City Council Work Session Transcript – 06/02/2020 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 6/2/2020 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/2/2020 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. [9:14:42 AM] >> Garza: I'll call the meeting to order. We'll start with -- actually, I believe there was some councilmembers who wanted to say a few words before we get started. And I'm going to recognize councilmember harper-madison. >> Good morning, colleagues. I would say forgive my appearance, but I don't have anything to apologize for. I suspect a lot of us had a really long and very sleepless weekend. I would be remiss to not start this meeting by saying this weekend -- this weekend we saw thousands of austinites take to the streets in what were largely peaceful demonstrations. [Unmuted background conversation]. >> Garza: Can everyone please mute while you're on the call. Please mute. [9:15:45 AM] >> Harper-madison: So I was saying, this weekend we saw thousands of austinites take to the streets in what were largely peaceful demonstrations against an absolutely broken system. There is a deep, deep and justified rage across this country, and here, right here, right now in our fair city. An out of control pandemic has killed more than 100,000 Americans, and we have the kind of levels of unemployment nationally that this country hasn't seen since the great depression. The deaths of people like George Floyd, Mike Ramos, Rhianna Taylor continue to highlight the racism embedded in our criminal [9:16:46 AM] justice system. I felt like we really just couldn't start this meeting without saying that the austinites this weekend who protested, they were and are justifiably furious. And this isn't a quote that you're not familiar with, but I'll repeat it. Dr. King said it. A riot is the language of the unheard, and just to be clear, this weekend, what happened this weekend, that was not a riot. That was a demand to be heard. Our residents, they want us to hear their pain. They want us to hear their outrage. They want this long overdue change to systems that protect the privileged while traumatizing black, brown and other marginalized people. I just wanted to take the moment to make sure to say [9:17:47 AM] we cannot continue to stick our fingers in our ears and just wait for the next eruption of anger. I join with my colleagues and we're asking for a couple of very specific things this work week that we can build upon. We have got to -- we are obligated, we have got to start to root out the racism in our police department and to create a truly justice and truly equitable system that ensures that public safety is accessible to all members of our community, the entire community, not certain segments of our community. So the when we're talking about meaningful change, when we're talking about how to move forward equitably, all the options should be on the table and I think that means we ought to look at accountable measures. The action we took back in December and moving forward with shifting and, frankly, -- with shifting [9:18:47 AM] training policies and crowd control tactics and how we equip our officers. What community policing actually looks like. You can't just take the word community and put it in front of policing and think we have something. That's not how it works. It's more than just words, although words do matter, it's more than just words. It's actions. We have to look at staffing. We have got to look at our budgets. And I know that I'm resounding the sentiment of so many of our constituents when I say that the time for talk is absolutely over. And I hope my colleagues can hear me when I say -- because I'm saying it alongside them. We hear their collective voice, but I want to add my voice to those collective voices of agony, calling for, demanding justice. And my hope is that my colleagues and I will answer that call. Guys, we absolutely have an [9:19:48 AM] obligation to respond. And my hope is that we will and do so in a way that's substantive and meaningful. I don't want to start this meeting with good mornings and how are you's. I kicked my kid out asking her to help me with the oatmeal. I don't have time for that. I really want to make certain that we are saying the words, we are recognizing people's frustration and anger, and where it came from. Let's reverse engineer this thing. What's the source of it? And I think we all know. So I would ask for forgiveness for sounding angry, but I don't need forgiveness for sounding angry. I am angry! And I am hurt and I am sad! And you should be too! And if you're not, then I don't know what to tell you. And I really appreciate you letting me start the meeting, but my hope is that we don't spend the morning and the day sitting here like business as usual! Like nothing just happened [9:20:48 AM] on the streets of our city this weekend! And it didn't start with George Floyd! It didn't start with Mike Ramos! I could name names all day and that's a damn shame, y'all! We should all be sad and mad right now. And I'm even having a hard time just composing myself to remain in my seat to have this meeting today. I don't know about you, but I didn't go to sleep until 6:30! I've been in knots and sleepless for days on end. And it's not about me, it's about our community, it's about people who look like me, people who look like Delia and Greg and Pio. It's about poor people, because it turns out not all poor people look like me! Ordeal I can't and Greg and [9:21:51 AM] Pio. It's about people existing in the margins. And we have got to act. If we don't do anything else with our time, we have got to act and in a way that people know that we see them and we hear them now, loud and clear. And I just wanted to be sure to be very clear about that. You will have to forgive me if I'm largely muted today because I'm struggling to find the ship. >> Garza: Thank you, councilmember harper-madison. And I hope you unmute yourself more and speak your heart more. I don't feel like I can add anything to what you just said. So thank you and know that -- I know I can only speak for myself, but I feel I can speak for this council that we are 100% supportive of however we can help you, [9:22:52 AM] we're here. Mayor, I think you're able to be heard now. >> Mayor Adler: Can you all hear me now? Councilmember Casar? >> Casar: Councilmember harper-madison, thank you for what you've said, and you said it so well that I echo what Delia just said, that none of us could say it better. ING I think we want to support your work, but we all take up this work, every single one of us as part of this city government, to not be defensive, but to hear what is happening, to respond, to open our hearts and change within each of us and to change our priorities. Because we work on this all the time here, it's so clear that we haven't done enough and what you're speaking to is we aren't even close. The mlk quote that you mentioned is really powerful [9:23:55 AM] and the next part of that quote I think you just rephrased it so perfectly in your own words, which is that social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of right prevention. That if we actually care, if we want to do something, then we can step up and do something. And repeat the names of George Floyd and Mike Ramos and David Joseph and -- but then take those words into action and take them to heart. I'm upset when it when I recognize it. You see it in in job and I recognize it and I'm hurt and saying that and embracing that and turning that into change is important for each of us to do as you have shown so powerfully. I'm also upset about hearing from folks that were out there peacefully demonstrating that got hurt and I'm glad that we're [9:24:56 AM] going to be asking the hard questions about that on Thursday. Manager, I was in touch and asking for us to do things best we could this weekend, and I know that it's a hard and challenging and dynamic situation but I'm upset about what has happened to some folks and the process of exercising their rights. And we can't -- we need to talk about what happened at the protest. And as councilmember harper-madison said, we need to talk about what's at the root of it, why this is happening. And we need to take that responsibility on 21%. So thank you again, councilmember harper-madison, for what you've said. >> Flannigan: Thank you, councilmember harper-madison. Like Delia and Greg said, you have said it so well. But I think it's important that it not just be you all [9:25:56 AM] that speak. This isn't going to get done if people who look like me aren't fighting the fight to get this done too. I have -- it has been a true honor standing alongside the three of you on the judicial committee to do what work we could do within that framework, and others. I am ready to do bigger work. Not because of the protests, because we were already doing work, but to contemplate the types of changes that maybe we didn't think were possible before, but are necessary now. This weekend I also had sleepless nights, but I also had conversations with folks who had not told me things that was in their experience before. And it has changed my perspective on some of the hard choices before this council and before the [9:26:57 AM] manager. We've got to make those choices and we have to make them soon. And it's not going to be enough for this council to say whose job it is to do it. The community expects us to do it. That's where we are. And we're going to have a lot of meetings this week and next week and none will feel satisfying to us or to the community. When I put my statement out over the weekend, I very intentionally said that these systems are not designed to go quickly and the systems that we operate in frustrate us as much as they frustrate the community. And we're going to push harder than we ever have and we have pushed hard as a council and we will push harder. I don't want to see councilmember harper-madison have to do that again. I don't want to see anyone in this community have to do what we saw this weekend and feel that level of frustration. And I don't know that we can avoid it, but we can certainly do everything in [9:27:58 AM] our power, everything maybe even beyond our power to try to solve this. And most critically it can't just be the voices of people that look like you, it has to be also the voices of people that look like me. >> Ellis: Thank you. I hadn't prepared any remarks for a moment like this, but I feel like I can't be quiet about it. I really appreciate my colleagues standing up and speaking in this way R. If y'all have never been part of a peaceful protest, I highly recommend that you go out and do it. It is life changing. You will be amazed by the strength of our community to come together and support each other and feel the anger that gets people off the couch and we feel the [9:28:59 AM] love that people have for one another to go out and use their voice and take their space and to hold it for people who don't feel safe enough to do it on their own. And I'm probably also one of the few councilmembers that knows what it's liked to be chased through the streets of downtown Austin by the police. And this was years ago and someone like me has more privilege in this town than some of my other community members, which shouldn't be true, but we have to face the hard reality that it is. And we really need to come together as allies and to know that we need to demand for this work to be done because there are people in this community who are going out and to speak and hold hands with each other and to say that things need to change. And we have community members in the hospital right now for doing that. I've seen how quickly it can go from a very, very peaceful protest to conflict. And that's very concerning. We have seen other communities where the police [9:29:59 AM] started marching with the protesters. And I loved seeing that and I loved seeing that our own police force switched gears yesterday and tried to March with our community members. We really needed to start coming together and trying to do this together and did not see this as we are butting heads. And we really need to figure out a way to do that and we absolutely need to call for that sort of change. >> Mayor Adler: I just want to conclude. Thank you, councilmember harper-madison, and councilmember Casar. I think the buck does stop with us as a council were the ones that control the levers that are operative here in our community. Conversations about race are difficult conversations. [9:31:00 AM] And I suggest that this process right now begins with people that look like me doing a lot more listening and ultimately as was said, it's going to take all of us acting. I really do believe that this is an important watershed moment and a huge opportunity in our city. We've talked about using this time and this virus to be able to exit as a better place and we need to use this moment to do the same thing. I think we have that opportunity in front of us. We're going to go ahead and begin this meeting. -- >> Kitchen: Mayor, some of the rest of us may want to say something also. I know you can't see me. >> Mayor Adler: I didn't see the hand raised. >> Kitchen: I just want to [9:32:00 AM] say two things. As mayor pro tem said, councilmember harper-madison, I am so impressed and appreciative of your words at the beginning of our meeting, I cannot say it any better, but I want you to know and the public to know that in my heart I believe everything that you said and that I am committing and recommitting and I can't say it strong enough. We will do better as a council and we will make sure that what we have talked about in the past will get done and we will work with our city manager, our police officers, our police chief. And we will make change. I am committed to that and I want you to know that and I wanted to say thank you for your words this morning. [9:33:05 AM] >> Colleagues, anyone else want to speak? Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Mayor, thank you. I wanted to add my thanks to my colleagues, especially to councilmember harper-madison for her words and to underscore and support them. And just wanted to recommit to being here as the mayor said to listen, to support and to recommit and redouble our efforts to the hard work to end systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in the city. I stand alongside my colleagues in that work and in that moment. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool. >> Thanks, mayor. I want to join in the thanks to councilmember harper-madison for her passion and general emotion T all my colleagues for your [9:34:07 AM] words. Like many here in Austin I spent this last weekend consumed by the protests in our downtown and across the country too. There was outrage and frustration and it unfolded in many cities like Austin across several days and nights. I feel like we're besieged on three fronts by a president who tries to debase our nation with divisive and demeaning rhetoric. By a pandemic that is has wrenched and disrupted all of us for several months with no sure resolution in sight. And now once again by the violent and senseless death of a black man at police hands. And my heart hurts on the events that we've seen from the deaths of these men and so many others and we know what we need to do, which is to stop the killing. I want to grasp this moment, do what we need to do to [9:35:10 AM] effect true criminal justice and police reform. This weekend was a test of our police department. It was also a test to the institutions that underlie our justice system. Our health, education, employment and political systems. Most of these have come up failing. I think we have tools at hand. We know that many of them, we talked recently about community policing in the audit and finance committee. We had an audit on community policing and it is fair that there continues to be a disconnect in how community policing is being carried out by our police force and how most of us define community policing. That disconnect remains between where we want to be with that program and where our officers actually are. [9:36:13 AM] And that leaves many communities feeling that they are simply being policed and not protected. It's time to recognize that deep relationships that foster trust are at the foundation of reform. So we need to decide what kind of community we want to be. We've had many conversations and discussions. We know the community we want to be. We need to lead by example, not only on community justice, but in all of our systems that determine outcomes for our families and influence their ability to thrive in this city, our city. We must show justice is being served in Austin. That our city is fair and equitable and passionate, evenhanded. That we are just. Our police department needs to be a partner in this journey and I think police chiefs who marched with protesters this weekend in other cities who stood before the crowds and named [9:37:15 AM] all of those who have been killed at the hands of law enforcement, that was the kind of commitment to the community this city needs from our police department. We need to know that they stand with us. We're all in this together. We're stronger together. So never again another Michael Ramos tragedy. Never again the injustices done to Ahmad and Rhianna Taylor. Never again another George Floyd murder. In Austin we must have zero tolerance for killing and injustice of any kind. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Good morning. Thank you, councilmember harper-madison, for opening this session with a dose of truth that we all need to [9:38:17 AM] hear and recognize, and that we as leaders have a responsibility to state right from the beginning. This weekend's protests as we all know are not the first time that we have seen our community outraged by police brutality and not the first time that -- what will follow is not the first time that we have tried to make reform. I think this council has taken many steps, but we're not there yet. And I think it is not the responsibility only of our members who are people of color but of all of us. And as has been stated the change will come when we all join in in making the [9:39:21 AM] change. What we've been seeing in our country is not new. I hope that the images and the experiences over the last few weeks will increase the number of voices that join us and create bases and opportunities for us to make our community and our country live up to it. >> Mayor Adler: Colleagues, anyone else? Okay. Let's go ahead and proceed. Today is June 2nd. This is the council work session that's being handled remotely. It is 9:40. I see all the councilmembers. I don't see councilmember Renteria. Is he with us. [9:40:21 AM] >> We're still trying to get him connected. >> Mayor Adler: The other councilmembers are present. We have a quorum. We're going to begin. We're going to handle the briefing on the covid matter first and then we'll do the pulled items and then we'll do the census briefing. And then we'll do the executive session. In executive session today there's just going to be the one item dealing with the airport overlay. We're going to begin, manager, going to you for the covid briefing. >> Thank you, mayor, councilmembers. We're going to start today's briefing' the covid update with our director of public health, Stephanie -- Stephanie Hayden. I'll turn it over to Stephanie. >> Good morning and thank you, Spencer. Good morning, council and [9:41:21 AM] thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. We are going to make a slight change to our format today. I'm going to provide a brief overview and then transition to Dr. Escott. After he completes his presentation he is going to transition back to me to finish the briefing. So there are a few things that I would like to share initially and then I'll transition over to him. Austin public health staff are meeting with the U.S. Public health service today. Public health service is in the middle of a three week process that will visit six states to research what they can do to support the local health departments at the local level and at the state level. Yesterday we were at Harris county. They're here with us today and tomorrow they're going to the state health department. They're focusing on improving the data quality [9:42:24 AM] and for timelyless and electronic reporting and surveillance. So they're going to develop this report and they're going to complete it and it will be finalized by the middle of June. So they have a very fast turnaround. And so we met with them this morning. My staff is continuing to meet with them now. The department also has an initial plan to have 115 case investigators and contact tracers by the end of June. We currently have 33 staff. Each week we will be bringing -- onboarding staff to get us to 115. We have 11 bilingual staff persons. So as we scale up we will continue to increase the number of bilingual staff persons. Our social services branch continues to work in -- with our priority population. One of the things the staff [9:43:24 AM] are working on is targeted outreach. They are reviewing the household living in close quarters from CDC. CDC developed those guidelines and our staff are reviewing that and are looking at next steps with that. Working with the seniors to ensure that seniors have the most up to date information on testing and services available. They are working with our faith-based institutions to ensure they have the resources that they need, and some of them are requesting face covering and gloves. Our staff are coordinating through one voice of central Texas to ensure that non-profit agencies have any additional needs that they have as far as face coverings, gloves, etcetera. Hour homeless team is coordinating with our [9:44:24 AM] epidemiologist to review data on cases within the homeless population. We're working with the Trinity center to establish a new evening mill distribution service through revelations food. So that service will be in the downtown area. Staff are working with the outreach staff to expand our hygiene, safety and covid-19 education efforts for unsheltered homeless population and working with community care's health care for the homeless on active approximate surveillance testing. And we're continuing to provide services at the protective lodges, which includes service coordination, case management, as well as behavioral health services. We have -- our partners have started the process to transition individuals from the protective lodge into permanent housing. With our childcare [9:45:25 AM] facilities our staff have been working with our childcare providers during this time. They have provided one page guidance for families on social media and have posted it on the website. They have also continued to send out supplemental guidance for summer camp operators as they are identified. During this time our staff has sent over -- sent the guidelines and resources to over 600 childcare providers, and we're providing -- responding to numerous calls and emails from childcare providers ensuring that there's summer camp regulations and regular operations and then providing them guidance through our nurse line. Our staff have held webinars in March and they've done one in English and one in Spanish to 158 childcare providers. We have provided health and safety supplies such as [9:46:26 AM] sanitizer, wipes, gloves, masks, they are momters, paper towels -- thermometers, paper towels, etcetera. Continue to provide those deliveries to those childcare providers. In addition to that our staff have done some pas and social media posts. At this time I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Escott and he is going to provide the rest of the update. Thank you. >> Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, mayor and council. I want to start by apologizing for not sending you this slide set earlier. Our team has been working through the wee hours of the morning to analyze this data. In fact, that are still analyzing the data, but it's information that I wanted to share with you all today because it's important and not something we want to hold on to any longer. I'm going to start -- I'm also going to apologize [9:47:27 AM] because there are a lot of slides here but it is important information that I convey to you and to the community. Next slide, please. This updated slide includes data through the first of June. Again, the redlines are the total cases. The small blue lines sister bottom are new cases and the yellow line shows the seven-day moving average of the percent increase in cases. As you can see while we've continued to maintain that flat line when it comes to that seven-day moving average of increased cases, right now this is equating to a doubling time of about 38 days. So that has continued to improve and we will continue to monitor that. Next slide, please. This graph is showing you what the small blue bars on the other graph are showing [9:48:27 AM] a little magnified. So this is new confirmed cases by day. You can see the yellow line again is the seven- day moving average of those new cases and since about the 16th of may has been trending steady up toward. Back on the 16th of may this is about 45 cases a day on that seven-day moving average and now we're a little over 60. So again, as expected, as the community started to open up, we're seeing new cases which has trailed that policy change by about two and a half weeks. Again, at this stage we're still in a good situation, we still have plenty of hospital capacity, but this is one of the supporting indicators that we will be watching. Next slide, please. The primary indicator, as we [9:49:28 AM] noted last week in the announcement of our key indicators dashboard is this new admissions to the hospital in the five-county msa. Again, the blue is the new admissions by day. Oversight is the seven-day moving average. You can see that since about the 22nd, 23rd of may we've had that same steady increase in new admissions to the hospital. Again, we expect that changes in new cases will be reflected in changes in hospitalizations about a week later and that's in fact what we are seeing here. Again, we will continue to follow this trend. Right now our hospital has plenty of capacity to care for people. In fact, there's some concern amongst our hospitals that individuals are delaying necessary evaluation and treatment, including emergency treatment, die to concerns that there may not be capacity or there may be a danger of exposure going to the er, to the hospital. [9:50:29 AM] That's simply not true at this stage. And it's important particularly right now we have that capacity for folks to seek treatment, to seek their primary care tox have --, to have their physicals, their immunizations and go to the hospital when they need to so they can be treated for covid-19 or any other thing that impacts them. Next slide, please. This is a graph of our daily hospitalizations in blue. Our icu admissions in Orange and the gray line are ventilator usage. Again, the dotted lines are the seven- day moving average. We continue to follow those. They've been relatively steady over the past many weeks. Again, these are metrics which are available on that key indicators dashboard at our austintexas.gov/covid-19 website. Next slide, please. [9:51:29 AM] This is an update of our demographics associated with hospitalizations. Unfortunately once again we see that individuals who identify as hispanic maintain the -- about a 70% of our new hospital admissions. So these are new hospital admissions for the week identified at the bottom of this slide. This is more than double their representation in the community and is of substantial concern. Again, I'm going to provide some further details about the impact of race and ethnicity on covid-19 cases later in the slide show. Again, as Stephanie said, and as Stephanie will talk about further afterward, we are certainly targeting the Latin X community in particular and for individuals to be tested and [9:52:29 AM] isolate themselves if they become ill and certainly to seek out treatment if they get worse via hospitalization to prevent the approximate potential for death in those circumstances. Next slide, please. This is showing you the weekly case totals with the week showing at the date on the bottom. You can see last week that started 5/25 we had a record number of cases at 425 so a significant increase over the peeve week and as I mentioned before, a departure from where we have been previously. Again, this is not unexpected. But certainly something we will be monitoring to ensure this plateaus off and doesn't continue the substantial incremental increases which may indicate that we're heading into a surge. Next slide, please. [9:53:29 AM] I do want to provide you some feedback on our nursing home testing initiative, which followed the governor's executive order for nursing home testing. So over the past two weeks we've tested 33 facilities in Travis county. Six of those facilities were tested by nursing homes themselves using their own staff and their own testing kits. Eight facilities were tested using their staff, but aph provided kits and 19 facilities were tested using city of Austin staff as well as city of Austin test kits. In total 4,128 tests were performed at 24 facilities with no known covid-19 cases. So these were covid-19 naive sites. Next slide, please. So of those in the 24, there were no known cases of covid-19, we had 1165 [9:54:33 AM] residents tested. Of those two were positive, which gives us a percent positive of 0.17%. Of the staff tested, 1806, seven were positive, a percentage of 0.85%. These percentages positive are preliminary as we still have 778 tests pending out of those test kits. Our team continues to follow up on those results. Due to the large quantity of tests having performed at one time across the state, a significant blog has developed in relation to those tests, so we are hopeful that the remainder of those tests will come back this week so that we can issue a final report next week. Next slide, please. This slide is an update of our nursing home and long-term care facility clusters. You can see they bottom at the added aa and bb, which are two new facilities which [9:55:35 AM] were identified through the testing I just mentioned. In total four new facilities were identified. Some we're going to show on this report, which was completed Friday. And some will show on next week's report. You can see a total of 27 new cases in the facilities we've been monitoring. Two additional facilities this week were taken off the list because they have had more than four weeks of zero changes, which means they are inactive facilities. You see the facility listed as O is in gray meaning that it's gone three weeks outraged any new cases and -- without any new cases and if they continue that it will come out of next week. As we continue to monitor this situation our nursing home task force chaired by Dr. Jewel mull land, that guidance has been [9:56:36 AM] implemented and we'll continue to monitor those situations at our nursing facilities. Primarily focusing on staff, but also looking to do ongoing surveillance testing of nursing home residents in cooperation with those facilities. Next slide, please. In relation to our drive-through testing through Austin public health this is a snapshot of the last seven days of testing. In that seven-day time period 1100 tests were performed. Again, this is in addition to targeted testing also performed. You can see that we have results back on 1,000 of those tests. We have an overall positivity rate of 6.58% through the drive-through testing. When we break that down, which you can see at the bottom by race and ethnicity, we have a positive rate in our latinx community of 12.8%. [9:57:37 AM] In our African-American community of 3.6% and in our white, non-hispanic group of 4.3%. Again, you can see that we have one out of 49 in our asian-american community positive as well. So again, the rates across the board are relatively low, with the exception of our latinx community, which is substantially higher, about twice the rate of the positive cases in the rest of the community. So again, a substantial area of concern for Austin public health and our health care community. Next slide, please. So this dataset, I want to talk to you about. I'm going to have to get a little technical with you because there are lots of details which are very important in this dataset. So what we've asked the team [9:58:38 AM] to do here is to look at a dataset for individuals who had the onset of illness for covid-19 between March and the end of April of 2020. We then follow those individuals for an additional three weeks through may the 21st to determine outcomes on those individuals. Did they recover? Were they hospitalized? Or it did they die during that time period? In fact, we're still evaluating those individuals with a final assessment having been performed yesterday to get a full 30-day view after the last case was developed symptoms so that we can have a better idea of the complete picture of covid-19 what we've seen in other publications, including new England journal of medicine publications is oftentimes you see a snapshot. What do the metrics look like today, for all the cases, what's the case mortality rate. This follows individuals for an extended period of time to get a [9:59:38 AM] better picture of the total impact across our community of covid-19. This data is preliminary. Again, we're going to do a final assessment, which was pulled yesterday. We have not run statistical analyses on these numbers. This data has not been peer reviewed which we intend to do and submit for peer review and publication. There is very important information here and we didn't want to wait to share it until it could be published in a scientific journal. Next slide, please. So what we're seeing here is, again, that snapshot to April 20th, 2020. This is individuals identified as having onset of covid-19 within this time period. Again, that means they had onset of symptoms or in the case of asymptomatic individuals, they were diagnosed in that two-month period. So what you're seeing is an age [10:00:39 AM] breakdown based on (indiscernible) Life and the impact based on hospitalization and case fatality rate. On the far right column, you see the totals for the community. And you can see that that's fatality rate is 3.6%. Looking to the left of that, you can see that as we suspected, there's an age related correlation with increases in risk of death associated with covid-19. Again, on the right column in the blue, you see the hospitalization rate at 16%. And once again, for the most part with the exception of the 0 to 9 age group, there's an age related increase in the rate of hospitalization peaking at the age of 80-plus with 85.5% of individuals in that age group requiring hospitalization. Next slide, please. [10:01:44 AM] So then what we did is we separated out individuals who reside in a nursing home and the rest of the community, to get a closer look at what happens and what the statistics are for those who are in those facilities versus the rest of the community. The rest of the community will also include people living in assisted living facilities. But this data on this slide is particular for those residing in nursing homes. You can see that the case fatality rate is dramatically higher for nursing home residents versus the community in general. So 22.5% case fatality rate. So of people who were diagnosed with covid-19, in a nursing home setting, 22.5% of them died. 30.8% of them were hospitalized. And again, you can see the case fatality rate increases with age, with 20.6% case fatality rate for 60 to 69, 21.7 for 70 [10:02:46 AM] to 79 and 30% for 80 and over. You see that on the left side, in that 0 to 49, there was a handful of cases in the 0 to 49 age group of individuals who reside in nursing homes. Of those individuals who WER diagnosed with covid-19, none of them were hospitalized and none of them died. So again, a substantial impact based upon age when it comes to covid-19, and certainly based upon being a nursing home resident. Next slide, please. So this slide is showing you the community who is not a nursing home resident. So this is everybody living outside of a nursing home that was diagnosed with covid-19 between March and April of 2020. Again, you can see that the case fatality rate is substantially lower than when we look at the [10:03:47 AM] napshot view of the whole community together, with a 14.6% risk of hospitalization across all ages. Again, in relation to hospitalization, and case fatality rate, there's an age related pattern that we see with that peaking again at 61.5% of those over the age of 80 being hospitalized, and 20.5% of those individuals dying. Now, something else that I want to mention is, that this is the case fatality rate. So those who were diagnosed versus those who were hospitalized and died. We're fairly confident in the numbers that we're capturing the vast majority of individuals hospitalized in the vast majority of individuals who have died from covid-19. Having said that, there is still a substantially higher number of cases which are likely that go undiagnosed with covid-19. [10:04:48 AM] So we asked Dr. Meyers to give us some estimates regarding how many additional cases are likely to be out there, for every case that is represented here. And the answer is, seven to eight fold. I bring that up, because when we think about the actual infection fatality rate, the total number of people who have covid-19 versus those who died, in that case fatality rate, it's probably more along the order of .2% across the community. And again, there's an age related pattern that we see. We won't know that number for quite some time regarding the actual case burdens in the community and we're working with the university of Texas to do a seroprevalence test to get a better idea. But it's unlikely the case fatality rate is going to be substantially higher than this, and more than likely will be [10:05:50 AM] substantially lower than this when we look at that infection fatality rate. Next slide. This slide is showing you the age based breakdown on hospitalization rate, depending on where people live. Again, you can see that for those age 50 to 59, if they're living in a nursing home, the risk is substantially higher for hospitalization than it is for non-nursing home residents. You can see that age 60 has a similar pattern, 60 to 69, 70-79 is about the same no matter where you live, and when we get into the 80-plus age group, the chance of being hospitalized, if you don't live in a nursing home, is substantially higher. This is likely because individuals who are both over the age of 80 and in a nursing home have substantially different underlying health [10:06:51 AM] conditions that impact this. In fact, anecdote atly, a number of those individuals were already on hospice at the time they were infected. Some were moved to hospice after they were infected. On the far right you can see obviously that those individuals who live in a nursing home are much higher risk of hospitalization than those who do not live in a nursing home. Next slide, please. Again, this is the same graphic showing you case fatality rates. Again, nursing home case fatality rates are substantially higher than those who do not live in a nursing home. This shows you graphically a little different, but no additional information on this slide other than the visual. Next slide, please. So the two slides I'm showing you now is based upon that same data set, breaking it down by [10:07:53 AM] demographics. I want to provide a bit of caution here. As we slice information further down, what the data tells us is more challenging. I'll explain that more in a couple of more slides, but I want to give you that caveat. So what we're seeing here is, in the gray, the percentage of the Travis county population represented by each of these race and ethnicity groups. The Orange is the percent of hospitalized cases that those groups represent in that cumulative march-to-april time period and the blue is the percent of cases diagnosed that those groups represent. So when you see asian-americans represented 7.3% of our community, 3.3% of cases identified, and 2.5% of those who were hospitalized. We look at white non- hispanic, that's 48.8% of our community, [10:08:56 AM] 31.4% of the cases identified, and 25% of hospitalizations. The obvious variations when we move into our hispanic and African-American communities, hispanics represent 33.9% based on U.S. Krens can us bureau data. But they represent 56.9% of cases and 62.2% of hospitalizations. So overrepresented substantially in both the cases and in the hospitalization percentage. When we move to African- Americans, 8.9% of the Travis county population, 8.4% of cases, and 10.1% of hospitalizations. Again, we see a similar pattern where the rate of hospitalization is significantly higher than the rate of cases that they are experiencing. Next slide, please. [10:10:01 AM] This slide is showing you, again, non-nursing home cases. This is 1,547 cases. 230 hospitalizations and 30 deaths. And I bring up those numbers specifically, because 30 deaths is a relatively small number to do an analysis on. Okay? But what this is showing is very concerning trends that need to be shared. So again, the Orange is showing case fatality rate, the blue is hospitalization rate. Asian Americans had a 0% case fatality rate and 11.8% hospitalization rate. Of the cases diagnosed in each of these ethnic groups, this is the percent that died or were hospitalized. For white non-hispanics, 12% -- 12.4% of hospitalization, 1.9% [10:11:02 AM] rate of deaths. For hispanic population, 16.8% were hospitalized, 1.6% have died. And for our African- American community, 18.5% were hospitalized, and 5.4% died. Again, you know, there's some statistical information that I'm going to share on the next slide. But the trends that we see here are very, very concerning. They suggest that our African-American population in particular has a higher rate of hospitalization and substantially higher rate of death, but I need to talk a little bit about the statistics associated with those, which tempers the conclusions we can draw from this information, other than identifying it as a concerning trend. Next slide, please. [10:12:05 AM] So when we talk about statistics, we often use something called 95% competence intervals. So this is based upon the size of the number of cases that we're counting to help us determine where there's a likelihood that the actual percentage lies. So in the circumstance white hispanics, case fatality of 1.9%. 1.9% is one point, but what the 95% interval is showing us is that there's a 95% chance that the actual case fatality rate is somewhere between 0.9 and 3.5%. Okay? The numbers are too small to have it narrower at this stage. For our hispanic population, the case fatality of 1.6%, is an interval of .9 to 2.7. For African-American population, [10:13:07 AM] that interval is very wide because the numbers are very small. 2.2%, and 11.1%. And for our non-nursing home overall of 1.7%, that is 1.2 to 2.5. Again, that interval is much narrower because of the number of cases in that group is much larger. Again, what we see here in those -- all four of these groups is that they all overlap in their competence interval, which means statistically we can't tell with scientific certainty that there's differences in the rates of death in these groups. However, we cannot wait on scientific certainty before we choose to act. We have to understand the trends, we've identified the trends, and it's time for us to take action to address these trends. You know, covid-19 doesn't [10:14:08 AM] discriminate in terms of who it infects. It's going to infect people of all colors. Where it does discriminate is in our communities of color. It discriminates based on poverty. It discriminates, which is reflected on our hospitalization rates that we've seen, and our case fatality rates that we've seen, and we have to continue to address those issues. And I'm going to talk a little bit more deeply about why these communities of color are seeing the impact of covid-19 differently. It's important that we keep this in mind, because we can't just address covid-19 without addressing the long-standing disparities when it comes to access to health care and the social determinants of health that underlie all of these numbers that we see. If we only focus on testing for covid-19 and isolating for covid-19, we're not going to save more people. Okay? We're going to save more people [10:15:08 AM] if we get to the heart of the matter. And that is providing people with the resources they need to feed themselves nutritious meals, to have access to health care, to have access to shelter, and the other things that are going to determine their health status. Next slide, please. I'm going to show you a few slides on background information that our team has done looking at these underlying health conditions. So just a few slides. This is diabetes prevalence by demographic for 2014 to 2018. Again, three groups that we see leading the rest in terms of diabetes, African-Americans, latinx, people over the age of 65. The three substantially higher risk groups that we've identified with covid-19. Next slide, please. [10:16:11 AM] This slide is cardiovascular disease. Again, we see that while whites and African-Americans have similar rates of heart disease, hispanic groups are also affected, but again, these are underlying conditions which are going to contribute to complications associated with covid-19. Next slide, please. This slide is showing you the prevalence of obesity in Travis county. Again, we see African-Americans and hispanics substantially higher than the rest of the community in terms of obesity. Again, another factor which has been identified as providing complications for covid-19. Next slide, please. This is hypertension. Again, in this slide, you can see that African-Americans in [10:17:11 AM] particular have substantially higher risk of hypertension compared to whites and hispanics in our community, as do individuals over the age of 65. And again, hypertension has been identified as a complicating factor associated with covid-19. Next slide -- that may be the last slide. So again, mayor and council, we have to address our underlying health issues. We cannot just address covid-19 without addressing those things which contribute to hospitalizations and death. I think some would suggest that we wait until later to address those things. That's a bigger issue that we have to push off. I don't think we can push it off. I think it's something that we need to address now, in a discussion with director Hayden. I think it's something that we can start to tackle now, so that we can have the potential to [10:18:13 AM] impact individuals in communities of color during this epidemic. Hypertension is easy to diagnose. Very inexpensive to treat. Diabetes, easy to diagnose, very inexpensive to treat. This is some low-hanging fruit that we really can't address in the short-term that may substantially impact people's outcomes particularly in communities of color related to covid-19. With that, I'll pass it back to Stephanie. >> Thank you, Dr. Escott. And really, I cannot emphasize the importance, because going into this covid-19 response, the department had already establish Ed an equity -- a public health equity communication division. We know 14.8% of our community members are uninsured. We also know that 12% of our community members live in poverty. If you overlay that information [10:19:16 AM] with health disparities, with poverty, and also uninsured, and then you put covid on top of it, those are the same zip codes that have the most covid-positive cases. So for us, you may ask, we've provided all of this data, we've given you all of this information, what is the plan of action. We have been working in this space for quite some time, as you all know. Initially we set up the social services branch. So within that social services branch, our staff have been working with nonprofit partners, as well as other leaders in the community to address these concerns. We are making a pivot. We are going to work with a partner to provide some targeted testing in specific zip codes. We are initially starting in [10:20:20 AM] 78741, 78744, 45, 52, 53, we are looking at 78724. Basically looking at that montoplous springs, and Flug elville to start there first with our targeted testing. We've been providing some mobile testing, as you all know we've gone to nursing homes and we've gone to individual homes. So we're going to scale that up. We are developing a map, we're consulting with one voice central Texas, and several of our other community partners. We have identified Mario Sanchez to be a point person for us between the latinx population and to have those conversations. In addition to that, we have three staff and Austin public [10:21:20 AM] health that are continuing to work in that space. They've already established those relationships. I have a staff person that is -- have already been working with the latinx community. I have another staff person that's already been working with the Asian community. And I have another staff person working with African-American community. All of these staffs in that health equity division, in that quality of life space. So they're going to continue to have those meetings and collaborate. In addition to that, we are working on our testing platform. We know that we have to make sure that for folks that don't have internet access, and unable to get on that platform, we're going to put in place the ability for individuals to call in if they want to go through that site as opposed to a site that we may be setting up [10:22:20 AM] mobilely, or at their home. They'll have the ability to work with our staff to schedule, to come in to that testing site and our staff will work through all of that technology with them and get them set up at our testing site. In addition to that, our social service branch is mobilizing black and brown communities for a unified approach, and they've already started those conversations. And it includes the county as well as our community care as well as our nonprofits and our grass roots organization. As I said earlier, we have 33 cases in investigation and contact tracing staff, 11 of them are bilingual. As we scale up, we'll continue to add more bilingual staff to ensure that they are able to have those conversations and conduct those interviews. As some of you may know, the [10:23:23 AM] department has developed a health equity curriculum. We are going to ensure that that health equity curriculum is looking at our tools, so we can make sure that our information is culturally sensitive and our staff are adhering to those equity guidelines. Lastly, we are going to continue to ensure that the financial assistance is available, basic needs is there, and we're going to disseminate cleaning supplies en masse. Instead of it just being an effort where testing is available, we would like to offer some additional services like providing supplies and masks at those testing sites. The other thing I would like to just provide an update on the rise funding. As you know, the department partnering with the equity office, and so the equity office [10:24:26 AM] had 30 organizations that received the rise funding, and the department itself contracted with 20 organizations. So that's a total of 50 organizations that have received that $15 million. So as of today, with $4 million being extended, we have been able to serve over -- almost 2,000 people. And of those 2,000 people, over 60% of those funds have gone to the latinx community. And then about 30% have gone to African-American community. So we are really working very hard. We know we can't do this work alone. We will continue to have meetings throughout the community with our partners, and work in this space. We know we have a long way to go. But as we collaborate with others, we will get there. [10:25:27 AM] Thank you again for the opportunity. This concludes my presentation. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you, director Hayden. And that concludes the presentation from our public health department. I just want to acknowledge director Hayden's work and continued collaboration, and coordination across our entire community that you continue to support. I'll turn it back to you, mayor, for questions from the council and we also have our chief equity officer if there are questions for him. >> I think the mayor has stepped off. I'm going to ask two real quick questions. (Indiscernible) With her hand up next. The last numbers there (indiscernible) Thank you for the work you're doing around the clock. (Indiscernible) For rise funds were to the different latinx and [10:26:28 AM] African-American [audio feedback] That's of the 4 million, is that right? >> That's based upon the 4 million that has been (indiscernible), yes. So over 2,000 people have been (indiscernible). >> Okay. I'm sorry if I missed it, I had to step away for a second, but we've gotten a lot of information on -- I think my staff reached out, I haven't been able to circle back to get the answer -- a lot of information on nursing homes. But there was a media article about day cares, about childcare facilities and about possible -- I couldn't think of the -- it's not outbreak. Whatever the word is, (indiscernible) In childcare facilities. >> Yes. >> How many numbers on that for austin/travis county? >> Yes. Right now, according to our (indiscernible) Report, we are providing a cluster report every Friday to your offices. And for the period of may 14th [10:27:28 AM] through the 28th. We have identified one site that -- in a cluster, as you may know, is three or more folks. So we are aware of one site that does have a cluster. Our staff has already started working with them. As you may recall earlier in my presentation, we have been providing just across the system to several childcare facilities, but we will provide face covering, cleaning supplies. We provided thermometers to them as well. What typically happens is, is that if they've been open this entire time providing services to essential workers, then, you know, we can anticipate that may be the case. Our contact tracing staff have [10:28:32 AM] been interviewing those three individuals and determining their contacts as well. >> And with the three or more to define clusters, does that mean for a childcare facility it would be either a child or one of the staff, is that right? >> It could be either one. Yes, it could be either one. >> And I know we had a long discussion about, you know, the public knowing where certain -- we had it more with respect to nursing homes. Do those same laws, or I guess protections depending on who thinks it's a protection or not, applied to childcare facilities? >> Yes, they do. As you know, childcare facilities are licensed by the state of Texas. >> Okay. >> So it does apply, yes. >> Okay. Thank you. And thank you to Dr. Escott for [10:29:33 AM] pointing out the significant disparities and that we need to do work now to address those. And it's great to hear the plan of possibly boots on the ground, getting people tested in zip codes that are minority communities. Mayor, did you want to take the mic? >> Mayor Adler: Thank you, mayor pro tem. >> Just to prioritize questions for Dr. Escott because I know he has to leave to go to the commissioner's court shortly. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Questions for Dr. Escott? Ann? >> Kitchen: Dr. Escott, I wanted to say, thank you for all this information, in particular where you were highlighting what -- the underlying causes related to, particularly for minority communities, and what we call [10:30:37 AM] the social determinants of health and all those things that impact people's health. I know this has been an area of expertise and an area of passion for you as well as for our director, so I would just want to encourage both of you to -- you know, to bring to us -- to go ahead and implement, and if you need to bring to us, bring to us programs that will actually help us into the future to get ahead of this curve. So I think that the targeted testing is an excellent approach, and I really appreciate that. I'm also looking for ways in which we can move our health department, our ems, our folks -- and our staffing towards really targeting, addressing these health disparity issues, and the social [10:31:39 AM] determinants of health. I encourage you to proceed with new programs, to bring back to us as a council, if you need additional funding for programs, or if you need additional authority, because I think that this is really critical. And this is an example of how we can come out of the other side of this covid crisis in a way that we are more resilient and better off. So I wanted to thank you for that. >> Mayor Adler: I have to jump off and I've come back on, and it may be what you covered and what Ann just talked about, but I want to make sure, Dr. Escott, that you have a chance to address it. I appreciate that Stephanie's going to be bringing to us a strategic plan on how to deal with the outbreak in the hispanic community that will actually put into a plan so we can see the different elements [10:32:41 AM] of how it is we're addressing it. But beyond that, you had talked to me briefly about using this opportunity to not only test susceptible populations but to also screen susceptible populations, so we cannot only deal with the immediacy of this moment, but use this opportunity to do screening for the conditions that are making people susceptible so that people can get treatment for those things so that they are in a better position, if this virus comes back in September or October, or for the rest of their lives, and that, I think, is something that I'm real excited to hear you mention. Because I think that goes to one of those elements of using this moment and this funding and this opportunity to actually fundamentally change what we're [10:33:42 AM] seeing in our city. Can you address that for just a moment? Unless you already did. >> Yeah. No, mayor, you know, we've got a condition, covid-19, which has placed a large magnifying glass on conditions which we knew were out there. We've known for years, for decades that these disparities were there. I think the shameful thing is that, the things that I mentioned, in particular hypertension and diabetes, they are very easy to diagnose. Every single one of our emts and firefighters, every single nurse and nurse assistant and medical assistant, every single one of them can diagnose both those things. And the cost of treatment for those two things is extremely small. Now, I'll tell you quite honestly, mayor, I'm an emergency physician, an ems physician, and we see people over and over and over again [10:34:44 AM] from the African-American community, latinx community, in Austin, back when I was in Houston, coming to the E.R. Over and over again for complications of these diseases. And somehow as a society, we have not managed to be able to find a way to provide basic health care for all people who live here. But what we will do is we will pay for their emergency care. Instead, if we had invested those resources up-front, and paid for the screening, and paid for the medication, every time somebody comes into my E.R. With a complication from hypertension, it reminds me that I could have paid for their medication for their entire life rather than pay for that one E.R. Visit. And we've got to, I think, realign our investments as a community. We have to think about the investment in prevention. And I think that this covid-19, as we're contacting thousands of [10:35:45 AM] people who don't otherwise have access to health care, that's an opportunity that we can't pass up, to do these simple screens, to connect them to resources to help, so that we cannot only help impact the complications and death from covid-19, but also impact those individuals for the rest of their lives. And I think we can do that. I think it's low-hanging fruit, and I think Stephanie and I can work on a plan with other departments to operationalize that soon. >> Mayor Adler: I like that a lot. Please tell us how we do that, please make that part of the strategic plan. Mayor pro tem, I'm going to go back to this, I'm going to turn it over to you for a moment. So mayor pro tem? >> Garza:. Yeah, I just want to thank you, Dr. Escott. I feel there was a lot of nodding going on only because we have been trying to push more money into public health for some time now. You know, over the last six [10:36:46 AM] years on this council, working on a budget. And we have, we've significantly increased it. And as we continue to have these discussions on, we can't go back to normal, that needs to include big ideas and big visions like, do we offer a city-wide health care plan. I mean, just as you said, I can't tell you the number of times I've said, as a firefighter, when you're sending a million-dollar fire truck to somebody for an emergency call that you have memorized their address, you know their name when that address comes on the tone, and is telling you where to go, you know it's Mr. So-and-so. We're going to see Mr. Smith, because of the numerous times we have sent our emergency ems and fire to those addresses, and we could have invested that money so much differently. So preaching to the choir in a lot of ways, but thank you for those words. [10:37:46 AM] Councilmember harper-madison. >> Harper-madison: You probably noticed I was hiding in the corner but Dr. Escott drew me out. I'll echo your sentiment. That's exactly what we're talking about here. When we're talking about systemic change, we're talking about all the systems, it's not just one system, because all the systems feed one another. Dr. Escott, I would like to say thank you very much for your passionate presentation and that information, because that's exactly what we're talking about. I just really appreciate that you said it in a way that was so candid and frank. And we get the opportunity, I think oftentimes, one, as a municipality, we're risk averse, but then, you know, I think we're also cost averse. But if we're recognizing, the fact of the matter is, you know, we are -- I hate to even think about human life and suffering and illness in a way like we spend money or save money. But the truth of the matter is, we're talking about money, right? At the end of the day the investment should be in the long- term greater good and wellness of people. And I think you just validated [10:38:46 AM] what everybody's been trying to imply, which is, if we invest in people for the long-term greater good, and their health being a part of that component, that we save money. And so thank you for really just pointing out the -- like the obvious, but having the professional say it, the experts say it is helpful. So thank you very much. I appreciate that. >> Garza: Councilmember Flannigan, did you raise your hand? I'm sorry. Councilman Casar? >> Casar: You presented that well. You mentioned that we were tracing most of these cases back to the fact that these are the folks that are going to work, or these are people in households of folks that are going to work. Is that still generally the case? [10:39:49 AM] >> That is generally the case. Again, our team is also working on identifying percentages of community transmission versus household transmission. So as they complete that data set, my hope is to talk more about how much is happening outside the house and how much inside the house. Again, councilmember, it's really very important, particularly in those vulnerable communities of color, that we continue to advocate for individuals to utilize our isolation facility, to really break that cycle of transmission within a household. You know, talking to our investigators. It's very clear once there's a case in a household, substantial portion of those individuals in the household are getting it, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% risk in those close contacts. So we really need to work together to try to encourage people to break down some of the [10:40:51 AM] barriers or concerns that folks have about utilizing those free facilities, that free hotel room to really separate and protect their families. It is going to be critically important for us, particularly as we see cases increase. >> Casar: We just got the information which I appreciate, but it seems to me it would be really useful -- what you have is really good -- it seems it would be really useful to really know what percentage of folks that are going back to work, even if they have an older family member, don't have access to unemployment insurance, when you're looking at those Latino communities, but it would be useful for me to know how many are coming from the primarily Spanish speaking homes. Are those we're trying to track down, are those numbers we're going to have? I think it would be helpful but I'm interested in your thoughts on things like what are these [10:41:51 AM] cases coming from people without access to unemployment insurance so they almost have no other option, is this coming from Spanish -- I suspect some of that is true, but I haven't seen hard numbers on it yet. >> Councilmember I can share with you and staff funding sources for individuals who are hospitalized. Last time I looked, that percentage of individuals who were hospitalized without a payer source is about 30%. So substantially higher than the rate of uninsured in our community, which tells us, again, as we anticipated, that this is disproportionately affecting those without underlying access to health care. On the note regarding the language of preference, I have asked the epidemiology team to add that to the case investigations so that we can start tracking language preference. [10:42:51 AM] So I'll get an update on that and let you know the status of that. I agree, it is important, and something that's not been part of the state's or CDC's data collection tool, but we do have the ability to do that. >> Garza: >> Casar: Then someone, if somebody doesn't have unemployment insurance, they may not have any other form of income other than going to work, even if it's recommended against. So I would be interested in knowing if we're tracking or getting some sense of that as well. >> We'll add that item, too. Thank you. >> Garza: Does anybody else have questions for Dr. Escott? Councilmember kitchen? >> Kitchen: I want to thank you for the information you provided about what we're seeing in the nursing homes. And I just wanted to make sure that I heard something correctly. So the assisted living facilities, I think there's 75 [10:43:51 AM] of them or so in the Austin area, those stats are not separated out at this point, is that correct? >> That's correct. >> Kitchen: Okay. And can I conclude from what we saw, that if an individual of a certain -- you know, at certain ages, say a 75-year-old, is more likely to be hospitalized from covid if they're living in a nursing home as opposed to living in the community? Is that what this data is showing us? >> That's correct. >> Kitchen: Okay. And then -- so -- okay. That's what I was thinking it was telling me. Do we have similar kind of comparison in terms of data about actually being diagnosed with covid as opposed to hospitalized? We may not have that level of data. >> Can you clarify that [10:44:53 AM] question? >> Kitchen: For example, I can see the risk associated with hospitalization for a senior who's living in the community versus living in a nursing home. But I'm wondering if there's data about the -- just the risk of just being diagnosed with covid, or coming down with covid, whether or not they end up in the hospital, because not everybody that's diagnosed with covid (indiscernible). I wondered if you had that level of data? >> Councilmember, we don't have that data. That's been an attack rate. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> The seroprevalence study that I referred to earlier will help us identify better what that attack rate is in different communities. I did want to mention a correction regarding the risk of hospitalization for a 75-year-old. Looking at the graphic, it compares the three, it's similar between the nursing home and out of nursing home for that particular age group. [10:45:56 AM] >> Kitchen: It's the older one, where we saw the difference? >> I would have to look back at the slide. There's variation, 80-plus has a higher rate of hospitalization in the community versus in the nursing home. Again, that goes back to the likelihood of the individuals were more ill to begin with and succumbed quicker. >> Kitchen: Okay. Last question then. I really appreciated the guidance that was developed by our nursing home task force with respect to testing, and in particular the protocols or guidance, I guess is a better word, around retesting? And so I appreciate that. And then so I think -- I thought that was very thoughtful, and I look forward to our community and the nursing facilities following that guidance. My question has to do with the assisted living facilities. Have we gotten to testing them [10:46:56 AM] yet? I know that they are slated to be tested, but have we done any testing in the assisted living facilities yet? >> I'll have to get with the team, councilmember. I don't believe there's been any widespread testing. I will say that, you know, we're going to review the testing guidance that we issued a couple of weeks ago regarding nursing homes, given the data that we have. Again, we have a very small percent positive amongst residents, .17%. So we'll likely need to tweak that a bit and look to surveillance testing. I asked the university of Texas to identify, what's that number, what's that percent of individuals in covid-naive facilities that we need to maintain to be able to detect cases. (Indiscernible) Substantially higher when we talk about staff, but even then it's .5% so far. As we consider how to address [10:47:59 AM] the issues of covid-19 in our community, we do need to focus on two major groups, you know, our poor and our communities of color, as well as our elderly population. >> Kitchen: Mm-hmm. >> I think the data shows us, if we have creative policy which can effectively address those two groups, the risk for the rest of the community is much, much smaller than what we once thought. >> Kitchen: Mm-hmm. >> So I think this is a call for action for us. I think it's a call to say, you know, if you want to keep the economy open and open it further, the tradeoff has to be, we have to make investments where we've failed to make investments in the past. And that's in those communities of risk, both of communities of color, and our elderly population, so that we can protect them better. >> Kitchen: Okay. I'll follow up offline with you, [10:49:00 AM] and with Stephanie on our progress on the testing in the nursing -- in the assisted living facilities. So thank you. >> Good morning. I think this is a question for Mr. Escott, and if it ends up being with something for director Hayden, then I can wait until director Escott is done. I really appreciate the approach that both of you are suggesting, which invites us to make investments during this covid time that create greater resilience for our community down the line. I wanted to ask, it seems like there are pieces of this that we would be able to do more, at least, if we had support from the state and the federal [10:50:01 AM] government. So first I wanted to encourage the city manager and our intergovernmental relations to work with you to make sure that this type of information is communicated to our state and federal delegation, because I think it creates an opening, a different way of arguing for something we've been arguing for for a long time, that within the constructs of covid may allow us to take certain steps, and also in the context of the election cycle. But then secondly, I wanted to just ask, what are the -- can you highlight some of those pieces that are, you know, really up to the state, whether it's the medicare or, you know, pieces where having those pieces of the puzzle would really make a difference for us to make additional progress beyond what [10:51:02 AM] we might be able to do with our own resources? >> I think -- I'll start by answering it, and director Hayden may have more to add in. You know, I think there's a lot that can be done, from the state and federal level, to address these issues. And I think it's really about creating some bipartisan support, for things which we can all agree on. I think access to primary care is one of those things. It is inexpensive, and it's an incredible investment. I think further investment in public health at the state, federal and local level is another one of those things that is a relatively small dollar investment that has an incredible return. Right now the United States, we spend about 4 cents on the dollar, the health care dollar on public health. We trail many, many other [10:52:03 AM] countries in terms of our success in public health. And a lot of the reason why we do so poorly when it comes to comparisons in our health care systems in other countries is how we treat our communities of color. It's about the inequalities. It's about the disparities between groups. America has incredible health systems. Now, we have incredible hospitals. We do incredible research. But that doesn't equal incredible health care for the community unless it means care for everybody. And I think that together, you kn, this community and this state and this country need to agree on what is reasonable and what we can do in the short term to address these long-standing issues. And I think uniform access to primary care services is very low-hanging fruit that we can all agree on. [10:53:06 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Director Hayden? >> Uh-oh. Sorry about that. The only thing that I would add is that, we know from our experience in working in this space, that if there are -- if there's more funding for prevention efforts, a significant amount of chronic disease can be prevented. If folks are provided that, you know, assistance that they need. For example, you know, there are diabetes education classes that the department typically offers. But we also have community members that offer the same diabetes education classes. So being able to, you know, look at those upstream factors that can really prevent the onset of disease is really important, [10:54:07 AM] too. So that's just the only other thing I would offer. >> And then in terms of the plan, you know, I hope that we'll also include being a little bit more of the work that we've done to help people to access the health care options that are available, and making sure that we're connecting folks up with those resources that do exist through Obamacare that maybe people aren't signed up for as well. So thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Anyone else on this? Yes, councilmember Renteria and then councilmember tovo? >> Renteria: I was having trouble with my computer here and I couldn't sign on. I would like ask a question. I, in my direct, have a lot of independent senior living housing. And how -- when someone becomes [10:55:12 AM] infected and they go not to our hospitals, but to a minor emergency hospital, and their symptoms are very mild, but they come back, how do they trace those people they've been in contact with, who have been infected? >> Councilmember, regardless of where an individual is tested, those tests all come back to Austin public health which is required under state code. So it's a matter of -- if they're tested somewhere else, it's a matter of us getting the information and calling that individual. You know, through our public health testing site, that is automated to some extent, so the individual gets notified and that case investigation starts via e-mail or text message saying, please tell us where you've been, and who you've had contact with. But primarily, it's phone calls [10:56:15 AM] to people, it's asking questions and doing investigation, so that we can identify where they've been, who they've contacted so that we can contact those individuals and let them know they need to be tested. >> Renteria: Yes, because some of these independent living facilities, I have (indiscernible) In my district as a neighbor, and they have somewhere like 280, 290 people there living in that 16-story building. And, you know, if one of them get infected, and especially some of these people are very social among each other, they always used to have birthday party once a month for everybody there, cakes and all that, so they do get around and talk to a lot of people. So that's what I was wanting to find out, when you go and ask these people that have been infected, do you ask them also, have they been throughout the [10:57:16 AM] building and who they had contact with? >> Yes, sir, they ask information similar to a detective. You know, we call them disease detectives, because that's exactly the information they collect. You know, we continue to remind people through our risk stages about how to decrease their risk of transmission. And certainly individuals who are higher risk, including individuals over 65, we still encourage them to avoid social interactions. And if they're going to be around other people, to maintain that social distancing, that masking. You know, it's challenging for us to completely eliminate the spread of disease, but when we get groups together, particularly groups that are at high risk, it can often be a recipe for substantial impact in death. [10:58:16 AM] And so we remind everybody to continue to monitor that staging to get the up-to-date advice on how they should proceed to manage the risk to themselves renaissance I want to thank all the -- >> Renteria: I want to thank all the not-for-profit groups and other groups for the masks for the assisted living facilities. That was always the alarm I had. I was always fearful that we couldn't get -- at the beginning everybody was saying don't wear masks, don't wear masks, you know, and because we were trying to save them for the emergency rooms, for the frontline people. So -- and you know, that was very alarming to me. So I'm very glad, you know, y'all are stepping up and working with all these other groups also. And my office is also [10:59:18 AM] distributing masks to different non-profit groups so they can distribute to these independent non-profit and childcare and assisted living and nursing home living facilities. I'm a senior, I'm 70 years old so I'm one at high risk. I have to really take care of myself and it's very alarming. You're right, the young people are not the ones that -- there's a few of them that have existing illness and condition -- existing conditions. So, you know, but you're right that we should isolate ourselves from these younger people that are going out there and you see them out there, you know, they're not practicing the needs of social distancing and wearing masks. Most likely it's going to be like a flu to them, and [11:00:18 AM] they'll recover, but people in our age and our stage, and you're exactly right, I was one of the people that thought that menudo was the champion of breakfast and I had to give that up because it wasn't and it was really affecting my health. But those are the things of how we grew up and we're seniors now and it's -- we're paying the price right now. So thank you for doing all that, saying the things you're saying that we really need to do is to keep people like that away from other people that are infected until we finally get a vaccine for that. I want to thank you on that. >> Yes, sir, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thank you. Just a couple of comments and requests really. Director Hayden, you had mentioned -- first of all, I want to say I really just want to express my [11:01:20 AM] appreciation. Your department has been so busy responding to the current crisis. [Indiscernible]. >> Flannigan: You're muted, Kathie. >> Tovo: Really? Can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Tovo: Thanks. I must have put my hand on the keyboard. I'm not sure where you lost me but I was expressing my appreciation to the public health department and to director Hayden's leadership for responding so well to current crisis, but also looking at can ways to really enhance the kind of preventive care that the public health department has advocated for so long. As mayor pro tem Garza said, it has long been the chase ha that we needed to better fund those -- long been the case that we needed to better fund those programs. And I think that public health has long advocated and implemented some very important programs with regard to preventive care [11:02:22 AM] and we have failed as a city to fund that sufficiently. I think the plan that you laid out in terms of, you know, from appointing staff liaisons to identifying particular zip codes is really sound, and again, I just want to applaud you for taking that kind of deliberative approach at a time where I know you're really just maxed out. I wonder what the next step is in terms of providing that information to the public. Is therein tent to make some of those details -- I don't believe that was in our presentation. I just wondered if we would get some additional information about which zip codes. I didn't mention all the zip codes that the mobile testing would be available and some of the detailed information and so I would request that at the appropriate time that would be provided really to the public as well as the council. [11:03:23 AM] >> Absolutely. Thank you, councilmember tovo. We are definitely going to make that information public. Mayor Adler mentioned a draft plan that we're putting together. We are also working on a forum that we are going to have on the 13th of June, and we will be providing each of your offices with a flyer for that information. And that forum is basically to talk about what we are talking about right now, and to -- and to review that draft plan with the public, but get feedback from them as well. We want to be very deliberate during this time to make sure that we get as much feedback from the public as we can because it's going to take all of us, as I always say, it takes all of us to show up [11:04:23 AM] and all of us to do our part. We all have a role to play. And so we will be providing all of that information to you all as well, but it is more to come. >> Tovo: Thank you very much for that additional information. You know, looking at today's presentation from Dr. Escott, from you, Dr. Escott, thank you. There's a lot of material in there to go through and I don't have any immediate questions. You've answered a lot of them today. But it occurs to me that it would be really useful, city manager, to have those really detailed presentations available to the public all in one place. And so I'm not sure -- obviously they're attached to our council meeting work sessions, but if there's a way to pull together those presentations so that members. Public can really see the week to week information as it developed. I think that would be really [11:05:24 AM] valuable. I don't know whether the right ma place is the covid-19 side, which is really about sending people to resources immediately, and this is more broader in scope. I'd just offer that suggestion. And then lastly, I wanted to mention something that refers back to a comment mayor pro tem Garza made about the idea of having a citywide health care plan. Back in early February a constituent in my district contacted us to tell us about a plan that Lubbock had just initiated where it was led by their chamber of commerce and in essence, as I understand it, allowed small businesses to become part of the city's health insurance plan. And it's a really interesting model because it had come through the chamber of commerce and really how to tie to the business community. We had that in our -- [11:06:25 AM] forwarded that to our hr department and the [indiscernible] Department to let us know if they had any information or had any ideas about that. So I'm really eager to continue to explore that idea and just wanted to mention that in this forum. I know councilmember kitchen, you have a lot of information about that as well and may know of some other cities where that's been the case. But I'm very eager to see -- to get some more information about that. As a way of really addressing one of the many health equity issues that came up today about the level of -- this particular one about the level of uninsured individuals in our community. >> Mayor Adler: Neat idea. Councilmember Flannigan. >> Flannigan: Thank you, mayor. I think it's a great idea the health care plan to explore. It might be an appropriate [11:07:27 AM] place to ask C.A.N. To help lead some of those conversations, the community [indiscernible] Network. I chair that board, but it's a one year gig. That board includes central health and integral care and Seton and St. David's and it has all the players at the table you would need to make that work. So that might be a way for us to help move policy forward, but not literally make everything the council's job when we're pretty strained in our bandwith as it is. Dr. Escott thank you for the way you laid all that out. I am very -- I'm just really inspired by it. And also thanks for getting the additional dashboard out that tracks the seven-day hospitalizations average. I know I was getting a lot of inquiries from the public about how we were tracking the progress on the stages. So to have that dashboard up is really helpful and it gives people a sense of control over where things are headed even though the [11:08:28 AM] line is pretty flat right in the middle of stage three. But manager, I really want -- there's definitely -- I'm certainly hearing it and I'm in agreement with moving forward on how to explore this deep question about public health outcomes, and you're going to have to help us craft a process here. And I don't want to wait for someone to have to bring a resolution for you to do it. So I would love to see some work on that over the break even if it's just staff coming back to us in August saying all right, here's how we're going to move forward on this stuff because I think as councilmember harper-madison said, all this stuff is tied together and we need to be finding a way to work on all this stuff at the same time when it's still just 11 of us on the council. >> Just real quickly to [11:09:28 AM] reiterate, the hospitals asked us to reinforce two messages. One of them is the importance of that 10- day daily average so that people in community are tracking that and potentially modifying behavior as that number moves. It's real important to keep sending everybody back to that 10-day number. And the second message they've asked us to amplify is the one that Dr. Escott made in his presentation, which is people should not be avoiding going to the hospitals now. Their concern is that by talking about hospitalizations we might be scaring people away, and we're now having people that are showing up at the hospitals later than they would have otherwise. And we need to tell people that now more than ever is the time for them to be going to the hospitals to receive treatments that are appropriate for them. [11:10:28 AM] Mayor pro tem. >> Just to quickly speak to what the mayor just said. That is a very -- as a firefighter that is a very cultural thing is you wait longer. I think our brown and black community waits longer even before covid, they would wait longer because of concerns with either bills or experiences that our black mothers have in maternal situations where your shouts for help are not listened to. And you get to a point where you feel like this has to look really serious before I go otherwise I'm not going to be believed. So that's part of it too. I just wanted to quickly comment on the health insurance discussion that's happening. Is a great one and important one. We also have a public health committee, council committee. So maybe, you know -- I do [11:11:30 AM] not think, again, the city can solve everything, but I think it's important that we are able to convene if it's C.A.N. And central health and the county, maybe there's -- it's an item that can be on a public health committee meeting soon to have that discussion. >> Mayor Adler: Ann? >> Kitchen: Thanks. This is a great discussion. I'm going to send an email to connect you to Tim Rodriguez, he's the executive director of tex health central Texas, which is an existing program of a non-profit program that provides health insurance through small businesses. It also has a subsidy attached to it. So for workers below a certain wage, they can get the cost of any insurance covered or reduced. [11:12:30 AM] And it's been -- it's a program -- Jim Rodriguez is an expert in this area and I'm sure would love to talk with all of you about how to take what he's done and make it broader to fill in the gaps or to do something entirely different. I know when we talked about this a number of years ago he indicated that he was interested in being helpful. So I am specifically mentioning tex health central Texas right now because it is an existing program. There's a website. Small businesses can go to that website if they need help for their -- with the cost of insurance for their workers, for workers below a certain wage level. So I encourage people to do that. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Then I think we're set. Director Hayden and Dr. Escott, thank you so much for joining us. [11:13:31 AM] The mayor pro tem suggested that before we go to the next two reports that we pull up the two pulled items I think so that we're fresh when we talk about the budget question in anticipation of Thursday. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. Let's do that one first. And then councilmember pool we'll come back and get your pulled item. >> Casar: Mayor, right before we go into that, I wanted to -- I wanted to save my questions for Dr. Escott, but I wanted to share one other thought on the covid topic if that's okay. >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Casar: So manager -- I don't know if director Hayden is still on. We did get the response back on some of the high risk worker resolution that we passed, and I appreciate that. I just want to lift up for you and for the council that I think the intent of the memo is to have addressed [11:14:31 AM] one part of it, but there's still another part that I think everyone is working on, which is the question of what -- how do we have some resource center or place for people that don't have unemployment insurance or can't get pandemic assistance, what do they do to make sure that they don't violate the mayor's order and potentially themselves at risk or an older household member at risk. That wasn't addressed in the response. What I anticipate or expect is there will be a response on that part too. I think our staffs are working together on that, but I wanted to raise that up. That seemed like one piece that was some of the outreach and the like and a strategic plan is in place, but there's the other part that I just seems still unfinished. I know some of that is part of the budget conversation having, but I just wanted to note that. >> That is obviously an ongoing discussion and we wanted to get as much information to you as we [11:15:31 AM] could. As you said we'll have an updated session as we have more information. >> Casar: I appreciate that. Thank you, manager. >> Mayor Adler: We've also had, Greg, one of the non-profits that's part of our array of non-profits getting cares funding has offered to help create a pilot where the city would be able to do testing and they would help work to provide people the isolation facilities if they had a positive test to make that as low risk as possible. And I hope and urge aph to move forward with that kind of pilot so we can actually see if that increases the number of people that are comfortable in getting tested. I think that would be good. Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Thank you. I just wanted to add and just remind us that when we did pass the rise funding I included an amendment that gets right at this issue. [11:16:31 AM] So to the extent that there's funds in there or whatnot, we have an opportunity that is already in that resolution to address the wraparound services that folks who are positive or at risk are experiencing due to covid. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anything else on this before we move on? Then let's go on to the conversation about the pulled item -- >> Tovo: Mayor? My only concern about that is that about -- one of the pulled items is spending framework. And one of our presentations for today directly relates to one of the categories of spending and that is our council presentation that's scheduled for today about evictions, which I think really will help us understand the need for rental assistance. So I think that it's the will of the group what order [11:17:32 AM] we take things in. And I appreciate and have long advocated for us to make sure that we're prioritizing the council pulled items on a Tuesday so that we can really hold that time to think between Tuesday and Thursday and talk among our colleagues about those agenda items, but I do want to make sure that if we're delaying the presentation on evictions that we make sure we take it up today. It's critical information I feel like. We're really coming to a good assessment of how much money we need to put into that rental assistance category. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mar pro tem? >> Garza: I agree on one hand. I just -- we're not voting today so it's -- it will just be information that will inform our decisions as we head into a vote on Thursday. I didn't see any disagreement from anybody on the council that we needed more funding for rental assistance. So I guess if there had been [11:18:33 AM] some kind of disagreement on the extent to which we need to invest more in rental, I could see where that discussion would guide us, but I didn't see any disagreement that there was a need for more rental -- and again that will inform our decision as we moved into Thursday. I pulled this simply because I didn't know if it was going to get pulled and then it was I believe -- I know some people don't officially pull because they see somebody else has pulled it. Is there -- I'm sorry I haven't had a chance with everything going on. Is there additional -- is there a new framework since our discussion, I guess is a city manager manager or whoever is on staff can answer it. Is there a new framework following the last discussion on this and the question of investing more in individual aid? >> Mayor pro tem, there is not. We attached what we presented last Thursday to backup on this item and that's what is for your consideration on Thursday. [11:19:35 AM] >> Garza: Okay. So I guess I just wanted to have the discussion of how we will proceed and then I would defer to councilmember Casar because I do know he will be off in a minute to maybe give suggestions on that specific -- what those changes might look like. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Would you raise your hand if you would like to hear the briefing on the vacancy before we continue this conversation? Okay. Let's go ahead and continue this conversation and then we'll get to the [indiscernible]. >> Alter: Mayor, can I add that in the backup the spending framework is not loaded for item 40, it just has the draft resolution. >> Okay. We'll resolve that. Thank you, councilmember. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Did we post -- is Dr. Escott's presentation posted? [11:20:38 AM] Do you know? I know it came late. I checked it earlier and couldn't find it. If that's not posted I would like to have that presentation posted. Let's continue on this conversation. Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: Mayor, as I mentioned when we discussed this last time, it's not fun for anybody to try to move money around, but if we do want to get more to direct individual aid, we have time. So I sent over to the staff -- I don't know if they can share onscreen a proposed revision. The proposal I have here I haven't even posted to the message board because I wanted to hear from you all what you thought before we posted anything. This is just my attempt at trying to reconfigure some of the numbers. [11:21:41 AM] So what this would do is it would increase the amount in the financial and other direct support by 12 million. That still retains the existing 7.9 million proposed in that section that is the public health purpose fund, but a 12-million-dollar increase that would address the issues that folks have raised about direct help to individuals, prioritizing those folks that aren't getting help in other ways. In order to do that I have added -- I have put the small business assistance at-- again, this is all just my best attempt. I'm happy to hear what folks think. I've put the clear at 60.5 million. So currently it's at 10. [11:22:42 AM] This would increase clear and small business assistance to 16.5, rather than 23.5. So it still increases that fund, but not as much. This has non-profit assistance at 6.35, just to be -- so that means that there is still an increase in that section, but not as much. I think there's currently six million in it. Staff proposes for it to go to seven. This would have it go to 6.35. The creative sector assistance is here at five million. Currently I think there is about 4.5 million in it. Sorry, I'm having trouble seeing what's currently in it, but the staff proposes it go from three or four up [11:23:44 AM] to 8.5. This would have it go to five. Then rental assistance I added 150,000 small amount for eviction protection because I think in this discussion we're about to get intos that happen area where there has to be increased health. So that tiny amount to rental assistance in addition that would bring the rental assistance up to 23.95. And then the long-term commercial lease program which currently exist exist. It's at zero dollars. Rather than it being two million dollars it sets it at 1:00. So that's what this does. If you go to the next slide on there, there have been folks in the community talking about getting to -- this is the totals, and I think I have one more [11:24:45 AM] potentially. We've heard from community groups trying to get to 70 million in he covid response from the city to individuals and this would get us to that 70 million understanding there's not a right number and the needs are way, way greater, but that gets us to about 70 million in individual help. There that is. And that doesn't -- that 70 million doesn't count the 10 million from Travis county in rental assistance. So this puts us at 70 million total not counting that 10. >> Mayor Adler: And you're going to post those numbers, Greg? >> Casar: Yeah. I'm very happy to post them. I wanted to hear people's thoughts so I would only have to post one. [11:25:47 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Anybody want to talk? Can you -- >> Kitchen: Mayor, I had my hand up. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Can you go back to those three slides? Real fast so I can take a picture of it. [11:26:49 AM] >> Mayor Adler: I'm going to recognize Ann to talk. >> Kitchen: Thank you for bringing this forward, councilmember Casar. My only question is I think last time we had talked about there was one million in a technical assistance fund and I don't know how others feel about that. But from my perspective I was thinking that that could go towards -- could go towards additional rise funding. I think that that technical assistance fund if I'm remembering correctly was something that councilmember tovo may have identified. November the spreadsheet that we were looking at in front of me or I would tell you where it was, but I don't know if you looked at that, but just thought you should take a look at that. >> Mayor Adler: What is that technical assistance? >> Kitchen: I'll defer to talk to speak to that. We talked about it last time. I think someone asked about [11:27:50 AM] it. But I don't have it in front of me. I would have to ask staff what exactly what that is. >> This is sylnovia holt-rabb with the economic development department. The technical assistance we were providing to all our grantees, whether you were a for-profit or non-profit to help develop a continuity plan. In addition, we would also contract with some providers that would help reach deeper into community connect, our grant programs, to specific groups such as women owned business and minority owned business. And that was the proposal for technical assistance. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Ann? >> Kitchen: Could I ask a quick question about that? So I wasn't sure I was understanding the second part of what you were saying about reaching into the community. Comma exactly -- did I hear you correctly that that [11:28:50 AM] would be contracting with groups or -- just tell me that again, I'm sorry. I didn't understand it. >> No problem. What we've seen in other programs that we have launched and were to provide an equitable process we connect with service providers that help us reach deeper into community. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So we have about six non-profit groups that we are looking at contracting with, similar to what we did on the music program. Again, to help those organizations with the application process, help them understand because some have never engaged with the city or are apprehensive. So we feel this is a good way to reach those businesses or non-profits that we would otherwise not reach. >> Kitchen: It makes sense to me to have funding for [11:29:51 AM] outreach. What I was acting to with regard to technical [indiscernible]. I'm not certain we need to add dollars to what we already do had in terms of technical assistance for businesses. That's why I raised the question. >> Mayor Adler: For me, Greg, I appreciate you doing be easier to talk to something if we have something in front of us to be able to react to. I'm not prepared to give you a reaction to it now just seeing the numbers. But I really appreciate you doing this and bringing it forward. I would appreciate you posting it. >> Casar: Mayor, I'm going ahead and posting it on the message board. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Jimmy? >> Flannigan: I think the numbers that we're laying out are generally best guesses, and so the numbers that staff put out are the numbers that you're putting out. Councilmember Casar, I don't [11:30:52 AM] know that I see a substantive difference. I'm happy to move forward substantively with what you've laid out. I think for me the bigger question is how quickly the funds can get expended and what is the signpost where we're reevaluating progress? So if we're approving this framework this week then I assume, manager, that staff is rolling stuff out during the break and then we come back in August -- we come back in late July, early August and we're doing a revisiting. And this is my question to you, manager: How much of this money do we think staff is going to be able to expend in that time frame for us to reevaluate in a rolling progress? Big framework great. Some of these dollars are going to take more than a couple of months to expend. >> Appreciate that and I'll give a partial answer to that question. I think the effort that we've already put so far to get money out quickly has been effective so I really appreciated the staff's quick work to get money in [11:31:52 AM] the hands of individuals that need that assistance, individuals and businesses that need that assistance. In terms of a percentage or dollar amount of how much of this allocation that we can get now the next six weeks, I could give you some estimates and maybe after talking to staff. But I hear your point and I think it is critical that we have those regular check-ins with council so we'll be providing updates as we learn more about our ability to get that funding out quickly. >> Flannigan: So just to put a period on the end of that sentence for me, I'm comfortable approving roughly these numbers because I think we're going to be continually reevaluating them as a council as dollars are expended and as conditions change on the ground. So I don't know how much energy we have to expend to deliberate between a million here and a million there. And I hate saying it that way, but that's where we are. >> Mayor Adler: Alison. [11:32:53 AM] >> Alter: So I appreciate the need for more direct financial assistance and I had hoped to hear about the eviction piece and trying to understand the rental needs better. But I also, if we're going to contemplate taking seven million from the small businesses and three and a half million from the creative sector, I would like to hear from staff as to how they arrived at their numbers because I think they went through a whole process initially to arrive at their numbers. And I think those numbers were already pared down in terms of what the need was, but I haven't had an opportunity to hear from them over the rationale for where they set the numbers because my understanding is that when this framework was put together following our unanimous desire on council, [11:33:53 AM] the public health and emergency was prioritized and then there was, you know, a discussion about the economic recovery piece after the fact. So I would like to invite tdd or whoever is responsible for those pieces to have an opportunity to share with us what they think the need is and what that money -- they had imagined that money would go for. That's not to say there's not a need for more direct financial assistance, but I would like to better understand what we're weighing here in terms of the levers. >> Thank you, councilmember alter. Sylnovia holt-rabb with the economic development department. We had earlier in the year issued a community survey. We also, council approved our economic injury bridge loan program. So we have some stats that [11:34:55 AM] we use to sit a baseline. In evaluating our economic injury loan program we know we received over 1100 inquiries. To date we have actually presented 100 applications to our loan review committee and half of those have been denied. As part of our loan program once you accepted a loan you would even have to retain employees at least 12 months. So we know that the debt ratio and some credit were issues in terms of approval of the loan. If you recall, we follow the sba guidelines, but in revamping and providing a grant it wouldn't be as stringent. It would be low barrier and again, you would be offered counseling as part of the process. In terms of our creative fund, we know that we have over 17,000 creatives in the [11:35:57 AM] area. We know that the creative economy tremendously contributes to our economy and we will need that industry to still be vibrant as tourists come back. And finally another area is our creative space disaster assistance program. To date we have received over $1.9 million in requests, and that program was funded up to a million dollars. So all of this data would be used to kind of set our target base in terms of technical assistance, clear and [indiscernible]. I hope this provides some level of detail to help your decision. >> Alter: Can you speak a little bit more to the technical assistance piece because part of what I had [11:36:58 AM] heard from the discussions of where our business was at and what was going on with the loan application process was that there were some technical needs for,s for them to be resilient that were above and beyond just funding piece. I know you just mentioned a little bit, but I wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on that. >> Sure. With our Austin economic injury bridge loan program we actually transferred staff because our loan division only had our two individuals. So we actually transferred staff to actually be what we call case managers because businesses just had questions not only around our program, but around the federal program. So we found that we needed to provide actually case management to help answer this simple question, where do I go, how do I do this? [11:37:58 AM] How do I fill out for this loan program or this application? So not only on that technical assistance side, but engaging what other non-profits in the community that can help us reach those businesses that traditionally haven't come to the city. >> And if I could add to that, council, Veronica Briseno, chief economic recovery officer. The discussions we had with that loan program and [indiscernible] And on thermics and just providing -- the memberships and just providing that financial resiliently and providing the information together in a manner to take advantage of not only the program that we are administering, but other programs as well led us to become of the huge need for technical assistance and just accessing these programs for our small business community, which is vital to our economy. >> Alter: Thank you. [11:38:59 AM] >> Mayor Adler: Further comments? Councilmember tovo. >> Tovo: Thank you. I'm going to need to have time to review this proposal. Thank you for bringing it forward, councilmember Casar. It looks -- just trying to get a general sense of what the main thing you've done is to add 12 million to create more direct financial assistance through rise. Can you just briefly identify what are the categories you have removed it from? Is it small business, non-profit assistance and creative assistance? Is that where the removals have happened? >> Casar: And the commercial leases. But in no case is there a reduction from -- of unallocated but unspent money. Only a reduction of increase. >> Tovo: I guess I would ask as we consider this it would be very helpful if you could outline for us exactly [11:40:00 AM] where the -- exactly where the -- what are the proposed reductions and which line items. >> That's what I tried my best to say out loud in that moment. It's posted on the message board so all you would have to do is look at my message board document, look at the staff document and you would see the difference. >> Tovo: Thank you, councilmember Casar. I have it printed in front of me now. Thank you for posting it. I'm looking at number two of your motion sheet and it -- what I was trying to get you to summarize, which you did, but I need to ask you to repeat it, it says adding 12 million, I got that, setting funding for small business, that's a reduction. Setting the funding for non-profit is a reduction. Setting the funding for creative is a reduction. Setting the funding for rental assistance is an increase. It's just a little hard from your motion sheet without [indiscernible] To the spending framework that we received several days ago, [11:41:01 AM] it's hard to on the spot understand what what are reductions and what are additions. >> >> Casar: Understood. And the reason we wrote it like this is that if we didn't want to confuse it with reducing the actual -- some of this money has already been spent and some already allocated. So we didn't want to sound like we were actually -- we're trying to make it clear that this spreadsheet is actually setting a new higher level of funding. Since we didn't have an edebittable version of the spreadsheet that made sense this is the best version we could make. >> Tovo: Okay. Thank you. Are there other reductions that you're proposing other than the ones I've outlined to small business, non-profit, creative sector assistance. >> Casar: And the commercial -- long-term lease commercial stability fund. >> Tovo: The last bullet. So I'll just, as I sex I'm going to need time to review this and really understand where those planned reductions are coming from. I guess I on also want to [11:42:02 AM] back up to the conversation last week or at our last meeting. And that was about adopting a broad framework as I think many of us said toward the end of that day, there was support for what I thought were going to be an endorsement from council of the broad framework. So it concerns me a bit that we were looking at line items for some of these other things that as councilmember Flannigan said today are in some cases just substantive. So I'm comfortable with coming to an agreement about a minimum line item for direct cash assistance, for a minimum line item for rental assistance for a couple of those buckets where we feel there need to be increases. I'm really less comfortable, though. It looks like the proposal here would guide us toward approving the spending framework and the line items underneath it. I mentioned this example last week and I'll mention it again. I think the money we have in here to support caregiver [11:43:03 AM] meals is insufficient. It includes just the money we've already committed. And at this point we know that manor ISD has expressed an interest. There is no money in this budget for it. Del valle does not have their meal program up and running and I believe they're still working on a selection of a vendor. So those costs may come in more. So as we -- I guess I would ask our council generally what is the vote that we intend to take on Thursday? Is it now looking toward affirming these line items that are under the broad categories or are we going to stick with our original plan of approving a broader categories. Again, I'm fine if there are some areas where we need to drill down, but I'm less comfortable drilling down and approving a framework that has all of those line [11:44:04 AM] items. In every category. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem had a hand up. >> Garza: I think councilmember tovo, there is some agreement on -- I feel like we discussed that we all agreed generally with the broad framework, but then there were some of us who wanted to see a more concrete increase to individual aid. And because we've heard overwhelmingly from community members the need to see that. I guess I don't know what the answer is and I think this is an important discussion because I don't feel like I can respond to the numerous requests for more rise funding by saying well, this is just broad, this is -- things might change. It's a timing issue. [11:45:04 AM] I feel like we've been asked to show a concrete increase to individual funding and so that's the direction that I would prefer to go in is that there is an-- and we had this -- from our last discussion that seemed to be one of the comments that councilmember Casar made was wine R. We're going to have to take some tough votes and it will land where it lands. But I am definitely on the side that I generally agree with the framework, but I want to see more concrete increases to individual aid. >> Mayor, if I may. >> Garza: I'm just reorganizing budget to make it kind of look that way. And I remember when I first had that discussion I did say something about the names of [indiscernible] And I regret saying that because it should be more funding, not just changing the names of things. [11:46:08 AM] >> Kitchen: Can't hear you, mayor. >> Mayor Adler: Sorry. You're helping me by continually turning me off. Ann and then Kathie. >> Kitchen:ky respect that there may be differences in thinking in terms of what we end up adopting. And councilmember tovo, I like the way you put it is that we may be talking in terms of minimum levels. I could see doing that. But I do want to vote at this level. I agree with the mayor pro tem that it's important for us to be able to say to the community that this is what we are talking about. Understanding that over time we may need to make, you know, we may need to add more to different areas. I think councilmember Flannigan has a point in terms of the timing for when things need to be expended. [11:47:09 AM] But I don't think -- I do think in being responsive to the community that it's important that we vote at this level. And I'd be happy to think about it in terms of minimum levels and also in terms of adjustment to continue to get data about the needs. So that's where I'm coming from. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Kathie? >> Tovo: Let me resummarize my comments because I'm not sure, mayor pro tem Garza, from your response that you understood what I was saying. There seemed to be a couple of categories where people want to see changes. The direct cash assistance under rise is clearly one of them. Rental assistance is another. What I was suggesting would be a hybrid approach of making some decisions about minimum spending on those couple of areas that have [11:48:10 AM] been identified and potentially leaving other categories more general. For example -- anyway, that's -- from your response it sounded as if if you did not hear my point about coming to agreement on a line item for those couple of line items that are clearly important to many of us to see increases in. My concern, and I would need to really understand, if we're going to approve a a plan with those line items underneath it, in all of the other many categories is that in some areas there will need to be shifts. And I'm not sure what the need step then would be for staff. Do they have to come back and get approval for making a change for utility bill assistance of say 10 million? We know there was direct assistance through plus one of just over a million in April. Clearly we're going to need more than 10 million likely if we want to continue supporting that effort. [11:49:11 AM] It's not clear to me whether the utility bill assistance identified in here is outside of the rate reduction, which amounts to more than 10 -- will amount to likely more than 10 million. So we've not spent time talking about the rationale for each and every one of these line items in a way that I feel comfortable that this is the right amount for childcare service provider assistance and others. So I was suggesting a hybrid approach where we might come to some agreement on direct financial assistance, on rental assistance, on on some other categories, but still leave plenty of flexibility for us to continue to have discussion about the real costs of those line items within those broader categories. >> Mayor Adler: I can't see hands now. Someone want to speak? >> Flannigan: This is Jimmy. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Flannigan: I will say [11:50:11 AM] just from my part, imperfectly comfortable with staff having to come back to council for approval on budget buckets as large as these are. If we were deliberating between stuff within the manager's authority then that would be one thing, but we're not. We're talking about big buckets of money. And imperfectly comfortable with the process being staff takes this initial foray, does what it can in six weeks, comes back first or second meeting in July or August to revisit any of the assumptions that we may have made. And any adjustments that need to be made moving into the fall. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem Garza? >> Garza: Yeah. It may have been my misunderstanding or your articulating of it, but I still agree with the general buckets. I don't expect staff to come [11:51:11 AM] back and ask us for any tiny little change. I -- my problem is the framework right now we've heard loud and clear does not include enough for other areas, other areas that you, councilmember tovo, have pointed out as well that may not be included in what councilmember Casar has offered as a first stab at this. So I don't expect -- I want to make it clear I don't expect staff to come back, but I do think we need to be responsive to the larger bucket of food access, rental, individual assistance. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Renteria. Pio? >> Renteria:. The rise section of the funding part of it -- >> It's hard to hear you. >> Renteria: Can you hear me now? >> Yes. [11:52:12 AM] >> Renteria: I'm supportive of the proposal here that Greg is presenting. Rise money gives us the most flexible of all funding, the cares money is pretty much dedicated to what we can -- they're dedicated to certain [indiscernible], but the rise funding will give us a flexibility to move money around because that's the money that we got reimbursed back from-- that we're reimbursing ourselves back. So I think that's a really good move, that it gives us that flexibility where we're not under the cares program, which is more restrictive. I'm going to be supporting this. >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember pool and then councilmember alter. >> Pool: Great, thanks. I continue to support the flexibility for staff, broad [11:53:14 AM] outlines recognizing the iterative process that we've engaged in. I look forward to progress coming back and reports to us. And then if we need to say, well, we need additional money in this area or this money hasn't been claimed and it's not accessed, we'll put it another one. I like the approach we're taking. I'm not sure the changes -- I'll look at them, spend some time with them and also listen to the conversation on evictions. I was specifically curious to just check in with Greg. We've been talking about childcare and additional assistance for families with kids and childcare. Do you have -- which is the line item or which is the general area where we have childcare? >> Casar: We didn't change the childcare section, which I think -- I think there is an increase that staff proposed on childcare and we left that increase the same. >> Pool: Good. [11:54:15 AM] I think we needed to increase it. Thanks. I will go back and compare these numbers as well with what we've gotten from staff. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Councilmember alter. Alison? >> Alter: I think when we do the accounting I just want to note that we did reduce the rates on utilities and that's something like 25 million just in the Austin energy piece. So I think it's like 35 million with the Austin water piece. So we're trying to account for how much direct assistance we're providing and we ought to be including that. I'm concerned about once we spend the money, where is the new money that we might say we need this later, come from one of the things that I'm really proud of how we've handled this is we have taken some steps and seen how they've worked and [11:55:15 AM] we're learning from those and we're iterating again and again. And I feel like allocating all of the money in this economic recovery bucket may go too far and limit our flexibility. So I want to throw out there for consideration and I thought of it now because I haven't thought through all of the pieces. But even if we started with where councilmember Casar adjusted, we could maybe not increase the directives as much and create a contingency bucket within economic recovery which could still in the future be used for direct assistance, but is not deployed at this point. And I don't know what that amount would be so' I throw that out as one change to consider. Another would be I would like to see some of the [11:56:16 AM] direct -- additional direct assistance go for workforce for whatever programs, economic development, and our public health health staff think would be most worthwhile. I think that I also want to add that I believe that the public health fund is essentially an additional amount to rise. It's not usable by everyone who has access to rise, but it falls squarely under that. And so it is additional direct assistance, whether it's being administered from rise or not we should recognize that as councilmember Casar did as additional directives. >> Mayor Adler: The -- Dr. Escott this morning talked about increasing screening associated with the work that was happening with the testing in the communities as a way to change in a [11:57:18 AM] long-term way health conditions. Can you check and see if there's a dollar amount associated with us doing that? And whether if we wanted to see that happening whether that's something we need to provide within this framework now? You can check on that, then I would appreciate it. >> Will do. >> Mayor Adler: Further discussion on this pulled item before we move on? Okay. Colleagues -- >> Tovo: Yes, mayor, I did. >> Mayor Adler: Sorry, councilmember tovo. Received so if we are moving -- it's not entirely clear to me then sort of where we've landed in terms of as a councilmember whether we're approving all of those line items within each category. So it would be helpful to have clarity on that. I do want to ask in the event that we are I do need to ask questions about some more specific line items then. So to go back to one of [11:58:19 AM] those if we could talk with the right staff about utility bill assistance and what exactly this is capturing, is it capturing our plus one commitment? Is it capturing some level of the rate reduction, which would be beyond that? >> This is Ed. The $10 million utility bill assistance is just the additional funding for the plus-one program. We'll work with Austin energy and Austin water to make sure we'll get a number put to the rate reduction. >> Tovo: Yeah, they gave us a number in our meeting yesterday. I think councilmember alter just cited it. I think it was about 35 million for ae and 11 million for water. I think that's useful in terms of doing the kind of wrap-up chart that councilmember Casar [11:59:20 AM] put forward to help our community understand what the levels of assistance are. I want to make sure we've allocated enough assistance. From what you're saying, this 10 million that is proposed in the spending framework, and councilmember Casar a is not proposing changing, is about 10 million. And it would be not in addition to, but encompassing the existing expenditure of just under 900,000, as I understand it. So it would give us about another 9 million for -- from now until the end of December. That's my reading of this. >> If I might, I believe that the $1 million was just the Austin energy piece of it. So there's another number that's the Austin water and the 10 million, I believe, covers -- I [12:00:20 PM] believe it covers both utilities. But it does not cover the rate reduction. >> Tovo: That's a really good point. And so -- yeah. That's a very good point. So I guess that brings me back to that kind of general question, are we approving on Thursday $10 million allocation to utility assistance, or is the general understanding that staff are going to work within -- to work with that council resolution and come back to us -- I mean, would they need to come back if they're proposing to spend actually by the end of the year 14 million in rental assistance -- I mean, in utility assistance? Based on what we do on Thursday, will we have to come back and [12:01:24 PM] get an increase to the line item? I think we need to well understand each and every one of these categories just a bit better. >> I could probably speak to that, councilmember. The resolution talks about expending these funds substantially in the category in the allotment reflecting in the city manager's spending framework. So I would not expect the dollars to stray in a large way from these amounts. But we continue to stress what we feel is a real important need for flexibility, not only across different funding sources, but between those different categories. So we get into the programs, if it turns out that there's a pressing need in one of these line items and we identify less of a need in another area, we would ask for that flexibility. We are working to P together a reporting mechanism so council will be able to see what the implementation of this framework is occurring and you would be able to see if there are small variations in the spending [12:02:25 PM] framework. I think if we went past that, and there was a need for a substantial change, I think we would want to come back with a recommendation. But we're asking for some flexibility, but, you know, substantially we would adhere to the framework that council would approve on. >> Tovo: That's very helpful then. Because I assume if the utility assistance really ended up being 14 million, would you regard that additional 4 as still within the general approval of council and no need -- that's not -- I would assume that's probably in the scheme of things not regarded as a substantial increase? >> I would feel that way. I know that's a subjective term. We're in a little bit of a world of subjectivity here. But I would consider that to be substantially within the framework. >> Tovo: If that is the guidance that holds, then I think I feel comfortable with the general levels. [12:03:26 PM] If there is a consideration, manager, that an increase of that sort would not, then I would ask your staff to look really closely at two of those categories, food assistance and utility assistance, where I think we'll see increases beyond what is contemplated in the spending framework. They are the two that come to mind in the expenditures that we've already made. >> Understood. I think it bears repeating that most categories will see a need that's far greater than our ability to address that need. But finding that balance will be important. And this type of guidance and discussion from council is critical as we move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Ann? >> Kitchen: We've kind of talked about this before, maybe you can address this, Spencer. But in getting back to the bigger picture, over time, I'm [12:04:28 PM] wanting to have -- to understand what data in a more comprehensive way we'll be able to look at, to see how we're doing in hitting the targets of needs. Councilmember Flannigan talked about, you know, in X number of weeks, coming back to us and kind of reporting on where we are. I'm wanting to have some data that I can look at, that gives me some additional level of detail about what our best estimate of what the needs are in our community. So at the point that you all are reporting back to us, I want to have that conversation. We've been having that conversation to some extent because our staff has been getting information as was reported to us earlier. [12:05:28 PM] We know some things already about having, you know, needing more dollars in certain areas and things like that. So I appreciate that data gathering has been occurring. But I want it put in a package so we can see the whole picture. And I'd like to have a conversation, and I'm not expecting that on Thursday, but I would like to have that conversation apt the point that you come back and report to us and help us understand how our dollars -- how all these dollars are being expended. Does that make sense, city manager? >> It does. And understanding we have as much data that we have at that point in time, and knowing this is a fluid situation, from our health experts, our economic development experts, we'll be able to pull in whatever we can in helping us make those decisions going forward. >> Kitchen: Yes, thank you. We had a conversation with our -- with Jon hockenyos, for [12:06:29 PM] example, in one of our previous meetings where I was asking, you know, what are the estimates of the number of unployed people and in what areas, and what are our estimates of people that are not getting access, you know, to unemployment. All those various kinds of things. I think we need to do our best in terms of looking at the data that's there, and use our economic advisory folks to help with that. So thank you. I mean, we have some data ourselves in terms of experiencing how people are accessing the help that we're providing. But there's also broader data out in the community. So I'd like us to look at that data together. >> Understood. >> Mayor Adler: My answer to your question, Kathy, about the particular line items versus the buckets, I don't have an answer to that from me yet. But my goal is to look at the budget in light of the [12:07:29 PM] recommendation that you made as well. So I can see what that looks like. Continuing on. Any further conversations? Yes, Kathy? >> Tovo: Thank you, mayor. Manager, I just want to circle around back to the comment you made. You're absolutely right, and I think it's really important that we continue to underscore that we will not be able to meet all of the need that we know is in our community unfortunately. I guess I'm trying to understand how we square that with the conversation we had previously. Would you prefer if there are categories such as the two I mentioned, that we know we want to invest in, would it be your preference that we provide that in the form of amendments for Thursday? Or would you prefer to have [12:08:29 PM] those conversations continue beyond today, or continue in the months ahead and be managed through additional ifcs? >> My preference is to maintain that flexibility that staff is asking for. You know, I might separate out the food assistance from the utility assistance because they are different types of ways we would be approaching those challenges, and I really want to work with our utilities to look at both what the need that they're receiving, and how they're able to respond to that, and then how we might be able to adjust quickly to be able to ensure that we have the resources that can correspond with that need. S I'm going to put that conversation and have that as an ongoing discussion, because I know our utilities are very quk right after this pandemic struck to be able to come up with [12:09:30 PM] creative solutions to find ways to support our individual rate payers. If there's a change to the food assistance, that's maybe something you can contemplate for Thursday. I'll ask our budget director if they wants to weigh in on that as well. >> Tovo: Okay. >> I think that's (indiscernible) City manager would work well. >> Tovo: Thank you, that's very helpful. I'm not sure whether our social service cabinet will be meeting or not. We've had to cancel the last several because they've been up against work sessions. But I would ask then, manager, that you have our social service staff who have been working on the issue of food access to really take a look at those numbers, and understand whether -- you know, as I see it, the cushion within the food assistance category is just about a million. So that would not provide us [12:10:32 PM] with additional -- much additional capacity between now and the end of December to assist additional ISDs. I know Mainer ISD, there's differing information, but I think they have not been able to continue their student meals. And maybe had expressed interest in caregiver meals. This is also the line item that's providing food for individuals experiencing homelessness, as I understand the spending framework. So that million would not give us very much more capacity to meet all of those really critical needs between now and December. So if you have staff that could assist us in understanding how much of this has been committed, which I think is all but 1 million, and what those additional costs are. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Ann? >> Kitchen: Just one last thing, [12:11:33 PM] city manager, going back and talking about the broader picture. You know, I -- one of the reasons that I want to understand and have at least some -- have our best assessment that we can do, to the needs, is because I understand that we -- that, you know, I understand the thinking that we cannot meet all the needs. But it's hard for me personally to just say that. I don't feel comfortable just saying to the community, well, we can't meet all the needs. I want to know specifically, because I want to know where the gaps are, so that we can then think as creatively as possible to make sure that we're most effectively using the resources we have. And to me, I can't say to my -- [12:12:34 PM] to the community, well, I'm sorry, we just can't meet all needs. Because to me, that's not definitive enough. So that's one reason I want to make sure that we do the best we can in understanding our numbers. >> Mayor Adler: All right. Councilmember pool, did you want a conversation on item -- >> Pool: There were two issues that came up after I pushed it to the message board which we now have answers to. I have Trish and Erica on the line for other specific questions. This is item 47. It's the expedited temporary permitting program for restaurants and small businesses. Mayor, maybe what I'll do, if people have additional questions, let me quickly touch on the two specific points that came up that the dais did not know about. [12:13:34 PM] And then I'll just see what else -- >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Pool: -- What anybody else wants to talk about. We had heard from the mayor's committee for people with disabilities, they had concerns about businesses encroaching too far onto the sidewalk. Being able to navigate our sidewalks is a recurring issue for people who rely on AIDS for their mobility. And the city is devoted and committed to the Americans with disabilities act, so I let the participants -- I let the members of the mayor's committee know that any participants in the program would be required to have an Ada compliance plan, and that's under section 4-20-44-l. This is just all special permit applicants. And then the second item that came up, it occurred to me that maybe there were ways that we [12:14:36 PM] could waive the fees based on the Austin special events, the ace fees. They're fairly low, but they are fees. So I looked at potentially waiving them because this is intended to be an economic recovery program, but staff responded back, I think it was Mr. Vanino and bree, thank you both. The program is not eligible for direct reimbursement through C.A.R.E.S. My staff is still in discussion with other staff about using grant structure to effectively waive the fees. There may be another way we can get there. But essentially that was the response that I got on the C.A.R.E.S. Act. So I'll move on to questions, but I really want to thank Trish Lang and Erica Lopez. They've been incredibly persistent and innovative in working on this ordinance and did a tremendous job. And I am very, very grateful. [12:15:37 PM] And if there aren't any questions, that's great. If they do arise before Thursday -- >> Mayor pro tem Garza? >> Garza: Yeah. Thank you for the resolution. I think it provides a good option given the flexibility and the --hat the governor, I guess, ordered in opening businesses. (Indiscernible) Conversation about, I think this is a law question, what I heard was that if we allowed businesses to use their parking lots for, you know, patrons to set up tables and to be able to social distance more, if they choose to go to these businesses, that (indiscernible) Permit is based on the square footage of their business. So I wanted to make sure that [12:16:39 PM] we're -- and then I also thought -- I haven't had time to research it, I'm sorry -- the governor, in part of the declarations, opening businesses may have waived that kind of restriction, tcb restrictions because of wanting to encourage social distancing in these kinds of establishments. So I don't know, councilmember pool, if you've been confronted with that question, or it's more of a question that wanting to make sure that -- it's a situation we've told them, you can put tables in your parking lot but then they come back and tell us, we actually can't do that because we're only allowed to sell to the public in this footprint. >> Real quick, and then I'll turn it over to law. This is real short-term, like a weekend event that would expand out to the sidewalk, or to some parking lots. It's not that these events would be there permanently for like a [12:17:40 PM] 30-day period. The permit is for 30 days, the actual use permit would be for up to 48 hours. But Trish, are you on the line there, and can weigh in? This is a good question about the status of the disaster, and the declaration and the tab. >> Can you hear me? >> Yeah, Trish, I think she was planning to be on. >> She's here. >> Good. >> Yes. >> Trish? >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. (Indiscernible) City attorney. Mayor pro tem, (indiscernible) Does have (indiscernible) Identified in permits and licenses and things like that. And so the license holder, the permit holder will have to address that. Having said that, if we have -- we allow for temporary events in [12:18:41 PM] parking lots today, and so whatever process they need to follow for that, like let's take this pilot program off the table, and if somebody was going to have -- activate their parking lot into something and they wanted to have alcohol, then they're going to have to follow the process for that. If tab doesn't allow them to use the parking lot, they will have to follow whatever procedures tacb has to give them the ability to use that space for alcohol. >> I don't know if the mayor's back. I had another question. >> Mayor Adler: Go ahead. >> Okay. I'm sorry, maybe I misunderstood it. So this is not for -- this is just for a special event? Like a weekend -- very specific? It's not for, you know [12:19:43 PM] (indiscernible)? >> Mayor pro tem, I spoke on the 30-day, that's for street closures, the use of parking spots and portions of the sidewalk is indeed for 30 days. >> Garza: Oh, okay. So I guess I would just add maybe an opportunity to add it be resolved that our legislative staff would reach out, if there's any conflict between an establishment being able to use their parking lot because of their tab, maybe there's something that we can work with the state on, and say, you know, we've loosened some of our restrictions on allowing them to use parking lots and sidewalks, can you join us in this effort, and waive - - maybe it's whatever restrictions that may be placed on their ability to use that space. >> I think that's a great idea. And I think my staff is probably scribing down the general sense of what you've just now offered, and we'll be happy to bring something to amend this on Thursday, you bet. >> Garza: Okay. Thank you. [12:20:45 PM] >> Mayor? >> Mayor Adler: Jimmy? >> Flannigan: The -- I'm fine with the underlying item. There's another element that I don't think the posting language allows us to talk about, that I think would also help small businesses and might be in the power of the transportation department. And just a reminder to my colleagues, to keep muting if you're not speaking, especially if you don't have headphones, because the feedback makes the audio choppy. The ability for the transportation department to look at meter fees, parking meters and adjust the fees to demand. So if we have -- and I know the transportation department has been thinking about that from a technology standpoint. But the ability to say, while there's really low demand, why are we charging people a lot for parking when no one else wants to use those spaces, or why are we running parking tickets out to folks when no one's trying to get to those spaces. I think that would also help our [12:21:47 PM] small businesses who rely on metered parking for their customers. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Thank you. Anybody else on this item? All right. Colleagues, it is 12:20. Do you want to -- I think we may take our lunch break. And back from the lunch break, have the two remaining briefings, and then we'll go into executive session to close out our meeting. It is 12:20 now. Do you want to come back at 1:15? That gives people an hour. All right. Let's do that. The city council meeting right now will go into recess here at 12:22. At 1:15 we will reconvene for the census briefing, and then the eviction briefing, in that order, and then we'll go into executive session. I'll see you all at 1:15. [12:22:48 PM] [Recessed from 12:22 to 1:15 P.M.] [1:09:33 PM] [Music]. [1:20:55 PM] >> Mayor Adler: I think we said we'll start with the census one first? So it is 1:20. We're reconvening the city council meeting here on June -- reconvening the city council meeting here on June 2nd at 1:20. We have a quorum present. Still some folks to join us, but let's go ahead, manager, and do you want to tee up the first presentation? I think it's on census. >> Thank you T mayor, council. Our first presentation this afternoon is regarding the 2020 census. And we have Tara Olson and Jonathan waller to walk us through that presentation. So I think I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan first. Mr. Waller. >> Thank you, good afternoon, y'all. Can you hear me? >> Mayor Adler: Yes. >> Awesome. And I assume that the av folks will be putting up the [1:21:56 PM] powerpoint presentation, is that correct? >> Mayor Adler: That is correct. >> That is correct. >> Awesome. Thank you, city manager, for the introduction, although I would be amiss if I didn't say that my mother didn't name me John. I'm not a Jonathan, but thank you anyways. I had a lot of teachers growing up who loved to call me Jonathan. Moving on to this presentation the plan was to have Ryan Robinson, our city demographer join us. We'd like to go to the next slide. Actually, this may be the incorrect powerpoint, burr this would have Ryan Robinson at the top. We can go on to the next slide. We want to go over here today reintroducing this local efforts as well as some of the updates from our outreach efforts if you would like to go to the next [1:22:56 PM] slide. I apologize. I'm very accustomed to having control of the powerpoint deck so I'll do my best to move as fast as possible. If you would like to click through here these bullet points. I like to show the sheer amount of funding impacted by the 17 U.S. Bruce elephant our county sales tax assessor collector likes to remind us that for every person not counted $1,500 is lost in federal funding. Let's go to the next slide. Also the census is not only about dollars, but about representation. So we'd like to click through the bullet points here. One of the main impacts is the apportion. So you can see what's in stake there for our state and around the country for additional congressional seats. They're not adding seats, but moving around how many [1:23:57 PM] have. We we want to get ourselves counted in Texas we could gain three ♪ the U.S. Congress. And also a simple reminder. As many of the council are aware, but maybe not for the public is that we use census data from school board trustee seats, city council seats on up. So it I am facts every elected official's seat pretty much throughout local, state and federal government. There has been changes to the timeline for this particular census. Covid-19 has had a huge impact on the ability of the census bureau to do out and get folks counted in person. A lot of the folks think of the census they think of the numerators that go door to door. That had to be canceled as a result of covid so you will see here that they've actually extended the total timeline for taking part in the census. Originally it was expected to close by July 31st. Now an additional three months have been tacked on to that timeline so you have until October 31st to respond on your own. [1:24:58 PM] In addition, the non-response follow up, which is why folks go door to door and other events to get people to take part has been extended to October 31st. Only this week where the local census bureau offices this week in Travis county reopened and it will take them time before they get to the capacity they were once at to get out and knock on doors. And then there at the bottom you will see some impacts to redistricting. A very important one, which is for the U.S. Congress. There's still a bit of debate and conversation occurring at the U.S. Congressional level over whether this extended timeline will be approved. The bureau needs statutory relief before this becomes an official timeline although the census bureau and many of the agencies around it are treating it as such. I cannot give you absolute certainty that this I the new timeline because congress still needs to approve it. Next slide, please. Next slide. So here's that interesting couple of slides that our [1:26:00 PM] city demographer, Ryan Robinson has put together. He usually joins me on these type of presentations. Unfortunately he had some technical difficulties and was not able to join. Big picture, the state of Texas is not doing can great in our response rates. A lot of states for the reasons we've already talked about here earlier on, the powerpoint presentation, have put significant public dollars and raised significant philanthropic dollars to increase turnout in this year's census because so much is at stake. Around may 31st around 55% of expected Texas residents have responded. Next slide, please. As far as on the county level here within the state of Texas, considering that we aren't doing as well as other states around the country, but just focused here within the state of Texas, we are the second highest responding large Texas county in the state of Texas. Tarrant county is currently above us. Williamson county is similar to a lot of other suburban counties around the state are performing at a higher level than us, but we're [1:27:02 PM] working on different strategies and trying to learn from them what we can. But we are the second responding big county in the state of Texas. Next slide, please. But as far as the city goes, we had been the highest -- we had been the highest large Texas city -- highest responding large Texas city until a week ago. El Paso has caught up with us. We've been the second highest responding city in the Texas and as I mentioned second highest in the county. But I want to book end that the state of Texas as a whole is simply not doing that well. I think we're 41st in response rates compared to other states around the country and we have so much at stake uniquely here in Texas. Next slide, please. What I'm going briefly go over here as far as our actual campaign strategies and outreach efforts are is just reminder of what our strategic plan is, how we've [1:28:02 PM] used the budget that we were given and what we've been able to raise in the form of grants. How we've spent it. We have an exciting regional media grant I'll discuss. How we're trying to focus our limited remaining dollars given the timeline has extended and try to give you a couple of highlights institutionally and grassrootswise. Next slide, please. So as y'all know, this program was inanything inaugurated last year. I was graduate on shortly around August, September. Something that was great was an institutional effort was really underway in the form of a complete count committee of which some of you serve on. Something that was really lacking from this effort was grassroots participation. So that has been a large focus of this program here over the last nine months. I really appreciate every single one of y'all and your office teams because you have been a huge part of building that out and I'll go into some of the successes with that. But then another part of this strategic plan for this effort was our media outreach. So I'll get into the regional media grant here in a minute about how we're [1:29:04 PM] tackling that. Next slide, please. This is a rough budgets mix of how we've spent the dollars we've been granted thus far. Right now our total budgets includes around $460,000. 200,000 of which was from the city of Austin, a matching 200,000 from Travis county and a 59,000-dollar grant from the central Texas pool fund. We've gone for half a dozen grants, but Travis county is simply not as hard to count as others within the state of Texas, specifically western Texas and the valley of Texas and other portions of urban counties around the state. But what you will see here is a majority of our dollars have gone directly toward community canvassing, which is very different than we initially expected it to be. We are gearing up for a very large grassroots door to door campaign which we had just launched the first one a week before covid shut down the city N that time what we've instead shifted over to is phone banking which I'll get into the folks actually leading those efforts in a moment. [1:30:05 PM] Flyer drops safely at different events, resource facilities are providing supplies to folks who are already talking to vulnerable communities. Targeted advertising. We were able to partner with statesman media, the statesman was already a member of our CCC and they were able to work with us on a really great deal package that included targeting specific census tracks as directed by our city demographer and the grassroots folks we had helping us out. We received that regional media grant I mentioned a moment ago and I'll dig into more here in a second. Our digital outreach has had local content created for us. There's nothing wrong with that census bureau has produced P but we tried to localize it and tried to take what we heard from our grassroots groups what they thought were the most important talking points and put those in the materials we're spreading around community. And we've had 10% of our budget go toward different financial services costs and also we've brought on a digital coordinator in the [1:31:06 PM] time of covid to make sure we had someone managing all those different pieces given how important it had become during the covid-19 outbreak. Next slide, please. So this is the regional media plan I referenced awhile ago. This is really exciting. The central Texas pool fund, which was a group formed by the St. David's foundation, Austin community foundation and being administered by the United Way of greater Austin. They came together and put almost $400,000 in total funding available to different groups around the five-county region. We actually partnered with neighboring counties on going in for this regional media grant. The thinking behind this was that rather than duplicating efforts or trying to buy competing advertising space, that given that we were already likely going to be making a large media buy effort that we try to do that in partnership with the smaller counties who would benefit from it naturally, but also be able to help instruct its messaging. [1:32:06 PM] So what we ended up landing on is the most effective way of doing this was focussings on our hispanic Latino population, asian-american and black African-American in the region and trying to distribute those dollars based upon their share of the population. Next slide, please. So what that looks like specifically for the hispanic Latino population is that we took about 40,000 of that $59,000 and did something that hasn't really been done before. We approached the two different media corporations that run all four of the spanish-speaking radio stations here in the central Texas area. And we've put them on the same team. And what they are doing is coordinating on different universal scripts, languages. They're helping support tour grassroots group for this community by trying to promote events that they are putting on and we have some really exciting events that will be coming up in the next couple of weeks that are hopefully sustainable and involving the graduate roots and these media partners. You will see on the bottom [1:33:07 PM] left-hand corner of the screen some of the tracks, for example, that we're trying to talk about or whether they're reading through the scripts or speaking to folks live on the air talking about relevant issues in those neighborhoods, again trying to hyper localize this as best as upon. And 19,000 of that $59,000 will then be desperate between the asian-american and black African-American population which the asian-american grassroots efforts is trying out different tracks where we'll test out different languages and different strategies in those tracks and try to measure if anything actually happens in terms of response rates. Next slide, please. So this is something really exciting just to share with folks is that we've developed a big suite of different digital resources. Unfortunately like I mentioned at the beginning of this, this might be a different powerpoint than was originally prepared. It's missing out on some of the cool dashboards and maps that our digital team has produced in addition to these materials. Quickly what you will see here on the screen in the [1:34:07 PM] bottom left is what we call our universal push card. It was designed with the talking points that our different community groups said were the most important ones to talk about. It's bilingual, both English and Spanish. Tens of thousands of these have been distributed by hand at different resource facilities or dropped off in different resource bags and packets over the last couple of months. You will see in the middle a poster which actually has been prepared and sent over to Austin public health where they will now be posting those posters around town and then the bottom right-hand corner there you will see two of our amazing community leaders who are holding up yard signs that we've produced and we're actually getting several hundred more that are out stationed around different areas and hard to count neighborhoods. Next slide, please. And so this is a really interesting new thing that we're doing as a campaign. Given a lot of the stuff I've already discussed with y'all, including that extended timeline where now we're -- we have a great opportunity here with additional time, but also it's problematic in terms of [1:35:08 PM] trying to figure out how to budget the remaining dollars we have left because we had budgeted for a certain length of a campaign. So what we're trying to do is figure out what has worked thus far in census tracks and what we're really fortunate to have here locally is a digital team that was formed with talent from both the city of Austin, Travis county and volunteers from open Austin as well as our community [indiscernible] Groups. They have come together and figured out different ways we could track different tactics working and whether or not they were successful. And because of that we've identified some very basic and traditional grassroots tactics that are making a difference such as phone banking through lists that we acquire through different community groups to residents within specific census tracks, [indiscernible] From titled leaders to their mailboxes and being out at resource centers in a safe capacity making sure there's language and signage and other things out there to remind folks about the census. The other thing about having this digital team and the advice and guidance from our [1:36:10 PM] city demographer, is that we can now kind of trig out which census tracks are not moving, they're not trending up, having a response rate when we're doing things across the county. Here is where things are sticky, not moving that much. It's an area that I'm sure will be familiar for all of you here on council is it's facing a number of different hurdles as a community. I want to give a quick thank you to councilmember Casar and his office for helping connect us with different groups within this neighborhood area. This is roughly north lamar-rundberg. What our goal is here is to apply these measured tactics. One that have shown within a day to three days after we go out -- by we I mean the grassroots groups go out and do certain things there's an increase in the response rate, which we can see live from day-to-day. We'll be able to measure the impact we have in this area and what we refer to as our intersectional focus area because you have a number of diverse groups there all hard to count and a number of different non- profits that will be able to assist with it. Frankly the only thing [1:37:10 PM] standing in our way from doing even more is trying to have additional focus areas is just our budget has reached its limit and we're having to measure no that out and try to create case studies for future reference as well. Next slide, please. This is something we're doing county wide so again we're kind of focusing in a very narrow and specific area to track our efforts. It's to maintain a county wide approach to our efforts and that county wide approach is really enexpect sill lated in this 30-day challenge. We had intended to have a large media release and more announcements about this in June but we wanted to be respectful and responsible with all the events that have gone on this past weekend so we are trying to be mindful of that, but just to let you know we have prepared this mini campaign, it's a 30-day strategy with social media assets and digital collateral established with it. We have an amazing digital team at the city of Austin happying with the digital team. It is being led by Alicia lane in the planning [1:38:11 PM] department. What you will see there on the side is our main talking point for folks and this is for maybe folks who have already taken the census, but looking to help, which is look if we can get in one month 50,000 households granted that's not just 125,000 people who now are being counted here locally, that's $185 million per year we're securing in federal funding. So we're trying to make sure that folks understand the different types of impacts this has locally. Next slide, please. And you can click through the next two slides. These are just examples of the digital toolkit. Some of the stuff we've put together. Next slide, please. This is the exciting stuff. This is stuff unfortunately I'll have to speed through because I know I only have a limited amount of time with y'all. Before we get about these individual efforts again I have to thank the amazing team of folks who have come together to make this census a priority for their organizations, their communities. And have really helped [1:39:11 PM] translate a lot of this technical or very governmental stale sounding information to things that are relevant and important for these communities because frankly a lot of the things that make a person or a neighborhood hard to count don't disappear in the nine years between the every 10-year census. So they're working really hard to make sure that it's relevant to their communities and honestly sustainable beyond just this particular campaign. But let's go ahead and click to the next slide. Our black African- American community CCC, which is the governmental acronym for complete count community committee. But this is our community CCC. Therm formed through a huge amount of organizing effort with a lot of the folks you see in the picture below. Thank you councilmember harper-madison for not only giving your voice and support to this, but quite literally lending your staff to this effort. And you'll see there in the bottom that's actually a still from a YouTube video that we are digitally marketing across different tracks targeted to the black [1:40:12 PM] African-American population. You will see councilmembers and leaders from different parts of the county. Up in the top right you will see this was unfortunately what was -- what we thought was a very promising start to a door to door canvassing operation. That was at the htu homecoming event that was right before covid broke out. And this campaign is branded in its own materials. Largely provided by in partnership with the Austin area urban league, which is make black count. You will see their logo there in the top left. I can't stress enough that you will see a lot of different folks. I'm sure a lot of you will recognize in these different photos that they have done the work to make this its own independent effort and it's been really amazing to see that happen and evolve through covid. Next slide, please. Our asian-american community CCC was actually the first one. So they really were the folks who came out and created their own CCC for the region. It was something that was working really well and frankly cast a light on the more institutional approach we had originally started taking from a campaign. [1:41:13 PM] We shifted, evolved, adapted and that's what spurred these other community cccs. So not only do they have a similar online presence with independent YouTube videos, they similarly scripted a video and produced it and we helped financially support that. They also have a unique partnership with the theuniversity of Texas with a lot of the asian-american students who live and study there, but you will see that -- I love this picture down here on in the bottom left corner. That's a lot of the different community leaders. There are pages of those times of folks on the call there. That was them getting ready for a more digital oriented campaign and there's just so many different folks within that effort, specifically Alice ye, who has been an amazing champion for so many different communities who really stepped up and pushed this kind of led by example for us to try to replicate that in other communities. So thank you to them. Next slide, please. This is another effort that popped up organically. This is actually started after the last council briefing. So councilmember Flannigan, thank you as well for quite [1:42:13 PM] literally lending your staff's time and energy towards organizing this. We have an lbgtq focus community CCC. A lot of that digital content assistance that I mentioned was help like designing logos and other kind of things. You will see in the top right corner a video they produced with trusted faces and voices from around the community and you can see some of the sample ads that they are measuring and testing out. We've tried to make sure that we also budgets support for them as well. We haven't had enough. There never is enough for outreach, but I'm really proud of this amazing work that they've been able to get going. You can see the different psa videos they've got, the different websites. And one of the amazing things they've been able to do is provide an intersectional guidebook on how in different communities to talk about the issue of the census with folks beyond just one specific paradigm, just one specific lens. So that's been really interesting to watch happen and evolve over the last couple of months. Thank you so much to Marty [1:43:15 PM] and Julia at the city who helped put this effort together and for stepping up as a fiscal sponsor. Next slide, please. This is our hispanic Latino CCC. This was a lot of different work because the hispanic Latino population is by far the hardest to count population here in Austin. It's also one of the most diverse populations and this CCC, which you will see a picture here in the bottom right-hand corner of some of the members meeting at 7:30 A.M. For breakfast one more than several months ago prior to covid. They worked hard to identify different target areas. You will see constable George morales who stepped up big time. This would not have been possible without his office and his leadership on getting folks to the table, figuring out how to turn words into action so his office has been really big. They applied for a grant that they supported from a statewide fund so they could get actual assistance day-to-day specifically on [1:44:16 PM] the census you will see their logo and rallying cry. They have a really exciting plan they're developing it our spanish-speaking radio stations here locally and a local cultural artist hub to make sure that we're getting out things bilingually and through different cultural lenses. So far as many folks as possible feel like they're being included in the census messaging. Next slide, please. This is a deep dive. I'll move through this as fast as possible. You can look at the details here in a moment. The one correction on the slide is it should be 3100 residents. That's the specific track similar to that intersectional area that we'll be focusing on the sticky, it wasn't growing. The response rate wasn't going up. Constable morales and his team there [indiscernible], they did a number of phone contacts. They were out there in the area putting up signs, talking to property managers. Next slide, please. Something that's really amazing with these response rates is you can see the difference as it happens. [1:45:16 PM] So I really want y'all to check out this slide right here because you can see literally in the days that they went out there and did that grassroots activation, look at that bump right there before may third. See how it jumps up and goes up. That's as a result of the efforts they did. That's as a result of the dollars y'all put towards this effort which we were then able to work through these organizers on the ground. So outside of actual census data there hasn't been other bumps like that. We've worked to make sure this isn't happening in neighboring tracks as well and con table morales and his team can show you time after time where they went in, did certain activities and the response rate went up. Here hoping to do a larger case study in that intersectional area around north lamar/rundberg. Next slide, please. Next slide. So I want to make sure we also gave credit to our institutional partners who are doing a lot of amazing work. Austin independent school district is our largest school district here in the city and the county. It's not the only one at [1:46:17 PM] all, and we've had contact to try to provide resources where we can, but we focused a lot of organizing activity with their parent support specialists, Lee nor vargas and a lot of folks who support her. There were trainings of all the different pss's at different schools, advertising materials, t-shirts, posters put up at title I schools. You will see an image of the school bus. That's a bus going out and providing free wi-fi access to students in neighborhoods so we can go online and still study and be in class and it has census particular materials letting folks know this matters, this is connected. Next slide, please. Here's another example. This is in our health care field. Central health was huge and stepped up. I want to give out a shout-out to that team. You will see there in the top right corner a map that we produced locally of different health care facilities in hard to count areas. One of the projects of our digital team was trying to figure out areas that had certain hurdles and we matched those up with health care and those were going to [1:47:17 PM] be places we were going to have mobile census stations and we were all geared up for that when folks would come in, they would be able to take it. Covid has obviously change would that, but central health has really evolved and adapted. You will see the copies of the postcards going out. Tens of thousands. 60,000 in priority zip codes for folks they have the information for. So again this is about talking about the census in these specific neighborhoods from different angles that are important no those communities and this is another example of how an institutional partner stepped up. Next slide, please. And then the city of Austin, which at this point if time still permits I'd love to welcome Tara Olson on to the call, who has been a leader in the city through the public information office making sure we get out word through different channels available to them. Tara, do you want to jump on? >> Yeah, thanks, John. So the city of Austin has a number of marketing efforts and communications that are underway. And continuing to be developed by our team. We have a strong digital presence and we are continuing to look for more [1:48:18 PM] ways to get the messaging out that's in addition to digital safely and effectively. Thank you, mayor and councilmembers, for everything you've been doing to help share out the census 2020 messaging. Those nightly video messages you're doing, mayor, are very inspiring and really, really effective. Social media platforms and newsletters that you are sending out are extremely effective. So thank you so much for that. All of our digital presence and marketing materials that have been created and inspired by our grassroots leaders and community groups or cccs that we've been reference be are extremely valuable in this team and this team has been extremely collaborative and I'm proud of the group that's come together. You can see the examples of the materials that we've been referencing in the slide. The atx census 2020.com website was put together by city staff, largely by our own Mateo Clark, who has an -- he's built the site [1:49:21 PM] itself. It has a number of valuable resources for our community featuring resources from our austin- travis county census 2020 community groups including our video pas that John referenced, podcasts and virtual town halls held by all these groups. I urge you to check out the website and see those. They are incredible resources. We also have recent news from both English and Spanish local media outlets. We have upcoming virtual events that continue to be populated in the website from our community groups and other grassroots members. A digital toolkit resources that are available in both English and Spanish, including a toolkit for the 30-day response challenge that's underway now that John referenced earlier. We have weekly social media promotions in English and Spanish on all city of Austin platforms. Postcards in engsh and Spanish that have been provided for resource packets for the eating apart together initiative and Austin public health distribution. The Austin transportation [1:50:22 PM] department has been coordinating census messaging on their electronicoad signs and more messaging on these signs is set for the week of June 22nd. We've had a few of them during the pandemic and they've been very effective. Census messaging has and continues to be included in several city newsletters. Austin utilities now inserts. Email distributions and shared printing materials. We continue to provide census update presentations to our city boards and commissions and have a few scheduled this month virtually. Thank you to all councilmembers and mayor, staff, for connecting us to boards and commissions that we should be reaching out to. It's been very helpful. We look forward to continuing these promotions and developing messages that continue to reach and inspire all of our communities in austin-travis county. And we will be discussing ways to kind of move forward with messaging crafting it and making sure that it represents the tone that we need to represent. >> Thank you, Tara. [1:51:24 PM] And if we could jump to the next slide, please. And y'all, you might see there in the last slide there, there was a brown bag with one of our universal push cards there on some rolls of toilet paper and some other things. That is thanks to Austin public health who is distributing thousands of those in conjunction with a lot of other outreach efforts. That partnership wouldn't have been possible without the mayor and his team for kind of suggesting ways that we could try to make sure we talk to as many folks as possible. So in addition to those supply bags, when folks call in for information on covid testing, they'll hear about the census. We're getting another round of yard signs to go out to different locations that Austin public health has identified as open and in those targeted neighborhoods. So thank you to all of y'all's offices. Our next county-wide CCC meeting will be Wednesday, June 17th. What are these meetings? It's largely institutional in their focus. It's getting a lot of the different groups or folks that you know or likely serve on other boards with, but it's also a great moment really for us to review what we're doing and make it's in tune with the great roots leadership that's also [1:52:26 PM] leading this campaign which before we end this presentation, I did just want to quickly thank again councilmember harper-madison for all the work that your staff has done to make sure that this campaign reflects the black African-American communities, talks about issues important to them. Thank you, mayor pro tem Garza and councilmember Renteria for y'all's help getting that hispanic Latino CCC up and running. It wouldn't have happened without y'all. And district 4, councilmember Casar, thank you so much for helping provide us kind of the behind of scenes so we can figure out how to make an impact effectively. Councilmember kitchen, thank you so much for your support getting this budgets up and going for us. On the lbgtq CCC, thank you, councilmember Flannigan for your staff and time and energy on that. Councilmember pool, who I've got to brag on her real quick. She's had her chief of staff send out individualized emails to all of the neighborhood leaders in hard to count thanks. That's an amazing effort. Thank you so much for doing that and getting us connected with them. And councilmember troxclair has done similar efforts where she's localized this [1:53:27 PM] issue for her newsletters. And then councilmember tovo's office, thank you so much for your staff's time trying to peel back the issues at the university of Texas campus and helping push that leadership to get out the word. And councilmember alter, thanks for making sure we're mindful of our boards and commissions. I know your staff has been helpful getting us connected. Thanks so much, everyone, for everything you can done to get this thing going. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for the presentation. This is incredibly important work. Councilmember harper-madison. >> Harper-madison: Hi there. Two things. One, I've got to be real clear, you're not Jonathan, you're John. And her name is Paige Ellis. [Laughter]. When you go back and watch the video you will see what you did wrong. Also, I want to echo your sentiment. Thank you to all my colleagues and their staff. But Neil wetstone, man, thank you. I'm proud of you. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for all your effort. >> Mayor Adler: Anybody else have anything on this presentation? I nearly made a bad joke. [1:54:28 PM] Councilmember Ellis? >> Ellis: I really appreciate all the work that y'all have put into this and I know when Ryan Robinson has sent us our census information we had a list of some of the more nonresponsive census tracts and it was really helpful when you went back and gave us all the neighborhoods because we were able to spoon feed that to our precinct chairs and other group leaders what were able to put the word out. I appreciate you drilling down that information for us and making sure that we could use it in a way that was easiest for our districts to send out there. >> Thank you, councilmember Ellis. And my phone just got blown up with several text messages. [Laughter]. I think I'm showing [indiscernible] In different spaces with different names. I'm so sorry for that! >> Ellis: You're totally fine. And if councilmember troxclair is also trying to get people to fill out the census, I'm more than happy with that. That's fantastic. The more the merrier. [Laughter] >> Mayor Adler: Anything [1:55:28 PM] else on this? Everybody should be doing their part. Sounds like a lot of people are. Anybody watching this needs to put their shoulder to this. John, thank you so much. >> Thank you, mayor and thank you, city staff. >> Mayor Adler: Let's go to the next briefing. This is a briefing on evictions. Let's cue this up. >> This is a council discussion item, mayor. So maybe -- I think it was councilmember Casar's office who requested this, so I'll ask him to introduce it. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Casar, do you want to set this up? >> Casar: I would go ahead and let the staff from legal aid and [indiscernible] Talk us through what we should be watching out for. >> Mayor Adler: Sounds good. So do we have shoshanna and Marissa here? [1:56:28 PM] If you're talking you need to unmute. >> One second, mayor. We're getting them over here. >> Mayor Adler: In this short little break we have, councilmember Renteria went to great lengths this morning not to be present with us as we were beginning the meeting because he knew that he had celebrated his 70th birthday on Sunday and wanted to avoid us singing happy birthday to him, which we don't do now that we're on individual screens like this. But councilmember Renteria, happy birthday. [Laughter] >> Renteria: Thank you. >> Okay. Well, we are here on that note, happy birthday, be lated birthday. My name is shoshanna [1:57:28 PM] cryinger. I'm with Basta. Marissa is -- we have both of those hats on. We're happy to be here with you today to talk a little bit about what's going on with evictions in Travis county. Most of our focus is going to be Travis county because that's where we have the most data and information. We will hit a little bit on some things which we know happening in Williamson. So if we could go to the next slide. So just a quick overview of today's presentation, we're going to do a quick overview of the eviction process, talk briefly about changes to that process with covid-19, which y'all are pretty familiar probably with the number of these changes, but there are many of them, so just that we're on the same and then we're going to go through some data in the state of the evictions. Today is the first day that [1:58:31 PM] evictions, just kind of regular, nonpayment cases are being heard in Travis county, and there are a few hundred which are set to be heard in the next two and a half weeks. And that's probably going to start a much larger wave of evictions that we'll see over the next few months. And so this is a moment of time when we might be able to intervene to try to minimize the number of evictions. Okay. Next slide. >> So I want to go through just a basic overview a little bit about the normal eviction process. This is what evictions look like pre-covid. So just to walk y'all through what that typically looks like. That has changed a bit now that we're under a number of different orders and laws that we've passed recently. Next slide, please. And one thing that's important to point out here is the difference between formal and informal evictions. [1:59:32 PM] A formal eviction is when a tenant moves out after there's court involvement. It may not end up in a judgment ultimately in a court. An informal eviction is when a tenant has moved out with a written eviction. Sometimes there's not a formal notice to vacate, but just the landlord saying you need to leave. As you can imagine, we don't have data on informal evictions, but we know the court data we have that we'll talk about in just a little bit is incomplete because it does not capture all of those informal evictions that we know happen all the time. Next slide, please. So the typical formal eviction process, if you commit any other type of breach of the lease. The first step is that the land lord has to give the tenant a written notice to vacate. The code says this has to be for [2:00:33 PM] three days but it can be lengthened or shortened. The Texas department association lease, for example, shortens that period to just 24 hours. The landlord has to give a notice to vacate in compliance with whatever the lease has shortened or lengthened that period of time to, if it doesn't say anything it's three days. If the tenant is still in the unit after the expiration of that notice to vacate period, the landlord files a forcible eviction lawsuit in the justice of the peace court in the precinct in which the premises in question are located. That gets set for a hearing, in normal times that hearing has to be no sooner than 10 days after it's filed and no more than 20 days after the case is filed. At least for a while, that rule has been suspended to give courts some flexibility when they schedule those hearings. Normally it's between 10 and 21 days. The constables will go out [2:01:35 PM] usually and serve a citation, in person or by posting on the door of the unit. They're notified of that hearing. The hearing is held in the JP court. Typically all of that was held in person. The vast majority of the time, particularly in nonpayment cases, the tenant is found to owe rent. And they will lose if they're found to owe rent and don't have a defense. And then the tenant has five days from the date of the judgment against them to file an appeal to the county court, and if the tenant doesn't exercise that option to appeal on the sixth day after the date of the judgment, the landlord can obtain what's called a writ of possession which then authorizes the constable to go out to the unit, post a 24-hour notice, and come back 24 hours later and change the locks and remove the tenant and prevent the tenant from entering the unit again under threat of criminal trespass. This is a quick process, [2:02:36 PM] typically takes about a month, sometimes three to five weeks. Typically, this is a short process that has to happen between the time that a tenant fails to pay rent and the time they can actually be put out on the street. Next slide, please. This is a map of the five pre sits in Travis county. Precinct 5 covers a small area, but it's a lot of central Austin. You can see precinct 2 is north and west, 3 is southwest, 4 covers the southeast sort of quadrant of the county and 1 stretches northeast. Next slide. Shoshana, I think you're still on mute. >> Yeah, I was. Okay. Cool. I'll talk about some changes to [2:03:36 PM] the eviction process during covid. There are three main buckets of changes. One is court orders, and then (indiscernible) Will talk about the federal C.A.R.E.S. Act and some of the city action that y'all's taken, so we don't really need to explain that that much. But we'll quickly hit on it. So next slide. For the court orders, also a heads-up. Austin has created a myriad of educational materials, which y'all could circulate to your constituents. That's the website where we have a catalog of all of them. It goes through all of these changes in detail, with pictures, with flow charts, to try to make what's pretty inaccessible, accessible. We also are available to do live streams and video meetings and the like. So if you have a constituent, or [2:04:36 PM] constituent organization who are asking for tenant education materials, definitely link them with us. Next slide. Okay. So on court orders, a month ago we had a lot more to say on court orders. Today, not so much. Because the supreme court of Texas had an order which there was a moratorium on hearings for most -- for most eviction cases and that expired on may 18th. Travis county justice court had a moratorium that expired yesterday. Williamson county courts are more Progressive than Travis county courts at this moment. And their moratorium on eviction hearings is going to expire June 15th. So there shouldn't be hearings occurring there except where there's an imminent threat. Next slide. >> So, we also have the federal [2:05:39 PM] C.A.R.E.S. Act which was signed into law March 27th, and has three major tenant protections in conjunction with an eviction moratorium that we think applies to about half of renters in Austin is what we suspect based on available data that we have. It's important to note that we don't have complete data on exactly what is covered by the C.A.R.E.S. Act. The C.A.R.E.S. Act applies to cover properties, which are various types of subsidized housing, including tax credit housing and public housing, but also types of housing that have federally backed mortgages. There are good sources of data including a map that Texas housing has put together for multi-family housing that is subject to these protections. And you can see an image of that map here. You can access that map. What we don't have and what no one else that we're aware of has is access to what's considered single-family prompts that are -- that have these types of mortgages. Properties that have between 1 [2:06:40 PM] and 4 units rather than 5 or more units. So single-family homes, two-plexes and four-plexes, there is no comprehensive data out there, which is part of the reason the council has passed the most recent ordinances to give the tenants to ask from their landlord whether they're covered with the C.A.R.E.S. Act. There's a moratorium on eviction filings for nonpayment from March 27th through July 25th. Landlords can't issue notices to vacate for nonpayment during that time. After July 25th, landlords can issue to notices to vacate, but they have to be for at least 30 days, rather than the typical three-day, or one day. Late fees cannot be charged for nonpayment or late payment of rent in those covered properties. Next slide, please. [2:07:41 PM] And then, of course, there's a number of actions taken on the city level which we're very grateful for. The mayoral order through July 25th, also no lockouts or landlord liens through that date. Of course, the opportunity to cure ordinance that gives tenants 60 days to cure their default of rent payments from March through August. They have to be issued a notice of proposed eviction and then given 60 days to pay before the statutorily required three-day notice to vacate, or one day if the lease shortens it, thereby allowing the landlord to proceed with eviction. As I just mentioned, the C.A.R.E.S. Act disclosure that landlords have to respond to a tenant letter where the tenant lives. Next slide? >> Just putting all of what we heard together, this is kind of a timeline of what we anticipate we're going to be seeing, if [2:08:43 PM] there are no additional changes. Of course, ordinances and orders can be extended, new moratoriums can be imposed, there could be changes at the federal level. But the -- here on June 1st, or June 2nd, evictions hearings today, there are 20 hearings, which are taking place in Travis county. They're all in jp- 1 today. For these hearings, which are starting right now, we -- they seem to be the cases which are backlogged, so they were all filed before the moratorium went into effect on March 13th. And we expect that there probably will be very few defenses since they were all filed before the moratorium, and then the C.A.R.E.S. Act protections and city protections came in place. What we did hear, part of the eviction solidarity program, and we're witnessing these hearings, [2:09:44 PM] and I have reports this morning that every single tenant who showed up talked about how covid impacted them. So even though their initial default on rent may have still been impacted by covid, in early March, but they were impacted even if it was before that moratorium went into place. We also expect to see potentially cases which were filed where the notice to vacate was issued against the mayoral order, or the tenant wasn't given opportunity to (indiscernible) Under the city council order. We expect right now there's over 300 active cases, and we expect most of them to be heard or decided upon potentially dismissed between now and July 25th. On July 25th is when we expect the first wave of evictions, which would be non-c.a.r.e.s. Act, nonpayment convictions for April and may rent, when the [2:10:44 PM] mayoral order is up. And we expect a second wave of evictions, and then the continuing cases where the 60-day opportunity to cure is up. October 24th, there's going to be no more opportunity to cure as of now. Next slide? Okay. What does the data tell us? So we're going to talk a bit about some data which we've obtained on this mostly scraping through the website. It's important to note that right now that data isn't super accessible. And that there is a lot we don't know with the data, so being able to have better data would allow us in the future to be able to have more insight into what is the current state of things. >> So this slide on the next one gives a little bit of historical context of the filings we've [2:11:46 PM] seen in Travis county. This shows the number of filings over the last six years through 2019. In 2014 there were just under 8,000, and that's gone up by about 50%, when we had just under 12,000 filings. You can also see the split here of filings that were ultimately dismissed versus those that resulted in a judgment. We don't have here who the judgment was for, whether the landlord or the tenant but we know from experience that the overwhelming judgments are for landlords and not for tenants. One thing I want to point out is while dismissals are often better for tenants than an ultimate judgment, a lot of times there's hidden data in the dismissals. Sometimes the landlord says you have to pay the filing fee, and all of these other fees and then we'll dismiss. While it doesn't result in a judgment against the tenant, what you don't see from this data is sometimes the tenants are forced to spend lots and [2:12:46 PM] lots more money than just the rent they owe rather than just the judgment in court. And it doesn't show the tenants that move out after the filing. But it still results in a tenant being displaced. Next slide, please? And then this is also over the same period of time from 2014 to 2019, but broken down by jt precinct. So Shoshana has nicely color coded these with the map you can see on the left. And you can see that precincts 2 and 1 in the blue and pink are showing the most dramatic increase over the last five or six years, 5, 3 and 4 are relatively flat. You see very dramatic increases over the last three or four years. Precincts 1 and 2, we're looking to get zip code data, where we [2:13:47 PM] can show the actual filings of where they're from. You'll see they match up with the locations throughout the city where we know gentrification and displacement is happening most acutely. Next slide? >> Okay. To talk a little bit about what's happening right now. So (indiscernible) Along with our partners at solidarity network has eviction surveillance covid-19 tool which we're calling eviction solidarity dashboard, and it tracks what is happening on any given day. It's updated every evening. So the data actually on this slide is old data, because I had to submit this by 12:00 yesterday. And since then I think we've had three additional -- I can look it up -- but we've had four additional filings. [2:14:48 PM] We're now up to 2,085 filings in 2020. The active cases went do you know from 544 to 526, which probably is dismissals, either an agreement was reached or the tenant may have moved out. There have been 923 judgments issued. You can see in that middle left chart, that our eviction curve has flattened, because of the moratorium and the advocacy for tenants, and in March eviction filings were relatively steady, or not increase in the number of filings at the rate as previous years. So we have the ability right now to be able to see the curve flatten. This is a man-made crisis and preventable crisis. [2:15:49 PM] There is a status of cases for jt, and then you can click through on some of the arrows to get a deeper dive into what's going on in each precinct. And then as Marisa said we'll be updating maps with zip code level data and we're hoping to add additional layers including the top evictors and things like that. And you can check out the map url on the presentation. Next slide? So just doing a deeper dive into what's happening, like right now in June, there are 264 hearings scheduled right now. Most of them are -- well, all of them are in jp-1 and jp-4. And we've seen 256 evictions filed since the moratorium. So that's since mid-march. Since the mayoral order and the [2:16:50 PM] opportunity to the C.A.R.E.S. Act went into effect, it's been only around 40 some odd cases which have been filed. The new cases which were filed, six of them have resulted in judgments, so likely those imminent threat cases, the more immediate cases, we expect that number to rise. Next slide? So this is just eviction filings by day in 2020. And you'll see that graphically declines as we get to late March. We also see patterns which emerge every year, which is that it's the middle of the month normally when you see the spike in eviction filings. Also if you look at historical data, what you'll see is normally in April, the number of both filings and judgments goes down. Our best guess is that might have to do with taxes, and [2:17:50 PM] having that just like additional infusion of money. Obviously that's not going to happen in April this year, although maybe in July that tax refund could help. And across the country, what we've heard from folks at eviction lab and other cities who are also seeing that as moratoriums are lifting, there hasn't been a huge rush for filings, so long as there are other protections in place. So it will be interesting to see when filings start going up, and if in anticipation of July 25th, when the mayoral order is up, we start seeing more of those filings. Next slide? Okay. And then this is just current status of cases by precinct. [2:18:52 PM] So you can see jt-1 and jt-4, both of them have already scheduled -- have pretty packed dockets. We're going to have 49 hearings between those two precincts. You'll also see jt-5 has a number in progress and they haven't even started scheduling hearings, so there's a lot more yet to be scheduled. Next slide? And so just kind of to end, this is the calm before the storm. It's starting, but we think that there are going to be a lot of -- we're going to be seeing a lot of evictions, and there's also, I guess, room for a lot of advocacy because we have tools as tenants advocates that we don't normally have. I think we have the ability to be able to weather the storm in a way that during normal times we don't necessarily have that ability. So thank you. [2:19:53 PM] And if anyone has any questions. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the work that you do. Colleagues, questions? Yes, councilmember Flannigan and mayor pro tem. >> Flannigan: The precincts are poor estimates of demographic -- they're just so disparate in demographics across the precincts. Precinct 2, which is the Travis county, all of the Travis county part of my district is very different than the part of precinct 2 on the other side of I-35. Do you have any sense -- I know you're working on zip code data. You had some dramatic numbers. Do you have any sense on what's happening with that? >> So I think that we need more [2:20:54 PM] data. So the zip codes will help. Also property-specific information could help. When the innovation team was doing research on evictions, they were able to get property level data for some of 2017 and 2018. But that's not readily available to the public. So I think the more data that we could get, then the more of an ability we could do a deeper dive to be able to highlight and kind of study some of those disparities. Because you're totally right. Just doing a big block doesn't tell us all that much. >> Flannigan: Thank you. >> Garza: Can I go, mayor? Okay. As far as the defenses -- I'm assuming that -- this could create new defenses, right? [2:21:54 PM] So if there's -- just to make sure I understand, there's an opportunity to maybe -- and I'm sure you're already doing it as advocates, but to add to -- another thing to our legislative agenda which many times feels like wishful thinking, but every now and then I'm pleasantly surprised by our governor. So every now and then. I feel like that could be something that we could be reaching out to our local state reps in -- I don't think there will be a special session called, but maybe there will be. But if there was essentially a defense because specifically for covid where they, you know, it allows them -- obviously we can't put any more protections in place. Hopefully we can extend the notice to vacate protections, and maybe the county court decides to extend theirs, and hopefully doing everything we [2:22:54 PM] can, but as a last resort so we don't end up with a lot of people with evictions on their record, when practically speaking they're being -- they might be in a situation where they're losing the roof over their head. But then to not add insult to injury in that, you know, now they have an eviction on their record. That would be one way to allow, I guess -- the creation of a new defense, is that right? That's what would have to happen? >> Yes. So cities have some ability to do that. The state has the ability to preempt a lot of that. But one thing that does not exist until these more recent ordinances is the opportunity to cure. In many stays the three-day notice is an opportunity to pay or quit. In Texas, you can offer to pay, but your landlord has no obligation to accept that mope, once you have defaulted. Even if you come up with every penny you owe, including rent [2:23:56 PM] fees and court fees and everything else, the landlord has the ability to say, we don't want to accept your money, and we're going to proceed with eviction. So what the ordinance offered is great, particularly given what's going on in the pandemic, but once that expires, in Austin and anywhere else in the state, there is no ability to come up with that regardless of your reasons for inability to pay. >> Garza: Okay. I guess I would imagine there's going to be a lot more people with the inability to cure, is my assumption. If you weren't able to pay your rent in April or may, yeah, it's going to be hard to get to that cure part. I guess with that being said, if there are things specifically at the city level, please let us know, so we can implement whatever -- whatever power we have at this level, I'm sure we have a very supportive council, too. I'm assuming you would provide opportunities for pro Bono help [2:24:59 PM] for -- once the calm before the storm hits. Because I personally would be interested in doing what I can to help. And then lastly, I've been asked to talk about evictions at a group. Would you all be available -- I'll just have my office reach out to you. So other council members can talk. Thanks. >> Yeah. We would love to. >> Mayor Adler: (Indiscernible)? >> I'm not sure who the best person to direct this question to is, but I'm curious about what kind of connections can the city make, or are we making with people that are experiencing this -- or in this eviction process in order to provide assistance for them? You know, it's a top priority for us to help people avoid [2:26:02 PM] homelessness. And just to help people with services such as rental assistance, particularly right now. So is there any connection between our services and folks that are going through this process? Is there a case worker who works with them who says, hey, let's connect you to this service? Do you guys know about that? Or is that a question for our staff? >> So there are a myriad maybe is a big word for it, there are a few major resources for tenants in Austin, which y'all are aware of. Legal aid, our hotline is always open. But, of course, the need is always greater than the ability to serve Austin tenants council. Especially folks who have been experiencing homelessness and placed in housing, I know they [2:27:03 PM] have a number of efforts right now, and those folks tend to be already matched with case management services. I do think that more support to tenants for navigating these waters, and even navigating at times the rental assistance program also could improve outcomes. >> Kitchen: I just want to be more specific. This may be for our staff. We've created a rental assistance program, which is important during this time of impact of covid. We're about to go off of and lose one of the policy changes that were in place for a little while. And so I would like to understand how we can directly relate the rental assistance we have available to people that are experiencing evictions. So I guess that's a question for rosy. I don't know if you all have [2:28:04 PM] thought about that yet. I know we're talking about a first come first serve kind of program. We talked about a lottery program. I'm not sure what we're talking about. But it just seems to me, when we had the conversation earlier, we were talking about, well, you know, what is our need, and how do we connect the services we're making available to our need. And to the needs in the community. And to my mind this is perhaps an example, pretty clear example of a need definitely identified. And the more proactive perhaps in terms of making those connections. So I don't know if you want to speak to that now at all, rosey, or if that's something to think about. >> Hi, everyone, this is rosey, neighborhood housing and community development. That is indeed that we do strongly recognize, and we have been thinking about how we can [2:29:05 PM] bolster the support in this particular area. Whether it be with coronavirus relief funds, or with housing trust fund, or with rethinking how we plan to utilize our community development block grants next year. So we've been working with (indiscernible) Having conversations with different stakeholders on that front. When I secured the benefit of this particular conversation to help us identify any other priorities, or policy initiatives that might be out there, that we can kind of create a little bit more holistic of a response. It is very much on our mind and something we're actively working on. >> Kitchen: Okay, that's great. When you get to a point where you've thought through and figured out what the approach is, I'm sure you'll let us know. >> Absolutely. >> Mayor Adler: Council member Renteria? >> Renteria: I want to understand the eviction process. [2:30:06 PM] I think I heard you say that once they file an eviction process for a tenant, then it automatically goes on their record saying -- that an eviction had been filed against them? Is that correct? Does that go on your record? >> It potentially does. It depends on who's looking for that data and if they know where to look. So if you know what to do, you can go to the Travis county justice of the peace website and you can look at data and you can search by case number or party type, if you know what to do, like Shoshana does, you can find that data. There are for-profit data collection entities out there that scrape that data, that put it into like tenant databases that landlords can see whether there's a judgment against you or whether there's merely a filing. The fact that there's a filing is never going to go away. There's no expungement process for getting rid of that in the [2:31:08 PM] way that if you are charged with a crime but the charge is dismissed, you may be eligible for expungement. If there's no judgment on your record it's obviously far better than having a judgment, but if landlords know where to look they can see where the landlord took action to file against you. We advise clients to avoid the filings because of the negative repercussions it can have. Future landlords may look at it and say it got to the point they had to file, so we don't want to rent to you. >> Renteria: When there's an eviction, and you lose -- (indiscernible) And you have to move out, you're saying they're given three days. If they're not out by three days. Do they lose their possessions? You say they change the locks. Or do they throw everything outside? >> The three days is the initial notice to vacate before the filing of the court case. After the case goes to trial, if [2:32:09 PM] the tenant loses, then they have five days after the date of the judgment to file an appeal. On the sixth day, if they have not filed an appeal, then the landlord can seek what's called a writ of possession which allows the kochb stable to come and post a 24-hour warning notice on their door. That's the point at which they can be physically removed, their belongings can be removed and the locks can be changed. >> Renteria: What if they can't move their possessions because they don't have a way to move it? What happens then? >> So unfortunately that's when you see things that are put out onto the curb, and those possessions are just put out, you know, in the front of the property. And what happens to them is not of -- it's not a pretty process. And a lot of people end up losing their belongings, in addition to so much else in that process. >> And that is an area where different cities have created [2:33:10 PM] kind of their version type programs in which where storage is provided, or that there is regulations about where the belongings can be placed. So that is an area in which -- I know we've had conversations with nhcd about kind of potential creative thinking about how to address that problem. >> Renteria: I would really love to look into that problem, manager, if you can relook into that, and rosey. Because I think that would be -- that's very hard on a family when they lose all their possessions. Especially if they don't have a place to store it, and you're out in the street, and now you're not only worried about where you're going to find housing at, but what you're going to -- but what's going to happen to all your possessions out there on the street. So I would really love to see something done about that. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Natasha? [2:34:11 PM] >> Harper-madison: I was just going to follow up. I have my own questions but I don't want to jump in front of anybody else that had their hand up. I just wanted to follow up with what Pio was referencing. I'm interested in the storage idea. Not just from the perspective of people losing their lodging, but we've gotten a lot of these kinds of questions from folks who have a place to go. They're just having to significantly downsize. So they're going from a four-bedroom to a one-bedroom. And the assumption is eventually they will get back on their feet. But that space in the interim, deciding whether or not you can get rid of all your stuff, because right now it's hard, is a really tough decision. I echo Pio's sentiment, I would very much like to follow that conversation, for the people losing their housing, and not those losing their housing but downsizing dramatically. Thank you. >> Appreciate that, council [2:35:13 PM] members. We'll be looking at that. It coincides with the conversation we have about storage for the homeless community so we'll think about that as we move forward. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else on the presentation? Yes, councilmember tovo? >> Tovo: Thank you very much. This is very useful information. Just to get a sense of the scale of the eviction crisis in our community. So thank you for that. I have a question for our staff about, to follow up on what I think councilmember kitchen was asking about. I'd like to ask the staff for a status of the tenant eviction counseling money that we had identified. My office had brought forward along with a resolution that had passed, with eviction counseling. It was my understanding that would be added to a notice of [2:36:14 PM] funding availability that nhcd was releasing. And it's not clear to me whether that has a piece of it that is for eviction counseling. We had approved our budget for $75,000 specifically for eviction counseling in 2018-2019. And so rosey, or whoever the appropriate person is, could you help us understand where that is? It was my understanding that that 75,000 was going to be paired potentially with some additional money to make it closer to 250. So that individuals who were facing eviction had that ability to be represented through the court process, which we know can make a big difference in terms of their ability to access housing in the future, and really just get a better landing place for the situation they're facing. >> Yes, I can speak to that. We did issue of funding availability for request for proposals. [2:37:17 PM] It got up to about $750,000, and it included a piece of emergency rental assistance. The solicitation closed, I want to say a handful of weeks ago. We didn't get the substantial responses that we were hoping to get, so we're looking at what we can do with that particular solicitation, either award in part or figure out a different way of trying to address that need. That's part of the review that we're undergoing right now that I referenced in response to councilmember kitchen. >> Rosey, how much of that $75,000 was allocated for eviction counseling? >> I don't remember the breakdown. I would have to get back to you on that. I know we had added an additional $250,000 rental assistance dollars to that. There were other elements of the scope. So I couldn't give you the specific breakdown on what each of those aspects were. [2:38:19 PM] >> I understand that you're looking at the responses to see if there's an opportunity to proceed with -- I can't remember how you expressed it -- part of them. But given the immediate need for that eviction counseling, all of it, actually, but the eviction counseling piece included, do you think there's an opportunity within one of the responses you got to proceed with that portion of it? >> I don't want to say that there is without having confirmed with staff. Because I know they've been looking at that. We want to make sure that the solution that we put out, or that we contract with is going to be the best to meet the need that we have right now, knowing that it's even changed from what we've put out as part of the solicitation. That solicitation was actually issued before covid was largely impacting the community. So we want to just make sure we're pausing and moving forward in the way that makes the best and most sense for the community and what we're seeing right now, given the way that we expect to [2:39:22 PM] see miss Kreiger was mentioning earlier. >> Tovo: I would ask our manager, if you could update us just as soon as possible so we have a sense of what resources are going to be put in place. >> Absolute sli. >> Tovo: Thank you so much. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else in this presentation? Greg Casar? >> Casar: Thank you for your presentations. Councilmember tovo, thank you for you and your team and my staff to make sure this was brought up today. The day has been going long, so one thing I just wanted to note is in the message board post that we put up on the C.A.R.E.S. Act framework, we also tried to allocate a little bit of money into rent -- into the rental support section for potential eviction defects, to provide a little bit of flexibility, not to take away from any of the [2:40:23 PM] rental money that was proposed by staff, but to add a little bit and provide flexibility for that to be eviction defense if we need it. And then second, Shoshana, if you could tell us -- do you all have a way of tracking or knowing whether any of these evictions that are being filed or that would be heard would be against the council ordinance or mayor's order? >> So we are attempting to collect that data. So we do know that some of the evictions which have been filed were our C.A.R.E.S. Act properties, which were filed after the C.A.R.E.S. Act prohibition. So we know that to be true. So far none of those cases -- I don't believe any of those cases have been set. There could also be physical harm exceptions or C.A.R.E.S. Act issue other than nonpayment. For the mayoral order, we're not going to know that until we're [2:41:24 PM] observing the hearings, as part of the eviction solidarity network. We're calling on volunteers to be able to witness every single hearing, which is hard. So we had 10 people on the virtual hearings today. I just got a message from one of my staff members, that one of the member who was evicted today, an elderly man who had surgery in January and told the court that he chose to live and be evicted as opposed to the other way around. So we're witnessing those to be able to capture those stories. In that process, we have questions to be able to track, was a notice -- when was the notice to vacate issued. So I think over time, we'll be able to collect additional information. That's also information that supports themselves, could collect and disclose. That's also a reason for -- a place in which legal advocacy and assistance can be very [2:42:27 PM] helpful, because courts do not normally -- it's not routine for them to grant with discovery, or for tenants to request discovery. Without getting the documentation, you don't actually know what has or has not occurred. So I think that there -- we believe, because we've got reports from tenants who got notices to vacate, but we see these laws being violated. So we assume that this will happen, and if there's not robust support for tenants to be able to vindicate their rights, then there's a large chance that a lot of those tenants will be formally evicted or will choose to move out to avoid that on their record. >> Casar: I want to see what the system is, formal or informal, when people are getting notices to vacate that they shouldn't get, and issue information to those landlords and when those [2:43:27 PM] things land in court, we should find some way to know. Because those orders and those ordinances are (indiscernible) Purpose and it seems like they have reduced evictions significantly. But we shouldn't be letting any fall through the cracks. So thank you for your help for that. And manager, if we could keep an eye on that, that would be really helpful. >> Mayor Adler: Anything else? Thank you very much for the presentation. Colleagues, it's 2:43. Thank you very much. Thank you. Before we go into closed session, just by way of housekeeping. We have an item on the agenda for Thursday that relates to police funding. I'm going to join together that item number 7, which is on our listed agenda, join that with the discussion about the demonstrations for Thursday [2:44:29 PM] afternoon. So speakers will be called on that at 3:00. People can sign up for either one of those, or both of those, but speak one time. So there will be speakers that speak at 10:00 in the morning on our agenda, save and except item 7, and 2:00 on zoning, and sometime, 3:00 or after that, to speak on item number 7, and what had been listed as a discussion item, to let people sign up for, as people were signing up for the police item anyhow in order to be able to speak. Yes, council member alter? >> Alter: I forgot to mention earlier for item 48, councilmember Casar's resolution on the domestic violence facility and the budget. I wanted to be listed as a co-sponsor. I reerchd out to him on Friday, and I know councilmember Ellis reached out last night. [2:45:30 PM] So I'm not sure how best to handle that, or what our options are. >> Kitchen: You just handled it. This is Ann. That would be fine. Public meeting. >> Alter: Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: All right. So with that said, let's now go into closed session to take up one item pursuant to 55071, amendments to city code section 251345. Relating to residential use in the Austin airport overlay. In light of the decision (indiscernible) Base Travis county. Items e-1 and e-2 have been withdrawn, without objection. >> It's not an objection, but just for whoever is of the city staff is watching, I think what you affirmed is councilmember alter and councilmember Ellis posted on the message board if [2:46:30 PM] it's possible to list them both on that item, that would be great. >> Mayor Adler: That's what I understood is happening. There's no limit to the number of people that can sign up to something if it's a public hearing. >> That's correct, you can do it today or on Thursday. But whoever is listed as a sponsor can be shown. >> Just wanted to make sure they got that down. Okay, thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Got it. >> Ku hear me? >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem Garza? >> Garza: I don't know who that is. Is it deputy city manager? Oh. With regards to the speakers, what item is the discussion item? >> Mayor Adler: It is probably item 1 on the special call. >> Garza: Assuming we're going to get -- I just want to give people direction. Thanks. >> To that end, mayor pro tem, space 001 is what I've been [2:47:32 PM] telling people is the item number. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. It's open until noon tomorrow. Anything else? >> That was going to be my question is just when the cutoff was for signing up. >> Mayor Adler: All right. So with that, at 2:48, I will see you all in executive session. We have no more things to discuss after executive session. I'll be returning back to close the meeting. [3:58:00 PM] >>Mayor Adler: It is June 2nd, the time is 3:58 and we’re out of closed session. In closed session we discussed legal matters related to item E3. Now back out in work session we have concluded our business and at 3:58 this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thanks for coming back.