope that this council, as Mr. Casar said, actually deal with the big hairy issue and try to move this move forward. It is not easy to bring up big difficult issues and I think you have done that with a wide variety of options that albeit still require additional conversation and work but there's no way to start this conversation easily. So thank you for that. Anything else, Ms. Pool? >> Pool: I just have one last thing. Councilmember alter does have a copy of the ordinance which I hope you will send to everybody and I wanted to point out in 2012, when the council asked for this analysis of existing aquatics facilities to be undertaken, in the be it resolved portions of this two-page ordinance, it says -- resolution, it says that "The city manager's directed to draft an aquatics facility master plan through public process, blah, blah, blah, incorporating inclusion of best practices for both operations and planning and assessment of funding sources." I hope there's funding sources in here. I haven't read it, and you haven't talked about them other than bonds. [11:51:41 AM] And the be it further resolved and this is the really important one, that the aquatic master plan include strategies to ensure that Austin's neighborhood pools -- I think the term "Neighborhood pool" wasn't subject to the definition this particular consultant gave it, that Austin's pools remain open and free. And that's where I'm going to be operating from with regard to this particular report and the work that I'm going to do to try to make sure that I can help our community and the city guarantee that we have strategies to ensure that Austin's pools remain open and free. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? That sounds good. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's ten till 12:00. How long will it take us to do the draft special events ordinance? >> Ten, 15. >> Mayor Adler: Let's go ahead and do that then. >> I can still say good morning for a few more minutes, bill, special events program manager with corporate special events. And just wanted to wrap up a lot of the conversations that we have been having with different councilmembers' offices and staff and the concerns and what the ordinance does and where it came from. If we can get that loaded. This process started way back in 2012 with the resolution. [11:53:41 AM] Some of the things that were brought up in the resolution was no single point of contact or single responsible department or office. Multiple requirements found in different sections of code. And no scalability of the events. It directed the city manager to create a special events team, which has been created, the Austin center for events. And as you can see, any budgetary ordinance or staffing changes necessary. Some of the things that we've already done is we've taken applications from multiple departments that event organizers were required to do and put it into one comprehensive online application. We track these through shareppoint, although currently they have to be entered manually into shareppoint. We are working with ctm to get the Amanda process up and running as soon as we can. We do have a website for all the different departments special events units and we created that guide book, which is a very comprehensive guide book people with go to to look for specific answers. The ordinance, the draft ordinance creates a new city code chapter for special events, codifies the Austin center for events, and it focuses section 14-8 on temporary closures for right-of-way events, for railway closures and neighborhood block parties. Some of the sections were moved into the special events ordinance. Some of the presentations we made on this early, as you can see, were to many of the boards and commissions in the fall of 2013. Pretty much every one of them deferred to the music commission to make a representation to council. October 24, 2013, was approval of the first reading. Council at that time did consider a council subcommittee to look into this more, but they later withdrew that. So what is a special event? [11:55:43 AM] We looked at definitions of special events across the country, and we felt what was -- they all varied and we felt what was best for Austin is how it impacts Austin and our resources. So 100 or more attendees a day at a city facility impacts a city right-of-way or is temporary with 100 or more attendees per day. A public assembly is more than 49 people but we feel like there's some assemblies that can take place that should not fit within the special events definition. So that's where we came up with 100. It has to require temporary use permit, temporary change use permit, and one of the following, temporary structure, sound, food, or alcohol. Some of the things that were removed, one of the main things was the neighborhood block parties, and a neighborhood block party is one block of right-of-way on a residential street, single family dwellings only. Cannot have automatic -- automated traffic control devices at either end of the block, no bus stops, or cannot close an intersection with another street. We did have questions about what if there's a small cul-de-sac within that block. I think that could be worked out. But the main take away there is we remove that from the special events ordinance because we want them local -- the local neighborhoods and communities to have an easy process to do this. Another very key aspect of the ordinance is the tiered approach. Right now every application is the same basic tier, whether they take up multiple city blocks like a marathon or just one. By dividing it up into these tiers, it really helps the smaller events, reduces the deadlines for the applications, the requirements for those, and encourages a lot of the -- hopefully will encourage more smaller events to take place in the various communities around Austin. [11:57:53 AM] You'll see tier 3 is the default tier with no specific definition. That's because there's really no way to incorporate a definition that could capture every possible scenario, and we've seen some varying there ones come in. 80% of our events are recurring events, so it's not going to be that impactful to the new events, but they will come in as a tier 3, we'll review it quickly and put it in a different tier if that's appropriate. Here's an example of some of the different events>> Here's an example. We have many, many more, but question consolidated this to get it on one page, just as an example. If I go too quick, please let me know. Again, the tiers have different application deadlines so right now, any street, the deadline is 180 days. So tier 1's will go down to three business days. Tier 2's will be 30. One exception for tier 1's is a tier 1 event within -- during the time frame of the spring festival season will have a 30-day deadline, and that's because of the 200-plus applications we get for those nine days. Tier 3's will be 120. Tier 4's are the largest. We have about eight of those right now, and those will stay at 180 days. Tier 3's and tier 4's with this ordinance, we are required to give them a preliminary approval of the application within ten days of submittal. That's important because they have a lot of sponsors and vendors they're trying to all line up, and allows them more time to do that another question that came up was the section on street legacy events. Staff has recommended in this ordinance the legacy event, any event that's been held in the same manner for 20-plus years. This is just the street events, the street legacy events. [11:59:57 AM] One aspect that we're really going to have to get off into in the rules is the notification process and the disapproval/approval. Right now on festivals, if 20% of any one block grooves of the event, it has to go to urban transportation commission for recommendation to council. That does not follow through into the new ordinance, but the rules will address that on the disapproval and how we mitigate that. Rules -- we'll get to -- I have a slide about rules here in a minute, but that was a concern that kept coming up with stakeholders, is what about the rules. The special event permit creates a new permit and that satisfies the requirements for temporary use and sound. It does not satisfy food permits, pyrotechnic; those are really critical. It creates a special event impact area so we can limit the amount of temporary permits within an area, based on available city resources and impact to the community and traffic. It also creates an appeals team so if an application comes in and we deny it, they can appeal it. The appeal team is comprised of directors or the designee of the city departments that make up ace, and there's about 13 city departments that are involved in ace. Tier 3 and 4 events, the appeal must be submitted within ten days and addressed opinion ten days from that. All events require a waste management plan. The larger events would get into reduction and diversion plans, and then tier 4's, emission reduction plan. We really encourage bicycle parking and any alternative means of transportation for any event. [12:01:59 PM] If any event blocks handicapped ramps or parking spaces, they're required to provide alternative ones and advertise that location. It does -- for enforcement, it does create a criminal offense to violate the chapter class C, just like any ordinance. There's a pose for permit revocation and also within that, an appeals process for that. Again, we had a lot of comments about the rules. A lot of people want to see the rules. Typically rules follow the passing of the ordinance. Some of the things that staff has already looked at is the notification process because it's so old and outdated and stuffing envelopes, I won't go into details, but it needs to be updated. Also, the review of the process for music, whether it's a street event, park event over 7500, or events on other property, just to bring those all in line. So there will be - - there will have to be a lot of meetings on rules. The notification process will probably be more than one meeting alone, because we do want a lot of number input on this. Some of the rules will be really easy. Others will -- will not. So what we're asking for staff is to hopefully approve, at least on second reading, if not second and third, and also any further feedback information or direction from y'all on where we should go from here. Any questions? >> Mayor Adler: It's been suggested to me that one option would be -- that some people are -- as you said, want to see what the rules are. So a lot of the way the rules get drafted would answer a lot of questions that people have about this. One option would be to approve it on second reading, but not third reading, then let the rules procedure move forward so people would know what it was exactly that was happening, by virtue of this. So that's an option as well. [12:04:01 PM] Yes, councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I was just wondering if you could explain how this interfaces with the parkland events report that we accepted. My understanding is that that -- those -- that report would be informing the acceptance of an event under the tier -- under the various tiers, that would be part of the criteria you'd be using. Is there a broader way that interfaces, or more complicated way to -- >> [Indiscernible] From parks & rec special events is here if he wants to address that. >> Alter: Working in tandem. >> I was part of the meetings so when those issues came up, they were addressed. I'll let Jason follow up on that. >> I'm Jason with parks and reaction department. The special events team did participate in almost all of the parkland event task force meetings and there were some specific recommendations that are being incorporated into the ordinance in front of you, such as the green events policies, which was just mentioned in the presentation; also items such as scalable fees for right-of-way closures, which tiers will brings to through the process. We've included those recommendations in this draft ordinance. >> Alter: So there were things in the report that had to be accomplished by this ordinance, and this ordinance is accomplishing those. Where does -- where do the requirements about, you know, how many events would be in the park, where did those -- how do those interface with -- >> So currently, you have already adopted those recently, so those are already established by ordinance on limits on special events, so we will not be changing that ordinance with this ordinance. This will deal with the timing of applications for our big events, which will be the tier 3 and tier 4, which were established by the separate action you already took. >> Alter: So the separate action, though, is still informing what happens within those tiers? [12:06:02 PM] Those would be some of the material that you and staff would be looking to in terms of approving the permit. >> Correct. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any further comments here? Thank you for this presentation. There was only one other thing that was pulled today. It was actually for the meeting on the 10th. We have some items to consider in executive session. Ellen pulled the only other item, but she's not here. I was going to see if there was a quick question that we could get answered before we went into executive session. But, we'll go into executive session. >> Here she comes. >> Mayor Adler: Here she comes. Ellen, was there, you think, a quick or lengthy conversation on the second item you pulled, item number 15? >> Troxclair: Well, I mean, I guess my question was -- obviously, we talked about this when we started this process, the question of whether or not the task force would be interviewing individual candidates, and I thought that we decided as a council upon the recommendation of our consultant, that the best -- the way to get the best candidates was to keep the process as confidential as possible until kind of the finalists are announced. And I just don't know -- it seems like this is reversing that decision, so I wanted to understand -- number one, if that was true, and number two, if there was some kind of commitment or expectation -- well, number one, if that's true, and number two, if the consultants' advice has changed, and number three, if people had kind of put their name in the hat already with the specific expectation that we're changing mid game now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So it's my understanding, if y'all would come on up, it's my understanding in talking to both the leadership of the task force, as well as to the consultant, that what is being requested by the task force is, in fact, a change from where we were before. [12:08:13 PM] So we had agreed before, based on the recommendation of the consultant, that we would not be announcing the names of the finalists because that would impact the applicant pool that we would -- that we would have, if the names were not to be -- remain confidential. When the task force started meeting, the task force has suggested and they passed a resolution which came to us that recommended that they stay engaged in the process, to take a look at the folks toward the end to tell us how they align with the goal. When I spoke with the consultant that was involved, the consultant said that his recommendation was still that the names be maintained as being confidential, but that he thought that, given caliber of people that had been appointed to and were participating on the task force, that we had all appointed, it was his assessment that that group could keep the names confidential, and for that reason, I think based on that -- on the caliber of the people that are on that task force, their suggestion that they stay engaged, that the consultant felt that that would be a good thing to do, and for us to consider. >> Troxclair: So can you clarify for me, is that the recommendation, that they now think that that is the best way to proceed? Or is -- was the question posed to them, you know, can we do this and they're kind of saying, well, it's not what we would advise, but if that's what y'all want to do, we're okay with it? >> Mayor Adler: No, his recommendation was that we keep the names confidential. That has not changed. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Because that would, he felt, potentially change the applicant pool. You know, he was amenable at the end, if we have three people and they've all agreed, that they don't care whether the names come out, whether their names come out, or they want to actually meet the community first, and all of the final -- however many, agree to that, am I understanding is that he would say that then make it public. [12:10:32 PM] But if, at the end, we have, in fact, found someone who's only applying for the job because that person knows it's not going to be confidential unless they win it, then you shouldn't open it up. His recommendation in that regard stays exactly the same. The only difference is, is that -- my understanding, and I'll let you talk, that it's his belief, given the caliber of the task force that we have and the people that are involved, that if they were to take a look at the final candidates and tell us how they aligned with the goals that group would also, having been charged with keeping the names confidential, would, in fact, keep the names confidential, so he was comfortable with that being part of our process. Do you want to address that? >> Yes. For clarification, I would just point out that the conversation of suggesting these came from the actual task force, the members of the task force understood the scope of work, and in discussions, decided that they wanted to ask this council to reconsider and allow them the opportunity to potentially come in, once the top candidates have been identified. That was discussed in two of the task force meetings, and it resulted in them not only recommending, and in voting upon it, they sent out June 29th a memorandum to all, with the understanding that those who were most interested in it would reach out to their respective councilmembers to articulate the discussion that took place and explain why they recommended that. As that conversation evolved as a group, Russell Reynolds did incorporate his feedback relative to maintaining the confidentiality, but being very open after his engagement with this -- this task force, the idea of incorporating them in the process, understanding that they would have to keep that information confidential. And he voiced his support, that he felt like this group was highly competent, highly involved and capable of participating while maintaining the scope of confidentiality. [12:12:45 PM] That's how it evolved. >> Troxclair: And I hope my question -- I'm not at all questioning whether or not the people on the task force are competent and highly skilled and capable of confidentiality. It's just that I -- and this isn't on the agenda till next week, so I can have some time to think about it and maybe listen to other councilmembers too, before then, but I feel like we had this -- I feel like we had a pretty thorough conversation as a council about what the best process was, and I thought that we ultimately decided to trust the advice and the recommendation of the professional company who does -- who this is their expertise, and so while I understand, I guess, why the task force would -- would want to be involved in meeting potential candidates, I just -- I am uncomfortable with changing -- changing the course that the council already agreed to that was recommended by our consultants. So that's ... >> Thank you. I wanted to just get clarification. I'm -- I favor this, but I'm just wondering what the format is for those recommendations to come to council that retains confidentiality and is in line with open records, like how does that actually happen? >> I believe that's a discussion that will take place when Russell Reynolds returns to present to you their recommendations relative to the information included in the rca. They are planning to be here next week, along with the chairman and co-chairman of the task force, in terms of how they view, envision this process to take place moving forward. I think, based on the resolution that was passed by council in terms of establishing the work plan, it clearly defined deliverables, and what we present before you today are the result of those deliverables, to include the profile that was created by the task force, the additional information that came from the cultural analysis and the meetings. [12:14:54 PM] So additional questions relative to how we move forward once the profile has been approved will come to you from your consultant as they arrive next week, both for the work session and for the council, to answer those questions for you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter, maybe it would be helpful if we had an executive session on the question of the application of those laws. >> Alter: Right. >> Mayor Adler: So what this change in that process would be, and we can have that conversation, maybe on Thursday or on Tuesday of next week. >> Alter: I'm just wondering what it means if that's a public document to people who are applying and how that affects, you know, who applies and whatnot, and also to understand that we're getting the value of the input from the task force in a format that's going to be useful to us. And I would appreciate having that resolved or presented to us at least next week. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I understand. It probably would have would be Tuesday since it's not on our agenda for this week. Okay? So I have that set for regular session next Tuesday. Anything else? All right. Now there's an executive session. The city council will go into closed session to take up four items pursuant to 551.071 of the government code, city council will discuss legal marrieds related to E 2, which is marecek, E 2, and E 3, and pursuant to 551.072 of the government code, the middle fiskville site. E-1 has been withdrawn. If there aren't any objections going into executive session, hearing none, we will go into executive session. I'm going to the legislature so I will not be with you. I'm not going to be there, the mayor pro tem is not going to be there, so somebody has to pick it up. We stand in recess. [12:17:14 PM] [Executive session] [1:52:15 PM] Council Member Pool: All right. We are out of closed session. In closed session we discussed legal matters related to E2, E3 and real estate matters related to E5. This concludes are meeting today. Alight and the time is 1:52 p.m.