Audit and Finance Committee Meeting Transcript – 02/26/2020 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 2/26/2020 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 2/26/2020 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:35:46 AM] >> Alter: Good morning. Good morning. My name is Alison alter, I'm chair of the audit and finance committee. I'm joined by councilmembers flan and tovo. >> Mayor married is away on -- mayor Adler is away on city business. Ray Arrellano oh, is the manager over one of the audits is also at that training, just so folks are aware. And we are going to get started with the item of general citizens communication. I don't believe we have anyone, so do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Councilmember Flannigan. Seconded by councilmember tovo. All those in favor? Passes unanimously. Our first item of business will be the 911 operations audit. [9:36:48 AM] >> This audit was led by Kathie Harrison and managed by Andrea Keegan, who will present this morning. >> Good morning. I'm going to start by going through a quick walk-through of what happens when someone calls 911. The Austin police department is responsible for answering all 911 calls. When someone calls 911, an APD staff answers the call and works with the caller to determine if they need police, fire or ems. Depending on the information provided by the caller, that call may be transferred to . Either the Austin fire department or austin-travis county ems. Whether it stays with APD or it gets transferred to one of those departments, staff work with the caller to determine -- to collect additional information and send resources to the scene. Some situations may require [9:37:48 AM] response from multiple departments. For that reason the entire 911 operations are managed out of a single facility. The combined transportation and emergency communications center or ctec. We had three findings in this audit. The first finding relates to performance measures the departments have for responding to calls, 911 calls, in a timely manner. What we found was that the departments met recommended goals for answering calls in a timely manner, but missed many of the other performance goals. A lot of the goals they missed related to the time it takes for units to respond to the scene, so factors like traffic or the location of the incident may have played a role there. Another thing we found was that the three departments had similar goals, but their measurement of those goals was not aligned. For instance, the slide here shows three goals for the three departments having a similar goal related to the the time it takes to process calls. APD reported this in [9:38:50 AM] minutes. AFD reported this goal in seconds and ems reported this as a percentage of calls -- processed within 90 seconds. So this difference made it difficult to compare the performance of the three departments. The last issue related to the performance measures is that the time reported by AFD and ems does not reflect the actual -- the caller's actual experience. As I mentioned earlier, the 911 call starts with APD answering and they may transfer the call to AFD or ems. The response time reported by those two departments only includes the time when the call was transferred to them. It doesn't include the time that the caller first was talking to APD. So that doesn't reflect the caller's actual experience in dealing with 911. Our second finding related to practices to ensure 911 operations are effective. We found the departments do things that improve 911 operations. For instance, they train [9:39:51 AM] staff on how to take calls and monitor calls to ensure they're handled appropriately. The departments also do education to help the public understand 911, however, we saw some areas where these efforts could be improved to more effectively address 911 operations. As an example here, social media posts from the departments gave different information about what qualified as an emergency. The tweet on the left of the slide simply states that people should call 911 in an emergency and 311 in a non- emergency. It doesn't define those two terms. The screenshot on the right, which is from Facebook, lists the specific signs of heatstroke and clearly notes that this is an emergency and people should call 911. The issue this creates is if people call 311 for an emergency that's going to delay the response for that emergency in situations where every second could be critical. [9:40:52 AM] Our third finding related to the risk of a disruption to 911 operations, the city has several practices in place to address a potential disruption, however, there are some issues with those plans and practices. The graphic here shows the general process for what would happen if there was a disruption to 911 operations. If the 911 center, that's ctec, is not operational, calls would be transferred to San Antonio while the 911 staff relocate to the city's backup center. Then the calls would be transferred from San Antonio to that backup center and operations should continue as normal. However, we noted that the backup center is smaller than the ctec so maintaining operations out of that facility for a long time may be difficult. Additionally, while each department had plans for responding to a disruption in 911, the plans weren't aligned and there were some instances where they didn't appear to be accurate. Additionally there was limited training for staff [9:41:52 AM] on how to respond to a disruption. All these issues could create an issue if there was an actual disruption and it may delay the city's -- limit the city's ability to effectively respond to a disruption. We made four recommendations in response to these findings. City management agreed with three. That was numbers 1, 3 and 4 on the slide here and they disagreed with recommendation number 2. That completes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Flannigan: Can you speak to the relationship that you laid out and capcog and the regional 911? Because there are conversations in Williamson county and other counties have backup sites. >> Sure. I know one of the things the department is working on is establishing a backup center that -- the current backup center is managed by capcog and that puts limits on what [9:42:52 AM] we can do with that facility. I know other departments working on that and they may be able to speak to those. >> Flannigan: I don't know that we need to go into a lot of detail about that, but I sit on the executive committee on capcog and there are a lot of discussions about 911 operations and there seems to be actual frustration on how to do this the right waned it seems like our site might be a good backup for Williamson county and their site a good backup for us. There may be better ways to do this regionally. It's not really an audit question, but more a policy question. >> Alter: >> Tovo: -- Councilmember tovo. >> Alter: Good morning, thank you for joining us. >> Good morning. [9:44:00 AM] >> Good morning, rich Ricardo, dissent chief over the communications division. As was indicated, we do agree with one, three and four. It's not that we don't agree with two, it's just at this moment it's not possible. It's possible -- we were talking about this early this morning, it is possible for one call to be tracked from the time that the call was made and 911 call taker picked up to the end when the update arrives. It is possible for that one call. But we receive 60,000 calls that are transferred from 911 call takers to either AFD or ems. So to do that would be I am impossible to track all those numbers from start to finish from the time the call was made to the time the units arrived. It boils down to software. [9:45:02 AM] >> Alter: Would any of you like to add anything to the staff response? >> I'm with austin-travis county ems. About 12 years ago when we moved to solo com software for 911 operations as provided by the cognitive, now our district, I was on the team that selected it. It was an rfp, that was one of our requests was to be able to track a call from cradle to grave. It was the only software at that time that could do that and it was with the 10 counties that would be part of that selection. We can be from one call, but it's mass producing that from different unique phone numbers to track that in the system because when you're looking for response times you're looking for show me all the calls that happened in the city of Austin that are priority 1 or hot shot or a multi-alarm fire. Those are easy to track because they have unique signatures. Now you're asking a software system to then track an individual unique phone number through that same system and track if back to where it was and then provide that data back. [9:46:02 AM] We don't have the software or computer bandwidth to be able to do that currently today. But for an individual call we can definitely track that phone number when it hit APD and it was transferred to ems or fire and then provide those every time stamp within the 911 database. It's just not possible currently today to do it for ems, 10,000 calls a month for fire the same numbers, and APD, they have those stamps already. >> Alter: Do you have the data for when you make the call before it's dispatched. You said it's to 10 seconds. Do you have the outliers for what is above five to 10 seconds? >> Not at this moment. We've been tracking calls -- it's an average on different calls, but not the outliers. The five seconds is an average of when we transferred that [9:47:18 AM] two minutes to dispatch, I have no idea what the millions of calls are possible really, I would want to understand that somebody was looking at those outliers to see if there are improvements that need to be made or protocols to change so that we could fix those because don't always respond. -- If we can shave some of that on in some of those cases could mean life or death for somebody. So what could you do in following up on that? >> Absolutely. We can see if there's any outliers. At this moment, I mean, we looked at a variety of different calls and again the average was about five seconds. That's industry understand as far as the performance measures. The primary piece being APD having the call takers and the secondary piece is when you pick up that phone that's when the time starts. [9:48:21 AM] It gives a better -- although we're not standardized, but we're going to set up a committee to standardize the measure, although that's not standardized right now, it really reflects when we have this type of when the call is picked up by APD, fire, ems, it does reflect a better, accurate account of resources of the time that it took for the call from the beginning when it was taken to when the unit arrived. >> Alter: I have another question and hopefully one of you three can answer. How do the findings of this audit relate to the ongoing discussions over efficiency in our ems fire systems? >> I don't believe that was a focus of this audit necessarily. We're taking and talking to assistant city manager ray Arrellano. He was going to bring them into the optimization audit, whoever is selected to look at that, they will get some [9:49:22 AM] of the findings and look at that and see if any of that can be incorporated in that. >> Alter: Okay. And this is a question I think for the auditors. You did not look at the reverse 911 process at all with this audit, correct? >> [Indiscernible]. >> Alter: Okay. A couple of recommendations struck me as really important. Some of the looking back and doing the after action reports, I was a little concerned that we wouldn't start that until June of 2020. So if we were doing exercises like we're doing right now with FEMA why we wouldn't be doing after action reports moving forward. I don't know if one of you can speak to that. And the other part would be for the communications about 911 versus 311. We have a new communications service with -- from Pio helping council offices be able to distribute some [9:50:24 AM] other messages. I think the distinction between 311/911 would be something that we could help amplify through our channels would be a good opportunity to take advantage of that. >> I know for -- when we transfer operations to the buck last year so we could update some of the applications or the programming for our cad system and dispatch system, solely com, that we went out to the buc and I know me lieutenant Murphy did provide me with an after action report. It wasn't a standardized report, but it was an mail. I think that is something that could be implemented. I think the next actual training or phase of that kind of type of training is in June. That's why I think that was placed in there. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. Colleagues, does anyone else have questions? Councilmember tovo. [9:51:27 AM] >> Tovo: I have questions on the public education element. Just looking at the report I want to make sure I'm understanding what the examples were of varied information about what qualifies as an emergency. So the examples on the bottom of page 7 don't seem in conflict with one another. One has much more information since it's a Twitter. The other information I assume is on Facebook. Were there other examples where the information seemed to be on conflict on social media about what constituted an emergency? What is the varied information if you can provide us with some more details on that? >> So I don't think it was an issue of them being in conflict. It was just varied information about what constituted emergency. So for example, some situations, like a downed power line, some people may think that's an emergency and they should call 911. Other people may think that's a non-emergency and call 311. On the flip side, a gas [9:52:29 AM] leak, we were told that a gas leak is an emergency and people should call 911. However, if people feel that it's not an emergency, call 311, that would delay the response. So it wasn't so much they were in conflict, but it was that the amount of information provided about when you should call 911 and when someone should call 311. >> Tovo: I saw those examples in the report. Are you suggesting that there was information online that was not clear about what you should do if you see a downed power line? Or you're just offering that as an example that might be unclear to people? >> Yes, as an example that it might be unclear. >> Tovo: The same with a gas leak. There was not information suggesting you should call 311 about a gas leak. >> No. If people don't know which one to call, they may call 311 instead of 911. >> Tovo: Okay. I take your point. I think the way it's presented it almost sounds like there's information out there that may mislead people. -- Might lead people to call 311 versus 911 and it seems to me that what you're really suggesting is that it [9:53:29 AM] would be helpful for there to be a public education campaign that includes more examples of the kinds of things that fall into each category. So I'm not -- I'm not -- I guess I would agree with the point that there could be better public education efforts, but I think this section somewhat overstates what the issue is here. And again, because the examples that are offered, one is on Twitter and one is on Facebook, those are just different -- there's just different opportunity for providing information in those in terms of capacity. >> Sure. And I think that's true. Another education opportunity might be what councilmember alter was talking about with outliers where it might take a long time to transfer a call. Some of that may be due to the callers being resistant to providing information that the call takers need or [9:54:31 AM] not understanding why certain questions are being asked. So education also around how the 911 operation works. So when people call 911, granted it's probably an emergency there, it's a stressful situation, but anything that can help streamline that process, any education efforts around what to expect when you call 911. Here's why we ask these questions, it could go a long way towards improving the outcomes. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. >> Alter: Anyone else have any additional questions on this audit? You may certainly add whatever you would like to. >> Just to add to that, I think it's been our experience and speaking for myself, I've done in the past and I know that my district representatives do as well, when we talk about and they educate for the community groups that they're speaking to and I've spoken to in the past is if there's any confusion on whether you should call 311 or 911, I know that we've always said call 911, we'll ke that decision for you by asking the right [9:55:31 AM] questions. >> Alter: Thank you. Before we take a vote, I just want to note that we are also looking at efficiency issues with fire and ems for opportunities that would help us to further reduce our response times in those areas. And I don't know, Ms. Hart, if you have any sense of when that would be coming back or if someone can let us know when those studies are due back. >> I don't, I'm sorry. I haven't been working on the project. >> My understanding is it was going to be in the fall. Right now we're going to a statement of work and I believe it would be going out for a -- to select a vendor. So what I've heard is anticipate something back in the fall. >> Alter: Great, thank you. Do I have a motion to approve this audit. Councilmember tovo. Seconded by councilmember Flannigan. All those in favor? Approved unanimously. Thank you for being here. Our next item is discussion [9:56:32 AM] and possible action regarding the call for municipal civil service commission applications. We'll be hearing from the hr department and the city clerk's office. Morning. >> Good morning. >> Alter: Do you guys have a presentation? Okay. So my understanding -- do you want to tell us where we're at with respect to our applications? We have two openings and do you want to give us a sense [9:57:33 AM] of where we're at and our next steps. >> Absolutely. Stephanie hall with the city clerk's office. We wanted to give you an update on what we've received so far and basically get your feedback on how you would like to proceed. So as of this point we have received three applications for this appointment to the municipal civil service. We do have one current vacancy. There is one applicant that has -- has been disqualified. One of the requirements is they're a registered voter. We double-checked that and had to disqualify that candidate. We've had this open call open since January 22nd. We've only received one applicant since then. And that was the applicant that we had to disqualify because of the registered voter requirements. So we have kind of widened where we've sent out. It's my understanding with hrd where we've sent out the open call we have extended the open end date, but we would like to see where you would like to go from here, how long would you like to keep it open? Once we have closed it we just need a couple of days to review the applications, kind of send that [9:58:33 AM] information back over to you and then set up another meeting to review the applications. >> Alter: So there's two applicants that are viable at this point? >> There's two applicants. I will say they did apply before we ended with open call in January. They applied late fall last year and they did mark other boards and commissions that they were interested in. I don't know if they were solely seeking this, but they did mark this. Any time you submit an application for the municipal civil service it will ask you a couple of questions to make sure you alify for that as well. And they did answer those. >> Alter: Colleagues, do you have any thoughts? We have one opening now and one that is anticipated for June. This is a commission that's already experiencing delays in responding to cases that are being brought forward by our employees. It's a critical link in our hr system. I know I have our newsletter that will go out today or tomorrow, depending on when [9:59:33 AM] the land development code materials are available. We have an advertisement in there for it. I would encourage my colleagues if you have a newsletter or social media that you also try to get the word out, but I welcome any thoughts on how we should proceed. Fly thoughts? Councilmember tovo P. >> Tovo: I'm trying to get an idea of the decision before us. Is the decision whether or not to go ahead and make an evaluation based on our existing applicants or to continue to advertise for the position? [Phone ringing]. >> Tovo: Sorry, that was my alarm. >> Alter: I think the decision is what other steps could we take to advertise and when do we want to close the applications? We have to also decide on a meeting time. We're currently set for a potential meeting on [10:00:34 AM] March 25th to evaluate applications, but if we don't have a suitable pool of applicants, then we don't want to do that. So I think we could provide guidance to go out and advertise more and be more creative about how you're getting that word out, and really push the envelope on who we're getting this information out to or we can say we're just going to interview those two or whoever else comes in by then. I think those would be the options. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: I was just going to answer that question, thank you. I would suggest we have -- we work on getting a bigger pool. Over the next couple of weeks. And then I assume our meeting -- our meeting to evaluate the candidates would be really just coming together to talk about our topics so that by the time we've -- by the time we're actually meeting we've already reviewed the applicants individually and maybe even made some assessments that we've provided to our staff about [10:01:34 AM] where they rang. So we're just coming together to kind of agree on how many and which ones. >> Alter: Certainly we would have to get together to decide who we were going to interview. And it's possible that not everyone would be somebody that we would dequalify. >> Tovo: I would suggest to expedite the process that we set a meeting not just for coming together to determine who our applicants are, but that we very soon agree on what date we're going to interview them so we can get that on the calendar and it can be pretty soon after that meeting on the 25th. Because that's really the longer period of time. Usually that other meeting is pretty short. >> To speak to your question about other things and other places we've posted. My name is Monica, I'm an assistant director with the human resources department. Some of the things that our staff, places our staff has reached out, we've reached out to four different labor organizations, a couple of the chambers here in town, some of the bar associations because some of the preferred qualifications are [10:02:34 AM] experience with labor and employment law and hr practices. We also have posted on Twitter, linkedin and Facebook. So some of the social media platforms. We're currently searching what volunteer platforms we can utilize and so any other suggestions you may have would be helpful on where else we may be able to reach out that you think we could find qualified applicants and we could send the posting. >> Alter: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: I was just thinking we should actually ask acsme to send a really robust request for consideration from its membership. And what are the other three labor organizations? >> We sent the notice to the ocsme, the Austin central library council. We've sent them the postings. We've sent to four labor organizations. >> Pool: Would you go ahead and do another ping on those four or the other groups that you sent a notice to that we would like [10:03:35 AM] some additional muscle behind the application? >> Absolutely. >> Pool: That's great. I'm happy to put it up on different social medias that I've got too. >> Alter: What about some of the young lawyers groups? >> We did send it to the Austin young lawyers association. We have a contact over there. I'm trying to look at our list. Next door? Okay. Cpi posted on next door. I think the clerk's office works with them to post it on some of the regular avenues we use. So all of those have kind of been exhausted and that's where we're at with the additional applications. >> Alter: So it sounds like we would like to did an additional push and if you could send something to councilmembers to ask them to encourage folks to apply and let's set a date and hope we were applications. And if we have to reschedule, then we'll reschedule, but that should be a brief meeting to just [10:04:36 AM] briefly look at the applications and decide who we want to interview and then if we can also get a date set aside for the interviews and if we have to move them, we have to move them. If we don't have the pool that we need. And perhaps there's -- I don't know if there's folks at the county or other places that also have connections with labor law or state government where we might find folks who would be interested in this volunteer opportunity. >> Okay. >> Alter: Any other thoughts? Okay. Thank you. So we are going to move now to the smbr and mbe/wbe and then come back to item 4 so that we'll be able to use the remainder of the time. So we're going to hear a report from the small and minority business resource department. I want to make a note for my councilmembers since we've been having a lot of [10:05:38 AM] conversation about this issue on various items that the state federal guideline discussion will happen at the March regular city council meeting and any executive session that we need to have in relation to understanding further options we might have to advance some of the goals that we share would happen in that context. The smbr is here to provide a brief overview of the basics of the program and updates on performance and metrics. So I think what we will do is we will hear their report and it looks like we have at least two citizens that are waiting to speak on this item. So I'd like to hear your report and then we'll hear from the citizens and then we can raise any questions that we have. Good morning. Whoever is going first you will have to push your little button there. [10:06:38 AM] >> Good morning, councilmembers. My name is Edward campos. I'm the interim director for the small and minority businesses resources department. Thank you for having us today. I'm joined by Mr. Elton price, my certification division manager, and Ms. Tamela Saldana, our compliance officer. We have a variety of discussion points today. We are -- I believe they're loading the presentation right now. We have a couple of things to discuss today. We're going to do a program overview. We're going to talk about our disparity study, certification and compliance software that we're excited about, some performance indicators for our department. And we're going to end with some initiatives that we've undertaken over the past year. I'm going to hand it over now to my colleagues. >> Good morning, I'm Tamela Saldana and I am the compliance officer for smbr. I'd like to give you a [10:07:39 AM] little overview of our program and how we are establishing our program and administering the program, specific emphasis on the goal setting process. As you know, the city operates two programs, a local program, which is our minority and women business enterprise program, as well as two federal programs, the disadvantaged business program as well as the disadvantaged business enterprises program. In those programs we review city solicitations. Each city solicitation over the city manager's spending authority to establish a goal based on trades and scopes, percentages of those trades and scopes unless the specific availability of women and minorities and disadvantaged businesses to do those -- perform those specific trades. A majority of our goal setting supports our capital [10:08:41 AM] improvement projects. They have a variety of solicitation methods, as you can see. On the request for qualifications we basically apply the goals and review goals for established work for design specific scopes. On the invitation for bid, goals are established for the entire solicitation. On competitive sealed proposals, csp, best value is applied and goals are established on the entire solicitation. With design build, best value procurement goals, which is -- which is the best value procurement goals, are established for the design phase and another set of goals are established for the construction phase. Construction manager at risk, cmar, is also based on best value procurement and goals are established on the various phases of work. To date we have had in [10:09:43 AM] fiscal year '19 41 cip projects that we established, we reviewed and established a goal. In fiscal year 2018 we had 63 cip projects that we reviewed and established an mwbe goal. This does not include any of the purchasing goals that come out of our purchasing office. We review about 300 or so a year for -- of solicitations for those, and a majority of those work are associated with commodity purchases. For our disadvantaged federal program, just as an update, the goals are established. There's one goal by federal law established for an entire project. On airport concessions we are in the process of proposing a new program to F.A.A. For approval. Each of these particular programs as you understand, as you are aware, has a unique applicable law and [10:10:49 AM] our office has contracting lawyer for review scopes and apply the program, particularly on several of those we act as a gatekeeper. So points are not associated with those solicitations for mwbe participation. Next I would like to talk to you, we are very excited. We were just awarded a contract for our disparity study. This study is a study required by law. We have briefed you guys before on this disparity study, but we wanted to bring back up to you our proposed disparity study schedule now that the contract has been awarded. We are kicking off and should have our quantitative data to the study consultant this week. As you can imagine for this amount of years from 2013 to 2018 we're looking at a large amount of city contracts and so they will [10:11:49 AM] take some time to review that quantitative data or contracting data. We will have an internal kickoff meeting on March 10th and this meeting is just to introduce the consultant to provide information to internal staff about the disparity study, the schedule and the components of the study. Our first stakeholder meeting, public introduction meeting, will be held March -- April 16th, and we are offering two sessions so that our community and stakeholders, both external stakeholders can participate in those sessions. We will offer public engagement sessions, which is the qualitative portion of the study where more specific questions, focus groups will be done, with our stakeholders, our key stakeholders, our minority stakeholders, stakeholder groups at the chambers and other community organizations. And that will go through may [10:12:49 AM] through August of 2020. The draft study is scheduled to be submitted to the city on -- around March 2021. And then final rca for council adoption, we are proposing are looking at summer of 2021. One of the other items that we would like to present and talk to you today is we have presented again about the certification and compliance software. This particular software we are really excited about. We hope and understand that it will streamline our operations not just internally, but also for our key stakeholders, our minority firms and our contractors as well. >> This has been a concerted effort for the department to look at, streamlining our processes, making things easier, not only for our vendor community, but for our internal stakeholders as well. So this is our effort to do [10:13:51 AM] that, to streamline where possible. >> So we've been working with our consultant on various modules. And we are excited to have launched our certification module in January 2020, and I'll have Elton price to talk to you about that particular module. >> Good morning, councilmembers. Elton price, certification division manager for smbr. As Tamela mentioned, we are extremely excited about the online process. Since we launched this process on January 6, we've had a total of about 190 firms use the online application process. 85 have completed that process. We have another 90 or so pending their application submission. So going forward we anticipate all certification, processes, anything to do with certification, status and [10:14:51 AM] codes will be handled through the online process, giving us an opportunity to review those applications online, but also turning the process around a lot quicker than with the paper process that we currently had in place. We currently have over 1100 certified firms and you'll see based on the information there we have a total of 703 mbe 703 mbe's. And we also have a program that encompasses the Texas unified certification program which the city is a member. We certify with six other entities in the Stacy state for the federal program. The key issue for the program is data sharing. With our -- we call it the [10:15:52 AM] certification and contract compliance system, and of course as you know, now we have the ecapri system online as well as our database with the city. So we're trying to make sure when we certify in our certification and compliance system that information is shared with our Austin finance system. Currently how we're completing that process is staff is certifying in certification and compliance system, but we're also transitioning those certifications to Austin finance online to make sure our certified vendors are recognized and available for contracts here with the city of Austin, also with the state of Texas. So we're very excited about having that system and we look forward to our vendors benefiting from that online system. [10:16:52 AM] >> Thank you, Elton. As a part of the certification and compliance software system, there is also a compliance module and we are working diligently with our ctm staff and they have been very, very helpful in assisting us in data mapping to assure execution of the compliance module. This compliance module once fully executed will save extensively not only our staff, but the other staffs that we work with, other departments we work with, to include cco, purchasing, public works, as it will act as a central repository for input of information related to the contracts and expenditures for our mwbe reporting. So this -- in doing so, allowing the primes to input information into our system, will allow us to have more realtime information about compliance and the expenditures and payments of [10:17:54 AM] m/wbe's. It would also allow us to create more specialized reports which we often are requested to do, but don't have the current ability to be able to do so. So the contractors again will be able to do an online submission of the subcontractor participation. It would also allow us to create other systems by which they could input other sources such as our request for change processes and our closeout documentations. Again, similar to Elton, one of our key issues is data sharing with that information as being entered into b2g and making sure we can fully execute it into our other systems, financial systems such as ecapri. So we're currently working with ctm and our consultant in doing that as well. >> And our mine priority there is to make sure we maintain the integrity of the systems we have [10:18:54 AM] internally and we don't compromise those systems. So we have a difficult path to travel, but we've made some great strides. >> So we also have some key performance indicators that we would like to share with you. Our staff is working diligently with small, but mighty. So I would like Elton to share with you some of the key performance indicators over in the certification division. >> So the city code gives us 60 days to complete the process of certification for a completed application. And so the goal of course is 100% of completing those applications within that timeline. Currently we've achieved and we are at 97% of achieving all applications submitted within that timeline. The federal government gives us an additional 30 days to do that for dbe and acd applications. And the number of certified firms, our goal as of this [10:19:55 AM] fiscal year was 1,000. And we are at 11 now at this point. So we're -- 1100 now, so we're very excited moving forward, so -- >> That number is critical for us. In 2017 we were at approximately 850 firms. So the work that we've done in the last three years have increased almost 28% to get us to the 1100. This is critical as well because this is the number that we use to set mbe/wbe goals on all projects that the city issues over $50,000 in value or meeting the city manager's threshold. So the larger the pool, the greater potentially the goal that we place on a particular contractor. >> So just as compliance, we also have an ordinance that establish that we review and issue a determination for any compliance request for [10:20:55 AM] seven days. Those compliance requests we talked about the goal setting. We review all solicitations over the city manager's spending authority, every last one of them, to establish goals. And we have set -- and we have seven business days to do that. So our key performance indicators here is that we will review all of those requests to include requests forhange, which we average about 300 or so a month. And our closeouts. And we are at -- our goal is 80% and we have achieved that in 86%. Additional, one of the key performance indicators we want to establish goals and make them achievable for our firms to meet through participation of our certified minority firms, and our goal is on all contracts where a goal is established is to see that our bidders and proposers are at least at 85% of every contract that we set a goal. And our goal has been achieved at 91% for fiscal year '19. And then -- I'm sorry, at [10:21:56 AM] 96%. And I skipped over a percent of those firms that are bidding and proposer come in as compliant. And that goal was 91%. And -- sorry, that goal was 85% and we achieved 91%, which is really important to our operations and working with our cip partners that they have compliant bidders so that obviously from an administrative standpoint we don't have to go back out and be it. So we're really excited about those numbers. >> And lastly we wanted to touch on some major initiatives that we've been working on that touches on every phase of our procurement process. The first thing that we launched in the summer of 2019 was our corridor prep course. As you know we developed an mbe/wbe outreach plan in support of the 2016 mobility bond. In particular the corridor plan that is being Overshown by Mike Trimble and the corridor program office. We had a corridor prep course, we had approximately 20 firms participate in that [10:22:56 AM] prep course. And this is getting them ready to go in terms of navigating the city's procurement process, having information for them on bidding and estimating a project. Again, just prepping these firms that do the work and scopes of work that will be needed and necessary for the corridor program. So we're really -- this was something that is very new. We've never done this before. So it was very successful in my eyes and I hope that this leads us to do something similar for other large bond programs as well as other cip projects such as the airport and their multi-million-dollar, billion dollar initiatives moving forward. We amended with council's assistance the mbe/wbe procurement program. We eliminated the annual certification requirement. That was an administrative burden for our smaller firms, so we removed that. And we extended the certification timeline from a three-year timeline to a four-year timeline. Again, that relieves the burden of having to come back every three years for [10:23:57 AM] our small businesses. So things like that are small, but they're big wins overall. As Elton -- as Mr. Price mentioned, we implemented our online certification system. That was a two-year process to get us to this point. And I think that from what we've heard from the community so far, they like the process. We've been providing technical assistance to firms regarding their vendor profiles, making sure that she have the correct codes so that they can bid and participate in city contracts. That's an ongoing process that is being led by Mr. Price and his team. And as I mentioned before, implementing the mbe/wbe outreach plan, although the outreach plan was crafted in particular for supporting the corridor program, the things that are in that outreach plan will cut across all cip and all procurement processes. So very excited about that. There were 35 action items and I believe at last count we were at 32 that have been fully implemented. So very, very excited about [10:24:58 AM] that. And the other remaining items are going to be as we release the bid packages on these nine corridors. Those will be achieved as well. Thank you. And we're ready for any questions you may have. >>>> Alter: Thank you. What I think I would like to do since we have two speakers is let the speakers speak and then we'll ask our questions if that's all right. Our first speaker is Ashton Cumberbatch and our next speaker is Rick Garrett D that work with you for the filming if they're over there? Okay. So you will have three minutes, Mr. Cumberbatch. >> Thank you very much, councilmembers. I appreciate the work that smbr is doing to improve their work and their services, and welcome the disparity study. Clearly there's more to do. And I'd like to address a couple of things. One at the high level and one a little bit more to a specific issue that we talked about last week. But I hope as a result of [10:25:58 AM] the work that they're doing now and the disparity study that there will be some additional metrics added. Right now it seems look more on the output as far as numbers of mbe/wbe firms, etcetera, but little as far as the impact on those firms. The impact on the regional economics. And the impact on how is it closing the economic disparity gap that we have. And I think that's really what the whole purpose of the program is to really impact those firms, not just the number of certifications. And then also it seems that there may also come out hopefully with the disparity study some issues or recommendations as to the resources necessary for the department to do its work. Just by comparison, Denver, their airport acbe program, they have a staff of 15. We have a staff of one, and that person ipart time. And I think that leads me to [10:26:58 AM] my next question or issue, which deals with the rfp 8100 abia 00 a that we talked about last week. And there seems to be a failure from smbr, purchasing, to understand particular requirements of F.A.A. We talked about that last week. Gave you some material. And I just want to highlight that it's not very complicated, I would say, but there seems to be a failure of understanding. And just reiterating, recipients of the program must receive [indiscernible] Of the goals at the airport to make good faith efforts to explore all options to meet goals to the maximum applicable through direct ownership arrangements through mbe/wbes. That's the question the mayor had last week, is there a difference between ownership and goods and [10:28:00 AM] services. You have from the very language there if you are supposed to achieve it as much as possible through direct participation then that is the distinction and it should be valued higher than the goods and services. In fact, there's a particular form for -- that the F.A.A. Has to four firms that are trying to get it through good faith efforts -- through goods and services, there's a form there to fill out and documentation of that good faith effort. We didn't see that in the file in regard to the rfa that we're talking about. Rfp that we're talking about. [Buzzer sounds] >> Alter: You can finish your thought. >> Thank you. We've been requiring or suggesting to the smbr that they talk to the F.A.A. For months. They finally did last Friday after the city council meeting and they found out what we said was correct. That the mag was not compant and in fact was worse than we thought, it's not even 13%, it's three percent. [10:29:00 AM] And smbr in addition factored in some numbers that they shouldn't have factored in. We also found out in that conversation with the F.A.A. That they were intending to then scrap the whole program, which of course the the procedure requires, law requires they give it to the next -- even by their own standards, the number two score at that point. So I hope that that information will come to you because we've been asking for months that they talk to the F.A.A. As we had, and they waited until after the city council meeting and talking to you guys and withdrawing it before think did. Hopefully you will get that information. >> Alter: Thank you. Councilmember tovo, did you have a question? >> Tovo: No, I was just going just going to ask -- thank you for finishing that comment because I was going to ask you to finish that conversation. >> Alter: If you could share the information about Denver's office with their [10:30:03 AM] airport, any documentation you have of that. >> What would be the best way to get that to you? >> Tovo: Because of the contract, I don't think we should ask Mr. K umberbatch. >> We've offered to Mr. Campos, I myself we would be glad to provide whatever information we had to improve the process. >> Alter: And I think councilmember tovo is correct, it's a publicly meeting, but thank you very much. Mr. Garrett. >> Thank you. You know, one of the things that I just wanted to say today to back up some of the things he said is the ironic thing about the complaints over the last four months is [10:31:03 AM] that we brought this to the airport staff and smbr and our concerns weren't listened to, I'm not sure they were believed, but I actually had to reach out to the Denver smbr department to ask them if we were actually correct, and they led us to the FAA civil rights department for which we've been talking to for the last four months. We had another city actually walking us through the compliance aspect of this solicitation because we knew that we were right and we knew that M ag's rfp in the proposal was not compliant. In those four months, my business, we've had to incur a lot of legal fees. We've had to take time away from our small businesses and operations to be in front of you and to be at four advisory council meetings. And I just think that the airport staff has shown a pattern of non-transparent [10:32:06 AM] and uncollected behavior through these solicitation processes. The information that was released in October saying that we lost the bid was very thin. It wasn't until we pressed month after month until they leaked out additional information that just raised more and more concerns. It wasn't transparent, they didn't lead that information out for us to review. I also believe the airport advisory commission was strong armed into making a vote when they wanted more time to review the proposals. The civil rights -- I think it's important to know the conversation that happened last week with the civil rights department and the airport staff and smbr was that the immediate response to knowing that they weren't complying on multiple issues, that they could not under any circumstances award mag this contract, their immediate response was to throw this out and to start over. Which I believe is a retaliatory action. [10:33:07 AM] And the FAA civil rights department told them if they do that, they would subject themselves and the city to a lawsuit. And that's certainly not a path that we want to go. We've been working with the city for the last four months just to get this right. And I believe that, you know, it's up to council now to really right this wrong. I've been involved in scoring in another city and I know some of the things that could be done through this city to make sure that we have better local participation, we have more compliance, and there's certain things that I would love to work with the smbr on establishing a program for -- to help minorities going forward -- [buzzer sounding] -- Because there's a lot more issues than just compliance. Compliance with the biggest one we have here, but the way that this also was scored, the way that it was evaluated are very, very huge concerns that I have some experience with that I feel like I could add some [10:34:08 AM] value to that program while they are creating it. >> Alter: Thank you very much. Are there any questions to our speakers? And I just want to do a time check. We do need to be moving on to the county by quarter or 10 to at the latest, but did you have questions at this point of the speakers? >> Pool: Yeah, just generally I wanted to thank you guys for persisting. The diligence sometimes is what is necessary to get passed the closed door. I've experienced that too. I have asked staff to bring me an explanation, and this was even before we got to last Thursday, as a result of some of the votes we've had to take on contracts both at -- that are controlled or regulated by the FAA out of the airport and then others where we have a significant local presence. But that doesn't seem to be getting the -- the acknowledgment or the support or the recognition [10:35:09 AM] that we have actually set as a council that we want. We have a program in our economic development department that seeks to support local small business, local business in its expansion here in the city. We pride ourselves on this Austin approach to things, but there's a huge disconnect when you get to actually awarding the contracts and we see this regularly. And I remember reading about this even before I was on council that this was very difficult. This was a difficult bridge -- divide to bridge. I'm really glad you guys are persisting, I think it's clearly been necessary to dig out some of the information that we have not been able to get ourselves, and I will continue in conversations with staff off line that we have Teed up and entered into conversation with legal staff and economic development staff and I think got to be talking to the airport staff too to try to figure out how we can repair this. How can we go forward and [10:36:10 AM] recognizing with the principle that we as a council and as a community have devoted ourselves to which is to support our local small businesses in their efforts to -- because you are what make the city the special place that it is. It's the local folks that bring us that flavor. Not some -- not a national group coming in and pretending to be local. So thank you and I look forward to working not only with this panel here. I talked with Ms. Bresino, I don't know if she's in here, I happened to come up in the elevator with her and let her know the work that I was doing. I'm hoping to have some better outcomes for our locals. >> Alter: Thank you, councilmember pool. Just so we're conscious on the March meeting when we'll have our briefing in executive session, some in public, I've had a conversation with procurement and there are some options that we can [10:37:11 AM] consider that would better achieve those goals, but I think those might need to be executive session conversations. Councilmember tovo, did you have your light on next? >> Tovo: I just had a question. I'm not clear what the process is for getting that information about the Denver airport through the staff -- through the designated staff contact and to -- and to the council and Mr. That's even achievable because of their contract negotiations. So I wanted to take this opportunity to ask, it sounds like something we can probably get if we called the Denver smbr, we can get that contact. >> I'm allowed to contact Julie Harris, I can provide it to her and she can provide it to whoever she needs to. >> Tovo: Thanks so much rather than us individually trying to backtrack through Denver, but I would be interested in that information too. >> Alter: Councilmember Flannigan. >> Tovo: One other question. I have a question about the [10:38:13 AM] briefing, about the FAA -- the conversations you've had with the FAA about revising that program. >> Alter: Were your questions for -- >> Flannigan: For staff. >> Alter: Do you want to finish? >> Tovo: I wonder if you could provide us with any additional details. I saw in here and I think you addressed it in your quick overview that you are in the process of proposing a new plan for FAA approval and I didn't know if you could touch on any of the highlights of what that plan might look like. >> So thank you, councilmember, for that question. We are currently in the process of drafting, it's in its initial, early stages. There's still some stakeholders we need to meet with and continual guidance that we need further assistance on. At this point we're not ready to provide any even put as to -- input as to what the new plan will look like. The current plan that we're operating under was fully vetted and approved by FAA [10:39:15 AM] in 2015, which is what we've been applying to any procurements in support of the airport specifically for concessions, for their concessions program. But that program was approved by FAA. It includes the way we've currently applied the program to not only this particular contract but other contracts as well since 2015. >> Tovo: I preach that, and I also -- appreciate that and I also appreciate you taking the initiative to look at what changes we could make under the existing guidelines. And I would suggest if this isn't already part of your contemplation that you reach out to some of the other airports that have been mentioned as good examples of that and see what they've been able to do with their plans and whether that's something Austin might want to consider as we revise ours. >> Just an aside for the disparity study, one of the scopes of work for the consultant is to do a review of what other programs around the nation are doing and looking to see what we could adopt as potential [10:40:16 AM] program improvement. We're talking two different programs, one is local, but we are looking at other programs to possibly implement to our new plan. >> Tovo: Do you have a time frame on that? >> The new plan is going to be due in March, so we are -- that's an aggressive time frame for us. >> Tovo: Thanks so much. >> Alter: Councilmember Flannigan. >> Flannigan: Thank you to the speakers for coming today. The -- I'm looking forward to the March conversation where we can get into more of the details about the difference between state and federal requirements. I want to caution us not to conflate the very complicated issues that we've soon come through procurement. Sometimes we've had this conversation about local business, which FAA treats that differently and I've [10:41:16 AM] heard that to describe a minority women owned business. The state allows low level conversation the way the feds don't, it's a much more complicated situation and I think some of that stuff is getting conflated. But I am hearing from not just our speakers today but from other vendors in the community some of whom are commissioners on different commissions about the challenges of working through procurement as a small business in Austin. As a small minority owned business in Austin. The initiative I don't see listed is how we work with the origin of the rfp itself. The rfps are sometimes crafted in ways that don't allow small business participation. They require size of the -- in ways that could be broken up to better advantage small businesses. I think the treacherman is a good example of that. They could have been smaller [10:42:17 AM] areas. All the stuff that you are doing is great and I do agree the performance indicators, the ones that are here are great. It's also hard to imagine how to measure scale of minority business participation in a way that makes sense. I do want to think about that more. But I want to see more work on how we're working with departments when they are creating the rfps, that they are done in such a way that can allow for more small business participation. >> I think we would agree with that, councilmember. That's actually part of the majority of the work that Ms. Saldana and her team performs on a daily basis is reviewing scopes of work, looking at areas that we can either carve out to maybe carve it out as a separate rfp or a separate bid package for our mbes and wbes, especially if we have significant numbers. [10:43:18 AM] That's something we do on a daily basis. I was at a meeting where we were discussing a new solicitation, and again that was brought up about how can we craft this so we can get more opportunities for our mbes and wbes, at the prime level as well. Those are continual conversations, but I agree we can always do a better job of doing that. >> Flannigan: I think we just need some kind of sign posts to check in because you could probably go back into the statesman or chronicle archives and find this story 10, 20 years ago. >> Sure. >> Flannigan: So how do we think about this in such a way where we're seeing change in the process and not just the continuing conversation and frustration of the proes -- process. >> Alter: I want to thank our speakers. I had a couple quick questions for staff flagging for the March discussion. Part of all of these goals are set by the number of certified forms, as I [10:44:18 AM] understand how the formula works. So in March I would like us to really be thinking about options we have for expanding what counts as certification. So there are state certifications and there are alternative certifications that are used regularly in other settings for similar goals. But I understand that the city's process does create hoops that make it sometimes difficult for some of the firms that we're trying to target to achieve that. So if you could make sure that you are covering what option we have for that certification change. And then I wanted to ask with respect to the performance matrix, what percent of our spending on contracts is subject to smb goals, whether any of the three options that you - - do we know that? >> I don't have that information offhand, but actually that's something we've discussed internally. I can tell you it is not a large chunk as you may [10:45:20 AM] think. There are a water of procurement options out there that fall under the $50,000 threshold. We typically see any solicitation over $50,000 we will review it in our office, but there are other spend that we don't account for that we do not see. So it's just -- we can provide that to you, it's just a matter of really putting pen to paper and trying to get that information out. We could probably look at what we have out in the reports out of the financial services department to see what we can carve out and just do a side by side chair son between the contracts Ms. Saldana mentioned in fy-18 and 19 just for condition instruction because that's where the majority of our work is centered and give you that information. We'll provide that to you. >> Alter: That raises a very interesting question, how are we achieving these goals below 50,000 when that might be the type of project [10:46:21 AM] small business may be able to council, but if we don't even have a process where you have to even look, that might be another direction for us to be -- to be thinking about. So part of the reason I ask is because there's -- I feel like you gave us compliance measures and you gave us certification measures. But we didn't see any of the measures lik Mr. Cumberbatch was talking about, nor did we get a sense of given how much we're spending, how much are we able to account for as going to these businesses. And I'm trying to understand to the extent we have a measure, are we measuring that relative to all of our contracts or only to the goals that we have. Or are we just not measuring that. Because the amount of money that we are investing in these types of contracts ought to matter as well and I didn't see that in any of the performance measures. [10:47:21 AM] >> No, that's actually a really good point and that's something that we haven't measured in the past. But as we made our way through sd23, we've looked at realignment of our performance measures and what really we should be measuring, and one of our new measures that we have in place that we've been working with the office of performance management has been a realignment of what is the equity impact with our program through our certified businesses and how do we measure that. It is something that you'll see moving forward. >> Alter: Okay. What I would like to do is we'll see how the March conversation goes. We're pretty booked for our April meeting, but we may want to invite you back for may or June to ten the conversation. For March in addition to the certification options, if you can provide additional clarity on the connection between your office and the airport because if they are different models it sounds like of doing this with respect to some of the [10:48:22 AM] enterprise funds which we may need to be being looking at moving forward. Okay. One last comment from councilmember pool. >> Pool: Also the scoring panels, I've been interested in understanding how the scoring panels are both peopled and how the criteria is assessed or is lined up and then assessed. Having served on that in the past when I worked at Travis county, I did some of that scoring and so I have a little bit of understanding from some personal experience and I want to see how beer doing it and -- we're doing it and make sure there are no barriers to our local small businesses and minority owned businesses. >> Alter: It sounds like there's policy changes that may need to come for you to be able to do your work at the level that I know you want to do it. And so we're trying to think through this policy questions. Thank you all for being here. >> Thank you. >> Alter: I'm going to invite up the folks from the county and I want to dispense with item 6, items [10:49:23 AM] to be discussed at future meetings. There will be no regular March meeting. We may have a special called meeting with respect to municipal civil service if we have appropriate applicants. And then I just want to flag that our April meeting will be kind of jam packed. We have some financial audits that come back from outside auditors that we need to address and then we will also be getting the cultural center's contract -- audit back that was requested by council in a special resolution. So I just wanted to flag that. >> Councilmember? If I could comment, we would like to bring you a pension update as well. We haven't had any conversation with the committee since November. We would like to come back and give you a report and maybe a recommendation. >> Alter: Great. We'll need to talk about timing in April or may on that once we know all of that. Thank you for the heads up. [10:50:24 AM] Good morning and welcome. For my colleagues in the public, I wanted to just speak for a second about this item, which is a discussion of potential redevelopment projects by Travis county and other project partners. So we were trying to think about ways that we could have some additional constructive conversations with the county and the audit and fine committee seemed an appropriate venue for allowing that to happen. We have invited commissioner Travillion and Mr. Straub from the rodeo to speak about the expo center but to provide a venue to have conversation. We are joined by my colleague councilmember harper-madison who represents the area of town where the expo center is so thank you for joining us. [10:51:26 AM] And I'm not sure which of you wanted to start, but thank you for making the time to be here and to speak with us and look forward to hearing what you want to share with us. >> Good morning. Maybe I don't know how to work this machinery. Oh, okay. So I was asked to come up and talk about the expo center and what's out there right now and what we envision it going to. Several years ago I think in 2016 the city, county and the rodeo commissioned the hunden group out of Chicago to do a report which they did, took them about a year to put it together, and they were asked if a facility was to be built, where should it be built, what should be built, and so necessity put together that -- and then also what kind of economic impact, although they didn't do a lot of that. They came back with a report stating that the expo center [10:52:26 AM] out at Walter E. Long lake is exactly where it should be built, and the types of facilities that should be built would be a main arena -- and it says in their report and I actually have just some executive summary copies if you would like those. Yes, ma'am. And the facility we have out there right now seats about 6500 people. If you just the main arena and do concerts, it can go up to about 9,000. It was built in 1982. I actually built the facilities back in those days. And then we put up about a 200,000 square foot what we call a barn and then about a 17,000 square foot we called banquet hall in those days. Those facilities are old and falling down and are in dismal repair. So those facilities need to be redone. The new facilities that we're talking about would be an arena that would be of a [10:53:30 AM] size that's pretty typical of what's being built today. It says in that report it would be 15,000 seats. If you use the arena, it would probably go up to about 18,000 seats. That is maybe the right number, maybe not. I have had the opportunity over the last couple of years to go to San Antonio and look at the AT&T center and talk to the spurs entertainment group. We also went up and met with Ed bass and talked about the new facility they have up in Fort Worth that they just opened this year. There are new thoughts about the sizes of arenas and the types of things you put in arenas. The one in Fort Worth now is I think about 13,000 seats that can go to 16,000 seats, but for concerts, but the overall experience is better because there's more restaurants and those types of things. So we would have to look at exactly the type and size of facility that should be built. Then we also hired Mccann [10:54:31 AM] Adams, the rodeo did this last year to see if the types of facilities that we want to build can be built on that size of piece of property, the piece of property that we're talking about is 128 acres, which is inside that loop road, and then the rodeo owns 47 acres next to that which we would also throw into the mix. So in going and talking to San Antonio and Fort Worth, both of those facilities are about 180 acres and the types of things that we were thinking of building and wanting to build would be the arena, as I said, about 15,000 seats, and then about 600,000 square foot of space at we can call a lot of different things, but it would be like building six different buildings of about 100,000 square foot each. Concrete floors, some type of hard wall on the outside. [10:55:34 AM] Hvac. So we can use them not only for the rodeo, but it's not just about the rodeo, it's about what the city of Austin needs. And the report states that if a facility got built out there, it would be nothing but complimentary to the convention center downtown for some types of conventions that don't work downtown. So for the rv shows, the boat shows, the home shows, all of those types of facilities -- or shows that need facilities would be used or probably go out to the expo center because, for one, we have parking, number two, it's a lot more space and it would work very well in there. For the rodeo, as you know, we are a 501c3 non-profit. We use the facility for 45 days out of the year and that's it. We bring in about 300,000 people. We have about 70,000 -- or [10:56:36 AM] $77 million worth of positive impact to the city of Austin every year. I know we did that last year. So that's the type of thing that we're looking at. The 600,000 square feet of space that can be used for a lot of different convention-type things or we can use it. A 15,000 seat stadium or thereabouts, and then a 25,000 square foot meeting hall and 100,000 square foot other meeting hall. The first 25,000 would be for banquets and that type of thing, so some kitchen facilities and all those types of things would like to be built. And then the other things that we've been looking at is we would like to do a 4h facility out there, which I already have an investor that would do, and also looking at trying to put ag mechanics. Things like welding, plumbing, all of these types [10:57:37 AM] of things that aren't in college that we used to have in high school and we don't really even have in high school anymore. And we've already got investors that would like to build that type of facility out there. That's kind of what we're looking at. And we also looked at whether we should keep the existing facility. Councilmember tovo about two years ago she said she would hate to see it be demolished. And we started thinking about that and it makes a lot of sense. We would need to put money into it,ut for the smaller shows, the local shows, we think it makes sense to do that. Also it takes about 30 months to build that type of facility that we're looking at building aen we need to ten our operations. So we would try to keep that. All of those facilities would fit within that 128 plus our 47. So that's what we're looking at. >> Alter: Thank you. Before you speak, [10:58:38 AM] commissioner Travillion, I wanted to add for those watching we will try to post any materials that were handed out for the public. The backup was kind of delayed so we will get that up for the public. >> Just so we don't hear you breathing. >> Okay, good. >> All right. Let me just state for the record, I did not come to pick a fight. I came to hopefully talk about opportunities for us to work together and unite around an idea that is really important for our entire community. And I think it's important for our entire community because we have a shared history and an unfortunate history that's kind of playing itself out right now. You know, as we talk through a lot of affordability policies, a lot of housing policies, what we are finding is a lot of the folks who used to live close [10:59:39 AM] to downtown can't afford to live here anymore. The question is where are they going. I think when you look at the health care disparity rates around the county, I can tell you exactly where they are going. 78724, colony park, and 78725, Austin's colony. These are two communities that would be well served by an expansion of the expo center. So what I -- what I'm coming to talk about today is how can we agree on building a marshal plan for eastern Travis county. How can we work together and find ways to help the communities, families and youth that are being pushed out of the city. You know, how do we know that these areas -- that these are areas where the families are going, look at the rates of growth in [11:00:40 AM] precinct 1, over 34% growth in precinct 1. But the problem that we have is kids that grew up in an area where they had access to transit, where they had access to health care, where they had access to rec centers are being moved to an area where they don't have any of these things anymore. And as we have been talking about and building a school to work pipeline in Austin for the last several years, that same school to work pipeline has not been built in our -- in the rest of our counties surrounding us. So if we don't put the types of facilities and if we don't put the types of activities in place, then what we'll see is an expansion of the school to prison population, not the school to work population. So it gives us an opportunity as policy makers to think about the partnerships that we have whether they are with school districts, whether they are with other cities, whether they are with this county or [11:01:42 AM] other counties, how can we put our resources together to make sure we're addressing the needs of kids. It is important that we work from the same set of facts. So what I did, what I had staff do, don't let me take credit for this, we put together just two basic documents. One is -- it's a very general time line of when the -- when Travis county gained access to the rodeo area or that 128 acres, a lease that was put together, and then the activities that we have been involved in since 2014. So I didn't want to in undated us with a lot of material, I just want us to be working from the same set of facts. And hopefully from this set of facts we can build an asset map that will allow us to make decisions together about how to move forward. [11:02:42 AM] So I put together a group of questions that I want to read into the record and we'll make sure that we get to you all before the close of business today so that we can begin to just work from the same set of facts and figure out how we can best serve this community that we share. Or the community that elected most of us. So, all right. I want to say that also I have talked to you, to most of you individually about this particular project and about projects like the green line and how we actually continue to build or rebuild this part of the community. Councilmember harper-madison, I have appreciated the opportunity to sit down and extensively go through projects that the county has been working on. Councilmember pool, we've sat down and worked together as well. Councilmember alter, I guess we've had hundreds of meetings now. [11:03:43 AM] [Laughter] Since we serve on campo and whatnot. But it's important for us to take this opportunity to see who is doing what in the area and in these communities and how we can better partner to serve shared goals. So I'll start off with the -- with my asset map questions. And first one is how much was the original convention center renovation in 1999? The second one -- the second is how much bond funding was approved by the voters in 1999 for convention center expansion? Number 3, how much revenue has been collected under chapter 334 since 1999? Number 4, how much of this [11:04:43 AM] has been spent since 1999? Number 5, how much revenue has been collected from the H.O.T. Tax? And how much has been spent? Number 6, what is the current outstanding indebtedness for the 1999 bonds? Number 7, what is the rate of interest and are these -- what rate of interest are these bonds accruing? Number 8, has the city of Austin managed chapter 334 and 351 funds separately? Number 9, how much has the city of Austin spent since 1986 on the Walter E. Long park or related studies and planning? [11:05:44 AM] Let's see. Number 10, how much revenue has the city of Austin budgeted for improvements in the Walter E. Long park? So what my goal is to put together an asset map, what are we actually doing in the area currently, and how can we sit tomorrow, reason together, plan together and address some of the problems that we see on the ground. But I think the most important thing for us to do initially is work from the same set of facts. And if we do that, I think we can truly serve the citizens from our community. To the best of our ability. So I just wanted to kind of get that in play. Put a planning process in place so that we could sit together and reason to go. And we have economic development staff here as well. Deanna, who has been doing a lot of work in this area so [11:06:47 AM] if there are particulars that we want to talk about, we are certainly available to do that. Deanna, do you want to sit in one of these hot seats up here? >> Alter: Yeah, anyone from the county you want to sit up there is welcome to join us. Deputy city manager, do you think we can get these questions answered and where there is ambiguity where we might need more information, I'm thinking the question on Walter long might require a little more nuance than that question suggestion because day to day operations may not be as easy to separate out for that. But if you can work with them to get them answers and make sure those answers are also shared with council. >> Sure, I'll try. I appreciate that, and councilmembers, we've been taking note of that. We are sending that up to finance and see what we can find in a short order and make sure that we [11:07:48 AM] collaborate. >> Alter: I think you said you were going to get questions in written format for that. >> Yes. >> Alter: Who would like to go first? Councilmember pool. >> Pool: Quick question for which it, and thanks to you all for -- commissioner Travillion and thanks for being here. The total revenue city of Austin has budgeted and spent on Walter long park. Did you have a time frame for that? The others were since 1999. Did you want it to be the same time frame? >> I would think so because, you know, you look at the area and what the community says when you talk to it is, you know, where else in Austin do you have such beautiful land behind barbed wire. And, you know, so what are we spending, what are we doing, what are we planning to do and when will that begin? >> Alter: Anyone else? >> Harper-madison: Thank [11:08:48 AM] you, I originally had my light on but you addressed it. I would like to have those questions in written form. That would be very helpful. >> Sure. >> Alter: Councilmember Flannigan. >> Flannigan: So great to see you, commissioner, Joe, you as well, other than at a C.A.N. Meeting. You and I serve on a lot of boards too so great to have this continuing conversation. If, there's a lot of information around this that I want to dig into. I don't think I've even before given the hundred report to dig into it. So even though I did pass a resolution two years ago in support of the expo center, we didn't sit down to -- >> We can fix that quick. >> Flannigan: Yeah. The questions are interesting. I would like to add at least one more. I'm curious to know -- if we're going to talk about how much has been spent at [11:09:49 AM] Walter E. Long, I'm curious the city has invested in parks east of I-35 versus west of I-35. I think we should broaden it beyond Walter long. >> Excellent point. >> Flannigan: Historic spend is not going to be a fair assessment compared to where we've invested where people live today. So that would be good information. I'm also curious, Jeff, if you wouldn't mind having the county talk about how much it spent comparison west to east because I think we should be comparing both jurisdictions' investments. >> I think that's fair. Because I think what you'll find is whether we're talking about the school district or the city or the county or the transit department, a lot -- a significant majority of the investment has been spent west. And we've actually had different building [11:10:49 AM] standards. For example, with Connally Guerrero, it was built with three-fourths of the footprint than other rec centers across town. It took a gentleman who is a member at ebenezer church who was a retired civil servant to write and say if rec centers are supposed to be this size, why is this three-fourths of that size. I think that is a very good exercise to undertake. >> Flannigan: I think if we focus our energy too much on one project, my apologies to Joe because it's your project, about out the relationship between our counties is -- between our jurisdictions is bigger than one project. And so thinking through what those investments have been and what they can be in the future I think are -- is a good place to start. >> Yeah. And it will get you closer to equity. >> Flannigan: Yeah, and I'm certainly trying to get us to a place where we are thinking through things from an equity perspective, you [11:11:52 AM] know. And we are -- we are posted for one conversation, there are other conversations to have. You know, as we think about how our jurisdictions respect and honor history and heritage and the choices that our jurisdictions have made in a lot of areas, not just land use but in criminal justice, to think about whose roll it is to do what job. And then moving forward the types of projects that, you know, having the benefit of living in Williamson county and having a comparable county relationship to know that there's more than one way to do a thing. Seeing how in Williamson county we're able to partner on drainage projects, road projects, other things that are inside the city's jurisdiction, but the county comes to us as a financial partner I think is another great area of conversation and investment as we address equity. Certainly equity on the east side. >> Alter: Councilmember pool. >> Pool: I think we can get the hunden report circulated around. [11:12:52 AM] There was -- let's see. I was looking back on when the presentations were made previously. It looks like there was a presentation planned for August 2nd work session for the council back in 2016. So there's significant number of folks on the dais who wouldn't have been in office at the time so we can send that around. And Joe didn't you tell me at one point the hunden report was updated? Or you are talking with -- >> We were talking about it. We haven't done that. >> Pool: Great. That helps me know there's not an updated report. We'll definitely get that circulated. I'm vaguely remembering that it was presented to the economic opportunity committee. But that was also a really long time ago. So even if it had been, which it sounds like it was, we really should have a new read on it and kind of dig in on the questions that are specific to this because this has been an issue [11:13:52 AM] before us for quite some time, and it does touch on the economics and the quality of life of folks in the eastern part of the county in a lot of ways that we just haven't tackled. But I think there's a willingness to do it. I'm certainly committed to it and have been for some time. The eastern crescent study that was launched back in 2015-2016, was part of work begun under councilmember Houston and me and it was a spring board off of turning Walter E. Long into a professional golf course. Do you all remember -- >> I do. >> Pool: That presented itself to us when this new 10-1 council first took office in January of 2015. We came together, Ora and I were on opposite sides of that question and we came together to right look at the larger economic development needs of the community in ways they haven't really been addressed and came out with some really good -- some [11:14:54 AM] really good programs that the mayor was involved in and we've spent considerable city time and effort to try to craft a plan for the eastern crescent. This will help to support a accelerate that work and boost it in ways I think we've all been anxious to get that purchase on it. To have happen. I have a specific question for our rodeo Austin rep, and I know we're running out of time. I was looking at a -- one of the memos that we got. I guess it was one of the last reports Sara Hensley, who was interim assistant city manager and had been director of Austin parks and rec department, in one of her last memos before she left for different fields mentioned that one of the -- from rodeo Austin's perspective, this memo discusses the organizational goals that rodeo Austin has, [11:15:54 AM] challenges that were being faced, potential opportunities and what rodeo Austin believed would be favorable scenarios to meet their goals. I'll just go ahead and toss these out to you, Joe, and see if these are still active. The main points from the discussions Sara had with rodeo Austin were long-term sustainability, redevelopment of the exposition space, which you've talked about today, development of multi-use facilities and public spaces that enhance the under served neighborhoods of east Austin and eastern Travis county. That's pretty much still the focus. >> Those are all still the focus. We're growing quite a bit out there and we're really out of space. Last year we had six or seven standing room only days for the rodeo and concert. We had a record year last year. We're ahead of that pace. In the barn facility we typically say that our max is about 8,000 animals for the two weeks that we're there. We decided to open up a little more and we've got [11:16:54 AM] 9100, so I don't know what we're going to do with them, but we're way out of space on that too. Everything we're doing -- we've got to grow or we've got to do something different because what we try to do is help kids go to college or have a better education. And that's all we're concerned with. And so if we don't keep growing, we are not doing what we're supposed to be doing. >> Pool: And part of the mission of rodeo Austin is the scholarships. Can you -- >> We give away stipes, we've given away over $20 million. About 2,000 kids. We have 100 kids under scholarship and we continue to grow that. Last year our auction raised about a million 7.3 or something like that and we're trying to get to 2 million this week which we think we can do. Every aspect of what we're doing is growing records and we're setting records and we've got to grow. >> Pool: The focus is agriculture, family farming and -- >> Not only that, we partner [11:17:57 AM] with over 15 different universities in the state of Texas and we give them money to hand out scholarships. The scholarships can be for engineering, we don't have any say with what the scholarships are for. So we help a lot of kids in the ag business just because they bring animals to the sale and we buy their animals and that gives them money to go to college. We also give scholarships directly to universities so they can hand them out and help more kids. >> But as it relates to education, right in the immediate area, you have four school districts. You have -- well, five. I guess you have aid, pflugerville ISD, Elgin, manor and del valle. And we've been in communication with region 13, which has also outgrown it's area and serves 60 school districts. We bring -- agrilife is one of the programs we work on at the county. When you look at the lack of [11:18:58 AM] number of veterinarians you have, the shortage of veterinarians. And then all of the trades that grow around agricultural products. There are a number of significant opportunities that we think will be brought into place by public investment. We think that it will attract a great deal of private investment if we're able to do so. >> We've got to -- one of the things we're trying to do is figure out where our home is. That's been our home for 30-some years. If we can't get new facilities, with he have to figure something else out. We want to build 4h and ffa -- right now I think Fred Webber is the president of 4h and he was past president of our group. Before him was Shawn Tuggle. We can help a lot of kids in that eastern area do all kinds of things, raise [11:19:58 AM] animals, raise crops, give them something to do after school, that's what we want to do. I've already got investors for that but I'm not going to start that until I know where we're staying. >> Pool: That leads into the challenges and check and see if there are additional once. Sharing ownerships between governmental entities and a third-party partner complicates redevelopment of the party. >> Yeah. That's kind of obvious right now. >> Pool: This is still from the Sara Hensley memo. Lease expiration in 2033 makes it difficult to attract investments. That was specifically what I wanted to check in with you on. The longer lease or more defined partnership would help on both of those bullets; is that right? >> That's right. >> Pool: Parkland dedication, support an exhibition center and the last bullet says neither the landowner, the city of Austin, nor the lessor, [11:20:59 AM] Travis county, has invested in the property in 35 years. >> It's -- you would be pretty disgusted if I took you out through some of those facilities. >> Pool: I mean I've -- >> They are falling down. >> Pool: I've been in them. When you mention a marshal plan, I thought that was an a pt description of what we're looking at. There's a couple of opportunities including capital improvements that Travis county approved in 2017. I guess you have money for that. Party in space proximity that has opportunities. I think that's at colony park that the expansion and the development that was promised over at colony park. >> The resources that the county has placed in have clearly been patches rather than, you know, the core work that needs to be done. >> Pool: Yes. >> And it's been because of [11:21:59 AM] difficulty of getting these issues resolved that until we know where we're going and how we're going there, it's difficult to make those types of investments. >> Pool: I agree and I think that the city of Austin has a really great opportunity to work with rodeo Austin and Travis county in order to go beyond the patches and the patch work and the band-aid approach. That's my hope and prayer here from this presentation today. >> Thank you. >> Alter: Thank you. I look forward to all of the answers to the questions and I welcome councilmember Flannigan's additional question. I'm not sure that the assumption about the investments east to west and parkland are accurate. I think we don't invest enough in factor land and I would support more investments in parkland. Throughout the city. But I'm not sure that that assumption is what's going to bear out in the data, but we should be doing more [11:23:01 AM] everywhere. As far as I'm concerned. >> Almost can't compare building a facility we're talking about building as parkland. That's convention facility. >> Alter: Sure. We actually have someone signed up to speak now. Counciember harper-madison, would you like to go before or after? >> Harper-madison: Either. I just want say thank you to everybody for the contribution to the dialogue. I think it's very, very important and I really appreciate, madame chair, I would like to recognize I appreciate the opportunity for me to be here for the dialogue. Poor Joe and Jeff, you all are so sick of me. These are conversations that are already transpiring because I recognize multiple times we said the words expo center, but simultaneously said Walter E. Long as though they are the same project, while they are [11:24:01 AM] directly adjacent. I think it's so important that we recognize that the city of Austin we've got a lot of reconciling to do for historic wrongs and under investment, but expo center is one project, Walter E. Long is another project, but they are all directly adjacent. During the course of these conversations, I appreciate that they are being brought up simultaneously, but we cannot conflate projects. They are separate issues. And so I appreciate the time and effort and energy that I've been able to mutually invest with our speakers and thank you very much to my colleagues for posing really important, valuable questions. Councilmember Flannigan, I'm happy to share the hunden report with you, although I would probably venture to say it is outdated at this point. So I appreciate that we all recognize that there's work to do and work to be done and I really am so very [11:25:02 AM] grateful to have the opportunity that our new 10-1 system gives me the privilege and the honor of being the council person who gets to represent this project in this district and these related projects, although they are part and parcel separate. Thank you. >> Two things, madame chair, if I could. Number one, I think another bit of information that would be useful to pull together is the 1975 plan that suggested that it would put significant park space into the colony park area. The second thing that I would like for us to consider as public entities is right now under a cdbg fair housing classification, colony park and the area around it is classified as a low opportunity area. Because of a lack of transit, because of a lack of grocery stores, because of a lack of quality of life-type issues. And we just placed four or [11:26:05 AM] five affordable housing projects there because we knee that within a three-year period it will be a high opportunity area and those affordable housing facilities will not pencil. So I would encourage you to consider any city-owned property in the area to consider putting in trust so that you might arrest the cost of the dirt so that you might have affordable projects at pencil. We expect -- we were told this was a bad idea because I think we went up to 56% of that zip code area being classified as affordable, but when the colony park project is built out, that number 56 will go down to 24. So any property that you have there, anything that's close to the green line as we start thinking about how we bring those projects to fruition, this is a good time to look at ain orderrability. >> Alter: Thank you -- >> One thing to add. [11:27:06 AM] I know of a builder that's building a subdivision -- I'm a developer. Right across from the expo center, they are selling 11 houses a week. So property prices are -- >> On the way up. >> Sure. >> Alter: So we have a speaker, I'm not seeing Mr. Cumberbatch. Would you like to address? >> That would be a good spot for affordable housing using all our county-owned assets. >> We want to look at head to toe. >> Alter: Have three minutes. >> Councilmember, I appreciate that because absolutely an advocate for all types of homes in all parts of town and not [11:28:06 AM] segregating affordable housing. They are just one part of the city. I want to really encourage this conversation that's taking place. I really do appreciate it. I'm not here with my hat as a lawyer, but my role which came out of -- councilmember pool that you spoke about. Councilmember harper-madison, we've talked about purpose us-built communities and that was a model for play space planning which came out of the spirit of east Austin that I was introduced to while volunteering in the mayor's office. Myself and three others took that to heart and we started that which expands for the Spanish word equity.while our focus is on the whole of the eastern crescent, we can't do that in one bite. So we started in the colony park area and I've had the pleasure of working with the colony park neighborhood [11:29:07 AM] association, we've worked with the colony park CDC to look at the issues of the areas of housing, education, etcetera. One of the things we discussed and we had the pleasure of working with the economic development development as we worked on this project is having a regional perspective. So I appreciate the comments as far as not looking at just the expo center, but had discussions with the rodeo. So the rodeo, the expo center, decker lake, Walter E long lake. We need to look at how do we holistically develop that to benefit the folks who live there now, not just the ones that will be coming, but making sure those who live there now can stay there once that is developed. So we're working on anti-displacement things. With know what the uprooted study says it's low economic areas with regards to involuntary spacement. And so I encourage this conversation and continue [11:30:09 AM] it, whatever we can do to participate and further along, we're glad to do that. I think my colleagues in the colony park area will be happy with this and we look forward to fruitful collaboration wean the city and county and others to really take advantage of this awesome opportunity we have to develop this region. So thank y'all very much. >> Alter: Thank you. I do want to ask one question, which is a bit of an elephant, and I'm just going to be blunt about it. If we don't come to resolution on the expo center, what is the time frame that rodeo Austin is looking at for alternative arrangements should that -- should we not be successful in these conversations? >> I don't know if I have an answer to that. [Buzzer sounds] >> Scared me. >> That was for Mr. Mr. Cumberbatch. >> Sounds like she doesn't want that question answered. [11:31:09 AM] [Laughter]. >> Alter: We can talk offline and about the timetable -- >> I think we're in like a three-year period, something like that. I think we're close to three years. We can do it for two, three, four years. We've got to find another facility and figure out what we're going -- where we're going. That will take a little time. But it's not 10 years. It's five or less. >> Alter: When is your lease up? >> 33. Well, the -- >> Our lease is 33. >> Tovo: Can we clarify that. I want to be really clear on those dates. So the lease with the county is 20 -- >> The county's lease is 2033. The lease with you guys is 2023. >> Tovo: 2023. Okay. All right, thanks. >> Alter: Thank you all for being here. Mr. Travillion, did you want to add anything in closing? [11:32:11 AM] >> Well, I just think that -- I just think that, you know, this is a real opportunity and I think that this is an important time because, you know, as we all figure out what revenue caps are going to look like in the future and we all figure out, you know, what it is we need to do to take care of particularly the displaced part of town, what we've got to learn our lessons from is 78702, because when I moved here in 1985, 78702 was the area that had all the health care disparities and the split infill housing opportunities and little swaths of land that could be developed. And because we did not have a plan for the people who lived in that community, my wife's grandparents lived on walnut street. Because we did not have a plan, but the people who [11:33:11 AM] grew up there and the children and grandchildren that grew up there do not have an opportunity to stay. And sometimes it's our programs that led them there. So I think that the programs that we are -- is that we need to look at need to be multi-generational programs so that we make sure that people have an opportunity not only to live there, but to stay there and age in place. So -- I just want us to look at the lessons of 7870 it 787002 and now that 78724 is going to be there within two decades. So the underlying statement is that we should not wait for the community to gentrify before we invest. >> Alter: Thank you. Appreciate you all being here. Look forward to continuing the conversation. I think the next clear step is to get those questions answered and see what they reveal about next steps. [11:34:14 AM] And I'm sure any one of us would be happy to continue the conversation. We need to close out, but did you want -- >> Harper-madison: Very, very briefly,, madam chair. Mr. Cumberbatch, I know the benefits of purpose built communities and what is able to happen with that sort of magical situation that addresses cyclical poverty and transcending it by way of the deployment of creating cradle to college or cradle to [indiscernible], healthy housing, etcetera, etcetera, but I wonder if any colleagues don't necessarily. So I would encourage to you distribute some information to everybody about purpose built communities and the positive benefit that we could receive as a community by way of the introduction here locally. And in Louisiana and Georgia and Nebraska. >> Dallas-fort worth. No, this meeting we minded me that I needed to get with [11:35:16 AM] the councilmembers and update them on that. So appreciate that. >> Alter: Thank you. Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Letting us know how old you are now. [Laughter]. >> Alter: I think that councilmember tovo is next and then we're going to adjourn. >> Tovo: I wanted to thank all our speakers and our colleagues from the county. Thank you very much. I look forward to continuing the conversation about how we make the expo center successful for the community members as well as for the county. I think we have a lot of exciting opportunities to collaborate from the expo center to the discussion about palm and others. So thank you for being here today. And I look forward to a productive and positive outcome on all of those projects. >> Pool: And I just wanted to note the certify renaissance deputy that you were here, Ashton, to be here on a completely different topic and randomly this all came together. You brought a really nice piece to this conversation. Thank you. To Joe, thank you for being [11:36:17 AM] here. Sorry to rob. I know he was busy with rodeo Austin work. And commissioner Travillion, pleasure to see you and work with you these many years. Thank you for your staff who are here as well. I understand the county judge up in Maryland at the FEMA training and probably very timely as we talk about diseases. So thanks, all, for being here today. >> Thank you. With that, it is 11:36 and I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.