City Council Work Session Meeting Transcript – 10/10/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 10/10/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 10/10/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:08:58 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. Let's go ahead and start. We are at work session today. It is October 10th, 2017. It's 9:08. We're in the boards and commissions room here at Austin city hall. We have several things that could be link think today. We have a codenext discussion that we have staff here for and they could engage in. The contract, I know there's a lot of community interest in that, if people want to step up on the dais. We also have a briefing today on the mobility issue. We should take that. We have -- next we have two councilmembers I think that are both out on city business today. Greg Casar and Delia Garza. We're going to have the briefing today. I know that Greg Casar has indicated that he's real interested in the mobility bond prioritization issue, wants to be part of that discussion. Let's take the briefing today, raise questions, but if there's going to be an extended policy conversation, let's hold that until more people are with us. So I was asked to note that. Let's go ahead and pull up the capital contracting issue on codenext, item number 6, and let's go ahead and start there. >> Good morning, mayor and council, I'm here for any questions you may have regarding this amendment. [9:11:08 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: Thanks for being here today and for answering some questions. I wanted to start off just by asking you to highlight the specific actions that the 2.2 million will cover, and indicate for us which ones -- which of the actions are simply being ratified and paid for. They've already been accomplished or they're underway. How much of phase 5 have we moved into? And I understand that the strategic mobility plan is also a part of the contract. Could you also detail how that dove tails and why that would be part of this same item? Because I don't know if it's the same contract necessarily. >> Okay. So what I can do real quick is just highlight the difference between the amendment for codenext and then also highlight the amendment for the Austin strategic mobility plan. And then I'll ask Greg if he can talk about the specific scopes regarding this amendment. So you all recall, this is the second amendment where we brought before the council that included funding for the Austin strategic mobility plan. So the first amendment was to cover phase 2 of that plan and this amendment will provide some additional fundings to move into phase 2 of that plan. So this action is adding to the continuous scope of work that opticos has been providing to the city of Austin on the strategic mobility plan. This is not the first action where we requested funding to support that effort. It is ongoing as it relates to codenext with the mobility plan. So that's the first part. It's a continuation of funding to continue the mobility plan. >> Pool: So can you explain what that means? What are the activities that will be accomplished? What is the work product that -- how do we know that we've met -- we've gotten value for our dollars and how do we know when we have achieved success? [9:13:16 AM] >> Right. Councilmember, Robert spillar, Austin transportation department. If I can elaborate first on Rolando's comment, we've taken as part of the larger codenext there was a mobility section obviously. Always envision is part of that. When we developed the concept for the strategic mobility plan we found that we had subconsultant capabilities within the overall opticos program that we could draw on. So that's why the Austin strategic mobility plan is being conducted by the overall project group that's doing the larger codenext. I think those two programs need to be linked because obviously mobility and land use are one and the same, increasingly as we think about transportation we think about land use as part of that solution. As we've gotten into it there's been several other regional efforts going on that we need to coordinate with. Project connect, capital metro. Also planning efforts at campo that have extended our timeline in terms of delivering the strategic mobility plan. We're still on track for sometime next year coming to council with a strategic mobility plan. We think that the additional funds will allow us to do additional analysis in terms of the scenario planning as we go forward to link up with recommendations for you all. If there's a more specific question that you're asking, please ask it again and I could be more specific. >> Pool: Sure. And I'll just kick it off because I think there are some other questions around the dais. Will the strategic mobility plan conversations that you have around with campo, do we have an official partnership to look at things regionally with these different entities? I think that we -- it's important that we do, and that it needs to be more than informal. [9:15:24 AM] >> Actually, to get to the technical stuff I'm going to introduce anik bouke. She's just been hired as my assistant director for transportation. >> Pool: Congratulations. And the second question I'll have after anik talks to us is the specific contracting and the goals. I think there's a move around the dais to dig into the goals for minority and women owned business, specifically that. >> Good morning. I'm going to speak to the collaboration and the need for the additional supplemental amendment. So the request is for $150,000 to continue our work on the strategic mobility plan. As you all know, we are highly coordinated with project connect and capital metro. And so we have realized in syncing up our timelines and making sure our technical analysis processes are informing each other, we realized two things. One, that effort was extensive. It's requiring a lot more meetings and a lot more involvement from our two consultant teams, both acom on the project connect side and [indiscernible] On our side to be coordinating with each other. And multiple meetings. >> What's aecom? >> Aecom is the consultant working on project connect on behalf of capital metro. >> Pool: So it's a private firm? >> Yes, it's a private firm. Both agencies have hired consultants so we found a need early on for those consultants to be more coordinated to make sure the efforts are complementary to each other. So that of course took a lot more time, a lot more effort, which obviously it increases the cost of it to the process. But for the benefit of the outcome, which is an integrated approach to both transportation planning processes. Additionally the 150,000 covers -- this is really important. Updates to the campo model, which is the basis, which I'll go into in our briefing later, of the scenario planning specifically to include nexus 2025, which is capital metro's new transportation service plan. [9:17:40 AM] And so there's a lot of updates, guess, very technical -- gis, very technical work that needed to be done that caused extra hours that caused the extra amount. So that's the bulk of why there's additional funding requested as part of this contract. >> Pool: So of the 2.23 million, 150,000 is the piece that goes to the asnp? >> Correct. >> >> Pool: And that's the contract with opticos -- >> It's confusing. It's a contract with opticos and kinly horn is a subconsultant to opticos and that's on the city's side. So that 150 goes to the majority to kinly horn and some of of that will go to opticos as they are also as director spillar pointed out, looking at how our recommendations are developing with regard to land use and codenext. Aecom is the consultant on capital metro's side that is coordinating with us. >> If I may elaborate on that. If you look at the lead participation page, you will see listed under the non- mwbe firms kinly horn under the services for the contract that she spoke about. >> Pool: But that's non-mbe, WBE? >> Unfortunately it is a non-mbe, WBE. >> Pool: We'll get to that in a moment and also on the larger contract. Can you then give us -- maybe Mr. Spillar at this point -- not Mr. Spillar, I'm sorry, maybe it's Mr. Guernsey, the bulk of the 2-plus billion is going to opticos. What are we going to get in addition to our -- the money that we've already invested and what ground haven't we plowed that we need the additional consultants to help us with? And then I want to talk a little bit about the amount of money that's going to bring the consultants to town and maybe have a conversation around the dais about maybe a better way to spend the money. [9:19:52 AM] >> Certainly. Greg Guernsey, director of planning and zoning. So phase 5, which has yet to begin, that will be spent to really finish the codenext product all the way through for consultant services through the April timeline that we have been working on. There is a considerable amount of money that is devoted to trips, trying to make sure the consultants are here and not just for the council, for the briefings that we've had, but also for various commissions, environmental board. For instance, we just had for planning commission and zap, but we're working directly with them, both my staff and other staff from other departments while they're here walking through the different sections of the code, taking a look at the comments that we've had, looking at the different changes that might be made to create the third draft. And that's -- their assistance is needed to create the third draft and the third set of maps that would come out in -- at the end of November. We have also elected services to assist with going to planning commission and the zoning and platting commission to have the commissioners interact with them as well and we would annotate all the commission's recommendations, both zap and planning commission, in bringing those forward to you so you know what they are. >> Was it anticipated in the original contract that the consultants would carry the presentations through to the recognized and standard citizen commissions? Did you always know that opticos would come to speak to zap and pz. >> I think four or five years ago it was envisioned they would be present for the public hearings for council and for the commission. I don't think at the time that we kind of kicked off the project that we thought we were going to both zap and planning commission. [9:21:53 AM] I think we were thinking it would only go to to the planning commission, because by charter they're in charge of all zoning amendments. >> Pool: And we added zap and the environmental commission in later when we realized we weren't getting sufficient coverage. So of course maybe you wouldn't have anticipated that at that time. My point is really more to the amount of time that they're spending traveling, and I'm just wondering if maybe their time maybe better spent if they didn't have to be on a plan. How often are they coming into town? >> Almost twice a month. And they have been. When you went on your break they kind of went on a break as well. They weren't here as often. But we would try to have them here for the commission meetings and for the council meetings that are coming up. >> And how many people are traveling when they come? Is it like five or six people or two or three? >> It really kind of depends. If we're bringing questions about affordability, they'll have a representative from Rico northwest. And of course gonophore seen know will be here. And if there are questions in a line of zoning issues and maybe administrative procedures or administration of the code, then Lisa wise or her associates would attend. So I've had as many people here as seven. I think it's probably in on the low side might be two or three. >> Can you give us information on how much out of the contract we're spending bringing the consultants to town and putting them up in hotels and so forth? Mostly where I'm going with this is if we're going to continue to invest in this contract -- and my mind is not made up on how I'm going to vote on this just yet. There's more questions that I think we need to get answers to. I want to make sure that we're actually getting some important and significant value for the flights into town. When they come to Austin are we putting -- are we getting the best bang for our buck? [9:23:59 AM] And so at this point I just need to get a sense of how much is being spent in that arena so that I can calculate that myself and see if I feel like that has -- has significant value and an equal value? Because my question is knowing these days how easy it is to meet electronically, phone conferences and so forth, I'm not sure that there is commensurate value having people come and sit in the audience waiting for time to talk to us, especially when it feels like the better value for our dollar might be to get their presentations a week in advance so that we can look at their -- and primarily their powerpoints. So I recognize that there's not as much information in those, but if this dais could get that information a week or more in advance, we would have time to read it and absorb it and assemble the questions that we always have, but by the time we get to this setting, after having a presentation for over an hour, two hours, maybe an hour and a half or so, we come down to a short time frame for us to respond to that to ask questions that we've come with, most of which we don't get answered, and then we really don't have any opportunity around this in the work session to have the conversation that we need as councilmembers for the give and take of ideas and information. That just isn't happening. And I know that our staff also are concerned about the amount that's being required of them and how short the time is that we're looking at going forward. So I did a fairly significant message board posting last night just to raise these issues so that colleagues we could all kind of think about that. And maybe give some thought to whether the trajectory that we are on currently, putting the contract specifics aside, whether the spending is getting us to where we need to be, is there another approach that we could take, and then factoring in the timeline. [9:26:10 AM] If indeed it looks like the timeline with the deadlines that the council has through various resolutions put in place, is -- that we are running toward a deadline rather than to a quality product, and I think we need to maybe have that conversation. The reason why I'm bringing it up in the context of the contract is if we are paying for the consultants to come here and in the timeline has become a problem then we need to reimagine how the monies and the work plan that we're looking at approving on Thursday will take us through to a hopefully successful end of this project. So that's kind of -- I'll just leave it there. I know folks want to also talk about more specifics on the contract, but I wanted to lay that think piece out and ask -- ask y'all to think about it and maybe respond. >> Mayor Adler: And thank you. >> If I could -- >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead and then Ms. Kitchen. >> I just wanted to say not only are they coming to see you and the commissions. We've taken the consultants to the real estate council, to ANC, they've met with evolve, different housing groups. They meet with other departments so they're not just sitting in my office when they're coming. We're actually basically putting them in touch with different folks. I think one advantage that you have, some of the questions actually get quicker from the consultant. As you saw the last time with John fregonese when he was here, I think you had asked some information about some school data and some other things and he was able to respond directly back when he came back that second time. We do have enough money to take us through to next April. I think if it would go on further there might be some additional trips that might be necessary that would be need to have them come down, but we are still working on the staff recommendation. [9:28:19 AM] We have yet to give that to the planning commission and the zoning and platting commission. So we're very much working on that. They're assist us with that, but that's kind of where we are right now. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: I want to go back. I have a few questions and I'll try not to take too much time because I know others have questions. So just a quick question to go back to one of the earlier questions about the transportation aspect of it. For kinly horn, I think councilmember pool had pointed out that the two contracts had been -- this is not the first time that the two contracts are together. So can you tell me over the course of the contract how much that the asmp part has been? I know out of this contract it's 150, but do you guys know how much -- >> 800,000, I believe it was. A little bit more than that. 800 and I believe some change. >> Kitchen: I don't need the exact. >> This is the 150 that we're asking for. And back in June of 2016 we asked for I think -- >> 619,760. [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: I don't need the exact amount, it's okay. [Laughter] >> For the amendment -- that was amendment number 8. >> Kitchen: Tell me this, it's about 800,000. >> Yeah. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. So going on to the other questions,s I do have -- let me just say this so I can let others talk. I'll just say that I think that -- I think the conversations that we had with the consultants is important and valuable. I would want to structure them differently. I agree with councilmember pool that we're probably past the time that the work sessions, per se, or the Q and a in the work sessions, per se, I don't know that those are getting us further down the road. [9:30:19 AM] I think it's time to have some more conversations, and that may take -- I'm just speculating here, might take a longer conversation or work group, so that as a council we can have questions and don't have to spend the whole time asking Q and a in a setting where we don't really have a chance to talk about it. But I would be very concerned if we didn't have the consultants available to us. That doesn't mean that maybe there's times that they don't have to come as often. I don't have a problem with that. But I would be very concerned if we just stopped their contract. I think that is totally inappropriate. And would not allow us to continue the work that we need to do in whatever form we decide is the best way to do it. I know that I in the past have had the consultants come and meet with my constituents and that's been very valuable. I think I'm past the point where that has to happen, but that has been very valuable too. Sometimes the one on ones are just necessary. So I think it's important to have the conversation. I just want us to have it without an all or nothing thinking. I think it's important to recognize that we continue to need their assistance and we can adjust that in whatever way we think is appropriate as we proceed forward. If we get into the questions about the minority contracts, I do have questions about that that I'd like an opportunity to ask, but I'll let someone else talk first. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sure we'll get to those, want you to address those for us here. Mayor pro tem, did you want to go? >> Tovo: I have quite a few questions. Some of them go back to a much earlier part of the discussion. Let me just ask this very quickly and then I have some comments about the codenext. [9:32:20 AM] So just to get back to the questions that councilmember pool was asking, it sounds to me as if 150,000 of this amount is for the mobility portion, the rest is for codenext? >> That's correct. >> Tovo: I never really heard an answer to part of the question, which is how much of that is for both pieces is work already completed versus work to come? I think I understand for mobility it's all work to come. >> Correct. >> Tovo: Is that right? >> That's correct. >> Tovo: I'm not clear on the other portion is work completed versus work to come. >> Well, with this contract this would be new work, not old work. So we are still finishing up parts of phase 4, but this is for new work that has not taken place yet. >> So we still have some capacity within our existing contract amount for the work going on right now. >> We haven't gotten all the invoices in, but I'm pretty sure it's close to being expended for the total amount. >> And I'd like for somewhere detailed information along the lines of what councilmember pool was asking about how much of that existing contract and proposed new contract amount is allocated for travel and lodging. I think that's appropriate and that's certainly one of the questions that I've been asked by my constituents. It's hard for me to know how to proceed on Thursday because to some extent I think it is the timeline that is really causing the problems here, but I'm just looking back at -- at, for example, a question I asked on may 25th through the Q and a. Let me say first of all I don't know what our mechanism is going to be for having these discussions, for getting the information that we need so that we can explain to our constituents if we don't have the work session. So I very much hope that we will continue to do hospital those. I had hoped the Q and a may be a better way of answering those, it clearly hasn't because we haven't gotten answers to a lot of those. [9:34:24 AM] I think it's because the staff don't have the time to do it and the consultants don't have the time do it, but there's a question on 525 that I asked about why the numbers -- why the capacity numbers coming forward from the consultants are different from the capacity analysis that was done, that question never got answered. I raised it in our last work session and it was like it was in new question. We still don't have an answer. I'm in the position of needing to explain to my constituents what some of these changes are. Some of my community members were actually involved in crafting these questions for which we still don't have answers. And you know, as part of our next round of meetings I know some of us -- I'm going to have two town halls in my district because the changes that are proposed in my district are pretty significant, but because of the timeline we can't have staff at those. I think we asked to have town hall in June and weren't able to do that, but now we don't have staff involved in our local town halls either. And again I think it's because of the time frame and the schedules. So I don't know. I think there are some community members who have asked to put a pause on the C let's start out where we are. When I hear questions about, say, cottage lots, I -- my joy on my staff got to the bottom of one of the questions I keep hearing from -- I keep hearing questions, this is just an example, about cottage lots. Let me see if I can find it. There are discussions going on in the community about the fact that now cottage lots are not limited. It's not limited, as I understand the answer from joy that she got from the staff, it's three and six just as it was in the first draft, but that has been left out of the second draft. There was another question about cottage lots, about one of the R categories is indicated as having two units, but to really have one. I just don't know -- it seems like we're marching on for another draft when we don't have a corrected second draft. [9:36:32 AM] We're in a position of providing revision suggestions, but it's not -- there are inaccuracies in the draft we have. So that's a lot of information and a lot of observations. I guess I'm not sure what the best way to proceed is. I'm not sure initiating another two million dollars for the contract is the right thing to do until we sort of take stock of where we are, figure out how we're going to get to a place where we all have enough information that we can actually convey to our constituents what is in this draft and what is in this map. And I think that's going to take some pretty dedicated work sessions. Again, I think it would be an effective means just as it is on our regular agendas and in our budget questions for us to have a question and answer that's actually functioning. That would be a help. And then we see -- and maybe providing some very specific direction to our staff about what should be the principles incorporated in that next draft? Some of us did submit some comments in those stages, and I don't see those drafts in the comments that came back. In some cases yet, but many comments weren't. We need some opportunity to have some dialogue about which communities are being incorporated and why, which aren't and why. Those -- again, I don't have a sense of what the best thing is to do on Thursday because these are kind of all of the -- all of the things that are going through my mind and the minds of community members who are calling me and saying why were these changes being made, why aren't these changes being made? What is the specific reasoning for this or that? What is the specific numbers? We need some help, I need some help being able to communicate back with the people I represent. [9:38:33 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I'm excited to see the ongoing collaboration between the ansp and codenext. It's far and away the number one question I get from my district about what is the impact of codenext on traffic and future infrastructure? So that's very exciting. I suppose we'll see the travel numbers for the consultants, but I think it's been pretty clear that we want them here so that we can meet with them and the community wants to talk to them. I don't have any issues for the consultants traveling to talk to our community. I'm also equally concerned about the cost. We are spending a lot of money on this. I don't want to extend this project another six to 12 months and then how many more millions of dollars are we going to have to spend. I have many, many meetings in my district. I've had I think nearly 20 meetings that I put together. A handful that staff has done, but it's mostly been me and my staff. And my district is ready to go. We're ready to move forward. I am confident by the time we get to April that we'll have our questions answered. I don't want the consultants to think that we're slowing this down so that it predetermines that April isn't ready. We need to be ready in April. I don't want to get into a place where we have to justify another one million, two million, three million to other consultants or other outside groups because we've delayed the process as a council. I think we can get this done, y'all? It is -- April is not tomorrow, April is many months away. And the work of the land use commissions that we've added to this project wasn't originally as men commissions as was set out. We'll get so much input and advice and conversation around that, and then we'll have months of just us, but I think one of the conversations I've had -- frustrations that I've had that I've expressed to folks in the community is we haven't hit the point where we're making changes to a draft. [9:40:37 AM] We're still waiting for that draft. And the analogy that I used at a meeting over the weekend, I sat on a codenext panel over the weekend, is kind of like software development. We're in the beta phase. We're on the prerelease, draft three. And by the time we get to draft four we'll have a product. But there are very few businesses that say that's done. They put out a beta product and put it out to the jurors and -- to the users and say what do you like or don't like? And I think it is very probable whatever we pass in April will be followed by amendments and changes and things that community members come back two months later and say what you said in work session is a practical change and there's nothing that stops us from doing that in the future. The thing that I want to avoid is the continuing millions of dollars spent on consultants just because we don't think we can get our jobs done. I think we can. And I support completely the consultants coming to Austin to talk to us, talk to the community, talk to the mixes, but more importantly to talk to staff. I kind of want them here locked in your office. I want them to get the job done. So let's not be confused about what we're trying to get to and I don't think the consultants were hired to be public engagement people. That's not my understanding of it. I think councilmembers are public engagement people. And I want the consultants here. I want them doing the work and I have no problem with them coming to Austin to be locked in your office. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Houston? >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. So where to start about minority women owned businesses and their participation or lack thereof. Back in 2013, it was my understanding, and I maybe wrong, the minimum threshold for participation was 31% minority and women owned businesses. [9:42:38 AM] Somewhere that got changed. I think it's currently in the last few years it got changed to 15.8% M.B.E. Participation. And 15% WBE participation. We come nowhere those to those percentages. And so -- let me see if I can get my numbers straight here. I think minority owned businesses, I think it's probably $600,000 S that what you see for minority women owned businesses? This contract has been going on for five years now, right? >> 2013. >> Houston: If we adopt this amendment it will be eight million dollars. And the question that the community is asking is where are the local businesses, where are the minority and women owned businesses in that contract and in that ability to do some work for opticos? >> Council, I can address those questions. Veronica Briseno, director of the small business and minority businesses department. You have in the backup a summary that states the initial goals that were set on the solicitation and that opticos submitted on the compliance. It shows the participation that we're anticipating for this amendment and that's the break down in the chart of your rca. And at the bottom it shows where overall participation is. I will walk quickly through those. I will start by explaining on the professional services contract we always set our annual goals. These are the goals that are in our ordinance. They are not based on the scopes of work for that particular contract. That's what we did on 2013. So the goals that are set are stated in our ordinance, they are African-American, 2.1%. Hispanic, nine percent, Asian American. Through the life of the contract, current participation is at African- American .81. [9:44:40 AM] Hispanic 3.58. Asian, native American, .45. You are correct in that they're not meeting their goals, however when we're looking at compliance with the mbe/wbe, WBE program, we are looking to see that all of the subs on the compliance plan are being used for the scopes of work they were listed for. We have been working with opticos closely throughout the life of this contract and as those scopes have arisen on this contract they have been using the subs that they listed. And the current amendment that you're looking at they will be including participation with rjw for outreach. There were two other firms that were listed for outreach as well who have asked to be removed from the contract. So we have removed them from the contract based on the subconsultant's request. So while they are not meeting their goals and that is a connect statement, they are using the firms that they said they were going to use for the scopes of work that they listed them for. And that's how we hold the prime consultant and our contractor accountable. We did also run the goals based on expenditures and where they fell with each scope of work to see what that would have looked like if we had in fact set a project specific goal as opposed to an annual goal and it is in line with where participation is. They would have been considerably lower if we had set the goals based on where the scopes of work. It was just hard for us to do that in 2013 because we did not know what scopes of work were going to ensue in the years to come. >> Houston: So when they don't meet their goals and we just say you don't meet your goals, we don't challenge them, we don't do anything, there's nothing else that we can do, nothing else in our toolbox that can be done to say you're still not meeting your goals and we -- because this is a value that I think some people on this council have expressed, that you've got to do better. We just keep going along with them underperforming. >> We absolutely understand that's a value of this council and certainly of city management as well. We've had continued discussions with opticos about the importance of trying to meet those goals. And in fact, as a result of that discussion most recently you have the inclusion of rjw in this amendment. [9:46:44 AM] So it is a continued discussion. However, we can only hold a prime accountable for the scopes of work that arise in the life of the contract. If the scope doesn't materialize they don't have the opportunity to use that firm they've listed on their compliance plan. >> Houston: So the only thing, once I see listed in the backup, is about community engagement. That's the only things that minority and women owned businesses can do in Austin is engage the community there. No other scopes of work that they can do here. Like the mobility let's go to the mobility plan. Has opticos already done some mobility planning? Are there no contractors in Austin that could be doing the same kind of mobility planning here in Austin? That that could be peeled offer and given to another group? >> Mayor pro tem, let me just answer -- I'll let them answer the other part, but we are using civil engineering and environmental engineering by a local women owned firm. We're also using architectural landscape services of a local firm. I think when council selected the original consultants from being out of state, and we didn't have a localed by, although we do have some local companies that may have been able to do this work, it put this contract perhaps at a disadvantage in that we were using a contractor that was out of town. As we've done different things over the last four to five years, doing a code diagnosis and community character and enlisting the community, that period of time there's probably been less public engagement. Although we spent over, I think, a million dollars, almost $1,500,000 on public engagement through this process, their activities are more focused more recently and maybe at the very beginning than they have maybe in the middle part of the contract. [9:48:51 AM] >> Houston: So my question is has opticos already done some mobility planning for the contract that we're in now, not for the amendment? Is this a new amendment? To get them to do mobility? >> Yeah. Opticos has performed specific tasks related to the mobility plan, but a small amount. It's mostly kinly horn who is their subconsultant who is primarily performing the transportation planning and engineering copies scopes of work. From what I understand, they have a woman owned business subconsultant that is on the specific task of the mobility plan, but beyond that they are doing the majority of the work, which is transportation planning and engineering, which is a subscope of the bigger codenext scope. That's how it's structured. >> So they have expended I believe it's $365,479 with Kinley horn. My understanding is -- they are not a certified WBE firm. I don't know the availability of mbe/wbe, WBE firms that provide transportation planning, but we can certainly provide that to you, but kimley horn was list odd there to provide that scope of work. >> But they're not certified. >> We cannot count them? >> We cannot count them. >> Houston: I think what it sounds like is opticos has kind of a family affair going here. They are getting a lot of money from the city and the city of Austin. So I would appreciate if you would find out if there are any qualified firms that could do that and I'd be willing to divide the question and see if we can just have that scope of work performed by a local company rather than additional to opticos to do it, with whomever they're doing it with. [9:50:52 AM] Because we're so far below what the goals have been established for. >> Kitche: Mr. Mayor, I said that I wanted to talk about this aspect, the mwbe. If I could say something quickly if councilmember troxclair doesn't mind. I would like to clarify the question if she doesn't mind. >> Mayor Adler: Okay, go ahead. >> Kitchen: Okay. So I am concerned also about the mwbe because we are very far from the original -- the original goals on this contract. I want to make sure I understood what you said. So it sounds to me like -- did I hear you say that the scope that was anticipated that would have gotten us to the point that we wanted in terms of our mwbe goals, the scope did not materialize. Is that what I heard someone say? >> When we set the initial goals on the contract, because we did not know with certain what percentage each scope would materialize on the contract, we set our annual goals. So our annual goals are in our ordinance and it allows us the ability to set those on any contract. So it's an aspirational goal based on our disparity study and that's what we used for this particular contract, for the life of the contract, with their initial compliance plan they listed with the city, they listed each they anticipated to use and what scope of service they anticipated to use them for. So they have used those subs for the amount of scope that has arisen on the life of the contract. >> Kitchen: So part of the problem is on us in terms of our scoping. I think -- I agree with what councilmember Houston is saying in terms of the transportation part of it, but I'm also focused on -- my understanding is we have not done and have not used as much of the scope as we could have or in my mind should have for community outreach. And that's not that maybe -- that minority and women owned business can only do outreach, but that is an important scope element and that is to my mind from what I'm looking at, that is one of the reasons that we haven't met our goals. [9:52:57 AM] Is because that particular aspect of the scope. I think I mentioned to you -- let me ask you this. Did I hear you say that the two firms that ask to be taken off the project, those firms are minority and women owned businesses? >> That's correct. It was a minority owned business and a women owned business. >> Kitchen: Okay. So I think we need to -- from my perspective I would like to see if there's something we could do -- not something we could do. I think we should do something at this point to get us closer to those goals. I think that one of the things that we need to recognize is that there's some responsibility on the city's side in terms of the scoping that it's not -- it not just a matter of opticos not meeting their goals. It's a matter of what kind of scope -- partially a matter of what kind of scoping we as a city are asking for. So I don't have a specific idea yet, but I do plan to make some kind of proposal that will help get us a bit closer to our minority and women owned business goals. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Troxclair? >> Troxclair: So I just wanted to chime in on the broader issue of approving another two and a half million dollars to the project. I mean, we're going to be -- when all is said and done if we stick to the budget outlined here we will be spending almost $10 million on what I think is a really important project, but also something that I'm not sure is kind of accomplishing the goals that was set out when the council made the decision between the three options that were presented to them, the level one, two and three, the brisk sweep, the deep clean and the complete makeover. From what I remember it was somewhere between level two and three, a 2.5. That was the direction from council and when we undertook this project. And from what I've seen so far, I'm worried that we're headed in the wrong direction. [9:54:59 AM] And my concern is that we're going to get to April and we will have spent almost $10 million and it won't be -- and I won't be able to support the final product because it will be pretty much a reformatting of our existing code with maybe some cleanup around the edges. So I just -- that is -- so my struggle with approving the additional money is that is it going to be accomplishing the goals that the community set out to accomplish when we undertook the project? I mean, I think -- obviously product is paramount, but I also think timeline is important. I do not -- we shouldn't have an arbitrary timeline to adopt something regardless of that product, but I also think it's completely reasonable to expect that we will have a good product to adopt by April. I mean, we're already well over the amount of time that we expected that this would take. And if I've learned anything from being on council, it's that we will absolutely take up all of the time that we give ourselves. And often when we give ourselves, you know, whether a time con straight on work session or whatever it is, we're often able to work within those boundaries. So we kind of knew from the beginning that April was the goal and I think that it is completely reasonable to assume that although there is still a lot of work to be done that we can have a -- a great product to adopt by that time. And I guess finally on the -- I think that other councilmembers have maybe already taken care of this, but I think it's completely appropriate for the -- and really important for the consultants to be in Austin and to be spending time with us on these discussions. I mean, I'm happy to work and suggest ways for the city to cut its budget, but this is one of the most important projects that we have undertaken and it is absolutely imperative that they are face to face with us and interacting with us and the community and getting us -- getting us to the place that we need to be by April. [9:57:04 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I was wondering if we know why the minority and women owned businesses have to be removed from the contract? >> My understanding is that there was decision to have the outreach -- to have our public information office be more engaged in the outreach. That decision was made to include those two firms in that approach, but the two firms decided not to go forward with in that approach. Greg may be able to elaborate on that. >> I think that's a good summary. They felt it was on the right track as far as doing public engagement. And that Pio's plan was a good one. And they conceded to that. >> Alter: Thank you. As I think about codenext and the timetable, my goal is to get it right. I don't know what that means for the timetable. I have reservations on it, I have concerns about it right now. As I understand it, the original charge was to produce a code that advances imagine Austin and that's cleaner and easier to read. And I'm having trouble seeing us getting that product. And when we do a contract and we amend the contract and we keep going with that, if we're not getting the product we need that's a problem and I'm very concerned about how we land at a point that we get that product because none of us on this dais have the ability to go from something that is not delivering that to something that does deliver it. We just don't have that expertise. So it needs to land on our plates fairly close to that goal, and I am not seeing that at this point in time. So I am very concerned. I've not decided how I'm going to vote on Thursday, but it is important to remember where we started with this process. [9:59:05 AM] And I don't know that we have something that's advancing imagine. -- That's advancing imagine Austin. >> Mayor Adler: I think it's real important that we hold on to the April date at this point. I think if we don't set a deadline, we don't have something to work to. And I remain a believer in the process. I think that the land use commissions are doing their work. I think that tonight my understanding is that they're going to talk about a conceptual way to approach the work and to break it into more bite size pieces. And I think it's important that we give them the opportunity to be able to do that. I I think also the work will expand the time we have to do that. I think there's been good work happen in the community and with consultants over this year as we've focused on it, and I think we should continue that. That said, you know, I hear the mayor pro tem asking again that this meeting for answers to Q and a items that were up several months ago, and I would suggest or request, manager, that someone go through all of those Q and As and annotate it. By that I mean if they think the question's already been answered, say that and say where the answer is. If it's an answer that doesn't exist, say that. If it's an answer that is unable to be answered, say that. If there's a problem in a question, say that. But I think that the silence is deafening with respect to a question that is asked and then not responded to, so I think at the very least, we should go through -- I would request we go through those questions and answers and tell us what the status is of those, or if there's a -- whatever it is, so there's some response -- I know people in the community, as well as councilmembers, are looking at those things. [10:01:14 AM] So as far as the consultants coming to town, I will weigh in with a group of my colleagues here that say that's a good thing to have happen. We've asked them to come back. We've asked them to be here personally and physically present as a counsel. We've given you that -- that direction. So I continue to support that. Certainly, as we talk to how we're going to handle this issue, if that role should change or there are different kinds of things, we want them meeting with different people or different ways or augmenting what's happened, I'm open to that conversation, too. But we have spent a lot of money on this. This contract was entered into before this council and the first 10-1 council were brought into this. It's been going on for a long time, and I think we should be doing everything we can to try and push that through. I am concerned about the mbe and WBE goals. From what I hear you say, if I understand it correctly, we set the original goals without regard to what the scope of the contract was, so we just adopted then what were the generic citywide goals. I understand that when you have contracts where there's specific scope, in those contracts you set a goal that is contract-specific, that relates to the work that's being performed. What it looks like is that when the scope changed or when it became more clear what the scope of the contract was, probably we should have gone back in and amended the goals, if that was the appropriate thing to do, at the very least it would have been appropriate for us to have that conversation, so that if there was a change in what the operating goal was, that there would have been a public discussion about that, because if the public is only seeing the original goals, then that is the goal and there's a valid expectation in the absence of something changing that that is the goal that will be met, and address that. [10:03:31 AM] Should we in these kinds of contracts be assessing that continually as we see what the scope is so that we have a conversation that the public can see. Even if the contract's specific goals are closer to what we're actually seeing, you know, we set those goals and we set those goals consistent with how we do contract -- contracting in the city generally. But in this case, given the amount of public interest in this, making sure that we have both public engagement in all communities in this city, and making sure that there is real representation on the input from cultural competencies across the city as a heightened need, and I think if you look at the debate that's happening right now in the community, you see what happens when you're not achieving goals, or even exceeding goals. And I'm happy that there's an intention on this contract with respect to that. I would join the voices that say let's scrub that and redouble that in terms of the execution of the contract as it goes through, because I just think it is so critically important. But from where I sit now, I would vote to approve this contract so that we set the contract in motion. We can continue to have conversations about what's the best way to do that. I'm eager to watch what happens with the planning commission and the discussions because we have a lot of people in this community that are really focused on helping to ensure that we have the best chance to have the best product possible. And, again, those are my heroes in the community right now, those people that are staying engaged in the process, trying to make this the best possible product we can have, and then we can, as a council, decide what our action is. [10:05:45 AM] I don't plan on voting. I don't think anybody up here plans on voting for something that is not good, that is not better. But I read the paper again, the headline of the paper this morning, talking about this placement that's happening in our community and how it's accelerating the status quo is horrific for us, both in terms of displacement, in terms of flooding, in terms of traffic, in terms of affordability, in terms of equity, the status quo, we have to do a better job of that. And while codenext is not the answer to any of those questions, it is a necessary component of any effective answer we would have. This is important, and to the agree we need to clear decks, or whatever we need north to be in order to get thisin a place we feel comfortable with I would hope we can spend time doing that, to ensure we can get to a really good place. And I have faith in this council and the community and those in the community that are actively engaged right now in trying to make this the best that it can be because we've got to do something. The status quo is -- is eating us up alive. Further discussion? Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: I want to respond to what the mayor said, but first let me go back to the minority and women- owned businesses. It sounds like what staff is saying is, we have a procedural situation where we have as operational goals, by ordinance, that are applied to any contracts. The bids come in, and they make a stab at what goals thing they will set, or reach. [10:07:47 AM] But then when they don't reach them, we don't have any mechanism or authority to enforce it or to go in and say pause on this contract, you haven't met your goals. We awarded this contract based on what you promised, and you're not fulfilling that promise. Is it state law that limits us? What are our limit -- why -- why don't we have something in place to address the very real -- and it feels like this is a root problem with the concerns that minority and women-owned business community have been bringing to council for -- certainly predates this council. >> So if I could clarify, there is -- we do have the ability to hold them accountable to those goals. We only have that availability, though, for the scopes of work arise on the contract. Because these jobs of work did not arise beyond what they contributed to the mwbes, W b-e's -- >> Pool: I don't know what you just said. I know this is an area where you have tremendous expertise and I don't but I didn't understand what you just said. If they say we are setting -- let's see, I'm looking at the mwbe summary page that's in the backup. Can you point to me where the goal is that they said they would aim for? >> Let me go to the -- I'm going to go back to the original compliance plan. >> Pool: Is that in our backup? >> I don't believe it is, but we can submit it as late backup. >> Pool: Okay. >> The initial complains plan, for example, had Mccann Adams studio on for 12.7% of the project. For the scope of work of urban design landscape architect. [10:09:47 AM] Architecture. So our expectation is that as much of that scope of work arises, Mccann Adams studio would be used for that scope of work. If 12% -- the goal is to get to 12%, but if 12% of that scope of urban design and landscape architecture does not arise on the life of the contract, we can't hold them accountable. In other words, they need the scope to be available in order for the sub to perform that scope. >> Pool: When you say scope, you mean the work has to be offered from the prime contractor for that much work? I don't understand -- >> Sure. >> Pool: -- Your definition of scope. >> It has to be needed for the contract. The city, as the owner, would need that scope as part of that contract. And I would have to yield to the planning department to talk about how that scope came about for the life of the contract. >> Pool: I think what I'd like to do is take this conversation into a meeting in my office to dig into this a little bit more, and less than a quorum, if anybody else wants to sit in on this meeting, because what I'm hearing you say is that numbers are chosen in order to win a contract, whether the actual scope is expected, we don't know, to become a reality; they don't become a reality, we don't have the ability to go in and do anything to make sure that these numbers meet or exceed the numbers that the bidders -- >> If I could clarify, it's not that the scope would arise on the contract but the amount of the scope. The beginning of the scope, we said we're doing the solicitation, we anticipate these subconsulting opportunities to be part of this. We were just unsure at that time what percentage would be -- >> Pool: But don't we award widths based on what the prime contractor says they anticipate their share of minority and women-owned business participation will be? Isn't that -- is that an element of deciding to award a contract? [10:11:50 AM] >> We award the contract based on the compliance with the program. So when we're looking at -- >> Pool: What does that mean? >> When we're looking at a professional services contract, or solicitation, we have the goals that were set on the project, the scopes that we anticipate, the availability list -- >> Pool: So they put in their bid. >> They put in a compliance plan, what they're going to use for what scope. We review that, make sure that they're saying we use those funds for their scopes, that's how we approve it. If we don't approve it, they're not considered for award. >> Pool: So we approve it, then they get the contract from the city, and then they don't meet the numbers that they have provided. >> And when that happens, we look to see, on that contract, did they use the firms they said they were going to use for those scopes of work as they arose on the contract. And in this case, the percentage of the scope that the prime anticipated did not, in fact, come into actualization on the life of this contract. >> Pool: And in the one case, it's because that woman-owned and minority-owned business chose to step away from the contract. >> In that one case that is correct. >> Pool: But what about the rest of the goals that were in this contract originally? >> I would have to yield to our planning department to speak to how those scopes fill out the life of the contract. >> And, councilmember, I probably would have to go back and look at each one of those contracts because this, I think, is amendment number 11, and I'd have to go back and look at each one of the amendments to get to an answer. >> If I may, just looking at it from a larger perspective in terms of participation to date, if I can take you to the summary page you have in your backup, Veronica is absolutely right in terms -- as we set the project, the goals, the annual goals in this case, the as operational goals, we've looked at their compliance by either meeting the goals or demonstrating good faith efforts, right, are to meet those goals. That's just one aspect of the entire evaluation process for our request for qualifications. [10:13:52 AM] We look at their experience levels. Once we determine that that firm -- you know, we rank the firms and council makes a decision to award to the staff recommendation or to an alternate firm, we monitor the compliance with the contract or mwbe goals. By looking at this at a larger level, the amount of these scopes maybe didn't materialize. If I look at this -- and I'll drag in the team and we'll do some more research on that -- when I look at this at this level, I'm seeing that the core services that were required were basically focused on doing the actual codenext work, the actual drafting of the plan. So if you look at that, those scopes of services, the majority was either opticos performing that work, and if you look at the original participation, they said they're going toed 31% of that original work. To date they're at 38, 39%. So more of that work materialized, they ended up doing more of that actual scope of work that was based on diagnose the codenext write-up, research, all that stuff, working with Greg and had is team, the community, council, boards and commissions. Other areas of responsibility came up to your honor planning, scope of work. So if you look at down below, where the non-mwbe, unfortunately that's where they provided the scopes of work that needed to be done for ths contract. So if you look at that participation, those areas of responsibility, such as transportation engineering, landscape architect, urban planning, those ended up having more of the work. So that's where you see the work being greater. >> Pool: No, I understand, but that's not really the core of my concern, and I'll just remind my colleagues that the community outreach piece has been missing since we came onto the counsel because it was cancelled and pulled out, we tried to get it back in, and it didn't work. So I continue to have serious ongoing concerns about our community engagement strategy. I will just say that when I look at the top of the summary, I'm going to look just at hispanic. [10:15:57 AM] It said that the participation goals stated in the approved compliance plan was, for example, 9% hispanic. There are zero. There's no hispanics at all in here. And, let's see, down below, it says subconsultants, 3.58, total, hispanics. So we are one-third toward what the goal was that was offered in the beginning, and so the question that I want to have answered later, in a Q and a, is when we awarded this contract originally, was it awarded because the African American percentage of mwbe W be was 2.1% for, for hispanic was 9, so forth, and what mechanisms does the city have in order to ensure that we have compliance as promised? Because if we're awarding a contract, in some part, based on these scores, we need to dig down into that and understand what we can do to ensure that those -- the scopes and the goals -- hopefully I'm using the right terms -- are, if not met, exceeded, or if not exceeded, met. But this is a longstanding problem, so if there's a way that we can do this better in this contract, then I would -- I think councilmember Houston asked to have the question separated, divided, when we get to talking about this on Thursday. I just want to go back to, in closing -- and I thank everybody four indulgences to the fact that I pulled this. The posting that I put up yesterday sets out an alternative to looking at this, and my request is that we consider adjusting our current timeline and adopt a new goalpost of timing, such as winter of 2018 or spring of 2019 or some other time frame that council finds acceptable. [10:18:08 AM] I know that conversation around the dais today, we appear to be evenly split on whether that's a good idea, but the goal that I'm talking about -- and I'm talking about it is in order to provide greater flexibility and also maintain a focus on moving forward with a quality project in the end. The breathing period that I think we need would give time for staff and the community to focus on rebuilding trust with our city, which I think is being affected by our inability to provide straightforward information to our constituents to have clarity in our answers and to have any answers at all. This would allow us to complete the unfinished proposals that are in the draft code. It will allow us to initiate the communication strategy that we've been talking about for quite a while that is missing, and that needs to be responsive to the community. It will allow us to produce materials that we need in order to evaluate the codenext proposals, and it'll give us, most important, right now, as this piece moves into our citizen commissions phase, it will give them the opportunity to receive valuable feedback from the public and, in turn, to give us their best recommendations and analysis. I think at this point the timeline is hurting us. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember kitchen, then mayor pro tem. >> Kitchen: I just want to go back to the minority/women-owned business. I will think about what to propose and I'll put it on the message board. I want to make sure that we all understand that the -- we, the city -- and I mean all of us, have a responsibility on scope. We're paying for services. That doesn't mean that we pay for services, we set the scope, and the consultants get to decide the scope. [10:20:15 AM] That's not how it works. The scope is dynamic and it changes. As we ask for things, we, the council, ask for things, and the community ask for changes. So to suggest -- to suggest that the consultants are out of compliance with their -- with their minority and women-owned business goals when they are using the minority and women-owned businesses that they said they were going to use for the scope doesn't solve our problem. Our problem is, in this case, our scope, it sounds to me, and the kinds of problems that councilmember Houston has brought up before, and that's the breadth of the kinds of activities that we're using, minority and women-owned businesses for. But I think -- I just want people to understand we asked tore changes, we, the council did, we, the staff, we, the community asked for changes, and that is naturally going to change the percentages of which consultants are used and the -- our ability to reach those minority and women-owned businesses. So I just don't want us to comply that, okay, you know, the consultants said they were going to do something, they didn't do that, so now we've got to go beat them up and say that they need to meet compliance. It's much more complicated than that. We need to understand what the impact is of what we're asking for. And so what I would like -- what I'm going to try to think about is, I do think we need to have -- I think those original goals were important goals. I think we need to make adjustments to reach those goals, and we need to think about what we're asking for in terms of scope in order to reach that. And so that's what I will be thinking about in terms of bringing something forward, that will get us closer to our minority and women-owned business goals. [10:22:16 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: So one of the -- one of the committees that we did not continue as a 10-1 council was the minority and women-owned business council committee that reviewed these goals and reviewed our city contracts on a more regular basis. And I know that did cause some concern among the community, so it may be worth considering, having a quarterly or some more regular review of all of our city contracts and the way that that council committee once did. I guess I'm wondering, though, back to the -- some of the other issues, councilmember pool, I think you've laid out a very good post for us on the message board, and I think you've better articulated what I see as some of my concerned. We do have some unfinished sections. We do, as I pointed out, have just some typos and other errors in the existing code that are causing con concern and I guess unnecessarily. I've been to multiple meetings now where people! -- Where some people have raised it, where it was just a typo. I think it would be helpful as a council if we set some goal for how we're moving forward, what are some of the expectations, how are we going to get questions answered. I mentioned the questions that haven't been answered. I've mentioned them before. The mayor has now added his request that they be answered, so maybe now that will happen, but I have many, many more questions that I haven't submitted. All of us have stopped using that as a question and answer forum. But what is going to be our forum for getting answers to the questions that our constituents are asking us? I don't want to be in a position -- whenever this comes before council, whether it's April or may or February, of having hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, one, questions in our Q and a, or two, 300 amendments coming before council long after the review has finished. [10:24:18 AM] I do think it would be wise for us to look at councilmember pool's section. You know, is there an opportunity to take a pause as a council to provide some direction. You know, there are various ideas floating around in the community about how we might -- how we might move forward successfully on this project. The map is one area that's causing great consternation. Maybe we divorce the map from the code. I mean, that's certainly come up before you know, there are other kinds of ideas we can think about, but I do think we -- it would be useful for us to provide some kind of feedback. And then on a very specific note, I just need to ask, we had talked last week in our codenext session about whether we were going to get that document where the staff have responded to the process and procedures. Is that -- did I overlook that, or is that still on root? >> No, that's still on route, Jose you'll have that by business end today. >> Tovo: Great. I think one of the things that's happening is we're getting feedback from groups, from people, we're submitting it, some of it is taken and revisions happen, some of it isn't, but we don't ever have time -- we still haven't had time to have that dialogue about why we're -- why, given the feedback on this point, does draft two still say X. And there may be a great reason why draft two still says X with regard to administrative procedures, but we just need to start having those conversations. Otherwise, these things are going to continue into draft three, and then again, we'll be in a situation, I believe, as a council, whenever it comes to us, where we're trying to make changes to adjust to concerns that we're - - we're going to have to talk -- I guess my point is, we're going to have to talk about all of these issues at some point, and it would -- it seems like better writing process and revision process to talk about them earlier, come to some resolution, potentially, provide some direction, and then have those changes go forward. And, you know, I have to say, I appreciate that there may be districts that are comfortable at this point with codenext. [10:26:22 AM] I will also say I know councilmember Flannigan, you told a group on Saturday that your area has very minimally changed. I think that is true for some of our council districts. It is not true for any of the neighborhoods I represent, and that is likely true for some of y'all's districts too. We have to understand there are going to be different responses from different parts of the city based on what's proposed for the areas, and we owe it to the community at large to be able to provide them with the information in a timely fashion so they can evaluate what's in the draft. And that is what I'm really struggling with at this point. And I know -- you know, again, I know you all are working as hard as you can, but to me, it's -- I will have to really evaluate whether it is the best thing to do to authorize a continued contract when it seems like we have unresolved things that we should pause, finish, do the work. I think that -- it seems to me our staff and our consultants have been working closely, so closely together that you can provide us with some of the information about why the consults' rationale is X or Y or Z. I'm not sure we always need them here talking about that I would rather they -- I'm just not sure that's the most efficient process at this point. So that's -- I'm really open to other suggestions. I just think we have to have a conversation about how we're going to -- I see the convention center folks meeting, too. You know, it's a similar thing. We need to figure out as a council how and when are we going to make space for some of these conversations, and do we really want to table most of them for the end, which, in my opinion, would not be the best process. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else before we go to the next item? Thank you thank you very much. Being with us today. 20 we think item 28 and 29 will take a long time? >> Mine will be quick. >> Mayor Adler: 22, why don't you go ahead. >> 22 is a zoning case that came before council I think in my first council meeting. [10:28:24 AM] The time the applicant was requesting an intensity of commercial zoning go, that was incompatible to the surrounding residential and commercial uses, and the neighbors had and still have a valid petition. In January this item passed 7-4 but did not have majority for passage on third reading. I mostly just wanted to bring to your attention that we -- there's a new potentially buyer. The new buyer believes that they do not need the G.O. Zoning, they need Lomu with conditional overlay allowing for residential uses. The neighbors are supportive of the residential as long as it maintains the existing co. We are working on negotiating something that the neighbors absent perspective buyer with agree with. I'm hoping not to postpone it, but I'm not exactly sure if we're going to get the final parts of that done. But I will, in all likelihood, be appropriation Lomu with the co that allows the residential uses, but retains the rest of the co from before on second reading. I hope that my colleagues will support this new zoning, assuming that we do reach an agreement between the neighbors and the perspective buyer. I will also point out that you will see a letter from the current property owner in there, still seeking G.O. Zoning. It's my understanding that in meetings with the department staff, and my staff, that the perspective buyer may be taking over representation of the property. So my hope is that we will be able to go forward on second reading with Lomu co, with the co allowing for residential uses on Thursday, but I'm still working out an agreement between the neighbors and the applicant. But since it's pretty different from what's in the backup, I did want to at least flag that, and if somebody has specific factual questions on that that they want to clarify, we're not in a quorum with anyone on this yet, so if you want to speak with my aide cadina Mitchell, please feel free to do that. [10:30:45 AM] And I'm confident we hopefully can move forward with some zoning that will allow the property to move forward in a way that the neighbors and the owners can be happy about. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Anything else on this? >> Tovo: I have something quick on 16. >> Mayor Adler: Well, hang onto 16. What about 29? Is that a long -- Ms. Pool? >> Pool: No, it shouldn't be. What I plan to do is just update you all on the work that I've done since getting -- since our action to -- almost two weeks ago. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you do that, then we'll come back. >> Pool: So on item 29, you remember almost two weeks ago, we had the visit Austin convention anteriores bureau for visit 18, I had a series of questions for our staff, and we delayed approvals of the marketing plan and agreed to two weeks so they could start into the fiscal '18 budget. There were four things that I set out to do in the time that was given to me. One was to go through the marketing plan and review it and make comments and make sure the elements that it tracks with the vision of the council. The second was to initiate an audit, forensic financial audit, program audit as well, of the visitors bureau, to look at their contract and also to get some agreement on the 200,000 allocation that we, council, had as a budget rider directing those monies to local business promotion. And I'm happy to report that in all four of these topics that I -- that I signed myself, we have made significant progress. I talked yesterday -- then there was one lingering question that Jed bowie, who is representing the visitors bureau -- I appreciated him coming to talk with me yesterday, and he asked me if I was ready to release the budget for the rest of the fiscal year, and I told him I wasn't sure yet. [10:32:54 AM] We had only just gotten the binder and spent significant time over the weekend going through all of it, and I hadn't yet settled in my mind whether the budget was ready to be released. And I have formulated the question that I want to get answered so that I'll know on Thursday whether to recommend that. And that is, we noticed that when the monies were taken -- were redirected from the visitors bureau budget, they took monies significantly from the music and the film commission line items. And so I don't -- I don't want to dig into that today, here, thank you, but that is the question that I want to explore to see if we can't -- because the whole point of the marketing and promotions that the visitors bureau does for Austin is to promote and amplify how innovative and tool the city of Austin is, and if we're taking money from the commissions whose mission is to help do that, then I want to have a conversation about that. So that's where we're at. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Pool: And I look forward to additional conversations with our staff in order to get to a place on Thursday to hopefully be able to move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds good. Anything else on this item? Mayor pro tem? 16? >> Tovo: Yes. I know the sponsor is not here so I'll just throw out my questions and maybe we can talk more about it on Thursday. So when the earlier resolution came forward, 20170615 on 069, I think I was a co-sponsor and made the point the joint subcommittee of aid, the county, and the school district has had a long time focus on these issues, and there is a work group that is comprised of various stakeholders that I believe is still in existence. It started by -- it was judge -- an initiative of judge Sam Biscoe. [10:35:03 AM] It then became the judicial task force -- it doesn't sound like -- I'm looking around. Nobody including the sponsors are actually listening. But let me just say the judicial task force of the joint subcommittee was charged with doing some goals that are very similar to what's being directed in this item, identifying a system less punitive, more supportive of children and families, identifying a model to best accomplish this and make appropriate modifications and determine what immediate reforms can be recommended given current financial limitations. There were some programs that were set up on some campuses. It involved judges and community members. It wasn't an issue I was most familiar. I have some information, but I would just suggest this resolution doesn't speak to that effort, it doesn't seem to coordinate with that effort, and I think we're missing an opportunity here to not make sure we're building on past work, not recreating a wheel. I know this is coming out of a work group that was set up earlier by the council, but again, I think we need to meld -- we need to meld with the work that's been going on at the county school district and city of Austin, that was -- let me just say for a very long time the joint subcommittee was nothing more than a group that came together quarterly, heard presentations and went back. It was the effort of a lot of community members, including me, that really tried to shape that into a more active group. And one of the initiatives that came out was this one. So I think it's important that we continue to keep that a collaborative working body and incorporating and, you know, again building on that work rather than recreating it I think is important. It can be -- it's entirely possible that what you're describing here is very different, but again, I think it at least needs -- we need a recognition of how it's different in this resolution. And so I would ask that you look back to that. And, again, I have more work. Dr. Malay was involved with it. Again, there were neighborhood conference committee school-based work group set up on a couple of campuses as part of the judicial support task force. [10:37:09 AM] They looked at absenteeism, dropout prevention, work in the courts, identifying people in the courts and doing some diversion, so it was a pretty all-encompassing initiative, and I think still may be going on. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember alter? >> Alter: I will have my staff talk with Mr. Casar's staff and we'll look into how that fits and we'll ask your staff any factual questions that we need to on that. I wanted to just briefly make a comment on 19, the audit plan. I learned over the weekend that Ms. Stokes was not going to be available today to talk about the audit plan. She's our auditor. I'm meeting with her tomorrow, and depending on how that conversation goes, I may ask for a postponement so that we can have a conversation in work session. It doesn't seem appropriate to have that conversation without her personally being able to be present. But I'm going to see how my conversation goes with her tomorrow and see what's the most appropriate next steps, if anyone else, in keeping with my message post, has concerns about those particular areas that I highlighted for audit, I'd love to work with you in seeing the next best appropriate steps with regards to making those things happen and asking those questions. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Let's go ahead and move to the mobility briefing. >> Mayor and council, Robert Goode, city manager. [10:39:09 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Is your Mike on? >> Just not talking layout enough. She will be back in the room shortly, she stepped out, from the transportation department. We have three major primary goals for this presentation, and there's a lot of information here to go through with you. The one goal that we have is to show you the playing field of all the mobility initiatives that are in the works right now, and the idea that we need to obviously coordinate all those efforts command and make sure that we're rolling in the same direction. And to that end, this graphic tries to show you all the things that we're working on at the moment. Any one of those underneath imagine Austin, all the things we're trying to use imagine Austin as our guiding principles, and everything is corresponding towards those goals the community identified in that comprehensive plan. But underneath those, if you look at any one of those items, any one of those by themselves are major initiatives and major lists for staff to accomplish, and we're doing them all at the same time. So the coordination challenge is intense, and we have ongoing efforts across the staff to ensure that happens, and I hesitate to bring this up because we have so much information in the presentation, but consultants. So we have some subconsultants on the street impact fees, kimley horn, the strategic mobility plan, and if you change those, it's going to really put a wrench into our works. Because we have that coordination effort going on with those consultants and staff, and so I just want to mention that as you have an action on Thursday to consider that. The coordination effort is immense, and if we have to stop the strategic mobility plan to reissue an rfq for a different transportation -- transportation, engineering, it would be challenging. That's one of the goals, to show you the effort going on across these mobility issues to try to ensure there are no conflicts with them but they're all saying the same thing and we're working toward the same end. [10:41:19 AM] The second goal is to show you -- this is a very busy slide -- to show you that all three of these initiatives, the major initiatives for the bond corridor construction program, strategic mobility plan, and then council's strategic plan that we're trying to ensure that all the mobility priorities that you set out in the contract with the voters and that strategic mobility plan goals and then the indicators that we've already talked about for the council plan, that those are all connected together, that they're doing some of the same things and that there's some commonality amongst all the -- all those programs, again from the coordination effort. So we wanted to hopefully -- that's one of the goals of the presentation today, is to show you how those are connected. The third goal is, we have two major initiatives on the bond program, the corridor construction program and for the strategic mobility plan, where we're at a status point to give you information, to hopefully feed us input that says you're on the right path, keep going. There's no action items for you in the next few months, but there are coming up some action items to adopt a community -- the corridor construction plan in the spring, and the strategic mobility plan. So we're checking in today with some pretty major status milestones and hopefully you can give us input today, or later, if you see any fatal flaws and we're heading in the wrong direction, please we will us now because we can pivot now. It'll be harder when you get something in February on the corridor construction program, to say, we really don't like what you put together, start over; that would really delay us. So the goal here again is to give you a chance to see a major milestone, where we're at today and give us some feedback as we move forward. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mike, and he's going to walk you through the corridor construction program, and then aniqui and rob will walk you there you the mobility plan. >> Tovo: Just on that point, I believe you spoke to this when you indicated councilmember Casar is out today. [10:43:20 AM] I know councilmember Garza is as well. Councilmember Casar indicated that, you know, he would like to provide input, and I think it's appropriate for if we're giving you signals about the criteria and whatnot, I would just suggest that we also maybe add this to our work session next week, too, so that we have an opportunity for all of our colleagues to do that. I agree with you that it's helpful, more helpful now than it would be in February. So if we create kind of a formal way of doing that next week, then the colleagues who are not able to participate today will have an opportunity to do so next week. >> That gives y'all some time. There's a lot to absorb. We've given you some written information and we're going to give you some substantive presentation today. That would give you more time to absorb that. >> Mayor Adler: I think it's a good idea, too. Ann, would you take a look at that? That's something you and I can talk about timing when we talk later this week. >> Tovo: Maybe not next week but a couple weeks. >> Mayor Adler: Let's look at the load. Please proceed. >> Okay had good morning, mayor and council, Mike tremble, head of the program office. I wanted to walk you through today where we're at right now, both in the corridor construction program development, and also the prioritization model that's coming out of the contract with the voters. Just to refresh your memory a little bit about the bond package and the contract, the bond package in 2016 was $720 million. $101 million for regional mobility projects, 137 million for local mobility projects, and 482 million for corridor improvement projects, which will be the focus of what we're talking to you about this morning. Again, there's kind of two big components in the corridor mobility program aspect of the bond program. There are those corridors that you identified in the contract and the bond election ordinance that could potentially receive construction funding, and those include north Lamar boulevard, burnet road, airport, east mlk, south Lamar, east Riverside, Guadalupe street and slaughter lane at William cannon. The former that I talked about have completed corridor studies. We're working on finishing up slaughter lane and William cannon as we speak and hope to have those done in the next couple weeks. [10:45:25 AM] As a matter of fact, I think we just sent out notice we'll be doing public meetings on the draft recommendations come I hope comingup the first of November. There's new mobility reports we're working on, those include sections of north Lamar and Guadalupe. We're doing design work on east rundberg and colony loop. Segments of mlk, Menchaca, and south pleasant valley road. We'll be talking about the contract with the voters a lot today. But one of the big things that came out of the contract was to look at those corridors for potential construction funding and then also do that with the goal of an eight-year implementation time frame. So, again, the office staff, the departments we've been working with, and our corridor consultants, and I'm joined with mark bornsteen, head of their team, and their economist that we'll be talking about, we've been working fast and furious to move things forward. I want to again assure you that we have been adhering to the contract as best we can, and we've actually pulled out our schedule directly from the contract. And you've asked to do a couple of key things in the development of the corridor construction program, asker the contract with the voters. You've asked us to review the existing corridor studies, base this corridor program on the studies and programs that exist, do some additional analysis, then prioritize in ways along the key miters and metrics that you've included in the contract with voters. So we've been working on developing that prioritization methodology. And then ultimately bring back to you a proposed corridor construction program for construction funding. And we anticipate doing that in the early spring. Right now, probably end of February, first of March. And then we'll then go into further design phase on these projects and construction. That's one thing important to know, we don't have final design on anything right now. We're going to have to, even after your approval, move into design phase, so time is definitely of the essence as we move forward. [10:47:30 AM] So a little bit about the prioritization model, before we get into the specifics, these are just some of the key tenets we've used in putting this together. So one, as I've mentioned and will probably mention several times, we try to adhere to the contract with the voters as much as possible. Council was pretty prescriptive in how they wanted us to put this together, so we've taken that to heart, and that really, we carry around contracts with us in pretty much every meeting and talk about what's in there, making sure that we're adhering to the contract that you created with the voters who approved this bond program. The other thing is that, you know, there are more needs, there's more projects than we could possibly do with the funding that's just in the 2016 mobility bond program, and so obviously, that just drives a need to have a good prioritization model, but also this is going to be an ongoing, dynamic program because we'll be looking for those additional partnering opportunities, funding opportunities, whether it be grants, partnerships with other agencies, private funding, other funding opportunities. And so this is going to be kind of a living dynamic program as we seek to meet even beyond this efficiently phase of work in the corridor construction program, what that next set of work will be. Also, I was directly out of the contract with the voters, it asks us to look at using identifiable metrics in the prioritization, so that is definitely an underlying theme in what we've tried to pull together. We've been working with our -- many of our stakeholder departments internally, so the ones that you probably imagine, neighborhood housing community development, economic development department, watershed, obviously transportation department has been at the helm as well, working with several of our stakeholder departments to develop this and trying to get as much feedback as possible on what exists, what can we use, what would be a good viable approach to take. The other thing is that the task at hand is doing a comparative analysis. And I do want to mention that because we will be coming back to you looking more at the outcome metrics that we'll seek to achieve, and what do we actually get on the ground and how to perform at the end of the day, we'll bring that back to you when we bring back the corridor construction program in February or March. [10:49:35 AM] It will include some of the metrics that we're using, but the task at hand again was to do this comparative analysis between these different investments and these different recommendations, and so to do that, we really had to look at what were the most appropriate metrics to use in doing that. Along with that, we are looking at building mobility infrastructure, so when we talk about some of the outcomes and considerations from the contract with the voters, such as housing, such as impact on local businesses, everything was that -- from that perspective of what are the -- what are the investments that we're looking to make as far as mobility, and how would we look at how those improvements could potentially support those other outcomes that you had in the contract with the voters. And, again, that's just another vantage point that's important to note as we move forward in the presentation. So, again, coming directly right out of the contract with the voters, first is the mobility priorities. You outlined four key areas of mobility priorities in the contract with the voters. And they are reduction in congestion, improve level of service for almost -- let me get my glasses here -- connectivity, and improve effectiveness of electricities operations. And, again, we have those highlighted up here and you can just see them highlighted in the contract with the voters. And then we also have our community considerations. Again, these are from the section of the contract where it says make allowances for. And so those include preservation of existing affordable housing, preservation of existing local businesses, opportunities for development of new affordable housing, opportunities to facilitate mixed income housing, emphasizing livable, walkable, safe and transit support of corridors, and then promotes healthy, equitable and complete communities. And again, just for your reference, we do have the sections highlighted on the contract in the presentation where we're pulling those from. I do want to note that there are a couple of considerations that you have in the contract with the voters that don't lend themselves to inclusion in the prioritization model, but they're going to be important as we put together the corridor construction program. [10:51:43 AM] And that includes the geographic dispersion of funding related to these investments around the corridors, and then also leveraging and funding opportunities. And so those are going to be important as we're putting the program together, but then also as we move forward. So, again, this is going to be a dynamic program. And so we want to make sure we're keeping those at the forefront as we continue with the development of the program, and then also through implementation. So just for your reference, this is how the upcoming slides are set up when we talk about the indicators and the metrics, we'll have the priority or consideration coming out of the contract with the voters, and then we'll note what the indicator is, and then what the metric associated with that. And, again, we're talking about the indicator being what measuring and the metric being the data point how we're measuring it. The indicators are related to the anticipated improvement or change we would see if we were going to put that particular investment or recommendation from the corridor plan in place. And some of them just look at the existing conditions where, if we put these improvements in, we might promote better connectivity or something because of the people living along the corridor, or what services are available along the corridor. So some of these metrics relate more to the existing conditions than we would potentially be putting these investments in, or close to. So let's start with the mobility priorities. First, we have reduction in congestion. Obviously the first thing a lot of people think about is the vehicles, but I do want to note that again, working with our sponsor department, Austin transportation, really, the move is to start looking more at not just the movement of vehicles but people moving through the corridor in all modes. You'll see the methods we have associated with that. It includes vehicles, of course, but then also starts to look at people moving the corridor across the several modes that we're talking about, whether it's pedestrian, bike, transit, or vehicular. We also, for this, we have traffic model that we're using, and we've actually been updating the traffic modeling that was, you know, initially used in the corridor studies. [10:53:47 AM] Our consultant, hcr, has been updating that traffic analysis and data as part of the updates of the information coming out of the reports. So next, we've improved level of service and reduced delay at intersections across all modes of travel. And, again, we have reduced vehicular delay. So we're looking at delay time. And then we've been working with the university of Texas and their center for transportation. We've been -- they've been developing a multilevel service tool which allows us to look at the level of service just like we have looked at level of service for vehicles, now we can start looking at those for pedestrians, for bikes, and for transit. And then -- I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But I do also want to note an important component of level of service is the safety component. So we did look at, you know, the percentage of crashes that potentially could be reduced by this improvement, the number of top crash intersections that are associated with putting that potential improvement in place, and then also along with that, as we address the safety, as we address the approved quality of the modes, and level of service, we also address reliability issues. And we know that's also a key concern and consideration about people, you know, driving or moving through this corridor along other modes. So that all is kind of baked into this level of service that we're looking at. >> Alter: Excuse me. I just was wondering if you could say a little bit more about what you mean by level of service. I wasn't involved in writing the contract for the voters, and I just want to make sure that I'm fully understanding what that term is meant to mean. >> Yeah. And mark, feel free to chime in, but the level of service really goes to the quality of the use of that mode. So the level of service, it does look at, you know, kind of how folks can actually move and use that mode, how effectively can they use that mode of transportation, whether it's vehicles or pedestrian, but it also includes some of the other aspects. Again, the quality of the mode, such as the safety aspect, is included in that as well. So that's why we talk about the level of service. It's not just how -- you know, how fast you can move through, but can you safely move through, how reliable is that. [10:55:52 AM] And mark, if you want to talk any more about that? >> Mark, from hcr engineering. Yes, the level of service is looking at the quality of the different modes so we're doing it for each mode separately. So if you look back at those indicators, we have one for each of the individual modes that we anticipate in the corridors. Vehicles, that is our vehicle delay time, again, that's coming from our corridor traffic simulation, so we're looking at the delay time, not just at individual interactions, but on the corridor as a whole for vehicles. Mike will be going through the multimodal level of service tools for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit individually. We have those combined. That level of service combines results from our traffic simulation, but it also combines the characteristics of the improvement in the built condition. So we combine those two things together in this tool that we've developed, and there's a number of factors that go into that, and that's going to be Nebraska in the presentation. Going to be next inthe presentation. >> That's going to be the next slide -- >> Mayor Adler: Hang on a second. >> Kitchen: I think -- I'm sorry, I'm looking ahead. So I think that you had mentioned -- you mentioned that there were two criteria that you didn't include in the prioritization criteria, and that was the geographic dispersion and the leveraging of funds. So -- >> Houston: Excuse me, councilmember, can you tell us what passenger number you're looking at? >> Kitchen: Yeah. It was back on page -- well, page 32 is the fast-forward, but you had mentioned it back on page 12, I think it was. So -- so I'm curious about -- those are our two criteria, and it is possible to put numbers on them, so I'm just wanting to understand what y'all's thinking was in not including it. Now, if you want to wait and talk about that when you get to slide 32, that's fine, but to my mind, they have the same level of weight. [10:57:59 AM] And I wouldn't want the process to set up so that we are setting priorities and we're just looking at the priorities, and then, oh, yes, maybe we'll look at? A. Willing and geographic dispersion. I'm not saying that's what you meant, at all. I'm just wanting to understand the impact because if I'm understanding correctly, you'll get a score from the prioritization criteria, and for a we're not going to include geographic dispersion and leveraging of funds in the scoring, then I'm concerned about how those will be used in the calculation. So -- >> Mayor Adler: Is it okay if we hit that when we get there? Because contacts might be helpful to have that conversation. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: But let's make sure we have it. >> Yeah. We can talk more about that when we get there. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Okay. So back to the multimodal level service tool, I want to show you an example. There's a lot of datapoints that go into what actually makes up that multimodel level of service. Again, this goes back to your question about the quality of the mode. Street width, sidewalk widths, number of lanes, availability of parking, distance between protected curb crossing, there's a lot of datapoints that look into what is the actual quality of that mode that's in consideration for that particular investment. And so we're fortunate enough to work with UT to give us that information and develop a pretty effective tool that allows us to look across all the modes. So the next priority is connectivity. And so, again, this goes back to, you know, are we improving the connectivity to services in the way that folks can get around with this particular improvement or investment that we're looking at. So we're looking at enhanced quality and increased number of vehicle connections, protected pedestrian crossings, connections to bike routes, connections to external transit. We have also, just so you're aware, we have been working with capmetro, working with them and looking at their connections to the 2025 plan, operations plan, we've been working with other programs, bike program, sidewalk program, so look at where the connectivity exists, and then also particularly not just what's happening in the corridor, but then also connectivity to and off the corridor, which we know has come up quite a bit. [11:00:18 AM] We've been out -- we've been doing several different community engagement activities, and that's come up quite a bit, is, you know, don't keep your blinds on. Also look at what's happening in the connectivity to the corridor and off the corridor with, you know, whether it's transit stops, other services and folks making, you know, connections to the corridor as well. So so this also lends itself to that, in creating the connections >> Can I ask what the special attract tors are? >> The special attracters. These are facilities or services that folks want to connect to. Soo they include things like schools. They can include things like community centers, recreation centers, employment centers, health care, and food retail as well. We were able to work to get that in as well. Of. >> I guess there's a list somewhere that I can look at. >> Yes, once we kind of -- again, we're trying to pull the data together. >> Sure. >> We'll be able to provide that because we'll be working and pulling it together. >> I would like to see the list of what we're counting as attracters. >> Okay. The next is approve effectiveness of transit operations. Again, we've been working with cap metro and working with their service plans through connections 2025. So population a half mile to the corridor. With it and how it supports transit. Again in italics, it's to indicate that it's look willing at the overall transit level service and we're looking at that through the multimodal level of service tool. Those are the mobility priorities. Make allowances for. This is what we're calling the community consideration piece of it. >> Excuse me, mayor. >> Yes. >> Houston: I have a question on slide 19. >> Mayor Adler: Sure. >> Houston: In the conversation last week or the week before or the week before that, we were talking about relationship between housing and transit stops. [11:02:27 AM] They're using a quarter of a mile and here you're only using a half a mile. So what's the difference? >> We had conversations about what to use. We went with half mile as the appropriate distance but that captures the ability for pedestrians not only to get there but bike as well. We thought that was the appropriate distance to use. >> It puts us in alignment with cap metro connections 2025 plan so we were working closely with them to making sure we are in alignment to measure things the same way. >> Houston: Can someone talk to code next and make sure we're doing the same metrics. >> Yeah, we're trying to stay connected but it gets hard. >> Houston: No pun intended. >> Yeah, exactly. Community considerations. First one is preservation of existing affordable housing. We're building mobility of structure. We had to look at the preservation of the housing with that context. How will the investment and mobility infrastructure support or interact with or impact the preservation of existing affordable housing. So we did work with hcd and we had meetings to talk about the appropriate measures to use. The metrics that we have are the number of market rate affordable housing units and the nonsubsidized housing units of $199 of monthly rent. And affordable housing, the number of nonsubsidized housing units within the high development pressure area. We did look at potential development using the commission study looking at potential development and growth along the corridors as well. That partnered with some of the housing data that we got. [11:04:32 AM] >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Thank you for this. You may know that during the budget, one of the budget initiatives that I brought was study that a university of Texas professor is going to do to provide us with a tool, software and application. I think especially on the vulnerable housing piece that should inform your work. Could be collaboration and cross pollination there. We won't have that tool until the end of the spring semester because they have that work planned, set up that timeline. But I think that would be something that I'd like to see you and capital projects and also the transportation department have some in face with? >> Tovo: Since we stopped, would you explain again which study you used? Which city -- study you used? >> Yes, this was a study done by capital market research and they looked at along the major corridors that have been a part of the 2016 bond and it was starting before the bond was passed so a look at the major corridors in the city. It looked at various data sources to look at the potential growth along the corridors. So we did a look at the envision tomorrow tool as well. We looked at the information there. Quite honesestly because of the way it's set up and the level it's at. We need something a little more refined because we're talking about finite investments at various points along the corridor. So we had to get something that's precise in the analysis. So we looked at envision tomorrow as well. This is the most appropriate way to look at data we have. >> Tovo: The capital market research study looks at the number of nonsubsidized housing units within high development pressure areas? >> It includes that information. And it includes that and looks at the number of residential units based on anticipated growth as well as commercial as well. You want to talk more about that? [11:06:33 AM] >> Tovo: Where do we find that? I sponsored about housing preservation along corridors and asking for quarterly reports on that. I'm trying to figure out if this is actually part of the response to that resolution or if it's a different initiative. >> We have information from that. >> I'd like -- you'd have to know where to get the study. I believe it's publicly available. But we like it's specific so you can look at something that might be a vulnerable parcel at the parcel level which is important to us because of the size of our study areas and we were able to overlay that with the amount of subsidized market rate housing to get a sense of vulnerable housing that is technically market rate but is also susceptible. >> Tovo: That is precisely the resolution we passed called for for that kind of detailed. Information. So if you could tell us how to find that information and if we could figure out how to match your ongoing work and the work that's called for on that resolution. That would be most efficient, thank you. Of. >> Next community consideration is preservation of existing local businesses. So what we looked at here is the potential impact of businesses if the potential investment were to be put in place. So, again, we're looking at the parcel level, potential parcel impact, the number of the parcels that could be impacted and also approximated to local businesses. So we didn't have a real precise existing identifiable metric to look at how to define a local business. We look at a number of businesses within a half mile of the corridor. We'll look at businesses on the corridor on a number of different fronts, one is the impact. But before the implementation and during, we'll be working with businesses to talk about what's hamming, the potential impacts. We're launching a major initiative to get the word out to property owners and managers along the corridor this week to give them base pick information about what's going on. [11:08:42 AM] We will be working with the businesses as well as the neighborhoods along the corridors on an ongoing basis as we get to implementation to look at any impacts and construction can be on there as well. >> Pool: Does it mean you'll reach out the to the businesses on the corridor when you take the corridor up or along Burnett road? Are you going to reach out to the Burnett road business owners now? >> Now. We're going to be doing kind of a -- getting a letter out to a lot of the property owners and managers now. Like this week. Like, again, just like we're doing with the pop-ins with the community about what's going on. If you didn't know, there's the quarter studies, the bond program, here's all of the things you guys know about. It can be difficult to get ahold of, property owners, they may be here, may not. So we want to make sure we have enough Lee time to get any of their feedback. And we want to build a good data base, that's who we need to reach out to. >> Pool: Can you copy my office on the communication you send is to the business owners so I can keep track of the timing and what's being said and how it all works. >> We'll send an e-mail to you all and we'll give you a copy of the lefter. >> Mayor Adler: Probably for everybody, to see when their district is being contacted. Councilwoman alter? Next? >> Opportunities for development of low affordable housing. The number of new residential units. Again, new units within a half mile of that corridor and the potential. And, again, we look at that city commission study. That we were talking about. Potential development and up in units going in. Whether it could be an opportunity. Again, we'll go back to build being infrastructure. There has to be other initiatives to have to be aligned with to really realize the opportunity or the value that can potentially occur as the new units, as the new development comes onboard. [11:10:45 AM] We looked at it from that vantage point, of where that could potentially happen were this investment be put in place >> Houston: Why did you choose fourth of a mile for this metric? >> Yeah, so -- you want to talk about that, Pam? >> Yeah, so what we did, we used te same study as commissionled by the city, they used the quarter mile. The half mile we think of the walkable district. That's when we start to think about for these metrics. But in the development oriented metrics, they tend to be a little tighter. >> Opportunities to facilitate increased supply of mixed income housing. These are the type of dynamics you're looking at projected opportunities along the corridor and new units coming on-line. We're using the same metrics there. It's related to the same type of thing where you look at potential lip again from the vantage point of us putting this investment in place, where are the units going and where there could be another opportunity. I want to ensure you we'll be circling back with the departments we've been working on and the development of the model to talk about what the potential initiatives might be that we could partner up to leverage potential opportunities that you've asked us to look in the contract with the voters and we'll be doing that as we develop the construction program going forward. Our next community consideration is emphasizing livable, walkable, safe and transit support of corridors. So it gets back to, you know, more from the outcome stand point, what are we looking to see at the end of the day if we get these improvements in place? And this left itself to looking back at imagine Austin. So we look at imagine Austin centers and corridors and whether this is a corridor that's in imagine Austin or if there are certain centers identified for imagine Austin that are on this corridor. We're looking at the improvement to water quality that could come in with some of the associated drainage improvements that might be made associated with the developments. [11:12:50 AM] And also the trees that would be added potentially with those investments along the corridor as well. Then the final community consideration. More outcome is focussed on what we're going to seal for the end of the day, creating equitable communities. What potential Ben benefits that could occur or how we could support the hout comes. We worked with the public health department. Dr. Huang worked with us to look at what metrics and measures related to health outcomes exists in the community. So we gathered that information. We see proximity to health and human services which includes rec centers, health care centers, housing office, workforce office, and healthy food and retail locations and looked at health indicators. Prevalence of coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, poor mental health, instances of stroke and obesity. And so -- because we're talking about multimodal improvements, there could be opportunities where there are places above the city average is there might be an opportunity to improve those if we were to put in some of the multimodal improvements talking about bike and pep destryian and folks getting to transit. There might be opportunities to have a positive outcome and support that community outcome. So, just to kind of let you know, I know there are a bunch of numbers up here so we can know what we're doing. >> Can I ask a quick question, I'm sorry. You have some of these that are in italic. Is that meaningful or do they happen to be there? >> It's a good point. Thank you, council member. I want to make a point too that because these are the broad outcomes base, they do relate back to the metrics. They do relate back to the community considerations. >> They are included. They just -- >> Mm-hmm. >> So, again, just to show you that we will be gathering the data and again all of these are identifiable metrics. [11:14:54 AM] We will be gathering the data and then compiling it to the prioritization model and, again, this is an example of us starting to build some of the spread sheets and what they could look like. You can see, again, just the contract, you can see the mobility prierpities and the indicators of the metrics and what the data would be that's associated with that. We'll be busy gathering that Dada over the coming weeks as we move forward and seeing how the mobility scoring is playing out and checking that with our traffic models or our other models as well. We'll do the same thing for the community considerations. I want to mention for the community considerations, because we have opposing forces sometimes in the community considerations. We wanted to look at the community considerations index. We look for the potential for low, medium, and high opportunity to support the outcomes for the metrics and how we're putting them to the model but then we look at how to use a composite for the community considerations index in the model itself and I'll explain how that works. Councilwoman? >> Pool: I know you just grabbed some of the charts to put in here as examples. On 27 and 28, on the chart, it says mon-opsmon -- what is that? >> We didn't want you to feel like we had this all worked out. We don't. These are just kind of dummy titles for the corridor or the investment. Segment in this -- that's the Monday -- we're trying to figure out the right nomenclature to use. We're going to use neverland and narnia. >>. >> Kitchen: That column is the corridor, right? It will be in the future? >> Yes. >> A project. >> An investment. >> A project. >> Pool: It's guided by days of the week and then show the day of the week, the time of day, and the segment. >> We're getting that precise. [11:16:55 AM] >> Pool: I mean, I don't know. You said it was Monday through Wednesday. >> So the way -- this sh a good time to talk about how the recommendations and how we're translating those to investment Ms. The recommendations working to the concept levels coming oh it of the pr studies. Next phase, translating them to investments. How do you translate put sidewalks around the corridor and bike ways, how do we put them in potential investment. We wanted to put them together in such a way they're all multimodal and have a chance to basically have a chance to score across all of the different metrics. So, we did look at operational improvements so those are some of those -- are they short term or near term improvements coming out of the recommendations which include the intersection improvements. They include sidewalk improvements, connectivity to transit, those types of things, again, a lot of them are going to be in your short term or near term coming out of the studies. The intermediate long term recommendations coming out of the plans, that's where you start to see the complete street cross sections in the segments and that's really kind of how the plans are set up and so when you are thinking about potential improvements or investments, that's the way to think about it. You'll see potential package for operational improvements on a certain corridor and there might be a segment from here-to-here that is more of a complete street segment on X corridor. That's kind of how when he -- how we are translating those to investments. >> Martinez: T -- >> Pool: The packages are the business owners or the community a have told you what you'd like to see there. >> We got the a lot of that in the actual development of the recommendations itself. Then that lent itself to the next stage. There's a lot of work to happen there. There's going to be a lot Hoff opportunity to talk more -- a lot of opportunity to talk more about the projects and we have to do the work beyond you approving the quarter construction program. [11:19:00 AM] We'll give you an idea of what the projects are. But we have to go to the design phase and refine that. So we've already gotten feedback and some of our communication about there might be a question about this intersection or this. There'll be time to look at that. We have to get the refinement of projects. >> All throughout that, you're continuing to update the community so they can also adjust their vision and communicate that to you and make sure everything stays aligned and moving in the right direction. >> Absolutely. Our goal is to meet the intent of the recommendations of the quarter studies that the community has engaged in and directed by the contract to do. But to get the feedback and refine and we'll go through the refinement phase until the design and put something out for construction on the street. >> Pool: Great, thanks. >> Okay. So just to talk you through kind of how this would work. And, again, we see this as being dynamic. And a lot more work in in development of the program. This is raw scoring. We look at the mobility calculations coming out of the indicators and metrics associated with the mobility priorities to get a mobility score. Then you would look at the community considerations index and then that would be added to the -- to create a composite score. And then we look at the costs. This gets to looking at what is the potential benefit, you know, per X million of costs of that potential investment. So you have the mention of, you know, the potential scoring of the performance on that improvement. But also the costs as well. So those are the three kind of key components -- mobility, community considerations, and the cost aspect so we can get to a workable prioritization model that we can start then developing a construction program around. So just to give you -- >> Kitchen: So let me ask a question -- is that a cost-benefit analysis? That's what the cost is or -- [11:21:00 AM] >> Exactly right. >> Kitchen: What is the -- you don't have to go to detail now. I would like to understand the formula. How do you apply that? >> As I showed you before, doing the mobility and looking at the indicators and getting the score, we'll look at the community considerations index as well. A 60-40 weighting because the contract said look at the mobility of priorities and make allowances for -- so its's a 60-40 weighting on the mobility priorities and the community considerations in the model. And then we would then look at costs as the benefit per cost. Because each of these investmentments has different costs. Making a level playing field to consider these investments, we have to make a benefit per cost. >> If you think of it as we have a project a and B that provide the same score, project B costs twice as much, project a is going to be bigger bang for the buck. So it's not -- the cost benefit. These are comparative. Looking at every project compared to every other project. We're looking at the score and cost. If the score is equal, the lesser cost is going to give us bigger bang for the buck for the community. >> Obviously, we have to have some time to think about that. I said already, I applaud y'all, this is a lot of work and a lot of thinking. I appreciate that. 60-40 waiting. I'm not sure I would agree with that. Our language really meant a 60-40 weighting as opposed to a 50-50 weighing. I'll give some thought to that. And the costs -- I'm not sure that in all circumstances that we would say something could cost more is -- has a lesser priority. But anyway, I understand that that might have to be how you do it for this purpose. So -- okay. [11:23:02 AM] . >> The 60-40 weighing is the mobility calculation versus the community calculation. I think what was intended was to weight the mobility calculations higher, those were the objectives, those were the priorities. There were four of them. There are other things to be considered. I think we can talk about that. >> Kitchen: I think we can talk about -- >> Mayor Adler: I think that was the intent of the document, that's what the words say. There are two other factors too that we had talked about considering. You're getting to it later. One is what's happening in the market. In terms of the developments that are happening in the corridors that you can layer into it and how we'll be able to take those into account as well as the capital projects that the still might be doing in areas so we didn't have to tear things up twice. We could have weighed doing that. >> Kitchen: I would say that we all put language in here. I understand that you may have felt like the intention was a 60-40. I'm not certain that everyone agrees with that. I certainly didn't mean that the language meant that it was 60-40. Because to my mind, the community considerations are critical and important. It's important for us to understand as we work through the process and the language, we didn't put a number on it. I appreciate you guys doing the best you can with what we work through. So I think it's legitimate for us to have that conversation and consideration. >> Mayor Adler: It will be good to have too. Council member alter? >> Alter: I wanted to talk about the mobility calculation. Are we weighing them all equally or? How -- and nay were listed as four. I'm not sure if they're all equally -- I don't know which one should be more. The assumption in a we're weighting them equally. [11:25:06 AM] >> Councilmember, to that note, we did our best, again, strictly adhering to the contract so there was no other up weighting or prioritization or indicators or priorities we noted other than the mobility and the make allowances for. That's the interpretation of the contract. We did our best. Even if there are multiple indicators, basically the way it works out is there's no -- no additional weighing versus the other. Compiling the syntax. >> Okay. >> Alter: Maybe this has something to do with the geographic dispersion. But the prioritization, you're going to prioritize it, but you're going to have to sequence and phase the project. And I know there are corridors that are near each other and both being closed down or both being difficult to access at the same time. How does that figure into the model. Nose two corridors in any particular case could come out high on the rankings, but it wouldn't be necessarily to move forward with both of them at the exact same time even if they had equal weight. So how do we make those decisions and where does that come in to play with this model? >> That comes in to kind of the next phase. So, again, if we've gone with the recommendations, it will apply the prioritization model after I walk you through my presentation. >> Alter: Sorry. >> Apply this. You have the bang for the buck. Exactly what you've been talking about. You have lower costs but scores higher. Those are the things that will fall in the above the line look at doing this initial phase of work. And things would kind of fall out behind that. So on this chart, the things that you see kind of in the lower left corner are the things that cost more and don't score as high in the mobility and community considerations. [11:27:08 AM] So those would be the things that will be lower in the list, basically, of that raw scoring versus the ones that score higher. Again, it's the bang for the buck. So relative cost per mile of that particular investment. And so, again, getting beyond the prioritization model, start looking at the development of the corridor construction program. This is when we get investments to projects and this gets to a lot of the things that you're starting to bring up is we will be looking at the opportunity to leverage other projects in funding. Some of those opportunities are not going to be ready visible or focused right now. We need to identify them as we go sfward. Forward. We'll have to look where we can partner up with other agencies in funding and with other programs and externally with other agencies and looking even at potential funding opportunities, grant funding opportunities. I will say as we look at some of the other potential funding opportunities, you'll -- one of the concerns we'll have to put together a program to get it done in the eight-year time frame is if we do go after, for example, a grant funding source or a federal funding, we all have certain stipulations. Understand that as we start to partner up, all those things have impacts on our overall schedule and ability to get this work done. It's one of the realities of implementation. They're great to take advantage of. But they do add perplexity to the schedule but we'll look at all of these things as we develop a viable construction program. >> I think one of the things we think about this, the information we put together thus far is project specific. These two look at program as a whole. What we'll bring to you as a recommended program. So all of the data we've done -- the prioritization model looks at project a versus project B. These two, then, will look at program a versus program B and we look at recommendations to you. So we will certainly take those into account. [11:29:11 AM] But if you any of project a versus project B, how would you assign geographic dispersion of funding a number to project a versus project B. You can, as a program. That program a, all those projects together, are all on one corridor. That's not going to get a very good score on geographic dispersion. So we look at programs at this point. It's a little bit more of an art at this point to say this is -- we've looked at all of the scoring and then we're looking at the two additional considerations in bringing forward this program is what we recommend you consider. It's more of a program related at this point of the analysis. >> And so then, in terms of the leveraging of other projects and funding, you know, we're going to be approaching a new request for -- projects. We've been successful for regional and for project 360 of leveraging money for tx-dot and for campo. I would like to see us do the same for the corridor projects. So we get bigger bang for our buck and so for me, that would be a priority for us looking ahead at weighting things. >> Mayor Adler: Did we fill that fte with that person? Someone was going to come on staff for the purpose of leveraging. >> Yell, we filled that position and the position has been instrumental in helping us look at project development for the -- in preparation for the campo call for projects. >> We're in the corridor program office going to have a position assigned to look at leveraging and partnerships and helping to identify the priorities and following up on us as well. Not only in the program but throughout the implementation. [11:31:13 AM] These opportunities are growing to come up throughout the life of this program. >> I want to go back a minute to the community considerations and the reason I like for us to think about the weighting is if you look at the commune if considerations, a lot are related to housing. There's the preservation of 5i fordable housing opportunities for development of new affordable housing. Opportunities to facile tated -- facilitate the mixed income housing and then the walkable businesses and communities. To me this works hand in hand with the prpgs, the reduction of congestion, connectivity, and other kinds of things. If we don't weight them the same, if we don't have a 50-50, in my mind, it's not that we're going to reduce congestion by improving our roads and in a has -- that's a better opportunity than also where people live, you've got to look at them together. To my mind, weighting the community considerations less does not accomplish that purpose. And could -- I mean, maybe the weighting is not that close in terms of the percentage points. So it won't make that much of a difference. From a policy perspective, from a policy perspective, these things go hand-in-hand. So that's why 60-40 doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I can hear an argument that said 55-45. But to my mind, they're really integrally linked and 50-50 makes more sense. >> Mayor Adler: Going to resist the urge to respond. We're going to park that topic and then let them get through the presentation. >> Thank you. Just building upon what we were talking about, you know, we are going to be moving from looking at the investments starting to work through and translatering those investments into projects and putting together a program and that's the work we'll be involved in and focussed on once we have the prioritization model now that we've got them developed and we start to gather the data. [11:33:24 AM] What we'll do is look at the prioritization model, prior to the investments, start getting the prioritization to what the investments should be, and then looking at all of the realities of implementation. So, again, beyond just looking at geographic dispersion, leveraging funding opportunities, we'll have to look at utilities, you know, where are the utilities located? Relocation or conflicts that might exist. We have to look at the scheduling. And those are the types of things that we'll be looking at as we go through the development of the feasible program that we can get done by the time we get back from council. 6 1/2 years, not 8 years. We'll look at the risks associated with that. So we're going through a robust process working with our consultant to look at specific risks that exist along the corridor to try assign costs or schedule impacts to the risks. That will be part of it as well. We're looking at the packaging of projects. Withe eel look at our contracting office and our resources department to look at the packaging of projects and potential for strategies again trying to maximize opportunities for local, small, minority- owned businesses, but also keeping in mind that we have -- we have to get the work done in 6 1/2 years. But we'll look at how we can best do that and strike the balances as well as any of the environmental consideration or constraints we may hit with those potential investments. That will be the work we'll be doing en masse in the next two to three months. We hope to get to -- I'm going to get to the schedule. We hope to put that out and it gets us feedback from the community prior to actually bringing it formally to you for recommendation and potential approval. We'll try to do that in the January timeframe. And, so, again, on a very tight schedule to do the work that I just mentioned to really develop a feasible construction program. But that's where we're going to quickly pivot to using the prioritization model and starting to develop that program. [11:35:27 AM] I think that's all I have. The other thing I want to mention real quick is when we bring back the quarter construction program, the projects and the general implementation approach, we will talk about the phasing and sequences of projects, packaging. Talk about the plan, talk about the mbw outreach strategy. We're part of the team for htr. That group is looking at the mbw outreach strategies to make sure she planned for that and community engagement and strategy. A lot of information to bring back to you as far as how the implementation will work when we bring it back to council for consideration. We'll talk to the others as well for the opportunities we'll be identifying through other initiatives they might be taking on. 23 >> Mayor Adler: This is massive project management. And quite frankly when this started at the election, a lot of people were saying that there was no way this could happen in eight year else. And we discussed that at length on B the dias. And the manager then, mark ot said it could be done and a lot of people didn't believe him. You set a path where this could happen. I think the work has been tremendous and the engagement here also. The request you have from us to articulate it loudly is to take a look and make sure we're comfortable two the approach. We'll set this on work session so you can hear back from council. Because I recognize that once it passes to the next step, the next time we see you, we're all going to be looking forward, not back. So we need to make sure that you have that commitment from the council so you all have tro do that to ensure the lanes are clear and the pathway is clear and you can move forward. [11:37:31 AM] One element that was discussed that I don't see on here is the consideration of looking at this project as an incredible opportunity to really tie in to the workforce training of the regional workforce plan. Which is to focus on high-tech health care delivery nurses and also skilled labor. So we ought to end up this project with taking advantage of the opportunities so that there's, significant numbers, material members of our community that don't have skilled trades today that will have skilled trades at the end of this project because we were able to leverage this as a -- that ability as well. >> Just on that note, mayor, we are working on that. And so there's a couple of different things we're doing. We're looking at potential approaches in our contracting. Tx-dot has an approach with an apprenticeship program that's a part of the contracting so Roland Fernandez has done a great job of leading that effort, capital contracting working with agc. Looking on how to do that from a feasible standpoint. We're talking with ACC and other workforce developer providers because it's in our interest. This is a capacity issue. We're very concerned about the capacity of firms having skilled trades to be able to do this work. I know you're all very aware of the other work because of some of the recent hurricane disasters and some of the work associated with that. There are concerns about shortages of various areas around this. We're concerned about that. It's in our best interest to make sure we have good capacity and good availability. Contractors, skilled workers, firms that can do this work. >> I know you're doing that work. Just elevate it to the place where we're also watching that as well. Okay? Let's go with councilmember pool and then councilmember alter. >> Pool: Thanks for all of this. And knowing that when we put the corridors on to the mobility plan, not all of them were at the same place in the life of the corridor -- in the implementation -- or the development into what they might eventually become. [11:39:40 AM] Some haven't had any planning on them and some that have. Where is that in the -- in the planned prioritization model. >> One of the reasons, on slaughter, they are finishing that work. We'll have public engagement trying to finish it out as its own discrete corridor study. So we do feel like there's enough time to bring it back to the prioritization model and the consideration. So it will be brought back in for consideration just like any of the recommendations and the investments coming out of the corridor plans for a potential construction funding. That was part of the contract. >> Pool: So that's the only corridor that didn't have the study. All of the rest of them? >> All of the rest of them had it. The Guadalupe study has been done. It's in draft form. Its's been finalized. The recommendations are there. We could have looked at. We're waiting and hoping to get that information quickly on slaughter as well eechlt. >> North Austin, Burnett and north Lamar, where are they? >> So the potential construction funding, we have the studies done. There are new quarter studies being done and they include north Lamar and Guadalupe. So we're looking at the existing study. >> All of the corridors included in your contract with the voters will be in the prioritization model. Everyone that's available for construction funding per the '26 mobility bond will be included in this prioritization. >> Those are the discussions we had for mobility, the whole process and deciding which pieces we're going be on the bond ballot. Because I knew they weren't all at the same level at the same place in their phasing. So it sounds like what you were doing is bringing everything up to the hypest level that sum up the existing corridors maybe currently so when they go to the prioritization, they're on the same even keel at least as far as they are in the phasing? >> Yes. Yes. [11:41:41 AM] >> Okay. >> Alter: If you want to go to slide 6 where you have implementation of corridor and mobility plans on the list. Starts with lavar and you have preliminary engineering and design, in terms of the prioritization, though, the ones under blue are being prioritized for engineering and design work, not for construction with the exception of William cannon and slaughter lane which should be done with its planning and time to be included in the prioritization model of the construction. But you're going to have to prioritize among the preliminary engineering and design projects. Which ones? >> The ones under the blue, besides slaughter, the others are slated for preliminary design work in the bond program as per the contract with the voters in the election ordinance. The ones in the Orange are the ones where there were existing studies including William cannon slaughter in the funding and this construction program. >> Alter: I wanted to clarify with that graphic. The mayor toufrped on this -- touched on this a little earlier. One of the opportunities with this bond is to coordinate with other infrastructure projects. This is part of this -- the sequencing. But I didn't see that mentioned here other than the utilities icon in there. But, we don't want to be putting all of the investments in and then ripping up the streets or if we're going to have to rip up the streets to do this, then maybe we want to do something else. And how is that kind of rational efficient planning being capture? >> That is definitely -- you read our minds, councilmember. That's a part of the realities of implementation and the development of the corridor construction program. And so, as we're going back and looking at the corridors, looking at what exists there, looking at potential investments, we will be looking at, you know, how can we get the projects done? [11:43:44 AM] Who should we partner up with. We're having conversations with the watershed department to look at potential opportunities. We'll continue those conversations. But also try to minimize the impacts so we're not digging up the street two or three times. You want to get the work done and get it in place. So we will be having those conversations en masse in the next couple of months. >> >> Alter: We'll have them leveraging funding sources. For water drainage, we're going to be doing one of the programs for Texas water this week in terms of contracting. But there are, you know, drainage discounts on your bonds and things that can be significant to amount to any if they're coordinated. So I want to make sure that we have that kind of overview through the process. And I want to applaud you guys for putting this together in such a clear way for the phase we're at here now, to help us understand what's going on behind the prioritization. I think having this model without having it assigned to the different projects I think is very helpful. And I think one of the things we're struggling with with codenext is that we didn't do that in advance, and so I really appreciate this approach of, let's have our rational criteria, and let it play out and we'll have to tweak things around the sides, but this allows us to approach this, I think, in the way that we should be approaching policies. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. Councilmember troxclair, then Houston, then kitchen. >> Troxclair: So the prioritization that is talked about in here, is that for everything except for the corridor? Or are the corridor projects going through that process as well? >> So what it includes are the corridor projects that were slated for potential construction funding. So it includes -- those will be going through this prioritization as well. [11:45:45 AM] >> Troxclair: And is it only corridor -- what is going through the prioritization funding model, I guess is maybe the better way to ask. >> Right. Again, referring back to, I think it's slide 6, we have a list of the corridors in the Orange that had existing corridor studies, with the exemption of William cannon and slaughter, we're getting those done now, those recommendations coming out of that would all be put into the prioritization model. >> Troxclair: So the other buckets that were also included in the bond are not contemplated. >> Right. Not regional or anything else. Just for the corridors and just for those projects that were slated for potential construction funding. >> Troxclair: Okay. So I think obviously some of the areas, the corridors are already set, so that's not going to change, but to the conversation about possibly prioritizing mobility slightly over community needs, I think it's really important that you're taking both into consideration. It sounds like you're doing a good job of collaborating with other departments and making sure that everybody is really communicating what their vision is and what the future is for their different aspects. But I just have to point out that my district is going to score really low on the -- on pretty much all of the community -- community part because we don't -- because of the environmental restrictions in our district that really restrict development and growth, we don't have mixed land really expensive, we don't have a lot of affordable housing, we don't have a lot of the criteria that are outlined here. So I don't want -- I just want to be cognizant of the fact that to the extent that, you know, that waiting will completely eliminate certain parts of the city, that's -- I just want that to be on your radar. I was talking a Dallas city councilmember the other day, and we were talking about our bond, and he was shocked that -- he said, oh, in Dallas we split them up evenly by district, and it would never -- a mobility bond would never pass in Dallas if each part of the city wasn't getting an equal share. [11:47:54 AM] And of course that's not the way that we've decided to do it in Austin, and I certainly agree that there are certain parts of the city that it makes sense to have significant -- more significant transportation investment because of the density, et cetera, but I just don't want the more suburban areas or outlying areas to get completely left out of the conversation because the way we do the waiting makes it impossible for them to rise to the top. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you. This was a great presentation, and I appreciate all the work that you and the consultants have done. And I, too, wish that we had had your consultants working on codenext, and I'm hoping that rather than duplicating services, that we will be able to use some of the information that you all have already found out to be able to inform what's going to happen with the codenext. I heard your concern, Mr. Goode, about not funding that $150,000. I heard that, but I'm not sure we're going to get the same kind of really intense information that's specific to Austin, that we would have if we had had another way to be able to get another scope of work and be able to have some other people bid on that. But the work you all are doing is good. I like the modeling that you've done. I like that you've been intentional about looking for minority/women-owned businesses, that you understand how important that is. And I also appreciate the opportunities for community engagement. That's been a real intention. When the bond was passed, there was concern from me and from parts of my community that some of the items were baked already into the bond that had no community engagement, it was small advocacy groups that came and said we want this and that and we want it this place and that place. This says that you all understand that the community plays a role in -- in this -- these decisions, and that you all are willing to be intentional about going out to the community and having that conversation with them. [11:50:03 AM] So I appreciate all the work you've done. It's a massive amount of work, and you've done a really good job of quantifying it. >> Mayor Adler: Anyone else to speak before we go on? Okay. Please proceed. >> I think that's all we've got. We'll segue over to do the mobility plan. The reason we realized these were two substantive presentations, but we wanted to emphasize again how coordinated these efforts have to be. So annique will take you through that. >> Thank you. Continuing on, more mobility action. I'm with Austin transportation department, and I'm going to brief you on the status of the strategic mobility plan. Just refresher on the background, it's an update to our current transportation plan, so our transportation plan can reflect the community vision for mobility as set forth in imagine Austin and also the regions, vision for mobility that has been set forth in our regional transportation plan, the campo 2040 plan. Once adopted, it will be the transportation element of our imagine Austin plan and do multiple things. It will expand the imagine Austin vision into actionable goals and objectives. It will apply an integrated approach to all our modes that make up our transportation network, including transit. It will approach access and mobility as essential to the quality of life of Austin residents. It will consider technological advances that are shaping 21st century transportation networks. And most important, update our roadway table which sets forth the right-of- way needs that we need to continue to plan for and compliment a viable transportation network in which the development review process relies upon. Once completed, it will be presented to council, imagine Austin by organs, and will attain a transportation strategy in the form of policies, programs, and projects, and again that updated roadway table that will be multimodal in nature, which is very different from the one we have now. [11:52:13 AM] Here we are in October and we're kicking off our technical analysis part of the project which will be the bulk of the presentation today. What have we been doing? This project kicked off in October, but really, it kicked off in February of 2016 with the year of mobility and the mobility talks initiative. And we learned allotted from a lot from that public engagement, but we saw in reviewing the over 50 plans, part of the mobility talks, as well as the survey conducted, that there were gaps in engagement. So what we've been doing from the time we started in October with kimley-horn till now, is looking at focusing our engagement in those gaps to historically underrepresented communities and underserved communities. And I'll talk more about that towards the end of the conversation. What we have left were in our technical phase, doing that through department. We'll be out into the community for phase II, public engagement, getting feedback on our scenarios, then we'll start our formal adoption process in July of next year. That's the current schedule. Now I'll turn to the vision and goals of the plan. Our vision has been set forth for us already in the 2012 adoption of a mobility vision of imagine Austin, which is to provide an accessible transportation network that has options that is efficient," cost, cost effective, that supports public transit and connectivity. The team then developed eight goals which are on the screen that support that imagine Austin vision. These goals were informed by what we heard and what we found out in our mobility talks process. Our phase I public engagement reinforce these goals and the need for us to consider a priority -- a variety of different priorities as we think about our transportation. So we're not looking at just transportation performance, getting from a to B as fast as we can, we're looking at how mobility strategies support multiple community goals, such as public health and affordability. [11:54:21 AM] So now, into our technical description of what we're doing technically with this process, in order to create a 21st century transportation plan that measures more than just transportation performance, we needed a method to compare the many ways and approaches that we have to meet our community needs through a transportation plan. And the best method to accomplish this is through a scenario planning process, and that is the technical phase. So what is scenario planning? It is a method to explore how well different mobility strategies make progress toward achievement of visions and goals set forth in the plan, in the form of projects, programs, and policies. I'm going to take a moment to define what I mean by policies, programs, and projects. And then take you through an example of what that would look like for our roadway system in the plan, and then also for safety, just to give you an example of exactly what this means. So a policy is a method to direct decision making and progress towards a stated goal. Programs are resources that improve the efficiency of our transportation network. And then the projects are combinations of new and improved mobility infrastructure. So for roadways, starting with a policy base, we have a policy the invest in a compact and connected Austin, a program that supports that policy is our capital project development program, and then multiple capital projects would be identified for new and added roadway capacity. Now that we're pros, we can do it for safety as well, to give you an example of what you would see in the plan. A policy would be that safety is the top priority for the transportation system. A program that the city has to help realize that policy is vision zero, for example. And then we have capital projects that focus on safety, intersection safety projects. So in building the scenarios, this is not something new for the city of Austin. [11:56:22 AM] Imagine Austin used scenario planning to evaluate multiple growth concepts that had mobility strategies that support them as well. So the asmp is continuing that scenario process to determine how specific mobility strategies support the community's vision, while also achieving the refined goals as defined by the mobility plan. It's really important to note that the scenario planning process is not the plan, it's a necessary step to look at how specific combinations or choices of tools that we have respond to our growing mobility needs. I'm now going to describe the three scenarios that we are going to be testing, and that we came up with these approaches through public engagement and also through input from our multimodal community advisory committee that we share with project connect. So it's had a lot of vetting, a lot of thinking. There's infinite number of ways we could evaluate. We had to land on three and then four with our preferred scenario. So scenario a is our trend scenario. We're going to look at what will happen through our horizon year of 2039 if we continue the current trend of transportation programming, sir? A. And policy in Austin. The this scenario assumes implementation of projects for roadways, transit throughout the city, and maintains the current investments in demand management programming and assumes a small impact from automated and connected vehicles. And scenario B will be modifying how we look at transportation programming investment and policy by increasing distribution of support for these different types of projects, along imagine Austin activity corridors and within activity centers -- oops -- sorry about that. I got unplugged. And also looking at increasing investments in demand management programming and looking at what might we consider with regards to advances in technology in automated and connected. [11:58:30 AM] I'll keep going because I'll just describe C, and it's also in your handout. >> Houston: Mayor, could I ask a question, since we're not on television anymore, should we just keep going? >> [Off mic] >> I'll take a water break. >> Mayor Adler: Let's see if you can pull it back up, but we should probably keep going to get the report out. It's published and posted, and in our conversation when we get back on -- we're going to have a further discussion on the mobility issue. We can certainly double back if we need to. >> Tovo: [Off mic] >> Mayor Adler: What? [Indistinct discussion.] >> Houston: The only reason I suggested is that is that the public won't have a chance to see what they're talking about. >> Mayor Adler: He's pulling it up now, I think. . Okay. We're back up. >> All right. Okay. So I was describing scenario C, which significantly modifies transportation programming, investment, and policy, with the highest degree of distribution of projects among roadway, public transit, systems, along imagine Austin corridors and within activity centers and assumes -- will assume on the highest degree of transportation demand management programming, and the highest impact of automated connected vehicles, for example, on public transit, ride sharing, and freight. [12:00:39 PM] Those are our three scenarios. And I want to take a moment to describe the motivations around the scenarios that are based in the imagine Austin goal to increase non-vehicular trips in Austin. And the scenarios are also based in the concept of mode share, which is as defined by the department of transportation simply a measure of the percentage of workers who commute to work either by bicycle, by private vehicle, by public transportation, by car pool, by van pool, or by walking, or also it includes teleworking as well. And you all probably know Austin has a very high rate of teleworking. So why is this important? Because as we invest in multiple modes, that will affect travel choice, and that will move our current, or should move -- we have a current state of 74% drive-alone trips, which is apparent in our peak hour with the congestion that we have. That means that 26% of austinites getting to work with doing other things. They're teleworking, they're riding a bicycle, they're working, they're van pooling, carpooling, et cetera, they're riding public transit. So from a planning perspective, an interesting way to think about mode sharing, why that's an important motivation for the scenarios, is that in our analysis and the work we've been doing with our consultant, we found a statistic that if you look at a 50/50 mode share in 2039, which is the imagine Austin horizon, that the traffic today would remain the same, although we would have grown with population growth through 2039. So that assumes that every new person coming here is doing something other than driving a single occupancy vehicle to work. That's ambitious. Some may say that's unrealistic, but it's an interesting concept to understand why it's important to plan for what our future is for transportation. So with that said, we are in the technical phase, and we are here today to share with you the indicators -- now, everybody should have a handout in front of them, 11 by 17. I notice that councilmember kitchen did not. [12:02:47 PM] There she has it. Great -- with the indicators that we will be using as we move into this technical phase to conduct our scenario planning. You'll notice there's over 50 indicators. And this is indicative that we are looking at transportation through a new lens. I'm going to take a moment to describe how those indicators work to support the goals of the plan, and they're important for two reasons. They're the basis of our technical analysis, but they're also going to populate a report card in January when we are finished with our analysis to show you all and the public how well each scenario does supporting the goals of the plan. I keep wanting to look at the presentation. I apologize. So our first goal is commuter delay and our goal is to reduce the amount of time people spend traveling between work and home. And for commuter delay, our indicators rely on calculations from the output of the campo travel demand model, which is important why we update that, which was the subject of our codenext discussion earlier. And we'll be looking at how well we'll be managing congestion by looking at average travel time by auto and public transit. For example, people through-put, which is also what the bond program is looking at, a number of capacity projects, for example. For travel choice, our goal is to promote a balanced transportation network and the ability to make informed choices based on personal needs and preferences. For travel choice reliant indicators that communicate how well we might be providing multiple modes in proximity to where we live and work. So, for example, we'll be looking at mode share, that important indicator I just explained, transit ridership, and schools, medical facilities, and grocery stores within a half mile of high capacity transit, to give you an idea. That's not all of them, but they all are listed in the handout. Moving to affordability, our goal is to lower the cost of traveling in Austin by providing affordable travel options. [12:04:53 PM] >> Kitchen: Could I ask a quick question? I'm sorry. I know we want to get through this, but quickly on travel choice, I notice miles of new sidewalks. Do we also have somewhere that we're going to think about -- I'm not going to use the right word -- some of the replacement sidewalks? The reason I'm asking that is because I'm really talking about the sidewalks that are in such bad repair that they're essentially not a sidewalk at all. That's really the level I'm talking about. So that might be important, too, as an indicator. >> Yeah. We plan to -- we can bring in data source that looks at the condition of existing sidewalks, as well as absent. That's really important. And, rob, you had pointed that out earlier also. Going back to affordability did the. >> Houston: Excuse me, mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Could you tell me what you mean by premium bicycle facilities? What's the difference in premium and just regular facility, and what's the difference in cost? >> Sure. With premium bicycle facilities, we're looking at where we -- where our criteria would tell us we need more protection on higher speed, higher volume roadways, so protected by school facilities, that can be sometimes in the form of concrete barriers. We have that on third street, would be a form of premium bicycle facility. We also can achieve that level of premium facility with paint and more lower cost treatment, such as delineator sticks or turtle bumps in the road, so there's varying methods that we can use for premium. But essentially, the definition is more separation and more safety for -- separation between motor vehicles and bicycles. >> Houston: Does it depend on the width of the roadway? >> It yeah, yes. >> Houston: Does that have anything to do with whether you put one versus another or -- >> Absolutely. >> Houston: -- Whether you make it a shared lane? >> Yes. We'll be looking at in that right-of-way, in the roadway table, we'll be looking at all of the different systems that make up the network and looking at the space needed, and that will also -- that will inform what we're recommending and whether we need to reroute. [12:07:00 PM] So this is an integrated approach for the first time, not just -- >> Houston: So when you talk about the turtle bumps, what are those? >> We've used those on several bike facilities. One is Barton hills drive, I believe, and director spillar might know of other locations where we've used those. >> They're larger bumps than what you usually see dividing lanes. They're made out of concrete, but they're -- >> Houston: They're not the ones that we've been talking about on webberville road. Those are not turtle bumps. The speed humps that you all put -- >> No, ma'am. >> Houston: They're smaller than that? >> They're delineators, yes, so they're small things, six inches, eight inches across. >> Houston: Okay. I've not seen that. >> So they're not intending to urban, they're separating cars from bikes? >> That's right. >> Yes, council -- I'm sorry. >> Houston: So if you could tell me where there's one -- where I have dotted lines, I have the poles, I have the concrete, Mueller, there's the concrete delineators, but I've never heard of turtle humps. >> I can send you a photo. Absolutely. Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> So where was I? On affordability. Our goal is to lower the cost of traveling in Austin by providing affordable travel options. So one of our indicators is looking at affordable units within a half mile of transit, as well as travel time to and from downtown from low income environmental justice areas. For economic prosperities, we're looking at shared access in a time frame, 20 to 90 minutes, as well as existence of multiple modes. As we know, studies have showed us that more multimodal streets do well for local businesses, for example. And on you goal for economic prosperity is to promote the economic growth for individuals within Austin, as well as the city through strategic investments in transportation networks that meet the needs of the 21st century. [12:09:09 PM] Moving on, there's four more goals with supporting indicators that we'll -- that will be inputs to our scenario planning process with place making. We're looking to build a transportation network that encourages social interaction through quality urban design and connects users to many -- to the many places that make Austin unique. So an example of an indicator for place making would be a number of projects within imagine Austin corridors and activity centers, as well as projects within a half mile of community centers, with recreation centers, and parks. For health and safety, our goal is to protect austinites by lowering the risk of travel related injury and promoting public health. Example of indicators include access to healthy food retailers, admission reductions that we'll look at for each scenario, and the number of safety projects that are included in each scenario, for example. For innovation, our goal with the plan is to draw inspiration from forward-looking cities around the world, change the way we think about what's possible, and set an example for the rest of the country. For those indicators, you know, this is -- some of these indicators lend themselves to specific measures, like counting, but for this one, we're expecting it to be more of a narrative, as well as inputs such as how well does the scenario allow for intelligent transportation systems to be employed. And also, how well -- oh, great, our slides are back up -- and also how well do our scenarios lend themselves to demand management programming such as our smart trips program, because our smart trips program should be employed in areas that have already a risk -- have a robust -- have robust travel choices. So those indicators will likely be more narrative in nature when you see the report card. >> Kitchen: Could I ask a about that? [12:11:11 PM] >> I'm about to move to public engagement so we can pause on indicators if you'd like. >> Kitchen: My question has to do with innovative mobility strategies. I think this is a really important indicator, so -- and I'm sure as we move forward over time, we may be able to have more specific indicators there. I would just encourage just to look in terms of, you know, pilot programs, for example, could be an indicator of the number of pilot programs or the scopeof pilot programs or things like that. >> Absolutely. We'll be looking at that smart mobility roadmap for ideas. >> Kitchen: That's what I'm thinking, if you take the smart mobility roadmap, perhaps some of the recommendations out of the smart mobility roadmap would translate into indicators for innovation. >> And councilmember, if I mayor, rob spillar, I think that's really important because given that the horizon year is 2039, it is very likely that we will be right in the middle of that potential disruption, as new technologies are really getting their legs under them at that point, if you -- you know, as we know from our research. >> Just one comment, too, on the coordination effort, we see the smart mobility roadmap as being adopted with this. >> Kitchen: Oh, okay. >> Because it needs to again be a chapter almost, because the strategic mobility plan is more of a comprehensive, that's an element, so that's out, as you know for review now, we see that as coming together and being adopted in this document. >> Kitchen: So for my colleagues, the smart Robert mobility roadmap, councilmember alter was part of that discussion, but that is the roadmap we all passed a resolution asking for a roadmap for looking at shared electric autonomous vehicles in the future, and so the shared mobility roadmap is bringing that forward. And I know that -- I think that that's been made available to everyone, and at some point might be discussed with the whole council, so ... [12:13:18 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> All right. Moving on. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Yes, mayor, before we move on -- and thank you for that brief explanation. I had smart mobility roadmap, not familiar with it, but we will get some information about it. One of the concerns that I'm not hearing on any of the things that you have presented so far is that because of either annexation or the displacement of people, there's no conversation about the immigration east rather than north/south. That's the orientation that transportation usually has on mobility issues. And because of the forced immigration of people east of, how do we get people from Austin's colony into downtown to work? How do we get people from manor, Harris branch? And I don't hear in I anyconversation or indicators that talk about moving people around town, but it's about how do we get people from out of town into downtown so that they don't have to use their single car. And I don't hear anything on any of the indicators you've talked about so far, or the goals about how we do that, or intentionality about getting people from Austin's colony, most of them work downtown, from there, into the city without no transit, no autonomous vehicles, no trains, no nothing. It's just a conversation nobody is having in the transportation department. And they're not going to ride their bicycles, regardless of how many trails we put out there, they're not going to ride downtown. >> Well, we'll consider that as we look at how we're doing the scenario planning. Did you want to add anything, Cole? This is our principal planner who's been instrumental in developing these indicators along with our consultant. >> Yeah. Cole, part of the project team. It might help if you refer back to the asmp status report that was given beforehand, as far as how the indicators were developed. [12:15:24 PM] Some of the details, as far as the data goes, are less spelled out in the report, as well as the presentation. But in aspects of looking at demographics we're using campo's 2040 forecasted demographics, as well as a combination of our land use assumptions for the street impact fee, which goes out ten years for what's a reasonable ten-year market forecast. There are several indicators that take into consideration quantifying how many people are within a half mile of a certain type of improvement, whether it's transit or bicycle facility or it's premium, high capacity transit or rail. So there are aspects of what you're saying considered in the indicators. There's -- there are several, as well, that, under economic prosperity, share of jobs accessed in 2030, 60, 90 minutes by auto and transit, so that's kind of a comprehensive look at how many jobs can be accessed within a given amount of time, which is kind of an up and coming indicator to test your transportation network. Another one is average travel time to the central business district, and alongside with that is average travel time to the CBD from areas with very low to low opportunity, which is an indicator that we're bringing in from the Kerwin institute, that's a comprehensive index of areas of opportunity. So they typically coincide with low income areas or historically underserved. So we'll kind of be able to test that travel time or that access to the -- kind of the regional average compared to what would be, like, an environmental justice area. [12:17:34 PM] So some of the -- >> Houston: So that is -- I don't understand anything that you just said, so, Robert, would you help me understand that after this is over? >> Certainly. >> Houston: So what I'm trying to get, you will be looking at, through the economic development and some of these other indicators, people who do not live inside the city limits, but who work in the city limits, and who have no way of getting into the city without using a car. Is that going to be that comprehensive, that you'll be looking at all of those places, or are you just looking at places within the city of Austin and whether it takes 90 minutes to get from their house to their job? >> I would say it's a mixture of both. It is the campo travel demand model so it's a five-county or six- county regional model, so you have the ability to have the regional averages or you could look at it from Williamson county or hays. However, when it comes to some of these spatial indicators, it's primarily what's within the city limits of Austin, or what's within capmetro's service area, which -- >> Houston: So that limits pretty much parts of Travis county, like webberville, where people work in Austin, and capmetro doesn't serve that area, although Travis county is looking at trying to help capital metro provide some services. But I just want to be clear that it's not just people in Austin and I hear you talking about regions, but there are very dense populations east of I-35 that don't have any access to any of the things that we're talking about. And unfortunately, I don't see those indicators. You said that they're there, and somebody will help me see those, but they're just not clear enough for me to be comfortable that the lack of services that we have in some parts of the city will be addressed in this modeling that you're talking about. [12:19:39 PM] >> All right. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Moving on -- >> Mayor Adler: Hang on one second. >> Troxclair: I think you said 74% of commuters or of austinites are single vehicle commuting? >> Yes. >> Troxclair: And 26% are something else? >> Correct. >> Troxclair: Do you know of that 26% how many people are working from home and not commuting? >> I believe it's about 7%. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> It's high. Yeah. >> Troxclair: Okay. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Public engagement. >> Yeah. To recap our public engagement, I had said earlier that we focus our public engagement, that completed in August, on historically underserved and underrepresented communities, and we also used our multimodal advisory committee that's in partnership with project connect. And I'll go through quickly the advisory committee is made up of over 50 individuals that represent different aspects of our community, from affordable housing to evolve Austin, to reca, to business communities, Austin neighborhood council, a wide variety of folks who have a stake in our mobility future. They've met six times since October, and they continue to meet quarterly. There is a meeting this month specific to some project connect technical needs that need some feedback. And then we'll be having a focused scenario meeting with them in December. So I'll talk just a little bit -- >> Houston: Before you move on to that -- >> Yes. >> Houston: I see Ms. Joseph on some of your charts. Is she part of the advisory council or was she just visiting that night. >> She was visiting and participated on the activity we had. >> Houston: After this is over, can you tell me the people of color that are on your advisory council? >> Absolutely. So to focus on underserved or underrepresented was to partner with Austin public health, community health assessment effort that was going on concurrently, and we did several successful engagement opportunities through surveys and focus groups with them to get input into the mobility plan. [12:21:54 PM] And then we did a variety of things that focused our efforts to minority senior, youth, and people with disability populations, including going out to activities within our own city of Austin senior centers, we went to the millennium youth center, for example. We also used the spirit of east Austin data that was robust to look at how the mobility-related comments through that process related to the mobility considerations and the goals that we had developed for the plan. So we also had executive director of habitat for humanity pull together many affordable housing groups, and we had a focus meeting with them so that they can express to us their client needs with regards to mobility. So we had several months of focus. And the next slide is the results of that. In the lower right-hand corner, after working would working with our corporate public information office, we learned we should really keep those results separate and not combine them with our traditional engagement. So for our historically underserved, underrepresented community outreach, you'll see the top three priorities or goals were affordability, commuter delay, and travel choice. So this is a slide that shows you the two exercises that we did when we went out to the community over several months. We had the community prioritize the different goals and the plan, the eight goals. We gave them an exercise. I think many of you actually did the exercise when we were at your town hall meetings and other places. We had them keep -- we asked them to remove two or not include two of the priorities to represent the tradeoffs that we have to make in government all the time, and what would be your number one, your next two, your next three, et cetera. We also had a thought wall to capture any very specific comment that someone had about an intersection near their home or near their work, two broad concepts like, you know, jet packs came up, is that something we can do, for example. [12:24:05 PM] So just to give you the broad intersection to very, you know, different ideas. And then we were able to categorize that so our consultants helped us build a huge spreadsheet where we're categorizing all of the input that we've got under each of these goals. We also had a live/work play map, which was a warm up in activity, when we were out in the community when we asked people to place a sticker simply where they live, work, and places they like to go in Austin. And really, the point of this, which we're sharing with you today, is to show you the reach of who we reached and, you know, where they travel in Austin. So what will we be doing next? After we complete our technical phase, we will be going out into the community with a robust metro quest survey and we'll be working with different groups to go door-to-door and really make sure that we're traveling to those underrepresented communities to get feedback on the scenarios that I just described. We'll be having a second big public event, public forum, so to speak, combined with project connect in February, both processes will be at a point where they'll be able to share a lot of work that we've been doing with the community at large. And then our next steps are, as I've said, we're building the scenarios, we'll evaluate them, we'll be sharing the report card with our multimodal community advisory committee first, and then we'll launch the survey and go out back to all those groups that we went to during phase I, name, get feedback. Once we have that feedback April through June, we'll be building the plan, which is essentially the preferred scenario, then we'll be able to start walking through boards and commissions and the official adoption process. I wanted to mention two last slides that we are highly coordinated with the development of the strategic plan, and that once we build our preferred scenario, we'll have short, medium, and long-term recommendations. [12:26:06 PM] The short recommendations for mobility will be amended into the council's strategic plan. And finally, this is a sneak speak of how the plan will be structured around basic transportation elements in chapter -- in volume 1. Volume 1 will include that very important multimodal updated table, then volume 2 will have our scope of work and we'll get requests is to how reproached our mobility plan and memorialize the work of the advisory committee as well as the different exercises that we did and the results of those exercises. And that's all I have. I'd be happy -- the team would be happy to answer questions at this time. >> Mayor Adler: Will we be looking at and coming up with pros and cons or relative evaluations of different mode directions in the future? >> The scenarios will -- the report cards will be looking at the pros and cons to the different investments in various modes, yes, if that's what you're asking, yes. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Troxclair. >> Troxclair: When you talked -- or when the community gave you the feedback that affordability was important to them, was their conversation about was -- was there a conversation about what that meant? I'm not sure -- affordability is on the top of my list but it means something to me different than it does to some of the other people on the dais, and I don't know I would have connected that to, for example, the number of affordable units within a half mile. So considering that that was a top priority for -- the number two priority from all participants, I just wanted to -- did they know -- did they know what specifically you were talking about when they listed affordability as a priority? >> I mean, from -- I was at many of the engagement events, and the conversations were around the cost of traveling in Austin. [12:28:15 PM] And a lot of it -- you know, a lot of it was not so much the cost of riding a bus or bus ride or the red line, but the cost of owning a vehicle. So we tried to really focus the conversation around the cost to travel and the cost of owning two cars versus owning one car. The cost of transit or the ability or the fact that they're not using transit, and that's a cost burden, as far as total household affordability. So we tried to focus and educate as we were asking the question on the cost of travel. >> Troxclair: So what does that -- so given -- so with that feedback that affordability is a priority, like what does that translate to, for you? What do you see are the kind of steps, the specific steps that will increase affordability? >> Sure. Providing choices. Providing transportation choices in the form of increased public transit. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> For example. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> Would be a big one. >> Troxclair: Uh-huh. >> It also means looking at -- which is why, you know, it came up earlier during planning and transportation together, ways to lessen the amount of time we spend in our car, lessen the gas cost, that type of thing. So looking at land use, and that's why we have the proximity to units as well. >> Troxclair: So help me understand the connection to -- maybe I'm not reading the chart correctly and maybe they don't necessarily connect in the way that I'm thinking. Maybe the indicate -- so our -- are you saying the way that you are judging affordability or putting -- measuring affordability is the number of affordable units within a half mile of transit? Or how -- specifically, I guess, the -- on the affordable units issue -- again, I don't have very many in my district, so I just want to understand, like, is that used as a metric to say whether or not we're improving in affordability, or are we saying we're going to focus our affordability efforts and increasing transit options in places that have more affordable housing because people who live there are more likely to have financial need? [12:30:37 PM] Or how do those two metrics really connect to this affordability goal? >> I think I can expand on that. I believe it's more about providing access to where affordable housing exists currently. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> So you're comparing three scenarios to which one provides the most transit to existing affordable housing. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> As opposed to trying to locate new affordable housing along existing transit. >> Troxclair: Okay. Increasing -- increasing the credit options to places that have existing affordable housing, is that what you're saying? >> Correct. >> And if I may add one thing, you know, those future transit options may look very different as we look at specifically communities that are beyond the reach of the city of Austin or beyond the reach of capital metro. That might take the form of robust park & rides at the very edge of, for instance, where we can make those investments. There's still a cost the access, but that reduces that cost of access to transit and provides opportunities. You know, we get a number of people using transit, I believe, from for instance the city of pflugerville that's not currently in the district but we're accessing it from park & rides on north 35, for instance. >> Troxclair: I guess this is a broader question, but how does the city's interaction -- because we don't have -- capmetro is a separate entity; right? And even though bus service is really important to us, and it's listed as, you know -- it's an important part of providing affordable choices and all of those things, we're not directly in control of what routes they choose, and of course we have a couple -- a few councilmembers who sit on the board, but how do -- like I guess from the staff level, how do you interact to have influence in those kinds of decisions so that we're on the same page, so that capmetro is on the same page with the goals that you've outlined? [12:32:38 PM] >> Well, truth be told, we're not always on the same page, but we strive to be. I think it's really important that from the municipal perspective that we can articulate very well what we think the needs are, and I will tell you that I think -- I don't know that the city of Austin has always been able to articulate well what the concept is. I think capital metro's interest in expanding park & ride systems came from the city's perspective of saying, you know, it's -- we may not be able to serve circle C, for instance, with direct transit and serve every route, but why can't we have a park & ride and provide direct service to the major job destinations. I think there's resources coming online with the new express lanes on both I- 35 potentially and on mopac that will increase those opportunities to provide direct transit. And so, you know, Robert can tell you that we coordinate very well with capmetro, and I think our role is to make sure they know what our needs are, just as with the technology or roadmap, we had a robust or continue to have a robust discussion about electrification of the vehicles. I'd say I want it faster than capmetro might be comfortable with. Somewhere will be a compromise. >> Troxclair: So to the extent I can be helpful in your interactions with them, I mean, I feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect because, of course, my -- the people in my district are -- don't have many -- don't have really any other option but to drive -- >> Right. >> Troxclair: -- Their car if they work downtown or other parts of the city. Walking the ten miles, or biking, is not feasible. For a lot of people in the city, that's not an option, and bus service is really important in this conversation if we're going -- I think it's an important part of affordability and important part of our overall transportation, future transportation strategy, but capmetro is reducing the number of routes in my district. [12:34:46 PM] So I don't know how -- and I know that -- I know that that's -- this is a whole -- much bigger conversation, and they have a limited budget as well, limited resources, and they're trying to allocate their money to get the best bang for their buck as well, and they have to have the ridership and all of these things. But the money -- some of the quarter-cent money that I gave or leveraged with capmetro and they matched -- actually, they more than matched the contribution we gave them in order to increase bus service of the 111, which is the route that goes down into circle C. Yeah, we double that bus service, and ridership has gone up since then. So I feel that was a good case study for me to say, in this chicken and egg scenario, about ridership, versus service, that part of the reason that you don't have ridership is because you don't have the frequent and consistent service. So I guess as we -- I'm sorry for kind of going off on this tangent, but as we continue the conversation about affordability and how bus service and public transit options are important to our comprehensive transportation plan, I would really love to be a part of whatever conversations that you're having with capmetro, and of course I know that -- I know that councilmember kitchen and the other councilmembers that serve, but -- I know that you know the struggles that south Austin faces sometimes, and that you always let me know if there's something that's being considered that is going to affect the district. But it's just -- it's a conflicting message. You know, I hear from the city, this is really important, we need to promote affordability, we need to promote bus service, then we hear from capmetro that their bus service is being cut, so it's just really difficult for people to understand. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I would just like to say real quickly that this is a good time to have the discussion, and we can talk offline, but capmetro -- I want to keep this really clear -- capmetro has not cut any of those routes yet. [12:36:49 PM] It's been proposed. So -- and the reason I make that distinction is just, as councilmembers, we want that distinction to be made when we haven't voted. The capmetro board has not voted yet. So I look forward to talking to you. We need to have a discussion as part of the November capmetro meeting on what we actually should do about those routes. So I appreciate you continuing to bring those up. That's really, really important. So thank you. >> And if I may, I think there's also -- just to go back to this idea of rethinking what transit I transit I mean,we've talked about innovation Zones but we now have a pretty healthy private transit, if you will, chariot operating on a number of corridors that on a cost basis is equivalent to capmetro, from what I understand, in terms of cost. So I think there might be some other forms of transit that we might not have employed in this region before description by a car pool lane, metro supports, chariot and so forth, that we might be able to provide different types of transit, is all I'm saying. >> Troxclair: Thanks. And one last question. The last two under the affordability, miles of projects that promote affordability and the number of projects that promote affordability, what do you mean there when you say affordability what does promoting affordability mean? >> Well, I guess there's certain investment types that we can kind of identify that speak towards providing lower travel options, so transit, bicycling, walking. Yeah, lower transportation -- >> Troxclair: Lower costs? >> Lower costs. Yeah. >> Troxclair: Okay. >> So those are the ones that we'd be identifying in this category. But it's also important to point out that those investment types also speak towards travel choice, commuter delay, and other considerations. So we'll just be able to look at them through different lenses, which those lenses are our goals in asmp. [12:39:00 PM] >> Troxclair: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. When we talk about affordability and we talk about -- talk a lot about being family friendly, one of the things that I don't see in here is a discussion of family as in what these choices mean to them and why they're making certain choices. And particularly absent in here -- I'm not sure if this is the place, but I haven't yet seen it in the discussion, is how are we coordinating with the school district? Because lots of families are driving their cars because they don't have access to school buses to take their kids to school, and, you know, they're a mile or more away, across busy streets. They have access to transit, but the transit doesn't take them to the school, and they're not going to go back home -- they don't have time to go back home again, drop their car off, take the transit, go-to work, so they have to drive because there's no access to the buses, and there's not clear pathways for the kids to be getting to school on their own or to actually be walking to school. And this is something that seems to be fixable at a reasonably low cost that could help a lot of families be able to stay in the central city and to do things. We also have issues with Austin high getting out at 4:30 at rush hour, and you have all of these new drivers who are leaving Austin high at the same time, right in the bottleneck, and it really creates some situations that, from a planning perspective, if we coordinated more with the school districts, we could solve a lot of problems. And I guess I'm wondering, where does that kind of thinking and that approach fit into this plan and how we're looking at things? I know that if my kids could have taken the school bus, I would have gladly put them on the school bus most of the time, and they would have been happy to go on the school bus. But instead, we had to all trek down -- it's much easier to put a kid on a school bus than do the car pool and whatever. [12:41:01 PM] So how are we thinking about those choices, the family-friendly things that will help people get out of their cars? >> So I would respond in three ways. One is, when we get down the the demand management tools, we've actually worked with several high schools, Austin high being one of them, and the las academy being another we're working with on demand management programming, so similar to our neighborhood based approach to smart trips, where we go and we educate neighborhoods about their options and opportunities for public transit, bicycling, walking, et cetera, doing the same through the ptsa, and the principals of the schools, being allowed to go in and provide maps and education to the students and parents about carpooling options. Not real popular with high school drivers, but some of them are catching on. So that's what we'll be looking at when we look at raising, in the scenarios, our ability with resources to do that type of programming, to do the demand side. So the supply side, we absolutely are looking at the number of investments when we do our scenarios. So remember, this isn't the plan, this is just indicators that we're looking at as we look at the different scenarios. Proximity to schools and access to schools from, really, that two-mile, which is the threshold for aid for their bus service. So what are we providing within that two-mile radius where students don't have access to a bus. But to your point, we definitely will reach out and talk with them in a little more detail as we look at the indicators. So those are the three ways I would respond, as we do need to have deeper conversations with aid, with their transportation planning group. But then we'll be addressing it through demand, and then also looking at supply within that two-mile proximity to schools. >> Alter: There's a lot of driving that's happening because of how those buses are functioning or not functioning, when they have the routes that take an hour, and your kid has to leave at 6:30 to be there at 7:45, there's a lot of that that's pushing a lot more cars on the road than needs to happen, and then those cars have to stay on the road because they have to go back and pick the kid up, and, you know, there's just an that effect I'd see us explore. [12:43:17 PM] But in these indicators, though, other than the one that says you're near a school, what effects -- what is reflecting any desire to have some of these choices be family friendly? >> I'll have to look into thinking through that a little bit more, if there's any dual purpose in any of these with regards to your comment. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you for answering that. >> Yeah. I might add, though, that it also fits real well under our indicators that are innovative mobility strategies, so it fits into the narrative. We can talk about innovative mobility strategies to get to school. So that's something that has been on staff's radar, as far as how do we lift the safe routes to schools programs, elevate that, so speaks towards that. >> Alter: But if these indicators are going to be used to, you know, evaluate the scenarios, and you don't have indicators in there that measure the things that we value, then we'll never be placing any emphasis on those in terms of what's going into the scenario planning. So that does concern me in terms of moving down the down theline for the next steps in the process. >> Thank you. Let us look into that. I think that's a very valid point that maybe needs to be highlighted, so we'll work on that. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flanniga N. >> Flannigan: Just because you said aid, I feel like I have to speak up. >> Mayor Adler: Uh-huh. >> Flannigan: I have also -- and councilmember alter, actually, a majority of council districts have more than just aid in them, as we discussed recently, but it's not just schools in central Austin that are causing a traffic impact. Obviously there's a huge problem that in some cases is beyond the scope of asmb, but I wanted to bring that up, and also what schools are proposed in some of our districts. The Round Rock aid, possible, likely, depending on your perspective and how you put on it that bond election, high school that goes in at Pearson ranch and Nina, either at some point in the future, understanding what the impact of that is going to be, then the opportunity to understand how the school schedules in suburban school districts are incentivizing people to get on the road at the worst possible moment. [12:45:37 PM] And is there an opportunity to work with school districts about staggering start times or doing something that can help families that are otherwise, no matter how much I beg and plead, they're going to drive their kids to school, but maybe we can find better ways and -- better ways to get folks on the road at different times. A lot of folks that live in my district take their kids to a neighborhood school and then get on 183, and they have to get on 183 exactly the same time every morning for that reason. So that would be an interesting conversation to have in terms of how we can work with all of the school districts. I think the impact is different central Austin school versus suburban Austin, not better or worse, just different. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston, then mayor pro tem. >> Houston: Just a kick question, under economic prosperity, are you all having conversations with major employers in various parts of the city regarding ways to do some ride sharing, like Samsung? I've got some major employers, but there's no transit that goes there, and the only way they can get there is by car. Are you all having those conversations? >> Yeah, we are. I'm glad you mentioned that. Per your suggestion early in the process, we actually did two events with Samsung during public engagement to get input from their -- from managers there, as well as the employees, and we got a lot of good data from them. We -- many of you know, we support movability Austin, which is our transportation management association, that their main focus is working with major employers. They started downtown, but they're expanding to be citywide, and so we'll be working closely with the manager of that program to get feedback on what the major employers are looking -- are seeing as barriers and what suggestions they may have for greater mobility to access their work sites. >> Houston: And thank you for that, and thank you for meeting with the Samsung, so I've got several major employees that nobody can get to unless they drive. [12:47:41 PM] So I would hope that you would continue to work with those major employers that have both low wage jobs -- not low wage, but moderate wage jobs, entry level jobs, 12, $14, $15 an hour jobs, plus the high tech jobs. So those would be places, they also do job training, like ABC pest control is one of my major employees, so if you don't have a skill, you can go to an and they'll teach you whatever you need to do, but they can't get there. So I'm hoping that you all won't just stop, because that's an impediment to people getting jobs, and nobody's talking about those, how do we get people to the places where they can get jobs. And then my last question is, are you coordinating all your efforts with codenext? >> Yes. We're highly coordinated with codenext and meeting almost every week, if not more, with the teams that are looking at all the various aspects. Of course the transportation department was leading on writing the transportation chapter, and in fact we're giving an overview to the urban transportation commission tonight on highlights of changes to the transportation chapter. And -- yeah, so we've been working very closely with looking at how the code changes will be affecting mobility. >> Houston: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Really, my colleagues brought up some good points, and I agree with -- I agree with a lot of them and appreciate their thoughtfulness in putting this forward. I wanted to just circle around, I had just a very quick comment I wanted to make in response to councilmember troxclair's discussion about affordability. You know, I think that term is so -- your questions really, I think, got to this point, that term is so often used in so many different connectses, it's almost losing its meaning in all of those instances. So as she was asking you what miles of projects that promote affordability meant, I heard you substitute language that sounded sort of like miles of project that promote lower cost travel options. [12:49:51 PM] So I would encourage you as you refine this to really explain what that affordability means, and let's sort of -- let's really get to the specific of what you're using there, because I think is much more evocative of the point you're trying to convey. But thank you for all this work and the process that you've started here. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Since I have a chance to talk to our transportation department, folks, take good advantage. In looking back through some of the -- and not only is the strategic mobility plan, but also back to tonings, Mr. Spillar, we have the airport boulevard initiative, and we sent about half a million dollars to opticos to do some work on form-based code initiative for airport boulevard, and some questions have arisen in the last week about where -- what's the status of that project and how has that been accommodated in codenext. And so this gives you an opportunity to maybe speak to that. >> Sure. Thank you. Rob spillar, transportation department. So airport boulevard, of course, was one of the corridors where we developed previously a corridor plan or a corridor concept for that corridor is included in the bond program and is being -- the transportation elements are being prioritized along with other elements of the overall program. The form-based code, I think, is important in that location because that reinforces the investments that may be made in that area. Good example is for a portion of airport boulevard, of course the red line runs through, and so there's some very significant projects that are being evaluated, designed, as part of, can we improve, for instance, the crossing at Lamar, can we reduce congestion for the other mobility systems by making for instance a bridge investment there. [12:51:55 PM] So that's how they're all linked. Other parts of airport boulevard where they don't have -- we don't have sidewalks or other transportation elements, we are adding in as part of the corridor program, and also the other bond programs, obviously, we'll evaluate those missing sidewalks as well. So I think they're well integrated. The exciting thing about the form-based code there is I think it sort of sets a tone for how we might wrap land use changes. I mean, that's one example of how we might coordinate land use with the investments that are going into place. We know that anytime we invest in infrastructure, whether it's visible or not visible, it has the potential to increase the value of the surrounding properties, and so I think the form-based code gives council an opportunity to direct the policy about how that corridor develops. So I think it's very positive and provide maybe a buffer to gentrification, for instance, depending on the policies that you push forward as part of that. Does that make sense. Yeah, I'm just thinking about airport, I drive it all the time and there's very little residential along airport boulevard anymore. How far east does the project go? >> Yeah, south, depending on which way -- south -- >> Pool: Southeast, how far toward I-35 does airport go? >> You know, can I refrain from answering that and then get you that information back? >> Pool: Okay. So what I'm looking for is, I was wrong, it was actually $600,000 that went to opticos to do some codenext work. >> Right. >> Pool: -- Planning for airport boulevard. I don't remember, this was a couple years ago, so I don't remember us getting a briefing or a report on that, if you could get us up to speed on where that is and how that's -- how we spent that money. [12:53:55 PM] And this does relate to our earlier conversation about additional monies being invested. So my chief concern was seeing that we were getting value for our money, and this would be a specific instance of a significant sum of money. And I don't remember, my colleagues may remember something different, but I don't remember hearing anything from our codenext folks, staff or otherwise, about what work has been done on airport. >> Yes, ma'am. You know, the land use side is being led by a different department, so I will make sure that they provide the response rather than it through the lens of the transportation piece. >> Pool: Well, I recognize there are serious issues relating to the crossings and parking and the location of the different train stations. >> Right. >> Pool: And all of that which kind of dovetails in with our efforts to partner with capmetro. >> Yes. >> Pool: Which obvious are really important. So this would be a really good test case to see how all of these elements for the city have come together to give us kind of a vision for the future, especially since a significant amount of money has already been invested in that. So that's what I'd like to see. I don't know, city manager, if that's something we should just have -- I had asked previously if we could get our information earlier when we have abbreviation. Austin energy sends us our briefing papers about a week in advance so we have a chance to absorb them and think about our questions and comments and then have a better conversation about things. So I don't know if maybe a report on the airport boulevard work would be better just to have it sent to us, or if we need to have that in a discussion. But I think if we do have a discussion, we need to get the information well in advance so that we can absorb it and think about it and have a good conversation about it. >> We'll get the information sent out. [12:55:56 PM] We've got briefings stacking up on work session agendas, so I'll have to look at when we can get it scheduled, but we'll certainly get the report out. >> Pool: Just generally, is it possible for us to accelerate getting the handsouts in advance of our briefings? >> You know, a year ago you used to get them on the day of, then we bumped them back to the Friday with posting. We'll look at that. I can't guarantee it because a lot of times I'm getting them the week of the posting. >> Pool: So would that have been linked on -- because I know we have a new agenda system online. Used to be it was sire, there weren't any hot links on the work session, but they were on the Thursday council meetings, and briefings happen on work session, so I didn't know that there were hot links to go from the briefing on the work session. >> There should be. I'll check with Katie. We have had them in the past. We just switched the new system. We're working some kinks out. But our intent is to post them when the work session is posted. >> Pool: Great. >> And I'll talk to staff about whether we can move that back. >> Pool: Well, even having a weekend would be great if we knew we were out there, and I apologize if they've been available, but I haven't ever been able to find a hot link on a work session. >> Mayor Adler: We'll all go ahead and take a look at that. Let's go ahead and go into executive session. It's 12:58. We're now going to go to executive session, take up five items, pursuant to 551.074 of the government code, we're going to take up compensation and benefits for communal court clerk, city auditor, city clerk, and we'll discuss the city manager, although I think we've already taken care of that, and then pursuant to section 551.071 of the government code, we're going to take up legal matters related to city of Austin versus Olenick, items e.1, e.2, and E 8, which was executive session on ems has been put off until 10/19. >> Till next Tuesday; right? [12:57:56 PM] >> Mayor Adler: Next week. >> Next week. >> Mayor Adler: Is it going to be possible to do it on Tuesday? >> Kitchen: I would prefer to do it Tuesday instead of next Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you take a look and then let us know. And with that, we'll head back to executive session. [Executive session] [2:14:15 PM] >> Mayor Adler: We are out of closed session. In closed session we discussed personnel matters related to items: E4, 5, 6 and 7. Legal matters related to item E3. It is 2:14 p.m. and this work session today on October 10, 2017 is adjourned.