City Council Work Session Transcript – 03/05/2019 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 3/5/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 3/5/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:12:52 AM] >> Mayor Adler: All right. We have a quorum. We'll go ahead and start this. Today is Tuesday, March 5th, 2019. We're in the boards and commissions room here down in city hall. We have a quorum present, it's our work session. Colleagues, I think the thing to do is to first take up the budget amendment question just because we have so many folks and staff here and I think the issues are relatively narrow. So let's talk about that first and then let's go, manager, to the two presentations and then we'll come back to the pulled items. We have executive session today for the preliminary discussion about council appointee folks. But I think that there may be critical mass of people heading to the anti-defamation league luncheon today, which is from like 11:30ish to 1:00. So let's see if we can do the executive session before then or if the group wants to do it without us or if we reconvene back at 1:00 for time to do that. We can make that decision when we get closer. But let's go ahead and start with the budget item. Which is item number 3. Ann, you pulled this one. Do you want to -- >> Kitchen: Yes, I pulled this item with regard to the amount that is posted for the creative spaces. So my intention is to move for the full amount of 12 million for creative spaces. My understanding is that because of the way that it's posted, what we'll need to do to accomplish that is to actually divide the question and repost it so that means [9:14:52 AM] that we'll have to bring it up on the 28th. And my understanding from legal is that the reason for that is because of -- well, I'll let legal describe if people have concerns, but my understanding is that the reason is that with -- when it's posted like this with amounts in the actual posting that we cannot approve a higher amount. We could approve a lower amount. So at this point what this does is it kicks off the process of using the bonds. So in terms of the timeliness of it I think the 28th will work to approve the creative spaces. I also think it's appropriate to approve the creative spaces at the full 12 million because the purpose of the creative space bond is both urgent and needs the flexibility to -- when they go through -- we're expecting an rfp solicitation process, but needs the flexibility to use up to the 12 million if that's the case. So I want to make that statement today because I want to reassure the arts commission and the music commission and those in the creative community that have been working so hard on this process and are anxious and looking forward to these dollars that are really the first time we've done bonds for creative spaces because of the urgency of what's going on in the creative communities and their spaces. So I'm wanting to reassure them that it is the intention of council to approve the 12 million, and that it was just a mistake of posting that we can't actually amend it this Thursday. >> Mayor Adler: I think it's generally true too and [9:16:52 AM] Elaine, you will correct any of this that's not right. We have some amendment that's always the first time out, there's still an intent to bring back another amendment here in another three, four months as we get into the budget process. So there will be additional chances add on to things. The creative space, I will support dividing that and voting just on that one piece in March to bring it up. I understand as a practical matter it doesn't really change anything because the arts commissions are taking a look at how this money should be spent and is going to be coming back with ideas to us and that timing would probably still track with the second budget amendment, but who knows, it may not and this has this money earmarked. I think more than anything else it's just a way to emphatically make the statement that since the council beginning with the omnibus deal said we need to focus more on funding for creative spaces in the city as a message to the community that we're really serious about doing that. On the other issue with respect to why we're in this place with respect to this, it's my understanding that the convention that the councils had and then from a notice perspective that when we put something on the budget for a budget amendment, we can amend it to go down, but we can't amend it to go up. If we went from 500,000 to 12 million, someone could say well, I didn't come to the meeting because it was only 500, but you took it to 12 and if I had known that I would have been there. The question, Ann, I think that you raised is a good one that the council should have more ability to amend those numbers. We've asked legal to take a look at what the process would be internally. Maybe it's Elaine or the manager having one on ones finding out where there may [9:18:53 AM] be an issue and giving us in the posting the ability to have a broader conversation. But we need to be able to have a conversation like that without not being able to vote or repost. So you guys can take a look at that. Other comments at this councilmember tovo and then councilmember alter. >> Tovo: I have a couple of questions, I guess. So it's my understanding that we typically don't issue the full amount of the bonds in each measure on council. That we do it in phases. Is that the reason why the numbers were selected for today for this week's posting? >> The numbers were selected for today because we were trying to get appropriation, which is the authority to spend for the early out projects that needed design money that were ongoing programs like sidewalk repair where there's just an ongoing program that needed cash or money or appropriation. So that we could continue to move forward on these projects. It's typical to have a budget amendment soon, within the final three or four months, following a bond election to get started on that program. Following that we pick up with our normal budget process and do a five-year appropriation plan and a five-year capital improvement spending plan. Those are part of our ongoing budget process. What that processes for us is the first year of the five-year capital spending plan, is incorporated into your proposed budget which we present to you in August. And that's where the second amendment that the mayor was talking about is considered by council. So this just gets us started and then we have a rolling five-year updated every year process after that until the bonds are all -- authority [9:20:53 AM] is all exhausted. >> Tovo: And I'm fine with making that change as you've suggested, councilmember kitchen. I just don't want anybody listening to this conversation to think that we're in some way shifting gears on how much we intended to spend in different areas just because these are the amounts that came forward. To make a change so quickly almost sounds like -- might send a message that people believed we were shifting back on how much we were going to spend on facilitates, on arts facilities. >> Kitchen: I'm not sure what your question is. >> Tovo: I assume that the staff as they've just explained set the amounts on the projects that they felt like were ready to go. So these amounts are very different from the full bonding amounts that we've asked people to vote on. So that's -- I just want it to be clear to the public that these are just the beginning of the bond monies we're going to spend. We're not shifting gears in any way on the total amounts. >> Kitchen: Yes. The only thing I would say with that with regard to the creative space, it was not the recommendation of the staff to start with 500,000. The economic development department recommendation was to put the full 12 million. So normally I would say-- I would agree with what you said, but with regard to this particular bucket, it's -- I think it was just the way the process proceeded. It is the intention and I have confirmed with the economic development staff that they would like the full 12 million to be -- >> Tovo: Great. No, I appreciate that clarification, but the other amounts again are pretty low and I want it to be clear that these are just the beginning. And I do have a question about the public safety. If there are other questions about the creative arts funding, maybe we can get back to it or I can ask it now. Whatever you prefer. >> Alter: Thank you. I fully supported the creative arts funding, but I would appreciate a little more information from staff [9:22:53 AM] on the process. I appreciate you digging into it, councilmember kitchen. But can you tell us a little bit, you know, staff did come forward with 500, not the 12 million. Can you help us understand that? We were going to have another appropriation with our budget and. Can you tell us why it was done this way and if there was agreement? >> Sure. If economic development staff want to help, they can come on in. What we look at is if we have a shovel ready project or a process. And at the time that we were putting it together over a month ago, the working group still had not come together with a solid concept or project or how they were going to approach the spending of the money. And so we didn't feel it was appropriate to put forward the full amount until they were further along in the process. And that we could not defend the larger point, the larger funding amount. Subsequent to that, as they have continued to work, they are getting more towards a firm process and what they will recommend. They'r still not there yet, but I believe that in the next couple of months they will be there and they will be ready for economic development department to issue a request for proposals. And so to do the request for proposals, they have indicated within the last week that they will need the full 12 million. They expect that there will be a very competitive process and they expect a lot of proposals and interests, and that they would need the full appropriation. So at this point with the new information, waiting until August or a September council adoption of the next appropriation traunch would [9:24:53 AM] likely delay their process. They would not be able to issue the rfp without additional appropriation at this time. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Pool: If this suggestion from councilmember kitchen helps to propel the music and creative space bonds, the creative space bonds forward, and knowing how much the creative community is waiting for us to provide some additional support and incentive at the city, I would be willing to vote in support of having the full $12 million that was put into the bonds for creative space to be on this first allocation. I think that sounds like a good idea. And it also gives people in the community additional assurances that we are really moving forward on this. So thank you, councilmember kitchen, for bringing that concept, and I will be supportive on Thursday of voting for that larger amount. >> Tovo: On the same subject, so part of the -- >> Garza: I'll wait. Tovo proceed? No? >> Tovo: Part of this item also deals with fire station -- the fire department for fire station improvements. And I wanted to -- since we have representatives here who may be prepared to answer this question, I wanted to get some more details about which stations would be involved with in this and in those cases where you're doing fire station improvements if you could help us understand what temporary arrangements are being made for those areas. >> Good morning. I think the first question is what station -- good morning. I believe the first question of what station we're doing repairs to -- >> Please introduce yourself. >> I'm so sorry. I took for granted everybody knew my stature. My name is Joel baker. I am the fire chef for the [9:26:54 AM] city of Austin fire department. The first question, what station are we doing repairs to, we have approximately eight million dollars for driveway repairs to fire station number 4, 14, 15, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28 and 40, as well as our 51st street repair shop and our welding center's driveway. That's a total of 11 driveways that we have planned for repairs. >> Tovo: Okay. So I may need to follow up afterward. It sounds like these repairs are not necessarily the ones that are being discussed with regard to fire stations in other areas where it's going to be necessary to actually identify temporary locations. >> We do have some stations with temporary locations. Do you remember what those stations were? Introduce yourself too. >> Hello. My name is Larry Jansen. I'm assistant chief of Austin fire department. I'm over homeland security and logistics. We have -- what you're speaking to, councilmember, are the -- I believe, the phase 6 locker room projects, which are the last six stations in our facility equity improvement plan. Out of those stations, we have identified some locations that are close to the current service delivery point that we can operate out of, and those are station 16, which is kind of central, north Austin, Reese lane, Justin lane, airport boulevard, that area. We're going to put a bunkhouse trailer about one block away from that station while that renovation project is going on. The other location there are six stations in that that we're going to be able to do that with is station 11, [9:28:54 AM] which is on Kenny avenue, south Lamar, a couple of blocks off of south Lamar. We have a location behind it that we can put a temporary trailer while that one is being done. None of these, I'd like to point out, are being done with bond money. >> Tovo: Right. >> That was a separate funding source. And then there's another station, station 9, we're in negotiations -- there's no place to run alternatively out of in station 9, which is Hyde park. >> Tovo: I hope that we can explore that issue. I think that's -- I think it's critical to have that service within that area so I hope we can talk about some other potential locations within that service area. >> One of the advantages of when we take station 9 out of the mix, we've got considerable redundancy in the area already because of the density of and proximity of fire stations when they were built back in the 20s, 30s and 40s in that area and then Enfield station. When we take that station down our next station is within a minute of response time. >> Tovo: Since it's not directly related to this agenda item I can take this conversation off nine, but I just heard about this -- offline, but I just heard about this situation yesterday and I'd like to talk about it. I think if the intention is to make sure all of the impacted fire stations have temporary locations and I think it's important that this one as well within the immediate area. >> And just to assure you and the rest of the councilmembers and the citizens out there, we've taken into consideration the coverage to determine what impact, if any, will take place in the community. We'll make sure we have a map and data for you and all the councilmembers, as well as the city manager. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. I mean, I think it's worth saying that this is a fire [9:30:55 AM] station that occasionally pops up on lists for potential closure and so that's one reason why I'm particularly concerned that we have a plan that is relocating those services within the area. >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: Thank you. >> Garza: I'm sorry I was late, the south first bridge at Ben white was closed. I don't know why. So I didn't get the beginning of this conversation about the funding. And I just - - this isn't a fire question,. Are you done with the fire? >> Tovo: Yes. >> Thank you. >> Garza: I guess I'm concerned about starting to prioritize or make it seem like we're changing any schedules or why isn't this amount there because I think every single department would want the entire amount allocated as soon as possible. She's saying yes, you're saying no, so I don't know. And obviously we all have the facilitates and things that are prioritization to us, one being the health center, the neighborhood center in dove springs that will provide a food pantry and shelter. And that's where my priority it. But my understanding is there is work to be done, there is architecture, there is this. So it this $12 million that economic development is ready to spend today? Like buying something or buying a facility? I don't understand. >> Kitchen: Could I speak to that? >> Mayor Adler: Hang on. Let me give someone else a chance to speak. I understand, it's the same conversation. >> Casar: To me it's the same point I hear that having the money ready could help get an rfp moving, but I have the same question mayor pro tem Garza has, and on top of that the question [9:32:56 AM] of what is the impact later on to other -- I understand, for example, a library that may be in horrible condition or a health center that we want to get built, that we are setting aside now and appropriating design money and prep money to do those things, but what I want to understand is let's say that that -- that all of a sudden is ready to go in six months. How is the issuance of additional appropriation in any area, including creative space, how does that impact and does it impact our ability to once the health center is ready to go or once a library that is falling apart is ready to go or once a bridge that needs fixing is ready to go, how does issuance of this 12 million earlier than is posted, does that have any impact on the way that we can handle those other projects when they are ready? Because I'm just trying to see what changes, and if I'm losing anything with appropriation of the 12. I understand how we get something -- >> Mayor Adler: Elaine, can you answer that question? >> Kitchen: I would like to ask something first. >> Mayor Adler: Right back to you after her. >> Kitchen: It's just I want to say to my colleagues that -- and then Elaine can answer. The first thing that I checked was prioritization because I would never try to prioritize creative spaces over the health center and other needs. So my first question to Elaine about this was: Was there some upper limit? And I was told that there was no upper limit for us at this point in time. So I don't view this as prioritization at all. And thank you, mayor, for letting me express that. I just felt it was important because I want my colleagues to understand this is not a prioritization issue at all for me. >> Mayor Adler: Can you answer Greg's question. >> Garza: What do you mean by upper limit? There was no upper limit? >> Kitchen: The first thing I asked our staff is were they shooting for a total dollar amount when they added all these up? And I was told no. [9:34:57 AM] And that if I wanted to moved forward with the full 12 million that didn't mean that anything else had to be brought down. >> Mayor Adler: Guys, let's -- Elaine, can you answer that question? >> I can. When we start with the initial budget amendment falling a bond election, we are talking individually to departments about the prop, what was in the details of the prop and their projects. And we are looking at individual projects and asking them which are the most ready to move. What would we be stopping them from moving forward on if we did not have this initial appropriation. We do not ever have a target number in mind, although this is a six-year plan. This is a six-year bond program. And certainly in keeping this in with the six year tax rate we have to look at it as an overall six-year plan. We have to look at are there pending land acquisitions or opportunistic land acquisitions. We look at projects that need design money, projects that are ongoing or programs that are ongoing that need additional money to be funded. It's not a perfect process. The departments and budget staff use our best budget. We did get within -- we looked at past budget amendments following bond elections and we're in the range of a 15% of the total bond is in this appropriation. That's consistent with prior bond elections on general obligation elections. So it's not perfect. I will say that while we didn't have an upper limit, we cannot appropriate the entire bond in the first out of the chute budget [9:36:57 AM] amendment because when we make that appropriation, that is giving the departments the authority to spend that money. If you appropriate it all upfront, I cannot meet the council's guidance on the tax impact over the six years, and that's what's important also. So there are a lot of trade-offs that we're trying to address. Not everybody gets everything they want upfront, but again,ork cooperatively with the departments to come back to council with a package, an initial package that keeps people moving and is a statement to the community that we can move forward and we can get this done. We do not expect to spend the $151 million in the next six months. You need the appropriation to let your contracts. All of those contracts will come back to council, but you do need the authority to spend to get the program moving. We use the reimbursement resolutions as a way of better cash flow so it minimizes our costs upfront. We can spend the money and reimburse ourselves by issuing bonds in the future. That's allowed by the internal revenue service. And so we won't issue these bonds likely for a year to two years, the 151 million. So it is a process. Every step of the way it does come back to council. This is the initial amendment. Is the initial action following the election. Following that you will see contracts coming through. There is a land acquisition for watershed on the 7th agenda. So once we get those contracts let, you may see some design contracts once they're let, the work has begun, then the cash flow starts happening. We start making the expenditures. We will come back to council with an additional appropriation and a spend for the fy2020 budget year in your proposed budget in [9:38:57 AM] August. You will act on it in September. And then following that we would have this bond election traunch as well as the 2016 overlaid throughout that five-year process, and initial year coming back to council every year until those bonds are exhausted. I hope that answered your question. Did you have a follow-up, anything else? >> Mayor Adler: Yes, Diane. Delia. >> Garza: Help me understand what an rfp for creative spaces would be? >> Rebecca giello of the economic development department. I want to say that we are in an exploratory phase. We will be waiting for recommendations on our commissions. Currently right now we anticipate that that would be working through the spring and getting something into early summer that we would be able to actually position from a procurement standpoint. In terms of would we be working with -- so to say we're not exactly sure what the approach would be. Allowing for additional dollars allows for more flexibility in the approach, there's no doubt, but currently right now there's a couple of approaches. We could put out an rfp and that would be very specific to what we would be soliciting from the development community, or we could be working with the office of real estate services to actually go out and acquire. So the $500,000 no doubt is still helpful. It allows for predevelopment work and certainly prepositions of projects for success. But there is no doubt that [9:40:58 AM] allowing for additional dollars allows for more flexibility at the front. >> Garza: But is the process -- so you have awhile before you're going to issue an rfp, right? >> That is correct. >> Garza: A couple of months at least. >> Oh sure. Waiting for a couple of months and/or whenever this next council action would take place would be appropriate. >> Garza: And even once that rfp is issued there's no -- there's a process to go through those each bid, there's a process to determine what -- can you not put an rfp out for two million dollars because the actual -- you know, the pain of that two million will come eight months -- the paying of that two million will come eight months from now. Is the concern you couldn't do that, you couldn't do that now with us approving the 500,000, you could not put out an rfp for two million because we know the money is going to be there at some point? >> There is conversations that there is an interest in the community for allowing for multiple solicitations to be positioned for acceptance. The other thing that I would say is not having the full recommendation currently from the community, we also recognize that there may be a desire to go out and actually acquire land and/or facility space. And so allowing for additional dollars outside of the 500,000 or even a couple of million would allow for a richer transaction in that vein. >> Garza: When you say allowing for, is this the action that allows for that? >> Correct. The ability to access those dollars would be council appropriation. >> Garza: Even though the timeline is that money would not be spent for probably a year. There wouldn't be an approval before us. >> I'm not sure about that. So for the dollars to be appropriated, and we would be then able to work with [9:43:00 AM] the office of real estate services more quickly if land acquisition or facility acquisition would be the route, then we would be positioned to do that in a far more swift time frame. >> Garza: Okay, that helps. I'm just concerned about the optics of the same could be said for many of these projects. The same could be said for almost every single one of approved through the bond that an extra allocation here would provide that extra ability. I'll use the neighborhood center. What if the architecture goes really fast and now they're on a timeline that allows them the opportunity to start building, to start putting an rfp out? And I'm concerned about the optics of increasing any of these when this is the recommendation from staff. It feels -- I'm not saying that it is, but it feels like a prioritization, and allowing more money over one project than was recommended by staff. So I have concerns about that. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Kitchen: I understand your concerns, but I would also say that this is not the recommendation of staff, the 500,000. The recommendation from staff is the full 12 million as they have just said, they said that at first they were thinking 500,000, but if I heard correctly from both Elaine hart and Rebecca giello, the stef is recommending the -- the staff is recommending the 12 million, not the 500,000. >> Garza: And I don't want to speak for her, but I'm sure every director would have wanted -- >> Kitchen: And I would support the full amount for dove springs if it was something is that you felt was needed right now. >> Mayor Adler: Hang on. Paige? >> Ellis: I kind of echo the sentiments of mayor pro tem Garza. I think because we came up with -- the city came up with a really good bond [9:45:02 AM] package, the voters approved it, we are obligated to follow through with all these projects. But I understand the need to not do everything right out of the gate because these are funds that we're going to have to balance over the years. And I think we all have projects we want to make sure are getting built in our districts. And can you maybe speak to the leverage that we would have or lose in approving everything right away? Would we then be able to be involved in the decision-making about exactly which land acquisitions are happening or which projects are being built? Could you tell me more about that? >> >> I would not recommend appropriating the full amount because we would not have sufficient system controls to keep the departments from spending the money and then you would lose control over your debt service tax rate and the ability to plan your bond sales. So I would not recommend the full 925 as an action. As your cfo. >> Just to be clear that's not what I was hoping that we would do here. [Laughter]. >> Okay. >> Ellis: I'm saying in general we all agree that we want to put these bonds to the best use possible that we have to be careful about balancing our timeline here. >> We do. And in this next two months when we're working on the five-year forecast -- the five-year capital improvement program with the departments, we look at the interdependencies between these projects. We look at can we get the facilities on the ground. Any time there's opportunistic land acquisitions we certainly come forward with the acquisition, the amendment and a budget resolution. So we have that kind of flexibility and that happens throughout a bond program. On some of the other ongoing programs that are renovations of libraries, they likely can't do all of them at the same time and project manage them. So we work with them and they prioritize them based on the metrics in your resolution that provided guidance for the rollout of this bond program, but they [9:47:04 AM] also look at workload measures and what they can get done and where they think they need the renovation first, how they can get the work done. One of the other things we're working with public works on and capital contracting is how can we get procurement expedited, looking at design-build, looking at idq, indefinite quantity projects. Contracts. Looking at alternative delivery methods so we can ensure that we get this bond program done in six years. Excuse me. But those are the kinds of things that require longer conversations than we had from the election to now, but don't believe that as we provide the first five-year plan that that won't change. There are tweaks to it every year, every spring. And so we try and take into account the change conditions at the time. And typically what will happen is you will see a higher appropriation amount, which allows you to contract, but even the contracts are multi-year, so you don't spend the money. There's a lag -- excuse me. There's a lag in the time frame from when you appropriate, then you contract and then you spend the money, and the spending of the money is what affects the bond sales, which come after that, and then the impact to the tax rate. So we're trying to balance, as you said, all of those factors across a six-year program. >> Mayor Adler: Greg? >> Casar: So what -- my original question, I think you were just touching on it at the end here, is the appropriation into the budget or is it the actual spending of the dollars that could have an impact on the -- on our debt such that [9:49:06 AM] we could actually -- that we actually could be potentially pushing back other things? I'm trying to find out where the opportunity cost happens. Is it in the appropriation phase or is it at the spend or the issuance of the bonds? Because if we can't spend -- if we can't do it all this year, which obviously we don't intend to, then that means that anything we do this year obviously does push things back somewhere else, it has an impact somewhere. I'm trying to understand is the impact at the appropriation phase with the budget amendment or is it with the spending? >> It's realistically with the spending because that triggers a bond sale. After you've spent you issue the bond to reimburse yourself and you have a time frame the irs provides you with 18 months to two years after you've spent it to reimburse yourself. So it's a really long time frame. So if you had an appropriation today and it took you four months to do the rfp, another six weeks to get on the council agenda, then you've got the contract of the proposal approved, you would start the spending at that point. Beyond that point you would have anywhere from 18 months to two years before you would issue the bonds to reimburse yourself. The bond issuance in August is what triggers the debt service tax rate, which has to cover the debt service on the bonds that were issued. So I'm saying this is the first step in a fairly -- what could be a fairly long process. The other example is the land acquisition for watershed. They are coming forward and they'll spend that money. It's item 7 on the agenda, I believe. Or 9. It's under real estate services. They will spend that money within likely 30 to 45 days. So of this bond amendment -- budget amendment, that would be the first dollars that you would probably see in a [9:51:06 AM] bond issuance and that would be quicker than what I would expect some of the other projects. >> Casar: All I'm saying here is let's say, for example -- I'm not advocating for it, but let's say we appropriate all $250 million for allocation in the budget this year. I'm not saying do that, but if we did that that doesn't necessarily mean that we are spending that money, but if we did go out and spend $250 million in one year, that would likely delay the issuance of bonds for other things because we have to do our best to level out the issuance of the bonds over the course of the six years. But it's not the budget appropriation that does that. >> It's the spend. >> Casar: So while -- so the budget amendments are more like a planning thing. Is that what you're saying? Because technically although your answer could councilmember Ellis's question was don't appropriate all the bonds. If we did that doesn't actually mean that we would-- that we would spend it this year and it doesn't actually mean that it would push back any projects. It would just make our departments go I don't know what y'all are prioritizing this year so I don't know what to do. >> The appropriation is the department's authority to spend money. >> Casar: But they always have to bring it back to us, so it really isn't. >> But if they brought back contracts worth $250 million, systemwise it makes it more difficult for us to have the controls that they would not spend the 250 million not in accordance with a longer term plan. >> Casar: That's helpful. My last question is, manager, so on this particular issue of the creative space dollars being at 500,000 or 12 million, is there a staff recommendation on what -- >> Cronk: We were at the time agnostic about the dollar amount. We were really waiting for the commissions to give us some specific parameters which they were giving to the department to issue the rfp. At the time when we first discussed this council [9:53:06 AM] action item, we did put in a dollar amount to keep the ball rolling. Their work continued so, you know, we were essentially open to if they wanted to have as part of the proposal the President-Elect to have a higher dollar -- the flexibility to have a higher dollar amount, but the short answer is we were pretty agnostic about that initial dollar amount. >> Casar: Sorry I'm taking a bit of time here, but I think I've learned a lot from this and I'll keep thinking about it through Thursday because it seems to me that while I would love to appropriate all of the money for fixing some libraries in semi district that are in bad -- in my district that are in bad conditions, I would like to appropriate money for the health center and that might set the expectation that we can kick off those projects quickly and it's hard to tell when it is that we can spend that money. At the same time, I recognize that it sound like the commissions feel like they can spend these 12 million quickly. I don't know. It sounds like the place that we would -- that would impact other projects would be at the spending, but once we've set the expectation that we're going to spend all of that money quickly, that could -- it frankly could as far as I can tell have some unintended impact on other projects not being able to move as quickly because issuance of any bond dollars is going to -- it has a trickle effect because we have to -- we can't spend them all within the course of the first three years. >> Mayor Adler: So I'd respond to that and also using it as a planning tool. And I want to learn more before Thursday as well. I don't want to do anything that changes the -- impacts the overall priorities of the council. And I mean, the clinic in dove springs, example, is real important to me too and it's something when I was out campaigning was something that I always mentioned so I don't want to prejudice anything. It's clear to me -- it's clearer to me what that spend looks like because I know what the elements are in that. I'm concerned that from a planning process with respect to the creative spaces that it starts moving [9:55:07 AM] out at 500,000-dollar clips at a time and I don't know that that's the best use of that money. It could be that the best planning associated use of that money is to take $12 million and to buy a place that then gets opened up to the community. I don't know. But I want to make sure that from a planning perspective the groups that are discussing it or not thinking about a small piece because there's going to be tons of people that want small amounts of money spent right so that the conversation of the planning group also inadvice inches the kinds of things that were in the memo that came out last fall about the creative trust elements and there's a whole [indiscernible] Of that. So to have that broadest thinking to say there's a 12-million-dollar pallet here that you have was important to me. And that's what I thought was really the -- from a planning perspective was the Valentine in saying to -- was the value in saying to those things there's the availability. Obviously it has to come back to us and we would be checking that paper and checking that and putting our priorities above that. I have more I need to find out before Thursday too in that regard. Ann and then Alison and then Pio. >> Kitchen: Yes. I would say that the process for the creative spaces is bit different because they wouldn't be bringing us back a contract, per se. So I think what the mayor said is important about authorizing, appropriating the 12 million at this point is to allow the flexibility when they go through an rfp kind of process that we can get all the kinds of proposal that people might have. And remember that the purpose of it is to preserve creative spaces. So we don't know if that's going to require a million or two million or three million or the whole 12 million. So if we don't authorize [9:57:12 AM] issuance of an rfp that would allow for the full 12 million we won't get that information. That is not the spend, though. And also not the commitment. You can do an rfp without shipmenting to folks that then there will be a contract and expenditure afterwards. So it doesn't tiehe council's hands in the same way that it might with another kind of project where you know you're authorizing it and appropriating it and you know you have to -- you really can't do -- you've set the expectation that your going to approve the contracts. So I hear what you're saying because we want to making sure that we understand what we're doing in terms of our overrule issuance of -- our overall issuance of bonds. The other thing I would say is 12 million is pretty small in the scheme of things in terms of the total amount that we have. And one of my questions too is that I understand that the staff will be bringing back to us is I want to see the whole five-year plan and I want to see the five-year plan or six-year plan with regard to this bond and with regard to the 2016 bond because I want to make sure that we're proceeding quickly with housing and that we're proceeding quickly with the health center and with the other kinds of things that we know that are urgent. And we haven't seen that multi-year plan yet and we really need to do that to answer these questions. So I guess what I'm saying at this point, I'm okay with proceeding with all of these appropriations because I understand that it is the authority to move forward. If I thought that this was committing our priorities, then I would be asking why are we only doing 42 million for housing? Why are we not authorizing all of these projects? But my understanding is that this is the appropriations to get us started and -- so anyway, so that's where I [9:59:12 AM] was coming from with that. >> Mayor Adler: Alison? >> Alter:I'll be brief because we can't actually vote on this Thursday he can't vote it until the 28th at the very earliest. Part of -- I'm inclined to agree with councilmember kitchen that there is a difference in the nature. One thing that we haven't talked about is staff capacity to spend the money. And we have a lot of money that is appropriated within the housing bucket where -- which we should have, but I think there -- between now and September they're not going to necessarily be able to spend the 42 million and we'll have another opportunity to appropriate more money in September if we've been able to move those things along. We also have a large pot of money in there, as we should, for land acquisition, which gets us started in the process. If we had -- Elaine, maybe you can answer this. If we had an opportunity to buy land and we hadn't appropriated enough money we can just come to council and ask us to do a budget amendment and appropriate more money. We have the money in our bond, which is part of the beauty of the bond, that we have money for that land acquisition. So I think with respect to the affordable housing we still have flexibility that we need if we can expedite things and move things along further within the time frame that we have, given the process that's been laid out. With respect to the creative spaces, I'm inclined to believe the argument of we need to have the flexibility in order to be able to create the program in the most effective way and that the spend is something that would be part of what we have to analyze as we got those proposals back and could be looking at whack come next. >> Mayor Adler: Pio. >> Renteria: Thank you, mayor. [10:01:15 AM] Elaine, would the intention always been to appropriate the $12 million for this here round? Is that because the committee hasn't come back to you to -- to make recommendation, that's why y'all are holding back? >> It was at the time when we were preparing this rca to come to council, the working group was not at this stage yet where they had a hard proposal and they're still working on that. So we felt like we should give them sufficient money, should they want to do a land acquisition, that they could go get appraisals or go hire a broker or do whatever they would need to do to look for a land acquisition. So we really wanted to make sure that every proposition had some funding that they could continue on. You know, as we got this ready and on the council agenda it tabs a while for us to work through the staff processes. The working groups were still working on their options. Obviously when they saw the 500,000 posted two weeks ago I think they were alarmed in that they were still working on their process and that was not enough money for them. >> Renteria: Could it be when we do take a vote here later on this month that they could come up with that amount or are they gonna still be struggling on trying to come up with a program or a project? >> I think they're actively working on it and doing well with that. There is a couple of meetings exiled, both in March and April at joint commissions, where the music commission as well as the arts commission are coming together and hosting joint meetings. So it's a matter of logistically allowing for those meetings to play out where they will take public input, which will help inform their final recommendation. >> Renteria: So if you would have had those numbers today -- I mean, last week, it would have been posted on this when you released this? [10:03:17 AM] This item 3? >> I think it's an approach. And I don't know that there was a -- an approach that was not appropriate. The approach for appropriating all of the dollars allows for the community to see great flexibility, but it also is accurate to say that the approach in just the 500,000 allows us to be in exploratory phase. And so what we will likely do is bring back something that signals that the flexibility is still of great opportunity for the committee. >> Renteria: If they would come up later on with a solid amount that we could just do an amendment and also pass it, I mean -- a budget amendment, would that be possible? >> Yes, that's correct. I mean, you have the flexibility, should a hard project come up for land acquisition, you can do a budget amendment and reimbursement resolution and that other action at the same time. >> Renteria: So there's really nothing in what we're doing here that's gonna affect any of the projects, we're just saying that we're willing to spend $12 million from the start if we could find something that's -- that we're willing to -- that we'd be able to pay for? >> Right. The 12 million in appropriation would support the rfp process that Rebecca is talking about with the full level of funding. >> Renteria: But that don't mean we're gonna issue $12 million. That we'll start immediately working on. >> That's correct. It would allow for the flexibility to receive multiple proposals for more than the 500,000 or a small portion of those dollars. >> Renteria: Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: And so separate and apart from the issue we discussed a good bit here on creative space, I think I've [10:05:17 AM] learned a lot, I want to think about it, looks like we have time and looks like there's several options for us to do really good work with that part of the bond but I do want to take a minute since we have talked about this for a while to thank the staff for having worked so diligently on what's a really complicated process and just appreciate the moment that we're in. Because four years ago, figuring out how we were going to spend money on parks, how we were going to buy a park, fix a fire station or what's gonna happen when our affordable housing money is just about to run out when we're having debate on totally different ground right now, how it is that we responsibly and equitably help the city with dollars we now have access to, which is just really a privilege, a privileged place we're at and that I'm so grateful for and that so many people on the staff worked hard on and so many people on the dais worked hard putting together and on the campaign trail. Just for a moment, I know we can get really into the nitty- gritty debate of the issue but it's a good context that we'rishing -- appropriating over a hundred million dollars worth of money and we're trying to figure out, you know, half a dozen or dozen dollars here and there but I do want to recognize the work you've done, Elaine, and so many of the staff have been doing to plan out how to handle this fish issuance because I think it's a privilege and great thing for the city and I'm sure we will figure out the creative space issue between here and the 28th and done well alongside all the other priorities but I wanted to take a minute to bring us back to that. >> If I could have just one moment, mayor. I'm excited to work about -- on this project as well as the 2016 and bring this package back to council. But we do have a lot of department staff that have worked really hard on this and they're very excited about having the money. >> Mayor Adler: Delia, why don't you close us? >> Garza: I learned a lot about this process as well, just from this meeting. And, I mean, it -- my [10:07:20 AM] takeways, what we can spend every year is limited. There's a limit on what we can spend. And when we appropriate something we put stuff in line to be spent. We put dollars in line to be spent. And so this decision to me, there is prioritization involved in what we appropriate and how we line that up to spend it. I think the five-year plan is a great idea so without even having a five-year plan, for us to already be having the discussion when we don't have that yet and how we move dollars around and line them up is concerning to me. And just following up on councilmember Renteria, it sounds like at any point if there was a recommendation from any of these commissions, they -- if the recommendation is we have a project and it's a $12 million project they can bring that back to council at any time. Is that right? At any time they can bring back a project that would allow us to make a similar change? So there's no project right now? It's just -- anyway, I'm inclined to support staff's recommendation as-is. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Kitchen: Could I say one thing? >> Mayor Adler: Close it out. >> Kitchen: I just wanted to clarify we can not issue an rfp that allows flexibility to spend 12 million. So we can't bring back a 12 million project without allowing the flexibility to issue an rfp that's broad enough for a whole range. That's the difference here. >> Garza: That's not what I said. I said if the commission brings back a recommendation for an rfp then staff could bring that rfp to council. >> Kitchen: I thought you said contract. I apologize. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Let's go on to the next thing. Elaine, thank you. We're excited to get to spend the money as well. [ Laughter ] Kathie. >> Tovo: Mayor, you may know this, but it's councilmember pool's birthday. >> Mayor Adler: As a matter of fact, it is. Good catch. >> Tovo: I thought we might -- >> Mayor Adler: This is probably a good time to take a break and sing happy birthday. [10:09:21 AM] It's also -- >> Alter: There's a particular song she wants that's not related. Jimmy, do you know when I'm 64? [ Laughter ] >> Flannigan: If we have the lyrics in the background I'm sure I could nail. >> Mayor Adler: All right, sing happy birthday to councilmember pool. [ Laughter ] ♪♪ Happy birthday ♪♪ >> Spencer comes on strong in these occasions. Remember that. Wherever she is, it is also Kay's birthday today. >> Renteria: Mayor, I'm glad you didn't go around and wrap your hands around that flag. [ Laughter ] Let's go on to the next item. Ed, do you want to talk to us about the budget? >> I do. Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem, members of the council, Ed van eenoo, deputy chi financial officer for the city. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm joined today by Kim, our chief performance officer who is heavily involved in the developing and crafting of the data for the metrics that we're asking you to help us prioritize today. This is really gonna be a continuation of the conversation we started last year over our new central library, where you helped or I should say nine of you helped craft the top ten priority indicators that were key in crafting our budget last year. This is now to just go a layer deeper and now look at the metrics that comprise those indicators. Here's just a picture of . Me standing in front of all you up on the screen, if you have really good guys. The top ten indicators that you landed on, you chose those top ten indicators [10:11:22 AM] perfect a total of 35 adopted indicators that are in your strategic plan sd-23, and those indicators really indicated to us these were the areas that you most wanted to see improvement or saw the most opportunity for improvement in the next two to three years. So we were very careful to craft the conversation that we get it, all of the 35 indicators in your strategic plan are important. That's why they're in your plan, but this really helped us focus our efforts on, you know what? We really need to do better in certain areas, and so that's where we were able to focus our budget attentions. This exercise today will be similar, but focusing on the metrics. These are what your top ten priority indicators were. Spread throughout the six outcomes with three of them landing in economic opportunity and affordability and really, really strong emphasis coming through from council about how long and homelessness. You had three inner health and environment and you had one each in the remaining four outcomes. We didn't stop at just the priority indicators. We also asked you to help us prioritize some other things, and so we talked to you about tax rates and general fund user fees and public safety funding, and you gave us a lot of other parameters within which we were able to craft a budget recommendation that I think really reflected the priorities of our council. So you told us last year that you wanted to see a tax increase at or below 6%, and we brought the budget to you at 5.5%. If you want to be really precise it was actually 5.45% but we were able to present you a budget that was below that 6% threshold. You said you would be okay to see modest increases to general fund user fees to help offset those rising costs and quite frankly to help us keep the tax rate down as a result of that, and we did bring forward and you approved a variety of [10:13:22 AM] fee increases last year. And then finally you see over on the right, since the 10-1 council came into office in fiscal year 2006 we had seen a downward trend in the portion of the general fund budget allocated to public safety and you expressed a preference to continue to see that downward trajectory. It's really important, I like to stop and pause here to say that does not mean we're not continuing to invest heavily in public safety and in fact if you look down at that table you can see the number of public safety sworn personnel that we've added over the last four years. But those two things can both happen, have us continue to vis this critical public safety services but see that become a smaller overall percentage of our general fund allocation. Specific to that tax rate discussion last year we had a little bit of conversation about the potential for lower revenue caps in the future, and so the next two slides I just wanted to give you a quick look at the discussion of revenue caps. So I think you've probably seen some of these slides before. But this slide is just looking at what our five-year forecast for expenditure looks like,e bar is our 30 million general fund budget and green bars project growth in that budget over the next four years. The black line on there is what our revenues would look like under a 2.5% revenue cap. It would not go into effect until fiscal year 21 and long story short a 2.5% revenue cap doesn't provide us the revenue we'll need to balance our base cost driver budget. We did rerun those numbers at a 5% revenue cap because we're starting to hear some discussion up at the legislature that makes us think that we might still experience a lower cap, but not all the way down at 2.5, so this is what a 5% revenue cap would look like for us. [10:15:25 AM] Better, but still not sufficient for us to balance our base needs. Again, as just a point of comparison, the fiscal year we're currently in was balanced at a 5.5% revenue cap. So kind of our planned agenda for today and after I go over this I'm gonna need to step back briefly, but this is what we have planned today. And I think we have you until about 11:00 and I think we can accomplish what we need to by 11:00. First to review the results from this metric priority setting exercise we asked you all to participate in, leading up to today. We'll do like a 1-5 poll to gauge level of support for this. This is a variation of the Steve strutters approach but we didn't want a copyright infringement so we're calling it a 1-5 poll as opposed to Steve's approach. After that as a starting point for the conversation if you like kind of what seem to be the highest scoring metrics, then we just need to build on that and have a conversation. Are there things that should be added to that list? We don't want to be overly dogmatic about whether it's a top ten, top 15, top 20, we'd encourage you to keep it relatively small and manageable list because that makes the focus clearer to staff and helps us craft a budget that dials into your priorities. Then I would like to come back and maybe revisit those policy guidelines you gave us last year in regards to taxes, fees, and public safety expenditures. So I'm gonna do two things before I turn it over to Kim. One is to go back and revisit those top ten indicators. But I do need to bring to your attention, there was a glitch in our polling instrument that we circulated to all of you that has to do with the mobility indicators. So you had ten indicators in that polling exercise and each of those indicators has different metrics. One of those indicators, the [10:17:26 AM] mobility indicator, we made a goof and we put in the metric from a different indicator. So the easiest way for me to show this to you, and you can flip to it, I think it's slide a7 and a8 of your packet. So this is what we included in the poll, which was the metrics related to the system efficiency and congestion metric. The indicator, the mobility indicator that's actually one of your top ten metrics is accessibility to equity multimodal transportation choices. So we apologize for that goof. I think the data from this exercise still will provide you with good information for the starting point for your conversation. I don't know that helps us see where council was putting more points in the metrics that seemed to be a higher priority for improvement than others. We had always planned on that just being a starting point and revisiting the list to see what needed to be added, changed or deleted from it. I think one of the first things we do after we look at what the data says would be to come back and talk about these five metrics and see if there's some of these metrics that you feel should be part of that priority list. So we apologize for that but I think we can still make this work today. So with that I'm gonna -- before I turn it over to Kim I did want to go back to that list of indicators. And just see -- almost -- I know two of you weren't here so one of the things we wanted to hear from you and it could just be if we don't hear anything back we'll take that as a yes, but generally do these indicators that were adoptedouncil at the central library back in April of last year, do these still reflect your broad priorities or do you think there needs to be a revisiting of this? [10:19:29 AM] >> Mayor adler:delia. >> Garza: That was my main question. These are the ten last year you put the things on the bosh and we put stickies, right? >> Yes. >> Garza: Okay. One of my concerns is -- the one I'm speaking specifically of is food and security and parks and rec part of -- I'm pretty sure I put a sticky on that and I think it didn't reach the priorities here, unfortunately. I'm wondering, you said we could possibly add things here, we didn't want it to get out of control, I understand that. My hope is that we can add one here because maybe other colleagues who hadn't been following this as closely or thought we were moving in a direction we were addressing that because we had created an fte that was supposed to be addressing that and it turns out that wasn't the direction that I thought it was going in, and so my understanding is we're on the right path with that fte in food and security and grocery store issue but I certainly want that added to here. And looking at the metrics for food and security, you know, I'd need to dig more into that, but, you know, I would hope one of these metrics would be the distance from a grocery store. Because it's not -- I was trying to figure out where else this would fit. It's not just about health food. It's about access to affordable diapers and, you know, things that people need, a pharmacy, so I don'that goes here but it's definitely an issue that has continued to be one in southeast Austin, northeast Austin, pretty much anywhere in east Austin so I'd ask if we can dig deep near adding that. >> There are of course metrics outside of these top ten, we have metrics for all 35 of the indicators. I don't know off the cuff. I see Kim looking at her list. There may be a metric [10:21:30 AM] related to that that's outside of these and of course -- this isn't intended to be a perfect process and at the end of the conversation if there's metrics that didn't float to the top as a result of the process we crafted let's hear about those and get those added to the list, and I'd also add if there's not metrics related to that issue it's always been envisioned sd-23 will be a living document, if it needs to change over time we C change it over time. So if that was something we missed in the initial sd-23, we can have that conversation and get metrics related to that added to the plan. >> Garza: Are you coming back to us? Unfortunately I committed to something that I have to leave in 20 minutes. I didn't know the previous conversation was going to last that long. Are you coming back to us with maybe after this discussion a new -- so can I continue -- my office continue to work with you when you bring something back before budget decisions are made? >> Our plan is to continue to meet with council, like, in more smaller bite-size pieces as opposed to big half day or file day work sessions. We'll be back in front of you April 9 with a discussion of our forecast and it may be at that point in time we could talk about where do we land today and do we need to make any changes to where we landed today on April 9 and we can continue to have that conversation as we move up to our budget adoption. >> Garza: Because my staff may have told you but I reserved 50 of my points wanting to give 50 of my points to this issue of grocery stores and food security so I hope I can use those points at some point. >> Okay. We're gonna -- >> Mayor Adler: Hang on a second. >> If I may take another look at the list. If I had the opportunity at the time to contribute to the dialogue, something I don't see on the list that as a singular item as a point of consideration, but it absolutely sort of encompasses so many of the things on this list is civic engagement, civic education, just generally a more functional democracy would include having more people sort of being involved in that process and understanding the process. [10:23:32 AM] So under government that works for all, if there were a section that singly focused on, you know -- I see including education under workforce, which is important, but we need to educate our general citizenry about their civic opportunities as well. So that would be something that would be highly important to me. >> We'll take that in -- I'm looking at Kim's list here. There were indicators related to those types of things and metrics. And so we can work with you to kind of hone in on the ones that you thought were important and maybe sometime between now and April 9 we can float those just so we can add those to the conversation. >> Harper-madison: It's just something to take into consideration. So frequently we talk about sort of lack of productive public outreach, but frequently our general citizenry aren't involved in the discussions because they don't know to be, don't know how, to they haven't been Clyde to the dialogue and wouldn't know how to participate if we gave them the opportunity. In my experience, with sort of doing some civic education, you find that, you know, when you ask folks why wouldn't you otherwise have participated? They're embarrassed. They don't know how to. They've been excluded and it feels intentional so making that a priority would be an importance for all of us, if for no other reason to broaden the discussions and hear contributions from folks who otherwise we don't hear from. >> Great. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes? >> Briefly, I know thmetrics further down in health and environment metrics, but I just wanted to highlight the need for us to pay attention to flooding and wildfire safety. It's clearly something that's been identified, but in a district like mine, you know, I'm seeing that safety is something we're gonna highlight, we're concerned about climate change and sustainability, but I just think if we're kind of missing the mark on our highest, whatever the set number is, if it's ten or [10:25:33 AM] 12, that we get to, I think it's really important to make sure that we're constantly reminded that this is a risk every summer and every spring and every fall and we can't let that slip off the radar, even though I know there's a lot we're all kind of juggling here. >> So Kim is gonna present to you next the results of our -- >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Casar: I'm sorry I didn't quite understand where we landed. Because I would like to offer some support for the food insecurity and the fire, wildfire, as well as the civic engagement. So do we have a process for adding -- I'm sorry if I missed what that process was. >> The idea would be at a future work session, potentially April 9 when we'll be in front of you any how to talk about financial forecast, we'll take this input and shape it into some additional recommendations relative to what the list of priorities will be. >> Mayor Adler: To the degree -- you said you were gonna talk to individual offices. To the degree there's a desire to add more things maybe we should redo the exercise that we did a year ago because as I recall that was the hardest exercise we went through because there were lots of things on there that were important to me but I only had, as I recall, three votes. So we each had to pick. If we bring up any one of those individual things I'm gonna be in favor of it because that gives me four votes or five votes or six votes but if I'm limited to just three as we all were -- I think it would be helpful if you talk to the offices in between and see whether or not it is something something where we should redo that exercise? >> Flannigan: Again, part of the conversation today is really focusing on metrics so I think having some specific areas which we hone in on, even if they don't roll up to one of the top ten priority indicators we can still have them on our [10:27:33 AM] list of, you know, 10-15 that could be somewhat outside of the top ten but still something that we want to continue to pay attention to like food security or wildfire. What I'm hoping for is we can find what those metrics are so we can be shared as we go through the budget process that we're focusing in on those as well. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Jimmy and then you. >> Flannigan: So I found this particular exercise to be a little frustrating the way you laid that out, mayor. I felt more clear when we were prioritizing outcomes and indicators where I was -- my thought process, where do I think there's additional investment, where do I think additional investment is needed? I expect the entire city organization to walk and chew gum at the same time so all of these metrics are gonna be explored and are valuable and necessary because we've set them up that way. So is it -- I think that's where I'm not quite sure where the priorities -- prioritization of the metrics comes into play because it made a lot more sense when we prioritized housing and homelessness one and two because I'm willing to put a lot more money on neurothat, voters backed us up on that too. I'm not quite sure how that applies at the metric level because all the metrics are important and I expect every city department to look at their budget and allocate accordingly. >> I agree with that and I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So I don't think anything in this was ever intended that we would not focus on all of the metrics. It's clear they're all important. That's why they're in the strategic plan you adopted. To the extent that there is policy input that you feel that are particularly strong opportunities to improve in one area, so there's, you know, multiple ways we might address homelessness and to the extent those are captured through the metrics, if you're able to help us understand that we really think we need to invest more in mental health services or versus permanent supportive housing versus other things that are important -- not that we would not do all of them, [10:29:34 AM] but it is a limited budget at the end of the day so we're just trying to dial it in as tightly as we can to your priorities and so that's what we're -- that's all we're trying to do here today. >> Mayor Adler: Pio and then Alison. >> Renteria: Thank you, mayor. The way I looked at that survey, you know, there was -- I was tempting to put a lot of points into one section but I know that there's priorities throughout Austin, you know, we have flooding and infrastructure problems, facilities are important. So I basically divided mine into all of the different needs and pretty much evenly put in there -- I gave a few extra points if, you know, I thought that we should really focus on those, but there is a need throughout the whole city that we just cannot ignore, and I know that the priorities -- I didn't give out a heighth amount of points to just, you know, my pick, housing, we need more affordable housing now, and I would -- if it was up to me I would make that my first priority over anything else. Except for health care. But those two are really close and dear to me. But I know we need to take care of the city. >> Mayor Adler: Alison. >> Alter: Appreciate all the work that went into this and I have found it valuable to have the ten indicator areas and I think that while we want to have some ability maybe to add some things or to prioritize some additional things, I think we lose the value of the whole process at some level if we change it too often. And so I'd like to see if we can find a balance of incorporating new points of view and building off of what we have. I like the suggestion earlier of maybe we do take a look at some of the areas [10:31:34 AM] that didn't land in the top ten and we see if there's a consensus on a couple of those that we want to elevate for us, in particular indicators under those that we want to elevate. I think it's going to be very confusing as we try to push this out to staff if there is an expectation that this is going to change on an annual basis what the top ten are. I think adding, you know, a few areas that maybe we now think ought to be raised would be a much more effective way for us to move forward. >> I would agree with that because a lot of these things will take time to improve so to every year be saying here's a new set is not gonna give us the time to really focus in on those areas and get improvements that I think council wants to see but that -- the balance -- to balance that 2000 and isn't just a static world, things do change and perspectives come on to the council so we need to be responsive to that as well -- >> Alter: One other thing. As I understood the exercise by pointing points on any one did not mean that another if it was an indicator you felt we had an opportunity and a strong need to move that particular indicator at this particular point in time above and beyond what we were already doing. For instance I didn't put a whole lot of points in additional mobility things because I think we're on track and doing and we have processes set up to do a lot of those things. But there are other areas where I felt like were not set up to take the steps that we need to in those areas to get us to the outcome goals that we set. But it didn't mean that those metrics were not important and that the staff shouldn't pay attention to those metrics, and I thought that was how the exercise was laid out for us to [10:33:36 AM] undergo. >> Mayor Adler: Paige. >> Ellis: I noticed in the mobility section there's a lot of points allotted to percent splits of modes based on commute to work for mode share. As we move forward into doing the data for accessibility and equity, I didn't know if that metric could also be recaptured as we go through this. It's -- you know, it's in the title multimodal but then the metrics didn't necessarily have something spelled out quite this way so I didn't know if that was something we could do as we kind of redo that section. >> I think tt's a conversation we want to have because, again, that mistake we made but you'reight that metric did get a lot of points, it did float into the top ten average of the metrics. It just wasn't from the indicator that was specific to the priority indicators. But to me that doesn't mean that it can't remain as a priority metric. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Why don't you move forward. Pio, did you have your light on? Kathie? >> Tovo: Yeah, I had mine on. I just wanted to underscore a point that I think at least one of my colleagues raised in that this is pretty challenging exercise in -- and I just -- I really want to be sure that as we talk about it with the public that we make it really clear. You know, you put a caveat at the top of this that putting a zero next to a particular metric doesn't mean we don't care about it, but I would say that we ought to try to -- we ought to think between now and next year about how we might do this exercise differently because it still made me wildly uncomfortable to fill this out knowing that people will review it, people will look to it, and they will immediately think that we are -- are placing priority and deprioritizing other things and I think there's almost no way we can message that in a way that's gonna be clear so it just made me very uncomfortable to do this exercise. And I also, you know, found myself making choices like, [10:35:36 AM] well, I know this is something that we're doing because we just did a bond package for it so I'm gonna put my points somewhere else. I'm not sure that we -- it is an exercise, but we should think about how we might provide the staff with feedback in a different format. I also wanted to say that, too, there seems to be -- you know, some of these things are things over which we have control and some of these are issues over which we have no control. So that, too, makes it just a bit of an awkward exercise. You know, income levels in the creative sectors is different from one of the metrics. You know, I didn't know whether that was something -- I mean, what does it mean to place a priority on that metric? That's not something that the city directly impacts and controls, yet there are other metrics within here in terms of developments that we can more directly. There's also just a mix of kinds of metrics in here that is worth noting. But anyway, I appreciate all the time that the staff are putting into this and all the thought. As we continue to work on creating a strategic plan, I think we can continue to think about what in this particular setting makes the best sense in terms of how we do this exercise. You know, what works in a business or a corporation is just different from what works here and, again, the messages -- in terms of the messages we're sending to the public about where we place our priority and our value and our investment. >> Mayor Adler: And I think ultimately for me, it's the element of the forced choice in priority setting that was really the unique element of this for us because that's not something an elected body does easily. It's always easier to be supportive of lots of things so don't lose -- for me I would say don't lose that element of the forced choice component. All right. You want to continue on? >> Okay. So the -- just a short overview or summary of the results of the exercise you [10:37:38 AM] completed. As you'll recall you were each given a hundred points to allocate that appeared under those ten indicator categories when the exercise was completed, the point allocation that we saw ranged anywhere from zero to 50 points as the highest amount allocated to any specific metric. As a result, the highest scoring metric had an average of ten points and when you look at just the upper quartile of the average score for all those metrics, the average was 1.9 for that top 25%. So of the ten highest scoring metrics, where they landed, you have six that showed up in economic opportunity and affordability, two in health and environment, one in mobility and one in government that works for all. Just as a quick repressure that Ed had noted amongst your top ten indicator categories you had three categories in all those metrics from economic opportunity and three from health and environment. So it wasn't surprising in the end to see that six of the two, the large -- the majority of the top ten showing up in those two particular outcomes. This gives you the average -- the highest scoring metrics, the top ten, from those 68. I'll first go over what each of these columns mean. Of course you have the name of the metric on the left, but so for the average, the high, and the frequency. The average is quite simply the average score amongst all the points allocated amongst the metric between the hundred points that each of you had to work from. For the high, you had -- that is indicating what the highest amount of points was given by a particular councilmember. So, for example, metrics -- the number 1 and number 2 in the top ten, there was somebody amongst the council that gave 50 points to that first metric and 50 points to that second metric. We also wanted to give you [10:39:38 AM] an idea of frequency, of how often you were seeing a higher number of points given to a particular metric. So generally what we're seeing amongst all the metrics, scores of one and two were fairly common. Three was kind of that breaking point of where that was -- that was kind of the higher number. So for the number of times that the metric received three or more points, that first metric you see that happened nine times. So versus number -- or the second one listed in the tie for ninth, it only received three or more points by one councilmember. So that kind of gives you an idea of the frequency of the kind of higher degree of importance being indicated by a councilmember. So at this point we're gonna move into that 1-5 assessment or sense of consensus. >> So this next slide just reminds you, this is a Varian of the process we've used throughout the strategic plan with five, you know, indicating that you're very enthusiastic about the option before you, the proposal, and would be a champion for it. Four being you like the proposal and would support it. And then you see it ratchets down all the way to a one, meeting that you don't like the proposal at all and would actively work to block its adoption. So we thought a path to proceed would be to just kind of see if people think that list of ten priority metrics, if you feel like those are important, if you feel like those are areas you think that we should really be focusing on just do this 1-5 poll to get a sense of where we are. If you all hate it I'm probably gonna say, well, let's step back and regroup but if we see a lot of threes and fours let's have a conversation about how can we make it even better and get a whole bunch of fives out of y'all by adding thins to it or changing it income way. If that sounds like a [10:41:39 AM] reasonable approach I would offer that up as a question to you. Let's go back to the list of metrics. I know you have it in front of you too. That's very hard to read. Those are the ten metrics spread out between four of the outcomes and I guess that would be your 1-5 poll I'd like to take, does that feel like those are good areas for the city to be -- city staff to be focusing on for this upcoming budget cycle? Not that we wouldn't focus on everything, but that in particular we really want to drive improvement on these metrics? The 1-5. That kind of deal. I want to read them out. I got a five from councilmember alter, four, three, three, shaky three -- >> Mayor Adler: So to put names to them, only because we had -- >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Mayor Adler: Alison had five, Greg had five, Ann had four, Ann had three, Greg had four, Paige had three, I had -- I had four, Jimmy had three, Kathie had three. Pio had four -- >> Would you mind repeating the question? I'm not entirely certain what it is you're asking me to vote on. >> The question is, these up here on the screen, these are the ten metrics that receive the highest average score. We weren't focused on it being a top ten but these are the ones that received 2.5 points or more as an average. If we went down to two points or more it got us to 16 metrics. We started to feel like too many. We said let's draw the line at 2.5. The question is as a starting point for this conversation do these ten metrics feel you to like these would be good metrics for the city staff to focus on really trying to improve as part of our fiscal year 20 budget process? That's the budget we're gonna be developing overt next few months and we would like to come to you with a budget that we think really addresses your priorities, both the priorities as the [10:43:39 AM] indicator but also these priorities as the metrics. It's not that this is, like, the final vote. We can then have discussions about adding things to this list or changing it, but just to get a general sense, does this list feel like a good set of metrics for the city to be focusing on? >> I appreciate that you clarified by saying starting point. >> Yes. >> Harper-madison: That helps me. You ready for my vote? >> Mayor Adler: That's a four and Leslie is a four. >> I think we're all three or fives, maybe a 2.5 sounds like. So maybe we should start with -- >> Ellis: I'm a little shaky on it. I know this is our first time going through this process. I think in and of itself the metrics are good and those are solid, but when you say things like one person gave a 25 here and only one person did it and yet it gets to make the top ten, it just seems kind of like we're figuring this out, too, and obviously a lot of good work has been done to it, so thank you. And I think we are in a place to be able to move forward but I just think especially given the mobility indicators will be changed, I think there's just kind of too many things we're learning in this moment to really be, like, yes, this -- I'm file steam ahead. >> Right. And, again, the point of what's on the screen before you was just to maybe get us 60% of the way to where the final answer would be instead of trying to start all from scratch in a work session like this. >> Ellis: Yeah. >> Maybe it will be 90% of where you end up, maybe one or two come off and two or three added. We don't know. We would kind of say let's have a discussion about what should change from what's on this screen and, you know, one of the things I would suggest is maybe going slide a8 to look at those mobility metrics that we accidentally left off of your polling tool to see if some of those should maybe be elevated for consideration. >> Mayor Adler: I would make this comment. When you look at the list as they were and your cut-off was 2.5, I just looked at [10:45:39 AM] the next grouping that didn't make it into that list, and there were two that were above 2.1. One of them was in housing, it was the ratio of residents whose income is less than 60% and five people put that as a list, didn't make it into the list. And the other one was the number of percentage of people successfully completed the workforce development training program, 2.2, had four people. As I look at this list and cumulative look at the list I probably would have changed the scoring if I did this again, of mine, and it wouldn't have altered the result except for the number percentage of people who successfully completed the workforce development training program would have probably made it into the top ten. So as I look at this list, if I were doing it again, I would probably move that one up just because I know that if we could actually implement the workforce development plan that might have the biggest impact on economic well-being in the city. Moving people out of poverty and into jobs so that job training component. And it something where we have now a regional workforce development plan that we have everybody aligned. So if I was looking at it again in terms of where I think the biggest opportunities would be in the next two or three years because of overall community alignment in terms of how we invest in our programs because we're putting a lot of money into that, I would probably change that vote so as to move that focus up. Jimmy. >> Flannigan: I think one of the things that I'm struggling with -- and councilmember tovo kind of talked about this -- it's not entirely clear to me how this relates to an annual budget. A lot of these metrics are gonna require multiple years to see movement so am I saying in the next budget this is the number I am gonna measure success and failure on over one year? I mean it will take six [10:47:40 AM] months to hire the staff. This is what we talked about when I talked about by ennial budget, giving us longer planning and evaluation time lines it to councilmember tovo's point about we put money in the bond so does that mean I score higher or lower when the money is coming? So am I talking about the next appropriation or -- so it's just where I'm -- it's kind of hard to move off of a three in our scoring matrix because it's not entirely clear to me the value of this work as opposed to a longer-term effort. Even to hear from staff, this is a metric we think will take X number of years to see movement, this is a metric that we think can have movement quickly, this is -- I feel like I'm lacking a lot of context. >> Mayor Adler: Leslie. >> Pool: If we -- to your point, mayor, you were talking about if you had reallocated your points the workforce development would move up into the top ten, are you being rhetorical or are you recommending that we do that? Because I was wondering if we do that which one of the ten that are currently top ten then would we lose? >> Mayor Adler: I was trying to responds to the question was that generally that Ed was asking as you look at these, how comfortable, what would you like to see? I was just doing that,, again, not forced choice question, I didn't look at something to come out. I don't know -- >> And I don't -- >> Pool: More rhetorical. >> Last year with Steve strutters facility and conversation, I think we gravitated towards a top ten list. I don't think we need to be that dog make the. We just want to come away with a list that you feel reflects your priorities so we can dial things in as title as possible. This is just the next layer of detail. If we end up at 14, that's fine. So I think, you know, maybe the ten, 15 minutes we have left if we can daylight those metrics you feel like that should be reflected somehow and didn't get [10:49:40 AM] captured through this polling tool we took, let's hear those and then have to regroup and come back to you at a future meeting with some additional discussion, you know, about what we hear today that you feel needs to change. >> Pool: Then just I'll finish up, that sounds good. I know when last year for fiscal '19 we focused on homelessness and we put a lot of effort around that and I wouldn't want to move back away from that because I think we are starting to get some additional traction. And I agree, Ed, with what you were saying about -- and also what Alison was saying about changing these annually can tend to be a little more chaotic or disruptive to staff than would be helpful. While at the same time wanting to be flexible enough to acknowledge new issues that are coming forward that we do need to take some action on. So if we were to look at, like, the top 8-12 even is kind of a good range, I think. And I also know that the fact is when we get to budget and we start putting numbers no these things, some - - by this time next year, some will have advanced and some may have remained static. And so what's just our best guess for where we want to move? So I'm comfortable with kind of this discussion, opening it up for dibble items to consider, possibly giving them some kind of ranking or more in-depth detail beneath some of these and allowing the process to flow freely because the point in time we make our determinations on things, that's the status at that point, recognizing that six months later conditions may have changed radically. So I think the approach that we're taking here with the combination of inputs is a good one. >> Mayor Adler: Ann. >> Kitchen: Okay. So just a couple of concerns. The reason I put a three, generally, I like all these metrics. [10:51:41 AM] I don't have any problem with any of them. But one of my concerns was that, you know, we have our list of top ten areas. We don't have metrics -- I don't think we have metrics here for each one of those areas unless I was -- unless I missed something. So that would be one of my concerns. And I share the concern I think someone else said, I'm not exactly sure what we're gonna do with this. So my thinking is that we probably need a somewhat longer list of metrics because I'm not sure -- I'm not sure what we're doing with this I guess is my -- let me ask that first. Say again -- I know you responded to others, but I'm not sure. If a metric makes this list, how will it be treated differently than a metric that doesn't make this lis that's what where did I'm trying to understand. >> It's a matter of focus. You know -- >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I want to keep saying, just like we didn't last year, just because council came up with a top ten indicator list we didn't park in the back pasture the other and not pay attention to it. >> Kitchen: I know that. >> Part of this is to understand there's a lot of metrics here and they're all important but some of these metrics you may look at the data and say, I think the city is currently performing perfectly adequately there. We're doing a good job there. So just keep doing a good job there, staff, as opposed to, boy, hires a metric where we really are failing at. So if it's food security, for example, boy, we are just way behind where we need to be, I'd love to see that get better, then that just helps us understand your priorities so that we can bring back a budget recommendation that accomplishes that and in the budget environment we're in it might not be recommendations for new funding. It may be a recommendation to reallocate resources away from one area to another area so that we can address your priorities. [10:53:41 AM] So kind of the same thought process and logic that went into the indicators but just at that next and final kind of granular level. And maybe the granularity of it is from a policy maker perspective is where we are coming into road bumps, I guess. >> Kitchen: My concern, we have some of our top ten priority indicators don't have a metric. >> Right. >> Kitchen: To me that kind of doesn't make sense. And two of them, in fact, if I'm looking at it right. Safety of the fair administration of justice and cultural and life- long learning, the vibrancy and sustainability, creative industry. So I didn't see any of those metrics on this list. So that would be one of my concerns that that doesn't quite make sense to me. The other thing is just more a matter of, like -- well, I don't know. This is just -- it may be more a matter of how we end up using the metrics. Becausen the homeless, for example, that -- I mean, that particular metric is fine. I'm not sure if it's the metric that we control the most because -- I went back and forth between that metric number and percentage of persons who successfully exit from loams homelessness, I went back and forth between that number and percentage of people receiving homeless services from the city who move into housing. I went back and forth between the two. I think they're both important but I went back and forth between the two because I thought, well, okay, the second one is actually something we can probably measure more precisely. So anyway, so there was some of that going on in my head in trying to pick among the metrics. And so that causes me a bit of concern in deciding what [10:55:42 AM] we're going to address if we ended up prioritizing these metrics. So I just had to think about that a little bit. >> One suggestion I would have there, as we look perhaps -- you know, I think that's a great input, that we don't have all six indicators represented. So what is the highest priority metric within the culture and life-long learning indicator? Well, at least interest our polling, it was the number and percentage of creatives who report having access to affordable creative space. That's on appendix page a10. Maybe that's one of the directions you want to give us, at least have one metric from each of the outcomes and so perhaps that metric should be added to what would become a final list of metrics. And in the case of safety, it was the number and percentage of unique individuals incarcerated in local jails, state prison or federal prison or awaiting trial. Again, that metric might be something that we want to elevate to the -- that was the highest-rated metric in the safety outcome indicators. So that's something that we -- that maybe that would be -- then we had the two that the mayor daylighted as well. So I think we need to take this input, regroup, and think about how we then move the process forward to give you additional opportunity to say this list is now 14 and we like that list, where maybe fours and fives on that list of 14. Right now those would be the four, in addition to some of the comments we heard from councilmember harper-madison and councilmember Garza, I've heard four metrics that maybe are not reflected. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: How is this list? >> Alter: I wanted to just know that under fair administration of justice I had a challenge with that in that I couldn't figure out any of the issues that we were addressing for instance with respect to sexual assault, how they were measured by any of these things, if we were to successfully move forward on the evaluation, how they would be measured within this. And the metrics were set up before -- at least I had gotten deep into that [10:57:43 AM] discussion, and so I just wanted to kind of flag that there really was no place to put points in there that I felt addressed that. I don't know exactly what the measure would be, but I think that would be something that we are -- we're already on track to do the thing that we need to do next on there so I don't know whether it needs additional points or not but it wasn't even measured and that is a concern to me. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? Kathie? >> Tovo: Yeah. I'm sort of losing track of what it is we're providing feedback on at this very moment, but just in terms of looking forward with regard -- I mean I think I hear comments about individual metrics, and I wanted to just add mine that I think with regard to homelessness, and I think this is my fault, I think I actually suggested this edit that had been suggested to me, but I think it's -- I no longer remember what the distinction is between individuals who exit homelessness and -- where are we? >> Mayor Adler: It's the first page. >> Tovo: Yeah, number and percentage of persons who successfully exit from homelessness, I'm not sure I any longer remember the distinction between that and the number of people who return to homelessness after moving into housing. Those seem duplicative. Again, I think I made that amendment based on some community feedback but as I was looking at it last week realized I think we're measuring the same thing there. It ended up as a priority anyway, but I would suggest that wi probably -- we probably should see those two as wanting to measure the same thing. And I had another comment like that, but now I've forgotten what it was. In any case, I'll leave it there. [10:59:45 AM] >> Harper-madison: Something that occurred to me along the way is I think -- and this is inherent to how I I think. I think five chess moves ahead, right? I'm thinking about how many of these factors, indicators, influence the others? And that may be a way to consolidate the process. So if I may give you an example, so when we're talking about economic opportunity and affordability, skills and capability of our community workforce, people have the skills and capability leads to them having higher paid jobs, better access to health care, better access to transportation, better access to housing, et cetera. So the things that influence one another, that maybe a way that we can sort of consolidate the list and then add more factors for consideration. Add more metrics. So, you know, if we have six now, but if we go through and take the opportunity to sort of consolidate based on the consideration of what things influence the other, then we can and I think subsequently cover more. As it stands, some of this is duplicative when you think about how they influence one other. Do you see what I'm saying? >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: So I wanted to second what the mayor said as it relates to the metric of low income people inside the city versus outside of it. While I think it missed the top 10 by .1 on average, it actually had more of us rating it highly than others did. So I think there's different ways of measuring the top 10 and I think in one version it could have easily made the top 10 if it was based on who dumped points into it than the ones who rated three points. Second I am in in support of the metric of parkland near residences within a quarter mile of the urban core and outside of an quarter mile outside the urban core. [11:01:45 AM] But I want to know how we are defining inside and outside the urban core, because my understanding is it is the mcmansion ordinance and it is my understanding that there are neighborhoods within the mcmansion area that are not that urban feeling and areas outside the mcmansion area, south of Ben white or north or east of 183 that are much more urban feeling. So I thick the sd 24 metric in areas that are urban and have the sense of the urban core for you to need that green space closer by you, but I just have concerns about how it is that we are picking what is urban core and what is not urban core. So I just wanted to raise that now since we have opportunity to. And finally, I do think councilmember Flannigan's point of which metrics are we prioritizing for how the staff set their policy and operations generally versus what metrics are we prioritizing to be moved by particular budget allocations I think is kind of part of what we're wrestling with. I want -- when the court or when APD is making policy decisions and bringing us contracts or when atd is bringing us the design for a project for them to look through metrics that we've prioritized, that might be a bit of a different exercise than us saying what are the top metrics we want to Moore with specific contract expenditures in a year to year budget and I think that's part of what we're struggling with is which things are we prioritizing for departments anyway in their day to pray Asians and what things do we as budget staff want to look at and prioritize. Budget year there will be some overlap, but I don't think it's a perfect -- I don't think it's a perfect overlap. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Go ahead. >> So you know, I was remembering back to the central library when we did this last year, we started with a polling exercise and put some stuff on the board and that led to a really robust conversation and then the list grew. And then we put sticky [11:03:46 AM] sheets up on the board and council used some dots to get to a final list. I think we're not planning on doing that today, but we could take all this great feedback we got today, we can amend what's up on the screen and we'll come up with some type of exercise to kind of work with you on that to see where can we go from here and present that back to you likely on April 9th, potentially before. We'll have to see what worry work session agendas hold. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Yes, Pio? >> Renteria: I hope it's not 100 points. As I've told you earlier when we had our one on one meeting, there's going to be some people that put other points behind one and it's going to make it look like that's a priority there. And when you get up to the final vote it might not be the will of the council to pass it. That's why I was just hoping that maybe -- like you said, maybe last time we had three points, maybe five points, I don't know. But I would like to see it reduced. >> I agree with you. That's what the second phase of the process was when we had the half day to do it at the central library is I believe you were given 10 stickies and that's a you had. We'll have to see where this takes us and maybe we'll have a top 12 list or if you want a top 15 list. I don't think 12 versus 15 is the issue. The issue is we end up with the list that you feel reflects your priorities. >> Mayor Adler: Great. Thank you very much. Manager, do you want to speak on the next issue? >> Cronk: Sure. Thanks, mayor, council. I put on the agenda today just a brief update on the land development code process and that's really what I wanted to do is just a brief head's up, if you will. We do have a few weeks until our next council meeting because of spring break and south by southwest, but I have been over the past several months been listening to and working with a number of [11:05:47 AM] stakeholders and talking to all of you around the dais. And I can't put forward a broader process until I have some specific policy guidance from this council. And so staff is preparing a memo that will be released in the next two weeks, so sometime between now and the next council meeting. I will reserve time at that next work session to walk through that memo so you have a lot of clarity around what those topic areas, policy questions that I am asking for further clarification on. But from all the feedback that I receive and from the discussions that I've had, I can't really move forward with any process recommendations until I have more specific guidance on some key areas. I'll just highlight, you know, parking would be another -- one of them, compatibility Zones, density and even the scope of the revision. So I'm going to tee up some of those key questions. They should be relatively straightforward so both the council and the community can understand them and then really be asking for the policy guidance before anything further is released to the public. So just wanted to give a head's up today that that's the next step in this process is to put forward a memo asking for that policy guidance, and I look forward to that conversation at the end of the month. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ann? >> Kitchen: Thank you, thank you very much, city manager. A question, you know -- and you may not know the answer to that yet, but in terms of the memo that you'll be issuing, will you also cover the process for the council giving you the policy guidance? In other words, the process for the council to respond to the questions that you're raising in your memo? >> Councilmember, absolutely. That's part of it and certainly it's for consideration. I mean I really want to say here's a potential way to get that feedback. Some ideas just to daylight [11:07:48 AM] them would be a resolution. We could draft that resolution, but there would be specific questions that would say you have to choose between option a and option B and fill in a certain number in this area, but there would be a way for a formal vote that would come back to staff so we could have some clear guidance on how to move forward. That would be one suggestion. If there are other ideas that surface, we will obviously consider those. >> Kitchen: Okay. Then I would just suggest as part of the memo, as part of that process that you also address the public's opportunity and process for providing input to us as we give input to you. >> Absolutely. >> Tovo: That's really the substance of my question as well. And let me say that I think that quick yes or no votes or direction votes on those issues is going to be really -- would be challenging to have meaning of the conversations. I hope when you come back with our memo, as councilmember kitchen said I hope you will lay out a process where we will have an opportunity to lay out those issues as we were starting to do in our work sessions, but also that we have substantial opportunity for our boards and commissions and our public to respond before we launch into another code revision. >> Mayor Adler: Jimmy. >> Flannigan: I'm really excited about this, looking forward to receiving the memo. I think this is roughly what you're laying out is a great way to move forward because we've got to not throw away all the work that we did over the last number of years. I think we got a lot of input from the community. I know I certainly did. We all held meetings in our districts. We all attended meetings in our districts. And I don't know that repeating all of that same conversation when the concerns are the same and the comments are the same, but at least in this case we can say upfront whether without to dive so deep into a specific property or a [11:09:49 AM] specific policy or one page out of a thousand page document to say generally this is what we want to see and these are the types of policies that we're ready to move forward on. So I'm incredibly excited and grateful, city manager, to hear that this memo will be coming out and a I'm excited to dive into this into get things moving. >> Cronk: I'll just note that the purpose is to make it very clear to the public what those policy considerations are. So the engagement, the work that -- the feedback that has been given, but really making sure that any questions that are being considered by policymakers at this stage are very clear for hopefully everyone to -- to understand and articulate, but just allow staff to have additional guidance as we move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Leslie. >> Pool: It seemed to me one of the shortcomings of the codenext process that we were engaged in for the last few years was inability to get timely and comprehensive information out to the public so they understood what we were doing, what the nuance was. So to the extent that people ended up in different camps, I hope we don't end up in a place where that is repeated. We really need to be taking strong, concerted, combined, collegial steps here as a city to help lead the community through this revamp or reworking of the land development code. And so I hope with the process that you're putting together, if you've had a backward look I think that was part of the resolution was to ask you to look for the areas in what we did previously where we fell short or where we succeeded. And that we can have a robust and nuanced conversation among ourselves without devolving into these camps again. And I certainly hope that [11:11:51 AM] from my perspective I'm able to bring folks who look to me for leadership in district 7 along on the conversation in ways that satisfies the questions that they have. Even if it isn't giving them everything they want, all across the city we have to be looking at this as a combined and fruitful discussion that we all move together. The pathway needs to be a joint, I think. And that's a huge ask, but I think that I'm confident that you will be able to bring us something that will give us the room to have those respectful and nuanced conversations. And then give good, complete information to people in community who may only tune in every once in awhile and then may have a misapprehension of what we're trying to do or what we're actually going to do. Or they might be dead accurate on what it is we're trying to do and then asking for our community, the folks in -- our residents to help us with this advocacy and get to a place with the changes to the code that we're actually having planning, which sing a huge piece that -- which I think is a huge piece that we need to focus on. We're planning for the future. Thanks. >> Cronk: I appreciate that and certainly the process that I've been undertaking over the last several months and listening to that feedback, reflecting on the last several years of this process, but then really moving at the speed of tough. So why I'm not unveiling a big new process is because step one is this additional policy guidance from council. So that's the first thing that I need additional clarification on and that's what I'll be bringing forward in this memo. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. And I think that will be helpful. And that makes sense to me, [11:13:51 AM] trying to gauge the temperature and readiness of the council to express those opinions. Which could also be something that you inquire into, are you ready to give an opinion on that? Ann? >> Kitchen: One other thing that I'd suggest that wouldn't have to be as definitive, but I would suggest in the memo where you talk about the process that you also provide some information for public about what would happen next. After we gave you -- you know, after you ended up with the council voting on the policy guidance, but just give the public some idea of what happens next. I know that you may not have specific timelines or that kind of thing, but I think that at least from some folks that I've talked to they would like to understand the process from now until the end. And instead of just the process for this segment. So to the extent that you can lay out a whole process or at least some parameters around a whole process, that would be helpful, I think. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this? Yes, Leslie. >> Pool: Mayor, I have to go to an event and so I will hopefully be back in time to come back -- I think there's another luncheon happening, is that right? I have a different one that I have to go to so I'm going to have to head out now. >> Mayor Adler: I would imagine -- it's now 11:15. I think we were trying to get to the pulled items here, sigh if we can in 15 minutes. That would then us having the executive session. It has the Austin energy item and the three personnel matters. We could then reconvene at say 1:10 and see if we could get through those 1:15. Let's see if we can get through this stuff now. Let's do the pulled items I would like to -- there was quickly the handout that got out to council. We blew past in the last [11:15:53 AM] presentation the gap that shows at two and a half percent, the new information that was on this chart was even at a 5 percent. There's a real significant gap for us with our existing budget without adding anything new. And it's important to note that a five percent trigger or property tax revenue is not the same thing as a five percent trigger on general revenue. There are a lot of people that I've talked to that said government should be able to survive with a five percent increase in revenue. It's important to note that only half of this revenue comes from property tax, the rest of our revenue forecast to go up about two percent. So a five percent trigger for half of our revenue and two percent for the other half means our revenue is only growing at three and a half percent and that's lower than our cost drivers. So even a five percent property tax trigger puts us below our cost drivers that we don't have control over, like health insurance and the like. All right. So let's do the pulled items now. We've already handled item number 3, so item number 13, councilmember alter, you pulled this one? >> Alter: Yes,l appreciate you staying around this morning and sharing your time. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about item 13, which is once again leasing more space for city-owned property -- city offices. I am, as I've expressed on multiple occasions, interested in seeing us moving from leasing to owning. Over the long haul it's a much more fiscally responsible way for the city to be approaching things. If you look at the cost of this particular lease for 200,000 square feet of being 38 million over a relatively limited amount of time, it doesn't seem to be the most effective financial approach. I understand that we have to [11:17:54 AM] move these folks out within a time frame that does not allow us to build space for them or perhaps to purchase space for them that we otherwise would be in a position to do. So I would like you to atx a few minutes to provide us with information on our current plans with our development advisor with regard to analyzing data for the occupant study that they're performing and I'd like to know when we can expect the recommendations and how we should approach the recommendations for city office space will be coming forward and how much will the analysis help us to make choices about when we should lease versus own office space? >> Thank you, councilmember, Alex gale, the interim officer for the office of real estate services. So yes, we are currently working with our development advisor, cbre, who is performing an occupancy strategy analysis of all of our currently owned and leased space. And we are expecting them to provide that report back to us in the next month or two. So we expect to come back to council with what those recommendations are and how we see us outlining our long-term strategy. Of course, owning our administration space as well as even some of our warehousing and service yard space. So currently with cbre currently doing the annualization of our current lease and owned space, this opportunity came up. We've had multiple departments come to us saying we need space, we know we have leases that are expiring this year and in the next year, and we're still going to need space knowing that, yes, our model is looking towards utilizing our p3 model that we think [11:19:55 AM] has been very successful so far on the pdc -- the pdc being the planning and development center up at the highland mall and then moving forward with council approving us in October and the negotiation of the Austin energy headquarters at Mueller. So we still see that as our long-term strategy utilizing that methodology as well as looking for strategic acquisitions for facilities as well. But in the interim we see that this lease is needed. We've worked with -- asked cbre in their preliminary analysis, and they agree that yes, this space is still needed in the interim knowing that our model does take two, three years to build a facility, but knowing that having -- they basically have gone and taken a look at all our lease space and owned space, administrative space, seeing the overcrowding and met with some of the directors or their facilities managers and knowing the growth and the need for additional space is where this lease came out of knowing that we needed that additional space for these people. As far as recommendations that we foresee, but we've asked cbre to provide those recommendations as far as how much space are we going to need to build, knowing that we have X number of employees, how much lease space we currently are leasing, some of the conditions of our own buildings and taking all those things into consideration to provide us some recommendations of how we move forward with -- following that p3 model of building or acquiring new buildings for our administrative needs. >> So when that map comes [11:21:57 AM] back, then is that a plan that council needs to approve or that's just a plan you're presenting to us and then as particular decisions come forward that's when we would be able to -- >> I think that plan will come with some recommendations that I think us as staff will take into consideration, but also provide that report to staff with here's some of the recommendations, here's how we see working this strategy out in the long-term and, you know, taking some feedback from council, you know, if that makes sense to them of how we move forward, but then, yes, coming back with here's the recommendations, here's what we see our strategy moving forward of doing another p3 project for administrative space, another two, how we move forward down that path with what the next p3 projects are now that we have the planning and development center moving forward and the Austin energy headquarters moving forward. >> Alter: And in this particular -- these situations we took advantage of economies of scale and put together multiple departments so that we would have a larger lease, but that still maintains the flexibility we needed for different departments to move in at different times? >> Correct. I think councilmember Flannigan asked that question maybe late afternoon and we did get that in this morning. So taking those economies of scale into consideration to find those cost savings and co-locating different departments together, but also getting -- there's some benefits of amenities, whether it's a gym, showers, outside eating areas, taking all those things into consideration as well as even getting a better lease price from the landlord by having one larger lease instead of piecemealing much smaller leases one at a time, bringing those to council is -- let's figure [11:23:57 AM] out, let's bring to council one large lease to get all these departments' needs and bring it back to council instead of coming back to council over the nex one, two, three years with these small individual leases. >> Alter: Well, I look forward to the next step on the process and I hope we can move very quickly in that direction because these leases are costing us a lot of must be. We're trying to find money to find a lot of priorities and we're not currently doing it in the most efficient way so I look forward to that plan and helping you to implement it. >> We would appreciate it. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Next, Kathie? >> Tovo: I have a couple of specific questions. [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: We're still on 13. Just -- >> Tovo: I'm sorry, I thought you had also pulled this with councilmember alter. I have a couple of questions about the conversations you had with the Austin independent school district and with Travis county. And it says they were contacted and did not have any suitable space at this time. I wonder if you could provide us with some more examples, not always clear on kind of the substance of those conversations? Did they have some buildings that didn't prove suitable? Did they say they had no buildings? If you could give us some details about those. >> So I think it's more of this large scale need that we were looking for is they didn't have anything that would accommodate what we're looking for as far as the square footage. Of course, the conversations we've had with aid have circled around some of their possible school closures where we're looking at some other co-locating of services, but not necessarily fitting these administrative needs necessarily that we're looking at. >> Tovo: I guess I would say that this is part of why -- I really appreciate the creativity of the real estate department and you're ongoing work. But I think we need to think differently about this particular question because [11:25:58 AM] we always -- we always have a line in here that says aid was consulted and there were no suitable spaces. And I think aid doesn't have class a office space that I'm aware of that is vacant that they're willing to rent, so we would have to think more creatively about how some of their facilities would be used or could be adapted for the use of a city. So I just put that out there that -- not for the first time that if we are interested in helping some of these partnerships we're going to have to think differently about the use of the space. I didn't understand the point exactly about the plan to cycle different departments in. >> So I can just address that. So what it is is we've -- we constantly are getting requests from departments that need temporary space, whether it's for plumbing issues or some other need that's out there where they're currently occupying something and some deferred maintenance issue comes up. So it's almost like a hoteling space that we see utilizing this instead of scrambling to cram more people into an already overcrowded space. So we see this as preserving a little bit of hoteling space to where we could use that as an opportunity to cycle a department need in and out of on a periodic basis for those emergency type needs that we constantly find that departments need a space for two, three months and we can utilize this in order to work with those departments for those needs. >> Tovo: Okay. So would there be different leases starting -- it looked like there would be different leases starting -- multiple suites that would be leased out individually for 60 months each at different times. So there would be some starting -- they would all be five-year leases, but [11:28:00 AM] they might be staggered, so one lease might begin and there would be another lease so at various points we might have concurrent leases running a total of 10 years or something, depending on when it started. >> Correct. And the way it would work is if we were to renew for that additional five years, they would all come back on that same five-year and out. But correct, the staggering means that that rolling year wouldn't start until we did occupy that space and fill that space up. So the five years wouldn't start possibly for the first year, maybe in October of this year and then possibly the next group not until February of 2020. And that rolling five years wouldn't start until that point. So that gives us an opportunity to realize some of those cost savings. >> Tovo: How much employees are we talking about total? >> Over the next -- at least what we're proposing, I think it's around three hundred employees that we're looking at, but that number is constantly changing as the departments are looking at, oh, maybe we have this other division or this other section that could move in there and almost playing a little bit of musical chairs before it's all solidified as to who exactly is moving in here. We've worked with the departments for them to provide us -- here's what our needs are and that's what we've included in this? But up until the point we occupy that space they do almost move things around is how they see which staff, which section, which division moves into that space? But it's still focused on utilizing that number that they submitted to us. >> Tovo: And outside of this conversation I want to talk to you about one building that we have as the city of Austin and get your sense of whether opportunities to use it on a [11:30:02 AM] temporary basis, but I do want to ask about one group of staff members and those are the public health staff who are currently over the facility in Clarksville. There was a discussion about potentially using that property for affordable housing and then there was the response back and having that become part of the Clarksville community development corporation. Then there was a response back from staff that it was actually needed to house the employees for public health. Are they part of the group that could potentially move to this new facility? >> It could be potential. We know that there is a group of public health where there is some space challenges that they have. And so we have thoughts of we think with some of these exiting leases or these overcrowding issues we can use this space to facilitate them moving into this space. So public health is one of the groups -- >> Tovo: Do you know if it's the group of public health staff who are currently at the Clarksville site? >> I don't -- having talked to their assistant director, I know their needs, but I don't know which group exactly it is, if it's the Clarksville group. >> Tovo: Maybe we can follow up between now and Thursday. If we're going to lease space, additional space, then I think it would make sense to use it in a way that freeze up that property -- that frees up that property for a different opportunity. >> And just to address the aid question you had, we have been working with aid. We did have that large meeting with them and I think there's a planned memo to mayor and council to kind of give an overall summary of how those meetings went. >> Tovo: Great, thanks. I look forward to both the summary and some of those real specific details, nitty-gritty details about how we could really plan together around facilities. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's go to the last two items that were pulled. >> Flannigan: So on 54 I passed around the [11:32:02 AM] illustration on how compatibility standards will play on this site. It's my understanding that the applicant requested the 30-foot height co that we're not able to remove it, but I wanted to show as I often do that it already essentially limits the site to 30 feet based on all the other requirements that are there. So I think it's just another example where we have unnecessary regulations because we already have the systems in place to address compatibility. But because of the way it was filed, not much we can do about it. Something I didn't pull, but just to make a comment on item 48, which is a zoning case in my district. It should be ready to go on all three readings, but I wanted to highlight that this is a part of the city that we are prohibited from doing traffic impact analysis because of a state law filed 30 years ago. And representative abusecy, who represents this area of Williamson county and the city of Austin has filed a bill to repeal that prohibition. I don't know how successful anything is going to be in the legislature right now, but I just wanted to note that we're doing what we can to treat all development in the city equally and not exempt certain parts activity from a rule that frankly the whole state, builders association, has acknowledged that they like this, it's a fair process and so there's no reason not to accept this one part of the city. So we'll hopefully see this moving forward. >> Mayor Adler: What is it about item 54 the way it was filed -- >> Flannigan: As we've spoken to staff on the conditional overlays frequently,, it's my understanding if the applicant files it and the notice goes out that we can't change it to be less restrictive, we can only change it to be more restrictive from the dais. So since there's an additional co designation in the request, I wouldn't remove it. I could change the cos. In theory I could do less co's, I could say let it go to 40, but because it says [11:34:03 AM] co I can't remove them. >> Mayor Adler: And it was because it wasn't requested by the applicant. >> Flannigan: Correct. And the last one, 46, I know this was heard by the council and I was not present for that meeting. But my understanding is that there was some more information presented. I don't know that we need to have a long debate about this, but I just have some concerns about the use of landmark designation on houses that have had modern improvements, and whether or not landmark designation is the best way to honor someone. If the remaining question is that the person the house represents or where they lived is a person of significance, is preserving a house that has received modern improvements the best way or only way to honor them? In the backup I think it talks about the Harry ransom house was an extraordinary circumstance. This becomes another extraordinary circumstance, but now there's two of them so I don't know how extraordinary that becomes. But nonetheless, that's just my perspective. I'll be voting no on Thursday as I often do in these questions. But I just wanted to daylight that for everybody in case anyone wanted to bring this up on Thursday and rather bring it up now. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Renteria: Mayor? I also -- I have the intention of on 49 and 50 that I would request the council just to support me on voting just for the second reading. I didn't -- I missed a meeting, I had another event that there was a conflict in my schedule, so I was hoping that we can -- so I can go back into the neighborhood and meet with them and see what their concerns is. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else? >> Tovo: Mayor, yes. I believe councilmember Harper Madison and I both [11:36:03 AM] received a request to take up the Alamo case number 54 at a time certain, which I think wa 6:00. And so that's something obviously we would need to discuss on Thursday, but I just wanted to make it -- to make sure that everyone knew that we had received that request. >> Mayor Adler: I don't know if the meeting would otherwise go that late and I think that night I may be gone late in the day. So I guess we could figure that out and visit with people and see what the will of the council would be on Thursday morning. >> Tovo: My assumption is that they've pulled people who want to talk and they're at work during the workday, but we'll get some more information about that, but that's -- again, that request is not uncommon and it's one that's been submitted. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Anything else? All right. So what we're going to do here is city council is going to go into closed session to take up four items at 1:15 pursuant to 551086 of the government code and discuss the Austin energy generation. And pursuant to 551074, personnel matters related to items E 3, E 4 and E 5, which are the reviews of the city clerk, auditor and court clerk. E-1 has been withdrawn, so without objection here at 11:30, we'll recess until executive session at 1:15. [2:47:05 PM] >>Mayor Adler: We are out of closed session. In closed session we discussed competitive matters related to item E2 and personnel matters related to E3, E4 and E5. It is 2:48 p.m. I also want to note at our meeting we were discussing items 53 and 54 with the Alamo Tracts and Blackland. We talked about a time certain. A decision we would not vote on a matter until a certain time. There was a question of not doing it until 6 p.m. but it looks like this meeting is going to end early enough that one we will be here at that point. And so instead of that I would anticipate the Council will do is agree it's not take any action on 53 and 54 until after 4 p.m. so that people that showed up after 4 o'clock will be given the opportunity to be able speak to the issue. So I would anticipate and with that this meeting is adjourned. [2:49:05 PM]