City Council Regular Meeting Transcript – 2/23/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 2/23/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 2/23/2023 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. [10:00:05 AM] Good morning, everybody. I'm going to call the meeting to order. This is a regular meeting of the Austin city council. It is February 23rd 2023 were meeting in the city council chambers at city hall, which is located on second street. Remember, folks, I'm gonna walk you through kind of what the day is going to look like so that everybody will have [10:01:05 AM] a feel for it, particularly those that want to be heard and want to speak, you'll be able to kind of schedule your day. The order of the meeting will be as far follows. We're gonna start off by hearing from consent agenda speakers. Both virtual and in person. We will then go to a vote on the consent agenda with brief comment, comments of coming from members we will then take up items 45 46 47. Those are imminent domain items. At this time, right after we do that. If time allows. At that point, we will recess the regular meeting and I will call to order the Austin housing finance corporation meeting and my goal and hope. And prayer is that that will happen close to 10. 30, speaking of prayer, pray that we can do it close to 10 30. We will hear the speakers on [10:02:06 AM] hfc. At that time we will act and we will adjourn. Are then called back to order the Austin city council and we'll open the public hearing for item. 49 49 50. Although let me just say item number 49 has been postponed so before item 50 with immediate action on its, corresponding item item 51 that's related to that public hearing. At noon, we will hear noon public comment and have live music. At one o'clock, we will take up speakers for pooled item number, 44 discussion and action at two o'clock, we will take up zoning speakers have discussion and action at 2 45 or in that time frame, we will take up speakers for pulled items, 61 discussion and action. I'm going to read now. Changes in [10:03:06 AM] corrections. To the agenda. Items that are being pulled off the consent agenda or items. 44 61. Item 44 will be, as indicated that he one pm times certain and items 61 will be at 2 45 times certain. As I previously indicated. Also members after we hear from the speakers on the consent agenda. We will also hear from our legal department on items 35 through 39 because those items relate to, settlements and we will have a have them give us a brief discussion regarding, that those matters. By the way, I don't think I said for the record that we have all of the council members here on the diets everyone is present. Changes and corrections item number 9 19 is postponed indefinitely at the [10:04:07 AM] request of council member Ryan altar to return after commission review. Item number 30. February 8 2023 unanimously recommended by the zero waste advisory commission on a seven oh vote with four absences item 31 postponed to March 9 2023 item 34 postponed to March 9 2023 item 43. Sponsors council member Jose chito vela, council member of Vanessa Fuentes, council member, Jose Velasquez, council member Ryan alter council member zo qadri council member Leslie pool, council member of Vanessa Fuentes. Item number 42. That will be a kid. It's not may not be on your changes. Corrections list council committee we will remove from the council committee on public safety because a mistake was made probably by me and council member. Harper-madison was [10:05:08 AM] listed on that committee, although she had not wanted to be on that committee, so we're removing that and I apologize for any problem. We created their number 49 postponed to may 18 2023 item number 52 withdrawn item number 61 sponsors will be listed as council member Ryan alter Mary Kirk Watson, council member, Alison alter council member Jose Velasquez. Council member Jose chito vela and council member Leslie pool. Items pulled from the consent agenda. Item number 44 pulled by mayor Watson. Item number 61 pulled by mayor Watson. The reason I pulled those members is because there are amendments that we all know need to be added to those and item number 43. Although that is not on my list item number 43 has been pulled because this morning I was provided. A proposed. Motion [10:06:11 AM] to amend by council member of Fuentes. So it will be 43 44 61. Mayor yes, remember, alter. Thank you. I wanted to just ask for item 43, which is a student housing that's council member, Ryan alters item and the convention has normally been that the council member who sponsors is listed. First so in terms of the changes in corrections if we can put him first on that. List. He's on there. He's just not. I just inaudible order. It's just out of out of the Norman and I know that he worked on that. So I wanted to make sure of that. And then I had a question as to why I didn't hear second on item number 43 members, I read the way it shows up is it starts [10:07:11 AM] with council member of vela. It will now have council member Ryan alter is the first name there. Thank you, Alison alter. Thank you. And obviously that was what was on. The changes in corrections. Originally not a mistake that you made win, saying it for the executive session. I didn't hear what time when we were doing will be held at the end as I posted on the message board executive session will be at the end of the other items we take up as part of the meeting. Thank you for the clarification. Okay? May I have a quick question? Yes I just wanted to clarify for the polled items that you wanted to take speakers at the time that we address those items I had heard from a couple of folks that they might wish to go at 10 A.M. As [10:08:13 AM] well, you know, I said, I said multiple times. Now, if you want to speak you can speak if I'm trying to make this easy for everybody. So if you want to speak of had a number of people that want to speak at the time were taking up an item. So you can speak at the time were taking up an item and that's why I'm going to some lengths to make sure people have a good idea when that will be. But if it's more convenient for you to speak at the 10 o'clock time. I don't want to have to. Everybody have to move to that. So in essence, what I'm hoping to be doing is offering people to opportunities. So in fact, I was just getting ready to say so. I'm glad you brought it up. We're going to. We're going to take up. I won't look at the city clerk and make sure I'm not just saying something caused her to stand up and run out of the room. You're there's no problem with what I just said. Is there there may be a problem with remote speakers. We did send all the speakers in person and [10:09:13 AM] remote for items 44 61 letting them know of the time certain that was posted on the message board and we received one request, to be added to remote instead of in person, so I think everything is going. Okay good. Okay, well again. Hang on to the prayers, folks. We're trying to do that that way, but I'm glad you bring that up because I want to emphasize we're trying to make it easy. For citizen participation, and so those two times will be available. So. We're going to begin the process. Hearing from speakers. The first group way we've done it. In the immediate past, which is the 10 o'clock, let let people have their opportunity to speak and what we will do is they can testify on consent and non consent items so that we hear them and please, when you [10:10:16 AM] come up and or you remotely or calling in we will ask that you identify what it is. You're speaking on, the zoning agenda items will people to speak on that again. You can speak now or you can speak when we call up the zoning items at two o'clock. And each speaker today will have two minutes. So with that, I will. Asked that we begin hearing from speakers. First speaker is Sandra Mueller speaking on item 32. Hi. Good morning council and mayor that thanks for making remote speaking easy Mueller from G one and speaking I am there is neutral, I guess been extending this agreement for seven years. And it was very year. The capital campaign to expand the campus for awesome, humane [10:11:18 AM] society. The longest standing, no kill nonprofit pet and adoption center in Austin is already in progress has an ap a ever started their campaign? Austin is, waiting on a rebuild of the talent animal shelter center for a very long time. A C is currently under audit. Any finalization to the agreement should wait until your auditors assassin makes some recommendations. For instance, they may find that a C closed intake. At the same time, a ph took fewer animals may see. This cause more Luz dogma danger to this city. They may find that a C should take back down again animal center for satellite adoption center. The city legal real estate. The auditors and council needs to give Austin animal center what it means not give a P a what it wants. The seventh amendment to the temporary license agreement does not serve a public purpose for benefit to this city. And also [10:12:19 AM] your representatives on the animal advisory commission who are affiliated with a P a. Just declined to expand, they neuter suggest any replacements not be affiliated with a P a and should be from maybe Boston humanity, society or emancipated, or hopefully some neutral parties. So thank you for your time and have a good day. Monica Guzman, speaking on 34 42. Good morning. Daryn council by Monica Guzman policy director. I go. Austin vamoose Austin. I want to thank council members for postponing item 34 to the March 9th council meeting, allowing time for the March 2nd special called joint council committee meetings. But we also want to urge you we do urge you to postpone to at least March 23rd council meeting, allowing the community time to read, reach out to you in your city staff as well as time for translating or interpreting to [10:13:21 AM] non English speaking trans independent writers. Many of us were asked planning commission meeting back in November. Urging them to postpone going to council. The focus groups that happened were great, but they were not enough. They didn't read enough people, especially transit dependent, non English speaking writers. I hope that the council members you have a multicultural, multi lingual constituency can understand that. For years. Now, residents have already been hurting dudes changes that were done two routes. Development related to route. Removal of bus route bus stops, they ones unsheltered other related transit and transportation issues that have yet to be addressed. We're asking you to slow down, allowed time for the people to hear and be heard. Thank you. Mayor that [10:14:27 AM] concludes the remote speakers. I do believe we have one speaker trying to call in, so we'll move on to in person, and once we connect with them, we can proceed. Sure person speakers. First is Sylvia Orosco. Speaking on item 12. Good morning city council. My name is Sylvia roscoe and the founder and executive director of Mexican art museum. Mexico the museum is dedicated to promotion and preservation of Mexican, Latin X and Mexican American art and culture to the presentation of exhibitions and education for all Mexico was founded in 1980 for over 40 years ago. Mexico the through that time has made major contributions to Austin, [10:15:28 AM] including the beaver la Vida de los muertos festival that attracts over 1,020,000 people in tourists every year to downtown Austin. We pioneered the fifth street corridor and currently are working on a cultural heritage district. And currently we're also working on our building to renovate it. Today I am speaking on item number 12 the thrive program. This is a pilot program for the city and the city must design this program so that it will be implemented using them. The measures that are stated in the resolution and the intent of the program to have a successful outcome. At this point, we don't even know what will happen after the two years. We don't know if we will be able to apply. In the future years. The thrive program is supposed to help. And focus have a focus, investment to sustain and grow arts organizations that are deeply rooted and reflective of us since diverse cultures. This program seeks to directly [10:16:29 AM] correct historically under found displacement and cultural erasure of vulnerable communities within Austin by offering so substantial funding in the case of Mexico that there have been several injustices that have occurred in the process. First of all this. The panel that judged our organization there were no Latinos. There were no visual arts organizations. There was an eligible criteria you used to judge our organization radar organization, including that we were. We didn't qualify for the program. And so I ask that you look into this program and to correct the injustices that have been created with with our rating and review of the program so that it can help organizations like ours in the future. And in the present. Thank you so much. We're going back to the remote speaker. Zenobia Joseph, speaking on [10:17:29 AM] items 9, 10, 11 and 34. Your organization. Thank you, Mary council. I'm Zenobia. Joseph let me just press this technical comments. I appreciate the clerk , letting you know that I was trying to reach you. However, the process is viewpoint discrimination. There are times when the consultant. The contractor stays on the line and then other times when that contractor drops off, so I would just ask you to be consistent and also recognize that in the past, the public hearings were consolidated with agenda items that we spoke on. So today. I just didn't bother signing up for the public hearings. Because usually you don't have time for at all. At any rate as a released item 34. That's the equitable transit oriented development. I am an opposition to that item, largely because the north Lamar transit center as specified, and as you know, [10:18:31 AM] mayor, it took over 30 years just to get a sidewalk from the affordable housing developments and more transit center on March 9th 2020 29 specifically stated that there had to be coordination with Texas department. Of transportation, and unfortunately there's been no transparent discussion with text dot I would also call to your attention that plaza lto is excluded from that equitable transit oriented development pilot and that needs to be rectified as it relates to the item. 54 I think that's a zoning item. I did have a comment as a related to item 10, which is the downtown Austin alliance. $79 million in my opposition is specifically to the which, peart , the director. August 8th through October 24 2020. He spent at least two hours trying to get votes for project connect on kz. I however, he has not [10:19:32 AM] returned to discuss the caps and stitches and so there is no return on investment for African Americans and north east Austin . And I would just ask you to transparently discuss how it is that taxpayers benefit in north east Austin time $79,000 79 million if you had. Next speaker in person is pulse all Dania speaking on item 12 on deck is Mario Cantu speaking on item 34. Good morning. Mary council city manager. My name is Paul Saldana and had the honor and privilege of serving as president of the board of Mexican art museum. The very first Austin, Texas census was conducted in 18 75. And the very first two names on that census where my ancestors Jose Nancy Lopez they along with 200 , other 295 other Mexican Americans lived in downtown Austin. Near what is now the old [10:20:33 AM] C home power plant. My ancestors were courageous people that exemplified street dignity, integrity, grace and strongly influenced the birth of Austin. And since then, we have been making our way for over 40 years , Mexico has remained committed to enriching the community through educational programs, exhibitions and the collection preservation interpretation. Of Mexican, Latino and Latin American art and culture. Wright program is intended to benefit organizations that are serving communities, spacing, eraser and displacement, however, to suit the points that Sylvia communicated there were structural and implement implementation in equities during the evaluation process that really put metric are at a disadvantage. Cultural value. Disconnect by not having not one Latino representation representative on the panel, not having one visual arts representative on that panel, and some instances we were scored a one and two categories . Question whether or not we even qualified to submit a grant application and whether or not [10:21:34 AM] we were even serving communities that are being displaced with the current process. There is no mechanism for us to address that inequity, no appeal process. There was no recommendations to the arts commission before this item came before you today. So our services have grown not in proportion to the support we receive. But in response to the needs of our community funding has been scrounged up from under the couch cushions to ensure that our people are not lost in the shuffle that we have a place to see our history where respectfully asking that the council in the city manager addressing inequities that we raised in our meetings with you and that we're communicating today, and we strongly encourage that you implement the recommendations that Sylvia communicated to you all. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Next speaker is Mario Cantu, speaking on item 34 on deck is Ryan nil. Ryan nil. Cleopatra, check. [10:22:46 AM] Little council members. Mayor Watson I've apartment presentation, so just give it a second to pop up and there it is. So my name is Ryan knell. I'm a housing cooperative experts. I represent the Austin coop business association, and I'm also the housing coach for the small business development departments coaching cooperative coaching program. And so I'm speaking on item 43 about student housing and affordability, and in particular the impact coop's have we have the next slide, please? So this is a chart that I made with a C B a in 2016 to show the affordability of housing cooperatives compared to their neighbors. You'll see that across the city they reach levels 40 to 60% comparable can go to the next slide, please. This is a graphic from the inter cooperative council's website, specifically one of the student housing organizations. For the [10:23:48 AM] long semester. It costs half as much to live in I C. Austin as it does to live in the dorms or west campus apartment. Next slide, please. And so why is it so affordable? There's I think two easy things to point to one is that these properties here owned by the students, and they also have group presidency so they're not limited by occupancy limits. Next slide, please. And so it's not easy to build a coop. And so I've looked at the history to see like what it took. For the big expansion periods. In the thirties. There was coop systems built in Austin in College Station with their respective university support. In the sixties and seventies. We had a hud program and collapsing real estate values in west campus that led to the majority of co ops you now see in west campus. And more recently, you've seen the you know. Trust fund support the building of two new housing co ops. So the first one on the picture there is the campus killed the first building built specifically to be a co [10:24:49 AM] op. And then next slide, please. The top two images are co ops from the seventies era in the bottom two are the two new oh. Ops I think there's one more slide with some info on it. So my contact and a credit for the history so, yeah, I'd like to feel want to work on housing co ops. I think speaker your time has expired. Harper-madison. Thank you for coming up today, Ryan. You know, we've been working back and forth for a couple of years to try to figure this out. So I just wonder if you can stay for my colleagues. What do you suppose some of the biggest challenges that council can help overcome? Specifically that council action would be required. So I think there's two. I think primarily one is zoning issue. The reason one of the reasons why cops are constricted to the you know neighborhood is that they have high occupancy housing. They are above the occupancy limit, and it's hard to find properties suitable for cooperatives outside of that neighborhood. [10:25:50 AM] We've had a really big struggle . And the other point, I think, is that you know, this is essentially a type of social housing for people that can't afford it. And so if we can bring the reason the community can bring the resources to start them, they can essentially exist forever without further subsidy , but it's incredibly difficult to just get them off the ground without some sort of community support. Thank you. Next speaker is Cleopatra. Check on item 36 on deck is Ethan Smith item 43. And following is Heather hubs on item 43. Please make your way to the front. If you are if your name has been called. Hello I am Heather hubs and I am a U T student and I'm speaking in favor of item 43. I'm currently [10:26:53 AM] living in a dorm, which is a rite of passage for a freshman student, and I am paying $8000 a semester to stay there and that is on the higher side, but the lower side is not much slower. Next year, I will be living in a west campus apartment in which I have five other roommates, but I am still paying 12 or $1200 a month, and that is not including utilities. There is no other affordable housing options for students. But that is not co ops the only other way that a student can afford to live is through being displaced to another city like San Marcus and commuting or through living out of their car. And that is the sad reality. Please approve this item and encourage affordable housing for students. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes all of the speakers. Thank you. I want to point out by the way, council member Alison alter had pointed [10:27:53 AM] out that the change on item number 43 on the changes correction sheet. On the original agenda. It had the right way. And it also included my name. But I'm not included on the changes and corrections unless somebody threw me off. I would like for it to also show my name is one of the people was involved with that, so we'll make sure that's taken care of, and I appreciate that being pointed out. Members at this point before we I asked for. I don't I'm sorry. Your item. 43 I just have a friendly amendment, I think will be really quick. Okay? We'll get to that in just a second one because we pulled it off. And there's two amendments that we have proposed , so I'll come to that. But I was going to say is before we go to pulling items off and doing those additional Wright pulling . We need on items 35 through 39 [10:28:54 AM] to have a presentation from council so that we can adopt if we're ready to adopt. Those proposed settlements, and I'll recognize the city attorney. Thank you, mayor and just so you remember that the three of these cases have been an executive session. You all have received a briefing on them, and the last one was through a memo earlier this week, and Megan rally will make the presentation. Thank you. American council Megan Riley on behalf of the law department to address item number 35 1st, as the city attorney mentioned we discussed with the specifics in February 7th executive session, but I'm here to recommend a settlement payment in the amount of $3.3 million to resolve the item. Noble's case. This is a lawsuit related to a may 7 2017 officer involved shooting that resulted in the death of land and nobles. In exchange for the city's payment, the plaintiffs will execute a full and final release of all claims, and we'll also dismissed the lawsuit with settlement with prejudice, and we recommend the settlement on these terms. The next three [10:29:57 AM] items. Items 36 through 38 were also discussed in executive session on February 7th. These are all may 2020 protest cases. First item number 36. I recommend a payment of $375,000 to settle the Jason Gallagher lawsuit. This arises from injuries Mr Gallagher received from his attendance at the protest, and in exchange for this payment, the plaintiff will receive any and all release any and all claims against the city and officers. Arising out of that may 30th 2020 incident and the plaintiff will also dismissed with prejudice his lawsuit filed in the western district of Texas, item number 37 we recommend you approve the payment of $450,000 just settle the Stephen R. Win case. Mr R win, is seeking payment for his injuries stemming from attendance at the protests and again in exchange for this payment, plaintiff will release any and all claims against the city and officers arising out of [10:30:57 AM] the may 30th. 2020 incident and will dismiss his lost it with prejudice. An item number 38 we recommend that you approve the payment of $675,000 to settle the Nicole Underwood case. This case stems from Ms Underwood's injuries from her attendance at the may 30th 2020 protest in exchange for this payment, she will release any and all claims against the city and officers and will dismiss her lawsuit with prejudice. Ah as the city attorney mentioned item number 39 involves correct. Ksc received a memo earlier. But we're here to recommend that you approve the payment of 919 $99,900 to settle the Ford lawsuit. It's related to a February 2018 car accident where plaintiff Claudia Ford sought payment for injuries she sustained as part of the accident. That involved in Austin police department vehicle. In exchange for this [10:31:57 AM] payment, the city will obtain a full environmental agreement from the plaintiff that releases the city and employees from any claims that were could have been asserted as part of the lawsuit , and we recommend that you approve the payment based on the settlement terms. Thank you members, user any questions or comments of legal toward legal counsel? Good thank you very much for the presentation members. Are there any other items that you wish to pull from the consent agenda other than the items have been pulled and what what I intend to do. Just for the record is we will take up the consent agenda, including the changes and corrections that were listed, and then we will take up item 43 because there are two proposed amendments by council members will take it up quickly. And then we will go to a hfc. I would like to pull out , number 12, based upon what we heard here today, and I would ask that it be postponed until [10:32:59 AM] the next meeting so that we can look into questions that were raised today. Yes. Casper Fuentes. Thank you, mayor. I certainly just wanna acknowledge the comments that we heard from the community today and you know, I share their concerns about especially regarding equity, and I want to just acknowledge I believe Katherine rey. Velasquez is also working to bring forward some future language to help direct year three of this program, so I do think that makes sense. So what I'll do on item number 12 is we will pull item number 12 from the consent agenda, and when we after we take it out, number the consent agenda item number 43. We will take up a motion to postpone item number 12 until the next meeting. Are there any other items that anybody would like to pull from the consent agenda? Okay is there anybody that wants to abstain or be shown recusing themselves from any item on the consent agenda? Are there any votes of? No that [10:34:00 AM] anyone? Yes council member Kelly would like to be shown as voting. No 1 36 37 38 42, please. Thank you anyone else? Okay before we take up the consent agenda, and by the way, the chair intends to take up the consent agenda, minus the announced no. With the announced no votes and item number 12 being pulled, the chair intends to take that up on unanimous consent. But before I do that, I would like to recognize members that might want to make brief comments regarding the consent agenda, and I'll recognize council member Alison alter. Thank you, as chair of the audit and finance committee. I want to take a few minutes to speak to several items on today's agenda that relate to the work of our strategic facilities. Governance team, colleagues. We were scheduled to hear a briefing from the team at last week's audit and finance meeting which [10:35:01 AM] we postponed due to the special called meeting. These items are very important for the quality of work life for our employees and the future sustainability of our city, so I did not want them to go without notice. The team is about 10 years old and was created to coordinate facilities planning and use. In my role in the audit and finance committee . I started working with them in 2017 with the goal of transitioning the city out of lease space into own space. A 2019 studies showed the city could realize a savings of $380 million over 30 years by moving out of lease spaced into owned office buildings. The savings has an additional benefit. And that the shift from lease to own space also shifts costs from our operations and maintenance budget to our debt finance, creating important breathing room in our budget when we have , the rate caps from the legislature. More recently, this team is was also charged with thinking through how we adapt [10:36:01 AM] our facility needs and management approach to allow for more teleworking and ho telling office, ho telling, and those efforts should also lead to further savings and benefits for our employees. The team has been instrumental in the public private partnerships, or P three partnerships that led to the planning development center and the new, often energy building, which demonstrated innovative and cost effective ways to build city facilities. This is an important inter departmental team under a CM. Veronica Briseno consisting of financial services, from financial services, kymberley Olivares from building services, Darryl Alexander from financials. From financial services. I guess it's Michael cates real estates under that as well, supported by Andy more Walter drain marked door stick and Susanna Carbajal. So thank you all for your hard work on today's agenda. We have three items. Items seven and eight relate to the future of town lake center. These items allow for the financial investment of an estimated $20 million to renovate town like center. These [10:37:03 AM] renovations are an important part of our strategy to move out of least and into owned office space because we will be moving departments into this space from lease space. This investment will be paid back within five years due to the avoided least, payments are employees will be able to work in a state of the art facility equipped to allow for teleworking and hotel Ng and this investment will make the municipal building available for cultural arts or other uses. The third item on today's agenda is item 13, which initiates the process to create a public facility corporation. This public facility corporation will allow replication on city of Austin owned property of the P three delivery process that was used for the pdc and often energy headquarters that has been shown to, allow us to build faster. In more fiscally responsible way. The PFC. Adds another option to our capital delivery system and will serve a complementary function to the a. D. C because it's going to [10:38:03 AM] facilitate other city of Austin departments to vacate current sites that we have identified as redevelopment opportunities. These two sets of items are important as we seek to create a more sustainable city and I want to thank the staff have been working really hard. And the audit and finance committee who has been working with them to facilitate these steps. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Yes, councilor Fuentes. Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to do a quick recognition. We have some special guests in our audience. Today we have counter members. Adam bezel dura, who is a customer from Dallas and also my co chair for local progress as well as can remember Jesse Mareno, Dallas city council member and a member of local progress. Just want to welcome them to Austin. They're in town for Dallas day at the Texas capital, and we welcome them to our chambers. Thank you for doing that. Welcome. Anybody else counselor Ryan alter. I just want to take a moment to thank you all for about to pass [10:39:04 AM] my first council item. It's exciting for a newbie like us up here, but I couldn't be more excited that it is something related to housing and affordability. And really calls attention to the unique needs of students. You know, I think we're gonna be talking a lot over the next many months about how we address our affordability challenges. And as we have those conversations, I think it's really important that we remember that students are uniquely situated when it comes to some of these challenges, and if we want people to come to Austin and choose to attend any of our colleges and universities . It's more than just financial assistance for tuition if they can't afford to live. Near campus or even. In the city. We stand to lose a lot of what makes Austin special so I just wanna thank you all very much and look forward to continuing your work. Speaking to Adam 43. [10:40:06 AM] Item 43 has been pulled from the consent agenda, so I hope you didn't speak too soon to fix all the correction. We'll just we'll just see how this goes from here on out. Go goes to show can't even get the first one, right? Yeah. Appreciate the comments, but we'll just see how this plays out. Thank you. Anybody else wish to be heard on the consider? Yes, customer, Bella. Hold on just thinking. I had a couple of waivers for, folks on the appointments and I don't see them on their own item. 42. And so I was just wanted to check with the clerk to see if we could pull it to add them or if we would kick it to the next meeting. What would be the best approach? There is an ordinance attached in backup that lists all the names. And. Let me cause my staff is telling me that [10:41:08 AM] there are two names missing, but let me double check that right? Council council member 42 looks a little different. This time there is a nominations and waivers sheet since version three, but there's also an ordinance attached. And so the ordinances where the names are. And I did just check. I see the names. Okay great. And it was martin Luther king and Joseph bowie were the two but they are attached as part of the ordinance. Correct thank you very much. I don't need a bullet. Good deal. Thank you. Anything else on brief comments on the consent agenda? Alright as indicated, we will take the consent up consent agenda up on, on unanimous consent. Is there any objection to the adoption of the consented and with the no votes being shown a council member Kelly on 36 37. 38 42. Is there any objection hearing? None the consent agenda is adopted. That will now take us [10:42:08 AM] to item number 43. We're all on pins and needles. Members. There are two proposed amendments to item number 43. But I recognize councilman Ryan alter, who moves adoption of item number 43. It is seconded by council member Fuentes. The order. I'll take up the amendments and wood is the first amendment will be the proposed amendment by council member Kelly and the second will be the proposed amendment by council member Fuentes all recognize council member Kelly. Thank you, and thank you. Council member Ryan altar for your leadership on this issue. I really appreciate you bringing this forward and what a good way to knock it out of the park on your first shot. But as such, I moved him in line 60 to read as follows. Four report back to the city council with recommendations for action. Add fiscal impact and tools for implementation by December 31st [10:43:08 AM] 2023. The motion is to amend item number 43 to add online 60 the words fiscal impact. Is there a second to the motion? Seconded by councilor member Ryan alter. Is there any objection to the adoption of the motion? Hearing none. The motion is adopted an amendment number one by Kelly to item number 43 is adopted. Item number 40 amendment item number two for item number. 43 is a proposed amendment by councilor Puentes. I'll recognize council member Fuentes for emotion. Yes thank you, mayor. This recommendation came from a member of my team. Alicia Ramirez, who is a graduate student at U. T and so this recommendation or this amendment that I have forward is to add number four after line, 59 to read and remembered, as followed. Explore ways to ensure students are aware of existing affordable housing options available to them through the affordable housing online tool and how to apply for them. Casper Fuentes moves to amend [10:44:09 AM] item number 43 as red is there a second to the motion, seconded by council member Ryan alter? Is there any objection to the motion to amend hearing none. The motion to amend is adopted that will take us back to the main motion by council member Ryan alter, and that is to approve item number 43 as amended. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to the adoption of item number? 43 as amended council member I mean, mayor pro tem no objection. Just brief comments I appreciate council member Ryan alters earlier comments that he made about the item. I think it's a really creative way to ensure that we have good collaboration between our education institutions. And you know, folks who advocate for affordable housing. I would also like to be added as a co sponsor , so the clerks can add me to their list of rearranging and adding co sponsors. And I really appreciate it as some folks know, district date, you know, routinely scores low on our our scorecard and our blueprint for affordable housing. And so I see , especially our pinnacle campus is something I would love for [10:45:10 AM] the city to step up and partner and be able to provide housing there. So we've already started those conversations quite a while ago but have to be very respectful of Austin community college and their public processes. So I would love if you accept me as a co sponsor and look forward to the future conversations. Thank you, mayor , pro Tim any other comments or discussion? Is there any objection to the adoption of item number 43 as amended hearing none item 43 is adopted . Congratulations council member off. It's rare. Somebody gets two stabs at in one meeting. Congrats seriously. Congratulations. It's a it's a it's well done. With that, we will now take up item, 12. I will move that we postpone item number 12 to the next meeting. Is there a second? Seconded by council member Kelly. Is there any discussion is there? Yes there is a way for because I know there are many [10:46:12 AM] organizations who are waiting on these dollars, so if we can just pull it for now, I think we can work quickly behind the scenes and get us some direction to add to this so that we don't delay yes, that would be the goal. We don't we don't want delay, but the comments today. Or disturbing so we want to make sure that we we've we've crossed every T and dotted every I so thank you. Any other discussion? Hearing none. Although we have we will want to just get some clarity. I think what council member Fuentes was saying that's not postpone it. Let's just pull the item and discuss it further deliberated more, but I think you're still saying postpone. I want to make sure that we're clear what what are we about to vote on? Well it has to be postponed. I mean, the only way you can pull an item and deliberate on it would be to postpone it or vote on it today. Because it's on the agenda. I'll let you clarify what you were trying to cancel my performance . Can we take it up later this afternoon? Sure. Casper Fuentes [10:47:16 AM] makes a substitute motion to table item number 12 until a time certain of 4 30 in the afternoon. It's seconded by, council member harper-madison, council member Fuentes now moves that the substitute motion be adopted. Council member Alison alter, can I make a friendly amendment to that? So that we don't if our 2 45 doesn't take that long that we don't get stuck waiting for that. That maybe we make it. 3 30. If we're late, we're late. But I'm afraid we're going to be very efficient this afternoon and end up waiting. I hope you're right on this, council member Alison alter move to amend the substitute motion to set this to table the motion until the table item number 12 until the time of 2 30. Is that what you were looking for? I don't care. What [10:48:18 AM] time as long as we can take care enough to amend the motion. I mean, I don't I just don't want to have a gap of an hour and you and me both saying 3 30 minutes or an hour talking about 2 30 or 4 30, but but, council member Alison alter moves that we opposed we amend the motion to table this motion as a substitute motion until 2 30 this afternoon. It's second about, council member Fuentes. Are there any other amendments to the motion to table as a substitute motion? Is there any objection to making the substitute motion the main motion? Hearing none. It is. The main motion vote is now on the main motion, which was the substitute motion, which is the table item number 12 until 2 30 today. Is there any objection to post to tabling this item until 2 30 today? Hearing none. The motion is adopted and we will come back at 2 30 or is close to 2 30 as we can to take up this [10:49:19 AM] item. Yes, city manager. Councilor Fuentes. I just, is there are there some people that we need to pull together to visit with you or others to talk about this? I just need to think cancer of Alaska's and the mayor. But okay and nobody from staff then. As I understand. There were the two issues that were raised about the lack of Latinos on the panel. And there were no visual arts on the evaluation panel, or are you gonna want to talk about the process? I guess is what I'm asking. You think it's more just direction guiding for year three of the program and we do have a sense of what? That should be. Very good. Thank you. Great thank you. Alright so that takes care of the consent agenda members unless there's objection , I will now call back to order the meeting of the city council of the city of Austin, Texas members we will now take up items 45 46 47. Related to [10:53:28 AM] eminent domain. With respect items. 45 46 47 being non consent condemnation items. Is there a motion to the effect? That the city council of Austin authorizes the use of the power of eminent domain to acquire the property set forth. The and described in the agenda for this meeting for the public uses that are described here in council member vela and then council member pool. So moved. Motions made by councilor Bela second by I'm sorry, second by council member pool. Is there any objection? With respect to the motion to adopt items 45 46 47 9 consent condemnation items. Hearing none items 45 46 47 are adopted. Mayor yes, counselor. [10:54:31 AM] Umbrella I just wanted to note that a third Dallas city council member is now with us. The deputy, deputy mayor Omar advice is also joining council member Jesse Mareno and council member Adam abbas Al Dua and if, if we could so indulge them to step up and, and just say hello and say a couple of words. Sure. You have two minutes. Come on down. We do. Welcome you. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, Austin city council. Honorable mayor and the rest of you. My name is Omar advice and have the distinct honor and privilege of serving as deputy mayor pro tem of the city of Dallas, the ninth largest city in the nation, and also your sister city just to the northern I 35 we share a wonderful corridor, and nothing happens in Texas or in Dallas without us visiting Austin often , and so it's really great to be [10:55:32 AM] here in your beautiful facility touring and getting to know your transportation. I happen to also be church. Transportation so I just wrote a scooter over here from a little further north by the capital in order to check out your infrastructure and see how things are working, and I can tell you I went. I lived here back in the early to mid nineties, when I attended the university of Texas at Austin. Hook them horns and I'm really I'm always excited to be here in your beautiful, wonderful city. Of Austin, and I'll turn it over to my colleagues. Good afternoon or good morning, mayor and city council. Thank you all for this opportunity to speak. That was kind of a surprise council member. But I will say, I appreciate all of y'all's work. I love love this city. I went to college here as well. And I know y'all are tackling a lot of important issues. I think it was important. When we came here for Dallas day, not only to see our legislators but also to see who I consider our colleagues, the [10:56:32 AM] local leaders that are doing the important work of the people here in Austin, Texas. So, I'm always watching y'all as y'all are probably watching cities across the state. And y'all have continued to set the bar. On many policy issues in our state , so thank you all for the work you do for the people of Texas people have Austin. Good morning council member Jesse Murano for the city of Dallas district to thank god for the opportunity this morning. Thank you for your commitment in service to this great city. I've had an opportunity to work with many of you around this horseshoe and to learn from one another. We have a lot of similarities and so look forward to continue the engagement and keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank all three of you appreciate you and I will say, just, Vanessa council member Fuentes and I had the opportunity to chat with them last night, and it's so helpful to meet with and interact with other council members from other cities and see how they do [10:57:32 AM] things and what their problems are and what their processes are . So I really enjoyed the interaction and I look forward to visiting Dallas suit. Great. Thank you. Thank you, councilor. Everybody. Members at this time we will have we will open a public hearing for item number 50. You may recall that we were going to have least it was originally scheduled that we would have public hearings on item 49 50 item number 49 was pulled. So at this time we can keep in mind that item for 50 has. Adam 50 has an immediate action item that is item number 51 that we will take up. At this point in time. The chair opens the public hearing on item number 50. Madam clerk. Do we have anyone signed up to speak on item number 50 so nerve speakers. I wonder if the [10:58:33 AM] council members would like to talk on that. Members with Dallas counsel. You want to come down and talk tonight? 50. There being no one to be heard on item number 50. The chair closes the public hearing on Adam number 50 that'll take us to item number 51. In the chair will entertain a motion on item number 51. Move passage. The counselor. Available passage is there and seconded by council member Velasquez. Is there any discussion just brief? It's great to see meeting after meeting the slow accumulation of affordable housing projects, you know it took us 2025 years to get into the housing crisis that that that we're in. It's going to take his time to dig out of it. But this steady movement toward the construction of long term affordable housing is a way to do it and it it just I [10:59:34 AM] continue to be pleased to see these items popping up on on our agenda. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Council member. Is there any objection to the adoption of the motion to pass item number 51. Hearing none. Item number 51 is, adopted. Members I regret to say that we've moved with enough speed that we now have some time . So what I would do is oppose, as opposed to what I indicated earlier in the morning that we would wait to have the executive session at the end of the day. Our city attorney is getting our outside counsel to come down here because they also thought we were going to be meeting toward the end of the day. So my recommendation is that we recess of for 20 minutes and we will convene in the executive session at that point in time, but we will come back out. Regardless [11:00:37 AM] of whether the executive session is complete or not at noon, so that we can hear the speakers with our citizens communication. So the city council will now go into but we're phrase that the city council will now recess until 11:20 A.M. When we will go into a closed session to take up one item. Pursuant to section 551.71 of the government code. The city council will discuss legal issues related to items 62 city of Austin versus lone star holdings LLC, cause number C one pb 22 001462 in the Travis county district court. And lone star holdings LLC versus city of Austin. Cause number 1 22 CV 00770. In the United States district court for the western district for the western division, Austin, Texas. Is [11:01:39 AM] there any objection to recessing the city council and then going into executive session? On the items announced. Hearing none. The council will now recess until 11 20 when it will reconvene an executive session in the executive session room. Members of the public. We will be out promptly at 12 o'clock for citizen communication. Thank you very much. [12:02:01 PM] Put them horns. Hey Rosie, I'm order it is 12 02 pm we are now going to take up. Public communication, and, I'll turn to the city clerk to begin the process of calling up speakers for public comment and public communication. Okay we have one remote speaker who has not connected so olive will begin with Adam khan. Thank you. Mayor council Adam khan district nine, and, who start by saying that when I signed up for to speak to the council of three weeks ago, it was in the immediate aftermath of the ice storm that left city residents about a third of the city without power for a week, and, but that this [12:03:03 PM] past weekend the drag racing whatever was going on significantly elevated the sense of urgency that I feel over this topic. But as I go, and as I have looked out at, what has happened in this city literally just in the last three weeks. I'm frankly, a stun ish at some of the things that I've seen now. When you look at the budget for the city when you look at what actually gets money actually gets spent on around here. It's about 90 between utilities and public safety. It's about 93% miscellaneous other stuff is about seven and I mean, is it? I when I observe the performance of the municipal government, primarily with this reason. Ice storm. I see the drag racing stuff this past [12:04:04 PM] weekend, but let's not. But while some of y'all weren't on the dais for all of this, let's not overlook the previous five years. Let's not overlook the failure of the water utility with the two week boiled boil water notice in 2018. And let's certainly not overlook the three year experiment that we ran. Where that basically turned this city into a gigantic open air homeless encampment now. As we look at this I'm just watching. The movie. I was watching office space like a couple of weeks ago , and they got to that scene with the bobs where they ask. What is it that you say that you actually do around here? And that's where I'm at with this city council like I really don't understand what's going on here . Why you can't deliver not even deliver power. Why you can't recover from a storm when every [12:05:07 PM] other community around here had power restored within two days. But in Austin, it took a week. 2021 I freely admit the state's power grid did a lot wrong that week that year. But it still took Austin about a week and a half longer to get power restored than it did to the rest of this state. You know, I know we're having a lot of discussion about. About the about public safety, and there are a lot of concerns there as well. Yes. Next speaker is Paul Robbins. Council. On Tuesday. I showed you this map displays how Austin [12:06:07 PM] energy how to Austin energy rate increase. Beginning March, 1st. Will affect specific council districts again. It punishes specific ones. District three south southeast Austin's poorest zone were experience a rate increase of 23% 89% higher than Austin's wealthiest zone. District 10 district seven, north central is almost as severely affected 83% higher than district 10. This is followed by districts nine in central downtown districts for northeast and district five south central. However even districts that are winners are losers. Here's another map that shows what percentage of Austin energy customers have a rate increase higher than 33% remember the average city right increases about 18% so this is [12:07:10 PM] about twice the average rate increase over two thirds of the customers in district 37 and nine are in this category. Districts five and six do not fare much better. However even in district 10, Austin's wealthiest district. A slight majority of 51% will receive a rate increase of 33% or higher. What this map does not show is that 4% of customers, most of them living. Would you flip the slide, please? Most of them living in expensive homes similar to this one will receive no increase at all, or a slight rate decrease. Again where is the equity here? Austin is hiking rates over 33% for low consumers, many of whom are poor . At the same time, it allows [12:08:12 PM] high consumers to completely escape the rate increase. This is contrary to Austin's values. Again I ask you to amend the residential reits structure to something approaching equity. I believe you have the power to do this without triggering a new Wright case. The unfair Wright increase begins next month. By summer, the financial pain will be in full force. And after what has occurred with recent with the recent blackout, the utility does not have. Does not need any more resentment. From its customers. One last thing on another subject and asking a representative of the city attorney's office or the city manager's office to meet with me , before I leave chambers. I need an explanation of why it opens records request from Austin energy is unfulfilled after seven months. Thank you, [12:09:13 PM] Mr Robinson. Thank you. Next speaker is Belinda Boone. Cynthia Icard. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Cindy. I Kurt and I live at 44. Oh three, tamarack trail and Austin. That would be in district seven. I requested to be put on the agenda to talk about a tree sidewalk problem at my property that has reached a level of being a significant safety hazard as well as a potential liability issue for the city. I provided a lot of background material explaining the situation, and there's a picture up on the screen as well. I'm happy to report though that in the last few days I was contacted by Mr James snow, who [12:10:16 PM] is interim director of public works, and he has offered me a resolution that I find acceptable. He has told me that city staff will go back to the original plan of action. They will remove the tree and pour concrete. Ada compliance sidewalk before the tree removal permit expires on may 6th. This will result in a permanent fix for the problem. Very glad this will be done. And I want to thank Mr snow for his help in resolving this matter. Thank you. Next speaker is Brian crow. That concludes all the speakers. Mayor. Thank you, madam clerk. Members. We had indicated that it one o'clock we would take up [12:11:18 PM] item number 44. I'm sure that people relied on that for purposes of wanting to speak to us, so unless there's objection I'm going to will recess and go back into executive session so that we can complete our executive session. Members of the community will be back out here at one o'clock. If there is there any objection to recessing hearing none. We are recessed to go into executive session and I probably should. Mayor. I'm sorry. We have live music. If we can. We do have live music. You're right. Are they here? Well then I object to us going to recess. I'm sorry remembers. I was I was jumping ahead. You're right, so we will recess . The officer city council so that we may have the live music . We will set that up and we will participate in that momentarily without objection were recessed. [12:12:49 PM] Brown sleeping. Don't you feel me? [12:18:05 PM] Dollars. Yeah. [12:19:09 PM] Monsters. Inside of my head. Said. I should try. Just talk. We can be. Babel really good everything. And so. Could be this. This is stop. [12:20:23 PM] So valuable. [12:24:34 PM] Welcome everybody fun part of the day. I am pleased to get to introduce to you our live music for the day and we're going to be listening to pomelos. Last movies. Last movies. Nelson Valente, Aguilar and austenite by way of McAllen, Texas, is chief composer for the his indy cumbia pop project. As I indicated their name is como las movies. He combines his pan, Latin and contemporary influences into a duality that NPR described as a colorful cultural soundscape from a unique blend of instruments, while kcrw observed that their music occupies a space where traditional tejano cumbia. And so. Morocco music meets face to face with synth heavier, heavy new wave inspiration. It's not a dense space with many inhabitants. In fact, maybe [12:25:34 PM] they're all by themselves. Lost movies recently played C three's inaugural format festival and also made its debut at this year's 2020. To a CL festival. They were chosen as Austin's Kut X artist of the month in October , dedicating a month long feature on this artist. They'll be performing at this year's Austin music awards on February 26th and at south by southwest 23 in March, so it's my real honor. To make a proclamation. Viet known that, whereas the city of Austin, Texas, is blessed with many creative musicians whose talents extend to virtually every musical genre , and whereas our music scene thrives because Austin audiences support good music produced by legends our local favorites and newcomers alike. And whereas we are pleased to showcase and support our local artists now [12:26:35 PM] therefore I Kirk Watson, mayor of the live music capital of the world, do hereby proclaimed February 23rd 2023 como last movies day in Austin, Texas. Ladies and gentlemen. Como last movies. My. [12:27:45 PM] Some more. Let me look them up. Tell me broke them up. Them up some more. Coming up. Some more. [12:28:51 PM] Some more. W. Oman. Okay? Some more coma, someone okay? [12:29:54 PM] Mok. More. Summer. Some more. Some more. W. Oman let me put them on. Some more local masa more. Chito. [12:31:09 PM] Check it out. Thanks to the city . It's a pleasure and an honor. Tell us tell us real quickly where we can find you on social media handle, please. Our commission supported by music musicians, and, everyone. Where can we see you next this Sunday ? We gotta send 13 7 13 Harris. Come on last movies. The picture, guys, let's see the footage. [12:33:22 PM] Mhm. Out. I don't know. The best. 12 34 am calling the Austin city council back to order for the purpose of us going into an executive session to complete [12:34:23 PM] the executive session that we started. We will be in closed session to take up one item as has been previously described, and that is pursuant to section 551071 of the government code. The city council will discuss legal issues related to item number 62. Is there any objection to going into executive session on the item announced hearing none. The council will now go into closed, executive session. Thank you. No, no. [12:35:37 PM] Ready. No. [12:37:08 PM] You go. Cry. You don't me cry. Don't make me cry. You got great. Yeah baby. Yeah. My heart. Please. My baby. [1:01:39 PM] Where do you go? When you can. What do you do? When. Who do you know? When you're all alone. Where do you go? When you can MM hmm. Well look around. The whole lot of people. Just like me. Heart. [1:04:52 PM] Three. We are out of closed session and have ended the closed session in closed session . We discussed legal issues related to item number 62. Remembers as a reminder for the afternoon. We are going to take up item number 44. We will take up speakers for pulled item number 44 have discussion and action. The next item, we will take up. Will be the zoning speakers. We will determine at that time whether we will go with discussion and action and then the next item we will take up will be pulled Adam number 61 . So call up item number 44 asked the city clerk if she will help us with the speakers. Susan Pimentel. Speaking on 44. I [1:05:59 PM] appreciate your effort to communicate with textiles about the I 35 projects. However the resolution as drafted is not strong enough. Many many people in the community opposed the huge expansion that touched dot is planning of 20. Or more lanes through downtown, and that should be reflected in the in the resolution. And you should require more actions of tech stocks. Tech start should be required to evaluate the induced demand. Of their project in the environmental impact statement. They also should be required to include an option other than no action. That reflects. The interests of the community to not have this huge expansion. You have to stand up to text still had is strong, powerful. Frankly there a bully. They do [1:07:00 PM] not listen to the community. They do not respond to the community's input. I read their responses to your draft resolution, and they're just saying why they can't do anything different. That's the way tax start is, you need to be strong and stand up against them . Otherwise you're not going to get any kind of response from them. I worked briefly for text done. I worked with 6 to 90 in oh, killed trying to get them to reduce that interchange. There they do not respond. They do tiny changes. To their to their project. The idea of adding more crossing is fine, but that's very minimal. The community wants a smaller footprint. We do not want a huge expansion of this road through downtown. The bury and cover options needs a lot more community input to it. [1:08:01 PM] Burying the highway will not removed air pollution impact. There's still air pollution. There's still climate change emissions as long as you're standing the highway thank you, ma'am increase. Next speaker is yorgos economists. Hello I'm your guts Economos, denying residents and calling on the council to strengthen this resolution by opposing I 35 highway expansion, re designating 1 30 as 35 to bring further benefits to residents for the full scope of the central project, the core project from kina green all the way south to Ben white boulevard. The failures of I 35 the proposed designed by text dot are immense. There are pros and proposing to physically widen the space and travel time between core neighborhoods for [1:09:01 PM] the full duration from Ben Y. Two K Nick lane, basically replacing the wall that exists today with a moat that will exist tomorrow. The ooey proposed on Riverside. It's hazardous to pedestrians and incongruous with the idea of a bustling, connected future blue line corridor. Text us designs are making all modes of travel more circuitous, unless convenient, great example is near me by woodland avenue, removing a city grid connection and replacing it with a circuitous pedestrian bridge that will triple the distance across. And increased travel times. Meanwhile the harms of highways and public health are well documented. You can check out the American lung association associations findings on this linked to cognitive issues. Dementia COPD heart issues from noise pollution, childhood asthma. There are schools along this highway includes 72 it, including Travis heights high school. So consider the negative health impacts on those kids and the childcare centers along that [1:10:02 PM] corridor. Induced demand is a real problem. Just look down at Houston's clogged Katy freeway or the choked highways of Dallas to find out where this road will literally lead us. There is no reason for an interstate highway to go to the core of the city place where people live in homes start businesses enjoy parts visit farmers markets go to concerts. Live you name it. It's just not consistent to have an interstate highway through the middle of the city. We must reroute the interstate around Austin's core using infrastructure that already exists. Thank you, sir. We must thank you. Next speaker is Suzanna Carranza. Yes hi. Dr Susanna. Karen's a. I live in district nine. I actually live on. I 35 I support the effort to these make a comment by the F I am 44, but I second other [1:11:03 PM] speakers where it says like we need a stronger action than that . We really should not be expending. I 35 we already have a city that's segregated between east and west. Just adding connecting points is not enough . We really need to stop this expansion move from a more car centric to a more alternate public transit. We know that expansion really doesn't help. In the long run. We've seen many vehicles in the area. So why are we repeating that mistake here? We should just not expand and look for all their options. Thank you. Thank you. Hayden walker. Blackwater and the chair of the board for reconnect Austin. Reverend decade now we've been reminding that this this is our once in a lifetime opportunity to get I 35 rights. When we started working to prove I 35 2012 that wanted to build [1:12:04 PM] elevators length through Austin modified. All three is better, but we have to decide if Boston should have to live with tech stocks solution for the next 70 years. We really need better and more frequent can connectivity. We cannot research climate change or most typical, without better connectivity. Even textile admits it. Transportation demand management the only way to really solve congestion and we should be working for that. We need to move the words. Practice shh. 1 36.2 pilots where they reduced but holes in the trucks moved over. There is no reason that there's a financial should be a financial senate encourage longhouse trucks dealing through the middle of Boston. We need to improve states. 74% of calories happened on controlled right away in 25% of the I five corridor. Designed space on the mainly feelings in front of razors still too high. A real study of how we maximize economic benefit to the city of Austin is desperately needed reconnect, looked at this in 2013 and found that we could [1:13:05 PM] build over three billion in tax base, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, long values or substantially acquired since then. That was a decade ago, starting to widen right of way, bulldozing and displacing residents and businesses. And that there community, the city of Boston needs to fully understand the opportunity costs here. Reconnect 44 within them. It's often and it's grateful response over signature on I 35 central. Thank you very much. I think Claire black. Thank you support the original resolution as Britain with the inclusion of strong support for the amendment by council member Brian alter, supported around resolution that recommends moving the trucks to 1 30. The process of removing trucks called the designation [1:14:05 PM] when she was recommended by a select group of textile engineers in the multi Bailey meeting. Clearly trucks need to be moved over to such 1 30. But 10 year construction projects I have heard their support the creation of tax increment financing zone overlaying the entire corner between old torques and 2 90. As soon as possible both of these major policy actions recommended by the urban land institute on behalf of the D a. They still made the opinion of the city retained the world class consultants regarding the creative possibilities of a reimagined corridor. Why sign a multi million dollar contract? Are really good advice and then slide by awesome. I want to thank you for your latest ship on this matter as a community. We hope you will take polly policy positions with [1:15:06 PM] resolutions on the number of text on fair use, such as not addressing climate change, ignoring noise pollution, sidestepping air pollution, demonstrating now understanding of economic development, demonstrating no understanding. Of the term barrier are the reality of the barrier, eliminating the concept of expenses useless stages, such as were fabricated to eliminate the concept of one camp. In short, it's up to you to transform one of Boston's greatest liabilities into one of its greatest assets. Thank you very much. How do you walker? I was just gonna say thank you to him, too. So sorry. Hi my name is Addy walker and I also represent reconnect Austin. I support this resolution in its entirety, and each of the amendments proposed, especially support the amendment by council member of Velazquez regarding treatment of water runoff. This [1:16:09 PM] project will be a major contributor to air and water pollution in the region, and text analysis of the impact is severely lacking, for example, text that is proposing to dump water into ladybird water runoff into lady bird lake, and it will Guerrera park regardless of the impact that will cause to our public health and wildlife. I appreciate council member of Velazquez's action on this particular item and urged council to adopt the amendment calling for treatment of water runoff. I am 24 years old and once constructed, this project will stand for my entire life. It is absolutely crucial that it be constructed in a way that serves the community and help mitigate the harms that we know highways cause we cannot allow text dot to bulldoze more of our city and further separate downtown from east Austin. I live in district nine east of I 35 I don't want to be separated from my family on the west side for the rest of my life. I want to be able to walk across this corridor and see my family without risking my life. I support this resolution's [1:17:09 PM] language to add more crossings. This text proposal doesn't add any anyone and not preclude future capping north of airport boulevard and especially support council member Ryan alternative amendments to study the potential return on investment in this corridor if we built a full cap amend council for taking this on and urge you to pass this resolution with all amendments in time. Just submit to text that before March, 7th passing this resolution, with the amendments adopted will reflect the council is listening to the community and taking action for our future. Thank you for your consideration and for taking on this important issue. Robert bowler. Thanks for taking the time council. As numerous tests, highway expansions have shown and multiple Austin neighborhoods have formally recognized Windsor park cherrywood. Others winding highways actually makes traffic worse. Along with police and [1:18:11 PM] inequity, wasted real estate wasted local tax opportunities. It is not a solution to traffic , the more cars the worst we can look across the Houston for the Katy freeway as an example of this Hector willingness to dump oily runoff water into ladybird lake alone shows their lack of care for Austin is a city so I don't feel lot of reason to trust ah, their recommendations without significant change from community input. Prior to this for a project I actually tried to photograph businesses and homes around 35. But if you take a stroll along 35 near downtown, it becomes apparent what highways due to cities. They killed them. It's all parking lots. Gas stations abandoned building a sex shop like no one wants to live by a highway. And those who do are sucking in pollution that's going to cause asthma and other health effects. I get that budgets are hard. Y'all I get that changing mind [1:19:12 PM] that text up or campo is hard. I get that 5 35 there right away, and council doesn't have direct way over it. But that doesn't mean we don't push back. Y'all are in the prime position to push back and I strongly urge council to reject the I 35 expansion and demand that campo and text that ball congestion with a third party study into alternative like making into a business highway boulevard tunneling rerouting traffic on I 34 but they're 1 30, or tons of other examples. But it's pretty unanimous so far, so please hear us. Thanks. So we're going to move to in person speakers? If your name is called, please make your way to the front and state your name at the podium. The first speaker is Tom walled on deck is Brian adores in and Adam Greenfield. Affordable good [1:20:15 PM] afternoon, everyone and thanks for your service, and I appreciate that. There's so much concern and shared attention on this project. I've been working on this project for at least 10 years through various community efforts, and I come here representing myself. My name is Tom walled. I live in cherrywood neighborhood also been involved with the number of nonprofits, including one which is redline parkway initiative that has a lot of lot of stake in this project. I think there's this pretty common. Understanding that there will be a lot of bad impacts from this project, and that's even from the proponents. It will take down a good deal of our city. It's going to increase traffic all over. Study. It and some of the things that I think there are less acknowledges that we're basically creating a place that will make it so people have to commute even longer and longer. That's that's the intention is that people can commute from further out, but we're locking that in. People are gonna be doing that for decades and decades, and it's just not clear who is going to be benefiting from this. And as as another speaker mentioned this is going to hurt the young, the most they're going to be spending the more decades on [1:21:16 PM] this planet with the pollution from the project with the increased traffic, and all the other negative negative externalities. I do want to note that there was actually an effort that was endorsed by the by text ought to have a scoping working group, our third future 35 scoping working group came out with a number of recommendations, including co creating the project with the with the community, especially east Austin leaders. And it was it was pretty much ignored. It was there was no attention given to it by textile. Or acknowledgement and agreement to do it that way, and so we're left with the project that's kind of a whole lot of harmful impacts for the city. So what? You know what the visions such as reconnect Austin and I think what the council item is attempting to address is mitigation. And I think the concern is that there just isn't enough mitigation included with the project so far, every harmful projects such as the highway expansion needs to include mitigation. We're nowhere near there. Like I said, I've been working on this project with for 10 years or more with my colleagues with reconnect Austin, and other organizations such as my [1:22:16 PM] neighborhood association, and we're working hard. We have a lot more we can do and so I encourage us to do that with this with text dot thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Brian Bedrosian on deck is Adam Greenfield and J crossly. Council. Thank you for hearing me today. My name is Brian bed. Rosie and I'm here on behalf of the north of neighborhood association. I was sent here to throw our support behind the resolution. You have a letter in your backup that is from us. And I will not repeat myself today. For a matter of time. I would just like to emphasize that the northern and southern portions of the highway project that have already been approved or of considerable concern to us because it is there that the extreme lack of connectivity is very evident. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next is Adam Greenfield on deck is J. Crossley and Brendan Witt struck. Good afternoon. Mayor and council Adam Greenfield rethink 35 district three resident thank you so much for raising your voice on. I 35 [1:23:19 PM] thank you for being specific in proposing that crossings through central Austin should be every quarter mile. In fact, crossing should be wherever there is a street but quarter mile is the very least that we should expect . Thank you. Also for proposed amendments concerning the deep public concern over this project and water quality. I encourage you to pass to approve a further amendment to oppose the expansion of I 35 there is no justification at all for expanding this highway. It will worsen mobility, it will worsen public transportation, health, equity and much more. The community movement to oppose expansion and to seriously pursue transformational alternatives is growing quickly . Last week there were rallies by young people against expansion at five universities and schools across Austin. Thousands of people have signed the rethink 35 petition. [1:24:19 PM] Increasingly, neighbored associations are opposing this project the media has grown increasingly hostile to this project. All that is to say that the community is ready to back you and publicly opposing this expansion and calling for transformational alternatives. Instead, putting a highway through Austin was a mistake. It will continue to harm this community above or below ground. When Houston city council two years ago took an oppositional stance against I 45 expansion that emboldened the county and the federal government to get involved. You have real power over. I 35 you can stop this expansion with the community with you. You can push for something so much better so transformational. Thank you for your leadership, and we're going to back you to do the right thing. Thank you, Crossley is next on deck are Brendan Witt [1:25:21 PM] struck and Luiz Costa. Hello. Thank you. Mayor Watson. Council members for your time and your service. My name is jabal isn't Crossley I live in D four. Executive director of the five oh one C three nonprofit farm and city and I'm raising my eight year old son. Exactly one mile from my 35 farm city has worked on improving this project for five years, working directly with text dot staff collaborating with community nonprofit groups conducting research, developing maps and data. And working with the city county and the mpo. My comments for the ds response are currently at nine pages and I'm just on the safety part. So I can't explain it, but I'll just give you some key points first point tech start staff have worked with the community on this project and have significantly changed it like they haven't ever done on any other freeway project. It's still not a good project. But we need to work with text dot and the people that text out are good people. The state policies that they are asked to implement our terrible policies. And I [1:26:24 PM] hope we can work with them, Bruce bug today at the Texas translation commission suggested the funding. I 45 in Houston because of text, heart failure to have an equitable planning process. So I hope we don't fail here to work together. The Texas translation commission adopted minute or 115481, directing the Austin district to work towards the goal of ending traffic desk by half by 2035 20 by 2050. The draft. The I S includes zero attempt to meet this too. Figure out and analyze if this might meet this goal ah, I believe that's unacceptable and that no alternative should move forward with that reasonable, assurance that the goal of reducing deaths in half by 2035 is possible. The 2017 2022 Texas strategic highway safety plan, including action plan, text thought and tt would collaborate with cities to develop guidelines for acceptable spacing of pedestrian crossings. As of last fall when it was do I believe that text dot failed to do that project [1:27:26 PM] given the text dot has no standards. We should use the city standards. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I ask a question right quick, reveillon. I just want to follow up. I know we've we've discussed this, but so there currently are no statewide standards for the placement of highway crossings. Is that correct? As far as I know, and take during this process, some of the good Texas staff asked me. So what should it be? You know what are we base that on? And there is city policy and standards there is there and I again I know you focus on Texas. But are there any national standards? Are there any standards that we can look to? That would give us some sense of how often there should be. And again I don't want to just focus on pedestrian crossings but vehicular crossings as well right there. There there isn't a number that's like the right number. There are various national [1:28:26 PM] guidelines on how to approach this and how to make sure that and there there are lots of national studies that if it's over a certain distance, people are going to try to run across the thing or they're not gonna be able to make that trip. Unfortunately we've seen that in district four. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker is Brendan Witt. Struck on deck is Louis pasta and Miriam's school and field. Good afternoon council. My name is Brendan, which struck I am the chair of the north central. I 35 neighborhood coalition were coalition of 13 neighborhood association spanning seven square miles north Austin. Ah I do not speak on behalf of any specific neighborhood association in that role, however, in sync has the majority of in sync has broadly signaled support for this resolution, and I do want to convey that to you. Today. We're still in the process of building our response statement to text dot but instincts summary can broadly be summarized to say [1:29:27 PM] that we find the current project. Lacking in a number of departments, and we expect more out of it specifically, we wish to see more crossing opportunities through the central segment, more potential future covering and capping opportunities. Better more innovative use by text dot to limit working within the existing right away and not expanding into the cherrywood and Hancock neighborhoods and providing safer streets in residential areas. Today's resolution is, in my opinion, very important. First step for council to take all right, not I hope the only step we're going to take one thing I would really like to highlight here. Is that your action today and approving this resolution will help direct city staff more pointedly engaged with this project and text dot to frame their comments are around your aspirational goals. And right now we really don't have an aspirational vision coming from council to help support staff in that work. I will close by saying, this is [1:30:30 PM] a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the face of Austin. I think you've heard that from other speakers. I believe we need to take as much time and provide as much effort in order to make sure that we're getting this right. Thank you. Thank you, mayor for everybody to say . Thank you to Brendan, who for honestly since the first minute I was in office. We've been talking and he's an engineer. I'm not. He has guided me through a lot of these documents and these all doing this as a on a volunteer basis, I greatly appreciate the help and support we would never have been able to get here without engaged and involved. Community members like himself and the entire instinct body really appreciate you. Thank you, councilman. Next speaker is Luiz pasta on deck is Miriam scorn field and Robert crump? Good afternoon. Y'all thank you for the spirit of your resolution and the spirit of engaging with the community in ways that tax hot, unfortunately, hasn't I am [1:31:33 PM] unfortunate to say that I was a little disappointed when I originally read it as it is from somebody who was raised in Katy in group to see the city evolve and expand from a small kind of swampy area to be increasingly large and large town connected to Houston. It was a little sad to see the city of Boston make the same mistakes that the city of Houston and the leaders in Katy made as a city group, which is to be too friendly tour domineering to let text on and to let the statewide organizations take the lead and the growing of their communities and their talents and their cities because as traffic got worse text, I decided that what they needed to do was expand the Katy freeway and as they got worse, once again, they decided they needed to expand the Katy freeway again and again and again, destroying communities, towns, houses. Just wasting opportunities to make the city better, more equitable, more affordable to make it something beautiful that weekend chair together instead of something that's just paved over cement, so I really hope that I think, [1:32:35 PM] Adam said. Before that you take this opportunity to act with more vigor and leadership against tactile texture, which I know you may necessarily don't feel like you have the opportunity or the official. Right to do so, but we really do need to. We want to make often the city that we can all, living happily because, like as it exists, from my point of view, I 35 primarily exists as a great wound to the city. When it really shouldn't need to be, you know, it can be a great potential for growth and, connection in the city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Miriam scorn field on deck are Robert crump and Brian Anderson. Hello Miriam. Shown field district nine. We think 35. I'm very pleased that council is taking a stand on the I 35 issue. And I think the resolution needs to be stronger. At a minimum. It should say that I 35 must be no wider and no higher than it currently is. I [1:33:37 PM] teach at U. T and I have been speaking to lots of students about this issue, and to be perfectly frank. They are outraged. Students last week rallied at U. T at St Ed's at a number of high schools throughout the city. And the thing I think we all need to bear in mind is that this project is largely for that generation. It will be an existence for approximately the amount of time that this generation will be alive. And here is the thing. A recent article in the economist, says that young people don't want to be driving. They don't want a bigger freeway through the middle of the city, the banner that UT students produced said our future is not freeways. So this upcoming generation deserves something better, and they deserve a voice in this conversation. We all deserve a voice you as council members are our representatives. And the [1:34:38 PM] community has been speaking loud and clear on this issue. This project is not acceptable. If as a city we cannot even say in an official capacity what we all know to be true, namely, I 35 should not be expanded. Then what hope is there for any of us? And what message does it send to the next generation? If we can't even say it? I'm very grateful for all of the work that you all have been doing and I urge you to go stronger in this resolution and promised that the community will be behind you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker is a Robert trump on deck or Brian Anderson and Matteo barn stone. Hello my name is Robert trump. I am 1/5 generation austenite. Big continued subsidy of fossil fuel and adjacent industries is an aggregation of the public trust. And the direct threat to the [1:35:39 PM] habitability of this planet. To say nothing. The scheduled crucifixion of our city on across support concrete. All the bloodless bureaucracy and procedural density. All the renderings and studies merely paper over the real human suffering that this roadways already caused. How many more communities must we annihilate for the sake of motors? Convenience how many more bodies must be mangled in lives lost for the sake of vehicle throughput volume. And the only solution we're told the only viable option is to do more. To double down. On the failed policies of old world thinking and rip open the scar we've been trying to heal for generation. We must do better. I 35 in. Austin has always been an atrocity, and I hope some day to live beyond its terrible legacy. A citizen cities around the country. Organized tear their intercity highways out. We should join the rigs. Thank you. [1:36:41 PM] Brian Anderson on deck are Matteo barn stone and Taylor Trevino. High council. Thank you so much for having us here today. It's good to see some of you who I know from the campaign trail. I am very pleased to say, Ryan. Thank you so much for the amendment that you put forward. I'm very happy about that. Regarding I 35 expansion. I know you guys have heard a lot about a lot of the same justifications for why we need to move by 35 to 1 30. Or not expanded and some former capacity, so I'm going to provide some direct ask that be included in this statement to text dot so first is to have the purpose of interstate highway system stated. So if you look up what president Eisenhower said in 1955 in the state of the union address. He said. A modern , efficient highway system is essential to meet the needs of our growing population are expanding economy and our national security. We no longer live in 1955. Interstate highway [1:37:45 PM] systems meet very few of those needs in a way that our public transit system does. And so we need to make sure that we're framing this of like, why is the institution of Texas department of transportation and the interstate highway system? What is their goal? And is it now feasible to achieve its goals or its ends? I would have argued that it's not helping us anymore in our urban centers. The next thing is, I'd ask text dot to do appear assessment of global cities. If you look at New York , Paris, London Rome Washington D. C not a single one of them has an interstate highway going through its urban center. It stops with the beltway outside of its urban core. Even Washington, D C. It's one highway system that goes through DC goes underground while I do support pushing this highway underground, I remind every council member to take a walk on, let's say south tomorrow or south congress south of the river and ask yourself is this [1:38:46 PM] pleasant for me to walk across? And if it is not? Why would we expect any austinites to cross? Any of these bridges that are maybe a quarter of mile long in 100% degree heat? Would I kind of like another minute? I yeah. That followed. Okay? Thank you so much. I'll submit some more. The email thank you. Next speaker is Matteo barn stone up on deck is Taylor Trevino and Craig knows or. Afternoon mayor mayor pro tem council. My name is Matteo barn stone. I'm a resident of the nine and director of seeing you, central Texas. Our thanks to council member of L. A. And the co sponsors on this item. I believe that the city takes a strong stand. We can get a better deal with tech stop. We are all united in our dislike of I 35 the thing that divides our city physically. The problem is text [1:39:46 PM] . That solution is more I 35 doubling down on a bet that can never pay off. That highway widening fixed congestion. After enduring six years of construction commuters will enjoy temporary relief for a few years before the freeway fills again as they always do. Cities are shaped by their transportation networks. This highway widening and project connect transit investments will be the two most significant ways that we impact how our city will grow over the next century. And I ask you, which one is more in keeping with city of Austin stated desire to grow as a compact and connected city. We agree with the resolution that we need more and higher quality crossings raised pedestrian walkways are totally inappropriate substitute for a safe, comfortable act break connections across the freeway so called modified alternative three's depressed throughout the urban core. And there's simply no reason no reason. Any [1:40:47 PM] pedestrian connection across needs to be elevated. The reason. Of course, the text out once elevated pedestrian walkways is that they don't want to allow pedestrian connections across the frontage roads. And this brings me to my second point that all surface features features frontage, road bridges and such should be designed as normal city streets following nato and our city of Austin transportation criteria manual design standards. Design speed should be no more than 30 miles an hour include features such as street trees, non street parking , there should be no clear zone on any city street. Clear zone is a concept imported from highway design. And critical for, dangerous thoroughfares for cars traveling at speed. Next speaker is tailored Trevino on deck are Craig Naser and Jeff Thompson. Get afternoon, everyone. My name is Taylor trevena. Resident of district three. I don't have a lot of the [1:41:49 PM] expertise that a lot of other speakers here have. But I was born and raised here in Austin. I grew up off of Ramberg again tomorrow district, but I went to school at killing middle school in the heart of the east side. And mayor Watson. I think your son was actually in my class. So, but the richness deep history and uniqueness of those neighborhoods always stood out to me. But it wasn't until my time there that I understood that a lot of that was forced. Remember the day that I learned about this segregation is history of I 35 feeling a sense of both shock and understanding. Surprised that policies that seems so distant had such lasting. You know, created such lasting disparities between the neighborhood that I went to school in and it was just across the highway at the same time. It made everything makes sense. So while I love Austin, you know, I've never seen the city the same way since then. So in addition to bridging the gaps between east and west Austin, we need a solution that if nothing else doesn't worsen the current traffic situation, I love just about half a mile away from 35 [1:42:49 PM] take it to get just about everywhere so we all know how much the traffic sucks. We also know that more lanes bring more traffic, and that's the last thing that we need. So along with those two things I would like to echo calls that any changes to 35 also create opportunities and amenities for residents by bearing as much of 35 as possible and rerouting 18 wheelers from 35 to minimize fatalities and conduction. So thanks to all of you all for your continued work and dedication to this issue. Next speaker is Craig Naser on deck are Jeff Thompson and Kelsey Hughes. Hello my name is Craig Naser. I live in district seven. I'm the president of Austin environmental Democrats. We have voted overwhelmingly to oppose tech starts. I 35 expansion plans. I'm also the conservation chair of the lone star chapter of the Sierra club. This Sierra club also opposes text tax. I 35 expansion plans. The problems with this expansion are two million to agree just to detail [1:43:51 PM] and two minutes and I think you are already aware of most of them. We would hope that the city would oppose tech starts plans as well. However we understand that the city may not have a lot of good options here. If this is true, and such a bad deal will be forced upon the people of Austin. Despite the obvious and overwhelming opposition to any text dot proposal, then we find council member Velasquez resolution with the amendments to be an unfortunate necessity to protect further damage to Austin. This distasteful situation brings to mind what my mom wise Mississippi grandmother used to say. She had a beautiful fig tree in the backyard, and she and then you know in the winter, she'd say. Well dried figs are better than no figs at all. Thank you. Next speaker is Jeff Thompson on deck are Kelsey Hughes and Celia Israel. Thank [1:44:51 PM] you, mayor and council for taking up decide him. I signed up as a neutral on the item because I guess they covered car sewer is better than an open car store. But understand that a bigger I 35 is just going to put out more pollution, you know, and asthma inducing. Fumes near the you know, my neighborhood school district three resident and Sanchez and Travis heights are both Travis high school are both within, you know. A stone's throw of I 35 what I'm really pushing forward right now is just to slow down and to postpone this issue. I can't believe that we would tear up by 35 for what will probably be a decade without offering commuters another solution into downtown. And if we could just wait until you know the Orange line and the blue line were completed, and then people would [1:45:52 PM] have another option instead. The only other option for many commuters will be mopac and will increase the traffic temporarily on mopac. While this is under construction, and then I guess that will justify you know new flyovers over zilker park at some point in the future, so if we could just delay until project connect was completed and give some other opportunities for folks. Thank you. Next speaker is Kelsey Hughes on deck are Celia Israel and dizzy circles. Good afternoon. My name is Kelsey Hughes. I live in district five. First of all, thank you for pushing back against textile. When I read this item, I was disappointed because I didn't see anything against the expansion. My guess. Is that fighting the I 35 extent, expansion seems like an extreme or a radical position. However many of us have looked at the [1:46:53 PM] other highway expansions in the U. S and have seen that spending billions of our tax dollars. Well only increased traffic and congestion, asthma noise emissions injuries in traffic, fatalities and displacement, which to me is an extreme position. Whatever we whatever plan we accept is what I am going to live with for the rest of my life. I already hate driving on walking and biking underneath. I 35 I'm in the prime years of my life at 32 years old, I cannot imagine growing older in this city and having to navigate an even bigger version of I 35 we could instead build something incredible. We could build affordable housing, safe biking and pedestrian infrastructure space for small businesses in concert venues safer and slower streets. Maybe even a train. Wow. Please oppose this extreme expansion support routing [1:47:53 PM] interstate traffic onto the most reliable route in central Texas , which is a ch 1 30. Check their website give 35 back to the city for housing and safe transportation. Please take vision zero in the climate goals. Seriously. Our lives depend on it. Thank you. Celje Israel on deck card, Desi cycles and Roy Whaley. I believe still, isn't you don't like it. Thank you. Colleagues or Roy wailing. On deck are also Haynes, Mendel and Greg Anderson. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Daisy cycle is I'm a junior at St Edwards university. I live in district three and I'm studying political science. I'm also an intern at environment Texas, which is a nonprofit advocacy group that aims to make our world a greener and safer space [1:48:55 PM] . And I am here today to talk about what we've been talking about. For a while now. I thought about maybe cutting my speech, but I think it's important that we say this as many times as possible. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the expansion of I 35 it's a terrible idea. For one the projection. For one, it is projected to increase carbon equivalent emissions from anywhere to 1.2 to 2.6 million metric tons by the year 2050. If that isn't enough to sway you. If not amended. This plan will also cause the displacement of up to 108 household and commercial properties. Those are austinites. If you are still on the fence about if it would really be that bad. What if I told you it wouldn't even trick fixed traffic? I was going to go into induced demand and induced traffic, but I think we've already covered that pretty well . It's been proven many times, Katy freeway for one of them that adding more lanes does not [1:49:56 PM] fixed traffic. It makes more traffic. So just to kind of overview. What we've been talking about the expansion of our 35 would do the following wildly accelerate our rates of carbon emissions, in other words, killed the environment. It would displace people and businesses are community cares about and it would make traffic worse. I urge you to consider adding some of the amendments onto this item and really, really do your best with tech start and stand up for us because that's why we voted for you. Thank you. Next is Roy wailea on deck are Haynes Mandel and Greg Anderson. How do y'all my name is Roy Whaley and I am the chair of the conservation committee for the often regional group of your club. And I want to start out by thinking council member of vela for bringing this [1:50:56 PM] forward and all of the folks that co signed and I hope the rest of you will join in on this . I am old enough to remember when there wasn't an I 35 often. Well it ran part way but it didn't really go. Everywhere I mean, it was a long trip to Dallas. This I really appreciate this. This, revolution here. I think it's very good. I am very happy to see that it advises that we pushed the truck traffic, the semi truck traffic. Over to 1 30. At the cost of this project we can pay for truckers. Do you fight 30 for a long time if we choose to pay their fees. And just to remind myself instead of riding my bicycle down here, like usual, I drove down here and I drove on. I 35 and I am not a fan. I can [1:51:59 PM] guarantee you that it scares the Willie out of me, actually, and most of the congestion does seem to be from semi truck, so simply getting the semis off would be a long step and saving us a lot of time and money, and a lot of business businesses are going to be impacted by this. And we need to stay aware of that, and definitely the environment is going to be impacted by this. We're going to have just all sorts of negative environmental impacts. And I think you all are aware of them. My son lives in Dallas, and my son has a nine year old son, my grandson and so I go to see him. And Clyde Warren park is just a really great location feeds everything else downtown is good for the economy. We need to say no to this expansion. Thank you, speaker. Is Haines Mandel on [1:53:02 PM] deck is Greg Anderson. Y'all. My name is hannis manner. My wife. Our two kids, and I live in Hancock. Although Hancock is only a stone's throw away from French place cherrywood dellwood and will Sherwood and what should be a short bike ride from black land. Chestnut rosewood oh, Miller with kids, these neighborhoods are literally inaccessible to us without a car. Three points for my neighborhood associations. Response to the I S 30.1 text out, Warren said without the expansion afternoon peak hour travel times would reach over 3.5 hours by 2045. That's nonsense. No one would commute then. Rather people would either work closer to home or live closer to work. They would walk bike, take public transit or telecommute, all of which are much better solutions than an expanded highway. Textile needs to stop framing its expansion as the only antidote to horror scenario that would never materialized if it weren't for the expansion in the first place. 0.2 text that has argued [1:54:02 PM] that induced demand was negligible in this project, probably less than 1% and that they were much more focused on latent demand. It is not clear, however, how text that measures either or how it determines how it determines that the latent demand for driving is more than for efficient public transit. And the D I S induced demand is mentioned only three times each time in reference to community feedback and not once accompanied by an explanation of why text that things it does not apply to I 35 latent demand is mentioned zero times. 0.3 in assessing the future highway scenarios text that relied on outdated static traffic assignment model that is more than 40 years old and was adopted when computers were less powerful than today's smartphones. It's significant limitations are known to result in over estimates of expanded highway performance. Experts are telling us that Texas needs to employ state of the art dynamic traffic assignment modeling instead. To conclude whether congested by gas powered or electric cars. 20 lane highway through the heart of our city [1:55:03 PM] will never be livable. We respectfully demand that I 35 B rebuild as narrow, not as wide as possible and be kept by a deck. Thank you. Next is Greg Anderson on deck are Heather hubs and Daniel kappelman. Hey mayor, mayor per Tim council members. So are is also going to be the last city or one of the very last cities to get it wrong , or are we going to be one of the first cities to get it? Right what do we want our future to be, and we have a big role to play here, and we can work with text that I hope unless that dog is just gone, and we're just gonna give up on it. But there's a lot of hope here. We know the types of transportation that gives us this and we know what leads us to auto centric sprawl. Austin is so amazing. You know, you have all these other big cities in Texas out of completely encapsulated themselves with gigantic highways and we haven't done that. Are we going to further gut ourselves? We're about to see I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where year after year, [1:56:03 PM] tech Georgia dot was promising, you know, congestion relief with more lanes, just more lanes, just more lanes. This time, it'll do it and every single time the result was thousands upon thousands upon thousands of new homes going up, replacing farms and forests with auto centric sprawl. Imagine Austin calls for a compact and connected city. We still have yet to do that land development code. But are we going to further hinder ourselves in the future? With this highway? Our carbon footprints skyrocket as we live further and further away from the city center. This is the Berkeley cool climate calculator. And if you want to watch carbon tons increased dramatically just build further and further out. Maybe if you're the mayor of Georgetown, this makes sense. Maybe if you want a ton of land 30 miles away. This is great. But if you're in Austin and you care, it's really, really bad. We know how to move people, and it's certainly not single occupant vehicles, which is the majority of I 35 god, this is bad, and also where the renderings I've seen more renderings for $20 million building that I have for this $8 billion project. Is this our future? When does it end? [1:57:04 PM] We're not sure yet. I love this , right? Yes finally sitting in more traffic induced demand is real and thank you so much for the council members and staff who were who were calling out all the nonsense here. Thank you, councilor vela for looking into this further. There are ways to move people and it's not the rejection antic interstate. We watched them gut cities year after year back in the day. Are we going to continue doing it? We'll see. Next speaker is. Heather hubs on deck is Daniel cattleman and Richard Haman. Hi happy to see you all again at the podium. I'm taking a neutral stance on the resolution due to the fact I do not believe there should be an expansion at all. However if there must be an expansion, the resolution to the item is appreciated. However there should be no expansion at all. Because by the time this project is done, I will be an [1:58:05 PM] adult. I will have fully seen the devastating impacts this project will have on me and Austin community. It will negatively affect the people who live in Austin. It will negatively affect the future of Austin, and it will negatively affect the environment. Most of all, when reviewing this item, take the ozone layer into consideration, take carbon emissions and in consideration take air quality into consideration. Take asthmatic individuals into consideration and take individuals with lung diseases into consideration. Take the future of the city into consideration the impacts on health, children's health, overall happiness and urban density will be impacted. You all know how old I am? Since I'm 16 and 49 years when I'm 65 the retirement age, I will have fully seen the devastating impacts that this will have on the community. My health will be impacted. My children's health will be impacted and everything that involves me will be impacted and talking to other U T students. Nobody wants this. None of my friends like driving my friends who do have cars barely use them because you know, we walk everywhere. The [1:59:06 PM] future is walking when you see like a I generated images of the future. It's not multilane highways like cutting through cities. Its workability. Prove that you listen to the people and rethink I 35 thank you. Next is Daniel cable man cattleman on deck are Richard Haman and John Paul Connolly. Mayor Watson mayor pro tem Ellis council members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for your work on this resolution, especially council member vela for, all the research and the time that you put in and for the amendments that I think are setting this in a really good direction. I appreciate that the city has decided to formalize. Its statement on I 35 so that you guys will, have a as your as the city of Austin can make a formal statement to text and put that into the record so that we can get the best project possible. There is a need for more east [2:00:06 PM] west connectivity, and there is a need for these projects to prioritize safety and the movement of people and it would be a shame if that this frontage roads were designed in a way where people are dying even more on this road than are today. The number one priority is that people make it to their destination at all. And maybe that doesn't mean a 70 mile an hour highway or 45 mile an hour. Finance road and that these should be designed with an acto standards and match the surface streets of the rest of downtown that are so far keeping us a lot safer than any other textile facilities that's running to the city of Boston. I think that we need true pedestrian bike infrastructure and not shared use paths that are separated by just a line of paint anywhere and keeping people safe. We need to reconsider the use of spoon these airport and at Riverside and so that we're not having to scurry across massive amounts of lanes of high speed vehicles or [2:01:08 PM] having to, you know, vertically moved to go through a tunnel or through a raised crossing across the highway. More people are driving less and were dense efi in the city. And the highway is going to be less relevant as we get older as more people switch to other modes and by 2039, the S and P sets out a motive to 50% are using things other than single occupancy vehicles. And so I appreciate this work a lot. Thank you so much. Next speaker is Richard Haman with John Powell Connolly on deck. Hello council. Thanks for hearing from us today. My name is Richard Heyman. I live in district nine in cherrywood neighborhood just four blocks from I 35 I also have a phd in urban geography and in, in my 17th year of teaching at U T, I've taught urban geography, planning and urban studies over those years, but today I'm speaking on my own behalf. Almost everyone agrees [2:02:08 PM] that I 35 needs to be modern eyes. But that does not mean that it needs to be expanded either in the number of lanes or in its current footprint in multi billion dollar modernization of I 35 should create new benefits for Austin not just take down the upper decks or minimize its intrusiveness. I appreciate the efforts that you've made to make this project better for our community, but I urge you to push tax dot to rethink its project more fundamentally. I have a chart here. That's up on your screens. The traffic data provided in the D E. I S and text dots own data does not justifying increase for the highway. The historical numbers are the Orange line at the bottom. For some reason, they used the blue line as their projection for the numbers. They just kind of came up with it out of nowhere. There's no justification for adding so many lanes to our city, and furthermore, the negative impacts on of this project. Most of them are come from rise out [2:03:11 PM] of the expansion, especially the increased right of way and the extra ramping associated with the managed lanes. Furthermore text dots, climate and greenhouse gas models are totally unrealistic. They claim absurdly quote. The project has the potential to reduce transportation related greenhouse gas emissions. That's what they said. It's ridiculous. If they're projecting a 50% increase in traffic, and yet they say this will great this will be great. This will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It doesn't even make sense. They have not made a good faith effort to really conceive of this project in a modern way and you need to push them to do so. Thank you very much. John Paul Connolly. Good afternoon council . I'm just here to stand in solidarity and in support for council member of Leila's item, and express gratitude for the work that has been put into this, you know, there's so much [2:04:12 PM] about this whole conversation that is deeply frustrating. All around the world cities are waking up to the fact that highways are toxic and destructive and are thinking of better ways to plan and use urban space. And yet, here we are, you know, being dragged in the opposite direction against our will against the will of the community by textile, which shows just tremendous indifference to us as a city and this is just such a like working with text on this talking to texel attending meetings have been a deeply disempowering experience for all of us. I think the community is united has been united in saying no higher no wider. And yet here we are. Still sort of forced to swallow this nasty pill that's being shoved down our throats. We have to insist on doing better. You know, y'all don't have control over text op, but y'all do have control over the city's. You lead the city's position on this and the city should be fighting for better pedestrian and bike infrastructure. The city should not accept a ridiculous underground pedestrian tunnel across airport. There are things that cities should absolutely put its feet down and fight for. [2:05:12 PM] And you should fight for everyone and not just the drivers speeding down through the highway we can, and we must insist that we get the best possible project and the last thing I'll say is, if we're going to have caps, we can't just have the city's most expensive grass lawns. We need to actually have caps that will serve our city and that will provide, real urban infrastructure and the ability to build meaningful infrastructure that will serve the city. We're not we're not going to just create the city's most expensive park. So you know if we're gonna have caps, let's fight for caps that will allow us to do something very meaningful with them. That will allow us to actually provide infrastructure that would be transformative and that will help generate wealth and strengthen this community. Thank you. That concludes all the speakers on item 44. Thank you, madam clerk members that takes us to item number 44. The way I will suggest that we take up item number 44 is I will seek [2:06:13 PM] emotion from the sponsor of the item. Get the item on the table , and then the amendments. There are a number of proposed amendments. There are two proposed amendments by council member of L. A. I'll take those two up amendment one amendment to council member of Velazquez has an amendment. Then there are three proposed amendments by council member qadri. I'll take those up in in order, there's a proposed amendment by mayor pro Tim Ellis. And then there are two proposed amendments by council member Ryan alter. So the order we will go in and is they lamented amendment one they love amendment to Alaska's amendment. Qadri amendment. One qadri amendment to qadri amendment three. Ellis amendment. Ryan alter amendment one and Ryan alter amendment to with that I'll recognize council member available for emotion. Thank you, mayor. Moved to pass [2:07:16 PM] item number. 44 council member of Allah moves. Adoption is their 2nd 2nd by council member qadri. Alright, I'll recognize council member of Ella on amendment number one mayor. The amendment number one is, stuff clean up a little bit of clarification of the language, not a substantive change. Just I think clarifies that, that the central project is in a different status than the north and south projects. Move counselor Castillo invalid moves adoption of amendment number one is there a second to the motion seconded again by council member qadri any discussion on the amendment? Is there any objection to the amendment hearing? None amendment number one by vela is adopted. Council member value recognized on amendment number two thank you, mayor. An amendment number two is just again for clarity, directing the city manager to submit this item as the city's official public comment to text [2:08:16 PM] dot before there. March 7th deadline, in fact, directed to submit the item no later than March. 3rd however, I just noticed a small clerical error in the amendment. The amendment , say states director to submit the comment by Friday, March 32,022, actually, that needs to change 2023. So with that small change, I would make sure that that technical errors is completed. The is always fixed. Castillo. Reveillon moves adoption of vela amendment number two. Is there a 2nd 2nd by the mayor pro Tim? Is there any discussion? Any objection to the adoption of amendment number two. Hearing none. Amendment number two is adopted chair now recognizes council member Velasquez on an amendment. Mr mayor. I'm offering the following amendment because it speaks to the importance of incorporating water controls to treat and filter runoff from the proposed highway expansion and [2:09:17 PM] the increased pollution it would generate. I moved for adoption council member Velasquez moves approval of an amendment as described. Is there a second seconded by council member Alison alter. Is there any discussion? Is there any objection to the adoption of Alaska's amendment? Hearing none. The blazquez amendment is adopted. Council member qadri you're recognized on amendment number qadri amendment number one thank you, mayor. You know, before I get started on that is one of thank councilor rivelle again for her sponsorship on this, you know, also my fellow co sponsors, council members went as Velazquez and Ryan alter , and all these city council staff. I want to give a special shout out to a staffer in the D nine office. Most of biller this . This issue is a labor of love for her, and I appreciate her and all the work. She's done on this on this issue both in our private life and you know, here here in city hall, my office is putting forward three amendments [2:10:19 PM] . I will start off with the amendment one, which centers around climate equity offer an amendment to emphasize the impact transportation has on our air and our climate, particularly on communities of color, and also acknowledging the I 35 expansion will hinder us from reaching our climate goal as a city. And I could read the amendment one. We've all had the amendment. Councilman qadri moves adoption of a minute of qadri amendment number one related to climate equity, seconded by council member of Fuentes. Is there any discussion on the item? Is there any objection to adoption of the item? Hearing none. Qadri amendment number one, right. I object to adding that thank you. I just didn't catch it. Qadri amendment number one. The vote is 9 to 1 to one. The no vote is . The vote is, it qadri amendment number one is 10 to 1 [2:11:20 PM] with council member Kelly being shown voting no council member qadri you recognize on your second amendment? Thank you. Mayor amendment to has to do with safety, so I offer an amendment to add language that our city has prioritized human life over all else in our transportation system, and the I 35 quarter is a major contributor. To traffic fatalities in our city. The amendment emphasis that safety for all road users. Be prioritized in the I 35 project. Councilor recalled removes adoption of what over referred to as qadri amendment number two as he just described it. It's seconded by mayor pro Tim Ellis. Is there any discussion? Is there any objection to the adoption of qadri amendment number two. Got to remember number two passes on a vote of 10 to 1. Sorry, I raised my hand. Well I thought you were voting. No I am voting now cry out. You got it. I'll be vocal. Raising your hand was to vote. No okay. Sorry I thought you wanted to talk. Then, just want [2:12:21 PM] to make sure the vote is shown a vote of 10 to 1 on qadri amendment number two council members, Kelly being shown voting no council member qadri. You're recognized on amendment number three. Thank you. Mayor last amendment from our office on displacement and gentrification. This amendment adds a displacement. Facts for tech stocks prefer design alternative from the draft environmental impact statement noting 90 out of the 107 displacements are located in lower income minority areas, and also provides more specific direction. The text stop to make every effort to help displaced businesses and residents remain in their communities if they choose what they starting point of one mile distance. Yeah it's been known that it's unlikely anyone displaced by this project will be able to stay in central Austin. So text so text dot should do everything possible above and beyond, to mitigate the displacement that they are creating. Casper qadri moves adoption of qadri amendment number three related to displacement and gentrification , as it was just described, is [2:13:22 PM] there a second seconded by the mayor pro Tim? Is there any discussion? Is there any objection to the adoption of qadri amendment number three, mayor I object. Very good. Thank you is the qadri amendment number three, is adopted on a vote of 10 to 1, with council member Kelly being shown voting . No chair now recognizes mayor pro Tim Ellis for an amendment. Thank you. Mayor I move adoption of Ellis amendment one version two and I can read it. If anyone doesn't have it handy if there's a second because anyone wishing that she read that it's seconded by council member Alison alter. The motion is made by a mere pro, Tim and seconded by councilor Alison alter to adopt else amendment version number two that you you were given. Is there any, anyone wanted to have discussion I would like to discuss. Please please. You're recognized. Thank you very much for the recognition. Council member Ellis, I do have a question about your amendment. What it limits speeds on frontage roads down to St 20 mph 35 mph if the adjacent roadway is that speed it just says it [2:14:25 PM] should be as much in line with the design speeds of the adjacent roads. So if, for instance, I know. In my neck of the woods on mopac. The access road is three lanes wide and the speed limit is 55 miles an hour, but a right hand turn goes directly into a neighborhood so there should be best efforts made to match those speeds so people don't take the corner too wide and endanger the folks around. I appreciate you, letting me know your answer to that. I think the clerk has a PDF that my staff sent over with images. I don't know if we're able to pull it up on the screen, but one of my staffers actually lives downtown and brought to my attention that right next to 35 were holly street is there's a 20 mile per hour school zone. And so it would concern me. Thinking that people are exiting off 35. They might go right down to 20 mph. So if that is what the intention is behind your amendment, I'm not sure I can support it, but thank you for bringing us forward. Any other discussion questions and your faith in engineers to match it exactly. I [2:15:26 PM] know that they're going to do their best to accommodate if they can. Any further discussion. Is there any objection to the adoption of mayor pro? Tim Ellis? Is amendment version number two mayor I object. Very good there on a, with that? Objection Ellis amendment version two passes on a vote of 10 to 1, with council member Kelly being shown voting no council member Ryan alter your recognized for an amendment . I move adoption of Ryan alter amendment number one members you have in front of you. Amendment. Ryan alter amendment number one. Is there a second to the motion? Second about councilman Rivera. Is there any discussion? Is there any objection to the adoption of Ryan alter amendment number one? Hearing none. It passes without without objection , cast member alter your now recognized on Ryan. Alter amendment number two move, adoption counselor. We're all [2:16:26 PM] Ryan ultra moves. Adoption of Ryan amendment number two. It's seconded by Ryan alter amendment number two, it's a seconded by councilor member vela. Is there any discussion on Ryan alter amendment number two? Yes, council member Harvard medicine. My singular objection is that this font is so small. I can't see it. What? We'll get a bigger next time. That is, by the way worthy objection. On that one. Well, good. I'm glad you're enjoying it. Council member Ryan ultra moves and seconded by councilor member vela that we adopt Ryan alter amendment number two. Is there any objection to the adoption of the amendment? Hearing none. The amendment is adopted, members you have in front of you. The base motion as amended with the amendments that we have just run through. Let me ask, is there are there any other amendments [2:17:28 PM] that anyone would like to bring forward? You have in front of you. The base motion as amended . Is there any discussion on the motion? Everybody. I don't think there's much I can add. After that parade of speakers that we had, many of whom are much more knowledgeable than I am on the technical issues and who have who have learned so much from appreciate so much the council's support. I just wanted to say that I'm conscious of the. Power dynamics. Let's say between you know the state and the city. Ah! It's going to be a balance. We're going to have to work with tax dot on right away for project connect and numerous other issues. Text are controls multiple local streets, but this is a once in a generation. Opportunity we've got to get it [2:18:29 PM] right. And as one of the speakers mentioned just looking around, and I got to give credit to reconnect Austin and Sinclair black and Hayden walker black because their website and the information there and seeing what cities around the world have been able to do with their urban freeways. What they're the moves that they have made really is what what what? Gave me the push to get this item on the agenda. And with that again, I just think so many people who have been involved in this fight for much longer than I have. Any further discussion. The vote will be on the main motion. For the item as amended. All those in favor say aye. Opposed. Say no. The motion passes on a vote of 10 to 1 with the mayor of being shown voting. No members that will now take us to the zoning, speakers, discussion and potential action on those. We. [2:19:35 PM] We don't have any speakers. Mayor well, then let me do this. If you don't mind, members, I will open the public hearing. On all of the zoning matters. We will have a. I'm in favor instead. What I'll do is why don't you make a presentation and then we'll open the public hearing and closed the public hearing. And take our boat. Sure mayor. Thank you. I'm joy harden with the housing in planning department. You're zoning agenda begins with item number 53 C 14 2022 0113 and this item is being offered for consent on all three readings and 54th 2022 00 to three point oh, three and there's a neighborhood postponement. Request to your March 9th council meeting. Sorry I hate to interrupt if you're exiting. We really appreciate your attendance. But could you take your conversations outside? Very good point. Folks we're trying to conduct business. So you please take your [2:20:36 PM] conversations outside. Thank you and thank you for being here. We, as the mayor pro tem said we're very glad to have you here. But we need to have your talking outside unless you're at the microphone. There's only one person there, so go alright. Okay I'll start I don't 53 C 14 2022 0113. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. I don't 54 N P a 2022 00 to three point oh, three and there's a neighborhood postponement request to your March, 9th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 55 C 14 2022 0104 and again, there's a neighborhood postponement. Request to your mark March 9th council meeting. Item 56 is C 14 2020 0143. And there's the applicant postponement request to your April 13th council meeting 57 to C 14, 2022 0049, and there's an applicant postponement request to your [2:21:36 PM] April 13th council meeting. I don't 58 is C 14 2022 0141, and this item is being offered for consent, 2nd and 3rd readings. 59 is in P a 2022 16.0. In this item is being offered for consent, 2nd and 3rd readings. The related rezoning is item 60 C 14 2022 0103 and I would just like to read into the record two men part for H to read. The minimum setbacks are and for the rear setback. That should read 15 ft for rear yard. And with that I can offer this item for consent on 2nd and 3rd reading and moving on to your addendum is item number 63. Which is C 14 2022 0076 in there is a staff postponement request to your March 23rd council meeting and [2:22:36 PM] that concludes the reading of the agenda members. Do you have any questions? Yes councilor qadri question related to this, but I just wanna thank joy for her service and her continuing with the African American quality of life commission from district nine. So we're going. Thank you. Good. Good. All right, I will now open. Public hearing on Adam's 53. Through 60 and item number 63. Madam clerk. Yes there are no speakers. Is that correct? Have one now we're good. Zenobia, Joseph. That is to a postponed item. I just want to make that which item is it all I thought she was speaking to item. The. The Berkman residential 55. Those items are being postponed by the [2:23:37 PM] neighborhood to March 9th. Very good. I would need that confirmed, though. Miss Johnson , when? As you start speaking, please confirm what item you're speaking on. And if you're sorry , miss Joseph, and if you're speaking on an item that the motion is to pope will be to postpone speak only to the merits of the postponement. You're now recognized. Thank you. Mayor council on speaking on items before 55 that's specifically 63 or five Berkman tribe. That's the neighborhood postponement. My request is simply that when the item comes back to you on March 9th 2023 that there is an husband independent school district educational impact statements. That the applicant discloses the area median income and lastly, that they speak to being in an opportunity zone, which is specifically related to tax cuts and jobs act of 2017. None of [2:24:39 PM] that information is in the back of material, and it wasn't discussed at the planning commission meeting on January 23rd 2023. So if they could. Step could in that information to your provided when it broke comes again. I would appreciate it if you have any questions of learning at this time. Thank you, Mr Joseph. Is there. Are there any other speakers? No, sir. That concludes all the speakers members. Is there any objection to closing the public hearings on items 53 through 60 and item number 63. Hearing no objection. The public hearings are closed members, I will entertain a motion to adopt the recommendations of staff with regard to items 53 through 60 and item number 63. It's made by council member pool. Is there a second? Second by council member Alison alter. Is there any discussion? Is there any objection to the motion? Hearing [2:25:39 PM] none. The motion is adopted with council member Kelly being off the diets. Members that will take us I don't know. Cast members item number. 12 was laid on the table until 2 30. The next item is Adam number 61 , which we indicated we wouldn't take up until 2 45. Adam 12. I'm gonna ask. Is there any objection to the removal of item 12 from the table and taking it up at 2 26, as opposed to 2 30? There is no objection. We will take up item number 12. You remember we the motion was to table item 12 until this time [2:26:41 PM] certain so that we would be in a position. To look into and discuss some of the items that came up during the communications today. The chair will recognize council member of Velazquez for emotion. Mr mayor, I motion to move forward and vote on item 12 today, as is and if you allow me, I'd like to speak to the item. I thank you for pulling aside them also want to thank the speakers who showed up today to voice their concerns. Grant funding, such as Dr funding is crucial to the development and growth of Austin's driving arts culture, and I'm proud to know that our city works hard to support the organizations with a mission to bring cultural enrichment to diverse communities. However the comments that were made today are concerning and I, along with my colleagues, Mr mayor, council member Fuentes plan to bring this item to the table for discussion or will be inviting the economic development department and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that your [2:27:43 PM] three will have thorough bedding for an equitable process. That will not serve up. That will not serve that will not only serve up and up and coming organizations but also serve and help sustain the deeply rooted organizations in Austin. Look forward to working on that with y'all. Thank you. Council member . It's seconded. The motion is seconded by a council member. Vela, chair recognizes council member harper-madison. This. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I'll keep it brief. I just really wanted to give a special special shout out to some very deserving recipients side of district one jump on it in Iowa , south African drum and dance ensemble terra nada, the vortex and the women in jazz association very, very proud that we are able to offer some supports as a municipality. So thank you. To the author. Great. Thank you for pointing that out any other discussion? Yes, councilor Alison alter. Thank [2:28:44 PM] you. This program is the culmination or the next step. For many year process that we've been going through with looking at our cultural arts funding to see how we can better meet the needs of our diverse arts community. I want to thank the arts commission and the folks who worked on this from E D. D there's been a lot of discussion. I think that discussion has been really important for our city to understand better what those needs are. This is a pilot program. I think you can look at the list of who received the granting in, all across the board. They're great organizations. We have limited funding. So there were great organizations that were left off and great organizations who maybe wanted more money. But I think we also can acknowledge that we're trying to do something difficult here trying to do it, differently. And a lot of thought and care has gone into it, and I know that the people who are involved we'll be [2:29:45 PM] learning from that process. I would encourage my colleagues who want to work on that to make sure that you deeply involved the arts commission. In those conversations, they've had a lot of really hard conversations over the years. And I think they bring a lot of expertise and knowledge, to bear on and how we should iterate for the next steps. Thank you, council member. Customer available. You have your hand up alright. Any other discussion? Members. You've heard the motion that's been seconded. Is there any objection to the adoption of the motion? Hearing none. The motion is adopted. With that members unless there's objection. I'm going to recess the Austin city council until 2 45 pm. Is there any objection hearing? None. We are recessed. [2:45:36 PM] Back to order. It is 2 45 pm on February 23rd 2023 a quorum is present. Remembers at this point in time we will be taking up. Item number. 61 we will take up speakers for pulled item number 61. Then we'll have whatever discussion and potential action , madam clerk. I'll call on you to begin the process of calling speakers. First speaker is Richard Smith. Mr Smith. Please on mute. We will reach out to [2:46:40 PM] him. Okay so I'm going to go ahead and proceed to in in person. First speaker is Cleopatra check. On deck is Matt macau yak. Okay? Let's play this out. You all will pass this illegal ordinance. The officers will not relinquish their rights guaranteed by chapter 1 43 of the Texas government code, and unfortunately, mayor your legacy will begin by losing over 100 officers in short order with an already crippled police department. Detectives and command staff had began notifying their leadership of their resignations. This will rock the foundational support of our department. Ryan alters ordinance and the proper oversight. We'll be stuck in [2:47:41 PM] court for years. Since the current contract will expire. Agreed. Oversight will be non existent. Hard to make sense that you're rallying cries for more oversight. Was your agenda and not demoralizing officers by rejecting a city and a P a mutually agreed for your contract with the most Progressive oversight. In the state. As stated by your own legal team. The events of this weekend will not be the last there will be more serious critical incidents where officers will need immediate backup and again there will not be timely back up for them. As a Democrat. I'm disappointed that again. The chance that our governor will have to intervene with state law enforcement due to the city proving your irresponsible stewards of our police department. This council would rather bow to avowed police abolitionist, then do the [2:48:41 PM] hard work of solving the policing mess it created. You would rather have no deal. No oversight regime, then do your jobs and explain to your constituents what the real choices are. Why sweat when all you really have to do is appear to hate cops, right? But how much do you really hate cops? Do you really want to see hundreds more quit, which is where we are headed to really believe that you can continue the nonsense, nonsensical woke printing without ultimately having to own bad outcome. Outcomes I sincerely hope not. Next speaker is Matt macau yak. Thank you for the opportunity. Here. I'm half of Boston. Now, you know, in medicine, the motto of do no harm guides that industry and it should guide government as well. The situation that we're in with the staffing crisis was not [2:49:42 PM] created by the current mayor and the current council as it's currently constituted. But the reality is we are in a crisis. We're 350 officers short of where we were. When the council voted 11 to 0 to defund the police in 2020. We have at least 230 active police vacancies. We've learned that half the command staff plan to retire. If the contract goes out by March, 31st. Those officers are backfilling daily patrol shifts. You don't make a staffing crisis worse. What are you trying to do to benefit? What's what's the trade off? You tried last week to do a one year extension. That's obviously not going anywhere. In fact, it takes more than a year to recruit and sea cadets through the course work that they do the field work that they do. And the probationary period. We need a four year contract. We are in favor of anything you want to do to increase pay and protect benefits. But this ordinance is going to get tied up in court, and so it in the short term. What we're going to see is fewer [2:50:44 PM] police officers. And yes, Saturday night we had, we had an inadequate staffing level to handle the critical incidents that we saw at four separate incidents across our city. So I recognize that the mistakes that we're dealing with now. We're not made since January, 1st, but you do not take a bad situation and allow it to get worse. We need a four year contract. We need stability and certainty with our police department. And yes, we do need more police oversight. There was only one way to get it, folks. The four year contract that was mutually negotiated that has 20 pages of oversight provisions. Take yes for an answer. Don't make the staffing crisis worse and let's start to improve public safety together. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor I'm going to move to the remote speakers. We had a little glitch, but we're on now. Richard Smith. Hi this is Richard Smith. I'm gonna attorney a member of the board [2:51:45 PM] of adjustment. And the 30 year resident of Austin. Agenda items 61 reflects the continued abdication of city council's duty to Austin residents. We operate under a representative form of government. Residents of Austin, hire you by elections and pay you to oversee a safe and responsible local government. In the case of complex labor negotiations, residents expect you to rely on experts such as labor attorneys to negotiate the best contract. And your duty is to give a good state consideration. Those contracts. In this case city later. Attorneys have said that Austin has the best police oversight of any city in Texas. Subject to section section 1 43 of state law. They've also said that the may petition by equity action cannot and will not change the overall oversight provisions that are subject to state law. Nevertheless the city attorney's have incorporated as [2:52:46 PM] much of the petitions provisions as possible. Into the four year contract. Here you have a four year police contract. It's been negotiated over the past year under your supervision. But you've never put that contract up from instead, you have simply walked away from the four year contract. Disregarding the city attorney's guidance. Attempted to rule by unilateral resolution edicts. And incorrectly claimed that whatever the people want police oversight they can have by simply passing a ballot proposition. Simply put, it appears that you are running down rabbit holes that will lead to lawsuits. Increased costs to taxpayers and fewer police officers. And months or a year from now or whenever you'll be right back with a four year contract that looks a lot like the contract that is before you. Thank you. Paul Szabo, qadri [2:53:47 PM] okay? Good afternoon, mayor and council members charged three we have an operating business and Austin city for past 16 years, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to run business, probably all the time that is happening out of business and around Austin decreased police officers. The criminals have just gotten involved in just last week. We had cars break in , and this happens every single weekend by the way. Couple of weeks back broad day life stockholder and told patio furniture. This is no time to play politics, urged me a Watson and council members. It's time to prioritize public safety. It is time to show good faith to not only police association and officer but all of course, responders and citizens of Austin. Oh, boy, what we all just saw last weekend. It is time for this council to short from respect. Police officers, taxpayers, voters and families. Also this disproportionately affects our communities that [2:54:48 PM] need access the most two of first responders. It feels like we are making the lives of our understood communities harder. This is not the way thank you. Carmen Matthews. Hi thank you for having me. I you know, I really wish I would just just past the four year contract. I have lived in Austin growing up on and off and I moved back here like 10 years ago. And as since I've been back here, I'm in district five. I have seen nothing but rising crime and it's. Prevalent to the point that people aren't even reporting it because they know that nothing is going to happen because the police are understaffed. We you know, it also says this Progressive city where all these people are moving to yet they don't know [2:55:49 PM] when they move here, that that you know, businesses are being broken into right down the street. My mom witnessed a crime today with people shoplifting from a store and running out with the because we know that the police are not going to respond in a timely manner. It's just an emboldened criminal element, and there's no reason why we should have that in a city that we have now. That's all I ask. Thank you. Kelly Garth. Mcgrath sorry. Hi we need to prove support year contract for a TV at the community. We need to show our support for the very people who served and protected if we continue down this dangerous and destructive path, it will be the demise of often council needs to do an [2:56:49 PM] about face what the previous counter head son with their policies. People gluten officers already short staffed agency. We will not be able to attract quality police officers, resulting in lowered standards and hiring unqualified cinema. The barrel officers. There has never been an instance where there has been a positive result from defunding the police cities across the nation crumble from these bad policies. Crime riddled to be destructive policies and the taxing lot of fighting citizens are the ones that had to pay the price. These policies, but even more rights and protection to criminals and the criminals know it. Case in point. Our daughter was recently rear ended and the driver fled on foot and we were told we had no recourse because we can't prove who was behind the wheel and a P D does not have the power to properly investigated. This is happening every single day because the criminals know that they can get away with it. Another example is we're getting our daughters senior pictures [2:57:49 PM] done by the library downtown. We watched a homeless man doing drugs in broad site knowing that there are no consequences for them. If you did not approve the four year contract, I think what we should do is not have a TV do the security for the mayor or to events such as a theon south by southwest so that they can continue to monitor calls into fourth. I do not understand why people want to destroy the city of Austin. That's all I Barbara silly. Mayor and council. Help help! I've I've never done this before. So I apologize. You know , I'm very struck by the fact that you have a part of the community that really doesn't like the police thing that we have now. And another part of the community that feels like the council has really neglected [2:58:49 PM] policing staffing issue. Unfortunately what mayor Watson advocated in his campaign was the community dialogue about all of this, which I think we desperately need, but the problem is I have the room for it. And this. So council vote out is really what's on the ballot in may, and unfortunately , I don't know whether that's going to do not. So I really do think you need to look at passing the four year contract. Having the community dialogue. Where we sit down and talk to one another about what kind of policing models we want in this community. We need to have a dialogue where everybody feels invested in it, and they're getting the community police that this communities are thanks, mayor. Thank you, miss [2:59:51 PM] silly. Catherine shambling. Hi good afternoon. City council and mayor. My name is Katherine Chamblee. I live in district seven. I'm a Democrat. I had called in last week to speak in favor of council pursuing the four year police contract that was already negotiated by Mr cronk. I'm calling again today to speak against the one year contract and in favor again of the four year contract. It was already negotiated by Mr khan. Since last week. I don't understand that may ballot proposition that council is supposedly waiting to hear from the public on it's not legally enforceable. Meaning even if oxides were to vote in favor of that ordinance, it is not something that could be legally forced into the police contract. All the council from my understanding was already informed that by city attorneys [3:00:54 PM] leading me to ask. Why is the mayor that I personally voted for someone speaking to repair public safety saving, favoring a contract that does not exist? And in order to wait on a boat that will not be legally enforceable. This is lunacy. In the meantime, this past weekend we had street drag racing. Fireworks being thrown at police cars. Last week, I spoke of a my personal nervous serving. My locally owned nursery had been burglarized three times. Well burglarized again this past Monday, which is almost just ridiculous, and so, allowed that . I actually work in an office downtown. They were converted home and we park our cars outside. Virtually every other week, there will be someone who walks through her a lot checking all the doors. In broad daylight , and all that happens now is the girl downstairs will yellow . Hey everyone got their doors locked. It will go about [3:01:54 PM] business because it's just business as usual here at this point. As it you know, I guess in some we need police on our streets patrolling for that to happen. We need a contract in place that they can rely upon. Thank you. Speaker your time has expired. Thank you for your contact. You okay? With the indo hang on one second with the indulgence. I want to make sure people know what the ordinance is that we're voting on. We're not voting today on a one year or four year contract. What we're voting on today is an ordinance that does a couple of things that are important at a time when we don't have a contract. My old friend, miss silly who I've known for a long time. She kept referring to the need for a community dialogue. Under our city charter. There's a specific provision that allows [3:02:54 PM] for a community dialogue. And that is that when people put together a petition, and they bring that petition to the city clerk and the city clerk verifies the signatures on that petition, and then the city council puts that petition on the ballot. The charter says you're going to have a community dialogue. And. If we want to have a community dialogue, we ought to have one and that provides an opportunity for that. As a mayor, and I believe I can speak for probably all the council members. But I'll just say, I know for a few when the community comes to you with a petition like that. Or is at least some obligation. To allow for that community dialogue to go forward. In fact, some of the very same people that are saying we should take action so that a four year country and let me be [3:03:54 PM] clear. If a four year contract were put into place. It would block. Aspects of that petition , even if the voters were to vote a certain way. And that's what part of the concern is. We have a principal in this country in this state in this city that we are going to allow the people to petition their government. That principle is intertwined in this case with some people's view of how best to get, policing. We have to look at that principle. That is something we have to look at, and we have to protect it. And in fact, some of the very same people that are now saying take action that would preempt that vote. Are people that have used the petition system in the past. Was legal. They ma'am. You're out of order. You've been [3:04:55 PM] allowed to speak. And if you want it strikes me. That if you want people to act with the order you think is appropriate. You should model that behavior. How do you know I'm talking about you people? I'm one of the ma'am, you're out of order. Active mind us. I'm not and let me just let me finish. The point being. Even on this ballot. There are two petitions. One by a by a group of people again trying to subvert that system. But they still utilized that system in order to try to get what they wanted. So so that's step number one step number two. The ordinance that we're looking at is not a contract. The ordinance that we're looking at is an ordinance that we want to put into place. Some of us want [3:05:57 PM] to put into place. I don't know how the vote will come out. But it will put into place to assure that our police officers continue to receive their pay, even in the absence of a contract. So if a pia makes the decision not to come back to the table, and there's not a contract in place, this council will vote. I believe today to make sure that the police officers of this city are lifted up and continue to have their pay. But there's another part to that. There will be a substitute motion there was discussed just last week here on this diet for this week. On Tuesday, a substitute motion that also directs the city manager. To move forward on a pay increase for the police. And. Different ways to incentivize police to stay on the job or to come to work for us. And that's because [3:06:59 PM] this council recognizes there's an intertwining of different principles that we need to do, but we want to support the police. So when you're want to call this out, just because I want to make sure that people no , this isn't today about a four year or one year contract. It's about whether we pass an ordinance that will continue to pay our police and, in fact, give our police pay increases and, other incentive bonus possibilities, so I just want to be very clear about what it is that's happening. Because I think some may have not read this specific ordinance. So thank you, madam clerk. Lisa Gonzales. But yes, in light of you sharing that information, I would like to state that I am for whatever we need to do as a [3:08:00 PM] city. Y'all being our representatives to support our police and wanting to stay to support them and wanting to be, you know, further recruited that we would actually increase recruitment of them. And, yeah, really, you know? I struggle because I've been born and raised here in Austin and I have seen this city change tremendously with the crime increasing and with the lack, in my opinion of care that y'all not necessarily all but the city councils in the past have demonstrated, to protect us as, as you know, citizens, particularly the marginalized. You know, our city council talks often about you know the marginalized people here in Austin, but I don't see action to support making sure that they are safest or say, because their neighborhoods are the ones that are pretty much targeted when it comes to increased crime, so I would encourage you all to support our police department as [3:09:00 PM] much as possible, and if we have opportunity to staff them further. I'm all for that. Cs Gordon. Hey thanks for the clarification. Mayor I'll just echo the sentiments of needs previous collar and, instead of about 3% pay reviews for the police, I would suggest maybe more like a seven or 8% I don't think that's too much to ask, considering some of the current council members voted themselves a 40% raise within the past. Four months. Anything you can do to support the police. Through pay and retention with the appreciated we really need to support our police, as evidenced by what happened on Saturday night. I think so. Nicholas Cantor. Well everyone, first I [3:10:08 PM] want to say thank you, mayor for clarifying that I was a little bit off on my information and understanding. But what I was going to say, is pretty much the same. I think we can unilaterally agree that defunding. The police was, it had the right intentions, but it was the wrong move. There's not a lot of problems you can take money away from and solve. And this new decision to continue the contract or not, or in this case from what I understand to continue to pay the police, it is absolutely something that needs to be done. You know your by not continuing their employment, you're doubling down on a bad decision. You know, in the stock market, doubling down works, you know, stock goes down that you put money into you put some more into it. It goes up and you make your money back. But this isn't a currency. This is these are people's lives that you're that you're betting with and my brother's life was taken. [3:11:12 PM] Back in, in June of 21 because of the funding the police and you know, my brother's life is not a currency that I feel that anybody should have gambled with , and unfortunately it happened . And, you know, I hope that because I'm speaking here today , you guys understand that me. My mother and my family have to live with that decision that you guys made the defund the police every day. And you know, while I understand that police brutality is an issue in this country every now and then. One bad cop makes a bad decision. But you shouldn't punish entire cities full of police officers because once in a while. Somebody does the wrong thing you know, council members make bad decisions, too. And you don't see people riding and you know, shooting council members on the streets. So, you know, without taking up all the rest of the time. I just want to say you guys need to focus on having a [3:12:13 PM] symbiotic relationship with law enforcement has expired. That concludes remote speakers. I'll go back to in person on next is Natalie Lucia on deck are Tracy graph and Christina rare? E. Good afternoon, council members and mayor. I'm Natalie kushida district for resident 26 year resident of Austin, UT grad. Ah I signed up neutral on this item, but I oppose it because it's an insufficient stopgap measure and possibly illegal. And it just sacrifices the good for the in the quest for the elusive perfect I saw two council members supporting efforts to unionize that YouTube this week. My question to you is, do you or do you not support unions? Do you support a yearlong good faith effort to negotiate a union contract? Or do you only support unions when they conform to your political ideology? I felt and I felt I needed to be here again today as a voice for my district and [3:13:14 PM] other higher crime areas in the city like east Austin and south east Austin and increasingly UT campus and downtown. I want to remind the council that the views I'm sharing with you, our shared by thousands of residents who live in these districts and hundreds of small business owners, many of them owned by women and people of color. I volunteered to work on to city council campaigns and a ballot initiative in the past few years and the feedback I've received from the public on public safety is consistent. It's deteriorating in the city. The public safety and we need more cops on the streets. Nobody who lives in these areas brown, black or white wants less cops and higher crime areas. These areas have disparate impact in both crime and traffic issues. If a P D cannot reconstitute specialized units, the escalating traffic deaths and crime will increase. You cannot reconstitute specialized units if you don't have enough officers to cover patrol. When I moved to Austin in 1997 I lived [3:14:14 PM] in Lamar Barton springs area, and many other friends and acquaintances are so disheartened and sad. To see the dangerous lawlessness and blatant taunting of law enforcement. I want to thank the mayor and council members who did issue statements on these incidents. And I want to ask the council members who did why they've been silence. My time is up. Please support for your contract. We need public safety and high crime areas in the city speaker is Tracy graph on deck or Christina rare E and Clinton rare E could just make a couple of comments before the next speaker. I know I've only been here for a little bit, but when I came on board the council. The mayor and council made it very clear to me about how important public safety was. And for us to, double down our efforts to make sure we get the resources to the police department and the other public safety agencies so that this city can be secure. You know, just for background information. The police budgets [3:15:15 PM] about $450 million. That's not an insignificant investment. That doesn't mean there could be more recent that there shouldn't be more resources that was something that gets evaluated during the budget process. But this is something that's been given to us the highest, very high priority. I have already met with chief Chacon on several invasions. Just in my short time here says we work through the issues that need to be done so that we can one support our police officers and the very important work they do and make sure they have the resources to do to do the work to keep the safety of the city secure and I just wanted to let the audience know that that's the direction we've been given his management and that's the direction we intend to execute on in the coming budget year, or perhaps even if necessary, we'll do it through budget amendments. Prior to the end of the fiscal year. I just wanted the mayor council to have that information. Tracy graph. On deck or Christina, rare E and Clinton sherry. Joseph Smith. Yvonne Weldon. On [3:16:20 PM] deck, cristiana keeler and pat herring. Clerk you called the fairies correct. I think she bypassed job, but. We've not only made national news international news about how big of a joke public safety is in our city, even media outlets that pays to carry weight for you for your gaslighting or being beginning to question the council's crippling of police levels. 53% of the Dettori of austinites want more police. Someone tried to break this down by saying it's only conservatives and yes, the common sense crew does want more police with 66% of Independence and 30% Democrats, 53% of austinites are still the majority. They will probably past Austin voters not being very informed, squealing chance . Yes, on prop a no. One property as lemmings running off a cliff will never be enacted with all the illegality of city law cannot supersede state law and, as usual, Texas will step in and must play in any state to infantile Austin. This is a fool's game and child standard to hold up before your contract that is 20 pages of oversight, [3:17:21 PM] giving opio and civilian oversight seat at the table for investigations. For those of you saying it came out of nowhere if I wasn't so bright. Ask you where you got your drugs from this contract was carefully negotiated over a year with countless meetings that were streamed, recorded and open to the public. After you. The city council sent cronk negotiated four year deal. Some of you may not have been here around for that the rest of you quit his nardo boots and telling us it's raining. We all want oversight. No one wants bad cops. It's important to understand that the negotiated changes will go away. The city has no labor contract with our police because you can only modify restrictive state law provisions through approved labor contracts. The city council mayor do not have the authority to simply pass an ordinance that concentrate straight law. With no contract that the city ends up with a much weaker and more less transparent civilian oversight program that we currently have, which, of course, would be inconsistent with their goals. Right so inconsistent. Everyone's goals. We are at 20% vacate vacancies looks like half a pds commanding staff is going to retire this and next month, setting a huge chain reaction of promotions that will pull even more people off patrol. I hear that if we reached 25% we have [3:18:22 PM] to call other agencies, which again we have no oversight on for people who are trying to get oversight. You sure are doing everything in your power to make sure that it doesn't happen. This is the atmosphere you've created an 80 X lawlessness. It's Saturday night is an is the vibe you want. To have during a CL south by southwest and grand prix. You guys are doing everything right? The public is only beginning to see the results of reimagine policing in the chaos that's left in its wake. Next speaker is Clinton. Rare E on deck is Joseph Smith. Read a lot of lip service, saying that you guys support the police, but the actions say otherwise in 2021. We put a petition in to increase police staffing and you say, let's hear the vote here. The people vote. Well, you guys stood around and you stood with equity action and the Austin justice coalition say no way I'm prop a alter Vanessa Fuentes Paige. You went around speaking tours with them. I mean, there's pictures of you guys all over Twitter doing this. You ran out of cheetos not here, but he ran his campaign on no way prop. Eight to run for city council, so I don't want to [3:19:24 PM] hear that. We don't support you guys support the police. And then you guys defined them as at the same time, so that's two times you guys have stood against the police. So don't tell us that you're here to support them. We want a four year contract, not this one year contract because there was never one year contract that came out of nowhere. The four year contract has always been on the table. The one year contract was never on the table. It was never around. It was never created was never negotiated. That's something that you guys wanted to do to create this storm eight. So they wouldn't come back to the table because they're not going to come back to the table and negotiate in bad faith deal because that's what it is. You guys have bad faith deals by regurgitating this stuff always support you. But you don't so please support a four year contract, even though I know it's going to be a 10 to 1 vote for one year contract. Joseph Smith is next on deck is even Weldon. Hi I thought about what something different to be able to say today because the only thing I [3:20:25 PM] thought of was the last time I spoke where I supported the four year contract and a post the one I did glance at the proposed ordinance and from what I saw was the oversight was still a concern and it's confusing. Sometimes I'll do right shares a side gig and a common conversation. I'll have with the right shares. I'll talk about how about four or five years ago , the city of Austin tried to regulate Uber and left and how you you know the language was so confusing on the ballot and passed in favor of the city, and for months it was mayhem and in Austin until governor Abbott had to come in and fix it. And like so many other ordinances, the homeless ordinance where the state legislature had to come in and pass house bill 1925. I believe to make it a state law because of what the city created right now. There's another bill in the legislature that is wanting to remove the government of Austin and make Austin, a district we are a laughing stock and I would love to see our local government to be able to make decisions that are in the [3:21:27 PM] best interests of the city and not have this state, you know, either the governor of the state legislature, the supreme court, come in and have to fix your messages, so I still support the four year contract. I hope y'all will make provision towards that. Thank you. Next is Christiana keeler on deck is pat herring and Susan Spataro. Hi my name is Christiane, a killer resident in city council district eight. Last week. I was here. I'm not in in favor of resolution one I'm here in favor of the four year contract. And I know that that's not the decision on the table today, but my question to you is who is going to hold this committee accountable for the remote ramifications of these decisions you're making. So far, no one's been accountable at all. Are you willing to take responsibility for increasing crime? As a result of your decision. Under [3:22:29 PM] the guise of making policing safer. You have just made Austin less safe. Can you see that your new rule does not accomplish the goal of a safer policing at all . In fact, it exposes law abiding citizens taxpaying citizens to increase crime. Because we have diluted the police force. The very law abiding tax paying citizens that pay your salary. Our our safety is jeopardized. So in each of your districts, have you looked at what is the crime rate? From before 2020 and on through time and then from here, forward. Are you gonna look at that? That's my question to you today. So I'm advocating, even though mayor Watson. Has something else on the table. The four year agreement. I want you to go back to that. And agree to that. Thank you very much. Thank you. [3:23:30 PM] Next speaker is pat herring on deck is Susan Spataro and Brad parsons. I want to start by reminding everyone that at last week's meeting, one of the paid activists said that people commit crime because they're hungry, so we should get rid of police and give that money to the people and there will be no more crime. We all saw what happened to Austin last Saturday night. Did those rioters look hungry to you? I don't think so. No the word is out that criminals will have free rein in Austin, Texas. They know that the chances that they will get arrested or extremely low. Why are you bowing to the loud voices of activists rather than doing what is best for the safety of law abiding citizens. This new one year deal is all about spin is not actually about oversight. You're calling it oversight, but the underlying goal is to remove all due process from officers. The four year contract has an extremely robust oversight plan. A B a. P D is all for oversight. Your [3:24:31 PM] city attorneys have told you publicly and privately that the things in the oversight plan that the activists want is against state law. You spend the one year deal to make it sound like it's good for the officers. It isn't suggesting that a 3% raise will make it all good is laughable. You gave yourselves a 40% raise 3% isn't even keeping up with in faith, inflation. It's all spin and for Mr Watson to spin it to look like it's the Apa that is walking away from the negotiations is absurd. I was at the December Appia city negotiations meeting and the city attorney's walked in from a break and declared they were cutting off negotiations and canceling future meetings indefinitely. Then they all started back up in January, and all came to an agreement. Then this city council swooped in and blew it up. A P a. Is not the problem chief to khan said he would like to have five academy classes rather than to newsflash . There's because of the city policies. There's no wait list to get into the academy anymore. [3:25:31 PM] There used to have over 1000 applications for a class. Now, thanks to the city politics, they can't even fill current classes do the honorable thing and, next speaker is Susan Spataro on deck is Brad parsons and trouba Derek. Susan Spataro district eight. You know one of the things that I hope you will look at and I agree with what's been said today is that if, in fact you don't do it for your contract, and I, by the way very much appreciate your explanation. If you don't do that, and if our people go off contract, or you do this one year contract, which is less oversight than what this four year contract is, and the ballot measure passes, even though your lawyers have told you that some of those provisions are illegal, and I don't know really what you do because you agreed to put that on the ballot. If you knew some of those were illegal, so that it's a question. I don't know. Then you have a massive [3:26:32 PM] resignation of the police. Ask yourself this. What are you going to do? Because that's really the hard thing. What are you going to do? These are not things that are easily solved. We now have a lot of oversight. We've got management in the police department internal affairs office of police oversight and in the four year contract community panel board, that's a lot of oversight. Police oversight budget this year increased 260% in the past three years, 260% during that same three year period. Just just a matter of comparison, the city auditors budget increased only 3.3. So you could see where the emphasis was there another thing just in terms of getting a comparison, the office of police oversight budget this year is 82.6% the size of the city auditors budget we have oversight, huge oversight in Austin, Texas. It's so it should [3:27:34 PM] be obvious that the issue is not reasonable oversight. It is part of an ongoing strategy to eliminate police and consequences for criminal behavior. It started with abolishing 150 sworn positions in 2020. Then the rioting against our police in may 2020 then fail reimagining public safety. Please do the right thing because this is a difficult problem to south. Thank you very much speaker is Brad parsons on deck. It's true, but Derek and Sharon Blythe if your name has been called, please make your way to the front. Michael sayer. Ruth Howard is on deck. Or. My name [3:28:35 PM] is Ruth Howard. I'm a lifelong resident of Austin. I was born here. I went to school here graduated from the university of Texas. I'm a retired teacher. Thank you, mayor for your clarification of items 61. I don't believe. That this proposition will fix the problem . I think it will, just as previous speakers have said. Will only make the situation worse. You need to bring up the four year contract and vote on that that will address the problem and stop the bleed of our police officers because they will walk. The police have options. And they're in high demand. Not just here in Austin , but throughout the united States. Florida if they chose to [3:29:37 PM] go to Florida, is offering a scientist signing bonus of $5000. A student loan forgiveness program home loan program. And much more. But you don't even have to go to Florida. You can go down the highway to Fort Worth. They have an enticing hiring package as well. Thank you for your service to be elected and run for office is not an easy task. It is a lot of work, and I appreciate your service. But the right thing to do is to bring up the four year contract and vote on it. Thank you so much for your time and listening to me. True, but Derek . On deck is Michael sayer and [3:30:41 PM] Tom downing. Hello I'm trouba. Derek I want to thank you, Mr mayor and council for having us here today. I feel like the pros for the four year contract have been eloquently spoken about prior to my coming up here and I am opposed to Europe. Proposal because I think it just exacerbates the problem, but someone was talking about the crime and the marginalized portions of our community crime has come everywhere. I have a geriatric dog that has the benefit of having an acupuncturist. He was at another home the day before he was at my home and he came outside and his truck was gone. It was stolen. It took over a week to get a policeman to come and Vala reports so he could collect his insurance. He has kept the truck on his toll road bill and the truck is still driving up and [3:31:41 PM] down the toll road. This has been over a month his new truck that the insurance company paid for is coming in, but that insurance company didn't pay for it. All of you did I did all the people sitting here and we'll continue to do that. As the crime increases in Austin. It's going to come to everybody. Even you, your family, your friends, your community. It's here and I just want to say that we need to support the four year contract. Who is going to take a job when they don't even know where they'll be in 12 months. So thank you very much for having me. Michael Sehr. Tom downing. And on deck is Amanda Rios. Good afternoon. I'm Tom downing resident of district five and co chair of the racial justice task force of university united methodist church. I speak in support of items 61. A lot of misinformation is circulated surrounding the negotiations [3:32:42 PM] over the Apa contract. I've heard. Some folks say that anyone who supports strong police oversight butts hate the police and want to defund them. That is simply not true. My group collected signatures for the petition to put equity action strong oversight ordinance on the ballot. We also spoke out against prefer approving a four year police contract before citizens had a chance to vote on this measure. However we greatly respect and admire the majority of officers in the Austin police department. We do believe that there are a small number of bullies and racists to engage in misconduct and brutality. But we also believe that most of our officers served bravely and truly seek to protect our community. In spite of the danger of living in a state filled daily with more and more guns. We therefore ask that these courageous public servants be paid enough to live in the city where they serve have enough fellow officers supporting them to keep them safe and be able to take time [3:33:43 PM] off to be with their families. But we ask one more thing set a firm date for the expiration of this measure. A P D officers should not again be punished for the actions of their union. But their union should not be rewarded for refusing to negotiate. We must have a mutually agreed on police contract for community trust and safety to be restored. That said, please support items 61. Amanda Rios. That concludes all the speakers. Mayor thank you. Members. We will now take up item number 61 as you'll recall, there was a. Motion that there was a original ordinance and on the message board placed a substitute motion. And I'm gonna call on council member Ryan alter, who had the original [3:34:46 PM] motion and then, and ask him to speak to the original motion and to the substitute motion. Council member alter thank you. Thank you, mayor for your continued efforts on this I really want to start today with just a recognition of where we are. As the mayor mentioned this item is not about the four year deal. It's also not about the one year deal. This item is about what happens. If we have no deal. We are ready to negotiate and sign a one year deal, but we've been told by the other side that they're not going to do that and let's be clear. They have every right to not show up to the negotiating table. But let's also be clear that such a decision hurts everyone. I know many of our police officers are frustrated [3:35:46 PM] and concerned about what the next weeks months and years look like, and they have every right to be. This process has left many of our officers wondering. What will happen next? Will they keep their with their pay? Keep up with the rising costs around the city. Would retiring be the best financial choice for them and their family, even though they want to continue serving this community. And this uncertainty is understandably incredibly frustrating. But from our side of the equation, I know I left last week's meeting feeling very discouraged, and I felt that way because I felt like we were watching the state of the union all day. One side would come up, everyone would applaud or their side would applaud. Another side would come up. The other half of the audience would applaud. And we're back at it today. And it is incredibly healthy for us to [3:36:46 PM] have disagreements. But what is not healthy is for us to just talk past once another one another instead of listening. And actually working with each other to find common solutions. If we only look backward at who wronged who we will never move forward together as a community and ensure that we have a fully functioning police force that serves our community. Responsibly. Many of you here have indicated that we are in crisis and I agree with you. A crisis is defined as a time when a difficult or important decision must be made. We must decide. Do we to walk away? Do we retreat to our corners and simply throw stones at each other. Or do we come together? And utilize the options available to show officers the value that they provide to our community. I believe we should do the ladder and that's what [3:37:46 PM] we're here to do today. With this ordinance, we are creating as much stability as possible in the face of serious uncertainty for our police force. And we are exercising our authority under state law. To create robust oversight. But as I mentioned before, this is not a substitute for a contract. Both the city and police officers stand again from coming together and reaching a mutually beneficial contract. But we also I think all recognize that right now that's unlikely to occur. Value are valuing our police and meaningful oversight are not mutually exclusive ideas. This ordinance does both those things first. It supports our rank and file police officers. Who are a valuable part of our community and who should be treated that way. It all. It preserves their current pay and benefits. From the current contract to the [3:38:47 PM] maximum amount allowed under state law. An officer's value to our community doesn't diminish from March 31st to April 1st simply because we fall out of contract. We do not want to create a fiscal cliff for officers that incentivizes them to retire to be paid their sick and sick leave and vacation accruals. And I don't believe we should withhold these benefits to exact as much pain as possible and try to drive a P a to the table. Our officers are valuable part of our community, and we should treat them that way period. That being said. We must also ensure that we do not lose the oversight and accountability that our current contract provides. While some aspects of the current contract are only permitted to be implemented through an agreement with a P a. We do have the authority to empower the office of police oversight as an investigator under state law, and that's exactly what this ordinance does. Oh Pio would not [3:39:51 PM] replace internal affairs instead. We would empower the city manager to implement and oversight regime that ensures we do not go backward when it comes to oversight. We heard from numerous individuals from our community who have experienced tragic loss at the hands of police. In implementing this oversight regime. We will protect the rights of complainants to have their complaints fully investigated and resolved. While also protecting the due process rights of officers during such an investigation. As I said before, and you're going to hear me say it again and again, we are all better off. If we reach a deal under a contract, long term or short but that if that is not going to happen, it is incumbent upon us. To create as much stability in our police force as possible, while also ensuring the meaningful presence of oversight. This ordinance does that and it is my sincere [3:40:51 PM] hope that we pass it and it never takes effect because a deal is reached prior to March, 31st but if that is not the case this ordinance tells every police officer two things. First you are a valuable part of our community, and we want to demonstrate that value by preserving your current pay and benefits. Second. We understand this is a turbulent time. But we want to create as much stability as possible. And rather than pushing you out the door. We ask that you continue to serve our community as we work through this difficult time, and I know there's gonna be a lot of conversation amendments on this I look forward to it. And with that I moved to adopt. Items 61 . The motion to make the doctor moved to substitute. No, I want to. I want to make sure I know which one you're moving to [3:41:51 PM] adopt. Are you moving to adopt the original draft of yours or the substitute that was placed on the message? Mind so that you can substitute? Is there a second to the motion to adopt the original motion, seconded by council member Alison alter? Remembers. I move that we, adopt a substitute motion and it's the item that is labeled number 61 February 23rd 2023 agenda Watson substitute ordinance. Yeah the record and for the public that might be listening. What this substitute motion would do. Council member alter Brian alter his talked and explained about the desire to maintain stability and current salaries and benefits. What this would do is it would add a part three and it would what it would do. Import three is the council would be directing the city manager. To [3:42:52 PM] develop and implement by no later than March. 31st 2023 program to address the current and projected shortage of police officers with an a P D that includes the following compensation elements. A base wage rate increase for all a P D officers below the rank of assistant chief. Be a one time lump sum payment to new cadets who joined an a P D cadet training academy. See a financial component. To incentivize current a P D officers to remain with a P D and D financial component for a P D officers that incentivizes the Austin police association to resume immediately. Good faith bargaining for a new meeting confer labor agreement with the city. It also says that if there's something that the council needs to ratify. Then the manager would bring it back . The point being that last week. Council member of Ayla's [3:43:54 PM] motion. Was adopted. And he put in that resolution. And was supported by the people that voted for it. He put in that resolution. A couple of things that were very important one being that the hardworking officers of a pd deserve certainty with regard to their pay, benefits and compensation. And he also had into the red part of the resolution maintaining or improving existing terms and conditions and privileges of employment for a P D officers of the Eid with the express go by the way of in sending officers officers to stay with a P D into incentivize people to join a P D. When he did that, as part of the effort to get to a contract. He meant it. And what this does is, it says even if I contract doesn't come happened. We would still go [3:44:54 PM] forward with making sure those things take place by directions of the city manager move adoption of the substitute ordinance. Is there a second second by council member of Ella members. The way I will proceed is first I will ask for amendments to the main motion. And as I do this, I want to also say thank you to count. I've done this before publicly, but I want to do it again. I've been talking about doing something like this. That is sure those salaries for some time and I really appreciate the way council member Ryan alter put all this together for us. You did a very good job, and we appreciate that. I'm going to ask for amendments on the main on that main motion. To perfect the main motion. But I'm also going to ask for amendments on the substitute motion. And then I will ask for a vote on the [3:45:56 PM] substitute motion to make the substitute motion the main motion. If you're for the substitute motion, and you have an amendment don't amend the main. My recommendation would be not to amend the main motion, but I'm gonna try to follow the process here and I don't want there to be confusion. The amendments that I'm going to call up ah! After that, I'm gonna call up it will be in this order. Council member. Kelly has three proposed amendments. So I'll call up Kelly amendment. One Kelly member, two and Kelly, amendment three. Mayor I actually have 1/4 amendment as well, okay? Thank you. I'll call those up in order. Then I will go to council member qadri's proposed amendment. Then I will go to council member harper-madison proposed amendment. Let me ask. Are there any proposed amendments to the main motion? Chair here is none. [3:47:00 PM] Now call for amendments to the substitute motion and I'll call on council member Kelly on amendment number one. Thank you, mayor for the recognition. As many of you may have seen on amendment one I. I moved to amend item 61 to include or exclude the following. I'll just read this out loud. Part one B strike the word despite best efforts of the city and a P a and add, although negotiators for the city and the Apa have reached an agreement for four year contract subject to approval by city council members , and then it goes on to continue the language and part D I strike while the city and api continue to seek a successor to the current agreements. In part E. I add after the office of police oversight as established in the current agreement, I completely strike part F I add in part three except is provided in part three of this ordinance and unless otherwise prohibited by state law, oh Pio provisions of article 16 of the current [3:48:01 PM] agreement shall continue in effect until either the effective date of a successor meeting for agreement or other council action. Inconsistent with this ordinance, whichever comes first, part three becomes part four. And it says part two ads and part three part four is completely stricken and part five is completely stricken. Is there? Is there a second to the motion? Is there a second to the motion? Is there a second to the motion? Remember fails for lack of a second council member, Kelly you recognized on amendment number two. Thank you . And part three. I add party residency incentive program for officers living in the city of Austin that should consider but not be limited to toll exemptions. Utility assistance. Lease of rental unit assistance . Childcare assistance, residency stipend and home purchase assistance. As I've indicated on the council message board. I moved to a man 61 Watson substitute ordinance with [3:49:01 PM] the insert action of that it's not inconsistent with prior council action. In fact, as many of my colleagues may remember council member tovo passed a budget writer related to this issue. Is there a second of the motion? Second about council member Ryan alter. Any discussion on. The motion to amend by council member Kelly its motion to its amendment number two by Kelly yes. Council member Fuentes. Thank you, councilor mark Kelly. Do you know or I guess it staff available to respond the percentage of a P D officers that we have currently living in the city that they serve. I'm not sure that information is available, but I do know that we spoke with the assistant city managers office of public safety today, and they have not completed the budget. Writer from council member tovo action last year, but they have prioritized it and hopefully that information my hope would be that would be available and that would work in concert with this edition. Do we have staff available to speak to how many [3:50:02 PM] officers that we have living within the city of Austin? Council. Veronica personal assistant city manager. We don't have that data with us, but we're happy to hold that information and give it to you. And so I guess counter mark Kelly, do we know how much I guess any additional guidance that you would have providing the data that we would get back on. The cost of providing this. I don't know what that would be. I would hope that again. It would be in concert with tovo is budget writer from last year. I do know that in some of these discussions when we talk about incentivizing officers to continue to work for the city of Austin. With a affordability crisis such as what we have today. I want to make sure that they can continue to live in the community if they so wish, because officers in my opinion who live in the community are invested in the community. If I might just say this is the [3:51:02 PM] amount amendment would impact direction to the city manager directing the semantic city manager to look at this sort of thing and determine whether or not it actually would work in a package and actually, I was just just came to my attention from council member tovo that if she recalls correctly, the percentage of officers who live in the city is in the budget unit from last year, so perhaps we can take a look at that after this or if staff can pull up that Q and a and be able to speak to that here shortly, and high council member tovo. Councilor Alison alter. Thank you. I wanted to ask his staff could, speak to that budget rider's status? I appreciate council member Kelly sharing what? What she learned. But if staff could speak to us that was passed in August. I think it was a co sponsor on that, imagine council member Kelly was as well and others. If you could speak [3:52:03 PM] to the timeline on that. I just want to make sure that we're allowing the city manager of that can't be resolved by the end of March that they can continue to do the work and come back for it. I agree with you. It's really important to do but I would like to get a little bit of sense of the status. Council member. Let me let me answer. I know that. I'm not familiar with the writer that was talked about in August. What we will do is we will huddle right after. I mean, we will huddle after this meeting. And we'll try to drill down in terms of what exactly was being asked of us to do. And I'll commit to the council that if this is an issue that will be insurmountable between now and the 20 and the 31st of March will have to come back and visit with the council on that. The other thing is to just determined to figure out what those numbers are. As you develop an incentive program for retention. These could be some of the elements you'd use. But I don't but at some point until we get down into the drill into the details I would not want the staff to give saying, hey, we'll [3:53:03 PM] get it done by a certain time and then missed that deadline as well. So give us the opportunity to huddle. Figure out what it takes. It will take to get back to the council that you know what when we could deliver some of them, and I understand that direction that is above that letter E that council member. Kelly is inserting to achieve this goal that I think we share. That gives you that flexibility. And then and then and as the maker of the substance motion. What this amendment would do is precisely what city manager said. We are directing. This is the way this is all supposed to work, by the way where the policy making body says this is our policy and then direct management, to do this and so I actually think of. The fact that we're at this point just two weeks after what was very interesting night. But then one week after being in a position where we have a new city manager [3:54:03 PM] in place we're giving direction and things like this would be part of or could be parked, not would be but could be part of an incentive package. And all this amendment does about by council member Kelly is says please look at these things as part of your development of an incentive package, and I would just add also to flag for the interim city manager. I did put a link to that budget rider that passed on the council message board when I posted the amendment for your reference, okay, very good. Appreciate it. Councilor pool did you have your hand up? I did , but I don't need to ask a question. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Yes, counselor harper-madison. Also very much appreciate you bringing this forward. I think it's critical, but, you know, given the affordability crisis that we have in the city of Boston, I think some components here are going to be are these multi family units. Are these single residences? We're gonna take a neighborhood and [3:55:04 PM] dedicated. I mean, some of the some of the ways that I've been trying to building naturally occurring affordability for folks. I read a lot of speed bumps. And so I'm just trying to figure out I wonder if you'd be open to as opposed to introducing this as an amendment . I wonder if you'd be open to us figuring out how to bring this back as a resolution in and of itself with us being able to collect all that data. We're working with an M S team out of you at the university of Texas, also working with they have a master's business program that can help us collect this data for free, as opposed to assess asking staff to bring all this data. I think we could use our outside resources to collect all the data that I think would be critical to know exactly how we would move forward with these kinds of incentives. So I wonder if you'd be open to this being a resolution instead of an amendment. I think it's too important to get voted down. [3:56:04 PM] While I do appreciate the thoughtfulness that you put into really laying that out. I feel that this is something that we have been trying to work on on council since I've been elected , and I don't want to miss the opportunity to plug it into the resolution. While we're talking about creating incentives for officers, if you'd like to work further on that, with me would be happy to partner with your office and make it its own standalone item. Very happy, too. And one of the things we're also working on out of my office is the resolution graveyard. There's lots of resolutions that are sitting on a shelf that nothing ever happened to. I would hate to see this be one of those things, which is why I think plugging it in today is a good good ad for value. Thank you, councilor of Ella. The problem of. And it's not just police officers. It's firefighters experiment edixon employees of public works, it's I mean, it's surprising to find how many of our city employees live outside of the city limits across all departments of very serious problem. Ah! One that [3:57:06 PM] ultimately. I think we need to address with housing policy and increased wages for city employees. I'm going to abstain because of that. I don't think that we should be saying, you know here. Police come into the city without doing something more comprehensive. That includes all employees, and that is also I think going to get very expensive and we really have to think about that in a you know, more kind of process oriented, thoughtful way. So I'll be upstanding. Customer pool. Yeah I will be abstaining for those same for those same reasons. And also this sense that yeah. Okay the motion is on, Kelly amendment number two, which we've been discussing. All those in favor. Raise your hands. They're being all those [3:58:08 PM] opposed. Say no, no. They're being six eyes. Let's do this again. Yeah I want to make sure I've counted everybody if you're voting yes. Please raise your hand. Alright there being six eyes if you're raising your voting, no. Raise your in. Alright I've got two abstentions and then two that haven't or your abstaining. Okay, so that explains why I couldn't count to 11. So they're being six eyes one no. And four abstentions and the abstention the nose council member harper-madison. The abstentions are council member veil, a council member fool council member qadri and council member of Fuentes. The motion to amend passes that will take us to amendment number three by [3:59:09 PM] council member Kelly will be withdrawing amendment number three because of council member harper-madison. Newest amendment that came through and I actually have an amendment to her amendment, which I would like to take up after she brings that person that works out. Well, I was going to I was going to have her, go ahead and bring it up as a substitute amendment to yours, but we will pull down on the chair pulls down amendment number three by Kelly that takes us to amendment number four by Kelly so. Amendment number four is what I am about to pass out and has been just now circulated. It is the amendment to council member Natasha harper-madison is amendment. It's just written differently because she amended her earlier and I wanted to catch up, so I will pass that out right now. Okay well, then I'm not gonna bring that up until we get to council member harper-madison amendment. Members that will take us to council member qadri's amendment, and the chair recognizes council member qadri. [4:00:12 PM] Thank you, mayor. So originally this this, amendment was meant for council member alters. Now it is meant for your substitute ordinance. But colleagues in order to encourage about the city in Austin police association continue working towards the permanent solution. I'm offering the following amendment that includes his sunset provisions for the proposed ordinance, and I would like to clarify that that date should state for the record March 31st 2024 so 3 34 3 31 2024. And I'm gonna also read it just because there were some changes and numbers. Moved to amend part one, see to read as follows. See resolution number 20 to 20915-0. Council established a city policy to continue the current pay and benefits for Austin police department a P D. Officers for a limited time, including payout of sick leave hours upon separation and the event. The current agreement expires without an approved successor agreement in place. And then I [4:01:13 PM] moved to him in part four as follows. Part four part part. Two of this ordinance shall become effective if and only if the current agreement expires without an improved successor agreement. And shall remain in effect until either the effective date of its success for successor meeting confer agreement or March 31st 2024, whichever comes first. Members. You have the motion in front of you for clarity, purposes and for some for those that might be what watching and paying attention to this. The second part. I want to make clear while it is an amendment to part three it amends. Part two. And so him in a men's part [4:02:15 PM] two by saying part two shall become effective if and only if it goes through that. So just for clarity purposes. The motion has been made by council member qadri to accept his amendment to the substitute motion. Is there a 2nd 2nd 2nd say any by council member harper-madison? Any discussion on the qadri amendment. Is there any objection to the adoption of the qadri amendment? Mayor? I object, okay? Is there any other objection to the qadri amendment? Qadri amendment is adopted with council member Kelly being shown voting no. The next item that we will bring up is. The proposed amendment council member harper-madison. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate the recognition. So essentially , what I did was take the language that originally said, and I'm sorry I should have that. Readily available. I don't have the Watson amendment. It [4:03:18 PM] says something along the lines of I got it. You want me to read it? What I think it might be helpful for context, because, okay, so you have the base wage rate increase for LAPD officers below the rate of assistant chief and then my part B. Really? Sort of. Yes, in your B C and D yes. Let me for purposes of the record. Yes so members were looking at part three part . 33 directs the city manager to develop and implement by no later than March 31st program to address the current and projected shortage of police officers with a P D. That includes the following compensation elements of age weight wage rate increase for all a pd officers below the rank of assistant chief. That there's no change made their the current substitute, motion says in B. A one time lump sum payment to new cadets who joined an a P D cadet training academy. This would [4:04:19 PM] amend that to say a set of financial incentives paid when new cadets one joint and a P D cadet training academy to complete an a P D cadet training academy. Three successfully complete the a P D probationary period. I speak to my motion, Mr mayor? Yes absolutely. Essentially this was one of those things where I was thinking about in any other circumstance. If you get incentive paid comes in installments, and so the first installment would be to join. The second installment would be at some point along the way once you complete the academy and then once you complete, other necessary requirements. For becoming a sworn officer. So I was thinking we do it installments as opposed to a lump sum at the beginning or at the end. I'm concerned that it doesn't incentivize at the end, and I think we really regret giving a lump sum at the beginning. I'll get the amendment on the table. It's seconded by council member Ryan alter, I can't remember Fuentes [4:05:23 PM] . I was going to. I know there's gonna be a proposed amendments. Can I come back to you? Yes thank you recognize, council member Kelly on an amendment to the amendment. Yes thank you for the recognition. Mayor. I moved to amend item 61 council member Natasha harper-madison amendment to the mayor. Watson substitute ordinance to read as follows. Part three. And it adds underneath to say complete APD field training, and then it it takes 3 to 4 and I just want to say I really appreciate that we were able to really work on this and get it to a point. Where where it does the right thing. For clarity. Purposes amends part three subsection B. To add at item three complete a P D field training and then the current three in council member harper-madison proposed amendment becomes item number four successfully complete the APD probationary period. Is [4:06:23 PM] there a second to the motion to amend the amendment? It's seconded by council member Velasquez. Is there any discussion on the amendment to the amendment counselor? Harper-madison thank you. I would like to speak to the chief. I think I saw him earlier and also assistant chief Henderson. Have a question about the implications of the field training. I'm not as familiar with the and profession is what what does that mean? Like? So if we're thinking stages you have this long academy. This song, you know, I think about it like a doctor, right? You finished medical school. Then you have your residency. Can you really just kind of lay that out for me? Certainly good afternoon. Mayor council members, Joseph chuck on chief police. So the program for our cadets to set up and phases. There is the phase where they are hired and they begin the police academy. Obviously they have 8.5 months of academy training time they graduate the academy. Then they go into a probationary period the first three months of that probationary period are [4:07:24 PM] considered field field training period, where there with a field training officer otherwise known as an F T O. That that continues for three months. As long as they successfully complete their field training period, they're able then to go solo, and they continue in that mode, then for another 12 months, so the entire probationary period is 15 months, the first three months being field training and then the final 12 months being the probation, the remainder of the probationary period. So for all intents and purposes, if this were the past like it is joining a P D cadet training academy. That's obviously the beginning than 8.5. Months later, they complete the academy. Then three months after that, they complete the field training. So are the field training in the successful completion of APD profession, eri period the same or is that 12 months, the probationary period. The entire probationary period is 15 months. But the first three months or field training. And so the last 12 [4:08:27 PM] months or just the remainder of that probationary period, in which case I'm trying to figure out how this lines up like from a timeline, you know, so it would be you get a payment on the front end you get another payment 8.5 months later than another payment in three months than another payment at the end of 15 months. I think that question probably should go back to the council member. Thank you appreciate thank you. My intent here is to create an additional step because it's part of I C field training as part of the entire package of getting an officer out onto the street on the patrol. And completing that process is very important. I've heard stories, which I spoke with the chief earlier today. I think it's okay to say this out loud. Oftentimes. Because the city of Boston has such a great program for law enforcement officers. Maybe not often times , but there are instances where an officer or a new officer will finish. Cadet training. They will get their T Cole certification from the Texas commission on law enforcement. We paid them that entire time to go through that training and [4:09:28 PM] they up and leave us and so I just wanted one additional step to make sure that they are fully invested in the city of Austin in their role as police officers. Cancer. Remember Fuentes and then I'm going to go to council council members alter and then I'll come over the protein. Thank you, mayor. You know, it just feels like we're negotiating right now. As council members, the contract or the terms of the agreement. I just feel like we're getting really into the weeds. With this versus directing and authorizing our city manager to have these conversations. Again the ideal scenario is that the police association comes back to the table and negotiate these terms . But absent that this council is committing to stepping up to preserving the pay for our police officers, increasing pay for our police officers and ensuring that stability, so I just want to underscore what we're doing right now. And the conversations that we're having. Because of the situation that we're in. Okay council member, Alison alter than Ryan alter and [4:10:29 PM] then the mayor, pro team. Thank you. I hear, a lot of what my colleagues are saying here and I agree with most of it, councilman Herbert Madison. I totally agree with the notion of that maybe we need to split up installments, but I'm also would like to give that authority to the city manager. I think you've laid out some of the steps and with council member Kelly's and I'm wondering if we could accomplished both. If we either, said a set of financial incentives paid when new conducts when you cadets. Do the following, which which applies when they do the following or something like that, or we could just put in and or before after the third one if we included council member Kelly and allow our city manager to determine the most appropriate way to do that, if we're playing it all of these steps that can also get very expensive, and that may not be aware the city manager [4:11:31 PM] determines to invest the pot of money to have the biggest bang for the buck. Not sure what the what the text changes, but I would like to provide that. Flexibility to staff as they go forward, recognizing, though, that each of those steps that you said you know, would be critical steps, and I think we did have a conversation. Before about how we were concerned to make sure that there were mechanisms that kept our cadets , within our system afterwards. Cancer rivers, the idea that what we're doing is directing the city manager to come up with the best program. And I relate to what the council members just saying about the it's good to give suggestions in that regard. I have pushed back when we've tried to amend on the diets where we actually add language because it's so hard, but just to know what it is now. We're voting on when we do that, however, having said that, if you did add an and or. After. [4:12:40 PM] Three council member Kelly's amendments so that it would read joint set of financial incentives paid when new cadets joining a pd cadet training academy, completing a pd cadet training academy. Complete a P D field training and or successfully complete the a P D probationary period once you will have done has had the city manager have direction from us to look at all of that, but let him figure out the best way to do that. I'm comfortable with that. All right. So the council member Ryan alter, and then I want to make sure I've got everybody and then we'll tell you what we'll do two things. One is right on that notion, but to the your substitute motion. I'm on part C. I think we need and or there as well, because right now, it reads that it must include a B C. D. Let's come back to that. But on this side and this amendment, I do have a question and that is and maybe [4:13:42 PM] that's for the chief or who, when is our next? Academy scheduled to be. So we currently have, two academies going on right now and then we'll have another one that will begin at the end of may. And the reason I ask is because I'm a little concerned that this ordinance is going to expire in one year. And if the time period for an academy and all these provisions is over 15 months, we are actually not authorized to make the payments under this ordinance. Outside of 12 months that were making just bring up 11 point of clarification was brought to my attention, which is the 15 month period is what we currently have, because we have a contract. When we fall out of contract. We go back to straight civil service law, which is a 12 month probationary period from date of hire. Which date of hire is when they begin the academy. So that is the probationary period. I think [4:14:45 PM] just taking that into account on how it might affect the timeline that you're looking at. That is so but unless the academy starts on April 1st we won't have the authority to make that final payment because this ordinance ceases to exist now under council member qadri's amendment as of March 31st 2024, so I don't know if it's important for this conversation, but I don't want to flag it. It's important for the conversation in the sense that, we know that's going to happen. And that will need to be something that's probably address if we depending on what the city manager brings back to us. If the city manager brings back something to us that does fall outside of that, then it will require us. I believe at the time of budgeting. To make a determination about how we're going to address that at that time, but we don't yet know whether it will fall outside the terms of the contract that makes sense. Protein. On the same [4:15:46 PM] topic. I'm comfortable with it, including the and or language and leaving that discretion up to the manager. I will just flag a conversation we have had over the last year or two about retention specifically within the police department when it comes to finances. And one of the conversations was people getting trained like you said earlier, and then they end up leaving the city of Austin and they've gotten some sort of incentives, and so if that needs to be escalated if you wait and get your final payout. After all four are accomplished. You get a higher bonus or something to that effect. I think it could be helpful to really achieve the goal of training officers and having them stay here working for a pd after you know so much time and attention has been put into their training, and that's why the substitute motion has language that would allow him to him to come up with a proposal that would have the financial component to incentivize that sort of activity. It's the reason council member Ryan alter [4:16:48 PM] . I wouldn't agree to an end or in this because we want him looking at all of these elements because they are distinct in one way or another, as opposed to what happens when somebody goes into training academy. So. The way we will do. This is the motion to amend the amendment. By council member Kelly. Motion that was made and seconded. Will read. Part three. Capital B, a set of financial incentives paid when new cadets one join an a P D cadet training academy to complete and a pd Canete training academy. Three complete a B a P D field training and or four excuse me. And or four successfully complete the a P D [4:17:49 PM] probationary period. That. I'll consider that motion to have been made and seconded. That is a motion to amend the amendment of council member harper-madison. Is there any objection to the motion to amend the amendment? In that case passes now the motion. To amend the substitute with the Watson substitute ordinance will read exactly as I just read it changing subpart B of part large capital B of number three. Is there any objection to that amendment? Hearing none. The amendment is adopted. Thank you both. Are there any other proposed amendments? To the. Watson substitute ordinance. Is [4:18:49 PM] there a motion to a adopt the substitute motion as the main motion. Motion is made by councilman Ryan. Alter and seconded by council member Alison alter. So now members the substitute motion as amended is the main motion. Is there any further discussion on the substitute motion council member Kelly? Er, I'd like to make the motion to divide the question between the compensation incentives and the oversight portions of the measure before us. Is there any second to that motion? Any second. Okay is there a second to the motion? Promotion fails for lack of a second council member harper-madison. Okay? Good deal. Are there. Is there any further discussion on the motion to adopt the substitute motion as amended? Is there any objection to the adoption of the [4:19:50 PM] substitute motion as amended? Hearing none. The substitute motion as amended is adopted. Is there any other business? Well there can't be any other business. We didn't post any other business, folks. We didn't that brings us to an end of the agenda of the Austin city council for this regular scheduled meeting without objection, we're adjourned. Thank you all very much. Congratulations.