City Council Work Session Transcript – 01/29/2019 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 1/29/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/29/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:08:25 AM] Mayor>> Mayor Adler: All right. I think we have a quorum. All right. Always exciting to start off a new year, new people on the dais. It is January 29th. It is eight after 9:00. We are in the boards and commissions room here at city hall. This is the city council work session. We have a quorum, so we get to begin. As is our tradition, the new members will now sing a song. [Laughter]. No? No? Just thought we'd get the adrenaline going early in the morning, you know. All right. So I thought that what we would do is we would hit the three items on the agenda and then get to the pulled items. That would give us the council discussions first on the -- the update on the federal closing, partial shut down issue, and then Greg, I think there was something that you wanted to hit early. >> Casar: It will take 45 seconds. >> Mayor Adler: Let's do that. Let's talk about the shutdown first. Was there a report from staff? >> Mayor and council, happy new year and welcome back. It's great to see everyone and for the new faces as well. We put this item on the agenda after consulting with a number of city councilmembers to ensure that as our country had gone through the unprecedented shutdown throughout the month of January, we were working closely with our department directors and with the executive team on ensuring that if there were any impacts on our own operations and how we could provide assistance that we were teeing up any issues that might arise to the council as appropriate. So we actually had a memo that was about to go out [9:10:26 AM] yesterday after the news on Friday, we decided to just have this presentation to talk about some of the themes that came through those discussions and then answer any questions that you have. So I've asked deputy city manager Elaine hart to walk through some of the conversations we were having with our departments to ensure that if there were any impacts on -- on those departments as a result of the partial government shutdown that we were dressing them in realtime. So with that, deputy city manager. >> Thank you, good morning, mayor and council. I'd like to give you just a background first before we go into some of the impacts. In fiscal '19 we have $43.4 million of grants appropriated from federal and state agencies. Of those amounts, the Austin public health department comprises 61 and a half% and a half percent. The neighborhood housing and community development department comprises 26%. And those two departments together are 87 and a half percent of the total grants that we've been awarded by the federal and state government. Those grants also fund full-time equivalents, personnel for us. The Austin public health department has 149 positions out of the total 193 that the city has, so they have 77% of the ftes that are grant funded and would be most impacted if there was a long-term shutdown. From the perspective of personnel. The neighborhood housing department has 17% of the 193 positions. So between the two departments, public health and housing, they represent 94% of the total ftes that we have that are grant funded. So that's kind of the lay of the land, if you will. Overall when we canvassed all of our departments that [9:12:26 AM] have grants, there were very few immediate impacts, and those that we found were minimal. In fact, other than the grant-funded, there is one area where we have some operational impact sometimes when there's a shutdown and that's with the airport, the aviation department. When the T.S.A. Employees may not be on staff. We did not -- our airport did not have any significant impacts, although other airports in the country did have some impacts and flights were shut down. But we fared very well through this shutdown. We continually monitor with our departments what the status is, and the only other thing I would point out is our public health department has a program for women, infant and children, and had the shutdown continued on for a long period of time, we would have started having trouble with funding in the April -- in month of April. But overall we're going to continue to monitor. I think we're in good shape. And we have some additional information if you care to have it. I'd be glad to answer any questions. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody have any questions? Yes. >> Renteria: Is it because y'all do this, the federal government how it funds y'all is monthly? Or is it -- is that the reason why it affects y'all because they couldn't cut the checks on time? >> Part of it is whether they've already been appropriated or not. And most of our grants have already been appropriated. I think on the W.I.C. Program our appropriations did not go past the March time frame. So it's a timing -- just as you appropriate the full budget in September, there's a different appropriation bills at the federal level and we were not caught up in the ones that were involved in the shutdown. [9:14:26 AM] I think we were just very fortunate for that. >> Renteria: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, councilmember pool. >> Pool: Thanks for this, Elaine, this is really helpful. Good morning, Ed. I was curious if the impasse comes back in February and goes on, can you tell me how vulnerable are those particular contracts that are already appropriated should the shutdown begin again and go on for a period of time? Do we have any sense of that? >> I don't. Do you have the details on that? >> We don't have the details, but it's going to depend upon which sections of the government were shut down and ultimately how they decide to administer it. But I think in general you would have to think that those grants that we receive from the federal government would be at risk. At some point in time the appropriations at the federal level would run out. We would not be able to draw the funds down anymore and then we would have to kind of make a gamble or a decision if we were going to continue those programs using local funds and then put up for reimbursement when the government reopened, which is what we were debating right now, if this shutdown had extended, our intent was to continue the programs and then when the government reopened we would have submitted for reimbursement. My understanding of past shutdowns is those reimbursements were honored. Services that were done when we couldn't draw down the funds when the government reopened, we were able to get reimbursed for the activities we undertook. So we think that would be the way it would go again. >> Pool: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: Thank you all for being prepared and I think we probably need to continue to be prepared as we head into only a three-week temporary solution. And I think it was obviously really important for folks to speak up for us to even get to this place of having the government reopened, especially workers that [9:16:27 AM] started talking about potentially not going to work. I think that that really helped get us to where we were. One thing that y'all didn't note that I do think is important was that we didn't break ground on Travis flats, which was city funded affordable housing on county land, and my district, near district 1 and district 9, that was supposed to happen this month, but because of the federal shutdown we did not have that groundbreaking. I think that there are other ways that the folks that are working with us and the county to build that are finding a way to get that project going, but I do think that it's important for people in Austin to know giver enthe importance of affordable housing -- given the importance of affordable housing that that project was supposed to be underway, but my understanding is it was not underway specifically because of this. One other place that I would be interested in making sure we have a good understanding is there are many people across our districts that had their housing because of hud vouchers and I want to best understand that if we go back to shutdown in three weeks, when it is that there starts being an impact on people potentially losing -- potentially losing their homes or what the legal issues might be there or what we might need to do to intervene. It was something I was starting to get emails right before there was the announcement last week. But thank you for looking into this. I know we don't have as many federal employees as say Houston or San Antonio does, but obviously for those members of our community that had to go through that, I think it's important for us to keep advocating to preventing it from happening again. Thanks. >> We'll try to include those areas in our next report if we have to have a report. >> Mayor Adler: By the way, without objection, the convention I'm going to try to use if I remember to do it as we do meetings, is refer to everybody by their title and last name, their position when we're in the main room during city council meetings, but when we're in a more informal place like the work session, probab refer to people by [9:18:27 AM] their first names. Alison. >> Alter: Good morning. I appreciate this update. I was curious to know a little bit more about the impacts in the community. We do have a bunch of federal workers. We heard reports from lots of other communities about their food banks and the pressures that it's placing on the food banks, which are already stressed to provide food to folks who are regularly taking advantage of them. So can you speak to some of those impacts to the extent that we understand them? I know we have an irs facility. How is this rippling through our community in that respect? >> Well, I don't think we have a real good answer for that because after this item was posted by council, we focused our attention on reaching out to all the city departments and looking at programs that the city is responsible for delivering or programs the city -- the funding of those or the programs that the city is responsible for delivering that rely on federal workers like the T.S.A. Agents at the airport. I think beyond the work that Jason Alexander did and intergovernmental relations office did to identify, I think it was around 12,800 federal employees that worked locally. We had not had time to do that additional work, like councilmember Garza had talked about, looking at hud vouchers and other impacts, just community impacts would be broader and beyond implications to city services. So we're going to have to do that as the next stage of this work. Hopefully never needing it. Hopefully there won't be another shutdown, but we'd like to continue that work. >> We do know that some of the irs employees were furloughed and others were called back to work. We don't know how many, we don't have figures, but anecdotally we had staff who had neighbors that worked at the irs and one had been called back and one had not. But it's difficult to get that kind of information in the time period that we were [9:20:28 AM] looking at. >> Alter: So I think it would be useful if someone in the city can call the central Texas food bank or a couple of the major food bank operators and see how things are going and if we need to be sending out a call for additional funds or for food that maybe the city can be helpful in spreading the word if that wasn't impacted. I'm not totally sure if it was an issue here in our community, but it was something that we were hearing about. And then the other question that I had was I'm pleased that we didn't have problems at our airport, that's great. I'm curious as to why that was the case here in Austin versus in other places. What were we doing better that allowed us to retain our workers through this process? >> My understanding, and this is just more here say than anything, is that the union efforts in that area, they elected to kind of voice their issues with the shutdown at certain large airports. So calling in sick or work slow downs or things of that nature, we were hitting Atlanta and other large airports, but they elected not to target Austin as a city to make that point in. >> Alter: Okay. And I want to just underscore what I think was implied by some of my colleagues' questions is that this may not be over and we need to be prepared in three weeks that we may be right back where we are. So anything that we need to do in that regard I think is important to be prepared for. >> Mayor Adler: Delia. >> Garza: Thanks for that information. We were in the process of working on a resolution. I reached out to councilmember Madison, but then it ended. But as others have said, I shared on social media, we just pulled together all the resources that we could find and it got shared like 30 times, and then it got shared from that 30 more [9:22:29 AM] times. So I think if the city can maybe get a page together on our website that just brings -- we had the cap metro free rides, the food bank infortion. And we also found out that Houston did some kind of -- city of Houston worked with local food banks and provided some kind of voucher. I'm not sure what the voucher could be used for, but I think the reality is this could happen again and I think it would be good for the city to have like information, a deep Poe depot of information of resources. >> Mayor Adler: Good. Yes, Kathie. >> Tovo: Thanks so much for this presentation. I appreciate the proactive work that was going on alongside this conversation. I know that our housing department we were in conversation with our housing department and they were in conversations with the housing authority. So I hope as you respond to the comments that you heard today about embedding that in, I do think it's important that we all have a really clear understanding of how austinites' ability to stay in their units would be. And I think our housing department has made some of those conversations, has had some of those conversations proactively. The other conversation, though, that I had with some of you surrounded what some other cities were doing with regard to T.S.A. Workers. As it was reported in the media, some airports were providing loans and other kinds of supports to their T.S.A. Employees. And I know I went back and forth with a couple of you about whether we had the ability to do do that. So I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about now, if you have an answer to that, or if that's an answer we would need in executive session, but it would be very helpful in the, I hope, really -- I hope we don't have to confront this in three weeks, but it would be really important to have the answer to that question as soon as possible whether we have the ability with our airport funds to do a program of that sort and [9:24:30 AM] what it would take to have that ready to go if we needed it. So again, I don't know if you have the answer to that question today because I know several of you were researching it over the last couple of weeks, but if we could get an answer to that question. It would be important to have one. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for this work as well. I was at the U.S. Conference of mayors meeting this past week in DC, and on behalf of the city joined the speaker and some other mayors and congressmen on I guess the morning before the deal was struck to try and talk about the impact on cities, to try to put pressure as well. One of the things that became apparent, I know that the vouchers that -- the checks that are put into landlords' bank accounts that are participating show up on the first of every month and that this money had already been appropriated and it looked like it was going to happen on the next first, but not thereafter. And just one of the impacts as we've been trying to get more and more people into affordable housing, one of the barriers is getting landlords to accept those folks as tenants. And the one thing that is the best marketing tool that we have is to say that this check will always be in your mailbox on the first of every month. You know, a better paying tenant than anybody else could possibly with. This tenant's check will always be there and to not have a check show up would remove that. So there are just thousands of different ways a shutdown ripples through the city operations. So thanks for that work. Okay. We'll move on. Greg, did you want to say something about housing? >> Casar: I just wanted to [9:26:30 AM] direct everyone's attention to the council message board. We're going to have our first housing committee, housing and planning committee meeting on February the 12th. It's been a sort of long anticipated meeting because the staff has been preparing materials to show us the proposed plan for the -- for our strategic housing blueprint implementation and the consolidated plan for the next five years. And I just wanted to draw people's attention to the meeting so that you can come. Folks are asking questions about how we're going to spend the housing bond, how it is we're going to tackle the crisis that all of us have unanimously said is one of our top priorities. This is really place to take a first look at that. The reason I want to take a minute here in work session is because we're going to handle that meeting a little differently just to cover that in a summary type way. The staff said it's like a 72-page powerpoint. So I said we're not going to go through a 72-page powerpoint. I don't think the staff wanted to go through that either. So most likely by the end of the week, but by Monday morning at the latest all of that backup will actually be up so that people can have well over a week to review it. And what we'll be doing at committee is instead the staff going through an extremely quick and brief overview with the assumption that people that come will have read into the material so we can dive into asking questions of the things that are of interest to the members and so we can have that discussion. But I urge that if it's a thing of interest for you to read through that and to come and participate because it's such an important topic, but it's just a hard one for us to take three hours of the dais' time in a work session or a council meeting going through. So if it's something that interests you and you want to come talk about that for a couple of hours, I think it will be really fruitful and I'm looking forward to the thought through staff plans of premoating integration while fighting gentrification and providing community services. They're bringing that all together with the staffing requests and what staffing it might take to come out of the bond in order to [9:28:31 AM] implement that transparently and fruitfully and quickly. >> Garza: What was the time? >> Casar: That's February 12th from 10:00 in the morning until 12:00 in the afternoon. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thanks. So with that we'll then move on to the next thing we have, which are committees. We've handed out -- I've handed out a list of the folks that have indicated a desire to be on certain committees. The ordinance says that subsequent to this meeting I'm supposed to give them to the clerk, whatever the final list is, which I'll do when we're done. And it says that with consultation with the council I'm supposed to recommend chairs and vice-chairs. I talked to Delia, and after this meeting is over she and I will bring to the council, probably at the next meeting, a recommendation on chairs and vice-chairs. We said in the ordinance that we passed that everybody could just sign up for a committee, and if there were more than five members on any committee then it would be a committee of the whole. This is the list as taken down from the postings. Yes, Ann. >> Kitchen: Oh, I just wanted to address -- I didn't -- maybe it wasn't clear, but on the health and human services, I should be listed as staying on. I only said I would leave if there wasn't room for it. Or that's what I intended. I may not have said it very clear. So I would put me back on the -- stay on the health and human services. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Garza: I had a similar. [9:30:31 AM] My posting was similar. I would be willing to step off if a new councilmember ny councilmember wanted to serve, but being that there's only four, I'm fine staying. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. So -- yes, Leslie. >> Pool: Thanks. And on the message board I had said that I was going to step aside from being chair of Austin energy, but would like to continue as vice-chair of Austin energy oversight in hopes that Kathie would take on that challenge chairing Austin energy oversight. And I've been on audit and finance since I was first elected and it's a good assign and would like to continue on that. I listed that I'd like to be chair, but I think -- and I've been honored to have the chairmanship of a number of committees and work groups in the last four years, but I noticed and had talked about this previously that Alison had not been yet able to chair something, and I think we need to address that because I think she would be brilliant as the chair of audit and finance and I would be happy to be her second chair on audit and finance. So what I had put on the message board -- I didn't go back in and adjust that because I thought we could just talk about that here today. I thought we would make these decisions here today. So I would be happy to be a vice-chair of audit and finance and of Austin energy oversight with the capable leadership of both Alison and Kathie and others of course on the committee. And I had stepped away from being on the judicial committee midyear last year. My name isn't on there as one of the four, but we did have to have four people originally to make that committee work. So -- and I had -- when I took that position I had mentioned that I would just take it for an interim. So I'm glad there are other people who want to serve on the judicial committee. But I'm happy with the assignments that I've got and with those small changes [9:32:31 AM] on position, that's what I would like to continue to do. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. My preference would still be for us to figure out who the membership are and then to be able to take seriously the responsibility assigned to make recommendations for chair and vice-chair. In part taking a look at the intergovernmental things too to see where people are placed. And my hope would be that the expectation would be that the mayor pro tem and I would come back with a proposal to the council on those. Alison? >> Alter: Thank you. Thank you, Leslie. I would, as Leslie indicated, I would like to be chair of the audit and finance. And I am willing to step off of housing so it doesn't have to be a committee of the whole. I don't think committees that are committees of the whole are particularly effective. And I will attend when there are items on the agenda that are of particular interest to me, as there is on February 12th. That way that doesn't have to be a committee of the whole. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. So as I look at this with respect to audit and finance finance, it looks like there's one, two, three, four, five people that have expressed an interest on that. So that one would make. On health and human services, with -- it looks like there are five people that have expressed an interest in that. Tovo, kitchen, Garza -- four, rather, Harper Madison, so four people there. On housing and planning, I had one, two, three, four, five, if councilmember alter is not on that. So that makes five on that. >> Pool: It would make four. >> Mayor Adler: I'm sorry. >> Pool: I'm sorry, I missed that. Sorry, excuse me. >> Mayor Adler: No problem. On judicial it looks like we have four people that have expressed an interest for that. And on mobility I'll do the [9:34:33 AM] same thing that hall son Alison did. It's my intent to be at all of those meetings so if y'all will listen to what I say too, I'll just participate in those and then let the five members be the other five that are shown. Okay? Ann? >> Kitchen: I also wanted to suggest that -- that you know, in terms of legislative liaison that's something that I think is a key role for you as mayor. And others of us who participate in that too, depending on the issues we're working on and stuff like that. So I wouldn't think that you would have to have the title of vice-chair or chair to do that. I think that's already where I would see you being. So I just wanted to make that statement. >> Mayor Adler: I understand. Thank you. So let's -- yes, Kathie? >> Tovo: I wanted to suggest about health and human services -- it sounds like those of us served on that committee had the same potential response to it that we would be willing to move off if new folks wanted to be on there. I think one thing that I see with regard to that committee is I'm not sure it needs to meet quite as often as the other committees. So I just would throw out that there seems -- it seemed over last couple of years to be periods where we need that committee to meet to make appointments or to do interviews or to handle issues that are coming before the council on which we want that kind of in-depth look and then there are times where it really doesn't need to meet. So I hope we can be flexible to looking at a schedule that really accommodates that so that it's not necessarily even meeting every other month. I just wanted to echo what a few of you said. With regard to housing and planning, I didn't put my [9:36:34 AM] name forward on that. I'll just attend when its real relevant. I think some of the nine resolutions I did last year are going to get their updates, which I've been eagerly awaiting. So I'm certainly going to attend that one for that reason. That's kind of why having asked to be on that committee a couple of times I didn't this time. I'm just going to attend when it's relevant. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Leslie, did you have something else you wanted to say? >> Pool: Illy don't, but since you called on me, Steve, I wanted to echo what Ann said as the legislative lead. You are absolutely the legislative lead. You are the mayor of the city and to the extent that we look to you for leadership up key capitol and you have gone up there in the last five years to do that very thing, I think that being chair of a committee or even vice- chair does not inhibit that in any way. And in fact, if you have a chair or a vice-chair who is, say, for example, Kathie or Alison, and they go with you, then that looks even more -- it looks even stronger, especially with the -- especially with the good -- ability to present good information. I think we're in a stronger position if you have more folks going with you up to the capitol. So I would just echo what Ann was saying and hope that we can make sure that the leadership of the committees -- that's really the only place where any of us can exert that other than mayor pro tem chairing the main council meetings, it's -- we get that experience and that time under our belts by chairing the various council committees. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Yes, Alison. >> Alter: One committee that I don't see on here is the ad hoc legislative committee. And I believe in conversations that I had with bee with bree that there was a need for that to be [9:38:35 AM] constituted appropriately so she would have thatup as a sounding board. And I don't know the exact process for that. I think you may chair that. I'm just not sure how that works if we're going to delegate particular authority to a group to do that of I guess it's three or four -- >> Mayor Adler: I think your point is well taken. Let's ask that question in terms of interest in serving on the legislative ad hoc committee, which is the committee that serves as the most immediate sounding board for bree. To things that sometimes change daily up at the legislature, to be able to have a subquorum of the council that she can go talk to to say this is what I'm doing, do you see any red flags with this or just to ask for insight, it's a valuable thing for her. Who is interested because we didn't list that, and probably should have. Who is interested in serving on that is Cathy Kathie and Leslie and Greg, Ann and Paige and me. That gives us six on that one. Also I -- with respect to this, I know that bree, whenever there's something that concerns that there is of particular interest to anyone on the council or they've done resolutions, she always seeks out those people a well. Leslie? >> Pool: I wanted to add on to that, we had a rolling differing group of folks depending on what the issue was in 2017 for that purpose. And I do think this is a committee that we wanted to keep relatively small. >> Mayor Adler: And that's correct. Jimmy wanted to be part of this one too. So that's one, two, three, [9:40:35 AM] four, five, six, seven. It had looked to me like there was going to be more than five people that wanted to serve on this. What I had asked bree is whether she was comfortable in essence creating a group that she would refer to on an issue by issue basis from among the pool of people that had expressed an interest. And I'm comfortable letting her do that if that's something that you all are comfortable too. It does not preclude her if she feels a need from talking to two different subquorums because she's allowed to do that even though we are not. Yes, Alison. >> Alter: I would be interested >> Alter:I would be interested in subissues if you're gonna do it that way. I don't know to be on the committee -- I don't need to be on the committee but there are a few issues I'm interested in. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you go ahead, I'll put that on to her too. >> Alter: I think she's pretty aware. >> Mayor Adler: I think so too. We'll handle it then that way. I'll tell her the seven that have signed up, ask her to try to stay with that pool, and to be aware of expressed interest. Okay? All right. When the mayor pro tem and I come back with recommendations on chair and vice chair we'll come back with recommendations on intergovernmental. Most of those seem to be fairly straightforward. There is more people than we have available spots for for cap metro and for campo and I thought we would take just a second to discuss those two because they're real desired ones. We have obviously people that have been on those. Everybody that's on those wants to stay on those. And I just thought either this meeting or government that works meeting or soon later we could have a conversation about how we wanted to handle that as a [9:42:37 AM] council and probably starting to set precedent for subsequent councils. Do people that are on those stay on those because they've been on those? Do we give opportunity for new people who join the council to have an opportunity to be on those? How do we handle those? Don't have an answer to that. Just throwing that open to the floor. Anybody want to take a swing? >> Tovo: I'd also suggest -- I don't have an answer to that. I have to ponder it a bit. The other consideration I think is that there are certain appointments that have more impact on one district than another or -- and I think assuring that we have representation on those spots from kind of diverse geographic regions is also important. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: I'll take swing. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: I really feel like cap metro and campo and of course I'm self-interested here -- but those are bodies that building up experience on them is critical, and so I don't think it's appropriate to change simply because it's a new term. So I just think that I -- I don't see that working so. . . >> Mayor Adler: Paige? >> As someone who is interested in both of those, my interest is absolutely not a reflection on that anyone isn't doing the right thing or the appropriate thing, but I think especially as a representative of a district that is kind of lacking especially in cap metro services I think that my voice is of particular [9:44:38 AM] interest for my constituents. Ase build what is already a robust plan into something to making sure that all voices are being presented and all needs of my community are also being served so that's where my interest comes from. Definitely not lacking of anyone who has been serving of course. Just an interest to serve my constituents well. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anybody else want to weigh in? >> Renteria: I guess I'm the only -- I'm -- you know, when I was deciding on whether to be on the board, I did have a conversation with my representative and said there's one thing that elected officials should never be on, is on the capital metro board. [ Laughter ] So but I really am enjoit, you know, because there's so many projects that, you know, need to be done and even though you do get some pushbacks down there when you make some decisions, it's gonna be affecting your ridership, which we now call customers. And so I would prefer to stay there, but, you know, it's something -- I feel like there's a lots that happening within rail that I have been pushing real hard for so we're working now on the green line so I want to see that through. But maybe in a couple years I might want to be willing to step down. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Alice. >> Alter: Regardless of where this ends up, you know, if I'm serving on campo I'm very committed that if other members are not on campo and issues are coming up that affect their [9:46:39 AM] district to be reaching out and alerting you and working with you to make sure that we are representing your needs at campo. Jimmy and I did that a few weeks ago with respect to Paige and I think Ann did as well with respect to the oak hill decision. And I think that for both the members of campo and for the members of capital metro I would like to see us renew our efforts and do -- more diligently be finding ways appropriately within any quorum restrictions to be more broadly representative of the council and the city's needs on those intergovernmental bodies, and I don't -- I think there are some quorum issues that we need to navigate and maybe the city manager's office can help us a little bit with that so that we have some clarity on that so that we can really make those efforts be effective. For either of those bodies there is a very, very steep learning curve like no other body, intergovernmental one, that I've seen, and so there is value in building that up, but there is definitely a need for representation that goes beyond the folks who are on that committee, and we, as committee members, have that responsibility as part of our charge. >> Mayor Adler: Delia. >> Garza: Yeah, I had similar comments that maybe with the exception of central Austin, all of us have transit deserts in our district. And as a cap metro board member while I obviously still always have my district 2 hat on I've talked to other councilmembers who come to us and say, hey, this is an issue in my district, and as [9:48:40 AM] Alison said, councilmember Flannigan has come to me and asked, hey, is there anything on this campo list that you have any concerns with? So I'm also -- I don't know if it's my fire fighting background, but I'm a big believer in seniority and I think there are still opportunities for other council -- newer councilmembers to serve at some point. I may or may not run again. I may or may not win again. So, you know, that's when I would obviously roll off that and there's overlap there. So I think there's still opportunities for newer councilmembers to serve on those. I also -- councilmember kitchen said it is a big learning curve and a lot of relationship building. And as we head into a very big issue with project connect, I think it's good to keep the current members who have been working on that issue and hopefully get us a successful huge investment in our public transit. >> Mayor Adler: Ann. >> Kitchen: I would also add, one of the things that we are really working on as a group both from a cap metro perspective and from city council perspective is that we all work hand in hand on project connect and the major issues that we have for transit so that's why we've been having the joint meetings between the city council and cap metro and those will continue over the, you know, next year or two. And so I think that there are a lot of opportunities to participate and get engaged in our transit needs in the city, and it's not necessary to be on the cap metro board to weigh in and lean in and do that. [9:50:40 AM] So a lot of those decisions will be made at the city council level so. . . >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? All right. This conversation I'm sure will come back up when Delia and I come back to the group. The other thing I wanted to talk about is everybody is going to make now boards and commissions appointments. I wanted to put a little bit brighter light on the planning commission. I noticed that staff has laid out for us all the planning commission members. My thought was, is that given the community interest in some parts of the community about the collective appointments in addition to the individual appointments we might as a group take a look at that and maybe before we each made individual appointments we would let everybody else on the council know who we were thinking about making as our individual appointments so that we could get a feel for what the collective group was looking like in case people wanted to change their individual appointments or whatever. So I just thought I'd throw this subject out for us to talk about before people started making appointments. On the list that the staff handed out there are six people on this list, current members that were named in theit that was filed. Just so that you can see who they are, the first one, Greg Anderson was one of the named individual. Planning commission [indiscernible] Was named, Karen Mcgraw was named, James sissler was named, Patricia Seiger and James change was named, those six people. One of those people was appointed by one of the [9:52:42 AM] councilmembers who's no longer on the council. I think that councilmember troxclair's appointment was one of the people that was named. And I don't know whether he would be renamed by anybody but if he wasn't that would still leave five. I don't present that as a bar we have to hit because there was discussion and obviously a difference of opinion on whether one or more of those six people were in fact anything other than laypeople under the charter, so by pointing these out I'm not expressing an opinion that they fall in one group or the other group. Just trying to identify that information. But my thought was is that we could talk about collectively how we wanted to make these appointments and whether it made sense for us to say to everybody, hey, everybody, why don't you take a look and see who you want to appoint, post their names to the message board with their resumes or something and see if we could do that sometime a week or so prior to our last meeting in February and maybe at the work session the last meeting in February we could talk about collectively who it looked like the planning commission might be. But that's the conversation I wanted to tee up. Alison. >> Alter: Thank you for for raising this and putting this together. Appreciate it. Two comments. First of all, Patricia is here, who was my appointment, was retired before I appointed her and it's my understanding is not in the category of concern for that. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is, I understand that we have new councilmembers who want to reappoint folks but the terms do not end until the end of June. And so I think it's a question of the new councilmembers, if they want to appoint new people before [9:54:43 AM] then. Those are the ones that we have to deal with in the short run as opposed to all of the six or however many we want to deal with. We all have to reappoint by June 30 because they're two-year terms and then there are the -- I think it's two at-large appointments if we move from the prior system of the mayor making the nomination that we have to address. But that end of February I'm just not sure where that -- we do need to address this but the terms don't end until June, and obviously if somebody wants to who was just re-elected change something out we now have the ability to remove planning commissioners but I just want to point that out. >> Mayor Adler: We don't have to act because the people who are on there could continue to serve until June but we could certainly act any time before then to constitute the board. >> Alter: Except their term would still end at June and then have to reconstitute them again in July, for July, as I understand it. So that even the new councilmembers we'll be appointing them through -- I believe they're appointing them through June was what I believe I saw somewhere and then they have to be reappointed. >> One of the things that y'all could do is by ordinance change the terms, we talked about that, so they could match the other boards and commission members. Happy to help you work with an ordinance to get that accomplished if that's council's will. >> Pool: Yes. >> Mayor Adler: In other words, we could do whatever we want to do. We could appoint all new people in February. We could wait until June to do it. Any scenario we want we have the ability to be able to effect. Leslie. >> Pool: I wanted to thank our city attorney for raising the potential of an ordinance change. [9:56:44 AM] That's something my office had been looking at and thinking about so we might bring that forward in order to clarify that the terms would begin on a date and end two years after the appointment date rather than the June piece. There's a -- one of the flash points of that controversy was the professions, that more than a third of the planning commissioners were engaged in. And I don't -- and that took up a lot of our time and our discussion content last year. One of the categories that isn't on this very nice spreadsheet is who qualifies under what category, and I think at this point, because I don't want to revisit the same source of situation where we had more than the charter required one-third of these folks be in a land use or development profession, we need to know what they do for a living. I know two of these folks work for the same engineering firm and do similar development engineering working, and I just mention that as an aside because I'm not sure if it's really in the best interests of the city to have two planning commissioners that work at the same firm, for example. I just mention that as an aside. That's not really the main point of my comment. The main point is we don't know who is an architect, real estate agent, retired or not. If they are retired that profession shouldn't show next to their name. Could we get another iteration of this sheet -- >> Mayor Adler: I think we do have resumes for two or three of the folks appointed but not for the others. Would it be possible for you to reach out to those planning commissioners other than the ones that you have the resume for as well as reaching out to the councilmember that appointed that person and see if we can get that -- the same form completed by the sitting people. >> Pool: They actually claim what they are. They list it on their application. [9:58:45 AM] >> Jannette Goodall, city clerk. We can compare their current application to see if they provided any information on there and then update that, but we can also reach out to all of them that haven't completed the additional questionnaire. I think we only had two, maybe three that have been appointed since we implemented the questionnaire. But we can have everybody fill out the questionnaire and send that information out to mayor and council before you actually have the discussion in February. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think that would be good just because the questionnaire that we all do ought to have a little bit more request for information than were on the original application. Ann. >> Kitchen: Just a question. So if our intention is to -- my planning commissioner was just appointed in the fall so it's my intention whatever is the right time to reappoint that person. So I didn't understand what you were saying earlier. Do we need to state that on the message board or can I just state it now? >> Mayor Adler: You can state it now. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: And we'll still try to get the resume completed. >> Kitchen: My commissioner is one of the few that already completed that so. . . >> Mayor Adler: So there's both an individual determination and a collective determination. So we'll recognize that it's your intent to reappoint the same person. >> Kitchen: And the person that I appointed is not in the category of any concern because egging work in any of those fields so I would expect us as a group to -- you know, to allow councilmembers to appoint who they want and that the only issue is going to be if we have an issue related to that, that legal issue that was raised. >> Mayor Adler: So noted. You can get that out and see the information. My hope is to bring this back up to the council at our last meeting in February, which is the 21, 21 - [10:00:49 AM] 21stst, which meaning we'll have a work session on the 19th to bring it back up to us to discuss. If people could post their person or persons -- you don't have to limit it to one if you don't want, to person or persons that you would anticipate wanting to serve on this, either continuing service or a new person, if we could do that maybe a week before that so people have a chance to see it that would be great. That would mean then to do that by the 12th, whenever that is, February 12. All right. I think that gets us through you'll of those things. That gets us now to pulled items. Let's hit the pulled items that we have. >> Staff is requesting postponement based on feedback we've gotten from council. >> Mayor Adler: Item 11 looks like it's going to be postponed. Item number 22 -- 25 -- >> Tovo: Mayor, before we move beyond that I'd like to just talk about that for a few minutes. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Tovo: City manager, can you help us understand -- I'm not sure the nature of the feedback that you've received from council or whether it's being postponed for another meeting or whether it would be reposted. I think I can say that one -- certainly one concern I've heard from individuals who are writing is that it's not clear from the posting and the way in which this is presented that recycled reeds would be closed so I would hope that -- I guess I just need to better understand what the intention is here from city management with regard to this item. >> Sara Hensley, interim assistant city manager. [10:02:49 AM] We're asking to postpone this because we believe there is an issue that we want to sit down, again, with our library commission and review this. There's several commission members who were unaware of the situation so in knowing that and the commission meeting that was held last night there was confusion and staff were trying to explain the issue but Roosevelt is out of town and so I think it's best that we have an opportunity to sit down with the library commission and go over this again. Some of them had no idea, at least they said they were unaware that this was proposed, and that's certainly not something we want. And so after working with Dana and staff, it's requested that we postpone it for a week, have staff -- please allow them the opportunity to sit down with members of the commission and talk about the proposal, which is not to close the site, but to partner with another nonprofit in regards to recycling and share opportunities at the branch sites so that they have more of an opportunity to use recycled reads. But we want to make sure that the commission is fully engaged and that they have an opportunity to weigh in, and they did not. >> Tovo: May I ask a few questions, mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Tovo: Could can you help me understand whether -- let me just say I have concerns about the proposal. I think we had a conversation -- you know, when we had a conversation several years ago - - and I'm still kind of pulling information from that conversation -- you know, there were a lot of very strong reasons that members of our community and some of us on the dais offered to at that point renew the lease for recycled reads. It's everyone Ising a very important function, I think, in our community, and so I'm not sure what the impact would be of reducing the space so very significantly. I do know and agree with the comments that several people have made in emailing us that having -- continuing what we currently do, offer used books for sale in our [10:04:51 AM] branch libraries, is not at all really going to supplant the important function that recycled reads is currently filling. I have a staff member who attended one of their fix it workshop on Saturday and she said there were so many in attendance there she couldn't find a spot in the parking lot. This is a very highly functioning, well-attended facility of our public library, and so I guess if we're postponing it for a week, I know my colleague councilmember alter submitted some questions through the q&a and I'll probably supplement that but I think we need to look at attendance records, we need to relook at what we did the last time we had a conversation about the future of this site, which is to look at the impact and the way in which this is supporting our zero waste goals. Because, again, I think it's serving a function that our branch -- just selling used books in our branch libraries which we're currently doing is just a very different function. >> Weekend. I think that's why we need to have more dialogue and allow the commission members to fully issues the issues, pros and cons, related to this. Because the opportunity was there to work with another recycling company who would share the space with recycled reads we would not leave that space, we would still thereby and it would help to pay for the cost of the rental of that site but we want to be able to answer all those questions and be completely transparent and it's really asking to postpone this a week so we can do that and visit with the commission. >> Tovo: Would the programming that's currently going on, the story hours, would those continue? >> Yes, they would. >> Tovo: With such a significant cut? >> I do think that's why we want to clear this up, make sure everybody is either on board or that we hear from y'all as well commission members this isn't the direction you want to go. >> Tovo: I guess, too, the other question that I would like answered between now and then is what the -- of course we all received the memo and there was some concern, I guess, about the [10:06:51 AM] payment from Austin -- from arr. >> Yes. >> Tovo: I've since heard maybe that 70,000 isn't used for operation, it's really used for other kinds of expenses. If we can better understand what the perceived impetus is of this, and the value it's bringing in terms of serving Austin library users. >> Absolutely. We have now since the 2018 budget, the Austin resource recovery is not supplying funding for this program based on the definition of their funding. And the general fund then, working with the library budget on this is so that was one of the ideas and why Roosevelt was so creative in trying to come up with a way to have a win-win by partnering and having someone else help pay for the lease and not trying to tap into Austin resource recovery and the use of that funding mechanism, which may not be acceptable. And we can answer all those questions and are happy to do it. >> It's district, do you want to go first? >> Pool: You had your line on before me though. >> Alter: It's your district if you want to go first. >> Pool: Two quick questions, actually one statement. It is an important [indiscernible] For the community, people of all ages, as Kathie was describing. My point is I need answers to why, when we pass -- council approved this contract -- was it in 2015? So it was a few years ago. How -- and we approved the amount, and the amount is it 300 a year? >> Approximately $300,000 a year. >> Pool: A year, okay, which I think at the time we were hearing that was a pretty good deal for that spot on burnet road. >> Yes, it was. >> Pool: It is a good deal. So the dollars should have been encumbered throughout the life of that contract. We should not have found ourselves in a short fall [10:08:52 AM] position even if arr pulled their financial partnership. I want to know why arr pulled their financial partnership, more specifically than it wasn't categorized properly or there was some new interception. The library commission was completely unaware, didn't receive the memo we got, which we got that in December so those conversations need to start initially with our citizen commissioners. >> That's correct. >> Pool: But the part that's really puzzling me is the budget gap. How did that happen when the money -- and you don't have to Hans -- answer right now, I'm being rhetorical because I want to dig into it in detail and give other people a chance to talk here. When we approve a contract those monies need to okay, I would assume having worked in government for a long time, we encumber that money, part of an appropriation that rolls forward. If there are changes to that funding that needs to be highlighted during council budget discussions so we can then nail gap. >> Right. >> Pool: I don't think any-us were aware that recycled reads was in this kind of danger. The last thing I'll say, I haven't yet visited creative reads to see the good work that they do but I understand they do good work. What I don't want to see happen is that our concern about continuing the funding for recycled reads somehow becomes subordinate to now making sure that creative reuse has a place to operate. That's not our focus. Our focus is censuring recycled reads continues and that it has the funding. If along the way a nice corridor layer to that is Austin creative reuse gets a piece of of that action, great. But that can't be the guiding principle of this. >> I understand. We'll make sure we give you all that information. I think honestly just to be completely transparent I believe really the whole goal here was to try to [10:10:52 AM] reduce cost to the general fund, at the same time forming a partnership that would provide efficient services and effectiveness. It was not an effort to wipe out recycled reads, take things away but we will answer all those questions and make sure you get them. >> Mayor Adler: Alison. >> Alter: Thank you. I go to recycled reads monthly at least. They have seen my kids grow up there and it's a place that I see as a really important gathering place and a resource for the community. From the library's perspective but also from the recovery perspective, I went and visited on Sunday and had a tour of the space and have a better understanding of what's trying to be accomplished. I am concerned and want some clarity over what seems to be a distinction between what is potentially a very creative way to move forward and combine uses that are complimentary and to create a space that not only has the used books but has access to the art materials. I've also been to Austin creative reuse, and do it in a way that creates a greater resource for the community, both at that location and throughout the system. But there's a disconnect between what is being presented as the vision and what is in this rca, which essentially says it's going to disappear in three years. What I would like to see and what I will only be comfortable with is very clear direction of of what happens in three years' time because we may or may not be able to stay in that location and now we will have two programs, one a city program, one not a city program that are essential to our zero waste goals that will that we'll be out of luck at the end of three years. While I strongly support the idea of bringing these programs out into the branches more than they are, there is still a central focus, a need for a space where this happens centrally. It is not a replacement to put it in the fancy store at [10:12:53 AM] the new library. It is really not the same kind of approach. So I'm gonna need to see very clearly what the path is at the end of that three years. I'm going to need to understand what Austin resource recovery can contribute. Right now we have trained librarians unloading boxes of material that could be taken care of by partnerships with goodwill, with workers that are working at $15 an hour and those librarians would be free to do more programming at recycled reads or out in the community. I think we need to think more creative about what could happen with arr and this organization. I do want to clarify since I did go and visit, the real issue is what happens in the front of the space. In the back of the space there's been groups that have vacated spots, and so recycled reads will have about as much space as it had before in the back. Then in the front, my understanding is that the common space will stay Cameron and be common across the two organizations and it will be about one-third recycled reads, two-thirds Austin creative reuse and there is a lot of room for there to be more bookshelves and more books if we have a better system for doing that. That being said, I'm extremely alarmed by what happens at the end of the three years because this strip mall may or may not renew the lease, and we need a plan for where both of those organizations are gonna go at that point in time if we want to connect up to our zero waste goals. We would have to reinvent recycled reads if we make it go away, if we want to achieve our zero waste goals because it's not being done out in the community elsewhere. >> I've got it. We'll pull all that together, make sure we have it. If you have other questions please let us know. We'll be pulling together [10:14:54 AM] arr as well as real estate with library staff and make sure that we have discussion and dialogue with the library commission and answer your questions and be ready for another item on council hopefully in a week. >> Mayor Adler: I'm comfortable with this being postponed so you have a chance to take a look at it. I recall when this came up a couple years ago it came up in a budget conversation and it was the council trying to scrub the budget because there were some programs that were priority items for certain councilmembers and they were looking through the budget to try and find things and it came up in that context and this was a conversation that the lease I think total cost was $350,000 and there were people on the council that were trying to -- some were challenging whether this was the best use of $350,000. Other councilmembers on the dais that were explaining that this was the best $350,000 that we spent but it was I think an important conversation about priorities and how council sets the priorities that we have. So it doesn't surprise me that this would be coming up again. To that end, given the nature of the conversation that we had back then, I see it as a good thing that staff was looking at it and saying how do we do this program and make it cost less because it had just undergone a challenge and quite frankly felt like given the votes on the dais at that point it was in a precarious position with the balance of it, with a divided dais on that question. So I think that the effort to take a look at that is real good. I think there are questions that have come up that obviously were not things that had been fully discussed in the community or vetted, perhaps new issues that have come up. So I think it's really good. But I support both of those entities. For me I don't prioritize one more than the other. They're both good programs. If there's a way to be able to do it that meets their mission and their service together I think that would be great, but it also goes [10:16:56 AM] back to the more global question as we're talking about budget items, in terms of the strategic plan and the priorities that we're setting and then how best it is that we use our resources to be able to get what we want done. So I'm not prejudging anything but I am thanking and you staff for raising this issue and it's obvious that a little bit more time would help everybody bake this a little bit more. I understand the concerns that have been raised. Mr. -- Pio. >> Renteria: Mayor, I agree with you on that. We really need to redistribute recycling books to all our branches. You know, it's very difficult for some of my constituents there to travel that far, you know, so if we could distribute those books to different districts so that, you know, everyone can enjoy those recycled books. >> Mayor Adler: Cathy. >> Tovo: So I'll make time to post an article that appeared in the Texas observer in 2015 that I think helps quantify the impact of recycled reads because we do currently have recycled books at all of our branches, and it did - - I'm glad to have this conversation today because the answers in the question and answer seem pretty solid that the lease would not be renewed and that there is a new strategy and when asked to explain the new strategy the new strategy was to enhance book sales. Again, that's a portion of what recycled reads is doing, and it's currently doing that. So just kind of doubling the shelf space at our branch libraries isn't going to have the impact quantified in the Texas observer, which is, you know, ten -- it processes 2006-15 tons of materials -- 12 to 15 tons of material a month. This is back in 2015. I don't know how that relates to what it's doing now. [10:18:56 AM] It's received national attention. It's received a federal grant from the imls. Our director of recycled reads has done training videos for other librarians based on the experience, and the full -- somewhere in here it talks about the extent of -- I mean, what it has done over time in terms of diversion from our landfill is huge. So, you know, it absolutely needs to be viewed in partnership with our zero waste goals, which we have set as a city and so it's not just -- it's not just about bringing library resources to people and providing a gathering space. It's also about supporting that plan that councils before ours adopted. I think, too, we need to have a sense of what the revenue is and you've put in the q&a -- because not all of that lease is lost revenue. Some San Francisco it is -- not all of it is an investment from the general fund. Some of it is made up by that ongoing revenue. So, again, I'm glad to hear that this is seen as -- that the intent here is a partnership but it does -- I would like more information about what that new strategy is because in the question and answer it doesn't sound like the intent is to continue recycled reads beyond 2022. >> Mayor Adler: So I'm going to recommend that this is a postponed item, we're gonna lose some people on our dais for some pulled items so I'm gonna move past this item now on to the next one to make sure, since this is a postponed item, we're gonna have a chance to discuss its merits but I'm gonna lose people on items that aren't gonna be able to talk at all on different subjects that have been pulled. I'm going to move on to another item. We can come back to this one if we need to. I'll recognize you but not to discuss this item. Okay. Leslie. >> Pool: I just wanted to say I don't think one week will be sufficient, if you could just think about that. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. All right. Item number 25, councilmember alter, you pulled this -- actually, I think we're gonna lose Ann. [10:20:59 AM] You indicated you were going to leave at some point. >> Kitchen: I'll be quick. I just pulled it because I have background information to pass out to people and I wanted to do that. And then I wanted to just briefly speak to the purpose here and point to the fact sheet that I'm passing around, which I think will answer a lot of questions. So I wanted to do that and then just determine if there are any questions that people have today -- I'm trying to prepare for Thursday. So this is item number 78. My cosponsors are comp -- councilmember pool, Renteria, mayor Adler, I'm gonna speak to the first two points to explain it. Basically, this is -- it's a resolution that establishes a process, so it's a process-oriented resolution. So it establishes a process to pilot immediate shelter and support services for people experiencing homelessness with the intent of providing a pathway to permanent housing. Just quickly, the resolution includes steps in this process and a time line. The steps are preparation for purchase or lease of a structure. Second is a report detailing the best options for piloting shelter and support services. Basically that means the design of how it would be operated. And last any necessary spending authorization prior to implementation. This gets us to a point where we can implement immediate shelter services but the council would still have to authorize any spending authorization and the thinking is that that -- [10:23:01 AM] the time line is that that would come back to us on our may 23rd council agenda to do that. So the resolution also works towards an end date of beginning shelter operations by September 30. So it also clarifies that in developing the report, can be -- which is the design of the program, the city manager will engage our city staff and the agency that's serve individuals experiencing homelessness the -- [ no audio ] >> Pool: This is one step in the larger effort we've undertaken aithout priority that we've tagged last year and that continues. >> Kitchen: That reminds me, without going into all the details you'll see in the fact sheet this is contemplated in the planning documents we've done in the past. I've cited information here from our Austin strategic direction 2023, which was our council strategic plan from our strategic housing blueprint, from the action plan to end homelessness, as well as just national information from the national alliance to end homelessness. So it is -- it's in line with what we've been doing up to now, and I just want to stress what I consider the urgency for us to get past planning. We've done lots of planning, so it's time to take action. And I think that this sets out a process for getting to that point that's a very well thought out process. Councilmember pool, you spoke to it. Councilmember Casar, was there anything you or the [10:25:02 AM] mayor wanted to say or councilmember Renteria? >> Renteria: I would like to say something real quick. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Renteria: This has become really a urgent, you know, condition that we're in right now. I had the opportunity to go with some of our police officers to visit some of these locations. And in one site they were telling people in the tunnel -- they was asking people to come out, you know, and there was a big sign saying no trespassing there but they had petitioned that whole area where each one had their own room and further back one person, I guess he didn't heart command or whatever, and when the police officers went down -- I was there with them, and they told me to step back and when they went in there this person reached for a gun. It wasn't a real gun, but, you know, it sure looked like it was just like -- I mean, it was a represent cat of a real .9 millimeter, and that person almost got shot there because it reached out to grab the gun and lucky for our police officers they told -- it turned out to be a female and they told her not to move and she didn't move so lucky that she didn't because she would have probably gotten shot by three officers there. And so it's becoming very dangerous down there. You know, there's -- besides, you know, the homeless situation, there's other people that are transits there that are dealing drugs, there's prostitution that's been going on in that tunnel also, which one of the ladies that came out, you know, she was -- you could tell they were doing that. So it's becoming to that point where we really need to address this issue and that's why I cosponsored, you know, that resolution. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I would just add that like [10:27:04 AM] you're saying, I think it's -- it's way past time that we start taking action. People living on the streets are living in unsafe, unclean situations. It's -- it's just not right. We can do better in Austin, and I just passionately feel that it's time we get moving. So people don't even have a chance to get back on their feet if they don't have a clean, safe, decent place to stay while we're trying to get them permanent housing. >> Mayor Adler: So I want to applaud your -- >> Kitchen: Sorry, I didn't realize you wanted to say something. >> Mayor Adler: I think other people do too. I thank you for your leadership on this because I think it reflects two things. First as a council and as a city we set homelessness as our first priority so it is the convergence of so much our local and community values, and we're at a place right now where we have resources that might be available to us that haven't been in the past and other resources we've identified that we can go get. So it's the highest priority. We're in a position to be able to act, and I agree with you, and I think everyone on this council wants to us actually -- to act to do this. Normally people talk about homelessness and the need for temporary housing. It used to be that most of the conversation centered around the arch downtown but what we're seeing is more and more folks that are raising real red flags in other parts of the town, even more than in the past on Riverside drive. I know councilmember Renteria was out there at I-35 and the slaughter overpass at manchaca and pack saddle and many other places in our community. And I know that the community is asking for us to actually do something. To that end I'm real excited that pursuant to the budget session that we had before, we identified kind of a homeless bizarre that we [10:29:04 AM] wanted to bring on to staff. My understanding is that you're going through that interview process now and will shortly have kind of a homeless czar in this city that will have cross-departmental responsibility and power and the ability to be able to marshal and to take a look at and come up with that overarching holistic plan for the city, to identify what it is that we need to do. I supported this because as I read it -- and you can correct me if I'm wrong about my reading of this, but it is asking for us to take, you know, immediate action. We need to actually see stuff on the ground. But it doesn't identify yet exactly what that action is because we have to do a study to see what is the best thing that we could be doing with respect to more immediate action to help with temporary housing for folks. You know, if we just clear an area it doesn't help anybody because they just move somewhere else because they need a place to be able to live. People experiencing homelessness, if we can get them into homes. It it doesn't say where it is, how it is, I know you made mention of a structure, but it could either be, that it could it be a thousand things other than that. We don't know because it hasn't been studied. My hope is that the homeless czar will be in place well before this is happening and I'm real anxious to hear what the homeless czar and you, as the manager, think is the appropriate next thing for us to do. Because I'm wide open. So while there's discussion of some specifics in here, I just want to make real clear I don't support any of the specific suggestions that are made because this is broad enough to let staff come back with whatever is the appropriate thing for us to do immediately. [10:31:04 AM] It's not tied to a cost yet. We don't know what the costs are so I would imagine you're going to bring back us to different kinds of proposals that have different kind of costs for the council to be able to look at and do. Because, you know, the council hasn't had any conversations yet about what is the right thing to do for temporary or immediate actions as a group. So that's a conversation I really want to be able to participate in and be part of and be able to vet with folks in the community that I know are interested in this subject, interested in taking immediate action, interested in doing something to define temporary homelessness and the fact we're teeing it up and adding that urgency to is I think is a really important thing. >> Kitchen: Mayor, please -- >> Mayor Adler: Please -- >> Kitchen: You mischaracterized the resolution. >> Mayor Adler: I'll give you a chance to fix that but you can't talk in between everybody that gets a chance to talk. Kathie. >> Tovo: Yeah. Thank you, councilmember kitchen, and sponsors for bringing this forward. I think it is -- I appreciate, mayor, what you said about the kind of structure. There's absolutely no doubt that we need more emergency shelter and we have taken several steps to ask our staff to investigate the possibility of everything from having emergency shelters in city buildings, to making sure that we're allocating enough money for this. We absolutely need emergency shelter. I think one thing that is very important prior to any purchase -- and so as the staff go forward and do their analysis, I'd like to really understand what the full costs of a temporary membrane structure would be because, as I understand the costs, I see that there's a fiscal note of 750. I had asked the staff if when they were making this recommendation back prior to the memo if they had done a full accounting of the costs, and I heard a number that was quite a bit higher, that at least one of these [10:33:08 AM] membrane structures was closer to $2 million. I am absolutely ready to make a big investment in emergency shelter but I think we need a real understanding of the costs of that and the services so that we can determine whether a membrane structure is really better than using an existing building in terms of quality of the shelter but also kind of the long-term sustainability of that option. So I would just ask the city manager, I expect this will pass on Thursday, if that can be a key point of investigation, really looking at what that investment will be in total and whether our investment is best placed in a membrane structure versus an existing building, perhaps even a city-owned building, and I think we have at least one such option. >> Mayor Adler: Ann -- I'm sorry, Leslie and then Ann. >> Pool: I guess what I would say, I think we are all intending to move in the same direction on this. I think obviously the author of this resolution and the cosponsors want to know how much it would cost. That's why we've asked for input from staff. I think, though, the point that I really want to make here is time is of the essence and I think that is the piece that Ann is really trying to get at with this particular resolution. We have been working on this topic for really diligently since last year when we created this as one of our main strategic outcomes. This was the top issue that we determined, I think even before Spencer came to work here with us in December of '16 I think it was, maybe it was '17, I'm losing the years. But I think you're coming up on one year with us, right? So aside from all of the various comments here this morning, I hear that everybody is very supportive of this. We want to do it right. We want staff to tell us the specifics that we can't line up ourselves, and then we will move forward with something, but it needs to be done expeditiously. That's the piece I don't [10:35:09 AM] want to lose. >> Mayor Adler: Ann. >> Kitchen: Yes. What I meant to say is that I don't want to leave the impression that this is a wide open resolution to just come back and tell us to do anything. It is very focused. But there's a lot of flexibility in it, as come to pointed out. It's -- the purpose of it is immediate shelter connected to permanent housing. So it's pretty clear that that's what we're talking about is immediate shelter connected to permanent housing. But the -- how it is done, there are a lot of questions about, as come to pointed out. You know, whether the membrane structure is the most appropriate, will be --whether it's an existing structure, whether it's some other kind of structure, and that's written into the resolution to make it clear that there's the flexibility to consider that. It's also written into the resolution -- it's referenced as a report but that's actually the design of the structure and services, and so there are a number of things mentioned in that that are subjects to address, such as the cost, you know, and such as the parameters and scope of services and how to best connect people to services and to do that in conjunction with the agencies and the national alliance. So but it's not prescriptive. In other words, we need to understand from the agencies and from the national alliance and, you know, staff and others what's the best way to do this. But I didn't want to leave the impression this is a resolution just asking us what do we do next about homelessness. That's not what it is. It's a resolution about -- for a process for how do we best move forward and what's appropriate for immediate shelter and services to connect people to permanent housing. I didn't want to confuse the public about, you know, it's [10:37:10 AM] not redoing what we've already done in terms of our homeless report or echo report or any of that kind of stuff. So that's what I amenity. I just wanted to make that clear. >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: I think both of you are closer to the same page than might have been suggested B [10:39:34 AM] ecau differently or whatever it is we have to do, then we can try to doing that and in the end if we can't find a way to do that, there always is the budget cycle upcoming or other creative ways to get funding. In the end if what we're really asking for is how do we get folks into shelter and permanent housing, it seems that there's a consensus that that's an important thing to do, and so I honestly think that actually both the mayor and the sponsor of the resolution said to me both ring true. >> Mayor Adler: I want to go back and look at the tape to see what I said because I agreed with what you said when you started and I agreed with what you said after I spoke. So but I'll go back and look at the tape to see if I said something different. Paige. >> Ellis: I am glad to see this is coming to us. Thank you so much for sponsoring it and thank you for the other cosponsors. I just want to be an added voice of advocacy for addressing which location it might be in concerning what opportunities are available, but oftentimes, especially for district 5 and district 8, people are leaving the downtown area because it's a bit safer for them to be a little bit out of the mix but also to advocate for women because some of the opportunities we have for women to find shelt like this are narrower because of that safety issue and I want to make sure that we are considering that and remembering that, but I'm excited to see what we can do moving forward. >> Mayor Adler: Delia. >> Garza: I think that's a great idea, maybe an amendment could be added that addresses that. Concentrated on the women part of it, but, anyway -- what was my question? Oh, yes. Kathie, you mentioned a location that you thought -- could you expand on what that was? >> Tovo: I think that we had asked staff to look at some [10:41:35 AM] different opportunities, and so going back to that research I think is helpful. >> Garza: Okay. >> Tovo: And I can talk to you more about that specific after. >> Garza: Okay. It just mentions, the resolution okay, not directly adjacent to existing residential neighborhoods so I was curious I guess what the definition of "Not directly adjacent to." >> Kitchen: It also adds the sentence unless the -- yeah. Well, I think that that was just to recognize that there may be some areas that are more appropriate than others to have it. So and I didn't want to put a definition on it because I don't want to be prescriptive about that. I really think that it's important that the group that's coming together to design the report for us is able to think through that and provide recommendations. >> Garza: And -- was your provision to provide a menu of locations or for it to be one -- >> Kitchen: Again, I didn't want to be prescriptive. I can tell you what I would imagine, but -- and in talking with the agencies, I would think that perhaps they might bring us back a range of options. >> Garza: Okay. >> Kitchen: But, again, I didn't want to be prescriptive about that. I wanted to leave that to that group because -- you know, because they're experts in the area and they may come back and say really this is really the place and we suggest you do this or they may come back and say that we have a range of options, both in terms of the structures and the place. I expect that they would be pretty specific in terms of what's absolutely necessary. In the conversation we've had so far, that connection to permanent housing is a key point. We don't want to just create a shelter where they don't have -- where that's not integral in terms of [10:43:35 AM] services. Beyond that I didn't want to put too much in terms of parameters on it. >> Garza: Thanks. >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Kathie. >> Tovo: Quick question for the sponsor. Councilmember kitchen, when we were talking about the purpose of the familiar and the report, you mentioned design of the structure -- or you mentioned design and it wasn't clear to me whether you were talking about designing the structure or designing how it would fit into services. >> Kitchen: Well, you know, I don't -- I don't know if design is the right term, but basically the way this is set up is there are a couple of steps and the report has to detail how -- you know, how an immediate shelter would be operated in terms of services. But integral to that is what it looks like. You know, how it sets up. So the point that you were asking about whether a membrane structure or a permanent structure is better, all of -- I consider that like this. You can't really say that we want to design the services and how we're gonna operate it over here in isolation and not understanding what kind of space you need, both in terms of the structure itself and the location. So I consider that all integral. So I didn't mean to -- I don't know if I was using the right words. I didn't mean to imply that it was -- I really think they have to take all of that into account together. >> Tovo: I think that's -- yeah thank you for that clarification. I just wanted to be sure we weren't asking staff to design a structure in the literal term because as I see it and as I think our conversation has yielded we're asking you to look at the available options of shelter before resting on what the right outcome is there. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? Ready to move on? Okay. We'll move on. What about item number 25? Alison, you pulled that one, purchasing item. [10:45:44 AM] >> Alter: Yes. So this is a contract about tree services and maintenance, and I want to first emphasize that I support this contract and the investment that we need to grow and maintain our urban forest. I pulled this because I want to ensure that we understand the amount of investments we need to make in this important work of maintaining our tree canopy. So Mr. Scarborough, if you could help me understand how we arrived at this contract amount? Was it strictly based on our need or was it based on the amount of funding available? >> Mayor, councilmembers, James Scarborough. Appreciate the question, councilmember alter. The amounts that were calculated to derive an authorization amount were based mainly on two parts. First was the average annual expenditures that we had experienced under the previous contract with some of the departments here, and the remainder was requested amounts from the various departments based on their anticipated usage and on projects and initiatives that T saw in the next few years. So the -- what we had heard from the project managers that are kind of overseeing the ordering activity under the previous contract was there wasn't more of a conservative use of the services previously because of other priorities. But with the increased desire to control the vegetation growth because of the increased occurrence of some storms in the last few years, they were anticipating a greater need for these services in the out years so they increased their request. Also to manage the vegetation around the sidewalks a little bit more [10:47:47 AM] proactively. In addition to consolidating additional departments that were not initially in the previous contract. So because of the increased scope of the contract, because of increased anticipated usage of the contract, the estimates for the main departments participating under this requested item is higher. So this represents the vegetation management of about eight large city departments. So it is marketedly higher than the previous ask, but based on the estimated usages of the departments it seemed to fit their anticipated need. >> Alter: So I heard that it would take 60 or 90 years to touch every tree in the park system. So I'm still trying to understand how this contract works in contrast -- in the context of the actual needs we have. >> Sure. >> Alter: -- To do this kind of work, to support our urban forest. >> Sure. >> Alter: And I'm glad that it's moving in the direction of increasing it and that we're recognizing that there are consequences for our infrastructure of not taking care of our trees with respect to the impact on infrastructure, but I'm concerned that we are not making the investments that we need overall to extend our tree canopy. So can you speak a little bit of how we should think about this in terms of the overall need for trees and how would I get my head around that? Because over and over again I hear it's 60 to 90 trees to touch a tree once and we have trees falling on people. >> To your point, councilmember, I do believe this increased ask is in the direction of trying to better manage the tree environment throughout the city. Unfortunately that's not my area of expertise. We did get your question and have reached out to the departments and we're consolidating their responses now so I hope to have something more articulated for you and the rest of the councilmembers this afternoon but right now I wouldn't be able to give you an intelligent answer in [10:49:48 AM] that regard. My apologies. >> Alter: From a purchasing perspective should we authorize this but then make a decision that we want to just spend additional funds on urban canopy maintenance that would be something that we could still do? This would not be precluding that in the future? >> Not at all, councilmember. >> Alter: If we give authorization now -- >> Correct. This is an indefinite quantity set of contracts. They're estimated amounts. We may use more or less throughout a given fiscal period, but that amount would vary from one year to the text, as it may increase or as the need may expand beyond the scope of this set of contracts we would be within our ability to go out and seek additional contracts to address those needs. >> Alter: When this had come up previously with respect to Austin energy, one of the things that we had talked about was doing some subzones so that more contractors can be involved. Can you talk about how this contract was structured in that regard? >> Sure. This particular set of contracts was examined to try to optimize opportunities for a variety of companies to participate in the competition. Sometimes contracts, when you scale them smaller, they actually preclude the opportunity to seek subcontracts and so forth, and in a general services space, the types of contracts that we mostly create typically looking for opportunities for prime contracts is gonna be more fruitful, as was the case in this solicitation, we were able to receive an offer and was very competitive from a certified firm. So what we do is like we did in the solicitation, we look at -- at Zones. We look at types of work that can be competed for separately. While we allow all of the [10:51:48 AM] offers to compete on those segments by making separate segments we allow for individual opportunities of competition and we try and do that more and more in our larger scope contracts. As we consolidate we create more opportunities to have segmented competition. >> Alter: I pleasure that --I appreciate that and look forward to the answers to my questions about the broader need. >> Mayor Adler: Let's go to the next item. Item number 28. Kathie, you pulled this one. >> Tovo: I did. I had a couple quick questions for staff, and I -- probably public health as well as purchasing. So this is the new contract for the arch and the recommendation is that it be extended to front steps. I want to just appreciate front steps for their continued work at the arch and they're willingness and commitment to continue doing it. It is such a critical service in our community. As you know we've set new expectation inspects -- and rescoped the services and on how individuals coming will be served and be better connected to housing. I also really appreciate the information in our backup that really lays out how that change will happen from about 25% to 30% of the clients who are currently receiving case services, those will move to 100%. I think that's just a very -- we really have a plan for getting the individuals who are at the arch into housing, and I think that's very exciting. One thing of concern -- and I know many of us have heard this concern from constituents, is the one very important component of being able to achieve those changes at the arch is to reduce the number of beds, and that's not just to -- not just to help achieve [10:53:50 AM] some of those aims but also to make sure that we're designing the space in accordance with best standards so that reduction will go from 190 to 130 so it really highlights the immediate need for more emergencys. So I think it makes the conversation at councilmember kitchen's resolution initiatives really critical. A couple other recommendations and these changes are in part recommendations or largely recommendations from the national alliance on homelessness, which has done some workshop here with our housing providers and our city staff. One important recommendation that I don't see in this contract is making sure that the contractor at the arch pays a living wage to employees. And I know we've had an opportunity to discuss what that differential in cost is, and so if you could just tell us what that differential would be if we embedded that recommendation into this new contract what would be the amount we would need to identify? >> Stephanie Hayden, Austin public health. Currently, the lowest paid employee makes $13 an hour. With that the bottom line is it's an increase of $380,000 would be needed to bring everyone up to the living wage. There is a little bit of a compression that would need to happen because folks that are currently making $15 an hour their wage would need to increase. And we understand with the new job titles and credentials and et cetera that will be a change with the rate of pay as well because with the recommendations new staff will need to be hired and/or trained in order to feel the -- fill the positions to achieve our desired results. [10:55:50 AM] >> Tovo: Director Hayden, is the compression issue that you mentioned, is that accommodated for within that 380,000? >> Yes, it is. >> Tovo: City manager, I would -- it is my intention at this point to make an amendment that we make that adjustment on Thursday and so if you have some thoughts on that I would appreciate your recommendation on whether we could identify that amount within our budget so that we can accommodate that additional recommendation from our national partner who is helping us really reshape the services there. The -- one thing that I'd like to get some more information about in the months ahead relates to the number of qualified respondents we received on this. One individual who communicated about this indicated that this is a pattern that we don't -- when we have bid this contract out in the past we also haven't gotten very many qualified respondents, and it's my understanding we received just one qualified respondent during this rfp. So I think it would be of help in the months ahead once the solicitation is closed to solicit feedback from other housing providers and others in this field to know why that's the case and whether there are concerns that we need to address going forward with regard to how we've presented the contract or the amount of funding or what is it that is discouraging other potential respondents from participating in our bid process on that. And given that we are undertaking such a major change in services at the arch, I would suggest, after speaking with individuals who have been following this issue, that we look to a shorter contract just to allow that additional input. There's some discussion, as I understand, going on about working with the national [10:57:52 AM] council on ending homelessness. Do identify their name right? I think I don't, our national partner, let me just call them our national partner, working with them to develop some shelter standards and potentially setting up an advisory committee to oversee that for our city contracts. So I think there's a lot of opportunity here. We might want to be mindful of the need to iterate in this space so I'm going to be suggesting an amendment to the contract of 18 months, and I just wanted to get the staff's feedback on whether that was feasible and logical from their perspective. >> Bottom line, yes, that is feasible. Because 18 months would at least allow six months for the training to happen, hiring new staff, and begin those operations, set up that advisory committee. We'd have our homelessness person which could lead that committee, as well as our other community partners, sos that would allow us the opportunity to really have an understanding of how this new process is working. >> Tovo: Great it but it, -- thank you. Thanks to our staff for working hard on this issue and community partners. I know we all share a commitment to end homelessness in this community and it's gonna be challenging and require more resources, but I really feel strongly that we're on a good path. >> Mayor Adler: Real quickly I wanted to concur and support mayor pro tem and your implement amendment to have us push to $15 living wage. I think as a policy as a city having gone there we should try and do that everywhere for everything we do and people we hire to do things on our behalf. I have the same question about the duration of the contract. I'm not sure how best to do that. I know there have been some discussions about looking at the arch as a triage place [10:59:53 AM] and not as a center with an ultimate goal perhaps of getting people to go there for a couple days and then get moved into temporary or permanent supportive housing somewhere else, to really be able to use that facility that way. I don't know if that's what comes out when we have the holistic look of the homeless challenge czar or not. I don't -- but so not entering into a contract that precludes us from being able to put whatever functionality as the best one for that spot is a concern. I assume like all the contracts we have we could change the contract after a year, as we have those same kind of provisions but that would be important to me to be able to look at this holistically and I am excited to see that we're moving into a place where 100% of the people in there get support services. And concur with what mayor pro tem said, that it really highlights the need not only for the temporary -- not only for the shelter spots that are disappearing because of that but it also reemphasizes the need that once we get people and we help them identify the services that they need, they're gonna be best able to take advantage of those services if we get them into a home, which goes in part to what councilmember kitchen, what Ann was proposing, but also just the need in the city to figure out what the additional funding available, how we get more temporary shelter -- temporary housing, not shelter, and permanent supportive housing. I want to make sure we're not doing anything in this contract that will lock us into something that four months from now, five months from now we'll know we want to modify or change. So as you negotiate the contract, if you could provide for that, I think that would be best. [11:01:55 AM] Ann. >> Kitchen: Just a question. First off, I concur with the mayor and come to's comments and will support any amendments that I think come to had mentioned bringing an amendment. I'll support that. I had a question, and my question really is I'm trying to understand what we're voting on exactly. Because this is a -- we're running on a negotiate and execute contract, if I'm understanding correctly. And the backup has an overview, and I just -- it's titled overview of the new contract and performance measures. And so is it correct to assume that if -- when we vote on this, that that backup is also voted on as direction for the terms that go into the contract? So, in other words, do we need to specify that those are the contract terms that we want to be included in the contract? Since we're not actually -- we don't actually have a contract in front of us? Does my question make sense? It may be a question for our city attorney. We have backup that describes the new contract, but I think the item we're voting on is just a negotiate and execute contract and it's got the dollar amount. But if I want to make sure that we are including this description in the terms because it has it -- like a scope of work in it, do we need to amend or is it by virtue of being in the backup going to be included in the contract? >> I just need to take a look at it and read it and I'll be able to answer your question but I'm pretty sure you can do it that way. >> Kitchen: Okay. I want to make sure that what we're voting on actually includes this backup. And then the other question I have about the backup, the backup says key performance [11:03:58 AM] measures may include, and I would think that our direction -- when I read "May include" it sounds to me like it might and it might not. But I would want to be sure that it does. So that may be something that needs to be included in come to's amendment, assuming she agrees with that. >> Tovo: I do. >> Kitchen: Okay. I just want to be sure to get that part right. Okay. Those are my only questions then. I agree with the other suggestions that were made. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you very much. Let's go to the next item. This is item number 39, councilmember pool, you pulled this one. >> Pool: Yeah. Just really quick, I'll give you a real quick overview. I put a message board post up yesterday to give a little bit of additional detail on this north burnet gateway regulating plan amendment. So have a read on that. All this is is just alternative equivalent compliance will be added as an option for our staff to look at when reviewing the proposal. We want to make sure that we create walkable spaces that are friendly to pedestrians and if having this change has any impacts on that that are negative then our staff of course have the ability to deal with that at that point. The amendment will go through the usual code amendment process, which means review at codes -- I'm sorry codes and ordinances joint committee. It will go to the planning commission and then it will be back to us for approval. And I just wanted to thank Alison and Natasha and Jimmy and Greg for being my cosponsors on this item, and all of us are in -- this is in the domain area. So the five of us are in that general vicinity, so thank you, everybody. I'm hoping this goes on consent. If anybody has any additional questions, let me know. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Alison? >> Alter: So I wanted to ask [11:05:59 AM] for a time certain of 4:00 for item 77. That is the resolution related to the sexual assault -- >> Mayor Adler: Okay. If people arrive earlier and we have the ability to be able to hear them, can we take those people earlier, recognizing that anybody who shows up at 4:00 or after will have a chance, that we won't discuss it on the dais until then? >> Alter: Yes, I think that's our practice. >> Mayor Adler: So we'll set that as a rule rather than posting it for that time. I think, Kathie, you had something else that you wanted to pull, item 22, champions security. >> Tovo: Oh, yes. Yes, thank you, mayor. So this is an item for the extension of a custodial contract -- actually a security contract, sorry. Item 22. Security contract. So it's my understanding it's coming us to a little earlier than contemplated. It was an extension. I think we had extended it through March and because of the hurricane there was additional needs the staff exceeded their contract authority. When it came to us we've had now a couple conversations about this issue of outsourcing what are sometimes ongoing service that's we need at the city both in the custodial field and in the security field and we had agreed as a council to set up a small work group, and I was leading that effort and still am, but I will just say we have not completed our work. In fact because of various scheduling issues we haven't yet met as a group but we are scheduled to meet I think we've got a first meeting on the calendar and I hope a couple meetings after that and we'll use a very abbreviated time frame to try to knock out some recommendations for council and or at least the points of decision- making. And so and our staff have been meeting relatively [11:07:59 AM] regularly and have assembled materials that have get us started. All that to say I do think we need to extend this after meeting with the staff. It seems like a year is a reasonable amount of time and that's what they would need anyway but we will as a work group come together and, again, do that -- have a that conversation and make those recommendations and come back to council with, I hope, some plan for -- or some understanding of what the need is on an ongoing basis for those services and what portion could be contracted out so that we're not relying on contract services for what are really permanent jobs here at the city of Austin. So if there are any concerns about that plan, to reduce the length of the contract as contemplated in our council agenda, but to do it for a year, now would be a great time to chat with them. I would invite our staff to let us know if they have any concerns with a one-year extension. >> Mayor Adler: Do you have any concerns in purchase? >> Mayor, councilmembers, no. >> Tovo: You're not on. >> The initial term was -- sorry. Sorry. James Scarborough, purchasing office. Mayor, councilmembers, no. The initial term of this contract was authorize incrementally so to authorize an extension incrementally is certainly doable. >> Tovo: Thanks very much. >> Sure. >> Mayor Adler: So the -- Natasha. >> I'm curious how the state is striking down our gun ban is gonna affect our security services moving forward. Does it look like the city will make a move to have security services be armed? If so what's the implication there as it pertains to our liability and/or cost for those services? >> Very good question, councilmember. I'm gonna have to defer to the security personnel to help me out with that. If they're available here maybe they can come up and help out. If not we'll provide that response to your office and the rest of council. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. [11:10:00 AM] >> Mayor Adler: I want to thank mayor pro tem and -- or Kathie and the others on that work group for taking a look at this. When this came up there were several issues as we were looking at outsourcing both the security and other kinds of contracts, custodial services I think as well. And we wanted to -- the discussion on the dais was about we wanted to make sure we're not outsourcing work that results in people doing work for us that are not being paid what they would be paid if they actually worked for us or are not getting benefits they would get if they were actually working for us and what's the justification for outsourcing if it's not to save money to be able to do that, since we didn't have the information and there was some discussion about -- there was some difference of opinions on the dais, as I recall, about whether there were ever circumstances where we would pay less than a minimum wage, there were too many issuing for us to do on the dais so a couple of our colleagues offered to take the laboring oar and take a look at that so thank you for doing that. Further discussion. Yes, Alison. >> Alter: Kathie, thank you for taking the lead on this. I had a question for Mr. Scarborough. I'm just trying to understand the financial implications. Usually when you do a contract for a shorter term you pay more. Do you have a sense of the magnitude that have? I know in this case we actually used up for of it so they may be very happy to have additional opportunities with the city, so can you give us a sense of those implications? >> Sure. Councilmember, when we are contemplating the aggregate value of the contract we will do so based on the increments of the contract. So when we have authorization or when we extend the contract consistent with those increments, then that is consistent with the expectations of the contractor when they made the original offer to us. So by extending based on a [11:12:00 AM] preestablished or increment in the contract, we're not deviating from their expectation. Now, if we were to extend a shorter period of time that would be subject to negotiations and I'm not sure I would be able to bring back as favorable terms as we currently have. >> Alter: So if you do it for a year it would still fall under the increments that are in the contract and anticipated so it would be a similar cost structure to what you anticipated? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? >> Renteria: Mayor, I just want to notify the public that item 10, the 56 acres of city-owned land at boggy creek there at the Loma, it's going to be postponed. Staff wanted to see if there was an opportunity anywhere on that location that they could build affordable housing. The topography on that is so bad with the slope and the creek that runs through it and the floodplain, but there's an opportunity that maybe a little small section of it could be dedicated -- set aside for affordable housing. So they're going to come back in March and present that item. So I'm going to bring it back up on -- and that's item 10. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. As the mayor pro tem points out, everybody should know at our council meeting on Thursday we'll have an opportunity to exercise in that annual occasion. [Laughter]. So wear your dancing shoes and comfortable clothes, just to give everybody a head's up that that's going to happen. We're going to wait until everyone is on the dais to do that, so don't try to sit it out. Ann? >> Kitchen: If possible, I have an item in the district to go to right now. [11:14:01 AM] I'll be back by 12:30. So if it's possible to take up the many item last, that would be great or at least after 12:30. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Manager? >> Just a note in the spirit of trying to make things more efficient, where there is an opportunity to not have a time certain public hearing, we are going to -- I've asked staff to just make a correction that will come out on Thursday. I think it's item 43. If there are opportunities that we don't have to have that, we're just going to remove that and then we'll have the conversation when those items get brought up, they'll be brought up. But I think particularly for the February 7th council meeting it may be a shorter meeting and so if we don't have to stay any longer than we need to, I think that would be beneficial. >> Mayor Adler: Here, here. Kathie? >> Tovo: City manager, can you help me understand what you were saying with regard to this Thursday, that there might be a correction on the agenda? >> Cronk: So specifically the posted agenda that is out there for Thursday's meeting, the items to set a public hearing, instead of setting it at a 4:00 P.M. Time certain, we're just going to set it and when it comes up -- likely in the 2:00 time frame, we'll have that public hearing. >> Tovo: Okay. I just wanted to be sure that I understood which items we were talking about. Because if they were items that people were not coming up until later in the day that they would want to come and talk about, I wouldn't want to make that change on Thursday. But for setting a public hearing I don't have that concern. >> Cronk: So this will give sufficient notice for that upcoming hearing on the 7th. Aircraft and notices have already -- >> And notices that have already gone out to individuals we're not changing that one. But the ones that we are setting the public hearing and no individual notices have gone out, that's the one while change. >> Mayor Adler: All right. To that end the council will now go into closed session to take up items pursuant to [11:16:01 AM] 551.071 and 551.74 of the government code. In pursuant to 55107 items related to E 3 and E 4, paxton versus the city of Austin and Smith versus the city of Austin. E 1 and E 2 have been withdrawn. R. Without objection it is 11:16 and we will go into executive session. [2:21:18 PM] >>Mayor Adler: Alright. We are out of closed session. In closed session we discussed real estate matters related to items: E2 and legal matters related to items: E3 and E5. It is 2:21 p.m. and this meeting is adjourned.