City Council Special Called Meeting Transcript – 12/3/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 12/3/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/3/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [09:02:15 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Good morning. Good morning, guys. It is December 3rd, 2017. This is the city council special called meeting today. It is 9:02. We're at the city council chambers here at 301 west second street. We're convening just to have a short meeting and then the intent is to adjourn the meeting. So unless somebody had a reason to, there's not an executive session to be held. Steve, do you want to talk -- Mr. Boone, do you want to talk to us about what's happening today? >> Good morning on this very foggy Sunday morning. I want to first of all thank all of you for making your Sunday available to expedite this process. It's a great sacrifice on your part, but I do believe it's very important as we move forward. I have just a couple of comments about today, but before I do that I would like to bring us forward to where we are at this point in the process. When we started the process we talked to you about having a very diverse slate of candidates, but also a diverse pool from which to pick these. Just to give you a few numbers, we have looked at, screened, talked to and assessed approximately 250 individuals. About 50 of it those were individuals who wrote into our dedicated website just for the purposes of this search. The other 200 were individuals that we sourced, identified and whose names were given to us through a variety of different means in this process. Of that 200 let me just give you some additional statistics which I think consider relevant. Approximately 25% of those individuals were women, are. [09:04:30 AM] We 20% African-American and 20% hispanic and approximately five percent Asian. So we really do feel that it was a nice diverse group of individuals and we will see the fruits of our labor later today. We brought to you an initial group of 15 candidates. Again, approximately in that same proportion of diversity as the larger pool. You chose to meet nine and ultimately 10 by adding one additional individual from which you have narrowed the list down to six. Unfortunately yesterday I received an email and a phone call from one of the six who has chosen to withdraw, and I will read that to you if you will just bear with me a moment. This is from Denise Roth. Dear mayor Adler, I want to sincerely thank you and the Austin city council for being able to participate in your process for Austin city manager. Austin is truly one of America's great cities, however in the last 24 hours a substantial multinational company has offered me the ability to serve in a leadership position. This serves in the best interest of my family and I have accepted this position with some sadness because I will miss out on the initiatives you and the council are pursuing. Nonetheless, I wish you and the people of Austin nothing but the very best as you move forward. With that I'm very disappointed as I'm sure you are, but we're going to visit with five candidates today. So what I'd like to do in the remaining few minutes is just walk you through the day. You received packages and I have additional packages of information for you. Most importantly you will be put into groups of five -- five separate groups ranging between four and five of you which will combine yourselves as well as members of the task force. None of you will be in the same group as your task [09:06:15 AM] force appointee. Each task force will have a theme to it and we would ask you to spend the first 20 to 30 minutes with your designated theme. I'll read those themes to you in a minute. After you've covered that you will be free to ask any questions and please allow your task force members to ask questions as well during that remaining 30 to 40 minutes. On Thursday when we come back together we'll ask those members from each one of the different groups to speak specifically to how the candidates did in that area of interest that you will be covering. And let me just mention those to you and you will have them in your packages with sample questions. General management. Fiscal management. Community development and mobility. Equity and housing. And community engagement. The sixth group will have been innovation and we would encourage you to add innovation type questions into our discussion with the candidates. The candidates have all received substantial amounts of information, including your strategic plan, a summary of your most recent metrics that were distributed to me by the mayor, along with lots of other information including codenext, clearly assessing their due diligence, homework and their preparation will be part of our discussion. At the end of each hour you and not the candidates will move to your next session. You will have 15 minutes to go from one room to go from one room to other. Please be aware that, I guess, walking quorums are always a problem. Do not carry with other groups in those minutes in between different meetings. Lunch will be served during the third meeting, so you will have to balance questions and sandwiches at the same time. We will end approximately one hour earlier given the fact that there are only going to be five sessions. You will have between now and Thursday to gather your [09:08:04 AM] thoughts and those of your task force appointees so that when we have a discussion on Thursday we will be able to narrow this list from now five to three. And we will try do it exactly in the same fashion as last time, lots of discussion, lots of points of view and I will then recommend to you those who we suggest come forth for the third and final round. So if I could stop there and answer questions, I would be happy to do so. >> Mayor Adler: Questions on the dais? Leslie. >> Pool: So since we have one fewer candidate you have refocused or you have reorganized the questions and you have a new packet to provide us? >> Yes. >> Pool: Thank you. And that will also show our new assignments? >> Yes, it will. We have new lists. I did fail to mention that each group will have what I'm calling, it's not a legal term, I promise you, madam attorney, a team captain who will be responsible for two things. One having out the books of questions and resumes and retrieving them at the end of the day. We have been asked by the press are we distributing resumes. At this point we have distributed bios of the individuals and of course all the information on linkedin and the like are available to the press. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else from the dais? Yes, Alison? >> Alter: You may not be able to answer because this is a legal question and I'm wondering in terms of quorum how this works. You know, if another task force member provides comment to us or how are we supposed to be thinking about information? >> So today you're going to be meeting in groups of less than a quorum, of course, and you're not going to come [09:10:06 AM] together again after you close this meeting out. I think what Mr. Newton had indicated was that a member of the task force team who you appointed to the task force will talk to you about that person's thoughts and that will be fine. >> Mayor Adler: So my understanding is we can't create -- again, we have to make sure that we haven't talked at this stage to more than four other council people. And the task force member for a council person would count as that council person. >> Tovo: Council that will or will not count? Are we going into executive session? We are not going into executive session? So then are we to assume if we are paired up with another councilmember and a task force member who represents another councilmember, are we then to assume that we're now in a quorum with those two other councilmembers? And if so, we probably should have provided some input about those selections. Am I reading that correctly, that I'm after this going to be in a quorum -- in a subquorum with whatever councilmember has been assigned to me as well as whatever councilmember is being represented by the task force member assigned to me? So in essence then Mr. Newton has identified our subquorums to some extent. >> You are going to come back together, all together on Thursday. >> Tovo: But I guess, am I correct in my assessment of our subquorum being somewhat set by the groups that have been laid out? >> Between now and Thursday. >> Tovo: I see. >> But your groups today will not be a quorum. >> Tovo: No, I understand that, but I need to count both the task force member as well as whatever councilmember has been assigned. In my subquorum. >> Mayor Adler: Do we want to go into executive [09:12:06 AM] session. >> You're not posted for executive session so we're not going to be able to -- >> Tovo: Between now and Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: So I think the assumption is that, yes, the answer to your question is that the councilmember that's in your group today and the councilmember that is represented by the task force member is in your subquorum through Thursday. Is that right? Or do you want to speak to councilmember's individually on this? >> You are one body and the task force is a different body, so if you talk to each other you have to be in less than a quorum. If you're talking to people who are outside, it's not the same. So they just need to tell you -- if they speak to you it's their opinion. I think what Mr. Newton was trying to do was to ensure that you knew at least two you appointed to the task force that you had a conversation with that person. But if you're talking -- if you naturally talk to people on the task force, that's okay. They're members of the public. >> Mayor Adler: Then I misspoke. >> Mayor, if I could just let you know, you are posted for executive session. The task force is not posted for executive session, but this body is for this meeting. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Renteria: Mayor? There's two things. Are we supposed to stay on these questions, interview questions that we have, so these questions are just focusing just on like when it's fiscal? >> Yes. Thank you. Allow me to clarify that. We want to make -- the reason that we have given out these areas of concentrations, we want to make sure that we have comparable information around all the candidates and that we've discussed with all of them these major areas of interest to us. [09:14:07 AM] That said, once you feel that you have exhausted that topic, we would strongly encourage you to wander in any direction with any question you choose to ask of the individual so that the remaining -- let's just say 40 minutes of the interview should be free flowing and really allow you to poke at areas of interest that are either unique to you personally or to your group. >> Renteria: And that's a member of our little subcommittee that the name next to it is rra. What does that stand for? >> Russell Redding associates. That's me. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston? >> Houston: With the clarification and with the one person being removed from the slate, is it possible for us to have a short period of time after today to meet in executive session? On personnel matters? If it's posted. I haven't seen the posting. >> You are posted for a personnel executive session so you could discuss the candidates. If you do that then you're going to require all the -- you won't close this meeting and everybody will need to stay. You could do a personnel executive session before you start the individual interviews. Is that your question? >> Houston: Yes. >> Mayor Adler: The question is at the end of the day she wants to know if we can pull together executive session? >> Houston: Because there seems to be people who want a larger discussion with the body, but I'm fine with the way it is laid out and I can wait until Thursday to talk about the whole thing. >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> Garza: Since there's five that means we have some time before five at the end? >> We're basically giving back to you one hour at the end of the day based on the fact that we've reduced the schedule to five? [09:16:09 AM] Is that your question? >> Garza: Yes. Because I will be traveling on city business next week and unfortunately won't be at the Thursday council meeting. And if y'all want your hour back I'm totally fine with that because we've arranged for me to Skype in on executive session on Thursday. But if people are open to meeting afterwards to have a king discussion that would be great too, but it's totally up to -- I understand that people are excited about getting an hour back as well. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ann? >> Kitchen: I hate to do this. I understand where councilmember Garza is coming from, but I'm having to miss something very important to me personally, having it go until 5:00. So having it back at 4:00 really helps me with that. >> Mayor Adler: Leslie? >> Pool: Given that it's Sunday, I know we had planned to be here later, but I appreciate having the hour back. In my mind I already am thinking about other things, it being Sunday and all. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? >> Casar: I would think about it during the day, but, you know, since people are going to be missing on either end, I'm willing to stay, but I'm sure it's up to the group. >> Mayor, just as a procedural matter, you have to decide right now because you're going to -- what the idea was you were going to finish this meeting here in a minute and you're going to close the meeting and everybody who is not involved in your further process will go home. If you're going to have a personnel executive session at the end of the day, this public meeting will need to stay open all day until you're finished. >> Mayor Adler: So who stays? I can come back and close [09:18:10 AM] out the meeting as I did -- >> Ctm will need to stay, the clerk will need to stay. >> Mayor Adler: Does ctm need to stay? The clerk was with me when I closed out the meeting at the Hilton and there was no -- but I just came and closed out the meeting. >> Houston: Mayor, I just mentioned that because there was some people uneasy about a quorum and being able to talk about it. I would really like to have my hour back. >> Garza: Mayor, since I made arrangements to Skype in, that's fine. We can have the discussion on Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: That being the case then we'll just end this meeting, all right? That seems to be the will. Anything else that we want to discuss? We'll gear up in 10 minutes. And you're giving us packages and locations? >> Right here. I'm not sure what the procedure is to hand them here. >> Mayor Adler: Does could you our packet tell us where our location is. >> Oh yeah. >> Mayor Adler: If nothing else, at 9:20 we will adjourn this meeting and we are adjourned. [09:20:15 AM]