City Council Work Session Transcript – 12/12/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 12/12/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/12/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:06:38 AM] >> Mayor Adler: So we have a quorum so we can begin with the briefings. We have directors that are over doing interviews this morning so we'll start with the briefings and give them a chance to get back. I'm going to go ahead and convene the meeting here Tuesday, December 12th, 2017. Here in the boards and commissions room here at city hall, 301 west second street. We have a couple of briefings for us this morning. Let's go ahead and start with the aquatics master plan. Thanks for coming and joining us. Thanks for the work that you all did. All right. >> Mayor and council -- mayor, council, it's great to be with you. I'm Rick coffer, member of the parks board and chaired the aquatic master plan task force. [9:08:38 AM] I'm joined by. Parks board vice-chair and task force member rich Depalma, task force chair and task force member Jane Rivera and parks board member and task force vice-chair dawn Lewis. We're also joined by ray Hernandez from the parks department. Jodi Jay is behind us and Jennifer Neely is going to take my seat in a minute when we're done with introductions. I'll hand things off to rich Depalma, who will walk us through the task force final report. We're excited to be here. >> Evening or good morning, council. Sorry. So I'm going to be going through this, the presentation that was put together by chair Cofer and we'll address some of the overlying issues. Before I get into it I want to really talk about a theme that has come out of this master plan and it's really the evidence of facilities altogether with the city of Austin. As some of you may know I rolled off the aid facilities and bond advisory planning committee. It was a two-year term recently, and we saw aging infrastructure of the growth of the city of Austin and the school district as well as impact from past socio socioeconomic policies. Coupled with the impact from past recessions. So when we go through pools you will see the exact same issues presented that I saw with schools. So where you have the growth of Austin, you will see where the pools were added. You will see some of the decisions on where pools were made based upon past socioeconomic policies. And then of course the impact of past recessions relating to the lack of investment and not catching up of the maintenance and operations as well as adding the facilities. [9:10:40 AM] So we're going to begin. A little background. Everybody is familiar with accountant had appointed the task force on August 23rd, 2017, and since then we've had six public meetings throughout the city in five various locations. Mostly around the central area, but as well as northeast Austin -- really northeast Austin and central. We had one major community input event to make sure that we heard from the community as far as what their thoughts were based upon, again, the current draft aquatics master plan. It wasn't based upon our recommendations coming forward, we wanted to make sure that that input was received and it was well attended. I think we were all surprised about the number of individuals who came out. It's very clear that austinites are passionate about their pools. So with our recommendations we had presented them last week to the full board of the parks and recreation where it passed unanimously for all those who attended. Within the key recommendations -- and this was going off council's request within the creation of the aquatics task force was looking at the historical and cultural importance of the facilities. And with that I'm going to go ahead and pass it off to ray Hernandez and to talk a little bit more about the five pools that have been listed for historical and cultural importance within the report. >> Good morning. Ray Hernandez, landscape architect, city of Austin parks and recreation department. I will give you a little bit of background on how we looked at the history and the cultural history of pool importance in the city. And we went about the process of looking at these facilities in terms of their historic context as well as their cultural importance to each of the communities. So what did she was we did a little bit of research into [9:12:41 AM] each of the pool facilities to find out the year that they were built and the purpose for the building of those pool facilities. So it's important to recognize that the city and the awe evacuate ticks facilitates contain some very unique pools. One is Barton springs, another one is big Stacy, which is heated naturally. And of course deep eddy, one of the oldest pools in the state of Texas, if I'm understanding that correctly. The other pool facilities that we have in the system, mainly close radioed and park -- mainly rosewood and parque Zaragoza were specifically designed and built as part of the era of segregation. In other words, those pool facilities were specifically built for the hispanic community and the African-American community. And those two pools represent a pretty important cultural and historical aspect within the city in how it developed. So those five pools are essentially the five facilityies that if push comes to shove they really should not be closed or they should not be redesigned or decommissioned, if you will. The other thing that we looked at, we looked at other historical features within the system. Mainly to develop a better understanding of the elements within -- that would define historical context as well as cultural context. So in terms of history, 50 years is considered a milestone in terms of the age after facility because it then makes it possible for that facility to be recognized as an historic feature or historical. Within the city fabric and this is generally a process done through the city's historic -- the hlc, [9:14:41 AM] historic landmark commission, I should say. The other thing that's important is the architectural silo facility. A lot of these pools were built in the 30's, which is an important time because it's the time when the wpa was in full swing, meaning this is a government funded sponsored program where pools are being built to provide employment for the local population. The other important consideration in terms of history was -- and continues to be the use of that facility in terms of population. This is something that we can measure today and we've been measuring this, I should say the awe evacuate ticks division has been measuring this for quite some time. So we have records of the population that attends and visits each of the pool facilities. Along with that we wanted to include some of the more cultural aspects of the pool facilities. And what we've done is we've included an art component. Many of you -- if you've gone off to some of the facilitates, neighborhoods are really -- have embraced some of these facilities and in some instances they've included artwork along with the facilities. Like the one -- we also wanted to include any other special events that the community holds at the pool facilities so there's movies, there's picnics and there's just neighborhood gatherings that the community utilizes that facility as a community focal point. The other thing we looked at was the the use of that facility in use of the programming that exists. So we took into consideration swim lessons, if that particular facility [9:16:43 AM] had a swim team. So all of these things enforce the cultural aspect of a particular aquatic facility in terms of how that community gathers and meets and greets each other on singly or on a weekend basis or what have you. And then lastly, we also included the importance of an understanding that some of these pools have an actual formal friends of group, and this is something that a lot of the parks throughout the city have. And these groups form and they essentially sponsor or adopt a facility, in this case it would be a pool facility, and they help the aquatics division in either maintaining the swim team and the programs that are there. They also help in communicating with the division as to what improvements they would like to see at these facilities. So that essentially summarizes what we've looked at in terms of the history and the cultural aspects of the pool facilities. >> Jane Rivera, the chair of the parks board and member of this task force. I just wanted to comment that one of the things that staff third throughout the development of the master plan and that we heard from citizens during our planning is that in most of the central city pools, definitely all of these plus the ones done by the wpa in Austin, generations of families have learned to swim at that same pool and that is something that we felt is really important that needs to be taken into account. There's investment by the pools in this city facility. That's all. >> Perfect. And as we talk about the historical importance, I wanted to note that specifically parque Zaragoza, and with parque Zaragoza, just so you know, when we're looking about the reinvestment into our pools, which is what the [9:18:44 AM] recommendation is, there's going to be some pools that will have to be moved to other locations within the park. And parque Zaragoza I believe is one of the prime examples where it's pretty much right on the creek, a full footprint. I don't believe we can even get permitting to be right there, but there's plenty of space in the rest of the park in order to make it more accessible and have a better situation. >> And ray can talk about how they can build a new -- >> Actually, I would like to add something to parque Zaragoza park in particular. So the historic designation, if it were to be given to parque Zaragoza or rosewood, doesn't necessarily mean that that function as a pool facility has to remain. It can be repurpose with the knowledge and the knowing that the framework and the purpose -- the original purpose of that facility would still need to be somehow expressed in how that facility gets repurpose. >> I'm trying to figure out what recommendations because we have closed captioning and I may have put that up there. I see the closed captioning on the side. End life repair, I think it really says it on page 2 of the recommendations, investment not disinvestment in the city of Austin aquatic system. And before I go into the numbers I want to say where we're at today. And where we used to be at. In 1996 we had a population of around 562,000 people. At that time we had 46 pools, including wading pools. We had a pool for every 12,235 people. Today we're at 35 pools and we have a pool for every 27,083 people. [9:20:45 AM] If we had followed the 1996 projections of where we're at based upon our growth we would be at 77 pools today. And so where we're talking about we have 35, and if we don't do anything we're going to have much less in a real quick period. The estimate is like probably four pools that we will not be able to open, that we wouldn't have the funding for. So now we're down to 31 and that would be one pool for every 30,000 plus of individuals. I just wanted to frame it when we're talking about why we're going big because we're very cognizant of the number and also of the need. So it would be no decommissioning of any aquatics facility without affirmative vote of the city council. So in any case where a facility didn't make sense and you said it didn't make sense to make that additional investment in this pool because maybe it's the distance. Them. Or that they are right on the watershed and we're going to go ahead and do something else. It would ultimately go through you. But we are recommending a big bond proposal. And this would address two things. And before I even talk about this I want to really talk about the work of the task force and how proud I was about it because we are coming from different areas of town with different interests on this aquatic master plan and what the recommends should be. I for one wanted to consolidate a couple of pools and then add at least one pool. And everybody had their own desires, but what everybody did is through this compromise figure out what can we actually get down and how are we going to go about doing it? And as such it is -- I heard from like Jane was a strong advocate for the east side, making sure that those pools had stayed open and that is really important because when we look at the disparities of brown and black children post age 4 on [9:22:46 AM] drowning, within the caucasian community all of a sudden the incidence of drowning drops significantly. The brown and black don't. When you look at summer heat and academic, these are -- and day care, these are things that come out on the other side. But at the same time we're looking at a major bond and if we're passing a bond on Q and as as a standalone, which is the recommendation of the task force, then you need to make sure that the whole city can buy into it. And one of the things as a long time advocate for southwest Austin we have one pool at in this case dick else park. -- Dick Nichols park. We're not alone. Southeast Austin also has I believe the one pool. And northeast Austin I believe has the one pool. So how do we add to that system. So the recommendations of the report was in six through 10 adding owe I think it may have been years two through 10 adding to the aquatics system. So we're moving those forward so we're being responsive and we're all in agreement with the aquatics master plan as far as what we see as the cost. They make sense to us based upon the information that we've received. By no means do we engineer and create these pools so we can't speak exactly to those costs, but we feel they're on par with what we have spent in the past. So when you look at this table you will definitely need to look on page 4 of the report, what you will see is $73.7 million for the replacement, for the end of life facilities. And these are all facilities that were created starting in 1934 with martin and going all the way up to 1996 with balcones. And so these are pools that are in their life. In some cases they're pools that have been significantly [9:24:48 AM] renovated, but renovated in a way that didn't actually provide any improvement. These are also pools such as northwest that have significant investment that's already been made into them for the repairing. And so I want to briefly talk about this. So one of the things that I've heard routinely within the community is the frustration where the city of Austin and other departments make an improvement to a particular asset and only to dig it up again to fix something else. And the rationale for that is we fix what has failed and we don't address what is average. And once we fix what is failed, inevitably what is average fails and then you have to tear up what you have done. So instead of making that mistake where we've done this with northwest at $400,000 and done this with other pools where we've made these major investments we're going to go ahead and fix it all. That way we just don't get the facility improvements as far as fixing it to make it where it was at. What we do, where we're adding to the benefits of it, we're meeting today's code, we're meeting A.D.A. And the bathroom requirements that we need, so making that major investment into that. Mind you the same cost as if we were going to fully renovate. So with that then all after sudden we have savings and maintenance and operation dollars. So I worked with staff to try to get an idea of what the savings, the m&o, because I thought that would be important to you. Unfortunately we didn't have it all laid out before coming to you today. But we know between water and utilities that savings is very significant. We know with maintenance on these older systems the savings is significant. We know on the emergency spend that you would have to go out during mid budget year is going to be significant. So the bottom component is now the system expansion? How do we get there, how do we have the rest of the city of Austin buy into this plan to say something something I [9:26:48 AM] can back, something I will be proud to vote for? Because it's way outside of what we've done in the past. Now we're looking for the indication of colony park, which that's a community that's been looking for a pool for probably around three decades. And then we have northwest Austin to replace canyon vista. We have a new pool in northeast Austin and a pool in southwest Austin. One of the things that came up during the process really pretty much at the last moment was that colony park, the $13 million for there included civil engineering and everything that needed to be done, but the rest of the pools didn't include that. What it did include was the capital investment made within the fence. So everything getting to that fence, whether land or the civil engineering needed to get there, was an included. And there was no way of knowing what it was because it hadn't been investigated yet. So as such we had conversation. And the conversation was, well, we'll just do five million dollars and just leave it godspeed, whatever works out, works out. A couple of us said no, it's not and we all came to agreement and said no, it's not. It's not being honest with the voters. It's not being honest with the community saying the pool will be built. What we did is created a fund of land acquisition. That's a 20-million-dollar fund and so it would be for the remaining pools outside of colony colony park. Those pools, if it was land acquisition that needed to be done or if it was the civil engineering that would be more expensive over here than over there, you would have that flexibility as a department. So that brings us to the total of the $124,312,470. So that is the conclusion of the report. And now we are anxious to hear your questions. [9:28:50 AM] >> Mayor Adler: A lot of work and incredibly difficult -- sorry. I said a lot of work on an incredibly difficult so thank you and please thank the other task force members for us. Questions on the dais? Yes, pool? >> Pool: I wanted to thank you all also because this is the level of detail and specificity that was lacking in the original report and why so many of us were, oh, where do we go dr.here? And this layer of additional information and work I think was not only strategic, but really important. So thank you and also thanks to the staff. I appreciate your extra efforts on this part. I am -- I will be hoping to advocate for the higher bond dollar figure for pools and our general recreation facilities with -- and I have already been doing that with my appoint appointee to the citizens bond advisory task force. So hopefully we can also energize the community to get involved and press for this and then pass the bonds. I think what is really missing is two things, one a strategic approach to the end of life replacements and a thoughtful look at how to expand, and you all have done that. The history of our oldest pools is key to this discussion and I'm glad that you brought that element into your discussion. It matters that these were wpa projects that were in specific parts of town for specific reasons and we don't want to lose either the pools or the memory of why that was done. So this good plan and then the efforts to find the funds for this, which have been missing in the past, are going to be a big important mission I think for our community. I'm going to absorb the additional details that you all have brought and I may have some questions later, but at this point I simply want to at the highest level thank you for this additional effort in [9:30:51 AM] particular and then let you know that I'll continue to partner with you all to try to make this a reality for our community. >> Appreciate it, councilmember pool. One of the things that the councilmember had reminded me of was a brief discussion regarding our school system, particularly on having full adult swimming capability, swim lanes versus the waiting area or whether it's zero entry or the existing wading pools. And the importance for the communities to really have that component is what the aquatic system is for a neighborhood, for a region. So this came up quite a bit during the engagement where there are members of big and little Stacy community where they were really fearful that we would make a recommendation to close one of the pools. And for us I think we were at a consensus that this was one pool system we're seeing with big and little Stacy, they just happen to be .6 miles apart within the same stretch of really the park, but so in order for kids to have that ability to get used to water and with that intense -- we have that wonderful component with heating pools like with big Stacy, what you have is active adult swimmers who are there. A lot of our senior citizens who are taking advantage of that and swimming there from morning until close. >> I just wanted to say a couple of things. First of all, we really appreciated you guys allowing us to pool together as a task force because we thought it was really important. Through our six meetings we got a lot of time to spend with people from all corners of Austin who all seemed to be very protective and madly in love with their pools because they saw them with a sense of community, where their kids could go safely. It fit into the imagine Austin plan where you could [9:32:52 AM] be somewhere really close and be healthy and not have to drive miles and miles to go somewhere. And we also got a lot of great input from the staff and realized that the staff was spending a lot of time kind of playing whack a mole because some of the pools were so old, the structures were so old they were running around putting band-aids on them. And we looked at the 2012 resolution that asked us if we could really keep all these pools open and free to the public and listen to that is what the public wanted. So I feel like we got to get a lot of really good information. And more public input because they put a lot of public input into the plan, but not so much into the final result that they got. I thought that was important. So when we did this, I wanted to touch on one more thing and that was we also really looked at how we could cut costs because we know it's not cheap. We don't feel like we've invested in the past in these pools that we could have. But the costs are large so we did look at things like trying to work with water utility to develop a relationship where we wouldn't have to pay quite so much with them because all of these pools are in the common interest of the community. And we looked at other ways to cut costs as well and the staff was very helpful with that. I really wanted to throw those points in and to thank you guys for allowing us to be on this task force and pull this information together. >> I have one other comment related to what Ms. Lewis was just saying. One of the things that we feel is really important that we have included in here, the central aquatic maintenance facility that you find in the second grouping, that is something that will actually help resolution operating expenses because we currently have staff running from one end of town to the other to maintain pools. They don't have a place that's a central location. And the major use for that will be for them to be able to with the new pools as we put them in, they can do [9:34:53 AM] some monitoring electronically. And you can't do anything like that now. Everything has to be hands on. So as the pools are modernized it's going to cut operating expenses and having a maintenance facility will cut maintenance expenses. Instead of having to manufacture parts to fix broken pool pumps we will actually have some spares that are being kept at the maintenance facility so that if something breaks down they can just run out and fix it much more easily. So we tried to look healthcarely at -- holistically at everything. Tried to reduce operating hosts in the long run. And we called this a one-time bond, understanding that in the future as some of the other older pools reach end of life, there may need to be bonds. We really don't think there's going to need to be such a big bond in the future. This is trying to catch up for decades of neglect. >> Councilmember Garza and then councilmember Renteria. >> Garza: Y'all touched on equity with regards to a task force, and everybody obviously advocates for the area that they live in. I'm curious if there was more of a data driven equity analysis because -- I talked about this last night at a forum, but I firmly believe government should help those who need help the most. It's about access. There are families who have access. There are parts of town that have access to pools in their backyard and then there are parts of town that don't. So was there an analysis done like by mfi, what the average mfi was? You spoke about one pool in southwest Austin and one pool in southeast Austin and I don't want to pit parts of our city against each other, [9:36:54 AM] but I would have to point out that if you look at the mfi in southwest Austin versus the mfi in southeast Austin you will see a significant disparity. So basically was there a data-driven equity analysis? And in addition to was there -- was our equity officer brought into this conversation? >> So the -- on the equity officer, the equity officer was not brought into the conversation. We looked as far as the distribution, equity both on race, ethnicity and I believe it was also on the economics was one of the gis maps that we had received. >> Yes. >> Which should be included somewhere in the packet. It's a treasure trophy of information and it may be on the back of the material or on the back of the master plan. I appreciate the conversation regarding the socioeconomic component. Right now in the aquatics master plan it has the pool around shady hollow for southwest Austin. What it shows is 45 southwest is where the pool would go. So there's no residential right there on 45 southwest. You do have homeowners associations that have pools, you do have individuals that have pools. So the recommendation that I had made and I was told that when you look at the areas of growth it was like the general circle so I had requested around the oak hill Y. We have two large apartments for foundation communities and we have two large neighborhood associations that were created during the 70s which one of the pools are listed in here as a pool, but that pool has been closed down for over a decade. That's in the scenic Brooke neighborhood. So really working within that area that doesn't have the exact same accessibility such as, say, I do in meridian and southwest Austin. >> If I could add to the conversation. So in the plan that was presented to council [9:38:55 AM] originally, there is a portion of this plan that is very data driven with regards to growth, with regards to social determinants. So when we're taking a look at -- originally when we were taking a look at decisions to be made with regards to possible sunsetting or closure on,s that was the number one set of criteria that would be considered, which would be access. In this particular case we would be using those social determinants should this plan be adopted as is presented with the task force recommendations, not for pool closures, but for further expansions. So as the demographics change over time, we would -- we have a matrix and we have a criteria and we have a formula that will allow us to repeat or to reproduce the same information with new data, but could give us a different result based upon those essential determinants. And those original conversations, the equity office did have -- we had a basic conversation with them about how important our social determinants in this conversation, how could we make some selections as to those that are important to include. So I would just add that to the conversation about how we have used data to drive future decisions or how we will use data to drive future decisions. >> Renteria: This amount here was the amount it was going to cost to either replace or upgrade the -- >> Full-on replacement. >> Renteria: Also. Is parque Zaragoza already funded to be replaced? >> No, sir. And I can appreciate -- am I correct, there's no funding [9:40:56 AM] for parque Zaragoza? And it was one of the surprises for me. What we did, we were very -- we were given very specific tasks through the resolution passed by council and what to review. And so we reviewed those things that needed to be reviewed and couldn't come up with our own engineering expertise as to questions as to why that parque Zaragoza was in the post-five-year time frame. I believe it's in the six to 10-year time frame for a new pool. Given the consultants' recommendations based on the facilities, we said okay, we'll take them on their word. We know the bond cycle is five to six years. We have a two to five-year and so we're going to pull in from there. So I can appreciate that. >> Renteria: So the pool itself will stay that way for five years? >> Councilmember Renteria, if I can add to the response. There was some significant investment in parque Zaragoza this season, the 2015 -- the 2017 season, to fix some leaks, we pair that swimming pool. It is our belief that through those repairs we have extended the life of the pool. It is not a full replacement. It is not fully up to par or in a space that would be comparable to a brand new or a new built pool, for example. It would not compare to something like the govalle pool that's being rebuilt. But we have been able to successfully -- we believe that those repairs will successfully extend its life so that given an opportunity and an additional bond program it would be a pool that could be considered in the future years instead of in the immediate. >> Renteria: That's including the repair and the bathroom and all that? >> That includes a full redo, just like govalle, it's a full replacement, everything up to code, adding the amenities that are appropriate for a neighborhood pool like shower space, like [9:42:57 AM] restrooms, like deck space, those sorts of things. >> Renteria: So this is what's going to happen to say Rosa this year? >> No. The substantial repairs were done last year. So we were able to work with the Austin water utility for a process by which we were able to significantly save water. So again, we've done some significant repairs to extend its life, but by no means is it brand new or rebuilt, but it would be something that would be considered for the future. >> Renteria: So it would be opening this summer, '18? >> Barring anything that we don't know today, yes, sir. >> Renteria: Okay, thank you. >> And if I could comment just a bit more on that. We looked at what was presented by the staff as well as the consultants, and Zaragosa was actually one of the top in the second tier and we decided given the dollar amounts that we've got here to replace these 13 pools that are expected to fail within the next five years we didn't feel like we should add in additional ones. So that was why. >> But it is something -- if you go big with an Q and as master plan and if you -- with an aquatics master plan and if you want to shave it a little bit I think you probably have the greatest options because within district 3 there are five pools under 13 that would need to be redone. So some of those are within the .7 miles and that's a conversation that I know you would have with your community, but you would seem to have some runway. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's go on to Jimmy. I'll remind everybody we have another briefing and we have 17 pulled items. Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: That's a great way to set me up. [Laughter] Keep it short, that's what I heard. Sorry, I can't. I have many questions on this. Ms. Neely, can you tell me when we expect to see numbers on the operation and [9:44:58 AM] impact of this proposal? Mr. De would. >> What I would say you to, we would have to run a full analysis. It will take us probably a month, and it will be incrementally, right? So as a certain number of pools are completely rebuilt, then we could estimate what the efficiency and effective beings of that is so how much would that allow us to reinvest in the system. The one thing I think is important is to make sure that I manage the expectations is that as we go through a process of incrementally improving the pools, if we still have the charge to keep them all open, I want to manage expectations, in that repairing or completely renovating one pool will probably not give us the return on investment that will allow us to reinvest money because, as you probably remember, we are $400,000 annually over budget in the allocation for aquatics, which we cobble together through other parts of our budget. I just want to manage expectations, that even if we repair -- I'm sorry, completely replace and renovate a certain number of pools, we would have to reinvest in decreasing the overage before we could actually reinvest in, for example, expanding hours or having year-round pools or those, but that would take us probably a month to kind of estimate as the pool is rebuilt, what is the return on investment on that, so what's the maintenance costs, how are they reduced. >> Flannigan: I think a month is fine. Those numbers are going to be important as we decide what bond process we want to get into so it's not something we're going to decide even in January. >> If I could be so bold when I say a month I mean February because we're already maybe a month, so [9:46:59 AM] maybe a month and a half. >> Flannigan: I want to definitely agree with councilmember Garza, nearly every apartment complex has its own pool and every neighborhood association has its own pool. There are pools everywhere in my district, and we have the fewest municipal pools. I'm kind of surprised to see [indiscernible] On had list. I heard nothing from round Rock ifc they're looking to shut that pool down. I can gosh the politically influentially neighborhood would allow Round Rock to do that. It's surprising to me we would do that, surprising to go see new pools being proposed. Ms. Mcnealy thank you so being so forward on the challenges of our pool system. When we are contemplating a pool, do we know what the long-term repair costs are? >> Do we? Long-term repair costs? I'm going to allow Jody J., who is our manager for a conversatics to answer that? >> Jody Jay, aquatics manager. The standard is 90 cents per thousand gallons in operation. So if you look at a facility, like, Bartholomew or west infield, when we rebuilt those facilities the gallon of water was significantly reduced. For example, bar that will mu was cut from 500,000 to 250,000 gallons so 90 cents standard for operations that your reduction. >> Flannigan: Not just regular operations but the likely need for future repair. >> That's at o&m. Yes. >> Flannigan: So we're at 100 something million [9:49:00 AM] dollars because we were underfunding o&m all this time? >> Yes. >> Flannigan: Mr. D Palma, do you know roughly how many pools that is? >> Four pools you've seen -- this is new, not existing pools. The existing pools I -- >> You told councilmember Renteria that Zaragoza was on a six to ten year time frame. >> Yes. We have that on -- if you look at page 129, their draft aquatics master plan, there is table 8.1, capitol improvement schedule. We use that schedule. So within that time I'm looking at 12, three, four, five, six, seven -- seven pools. >> Flannigan: Okay. Do we know, of those seven pools, by the time we get six to ten years away, will they be in as bad condition as the ones being contemplated for the first round? Are they deteriorating to the point where we'll be in a aquatics emergency like I feel we're in now? >> Yes. >> It's hard to say, but I would say it would be a similar situation. In the proposed pools that have been listed to be in the first five years, the remaining five critical pools that were suggested that they could possibly fail within five years are already slated to be the ones that are -- that would be replaced. But because our swim pools are the average age of 50 years, every year that we do not fully replace it is a year that it has an opportunity to -- the infrastructure to deteriorate or for something to go wrong. While I will say that I know from past experience that our team will do all that it can to keep them running, it is highly likely that we will still be in a situation six years from now where [9:51:01 AM] there's a number of pools that require extensive repair or replacement in order for them to run efficiently. And I could not in any way estimate what might possibly close long-term because of something that is too costly for us to repair. >> Flannigan: Thank you. On the central aquatics facility being contemplated, do you agree, Ms. North Carolina -- Mcnealy, there is a positive impact to m&o from that. >> We haven't return numbers on return on investment. I believe it would be prudent and important but if we do do something we look holistically, that we're not building a single space for aquatics -- and it could possibly be beyond aquatics and include other city services that could benefit from something central. >> Flannigan: Thank you. I got the sense that it was anecdotal as well so I'm glad to hear my instinct was right about that. I will say, generally speaking, I'm really disappointed with this, that we've got a proposal in front of me that's 73 million to repair the pools that our community finds critical and another 50 to build new pools that I don't know that people are really asking for. I'm hearing six to ten years from now there's other pools people already critically rely on, why would I put whatever the total is into new pools when I'm going to have to do this again six to ten years from now? I'm also disappointed that also the easiest answer you could have come back with, do everything, spend all the money. This is -- this is insane. Like, I just don't know how this is at all a realistic perspective. But if this is where we're going to be at because there are very few of us on the dais, I think I've been the most vocal but to be fair I [9:53:03 AM] have the fewest pools in my district, so it's easy for me to be vocal about this. I support putting a separate bond in the -- I wouldn't support this list. I don't think it makes sense to predetermine a failure in canyon vista without a longer conversation with Round Rock ISD. Like with councilmember Garza's perspective, I think there's a better way to allocate this amount of money so that we're not giving whatever people are sitting at this dais six to ten years from now, handing them the same problem we were handed by our predecessors. That's all I have to say. >> Yeah. And may I respond? Thank you, Mr. Flannigan. I appreciate those comments. A lot of those considerations you had were considerations we had as well, particularly with the major number in front of us. We had the conversation regarding, you know, do we close some and do we add some and if we not. One of the things that we came about was the compromise. There was a compromise because everybody is sitting around the table and not in pushing our will on another community. So I can have a feeling that with northwest you may take a different stance on that and I can appreciate that. I will tell you, I was surprised about the number of folks that I have heard back from about northwest because of the accessibility of pools. It's a different situation, what I'm hearing, it's more the accessibility for your swim teams that you have in northwest, which is a similar one that's in southwest, although I do know within foundation communities and scenic brook I've talked to those communities and they are very much interested for southwest Austin. So I think the need is there and I just wanted to remind everybody, when we're talking about this major investment -- I mean, it is. S because of negligent that we've -- that we have faced as a city because recessions have hit. We decided let's go ahead and cut back on pools, aquatics, parks, libraries, [9:55:05 AM] and so now as a result of a recessions from the '70s, '80s, '90s, from 2008, that lack of investment has caught up. So it is a question, you know, as far as where we're at, and that is why the task force made the recommendation to go out for a single bond, for the exact same reason that you had stated. The community -- let the community decide what their commitments to aquatic and recreation is? Is it a real value? We'll put it in front of them versus making the decision for them. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Well, first of all, thank you very much for all your hard work. Really appreciate it. I appreciate your being bold about this. I know from the emails that I was copied on that you heard from a lot of people in this community. I think this is a broad sense that people do care about the pools. So thank you for your approach and for recognizing that without some funding this is a decommissioning plan. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Alter: And I had some specific questions. For the historic pools, there's no funding in the proposed bond that you're putting forward. We know -- I'll mention the one I'm most familiar with, there was recently closures because of well issues and other things and there are some real serious risks that the debetty faces. How are you thinking about funding for those historic pools and where's the time frame for that? >> The historic pools are on the same whole list of all 35 pools, and to repeat, although we said we don't want those closed, they can not appear on the years 1-5 [9:57:07 AM] list. And so we were trying to stay with what the consultant and staff had provided to us. And so we took all pools that were on the years 1-5 replacement list and put them on this list. But you all have the opportunity to modify the list if you decide to go with our bond proposal overall, you have the opportunity to make changes you find appropriate. >> Yeah. This did not become part of the recommendations but just my own personal thought relating to that question, and it is similar to what councilmember Flannigan and what our task force had recommended, you have the single big bond for these major fixes, but I think it would be reasonable, as far as the other bond, the regular bond that's being developed by the city of Austin and the task force to include a line item for aquatics for the maintenance, for the capitol maintenance replacement or whatever you want to say, however you want to describe it, for pools that are in the 6-20 year time frame, because issues are going to come up and so maybe now all of a sudden you have a $5 million line item for those issues or if it's ten, depending upon where you want to go. Currently within the bond advisory task force, I believe what's sitting in there is $15 million that includes, I believe, at least one new pool as well as this general fund for aquatics. >> Alter: I'd just like to -- >> I'd just like to confirm what Mr. Depalma just said. I don't know what the right word is. In the bond that was brought forward, proposal brought forward by the parks and requisition department, there is an aquatics portion in that set of -- that request is for major repairs that would allow the system to continue to extend the life of swimming pools that were not part of the one to five, should that be passed. [9:59:07 AM] If indeed there was an pass, we would be using that full amount to take care of the entire system if it were still the desire to have no closures, if that makes sense. So there is a line item, a program that's aquatic in the general parks and recreation department infrastructure and assets portion of the bond. >> Excuse me. What I was going to say is we are trying to do a so-called 1-time-only bond to try to get the city past the hump of a huge number of pools needing to be replaced all at the same time. We understand this does not fix the problem in total. We're fixing 13 of 35 pools. But if that happens, we believe that won't subpoena another 13 each five years. We hope that we'll be able to have taken care of the worst in the first bond. >> Alter: Maybe Ms. Mcnealy can provide an update since we had changes with respect to debetty since the master plan was reduced, that may have affected its status. >> I'll allow Jody Jay -- >> Alter: You can do it off-line. >> Yeah. >> Alter: Okay. >> Jody Jay, division manager for aquatics. Currently we have made some investments in the well that is operational at debetty, which will allow for us to do a regular cleaning process of that well at a reduced cost and will allow us to produce the amount of water that we need. Right now it's doing well, and with this new system in place to clean the well regularly, we believe we've solved the problem. >> Alter: Great. Thank you. That's great news. I had some other general questions. So if I'm understanding [10:01:08 AM] correctly, the approach is to move away from this whack amole approach so you're not having to do as much repair and kind of go for the replacements. How does that dovetail then with repair that would be ongoing and the approach that's in the aquatics master plan? I know that Ms. Mcnealy mentioned having another portion of the bond that would be funding some of that but one of the issues that we had when the plan was originally delivered to us was how do you prioritize those repairs and there was some questions about the criteria that didn't take into consideration attendance, can't consider sort of the rest of the park around it, and none of that seems to have changed. So if you have a limited amount of dollars should this bond failure still back to this process of divvying it up that was in the plan. >> Yes. >> Alter: And given that there are some problems in my mind with the criteria, I'm a bit uncomfortable with that. >> I was just going to say, we can add the historic consideration to the criteria, but my understanding is that the attendance is part of the overall number 1 goal. >> We had talked about that but we did say it was buried in demographics and didn't really -- >> It is considered in the number 1 weighted criterion. >> But attendance was not at big as at least I thought it should have been. >> Alter: So if attendance is not important, that's a concern. Then there was, you know -- if we're talking about repair there were pools that were penalized because you couldn't expand them even though the pool itself could be very well loved and very used, very central to the community but because you couldn't expand it it got knocked and then it would [10:03:08 AM] still be that way on this set of criteria even if, you know, repairing it would make sense. >> Right. So if I could expand. There are two matrices that are part of this master plan. The very first talks about the fact that during any given season an investment in a repair, given the percentage, talks about IFS over a certain percentage, over 15% of the base cost of what that pool should be operating -- should be able to operate under, then we would go ahead and make the repair and move forward. And then as the percentage of the repair gets closer to the base cost, you know, 15% of the base cost, then the consideration becomes, well, if we repair this pool, are we throwing good money after bad? Now, it has to go into a second tier, the second matrixes that says if this pool were to remain open and if the will of the council is to say all swimming pools need to remain open, then if this pool is to remain open and we're considering it against other pools that are in a similar situation and we have a given amount of money to make a repair, we're going to run it through the second matrices to say which is the one that needs to be repaired insist not necessarily for closure. Not necessarily for expansion. Because given the opportunity -- given that we don't have an -- a lot of bond money, we'll have to make much more conservative decisions. I know it's stuck in people's mind that pools will be closed. That's certainly -- the second matrices is there to help us understand, given a dire situation where we only have a certain amount of money, what are the decisions that are going to be made? Can this pool be expanded, a given pool be expanded with the decommissioning or the sun setting of another pool and will it still serve the entire community? If not, where is it going to [10:05:09 AM] be on the list given multiple repairs that have to be done in any given season? So I think we're getting a little bit stuck on, you know, the whole idea of a pool closure or a permanent closure based upon historical aspects. The second matrices is one of the considerations. Closures is one of the considerations but it can be used in many different ways as part of a decision-making process. And I just wanted to give the entire council an update right now, as of today, with the infrastructure and asset, the proposal that is being discussed is 5 million for the regular aquatics program for the general aquatics program, 6 million for gibbons, 4 million for Davis and 13 million for colony for a total of 2 million. Obviously there's overlap but there's overlap because these conversations are going concurrently so we would be able to make adjustments to this based upon the decisions that were made as the bond decisions progress. >> Could you repeat those very quickly? >> Yes, ma'am, 5 million for the entire aquatics program, 6 million for gibbons, 4 million for Mabel Davis, and 13 million for colony park. And there's obvious overlaps. >> Alter: One other thing that I wanted to just bring up was that I do think that there will be repair and o&m savings that will not necessarily be immediate. Even this year, if you recall, when this came up before we were talking about how do we cooperate better with Austin water. And I've been meeting with Austin water and parks and I'm really pleased with the progress that they've made through some pilots, through the Austin water sustainability office with parks, for park Zaragoza where they're saving about $40,000 a year with a [10:07:10 AM] $50,000 investment, and that's a pilot they're doing, you know, at that park and I believe they've committed to do some additional pools that both save our water and reduce some of those costs. Those are just some small things. And part of it is that we don't have the money to make those kind of investments even though we know those would be useful and more efficient. And so I think there is a lot that could be done, but if we don't have the money to invest in it you cannot make those changes and you're kind of just keep sticking your thumb in the dike. >> Mayor, council, thank you all so much for hearing us out on these recommendations and to, you know, councilmember Flannigan's point, I understand very well there are differences in northwest Austin in terms of the availability of non- municipal-owned pools. I think what this task force proposal/recommendation represents is a lit bit of a pivot point. With the existing recommendations from the department outside of these task force recommendations, long-term aquatics is on a path to shrink from about 35 odd pools and facilities to closer to 20 over the long-term. And to have a shorter season each summer and with shorter hours during that time. And so our recommendation is to give the voters an opportunity to express their choice, and if they want an excellent, robust aquatics system city-wide, they can comes with a cost. Part of the decision-making in our recommendations is that while the department does a lot of things very well and certainly the department possesses a lot of amazing parkland from, you know, zilker to what's going on at waller creek and the greenbelt, aquatics could be and probably should be a core strength of the department and the city. The climate is getting hotter, it's consistent with [10:09:10 AM] imagine Austin and the focus on wellness and outdoor recreation. We've got great partners with the ymca, with the university of Texas, you have one of, if not the preeminent diving and swimming programs in the country. We visited with them. They presented to us. They want to collaborate. So long- term the city could be the sort of preeminent swimming/aquatics/municipal operation in the country and that could be a really cool area for the city to specialize in long-term. For 124 million this time. And also I think we saw with the recent school bonds there's an increased willingness by our voters to participate in capital improvements. If folks want to vote for this and have an amazing pool system, more power to them. >> Just to that point regarding the school bond, one of the things that made it so successful was that everybody saw something in it for them. And, you know, southwest Austin has a representation of where bonds go to die, and this -- our current school bond election showed otherwise, where you had precinct 367 turn out 80% for the school bond. And so the reason why is because they saw that in this case, southwest Austin was not being ignored. It was on the map. And I think that goes to the same thing for every portion of our community, whether you're northwest, southwest, southeast, of course central Austin. And so when you look about this on the aquatics master plan in looking at where we're going to combo out for a big bond -- go out for a big bond, one, we're solving the issues and filling those gaps but also being strategic about doing it so make sure we're funding an aquatics system that everybody can get value out of. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. Then councilmember troxclair. >> Houston: I want the last word. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: And then Ms. Houston. [10:11:13 AM] Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Uh-oh, now I'm wondering if I can shift my place in line. One, I wanted to thank you all for the really hard work. When I brought forward that resolution I was really hoping that this smart group would really flush out some of the issues that I was hearing from the community, and you did just exactly that and more. Thank you very much for all the really careful thought, and I think this report is just a solid -- a really solid reflection of that collaboration. I had a couple quick questions, some of them have been answered already. I don't know from councilmember alter's questions whether you were expressing those as a concern, but I think I will. I still am concerned that the site suitability matrix does prioritize some of the very things you mentioned, which are, you know, constraints from the site and doesn't highly prioritize -- doesn't highly prioritize, as I believe it should, the attendance and popularity of some of those pools. Some of those pools I would say while situated in particular areas draw from across the city and also draw in visitors so those are really different kinds of regional pools, debetty and others. So I don't know where that leaves us exactly because I think we're headed to toward a conversation on Thursday where we would adopt -- and I guess this is a question for my colleagues -- where we would adopt the task force recommendations. And while I'm real keen on the additional factors you've added about historical and cultural importance, I still have concerns about some of those other site suitability criteria that are within that matrix. So I have to do a little thinking about that, and I would welcome y'all's feedback either now or after had session on how to balance that. >> Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Yes. [10:13:13 AM] >> If I could, if it were the will of the council and you would like us to go back and work a little on that stability and bring this plan back for consideration at a later date, not the 14th, certainly the department is willing to do that. I offer that only as a direction, not a directive. >> Tovo: I think that's a real important potentialitiative to consider. Thank you. The -- couple quick questions. Palm, was that considered within your scope? >> Palm park pool is part of the waller creek conservancy and under the jurisdiction or the purview of the waller creek conservancy intergovernmental corporation with the city of Austin, and so it was not part of this analysis because it's part of that linear set of parks that plan looks at from a perspective outside of just looking at the aquatics. So it's not part of had. >> Tovo: I guess I would ask the task force members if people commented on it in the course of your conversations with them? >> There were a few comments, but probably, like, two, maybe two or three. >> I didn't hear any. >> And we had one for kealing as well. We had somebody who attended one of the meetings asking when the kealing pool was coming up in the next part of the master plan with the cultural center. St. John's as part of that whole series of closures back in the day [indiscernible] Was another one of those pools. So those were not part of this? >> Tovo: Okay. >> But when do I the calculation from 1996, those were included in those. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. I mean, it has come up in our conversations about really -- in every conversation geographically located in that area, whether we're talking about the convention center or waller creek or we're talking about the palm school and it future, palm pool comes up as a topic of discussion. >> Mayor pro tem, just on one of your other comments relating to attendance and [10:15:13 AM] criteria, this is something we really struggled with. We definitely came to the table representing four different areas of town and four different perspectives in that discussion. So there wasn't a real resolution in there. I think one of the things that we all recognize, though, is using Bartholomew pool as an example, when you do have a renovation, where Bartholomew pool at the time wasn't receiving a lot of attendance. Nows the most, right, as far as any of our district pools. And so that is something -- that's a lesson I've taken away from you it, that if you do have a great facility, that it does draw not just from the immediate neighborhood but from the surrounding community. >> Tovo: Right. >> Then doing so -- you know, within this plan, every district receives a pool except for two. And so those two districts would be district 4 and district 10. I believe. Correct, and so within those, those communities are really excited about that because brought relief from in the case of district 4, Bartholomew, and then from ten, deep Eddie came up as a big example. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. And I'm not sure whether this was within the scope of your discussion when you were considering alternative funding sources, but I would just -- this is kind of a nice segue into one of the issues on our agenda today, but it strikes me that as we've talked about Barton springs as a potential eligible recipient of hotel-motel tax funding because it does draw so many visitors and I wonder if the same may be true about debetty. I don't know if we're capturing zip codes of debetty attendees but it strikes me that is also sometimes touted as an attraction to our visitors to town and so that I think -- I think those two, of all of those that you've mentioned, are the most -- the ones that offer the most potential for being eligible uses. But I would say that, you [10:17:15 AM] know, these are historically and culturally important pools and so it's very possible we started promoting some of the others in our literature about the various attractions that we have within the city for visitors as well as austinites that those, too, would draw visitors and could -- would then be eligible uses of hotel-motel tax funds. >> Mayor pro tem, I could just say one thing about the suitability index. And as far as attendance, we can talk about that and that was one of the factors. Nerve really came to resolution but attendance, for example, if Barton springs had been in there -- and wasn't in the list of pools -- you know, gets a million visitors a year and that wouldn't have gotten the weight it deserved to have. >> Tovo: Right. >> We talked a lot about the different criteria and whether they were weighted accordingly and given the kind of, you know, really impacted the pools the way they should have when they looked at suitability but we did not come to resolution so it is something I think you're making a legitimate point on. >> Tovo: I'm sorry. >> I'd just like to comment that the attendance is part of the highest scorecard overall suitability but that includes socioeconomics and everything else. Attendance is there. It's just hidden. What I'm hearing is many of you would like to see that not hidden. >> Tovo: I remember the way it worked out, and I don't have in front of me, but some of the most attended -- most highly attended pools also scored the lowest on those site suitability indexes so you had pools like big Stacy, deep Eddie and Barton springs fairly low on the site suitability index because they have other constraints but why on Earth would we want to not prioritize investments in our most highly used pools? >> So certainly we can take a look at pulling attendance out and reconfiguring the [10:19:16 AM] site suitability index but I would also mention some of the swimming pools maybe not highly attend ready in areas where they have the least amount of access. So it can work for or it can work against us, which is why originally attendance was placed in a category that allowed us to have it mixed in with other social determinants, not just the attendance. But we could certainly take a look at that. We have unintended consequences of the pools that are in areas that you would say had the least amount of access but might also have the least amount of attendance, but let us look at that. >> Tovo: And I guess to me that speaks to the need for additional funds because it shouldn't be a zero sum game. >> Yes. >> Tovo: It shouldn't be in trying to provide access, which everyone I believe needs in all parts of towns for all of reasons you suggested in your comments here today but it shouldn't be we have to close our most highly used pools to provide access in other areas. We ought to be able to do both and I really believe that's what many, many people over the last couple years of had process have weighed in and have said, that they serve an important -- a very, very important community function. We have so few opportunities to come and recreate together in ways that are often free, as our neighborhood pools are. And so I think it's -- again, I appreciate the work and I know we have some additional discussions ahead of us, but I do hope we can figure out how to strike a good balance, and I very much appreciate the recommendation that pool closures would require an affirmative vote so we have an opportunity to really take all of these things many the balance. >> Mayor Adler: As we go on and talk, colleagues, think about whether or not we want to call this up for action on Thursday. And if we're not going to actually act on Thursday, then maybe we want to say that out loud here today, if [10:21:17 AM] we're not going to do that so we don't have people showing up to -- my sense is this isn't baked yet enough for us to be able to resolve it on the dais. We might need a different way to get from here to there. Councilmember troxclair. >> Troxclair: And I would say that we probably shouldn't be calling this up on Thursday. So I'll keep my comments really short. I'll just say I have -- I appreciate the took everybody has done on this. I have major concerns about the task force's recommendations. The answer just -- it can't always be we need more money. Like, at some point it seems like this plan not only doesn't address the underlying financial issues that the department is dealing with but it also potentially is putting in place more pools that will only exacerbate our future financial issues. I appreciate the fact that we could -- that pool enthusiasts and users like the idea of the city of Austin being the preeminent destination for aquatics, but if you had a task force on dog parks you would have a lot of dog park enthusiasts who said the same thing about dog parks or -- and that is one of the reasons that we -- that we have a tough time at the end of our budgeting process every year. When we're going through all of our discussions about each different department, well, we want to add more money to health and human services and there's priorities in other areas and everything sounds good. But when the rubber meets the road we have to -- there's only so much money and we have to make decisions and we have to prioritize where that money is going to be spent. So I think that there is some major work that needs to be done with our aquatics department. I was hopeful that the task force would put forward a plan that would help us make the difficult decisions that we have to take head on, and I'm just not sure that [10:23:18 AM] putting another bond in the ballot is going to be the answer. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Houston: Excuse me. >> Mayor Adler: Items. You wanted to be last. >> Houston: I was going to try to wrap this up. We've been on this for over an hour. >> Mayor Adler: I'll let you go now. >> Pool: I'm still going to make a comment after you. >> Houston: You usually do so -- [ laughter ] Thank you all for the work you put into this. I just want to say that I would support a motion to pospone this because obviously we need a lot more time to figure out what's going on here. The colony park master plan park -- district park is on the plan, and people have asked about it being a [indiscernible], just put that into your thinking when you come back to us. The linden bates Johnson high school swim team doesn't have a place to swim at this point. So if we could have an add tore yum east of I-35 people who like to swim all year, that would be helpful. And that's the end of my comments. I really don't need an answer to that now. I'm really trying to keep us moving so she'll get it back to be me. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: I support a postponement as well and I just wanted to make sure that it's clear to folks watching, the bond that the staff proposed for pools was 20 million. Is that correct? Give or take? What was the bond proposal that the task force is looking at for pools? >> So the task force is part of an infrastructure and asset, is 28 million. >> Pool: Okay. And it's the parks and rec board through this effort here that is pointing out that that is not sufficient and needs to be a higher number, which is where the $124 million figure came from. I just wanted to make the record clear because I think some people are thinking -- I'm hoping that it will be higher. I think there need to be [10:25:19 AM] some work on the different categories that the task force for bonds is looking at, and this is one of them. >> And I believe also, if I could speak for the task force, they're saying this should be aquatics-specific bond, not part of the general bond that would come forward for parks and infrastructure and assets. They're looking for an aquatics-specific at 124 million. >> Pool: And I think that's a really good plan as well. Thank you all again for all of your work. >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> Garza: You know, I appreciate your hard work. I know there's a lot of history on some of these pools, but I guess I just -- it's -- I feel like this is a wants versus needs situation, and we ask our families to live within their means. We force them to live within their means. They have to make hard choices. They have to make, you know, I can send my -- families would love to send their children to private schools but they don't have the ability to make that choice. We force our families to make hard choices but we don't want to make those hard choices as a council and we have to. We have to make some really hard choices about this issue, and it's -- and just what councilmember troxclair said about the budget. We do not have a single fire station slated on had bond. There are families in a couple of our districts whose insurance rates went up last month because we had not built fire stations the way we should have. Onion creek is still a slab fire station and that was funded in 2012. And so I just want to give the perspective that this is not me being against pool, understanding the historical nature, understanding the need to recreate. I'm prepared to make some hard choices, and when it comes down to wants versus needs versus families are [10:27:23 AM] significantly below what the mfi is for this city, have been forced to the outer edges, east of the airport, and now their insurance bill is going up significantly, $100 a month for some of them because they don't have a fire station within four to 5 miles, I really hope we remember the hard position our families are in, we force them to live within budgets. We need to force ourselves to make those really difficult decisions as well. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else before we move on? Is the sense of the dais that we should postpone this rather than open this up to transcribed work try and work on Thursday? >> Tovo: I guess I would like to ask the task force their thoughts. I hate to delay. On the other hand if we can't reasonably come to -- I'm very ready to support the task force recommendations as they are with perhaps a couple additions with regard to the site suitability criteria and weighting but that would just be general direction. However, I guess having, though, asked that question it sound as if it's going to generate a pretty vigorous discussion on the council and we simply don't have time to undertake one of those for every issue. I just quickly ask the task force for their feedback I don't want to make it too binary of a choice but the current proposal from the department going through the bond advisory task force is about $28 million, which does not improve the system and in fact doesn't even maintain it. It sort of slows the rate of degradation and at which it sort of falls apart. So if the council were to move forward with the 124 million recommendation or something close to that and it's prepared to have that conversation on Thursday, then I'm for that. If the council is more inclined toward splitting the baby or finding something that's in between [10:29:23 AM] the $124 million plan, councilmember is not the Cadillac plan. That doesn't fix everything. That leaves a lot on the table. The 28 would probably require more staff time to prioritize and come back to. It's something I'd obviously defer to y'all on. >> My thought, given the sensitivity and speed in which the 2018 bond is being prepared, any postponement that is too far out is definitely putting this in line -- it's sending a message that you don't want to address aquatics and you'll just go ahead and the council will let just continue toadying -- and have the department make the tough decisions. That's the message it would send to me personally. >> Toward that end I would encourage you if you do not support our recommendations for a separate bond I would at least encourage you all, you continue to do just the small repairs as essential and start closing pools as they can no longer be repaired, that you at least make city council responsibility to decide to decommission a pool each and every time a pool has to be decommissioned instead of it being a task that staff has to bear. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: My sense to a degree is there's a conversation we have to have as a council on how we're going to be approaching the bond election in November, and that's going to be an important conversation for us to have. You know, we can present it as a bond package. Because there are different kinds of things, they're going to be able to imagine different elements for each, we could present as bond choices. There are cities that do that, too, that lay out many things on a bond and then ask the community to set those priority. [10:31:24 AM] But I think that that might be part of the conversation that we have, is the larger conversation about how we're approaching the bond so we have a context for being able to put this kind of recommendation. But my sense is, either way, it's -- I don't know how we as a council work through this issue on Thursday, given the time that we have. And maybe many January we should consider coming back to have a conversation at this point about the bond if there was interest in doing that, in that context, or figure out a different process to get from here to this on this aquatics issue itself. But we've gone an hour and a half on this issue and we haven't heard from the public and a lot of us haven't spoken on this issue. We could call this on Thursday and spend half of Thursday on this issue. I just don't think that it's quite right for -- ready for us as a council to do that, and that's becomes especially poignant when you look at everything else we're trying to do on Thursday. My recommendation would be without sending a message to the bond folks that we don't want to go big or how we approach the bond because I do not want that to be the message, that either the bond commission or the public takes, but that we need to have a different -- the message we should send is we need to figure out as a council how it is we grab ahold of this particular issue and this particular issue in the context of how we're going to approach a bond. So I would vote to either -- I would vote to accept but not approve the report to honor the work that was done because I think there was a lot of good work and an approach presented by the task force. But not to debate it or discuss it or try to figure out what we want to do. That would be my thought. [10:33:24 AM] >> Renteria: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: If we can we should probably try and talk about that so we tell the public whether they should show up on Thursday or not. >> Renteria: Mayor, I agree with you. I have a feeling if we don't take action, we're not going to be doing anything until February anyway, and might go down into March. You know, if we really don't want to take a -- make a decision on some -- having this hearing, I'm pretty sure we're just going to have to wait until the next bond election. I agree with the doctor, the recommendation that we should start just closing the pools every time we need until we know we can get to that point where we can decide, you know, what we really want to do. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I'm sorry. I think I can not understand your suggestion. But if not taking action on Thursday means we're going to start pool closures, then I am -- >> Mayor Adler: Did I not intend that by what I was saying? >> Tovo: Would your clarify what your suggestion was, please? >> Mayor Adler: I think it's an important conversation to have and requires us to also have a conversation about how we're going to approach the bond. Are we going to try and set a goal for income bond? Try to present choices for the community? I think that might be a cognitive difference that may or may not impact how we approach the choice we give to the community with respect to pools. What I was suggesting is that given the discussion that we've just had in terms of what pools should be in, not put in, even how we're approaching the conversation plan, which I think is an important conversation for us to have, we should have that conversation. I just don't know that we're going to be able to give that the weight and the time that needs for us to be able to resolve that on Thursday. So all I was saying was I would not put it as a [10:35:25 AM] discussion item on Thursday's agenda or work for us to work through because I think it's unrealistic. But, no, I wouldn't suggest that we're closing pools. So we could call staff back up and say if we didn't handle this now what that means in terms of their short-term planning with respect to the pool, but even the staff isn't going to have an answer to that question regardless because it would still be a bond election that would have to happen. I'm not sure that it would impact any of their decisions at all. >> That is correct. >> Tovo: I have a question. >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> Kitchen: It's relevant to the conversation you all are having. If someone could just remind us of the time line for the bond and when it will come back to us. I agree that we've got a lot to discuss with regard to the bond and so as part of-discussion -- >> Mayor Adler: Let's answer both those questions. When is the bond coming back to us but also talk to us about your staff's planning and what's the impact of us taking action on this versus not taking action on this for a month or two? >> It will have no impact on our operations for had coming summer. We do not -- we only have a certain amount of money. I believe it's less than $400,000, available for capital improvements within our -- what is left over from the 2012 bond so we'll be making very specific decisions about should anything break how we're going to move forward with repairs for had summer, which means there could be some pools that don't make through the 2017 season but it by no means means it's a long-term closure. So delaying this master plan will have no impact on the summer operations. >> Mayor Adler: And council was talking to me -- you answered that question about [10:37:25 AM] not changing plans. Do you know what the time line is with respect to the bond? >> Greg canally, interim cfo. You're aware the bond task force is in the process of conducting community engagement and finalizing their recommendation. We expect that recommendation to be finalized in the beginning of January. At what point that would come back to council. And we would expect a discussion on any potential bond election to occur during the spring. We would be upgrading council on financial projections. We'd also be upgrading council on any changes from our original needs assessment that we presented to the bond committee, changes in any projects, any costs that we would have seen. I don't have the exact dates but I know typically for a November election those have to be called by August, usually sometime many early August, so we would expect a lot of heavy discussion on the bonds in may and June. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So let's keep our conversation right now if we can to what it is we want to do on Thursday. Councilmember alter. Then councilmember Casar. >> Alter: If the choice is to postpone, I would very much like an opportunity for this task force to present to the other task force their particular recommendations. So that we're not having one conversation over here and they're having another and I think it's just a function of the timing of when they reported back that -- I don't know if Mr. Canally knows the timing for that other task force, if that would be something we could make happen. I don't know if he's still in here. >> Mayor Adler: I think that's a really good idea. >> Alter: You know, I think that there are voters who want to support our pools. People care deeply about our pools, our pools and our parks are over and over [10:39:26 AM] again the place that people find the most bang for their buck in terms of tax dollars on face, whether you agree with that or not, that's what the surveys say and I believe in giving them an option to have that choice. But I think if we are going to postpone it I'd like the task force -- the bond task force to hear from this task force so that they're providing us a fully informed recommendation. >> Certainly. Again, the bond committee is in the process of doing some heavy counseling citizen engagement. They've been out and about in the district. I know that each of the departments, including the parks department, have had an opportunity to come present to the subcommittees that were set up as part of the bond process, and I think certainly we can sort out a way for perhaps the parks department to come back and the task force to come and talk about what happened here today and the discussion, as an update to the bond committee before they finalize their recommendation. We can navigate that. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: So let me get some clarity around what is now in the plan. Can it specify that that bond would be for November? Is that what -- is that specifically laid out? Like the timing of what it is that y'all have discussed? >> Mayor Adler: This task force is proposing $124 million aquatic line item or -- >> Standalone. >> Mayor Adler: From the bond. >> Casar: What I was specifically asking for was it -- the time line for this particular November. >> Mayor Adler: For November of '18. >> Correct, councilmember. >> Casar: I would like then for us to have a conversation as -- that is in tandem and figure out how to buy some time on this to have a conversation around that because while I think it is -- people have talked about a very interesting idea around specific line items around pools or specific line items around [10:41:27 AM] homelessness or whatever you I was really thinking about November as a time to deal with some very extennial threats that communities face around deeply affordable housing and flooding that I could -- my thinking on that could shift but shifting that in two days is just really fast. And I would want people to think about the potential for being on a different date than the November election to deal with those -- to really be able to try to prioritize some of those deep thet our community faces around serious lack of housing and serious threats of flooding because we have opportunities besides this November to put things on the ballot. So if y'all think about that, from my perspective I will also think about the perspective of putting also on in November. But just given also the popularity of our pools, maybe we don't have to use that November slot to pass some things that she -- that are so critical to people's sort of existence in the city. >> Mayor Adler: Further conversation? So, I mean, let's -- I would suggest that we try to figure out if we want to have a conversation about this on Thursday. That said, it is a discussion item with the community. If we are going to be possibly taking action and making decisions I think a lot of the community is going to want to come and talk to us, which I would certainly understand. So if we leave it on the agenda and people show up then our practice would be to let everyone who comes talk. My suggestion would be that we don't do that on Thursday. I've heard a couple other people say that. If there's a counter voice to that, we need to hear that now. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Mayor, we have some other scheduling things to talk about. I wonder if we could sit on this for a few minutes and think about it and when we come and talk about what our plan is on Thursday because I think we need to talk [10:43:27 AM] through some other issues about postponements as well, maybe we can revisit this issue. I'm trying to think about whether there's a different solution but I haven't come up with one yet. >> Mayor Adler: Let's take time. Before we leave today let's talk about the agenda on Thursday and handle then. We'll go on to the next item. You guys did a lot of work. Thank you very much. I think we have the Dean with us of the university of Texas to talk about the proposal on the convention center issue. We said we would take them quickly and then come back to the next briefing on campo posting. >> Kitchen: I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, I didn't hear what you were saying. >> Mayor Adler: We have the Dean with us from university of Texas to talk about the convention center design study analysis so we're going to call them and then we'll do the campo right after that. >> Mayor, Greg canally, they are on their way. We have staff from the university of Texas school of architecture, center for sustainable development, as well as the community regional planning and I believe Mccomb school here, kind of the principal investigators. Unfortunately, the Dean was available first thing many the morning, but -- >> Mayor Adler: Then we're going to lose him. >> She could not hold on. We appreciate her ability to come. >> Houston: Could we have the agenda number for this one? >> This is agenda item 14, councilmember. >> Mayor Adler: This is important. We want to hear about it. We potentially will discuss it again Thursday. I would point out to you as a council we have 17 more items and another briefing [10:45:27 AM] to go so we're trying to be judicious about the time but I don't want to preclude anything that we should be able to hear. >> Just as a quick intro, mayor, councilmembers, as part of your resolution related to a variety of downtown projects that you passed many late September, one of the ideas that the council had included in the resolution was for the city manager to explore working with university of Texas at Austin center for sustainable development as relates to more the idea of place making in our central core and what convention centers can be to kind of the space making of convention centers. So following on that -- again, that indication, we reached out to the university and have had interesting conversations with them in working through scopes of work and looking at some of their past work and we really do feel this is a very good opportunity to have a different conversation about our existing convention center space, potentially new space, and really how it can interact and be part of our downtown place making exercise. What excites me about this I think as many of you know the downtown Austin alliance right now is in the process of doing a strategic vision, on the premise of a downtown for everybody. It is also what we've seen as our emergence of downtown, as a downtown full of neighborhoods, and certainly our convention center area is a key and vital neighborhood so we think there's a nice opportunity to leverage the work that the folks here would be able to work on over the upcoming spring and summer semesters. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you. Sir? [10:47:27 AM] Thank you for joining us today, all of you. >> Thank you, mayor. My name is Alan sheer. I'm the codirector for the center of sustainable development at the university of Texas school of architecture. With me is Dean, the ahead of our urban design program and Jay, dealing with real estate development. The proposal that is in your package concerns the idea of a study that would try to take a look at the convention center. Part of that is trying to understand the -- what we call the ecosystem of a convention center and understanding how model for what convention centers are are changing. No longer being we'll call them gray boxes that have single purposes with lots of people in and lots of people out, but having a more robust or resilient set of transactions and how the space of a convention center can be transformed into also place making within a downtown core. The Dean will be the principal investigator along with Jake and Greg from Mccombs business school. I'll be involved also in my role as csd director. Overall time line would begin in January. We are -- as a university we are timed to semesters. That is the nature of how we do research so we would be starting in January, completing work mid to late October. That's the overview. I don't know if you need more depth or if you've already seen the things and just need questions now. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Just a question. Thank you. I'm looking at the scope, and so my question related to the scope of the work and, by the way arbitration thank you all for stepping forward to be willing to work on this. But it has to do with to what extent will you be looking at information provided by other researchers that perhaps are not -- that have some concerns about the convention center expansion? I'm reading from the scope [10:49:28 AM] that you won't be taking -- it's not within your scope to do community engagement process, right? But I know that there have been -- there are some UT researchers like professor Hayward Sanders of usa and a number of other groups that have put out information from their perspective about designing a convention center and they had different approaches to it from a place making perspective. I'm not certain from the scope of work to what extent you'll be looking at what else has perhaps been written about this. Can you speak to that? >> Yeah. The -- that does include fact finding across the board. I met with some of you. A project which is the closest equivalent we've done recently was a project for the rusk state hospital which involved in this case for the state looking at how mental health care can be best served for the people of Texas. That actually involved an international scoping of how mental behavioral health is being treated around the world and then a bringing down in scale to deal with local, in this case state-level laws, ordinances, regulations to create a model for Texas. This would be an of thing, looking broadly as how convention centers are being looked at today and towards the future, take that knowledge of best practices and understand what it means for Austin to tailor that down to think. >> Kitchen: Okay. So a literature review would include if folks many Texas or locally had written something that was germane to what you're looking at? >> Very much so. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: One last -- this is an item I pulled because I wanted to hear from them. Good morning. Thank you for being here. I'm really excited about the potential for this study, and I think it's another example of how UT and the city could be working together to improve our city for all. I had a couple questions on [10:51:30 AM] how you would be looking at the economics of the convention center and how you'd be approaching that. So can you -- it says in here you'd be creating an economic model, but can you talk a little bit more about how you are approaching that? >> Well, I should just start off by saying of course there would be no detail -- anything resemble detailed construction estimates or that sort. Idea would be to work through the economic implications of a few different scenarios that would have, you know -- show volumes, different ways of arranging the convention center, expansion, for example, and then just working through more in round number terms what that would look like. >> Alter: So I'm interested in particular we've heard, you know, claims about the demand at the convention center. We've heard claims about the impact on property values and, you know, part of what attracts me to this process is somebody other than the convention center giving us an objective view of those kinds of numbers. Are those -- you know, what is the impact on properties around here, not just on property values, but other economic factors? Is that part of what you're envisioning? >> Well, we would certainly want to be looking at the convention center economically empty context of what's around. So, for example, if there were mechanisms by which the convention -- the same financing could support other activities in the neighborhood, that would absolutely be within the scope of the project. >> Alter: Okay. And when we look at the convention center and if we were to expand, it's expanding where people already own the property, the city doesn't own property, we'd be exploring sort of the economic underside of that and -- as well? >> Yes. >> Alter: Okay. When you -- I know it sounds [10:53:30 AM] like you're not doing a broad public engagement. But I want to make sure that we have some mechanisms where whether it's the hospitality industry or people who had raised concerns, that they have some way, some mechanism to get their thoughts and their concerns or their ideas -- you know, we have a lot of people who are really creative in Austin who have thoughts and ideas, and I'd like to make sure there's a mechanism for that, you know, through the process. So I hope that we can make that -- I know you're not doing big, giant meetings, but I'd like a mechanism for that feedback to be conveyed. >> Certainly, councilmember, certainly we can attend to that. Certainly there's been several community engagement processes around this. I think what attracted staff to this concept as well is that this in essence is an independent look at that. I think what's key to it, though, is you can see the first kind of item that they're going to look at is to look at all the work that has been done by the convention center staff, by the different variety of studies that have been conducted, as well as with the visitor impact task force did, uli study, and synthesize all of that and we have talked about that. If there's a need to go back in and kind of redress some of those issues at the time or try to dig further on those, those resources, we will be available. We're going to create in essence a kind of technical group of folks that will be at the resources for had independent work to continue but not in a vacuum, obviously, so they know a lot of the work that has been done can be drawn on and if needed there will be experts there to help kind of opine on that. >> Alter: And I understand that you -- you're reporting with Greg but then ultimately the council is the client. Will we have an opportunity if we want one to meet with them about things that we want to make sure are thought about in this study or the questions that we have that we're looking for answer on? >> Again, I think there will be opportunity. Our first goal, you know, if this item passes on Thursday [10:55:32 AM] is to kind of lay out our time line and initial synthesizing of all the work. Again, I think a lot of that work and -- was the conversation that this council had. And so, again, under the same vein if there's need to reach back out to council and kind of clarify or understand some of those questions, we'll be able to do that as well. >> Alter: Okay. I know that I would welcome that opportunity. I did want to mention that if any of my colleagues want to see the rusk hospital report that they did, that I have a copy and I'd be happy to share it. Finally, I wanted to just confirm that this money is coming out of the convention center budget? >> We're actually -- we've actually decided to -- it will be funded out of our finance. We think as part of the -- being a study that is kind of being conducted independently we wanted to fund it that way. >> Alter: So which means what? If it is out of our finance -- >> Sorry. Out of our support service fund. >> Alter: Okay. >> Support service fund. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Any further discussion on this item? Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I just want to clarify that that is partly out of support services, which is partly funded by general fund money. Is that correct, city manager? I want to think a little about the funding mechanism between now and Thursday since it is something focused on the convention center, seems appropriate to me to fund out of convention center funds. I had a couple quick questions. One I want to start by thanking the community members who suggested or community member who suggested this and introduced the council to this idea and then the staff, thank you for your interest in exploring it and for the work that you've done to come and present is this to us today. I think it's a very interesting and innovative way to approach this upcoming decision. I want to echo something councilmember alter mentioned. I think it is important for feedback. I appreciate that you're not going to do community engagement -- I mean, I understand, I should say, that that's not a part of this project but I think it's very important that the community have a way to [10:57:33 AM] provide input to you that they believe should be available to the research team. And so I would say that it's very important to me between now and Thursday that we figure out how some -- how a community group or an individual can forward information that they want to bring before the research team and have them consider in their evaluation. So if the staff, if you could think about what the mechanism for doing that is. I want all of those parties who have been involved and engaged in this discussion to feel at the end of the day that their ideas were -- and feedback and data and evidence and research was at least considered by the team doing this evaluation. And then I had a couple questions about the specific bullet points. S important to me that this work proceed without -- without assuming that we are looking toward expanding the convention center. And it strikes me that the language, though it is broad, doesn't necessarily capture that possibility. And so I'm not sure exactly what that looks like, but seems to me that number 3, for example, might say given possible renovations, recomposition, expansion or no build scenarios, I think somewhere in this scope we need to capture the possibility that -- and the -- we need to capture that as an option that is also being evaluated. So that we so that we understand both the benefits and the costs of expanding, refiguring and otherwise providing additional space for the convention center. And then in terms of the economics, and again some of my colleagues have spoken to this already, one certainly gets at the contributions that the convention center contributes to the local economy a and it's really I guess on the second page where it talks about what the investigators will do. [10:59:34 AM] The fourth bullet talks about the competitive position of the convention center. What's important to me as a decision maker in weighing what we do next with regard to the convention center, I really want to understand whether the investment that would be made in expanding, configuring, recombining, all of those other things, doing that to the convention center would likely be borne out by the return on investment from that expansion. And again, that doesn't necessarily seem to be captured in the scope. Perhaps it's very much part of the economic analysis that would be done, but real value is of this and I think there is much value, that's just a piece of information I would like forward in this study. Does that make sense or do I need to better articulate that? >> It's how I was thinking of it, and if that wasn't reflected in the language that's our statement. >> Tovo: I'm certainly glad we're having this conversation. >> And mayor pro tem, in looking at number three on the research questions. I think not expressly here, but the baseline of this will be a no change scenario because that's how we'll have to go through and investigate our we'll have to go through and investigate to compare that against that. So again, it's not expressly written here, but it would be part of the core effort that we can look at amending. >> Tovo: That's great. I think expressly articulating it is important given the extent of the public input on this subject. And we want to be sure that the community feels confidence in the process moving forward and expressly articulating that I think is important. Thanks very much. And I should say I also have a book if anybody wants to borrow my copy too. >> Mayor Adler: As do I, so it's readily available for people. I really like the idea of doing the place-making look, the broader or -- softer is not the right word, but there's more of a holistic approach to this that you're [11:01:35 AM] going to be looking at that really hasn't been part of our conversation thus far. And I think that's going to be really helpful and the work that I've seen you do before is really interesting work and raised a lot of issues that I'm not sure I would have thought of if I had been tasked with that assignment. There are also some threshold questions that staff was asked to take a look at that colleagues on the council had raised. Can you tell me how this impacts those questions? It was questions like could we use the convention center as a vehicle to get money for part of the mac expansion? What's the impact legally of doing an on-site enlargement as opposed to an expansion? Questions about the ability to be able to get funding for homeless for the music and arts industries. I know that there was some discussion in the monitor today about the work that councilmember kitchen is doing with respect to venues. Those kind of legal questions. How does this impact, if it does impact at all, getting the answers to those kinds of questions that were given to staff? >> Certainly, mayor, I can weigh in on that. From the council resolution from late September, there was certainly a variety of asks related to -- again, many of the projects that were Teed up in the downtown, including the convention center and then kind of more granular basis some of the financing mechanisms. In working with assistant city manager Washington I know that he is in the process of finalizing some of that initial report out on those questions and I think that will be coming out here fairly soon, hopefully this week, I believe. [11:03:35 AM] This effort -- so that information will get out. I think it will attend to the questions that council asked from over the summer or the additional round of questions that were asked. I think this effort, as you've heard from the team, is that it is really looking at this question from a completely different lens. That it will help -- it can help inform the council on a decision about how to address our convention center space, the existing space, the recomposition of that space. Any information that is drawn out of staff between once this study starts it will be kind of a continual flow back to this group so that is as realtime because we know there has been a lot of dialogue and lots and lots of data produced on this, especially from a funding and financing perspective, and we'll make sure they have all that as well. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you so much, mayor, and thank you all for being here. I'm so excited about this because it gives fresh eyes to a problem that we've been wrestling with for a long time. And although I understand how it's important to have the usual suspects come to the table, I think it's also important that you give us a neutral kind of place, something that's not been thought of before, something that based upon your involvement and information gathering, you say this is a place that could happen downtown and it would reinvigorate and enlife enthe whole space downtown -- enliven the whole space downtown because we have several properties on either side of the complex. So I'm hoping that you don't fall into that same old trap of let's do it the way we've always done it, but give us a different way of looking at and addressing this issue. So I'm appreciative that that one person reached out and said this is something that might help us make some real quality forward thinking decisions about the convention. [11:05:35 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember kitchen and then Ms. Pool. >> The cost is 250,000, is that right? >> Yes. >> How much of it is from our general revenue? The support services or whatever you said earlier. >> I don't know how much our specific allocation is this year, but generally it's about 50/50. Again our view on this was -- it was sort of an independent look. Also there's a downtown economic development book, but I think we can look back out at -- look at a different funding stream for this study. >> Kitchen: I'm not concerned about that. I'm thinking in terms of our budget. I want to make sure we're not displacing something else, so that's my question. So where are we looking at it coming from? >> The current rca proposes to take the money out of the services fund out of the financial services department. So the support services fund is generally funded about 50% from the general fund. So that's the original proposal. >> So because we didn't discuss that as the specific item during our budget, we're not displacing something else that we now can't pay for because we're using this. Right? That's what I wanted -- that's my question. >> We're not. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Pool? >> >> Pool: I have a couple of questions and I was away when Mr. Canally and the others came up here so I miss the names of the other three men here with Mr. Cal any. If you could and tellmer your. >> I'm Jake Wegman, I teach in the school of architect at UT. >> And I'm Dean alme, I'll be the principal investigator on the project and I'm also the director of the graduate program in urban design. >> Pool: Great. So my follow on question is, and this may have been something that the mayor pro [11:07:36 AM] tem brought up. The philosophical positions of the three gentlemen here with the office of sustainability at UT, but are we also going to include experts who may have a more critical eye as well as the economic necessity of a convention center and specifically the expansion of the convention center? Because I have a name that that would like to be considered that I can pass along and I think it would be really important for us to have if we're going to have a conversation about standing the convention center or how better to use the convention center we also need to balance it out with people who may have done work along those same lines, but may also be publicly less supportive of a larger convention center. So I missed what the mayor pro tem was talking about. It may be when you were talking about a balanced viewpoint that I missed that piece. >> >> Mayor Adler: I think they were asked to consider all options. >> Pool: Including the no build. >> Tovo: And people could provide feedback and information for the team to consider. >> Pool: That would be great and I will pass along the name of an expert that I think is out of San Antonio because along with the no billed I want to be sure that we get ample input regarding that. As you know, I am reluctant to continue the cycle of a bigger convention center and win we need more hotels and the convention center is too small so we have to expand it begin and I've lived long enough to see the cycles. So I continue to be real skeptical about it so I'm looking for additional information along those lines. One other question and this would be for Jake begman, as a follow-up are you planning to look at economic models in which the convention center would turn a profit? Because it currently does [11:09:36 AM] not. >> Yeah. Our intention would be to just scour the country for best practices, some of which may very well may include that. >> Okay. I would think that would be really key piece of the economic analysis to look at F it isn't turning a profit if you could explain to us why that is in your analysis. >> Absolutely. >> Pool: Okay, great. And then I have a question for our staff on the funding, the $250,000 coming from support services. Why is that money not coming from the convention center budget? >> Again, I think our initial take on that, and I think we just had an initial take on that is that we -- kind of bringing it from a different lens that we some funding available to do that within our resources within my department. And to have that independent look. I think there is an opportunity to do some cost sharing. It is about the convention center, but also about our downtown planning that goes on in that part of downtown, so that was our intent with the funding. >> Pool: I would be more comfortable with this size of an additional appropriation if the money were coming more largely from the convention center, which will mostly benefit from the study. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Flannigan and then councilmember Garza. >> Flannigan: >> Thank you all coming from UT. I'm a UT grad myself. Not many councilmembers are. Not all, but some. Have any of you taken public positions on expansion of convention centers? >> I have not. >> I haven't either. >> No, I have not. >> Flannigan: Okay. So please count me on the record for not wanting to change the makeup of this team. I don't think we're serving the community by adding someone who has taken public positions for or against. I'm entirely comfortable [11:11:38 AM] with this independent look. I think it's a good idea that it be funded from the general fund so that we don't get down the road and say, well, it was predetermined that it was going to be blah, blah, blah, because the convention center paid for it. I have kind of my general weird feeling about how we seem to find money that wasn't allocated to something. That's a weird thing. I don't know how we get away from that. But nonetheless, I think the process is good. And I want to thank you all for being neutral arbiters in this process so that we can trust the work that your team will do. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: I just 'Ed to add as you're doing that study to consider underutilized other city properties, specifically the mexican-american cultural center, which is within walking distance to the convention center. And there may or may not be discussions of that being the -- the expansion of that cultural center on a possible bond and how we could use maybe -- we're thinking of different buckets on how to fund that expansion and if -- if an expansion included the ability for the convention center to send folks over there, that could be hot tax money that could help in one of those buckets. So consider that option with the -- waller creek will be a beautiful addition to downtown and that will be a beautiful walk down there to go over to Rainey street. I'm sure you're thinking of all these things, but some kind of family friendly theme. Maybe Austin can do something very innovative with regards to when families go to convention centers or travel to other cities for captions and bring their -- to conventions and bring their kids, maybe a drop-in [11:13:40 AM] childcare center, a family friendly environment. Not only for families coming to visit, but for the families that live here as well. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you very much. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I wanted to echo what councilmember Flannigan said. I think originally I didn't see where it said where the money was coming from, but I do think that in this case really the value in the study is it being independent. Now that you raised the question of it coming from a different pot I'm comfortable with that and I wanted to also mention to councilmember pool that I think councilmember kitchen had mentioned the professor at usa as a resource, but it was not meant, I don't think, to be an additional member of the team, but rather I suggestion that there are other pones of view that we want to make sure are factored into the analysis. But it was not to add an additional person. I have every confidence in the UT team so thank you. >> Kitchen: Yes, I'd like to clarify. My remarks were just part of your literature review. I was just trying to understand the scope of your literature review. >> Pool: And the same of pine. Mine was just a perspective that I think you would welcome, but not as an additional person on the team. They're not a member of your organization. >> Yeah, just to clarify our contract would be with this team. >> Mayor Adler: I'm also fine with money coming not from any particular department that might have a vested interest in what the results of this might be. Yes. >> I wanted to add we have done that before. All the consultants we have working on our DNA lab are paid for out of management services, not out of the police department. So this is a common practice for us to have that independent control of the money and the contract. >> Mayor Adler: Anything on else before we go to transportation? We're all very excited about this. Thank you very much. [11:15:43 AM] >> Thank you. >> Let's have a briefing on the campo call. Thanks for sitting here so long. Being called up in just a moment. Your moment has come. >> What a moment. >> Robert Goode, assistant city manager. I have three quick points I want to make before I turn it over to staff to give our presentation. One was our intent was to bring this briefing today and then you would vote on this in February. That was what we were working through to give you time because this is an important grant opportunity. Campo has accelerated the deadline so we are here today to brief for you your action on Thursday because it is due in January. To campo. So that was a deadline that was unanticipated by us and we fully intended to give you more time to absorb this list and to work with us, but unfortunately we are where we are. Secondly, from a strategy standpoint, we think it's a good idea to submit a lot of projects. We won't hit on all those projects, but to give campo staff and campo board an opportunity to evaluate a lot of our projects and therefore you're going to see a lot of projects on this list. And thirdly, just as -- to leave with you this, is if we hit on some of these projects we do not have funding identified for the local match and so the mayor and council have to evaluate that to come back with at a later date when we have the results and staff will talk about some opportunities that we think are there for that local match, but that's a really important thing. We didn't want you to be surprised by us coming back and saying, good news, we hit on this project. Bad news is we have no idea how to fund it. We do have an idea, but you will have to obviously authorize that. So I think that's important for you to think about as we present today and we'll try to identify what those projects are and what those [11:17:44 AM] funding opportunities are. With that I'm going to turn it over to Robert. >> Good morning, mayor and council, Robert spillar, Austin transportation department. I'm joined here with my assistant director unique biday, and together we're going to present our proposal for projects that we would recommend as part of the call for projects. First I want to say what we're submitting is 400 million in federal funding - - is available. There's $400 million available in this call from campo. It's key to understand that it's federal. Our ask is in excess 300 millions. So that means what Mr. Good said is that we will achieve all the projects that we're asking for, but we want to submit a large group because we know that this will be competitive. In terms of eligibility, capital capital area metropolitan managing organization is managing this call. There are three primary funds that are surprised for this call. Metropolitan mobility and rehabilitation, cat 7, those of you on campo might understand that this is for new capacity and rehabilitation on roads that are typically off the state system, so those are major arterials and so forth that don't necessarily have a state route number to them. Transportation alternatives, category nine, so as that implies, alternatives to the single occupancy vehicle and so forth can be considered there, as well as metropolitan and urban area projects, category 2, which like the first. Category, they're distributed within the metropolitan area for new capacity and rehabilitation, but they're primarily for projects on systems. So roads that have commonality with state roads. So within our area, north [11:19:45 AM] Lamar, for instance, parts of martin Luther king boulevard, many of the corridors that we've included in our corridor program potentially fall both on system and off system depending on geographically where you are in the city. As I mentioned, these will be competitive jurisdictions within all six counties of the campo area will be pursuing this. Campo has done a pretty good job of making sure they get out to the far flung corners of campo to encourage submission on these, so we expect the competition to be strong. When we analyze the criteria, projects that address congestion will do very well given the criteria that the policy board has decided on. That means rehabilitation and replacement may have extra hurdles to get over in terms of competitiveness, so you will see us talk about some bridge replacement projects. Those may have some extra hurdles that we'll have to move forward as we go toward with those. Projects that remove right-of-way only, preserve corridors, we'll have a tough time competing in that environment because they don't provide new capacity. And then the last point that I want to point out is that because these are federal dollars, that means the projects become federalized. When you're talking about federal projects, one dollar of federal money federal eyes it, which means it kicks you in to a higher level standards in terms of right-of-way acquisition and certainly environmental. This is a four- year call. We've proposed projects that will be ready for deployment in all four of those years. We think it's also a strategic advantage. Many of the cities and communities we might be competing with will be proposing, we believe, projects that are probably for deployment in the latter part of the call period, so it behooves us to have some projects early in the [11:21:46 AM] process. In terms of match, a minimum requirement for this match is 20%, so the local organization proposing the bong will need to come up with at least 20%. That just gets you in the door for the competitiveness. For each five percent over that 20% minimum for a local match means you get an additional point on the scorecard. So if our objective is to get as many of these projects funded we probably need to be closer to a 45% match to get those maximum points. So staff has been thinking about that as well as we propose projects. In terms of funding and funding that local match, we've created this bar chart and we can have staff here that can help answer that. Again, we're asking for -- we're applying for about 309 million dollars' worth of projects. The total estimated match require if we go in at the maximum amount would be about $83 million. As Mr. Goode said, some of that is secured when we know where that funding comes from. I will talk about that shortly and take the bar charts apart. But that means about 48 million that's not secured. So for a project is not selected that we submit that doesn't have funding that we're pretty confident about, that will necessity us to have a -- necessitate to us have a conversation with you particularly about certificates of obligation or other funding. In terms of the funding that we considered secured, if you will, that's that 35 million, it really comes from several areas. Old bond projects that we already have in place or operations money. So operations, for instance, like in signals, we have money identified for construction and maintenance of signals that can often be [11:23:46 AM] used as match for capital projects because signals look both like capital projects a as well as operations projects. So these are the sources. When we look at those unsecured you will also notice that there are projects on our bond corridors. Those are the seven plus corridors that we identified in the 2016 bond. I have to tell you that within the funding there, there are funds that have not yet been prioritized. You will see a large bar on the unsecured dollar bar on the very top falls within those bond corridors, those strategic mobility corridors. The reason we're identifying that as unsecured is because we haven't ranked the projects within those corridors yet, so assuming some of those might be ranked highly as we bring that recommendation back to you early next year, then that will reduce the potential unsecured number that might be out there. I want to talk about the 2012 bond because you will see another Orange, which is our bond corridors. You may remember that we have bonds identified for both north Lamar and north burnet from the 2012 bond. Those are already prioritized for those two corridors. So we counted those as part of the secure group of match funding that we could use on those corridors for projects that we might pull down as part of this proposal. And then as I said earlier, there's a portion of these that might be matched with operations dollars as well. I'm going to turn this presentation over to anik to go through inside projects, and then if you have questions, of course, stop and ask. >> Thank you. So I'm going to go through different categories. First in roadways we have three types of roadway [11:25:47 AM] projects cued up and then I'll go through the urban trails projects, active transportation, our demand management projects and then our its or signal system proposals. We're also joined here by director Mendoza who will be available to answer questions on the capital renewal as we go through those. So our first category in roadways is new capacity. Most of these are either new, sections of roadways or expansion from two lane to four-way roadways across the city. These are legacy projects from our current transportation plan, the Austin metropolitan area transportation plan for added capacity that we think will score well throughout the city. As rob pointed out, when you see a square that's green, we have match secured for these projects. Where there are red circles we're still unsure how we will match those working with you if awarded the project. Lakeline boulevard, Braker lane, east 51st street, pierce lane and south pleasant valley appear on our capacity list. The next one as director spillar talked about, trying to leverage our bond corridors. And really our approach was to look at what will score well that is in our bond program. Thank you. And we have again north Lamar and burnet with match secured. And then we've cued up slaughter lane and William cannon as projects that we believe will score well, but again, bond -- match unsecured because we do not know how those will rank in the ranking system coming forward. For capital renewal, we've Teed up the red bud trail bridge, springs road bridge, two overpasses related to the bond corridors, William cannon and slaughter. And then various favorite restorations projects on state routes. >> One thing I want to add to this discussion is that [11:27:49 AM] you will notice that these capital renewals are bridge projects. There may be another call for these projects later in the year, so part of our strategy is also to make sure that the region is aware of these critical structures within our system that need to be addressed, whether they're addressed with this capital call or a future capital call. So that's part of the identification here as well. >> Thank you. On to urban trails. These are all construction projects. So we believe they will do well. Project readiness is the first step in the process with regards to getting even in the door for being considered with ranking in the campo call. So the northern walnut creek trail, the Austin to manor trail detectiving two cities in the region. Improvements to our shoal creek trail. Looking at a planning study for the Bergstrom spur, which is looking at preserving that corridor for future trail access. The ybc trail, which provides access continuing from our investment in the mopac bridges that just opened this past year, and then the violet crown trail. And all of these are construction ready projects. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, would you like me to ask a question now or wait until the end? Okay. >> Two more slides. Our active transportation other trails we have a bike share expansion proposed that has done well before through campo. And we've Teed up pedestrian safety projects that connect to transit stops in partnership with capital metro. For demand management, we're looking at funding our smart trips program through we have about nine subsequent neighborhoods. We're on our third neighborhood right now. This is a neighborhood based demand management program that has shown good results in reduction of single occupancy vehicle use. And again that's in partnership with cap metro as well. And finally, we have our improvements to our [11:29:50 AM] intelligent transportation systems, our signal systems. All Teed up to improve reality, safety in our network. Looking at more cameras so the TMC can do more on efficiency in our arterials. Better vehicle detection and emergency vehicle preemption, as well as backup battery systems for reliability and upgrades to our current system. So I will turn it back over to rob to talk about our timeline, that's very tight. >> So November 21st campo posted the final call for projects, the criteria, rather. And that is when we got the first notice that the timeline had been moved up three weeks. December 11th following the 21st was the project call was actually issued. We have staffed and geared up to make sure that we're able to get the current proposal delivered on time across the finish line, if you will. And that means people will be working during the holidays pretty vigorously. Today the 12th we're here at work session to initiate a conversation with you. December 14th, that's this Thursday, we really do need direction from council as we move forward. January 18th the application period closes and are due to campo. So you can imagine that each of these projects requires a full application, which will take time to put together. January 18 through March 2018 campo will be scoring those projects, running them through the regional model to determine congestion relieve and other criteria. There will be a public comment period in April and then by may the policy board will be asked to select projects. So short timeline to get in the door and then an [11:31:50 AM] extended review process by campo. That concludes our presentation. If you have questions, we're happy to try to answer them. >> Kitchen: Hi. Thank y'all very much. This is a very exciting list and we'll just do our best to get as much of it funded as we can. So on slide 7 I have a question about the Bergstrom spur. So I understand that this is for planning and that's what's eligible, if I'm understanding our conversation correctly. My larger question is simply we have to buy that property if I'm understanding correctly. So what funds do we have identified for that? I had been thinking that we would use the bond money to purchase. So we would set aside money to purchase while we're doing this planning or just explain that relationship to me because my concern again is, you know, this is a piece of land that I don't want us to lose the opportunity to purchase. So what -- bring me up to speed on what the thinking is about getting to that point. >> I think if we hit on this and we have a planning study done and it's all ready to go, you all would have to have a conversation of our 2016 bond funds because these were really earmarked for other trails. So you would have to prioritize that work and say this one is more important than that one. So we would have to come back and say, okay, what do you want to do with this if we have that study that's completed. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well then, I will be bringing forward something in January or February, the appropriate time, to prioritize purchasing the Bergstrom spur. >> We wish we had a January meeting. It will probably be February. [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: All right. So this is just a head's up. In February I'll be bringing forward the appropriate resolution to give you guys direction. And hopefully my colleagues will agree. So that we have the funding [11:33:54 AM] secured for Bergstrom to purchase it at the appropriate time. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you for this information. On slide 4 I have a question about east 51st street. That's a very new street so I'm wondering why you're doing a complete street. It's already a complete street. What are we doing to that for 2-point -- for a million dollars? >> Sure. That section, what we've Teed up is a section from Berkman to I-35. So Berkman going west to I-35. That project was brought forward during the 2012 bond program from the community. It was a community ask that was then included in the bond program. >> Houston: I understand that. I want to know what is the difference that we're going to see? Because the streets are there, the bike lanes are there, the sidewalks are there. The trees are there. What are we doing differently? >> It would be improvements to that north edge of the street that's not on the Mueller side, would have improvements to the sidewalk infrastructure, to improve the bike ways there to be protected. The number of lanes would stay the same. The capacity for motor motor vehicles for stay the same. It would be enhancing the streetscape, urban design improvements and intersection improvements to the extent we could look at signal timing and other things at the intersection. It's a comprehensive complete streets for all modes. The intersection at Lancaster or Cameron road. >> It would be all the intersections. It would look at fresh eyes at whatever we could do for motor vehicle capacity there. We would be looking at sidewalk improvements, bike lane improvements and transit improvements for that project. It is already at 60% design and we're short on our newest calculation for construction funding, which is why we thought it was a fantastic opportunity for a grant. >> Houston: And you're going to maintain the slip lane on to the right of [11:35:55 AM] Cameron road and not close that off like you did last time, right? >> I couldn't answer that right now. >> Houston: Please look at that because that's where we have most of our complaints is when you closed off the right turn lane to Cameron from -- >> We'll take a look at that. >> Houston: And I have one other question. On page 7, the further construction on -- from Austin to manor road off of lyndell. When that urban trail was completed, in conversations with the model airplane association that is out there and the ski club that is out there, it caused some major flooding on the road that gets from lyndell to the model airplane and over to the skeet range. So would you all fix that? Is that part of this plan to make sure that that fits? Because I've had to ask parks and recreation to go out and add filling because something, the way the trail was designed made it all flood into the caleche so they have huge potholes. >> Yes. We'll make sure our project manager is aware with that and take it that to the designer to address the problems related to the trail. >> Houston: Appreciate it. >> 'Em. >> Flannigan: I also want to thank you for your hard work putting this together. I know the timeline has been pretty rapid. Projects that take four or five, six years to build and put together in a matter of months is always a challenge. So just for the public's sake, can you help explain what the next call looks like and how we're going to make sure that we're ready for the next round of calls so we don't find ourselves rushed at the end like we're on this one? >> Thank you, councilmember. You know, we actually [11:37:55 AM] started getting this ready a number of months ago in anticipation of the call. What surprised us was this compression at the end. That's always a little bit of a mystery as to how that will play out in a future call. For a number of years both public works and transportation have always been in the mode of pursuing projects when funding becomes available and that's paid off fairly well in the last campo call. So immediately following this call we will again start developing projects. Our bond projects right now are developing new corridor studies and design projects. The bond prioritization process will identify projects that may go early in the funding process. They may also identify those that may be toward the end of those eight years. I would hope that there would be another campo call between now and the end of the bond process, which will put us in a good position to then take some of those projects forward in the future. And also the strategic mobility plan is also doing that. In the first slide of projects we talked about the legacy projects. Those are literally the remaining projects of the Austin metropolitan area manage that have not been addressed. One thing we do is once we have the strategic mobility plan is we work with our partners at the state, the ctma, county to get those funded as well. In fact, in preparing this proposal for us today here we made sure we weren't double counting projects that the state might be pursuing, for instance. So certainly there will be other jurisdictions pursuing projects within the city limits, the state and capital metro and so forth. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Real quick because I have to go. [11:39:55 AM] And you probably will look at the thing and see that I was the one that pulled this and then if I'm not here, you would be like why did she pull it? I just pulled it so that staff could have the ability for the project list and that's what's happening and that's helpful. The backup is now available to everybody on line. That's great. I have to go to an employee retirement system year end trustees meeting. I had to pull item 80 and I wanted to have a conversation on why there was a change, apparent change in policy on how the ordinances are being crafted. And so I think since I don't want be here to talk about that today and I didn't get it pulled for today anyway, maybe we can get a memo from staff or some explanation on why we are being pushed to either -- to restricts instead of putting information and ordinances with regard to zoning. I know that's pretty weedy, but it looks like a policy change that we were not alerted to. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. So I suspect the extra time that we took to pass the criteria so that hopefully campo will have a rational approach to the projects helped to contribute to the delay and I'm glad we were able to make some of those changes that we were able to make to that process. With respect to the missing matches, some of these lists of certificate of obligation, can you provide some additional information about when it is appropriate to use a certificate of obligation and sort of what our practice has been? >> We can certainly get back to you. That's a financial policy so it would be better if Mr. Canally answer that one. We can get back to you on that and get it back to the full mayor and council or [11:41:57 AM] maybe Elaine [indiscernible]. >> Alter: As I recall, one of the requirements is an emergency. So that may work better for some of these projects than others like for the bridges that are failing it may be a more realistic funding mechanism than it is for extensions of certain new roads. But if you can provide some clarity that would be great. And you mentioned the additional capital call for bridges. That might be coming. Can you speak a little bit to that? >> Yes, councilmember alter. That has been in conversations with txdot that there may be additional funds coming that would be available for both off system and on system type structures. That has been the history. It's a different set of funding, different category from this. So it was not right for bringing forward at this point. >> There is additional calls coming and there's currently one underway where we have submitted a number of these projects for consideration. But the down side is that in the particular program that txdot just called for projects, it's 50 million for the entire state. So it's not a lot of funding, but we are in the running on those and then there will be additional opportunities as rob pointed out. >> Again, I think that's why we need to keep these projects visible and make sure that the region is aware that these are significant corridors that need to be thought of. >> >> Alter: And do the numbers also signify anything beyond just the numbers or is there a ranking here of the projects? >> Just the numbers and the ranking. >> Alter: Then on slide number 10, I was just [11:43:57 AM] wondering if any of -- any of this technology could be powered by solar panels? Have you looked at that at all? >> Probably not. %-@We always look for alternative powering technologies, of course, depending on the technology. But we would be happy to look into that as we think about it. The battery backups basically trickle charge so that's something that solar could possibly do. >> Alter: I would encourage as we're trying to update the infrastructure that we also look at how we can achieve some of our other carbon footprint goals. With respect to the timeline -- so what happens after may 7th when the transportation policy board approves the projects, does that mine they get the funding, does that mean they have to go to txdot, does it have to go to federal level? For our constituents who are trying to understand whether something has been funded, what happens next. >> So councilmember, the monies are not all available on day one so the campo is the distributor there and starts to match that on an animal basis for when projects are released. Of course just like with council it's subject to funding so funding is rescinded or removed by the federal government or the state is unable to pass it through that as an annual impact. >> I would add that each and every project if awarded would come back to council in the form of advanced funding agreement with txdot so that would be another opportunity where the council would be able to be refreshed on what was awarded and be looking at the particulars of the project at that time. And as rob pointed out, they [11:46:01 AM] would come in waves depending on the year. They are what they call let and ready for construction and we have projects that we're submitting for all four years so depending on what we're successful with, that would be dependent on when the advanced funding agreement would come to council. >> And that's Chris kel in being competitive because as campo starts to divide out the money they may have a certain amount of money that needs to be done in the first year or second year, that only our projects happen to fit in. So that's part of our strategy as well. >> Alter: Okay, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: I would just point out to colleagues colleagues, we appoint from amongst ourselves representatives of different boards. This is campo that Jimmy is on and Ann is on and Alison is on and I'm on. This project has been historically one of the most political things that happen in central Texas. There's 10 # $05 million for the entire campo area. That includes hays county, Williamson county, us, it includes cities as far as lake Travis and bastrop and cedar park and Georgetown down to San Marcos. $405 million for all of us. And we're asking for almost 310 of it in this call. So the chance that we get 310 million out of the 405 is nonexistent, but it's important for us to apply because we don't know how things are going to get scored. Collectively we worked really hard on coming up with a new scoring matrix that's being employed this year to make the decisions as objective as they could be in a political process. I would point out to you when campo got the scored results -- when the policy board got the scored results I think six or eight years ago they looked at the [11:48:01 AM] ranking and the policy board made up of local politicians from all of those areas thanked the staff for their work and then put it aside and decided from the dais what were the right projects to get funded in the region. We have moved away from that, I hope, and the board has become a lot more regional in focus and I think the and -- the work and the collaboration is at an all time high on that group, but I just point that out just so everybody understands when they look at this that there's no chance to we're going to come home with all of these, but we will certainly try to come home with as much of this as we can. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: I want to thank you all for putting the Braker lane extension on there because that has been and continues to be a real problem for folks in that area. And the next time you have an opportunity, please consider east Howard lane. I talked with campo about that city and county shared area. Don't remember the number of the roadway, but east Howard lane from -- I guess that's dessau road to toll road 130. Lots of development out of that way, lots of congestion. I'm still waiting on a traffic count that I've been asking for a year, but I'll get it some day. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on transportation? Yes, councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Very quick question and you can send it to me or point to me where to look at it. And that's just the -- the proposed bike share expansion places I just want to make sure I know what the current is. And also the tdm neighborhoods that are on that list, if you could send it to me or point me to it, that would be great. [11:50:01 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you very much. All right, council, it is 10 until noon. We still have all the pulled items. We also have executive session for us to talk about three different things. Are there items on the pulled agenda that are more just touching it and noting it or an announcement associated with it that we could run through this list quickly and see how many disappear? We're talking about things that are really not -- more procedural or agenda related than anything else. Yes, Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: So this is on item 43, the student commission. I saw the second version of the ordinance which addressed pretty much all my questions, but I'm still concerned just that the clarity of the language is a little troubling. It seems like we want 15 members, and the way it reads, it kind of -- one reading makes it sound like 15 comes from the colleges and then more comes from us so it just needs to be cleaned up a little bit. I think the intent is 15 total. The colleges give us 15 names and then we appoint them from the -- is that the intent? >> Tovo: That's my understanding. And some of you may not have even seen it. We got it today I think a new ordinance and it's really significantly different. So I would agree that the language needs cleaning up. It sounds like merit is appointing a whole ton of them. I -- I would just highlight that. >> What you're saying is correct. There was a second revision to the ordinance, the backup was, and it needs to be cleaned up to be a little bit more specific. The health department staff are here who work directly with it and are prepared to answer any questions that you have. But that is correct, they're not going to have 15 and 15. It's a total of 15 and from [11:52:07 AM] different universities and colleges in the area. >> Flannigan: And I'm fine with it. I think it needs cleaned up so it's clear. It's a little muddled right now. >> We'll have it cleaned up and ready for you to go on Thursday. >> Tovo: Mayor, one of the changes that happened with the draft that we received today removes this commission from being subject to open meetings. And we don't typically do that and we can all think about it. I don't think we need to make a decision today. I think there was a concern about because it was students, we were going to treat it differently. I would say if students are serving on our boards and commissions, he they are all fully capable of applying with the city rules and regulations. The students I interact with are extremely professional and we should -- I don't believe that they would have any concerns about holding themselves to the same standards we hold any other volunteers. So that's my feedback on this new job. >> We asked the same question. We believe as staff actually that they should be adhering to same guidelines that anyone does in a meeting so that it's open and transparent. Statistic are here now -- staff are here now, Stephanie Hayden and other staff to answer any questions you may have quickly. >> Mayor Adler: Let's hold on to that. >> Tovo: I assume that's why the training requirement has been removed, the training requirement was removed because of open meetings? It's my interest in seeing both of those added back in and addressing of the along as councilmember Flannigan, and I have no other questions. >> Mayor Adler: So my intent was not to get into a discussion of this item now. I wanted to go through the agenda and just see how many things we could knock off. So hang on and we'll see if we can get back to here in a second. On that issue. So we're done on that topic. , Great. We'll just call it up on Thursday. Council, a couple of things. Item number 18 is the police [11:54:08 AM] association issue that's set for this Thursday's agenda, but remember we also set a special called meeting on Wednesday, so this is not going to be heard on Thursday, item number 18. It's going to be heard on Wednesday instead. Councilmember alter posted a bulletin board question about the meeting and I think -- my understanding was what we intended to do was to call the meeting at 3:00. We'll get the presentation from staff at that point. And then we'll give people the opportunity to be able to speak that can speak in the afternoon or choose to speak in afternoon, but we will not be making a decision. We'll reconvene after dinner so that people have the chance to be able to speak in the evening. And then it's our intent to take action on Wednesday night so there will be both public opportunity to speak both before and after dinner. The next question that was asked is what procedure would I propose with respect to the speakers? As you will recall, the first 20 speakers get to speak for three minutes each and then every speaker after of that is a minute. How do you do that when we have broken it into two times? Then it would be my intent to do 10 people at three minutes in the afternoon and then 10 people at three minutes in the evening. So that that gets split. And so that the people in the afternoon don't get all the three-minute slots. So that's what I would do unless the dais indicated they wanted it done differently than that. But I think I wanted to respond to the questions that councilmember alter had raised. Anything else on that? Yes, mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Could we agree what time our dinner break is so that we could provide the public with notice on when we won't be meeting and hearing testimony? >> Mayor Adler: When we won't be. My only concern with that is if we have eight, 10 speakers that show up we might -- we could have dinner sooner. [11:56:11 AM] I think we could plan on having dinner from 5:30 to 630. The only problem with doing that is if we have people that wanted to speak in the afternoon and we can get all of them by 6:00 I'm not sure I would want to break for dinner before they had a chance to speak. At the same time if only six people show up to speak, then probably going to dinner earlier rather than later would be good so we have the greatest amount of time available for people to speak after dinner. I'm not sure how to answer that question. >> Tovo: I guess having some clarity around dinner let's people who are coming for the evening testimony some clarity if they were going to show up at 5:30 for 6:30. However we resolve this I will be leaving during a piece of the dinner break because I have a school engagement that was scheduled long ago. Don't plan around me. I'll manage it just knowing that I will miss some of that public testimony potentially if it's at 6:00 and then catch up with it when I get back. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think we can guarantee to people that we will still be convening at 7:00. So someone in the evening would know that if they're there by 7:00 they'll have an opportunity to be called. Someone doesn't have to get there at 6:30 or 6:00 in the evening in order to be called. I think there will be enough people that -- I think we could make that -- >> Tovo: You were suggesting we might be able to finish up all the testimony by 6:00. >> For the people who show up early, yeah, but I was -- I was trying to give the evening people some measure of guidance. We might convene earlier than 7:00. In other words, we could come back from dinner at 6:30. I was saying for the public that I think we could say you don't have to show up any earlier than 7:00 and you would still have an opportunity to be called. >> Tovo: Mayor, my only concern about that is if we have a rush of people come at 7:00 and not earlier, then we will be in the same position we would have been [11:58:11 AM] in on Thursday, which is that we're trying to make some really hard decisions pretty late. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I'll just leave it open. We'll convene the meeting at three -- >> Tovo: Let's send the message for people to come as early as they're able to and we're starting at 3:00. >> Mayor Adler: And we're starting at 3:00. All right. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I'm comfortable with your proposal, but you may want to update the message board because I think you said 20 in each section and now you just said 10 getting three. So we should either decide one way or the other. >> Mayor Adler: It would >> Mayor adler:there will be ten in each section. >> Alter: That's fine. I believe on the message board you put 20 in each. >> Mayor Adler: I'll fix that. >> Alter: It might be good if you clarified that. >> Mayor Adler: I'll fix the message board. >> Alter: Thank you for responding as well. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Other things on the calendar --% >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, that means we're not going to discuss it any more today, right? >> Mayor Adler: We're not going to discuss more today. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Just about the Texas mall, I'm passing around some examples of what the central Texas regional mobility authority does to alert people in the community and the district offices to know what's going on and a toll-free number that they can call any time of day. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I have a question on item number 5. Item number 5 is the hot tax issue. We have an ordinance that staff says they need to let them do hot tax allocation up to 15%. We set that by budget, but they need the ordinance authority to go up to 15%. Based on direction that council otherwise gives. I'm just checking to see if there's going to be amendments to that. Because in we're going to be directing -- not only giving authority but also directing a percentages I need to better understand how that would fit in the budget and also give people a chance to come in and talk. [12:00:13 PM] Yes, Ms. Kitchen. >> Kitchen: Store item number 5, I don't know, we made need a little time to talk about, and I don't know, councilmember troxclair, do you want to go first or shall I? >> Troxclair: Sure. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Troxclair: Sure. So the -- what's proposed in backup I don't think is reflective of the resolution that the council passed. I don't think anybody, including myself, wants to kind of relitigate that issue. I just want to make sure that what we're putting into code is reflective of the direction that council gave. The staff backup has the funding for visit Austin and for the historic preservation fund empty same bucket, which I think is going to set up this council fight year after year and, again, the specific direction of the resolution was to have a separate, dedicated bucket for historical preservation going forward with a goal of getting -- with the goal of having those funds at 15%. Of course the council every year has ultimate control of how they allocate that money. So I do have a draft amendment that I'll post on the message board that makes that pretty simple change. I would love the staff's input. I understood at one time the staff was going to make this change and include that in backup but that hasn't happened so I -- however we need to make -- however we need to word that in order to make that happen I think would just be great. >> Kitchen: I would like to -- Mr. Mayor, could I? I would like to echo what councilmember troxclair said. The -- and we had some conversation about this. What's in backup doesn't reflect what we voted on. What we voted on was to create a 15% bucket for the historic preservation, just like we have a 15% for cultural. We can not vote to decide the percentage every year. We decided to create a 15%, [12:02:14 PM] and that's in the record of what we voted on. And so I'm going to support councilmember transform's amendment, which -- councilmember troxclair's amendment which reflects what we voted on. >> Mayor Adler: As I understood what you said, creating the additional bucket, I'd like to see the amendment language but I support that because I think it was the intent to kind of segregate that stuff. The manager reported to us a couple months ago she couldn't get to 15%, she would have to do it over time. The goal is definitely to get to 15%, but we needed to do it in a way that was consistent with the bond stuff and then there was an amendment that councilmember alter added that also said that we're trying to do it in a way that does not prohibit or preclude the other issues that we had talked about with respect to the convention center. So so long as we're not trying to decide those questions now before we get the information back from the manager, then I'm going to be real supportive. If we're going to try to actually allocate or get that money now before we've gotten those answers, then I'd just like to have notice of of that because I think there are people that would want to come and talk about that. If you could post your amendment that would be really helpful so I could take a look at that. Ms. Kitchen, I need to understand better. The manager had indicated that we could not get to 15% right now, but that she understood that that was the goal and would be taking a look at the variables involved with that. Councilmember alter put on an amendment at the end that added some other things to take a look at. If we're still waiting for that information before we allocate money -- I'm not sure if you're suggesting something other than that or not. >> Kitchen: Well, I misunderstood. I mean, the direction to city manager was to look for the additional -- I think it was 2 million or something like that that would have gotten us all the way to the 15 million. That's the part that we haven't gotten a report on. [12:04:15 PM] So if that's what the concern is, is the ability to get to the additional 2 million, then I'm not certain -- my question would be when would we get that report? There was suggestions from the dais on where to look for that 2 million. I would want to know when we get that report, and this ordinance needs to reflect that we created the 15% bucket. So we can work with the language because of what the city -- so I don't think we've gotten the report back on the 2 million. Not that we can't get it, just that we haven't gotten a report on yet. Is that right? Or -- >> It's great. It's a lot greater than 2 million now. Currently we're at about 9.4% versus the 15. There's a memo issued late yesterday, you may not have seen it, that tracked the numbers. We had come up with about 8.6% of the 15% at budget. During the budget readings, there was a motion to remove about a million and a half back to visit Austin so that they could then pay for the south by southwest overtime, which then reduced the amount that was still allocated for historic preservation. So council action actually put me further away from the 15% goal than I had suggested. Back in September, we needed to look at what the impact of had reallocation and the convention center absorbing a bulk of visit Austin operating costs back into their operations. We need to look at the impact that have on the long-term operation of the convention center, and we suggested a phased-in approach that the remainder of the 15%, we would bring the fy19 budget back with a plan either at the 15% or a phased-in plan to get there, which is common when we make [12:06:15 PM] these kinds of dramatic policy changes. That was the memo that was written in September right before the budget reading. So to get you today to 15%, I'm only at 8.6%, and I don't believe today, although I'll continue to work with convention center staff on their forecast. I don't believe today they have that kind of flexibility in their operating budget to get to that leap today. >> Kitchen: Okay. I don't want to draw out the discussion and I'll leave it to councilmember troxclair, but I'll just say we had this discussion in September. >> We can. >> Kitchen: And that's not what we voted on. We voted on the 15%. We did vote on the 1.5, but we didn't vote on whether or not the convention center can absorb the 15%. We voted to create the 15% bucket. And so I'll work with councilmember troxclair on the language, and we're hearing your concerns and I'll work with her on the language for the amendment. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember troxclair. >> Troxclair: Yeah. I don't think that the -- the intent of my amendment that I'm going to bring is only to, again, reflect what we voted on. I don't think that needs -- I'm not trying to change anything that we adopted in the budget. I just don't think, as it's currently written, having the visit Austin budget and the historic preservation budget together in one bucket doesn't make sense, and it also doesn't make sense to have the specific allocations many code at a level that isn't at 15% if, that's our goal to get there, and for us to have to come back and change code every year when we change the allocation. So we just need to figure out what wording allows us the flexibility to do what we adopted in this year's budget and also allows us to get to the ultimate goal of 15%. We'll work on that between now and -- >> Staff believes the suggested language does that, recognizes the 15% goal, but that we are not there this current year, as we stand today with the code [12:08:17 PM] amendment. But we know that 15% is your policy goal, and we will get a plan to get there. That's why they wrote the language with that flexibility. We don't want to pass -- we don't want to recommend a code amendment that's going to have us in violation of the code that we're going to have to report out in financial documents. >> Troxclair: Right. And I don't either. I just don't think that it's appropriate to commingle the visit Austin budget and historic preservation bucket, which are going to be competing for funds. That sets up -- while I believe -- while I know that you understand that that's our intention, this has been obviously a very complicated and long discussion already. [ Laughter ] Hold on. We got to -- no problem. So to the extent that it's as clear as possible in the code, this to me, if I read this in future, that -- it does not say what I feel like you just said so I want to make sure that we're not -- that be we're answering any future questions and that we're putting the right language in code to prevent the continued [indiscernible] Of had issue. I'll work with staff between now and Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: If it comes to that I would be really helpful and I think I agree with both of the elements that you said. >> Renteria: Mayor, I agree our goal was at 15, but I had the understanding we were going to gradually -- we weren't going to do it immediately, we were going to start at about eight and a half percent with our goal to reach the 15. I'm not going to have able to support anything that requires them to do it immediately. >> Mayor Adler: But that's not your intent. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I actually pulled this item. But I'll just at this point just say I concur with my [12:10:19 PM] colleagues, councilmembers kitchen and troxclair. I understand the staff's point and respect it and I hope that we can craft language that is different from what's in here because council will annually determine the allocation. However, the historical preservation fund will not exceed. That's the language we've had all along in the code, that can't exceed 15% because that's the state requirement, I mean, that's akin to the language that we've been operating under and we have worked, frankly, years to separate out and recognize historic preservation as something we are going to fund and I'm -- so the language expressed in item 3 is just not -- as written is not satisfactory to me and I believe ask not reflect the work. So hopefully between now and Thursday we can get to something that works for the staff from their bond counsel's -- from the concern of the bond counsel, but also reflects that that is our expectation and we're going to get as close to it as possible. >> Mayor Adler: And we'll post language on it because we're getting calls to -- if what we're doing is saying -- as part of the council, I joined, as we all did, in saying we want to get to 15%. That's what we want it to be. We asked staff to be able to get us there either immediately or as quickly as possible. Staff was also asked to take into account what the ramifications of doing that were so that we could make decisions associated with those. We haven't gotten that information back. So I don't want us to make that decision until we get the information back because that puts us back to where we were when we had the earlier conversation. To the degree that we're trying to really clear the runway so that we can get to the 15%, either immediately or as soon as possible, and to the degree that we're creating buckets so that visit Austin doesn't necessarily administer the monies associated with historic preservation, I support both of those things. So as soon as you can get language posted so that we [12:12:19 PM] could make sure that everybody is in the same place, that would be really helpful. Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I would just reiterate what everyone said. I think the problem with the language is, says council will annually determine the allocation. And that's the part that is not what we voted on. We voted on to create this budget. So we can work on some other language that addresses the kind of concerns that have been raised, like councilmember troxclair and mayor pro tem raised, but we can not vote to annually determine the allocation. We voted to create a bucket of 15%. So I just want to -- as councilmember troxclair said earlier, we don't want to relitigate this issue every year. We don't want to annually determine. So we can work on language. >> Tovo: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great. Yes, mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: In answer to your question I think your question was something about public coming down. I mean, I haven't heard anybody in this room who said we should -- we're mandating 15% right now. So I don't -- unless I'm wrong, I haven't heard that expressed. I think we are all on the same wavelength border to that point. I think it's just a matter of this language. You underscored one part of three. I'm going to underscore another -- another part, shall not exceed 15% is giving exactly in my mind the opposite signal about that 15%. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I can't offhand think of language that works for that. But I trust that we'll be able to come up with it, but I am assured by the representation that the goal is not to get to 15% right now so I will explain that to the people that are checking with me and suggest to them they don't need to come down. So thank you for that. Should we move off of item survive we have the aquatics master plan that we can talk about after lunch, about how we're going to treat that so that you have more time. We'll do that after lunch. [12:14:21 PM] Item 61, which is the outdoor music venue on new year's eve, my understanding, council, this has been the practice in the city, we just haven't had an ordinance to support it and staff then hasn't monitored it. I was just checking to see if we anticipated controversy on the extended hours on new year's eve, again, people wanting to know whether they should come down. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I have heard concerns about it, yes. I think, you know, we've -- without going into a lot of detail, you know, I hear with some regularity, maybe not every weekend, but I hear perfect neighbors who are experiencing sound intrusion into neighborhoods that are many blocks away from downtown, and so having a -- changing the policy even if that's not been the practice -- I mean, number 1, I'm not sure -- I didn't understand and I'm not sure the people who are communicating with me understand what the problem is that is being fixed with this solution. And so it looks like a loosening of restrictions on sound requirement and it's it's a bad time to do that when people are already experiencing sound intrusions and have been asked and some of them willingly supported a extension on red river. You know, it's just - - it's going to be challenging, I think, to -- those are the challenges with this item. >> Mayor Adler: It's my understanding that all the noise parameters in terms of the limits and the like stay in effect. It's also my understanding it's been the practice of letting clubs stay open on new year's eve. They just have stayed open new year's eve to celebrate that, and I think it's an important revenue source for them. My understanding is that this would codify that, as well as we would have staff then monitoring the noise [12:16:21 PM] levels and the activity for the first time that they have not done in the past. But I understand then that this might be in something that we debate, so I'll let folks -- so I'll let folks know about that. On item number 2, mayor pro tem, this was posted for reporting and action. This is the soccer stadium discussion or soccer location discussion. My understanding is that there won't be any action that's taken that day, that it will just be giving a report. Is that right? >> Tovo: That's my understanding. That was one reason I pulled for discussion here today. I know there's been a lot of discussion out in the community about one potential site in particular, and I want -- I really wanted to signal to the public that this is, you know, our resolution, directed our staff to look at multiple sites and to come back. We have received a memo, very brief month, but a memo this morning identifying some other sites and tracts, but, absolutely, we don't, I believe, have the capacity to dig into this issue today, and so it would certainly be my intention to postpone action on this for Thursday and just my initial read of the situation is that that would not harm the discussion in any way. You can continue to explore and investigate, but we're -- but we wouldn't be trying to reach any conclusions this week. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, I also pulled this item. Could I say something? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Kitchen: My concern is that, you know, I also understand and agree that the thinking is to talk about it at a later date. And just that we're looking for a mechanism to provide the report back. My concern is that it is posted for action, and my concern also is that I don't think that if we just verbally say that we won't [12:18:21 PM] take action that that will provide reassurance to the members of the public that are concerned about this. So if we're thinking about our day on Thursday, I think that we might want to just go ahead and either pull down or change the language on this because the public will not be able to not come based on just some verbal reassurance that we won't take action on it. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't we use this as a vehicle? Since we can't vote to pull it down or can't vote to do that -- >> Kitchen: But it's a staff item. >> Mayor Adler: Good point. >> Kitchen: In other words, my point is if the staff -- obviously we don't tell the staff what to do, but I'm just saying that if the -- and the staff will have to tell us what they prefer to do, but if it's -- what they choose to do, but I'm just letting you know that the public is letting me know that if it is still posted for action, they will feel the necessity to come down and testify and we'll have to take testimony. >> Mayor Adler: Let's get staff to talk to us about this. >> Kimberly Mcneeley, acting director for the parks and requisition department. You have in your backup -- today you have a map of the proposed sites and a memo that talks about how we've come to this very, very, very, very, one more very preliminary -- preliminary proposal for the sites that could be considered for additional analysis and exploration. And at the very end of this it asks for -- asks for permission for staff to be able to come back in February with something that's a little more comprehensive, given the time constraints, I think we have a pretty good preliminary report that you can review as a council and have an understanding of the direction that we're going. But in order for a robust [12:20:22 PM] conversation and a -- more information is needed in order for us to really bring something forward that is -- and so if -- either we could postpone as a staff we would prefer to postpone, or withdraw and be able to come back in February. But you will still receive a preliminary report on Thursday as the resolution had asked us to provide. >> Kitchen: So does that mean a briefing on Thursday? Is that what you're thinking or just -- >> No, ma'am. That would mean the actual report that the resolution asked us to produce would be provided via the -- the regular chain of -- the regular processes, where there's a cover memo and the report would be posted and we would withdraw the item and come back in February with additional information. That's what this memo basically tells you. Gives you very preliminary information. You'll receive a report on Thursday, and we're requesting either a postponement until Thursday or a complete withdraw and us -- I mean, I'm sorry, postponement until February or a withdraw -- completely withdraw the item and come back in February. >> Mayor Adler: Would you represent to the community that you're going to recommend and ask that we not take any action on that on Thursday? >> Absolutely. >> Kitchen: That won't do it. >> Mayor Adler: I'm trying to think of what the vehicle would be for them to be able to do something between now and -- >> Kitchen: Just to withdraw. Just withdraw it? >> On changes and corrections that comes out on Tuesdays we will withdraw the item. >> Kitchen: That would take care of. >> Our plan is just -- this is Sara Hensley, interim assistant city manager, our plan is to continue to work, continue moving forward having dialogue and working on fine-tuning some information. As Kim said, share with you via email a document that's more detailed. It will be pros and cons of sites, transportation egress/ingress pros and cons but at this time there really is no action needed and really we ask that this item, through the action on [12:22:22 PM] Wednesday, not be continued until February. >> Mayor Adler: I would suggest you postpone the action rather than withdraw so we indicate to the public clearly that it's going to come back and we're not ambiguous about that because you still need to come back to us and I don't want us to accidentally create a messages that not true. We just let people know it's going to -- >> Kitchen: So my question is, help me understand the procedure. So postponement requires a vote from us. Correct? >> We're just going to go ahead and postpone it because you've asked the council -- you've asked city staff members to come back with a report. They're doing that. They're asking you for some more time. >> Kitchen: Okay. And I'm -- >> So that's what we're going to do. >> Kitchen: I'm not understanding the withdrawn versus the postpone, what's the difference in flower. >> I think when you withdraw something we could bring it back any time. I think for clarity y'all want to know when it's coming back so we can postpone it until February, whatever the date is. >> Kitchen: So it will show up on the yellow sheet as postponed to a certain date? >> It will show up in changes and corrections. >> Kitchen: Okay. And when is that? When is that posted? When is changes and corrections come out, just so I understand? Is that the day of or -- >> Comes to out on Wednesday. >> Mayor Adler: Wednesday. >> Kitchen: Wednesday. Thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I would just say I look forward to seeing the report. I would say just some initial reactions. We -- the -- it would be great if there are any other sites within the area that are within the urban core that are not parkland, it would be great to know about those too. We're certainly hearing concerns about parkland, about one of the sites in particular. We haven't heard concerns about the other parkland. But that may be because no one knew it was going to be in the report. Thank you for your continued work on this. Again, I look forward to seeing the full report. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember alter, you had pulled item number 101. [12:24:23 PM] Do you anticipate that being a lengthy item on the agenda? >> Alter: No. I just wanted to share a couple things to facilitate that being fast. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Alter: So number 101 is the plaza P.U.D. You may recall. This is an application to create a unique setting for educators around the state to come to learn together. S a unique use and so it required a P.U.D. So we're moving forward with a P.U.D. For that. I want to make you aware that I am intending to offer an amendment on the consent agenda if you allow me. Letter in there from the applicant about noise that sound amplification that they had agreed to but it was not in the staff's recommendation, and so it was not -- the staff can not feel like they had the authority to put it into the base ordinance. The staff and the applicant are okay with it. But I'll pass that out so you can look at that and then we would be able to address this quickly either on the consent or just very quickly right after that, if that's more appropriate. I do want to signal that I have a couple questions about the transportation demand management program that I'm working with staff to work out in terms of when that's triggered and the remedy levels, and I don't know exactly where that's going to end up but I'm hopeful that that will not be an obstacle. Otherwise I'm expecting that it will be fairly quick. In that regard. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this one? Yes, councilmember Casar. >> Casar: I had my light on and was going to ask a question on soccer but I didn't want to interrupt councilmember alter. Just because if we're postponing this I wanted to have some sense of time line [12:26:24 PM] because I just want to make sure we have all of our options open. So before sort of going along, which I imagine I'll do on changing correction to be a postponement date, can you tell me, if we wanted -- from y'all's preliminary research, do you understand or can you share with us what the time line would be for an mls soccer team to come here based on your understanding? Like, how would that work? Time line- wise, help me understand that, considering I don't know if we've had a determination about whether there needs to be an election or not. How does is that time line out because I want to make sure that whatever date we're postponing to we don't have to be doing something in December or January to be on schedule. So can you just give us the short answer to that? >> I can just kind of one, I guess, segment- conversation which I think is important that would help inform the schedule and time line of all the work that's been done, we have been -- during the short time frame we have had an opportunity to talk directly with the commissioner's office in the league, so not through any folks here in Austin, to understand just at a core how does a city end up with a major league soccer team? Just to educate us about that. And it can happen in two ways. One, through an expansion process. The league actually is in the process of -- they've been in about a year of going through a very formal expansion process, taking applications. There's 12 cities that -- owner groups that have applied to be an expansion city in the league actually I think in the next week is going to announce two of those expansion teams. The remaining ten will be in line for any future expansions. Austin is not part of that list for an expansion team. There were no owner franchises that are part of that ongoing kind of effort at mls. That's one way a city can end up with a team. Another way is if an [12:28:24 PM] existing team moves to a city. In talking to the league, what they have informed us is that as long as Precourt sports ventures is exploring coming to Austin that the league will not be facilitating any move or facilitate any discussions with any other owner group about coming to Austin as long as Precourt sports ventures is the one that is looking at moving their existing team in Columbus. >> Casar: And -- thank you. That is helpful. To -- you know, we could always decide, it's up to us, whether or not this is something we want to but if we wanted to not be able -- if we didn't want to miss the boat to be able to make that decision, if we didn't want to have that decision made for us, what is the time line? >> Sara Hensley, interim city manager. Their time line of course if they wanted to bring a team here would be in 2019. Of course building a stadium we would not be ready by then and that is why they would have to work with someone else to have a temporary place for playing but the idea would be they would be in Austin, Texas, and hopefully playing soccer in -- sometime summer of 2019 I believe is what we were told. >> Casar: I'm sorry. Just to try to be as specific as I can with my questions. That's the stuff I've read in the paper and understand far out when they would be here. What I want to understand is my job on city council, because we're considering -- this is all in the context of because we're considering a postponement this week which I'm not opposed to because I'm not ready to make a decision, but since we're postponing to a date, I just want to understand when do I have to have meetings with people, go out in the community, understand the pros and cons, understand the parts of the deal? When are -- because if we don't make a decision by a certain time line I anticipate we miss the boat [12:30:25 PM] on what you just explained. So if we want to be able to have an up or down vote as council, when does that stuff have to happen? I'm just trying to plan my life here, guys. >> Mayor Adler: You got to know the answer to that -- maybe the postponement on the changes and questions could say I'm going to postpone this to the first meeting of February but also add unless the staff brings it to council earlier than that, given an exigent circumstance or. . . >> I think we'll -- oops. I think we'll better be able to answer that question given another six weeks of time to be able to really lay out for you the time line that would be necessary. I would say, if I could be so bold as to say that if there is an election, then of course you'd have to work back from the time frame in which you decided to bring that particular item to -- but we have not even got -- we have not even crossed that bridge. We have not gotten to a point of understanding or even knowing what would be the mechanism by which we would partner with someone. So we would have more information for you in February. >> Casar: Understood. I guess all I would say is that if turns out that we have to have an election and we figure that out and -- by the time we have figured that out it's too late to have, then that puts us in a bind and so I would feel comfortable of course postponing this just with giving staff the flexibility that if as you figure this time line out you say, actually, we need to brief you on this, we have to have an executive session about why, we have to - - whatever. Just know that we -- you know, we want to give you guys the flexibility to react to whatever you find. >> We'll try to pin down better as we do our final information and really sort of walk it back. And if we feel the need to bring something forward to y'all earlier than before our February deadline, we'll certainly ask to do that. But we'll try to give you a [12:32:27 PM] more concrete time line and particularly where we're headed and what really the pinpoints are no later than February. >> Mayor Adler: Make sure that your changes and correction posting reflects that flexibility. Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I'd just ask that -- I know you guys will do this, but just wanted to state it so those who are watching will understand that, that if it was to come back before February or whenever it comes to back that we will provide the public at least a few weeks' notice so that I can let them know, as you all know, the folks that live around the butler shores area, those that are living in the condo right across from that potential area, as well as neighborhoods close by in zilker and Barton hills are very upset and concerned about the proposal of using butler shores. And I share their concern, and will not be able to support the butler shores location because of the -- you know, the concentrated traffic impacts, the challenging and limited access, lighting and noise right across from where people live and have bought their condos to live there, thinking they'd have a view of zilker park, the vicinity to hike and bike trail, surrounding neighborhood and parkland and the fact that it's already an area that, you know -- where we have acl, the trail of lights, we have the blues on the greens and we have -- so it's not just about parking. It's much more than that. In any case, I know you all will do that, and would like at least two weeks' notice and actually that's probably not enough. So when you work out your time line, just make sure we have as much notice as possible so we can let our constituents know when they'll have the opportunity to weigh in. So I appreciate all your work on this. [12:34:29 PM] >> Renteria: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Mr. Renteria. >> Renteria: I'll request that I -- you know, unfortunately this particular team, it seems didn't want to go out there to the expo center, Travis county, but I think that's a great opportunity, and I think they'll be missing out on. And I think we should come back and say, hey, what's -- you know, this is an opportunity for them. To get a stadium, not have to go through what the process that's going to happen because I feel like they take this to the voters and then butler builds on there -- that it's not going to pass, you know? They just -- it just -- I got a feeling they just won't make it. So I think that we should make it be as attractive that they could go to that expo center and not go through all this process. It's going to divide the community again so I just have a lot of concerns about that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> Mayor, can I just make sure -- I just want to make sure nobody had anything else on hollsworth center that I need to be aware of. I guess I'll work out with you when I know the answer so we can do that expeditiously so people don't have to be there all night for a quick process. >> Mayor Adler: That would be good. I think it's a great project. On the next item, item 44, I wanted to pull up. Staff sent this out. This is the interlocal agreement with txdot. Staff gave us a memo that said that this was work being done in the right-of-way and that txdot had a right to be able to do this work, that we're responsible for paying the costs associated with that and we could either agree up front as to what the costs were or if we didn't agree they could do [12:36:29 PM] the work and bill us for it later but the work was going to be happening regardless. And it was only a question of do we approve up front what the costs are. If that's the case then it seems to me that's something that should happen proper funk Torey as council but again if there are issues I'm missing that is going to take a longer period of time or if people are going to talk about whether we should preapprove the dollars, then I wanted to daylight that. This is item 44, the mopac Davis lane cross- avenue utility relocation. Do you want to describe it real fast? >> Certainly. Councilmembers, Richard Mendoza, director of public works. Yes, what this action does is actually amend a previously approved [indiscernible] And this is for -- with txdot to provide additional funding to provide waste and wastewater utility adjustments related to their roadway improvement project, south mopac. The bids when they came in for those utility adjustments, you are correct, the city is responsible by state statute to adjust their facilities within state right-of-way to support that project. Do -- primarily, we feel current market conditions, some of the contractor bandwidth that the existing work that's underway, also the recent hurricane-driven workload, the bids came in about 587,000 higher than our engineer's estimate so by that previously approved Ila the city is responsible to cover that additional cost. Our engineers have reviewed the bid tab items and we agree that it's a reasonable amount and that's why we [12:38:29 PM] need to come forward with authorization in order to be able to enable the utility adjustment work to start. It's going to start in advance of the actual roadway improvement project. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: So I just want to say I think it's really important that we on Tuesday try to get a sense of what -- where we might have lots of speakers on Thursday, but I just -- because we had an issue recently in our council agenda where there were some concerns expressed that one of the organizations hadn't signaled their opposition days earlier and it was a surprise at council, I just want to be really clear that we should -- you know, I think it's useful to exchange information about where we think there are points of controversy, but people and organizations should feel free to come down on Thursday and provide input even if they didn't signal they were going to do it earlier in the week in time for our work session discussion. This is -- this connects to a project that is controversial. I don't know whether there are people coming, and I'm not in a position -- I don't believe we have -- I don't know -- I just am not in a position to -- and in answer to your question, I'm not in a position to know whether we'll have speakers, but the kind of questions you're asking are beginning to make me a little bit uncomfortable about -- though I appreciate the intent in trying to see where we're going to spend our time on Thursday, to the best we can right now, but it's not a hard and fast commitment from either the councilmembers or from what we understand from the community. I just needed to say that. >> Mayor Adler: No, no. If I implied anything else, please -- thank you for pausing and correcting. Obviously we can't decide at this meeting virtually any question because we can't vote on anything, but I would -- my purpose was 2-fold. The first was since we had just gotten this memo that presenteds a fairly prefunk Torey deal I wanted to say that out loud and it was good staff was here to repeat that. Second, if anybody knew it wasn't and would be involved [12:40:32 PM] I wanted to give that member the chance to say that so we would all know. Not being able to identify controversy at this point does not mean there will not be a controversy on Thursday. >> Tovo: I understood your intent and appreciate your clarification. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: So I have a question this did. I understand there's environmental concerns. Can you help me understand the oversight process that's being proposed? >> Certainly, councilmember. They're going to address more specifics on the environmental oversight which is going to plan to be quite extensive on this project. >> Good morning, Joe, you should have received a memo yesterday that summarized the reviews of the project by city staff by the Barton springs district and fish and wildlife service and in regards to the compliance oversight, txdot has agreed to hire an environmental compliance manager in addition to the contractors' environmental staff. Had compliance manager would be reporting directly to txdot within their chain of command as opposed to the contractor, which is something that is atypical of most txdot jobs. I also have Mike Kelly here, who is the division manager for environmental resources management from watershed who can go into more detail if necessary. >> Alter: I read the memo. I was just still trying to understand what sort of -- if they don't comply, like there's a lot of -- there seem to be a lot of ways to know they were not in compliance, but if they do not comply what happens then? That's what I was trying to understand. >> Mike Kelly, watershed protection. Ultimately it's the Texas commission on environmental quality who would be the enforcement agency. So if they're not in compliance with their [12:42:32 PM] permits from the state, then it would be the state who would enforce those. The city of Austin has gotten -- we potentially have been invited to the table for voluntary consultation. They've extended the courtesy for our experts in spills as well as hydrogeology to be at the preconstruction meetings as well as to be on the contractor call list so if anything happens like we encounter an unanticipated void or there's some sort of spill that needs cleaningup then our folks would be on the ring down list to respond to that. We would be operating in a collaborative nature, not an enforcement nature and, again, it would be up to the state to enforce. >> Alter: Okay. I think there may be some folks in the community that have some other questions about the oversight and will digest what you said and see if I have any additional questions on Thursday. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember troxclair. >> Troxclair: To follow up on councilmember alter's question, from what I understand, based on the legal memo and the fact that the city is obligated to provide this service, if -- there were -- it doesn't seem like this item is necessarily the way in which to ensure any kind of higher environmental standards. From what I understand, we have a legal obligation to pay for this cost, regardless of whether we do it now or they do the work and bill us for later. So I guess I want to understand what is the separation of those two issues? If there are people with environmental concerns, is this the appropriate way for them to effect those concerns? >> As far as strategy, I think all defer to the law department and maybe counsel in terms of thousand address [12:44:33 PM] it. I think in terms of ensuring the highest level of environmental compliance and given the fact that the state is -- the txdot project will be regulated by tceq, I think it really relies on txdot's willingness to be collaborative with watershed staff, and we've done that. We've also -- have talked to not only txdot but the district who has a consent decree with txdot in terms of the environmental protection measures. And they have found that the project meets our exceeds the environmental standards in that consent decree. And then also with the U.S. Fish and wildlife through their informal consultation, they believe this is not going to have an adverse impact on the species of concern. So as far as our -- the city's regulatory standing here, we don't have necessarily a regulatory standing. But, again, I think we've -- as city staff have taken every opportunity to collaborate with them and work with the other regulatory agencies on this project. >> Troxclair: That all sounds good and like it's moving in a positive direction so maybe it's a better question for the legal department. It still doesn't seem like all of that is necessarily in any way connected to whether or not we approve the item on the agenda because the city is going to be responsible for paying for this relocation whether we do it on Thursday or whether they bill us for it later. >> MARIA Sanchez, assistant city attorney. You're correct, the city is obligated contractually and by statute to pay the outstanding amount based on the bid that we received. >> Troxclair: Okay. I just want to make sure that we're directing our efforts in the right way and I'm just not sure that this -- that this item is the -- is necessarily the best way to make any [12:46:33 PM] potential changes on the environmental process. And I -- mayor, I appreciate you pulling this because it would be helpful for me to know, to the extent the other councilmembers today can give me some kind of indication of -- I mean, obviously, I heard councilmember alter's questions already, but if anybody else knows where they stand on this item, this is a really important project to my district. I have a lot of people who want to come up here and speak about it, if the council is, you know, I guess planning on not approving it or not being supportive. I'll explain the same thing to them as well, that it sounds like the project is moving forward regardless of whether or not this item passes, but this has a major impact on traffic flow in the area. This is, you know, mopac and slaughter and la crosse, which are really important intersections so basically I don't want them to waste their time to come down here if everybody is at a place -- not everybody but if a majority of the council is at a place that they're comfortable with this item moving forward. If there's additional questions, then I think that my -- there's, like I said, quite a few constituents who would like to be here and talk to you about it. So does anybody else have any issues? >> Mayor Adler: My only concern would be if there are environmental issues that we can in fact deal with associated with this action. In which case then I would want us to do that. I haven't heard anything yet that would indicate that we have that ability. But I don't know that I could know the answer to that question. So what I will say is, if it looks like there's something that we could be doing or if the community listening to this identifies something, if they would let me know if anyone raise that's issue [12:48:34 PM] with me, I will let you know immediately. Otherwise, I have not heard that kind of issue. So as I sit here now, I don't know -- I have not been advised that there's those kinds of things that we can deal with here. >> Troxclair: Okay. So I think -- okay. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I just wanted to clarify. You mentioned -- both of you mentioned some legal aspects of this that I wasn't aware of and I'm just wondering if there's another memo from legal on this that I missed. >> Yes. There was a memo sent out to mayor and council? >> Alter: So I saw the environmental one. When was the legal one? >> It was sent on a Friday. >> Alter: Okay. So I haven't read that and that may provide further context. My main concern was whether there were additional oversight things that we could do on the environmental, but that presumes that you're moving forward. It's just a question of whether there are additional safeguards that could be added or not, and I don't have an answer to that question. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Does txdot have a time? Because they could start the project anyway, right? And then they would just bill us? Is that my understanding? I'm -- not my area so I'm not -- I'm asking for clarification. >> Yes, ma'am. They are anticipating initiating the first parts of this utility work right after the first of the year. In fact, right now some of the telecomms, mainly AT&T and I think Verizon are out there locating utilities now. So they expect they'll have this project done by, I believe, 2020. So they have issued the notice to proceed on the utility contractor. >> Houston: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Just in answer to your question, councilmember troxclair, I haven't had an opportunity to review either [12:50:34 PM] of the memos, actually. But I, you know, have been pretty vocal in my concern about the project. And I reserve the right to have concerns about other things that I don't know I have concerns about yet, just FYI. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: As do we all. As do we all. Thank you very much. Councilmembers, we have eight things left on this agenda. I would propose that we take a break for executive session and eat lunch and then come back. The things that -- I'm sorry? >> Tovo: I maybe have a super quick one. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Tovo: Just a question on 63. The action on 63, councilmember kitchen, freezes the fee schedule changes for -- and directs them not to be implemented with regard to the senior centers. It's my understanding that the staff have come to an agreement with those senior centers. Are you planning on withdrawing this or is this remaining on the agenda? >> Kitchen: Yes. No. When we put this on the agenda we talked to staff about -- we just put it on as a placeholder as they were trying to work through some issues in case they needed direction from the council. My understanding -- and they can speak to this better -- is that they, I think, have worked that out. I do think that there are some larger policy issues that we may perhaps want to bring back in February, but for purposes of today -- I'll let them speak to it but my understanding is they were able to resolve the issue with the -- that was the immediate issue. Is that correct? >> Tovo: We all got a memo. I didn't mean -- I represented this to the all got the memo. >> The answer to the question is, yes, we've been able to resolve the issues. >> Kitchen: So the answer to your question is, yes, I'll pull it down. >> Mayor Adler: I just got a note from my office that says I have additional questions on 63 that they want to make me aware of before I agree to remove 63 [12:52:35 PM] because of the category, I don't know what objections exist when there are objections. >> Kitchen: Okay. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: So apparently there are hours being taken away from one east Austin senior center in order to resolve the issues. Is that an issue? >> That is correct. We have reallocated some hours that we felt are underutilized at a recreation center in east Austin, four total hours. The user rate is under 25 an hour at that site and there are other available locations within walking distance of that site that are open. So we felt it was appropriate to reallocate those. >> That was division manager, Luke cuss massy. >> Sorry about that. >> Houston: Could you tell us which senior center that is in east Austin? >> Yes, [indiscernible] Senior activity center, currently scheduled to open until 8:00 on Tuesday and Thursday and our proposal is to close it at 6:00 P.M. On Tuesday and Thursday. >> Houston: Thank you. There's not that much activity there on that day so that's okay. >> Mayor Adler: Then I wouldn't anticipate a problem but I'm going to need to double back with whoever it was that raised that concern in the office. >> Kitchen: My plan is to withdraw it unless people want to talk about it. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Mr. Casar. >> Casar: The one question I had on this item is that I had heard some news reports that some of the fee increases were associated with -- or were I heard on N the news reports that the fee increases were solely associated with wage increases at the city, but any understanding that indeed that's actually only one portion of the cost of service and that indeed the fee increase that's this item is addressing is related to a cost of service study and several years of not covering the -- covering the full costs that have to do with utilities and all sorts of things. Is it correct the wage increases are just one portion of the increasing costs to the city but this [12:54:36 PM] is not driven -- the fee increases are not driven solely by us trying to treat our employees decently? >> That is a correct statement. >> Casar: All right. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: One other quick thing. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Kitchen: I think just to signal everyone, I may want to have further conversations in February just about the cost of service approach or maybes part of our next budget, because this is an example for me of a concern about unintended consequences of cost of service. When we're employing a cost of service model for -- that applies to entities that are providing services for our vulnerable population, may not be appropriate -- and I know that in putting the -- in putting together the model, there were considerations made in some subsidy for not profits, backup I think we may have ended up requiring cost of service for some entities that perhaps we should not. Anyway, that's a later discussion, later policy discussion. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So the items that I have marked on this that we have champions item, number 25, the aquatic master plan, trying to figure out what we're going to do on Thursday, also item number 89 and 90, which is the capitol complex, the item number 98, which is the manchaca and sadly pass issue, item 99, agenda posting language, and item 105, which is great hills mixed use. >> Alter: Great hills would be really quick. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Alter: If I might. So I just wanted to let folks know that I'm expecting this to be pulled by speakers for Thursday. This is item 105, great hills market. The majority of the concerns that I've been hearing from people are about the potential loss of some beloved businesses, Arbor [12:56:36 PM] cinema and manuels and concerns about traffic on jollyville road. The concerns about traffic are real, but it's also true that they would be exacerbated by any commercial development as opposed to the residential uses, which are being asked for. I've been working with the property owners and the neighbors, and we are working to identify some potential traffic mitigation options that would be incorporated in later readings. But I will be introducing on Thursday some conditional overlay restrictions on uses that the applicant has agreed to with the neighbors. But the traffic stuff will be forthcoming. I can have one other thing that I wanted to share on that, is that the applicant has volunteered to designate the income requirements for the 10% of any potential housing they develop using in the future where they might opt to use a density bonus to do those at 60% mfi versus 80% mfi. But I will need to get some clarity from our legal staff on what needs to be done for those parties to realize that voluntary commitment. From the developer. So we've had other cases where they have not been able to do that even though the developer wanted to voluntarily provide it for 60% mfi, but I'm not sure legally what has to happen for that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. >> Alter: So if you could provide some guidance or either now or to my office, that would be helpful. >> Houston: I just say a lawyer run in the room. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: Do you want to address that now? >> I think we can probably address it with you in the next day. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. All right. So we're going to break for lunch. When we come back -- [12:58:36 PM] >> I'm sorry. There's people who think item 20, the ems item, that y'all want to discuss it wasn't pulled. Just if you discuss -- >> Mayor Adler: Do we want to discuss the ems item? I think we're set. Thank you. >> Casar: Mayor, I don't want to discuss it. I just want to flag some level of concern with pulling to a hundred question test on hiring because everybody talks about how that has a desperate impact on folks of color. Again, this is a thing where we have so many items I haven't had time to think about it.. >> Casar: My understanding is that there's a real problem with the state law that puts us in that position, but then also my understanding is we were trying to get to a status quo agreement that would leave harmless our existing employees as we negotiate, which makes sense, but also if we're agreeing to a status quo agreement as a mode of trying to come together, but ultimately an African-American person or a Latina person trying to apply to be an ems employee might actually be harmed potentially by something that is supposedly get us to a no harm place. So I want to think about that. >> Mayor Adler: And I'd like to know whether we have a choice in the situation we put ourselves whether we have the ability to be to to do something different than that. >> Casar: And I haven't had time to reach out to the ems association to see if we could provide us with that choice. >> Mayor Adler: I was just asking that question out loud. Hopefully people smarter than us would focus on that. All right. So we're going to now break for executive session. When we come back we're going to hit 17, 25, 89, 90, 98 and 99. We're going to now go into closed session to take up three items. Pursuant to 551.071 of the government today we'll discuss legal matters related to e-2, which is [indiscernible] Versus city [1:00:37 PM] of Austin, e-3, legal issues relating to the planning commission. E-4, ethics matters with the ethics commission. That's withdrawn without objection. It is now 1:00 and we are now going into executive session. >> Kitchen: Mr. Mayor, did you say one of those had been withdrawn? >> Mayor Adler: E-1, the general one that was our catchall. Those three are being called. [2:07:51 PM] Mcdermott. [2:49:43 PM] . >> Tovo:I do not have the except. So we'll have to -- I do not have the except. We'll have to pause for a minute. [2:51:49 PM] . >> Tovo:apologies for the false start. I'm mayor pro tem Kathie tovo. We are out of executive session. In closed session we discussed legal matters related to items e2, e3, and e4. Colleagues, I'm going to have to leave in a few minutes so I'm going to turn it over to councilmember Houston until the mayor comes back. I just wanted to note a couple things. I pulled item 98, I think it is. 98, and obviously we don't have time to talk about it, but, councilmember kitchen, maybe you could put some information on the message board about the purpose of that, of that interlocal, and help explain what that item is that was the substance of my question. >> Kitchen: Okay. I'll do that. >> Tovo: On that one. >> Flannigan: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Yes. >> Flannigan: Specifically what makes it an emergency? That's what I would like to know. >> Kitchen: I'll put the timing on it too. >> Flannigan: Thank you. >> Tovo: Colleagues, as many of you know, I serve as the co-chair on the membership council for the ending community homelessness organization and they are in the process of recruiting volunteers to participate in their point and time count this January. The mayor will actually be presenting a proclamation on Thursday to help raise attention among the Austin community, but I had put it on today's work session agenda -- as an agenda item so I could distribute you to [2:53:50 PM] these fliers to encourage -- >> Speaker1: What number is that? >> Tovo: It's not a item on the council agenda. It's item d1. So I know some of you have participated in the past and you probably all know the purpose of it, and that is to go across the city and across the county and spend several hours counting the individuals who are experiencing homelessness to interview them and do some basic questions. This is information that really helps us communicate with the federal government about the needs in our community. So it's really critical, relies on hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. You have to get up at to do it but it's a worthwhile experience and very, very important to our city to have accurate counts. If you would consider -- echo has -- will be reaching out to all of you probably individually but I just wanted to also encourage you to consider this and consider putting together teams of your constituents if they want to participate as well. All the training is provided so you don't need to have done it before. You're usually pared with a team lead who is experienced so it's very easy to participate as someone with no experience. Actually, the mayor is back so I'm going to turn it back to him. Mayor, I cleared two of the three things that I had hoped to do. I have the proposal I could offer about the aquatics plan, but then I'm going to have to leave if you all discuss it. >> Mayor Adler: What things did you clear? >> Tovo: 98. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Tovo: Then was did one? It was -- or e1. It was an item on the work session agenda, just to announce the point and time count. >> Mayor Adler: I would reaffirm what you said. It was an incredible experience to be able to do that. I was also shocked and surprised with the number of people who are living under our bridges that knew who I was, and like any other constituent in the city had a list of things that they wanted to talk to me about, [2:55:51 PM] where we were falling down on our job. >> Tovo: That's great. >> Mayor Adler: Do you want to just lay out what you were thinking about the aquatics and then you can go? >> Tovo: Thanks. I had said I might have a suggestion. I throw this out but I would say there were -- there was a diversity of views on the aquatics plan, and this may not meet our needs and I am completely in agreement with those of you who want to postpone if this doesn't get us past Thursday, if it seems like it's going to generate a lot of conversation let's just postpone it. My idea would generally be to adopt the task force recommendations with a few caveats. One would be incorporating the recommendation that councilmember Houston said should be considered, which is that the colony park new pool be considered as a possible site for an additorium and then when we get to the piece that talked about the bond recommendation, just acknowledge what is I think the state of affairs that we have here. We had several councilmembers who expressed support in that recommendation. We had several councilmembers who expressed opposition to it. But a will among the council to really table that issue until the bond advisory task force reports back. So I throw that out as a potential proposal for what we might do on the aquatics plan. Again, it would be to adopt the recommendations, and probably the plan as well with those caveats. So that was my idea. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Flannigan: I'm not comfortable adopting the recommendations even with caveats. I think there's just too much to talk about, better to just postpone and take this up in the new year. >> Mayor Adler: I do like the idea of telling the task force that they should speak to this task force -- this task force should speak to the bond task force so that they get the benefit of this information, they can certainly describe what happened. I think given the nature of the comments we had earlier if we tried to discuss this [2:57:52 PM] on the dais we'll be here for a lot of time and a lot of people in the public I think will want to talk about their pools. So my recommendation would be that we indicate to the community that probably -- that this item will be postponed and not something we handle on Thursday. Does anyone feel differently about that here? Okay. I'll probably post something on the bulletin board so people can see that. Let's get to the next thing we have. >> Houston: Before we go -- and I appreciate mayor pro tem's comments about the time count. I need for people to understand that as a prior mental health person, how rude it is to go into somebody's house when they're sound asleep at 3:00, even though they recognize and you want to talk to you, to wake them up out of a sound sleep and say I'm here to make these -- to get these answers from you. And that's why I don't do it because I think if somebody came into my house at 3:00 and woke me up, I would wake up fighting and I just don't want anybody to get hurt. Because there is that possibility, as you're going into the highways and biways and into the fields. Although it's a wonderful thing and we need to do it, I always caution people that you're entering somebody's space, and when you're not invited in, you never know what might happen. So far nothing has, but that doesn't mean that something won't. So I just want to have that cautionary tail tale -- tale out there. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. So let's continue on with the things that we have marked. Councilmember alter, you had pulled the champion matter, item 17. >> Alter: Yes. First of all, I wanted to ask for a time certain of [2:59:53 PM] seven or later. I'm guessing -- >> Mayor Adler: On these cases here recently we have it set no earlier than 7:00 in case somebody wanted to speak in the afternoon and couldn't be in there in the evening, they were able announced we will not be making a decision before dinner so as to enable people to come after dinner and still be able participate. >> Alter: Okay. So how will they know to come up -- >> Mayor Adler: They could either come in the afternoon and try to speak then but we can certainly tell the community that we will not be deciding this matter before 7:00 so people who showed up at 7:00 would be able to talk at some point over the evening. We wouldn't decide this case any earlier than 7:00. We wouldn't close the public hearing component earlier than 7:00. >> Alter: Okay. Okay. So then my first questions on this are for staff, for the legal staff, to help clarify on the affordable housing commitments with respect to the settlement. There was a representation by the property owner made that they would provide affordable housing. It's my understanding it would be illegal for the city to enforce a affordable housing component on the property regardless of any desire to do so. Could you share with me what instrument or agreements the property owner would need to enter into in order to have a third-party enforce any affordability agreement such as a private restrictive covenant? >> I think we could have a private restrictive covenant. They could have a private restrictive covenant. And I don't know if they've had a conversation about that with the property owner or not. >> Alter: So I believe they have one but it's not enforced. >> It's not that it's [3:01:53 PM] illegal. It's that the city doesn't have the ability to enforce it. >> Alter: Right. So the question is how do you have one -- what would need to happen to have one that's enforceable? >> A third party could enforce it. >> Alter: So then they would have to enter into a restrictive covenant with a third party, not with nhc? >> That's correct. And I don't know whether they have had that conversation, but I'm guessing that they are having that conversation with the landowner. >> Alter: Okay. I hope that they will voluntariliy choose to pursue such an arrangement because I know that commitment was important. Back in 2016. As, Ann, you're aware I'm awaiting on legal questions with respect to the settlement I had about ten questions. >> We've had about a dozen people working on them and I think mit and I is upstairs and you all will get the questions you send and answers this afternoon. >> Alter: Okay. I also will have some environmental questions that I am preparing and I suggest if we pass on second reading this would go to the environmental commission before it comes back to us for third reading. I think there's questions that have been raised about the environmental superiority that should be addressed by our environmental commission, which would be the proper kind of way to approach things. I think those are the main things that I wanted to bring up on this part. Do you want me to do 99? >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Alter: As well? So 99 is approve a resolution directing the city manager to make recommendations concerning application and hearing notice requirements and agenda posting language related to ordinances and agreement that grant development rights. I pulled this item 1st of all to let my colleagues know that councilmember Houston has also agreed to be a cosponsor on this item. The intention of this is to allow our staff to come back with recommendations so that we can better post a notice [3:03:55 PM] for very limited universe of cases, like the champion's tract case, where you have a settlement agreement or you have some other very particular types of situations so that we could address the noticed stuff that has been at the heart of the lawsuit against us and so we're actually getting at the root of the problem by asking the staff to come back with the notice requirements and so that we can better notice and post so that the community can come out if they want to speak on these issues that do affect them. It's not intended to cover standard zoning cases that we hear each week. We have not had legal complaints on those. This is very much for a special universe of cases. This is language that I worked out following our executive session last week with legal. It's my understanding that they were comfortable with this approach. >> You're asking us to go off and look at best practices about posting? >> Alter: Yes. That would address notice and posting. >> I will say that I think that we are comfortable in that we post - - we post many, many things, but we're always happy to look at best practices everywhere. >> Alter: Okay. >> Mayor adler:so this doesn't actually prescribe anything? It just asks you to go back to take a look at best practices and then come back to us with best practices. Is that right? >> That's my understanding of the resolution. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. And anybody have anything else? Jimmy. >> Flannigan: Is there a reason it's an emergency? >> Alter: It is because it's related to the settlement agreement and the other actions related to the settlement agreement that we discussed in executive session this week. >> Flannigan: But the item 99 doesn't -- >> Alter: It relates to 17 -- it addresses the [3:05:57 PM] issues that were raised that led us to have to look back at the settlement agreement. >> Flannigan: Oh, okay. So your intention -- >> Alter: I'm trying to get at the root problem. >> Flannigan: Right. I just want to understand -- >> Alter: Which was we didn't notice appropriately and so I'm trying to get at the root cause so that we can be interacting with the public in a transparent way. And it's related to 17 because it's addressing the type of problem. >> Flannigan: Right. And my question is that we also decided we wanted two-week agenda postings to be transparent so I want to make sure this is an emergency and if it's related to the champion's case, in terms of clarifying our posting requirements, am I to understand that item 99 assumes second reading only on the other one? Because then they would both effectively come back February 1? They would be -- at the same time, they would both be decided at the same time at the end? Is that your intention? >> Mayor Adler: I think there's only one reading on the resolution, ifc. >> Flannigan: It says second and third, doesn't it? >> You're talking about two different things. You're talking about the champion item we've reposted. It's scheduled for second and third reading. I understand there may be -- will be a conversation about that. I think you're asking why was this put on the addendum, this item. >> Flannigan: Yeah. >> That -- was it an emergency. I think for -- councilmember alter is saying they were connected in her mind to the champion item. That's what -- >> Alter: It was raised in executive session last week and this was the appropriate action we decided was the response to that discussion. And I think without going back into executive session, that's probably all I can say at this point. >> Flannigan: All right. I'll talk to legal about it, make sure that I'm understanding the thing that I seem to be understanding. >> Mayor Adler: My sense on this, too, the resolution that prescribed to look for best practices will only be read one time because it's just a resolution. I was also looking at the same ifcs and trying to figure out what -- [3:07:59 PM] considering ifcs that have only been posted for one week on the addendum. When we had wanted to go to two weeks, we kind of struggled to hold on to that, and I took peace with the fact that beginning next meeting in February our meetings are every two weeks so it's not going to be -- I mean, our meetings are set every two weeks beginning in February. So I made peace with the emergency issue by saying I don't want any of this to be precedent on what's an emergency and what's not an emergency because we're down to just one meeting and four items. So for me, I wasn't going to raise that issue this time because it seems to be academic next year because we're meeting every two weeks. But I hear what you're saying, and paused on that same issue. Okay. So that's 98. Let's go ahead to the next thing to discuss, item number 25. We talked about we're not going to consider that or debate that next week, I mean on Thursday. I think that get us to number 89 and 90, which is the capitol complex issue. We've already done that today? When I wasn't here? Is that something mayor pro tem did? >> Houston: I thought we did it before lunch. I pulled those because I wanted to hand out some examples of what -- >> Mayor Adler: That's all that was. Okay, got it. Then I think that best as I can tell we've handled everything on the agenda. Anybody have anything else? Okay. That being -- >> Casar: Mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Casar: I'm not going to speak to it now, but as far as notice, I'm going to review item 95. There's a lot of it seems to make sense some of it it just had questions about but haven't had times to look at it. >> Mayor Adler: What is 95? >> Casar: Excuse me. 95 is the chauffeur permit item that's on the agenda. The item related to chauffeur permits, [3:09:59 PM] limousine, tncs, charter services. >> Kitchen: Can I ask that you post any concerns you have? >> Casar: I will. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? It is 3:10. This work session today on December 12, 2017, is adjourned. [ Adjourned ]