City Council Work Session Transcript – 1/30/2018 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 1/30/2018 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/30/2018 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:09:26 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. Are we ready? Today is February 1st, 2018. We're in the work session scheduled today, we're in the boards and commissions room here at city hall, 301 west second street. It is 9:10. Council, Ann kitchen lets us know that she's not going to be able to be here until 12:30. Councilmember pool has to leave for a retirement deal and has asked that she be able to be part of the executive session where we discuss the information requests relative to the city manager. So if we are in executive session in time for councilmember pool to be part of that conversation, we'll have it, otherwise we'll move that conversation until Thursday. Does that work? If not, we could convene in executive session earlier if we needed to. Okay? Let's see how that goes. So we have executive session with some items today. We have a relatively short list of things that have been pulled for our meeting on Thursday. And then we have three briefings that have been scheduled. Those are the components, the executive session, these three briefings, and we are set for the ability to have work session on sick leave, something that Mr. Casar put on the agenda. I would suggest that we try to do quickly the pulled items that we have. There aren't that many. To work through that list. I don't know if that will take us long. Councilmember alter, you pulled item number 12. [9:11:30 AM] >> Good morning. Yeah, I pulled item number 12 and I'm going to need an executive session for item 12 as well. There are still several outstanding legal questions. I know councilmember pool has a bunch of questions, but I wanted to first of all share a copy of the environmental commissions recommendations with my colleagues. As of 2:00 yesterday environmental commission's recommendation was not included in backup. Instead the backup was going to comments from staff and it was listed as the recommendation from the commission. As you will recall, we were taken to court for this case for posting things improperly. Again, we were taken to court for posting things improperly for this case. The environmental commission returned a recommendation that said that the settlement agreement amendment was not necessarily superior to staying with the settlement agreement, and that information was not shared in our backup. Let that soak in a second here. We need to make sure that we are treating this case with the utmost care and respect for the neighbors who have been going through this for over 20 years dealing with the champion sisters and this property. So I have passed out this environmental commission recommendation which I would like to share with you and I want to point out in particular the therefore. You can read through all of the other pieces of it in your own time. I did want to make sure that you had it about because we are being asked to vote on this right now as of Thursday. The environmental commission finds that the 2016 amendment is not necessarily environmentally superior to the original 1996 agreement and cannot be recommended as [9:13:31 AM] presented. These findings do not imply endorsement of the 1996 agreement. We respectfully urge city council to renegotiate the provisions within a public process and to ask the environmental commission to review any new agreement. I want to speak a little to the language that's in there. The not necessarily was a modification from the original language because commissioners, particularly the commissioner from district 4 who spoke very eloquently, wanted to make sure there was no implication that the environmental commission in any way agreed that this was in any way superior. So that particular language was not meant to imply that they agreed that there was any superiority, and that was made very explicit when the motion was made to modify the original motion. And I think it's important that we understand that. I want to remind folks that we were teen court for not posting this properly and the contention of the neighbors was that it was modifying other ordinances and they didn't know about it. The decision before council was in effect whether the amendment to the settlement agreement was environmentalty superior or not. We now have an environmental commission that says it was not. The question before us on Thursday is whether we should accept that amendment to the agreement because it is environmentally superior to the settlement or not. I would also argue that there's a question over whether the settlement agreement should apply in the first place, but I will take that up in executive session. So as we move forward please make sure you take the time to read the environmental commission's recommendation. I appreciated the [9:15:31 AM] opportunity that you provided the neighbors to allow them to be heard at the environmental commission. I have several questions for executive session, received a memo last week. I still have questions that remain unanswered and I'm hoping we can get some clarification as we I dig down into the settlement agreement, the legal aspects of that. Those are more appropriately done in executive session. I think I will pause here and maybe let councilmember pool ask some of her questions, which I believe will really get to this question of environmental superiority in what was considered. Thank you. >> Pool: Thanks, councilmember alter. I met yesterday with interim assistant city manager pantalion to talk with him about why there's a big gap between the environmental officers' report that hasn't changed last year when he first gave it to us and the concerns that the environmental commissions so eloquently and specifically raised. A big concern for me is the ignoring of the hill country road ordinance. That was not part of the posting. That was not part of the assessment by the environmental officer, that was part of community development services. And I don't know yet, I haven't seen the documentation to show where our dsd staff responded to that. I have asked Mr. Pantalion to fill in these gaps. There's significant gaps in information between what our staff is telling us to do and what our community and our -- the professional folks that we assigned to these citizen boards and commissions. They have real concerns about this area. And so I'm not ready to vote [9:17:32 AM] this on Thursday, which was the conversation that I had with Mr. Pantalion yesterday. And it could be that our staff are not ready to vote on this on Thursday either because we really do need to get down to the bottom of what do we know and when did we know it? We did not know a lot about this case when it came to us last year. Actually, it wasn't last year, it was in 16 now, so a year and a half ago. I've already talked about how I was not aware of some of these nuances and elements and the really important pieces of information, speaking only for myself, I think it is really incumbent on us as policymakers and decision makers to make sure we have clear vision on all these issues. And fact of the matter is this -- there are real gaps in our knowledge between the '96 agreement and the settlement. I'm sorry, and the work that we did last year. So I don't have any real questions other than to toss the baton over to Mr. Pantalion and he can speak to the fact that we have this gap of information that is crying out to be filled. >> Good morning, mayor and council, Joe pantalion, interim city manager. And I want to thank councilmembers pool and alter for having the opportunity to meet and talk about some of these data gaps that they wish filled. I came away from that meeting with a list of seven questions that I committed to get back with staff on to determine whether or not they would be able to answer these before the Thursday meeting, which was the ask. And I have a lot of the staff here, environmental office, developmental services. They have looked over the questions and they feel like they will have the ability to provide answers by the end of business tomorrow. Now, with the hill country [9:19:33 AM] roadway ordinance and the applicability of that ordinance to the site, I think we're more than willing and able to talk about that today, but in terms of providing exhibits and some of the more detailed information to sort of prove up some of your concerns, I think that will not be ready until the end of business tomorrow. >> Mayor Adler: Can you get us the list of questions? >> Absolutely. I can and them out now. >> Mayor Adler: That would be great. I would just like to see what the questions were. Mayor pro tem, did you want to say something? Okay. >> Pool: And then at that point what I think I would like to do since this will also be a topic in our executive session, I would like to move on to something else unless anybody else had some questions. Because we're just hanging waiting for additional information. And right now my vote is no on this matter. >> Mayor Adler: Are you prepared to talk about the hill country ordinance today? Talk to the hill country ordinance. He said he couldn't do it, but he could talk about it. That's why I said talk about it. >> Good morning, chuck Lesniak, environmental city officer. The question that Joe gave us from the meeting yesterday was -- and what he asked us to do was provide an analysis demonstrating the potential development capacity of the site under the hill country roadway ordinance. And why was this analysis not performed earlier. I'll answer the second question first. We did an informal analysis of this a year and a halfish ago with senior staff from planning and zoning department and development services department, two of whom are here, Andy and Greg, Andy lien sizer and Greg Guernsey, who dealt with the hill country roadway ordinance for years, [9:21:34 AM] particularly Greg. And we did back of the envelope calculations, that's why we didn't have any work product to show. This was folks that were very experienced, Andy is an engineer of over 20 years experience in doing development projects. Greg has been working on hill country roadway issues probably since the ordinance was originally passed. And our opinion at that time was that it was not a substantially limiting factor on development of the property on the east or the west ends. That the property has a high intensity development zone on the eastern end with a road access to 2222, allows 53 feet of height, at least outside the 200-foot buffer. It's got on the western end a moderate intensity zone at city park road, and 2222, where 40 feet of height is allowed outside the 200-foot buffer. There's some limitations for construction on slopes, and limitations on far for at least for G.O. Zoning. Those don't apply to multi-family. And so at that time we looked at this and we felt like the lake Austin ordinance was actually the more limiting of the two ordinances. And so we focused our analysis after that on the lake Austin ordinance and we did provide a fair amount of information on the lake Austin limitations and that's why. As a result of the request from councilmembers pool and alter, we're trying to put pencil to paper and provide some graphics and some actual quantitative analysis to the extent that we can to answer those questions in sort of a visual form. Folks are back at one Texas center right now working on slope analysis and F.A.R. For those eastern and [9:23:34 AM] western ends and we should have something for you as Mr. Pantalion mentioned, by the end of business tomorrow afternoon. >> Mayor Adler: Anyone else? Mayor pro tem, did you want to speak? >> Tovo: [Inaudible]. My question is I would be interested in Mr. Lesniak's response to the environmental commission's recommendations. And so that takes us in a slightly different direction. I don't know if my colleagues who had their hands up had a question about the hill country roadway ordinance. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't see any other hands up. Did anyone have a question about the hill country roadway ordinance? Councilmember pool. >> Pool: That's exactly what we're trying to get to, why there's a big gap between what the environmental commission is recommending a in its resolution and the report that we got repeatedly from staff. >> Mayor Adler: Does anyone else have any other questions about the hill country roadway ordinance? Councilmember alter. >> Alter: [Inaudible]. What kind of limits does the hill country roadway ordinance put on impervious cover? >> There isn't a specific limit on impervious cover in the hill country roadway ordinance. >> >> Alter: There's not a 40%? 40% of the site, but it's not a specific impervious cover limit. >> Alter: Okay. So 40% of the site, I had the terminology wrong. So the reason the hill country ordinance is important, a, is because there were a lot of variances to the hill country ordinance that made it into the amendment to the settlement agreement. The original settlement agreement only had one variance to the hill country road ordinance, which was a setback, moving the setback from 100 feet, which we have in order to provide our hill country, and so it looks like hill country that was in the original settlement and moved from 100 to 25 feet. In the settlement amendment there were all sorts of [9:25:34 AM] other cut and fill things that raised questions which was not really analyzed in terms of their implications for the environment, but also as part of the amendment to the settlement, it was perceived the 30 acres was given on the eastern portion to be conserved. And that was compared to nothing. And there is hill country road ordinance that would mean that large chunks of that 30 acres, and by some calculations 28 acres of that 30 acres that could not have been developed either because of this 40% rule or the slope and we don't have those calculations because those calculations were never done until we've asked for them now. And to the extent that what we're getting out of this amendment was that 30 acres and that 30 acres we didn't really get anything. We have now given up all of this cut and fill and all of these other things that we couldn't give up because you couldn't develop that area. So it is pertinent to understand where the environmental commission is coming from because there is a debate over whether the eastern half of this lot is developable or not. And if by the regulations with the hill country ordinance, nobody is disputing whether the hill country ordinance applies, if it were to apply would it in fact have led to better development under this amended settlement. And I don't think so and the environmental commission doesn't think so. I look forward to your results and hearing them and that is why we have approached you to ask for them, but I think that for those of you -- I know Mr. Flannigan you were not here when this was originally heard and if positive the rest of you who were not immersed in this understandably as I have been, to understand that that eastern-western portion is really part of the debate here and why we are looking at this. And then I will -- did you want to? >> And councilmember alter, I'll just let you know that I have asked staff to take [9:27:35 AM] each section of the hill country roadway ordinance and analyze it and do a comparison for each section. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Mayor pro tem, you can move to a new topic. >> Tovo: I know we're going to talk about this in executive session and I look forward to the answers in this which will help us to a large extent of where you are in and the environmental commission differ, but I wanted to -- I guess I wanted to get back to one of the questions that came up in one of the earlier comments. And I guess why -- where do you see your recommendation, your recommendation for this hearing from the environmental commission in terms of the assessment that it is environmentally superior to the 1996 settlement. >> Councilmembers, it's hard for me to speak specifically for the commissioners. You know, there was a number of opinions on the commission. Several of the commissioners expressed their opinion that they felt like they couldn't vote for anything that wasn't current code, which I understand the concern. And I know there were some concerns. My commissioner expressed concern about the number of trees that were being taken out with the current site plan. There's been a number of 2200 thrown around. I'm not sure where that number has come from. 2200 trees. The site plan and the data from -- that's under review and the data associated with that is about 1300 trees. And so I understand that concern as well. We did some analysis that's in your backup that's in the posted backup that shows that that's less trees, fewer trees than would be taken out under any other development scenario under the 96 agreement or the 2016 [9:29:36 AM] agreement with multi-family. Across the whole property. I think that the environmental commission heard the neighbors and their representatives and it's hard for me to speak to them, but felt like that those concerns were reasonable and warranted. So the they passed the motion that they passed. I think that on a number of points staff -- I and other staff disagree with some of the points to the neighbors and I think as I've said to them, I said to the commission and I said to the neighbors, reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements. And I think they've got valid concerns. I think we just disagree on some of the specific points. >> Tovo: And I guess if you could just highlight for us what those specific points are where you veer in your opinion. >> There's been -- some folks have said the eastern end can't be developed because txdot wouldn't approve access. And txdot has approved tia twice that had access at that end. We will be able to provide that document to you that the eastern end is so steep that you couldn't develop it. And our experience has been, most particularly over the last four or five years as Austin has gotten -- the economy has boomed and central parcels or undeveloped parcels in the central city become very rare that these topic graphically challenged properties get developed. The junior league property over off of 360, which is subject to the hill country roadway ordinance, the properties that have not been developed for decades, [9:31:37 AM] sitting fall low for a very long time because they are very challenging to develop, are being developed. We see these very frequently. And so I think that that developable area on the eastern end, western end, is one of the key differences that txdot accesses is a key difference. There were some concerns expressed about -- from the public is the -- are the trip limits, limiting to the development on the property. Andy's staff and dsd did some analysis that showed what the trip limits that were left over in the 1996 agreement that you could build up to a 500,000 square foot school. I don't think you could get that much square footage out there given the lake Austin watershed ordinance limitations, but the limitation -- trip limits are not a limitation on development on the property. The neighbors have asserted that F.A.R. Is the limitation. They've got anywhere I believe from .25 or .3 far, depending on what part of the property you're on, multi-family zoning also has a .3 F.A.R. That they're complying with the development that they're proposing right now. Even with that limitation on F.A.R. It appears you can do some pretty intensive development on the property and I think those are some points of disagreement between us. >> Alter: When you considered what they could develop in this, when you factor in the area that was taken out that has to be set aside and not developed? >> When we looked at this in [9:33:39 AM] 2016 we were comparing what they could build under the existing zoning so that set aside didn't exist at the time. We are looking at that now when you're comparing multi-family to multi-family. So we're looking at -- we'll be looking at what you could build under multi-family with the 2016 amendment and without the amendment. So in the analysis where we look a at it without the amendment we would have that stretch that is still zoned G.O. At the top of the property or the southern edge of the property. >> Alter: But if we were trying to see what we had gained in the amendment to the settlement agreement we would have to take out that property that was invalidated, correct? >> No. >> Alter: Well, it can't be developed. >> Sure. That would be one of the additional undevelopable areas as multi-family and because of access you probably won't be able to develop it as G.O. That was reality of the zoning case in the amendment. When we were doing the analysis in 2016 we were comparing what you could do with the amendment versus what you could do with the '96 agreement in G.O. >> Alter: And council for that day. >> And council, I think you're hitting on one of the environmental themes that they were raising is really having the hill country roadway ordinance apply to multi-family to multi-family scenario with those areas that were taken out and that's what staff is doing right now with the analysis. So I think that theme that you raised and the other issue of how staff presented land to be conserved under the amendment being 30 and without the amendment being zero, I think that was a matter of presentation in terms of land to be conserved via some type of instrument versus a different question, which is land that is simply just [9:35:41 AM] undevelopable. So I think those were the two primary operative issues at the environmental commission where I think they had enough questions now with the council and councilmember pool and alter who asked those questions, and staff is working to get those answers by the end of tomorrow. >> Alter: And do we have any kind of image or picture? Because part of -- I understand this is going to look like the pinnacle campus in the middle of 2222 there, the hill country was to protect the scene roadways. >> I don't know that we will have a 3D rendering. I can ask staff to see if the applicant has provided any 3D renderings? >> We may have something in the submitted site plan that shows a cross-section and maybe the applicant may have something. We can check and see. >> That would be great. And then I'll save most of my other questions for executive session, but in order to build this because of all the cut and fill, they have to build into the side of the hillside. Has the applicant complied or discussed with staff for a blast permit to decide on the steep slope? >> They have. What they've told us is they dent intend to blast on the property. >> And why have they applied for a permit? We were told -- >> Because they don't intend to blast. >> Alter: That's good news. Thank you. >> So we'll have an executive session on this on Thursday. We did send a legal memo. But if there are questions you would like us to answer further we're happy to do that. >> Mayor Adler: When we go to executive session today let's list this one at the very least so we can air questions. Anything else on champion. Let's go to the next item. Councilmember alter, you pulled the aquatic master plan, item 42. [9:37:41 AM] Staff, thank you. >> Alter: Thank you. I appreciated meeting with the pard staff along with councilmember pool and representative from mayor pro tems office last week. I wanted to just make a couple of comments that because of how this process has played out after so many months that I want to make sure at the forefront of our minds. And I think they are the impetus for this plan in the first place, but they affect the approval and what they think we want to do about it. So if we take a look at the presentation that was given to us back in August, there was an analogy that was made to a car, and if you have a car that's less than 200,000 miles you're thinking about oil change, tires, brakes and batteries. When you get over 200,000 miles you have to start thinking about the transmission, the engine, electrical shortage and eventually you've got to replace your car. The impetus for this master plan and where we are at and the realty of where we are at as a city is that we are end of life for the vast majority of our pools. Pools were set up, you know, to be used for 25, maybe 50 years, and we are well over 50 years for I don't know how many pools. I'll let Ms. Mcneely fill that in. We have been doing band-aids and we've been doing band-aids poorly for decades. And now things have come to roost and we are starting to have pools that fail on a regular basis, which leave us with some tough decisions. This plan was meant I think to provide pard a mechanism for making some of those decisions, but ultimately those decisions are going to [9:39:42 AM] fall on council. In the absence of resources to go along with this plan, this is a decommissioning plan. That is not the intention of pard by any means, but if we have no resources that we increase to provide to our aquatics, we will have a decommissioning situation again and again, and it will just be Russian Rowlett over who's pools and whose district get there and we will scramble time and time again to try to find money. It will not be rationally planned where those pools need to be, it will not be prepared out. We will continue to waste money as we go. So we need to think long and hard about this plan and what it means and how we as a council want to act moving forward. What we heard from the public throughout this whole process was that they care about their pools. People all over the city, rich and poor, need to be able to access pools in the summer, preferably all year, so that they can cool off. So that they can exercise. People's neighborhoods are centered on these pools. They create the community that makes Austin great. If we fail to provide resources to go along with this plan or a path to get those resources. Then we are essentially agreeing to decommission pools. I think we need to have a conversation about that. I also have lots of granular questions which I'm hoping to have a meeting tomorrow, which I don't want to necessarily waste the time of the whole dais. I think there are some unfortunate ways that certain things were presented and not communicated to people how things are handled. And I will probably be making some amendments on those, but I'm not sure yet where to go on Thursday because I don't know where my colleagues stand about wanting to make investments in pools. And if you look at the list, [9:41:43 AM] it's not district 10 in the next five years that's going to be losing its pools, but everyone in the city needs its pools. And you know, it's going to be -- some areas don't have pools, but if we're going to invest in new areas we've got to make a decision on our existing infrastructure. And I wish that wasn't the case, I wish we could have our pools there, but the reality is we have to come up with some way to invest or we have to face the fact that there will be pools closing and there will be children who won't learn to swim and people will have no recourse when they have no air conditioning in the summer. And so I would like -- I'm not exactly sure where to move this on Thursday, but I need to have a sense of where my colleagues are. And if you just don't care about pools, then that's fine, I don't think that's where you're at, but I need a better sense of where you are and how you're thinking about this so that I can try to figure out some way our aquatics system can survive the next five years. We have four pools I think are closed now. We will probably have a few more that end up closed. We are throwing money down a rat hole because they're leaking and because we're not taking seriously the fact that they're at end of life and it's time to buy new pools. >> Flannigan: Are we approving the task force report or just the staff prepared master plan? >> Kimberly Mcneely, acting director for the parks and recreation department. Councilmember, I'm actually going to be sending a memo to make sure I make that clarification, but I'm happy to do that now. But the task force made multiple recommendations, some of which are master plan recommendations, but they also made policy recommendations, budget recommendations, and bond recommendations. Sue there are six [9:43:43 AM] recommendations that were made to the master plan that include very specific things about associated costs with pool replacements, making sure that's included in the master plan, making sure that we consider public-private -- public-private partnerships as a mechanism to fund pools in the future, including historical and cultural factors. Consider certain pools to be unique historically, and those include deep eddy, big Stacy, and park Zaragoza. They also included Barton springs, but it is not part of the master plan process. They recommended review of population projections biannually, which is part of what the master plan includes. And consider an indoor natatorium as a jointly funded and operated facility with either a non-profit, a business or an interlocal government, and all ever those recommendations have been incorporated in the master plan. So what is not included in the master plan are decisions outside of the master plan or recommendations outside of the master plan are decisions with regards to do we keep the entire system in place or do we see the closure of swimming fools that's a policy direction. The master plan provides us the decision making tools and the planning tools that basioned on the direction we're given, the policy direction, we can make decisions that are data driven and consider all of the things that are in the master plan in the decision, but it doesn't -- there's no direction in the master plan and it's not supposed to give us direction as to whether we continue the system as is or whether we actually decommission the -- any pools within the system. That's a policy decision that we would need direction on. It also recommends that we create utility rates for the Austin pools that we work with our -- budget [9:45:43 AM] recommendations talk about capital costs associated with pools in the future, six through 10 years and being able to center bond money or capital money for those. It also recommends an increase to the annual parks and recreation department budget. That is a budget, an annual budget decision. It also asks us to consider the creation of a special revenue fund so that the money collected at swimming pools do not go directly to the general fund, but tends to a special revenue fund that can be used for maintenance or a capital improvement. That is not a master plan decision but a budget recommendation decision that would be cord on an annual basis. And then of course there's the bond recommendations of 124 million, and there's some other things. So as has happened in the past, for example the parkland events task force, this council gave a resolution directing the department to explore those other recommendations, but I can assure you to your original question the six recommendations that were specific to the master plan have been incorporated in the master plan. And we would be seeking further direction on the other recommendations that would be appropriate for the master plan. >> Flannigan: Just to be clear to one specific issue because a lot of -- very frequently we see plans that recommend future investments. Does the master plan include a recommendation for adding more pools to the system. It does, but it would only be given the appropriate resources. It says if we were to consider as a planning tool, if we were going to consider putting in new pools in other parts of the city, there are five specific areas that we should explore and they're labeled 1 through 5 at this point in time. Of course it says you would have to do additional research as time goes on. >> Flannigan: So I won't be able to support the master plan listing new pool facilities when we couldn't possibly hope to fund the pools we have now. Councilmember alter, I completely agree with you. We have a choice do make [9:47:44 AM] here and I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that any councilmember doesn't support pools although that's what you said, I'm sure that's not what you meant. >> Alter: I was being passionate about it, but thank you. >> Flannigan: I am also a passionate person at times on the dais, so I appreciate that. And I've asked staff to prepare some numbers on what it would actually take to sustain the system as it is today, as I met with staff, the capital cost will increase the o&m because we are underserving certain pool facilities and if they got repaired we would have to certain them a little bit more and there's a direct o&m impact on this. I'm sure we all have a little bit of PTSD from the last budget and I just don't see where the money is going to come from. If that's a conversation we're going to have in August and September I am ready to have that conversation. The master plan recommending a new pool in my district is just one example of how we have lost our way on making a rational decision on the finances that we face. Our budget is not going to get easier moving forward. And when I look at the things that the community tells me they need, pools is not in the top three four or five. And I can't fund the top three, four or five items if I fund whatever rankings pools have. So it's not going to be an easy choice. But we don't have an option not to make that choice. As I said when you form the task force, if you form a task force that will talk about pools, they will come back and say spend all the money on pools and that is precisely what they did. I don't think we'll be able to do that. I think from a logical perspective, a practical matter, we are not going to be able to fund this pool [9:49:45 AM] system, not from a capital side. We could put a bond, a separate bond that says rebuild all the pools. Here's 15 years of bond money. Rebuild every pool. But I am almost 100% confident that we will never fully fund the o&m and we will put our community right back at this point at some time in the future and I think we have a responsibility not to repeat the mistakes of the past. >> Renteria: Mayor, and I agree with my colleague. We're facing a lot on -- we're facing where we need a lot more affordable housing. There's a lot of affordability problems we're having in Austin. I have a part -- a park there, Guerrero, the last one that went through there cost 13 million dollars' worth of damage. It's slowly eroding away, it's going down the Colorado river. And we try to come and look at these kind of -- find a solution where it's not going to cost us taxpayer money and it gets shouted down? Shouted down. We don't even have a discussion that gets shouted down. And how are we going to pay for that. Are we just going to go and ask the voters to give us more money to help the erosion from happening. I haven't heard anything. We're experiencing a lot of cost. And a lot of people are suffering out there, we don't have housing, we don't have affordable housing. The state has taken away a lot of tools that we could, where we could build more housing, but we need to be really sensible with what we have available to us and what we're going to be able to finance in the future. I love pools. I grew up my whole life in the summer I spent at palm pool and John B Wynn pool all my life. All my youth. [9:51:46 AM] That's where I hanged out at at. They used to call me chocolate because I was so dark I was out in the sun all the time. I love pools. And if I had the money I would be financing every pool that I could build out there. >> Alter: Mayor, can I -- >> Pool: I guess I'm a little more optimistic about all this. I think we can do this. We are kind of leap frogging into budget and we don't even have our forecast for what the midpoint of the year looks like as far as revenues and such. I'm going to hold my council on that, but with regard to whether we should accept this master plan with the amendments that the task force added to it, I would be willing to do that. I did have some concerns that I talked about with staff last week on how the numbers were presented and what the colors seemed to -- the perception on the colors, red, green and yellow seemed like. We're going to do these and not do those. I think it's really more a matter of timing, short-term funding, midterm funding, long-term funding. If we can wrap our heads around the fact that we're not going to fix this in two years, but rather it's a long-term process that's phased in and it affects both existing pools with the o&m that's necessary that we have failed to provide sufficient amounts in the past like we've done with the libraries as well. This is not unusual. And then the newer pools. We have promised colony park a swimming pool out at that park for how long? That's part of that master plan. And I'm not willing to say here or to agree that we would renege on that process. Director Mcneely, is colony park one of the top five on that list? >> Yes, it is. And if I could just interject, those individuals who are feeling uncomfortable about the master plan because of the four pools that are in there, the master plan is actually a decision-making tool, so again, based upon the policy direction that we receive, we will use this [9:53:47 AM] particular tool to make decisions about investments. And so, for example, should the body decide that the policy direction is to keep the system in place and add new pools, then we would make the decision, we would use our tools and the tools in this to plan which swimming pools would be repaired or refurbished first versus which ones last. If it were the decision of this body to say we think we need to reduce the system in some form or fashion and make it more equitable by adding pools in areas where individuals are underserved, then we would use this tool to make that decision which pools would we end up decommissioning and where would we first, second and third put pulls that are underserved. I heard you, councilmember Flannigan, that you were concerned about the number of pools being added, but I wanted to reiterate that the document itself based upon the policy direction, can be used as that decision-making tool over time, where we're making decisions based upon the current situation, the current demographics, the current site conditions, the population growth and those types of things. >> Pool: And also how much we have invested in repairs and improvements on some of the pools because we continue to do that work. I think there was a situation where northwest pool, Sheffield pool and west Enfield are down at the bottom of the list of rankings, and that's because I think west Enfield is newer and Sheffield park had some work done on the decking and the pipes that was done in '15-'16. So those repairs, which could be characterized as kind of like a band-aid, that extended the life of northwest park pool for about five to 10 years is my [9:55:49 AM] understanding. If it hadn't happened that one might have ranked up higher. It is now at a place it can limp along a little more. There are still some issues, but we took care of some pretty significant ones. So I think one of the miss apprehensions about, and unfortunate misapprehension of the master plan was the coloring code and system was that some pools were undervalued or not desired or we didn't want to keep them. It is really a matter of how old are they and what is their state of repair and can we reasonably in the short-term, midterm, long-term, come in and make the necessary improvements and repairs. Is that a reasonable characterization, Ms. Jay, would you say? >> Yes, that's accurate. >> >> Pool: And we're trying to get that message out to the community so that they understand what it is we're trying to do and what we're not trying to do. >> Right. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Garza: As far as process, you've reiterated how this is not specifically policy direction as in adopting this does not mean we're closing these tools pools and we're opening -- we're leaving these open and building this and building that. So what is the process if we were to approve this master plan, what is the next step to get to where we do have to have that very difficult discussion despite the fact that -- because we all support pools. Pools are great. It's a matter of what we can afford. And I'll say it again, we are five fire stations behind. Their needs and their wants. So what is the next step if this master plan were approved? Do you come back with recommendations at another council meeting? >> Well, the intention is for the department to utilize the budget that it has to kin to repair all swimming pools to the best of its ability or keep them running to the best of its ability. One tool that is part of this plan is a sustainability tool. And it tells us that there [9:57:50 AM] should be a base cost for each of the swimming pools based upon the type of pool that it is. If the repair to make that pool operate for the summer is over the base cost, 50% over the base cost, then we would have to make a decision is it worth putting the money into that swimming pool, how much capital money do we have to invest or does that particular swimming pool need to be closed for the summer and we need to reevaluate based on our other planning tools whether eventually we rebuild that in the future given the appropriate capital or is this an appropriate pool to go ahead and decommission because that particular service area can be serviced by another pool in that geographic area. So it would depend frankly on the amount of capital money that we are able to receive during the bond program and we would be prioritizing the fixing of pools based upon the amount of capital money we had during the bond, the amount of money we had on an annual basis within our maintenance budget and our annual general fund budget, and then we would make decisions that are not arbitrary. We're not just closing this pool because, we're using our tools to say this pool, we cannot operate this year because we don't have enough funding but we are going to invest in it based upon all of the different matrix and all of the different considerations, but it won't happen until the future. Or should it be the policy direction that we should go ahead and decommission, we'll be closing this pool and refurbishing this space for a future use. >> Garza: Okay. And so >> Garza:because that's the case I would be supportive but I wonder if it would help those hover those who have heartburn of approving the master plan, what would the the difference if we accept the master plan? Is there no difference but maybe it makes everyone feel better about it? I don't know. >> If you accepted the master plan, the master plan, again, is a decision- making tool. [9:59:51 AM] While I would not want to be defiant or obstinate, we already have a whole bunch of decision-making tools. So if this plan were not to be adopted and something went wrong, the thing that we would probably as a department fall back on would say what decision-making tools did we have that we thought were helpful because I'm sure that community members and yourselves would be doing us why did you make the decision you made? So we would have to fall back on something. So, again, I'm not trying to be defiant in saying, well, if you don't adopt it too bad, so sad, we're using it anyway, but it would be the fallback document that we would have to explain to you about a decision that we've made. It's been over a year in the making and it's been multiple entities and contractors and the brain power of our staff to come up about decision-making tools so it would become a fallback although it wouldn't be the guiding document. We would just use the appropriate tools at the time when a decision needed to be made. >> Garza: So I'm inclined to support it with that making decisions about closing pools. We're just saying this is the information we're going to use when that decision has to be made. There's a lot of good data in there that I think needs to be taken into account. So thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I appreciated Mr. Flannigan's earlier opportunity to clarify when I was talking. I'm very passionate pools and parks. I guess what I wanted to clarify was I wanted to know if you're satisfied with the existing draft and its potential implementation and whether you wanted to amend it, not whether you care about pools. So I just wanted to clarify that. I understand that, [10:01:51 AM] Ms. Mcneeley, you're talking about this as a tool. There is a part of it that seems to provide policy guidance that the policy is to go with a combined approach of neighborhood pools and creating new regional aquatic facilities. I'm having a little trouble of why there's no policy guidance in a master plan and that it's just a tool, and I'm just not -- like, I went to a lot of these meetings before I was on council and every single one I went to they said we want our neighborhood pools, we don't have any desire to have a regional aquatic facility, you have to pay for a regional aquatic facility, I just want to dunk my toddler in the pool 20 minutes and walk home. That's what I heard at every forum that why not to. It doesn't seem to be reflected in there. There does seem to be a push from kind of the national norms about facilities without a sense of what those regional aquatic facilities cost help me understand this. It's just a tool, not policy guidance, yet it says master plan and this is the approach we're adopting. Mind you, I'm not necessarily objecting to the combined approach if it it's that you're doing neighborhood pools as you have them and as you're moving out and trying to reach the needs of new areas of town that are developing that maybe regional aquatic facilities are the right thing, but there's this confusion over what the policy that's embedded in is in and I need some clarification on that. >> So I would say to you that the way the master plan was brought forward is the master plan brought forward two decisions, and in the original presentation we talked about the fact that you could keep the system exactly the way that it is and that would cost approximately -- we'll have to run the numbers to make sure we're right again but it would cost $136 million to upgrade all of the facilities. [10:03:52 AM] That's keeping your system exactly the same. You could consider decommissioning some pools and making it a smaller system, which would then make it a little more financially sustainable and operationally sustainable and environmental sustainable, and that would be a cost of $36 million. And it was an approximate reduction in pools of approximately ten, but those ten pools were not named, right? And then if you wanted to make the system as equitable as you possibly could by adding pools to - - where individuals are underserved, that was an additional approximate amount of $44 million. And so what is lacking at this particular point in time -- there's lots of information to provide us guidance on what would happen if you did X, Y, or Z, but what is lacking is the policy direction from the council as to which direction that you want to go. And I can tell you that in my meetings with multiple individuals, I don't think that there's complete agreement among all of you as to the direction that's most appropriate. So in me telling that you this documented decision -- decision-making tools and lacking your direction as a governing body, I am not trying to double speak but it's hard for me to tell you the exact direction we would go because I'm not sure what this body feels is appropriate and we haven't come to that conclusion. I would tell you industry standards would say it's most appropriate to consider reducing the size of our system. It would make it more sustainable in all ways and also to add swimming pools in areas where individuals are underserved at the appropriate point in time. And we've recommended and brought forward in the recommendation that the appropriate point in time right now, colony park, is about to have a population growth. It is appropriate. [10:05:52 AM] They've been an underserved community so it is appropriate to build a swimming pool there. So those are the things we're able to say with certainty, but lacking direction from this body, we can use the tool in one or two ways, which speaks to its versatility and the beauty of the tool, but it also speaks to maybe where the confusion is coming in. >> Jody told told me I said 36 for long-term. It's $96 million for a long- term reduction in swimming pools, not 36 million. >> Alter: What was the number for adding pools? You had a -- 136 exactly as-is, decommissioning 96, and adding -- >> Forty-four. >> Alter: 44, okay. I'm going to have to watch that over and digest that and, you know, as I read it there was policy guidance in the master plan, and so I'm going to need to look at that. Did you tell me if in the backup -- I know you said you were accepting the six recommendations relative to the master plan from the working group. Is that in the backup and if so where do we find that? >> It's incorporated directly into the document in the appropriate sections in which it would -- so, for example, we added an entire chapter on cultural and historical significance. It got incorporated directly -- >> Alter: Is there a version that notes where just changes were if we read the other one that -- >> We can -- >> Ray Hernandez, landscape architect, project manager supervisor, park development. Yes, we can provide that to you. >> Alter: Or you can tell me the sections. I don't want to -- >> Mayor Adler: If you'd just post a red-line, that would be good. >> We could do that, yes. >> Alter: And then I'm still hoping -- I have a meeting, if we can set it tomorrow, I [10:07:54 AM] have some very specific questions. There's some ways in which this doesn't -- like the recommendations in appendix E get put on chart 8.1 but they say we're going to get rid of this pool but the next recommendation in section E is to rebuild the pool but only one of the recommendations got on there. People are looking at that and getting really confused and we can't have that be the guidance that then someone takes from this chart when it's supposed to be summarizing the appendix. But I don't need to go into that kind of detail here with my colleagues. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston and mayor pro tem. >> Houston: I'm sorry, mayor. It's gone now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem. If it comes back to your recollection let me know. >> Tovo: So I think you'll answer this question when you provide us with a memo or a list of what changes have been incorporated, but I'm -- I would like to know now, I guess -- I'm not really -- it's not really clear to me what is and is not in the task force -- of the task force recommendations got embedded in. There was a recommendation I'm looking for that required -- that would require an affirmative vote of the council before there's a pool closure. Has that been incorporated into the master plan revision is this. >> We listed that as a policy recommendation. >> Tovo: Which means it is not included? >> It is not included. But certainly we are more than willing to take direction from this body via a separate resolution about exploring that and incorporating it. >> Tovo: But I would assume is a question for law. Does our posting language for Thursday allow consideration of the task force recommendations that were not incorporated in the revision, such as that one? >> So I think that the ones that are incorporated of course would be part of it, and if there are ones outside of that you can give direction to bring that back. To take an action on. >> Tovo: Okay. Yeah to me -- and I guess I'm going to have to really [10:09:55 AM] think between today and Thursday how best to approach this. One of the reasons we brought forward the task force to begin with is that there were some -- that I and others had concerns about the site criteria and the way those assessments had been made and the way those decisions -- the way this would kind of set a path of considering which pools are closed, which are not, potentially. So for me it would be really hard to vote on the master plan without some of the task force recommendations moving forward at the same time, and that's, you know, top among them. There were these task force -- the task force looked and said they supported the inclusion of the existing criterias 1-8 and then also recommended adding historical and cultural factors as additional criteria for the site suitability score. Was -- did you reconfigure the site suitability score to include historical and cultural factors? >> The site suitability score does have a historic criteria and element already in place. What we've done is we added a chapter on the historical and cultural aspects of pool facilities, and within that chapter we've designated a certain number of pools, which the director already mentioned, rosewood, deep Betty, little -- big Stacy, I believe. >> Tovo: Barton springs. I assume those are the ones the task force recommended be included. >> Right. >> Tovo: Were there any changes made to the site suitability rating scores or the site suitability matrix? >> There have been, and bemade those -- we made those changes based upon the recommendations of the task force and multiple conversations that we had with multiple offices, multiple council offices. And along with a memo that [10:11:56 AM] I'm sending to you this afternoon will be the revised site suitability so that you can feel comfortable that the information has been incorporated. >> Tovo: So thank you. If the master plan is approved on Thursday, are you -- without the recommendation that pool closures require an affirmative vote of the council what would be your process for considering closures? Would you have the policy direction you need in the master plan to go ahead and make those decisions as they -- >> Certainly -- >> Tovo: As they are required? >> Certainly we have the assessment and we have the decision-making tools. I can tell from you my past experience when we had considered closing swimming pools whether we were going to bring it to council or not it comes to to council because it becomes a very heavily debated issue within the community because the particular swimming pools that are under consideration are usually beloved by a segment of the community, so administratively it would be a decision that we could make administratively but I don't think we would ever be able to make that decision without having some sort of consideration before council. >> Tovo: Then why leave it as an administrative decision when we know that these typically involve council? >> Because if this body decided that it was appropriate, gave us direction that it was appropriate to go ahead and use this tool to do decommissioning, then we would feel as though we would have that given permission based upon the policy discussion you had. If it's very important to this body to have that, certainly when -- you could say you're adopting the master plan with the inclusion of it has to come before council before [10:13:56 AM] there's any pool closures. Certainly we would accept that as part of the master plan. I couldn't speak for your colleagues as to whether they would feel as though that was important or not. >> Tovo: In my estimation it's extremely important. I've certainly made comments in the past about the site suitability criteria, and I don't know what it will look like after the revision that you've been working on, but when you have pools that are ranked quite low and they are some of our highest utilized pools, like as was the case with deep Eddie, I believe, there is a real direct so I think it's -- disconnect. So I think it's important that the pool closures be done with a fuller context -- and I know the site suitability criteria considers some of this demographic, socioeconomic makeup of the surrounding neighborhood and whatnot but do I think these are more complicated decisions. This is so similar in my mind -- this is kind of a national discussion. As I started to look at the literature a couple years ago, there are discussions going on around the country about, you know, whether regional facilities are better than neighborhood pools, whether splash pads are better for a community than neighborhood pools. And it's very similar to the conversation that we have about neighborhood schools versus larger schools. I think there's an interest in moving -- it's more economically -- the assumption is that it's more economically efficient to have bigger facilities that serve more people. I'm not sure people are better served with larger school facilities or larger pool facilities. And I agree with councilmember alter that so much of the feedback has been in support of the existing system. And I want to be really clear. The existing system being neighborhood pools that are close to people, not in exist -- not an existing system that does not allow for pools in other areas of town where they've been inequitably districted. So the existing system plus pools in areas where we [10:15:57 AM] don't currently have them. You know, I think it's critically important that we support our system of neighborhood pools, again, with the additions where we need them. And figure out a way to better fund these resources. They are -- you know, I don't want to be in a position of measuring them against other basic needs such as housing because I think we need to figure out a way as a city to do both. We have -- I mean, drowning is a leading cause of death among children. Neighborhood pools offer people a freeway of cooling off in a climate that is intolerable a lot of days of the summer. It provides opportunities for people to learn how to swim, which I think is critically important and a public health issue. It is really important that we do what we can. And I think without knowing what the bond committee is going to recommend with regard to this area and whatnot, I think it's important that we not set ourselves on a path where pools could be administratively closed without a fuller public discussion. So it's very important to me to have that provision and probably some of the other ones from the task force recommendations be included in our vote on Thursday once you have a better sense of which ones have already been incorporated. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. Thank you, all, for all your work. This is a very -- thank you for all of your work. This is a very passionate subject. And it's my understanding that the work that you've been doing has been looked at by the equity office, and you're using an equity lens to make some of the decisions that you're making. >> The very first -- the number 1 set of criteria which is the demographics, considers a social index, which is something we personally learned through the equity office as being -- so it's social conditions. So it's the number 1 criteria and it has multiple [10:17:57 AM] elements within that criteria that help us look at it through an equity lens. So the answer to the question is, yes, they being the equity office educated us regarding how important that is. >> Houston: Thank you. And I just want to say that everything has a life span. Nothing is going to live forever or be built prefer. None of us are going to live forever, so it's important to me that as built environments come to end of their life cycle, like some of our pools may -- gibbons is one of those. It has come probably to the end of its life cycle. Then we need to be really understanding about how we do something different. And does that mean that we will give bus passes for people to go to Bartholomew or go to rosewood or other parks where there are pools in the area? But we cannot maintain all the pools that we have in the kind of condition that the citizens require them to be maintained with the money that we have. We have so many parks that we can't even do anything with because we don't have the money. We've purchased the land, but we cannot do anything with them. Parks and pools -- not parks, but pools are expensive. They require a lot of water. They require a lot of maintenance. And they require a lot of upkeep. And so we've got to be as -- and I think y'all are doing a very good job of trying to say, this is kind of what we will look at and at that point that a pool reaches this level, then some decisions have to be made. If you bring that back to council or if you think that that -- what do you call it? >> Site suitability. >> Houston: Site suitability will help you do that, then I support that. Because we just can't say we want all pools to stay open all the time because neighborhoods do change. Neighborhoods change, and [10:19:57 AM] the young kids that used to use the neighborhood pool are now gone away to college and they're not living here in Austin. And so the number of people, the population is reduced. So you have to look at all of those things when you're making those decisions. So if you want to add it -- say, bring it back to some council, but, you know, we keep bringing things back to the council to make a decision and then we have longer and longer meetings. I trust that y'all will do the right thing. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I'll skip most of what I wanted to say, but I just wanted to let you know it's okay to be a little defiant. I prefer to have that in a public meeting than arguing in private, and I think the community would appreciate -- as long as it gets to better policy outcomes I prefer that back and forth. My concern with the master plan -- I understand what you're saying it's not as much a policy discretion, although I think I'm in agreement with councilmember alter, which is shouldn't I be making a policy decision in a plan? More importantly, if it's just a tool to have a tortured analogy, if I was running out of nails I wouldn't keep building hammers. That's my concern with the way that's included in the tools. >> Mayor Adler: So -- >> Tovo: If I were running out of nails I guess I'd go buy some because they're essential to a lot of work you need to do around the house. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: I'll reread the plan given the conversation that we had. My understanding is what this plan said was here's our recommendation for what should [10:23:16 AM] happen at different funding levels, and this is how we would approach the problem at different funding levels. The council is going to have to decide which funding level it is that we're operating in, but if -- this is what we would do. So I don't -- so I don't see this as -- ultimately the council is going to make that choice by how much money we put into pools. But I think what you had said is this is the plan given different funding levels. Now tell us how much money you want to put into the pools. So for that reason, I'm not sure that it makes the decisions or the policy questions, which ultimately will be determined by how much money we put into the pools. Anything else? All right. Let's go on to the next one. Thank you very much. Purchasing item number 45. Ms. Garza, you pulled this [10:25:00 AM] As they're sitting down, manager, there's an item that's not on this that I don't know whether staff should come down to talk about it or to highlight the issue. Item number 81 and 82 we closed the public hearing. We received a lot of emails and correspondence relative to that issue. The contact team had apparently listed objections and erased questions, had thought that the item was going to be postponed when it went on consent and the hearing was closed. So I'll either be asking questions about that here or after the meeting, items 81 and 82. Ms. Garza. >> Garza: I'm trying -- I know this was on a previous agenda and I can't remember exactly why it was taken off, but is this a new -- does the convention center right outuse your ems? >> Councilmember, Edgar Rodriguez, chief of ems. We currently provide coverage for all of the events at that. If you don't mind I would like to take a moment to explain what we're doing and what we're not doing through this process. So what we're talking about is standby services. This is not an ambulance and it's not an ems response. It's a single medic with a first aid bag and access to an aed who is on the premise. So I'm not replacing ems response to the convention center with a contractor. Ems always responds to the convention center and we do that together with the fire department when necessary. We currently have excellent response times. We have four ambulances that surround the convention center so we get there fairly quick when there's an emergency. Is this different? Currently ems provides standby services for programs throughout the whole city. And what we do is when there's a request, we evaluate the event to determine what the devil of risk is. So some of the things, for example, if it's a large event that includes alcohol, [10:27:01 AM] maybe athletic events, the risk is higher, so we insist that we cover those. When the risk is very low, maybe an exhibit or something where there's very little activity, but there are people going through there, that's low risk and we refer that to other agencies to cover for us. The reason that we're doing this, this is not an overtime issue for us. The way that it operates is that whenever we provide coverage for the convention center, we build a convention center for our costs and the convention center bills client. So we're fully reimbursed for all of this. For us this is a work-life issue. As you know, we went through a lot of effort and dollars to reduce the work week to 42 hours. And filling it back up with overtime events, it kind of defeats the purpose. So what we're trying to do is to afford some work-life balance for our employees and not be bringing them back all the time for events. If we fail to do that what we will be facing is cumulative fatigue. We will see a decrease in resilience of our people and an increase in burnout. So that's why we're trying to do that. Now, how do we want to do it. What we do is we in fact have already gone through the list of known events for the convention center and we have selected the events that we think are high risk and we have already committed our resources to be there for those events. What we want to do now is under the new events as they're requested by clients, we just simply want to review what the event is, determine the level of risk and if it's a high risk we're going to be there. If it's a low risk we would like to use a contractor. So this agreement that we're talking about will involve the convention center to pay a contractor for those events. So that's kind of what we're doing and why and how. >> Garza: So has there been a scenario where a paramedic has been required [10:29:02 AM] mandatory overtime to work one of please standby? >> No, not mandatory. We make these voluntary. >> Garza: If it's not mandatory, voluntary, I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the work-life balance argument you're making. They're not being forced to do it. They're volunteering to do it. And these standby -- the hours, it's not a 24-hour shift. Is it even a 12-hour shift. >> Typically four to six hour shifts. They're voluntary. We never force never to come to those, you're absolutely right, but the more events we post out there, the more often times they will take and volunteer for these because it is extra pay for them. So I think the more that we hang out there the more they're going to want to do it. >> Garza: I think that's a great opportunity for our paramedics who -- that we don't have a contract right now. It's an extra incentive for them to be able to have added income and now we're going to it take that ability away from them. I understand that there's a -- that people are entities ask for stand by all the time, but this is a city facility. I would assume some of those places are private facilities and they think hey, ems, can you come provide standby. But this is a city facility and I think it should be staffed by our city paramedics. And if cost is an issue, maybe we don't require the paramedic certification, the lower -- as you stated, it's basically a first aid station at the convention center. So I'm inclined to not support this if currently we're able to ask our paramedics, our medics voluntarily afford the ability to earn four to six hours of overtime, this to me is privatizing a city job. And I can't support that. >> Certainly that is one of the questions that we had is from the perspective of the [10:31:02 AM] council where would you like us to be. And that is absolutely one thing that is different. This is a public building. >> Pool: I'm on the same wavelength as councilmember Garza especially since we don't have a contract with ems, it looks like we're sending a signal to our paramedic and our medics that we're going to do away with their jobs and I think we've lost a number of paramedics since the contract and I don't want to send that signal. I think it's the wrong one. And there was also a legal question raised about whether this change would run afoul of the city's legal obligation to use the civil service personnel to perform these duties. I don't know if that question has been answered or not. I think that's a -- >> Councilmembers, I think we've drafted a memo on it and we'll be happy to send it to you. >> Pool: Great. I would be looking for us to keep these jobs within our existing workforce. >> And I just thought it was important for council to understand this is not a cost reduction sort of an issue, really just a wellness issue. And certainly we will do whatever is asked of us. >> Pool: And it sounds like you may be a little bit ahead of the curve if right now people are volunteering and able to fill those hours with volunteers, then we're in a good place, but if it turns out that you start having too many events and we adopt have enough emt's offering themselves into these voluntary positions then maybe we can bring it up again, but it doesn't sound like we're there yet. And it does sound like our staff are willing to go the extra mile. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on this one? Yes? >> Flannigan: I would want to concur with that. I've been struggling with what the point of this even was. And to hear that it's mostly about wellness is surprising surprising. Because as councilmember Garza laid out, it's volunteer and the positions are being filled. If this was a stopgap measure, if this was a [10:33:03 AM] contract that was a just in case, they call out to our department. We don't have the folks signing up, then the contract is already in place to fill the need. If it was an ems gets first right of refusal to these opportunities and then it falls back on the private contractor, then I would support it, but if it's -- the private contractor gets the first shot then I think that's where you lose me on this one. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So maybe a consideration like Mr. Flannigan is talking about where you have the ability to be able to do it if our folks don't want to set forward. Something to consider. All right. Let's move on to the next item then. >> Garza: My understanding is that's not a problem. So I'd hate -- not that I'm distrustful of any contract writing or staff or anything, but I would hate not a problem right now. It's my understanding the association who represents the employees does not think this is a good idea, does not want this. So I just -- I would prefer that we just not private ties something the city is doing already. >> And mayor, I would suggest that maybe we withdraw the item and they hold on to it for some other day if it's relevant, but it isn't relevant now and it isn't about fatigue for our paramedics. I think we should withdraw the item. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: I would like to hear from the convention center. I've heard from ems, but I would like to hear from the convention center about why you think this is a good idea. >> Councilmember, mayor, good good morning. Councilmember Houston, certainly the opportunity for, as Ernie has expressed, the opportunities to provide the services is certainly based on a need from our [10:35:03 AM] clients. And certainly that is sort of where we stand. We need the service provided. And we think it is a good opportunity to continue that relationship, but especially if the council decides to go in another direction, then we certainly respect that. >> Houston: Have you ever had a situation where you've not gotten responsive services from austin-travis county ems. I'm just curious about how this even came up. >> When you asked the question, we've had a great relationship with Austin ems and to my recollection we've never had an opportunity to where we've not received exceptional service from the organization at all. >> Houston: I agree that we probably need to pull it down. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Thank you very much. Next item is item 63. Therapy pulled that. She's not here. Item number 66, I just wanted to let everybody know that we'll be pulling that -- we can't do that on consent. I think we're going to be discussing in executive session what the numbers will be. I wanted the public to be able to hear that as well. Item number 68, mayor pro tem. There were two items that you pulled, 63 and 68. We're at both of those. >> Tovo: Thank you, mayor. I also have a couple of quick comments about the special events ordinance at the proper time and I think we do have staff here for special events. So I had a couple of questions about item -- what shall I do first, special events since we have staff here? >> Mayor Adler: That would be fine. >> Tovo: Thank you. So at our last -- when this came up I think in December the staff asked for postponement and I believe they had wanted a postponement until after the spring festival. And in light of the fact that it had been going on [10:37:05 AM] for multiple years, possiblies as many as six, I asked that we not postpone it further after this postponement. My staff has spent hours over the last couple of weeks working with staff and talking with stakeholders and working with the ordinance, and I think I agree now with staff that it does require more work. And so I was wrong, I don't think we can do it this Thursday. That would not be my recommendation. So I plan to propose an amendment -- what do you call it? A motion that we -- we're out of practice. It's been a month. I forgot the terminology. >> What item number is this? >> Tovo: I'm not really sure. 14. Thank you. Tournament special events ordinance. So I'm going to move that we postpone this until may 10th, and I would welcome our staff's feedback on that. One of the things that's happened is that through the years various stakeholders have asked questions or posed concerns or made suggestions and there hasn't been an ongoing dialogue with those who are drafting the ordinance. I believe that dialogue is happening now successfully in these last week or two, but there is more dialogue that needs to happen. So I would ask the council to consider that option of postponing this for awhile. >> Mayor and council, ray burray, chief of staff, city manager's office. We would welcome the postponement to may the 10th. We've been making good progress with stakeholders. We had a good meeting that we thought went very well at the new central library. One of the things, and I'll this has been coursing around for about five years -- we have with stakeholders. And we endeavor to do that. We are doing that. In fact, if you look at the backup even for this ordinance for item 14 you [10:39:05 AM] will see there is a community engagement summary. We will continue doing that so that once we hear feedback that those in the event community, those neighborhood representatives will hear back from this, not to say that we'll always agree, but they will at least hear what our side of the story is. So we've been making some really good progress. We would like to continue doing that and we feel very confident after talking with staff if we're given until may 10th we can bring to the council a more refined and better crafted product for you to consider. >> Tovo: Thanks, Mr. Burray and thank you to the legal staff and Pio and others who have gotten involved in this last phase. >> Mayor Adler: I would concur on the postponement and if that was the will of the council maybe we can let the public know what's happened so we don't have a lot of people coming down to testify at the public hearing, so they don't show up only to hear it's going to be postponed until may. So I would support your postponement resolution. Does anybody want to comment on whether they would support that as well or people need to show up? So I look at people shaking their heads. Seems like there's probably going to be a general group to postpone. Anybody else to speak on this issue? Thank you very much. Mayor pro tem, I had you signed up for two things. Item number 63 and item number 68. 63 was councilmember Garza's ifc on the periodic assessment of city regulations. You had pulled that. >> Tovo: Yes. I had some questions probably for both the sponsor and our city staff and I don't know -- we had reached out to our performance of performance management yesterday and I don't know if anybody was able to attend. So those questions may have to wait until Thursday. But -- I did submit them in [10:41:06 AM] writing. We had submitted some questions when this posted back in December and I believe there have been some revisions from the sponsor on this. Possibly to respond to some of the concerns that the staff had raised. So what I was hoping to get and I believe I did submit this through the Q and a formally is whether they can give us a sense of the time that would be required for this new and more tailored resolution. >> Since they're not here I can speak to some of the changes. The idea for this ifc came about, it was Austin energy, and they were giving us this report that they have to do every year or every six months or something, and the person giving the report said when asked do you think you need to continue doing this? And she said no, but I have to because council has directed me to do this. And there have been other instances where previous councils have asked for reports and so staff is still working on some directive from 15 years ago that the council of 15 years ago asked staff to do. And so that's where this came from, similar to the federal government, not to compare ourselves to the federal government, but does the kind of reviews of programs, ongoing reviews, the state, sunset kind of thing that looks over something to decide if it's really a required process anymore. Not to speak for you, mayor pro tem, but your concerns is that this has already been done, they're already doing something like this, but the response that I read from the opm at the last council meeting and because -- the reason I pulled it down is because it was going to be such a long meeting and I didn't want to add another 30 minutes to a really gone meeting. The response from opm was yes, we look into efficiencies of programs, but there was never any -- it's my understanding they [10:43:06 AM] don't make a recommendation to say hey, council, we think you should have to stop doing this because they respect the admin policy side of that. So this was scaled back after I believe some of your concerns are the time with everything going on right now, a new city manager, all kinds of things. So we scaled it back to just some I think strategic outcomes. So it's not every single department. As a pilot program to implement, my understanding is staff is okay with this scaled back version. In fact, I think they suggested it. And just allow the opportunity for them to pilot a plan to look identify the certain strategics and those strategic outcomes do touch different departments so it will reach different departments, but to come up with a process or procedure to evaluate policy directions, reports that are required and come back to give a recommendation to say, do you know what? We don't really think that this is necessary anymore. So that's the -- that's I guess the background of this and the changes that were made. >> Tovo: Thank you, councilmember. The rational I think makes sense. What I want to do is make sure that I'm just understanding what kind of things are going to be evaluated what you've described, like the reports that just never will stop unless we tell them to stop makes sense. I guess what I'm trying to be sure of is because it talks about regulation and rules are we asking the staff to look at every regulation and rule in the city through the lens of economic opportunity and affordability. Are we asking them to look at our rules for special events just because we just talked about that one, and regulations for zoning, or are we really just talking about -- are we really just [10:45:07 AM] talking about reports, the next -- the first be it further resolved talks about regulations about looking at every regulation or rule and analyzing it to see if there's continuing need for it. Are there any conflicts. Has it been affected by any changes. And that would seem to be pretty arduous. The next one talks about the list of reports required by council resolution or ordinance. So I guess I'm trying to get of the scale, what kinds of things they're going to be looking for. Is it really just the quarterly reports that we've initiated through an ifc or is it every rule and regulation in the city that can be said to have something to do with affordability. >> Garza: It was not supposed to be every single rule and regulation and maybe it would be better if my staff work with it here because they had that better discussion. It was for the reporting that needs to be done. You know, and my hope would be that city staff can help because I don't know every single policy directive that council has given. My hope would be that staff would bring back -- here's what's doable. Here's what we think we could provide some kind of policy recommendation on -- and the Austin energy as an example. I wouldn't expect them to every five years. I don't even want to bring up the codenext. Some, you know, really bringing policy item I wouldn't expect them to be doing that every five years. But I would hope that staff would bring us back some kind of recommendation of what they think is doable. But it was mainly focused on that reporting, those kinds of things that it's my understanding there's a lot going on. >> Tovo: I guess I would say that I agree with [10:47:11 AM] analyzing the ongoing reporting, especially if it's something that got triggered through an ifc, but I wonder if there's a way to really define what those are. And I say this in part because I know that we've got some great things that our council has initiated that are really overdue in coming back to us. And in talking to the staff about why that is, and that's everything from some of the resolutions that I hoped would help us move forward on creating affordability on public land to the economic development corporation and some other things. You know the staff are really taxed right now and so it -- one of my goals for the new year is to really be sure that I I am asking about if we do this, what very good ideas, that are very sound ideas, but they're going to displace other work that we also thought was a great idea and maybe a higher priority that we really be very conscious about that moving forward. It seems to me that there's a real usefulness to this, but it might be -- but maybe some further definition or discussion about what this would encompass would be appropriate. Hopefully we can have that with the performance staff. >> Sure. We intentionally left it flexible for them to bring this back. I didn't want it to be as prescriptive so they could have that flexibility to bring back something that was doable. I don't want to give them a task that will take away from any of the other important work that they're doing. And that's why it was intentionally left flexible. >> Mayor Adler: Manager? >> Yes. We have looked at this and I have talked to the staff. We're not sure that the performance office will be the one that leads this work, although they will certainly take a part in it. I think what we would like to do is take an initial couple of months and look at how we might get this work [10:49:13 AM] done and gather some departments to see how they think they might approach it. I think if it says each and every one of the rules and regs, that does give us some flexibility if we take out the word each. I think that when he get the departments together that they're probably going to come up with a list of maybe 10 that they know right off the bat that they would like to bring back for council to reconsider. I know for a fact there are two resolutions that require us to do some financial reporting that relate back to councilmember Bettie Dunkerley's days. And we do those reports for awhile and then council says no, we don't want them anymore and then something happens and the flag is raised and we started doing them again, but the resolution still stays. And some of that is quarterly financial reporting that we do on a regular basis. We do monthly financials, budget reports to the council, as well as quarterly reports. So I think it's doable if you give us some flexibility. And we can come back in 60 days and revisit the scope of the work and what we've done and what we've found and comments. So we can have a better evaluation of workload at that point, but I would like some flexibility on not each and every one. >> Garza: Absolutely. And it was scaled back significantly because the first version was everything and then I think it was staff's recommendation to do just one strategic outcome. I think I'm interested to see what staff recommends, but as another example, and this could be a big one that maybe mayor pro tem, you would be concerned about them bringing back a recommendation on, but I believe the work that councilmember Houston did in her district with the cure thing, that was something that needed to be changed. That was something that was applied and it wasn't working the way it should be [10:51:15 AM] working. And that was changed. So I don't know every single time that something like that is there that was applied at a different time and now it's hurting rather than helping and it would be nice if there was a process in place for staff to be able to say, hey, this is actually not a good thing. And it would always be a recommendation. It would be the council's -- it would come back to council as a recommendation that we would say we still like that there and we still want that. And that could be part of whatever plan that comes forward. Maybe once every two years they provide us some report of whatever, but I I wanted it to give that flexibility to staff to decide what was best. >> Tovo: I didn't completely understand the comment about the cure. I was 100% supportive of that, I might have been a co-sponsor. >> Garza: I was using the example of something that was in place that should be changed. And it took councilmember Houston bringing that back, maybe possibly too late for that area, and I'm saying what if there was a system in place that could have brought it back soon. That said this should no longer be applied in east Austin, but we didn't have that opportunity to do that. >> Tovo: So then it would incorporate zoning review. In your estimation your resolution would also ask for periodic review of zoning regulations as well as kind of quarterly report. I'm trying to get a handle on what we're asking be reviewed every year. What is the scope of what's going to be reviewed? Is it going to be quarterly reports, is it going to be zoning as well? Is it going to be sort of the rules that we adopt for everything from our [indiscernible] To special events? If we can just get some clarity, and I'm happy to maybe think through some amendments or just ask you as a sponsor to -- provide us with -- [10:53:16 AM] >> Garza: Make some changes to my resolution that you want? >> Tovo: [Laughter]. >> Tovo: I'm trying to get a sense of what we're -- is it -- I'm happy to propose the amendments, but I think it's -- I'm genuinely trying to figure out what the scope of your resolution is encompassing. And if it's quite broad, but within this focus, then are you ameanable to the suggestion from the city manager that it not be every, but that it be sort of what they think is the most appropriate within the time frame that they have? Because I know it says every. >> Garza: It does say that and again it's intentionally broad for staff to bring back recommendations. So if the city manager thinks that that's the best way to go, that would be the recommendation that's brought back to us. It's intentionally broad to allow city staff to come up with a plan. But you know, I'm happy to consider any amendments that are suggested. >> Mayor Adler: So I understand correctly that your resolution does not ask staff to respond substantively in 60 days. The staff is just supposed to come back in 60 days with this is how we would propose approaching this assignment. >> Casar: And I co-sponsored this item just with the idea and ideal that we'll just -- the staff would come back with a plan for how to have the venue for this conversation just because I can think of several instances, and I won't even name the particulars, in which I've been in meetings with staff and they say they do this thing a particular way, but there is a council resolution that set it up this way. And if I wanted to sponsor a council resolution to change it then that might be helpful. And we each have our own priorities as council [10:55:16 AM] offices and limited staff and limited time. And most of the time I've said that's not on the list of five things that we decided we really wanted to get done this year. Sorry. Find another councilmember. And if there was just a venue to have that open and safe conversation around look, this might be something that all 11 of us agree on. I understand this could be in the city manager's general authority to come with these things, but having a process makes sense. So that's why I co-sponsored it. And to seems to me to be the intent, but languagewise hopefully we can get to that intent. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: I'm also a co-sponsor and I concur. That's what I was about to say. Councilmember Casar, it's a really good opportunity for staff and I've been in meetings and they say there's this thing and it's not doing the thing it used to do or it never did the thing that you thought it would do. And I'm like find another councilmember to lead it because I have six other things I have my staff working on right now. And I've even spoken to some of my friends who are city staffers that deal with the public on a regular basis, they're on the frontline and they see the frustration that the community has to go through on this, that or the other thing and there's not a moment that it feels right to bring back up to council. So it's an opportunity. I would be open to broadening this language so that the manager has more flexibility in coming back with the plan and that somebody something as reports are reviewed every five years and regulations are reviewed every 10. Something that separates the different level of activity and the intensity. And councilmember Houston is pointing out that there's a whole stakeholder process that's bullet pointed at the end that might be a significant amount of effort required depending on the thing in question. So maybe there's a flexibility on what that means or a tightening up on what that means like there's a stakeholder process once every five years just to daylight the issues they want staff to look at, not to relitigate an issue before the council has said we want to relitigate an [10:57:19 AM] issue. So I think there's a lot of flexibility in here and I would support giving the city manager and staff the ability to come back with a plan. And then we would actually be deliberating a plan I think would actually be more productive. >> Alter: Thank you. I think I remember back to the Austin energy meeting when we had this and I remember the way that councilmember Casar explained it as sort of an invitation to staff to be bringing these things forward. I'm going to look more carefully at the language because I know it's coming back with a plan, but part of me thinks that the first part of the plan would be to get the low hanging fruit that we already know are out there rather than feeling like every regulation. And if you know you have low hanging fruit that's under health and safety that does this and you were just waiting for an invitation to do it, I don't want to preclude you from prying that either as -- from bringing that either as part of the plan. But then to say economic affordability we've seen through our indicators covers everything under the sun. So I'm not sure it provides enough narrowness that it will be as effective as it could be. And I'm going to be doing a little more thinking on that. I did want to clarify with councilmember Garza is it version 2 that we should be taking. There were two versions in backup. I wanted to be sure I would be working off the latest version. Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem, there's a second item that you pulled? >> Tovo: Yes. This is item 68 about the benchmarking study. So I don't know if we have staff from the water utility [10:59:19 AM] here but I had some questions. This is the item that would initiate a benchmarking study to create to talk about -- let's see. So in essence create affordability standards akin to those that we have for Austin energy. And I wanted to talk a little bit about how you see this fitting into our -- some of the other -- some of the other efforts we have going on, like, for example, our water planning task force and some of the other -- our zero waste commission. I guess one of my concerns is that we -- measuring our water utility rates to other water utilities could be apples and Oranges. We have a strong emphasis on this water utility in conservation goals. We invest in conservation programs with the assumption that those reduce our water costs down the road because this is a scarce resource. Our water planning group that has come together is looking at the integrated water planning group that's come together is looking at creating an integrated water plan for this region. To save our ratepayers money. We want people's costs to be as low as possible and their monthly bills to be as low as possible. But making water as cheap as possible may not be in the long range best financial interest or strainable interest of this region. So could you say whether you've had an opportunity to review this, is this something that staff is recommending and are there other ways in which awu benchmarks itself, the utilities? >> Troxclair: Do you mind if inclarify the intent. I want to make sure that the intention of the resolution isn't to make water as cheap as possible. Just like we have different priorities with Austin [11:01:20 AM] energy, then other utilities do in the state of Texas hasn't stopped Austin energy from putting an emphasis on solar generation or on a lot of other things that are -- that the council has said is important to the community. But of course the utility did put in place the goal of being in the lower 50% of rates in the state as well as not increasing rates more than two percent a year. So these are just general guidelines that we realize don't really exist for the water utility or Austin resource recovery. So it's not necessarily -- of course, affordability is important and I do think that part of the intent of the resolution is to just for informational purposes for us to understand where we are, but I don't think it's an either/or situation. The intent is not to make it an either/or situation. Either to be as cheap as possible or to invest in water conservation. But I'm happy to let you answer the question as well. >> Tovo: I would just say the context for that comment is that sometimes when we have conversations about say our generation plan or the climate plan -- that is our climate plan, but other issues with investing in clean energy we have heard from constituents who have been concerned that investing in those kinds of programs or setting those goals will bust our affordability goals. Occasionally those affordability metrics are very focused on short-term ability and not necessarily long-term affordability for the utility in terms of the need -- if we don't conserve the need to invest in additional capital resources down the road. I think there are other differences too between Austin energy and Austin water. One is that with regard to Austin energy we're all buying off the grid and it's a very different market than [11:03:22 AM] is the water market. So I just need your guidance on whether this is something you recommend. And again, are there ways that Austin water utility is benchmarking that might be different from and potentially more appropriate than the way that Austin energy is doing its metrics. >> Greg Meszaros, director of Austin water. A little more perspective, this was an item from councilmember troxclair's office, it was not initiated by the staff. I think councilmember tovo, you're hitting on some qualities to this work that we need to perspective and that the water space is much different than the electric space. There's not a common grid that each water utility is unique in terms of some physical characteristics, its source of water, its treatment, its environmental standards, the terrain it serves, how much to goography we have. Environmental standards, conservation. We have to keep that into perspective as we compare one utility to the other. It goes to your point that you don't want to compare apples to Oranges and draw conclusions from that. And I would be cautious. I wouldn't assume that the ae affordability goals would just be emulated by Austin water. That may not be the best match for us in terms of 50 percentile or two percent goals. I think we would want to come back with a well rounded approach to affordability metrics, including how we work through our tiered rate structure because that is a relative, unique aspect of our pricing strategy. And we had to give a perspective at different levels of water use and different kind of benchmarking there. Certainly we're capable of doing the work. He we do benchmarking now. It's not uncommon for us to participate in surveys where we provide data on other utility rates. We sometimes have been including that in the budget [11:05:23 AM] process. We do have other internal benchmarks that we use. Often it's common in the water industry to look at the percentage of household income that is going to water and wastewater services. It is a benchmark that we've been using internally and there's some E.P.A. Guidance of that. There's other emerging benchmarks in the water and wastewater industry with regards to affordability and we could take a look at those. I think you have to adapt affordability to create the characteristic of your utility. I'll just go back to water supply. We're a surface water utility that is typically much more expensive to treat surface water than, say, groundwater. We have a lime softening facility where we soften water. Most utilities don't soften water. We serve high terrains where we have a lot of pumping. We have higher environmental standards. We adopted green choice energy. You mentioned our water forward or our integrated water resource plan. I think it's important to incorporate those longer term sustainability programs and how that affects short and long-term affordability. Certainly we're very focused on managing demand and see that into the future where we'll be in the long-term environment of reducing demand, which puts cost pressures. I think on the upside is we've been communicating with the council. We see ourselves at least for the next several years in an improving affordability environment where rates will be much more stable and we're considering through our cost of service even a rate reduction strategy that we've been in its home stretch on. So I think that's certainly a promising aspect of our affordability benchmarking. So I don't know if that helps you kind of with some of the perspective. >> Tovo: It does. Those are a lot of factors that would make our utility different and would need to be calculated into I would argue any comparison of rate structure or rates. The other that would -- that I don't know that you've [11:07:23 AM] mentioned would be what climate. I mean, an area, a utility that's in a drought would be in a different position than one that is not. So how would you approach this resolution? Would you be able to -- do you think the benchmarking you're currently using would be useful tools for us to be aware of, the percent that you mentioned -- of an individual's bill, water and wastewater as the percent of an individual's bill. >> The median household income for a median water rate user. That are certainly data that we've been compiling the last couple of years. And we've had -- we have an internal goal that that be a stable benchmark to declining. I think we're at 1.4%. And going down. So yes, that would be the kind of data that would be readily available. You know, to go out and compare to other utilities that would take some time for us to assemble that and I think to provide a well rounded approach to that and incorporate some of the unique characteristics from different water utilities to different water utilities. So I do to San Antonio, they're a groundwater utility and it wouldn't be an apples to apples to grab their rates and say hey, let's try to be like San Antonio. I think you would have to qualify some of those things. I think some regional aspects are different too. The way you use great Lakes water is very different than central Texas water related considerations. So if you were creating -- I guess it would be a question for the sponsor. This resolution directs the utility to go forward and do the benchmarking study. And develop standards. Is that accurate? And report back on how to approach that and whether it's feasible. >> I think our intention, [11:09:24 AM] just to refer back to the -- some of the things that you recently said, I want to make sure that I didn't imply that I expected the affordability standards to be the same as Austin energy. These what Austin energy, what a previous council decided was appropriate for Austin energy. I'm not suggesting that it would be the same here. And that's exactly why the resolution doesn't predetermine -- we could have had a resolution that says be in the lower 50% of rates and don't increase more than two percent a year, but we knew that it wasn't apples to apples comparison and we wanted to give you the flexibility to tell us what should we -- owe what pieces of information should we be looking at when we're talking about - - just having a well rounded perspective when we're making decisions when it comes to water utility rates. So I hope that this resolution gives you the flexibility to come back and tell us what you think the appropriate path forward would be. And my understanding is that you are supportive of the resolution, but I didn't hear you say that specifically. So if you would like to respond to that, I would appreciate it. >> Well, I don't know if supportive is exactly the right word but we certainly have the capability to provide the analysis that the resolution is requesting and to give some perspective on that and affordability metrics. That is something we've been developing internal and we're quite sensitive to affordability issues. I think access to affordable water for all customers at all levels is a critical outcome for our community. So yes, we're supportive of being an affordable utility in addition to all the other goals that our utility has. >> Houston: Mayor? And I appreciate that. And it sounds like you all are already working on some kinds of internal affordability goals. I don't know that we're just not aware of them until you've just told me now, [11:11:25 AM] some of the things that you're looking at. But I think this gives you enough time till August, which is something that you don't usually see in a resolution. You want it in 60 days, 120 days. This gives you time to really look a the some of the things that you've been doing internally to be able to detail those so that we know what it is that we're looking at. Water is a very precious commodity. We can't make water. And with the rate of growth that we're having in this city and in this region there's a point and we will have another drought at some point regardless of what people say about climate change. There will be another drought so we need to be really careful about how we use and allocate and what that impact is on the consumer. So I'm hoping that this is something that you all are already working on that you just flesh out and make it more broadly available to people. >> Yes. We can provide good perspective by was it I think August 10th or something to that. Although setting an affordability benchmark and how that might change service levels, how that impacts other programs, that might take some additional time and effort for us to work through. I don't know if the utility alone could set the right benchmark for all of those things. If I may jump in here too. One of the things that we are worried about is the public and private. The private is going to be really challenging to get that data, especially for arr and for water. So one thing you could do to limit -- to especially had us is to limit it to public entities. I think that's a better apples to apples comparison and I think that would eliminate some of our concerns is we're not quite sure how to gather the data on the private side. So that's been one of our challenges we were worried about as we saw the resolution as well. >> Troxclair: If you're asking me to respond to [11:13:28 AM] that, I don't know necessarily -- I'm asking for staff's recommendation as to again collect this data, let us know what the appropriate data points we should be taking into consideration. My perspective is that it would be helpful to know information on not only public and private. I mean, I have -- we probably all have some communities who are being happen nexted. I just had lost creek annexed and they're absolutely up in arms about how -- about the way that their trash rates change from the private provider to the public provider. And again, it would be helpful to at least be able it provide them with some information of we understand that you're paying more now that you're part of the city of Austin. Here's what you're getting in return for that. And here are some affordability goals that we intent to -- that the city has in place to give you some predictability with your rates going forward. And just like anything else I want to make sure that I didn't misunderstand you, Mr. Meszaros, when you said something about changing programs. There's nothing in here that changes programs. And just like Austin energy affordability goals, we don't -- it's ultimately the council's decision. There's nothing set in stone. We make decisions on rates and programs all the time. It is one data point that we use. And I just think that with both of these -- with both Austin water and Austin resource recovery we're just missing that data point. And I'm trusting you to -- I'm asking what that data point should even are comprised of. >> Councilmember, could I ask for clarification a little bit? We feel pretty comfortable in coming back with data and recommendations on affordability metrics and where we are in that [11:15:29 AM] framework and where we think we're going to be going, up or down or stable. But maybe a broader, like come back and recommend if you're not at the 50% median, set a goal for you to be at. I think that that involves a lot of -- in the utilities are at a certain rate and we set a goal, that might require a lot of service level considerations. That's what I was getting at. We can develop a framework of metrics, a comparison and a sense of relative to that each year and if we're improving, not improving. I think that involves a lot of discussion. How would the utility alone set that goal. Do you know what I'm saying? >> Troxclair: I'm confused about the direction that this conversation has gone, but I'll let councilmember alter -- >> We could come back and say that our goals should be at a certain median of Texas utilities or that we should be at a certain percentage of median household income. I mean, if we're at 1.4, we would come up and say we should get to 1.0 and here's all the pathways for that. That's a big ask by August 10th, versus here's where we are today, here's some ways to measure affordability, and here's how you could use that into the future. That's an easier ask for us to do. >> Troxclair: Yes. And the latter -- I don't know where -- I don't understand the former option that you just mentioned has come from because it's never been a part of my conversation. We're not making any changes to the utility. I wasn't on council when the council set the Austin energy goals, but the utility I don't think came back and in setting those goals they didn't make any [11:17:30 AM] changes to their services, they just said here are some appropriate measure -- here are some appropriate measures that we should pay attention to in going forward. And like councilmember Houston said, this is the first time identified heard the benchmarking of a percentage of family income. If we're at 1.4 now and we I don't -- or I don't know if it's year over year to mayor pro tem tovo's point, maybe it is long-term. Maybe it's here's one kind of yearly piece of information, but also long-term this is what we hope to see in 10 years. I mean, I'm -- we're not making any -- of course we don't have the ability in this kind of resolution to make any changes to your service levels. I already know that affordability is something that is important to the utility and something you take into consideration when you're making recommendations to us. I just want to know what pieces of information we need to be using and how we can convey to our constituents what our goals are for those rates going forward. >> Alter: I co-sponsored this and I wanted to clarify a couple of things from my perspective. It seems to me the be it further resolved it purposefully vague enough for you to be able to speak up spoke the case of Austin energy. And if you think you want to be long and short-term looks at that affordability or you need to take into consideration the climate when comparing to the other data, I think we're asking for some way to understand how affordability is what you're delivering. And to be able to have some kind of measures that allow us to think about that as we move forward and make decisions about the utility and our role as council. And in the same way that Austin energy has those [11:19:33 AM] goals as part of it, those goals should be that. It's fine in that process to say we also have a conservation goal and Austin energy is balancing all of those. I want to focus a minute on Austin resource recovery because they don't want it to be lost with Austin water. I think that we do not have a good sense of the benchmarks for that service. I don't think it would be that difficult to compare that to the private in terms of the costs to consumer. Then there's the things that we as a city deliver above and beyond the private, and we have to be able to north Austin to our constituents who are simply looking at their bill and saying wow, everything costs so much. And we have to be able to say as we're making decisions about Austin resource discovery that we're delivering this in the manner and the method that accomplishes what it it needs to accomplish, whether it's the zero waste goal or if it's potentially developing an affordability. And we may find that we are super affordable and this is moot and we don't have to do it, but maybe we'll find that we're way out of line and that's going to help us to look in a new direction at what we're doing or that we may learn something to ask some questions about things. It's always a challenge in every policy area to say, well, this city does it in this way and this one does it in that way. That doesn't mean we can't learn anything from other utilities and how they're approaching it. And I think this is coming from a place where we're saying we don't have a good sense of these affordability measures as part of the discussion. It's not to say that affordability is the only value that we want to be espoused, particularly with a utility where you have lots of our safety issues and our environmental concerns in there. But that's data that we need. We get lots of information from Austin energy measuring everything under the sun and [11:21:34 AM] we do not get that same level of oversight for Austin water. And I don't know if that's because we don't have a utilities oversight thing, but we don't see that. And I appreciate that we're coming up on a rate case situation and it looks like that's going to go in a wonderful direction potentially, but we need to be making sure that we're seeing this from these other utilities just as we're seeing them for Austin energy. And I don't think we were trying to prescribe it has to be X. We're saying we need some measures that help us to assess that. >> I want to clarify one of my comments. We're not concerned about the benchmarking. We're concerned about getting the data. Private haulers have not been historically open to sharing their cost data. So I'm afraid we're -- that task is going to be a real challenge. We're not afraid of giving you the information, we're concerned we're not going to be able to get it for you. >> Alter: But if I'm a private hauler who is doing it I go owe a website and I see it costs me, I don't know, eight dollars a month to take my trash away or whatever. I may be way off on the map. >> Each neighborhood is different for each private hauler. They have different cost structures. We'll try. I'm saying if it's in there - - >> Alter: >> Alter: There may be limits and you may decide this is too much work. But I think there may be ways to get somings things. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem and then Ms. Houston. >> Tovo: I just want to be sure I understand what we're asking the city manager to do. So they are going to do a benchmarking study and then develop a method methodology. It talks about affordability standards. Are you thinking about councilmember troxclair, as affordability goals? And I think that's kind of where I think I heard [11:23:35 AM] Mr. Meszaros say it's appropriate for the council to set the goals, but you would provide us with -- was that the substance for the discussion that we just had? That you would provide us with a sense through which we could see those affordability pieces like percent of median family income, but it would be up to the council to set the goals? >> I think -- maybe I'm making it too complicated, but yes, we would provide the land so we could provide the data, we could provide recommendations on how you measure affordability for water and Austin water. And where we are in today metrics and where we think we're going, up or down. I guess it goes to councilmember alter's point. I get a little anxious that we just take that framework and we arbitrarily set a goal. If you're at this, at 1 fiscal year 75, get to 1.57 and be like Dallas. That's where I get a little more anxious about the request because of these other qualifiers with water and wastewater. You can't make wholesale changes like that without looking at the whole picture of services that you provide. And maybe councilmember troxclair that's not what you're asking us to do, but that's the anxiety that I'm trying to express. >> Tovo: I guess whatever you come back with, I want it to offer us an opportunity to consider those other elements about our conservation programs and our long-term goals and our long-term -- our long-term plans that we've made from the integrated water plan to our zero waste plan. Whatever -- if we on Thursday are directing you to develop a methodology that's going to help us measure affordability, I hope it will be refined enough to really take into account those longer term -- one, how we will factor in [11:25:35 AM] our long-term goals that we've adopted in this community and those longer term costs. And I just don't know that -- that is occasionally the conversation we have at Austin energy as well, how those things fit together. So I don't want to put us in another position where we're going to have people coming and saying you're not meeting your goals, but part of why it's costing us more than it may be costing Dallas are all the differing ways in which water is available in this city, but also the extent in which we're investing in conservation programs, investing in zero waste schools or other things that in the long-term reduce costs. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Thank you, mayor. I think we're just trying to get the information. I don't think we have it now to be able to set goals or make any recommendation or say compare to Dallas or San Antonio or El Paso. That's not where we are. I think this is just trying to get the information to see what's possible so that the consumers are very clear about the fact that we're going to try to keep it as cost effective as we can depending upon the circumstances. And those change year over year. But I don't get as many complaints about Austin water -- I have lately because of the high spikes but that's an anomaly. But I do get them in the areas that have been annexed and that seems as though I don't understand why it costs so much more and I guess it's because all of the other things that you put in your fee for the citizens of Austin that we've not really explained to the folks who have been annexed and that perhaps is is it. So it would be helpful for I think for me in Austin resource recovery that we try and capture that same kind of data. >> Thank you, mayor and council. Sam gregerio. [11:27:38 AM] One of the things that sometimes we get those complaints, councilmember Houston, is that the public don't know what kind of services we provide and what kind of services that we're getting. Any time we have an annexation we provide them with a letter that shows them exactly what we provide. And we can provide all this information, the information that the resolution is asking. But I will certainly also include the potential impact that it could have if we have to reduce our costs. So we've been talking about updating our master plan, but that's not going to start until October. One of the items that I have in that is the cost of service and compare ons to other cities. But since I don't have the money in the budget to do that study now, I have to do it starting next October. So the potential impact, that would certainly be included in this study if we have to do that. And some of them could be a reduction of service level if we get to that point. Some could be suspension of new programs. We've been talking about weekly recycling. If we have to reduce our costs, we certainly cannot do that. We've been talking about extending our dead animal collection base, for example. Right now we have six days, but want to extend it to seven days, for example, Sunday. So if we have to reduce our costs, we certainly do that every year throughout the budget season. We look at our efficiencies, we look at what we can do to reduce our costs, but then comings a point if you continue to reduce your costs, something has to give. The quality of service is going to go down and so we have to also be mindful of that, which I would certainly include in this study. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. [11:29:39 AM] Anything else on this before we move on? Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: To councilmember Houston's point, I think I would be fine with an effort just towards information. But the posting language says comparing Austin water and Austin resource recovery to other Texas utilities. So I have the same concerns about these are not apples to apples comparisons. And it puts us in a tough situation having to complain, well, you know, Dallas doesn't do this or San Antonio doesn't do this. We also provide this service and this service and this service. So it's not the same. So I just wanted to share my similar concerns that others have voiced. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? Did you want to conclude? >> Troxclair: I don't know if it would be helpful for me to respond. I don't know how you do -- I don't know how you compare -- I don't know how you do any kind of benchmarking study or begin to understand how we fall on the spectrum without at least getting that information. And again, I guess I would just point back to Austin energy, we're unique in that we have a municipally owned utility, but it doesn't stop Austin energy from knowing where they stand as far as where their rates are with privately owned companies. In fact, we just heard in the presentation at our Austin energy meeting the other day it's something that they're proud of, and that they take into consideration. It hasn't prevented the council from having other priorities as well. And I just want to make sure, I think this is the third time I'm saying it now, but I just want to make sure that nobody is asking for a reduction in services. [11:31:40 AM] We're merely asking for what data point should we be looking at and what is your recommendation if we were going to look into the future and be able to give -- to be able to give some kind of information about where we plan to head with our rates R. Rates or our fees. What is the -- what do you think would be a reasonable measure for us to aim for? >> Alter: This is an attempt to begin to get some best practices out there and again, I want to point out that the amount of oversight that we have on Austin water and Austin resource recovery compared to Austin energy is very, very small. And this is an attempt to say we want this information particularly through the affordability lens. It is not meant to preclude other goals of those organizations, but trying to be focused in it to not ask you to do everything at once. >> Mayor Adler: If there's clarifying language that you would propose that took a this into account that addressed the larger policy issue but gave the direction, it would be interesting to see what language you would suggest. All right. If we can move past this, the next item that we have, items 81 and 82. >> Alter: Mayor? I just wanted to go back to item 12 for a second. There's been -- that's the champions, there's been a request of a time certain for not before 2:00, assuming that we get the information we need, and we do still proceed' Thursday. I will have executive session questions today and I will have executive session questions likely on Thursday so it probably couldn't be before then [11:32:41 AM] anyway, but I did want to highlight that. And I think councilmember pool supports me on that. >> Mayor Adler: Yeah. I'm fine with that too. I don't think we can call it up before 2:00. I had raised a question because I was receiving some questions about yawn and 82 and in anticipation that we will reopen that public hearing. I recall this item came up -- >> Renteria: Mayor, I don't have any problem with opening up the public hearing. My problem was with the way that they would constantly being delayed. We brought -- this came before us in July, came before me, and I've been trying to negotiate with the neighborhood contact team to sit down there and talk to them. And I haven't been able to get them to come to sit down and talk. So when I passed the first reading it was just strictly on first reading. I do not like to see a continuation of industrial use in that area. And that's what it is. That land is zoned industrial. It is an established yard of cars that's leaking oil, clean or whatever else that -- leaking oil, gasoline or whatever else is leaking there for years and year. We don't even know what kind of cleanup is going to be required. And they also promised that the developer that's been working on this about adding all the housing to be two bedrooms and three bedrooms. So I hope that when we're opening it up on -- especially if we postpone or delay this that they're really serious about sitting down there and really looking into sitting down and coming up with a solution to this piece of property because I don't believe that it's the best use. [11:34:41 AM] A salvage yard is not a best use for Cesar Chavez. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mr. Guernsey? >> Mayor and council, Greg Guernsey, planning and zoning. No, there was no one from the neighborhood I think that was there. My staff has received correspondence with the contact team and it may be appropriate to maybe the council could ask questions of the contact team. We're going to open up the hearing. We've already posted it. It is not a public hearing since we did it on first reading. So I'm a little hesitant because I don't think we would have everybody there because we didn't post it as a public hearing, but if the council wanted to ask a question of the contact team I think they could do that. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Are we sure that we closed the public hearing? >> Yes. As far as I know, we did close the public hearing. There was no one from the contact team. Staff I think I know that they were members of the contact team. I think they were at the meeting early in the day, but they weren't at the hearing. >> Tovo: Okay. I just didn't remember and I didn't have a chance to go back to the tape to determine if we closed the public hearing. It's posted that way obviously. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. We're now going to go to -- >> Casar: Mayor, the sick days item is a council item that we still haven't taken up. >> Mayor Adler: And we have several other -- >> Casar: Council items still? >> Mayor Adler:. And we want to do the police briefing before we break for lunch. And I know you set the sick item as D 1 for a work session item. I was going to call that back after lunch. >> Casar: It depends on how long folks want to talk about it. Probably about 10 minutes to do -- just to present what is in the ordinance. So it depends on timing and how folks feel. And just whether or not folks will be here after lunch as well. >> Mayor Adler: I'll be [11:36:41 AM] here after lunch. There's an important briefing I guess on the equity issue as well. I want to make sure we get to -- we have some items that we need to hit in executive session, but we will not be taking up the open meetings -- open records issue because councilmember pool won't be with us. So I'll be coming back after lunch. The manager has asked that we take up the public safety and negotiation issue. So I would do that absent an objection. Yes, councilmember alter. >> Alter: I just had a quick question for executive session either today or Thursday. There was an issue about the planning commission. Will that be something that we're discussing? >> We are not posted to discuss that this week. And I'm happy to work with your office and any office if if somebody wants to bring something forward. We sent a memo and had options about how the council were to proceed and we're happy to work with any office that wants to bring an item forward. >> Alter: Okay. If anyone is interested, please let me know. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Mayor, I apologize, I'm just responding about somebody who asked about 81 and 82 and I'm not clear where we landed. We are going to allow anyone who wants to speak to speak? >> Mayor Adler: I don't think that's been decided -- >> Tovo: We can ask questions of them. >> Mayor Adler: What was pointed out to us is we could call out the contact team without reopening the hearing, without having to renotice so that they would have a chance to talk. >> Tovo: It's my understanding there's no limitation of asking questions of others who are there, even if the public hearing is closed. >> You all could ask questions, invite people up, but the public hearing has been closed. So the public won't be able to come and sign up. >> Tovo: Thank you. But there will be a will among the council it sounds like to hear from people. [11:38:44 AM] Is that it generally? >> [Inaudible]. >> Tovo: Trying to figure out how to respond. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Let's go to the police -- thank you. Let's go to the public safety negotiation update. >> Alter: Will we be going into executive session on this? It seems like after they do their briefing there are some legal questions that we might want to address before we had a discussion. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> We're posted to talk about the police oversight, the legal issues involved with that, but there are no legal issues involved with this public previousing so we're not -- public briefing, so we're not scheduled to go into police negotiations. >> Mayor Adler: If there were legal questions that a member of council had relative to this update would we be able to ask those questions or at least raise those questions with you in executive session? >> Yes. If there are legal issues as a result of this we can add that on. >> Mayor Adler: So we'll provide for that opportunity if somebody has questioned. >> Before councilmember pool leaves, we're clear we're not doing the eh and E 5. What about the personnel matter? >> Mayor Adler: We're going to hit that. >> Everything but those two. >> Pool: Thank you. I'm off to the board meeting. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Staff. >> Good morning, mayor and council, mark Washington, we're here to provide the council an update relative to where we are with our labor relations with public safety, specifically with ems and Austin police association. We've seen how important this is to council and seen how important it is to our community based on the feedback that they have provided over the past couple of months during some [11:40:44 AM] of the public meetings. And also is this important to our workforce, it's important for us to be able to be able to recruit and retain highly qualified and trained officers that might be able to serve the community. It's unfortunate and we are at the point we are regarding two labor agreements with ems and Apa,, but we do think these issues are solvable and we remain optimistic that we will be able to bring forth some options obviously to the council and with the cooperation of the association that would be acceptable to all parties. You have received several communications from the city manager over the holiday break. Unfortunately we could not have any dialogue since December the 13th. But today we will attempt to provide an update on where we are since that last meeting and several conversations that have occurred since then. We would like the council to think in terms of today giving us feedback. We would like your feedback in a broad policy sense. It's not our intent to go over every article in both of the agreements or the agreements that we attempted to get, but get your sense on broad policy direction regarding policy so we would like to know what your actual goals would be in terms of affordability. Our market competitiveness is important and we had shared some data previously on both ems and police on where we are relative to the market. And we want to get a sense of how competitive should we be. Specifically for police, I think the last contract went from 13.6% ahead of the market to about 10.7% in [11:42:45 AM] terms of the highest paid, next highest paid city for police officers. So we would like to get an idea of how more in line you would like us to be relative to the market that does not impact our ability to recruit and retain employees. Certainly we're also concerned about issues related specifically to police about citizen oversight and transparency and would like to get some more relative to that. We have had some change in personnel in our labor relations office. The manager did communicate to you that Larry Watts has retired and they are happy to have back not on assignment, but back in his job. Deven desire, our labor relations officer, he is going to lead us in a presentation with us. He is our it deputy labor relations officer and assistant city manager ray Arrellano. With that I would turn it over to deb. >> All right. Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem, councilmembers. Deven desai with the labor relations office. Just as mark said, kind of the purpose for today's briefing is to provide you an update on where we are with -- as far as labor negotiations go. Specifically with ems and the police and get guidance from council on next steps. And let me start the first half of the presentation with the ems association. >> Does everybody have copies? Mayor, before Deven goes, I should have preferenced we'll break the presentation up into two parts, ems and then police and it would probably be better for the sake of time if he can get through the ems slides, ask questions and then resume [11:44:46 AM] with the police presentation. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> So the background for ems is we initially reached impasse with the association at the end of October. And then there was some council guidance, as you will see later, to resume negotiations again. So then we went back to the table even though both sides had reverted back to chapter 143. Our final day of negotiations with the ems association was November 30th where we tried I think our second or third attempt at a mediation using an outside mediator to try to see if we could resolve the issues that we had. And most pointedly the issues that we had between the two sides were financial. The two sides were a little over seven million dollars apart between our last offers to each other. One of the issues that we -- that was brought up during the negotiations is trying to find a proper comparable market to our public sector standalone ems department, which is very unique here because most ems departments that are public sector are merged into the fire department. And then we also want to take a look at perhaps doing a pay study that compares other similarly departments, not just emts and paramedics. Council provided direction to the city manager after we reached impasse and you will see some of the resolutions and the ordinance numbers there. The bottom one being the one to to go back to the table and see if we can't bridge the gap between the two sides. The top one being you constituted stipends back from ems personnel and we'll get it to that in a second. And finally we have what we call the red circled people, a small amount of ems [11:46:53 AM] employees that we could rectify to get the pay the same under state law and state civil service law they would have to see a reduction in their pay. All those things were accomplished, however I will tell the point that the reinstatement of the stipends is set to expire on February the 18th of 2018. So we have contacted consulting firms and we're currently evaluating proposals related to doing a proper market comparative pay study. As I said before we're trying to compare not just public sector -- similarly situated, but similar job titles within the medical field to see if we can't find comp rehab believes to other places it see where we are. Avenue the 18th of February, the association would lose those stipend stipends that are set to expire on that day. We the city had have lost things in the meantime while we reached November and we reverted back to state civil service law we lost flexibility that we had in hiring and promotions. So now for both of those the participants just take a written exam and that's the only way we decide who gets hired and who is going to get promoted. Under the old contract and under the proposed one we were trying to work towards we would have, especially in light of promotions, we would this what's again as assessment centers and that does a couple of things. One is we believe it reduces potential adverse impact against certain races, but also even if you take race out of it, what it does is it checks and tests for leadership qualities that is more above and beyond just memorizing a book and filling out a multiple choice test at the end. [11:48:57 AM] I've had discussions with Tony and their lead negotiator. The association is willing to discuss an interim agreement in return for a pay raise. And our recommendation here, as you will see is, in the meantime while we are trying to get a pay study back let's try to see if we can't come up with a short-term agreement that gets us to a point where we enjoy the benefits and the flexibility and the hiring and promotions. The association receive some of their benefits back and then at the end hopefully late summer, early fall, we can try to work towards a long-term agreement once the pay study comes back and hopefully our goal would be -- I can't speak for the association, but I don't see any reason they would change to try to have our contracts expire at the same time as our fire contract does, which is in four and a half years now. We do have a bargaining session set with the ems personnel for this Friday. And while we are hopeful to have a deal back for you before the 15th and have an action item for you on the 15th, obviously we can't guarantee that. Since the negotiations essentially revolve around financials, you will see the next bullet point, which I just mentioned in the slide before, is both sides would benefit from doing a short-term agreement that would be set to expire at the end of September and in the meantime hopefully late summer or early fall we can work out a longer term agreement. So the questions that we have for council is if we are unable to reach an agreement by the 15th, is council willing to consider reinstating the stipends for a short-term period while negotiations are still continuing. And the second bullet point is is council willing to [11:50:58 AM] support a base wage increase or lump sum increase to reinstate the agreement while we can try and figure out a long-term solution once the pay study comes back? And I believe that's the last slide for the ems presentation. >> Alter: Before you answer, I have some legal questions about this and I feel rather uncomfortable with us having a discussion and answer to these questions without having these legal questions addressed. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Since I don't know what your legal questions are I will defer to that and hold the questions, but that would mean that these folks would need to come back after lunch. Ms. Houston? >> Houston: Mine's not a legal question. Mine is a practical question so can I ask that? >> Go ahead. >> Alter: I would say you could obviously ask anything you want. If we're going to answer these questions I have legal questions that are very specific to these questions. >> Houston: Okay. My question is on slide 5. And it's curious because we talk about the city's loss of flexibility in hiring and promotion, but I don't have any data to show what kind of hiring was achieved with the contract and what we're going to lose without the contract. Because I look the same way at all public safety entities as I do with the fire department and I had the same issue. What are we losing? How many minorities have you hired? How diverse does -- under the contract what is the diversity in ems? So it doesn't seem like I lost anything because I don't have any data to substantiate that assertion that we lose that flexibility. I understand about the written test, but so what was it without the written test? What was the hiring and [11:52:59 AM] promotion done without the test? Those are the concerns I have and I don't know if you can slain that. I don't have any data that says what the difference is. >> I will tell you as far as ems and maybe if jasper wants to come up and answer in more detail, but one of the things that they've told me is that they had an internship program in which you could have interns and then they would get immediately hired on to our list without having to necessarily score higher than anybody else. And that internship program was a great way for us to increase diversity. I think the last class you had was seven -- jasper, if you want to talk about that. >> The internship process -- jasper brown, chief of staff, Austin Travis county ems. Our internship allowed us to hire people without certification, bring them into the department, give them certification and then move on into our communication center as medic 1s. We did two processes of that and there were 13 individuals. 70% of them were women -- >> Houston: Don't give me percentages because percentages can be movable. Tell me how many people out of that. >> There were 13 individuals totally hired. Nine of them were women. Three of them were African-American. Three of them were hispanic. And one was Asian -- >> Houston: Pacific islander. >> Yes. And the rest were white. >> Houston: So out of the children? >> Yes. I think that adds to 13, off the top of my head. Am I over? >> Houston: No, that's about 15. Nine, three, three and one. >> I'll get the exact numbers. Women. Okay. So before the contract when you didn't have the internship program, what were the statistics like then? Because I got to be able to show that there's a benefit [11:54:59 AM] to having the internship program,. >> And councilmember, ems is in a unique position because we were not under civil service until their very last contract. Our citizens voted in ems civil service in 2012 to be effective 2013. So before that there were just like any other city department. We could test as we wanted to. We had all the flexibility in the world before. But then our citizens voted in ems to be part of civil service in 2012 to be effective 2013. >> Houston: So we do have data from when they were not civil service about what their diversity chart looked like. Can I get that? >> 'Em, we can provide that to you. Yes, ma'am, we can provide that to you. >> And councilmember, I know it's more than outside of that issue, which is important. Chief, if you can talk about what the assessment centers do and what you lose with just written exam testing on promotion side. >> Sure, at the promotional ranks of captain and commander, with a strict sensible source it's a test in the assessment center. And the assessment center is what we utilize to -- the intangibles, the skills that don't show up on a test that somebody with score on. So it's not pass or fail. It either adds to their points they get on the written examination, but it is nice for us to help sort those examines out that test well or don't test well, but may do well in a verbal skills assessment. >> Houston: So I would like data on that as, the promotions in ems before it was on civil service and now with the contract. To see how many black, brown women have been promoted through the system. Because I understood that the internship program was in communications and after they finish -- how much time and communications they get get to be a paramedic? >> So they can spend their [11:56:01 AM] entire career in communications. They can participate in our paramedic school that we're doing internally now. That was under our previous contract. We could do an internal paramedic school which we've done. And some individuals go from communications all the way up through the ranks. I started in communications myself and have worked my way through the ranks. So it's really up to the individual where they want to go. >> Houston: So you've never been on the yellow and blue wagons. >> I have never worked the streets on this, but I have worked the streets before. >> Houston: I just need information for both. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, councilmember alter. >> >> Alter: One of the things we've been discussing with ems is attrition and what's going on with attrition. Can you provide attrition numbers for the last three years by rank and by tenure? >> I can. I happen to have some examples of -- I don't have enough to share, but I can put them up here on the projector. >> Alter: That would be helpful I think. Thank you. >> Mayor, while he's looking for that, you want to clarify, the council was pretty clear to staff in their direction back in December in trying to get the last agreement in place and what we really need a sense of we are prepared to talk to the union, the association about that. But again, as he said they're understanding or preference is to have additional wage considerations. So that's the sense we're trying to get from the council. >> Mayor Adler: I understand that. And I think that we can certainly give you individual guidance on that and I'm ready to do that. But councilmember has suggested that there's a legal question she would like to have before we give [11:58:01 AM] opinions. So when we go back to executive session that we'll find out what that was. When we come back out I would anticipate that the council would have a chance to give you individualized direction on where we are and what we would like to see. Both on this and on the police contract. >> So this is our top -- top graph is the total vacancy rate for the department. We currently stand at 13%. That's for last fiscal year. And we'll drop down to eight percent come Monday because we start a class on Monday of medic 1's. So we'll be at eight percent come Monday. The next slide -- the next graph below is just the ranks of uniform personnel, the last three years including right now, fy'18, those numbers right there. So we've decreased in total separations from the 16 to '17 numbers and the count there is for the '18, which we still have the rest of this year to go. I have specifically by rank and these numbers are by rank. The show where we lose the most is that our medic 1 level and we actually lose them in our probationary period. This is the separations by tenure, and probationary is one year. Probationary is one year or less and we have one to three, three to five and so forth. So in our probationary year we dropped over the previous year as you will see pretty dramatically and we think that's from a change in our job description where we require a change of people coming into the is department. Previous to that we didn't require experience, only the certification that the state holds and we lost a lot of people in our academy process and the training [12:00:01 PM] thing. So to help reduce that turnover we actually started remembering some experience, we saw that number drop and we're looking at the data for the other years to see if there's other judgments we can make. So that's by year. You want to go by rank, you can see that our medic 1's in the field is our highest separation rate again and that follows along with the time. It's at the less than one year mark is where we lose them. At our medic 2, next promotional rank in the field, we lost some in the previous years, but last year we only lost five personnel total in our promotional rank in the field of medic field. That's the data by rank. Somebody had asked for, Ms. Alter it asked for. I'll send it through the appropriate channels to everybody, make sure you have hard copies of it. >> Alter: So that was a loss of five out of item at the medic 2 rank? >> So medic 5 is about 200 medic 2's in the field. I can get you the exact number and that's minus the vacancies that currently exist. >> Alter: I've been trying to work with this data and think about it because there's an assertion that we have an attrition problem. So what are the reasons for the separations that we're seeing. So we saw that there was some during the probationary period which you might expect you reduce those during changes. What are the reasons that people are giving as to why they're separating from ems because were there a a attrition problem that might be something we resolve through the contract, but I'm trying to decide what the data supports and what the data doesn't support in this regard. >> These numbers -- apologize again, it's a little small, but there's a lot of different reasons. So right off the bat you will see at the very top is [12:02:03 PM] a listing of unknown. When I took over as chief of staff I started tracking this data and there were already some departures and we didn't get good data as to why they left. This is through their email when they're saying I'm leaving the department this is the reason why or I called them personally and said what's going on, what's happening and if they didn't say anything, I'm happy, I'm good, I just want to go, okay. Don't press the issue. But I dropped that down and you can see I got better data and the unknowns drop dramatically past that. So there's a big smattering, but this is again all Ned dicks, all ranks. I think it would be much easier to show at the especially the medic 1 level where we talk about we lose the most. And you can see in that second after unknown, the academy where I talked about we did the job description change, in '15 and '16 we lost seven and 17. And in '17 last year we only lost one in the academy. So I think that was the experience we were requiring to come in that that dropped dramatically. Where we saw the increase is people said they were returning home in that first year. So we come -- we hire from people all the way from the state of Washington, Florida, California. They come, maybe the infrastructure is not here for their family, children. And lifestyle changes. And they feel a better need to go home. And that was the major need they listed because they wanted to return home. It wasn't because of other jobs and things like that. I did track if they went to another fire department, police department, even esd here in the county. And within the medic 1's last year we lost two to the Austin fire department, one to the dps academy and one to the Leander pd. So we have some folks that go to law enforcement. That's probably on obviously a passion of theirs. Some went to the fire department, which we're certainly welcome for our folks to move on to other department in the city. [12:04:03 PM] We hate to lose them but it might be a better fit for them. And that's where we see some of the attrition happen in the medic 1 level. After that it's really broken down by 1's and for different reasons. One left for a job out of country. One changing career, nursing school, pa, physician's school. So they leave for kind of various reasons past those bigger bulks at the medic 1 level. And I have -- >> Mayor Adler: Excuse me, mayor pro tem, did you have something? >> Tovo: I did have a question, but I don't want to -- one, could you provide us through these charts in the Q and a? >> 'Em. >> Tovo: And two, for those returning, do you have a sense of what your numbers are like in the academy for individuals who move to Austin from other places so that we could get a sense of how many of them are returning home and -- >> Yes. We track all that and we can show the states they come from. >> Tovo: That would be useful. It seems if that number is pretty high compared to the overall number moving to Austin to participate in the academy that it sort of argues for continuing to invest in our internship programs and other ways of recruiting in the city of Austin versus recruiting outside the city of Austin. >> It comes -- it's a blessing and people come from far away. They make a choice to leave whatever -- not leave certain things, but come here and that's good, but sometimes that means after some time here they may want to return home, and that can be problematic. We try to do everything we can to reduce that, but that's one of the things that we look at. >> Tovo: And it may be more resources are needed in recruitment plans and programs in recruiting from the city or nearby region. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Follow up? >> Alter: So would you say [12:06:04 PM] that there is an attrition problem? Obviously you want to always improve it so there's a reduction in attrition, but as we saw with overtime in fire there was clearly a problem with overtime with 170 vacancies if you're at eight percent after of Monday, is that an attrition problem or is that normal vacancy for ems? >> If you look industry-wide there is always turnover in the the ems industry. Maybe not with those that are public sector based like a fire department ems. Obviously they have different retirements and pays and things like that. If you look at a private sector, ems has a high turnover rate. For us our viciniticies largely come through additions that the council has given us. As you know last year you gave us 52 positions to finalize the 42 hour work week conversion. The previous year there was 15. So those-- we promoted the captains from two years ago. That created vacancies. The previous year we added trucks that added vacancies. So if we haven't had a lot of people leaving at the medic two, this last year, and we want this to continue, but our vacancies, because of additions the council gives us, we're trying to fill those as rapidly as possible so we're in the using up as much overtime as we need to. >> Alter: I don't mean to imply that we don't need investments to keep our personnel and to keep them safe. I want to be clear that the data is not showing an attrition problem to the extent we have vacancies because we as a council have had ems move to a 42 hour work week and that create vacancies as you work through the system and allow people to promote. Is that fair? >> That's accurate. Our attrition happens in the entry level rank within that [12:08:04 PM] first year and we're still looking to see if we can reduce that. If we're going to lose somebody, that's where we might want to lose them, but for whatever reason we can keep them, we keep them. We invest in recruiting, bringing them in, the initial training. So as many of those people we want to keep, we try to and that is our gap at the mid dick 1 level. For the extent of the contract the President-Elect the contract affords is us is the hiring process which again is not a straight civil service test. So we would like to stay under that, and up to now all of our processes and even the academy that starts this Monday have all been under the previous contract which wasn't a civil service test, it was a structural oral interview that the personnel had to go through. >> Alter: Thank you. Another piece of context that I think would be helpful for us, maybe Deven or Mr. Washington can share with us is what data do you have at this time that can inform pay for any interim agreement. We don't have the pay study. If we were to consider any amount, what does that cost? Do we have that kind of information? >> You're exactly right, councilmember. That's why we want the consultant report to evaluate the competitiveness. Our last offer, based on the data we had, was a quarter percent for the first year. And - - >> Was what? >> .25% for the last proposed agreement that we shared. I think he has been in discussion with the association about what they would like to see in terms of a number. Are you able to share that at this time? >> [Inaudible]. I've seen an email and reviewing what happened [12:10:05 PM] during bargaining, the association's last proposal, while we were at a quarter of a percent for the first year, they're last proposal was two percent. And I think I saw an email from Tony is still hoping for the two percent. But obviously I can't speak for the association. So I don't know. All I know is that's -- that was the delta between the two sides at the table for the first year and then we have -- there's changes for years two, three, four and five as well. >> Alter: Maybe as a very basic at of data before we're asked to provide how-much we want to put forward, if anything, that we should know how much .25% is for this year and if it's compounded over time and how much-- what is cumulative and what -- to come and ask us for information about what we want to contribute and have no information available to us about what those costs are is a bit frustrating. >> We do have that information. It's consistent with the same costs that we share for and we'll make sure we get that information. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Let's get the police presentation. >> Mayor Adler: Are you going to have the same questions, councilmember alter, with respect to legal before we would respond to the same questions we have here? Do you know? >> Alter: Probably. I wasn't aware that we were so constrained in what we were talking about for Apa. [12:12:06 PM] But my question on ems is linked to this. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I don't think we're constrained. >> Alter: That was the impression that I got from Ann's comment. >> Mayor Adler: In terms of what legal questions you can ask? >> Alter: Yes. >> Mayor Adler: I don't think you are constrained about what legal questions you can ask. I think what they are saying is keeping it to be a legal question. >> Alter: Thank you. >> APD, as background, the two parties at the table agreed to a five-year deal that council considered on the 13th of December. The Apa membership prior to the 13th had passed the agreement overwhelmingly. On the 13 council asked the parties to go back to the party and see if we could keep negotiations going. The city made attempts to see if Apa was willing to continue negotiations and then about a week after the council meeting day Apa notified the city management that they were not willing to continue negotiations at that time. At that time we were on the third extension of the previous agreement, which was sent to expire on the 29th was the last day of December. So December 30th the two sides went to -- reverted back to chapter 133 of the local government code and what we call civil service law. Similar to ems, both parties lost valuable gains that were afforded through the contract. Unlike the ems discussion where I think we had two resolutions and an ordinance instructing the city manager to do certain things, the city manager hadn't been given any further direction regarding Apa negotiations. [12:14:07 PM] We do not have any bargaining sessions set currently between the city and the police association although I will say not in time to make changes on this presentation, but I think you were notified yesterday that the association has sent a letter to the city manager saying that they are willing to go back to the table as soon as we have our bargaining team ready because they knew obviously they knew we had changes in the labor relations office. And second, as soon as we were in a position to know what we were willing to accept and not willing to accept. So I was obviously mainly involved on the police monitor side, but in watching the 13th and in having discussions with management and with Larry and with everybody, it seems like there were several issues that you raised in arriving at your vote on the 13th. One is just the fiscal impact of a five-year agreement. Uncertainty of what the legislature may do regarding a property tax cap. Police oversight and transparency. And then obviously it's not a part of the contract, but correlated to this is the number of new officers that the city may hire in the coming years. So since the time that we got in notice from the association that they were not willing to come back to the table there's been a number of communications that have been sent by the city manager's office just trying to help inform council of how the department is going to operate now that they're under chapter 143. Without an agreement the city management loses benefits, just like with hiring and promotions but also with police oversight. [12:16:07 PM] And I think you saw the memo that the manager sent out regarding the citizens review panel. Similar to ems we would like to -- management would like the ability to have the flexibility that the previous contract allowed us while we work on a longer term solution to both the financial package and the oversight article. So one option is to negotiate an interim agreement similar to police -- to ems, negotiate an interim agreement for a time frame less than five years, which was the last proposed contract, which gives us an opportunity to fully discuss the optimal oversight process and to discuss where we want to be at the end of a long-term contract as far as where we are in the market relative to other police departments within the state and also within the country. Staff anticipates -- we anticipate it will take over a year likely to get a mutually acceptable overhaul of the process, acceptable to the police union and both to our community and APD management. By summer of this year as you know, parts of the contract have what's known as evergreen provisions which say, hey, if you have a list, for example, for promotions, and the contract expires, you can finish out that list and then after that you have to revert back to chapter 143. So for us APD's promotional processes for sergeants and commanders will be under chapter 143 by this summer. Similar questions to what we have with ems is council willing to consider reinstating the stipends for a short-term while we -- short time while we engage in negotiations and then are you willing to support a base wage increase or lump [12:18:09 PM] sum increase to reinstate the expired agreement while we work on a long-term solution to the contract. >> Councilmember alter, I have a figure for ems. A quarter of one percent. It was estimated at 111,528 for fiscal year 2018. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any questions rather than giving -- we're going to hold off giving her recommendations until after lunch and executive session, but are there questions before we go to lunch? Yes, Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: On slide 10, you say city management was not given any further direction regarding Apa negotiations. >> Right. Not as an official vote by council. I think we all heard the comments made by councilmembers on the 13th, but with ems I think y'all passed two resolutions in one ordinance directing management on how to deal with -- >> Flannigan: This is very important. Assistant managers Washington and Arrellano, you've not reached out to my office. We have not had any conversations with staff. You have not reached out to my office. I've been able to get a meeting with the new labor negotiator, Deven, one. We gave explicit direction in the motion that I gave that staff is to work with councilmembers to figure out how we will move forward and you have not done that. We had a whole month, we had six weeks with no council meetings. Here we are with incredibly packed agendas, we have missed sufficient an opportunity over the last couple of weeks. And I have worked with some other councilmembers on this. I know other councilmembers haven't been able to get staff meetings. It has been unbelievably [12:20:09 PM] frustrating. And even more so that the community does not understand that our ability to address this problem is a communication gap between us and the staff. I empathize with the police union and the union leadership and especially the frontline officers who don't understand the challenges of operating in this building because their challenges are completely different and I would not trade my job for theirs any day of the week. But if we're going to solve this problem, I can't solved it today and I can't solve it in a public meeting and you have got to come to our offices and talk to us about what we're trying to do. It will be difficult. Every councilmember, the mature, we all have a different perspective, as is true on every policy item under 10-1. But I continue to be frustrated with the lack of the staff understanding that under 10-1 we have to operate in a different way. This was the first negotiation under districts and it was to my mind a complete failure of the staff to understand that this council is going to operate in a different manner. I am confident that we're going to fix this and I know that with 30% of our staff under interim and acting and with a lead negotiator who passed away halfway through and all of the staff changes that it was atypical on many fronts. But when I've spoken to police leadership, when I've spoken to community leaders who are focused on crime and safety issues, they don't understand what happened. And we nod understand how we got to a vote on a contract that we hadn't had a chance to review before we could make any changes, before we could give input. We cannot repeat that problem again. And I'll sure that you won't, but I think -- I felt it was important to say this once and I won't have to say it again because the [12:21:10 PM] community is not clear about what happened. And that is causing a lot of frustration and it's causing a morale problem in the force, it's causing a lot of unintended consequences. And we all as a council I feel want to get this solved as quickly as possible, but it will require a lot more than work session and executive session. Staff has to come to our offices. You -- by the charter you have to figure out how we're going to be able to vote in the end because if you wait to present us a deal that the union has agreed to, -- I don't want to repeat this problem again and I'm confident that you won't. >> Thank you, councilmember for feedback and I understand your concerns and frustrations. Certainly we don't want to cause whatever happened last time to be repeated again, but we do try our best to be responsive to any request from council and perhaps it was a miscommunication, but we thought when Mr. Desai was at your offices that he was meeting on behalf of the manager in response to those requests. And those requests that I've gotten personally I've certainly met with other councilmembers at their request. But we will endeavor to make sure that we improve whatever communication we can on our end and provide council with the information that is needed through the process. I understand it is very sensitive and we want to be respectful in making sure you have whatever information you need when it's time to make decisions. So I think I speak for all of us and the manager saying that we will certainly try to improve that moving forward. >> Alter: I want to say I [12:22:12 PM] support my colleague wholeheartedly. We're talking what happened before the vote and immediately after. This is 10-1, and to think that we are going to negotiate this in public on the fly and then go into negotiating room and think that we're going to get the best deal for the city, I'm flab we are graft. I know we have to do it in public and we can't talk to each other, but do your job. Come talk to us. If you don't know where we stand, come talk to us. I know I for one communicated very clearly where I stood. And I don't think I was alone. And there was a problem here and it needs to be addressed moving forward so our men and women in blue can feel confident that we have other back and that we are trying to make decisions on behalf of the city for the public safety, for the well-being of everyone involved and trying to take into consideration the fiscal constraints. We don't have have the luxury of taking this one issue at a time. We have to consider everything as a whole and we need you to be our partners in that process. Thank you. >> And I'll defer to the manager, but councilmembers, my understanding was our previous interim labor relations officer was having very frequent conversations with council staff and both at the meetings, after the meetings, provide information, was very accessible. So I'm hearing -- this is the first time I'm hearing that that kind of interaction was not occurring because-- so this is somewhat surprising. Unless the manager has any other thoughts on that. >> No. Excuse me. No, in fact, I thought that Mr. Watts was meeting on a regular basis on councilmembers. And several of you had staff members who attended all of the labor relations meetings [12:24:12 PM] with the unions. I did not hear from-- I heard from a few councilmembers, but not everyone, about the contract, and had a few conversations but they were invent comments, prior to our finalization of the negotiations. We will improve the process next time. Before we bring anything back to you. I have heard your concerns. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: And I guess I just want to say that I think it's also incumbent upon us to share those concerns. So as the mayor and I posted on the message board over the holiday and I talked about the post talks a little bit about opportunities for improving that dialogue and I think the improvement rests with council as well. It's also our responsibility to reach out as we have concerns or as we want to have meetings or if we're hearing things either in executive session or in those labor and innovations that give us pause. At the end of the day I think the council also bears responsibility for moving forward in a more -- with a more productive dialogue around labor and negotiations. >> Mayor Adler: I would concur with that as well. I think what happened in December when we did not approve the contract was really unfortunate. And I think that it did evidence a system's failure that we had. And I think that part of it was we didn't have the communication to the level that we needed between council and staff or we wouldn't have had an 11-0 vote on a recommended contract that was approved by the association. And I think as you go back to when we began talking about the contract a year ago now, I think that [12:26:14 PM] council did give occasions on where it wanted to be, but in looking back at it I'm not sure that they were as strong or as consistent over that period of time collectively as a group as they could have and should have been. I also think that staff needs to in this kind of thing to spend more time individually in offices talking and getting the sentiment of councilmembers because when we come back from lunch I'm not sure you're going to get collectively the detail that you would want, nor is it necessarily appropriate for the councilmembers to say to you, I'm going to say that I think it should be X, but I'm willing to go to Y. I mean, that kind of conversation might be something that's better for you to walk into someone's office and hear than have us each do that at the table. I think there are some high level direction that I think you would be able to get collectively, and I think it would be good for the community to hear that kind of thing. So for those numbers that want to do that when we come back from lunch, I think that would be a good opportunity. But I think -- I think looking forward I think that there was -- I learned a lot from that process and I -- and I think we all did and I think that we can employ that as we go forward. Weaved learned now and goodness knows we'll make hits stakes but hopefully we won't repeat the same ones that we did before. And I think we'll be able to advance the ball. Okay. Questions? Councilmember alter. >> Alter: I want to say I agree with the mayor about the individual and the group conversations and that we've learned a lot. I think direction was given and it was not reflected at the table. And so there wasn't the follow-up that needed to be. And we have public forums where Apa is being told that [12:28:16 PM] council agreed on the contract. I had a conversation before he went in to it, I don't agree with this. We had several councilmembers in there. Direction was not followed. And that either you have to get better direction, you have to seek it out. We cannot do negotiations in this forum effectively. And I don't think that's unique to 10-1, but that's a reality of where we're at. And we owe it to our public safety professionals and to our community to get this right this time around. >> Mayor Adler: So let's go ahead and break into -- Ms. Houston, did you want to comment? >> Houston: Mayor, I just want to say I agree with everything that you've said. I think that I was surprised because although I had a couple of conversations with the negotiating team, I didn't know what the dollar amount was until it was too late. Too late to make any decisions about that. And I thought we had a conversation during the budget session that we -- that the staff did a great job with the budget session, there was four million dollars for our strategic plans that we spent and a million that they had suggested to put back into the reserves that we also spent. But there was some conversation if my memory is correct that hopefully through our public safety savings, we would be able to then do some additional funding of things that we were not able to do. And when that came back and that was not possible, I thought what happened? And where did I go in this fog that I didn't see this coming? Because I could have been more forthright in saying this is -- cumulative is too much. And I've got needs for the district is growing and they don't ever see a police officer and we need those that have been gone through the academy that understand community policing differently and deescalation [12:30:17 PM] differently. So I don't get any new police officers either. I'm stuck with what we've got and for a long, long time. So I think I was just shocked that what I thought was the outcome was not the outcome. So that doesn't clear anything. I just -- just needed to share my frustration. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mr. Casar? >> Casar: And I just want to air one other issue, just where I'm generally at is on some of the oversight and transparency issues, before answering any of the questions I would want to best understand, obviously we've had a lot of conversation about how to make oversight and transparency stronger in the context of the contract, but there have been a lot of suggestions about how to continue to do some of that work even without a contract. And so for me before being able to formulate an opinion on any interim or long-term deal I would want to best understand what improvements can be made under our current situation to compare those to what would be in a contract. Now that we're in this -- in this world without one, I want to see what it is -- I think I've actually already explained myself. >> Mayor Adler: Understand. Yes, Mr. Renteria? >> Renteria: I thought it was a very good contract, but what scared me was the conversation that our leaders at the state level was having about roll backs and limiting future increases to four percent. It became very alarming that we were going to come into -- going into a future where we didn't know exactly what we were going to be able to raise and pay our employees. And it was more the fear of having to have the rollback rate set at four percent and then at year five when the [12:32:18 PM] biggest increase was going to happen, I I could see that we were in a contract that we were going to end up having to lay off employees here in the city of Austin because we were obligated and committed to this contract. So that was my biggest fear. I thought the contract was excellent. I don't have any problem paying for -- and what they have gave up, transparency that they were committing themselves to. I lived here in Austin in the past where we didn't have that. You know, we fought and fought and fought for this until we did have a contract. And we had some oversight. We had ability to hire more minority and people of color I think we have over 347 hispanic police officers working for us now. We never had that when growing up. And we did have a lot of racial problems, race problems mere in Austin. So you know, I just hope that the state government hear us that we're not going to be taking these kinds of risks without the state support. >> Garza: Mayor? I have to say there were a lot of pieces to this puzzle and there were a lot of players in what happened. There's the city, there's councilmembers, there's the Apa, the Austin justice coalition. And I don't think it's fair to lay the blame of what happened on our city staff and our negotiating team. Because now we're all under heat because of what happened. I just feel it's pretty counter productive and we really need to be -- it needs to be a different system, yes, but I don't think we're going to get [12:34:19 PM] anywhere if we're trying to play the blame game now. We really need a contract as soon as possible. I was prepared to support it that night and -- and I understand -- I'm in a very unique position because I've been at that bargaining table and I understand the process. So for people to say we didn't know what was going on, you didn't listen to us, there were council offices who is staff I believe went to every single contract negotiation. So I really hope -- I know there will be a discussion later, but there needs to be something as soon as possible. There is a very bad situation for our community to be in and my biggest concern is operating under 143 for hiring and promotions and to not have the ability. I have personal friends who could not be Austin police officers today had it been they could only take -- the majority hispanic. They would not be Austin police officers had they not had the ability to take or had they only had the option to take a hundred question test. Many of those are premoated now and we could not have been providing for their family now had they not had an assessment center. I have huge concerns about how the makeup, the diversity of our department can change if we are not under a contract. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Let's go into executive session -- did you want to say something? >> I do. It just occurred to me on this slide 10 that sparked this conversation about communication, the way the slide is worded is to not infer we didn't get direction from the council on December 13th, but it's to indicate that since the contract has expired there was not public conversation with our council. So this is first time. And I think that was -- not that we didn't get direction back in December. [12:36:20 PM] That direction was to go back to the table. But the association didn't want to go back to the table after the council gave us that direction. So it was to clarify since then weaver not had a -- we've not had a conversation with the council on public discussion. >> Mayor Adler: We'll have that in a moment. The council is going to go into executive session pursuant to section 551 of the Texas government code. We'll discuss items related to the city manager, and pursuant to section 551071 of the government code we'll discuss the E 3, breaion king et Al versus Brian Richter, et Al. Item E 6, which is the police department policies oversight. E 12, which is the champion case. And B 2, the labor relations discussion we were just having. E 1, E 4 and E 5 have been withdrawn. Without objection it is 12:40 and we will now go into executive session. When we come back from executive session we will finish this police contract. That leaves us two things on the agenda, the equity report briefing, item B 1, I think it was. And the work session on sick leave. Those are the two things we have to come back for. All right. We're recessing for executive session. >> E 2 also. >> Mayor Adler: E 2 is -- we're going to consider that. We called that up, personnel matters related to E 2. We're going to do it today. We're in recess. [3:13:46 PM] [ Recess ] >> Mayor adler:what do you think? Are we ready to start? I have six people. Okay. So we're out of closed session. In closed session we discussed personnel matters related to e2 and legal matters related to e3, e6, 12, and b2. And it is 3:14 we're back in [3:15:49 PM] the room. I guess staff isn't coming back in because now is our time just to give direction on the record or respond to the issues that you raised. I'm set -- I'm willing to go first. On the ems contract, my recollection -- my understanding of where we were before when we last voted on this as a council back in December and set the February 18 day was the goal was to be able to carry forward the status quo. By the status quo, I mean the contract that was in existence that went out at the time that expired. The reason that we took the stipend only to February 18 was because we anticipated that in order to have the -- status quo carried forward it required us not only acting by ordinance but required the parties to agree through contract negotiations to do that, because of hiring and other things we couldn't do by ordinance. So as a council, we said let's do the things we can do by ordinance, even though it's unilateral because there hadn't been the agreement on the contract but let's stop that on February 18 because it, again, gives everybody time to be able to do the contract at the same time. Prior to the expiration on February 18 we could restore the status quo, we could then extend by ordinance the same time we approved the contract, and everything would carry forward. I understand that ems is coming in and saying that in order to do that they want to have a pay increase associated with that. I think it's important for everybody involved in this, that's watching this on TV, or the negotiators, or the parties, to understand that this is -- obviously this is a question, and would councilmembers agree to a [3:17:50 PM] pay increase as part of that? If so, at what amount? And would it be lump sum, or would it be by base pay or some combination thereof. The one thing we did not discuss back in that room was that question because it is the one thing we are not allowed to discuss in executive session. We can't discuss the merits of the proposals or the strategy, nor can we give you direction on what to go in and negotiate. So there's been, from the last time everybody in public saw us, there's been no further discussion on that issue because we can't discuss that in there. I understand that you're going to go to each of the council offices to engage in that conversation so that you can -- so that you can get a feel for where the council is. For me, I would be willing to consider some measure of pay increase associated with that contract extension the status quo went before we got the pay study back, which we would need in order to be able to do eye long-term contract. A long-term contract. I would like you to come to my office to visit with me about that because I can't imagine that you really want everybody here that's going to be voting on this to really go into that in this kind of public forum because that's not how negotiations happen. So I invite you to come to me and talk to me about that, as well as with my colleagues. With respect to the A.P.D. Contract, I just wanted to reiterate because last time, again, we were together was, you know, at the end of the year, that there's so many things that are happening right in this city and the quality of life in this city is high, albeit we have challenges in affordability, mobility, but things are going incredibly well. One of the reasons for that is because we are the safest [3:19:52 PM] big city in the state and one of the safest big cities in the country. I think in large measure that's due to the quality of the police force that we have. And we have a really strong police force in this city, and we enjoy the benefits associated with that. It is an association and a force that is made up of humans, so it is not going to be perfect, and we need to make sure that we are constantly adjusting the assistance in the institutions to ensure the best practical outcomes. But with respect to the contract, I think that one of the reasons why we have one of the best police force that's I know of in the contract is because we pay at the top of the scale and I think it's real important that we continue to do that. We need to make sure that our offices are being paid more than everybody else in the set that we talk to. So the question that was raised again ultimately in negotiations is how much more should our police officers be paid than number 2. Probably the kind of question you need to go around to each of the offices to talk about. But as I said we were doing the budget things a year ago, in my mind, we don't have to be ten or 13% higher than number 2. We just have to always be ahead on number 2. But that as I talk to police officers and talk to the folks in the crime commission, the higher priority I hear once we have a given we're going to pay our officers more than anybody else is the number of that has we have and our ability to be able to do community policing or to -- you know, we've had incidents and the association indicates that an officer was by himself because he didn't have [3:21:52 PM] somebody with him or the backup didn't arrive as quickly as the association says that it should so I want us to take a really hard look at do we need to have more police officers? If we, do what does that number look like? What does a five-year ramp up be able to do that look like so we're not looking at one year by itself? What are the costs associated with doing that? And that cost associated with doing that is something we need to know before we could do to talk about a pay increase because those are all interrelated. I want want to see those numbers and understand better community policing. That's something that seems like we all want to do, but what that is or is not I'm not real sure we talked an earlier budget ride they are came from Ann kitchen, how do we define that, measure that, how do we know if we're doing that well? It seems to me that that has as part of this question of how we have officers over five years which has to be decided before we can decide as part of this the pay increase. And I think that as we talk about not necessarily being about additional new officers and the -- that it might open up the opportunity for us to have additional funding for things that work prophylactically with respect to public safety, things that will help reduce a crime in ways that are in addition to and support what we invest in public safety. And to get a feel for what, and what those alternative programs or additional programs might be also seems to me to be part of that same conversation, heightened mental health [3:23:56 PM] training or new programs associated with that, different ways to work with the population that we have, de-escalation issues, as well as just health and human services programs and understanding the relationship between those things I think have to be decided and, I think, as part of that same conversation. Because we're not going to be able to decide any one of these questions without them all being discussed at the same time. It's also the question of civilian oversight of police. And I think that we need to take a look at the ideas that have come from the community. We need to assess what we've been able to achieve over the last 20 years and the greatest movement that has been made from people in the community that have worked to those ends. There are additional ideas that people proposed. We need to take a look at, like civilianizing the oversight, not run by lay folks, but run by professionals. We need to take a look at those models that we have because it seems to me that that de-escalation -- that oversight piece also can't be solved by itself or in a vacuum and has to be solved in relation to all these other things as well. So the conversation that I just had as best as I can tell -- well, then the question is what -- how long would it take us to do that. My understanding is that could take us like a year to do, more or less. So I think we need to do that before we -- before any of us could ever get to a place we could discuss a long-term contract. What do we do then in the meantime? And by way of direction, my hope would be that we could agree to an interim contract because I think it is really important for officers not to be prejudiced in any way by the need for our community to have this broader conversation. I want the stipends to immediately come back in as quickly as we can for all [3:25:56 PM] the officers on the police force. I want to make sure that we are not disturbing in any way what we're paying these folks because they've earned it and maintaining that is one of the I know we have -- reasons why we have the force we have and we're one of the safest cities. Just like with the ems contract I would like all those pay things to be kept in play plus all the things that are also part of the contract, people have worked over for the years. Let's bring those forward too. Which I imagine will get us to the place where we're in the same place we are on ems, which is if we could do that, would I be willing to consider a pay increase associated with this one year that we're together, either by an increase in base or lump-sum payment or something like that, and my answer is the same as the ems contract. It would be something I would consider and entertain. Then the other question in terms of level -- and I don't think that's the appropriate thing for you to go around and poll councilmembers at the table. I think you need to go and visit with the councilmembers in order to be able to get that. But I think that -- my sense is that everybody wants to have contracts. Everybody really respects everybody in this process. I don't think anybody is suggesting that anybody went through this process in bad faith. I am -- I do believe that where we ended up with the police contract was a systems failure. I think that as you look back on it there are a lot of things that we could have done differently to avoid where we were. I do agree that most of those probably involve the communication between the council and staff. And I believe it is both, the staff -- the council not [3:28:02 PM] giving enough direction to the staff, but also not having a process where the staff was able to get the information that it really need to be able to do the job that it had. I think we're in a place now we understand that's not going to happen again, and -- but I think that everybody wants to get a contract. Nobody should think, I think, that the failure to get a contract either in ems or in police is any indication of a lack of jut -- utmost and tremendous support to the police, first responders we have in the city, because [indiscernible] Deserve it. But these are issues that contain -- that bring up lots of other associated issues. We can't solve one or two really really addressing them all. And for me, and I think my colleagues, our goal is to not prejudice anybody because it's going to take us a little bit longer to be able to sort back all these issues, but to make sure that we are being true to our law enforcement and ems personnel. Does anybody else want to give any direction to staff? >> Garza: I do. With regards to ems, I thought -- what I thought the original discussion was that we keep the status quo, so that's what I would be supportive of, keeping the status quo -- well, not the -- the status quo is that we don't have a contract. Basically in a position of extending the contract. That's the position I would like to be in as we continue to have the discussion. With regards to the police contract, I agree with much of what the mayor has said. I think that -- you know, I think I said what I really wanted to say earlier. As we have this discussion of oversight and transparency, which is extremely important, it's [3:30:04 PM] often -- I feel like there needs to be a broader discussion of what we're asking -- what the community is asking for. What I heard was we don't want situations where people get shot. We don't want these kinds of excessive force issues. When we're talking about transparency and subpoena power and all those kinds of things, those things happen after the fact that something bad has happened. And, yes, those things are an important part of the conversation, but another key part of having a great police department is having tools to be able to recruit a great police department, and part of that is paying them well, giving them good benefits, and having a process that allows a diverse workforce. So I don't know where we're going to end up at the end of this, but I hope that community advocates who are rightfully asking for us to be better and to do better as a police department need to also understand that piece of it, too, the important piece of the hiring part. And Ta that did to me is the most important part. What we want to be in a position is to have a great police department that always makes the right decisions, that understands the community, and a hundred question test does not test that. And so I hope that that's part of the conversation if we want the best police. It's not just about oversight and what happens after that incident. It's going a place where we don't have to hopefully ever have that. That being said, these are last minute decision that's get made in, like, seconds. And as much as I wish we could live in a world where nothing bad ever happens, it's going to -- bad things are going to happen, unfortunately. So I don't want us to set ourselves up for unrealistic situations because from the [3:32:05 PM] beginning of time and forever, you know, horrible, bad things are going to happen. We can do what we can to minimize that. So that's -- you know, with regards to pay, you know, I heard -- what I felt like I heard that night was, you know, you're asking for this much pay, you're only given this much oversight. So I don't know what that number is for folks to be -- for everyone -- for you to get six votes on, you know, since you're only getting this much, this is what that's worth. So I hope, you know, the -- our Apa also understands that as well, that if we -- to go in with a very reasonable expectation of what you're giving up, and what you're getting. I also wanted to say before that, I don't -- I hope that our different departments don't -- you know, well, they got this, we got this. It's my understanding that all our contract negotiations start with this is a unique contract with this department. I really ask our labor organizations to not compare yourselves to other departments. They are very different contracts, with very different needs. And so I hope that that's an overall understanding of this. Let's see what else. That's mainly it, you know? And one last perspective on this. You know, when we have economic incentives, we talk about -- you know, I often talk about middle income jobs, good paying jobs, if we're going to get these companies any kind of incentives. In a lot of ways this is our opportunity to provide good paying jobs for people, for folks who may not have a college degree, but they're willing to serve in one of the most dangerous positions out there. And they should be compensated for that. And so as a city, when we're -- when we're giving -- when we're incentivizing jobs, that's what we do -- that's what we're doing here as a city. [3:34:05 PM] We're providing jobs for people who don't have a -- probably don't have a college degree and, you know, I go back to my story, in that my father had a ged and he was able to provide for my family in a way that I would not be sitting here had he not been given a job that allowed him to have good pay and good benefits. So we have to think of how we are -- how we as a city are helping lift people into a different situation that probably couldn't have gotten a job like that, that kind of pay, that kind of benefits. And in return we're asking them to do some of the most dangerous things and be in the most difficult positions. So I just invite us to think about that perspective as we hopefully get to a contract as soon as possible. >> Mayor Adler: Further public thoughts? Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I'll just say that I'm ready to provide direction in a one on one setting, where I have a small group of quorum. I hope we will have meetings throughout to make sure this is effective. I think there is a way forward in both contracts that respects our public safety employees and the important risky work that they do and also reflects the fact that we, as city officials and elected officials, have to make decisions and trade-offs and there is only so much money to go around and we have to balance all of our values and that every individual decision is not about a particular individual, but we have to be looking at the larger whole, how we deliver public safety, how do we pay for the things that we value as a city. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Anyone else want to say anything? Okay. We'll move on to the next item. [3:36:05 PM] Please go and visit each of the offices. All right. That gets us up to the two last things that we have on our agenda, the equity report and the sick leave. So preferences to which goes first on the dais some. >> Casar: I think councilmembers and I have a meeting we pushed back for an hour that will then -- soon be coming up for the reschedule time at 4:00 so would love to just take this one up first. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any objection to that? Okay. >> Casar: So I'll be really brief in my introduction. I'm glad we have some time to have this discussion. Basically we have a hefty agenda on Thursday but my cosponsors and I wanted to make sure that we had three work sessions available before February the 15th to be able to hear folks' concerns and hear about any questions or take any ideas for amendments so that we could discuss those well in advance of the 15th. Today I wanted to briefly outthe pros so far but not talk much about the policy because I know we're really short on time. So I just -- I'm happy to answer questions that folks have. We have got today's work session. We scheduled a work session for next Tuesday at 1:00 P.M. In case folks want to participate in that, we have the chambers, city council chambers set aside if people want to discuss any updates to the draft that gets adjusted at this work session or any amendments that anybody brings and of course we'll have a third work session available Tuesday the 13th. At that work session I hope to discuss and address final concerns from colleagues. That way we already have all the amendments and ideas on the table well before the 15th council meeting. I want to take one step back to talk about the process so far. You know, one of the first things that I did go [3:38:07 PM] [indiscernible] Just like many of you was go to our constituents and to schools. One of the top concerns I heard from parents was an ability to take paid sick days. So that was back in 2015. Actually in 2015 and 2016 the Obama administration started reaching out to cities across the country promoting paid sick days policies like this in cities because, obviously, there wasn't very much movement at the federal level for federal paid sick days laws. At the same time there was a state bill and state laws being promoted and a bill to have a statewide paid sick days law, actually was up for multiple sessions and usually died on party lines. So that is why we've been working to have this local policy starting last year. And it was on labor day that we talked about kicking off this process and having a vote in mid-february. We then I'm sorrily voted to have this stakeholder process. Hundreds of folks participated, and then we had a council meeting in December where we talked about this mid-february vote. Now we have the ordinance before us with these three work sessions upcoming. There have been a lot of organizations and stakeholders that have been consulted in the development of the ordinance. It's taken a lot of conversations with a variety of groups, including people that really gave up a lot I think on different sides to come out with what I think is a compromise ordinance. I know that there's no way that we can make everyone happy, but the goal is to be able to provide people with the support of paid sick days while balancing the fact that no matter what, the policy won't be perfect. The policy that we did post on to the message board does have the support from the following organizations. I just wanted to list those out. The Austin area central labor council, the Travis county democratic party [3:40:08 PM] passed a resolution unanimous in support, moms rising, people's community clinic, lolo fund, deeds not words, Wendy Davis' organization, Texas freedom, progress Texas, planned parenthood Texas votes, education Austin, the ems employees union, the safe alliance echo ending community homelessness organization voted at their board to support this unit here project, the Austin dsa, fight for 15, and this is actually a part of the Texas democratic parties' statewide platform as well for all workers to have at minimum seven paid sick days. Alongside that long list of supports there is a updated list of some local and small businesses that I can pass back out. It's updated in backup. It includes dozens of business owners, employers, nonprofits from a variety of industries. Some are small businesses, and are medium- sized, lgbt owned, black owned, women-owned, and they were key participants in helping to shape the ordinance before us. I won't go through the long list of compromises we posted on the message board. Some of the key compromises Clyde compromising on the cap on the number of days not requiring a payout of sick days from employers, not requiring that tipped workers be paid their tips during their sick time, indeed just a minimum of the state mum wage, as well as recognizing people's existing pto policies and not requiring that anybody provide sick days on top of pto or vacation that people are able to use in the case of sick time. So we did make those key concessions. For example, the compromise we made on tips was useful for bringing some more restaurants in support. [3:42:09 PM] I'm happy to sort of cede the floor there and answer questions. Would love to hear what broad concerns are or ideas for amendments because we want to use these three work sessions such that we, you know, can do our best to get to a consensus ordinance on the 15th. Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Capital metro. >> Alter: Thank you. I appreciate all the work that has gone in and extensive outreach, particularly appreciate the care with which you're approaching, making sure we as a council have chance to weigh in with posting on the message board and the various work sessions. If we are to move forward with this, we would want it to be effective. Some of the questions that I've raised with work strong and elsewhere is the enforcement process and the enforcement costs. So there's a -- still a fair amount of vagueness in there about how this would be enforced. And there's no information at all about what it would cost the city to enforce. And obviously we are still concerned about what this costs businesses to implement, but I wanted to focus in on the city and what those expectations are and sort of the process for enforcement and gaining greater clarity on that. You may or may not be able to provide that today. I was waiting to hear back on that perfect some of the advocates. Beyond enforcement the other piece particularly concerning to me and I know there's been recent correspondence and I haven't had a chance to review thoroughly which may raise additional questions, is with respect to smaller businesses and really trying to understand at what point we push them over the edge where they end up laying folks off or not. And trying to get a handle on that and how it [3:44:10 PM] interrelates to this and whether we need to have any calibration or for that just complicated things but those are questions I'm yapling with. Because I had the conversations with the advocates I didn't post it on the message board but I don't think I've had my questions answered at this point either. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Casar: On the enforcement question we've been working closely with staff and I do believe they should make a presentation around what additional resources they would be requesting in order to -- in order to enforce the ordinance. We could add lots of staff and have a very vague just education program or smaller one I believe around fair chance hiring we had somewhere around $200,000 between our education campaign and our enforcement resources. And I believe the staff is actually looking at the ordinance as it stands now to get us good answers on that. But point taken, and we will make sure to make sure there's very clear answers because that's not an answer I would provide as much as the staff. As far as the smaller businesses issue, I just want to describe the tension that I am dealing with on this and I would be interested in hearing what your thoughts are or other people on the dais'. You know, folks that need sick days need them just as much, regardless of the size of the business involved. I do recognize that if you're a smaller business and someone is missing from work then, you know, proportionality that could an issue. The fact of the matter is this isn't about people missing time from work. It's whether or not they get paid for that time or not and the pay ramps up or down based on the number of employees and the number of hours worked already within the accrual process. On the other hand many cities do have different standards for different size [3:46:10 PM] employers so I would just be interested in continuing to hear from councilmember alter and anyone else whether or not that remains one of the top issues. Because if it is, we can listen and look at amendments early on and try to bounce those ideas off of the folks that have been working so hard on this to see if we can get to a good place because I mainly there will be some amendments that I would think are good iendly amendments that can get us to a consensus ordinance and some things that may just not -- you know, we tried to balance the interest of having an ordinance that is modest and a compromise and reasonable also in achieving the goals making sure that if your kid is sick and you want to get the chance to stay home you should be able to do that whether you work for a small or large business. >> Alter: Some of the material I'm looking forward to reviewing when I get through champion on Thursday is the comparison with other cities and I was sent some information on that. To the extent that you want to post that and make available, I think one of the national groups has that. I think it's useful for us to reflect on what are the levers that we can play with with respect to paid sick leave in terms of days and accruals and other kinds of things and to be able to see for those cities who have done it where they came out and compare that to where the draft is to figure out if we do want to recalibrate, you know, with respect to this or not. >> Casar: I would say that there are so many different portions that can be compared, and in some places our ordinance is more watered down and in some places it is stronger compared to some other cities. There are cities that have nine and ten days, and the most frequently asked for number of days during the stakeholder process was 12. So we're -- getting to eight was some real work on our [3:48:12 PM] part but I think -- that's sort of where that proposal comes from. On the enforcement piece, I think that's where we have a more modest ordinance than other cities. Our enforcement piece says we're going to seek voluntary confinements, we removed any private right of action from this policy, which a lot of model ordinances have and an employee has the right to sue to get their sick days. And so we will do our best -- I will do my best to try to have some comparisons, again, like you mentioned there's just so much levers that if you just look at one column on just one issue, you know, we maybe weaker or stronger than another city in that column but there's, as you mentioned, a variety of places where compromise has also been made. >> Alter: I think it's helpful for us to be able to see what are the levers that were moved and from where the discussions were earlier, where you moved to and if we wanted to move them, what those things might be. It's useful and I appreciate that you have been working on this for a long time, but not everybody in the community has, and I think it's a very helpful just kind of why we are asking for the comparative information on affordability and those other things, is that comparison with other cities can be very useful for understanding both what we're trying to accomplish but also how we're accomplishing it and what we might be leaving out. >> Casar: I will just pass along in case you all haven't seen them, one is the business support letter, but the other does show where different stakeholders were, where the compromises were made is on the back page. I'll just pass that around. [3:50:17 PM] >> Flannigan:mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Flannigan: I have a lot of work that I want to do on this, but this is a really interesting test of our two-week agenda process that we're starting at three weeks out so I'm not prepared to talk about it today because I'm going to wrap up all the work I'm doing Thursday. This is one of my top priorities to work on for the 15th. Some of the issues that I'm concerned about are the different levels of impact the ordinance has, depending on the type of business model you operate with. So if you are a business that has much more spiky demand then you have a larger number of employees that work shorter shifts, in which case that business model would have a lot more sick they'd have to accrue for than a business movement that has fewer employees that work longer shifts. And so the threshold upon which you're eligible, the number of hours you can a. >> Flannigan: It's a business model and business size governor for me that I've just got to do some kind of use-case testing for myself to think about a business of this size, of this model, how old that impact be, and do some of that work. One of the questions actually that I asked the parks department is what would that have -- what impact does that have on the lifeguards in the aquatics system? So what is the operations and maintenance cost to the city of this proposed ordinance for employees that we have that don't get sick time? That's also a question I have too. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Casar. >> Casar: I think it's important to note that we did in the last budget cycle set a directive to the city manager for all of our temps to get sick time so every employee at the city has that sick time. So that was passed in the last budget. Again, as we sort of set standards with this ordinance, I would continue to advocate for all of our city employees, temps, and not to have the best working [3:52:20 PM] conditions possible and for us to meet or exceed industry standards. But that is something that we did pass in the last budget. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Mayor, I certainly haven't -- having been a single parent with two children, I certainly appreciate the intent. I've gone out to members of the business community in my district, small, medium size, large, and I've gotten two responses. They didn't know anything about this. Some that tried to participate felt that they were being shut out and disrespected, shut out and felt nobody was listening to them. There's a lot of still work I think we need to do with businesses from those that have four people and two cooks to larger, you know -- what do you call them? The breweries, the new thing -- microbreweries, brew pubs that don't have any clue -- I'm not a beer drinker so forgive me. You know, they don't know. So they're concerned because there was not enough public -- I'm sure there was public engagement, but the public seemed to be a very specific kind of public. But there are people out there who this will impact negatively and they're just horrified because they didn't have a chance to give input into the conversation. And I would like to -- I have a concern about the enforcement, and so if we could ask the folks from H.R. To come up and see the kind of impact this may have on 30,000 small businesses in this city, maybe more. What does that mean for enforcement? And help me remember the fact that we are paying our temporaries sick time. I forgot that. [3:54:22 PM] >> Julia hays, human resources director. If I could answer your second question first relative to internal. During the last budget process we committed to -- there were $253,000 that was earmarked by council, and the directive was for human resources and the payroll team to go back and do a pilot and utilizing those funds we articulated the challenge of all of the current activities between the two offices. We could not commit staff to even work on such a major project until February, and so we committed to coming together in February and figuring out a pilot utilizing those funs to pilot a possibly three to 4-day sick leave period where we would manually facilitate that in order to bring you back detailed data relative to costs and other unexpected things that took place due to the complexity of our system. So that was the funds that were earmarked. It wasn't a -- moving forward, it was a pilot with $253 we were trying to complete by the end of this year so we could come back to you during your budget presentation and allow you to have more data considering this topic as you moved into the new budget year. So I think that answers the first question. And the payroll team and hrd is still very committed in the next couple weeks when we finished the work we had to do up until now to figure out a way to pilot that using those funds. Second part of your question is relative to as the ordinance is written right now, the eeo fair housing office would complete those tasks. I will share with you that the enforcement concerns -- not necessarily concerns, but challenges with the enforcement would be with fair chance hiring we had a stipulation of 15 or more employees so it cut some of the companies. In this instance we would have a much larger group of companies that would have to comply with this ordinance. Therefore, we would expect a [3:56:23 PM] higher number of calls, a higher number of responses, a higher number of need for staff. So to directly answer your question, councilmember Houston, we have not had the opportunity to do the analysis in order to determine what our staffing would need to be. We have not had that time. We're still following up on our fair chance hiring. I would expect at a minimum right now for fair chance hiring we have one admin person responsible for all the telephone calls. We've got one investigator whose primary job is to fully investigate. That greater currently has four cases on her load right now just for fair chance, and we have a policy person who also does investigations as a secondary component to ensure policy compliance, and that policy person also works with the city attorney's office for the case of civil penalty. So if we were to take this responsibility on, we would first recommend that it be piloted with a contractor, someone who can focus on it immediately, potentially do the work. That contractor would be responsible for the marketing of it. We can tell you that we earmarked $75,000 for the outreach and marketing for fair chance hiring. It takes about a year to get that done from what we've done thus far. So if you're asking how much it would cost to market this particular piece, the benchmark data we would provide you would be that 75,000 our recommendation would be for a consultant to come in, be responsible not only for the marketing, the development, in partnership with the city of the rules, and then the enforcement of it, thereby giving the city of Austin an opportunity to complete other projects and maybe come back in six months and figure out how to transition that back with a minimum of at least two investigators and one administrative person unless we see that the workload required more. >> Houston: Thank you. Councilmember Casar, did y'all talk in your engagement groups about -- [3:58:25 PM] tiering the number of employees so if you had less than 15 you would not have comply, if you had between 15 and some people -- I mean, did y'all have that conversation? >> Casar: Yes. There was a real conversation around how this could impact different sizes of businesses. The -- what is in the ordinance right now is people earning one hour per 30 hours worked with an eight-day cap. The reason for that being that businesses with more employees that were working more hours would have more paid sick time to pay out and smaller businesses would have less. There are cities that have different requirements for different sized businesses. Many of the small businesses listed here on this letter sometimes even had concerns with that, though, because does it set -- what is the real difference between a business with 14 employees and 16 employees? And also many of the people from the health care clinics to those that are advocating for workers have concerns about, well, why should a worker be getting so much or less or no sick time depending on the size of their employer? So that is why I think the accrual of one hour per 30 kind of addresses different sizes of employees. But, again, ifssies it would bring support to the ordinance, I would love for people to come with specific ideas to be able to consider them at a working session and think them through. >> Houston: How do you accommodate for employers that give plex time and don't call it sick time? If you say my baby is sick, I'm going to use four hours of my flex time, how do you account for those in your ordinance? >> Casar: The ordinance pretty explicitly has a [4:00:26 PM] section that says we don't mind what you call it. If somebody can take time off and get paid for that time because they or a loved one is sick, then it's good. If you pay them and you call it flex time that you have accrued that you can use when you're sick, if you call it pto, if you call it vacation, it doesn't matter what it's called, it matters what it is -- it matters what it is used -- if it can be used for sick time as detailed here. >> Houston: I guess my last question, is there any way that -- there was a conversation about how the employer is supposed to keep up with all of this? >> Casar: I'm happy to answer that too, mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Casar: So many cities have pretty strict requirements on employers as far as them having to let workers know upon their first day of work their rights and lots of other tracking and reporting requirements. This one tries to stay pretty straightforward. It just mirrors the federal laws that already have requirements for you keeping track of your employees, how many hours they've worked and how much you've paid them. So it would just be to keep track of it there. As long as employers have a way to let their employees know monthly how much sick time they've got, then you can do it that way. So we're not requiring you to put it on a paycheck. We're not requiring somebody to have a payroll system if they don't have it. They're just required to track this alongside the wages and hours worked, just like in the same place where everybody is already required by federal law to keep track of who is working for you and how often they're working. >> Houston: Thanks. >> Troxclair: I just wanted to make sure everybody saw the information that Rebecca sent us from the Austin independent byes a-- [4:02:27 PM] business alliance. I thought she did a very poignant job of trying to express the views of their members on this policy. I'll just read you to a short part of it. You know, she said basically a small business owner as we understand it taking care of our employees is a philosophical value and necessity. They cannot succeed without a dedicated and happy workforce. Turnover in any business is costly. We do not view the world as workers against business or business against workers. As small local businesses we are the workers. We see all of us in this together. She goes on to say that 88%, a heighth majority of -- heighth majority of their respondents are opposed to the ordinance and went on to say that there were no changes that would make the ordinance acceptable. You know, this is a serious overreach of local government that small employers will be hit the hardest by this policy and just really pleading for us to understand that, as she said, as small local businesses we are the workers. We see all of us in this together. And I really have major concerns about this policy. I think the -- you know, even with the best intentions that it is going to have huge negative consequences for not only our local businesses but our local employees, too, who are going to, you know, find it harder and harder to find jobs as small businesses continue to struggle to survive under the burden of these kinds of regulations. So I think I appreciate councilmember Casar's, you know, genuine interest in where he's coming from and forwarding this policy, but I think that it is so [4:04:30 PM] misguided and really is going to lead Austin down a very concerning path. And I know that we have another few weeks to talk about it, but I just wanted to make sure that all of the councilmembers saw that, that survey result and could understand where our local business community is coming from. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Garza. >> Garza: Yeah. I support this policy, and I understand people's concern about how it will affect their business. Change is always something that's tough. But I think that -- I think that we have so -- we have such limited tools to be able to address real quality of life and affordability for those who have the least among us, and we need to try to use whatever tool is available to us. And this is one. And I don't think it's asking for much, and there are -- I appreciate the comment that some businesses have said, you know, if we want to do it, let us do it on our own. There's so many, you know, historical, horrible things in our past that that was the argument. If we want to allow certain people in our establishment, let us make that call. There are some big things that -- I've heard the exact same arguments that were made during -- you know, like the civil rights movement. So, you know, I know that change is hard. I know that people are concerned. But, you know, much of the evidence shows that even when people are given earned paid time off they don't even use it because they don't need it. But at least it's there if they need it. [4:06:32 PM] There's also, you know, my husband's company, for example, they have unlimited vacation, and it's because they have found that when that happens they don't -- that they don't even use -- when people have a certain amount of days, they might use those days, they might not. Anyway, I'm rambling now. But I just think that there's a lot of fear that once this is implemented hopefully that I think a lot of that fear will go away. Are businesses that are -- different kinds of businesses, different kinds of business models who are able to do this now shows that it is something that can be implemented. That being said, you know, there's always an opportunity to make a resolution, an ordinance better, and so I think this discussion is great. And I look forward to where we get to potting. -- Where we get to together. I think this is a really good thing for our community. It's one way we can help those who are struggling to stay here in Austin, help them, give them the opportunity to stay home from work one day when they're sick and get paid for that. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: One other thought they'd, too, is the intent of the ordinance so that if you are exiled to work and you are -- scheduled to work and relying on a certain amount of patience you've got to be able to make your rent, make your car payment, pay for gas, how that might -- how that might impact businesses where there's often shift trading, where if you miss a Monday you can trade for someone to work that Friday and you still end up with the same amount of pay by the end of the week. A lot of the businesses that I'm speaking to that are concerned about the impact of this policy often operate in that type of model, and if the intent is I got scheduled -- I need the next number of hours, I've got -- an employer is giving me X number of hours because that is what I need to pay for all of the things we have to pay for in this town, then I'm just wondering if [4:08:33 PM] there's a couple of options that an employer might have in order to ensure someone is able to get the hours that they have been exiled to be worked for -- scheduled to be worked for. There maybe more than one way to keep people in a stable place. I think that's what we want, we want people to be in a stable place. We don't want to see people lose their housing or lose their cars, lose anything that they've done because, you know, the flu is going around. That's not what we want to see, we don't want to compound a really bad situation. This is just another idea that's been batting around my head. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Any other comments? >> Casar: I will -- you know, everybody will get the notice. We'll have the work session available a week from now. And so I imagine we will quickly have six people there to call it, but if you could be there on time, we can open up the meeting, I appreciate the time. And any of your amendments or questions that you post on the message board, that would be great. I really want this to be a process where we have all the amendments early and up front thoughts early and up front so we can take a vote on February 15. I failed to mention this is law and virtually every wealthy nation on Earth federally and that there's over 40 states and cities that have passed these sorts of Riles in their own cities and the sky hasn't fallen in any of those places. You know, businesses continue to grow and people have been able to adapt. While it may prove inconvenient for some to adapt to it, the benefit to those folks that are facing really impossible choices is is what we're driving for. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Ms. Houston. >> Houston: Councilmember Casar, I really appreciate your passion about this, but some of those nations and cities and states don't live in the state of Texas, where the capital is right up the street. So when we complain about them having a heavy hand on city politics, this to me [4:10:34 PM] feels like the city having a heavy hand on private businesses. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you very much. >> Renteria: I'm going to be supporting this. Ever since I got out of high school, started working my first jobs, I always had sick leave. I just never knew that there were people out there at that time that didn't have sick leave. You know, that was one of the most important things that I look for when I went out looking for a job, was working with someone that could pay me sick leave. I don't think that I would work for anyone that didn't offer that. You know, the biggest fear in our society now for -- especially families now is not having sick leave, not having health insurance. I mean, even the seniors that are working that have retired have come back because they're afraid that they're going to get sick and they have no money to pay for it. And so, you know, and I always thought they were just totally unfair that we had these businesses that are making money off of, you know -- off of our cities that we had invested so much on our roads and our infrastructure that it's only fair to pay back. We're having to pay this outrageous amount of money for -- you know, when employees lose their jobs, they can't pay their rent, now we have homeless problems, you know, that we -- we have to use -- we have youth, kids going to the emergency room. It's costing us a lot of money, especially with health care that we're [4:12:36 PM] providing through map. So anything that we can do for our citizens here in Austin, especially to look out for their sick leave -- when they're sick they're exhibit. You know, they shouldn't be coming to work. When you force employees to come to work because they're afraid to lose their job, now you're exposing everyone to whatever they have. So, you know, I think it's only fair and it's only right for people to say home and they're sick and they should not be afraid of having to lose their jobs because they're not getting paid. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Let's go on to the next item. Thank you. Two things. Housekeeping. Council, the aquatics issue that was requested that we not vote on that until after dinner on Thursday. So we'll let people who show up earlier in the afternoon testify -- Brian, do you want to come on up? If people are here earlier in the day and are able to we'll take testimony earlier in the day on aquatic but won't close the public hearing or take a vote until after dinner. Finally on Thursday we will draw lots again to reorder our seats on the dais. Just want to give everybody a heads-up that we'll have new numbers. I want to begin by apologizing and thanking you for sitting here for the last six hours. This happens sometimes to us. But we appreciate your patience with us. And besides, you're one of the few offices in the city that needs to understand everything that's happening in the city everywhere so this is just an opportunity to give you greater exposure. >> It was very informative. [ Laughter ] >> Mayor Adler: But the floor is now yours. >> Hello, everyone, Brian, chief equity officer for the city of Austin. I wanted to come today for [4:14:37 PM] the work session to give you an update on the resolution that you passed last year, in April, in regards to the mayor's task force on institutional racism and systemic inequities. And through that resolution, council received a report that the mayor's task force worked on, and the guidance that was given by council was to have the city manager identify recommendations within the task force report that were actionable and practical and report back to council. So today I wanted to take this opportunity to report back to you in terms of those recommendations that we feel are actionable and practical. Before I begin I'll tell you a little about our process of how we went about doing that. And so I think one of the great opportunities that we had through looking at the mayor's it was report was the breadth and depth of it and that it actually contained I think a little over 230 recommendations that all sort of connected back to advancing racial equity. And so what we did was that we sort of really fought to develop a mechanism where we could actually sort of get this information out to all of our departments but also give our departments an opportunity to respond back to us so that we could see where we were overall but to also identify those recommendations that we had potential. So our steps to do that was that with the assistance of the interim city manager, we sent out the report to all of our city departments and requested that they actually review and read the report and also to respond back to [4:16:37 PM] us in terms of recommendations that they felt were actionable and practical. Overall one of the things that I'm really excited about was that we got responses from 100% of our departments through this -- through this process. And we were able to get a really good snapshot across the city in terms of some of the things we're currently doing but also some of the things we felt like were opportunities in moving forward. For our feedback from the departments we really sort of segmented their responses into four categories in regards to the recommendations. And so an easy way to think about it was that, you know, we wanted to see things that our departments were already currently doing agency it related to some of the recommendations. We also wanted to see what they thought about the potential that some of the recommendations may have had. So they're not doing them but they felt like there was potential for them to implement them. So this chart right here just lists out the total number of responses that we saw across those categories. Implemented, represented, recommendations that departments had really sort of enconstrained into their process and they were implementing them on an annual basis. Underway represented recommendations that departments were doing but they had just sort of recently started to do them. Planned represented recommendations that departments were not doing them but they felt like they could be immigrated into their business -- integrated into their business plans. Potential was a little sort of further out there to say this has potential but a lot of times departments responded that we need to help or guidance of council and need to work to develop out how we would actually implement that recommendation moving forward. The bottom line here on the - - on this chart is the unique number of [4:18:38 PM] recommendations that were actually in the task force report. So, for example, if we're looking at that implemented column, we had 107 responses from departments but those 107 responses represented 60 unique recommendations that were actually contained within the mayor's task force report. And you can sort of see what those numbers look like overall in terms of total count. I will tell you that we sort of really thought long and hard as a team on the best way to report back this information to council, and what we sort of decided to do or landed on was to really sort of report back the recommendations within, you know, the council's six priority outcomes that you're working on. We thought that was important to do because through the sort of strategic outcome process you've already sort of identified these priority outcomes that are important for you as a council, you've adopted challenge statements, you've also adopted metrics, and then you're in a process of actually adopting strategies that connect back to those priority outcomes. And when we started to do this work, we see a lot of the recommendations moving forward as sort of these tactical opportunities to accomplish some of the strategies and actually help achieve some of the metrics that you've actually identified as a council. And so the way that I'll report back is really through the lens of the council's six priority outcomes. I know y'all have probably seen these over and over again, but we'll sort of give you an update in regards to those six council priorities. So the first area that I wanted to talk about was to give you a snapshot of responses that we had from departments that actually represented recommendations in the task force report that were actually already implementing or we had [4:20:39 PM] underway across some of our departments. I'll be a little self-serving to tell you about the recommendations that we're already implementing or that are underway in regards to the equity office. So there were quite a few recommendation that's actually really sort of per train directly to the scope of -- pertain directly to the scope of work we're doing in the equity office 37 I won't go through all of these, but, for example, at the bottom, you see that recommendation 3.5.3 that was in the mayor's task force report talked about the -- reviewing department policies and procedures for all city of Austin offices. And we see that work and that recommendation reflected through -- in our creation of the cities first evening wit assessment tool. We have actually -- we're almost at the end of our pilot for our first eight departments that have done the equity assessment. We've received our report from the university of Texas which was our partner to do the evaluation for that pilot and are hoping to come back to you sometime in March to actually share the results and our findings across our eight departments that wants to do the equity assessment tool. We also are working on efforts within the city to look at training opportunities for our staff, and so you can see recommendation 3.3.1 speaks to sort of training city of Austin staff in areas of institutional racism, systemic inequities. We've actually hired a business process consultant who is working to help us develop and design what we call our equity training academy for the city and are partnering with other departments like hrd to continue to advance some of the efforts that were actually going on before I arrived, like our undoing racism training for city executives and things like that as well. So we really see ourselves actively in that space. [4:22:39 PM] Another one that I touch on really briefly was that recommendation 2.7.1, talked about acknowledging from elected officials of racist policies of the past and present. And so one of the things that this council actually did was back in 2015 you passed a city council resolution around the adoption of an equity tool and really sort of directing the city manager to create and establish and implement that tool all on the sort of bases of responses to looking at these sort of systemic inequities that we have in the community. So that resolution is a really good outline and a framework that other jurisdictions could even follow to really acknowledge that publicly through what you can do as well. Sosome highlights from some of the other departments. I won't go through all of these for the sake of time, but what I will do is pull up the sort of number 1 or top recommendation, which was really around the frequency of responses that we had for that particular recommendation. So in the area of economic opportunity and affordability, one of the sort of top recommendations that was commented on by departments was around employers spending substantial and effective efforts in outreach and recruitment and educational institutions historically serving minorities. So you can see that our department of aviation talked about outreach at job fairs, hiring for summer youth employment program. We actually had a number of departments talk about their partnership through the summer youth employment program with I believe our youth and family services department that actually we set up. Fire talked about their recruiting section, annual visits to historically black colleges, Texas junior colleges and other institutions of higher education with minority [4:24:39 PM] image -- majority enrollment. You can see we had a number of departments to comment on some of the outreach they're doing with especially students of color in their efforts to really help diversify the staff. Lifelong learning is the next strategic priority I'll talk about briefly, and recommendation 3.1.2 spoke to the need for clearly competency and linguistic sensitivity. So one of the most significant comments that we have from departments on that was from our cpio team, which is really implementing a language access plan in all -- and all departments are having to do that. They're working on evaluating these long- term contracts for interpreter services to support this work as well. So you can sort of see that across manufacture our departments, work around sort of improving language access services. That was really from the direction of this dais in previous years around the need to address issues as it relates to cultural competency and linguistic sensitivity. Mobility was the area that we probably didn't have the most responses on, and I will probably say only because with the mayor's task force there wasn't really a committee focused on transportation or mobility directly. But we were still able to pull out a few recommendations that tied back to the mobility priority. So the one that really elevated to the top was 2.5.1, which was to establish a program to put actual affordability communities on transportation corridors. You can see we had a number of departments that sort of commented around the work that they're doing in connection with imagine Austin to really sort of put some affordable housing opportunities in some of the centers that go along with [4:26:42 PM] the imagine Austin plan. You can see councilwomen development commenting on redevelopment projects in colony park and -- Mueller, transportation department, talking about the corridor program implementation office and coordinating with housing department to support affordable housing through those efforts as well. Health was the next priority, and the top sort of response on recommendations was 3.4.2, which was incentivize public-private initiatives that increased food access and food desserts. So both the office of sustainability, Austin page talked about the city's fresh for less program, which features the mobile markets, farm stands, healthy corner store initiatives in food desert areas and zip codes with lower access to food. In terms of safety, one of the top recommendations that departments commented on that we are currently implementing was 5.3.1, which was we recommend that city of Austin create alternatives to incarceration for class C misdemeanors. So the municipal court and community court both talked about the options for payment plans, community service and hardship waivers as alternatives, walk-in dockets to review individuals to pay is available as well. Government that works, the top recommendation was 1.2.17, which was promote the value of bilingualism and biliteracy in city affairs. You can sort of see some of the things that our departments to do that. Austin energy talked about monthly utility bills that are translated into English and Spanish and Spanish advertising for updates and promotions and providing online access, also providing language services [4:28:43 PM] on 311. Many departments also commented about the fact that they had employees within their departments that are receiving the bilingual stipend for their assistance in providing bilingual services for city departments. >> Houston: Mayor, do you want me to hold my question until the end? >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead real quick. >> Houston: It's a quick question. What are the bilingual stipends for just regular --folks? >> For thality amount? >> Houston: Mm-hmm. >> I don't know the actual amount. We can find out. >> Houston: You can find out for me? >> We can find out for you. So the second half of the presentations that we wanted to share, recommendations that we determined that were actionable and practical. And so these represent recommendations that our departments either said, you know, this could be integrated into our business plan as a department or they really represented recommendations that they thought had some potential to move forward. And so we put some criteria on it to really sort of really flesh out what was actionable and practical, and these were the three things that we looked at. The city council's six priorities, which we talked about earlier, impact on advancing racial equity, and also the frequency of department responses, really sort of this idea that if we had a high number of responses for a particular recommendation it was a really good indicator that there's an interest and will within the department to really move it forward. So we really want to elevate the responses of those recommendations which had a high number of responses. Once again, I won't go through all of these, but I will sort of just kind of highlight some of the top that got a lot of responses and fit that criteria. Under the area of economic opportunity and affordability, [4:30:43 PM] recommendation 2.3.8, which is regional public information campaign, to educate on segregation and fair housing issues. So one of the things that our departments talked about was opportunities to promote through the fair housing conference. So neighborhood nhcd, neighborhood housing community development and nhrd talked about this opportunity to enhance knowledge of fair housing. Which was actually a project we're working on, which is sponsored by the equal employment and fair housing office in partnership with the Texas workforce commission and civil rights division. Culture and lifelong learning, one of the recommendations that elevated up to the top. 1.1.10 which is marketing campaign of we are Austin, a great place to live, work, and play for Asian, black, Latino and American Indian showcasing cultural, spiritual and community assets. So I actually thought that this recommendation connected really well with some of the research or work that we have seen, you know, in regards to communities of color experience in the city of Austin. I think about the research that Dr. Eric tame did in looking around at why we have a declining black population in Austin. The top two sort of reasons for that was one was affordability, but the second reason was really sort of the feeling of belonging within the city of Austin. Right? And feeling like it was a city that sort of embraced their culture and their heritage and them seeing themselves in the city. So with this one, our Austin [4:32:46 PM] water department, you know, talked about this opportunity that they would be interested in developing a marketing plan, that supports we are Austin and they could tie the marketing into this for the Austin water conservation program. The economic development department had this really great idea in regard to this recommendation, they could do certification of awards, they could be provided to the community that markets Austin's diversity as a way to do this, and our Pio team felt like a campaign, like this could have synergy and promise within the city, too. You can see a number of departments are really interested in advancing that recommendation. On the health side, the top recommendation that folded up as really having potential was 5.4.1, which was implementing a screening process for mental illness. Intake to be done by one mental health professional or licensed clinical social worker on staff with dacc. The courts responded around that. So one of the things that sort of came out during this process is you have departments that said some of the recommendations really have potential to move forward or be implemented but they would have cost associated with them. In this particular area, our community course responded that this would require the addition of the fte dedicated to assessment prior to adjudication as a part of that. That is some of the data and information that we like to share with you, moving forward for certain recommendations. In terms of safety I will touch on the top one, 5.2.10 was the city of the Austin's work toward a goal, 35% of [4:34:50 PM] daily patrol time dedicated to community policing activity. Once again, you have atp responded, you know, this has potential, but ask for the staff necessary to reach that level of 35% of committed time. It would be a recommendation if council wanted to move forward on it, that would have a cost associated or attached to it, that department source in that response. Government that works top recommendation was 4.3.5, which was employers anon anonmize applications from advancement of diversity. That was a popular report done. It is titled is Keisha and Jamal as employable as Greg and Emily. And a look at doing the study where research has provided the same resume, same information, the only difference was name. The reality through that research is white-sounding names got 50% more call backs, even when the job history and information on the resume was actually identical. A strategy to anonymousize resumes can help to advance diversity with staff and strategies. For this one, hrd responded to this would need further analysis to ensure that all sort of procedures and logistics were considered. The initial review of applications could remove identifying barriers, but once again, we really need to work with council on the guidance to flesh things like that out. [4:36:52 PM] So our next step is that we really sort of see the feedback that we have gotten from our departments as a really good tool for them to use in the strategic planning process. And along the way, we have actually done this. We have noticed that the mayor's task force report was cited in the development of challenges for our outcome teams. And now that we're at this point of you all sort of looking at and adopting your strategies, we have provided this information to them because we think that they can be specific tactics that we actually look at to help achieve some of the strategies and actually sort of go back to achieving some of the metrics and stuff. My first recommendation is to really sort of, online, the actionable and practical recommendations with metrics and strategies, with the property outcome planning. Our second recommendation is that we have to consider the fiscal impact and scaleability of these recommendations. One of our lessons learned from this process is we have some that are currently implementing the recommendations and some that are not. One of the strategies can be for the things that are really having impact and departments that are doing it is how to make it able to be across all departments if we have three or four departments that are currently dog it. It is actually sort of a gaining track. So the implementation option, going back to what could be used for a mechanism, to help departments adopt some of these that are currently [4:38:53 PM] working. I will pause and take questions. >> Just a quick one. Towards the front of the presentation, you talked about Travis county. >> That is from the report. That is citywide. You have community members from all different jurisdictions that were part of the mayor's task force. >> There was apparently no one there from Williamson county. >> They didn't make it on to the list. >> Mayor, just a minute. >> We would most certainly welcome members from Williamson county to sit on the task force. They would be enlightened, I think. First thing, I want to say generally, I think you have done a great job with equity office. I think you have achieved considerable reach throughout the city departments. I think the issue of equity and how to drive equity is something that is being discussed. Mayor, I know that departments are looking up and saying what can I do, to get everybody with your stamp or view or perspective on something that is happening. That is exactly what I think the council intended for this [4:40:54 PM] office to do when we set it up. I hope that -- I believe that there are colleagues among us on the council that want to -- you know, when we're able to in the budget process to increase the capacity of the department or your office so it can really do that kind of work. So I want to say that generally. Second, I'm pleased that you picked this up. You know, the task force report, like many task force reports, you always worry that it is going to end up being received and put on a shelf. And when this council took that report and when it accepted it, by resolution said we will read this and send it out to the departments, we should be adopting some of these, if they make sense to do, I think it is really encouraging that it actually happened that way and this is not just a report. But that, you know, on the third page that you have, I mean, it looks as if of the 250 recommendations, it looks like all of them are either implemented, underway, planned or potential or close to that. And that we have almost 100 now planned as well as an additional almost 100 that are being considered as potential. I think that that is real encouraging. And shows and demonstrates that this was not just a report, but people are taking it seriously and trying to implement it. I say that in part because I think the people who did this need to know that. So that we complete the loop. So if you have haven't already, I would appreciate it if you would send this report to Dr. Burnett and Dr. Cruz, so they can see and perhaps communicate to their task [4:42:54 PM] force that they -- the two of them led that their work is actually being used and being implemented. Because I think that is a really important thing for the community to know. And just finally, I am really proud to be part of a council that has made equity such a priority in so many of the things it is doing, discussing. The goodness knows, the more we talk about it, the more we realize ways that we're falling short. To have that conversation so frequently, I think, is a testament to the staff. But to my colleagues and then I thank them for that. >> Yeah, I would add that this was really -- this process of responding to this resolution also had the added unintended consequence. From this list, we have a good baseline of some of the things that we're already doing as city departments. So to me, the low-hanging fruit were take the things we're already doing in some departments and just figure out, ok, how do we scale that across all 42 of them, which would have even bigger impact. So for us, I think we were really excited when we started to have data come in, to tell us to actually see so many things that departments were currently doing. That are not always elevated to the organization of our size and our city. This was a good exercise to help us do that. >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Houston. >> Houston: I think it is [4:44:55 PM] helpful in aligning and even though we are in our silos, that it helps in the priorities. >> Our mantra is to connect the work, connect it back. And ultimately, we see the next phase of this as we have to connect to back to a metric. So what actually is it helping us change or increase or, you know, as it relates to the performance metrics at the end of the day, too. >> Houston: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Yes? >> I want to thank you. >> Renteria: Especially that you are reaching out to the summer job program. There are going to be the future. And the recruits I have had working out of my office have been great. I really appreciate that. And we're going to be reaching out and teaching them the program interns and Austin really takes the equity office as serious. And we're expecting all the employers to take it serious also. And I think we're showing an example by doing that. >> Definitely. One of the things I didn't mention as an initiative is that we have an opportunity for through the equity office is that we are -- we received funding to be a part of a national cohort called racial equity here. As a part of the funding that we received, sort of two parts. One was to actually establish and build a framework for the office and the second one was to demonstrate the equity office on a youth intervention program. And what we have really landed on, what really piqued our interest is the round of youth employment in the city. Joy is still there. She can correct me. I think over the next five [4:46:57 PM] years, we have about 28% of our city workforce that is eligible for retirement. And at the same time, if you sort of look at demographics of employment for our city, young men and boys of color, between the ages of 16 to 24 are the highest unemployed segment. So it is this opportunity that, you know, we sort of see to figure out how could we kind of help develop a pipeline for those young men to potentially be city employees, you know, in some form or fashion. Because we'll have a need with the openings we project to see as a city. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds great. Anything else? Thank you very much. >> Thank you all. >> Mayor Adler: It is 4:44. And we're done. And this meeting is adjourned.