City Council Regular Meeting Transcript – 7/18/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 7/18/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 7/18/2024 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:57:51 AM] . It's 10:00 in the morning on July 18th, 2024, and I will call to order the regular meeting of the Austin city council for this date, we are meeting at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas, which is the city council chambers in city hall. And we have a quorum of the Austin city council present. What I'll do is walk you through first the general order of the meeting today, and we will begin the morning with me reading changes and corrections into the record, after I walk through this, then we will hear from the consent. On the consent agenda from speakers, both those that are virtual and in person, right after that, we will go to the, a vote on the consent agenda. After a brief discussion and comments from members of the council, we will then go to non consent items. Those include items that may have been pulled from the consent agenda and items that are public hearing items. Those items are items 99 [9:58:53 AM] items. Those items are items 99 through 124 and item number 96 is related to the charter amendments. And that is a non consent item that will be taken up at that point in time, at this point, let me clarify something. If someone wishes to speak, you'll be allowed three minutes to speak on items and I want to clarify that anyone that's registered to speak on a public hearing item or on a non consent item will be heard at the time we bring up the public hearing or the non consent item, unless it's just more convenient for you to do it during the consent agenda. But if you're going to do that, I ask that you please inform the clerk's office so that we can make sure that we have that as part of the record. One other thing that I want to mention, and I'm going to mention this a couple of times just for people that are watching this. Item number three has been withdrawn. So if you've signed up to speak on item [9:59:54 AM] signed up to speak on item number three, that item has been withdrawn. So if that's the only item you signed to speak on, your name is not going to be called because there's not an item on which to speak, as soon as we can, around 1030, we will try to take up the Austin housing finance corporation. Time certain item, and if at that point we will also, depending upon where we are in terms of time, is we will then take up the tax increment financing, number 20, board of directors meeting. We will do that. And members, for your for purposes of keeping up with this, we will we will have recessed the council meeting and called to order the tax increment financing reinvestment zone number 20. Board of directors, immediately following taking the actions on the two agenda items we have for that, we will come back in as a council and we will take up item 104, because item 104 is related [10:00:54 AM] 104, because item 104 is related to that. And I'm just trying to keep that all, somewhat consistent. Of course, at noon we will, hear our time, certain public comment period, as anybody who watches this knows, that typically ends at 1230 to 1235, we will recess at that point in time so that we can go, to have live music. We will come back. We'll I'll see how things are going at that point, we'll come back 1:00 110, 115 somewhere in that time frame, and continue with that matters. And of course, as near to 2:00 as we can, we will end out in the day with our zoning and neighborhood planning, time certain members. And at this point I will read changes and corrections into the record as I indicated, item number three is withdrawn. Item number eight is withdrawn. Item number nine is postponed to August 29th, 2024. [10:01:55 AM] postponed to August 29th, 2024. If you are wishing to be heard on item number nine, you can be heard only on the validity of the postponement and speak to the postponement. Item number 87 is withdrawn and replaced with addendum item number 187. Item 87 is withdrawn and replaced with addenda. Item 187. Item number 88 should add as a sponsor. Mayor pro tem Leslie pool. Item number 89 should add as a sponsor. Council member Paige Ellis. Item number 99 is withdrawn and replaced with item number one. 2099 is withdrawn and replaced with item 120. Item 101 20 when public should read. When public hearings are taken up, this item will be postponed to September 12th, 2024. Items 101 20. When public hearings are [10:03:01 AM] 101 20. When public hearings are taken up, these items will be postponed to September 12th, 2024. Items 105 113 114, 116, 117, 118 and 121. When public hearings are taken up, these items will be postponed to August 29th, 2024. Those are items 105 113, 114, 116, 117, 118 and 121 when public hearings are taken up, these items will be postponed to August 29th, 2020. For item 106 is withdrawn. Item 150 withdrawn and replaced by addenda. Item 188. Item 150 withdrawn and replaced by addenda. Item addendum item 188. [10:04:02 AM] addenda. Item addendum item 188. Those are the changes and corrections for us to read into the record today. We will now go to the consent agenda. Members before I call, ask the city clerk to start navigating us through that. I'm going to ask our legal department to come up and speak with regard to items number 66 and 67, which are items related to a potential settlement, and ask for them to give their present their brief presentation. And then we will go to the speakers. >> Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. I'm assistant city city attorney Sarah Schafer. I'm here today to recommend that you approve two settlement payments on your agenda. The first is item number 66, which is Gonzales versus city of Austin. We recommend you approve a payment of $120,000 to settle the Gonzales versus city of Austin lawsuit. This lawsuit relates to a September 2021 car accident involving an Austin [10:05:03 AM] accident involving an Austin police department vehicle where Mr. Gonzales seeks payment for his injuries in exchange for the payment, plaintiff will release all claims and against the city from the accident and will also dismiss his lawsuit, which is filed in the Travis county district court, item 67 is madrigal and Cano versus city of Austin. We're also recommending you approve a total payment of $120,000 to settle the madrigal and Cano versus city of Austin lawsuit. This lawsuit relates to an August 2018 car accident involving an Austin fire department engine, where plaintiffs Maria madrigal and Juan Cano seek payments for injuries they sustain. As part of that collision. In exchange for that total payment, both plaintiffs will release any and all claims against the city, that could have been asserted in the lawsuit or were asserted in the lawsuit and will dismiss the lawsuit, which is currently filed in Travis county district court. >> Thank you. Members are there any questions of legal staff on [10:06:04 AM] any questions of legal staff on items number 66 and 67? Thank you very much. All right. With that, we will go to the consent agenda. Comments, members, item number 93 has been pulled from the consent agenda. So we will take that up, after after we've done the consent agenda in the order that we can we can move forward. So with that, I'll turn to the city clerk and ask you to help us with that process. >> Thank you. Mayor we'll go ahead and go to remote speakers first. Speaking on item 63 for three minutes, Jared, Dylan. >> Hello? Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, or good morning, everybody, my name is Gerald Dylan, myself. Legacy, and the Austin revitalization authority, were one of the [10:07:04 AM] authority, were one of the competing teams, for the block 16, block 18 redevelopment site, you know, we just want to say, you know, we felt that we were very excited about the project, but we may not have received fair treatment, during phase one, it was stated that the number one goal was affordable housing, we proposed affordable housing, both blocks, I'm actually in an hbcu grad. We reached out to tx, and said, hey, you know, you know, we really like to talk to you guys about the project. We were told that they weren't interested in talking to us, we get to phase two and was added to the rfp that there was a suggestion to have student housing on campus. And we thought, well, that was that's curious. Like, why would you add student housing? You know, we're not on a student campus. You know, it's a it's a good little walk to get to campus. So we were a little curious. We reached back out to the university and they said they didn't want to talk to us, [10:08:06 AM] they didn't want to talk to us, so we ended up continuing with our presentation, not including student housing. You know, we felt that, you know, this is a redevelopment project for our community that needs housing, you know, student housing in our opinion, you know, is for individuals who don't live in that community, some of them will stay in the community, but it's really kind of transient housing. You can live there for a few years and move on, we felt that that wasn't the best decision for the community. So we included all affordable housing in our project. So ultimately, the other team that was competing student housing is their bread and butter and we felt that we didn't necessarily get a fair shake at it. And now it appears that, you know, there's additional resources that are on the agenda to fund the cultural arts space where our presentation would have been better if we knew that that resource was available, and we could have underwritten that into the project. So I'll close it with this. You know, this is a historically African-American community, we were an African American led team, and although, unfortunately, we were not [10:09:07 AM] unfortunately, we were not selected, you know, unfortunately, it is not shocking, and unfortunately, it's a pattern too familiar of us not getting access to the resources in our communities. So I will say this. Thank you for your time. We're still very hopeful to work with Austin edc and east Austin community on future projects. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, members and members of the community. I want before we go to the next speaker, I want to point out that we are joined virtually by our city manager, tc Broadnax. Unfortunately, manager Broadnax has covid, and so that's why he's not with us. And I hope I'm not violating his privacy and telling him, but that. But, I guess I just did, so, but, he the reason he's not with us is he's not well, and he doesn't want to expose anybody, we're joined by deputy city manager John fortune. I just want to explain that if anybody's wondering why the city manager is not with us. Thank you. Please go ahead. >> Thank you. Mayor, the next speaker remotely is Jay Popham speaking on item 88 for three [10:10:09 AM] speaking on item 88 for three minutes. >> Hi. Mayor Watson council members, thanks so much for the opportunity to speak on this exciting resolution, my name is Jay Popham. I'm a member of the democratic socialists of America and a constituent of Vanessa Fuentes in district two, very proud to see this item up for consideration. I think that it's a forward thinking and beneficial program to be considering for the well-being of the citizens of our city, for our long term financial stability and our ability to act together as, as neighbors who want the best for each other and for our city as a whole, I'm just going to quote very briefly from congressman Rashida tlaib, who had put up a measure on the federal level encouraging the establishment of public banks, congressman tlaib said wall Street run banks are failing to serve many of my residents who are struggling to meet and make ends meet. It's long past time to open doors for people who [10:11:10 AM] to open doors for people who have been systematically shut out. We must provide a better option for those grappling with the costs of simply trying to participate in an economy that's been rigged against them with discriminatory and predatory practices. We need a financial system that is democratically accountable and puts the livelihoods of our residents ahead of private profits. I think we have a fantastic opportunity to look into how Austin can do that here. And I encourage a yes vote on item number 88. Thank you so much for your time. >> Next we have Susan pantell, who has requested to speak on item 93. Even though it's been pulled, she'll have three minutes. >> I strongly support moving forward with a bond environmental bond this year. There is a lot of urgency with this issue. Climate change impacts are, you know, serious and we have so much to do. We have over 2 billion of projects that are needed that were identified by the joint [10:12:11 AM] identified by the joint sustainability commission, and this would only be less, probably less than 10% of those projects. We really need to have started this yesterday, and we don't need to study it for another year or two years. There's already been a lot of community input. All those plans you list have had a lot of community input. The joint sustainability commission had public input as far as as part of making their list of recommendations, the staff has already vetted many projects. There's already a number of projects from past bonds that just need more money to be completed, so we don't need to set up a task force and study this more. We need to move forward. Another reason is there is a lot of federal money available now for these types of projects, and they require a local match. And a year from now or two years from now, if the Republicans win the presidency, [10:13:13 AM] Republicans win the presidency, that money may very well not be here. So it's very important that we move forward as quickly as possible. Both the joint sustainability commission and the urban transportation commission unanimously voted to move forward this year with a bond measure, and I don't understand why you're putting it off. What it looks like from the outside is that all the council members are succumbing to pressure from the mayor, and that appears to be the only reason I don't see any good reason to put this off. And frankly, that doesn't look very good. Thank you. >> We'll now move over to in person. Speaking on item four, 25 and 52 for nine minutes, William bunch speaking on item 4788, Ben cha' keeta B on deck. Rita Thompson, if your name has [10:14:15 AM] Rita Thompson, if your name has been called, please make your way to the mic. >> If your name has been called, please come forward. And if there's an empty microphone, go ahead and step up and identify yourself. But once your name is called, please don't wait. Come forward. Thank you sir. >> Good morning. My name is Ben suddaby, speaking here in my personal capacity, I want to thank you first for pulling three, I'm speaking in favor of 47 and 88 this morning, 47 taking a look at, a more gathering, more information about how our aging population in our city, are being served. And the needs being met. I think that's excellent. I want to commend you all for looking into this. Getting fresh information is exactly how we make good decisions. The working class who work all their lives deserve dignity and deserve attention in their communities and their caregivers need, need, you know, help as well. And just the neighborhood we look out for, for each other. So thank you for 47. Gather that information to make sure we're meeting their [10:15:15 AM] make sure we're meeting their needs as well, and 88 public banking. Excellent, gather more information. And I was just saying that the six month t-bill is yielding 4.99, you know, if we can pull our money and have more of that stay here in our pockets as a city, I think it's a wonderful thing to explore. Obviously, there's a lot of, needs not being met in the banking. For, for segments of our community. I know the check cashing places in my neighborhood charge. Really high rates, but for some folks, that's all they have, so, yes, there's a lot of questions out there. Gather that information, explore this, let's let's proceed with, with knowledge. And, you know, we're heading in the right direction, but let's not rush into things. This is exactly the way to do it. So, two good things that y'all are doing today. Come commendation. Have a good day. >> Good morning. Mayor, council [10:16:17 AM] >> Good morning. Mayor, council members. Bill bunch, district five. Just I want to I signed up for 99 on south central waterfront, and I wasn't clear. Is that postponed later? >> Nine, nine, 99 has been withdrawn and replaced with item 120. But it's for a public hearing later. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So I will just. Sorry. 120 was postponed to September 12th. It's part of what happens when everybody tries to throw everything on the agenda for a meeting. And then you have those kinds of things happen. But, so that item has been postponed. >> But we can speak to the postponement later. Is that right? Okay. All right. >> We'll do that if you tell us what you're going to be here to talk about the postponement. >> Okay. Yes thank you, item four calls for, the council to seek a almost half $1 billion loan to support a $1.1 billion expansion to the walnut creek [10:17:19 AM] expansion to the walnut creek wastewater treatment plant. This $1.1 billion expenditure was approved by you all on consent, a month or so ago, without any discussion with absolutely minimum detail about it, again, here we are with half $1 billion loan to support it. Almost no information supporting it. What you have, the resolution is actually wrong. It says that it's 100 million mgd expansion to the plant. It's not. It's a 25 mgd expansion to get to 100 mgd capacity, this is running ahead with the idea that we're going to continue consuming more and more water, that our climate change modeling tells us we simply don't have. And then converting that additional [10:18:20 AM] converting that additional consumption of water ever going upward. From now on, into sewage that needs being treated, this is, hostile to sustainability. It's a direct threat. It's burying your head in the sands when you've previously declared a climate emergency, it's incredibly wasteful. You're staring at a proposed 9.5% rate increase for water and wastewater. With two more 10% rate increases coming in the next two years, you're staring literally a 30% rate increase for water and wastewater with this idea, and mostly driven by these huge, expensive capital improvement projects that we can readily avoid if we simply go back to what we've been doing until the last few years, literally for 40 years, of keeping our total water consumption flat and therefore our sewage generation flat. When [10:19:20 AM] our sewage generation flat. When you have a budget, shortfall, you push off these expensive things as a matter of financial responsibility. When you have a water shortage, you don't keep spending literally billions of dollars assuming that you're going to be able to drain the Lakes beyond zero. You know, you can't do that, we have for a fraction of this amount of money, we can go back to what we've been doing since the 1980s, and that is keeping our water consumption flat by being way more aggressive with a whole range of a basket case of strategies. That will, increase our efficiency. Instead, y'all again voted on consent for the first time in our history to [10:20:21 AM] first time in our history to raise our gallons per capita, water conservation goals at precisely the moment when we need to be racing in the other direction. So let's save $1 billion. Let's start implementing a careful climate impact review on every single one of these projects. And have that review include what can we do in the alternative to avoid those phenomenal costs, to avoid racing ahead like we have before, as if there's an endless water supply and an endless supply of money and an endless, endless, progression of rate increases, y'all are supposed to care about affordability, right? Is a ten, nine and a half, 10% water wastewater rate increase. Is that affordable when it's totally unnecessary? If you just stop and think and reevaluate [10:21:23 AM] stop and think and reevaluate and at least ask some questions and have your resolution be accurate, it's not 100 mgd expansion. Can't you expect the water utility staff, your own staff to like? Be correct on something like that on a resolution you're about to vote on? And this is embarrassing. Please step back. Postpone this, find a cheaper, better, more sustainable option, item 52. I'm only speaking that in my individual capacity, as a former tourism commission member. Expanding the convention center, to the tune of, you know, $2 billion, if, if we're honest about it, perhaps 3 billion. And that's not even counting what will be annual operating and maintenance losses of 100 million or more, this is the [10:22:25 AM] million or more, this is the biggest black hole of city money that really rightfully belongs to cultural tourism, live music. The arts, nature tourism, supporting what really brings people to Austin, and puts heads in beds and supports our larger hotel industry across the city, across the county, rather than just the 2 or 3 big expensive, downtown convention center hotels, the convention business is crashing. It's never recovered from, pre-pandemic levels. It's bounce back some, but it's still way below pre- pandemic. All the projections are that the mismatch in supply and demand of convention center space is going to keep going way, way down. And if you're going to go forward, again, you need to step back and completely reevaluate with some [10:23:27 AM] completely reevaluate with some honest information because, this is literally like flushing, 30 years and literally billions of dollars of that hotel occupancy tax revenue stream down the toilet. Our convention center has never met the projections, that were made to justify it when mayor Watson put it on the ballot for people to actually vote on when there was a broad community convention consensus to do that, there was a real case to be made in 1998 to expand the convention center to give us the one that we have now. But it's never come close to the projections that were made. It sits empty. We're hemorrhaging dollars because besides, south by southwest, it's basically sitting empty, except for local and regional trade shows, which at the current convention center fully [10:24:27 AM] current convention center fully accommodates and south by. People have told me point blank, the current convention center works just fine for them. So it's really time to completely reassess the convention center expansion, so please, I would say vote no against this consulting contract for this black hole of diversion of funds from cultural tourism, tourism, where it belongs. Thank you. >> Rita Thompson speaking on item 70 for three minutes, followed by Craig Naser speaking on item 90 for three minutes. Gus Pena on deck. If your name's been called, please come to the front. >> Please come forward. If your name has been called. Come on, Mr. Naser. You know the routine. >> Hello, my name is Craig Naser, [10:25:30 AM] >> Hello, my name is Craig Naser, president of Austin environmental Democrats. My comments concern item 90 and why we oppose it. Science tells us soil is important. Soil is a living ecosystem. Like a forest or a coral reef. It supports millions of species, most being microscopic. We now know it hosts fungal mycorrhizae, a massive web of hyphae that acts as an organic internet through which plants can communicate and even share chemical resources, strengthening the entire forest. Soil is a cradle that nurtures terrestrial plants and animals. Soil increases water quality and greatly affects water quantity, and it stores a lot of carbon carbon that would otherwise seep into the atmosphere and heat the planet. Impervious cover kills soil. It entombs it. Avoiding the killing of soil should be a big deal to all of us who care about the planet Earth. When an [10:26:32 AM] about the planet Earth. When an elected official tells us that they will not increase impervious cover and keep it at 45, that's an important promise and one that shouldn't be reneged upon lightly. Item 90 certainly looks like it will increase impervious cover beyond 45. If you read between the lines. After we have been told over and over again that home wouldn't do that, Austin environmental Democrats continue to oppose increased impervious cover. By the way, the 45% impervious cover limit is not based on any science. In fact, it may as well have emerged from the south end of an armadillo heading north for all the value it holds. Science clearly tells us that in almost all cases, an impervious cover level above 10% begins affecting water quality, and the higher it goes, the more negative effect it has. That's why it's so much lower over the Barton, creek recharge zone. The [10:27:32 AM] Barton, creek recharge zone. The real problem with science is it is true whether you choose to believe it or not. It would be a good thing for Austin to keep that in mind when writing city ordinances in the time of climate change. Thank you very much, mayor pro tem. >> Mayor 10s real quick, Brian alter, I know a couple of people have signed up to testify on this, and Mr. Naser touched on it. I just want to be abundantly clear before anybody else, comes forward. There is nothing in item 90 that touches impervious cover. I've said many times from this position that I don't intend to increase impervious cover, so I just want to make it clear. Sitting here today while everyone is here, before we hear more testimony, if you look through the resolution, not mention one time and that's for a purpose. So just want to make that clarification. >> Thank you, councilmember. >> Rita Thompson Gus Pena [10:28:33 AM] >> Rita Thompson Gus Pena speaking on item six, item 11 for six minutes, followed by Monica Guzman on deck. >> If your name has been called, please come forward. Is Guzman. It looks like you're up. That's why we say if your name has been called, please come forward. >> Monica Guzman, speaking on item 1790 and 91 for nine minutes. >> Thank you, I'm Monica Guzman, policy director of Garza lugo. Austin. Austin. I have no statement on 17 on item 90. Garza is opposed, specifically about the community stakeholders. It points out, I can't remember the names a1, C, a1, a, and preservation. I can't remember the name of the rest of the group, but, developers, [10:29:35 AM] the group, but, developers, urbanists, we are concerned about the lack of true community engagement. People who live in the areas that are being developed, that are in the pipeline to be developed and with projected or anticipated negative impact on them, possibly pushing them into level of risk of displacement, we ask that you make sure whether it's change the wording or broader directive about making sure the community is more invested and engaged for this process. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good morning. Mayor. Got to see you again. And council members, my name is Gustavo Pena. [10:30:36 AM] members, my name is Gustavo Pena. Grew up in east Austin, 2327 east fifth street. I'm here to speak on number six, regarding Murray, aka good stuff. Supported number eight. I was at saint David's and we have problems over there with the community and being disrespectful. And I am a product of going, being at, saint David's hospital left a big old hole right here in the back on my spine. So I'm halfway paralyzed. The issue is this, it shouldn't have occurred. And we have a team of, attorneys that are working on that and working with, saint David's. Six, number 63, housing, that would that should be passed, people need that home. The homes. And, I just wanted to let you all know I'm still alive, even though I [10:31:39 AM] I'm still alive, even though I had three, surgeries from the Marine Corps. Helicopter crashes. But I just want to say I've been tough with you all because the community needs y'all. I don't need y'all. I gotta have god with me. The issue is this. That please support the needs of the community, and I will leave it at that. And, you know, thank you for I've been tough on y'all. You know, you've been at the capitol, the governor wants to, anoint me with the position over there and said, no, I'm a Democrat, but I just want to let you all know I'm here and back. And my baby girl, she couldn't make it, but, thank you all very much for the hard work that you all do. And the staff and everybody. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Pena. Good to see you. Thank you sir. >> Next we have pat Bartz Trejo speaking on item 48 for three minutes, followed by Andrew Hairston speaking on item 63. On deck is clay shirky. If your name's been called, please make [10:32:40 AM] name's been called, please make your way to the front. >> Please come forward. >> Thank you. Mayor council members, my name is pat Walters and I live in district three. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on item 48, an item that, provides additional funding for spay neuter through a third party vendor, in addition to the funding, you already provide for emancipate to do spay neuter in the community. This is really important. And as I've said for many, many years. Oh, and especially thank you, council member villa, you initiated this amendment and thank all of you for voting for it. And I think it's really important that you have this commitment to spay neuter. I think that's the way that we are going to someday be a no kill city that does no kill humanely. Unfortunately, as you saw during the audit process, the auditor has pointed out that we are not being humane. We don't. We no longer have an open [10:33:42 AM] don't. We no longer have an open intake animal shelter, and there is a hole that has been dug where many, many more animals were either born in the last five years or were brought into the city from out of town, and it has prevented some of our animals from moving out of the shelter. So now you have a problem. We no longer have an open intake animal shelter and that's really, really bad. We have people coming to the animal advisory commission every month talking about how there's a problem with not having open intake. We need to fund open intake. And I think there is a way to get to open intake without killing animals. One is to continue to fund spay neuter as you're doing with this, this contract. But we also need to look at a city facility that right now is being used by an organization that is bringing animals in from out of town, while our animals are [10:34:42 AM] while our animals are languishing in the animal shelter. You need to take a look at what what what's going on here. Because I love helping other communities, but they need to fund their animals. They need to fund spay neuter. In Williamson county in hays county, which we've helped them for years. But also now we're bringing animals in from the border and from Laredo and from south Texas. And that's not right. Council member harper-madison I've been talking to you about spay neuter for a real long time, and you're very supportive of that. And I appreciate it. I appreciate your support, but we also need to make sure that the discussion isn't about, you know, do we fund children or do we fund animals. The discussion is do we fund prevention or do we fund something on the other end, which is, you know, this huge transport program to bring animals here and then send them somewhere else and everybody says we're no-kill, but we don't really know that we are. You [10:35:42 AM] really know that we are. You know, I don't know what's happening to some of these animals that are being transported. So anyway, I would appreciate your help with this. Thank you so much. >> Clay shirky. Jay Stanley and Sylvia morales all speaking on item 63. >> Mr. Mayor. Yes? May I make a comment, please? Please pat, I just want to say thank you for your continued advocacy in the community and especially your thoughtfulness around prevention. You know, we are as we enter this budget process, we're talking about scarcity. And so when I think scarcity, I think emergency, and I think bottom line, worst case scenario, to my point about the analogy with whether or not we spare our four legged friends or children, I didn't mean to be offensive. I was just pointing out that we have reached a place where, for the first time in a very long time, the capital city of the great state of Texas is looking at scarcity in our budget, and we have to look at where we apply our budget. We've said on so many occasions it's [10:36:42 AM] said on so many occasions it's our moral document. And so I just want to make certain that as we approach taking care of our priorities, we include pragmatic aspects like spay neuter. I mean, I got to see you out in the wild at the shelter. And to your point, three of the kitty cats that I looked at while I was at the shelter were from, near, oh. I can't think of the name corpus. And so, you know, to your point and so I look forward to us continuing this conversation and have a robust discussion, but never think that I'm, you know, being an alarmist. I am saying that we do have an issue that we need to address, and I appreciate that. It's becoming more and more front and center, and we're having more candid conversations. Thank you. >> Thank you, councilmember, please state your name and welcome. >> Yes. Good morning. I'm Andrew Hairston. I'm a district one resident. I'm here to speak on item 63. I'm a member of ebenezer third Baptist church, and I co-chair the church's social justice and advocacy ministry, about a month ago, my fellow church members and I [10:37:43 AM] fellow church members and I presented at an urban renewal board meeting, as this process neared, this point of completion and we uplifted similar points as we're thinking about the affordable housing components of the urban renewal agency and its ability to negotiate and execute this project, it's of utmost significance to us as our congregation will celebrate 150 years in February, we were all of the opinion that racial justice has to be a critical component of how this process moves forward, especially as the ground will be struck in 2026 and the development will move forward. We hope that the developer will consider including various resources that are important to our church and community. Certainly our uplifted affordable housing. We're also thinking about third spaces where the community can enjoy art and culture at little to no cost, as well as economic justice initiatives to combat [10:38:45 AM] justice initiatives to combat further displacement. At this critical junction juncture of our history. As a city where so many folks are feeling their pockets being squeezed to the brink, we need spaces that will preserve the rich history of black and brown communities in Austin and allow them to forge a path into the future. Thank you. Thank you. >> Please come forward. >> Well, I'm Clayton short. Thank you for letting us speak today about the Texas music museum, which is located on 11th street in east Austin and has been in operation for over 40 years with all volunteers and such. And, Texas music museum was established in 1984, by a group of austinites who were committed to preserving and [10:39:45 AM] committed to preserving and presenting the extensive history of Texas music. >> We received our 500 and 1c3 in 1985, and our first exhibit was in 1986, related to Texas sesquicentennial and we were named by the governor as an official, sesquicentennial project. Over 40 years, our, volunteers have traveled every part of Texas on their own funding. By the way, locating, interviewing, photographing, collecting artifacts, which has resulted in our, very large and diverse archive. We've presented exhibits and programs throughout Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, other cities, and we've provided material for many historical and cultural programs, volunteers have written biographies, spray mounted exhibit material, assembly, even painted the frames, it's time for Texas music museum to move forward for a major expansion to help make [10:40:47 AM] a major expansion to help make Austin the truly amazing Texas music city that it is. Please help us move the Texas music museum to a world class museum for Austin. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, mayor. Good morning, council members. My name is Sylvia morales. I'm here today in support and in favor of item 63. I'm the community engagement manager at the Texas music museum. The developments at block 16 and 18 offer great new possibilities for the Texas music museum. We currently occupy about 2000ft S and are located in the heart of east Austin on east 11th. Walking distance from the capitol. While we have a rich collection of over 25 exhibits in storage, we can only showcase a small fraction of our exhibits due to [10:41:49 AM] fraction of our exhibits due to space limitations. Adding to our concern is the imminent need to relocate our storage. We have 1000ft S at an off site location, and our current arrangements will be ending soon. We seek a new climate controlled location, which is critical in preserving and expanding our archives. In addition to storage, we need more exhibit space. So in conclusion, we're seeking 13,000ft S, preferably in east Austin. East Austin holds deep significance for us as we've built strong ties with our community. With your support, we can ensure that the Texas music museum continues to enrich and inspire our city for generations to come. Thank you for your time today. >> Thank you. >> Hello everybody. >> My name is Jay Stanley. I'm a docent, collaborator and social media manager with the Texas music museum. In our archive, we have over 100 original interviews in our oral history collection, a vast collection of lps and records consisting of 45 and 78 seconds. And as far as we [10:42:53 AM] and 78 seconds. And as far as we know, the largest collection of Texas sheet music related to Texas music. And our office. We have an extensive collection of negatives, audio and visual recordings and photos in our archives that need to be preserved. And I believe it would be beneficial if you own a city council. Help us help Austin and Texas in preserving Texas music. I would also like to mention, as an artist, as myself, as an artist, as a student at Houston Tillotson university and as a community member in east Austin that I am personally in favor of. Item 63. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Scott Strickland, Lauren Gould, Patrick Buchta speaking on item 63. >> Good morning. Mayor, city [10:43:53 AM] >> Good morning. Mayor, city manager, city council, thank you all so much for your for your time, I my name is Scott Strickland. I represent the district eight. I serve at the pleasure of Paige Ellis, and I am on the music commission as well. I am speaking in favor of item 63 as it pertains to the Texas music museum and in the in the fact that they are looking for a space to, move to and grow and, preserve the, the incredible and amazing, artifacts in the history that they have established here in the great city of Austin. The, there are artifacts that they have that are just over 100 years old and, some of these things are, quite incredible. And it would be an amazing thing for, there to be a dialog and exchange of conversation for us to figure out, what we could do for the Texas music, museum from [10:44:56 AM] for the Texas music, museum from the music commission perspective, we have not taken any recommendation out of our working group just yet, but we will do that. And we will come back, to you doing that, following that recommendation, the one thing that I do want to point out is that the music commissions, some of our main goals are preservation, elevation and innovation, preservation, meaning preserving the past innovation mean taking what we have and we want to figure out how to elevate that. And then there's elevation, which is, actually, giving what we have a higher platform. So I thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. >> If your name has been called, please come forward. >> Hello all. My name is Lauren Gould. I'm a native austinite music commissioner for district two and a full time professional musician, so those of us who you're hearing from today are part of a working group that was [10:45:57 AM] part of a working group that was formed by the music commission to help the Texas music museum secure the facilities and funding that they need to survive and thrive. To that end, I'd like to add my voice to support the Texas music museum's inclusion in the east 11th and 12th street urban renewal plan, which we're discussing on item 63. So in favor of item 63 as well. And to emphasize the fact that the city of Austin really has a duty to protect the roots of our vibrant and diverse music community, the amount of genres and people, represented in this museum are absolutely incredible. And if you haven't been, you must go and check it out. So as a tree cannot continue to grow and bear fruit without strong roots in the same way Austin's music ecosystem, cannot continue to thrive without a strong connection to our musical roots. As our city grows and develops, we must maintain our connection with our history, tend to it, nurture it. The folks at the Texas music [10:46:59 AM] The folks at the Texas music museum have been tending to that connection valiantly, despite the difficulties they've faced, and they should be part of the fabric of this new development with facilities and funding. Commiserate with the thriving music city such as ours, so that they can continue their good work to share the stories of our many culture bearers and the, and inspire future generations to carry those traditions forward. So our working group is here to help facilitate plans for ongoing collaboration with, public and private entities to make this happen. So we hope to continue this conversation as the project unfolds. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Good morning. Mayor, council, good to see you guys this morning. Pat Buchta, chief executive officer with Austin, Texas musicians advocacy nonprofit, you know, I've been doing this work for a little over five years in the community. And, worked very closely with some of you guys and achieved some amazing [10:48:00 AM] and achieved some amazing things, this is often complex work and hard work. So when I see something that's kind of a no brainer in the music community, it's really exciting for me, the Texas music museum has the like, we've heard today the deepest archive of Texas music. They've got folks like, local legends like Manuel cowboy Donley, like, recently departed doctor James Polk, even a deep archive of Czech music for bohemians like myself, so, you know, I'd love to see what we can do to help these guys preserve the great work that doctor Schalk has been doing for 40 years. I know we're very early in the process on block 16 and 18, we've been obviously working with music commission, with edc and, talking to council member Natasha harper-madison office to see where we fit in, to the mix. So, in the meantime, I would love to invite you guys out to see this thing. It's [10:49:01 AM] out to see this thing. It's really, really impressive, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Alex stringer speaking on item 70, Reese Armstrong speaking on item 88. Luz Austin lugo, speaking on item 88. >> Good morning, mayor and council. I'm speaking, regarding item 70, because, look, we need to bring decorum back to city hall, okay? Mayor. And these jerks, you know, these Maga hat wearing jerks, they have no place in city hall, nor in Austin, you know, and there's nothing more heinous and egregious than mocking a government meeting, especially when the city of Austin does such a great job with redistributing our wealth to various social justice initiatives, like providing hotels for our unhoused neighbors and allowing them to camp at the greenbelt needles, [10:50:02 AM] camp at the greenbelt needles, fentanyl and human fecal matter are the most effective way to fight our climate crisis. You guys know this, I know this, everybody knows this. This is what the experts have been telling us forever, you know, and also, you know, as a man who pushed their pregnant girlfriend down the stairs and got released on a pr bond, I just want to say thank you to you, to you guys, for getting Jose Garza into office. Except for that right wing fascist Mackenzie Kelly, because he is the most Progressive da in history and under any other set of circumstances, any human being who would have done something like this would still be in jail, but not here. And it's thanks to you. Also, this is the only way to get an abortion in Texas because abortion is healthcare. Furthermore, the way these Maga chuds have been mocking our intelligence agencies, it's disgusting. And we just need to look at how what they're saying about trump. And it was not an assassination attempt. And homeland security [10:51:03 AM] attempt. And homeland security could not go up on that roof because it was slanted and sloped. And the Iranians knew that. And that's why they positioned the shooter there and allowed him 30 minutes to climb the ladder and set up his position. We need to go to war with Iran, reimplement the draft to protect us from terrorism. I would go, Kirk, but I have peanut allergies, so I'm unable to thank you. >> Good morning. Council members. I am Reese Armstrong, a resident of district seven and one of the co-chairs for the los young democratic socialists of America and the high school in district three that serves students from across the city. I'm speaking on behalf of the organization today. We are firmly in support of item 88 because we believe in the liberatory power of public banking. Poor and working class people in Austin today do not have access to safe, affordable and reliable lines of credit to support their everyday needs to the upper class financial system, not lending to them under various pretenses like credit scores. Without access to fair credit, they are forced to turn [10:52:05 AM] credit, they are forced to turn to predatory lending providers like payday and title loans. These loan providers offer loans from anywhere between 300 and 3000% annual interest, and are designed to be paid back in around two weeks. Unfortunately, since people get trapped into dependency on these loans to meet their basic purchases like food, rent, health care and more, they end up spending their next paycheck on paying off the last loan and having to take out a new loan to stay alive. It is important to stress that this is through no fault of their own. Credit is a necessary tool to keep yourself housed, fed and clothed in America. This is where public banking comes in. A public bank can offer low interest loans to low and middle income borrowers who would otherwise not have access to fair credit. This will allow them to pay for important expenses and be able to pay back the loans. Additionally, the city can afford to take on more risk than other lenders at fairer interest rates because it's serving the public interest and not attempting to turn in profits for shareholders. We firmly support item 88 and urge the city to consider a municipal banking and lending strategy for the working class. Thank you for your time. >> May I be brief? I promise. I just want to thank our last [10:53:06 AM] just want to thank our last speaker, the scholar from lhasa. It's always a pleasure to see unfamiliar faces in this building and always a pleasure to see young people engaging in civics and bonus for talking about financial literacy. I really appreciate your contribution today. Thank you, thank you. >> Council member. >> Luis Acosta lugo. Shawn Adkins. Barbara grant. Bonita. Speaking on item 89 and Zenobia Joseph on deck, your name has been called. >> Please come forward. >> Howdy, folks, Luis lugo, district eight resident, I just wanted to speak in favor, of item 88 with public bank, I think public banks obviously can be risky, potential for corruption and graft and other things. But I think where a city has shown ourselves that we can take big projects and do them in a way that has the right transparency and the right controls to make sure that they serve the interest of the [10:54:06 AM] serve the interest of the public, I think they're a really great way of serving our unbanked population. They're a really great way of helping assuage any concerns of possible misaligned interests with the various banks that we may use for certain projects or other. And help make sure that as we are trying to fund the projects that the city is undertaking in a speedy and scalable fashion, that we have all the financial leverage that we need in a way that gets us all as much of the value as possible. Thank you. >> Sean Atkins, district three, my public bank speech was more climate bond speech. They were mixed together. But now that they're separated, this is going to be really brief. I just want to stress tat a climate or a public bank, whatever you want to call it, is a very normal idea that is utilized in a lot of developed countries, particularly like western liberal democracies in America. There is a little bit of a, I want to say, like a reservation about the phrase public bank. It implies a sort of like certain socialist, left leaning, belief system that I just don't think is like, actually reflective of, like the type of institutions [10:55:07 AM] like the type of institutions that exist, all over the world. So Germany is one example of a nation that has a really, really well-developed public banking system. Same with Japan. Sorry, my notes are down, but what I really just kind of want to stress is that a public bank should play a role in a society that is not being filled by private banks. In that sense, as the wonderful speaker two speakers before me pointed out, this is loaning to low income folks affordable housing units that are not really being met by traditional lenders. But also I want to warn against using a public bank in a way that a private bank would act right. This is something that gets lost in the debate. The reason private banks don't lend to these people is because they have very intense outlays. They need to compensate for. They are lending in high and high interest rate savings banks at, you know, five, six, 7. And then in your investments, you need to reach five, six, 7% returns. That means that you no longer can afford to invest in a project that only has a 1 or 2% return over the course of a couple of years, 1 or 2% [10:56:08 AM] couple of years, 1 or 2% adjusted for inflation, and that means that you get pulled back. So if we do this public bank, I just really want to stress that you need to make it a boring utility, a boring utility that offers checking accounts only, maybe some low interest rate savings accounts. I recognize it's not going to be competitive with JP Morgan or whoever, but if you open it up to trading securities, even offering something as mundane as cds, you're going to tank the bank because all of a sudden it needs to make back its deposits or its loans or whatever, and it's going to have to start investing in projects that are just fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the bank, ultimately be very ambitious in what you want this to lend to, but conservative in what it needs to meet. Otherwise, this is going to go upside down. Really fast, or it's just going to operate like a normal bank and the whole point of doing this will have been ultimately defeated. So be investing in small homeowners, be investing in small projects that JP Morgan would not a small little community solar field something along those lines. I really [10:57:09 AM] along those lines. I really encourage you to do that, and to do that, the reason I brought up Germany at the beginning is a little scattered about my notes is that this is what these banks do. This is what the kfw does. This is what the sparkassen does. I probably butchered that pronunciation, but the banks that operate in a really well thought out public banking system operate in this interesting mix of ambition and conservatism that I really, really want you guys to think about and to start embracing. If you go forward with this and if we do the climate bond, never mind. >> Good morning all. My name is Barbara grant bonita. I'm the new director of success by six here in Austin. And I'm here to speak in support of item 89. First we want to go ahead and extend our support to our sponsors, council member Alison alter. Ryan alter, Vanessa Fuentes, Jose Velasquez and Paige Ellis. And thank you so much for always being such strong supporters of these causes. Child care center owners have shared with us how the street impact fee imposes a [10:58:12 AM] street impact fee imposes a heavy burden, often impacting their ability to expand and serve more families. Currently, for projects between 1000 to under 5000ft S, this fee is $608 per vehicle. One provider we spoke with faced an overwhelming $11,000 fee, which nearly derailed their plans for expansion. Austin cannot afford to lose more child care seats or miss opportunities to create new ones. The demand for child care in Travis county far exceeds the supply, with over 5000 children on a two year wait list for subsidized seats. We must do everything in our power to support this vital sector. We are extremely grateful to live in a city that recognizes the importance of quality, equitable child care for a thriving community. We also deeply appreciate a city council that seeks innovative solutions, such as this one to support child care providers. Every bit of relief helps these providers, who already operate on razor [10:59:13 AM] who already operate on razor thin margins, to continue their essential work. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration for passing item 89 and providing much, much needed relief to child care providers looking to expand their operations. Your support can make a significant difference in the lives of many families in our community. Thank you. >> Zenobia Joseph followed by Mario Cantu and Mary ingle. >> If your name's been called, please come forward. Miss Joseph. >> Followed by. >> Please come forward, miss ingle. >> Good evening. Council members. Mario Cantu, south Austin, I just wanted to mention on this particular item, if it'd be nice to have stakeholders involved in this. >> I know the, you're looking at [11:00:15 AM] >> I know the, you're looking at setting some units on properties, adding an additional units, you know, we had discussed that a while back here at city council, and, preservation is going to be really important within the neighborhoods. And also making sure that, impervious cover is taken, into account for the added structures onto properties, because it's going to be really, really important that, you know, we, we don't want to be kind of a little bit like Houston, Texas, with a lot of impervious covers and a lot of floods. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Is Joseph or miss ingle all right, please go ahead. >> Natalie. Friendly speaking on item 90. Susan Morrison, followed by Jenny Grayson on deck. >> If your name's been called, please come forward. Please go to the next three. >> Carmen Yanez speaking on [11:01:17 AM] >> Carmen Yanez speaking on items 90 and 91. Nadia Bernard and Levi Bernard speaking on item 92. >> If your name's been called, please come forward. Please go to the next three. >> Thank you, mayor Christian Fogarty is actually signed up for item 93, Hannah Rangel signed up for item 185. >> Please come forward. >> Good morning. Mayor, council members, my name is Hannah Rangel, and I am a vice president with the downtown Austin alliance, where I lead our development policy and land use planning efforts as the managing entity for the downtown public improvement district. The downtown Austin alliance enthusiastically supports item 185, which will introduce amendments to the land development code to modify the downtown density bonus program. Since its inception in 2014, the downtown density bonus program [11:02:18 AM] downtown density bonus program has quite literally transformed our downtown, helping to double our residential population and increasing our density by more than 50% in exchange for over 5.5 million square feet in development. Bonus granted to developers, the community has received enhanced streetscapes, elevated urban design over $28 million in fees destined for the affordable housing trust fund, and over 100 affordable units on the ground or in the pipeline today. At the same time, with a decade of real world data on the ground, we can now see many opportunities for improvement when considering how our downtown continues to grow. Our base floor area ratio is obsolete. Above grade parking still dominates the built form, and new development pressures in once quiet parts of downtown. Demand tailored attention and solutions. Further, our impending city of tomorrow. I think I'm the only one that calls it that, includes new light rail, a capped highway, and two dozen acres of new public space. It demands that we pause and assess how our development policies will [11:03:18 AM] development policies will respond to all this change. Item 185, as written, will address all these opportunities and much more. Proposing a truly comprehensive update to our most critical tool for engaging and managing growth in downtown. And while it may not be an eye catching part of the resolution for most, we are most excited to see the clear emphasis on calibration, testing and engagement. Because the success of this update rests on the market's ability to harness the changes being proposed to deliver the community benefits that reflect our our goals for downtown. As a key stakeholder and partner, the downtown Austin alliance can help ensure these modifications are grounded in market realities and will help push our downtown into the next decade of growth. And we are excited to partner with city staff to make these changes. In closing, in closing, if it wasn't clear, we are very supportive of item 185 and look forward to its progress. I would like to extend a sincere thank you to the hard working council staff that has helped bring this resolution to life, and thank [11:04:20 AM] resolution to life, and thank you all for your leadership to the city of Austin. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Kristen Fogarty. I'm a resident of d9. I'm here to speak in support of the climate bond. I definitely support the bond, but I'd like to, encourage a yes and approach, we already kind of know what we need to do for the most part on climate change. It's kind of boring at this point to talk about energy efficiency and solar and all that stuff that we've been talking about forever, lots of great plans and things on the shelf that we can implement, I've heard talk about maybe a 2025 bond, which I think would be great. I mean, every year, every decision that's made that pushes off these investments just makes the cost and the long term, even higher. I think that, you know, there's a lot of stuff that has come up recently about the district cooling center. Like maybe Austin energy doesn't have the money to expand it. So [11:05:21 AM] have the money to expand it. So that seems like a kind of a low hanging fruit thing that we can we can tackle right away, why isn't there solar and batteries on every city owned building, every aisd roof, why don't we electrify every single bus right away? You know, as fast as we can? Why don't we install ev chargers across the city, put up signage so that people can say, oh, hey, there's an ev charger over there. Oh, hey, maybe getting an ev, it wouldn't be that hard because there's chargers all over the city. I just think there's a lot of opportunity that of things that we can do right now, and maybe a bond package that's more comprehensive in the future would allow us to, you know, get together and think about more comprehensive things that need time to think through. But I just think there's a lot of low hanging fruit right now that we can move forward on pretty quickly. And lastly, I think, you know, administrative capacity obviously is a huge issue with all, you know, the office of sustainability and all the various other offices around, you know, city that are, doing really good work but just don't have the time and the energy to, to do all the things that we need to do. So if we can do something in the climate bond [11:06:24 AM] do something in the climate bond about expanding workforce boosting administrative capacity, there's historic federal opportunities right now to work on climate. And at the local level, it's like, I know there's people working on it, but it's like, you know, come on. The opportunities are there. We can we can, be really bold on it. And I think that, you know, 2026 sounds great, but we can I think we should go faster. I think we should move quicker on it. So thank you. Thank you. >> Finally, we have Philip Wylie speaking on item 185. >> Thank you. I is. This is your chart. >> Okay, my name is Philip Wylie. I live downtown, I'd like to, I live in. What is it? The city of tomorrow. City of tomorrow. I like to talk about [11:07:24 AM] tomorrow. I like to talk about living downtown and welcome people to downtown, because it's more than just a place where businesses operate. And hotels function. It's a neighborhood that has 15,000 people, the city of Philadelphia has 20,000 people downtown. They have a tremendous number of historic assets that they're able to protect. And yet they have 20,000 people downtown, the city of Seattle has over 100,000 people living downtown on the same size footprint that the city of Austin has 15,000 people. When you have that many people, you have, transit supportive density. You can afford to have nice things like spend 60 plus billion dollars on rail. We are struggling and gnashing our teeth over whether [11:08:27 AM] gnashing our teeth over whether we want to spend 7 or 10, we can we can do a lot better. And downtown can be part of the solution. I, I brought this chart or I wanted you to see this chart. Would you move to the second one, please? This is, one of those where's wally or where's Waldo? If you're a us person, right in the middle of the diagram to the left, this is a population density and density change, from the census people from 2010 to 2020. There's something that really sticks out here, that we have two census tracks in the middle of downtown that are have suburban level density. We have a lot of space where we can add people. There is no place that's more important for the city of Austin and the success of its transit [11:09:28 AM] and the success of its transit system than having people downtown living and working. And thank you for your time and your consideration. >> Thank you sir. >> Mayor. That concludes all the consent speakers members. >> Those are all the people that have signed up to speak on the consent agenda. And they've been called, we're going to pull item number four from the consent agenda. Let me ask before we go to, a motion and a second and discussion, if there's any other item that any member would like to pull from the consent agenda, yes. Councilmember Allison alter, I just want to clarify that 93 is still 93, was pulled from the beginning. So we're now pulling item four. Is there is there any other item? Council member. Vila. Council member Vila moves approval of the consent agenda. It's seconded by council member qadri. Now, let's go to discussion, I will call on Allison, councilmember Allison alter, followed by council [11:10:28 AM] alter, followed by council member Ellis. >> Thank you, I would like to be seen voting no on item 90 and abstaining on item 70. Please. So this is an agenda that is packed with important items. It's almost 200 items in and of itself, plus all the other items that we have to look at, some of those items that I want to just really quickly flag are the extension of our contract with lock arms for life, for safe gun storage. Item 77 a review of our domestic violence response efforts. Item 75 the launch of the quality of life study for Austin's aging population. Item 47 and the various cultural investments in item 15. I want to speak more specifically to two items in particular. The first is my item, item 89. I'm very excited to bring forth this item which advances a recommendation from our impact fee advisory committee to waive street impact fees for child care centers. As we know, every [11:11:29 AM] care centers. As we know, every effort is required to support these small businesses as they have an incredibly large impact on our economy and working families. This is part one of a two step process, so we will see this come back again. Colleagues in September for final approval, we have an extensive process here, of state law etc. That governs how these fees can work. I do want to thank my co-sponsors and our committee members for their recommendation. And our local providers for their continued advocacy. I also want to speak to item 69 and 72, which have to do with the update to the ems agreement, contract agreement, and, the work of the office of the chief medical officer. Excuse me. These items are the culmination of a lot of good faith negotiating to see how we can best integrate hmo and ems vital work together. When we created the office of the chief medical officer, originally, we [11:12:32 AM] medical officer, originally, we did so for a variety of reasons. We did so to elevate clinical oversight across city departments, invest in quality of care, and to be strategic in how we deploy our clinical resources. While I'm pleased with this agreement that this agreement can offer increased benefits to our sworn ems members, including the opportunity for additional training, and to promote to a paramedic practitioner. I must also openly call on city leadership to continue to emphasize quality of care as we move forward. I am mindful that at least during my tenure, Austin has avoided the fate of other cities which have experienced protracted litigation and costly and deadly mistakes. When quality controls have lapsed. Let's keep it that way. City manager deputy city manager, chief Luckritz and doctor Escott. As we make this transition and beyond, I ask that you work together to ensure that robust clinical oversight remains central and that we continue to make investments to support the chief medical [11:13:33 AM] support the chief medical officer and his team's vital work. I understand that along with this contract agreement, there is a service level agreement that is associated with it that codifies roles and helps us to maintain and extend our quality of care. And I've had a chance to read that, and I think it is a well done agreement, and I'm glad that everyone is on board with it. But I do want to underscore, for all of you who are leading this, that it is not just the agreement that is going to make this a success, it's your leadership. That is what's going to determine the fate of our ems system and whether we uphold our high quality standards. Relatedly, I want to ask the city manager and chief Luckritz that you continue to openly communicate and address concerns of the acoma staff as this transition proceeds. These are highly trained staff who we want to ensure choose to remain with the city of Austin. I also have spent time looking at the finances of this agreement, this is going to cost us about $400,000. There's a late answer [11:14:34 AM] $400,000. There's a late answer to a question, and one of the things that I really wanted to make sure happened was that that $400,000 wasn't just being carved out of the rest of the ems budget, but that was actually being added in. If we're have this big pot of money that we have for our labor agreements, we need to make sure that that $400,000 is not cannibalizing other things that we as a council think we've invested in. In ems, I've been assured, by the budget director and the deputy city manager that that is the case. And we're going to work to make sure that there's all more clarity, elsewhere, while we're talking about this, I want to make a couple other points on this topic, we recently saw in the budget that central health, is agreeing they're in the process of agreeing to help us to fund the c4 program. That's our collaborative care communication center, which is an effort that we have to help us address low acuity care. That's going to help us make that be 24 over seven. I want to emphasize that [11:15:35 AM] seven. I want to emphasize that our community would greatly benefit from the paramedic practitioners operating 24 over seven, as well as those systems work hand in hand. You need to have the medical, physician level nurse practitioner response to go hand in hand with the c4 for it to work effectively, as we know, this is a service that helps to relieve emergency room congestion and take some of the workload off of ems responders by freeing up ambulances and fire trucks to focus on critical care, emergency calls that require transportation to the hospital. At one point, Arellano estimated that the paramedic practitioner program saved approximately 840 hours in ambulance time, which amounts to approximately 1,000,005, in savings. And this is in particularly important given the significant staff shortages at ems that we have, that those hours saved. Once again, I am planning to bring forth budget direction to fund the paramedic practitioner program to be 24 over seven via an external partnership or through revenue generated by ems [11:16:36 AM] through revenue generated by ems billing system improvements, I'll do that through the budget, ifc process. So if you're interested in that, please let me know. And then lastly, in this agreement, I want to acknowledge that we're making great strides in providing improved benefits for sworn employees, such as the ability to celebrate city holidays like juneteenth, that our non-sworn employees enjoy, and also for paternity leave benefits. I do want to share that we need to ensure that we're recruiting a diverse array of cadets to our public safety entities, and employee benefits are key to that strategy. That is particularly true of our women, to that end, I want to see AFD sworn employees experience additional paid maternal leave for firefighters recovering from birth. My office has been working on this with the rfa. It's a very small amount of money that we would need to cover the 2 or 3 women who give birth, to our firefighters, we will now have ten weeks of [11:17:37 AM] will now have ten weeks of paternity leave for our ems. But women who give birth in AFD who have arguably the highest level of physical requirements, still do not get, 10 to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, so I'm hoping that we can do this through internal policy changes, but it appears that we need a budget amendment to cover this, so I will be working on that. And if that interests you, please let me know. Thank you. >> Thank you. Council member, council member Ellis, followed by council member qadri, then council member Kelly. >> Thank you. Council member Alison alder. I would like to join you in that effort. I think that's an issue that has come up a couple of times now, and it just seems like we need to be doing more to make sure that folks who are starting families in the city are able to continue serving the community in the appropriate level of capacity at the appropriate time. Item number 62, we are accepting almost $26 million in FEMA reimbursements for Mario expenses, and some of those are also covid expenses dating back to the year 2020. So this is a topic that I know that we're [11:18:39 AM] topic that I know that we're going to cover, when we take up budget, just, you know, as we move forward through the budget process about appropriate levels of reserve. But I have learned a lot in the past year or so about how much the city has to carry expenses as we wait for FEMA to decide how and when they're going to reimburse for some of the costs that the city takes upon itself. And so as we see more winter storms, as we see more catastrophic environmental disasters in our community, we need to make sure that we have healthy levels of reserve to be able to float these reimbursements for up to 4 or 5 years, which is quite a long time for a city budget that has immense needs like ours does. Item 73 is formalizing a partnership between the city, the office of sustainability and Travis county for $50 million in environmental protection agency grants for the climate pollution reduction grant. If awarded, this would fund a program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience for city and county facilities across the five county msa. It's an exciting example of regional [11:19:41 AM] exciting example of regional collaboration. I know there's a lot of, regional collaboration groups like capcoa. Campo talks about greenhouse gas gases as well, but this is an issue that we know doesn't stop at county lines. It doesn't know jurisdictions. What we do in our communities affects the communities around us. And I know not everyone that's that's near us and near Austin and Travis county has the staff capacity and ability to deliver meaningful results on these programs. So I'm really happy that we are looking to lead on this, I know that they want to step up and they want to partner with us in every way that they can to have clean air. But sometimes we have to step up and take the lead on on these issues. Item number 77, as council member Alison alter had spoken to, this morning, we presented a proclamation for gun safety awareness month that will be August 2024. Many lives are affected each year due to a lack of proper storage and handling of firearms. I am proud to have worked with my colleagues for years to ensure that we're providing free gun locks to people in Austin. Safe storage [11:20:41 AM] people in Austin. Safe storage is the first line of defense to ensure that your firearm is not used by someone else to commit a crime, or even accessed by children. When you are not home. These measures help save lives, and I'm proud of the work that we are doing, as well as the work of our advocates like lock arms for life and to our police department who distributes these safety devices. Thank you, thank you, councilmember. >> Councilmember qadri followed by council member Kelly, then council member Ryan alter. >> Great. Thank you. Mayor, before I get into talking about items 88 and 185, I just want to thank council member Alison alter for her work on item 89, and I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor. Thank you. >> Without objection, you'll be shown as a co-sponsor. >> Great, so, yeah, getting into item 88, which is the public bank item, you know, many folks have asked, what is the public bank? There still might be folks who still might not know what a public bank is. So to that, a public bank is a bank that's owned and operated by a public institution. And with the intent of this item is would be the city of Austin and operate in [11:21:42 AM] city of Austin and operate in the public interest. And, you know, the hope is that the public bank provides services at cost and returning profits to the public to be used for local development and services, there's been somewhat of a national movement for public banking. We've seen it in cities like Philadelphia, cities like San Francisco and la. And then we've seen it in states like deep blue North Dakota, which is which has their own state public bank, and I really do hope Austin is able to, to join that, you know, array of, of cities and that, that not only that, not only have it but are thinking about establishing it, I saw years ago, the state of New York actually tried to set up a public bank, and the reason was, is because they were because underserved citizens were often being denied, lending opportunities, and what the hope of this item is that we can create loans, for, for public purposes, reinvest in city revenues, and make sure we stay away from non non predatory, you know, you know, you know, [11:22:44 AM] know, you know, you know, non-predatory non-predatory banking, you know, and making sure that our investments are centered around things like climate change, supporting local economic growth and housing efforts. So I'm really excited about this item. I want to thank the speakers that have spoken in favor of the item, including the student who was here earlier today. I also want to thank, Sarah from my staff who worked on this item. And then I also want to thank my co-sponsors, councilmember Ryan alter, councilmember Vanessa Fuentes, councilmember chito vela. And then I saw on the message board, mayor pro tem Leslie pool and then also councilmember Jose Velasquez. So really appreciate really appreciate the support, and then the other item I'd like to speak on just really quick, item 185, which had to do with the downtown density bonus program, you know, by now it's no secret how much of a fan I am of downtown, not only because it's in the district, but because I was a previous [11:23:44 AM] because I was a previous resident of downtown, and, you know, this item has so much opportunity to do so much good. It helps implement the downtown Austin plan. It takes advantage of our existing efforts to update and streamline our density bonus programs, and it's an opportunity to bring more nuance to our community, benefits with the project connect alignment, cultural subdistricts, and historic preservation, it's an opportunity to ensure that we can maximize participation in our downtown density. Bonus program and ensure it's an attractive program for the private sector, to take advantage of, especially in rough times of development. And I really want to thank the diverse stakeholder groups that, you know, were a part of drafting this resolution, groups like old Austin neighborhood neighborhood association, downtown Austin neighborhood association, judges hill, our partners at the downtown Austin alliance, red river cultural district, and housing works, Austin. And, you know, really want to thank, you know, everyone who's been a part of this, you know, the job's not [11:24:45 AM] this, you know, the job's not finished. You know, the work will continue, but you know, really thankful for, for everyone's involvement. >> Thank you. Council member. Council member Kelly, followed by council member Ryan alter, then council member Vila. >> Thank you. Mayor, I'd like to first address item 92. First and foremost, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my co-sponsors for their support in bringing this crucial public safety item forward with me for consideration today. I also want to give a special thank you to KXAN's Matt grant, who's in the back of the room. His diligent investigative coverage brought this issue to light. I'm also deeply grateful to the Bernard family for sharing their experience publicly regarding what happened to them. I know they intended on being here to speak, but were unable to due to a conflict. However, to the family, your willingness to share your story publicly despite the immense pain caused by the tragic accident, your family experienced, is admirable. My deepest sympathies are with you for all that you have endured. Please know that your courage in the face of adversity is not in vain. The awareness generated from your experience is driving [11:25:45 AM] experience is driving significant, positive change in your community to prevent such tragedies from occurring again. With Austin leading the way, I hope to inspire similar policy changes throughout the state and across the country. I truly appreciate the steadfast support of my colleagues on council and passing this resolution, and thank you to city staff. I eagerly anticipate your recommendations from the passing of this resolution. This fall, and look forward to implementing these vital changes for the betterment of our community. Mayor, I would like to be shown voting no on items 1011, 12, 13. >> Let's do we do that? Okay, cool. All right. Comments >> Okay. I was just going to get it knocked out at an awful fast. All right. Let's try and do your favor. But I usually just have, you know, on everything but yours. >> No I'm teasing. Go ahead. >> Thank you sir I'll, I will be I will be voting no on item 88, which I've comments on, related to public banking. While I sympathize and empathize with the intent, I don't believe that venturing into the banking business is within the scope of [11:26:46 AM] business is within the scope of municipal government. I would like to ensure city council and staff stay focused on delivering reliable and affordable core city services before venturing into something like that. And finally, colleagues, I'm almost done. Mayor, I would, in light of the events this past weekend, I'd like to take a moment and emphasize the importance of unity and togetherness, even in the face of our political differences. It's during times of challenge and adversity that our community's true strength is tested and revealed. So now more than ever, I believe we must come together, support one another, and work collaboratively to address the challenges we face by focusing on our shared humanity and the common good we can overcome any obstacle and create a brighter future for all. And with gratitude and hope, mayor, now I yield. >> Thank you very much, councilmember Ryan alter, followed by councilmember Vila and then councilmember harper-madison. >> Thank you very much. Mayor. I just wanted to speak briefly about item 90, the preservation item. You know, creating housing that people can afford is crucial, and that is why we passed the home initiative. But [11:27:48 AM] passed the home initiative. But preserving housing that is already affordable is just as important. And that's why when we passed the home initiative, we included a preservation, for homes built before 1960 that are typically more naturally affordable. But there was a, you call it, technical error surrounding the Florida area ratio that inadvertently disincentivized the preservation that we were hoping to accomplish. And so that's why I'm bringing forward this item today to start the process to fix that issue. So that developers will want to preserve a home instead of tear it down. And this not only promotes more attainable housing throughout the city, but it also promotes the city's sustainability goals. By keeping our older homes out of landfills. And so I just want to thank council member Velazquez, council member qadri, mayor pro tem pool, and the mayor for supporting me on this item and look forward to us getting that fix here soon. [11:28:49 AM] getting that fix here soon. >> Thank you, councilmember. Councilmember vela, followed by council member harper-madison, >> Thank you mayor. I would like to be added as a co-sponsor to the objection. >> You'll be shown as a co-sponsor. >> And I think it's an excellent item. In addition to the affordability and environmental goals, that item 90, moves forward. There's a historical preservation and a very strong historical preservation element to it that is going to be very important. I know preservation Austin was very supportive of it, and I'm glad that we got that fix done or that we're getting that fix done. It's a really good item. And I look forward to seeing it move through council. I also just wanted to highlight another item that's relevant to my district. Item 23 has to do with the restoration of buttermilk creek. Buttermilk creek is a small creek that's essentially a tributary to, walnut creek, it has been deteriorating and a watershed is going to invest a [11:29:49 AM] watershed is going to invest a sizable amount of money to restore it and to improve the environment in the creek. That will improve the water quality in the creek. And since, since buttermilk creek is a tributary to walnut creek, it will thus improve the water quality in walnut creek. As well, an important step forward in our transition from thinking of our creeks as kind of, you know, drainage and places to dispose of things to looking at them as community assets, really appreciate watershed's work on this. And I know the community there in saint John is very excited about it. One last thing. I look forward to putting maybe a couple of pedestrian and bicycle bridges over, a buttermilk creek at some point in the not too distant future as well. But let's go ahead and get that restoration done first. Thank you mayor. >> Thank you, councilmember harper-madison. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak. I want to start by saying, hello to the colony park folks. I see we have [11:30:49 AM] colony park folks. I see we have multiple items that are going to come up today where we, talk about colony park, which is something I always love to take the opportunity to do, there are several items on this agenda that I'm I'm really pleased to see us pass, including artwork to permanently feature at givens park aquatic facility. If you've driven down 12th street recently, you see there's a lot of effort and time being put into, beautifying our park, so that's awesome. We're authorizing the use of prop B funds for cultural trust projects and for real estate transactions. And, I don't know if y'all noticed the trend today, but east side is trending one, three and four. He's not here for me to say it, but I wanted to offer a moment of personal privilege to take a shout out to council member Velasquez for the rap playlist he sent me over the weekend, kept me going and my garden was happy when it got the rain today, that also brings me to something I'm excited to highlight today regarding the approval of the urban renewal board's recommendation of the [11:31:50 AM] board's recommendation of the pleasant hill collaborative proposal to revitalize block 16 and 18 off east 11th street, to say that I've had a lot of conversations about this project, would definitely be an understatement. I'd like to thank rally Austin, formerly Austin economic development corporation, congratulations on your new name, branding, and all the solid work that you're, you're doing. And, it just makes sense to get a new name as we kick off this first big project, the urban renewal board, that just so you guys know, it's a group of volunteers who spend a lot, an inordinate amount of time. I mean, hours and hours and hours going over really relatively obscure subject matter, like real real estate stuff and financial transactions. And so I just want to thank them for their volunteer efforts and service. It's really important, the applicants for the rfp, the community stakeholders who really stuck through and I mean literal decades of discussion, somebody earlier said something [11:32:50 AM] somebody earlier said something about go faster. And I feel so much sympathy for his commentary. You know, as a private citizen, I always said everything at the city takes too long and costs too much. And the only thing I got by way of actually being behind the curtain is validation that it all takes a long time, and it costs a lot of money more often than not. And so I'm happy to see us making progress, in the historic African American heritage cultural district, I am as we as have this conversation. I want to talk about generations of austinites whose legacy, and frankly, our obligation to that legacy to preserve and carry on with this development as it takes root. I want to make sure that we talk about the seriousness with which everybody took it. I'm keen on assuring, that the process in my honest, professional, integrity driven opinion was fair and it was diligently scrutinized for equity considerations and for community benefit. Maximum community benefit is always the d1 office's goal. There was a [11:33:51 AM] d1 office's goal. There was a caller earlier who implied otherwise, and I just wanted to do two things. One, take the opportunity to open up for you to reach out to us and let's have some communication, about the process and your experience if you'd like, but now that this process is underway, I think we're all anxious to see real progress real soon. So with the exception of a thorough review and debriefing for process improvements, we don't want to look back. We don't want to take any more time. Let's look ahead at the many, many opportunities that we're going to be afforded by our relationships and with the opportunity to acknowledge how closely the d1 team and other members of this 11 member body have, had alongside vital community stakeholders. We've worked with Raleigh Austin for this past three plus years to get to the best starting place possible, for what it's worth, just in terms of context, black 16 and 18, it's the last of it. So the urban renewal board, the urban renewal plan, the urban [11:34:51 AM] urban renewal plan, the urban renewal agency, it was all a part of a process, aka urban renewal. But the urban renewal process is complete now. It was a process whose sole purpose the mission was to combat slum and blight. So an area that was deemed slummed and blighted the east side. Of course, east 11th and 12th street. It's all gone now. So between private and city ownership block 16 and 18 was the last of it. Now all we have is to look forward to how we move forward with the development of this historic and important, relevant community area. With the decades behind us, you know, in a way, the work's just begun. It's my hope that we recognize that east 11th and 12th street, the historic African American cultural heritage district, the six square miles that constituted that area that represented the byproduct of the 1928 master plan. I hope just like juneteenth, we're all [11:35:54 AM] juneteenth, we're all recognizing that juneteenth is not a black holiday. It's an American holiday. East 11th and 12th street is not just the east part of downtown Austin. It is the historic African American cultural heritage district, and we are few in this city. People who look like me, which, by the way, shout out to seeing a lot of folks in this room today who look like me. I always appreciate when that's the case that we are here and we are mighty, and this is our collective history. It's not just black history in Austin, and the sooner that we acknowledge that it's all of our history, the more that we collectively make active investments in continued development. I'll close with saying, as we look forward, I will be one of the many folks who plan to visit this new development, considering it's blocks away from my home to support small businesses, to dine, to enjoy my community alongside my beautifully diverse neighborhood and city. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and colleagues. >> Thank you. Council member, members, the motion was made by council member vela and seconded by council member qadri to approve the consent agenda. As [11:36:55 AM] approve the consent agenda. As read. I have councilmember Allison alter voting no on item 90. Council member Kelly voting no on 88. Council member Kelly, I'll recognize you for the other items. >> Do you have pen and paper ready? >> I'm. I'm looking right at you. >> All right, I'll try to go slow. Ten. 11. 12. 1352, 59, 73, 80, 90 and 91. And thank you, mayor. >> Is there anyone else wishing to be shown vote council member Ellis I'm not going to vote no, but I'm just going to abstain on 88. >> The public banking only because I need more education on it. And I'm sure there's tons of lovely folks that are going to be happy to do that over the coming weeks. As we get that information. >> All right. Anyone wishing to be shown recusing themselves from voting on an item on I. I have you, councilmember Allison alter voting abstaining on item number 70. You still want to be recognized? Okay. >> Yeah, I want to also abstain on 88 for similar reasons to [11:37:56 AM] on 88 for similar reasons to council member Ellis. >> Councilmember Allison alter will be shown abstaining on 70 and 88, council member Ellis abstaining on 88. Is there anyone else wishing to be shown abstaining on an item? Okay. I want to read the nose one more time to make sure I have the record correct. No. Councilmember Allison alter is voting no on item 90. Council member Kelly, please, confirm 88 1011 12 13, 52, 59, 73, 8091. >> Yes, sir. 90 and 91. Yes. >> I'm sorry. 90 and 91. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be shown voting? No. Anyone else wishing to recuse themselves? Abstentions? I have council member Allison alter abstaining on items 70 and 88, and council member Ellis abstaining on 88. All right, any further discussion? Hearing none without objection. The consent agenda is [11:38:56 AM] objection. The consent agenda is adopted with the nose and the abstentions. As I read into the record. Thank you. Council members. Members. Item number four was pulled. I'm going to recognize the mayor pro tem on item number four. >> Colleagues, you have in front of you the proposed correction on line six to read. Whereas Austin water is constructing and then delete the words a and expansion so that that sentence now reads whereas Austin water is constructing an expansion to 100. Mgd to the walnut creek wastewater treatment plant expansion that includes capacity enhancement projects, the mayor pro tem moves approval of item number four. >> It is seconded by. I'll second the motion. Councilmember [11:39:57 AM] second the motion. Councilmember pool was is recognized, was recognized, and she moves that item number four be amended in the way that she just read into the record that is seconded by council member villa, discussion on the amendment. Councilman, just real quick. >> It was an an inadvertent error, and so we appreciate that being drawn to our attention and make the correction the any further discussion on the motion to amend the vote is on the motion to amend, without objection, the pool amendment, number one, to item number four is adopted. >> That will take us back to the main motion. Is there any discussion on the main motion as amended by the pool amendment hearing? None without objection. Item number four, as amended, is adopted. Members. Without objection, we will recess the meeting of the Austin city council at 11:43 A.M. And call [11:40:57 AM] council at 11:43 A.M. [11:51:23 AM] I will call back to order the meeting. The regular meeting of the Austin, city council at 11:54 A.M. Members, we will take up item 104, item number 104. The reason we're taking up item 104 is it is a public hearing with action related to the tax increment financing reinvestment zone number 20. And so I'm [11:52:23 AM] zone number 20. And so I'm trying to take it up in conjunction with what that board just voted, without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 104, and I will turn to the city clerk's office, to let us know about people that have may have signed up to speak. >> Thank you. Mayor, there's no one signed up for item 104 members. >> There's no one that has signed up to speak on item number 104. So without objection, I will close the public hearing on item number 104 and entertain a motion related to item number 104. Motion is made by the mayor pro tem. It's seconded by council member vela. Is there any discussion with regard to item 104? Hearing none without objection. Item 104 is adopted. >> Mayor. Yes, I just want to congratulate council member harper-madison on this next milestone for colony park and all of the community. >> That's a big deal. It's a big [11:53:24 AM] >> That's a big deal. It's a big deal. >> It's a big deal. Thank you. >> I appreciate that. I was trying to resist the urge to be long winded, so I held my tongue. Thank you both. >> Well done. Thank you. Members. What? I'm going to do instead of going into the public hearings, but we're four minutes away from the time certain. And while I hate to waste even a minute, what what I'm going to suggest we do is we recess until the time certain of noon, and we will take up our public communications at that point in time. And unless there's objection, the city council will be in recess until 12:00 noon. It is 1156. We are in recess until 12:00 noon. Point. [11:57:32 AM] Point. >> All right. We'll start back in one minute. I'll call back to order the Austin city council at the regular meeting of the Austin city council. It is 12:00 pm on July 18th, 2024. We are at our time, certain, general citizen. General public communication. And I will turn to the city [11:58:32 AM] And I will turn to the city clerk, what I would like to say before we start is that we need to maintain decorum. But also, if your name is called, it is for you to come forward and be prepared to speak. So if your name is called, don't wait in the back or sit in your seat. Please come forward. And if there is no one sitting at or no one standing at the microphone, just come forward to the microphone. And that's out of deference to the people that are speaking after you, so that they don't have to wait, on, on your coming forward. So with that, I will turn to the city clerk and ask that you please call those who have signed up to speak. >> Thank you, mayor Elliott Amar, followed by Ruth Ciborowski, followed by Yesenia Cornejo. Please make your way to the front. >> If your names been called, please. You go to the microphone. It doesn't matter if your name has been called. [11:59:35 AM] your name has been called. Please come to the microphone. >> Mayor Watson council members. Good day, I won't ask you to vote for against the cease fire on the other side of the world, not because you're not entitled to an opinion, but because you were not elected to solve foreign conflicts. Instead, I'd like to propose a solution. I'm Israeli. I know we can be a lot more forward. We like to haggle, and we'll critique your hummus. But we're hard working people. Our innovations have propelled the global economy and brought on immense progress. And no amount of paid tiktok propaganda can change the fact that it is couple bond with the united States. People across. Antisemitism is on the rise, but the word rise makes it sound like some economic shift or a trending hashtag. Antisemitism is not a trend. It's a disease, a chronic illness of society. It has symptoms, it affects our lives, and it must be treated. The young generation here is [12:00:36 PM] The young generation here is desperate for meaning. It's easy to manipulate them with big words. They don't understand. But as a person driven by both logic and empathy, I'm mortified by the lack of both. I've seen feminists deny horrific sexual crimes against Israeli women, or worse yet, justify those acts. College students of all backgrounds who shame others for cultural appropriation. Nowhere is as if they have anything to do with Arab culture. Lgbt folks rally behind fanatics who would stone them to death had we lived under sharia law. Queers for palestine. You're dead in palestine unless you seek shelter in Israel. As an openly gay man, I'm appalled by the ignorance in our community. The peer pressure and the hypocrisy that push these poor folks to align themselves with a movement that rejects their own identity. I've been called a white colonialist. Me, a Jew born in the ancestral land of the 12 indigenous tribes of Israel. And allow me to drop the PC for a moment. I know that even in the dead of winter, white is not the first thing that comes to mind when you see me. I have Moroccan blood and a lot of grease in my [12:01:38 PM] blood and a lot of grease in my veins, and my European ancestors who had fair skin were stripped of their rights and sent to death camps exactly because they were not viewed as white. Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to the jewish state, people give up all their values and the mental gymnastics can blow your mind. It's easy for those carrying that anti-Israel and anti-american sentiment to try and pressure you. It's easier to do that here in a free country than to protests in arabic against the oppressive Palestinian leadership that's responsible for the most despicable crimes since the. But it's not your job to fix their system. Just like I voiced my thoughts in the Israeli government in hebrew. But here's what you can do pass a resolution that the city of Austin will not release any statements on a foreign country's policies, and the hateful rhetoric stand firm against bullying and protect our community from further division. That's why you were elected. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. >> If your name's been called, please come forward. >> Hello. >> I do have. Thank you. My name [12:02:39 PM] >> I do have. Thank you. My name is Ruth goldhawk lebowski. I first came to Austin in 1985 to attend the university of Texas, Austin, where I got my doctorate in communication studies. I am the child of one holocaust survivor. My husband is the child of two holocaust survivors, and we have family members in Israel. Not because it is a colonial enterprise, but because it was a place of refuge at a critical time. And it remains a dynamic, dynamic country, in my training, one of the things I learned at university of Texas is illustrated in this book is that when calling upon anyone to take action, when attempting to persuade you need to consider what is within the realm of possibility for that audience to act upon. When the city council is asked to pass a resolution favoring a cease fire in gaza, it is not within the city council's capacity to affect that. So then the question [12:03:42 PM] that. So then the question really becomes, on whose behest and on whose bequest are you being asked to do this? It is only a symbolic gesture. And who's asking you to do that? So this is my first slide. It is the co Austin coalition for palestine that has been very vocal in these chambers. And as you can see, one of their big flags is from the river to the sea. Palestine will be free, let me be clear. They're not asking for a two state solution. They're not asking for peace. They're not asking for a bilateral cease fire. They are not asking for a return of hostages. And they are not asking for a lasting peace. So let's take a little closer. Look. Let's see, I have never operated one of these clickers before. Okay. This is from their website, the Austin for palestine coalition. And how they define anti-semitism. They say that because of the dangerous conflation of all jewish people, Israel has also [12:04:42 PM] jewish people, Israel has also been an increase in anti-semitism. Well, that's an interesting cause and effect relationship. They're suggesting there. So there, you know, is there really a conflation? I think they're trying to suggest that out of world jewry, only a fraction are zionists. Are pro-Israel, are in favor of a secure and stable state, a nation state where it is located now. And, I haven't done a survey. This is just a rough diagram that I came up with. I would propose that if world jewry you have the majority are supporters of Israel. What what the coalition would define as zionists, they also want to distance themselves from being anti-semitic. So they come up with this idea that anti-zionism is not anti- semitism, but zionism is a colonial ideology backed by imperial western powers. Is my time up already? [12:05:44 PM] powers. Is my time up already? >> I'm sorry. Your time has expired. Oh. Thank you, but thank you for being here. Thank you. >> Yesenia Cornejo, Courtney toretto, holly Firestone. If your name has been called, please make your way to the front and state your name into the microphone. >> We can only have one person at the microphone at a time. Please take a seat. >> Hello. My name, hello, mayor and council. My name is Yesenia Cornejo. I am a member of unite here local 23, and I work at tortilla at the airport for five years. I am proud to serve to the to the city and welcome be seated and travel every day. We want to come and let you know [12:06:47 PM] want to come and let you know that we are fighting for a $25 minimum wage. The city's minimum wage increase help us a lot, and we are pressure. The council word on that. But we work for a private company that make millions of dollars every year at our airport. A private company should not pay just the minimum. I got. I go to work every day and don't give the minimum. We will keep you all informed about Harris campaign and we are pressure. You are [12:07:51 PM] and we are pressure. You are support. Have a blessed day and thank you so much for everything. >> Thank you. Appreciate you being here. And if your name's been called, please come forward to the microphone. >> Good afternoon. My name is Courtney toretto. I work for the anti-defamation league and I live in district eight since 1913. The mission of adl has been to stop the defamation of the jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Today, adl is a global leader in fighting anti-semitism, exposing extremism, delivering anti-bias education, and fighting the spread of hate in our communities and online. I'm very honored that in my life I have worked with incredible people who want to improve our world for the better. Previously, the civil servants and rep Doggett [12:08:52 PM] civil servants and rep Doggett office and now the amazing women who make up the adl Austin team. They care so deeply about fighting all hate in our community. Many of the people in this room and on your dais can attest to their dedication. The last time I was here, I spoke about how both my jewish community and our Palestinian neighbors were grief stricken and traumatized not just by the israel- hamas war, but by generations of violence and how a ceasefire resolution would exacerbate that trauma, how it would divide our communities. And that now was the time to come together, to begin to heal, to move forward. Since then, I've been doxxed the way I look, the color of my skin, who I am as a human being, have all been slandered and mocked. I was not given grace to express the fear that so many in our community feel daily in the face of the astronomical increase in anti-semitism in this country. The fear that has us covering up religious symbols or hiding our nationalities. I tried to invoke compassion for our community, but instead received derision and hate. And not just me. Despite the fact that a cease [12:09:53 PM] Despite the fact that a cease fire resolution in Austin is solely a performative motion, one that in countless communities has given platform to vicious antisemitism and hate. Members of city council have also been verbally abused, accused of having blood on their hands, told they are supporters of genocide, called names, screamed at and sworn at their crime. Focusing on the matters that directly impact austinites daily lives. So how do we move forward? How do we disagree peacefully? How do we confront our biases which have led to such vitriol? How do we work together to combat hate from the white supremacists, and religious extremists who continue to grow stronger in Texas? Please know that adl will continue to fight against all forms of hate and extremism, and we hope that you will see us as a resource and ally to the activists in our community. I would like to say, it's not that you owe us, it's that, you know us. You know that adl Austin will be the first in line to speak out against hate. All hate. You know that if you need us to sign on to a letter or [12:10:54 PM] us to sign on to a letter or show up at an event, we will be there. If there is an incident in your community, we are a resource for you and we will support you here at home. We must focus on what brings us together rather than what divides us. Instead of hating one another, we call for respectful dialog where we can come together and learn from each other's differences, find each other's humanity. I believe in a better Austin for us all, more just more compassionate and less hateful. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you, mayor Watson and members of city council. I am holly Firestone. Over a decade ago, during my few year stint away from Austin, I went on a first date and I said, listen, I'm not trying to make any assumptions here, but if this is going to go anywhere, there's two things you need to know and agree to. I'm raising my kids jewish and I'm moving back to Austin. Those are non-negotiables. Luckily, that guy agreed with my demands and [12:11:55 PM] guy agreed with my demands and in 2016, I came home to Austin with my husband in tow, and we now have two beautiful jewish austinite children. My judaism and my love for Austin have always been the two halves of a whole me. Our values as austinites and my values as a jewish person come together perfectly. An example, oddly enough, a shared appreciation for a cross-dressing activist named Leslie. Your legs are great, by the way. Maybe not Leslie great, but great. Because that's who I never tried to compete with. >> Leslie because that's who we are as Jews in austinites. >> We cherish our differences and the things that make us unique and even weird. Maybe especially the things that make us weird. We also cherish the things that make us the same, like brisket, the food of my people, my Austin people, my jewish people, and my Austin jewish people. I hope that if nothing else, we can always agree on delicious, delicious brisket as the granddaughter of holocaust survivors who survived the horrors of auschwitz, I feel it's my duty, my responsibility, and my privilege to be standing here today to show up for our jewish community. It has been a difficult last several months, [12:12:55 PM] difficult last several months, giving birth to my beautiful baby girl, just 11 days after the horrific attacks in Israel has weighed heavily on my heart. At a time when the jewish community is desperately needed to be wrapped up in the love and comfort of our neighbors, we've seen quite the opposite. Protests filled with hateful and anti-semitic rhetoric, conspiracy theories being hung on banners over the highway, vandalism of homes, schools and other public places. This isn't the Austin I've come to know and love. The Austin I have come to know, and love brings people together channels passion into respectful and meaningful dialog. In early December, I heard glass break in my two year old's bedroom. I walked into his room and I saw a busted window, glass strewn about and a rock on the floor. I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me. My immediate thought was that someone did this because we were jewish turned out to be an accident, which normally would have been my first assumption. I'm usually a very happy go lucky person, but that has been taken from me as Jews. Right now we live in a hyper vigilant state. How could we not? When we hear chants in our own city hall screaming for globalizing the [12:13:56 PM] screaming for globalizing the intifada, we're constantly on alert. We're constantly scared, and we don't know what to expect from day to day. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted thinking about the balance of teaching my kids to be proud of who they are, but not too proud to celebrate our special holidays with joy, but not too publicly. What kind of future is that for my children? I can't stress enough how discussing a cease fire resolution within these chambers will only fan the flames of antisemitism in this city and beyond. And to what end? I'm jewish, I'm an austinite. I love my judaism and I love my Austin with all of my heart. Murray Watson. Members of the city council, thank you for continuing to make Austin a safe and welcoming place for all of us. >> Thank you Maya, Glenn tori, Bobby marks. >> Good afternoon and mayor Watson and all of you. City council, this is my second time standing here. And so thank you for allowing me to speak again. And I'm also Israeli and also jewish, and I've been living in Austin for five years, and we [12:14:58 PM] Austin for five years, and we actually chose to live in Austin because it's such an amazing city. And my subject today is to call for intifada. That has been loud and clear here in Austin, and I'm glad that today it's not as hostile as the last time I was speaking here. And I'm just going to read from my paper, the call for intifada was very loud and clear during the pro-palestinian protest. Either here in this chamber or in other main public gathering is in fact, sorry you can see how stressed I am. You're doing fine. It's a call for a violent act, and it has an impact on our community's safety. The word intifada evokes complex emotions and historical context. It is often associated with uprising and resistance movement. This term has resurfaced within alarming implications for our city and its residents. Let us acknowledge that Austin is a city known for its vibrant [12:15:59 PM] city known for its vibrant diversity and welcoming spirit. We pride ourselves for being a community where people from all walks of life can live, work and thrive together peacefully. Yet the call for intifada threatens to disturb this harmony when used in a contemporary context, intifada often signifies a call to arm and can sow seeds of division, fear, and uncertainty within our neighbors neighborhoods. It does not differentiate between people. In fact, it aims to destroy the peace of public spaces and hurt as many. I've been witness that throughout my whole life. Back in Israel. Thankfully not here as citizens of Austin, we must confront this challenge and consider its implications seriously. The impact on Austin's safety cannot be overstated. Safety is not just a matter of physical security, but also the sense of security that allows us to go about our daily lives without fear. When the [12:16:59 PM] lives without fear. When the specter of intifada looms large, it creates an atmosphere of tension and distrust. It can encourage individuals and groups to act outside the bounds of law and order, leading to incidents of severe violence. This is not the Austin we know and love, a city where mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. Intifada is making us question our neighbors and ourselves. Now more than ever, we must reaffirm our commitment to unity and dialog and reject all, all calls to divide us based on religion, ethnicity or ideology. Let us embrace our shared humanity and work towards solutions that foster understanding and build bridges of trust. Thank you. >> Thank you. Please come forward if your name has been called. >> Oh well, my name is Kyle. I thought I was named well, are you Glenn? [12:18:00 PM] you Glenn? >> Glenn? >> Tori, Bobby marks? >> I thought that was you. So. Yeah. You been called. >> Thank you. Thank you for recognizing me, sir. And thank you for your past support of us veterans. I remember when you were a senator, a Texas state senator. I came to you. You welcomed us in your office, and you did a video in support of the Austin veterans arts festival. And that helped us a lot to continue moving. So and growing. This is our sixth annual festival. First, I'd like to ask, are there any veterans here to please stand? Yeah, there you go. We got one in. And she's a I know her. She's a combat. Combat helicopter pilot. Afghanistan who went in and did a lot of heroic work. So I'm here to talk to you about the Austin veterans arts festival and a couple of other things. One of the things we this is our sixth annual, veterans arts festival, and we've just been going mainly working with [12:19:03 PM] going mainly working with volunteers to get to this sixth annual. It's been I can't even explain it to you. It's been a very powerful thing. But one of the things that we really need right now is further recognition for the things we've been doing over the six years. And I'd like to ask the city council and the council members to please consider putting up lamppost banners for our festival. This is festival city. We can't afford to do it, but it would be a sense of pride to all of the veterans to know that we're being appreciated. For with this festival, the Austin veterans arts festival, which lasts one month, a lot of people may not know that this year it's going to be from October 11th to October the 12th. And we have a lot of things. If you go to our website lined up for us to do also, we have, we're adding a film festival this year, but one of the really big things that's happened for us is I wrote a, we do now. We do tournaments, we do, so one of the tournaments I [12:20:04 PM] do, so one of the tournaments I just wrote is for a basketball, a horse basketball league. I sent that to the spurs and we met for two months, and the spurs is now sponsoring this league here in the city of Boston for veterans, military personnel and young adults. And, it's going to be a really big thing. They're doing the whole thing. They're providing the costume, not the costume, the uniforms, the place to play, the referees, everything. So wanted to make you aware for that, aware of that. It's going to be starting very, very soon, also, Jim Darwin has been the person who has been doing the parades. I'm part of the parade committee, the veterans day parade. He's been doing it since 2016. I would like to ask that you give a special message to him. He's about to step down soon, a commendation for the work that he has been doing. He's done it even through covid and when we had to cancel it. But he did it even through covid and after covid, this year, I [12:21:06 PM] and after covid, this year, I ask that you go to our website and just see what we're doing, okay? We appreciate what you're doing. >> Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for your service. Bobby marks, Nora Lieberman, Salman khan, is there anyone else? >> No. Mayor >> Is there somebody on the phone? All right. These folks seem to think there's somebody on the phone. All right, those are all members. Those are all the people that have signed up to speak, that are prepared to speak with us today in our public, our general public communication, without objection, we will. The Austin city council will be in recess until 101 o'clock pm. It is 1224. The city council is in recess. Thank you. Members, just so that you'll know, the first [12:22:14 PM] so that you'll know, the first item we will take up will be item 112. Item 112 at 1:00. Stostad. I, I don't know the phone number that I don't want to. >> One. Two. One two. Two. Two. [12:34:34 PM] >> One. Two. One two. Two. Two. >> Two. One. Two. Three. Four. Sounds good. >> Check check check. One two. Check. One, two. >> That's a little. That's kind of hot in. I'm gonna bounce to him when he starts playing. So. I get a little monitor for that. [12:35:49 PM] I get a little monitor for that. >> Thank you. >> You take that guitar out of my guitar. Where's the key to the city manager? >> Probably just vocals. I'll turn that down. That's all right. You guys are dancing. You know, [12:36:50 PM] You guys are dancing. You know, you can probably take any of my guitar amp out of the monitor unless you need it for any of your reasons. But I think I can hear myself, especially with no drummer. Oh, yeah. That's the guitar. >> Still monitors. >> I mean, I don't need any guitar monitoring. I feel like I can still. >> Yeah, actually, only bass in the monitor that you did. >> Yeah, I think it's probably all we need is bass and vocals. And that. [12:37:51 PM] And that. >> That's us. >> Guys. >> That's the line for cliff line. >> Rock. >> Good. Well, we'll start it up. That's great. Right. One of my favorite parts of the day, and we get. I promised I was not going of course, we now have a new city manager whose name is tc. Broadnax, and so all day long, I've been thinking, I hope I don't stand up and say, well, ladies and gentlemen, tc Broadnax, instead, it's Matthew Broadnax. And, we're really pleased to have Matthew Broadnax. And you've heard you've heard just a little bit of snippet as, as they warm up and you can tell I'm excited about what we're getting ready [12:38:52 PM] about what we're getting ready to hear, after cutting his teeth in the smoky blues jams of Houston, guitarist Matthew Broadnax has quickly become an in-demand sideman and formidable front man in Austin, Texas. A true student of the blues, Broadnax, his encyclopedic knowledge of vintage blues has allowed to play, allowed him to play a brand of blues that is genuine and true to the art without being derivative. His repertoire includes classic blues, funk, rock and roll, and New Orleans inspired tunes. Matthew Burt Broadnax currently has his own band, Matthew Broadnax, and the blues sherpas. His. He is lead guitar player for birdlegg and the tight fit blues band. Other bands that he's played with include miss Lavelle white, Oscar Ornelas, blues in the night, jabo and the old dogs, and the Eric Demer band. Ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Broadnax. >> Thank you very much, mayor. Watson 120123. [12:39:55 PM] Watson 120123. Oh, well, I'm going into Austin. I'm about to hit interstate 35. Well, I'm going into Austin, about to hit interstate 35. Well, I see that rush hour traffic may not make it out alive. While I've been going about 24, when the speed limit [12:41:00 PM] about 24, when the speed limit 70. Well, I'm going about 24 when the speed limit 70. But it ain't any better on mopac, because, you know, those guys are going back to 23. That's Derek o'brien on guitar over there. Well, they say they can fix it [12:43:42 PM] Well, they say they can fix it all. With more roads, better busses. To. Well, they say they can fix it all. >> But more roads. >> Better busses. To. But it seems like no matter what, I got those I-35 blues. Thank you very much. >> You gotta love Austin, Texas. You get live music and public comment at the same time. Love it. Now that was great. Let me come over. I'll come over to you. How about that? Use your microphone. >> Go right ahead. Why don't you hold on to that, >> And one of the things we do. Am I on all right. One of the things we do, of course, is we [12:44:43 PM] things we do, of course, is we recognize, our our live music because it means so much to our community. And so I'm going to make a proclamation today as mayor, be it known that whereas the city of Austin, Texas, is blessed with many creative musicians whose talent extends 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, therefore, I, Kirk Watson, mayor of the live music capital of the world, Austin, Texas, do hereby proclaim July 18th, 2024 as Matthew Broadnax day in Austin, Texas. Let's give him a round of applause. Thank you sir. >> Thank you. Tell us. >> Tell us where we can hear you, how we go about hearing you, and where we can follow you on social. >> Thank you, you can find me at facebook.com. Slash Matthew [12:45:44 PM] facebook.com. Slash Matthew Broadnax music, next show will actually be in bastrop on the 26th, but our next show in Houston or in in Austin will be with, Gil over here on the 31st, doing a duo set at Evangeline cafe at 7:00. So please come on out. The food is great, the music is great, and hope to see you down there. >> Ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Broadnax. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The Austin city council will be in recess until 1:00 pm, and we'll start back promptly at one. Thank you and thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. >> Good to see . [12:57:44 PM] . We. >> Good afternoon. Everybody. I will call back to order the Austin city council at this regular scheduled meeting of the Austin city council. It's 1:00 pm on July 18th, 2024. When we took the recess, I indicated that when we came back at 1:00, the first item we would take up is item 112 members. Item 112 is both conduct of a public hearing and considering a resolution without objection, I will open. We will open the public hearing on item number 112, and I will [12:58:44 PM] on item number 112, and I will turn to the clerk's office to help us. It's my understanding that we have some interpretation with item 112. And so I'll turn to you all to help me out with that. >> Thank you. Mayor, I'll call, may Al sarhili. And if the interpreter could make their way to the front as well. For six minutes. >> Yes. >> Good afternoon. Hi. I am mayor Saleh, and I had second at Travis park. A. Number one. Sara number two. Laundry a number three. The bridge, >> May I please, please. [12:59:45 PM] >> May I please, please. >> That's what I was going to ask you to please do. >> Sure. My name is may Saleh, and I'm speaking regarding item 112. And, I have a few points to, to express here today and share with you. One is closing the outside doors because of the fact that a lot of, theft and also, security purposes as well, we also like to improve the, the laundry condition, the laundry room condition, also the cooling system, needs to be changed, we have different setup for it, summer and the winter, and sometimes overlap and would not really provide the appropriate, air conditioning, for the appropriate time. Also, we need, [1:00:46 PM] appropriate time. Also, we need, the playground, or gym for the children, and also places for people or for the parents or the families to sit down, we would like to also have a translator in the office. >> Yes. >> Number four, to interact with the academy. Shabani okay. >> So far, changing the counter setting, because there are two old, also the refrigeration, they are small and old as well. >> As well as. >> Okay, improving the windows setup and improving it to, to be [1:01:47 PM] setup and improving it to, to be much better, in terms of use and appearance. Also, allowing, the, the freezers or letting the. The, the they need, freezers as well to store, food. Thank you. >> Thank you, thank you very much. >> All right. Thank you, sir. >> Next we have speaking on item 112, Desmond Alarcon. Samuel nazzari and Jeff Meyer. >> If your name's been called, please come forward and state your name for the record. And please give your testimony. >> Okay. Good morning. My name is Desmond Alarcon. I'm an organizer with Basta and support tenants at Travis park, who are organizing their neighbors as [1:02:47 PM] organizing their neighbors as part of the heroes of Travis park tenants association. And I'd like to make some comments regarding item 112. So, as you may know, Travis park has a large and diverse community of- residents, immigrants and refugees. People with disabilities, seniors and young families with children. And I've spoken with a lot of tenants over the last six weeks who've told me that their specific needs and concerns aren't being addressed. For example, many of the tenants I've spoken with, and in particular the immigrants, say that they receive little help, respect or empathy from office staff and don't have access to information their primary languages, some tenants have even told us that they're afraid of making mistakes or asking questions because they don't want to be given lease violations or threatened with eviction, not to mention many issues with the property itself, like poor infrastructure, lack of accessibility, and substandard conditions throughout. Now there's word of renovations, plans, and tenants have told me they haven't received any real information about them, and they fear that the changes that they want and the concerns they have around how the renovations are going to be carried out aren't going to be addressed. So given [1:03:48 PM] going to be addressed. So given tenants history, with the ownership and management, they're worried that they're not going to be respected or listened to in the process, tenants do want these renovations to be carried out, but they hope and I do as well, that this can be an opportunity for a justice to be served and for a permanentimprovement in their living conditions, their treatment, and their overall quality of life. I know that tenants have spoken with would greatly appreciate support from city council in their efforts to achieve this. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> In the name of the most merciful god, this is Samuel hakhnazarian, one of the Travis park apartment residents. We have lots of issues about the rent, repair, maintenance, and etc. But the important thing is the behavior of the management with the resident. I am one of those people who work with the use of special forces and CIA in Afghanistan, and put my family and myself lives in danger. But when I came here and, by civil special immigration, HIV or [1:04:52 PM] special immigration, HIV or special immigration Visa, this is not what we should supposed to deserve. And Travis park apartment, especially with the behaviors that we saw a lot of disrespect, respect from management and we have lots of issues, as I mentioned before. And I'm happy today to have this opportunity to speak instead of my people is in a state of those refugees were not here and they were not able to speak English and scared or treated by management. Travis park apartment and to request their rights from Travis park apartments. And I'm also a volunteer to work in the management to the leasing office to help my people, those who were living in the Travis park apartments because they always went to Travis park apartment to request for some maintenance or repair or something else. But always the source. More rude or disrespect. So disrespect from the management and the state. Many times on the line to [1:05:54 PM] Many times on the line to request for some easier condition or anything else to repair for them. But they didn't. Receive any back from the management. And because they have kids and family over there that they have sicknesses in the house, you know, they have people are sick in the house in this hot situation. And the Travis park apartments, they need to be, take serious action on their, if you mind, please. And this is what all I have to mention today. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. You're welcome. >> Jeff Meyer, Sarah Watkins, Dalia sharif. >> Yes. Okay >> Hi. My name is Jeff Meyer, and I'm coming before you to open a dialog about needed renovations of Travis parks that no current residents have [1:06:54 PM] no current residents have anything or know about, we would like more information before the renovations begin, I have been a resident of Travis park for about nine plus years now and have been constantly harassed by the current maintenance and office staff about my physical disability, as well as my parents partners, extreme mental disability condition. Our conditions are well known to the management and maintenance staff and have even gone as far as trying to evict us because of such limitations. We were hoping that with the new renovations, there will be a lot of new improvements and fixes to the property, such as more handicapped apartments. As I have moved into the non handicapped apartment for the last three years and have been charged in excess of 300 plus dollars for wear and tear done by my wheelchair because I am not able to navigate through the [1:07:55 PM] not able to navigate through the narrow hallways as well as we would like more understanding by the current staff. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Appreciate you being here. >> Sarah Watkins, Dalia sharif, Eli wise, Ari, Samir, if your name's been called, please make your way to the podium. >> Good afternoon. My name is Sarah Watkins. I'm an oranizer with Basta, and I support my colleague desme and the efforts of the tenants with the heroes of Travis park tenants association, for some history here. Basta began organizing with tenants at Travis park, back in 2017, and at that time, concerns were really similar to what you've heard from folks testifying today and what you will hear with the folks who are remaining to speak, folks were looking to have some really, [1:08:57 PM] looking to have some really, really significant repair needs addressed, and they wanted on site staff to treat them with professionalism, dignity and respect. Their organizing efforts at that time were met with incredible hostility from ownership and management. Their concerns were very variously responded to by calling the police threatening evictions, and in one case, even filing an eviction, so in spite of a fear at that time that they could lose their homes for organizing, they organized anyway, and they supported their neighbors and they collected repair needs. And over the course of several months and years, they actually won some repairs, and they won, some changes in some of the behavior from the office, but as you heard today, those changes really have not lasted, a [1:10:00 PM] really have not lasted, a majority of the tenants that dismay and I have talked with, really want renovations and really believe that they're sorely needed. And in spite of the fear that they're going to be retaliated against again, tenants are now organizing again because they believe that these renovations could be a catalyst for real change at Travis park. It is absolutely critical that tenants and the tenants association be included in renovation plans, and that they are listened to and that their concerns be fully addressed. These renovations should not just be treated as an opportunity to improve infrastructure. They should be treated as a chance to finally Wright the many, many wrongs that have been done at Travis [1:11:02 PM] that have been done at Travis park. On a final note, I want to say that everybody who's here testifying before you today, is here testifying for the first time, and I know that they appreciate your support, and your continued support for the organizing that they're doing. Thank you. >> Thank you. If your name's been called, please feel free to come forward. >> Hi, Mike. Can you hear me? My name is Eli wise, and I represent the Travis park preservation, LLC, which is the group that's purchasing the property, and I'm very well aware of all the concerns that have been made so far and may continue to be made. The property with our leadership has a reservation of tax exempt bonds and low income housing tax credits through tdhca and a [1:12:03 PM] credits through tdhca and a partnership with the Travis county housing finance corporation. That is all ready to close on Tuesday, so this this, resolution that we're looking for is the final piece that we need to close and put the renovations to work, we are more than willing and excited to work with the tenant association and the tenants themselves. And Basta to Wright all of the wrongs that are being described. But our company has been doing this for 40 years. We do. We preserve affordable housing across the country and have done so in Texas and in Austin a lot already, so we're excited to preserve the affordability here for another 30 years and make Travis park as nice as we can for all the people who live there. And I'm here for questions if people have them. >> Well, I've got a couple. Yeah. And I apologize to the people that also signed up to speak that I'm going to take a few more minutes on this. Tell me the name of your company, >> The ownership entity is Travis park preservation, LLC. [1:13:05 PM] Travis park preservation, LLC. >> The who is that? >> L and M development partners, L and M development L and M yeah. >> And are they are. That's the majority owner of the partnership. >> Yeah, >> And what other. You said you're been in business for 40 years, but it sounds like this was just created for this one entity, how long is that entity existed, >> Maybe six months. >> Okay. >> Yeah, it's a single purpose entity for the ownership of the property. >> And what is the for the 40 year? Who's the 40 year entity, >> L and M and what? >> How is it set up? Is it set up in a way to shield liability for L and M, the single purpose entity? >> It's a requirement of the lender and investor that are investing in the project. >> Who's providing the money, >> The most significant portion is, federal, like, low income housing tax credit that's awarded. >> You said it's set up as a requirement of the lender, is that's not the lender? [1:14:05 PM] that's not the lender? >> No, that's the equity investors. >> Who is the equity investor, >> Merchants capital is the equity investor, whereas merchants capital located, Indianapolis. >> All right. Tell me how it is that we make sure. It sounds to me like you agree with the people that have testified that this has been sort of a disaster for them to have to live in. Is that correct? >> That's why we're buying it. And, making it better. >> Yeah. All right. So how do we make sure as a, as a body here that when we have this sort of leverage where we can make improvements that these people obviously need, and you obviously you're now at least affirmatively stating that the reason for your purchasing it is to give them how do we make sure that we can have we will have your compliance. >> I'm not sure how exactly you want to handle that, but the property is going to be subject to all sorts of inspections at the state and the city level, just like it normally would, and [1:15:06 PM] just like it normally would, and again, we've been working with Travis county hfc and well yeah, but but I'm talking I'm not unfortunately I don't serve on any. >> Maybe not unfortunately, but I don't serve on any, Travis county body, I want to make sure that that these people and I don't know that I speak for everybody on the dais, but I'll speak for myself. I want to make sure that these people that you are admitting are living in kind of a disastrous situation, are going to get the benefit of this in a way that we can continue to make sure that they're protected. And I need some form of assurance in regard to that. >> All right. Well, I'm not sure how you want me to assure that right here in this moment, but we're happy to tell me what your title is. Project manager. >> Project manager? Do you have authority to commit that? You're going to involve these people in the design process, make sure that they're aware of what's going on, create some mechanism so that they're given notice [1:16:06 PM] so that they're given notice about when things are going to happen so that they'll be in a position to not be subjected to improvements, that while they may end up being improvements, they make their lives miserable at the time. >> I can give you my personal authority. >> No, no, no, I want to know whether you're here to represent. I am some company and under your loan documents of the Indianapolis bank are you in a position to make those promises? >> I don't sign those loan documents personally. But, yes, I represent the firm. >> You don't know of anything that would cause you to be in breach of those documents by promising. That's the way you're going to handle this? >> Definitely not. >> All right, miss Demayo, could I ask you a question or two? Yes. >> Mandy Demayo, interim director, housing department. >> Can you tell us about what's going on here? Sure. >> So, L and M is the developer, and you just heard a representative from L and M, talk about the project, they are [1:17:07 PM] talk about the project, they are planning to purchase and rehabilitate, do some pretty significant rehabilitation, of Travis park apartments. It has been historically, there have been, it has been a troubled property, the advantage of bringing in an outside developer is in order to make some pretty significant investments in the property. We have been in communication with Travis county, who will an affiliate of Travis county housing finance corporation, will be the general partner on this deal, and so they will be the ground lessor, to the developer, they will have ultimate control over the property. Which gives us a pretty significant level of assurance, they have been in contact and we have been in contact with Basta. We have heard the concerns, and certainly we have all heard the loud and clear, the very real concerns of the residents here today. And we will continue to work with Travis county, Basta [1:18:09 PM] work with Travis county, Basta and L and M in order to assure, that all of these issues are addressed as quickly and expediently and professionally as possible, they did. Lamb submitted an application because, of course, they need this body's approval for the tax credit application, which is what is before you today, and as the representative from lamb said, this is kind of the last step. They have, Travis county housing finance corporation is issuing the bonds, the debt for the project. They have the tax credits lined up, and then they will go forward. And I believe it is 20 plus million dollars, in rehab that will go into this property. And I would certainly, count on the residents being involved. First of all, notified at a minimum. But being involved in the, rehabilitation decisions that are being made by the developer members, do you have [1:19:11 PM] developer members, do you have any additional questions? >> Council member Vila, just a quick comment. >> I very much appreciate bastar and the residents coming and advocating for better management. And I fully expect the management to improve. And I did just want to point out that the we recently I sponsored the item to pass a right to organize that makes it a criminal offense in Travis county, to call the police on a tenant organizer. So I just wanted to emphasize that that the police should never be involved in any kind of situation where tenants are coming together to advocate for their rights. >> Thank you. Councilmember. I'm sorry, I interrupted, so why don't we go back? But when the representative stood up to speak, I thought it was an opportune time to ask him questions. Why don't we go back to the speakers? >> Ari, Samir. >> Good afternoon. My name is [1:20:11 PM] >> Good afternoon. My name is Ari Samir. I'm a 16 year old resident who's been living at Travis park for about 13 years, and I'm also a part of the tenants association with the newly announced renovations that are going to be happening, I decided to come here and share some concerns and complaints. I've had. As someone who's been living here for a long time to start, we as tenants would like to have more information about the renovations. We have been given no information on what's going to happen, what's going to be done. All they've told us is there's going to be renovations and we might increase your rent. Second of all, I would like to point out that the both the management and the maintenance staff at Travis park are very rude and very unprofessional, oftentimes treating us as we are less than them or beneath them, and we're taking time out of their day to speak with them. Third of all, I would like to add that the maintenance staff at Travis park are incompetent at their job. Oftentimes when they come to fix appliances and [1:21:11 PM] they come to fix appliances and fix stuff, they end up doing more harm than good. Leaving with something else damaged, and they usually come just to spy on us and like, not really fix the appliances. My last point would be that we need, added security to the apartments as the security right now is subpar with anybody being able to enter at any time, which has led to many residents having their cars broken into and windows being broken. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. If your names been called, please feel free to come forward. >> Mr. Mayor, while we wait, I just want to extend a similar thank you to our young speaker for coming today and for participating and for advocating for your neighborhood. It's really important. So thank you for your participation. >> Thank you. Council member, please come forward. >> Good afternoon. My name is Ali sharif, I live at Travis park apartment since November 2013, and I'm a mother of three [1:22:11 PM] 2013, and I'm a mother of three children. I'm a part of, Basta tenant association. I have a five points to share with you today. First, about management. We ask for no abuse of power by management and allow tenants the rights to express themselves respecting tenants rights according to the law of this country. The second one is about maintenance. They should do their jobs, not behave as a part of the management. They should be fixing things, not reporting as, on any tenants behavior and giving us a violation. According to this three about renovation. I want to know what the renovation mean and what's included. There are something we are really need to be fixed and changed, like ac units or maybe ac system at all, because it's the old and a new system and it's very suffering from it. We have to have either, just have a heat or cool all the year. So that's why we need just your help about that. And the fourth part, about the laundry, we are [1:23:12 PM] part, about the laundry, we are a big community with a big, large families and need either bigger, better laundry facility with machines that actually works or most better in unit laundry connection, which is more preferred for all the attendants. There and about appliances, they say they will change it and any renovation should be working for tenants and not just for the owner or the management. So we should have good big appliances that fit for the families and the size. Thank you so much for your time and I one more time I want to say we are suffering. There I'm immigrant, came from outside the United States, I'm coming to be safe in this great country. But what happens since I'm there as a single mother for three children? I'm suffering for all the years I'm there. I'm under pressure. And they gave me more sickness. And I'm here just to hear, fairness from you, to help us and know what is going on there, please. Thank you. So much. >> Thank you. >> That concludes all the [1:24:13 PM] >> That concludes all the speakers on item 112. >> Thank you. Members, that concludes all the speakers on item number 112. Without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 112. That leads us to action on the item. I'll recognize a council member for a motion with regard to item 112, council member qadri moves approval seconded by council member Ryan alter. Discussion on the item. Council member qadri. >> Thank you. Mayor, I want to thank everyone who came out today, to speak on item 112. I want to thank Basta for their for their continued work and making sure that tenants rights are, are always at the forefront, and, you know, our office has been aware of the situation almost since day one that that I took office, we visited with a lot of the families, at least the families that I visited with, many of them were refugees from Afghanistan, who had had come to the country years ago, and, you know, no matter who it is in [1:25:14 PM] know, no matter who it is in this, in this community, like I, you know, my office myself, this dais stands with them. But, you know, for me, seeing those those folks and talking to them, you know, seeing their faces and a councilman harper-madison, had alluded this earlier on something else, but I saw my face, you know, I'm not here without, you know, my family coming as as immigrants. I'm not here. Without, you know, my great great grandfather leaving Afghanistan and moving to Pakistan. And now I'm here, so I saw my faces, you know, that day. And what's been happening is nothing short of concerning. And it's not who we are as a country, as a state, as a city. And we need to do better, by a lot of the concerns that have been mentioned, whether it be the infestations of, of, of bugs and whatnot, you know, ac and heating issues, vehicle theft and just general public safety issues. So, you know, my office has brought up these conditions to hakka and that's why I support of the rehab of this [1:26:15 PM] support of the rehab of this property. But I can't stress enough how the developer, the owner, really need to work with the tenants to address many concerns, especially those around public safety. A lot of the folks who live in, you know, you know, the complex have already suffered enough and to for them to be continuously let down is inexcusable. So, you know, I really hope we do this right. >> Great. Thank you. Council member. Any other discussion on the item? You've got a lot to live up to. Sounds good, without objection. Item number 112 is adopted. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for your time. And Basta. Thank you for what you're doing in the community members. What that will do is take us back to the order that I think will go in is we will go item 93. Then item 96, and then we will go into, depending upon timing, public hearings and, and other matters that we have scheduled, the reason I took 112 [1:27:16 PM] scheduled, the reason I took 112 out of order is because we knew there was going to be interpretation, and I was trying to accommodate that situation. That will take us to item, number 93, which was a pulled item, I'll lay out item number 93 members. This is, ended up being a very collaborative, resolution. The version two is the version that we will be, looking at. It is a the resolution, we've been through it on the message board a number of times, but there are a couple of things that I want to point out before we start the public comment on this one is, there is a recognition and I want to I want it to be clear. I don't think there is anyone on the dais that doesn't recognize the urgency with which we want to move. And so one of the clear messages that I hope that staff gets as a result of us passing [1:28:18 PM] gets as a result of us passing this resolution on this item, is that while, it says no later than 26, that doesn't mean it has to be 26. It is no later than 26. And we want to move with the sort of dispatch that this item and the comprehensive bond package and all the climate aspect of it, climate investment aspect of it, and a comprehensive bond package, all of that deserves that means a couple of things. One is that the council will be coming forward with work about the creation of a task force, and I'll pause for a second to say the version two that everybody has is a version where legal has made recommendations regarding language related to the creation of the task force council member Ryan alter did as well. And that's also included in version two. But there are a number of whereas provisions that weren't in the original version, but [1:29:18 PM] in the original version, but you've now had that and seen that, we will be bringing forward again with some dispatch. A resolution so that we can get a task force appointed in the traditional way. The city has done that. I think the mayor pro tem, you've probably all seen the mayor pro tem post on the message board about bringing forward a resolution along those lines from a staff perspective, it's going to be important. I believe. And I just say this because I think I'm speaking again, based upon the message board and the other comments I've seen, members have made publicly that, as soon as staff is capable, we're going to let the process serve the process, serve itself and be a true process. But as soon as can, without setting this deadline and that deadline, at least the resolution doesn't do that. But staff, that means it's on y'all to get it back to us as fast as [1:30:21 PM] to get it back to us as fast as you can. And that includes maybe setting out clear timelines that we will be able to look at and comment on so that we can say whether or not we think that's moving within rapidly enough things of that, of that nature, that would include, by the way, the list that you'd have a time, you'd have timelines, but it would include things like project lists as that moves forward and as that's taken to the task force, especially since as, as has been pointed out by members of the council, there are a number of reports and items and, memos and whatever different kinds of things. However, you might want to characterize them that tell things that we believe ought to be done. So those the work begins on that. And the answers to the questions, the things like the decision tree process, things of that nature that have been brought up by the council to staff. We're really looking [1:31:23 PM] to staff. We're really looking forward to that coming forward. There is a real sense of urgency. To this, trying to do this in a collaborative way, consistent with past processes and consistent with what we might can do. With other items besides just climate investment in terms of comprehensive bond proposals, so that's that's my layout. What I will do is, I guess so that we can have comment on this is, I'll move that we adopt, version two of item number 93. It's seconded by the mayor pro tem and then we have people that have signed up to speak, so I'll turn to the city clerk for people to sign up to speak, and then we'll have discussion and vote. >> Thank you mayor. We'll go to our remote speakers. Rosario Lopez Cadenas on item 93, three minutes. Rosario, please unmute. >> Hi, my name is rosario Lopez. [1:32:29 PM] >> Hi, my name is rosario Lopez. I strongly support the climate bond, so I am extremely disappointed it has been delayed, especially when we're seeing more severe weather across the world. We especially need climate action now. Despite that, there are a couple of things I would like to see from a climate bond. Whenever it happens. I think solar energy and batteries for city buildings and operations is important, as well as expanding composting. I would like to see carbon sequestration, sustainable agriculture more biodiversity and conservation efforts, and land acquisition for watershed protection. I also think we need more green spaces and tree planting to combat extreme heat, especially in east Austin, which is proven to be significantly warmer than west Austin. We should keep equity in mind with this bond. I would also like to see weatherization, a sustainable workforce program, and the shutting down of the fe coal plant. Finally, if this bond isn't going to happen for two years, then we should really use this time to make sure we are prepared to implement it [1:33:31 PM] are prepared to implement it effectively. So that all the money is spent quickly and strategically. We should not be dragging our feet on this issue. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Edwin Bautista. >> Hello. Can you hear me? Yes okay, great. Thank you. >> I appreciate the clarification, mayor, and I appreciate the diligence on this issue, my name is Edwin Bautista. I'm a resident of district seven. Today. I addressed you from a position of neutrality on item 93, but with the compelling sense of urgency and profound concern for our city's direction and leadership. First, let's address the financial elephant in the room. The city of Austin is currently burdened with over 1 billion in unissued bonds. This significant backlog not only highlights a troubling inefficiency in fiscal management, but also undermines public trust in the city's ability to deliver on promised improvements. Austinites deserve better than empty promises and delayed projects. The creation of the capital delivery service services department under the [1:34:33 PM] services department under the former interim city manager was a commendable step. I think this department, which aims to expediate project design and implementation, represents a rare bright spot in our city's recent administrative efforts. Unfortunately, progress remains painfully slow despite the new processes intended to cut design time, we're still far from achieving the efficiency our city desperately needs, mayor Watson your leadership during these challenging times has been less than inspiring your reluctancy to support an environmental bond this year signals a troubling disconnect from the urgent needs of our city. Climate change is not a distant threat. It's a present and accelerating crisis. The arrival of hurricane beryl should have been a wake up call. Yet we see a continued pattern of procrastination and inaction. Let me be clear we need bold, decisive action, not hesitation and delay. While while I respect the complexities of managing a city as dynamic as Austin, it's imperative that we address these financial inefficiencies head [1:35:33 PM] financial inefficiencies head on. Austinites deserve timely and transparent execution of city projects in our future depends on robust climate action now not years down the line. As an Austin, I want to see the environmental bond on the ballot in November. It does not have to be a $1 billion bond. 200 to 300 million will suffice. I urge this council and our mayor to reevaluate our financial strategies and accelerate the pace of our capital projects, and take the bold steps necessary to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for Austin. We cannot be content with incremental progress when the stakes are so high. Thank you. >> We'll now move to end person speakers on item 93. Christian Fogarty, Sean Atkins, Craig nazer. If your name's been called, please make your way to the front. >> Hello again. I'm Craig nazer, [1:36:39 PM] >> Hello again. I'm Craig nazer, president Austin environmental Democrats and the conservation chair of the lone star chapter of the Sierra club. For the past 12 months, the average global temperature has been 1.52°c above pre-industrial levels, according to official projections. That wasn't supposed to happen yet. However, this was anticipated by the minority report to the Austin climate equity plan of 2021, known as the climate emergency response. This report was sent to all city council members. I am one of a number of coauthors of that report. We understand the issues and the problems with the bond election in 2024 to fund climate action. However, the thermometer will not care about any city's bond rating. Reconciling those two realities will not be easy. This makes it very important to make sure that recommendations for funding will [1:37:40 PM] recommendations for funding will truly help the climate. From a scientific standpoint, depending on the federal government to bail us out. If things get beyond Austin's capacity to respond may depend entirely on the results of the upcoming election. The state of Texas, as well, is not a reliable partner. Please keep all this in mind in the upcoming budget discussions. Good luck and remember the environmental community of Austin continues to be an incredible resource to support strong climate action. Thanks. >> Rita Thompson, bill bunch, speaking on item 93. >> Call a couple of other names while he's coming down. >> Those are all the speakers [1:38:41 PM] >> Those are all the speakers for item 93. Mayor >> Good afternoon. Mayor. Council members. Bill bunch with save our springs alliance, >> We certainly support a climate bond, targeted primarily at land protection, which is a big part of and a critical part of the Austin climate equity plan, and especially reforesting and rewilding that land, as well as reforesting and rewilding citywide, especially in the central city, where it's we desperately need to have more trees, more foliage, to address urban heat, island effects and for carbon capture, both, you would not need to postpone this effort if you would simply look at your budget and see where you're spending literally billions of dollars blindly rushing ahead, with projects that are going to increase [1:39:46 PM] that are going to increase climate change, worsen climate change, with increased pumping costs, enormous amounts of steel and concrete, that are unnecessary, we should be looking at every one of these projects as they come along with a climate impact assessment as a requirement on every major spending item. If you did that, you could do the climate bond today without raising any of the budget. Congress passed the national environmental policy act in 1970 to require environmental impact statements on every single major action of the federal government. The idea there was you integrate environmental protection, across all departments, all agencies, every major significant decision. We should have climate top of [1:40:50 PM] We should have climate top of mind. And if you really cared about it and were in an existential crisis locally and globally as you know, that's what you need to be doing. So pretending like you know, you care about climate change, what it means for Austin, what it means for our children and grandchildren, what it means for us right now, what it means for our water supply by talking about a bond next year and ignoring everything you're doing every time you meet that is digging the hole deeper for us. And every creature that we share the planet with. Please wake up and take meaningful action. Thank you members, all the people that have signed up to speak on item number 93. >> There's a motion and a second. I'll ask for any discussion. Councilmember Allison alter, thank you, >> First, I want to thank all the folks who came out to speak today and the many people who've [1:41:51 PM] today and the many people who've been involved, with the process that's been going on since February, the joint sustainability committee, our staff that have been involved in putting forward, the memo that had a list of the plans, but also all the staff and the community members who have been involved with this list of plans that we have, for our city that requires funding if we're going to really, achieve our climate goals. So thank you for being here, colleagues, I pulled this item because I think this merits discussion, we did not have any opportunities to do that in full, in work session. I'd hoped that the food plan discussion would segue into discussion of this, but we did not have a full dais. So it didn't feel appropriate to have that, and, you know, I want to just talk about some of how I'm feeling about this process and, and the bond and, and would love to hear more, from my colleagues as they feel comfortable, but in [1:42:52 PM] feel comfortable, but in particular, I want to call your attention to an answer in the q&a, that just came out probably, I think, this morning. I'm not sure exactly when it got in there that I asked, about 93 and, and, it the question I asked was, you know, to please provide the remaining balances from the 2018 bond propositions for parkland and water quality, land acquisition. And here here's what the answer was in the 2018 bond. There is 72 million for water quality land acquisition as of today, 43.6 million has been spent, 25, 25 million. I assume that is encumbered with the remaining balance of 28.4 million. However the remaining balance is programed and should be spent by the end of the calendar year. The two acquisitions that are being finalized, which are part of the remaining balance of 28.4 million, are mockford, 19 million, stark, 500,000. In the last two weeks, we've reached agreements on two conservation [1:43:53 PM] agreements on two conservation easements. These last two agreements will add about 298 acres, and will use all the remaining 2018 bond funding of 8.5 million for water quality, land acquisition, I'll editorialize here and say that means we have $0 left after the end of this calendar year for water quality acquisition. Moving now to part part has a balance of uncommitted bond funding of $1.2 million, $1.2 million, part of several acquisitions and negotiations that have not yet been assigned in the accounting system. But that will take up the remaining balance, leaving zero budget within a year's time. So part has $0 available for land acquisition. On Tuesday, we had a great presentation about the food plan and I hope everyone will read that plan. But strategy number one for the food plant is land acquisition. Do we have any money? No, we don't have any money for the food plan at all. Let alone for land acquisition. So the bottom line [1:44:54 PM] acquisition. So the bottom line is we have $0 at pretty much right now. Even if we went to a November election for this. And so now, you know, when we talk about putting off the climate, bond or any bonds, that means we won't have any dollars for land acquisition, according to this proposal, as I understand it, till 2027, because you pass it in November and you don't get it until then. Meanwhile, we have a market right now which is the most favorable we've seen since I've been on the dais for purchasing land. And yet we have no money, and for me, this is a tragedy, and this is why I would really have preferred if we had had a conversation about how we were moving forward in a way where was truly collaborative, where we could voice things, having a discussion on the message board over July 4th weekend, I personally was on vacation, as was most of Austin, so people were not able to chime in, and say things, and I think that making a decision like this [1:45:55 PM] that making a decision like this without having the opportunity to air the facts and the challenges, puts us in a difficult situation. And so, we'd really, you know, love to know what the solution is for the land acquisition. We have properties right now that we could get for our food plan that we can't fund, that we're going to lose, that are really, really choice properties, and, and so I really would have preferred a yes. And, and I want to make that really clear, there was an opportunity no one needed to do a $1.6 billion bond, which was what was in the investment, options that we had. But we could have done an interim step that had $100 million for land acquisition, which could have gotten us to 26. We could have done another $100 million. That would have allowed us to put, solar locally on city land in ways that would allow us, over time, to reduce our energy costs and to put more local solar in place. And I think our community [1:46:55 PM] place. And I think our community would have supported that, and I and I think, you know, we need to we need to recognize that in, in taking this step and having the conversation in the way that we're having it, we are foreclosing really important things. And, you know, I would really like to understand, you know, from the mayor, what is the process for acquiring land in this interim, how are we going to do it? And what is your commitment to helping us do that, and I'd also like to hear from my colleagues, you know, what is it that you want out of this climate bond? And what is the timing that you're hoping for? >> Well, before I recognize councilmember qadri, let me quickly try to answer that for you. And I've said it a number of times publicly and on the message board. I agree that we that land acquisition has to be one of the paramount approaches. But I can't tell you right now, and I don't believe you can or [1:47:57 PM] and I don't believe you can or anyone can can say exactly how we ought to go about doing that other than maybe rushing out and finding land. That's for sale or bidding on it, and how you would do that in a comprehensive way. So that the dollars that you're spending, as was pointed out by at least one of the speakers, the dollars that you're spending are getting you the biggest bang for your buck in terms of climate change and for that matter, how you deal with the food plan. What this does is it recognizes the urgency with which we need to move, and it recognizes that we need to move urgently in a way that makes sense, so that if you're doing one thing, it will give you more value because it coordinates with another thing, and it recognizes that the needs of the city have we have needs clearly wanting to address climate [1:48:58 PM] wanting to address climate investment is a key need of the city, but we also are in a situation where we have other needs and a comprehensive bond proposal would be part of that. In addition, a bond proposal for climate investment I anticipate will be only one tool that we use. There will be other tools that we will want to use for climate investment, and, and we need to have an analysis of where, how we go about doing that so that the bond proposal and a bond package would fit within that. As well. So what this does is it recognizes the urgency. It says we want to move as rapidly as we can, but we want to do it in an organized way where we're doing right by the issue and we're doing right by other issues that may need to [1:49:59 PM] by other issues that may need to be addressed as well. It's interesting to hear one of the comments from one of the speakers that we have 1,000,000,006 that hasn't been spent. I would suggest that part of the reason there's 1,000,000,006 that hasn't been spent is that it wasn't well thought out at the time those things were put on the ballot, and now you have a billion. Six how are you? How do you go about getting that spent? We want to do this the right way. We want to do it as, as urgently as possible. But but you can't just say you're for protecting climate, protecting the Earth and protecting the environment. And throw something at it. Unless you're thinking it through. And that's what this does. It it creates the urgency and it creates, the process so that we make sure we're addressing everything and we get [1:50:59 PM] addressing everything and we get the return that the, that the people paying for it deserve. You are absolutely right. When you suggest that we're going to need to make land purchases. I'm pretty proud of the role I've played in land purchases in this community, in the past 25 and 30 years. And in fact, when we did that, the first time, when we started doing it, the first time we did it with a process where we looked at the science of where we were going to make those land purchases so that when we made the land purchases, not only were we getting the right value for our dollar, but we were getting a better scientific result, and that's what this is a part of the goal to be achieved. So other other discussion. Councilmember qadri, you had indicated, oh, I accidentally had put that. Oh, sorry about that. Councilmember Ryan alter, thank you very much. >> I, you know, it's no secret. I hoped we were going to be a [1:52:07 PM] I hoped we were going to be a different place today. I think we all know that, I recognize some of the questions and concerns of setting forth a different process than than where, than how we got here and I, I fully respect and appreciate what you're saying, mayor. I would take only one issue with with one thing you said. And I think that in terms of, of what we were planning on putting forward, the how well thought out it was, you know, this was based on thousands of hours of professional staff work coming into them this year, asking staff to once again review that work that was done by professionals in the community and then us as a group, trying to figure out what would have that biggest bang for the buck. And that's why we focused on, you know, the land acquisition. Councilmember Allison alter talked about the solar that would not only reduce local, emissions related to our [1:53:07 PM] local, emissions related to our buildings, but would help with some of the issues we heard about from Austin energy with local solar and would save the city money over time. That would we would have general fund to spend on other priorities, you know, looking at how we can ensure that our projects that are through that 1,000,000,006 that you talked about, that is primarily mobility related. How all that concrete we're about to lay in this city can be, more low carbon concrete and have a reduced effect. How we can ensure that we have less flood. Less flooding throughout the city. I know there are districts who really have that challenge, and I it sticks out in my mind. You know, I went to a an electrification expo of, various equipment, whether that's duty or vehicles or, you know, lawn care equipment and I was speaking with some hard staff about saying we would love to do some of this stuff, but we don't have the charging infrastructure [1:54:09 PM] have the charging infrastructure at our facilities, and that's what's stopping us. And so trying to be able to put those types of investments into place so that it, you know, it wouldn't solve the whole problem. It would be just a piece of that comprehensive approach. And, and so, you know, but but, but but here we are and, and I recognize that and I fully anticipate that we're going to have a very robust conversation about where we do need to make priorities, and I just I have one question, and I don't know if it's for you for the mayor pro tem, for James snow, but just in thinking through this process as we go forward, you know, the there are going to be a lot of different issues. We're going to be talking about libraries. We're going to be talking about parks, we're going to be talking about the climate. We're going to be talking about roads, bridges, you know, the gamut. And that's that is important to weigh those things. What happens if we, as this process goes through, if we find ourselves with, a completed product as it relates to, let's [1:55:10 PM] product as it relates to, let's say, the environmental element or the watershed piece that fits into that, but there is either a library or a pard facility, like, you know, we've seen with the dac that just it it's going to need another four months of engineering and scoping. Are are we going to be able to give the task force the authority to come to council and say, hey, that that climate piece or that watershed piece that's going to protect water quality, that's ready to go? And so here it is. And y'all can make that decision. So I just don't know. >> I'll tell you the way I see it, for what that's worth, is the is the person who was trying to, help coordinate this as part of the resolution. Is that as so long as we are making a decision where we can see that comprehensive aspect of it, knowing the urgency of some of these issues that we want to address, if what we do is we say, we're ready to go on a, a [1:56:13 PM] say, we're ready to go on a, a and B, but the comprehensive package we're looking at as an entity and by the way, it will be the same council in 25 and 26. That entity can make a comprehensive decision and be able to represent to the public. Here's what we're thinking. Here's what we're going to want to do. Now. Here's what we may need to take a little more time on for the kinds of technical thing you're talking about, but there's not a reason to because of the sense of urgency in my view, so long as we can make a comprehensive decision, there's not a reason to say, stop that, because we need to do more technical here. So long as it's all being looked at together. >> And that's that's exactly what I was thinking, that the process would work. And I think as we get towards probably June, July of next year, whatever the scope or range of projects we're [1:57:15 PM] scope or range of projects we're going to know at that point, they might not all be fully baked and we might not know the numbers, but, I fully anticipate that though everything will be on the table at that point. And so it's my hope that we include in the resolution that the mayor pro tem is bringing some authority of the bond advisory task force to make recommendations as they are available, so that we can make that decision, whether we want to do a 25 or just do everything in 26, I just yeah, >> Well, as you know, as you know, there are a number of very strong, thoughtful environmentalists in this community that were saying, 26, 26, 26. Sure. And the approach that has been taken, their specific language of no later than 26 for a reason. And that is because there is a sense of urgency. Let's do this right. But it doesn't mean you have to wait, right? >> Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate, you know, us as a group coming together to figure [1:58:18 PM] group coming together to figure out what that proper next step is. And this appears to be it. And so I'm going to do everything in my power to support this process, to get it through to the finish line, because this is an existential issue for our community. And I think, it's time for us to take that action that that will have a meaningful impact for generations. And so I look forward to carrying forward this conversation in the future. >> Thank you. Councilmember, mayor pro tem, maybe just to kind of encapsulate all this, I also want to just remind us all that it's not just the general obligation bonds. >> We have certificates of obligation. We have revenue bonds and those different tools. And then there are other tools as well. And so we're looking forward to the city manager bringing us the recommendations on timing and which projects and what that cadence looks like, so that we can launch into these projects, as they are prepared and ready to go. I, I talk a lot about shovel ready projects, and [1:59:19 PM] about shovel ready projects, and I do hope that we can move in that direction for those projects where that would be appropriate, because I do think then then we can get the bond projects underway sooner. And so I'll be looking at that. But, mayor, I'm just so excited. To get the bond election advisory task force pulled together, I really appreciate the level of involvement and participation across the dais for the conversation. I recognize it when we were away from having council meetings every other week. So it did force it to be on the message board. But that did provide us with the necessary forum, mayor, to get us to the place where we are. And, and I'm just really grateful that we've been able to get there so quickly and look forward to continuing to work with everybody on this effort. >> Thank you. Member Tim, council member Vila. >> Thank you, mayor. And, again, I'm excited about this item. I'm [2:00:19 PM] I'm excited about this item. I'm looking forward to the task force getting together and really evaluating what are the projects that are are ready to go. I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. My understanding is that from a, from a transportation perspective, from a mobility perspective, the sidewalks were burning through that money quickly, we may not have enough money to for ongoing sidewalk construction before we get to potentially a transportation bond in 2026. And that is a real concern of mine, the district four in particular, very high transit usage, a lot of working class folks, there's a lot of folks that really need that, the sidewalk build out to access, really everything in, in, in their world, so I just wanted to highlight that in particular, as [2:01:20 PM] highlight that in particular, as something that we may need to put on the table before 2026, just some kind of bridge funding or something. And my understanding with that is that sidewalks would be eligible for, certificates of obligation, for example, to create, you know, some amount of, of bridge funding until we get to another major transportation bond. But I just wanted to, to highlight that, and also, I really appreciate I'm glad that that we're not trying to pick projects for, you know, the next couple of months. I really I think about that, that carpenters, saying about measure twice cut once, and I think that's what we're doing. I will say I don't want to completely take a November 25th off the table. That that again. Let's get the committee together. Let's have them look at everything. Let's see where we're going. And if it turns out that we're ready to go by November 25th with, you know, [2:02:21 PM] November 25th with, you know, these this set of projects, it may not be it may be that revenue bonds and certificates of obligation. And there's other areas that that where we would need to go to a general obligation bond. But I just don't want to at this point say you know, no, we're we're going to wait till never. Let's get everything together. Let's take a look at it, let's see where we are, and then let's move forward no later than 26. >> Council member qadri thank you, councilmember Vila. >> And I and I pressed on intentionally this time, >> No, I appreciate the you keep that. >> It's like more sometimes. >> Yeah, sometimes I'm trying to just go on the at on the screen, no. I appreciate the discussion that's currently taking place on the dais. I'm excited for the item. And I already talked to the mayor pro tem when she works on her item. If I could, if I could be a part of that. And I think it's been said on the dais, you know, we need to be both intentional and we also need to be urgent when it comes to climate action, and I'm excited about this task force kind of coming, coming together and, you know, kind of going off of what councilmember Vella [2:03:24 PM] of what councilmember Vella said. You know, if the if the task force comes back with a recommendation for an earlier bond election, on projects related to sustainability and environmental protection, you know, I think we should definitely act in November 2025. So thank you. >> Thank you, councilmember. Councilmember Ellis. >> I don't think I pushed any buttons, but I'll go ahead and take the opportunity to speak. >> Your name was there. >> Oh, look at that. >> I really appreciate the focus that's happening here. >> I know that everybody wants to see us attack these climate change issues. Very, studiously and as quickly as possible. There is so much good information that has come out of council member Ryan alter's original proposal to even start gathering this information, that it's clear that there's a need and that there's community support to, to address these issues and to figure out how we can most expeditiously, do what we need for the community. I know there may still be some items out there as we look at building a task force. That maybe we haven't thought about yet. And so there may be some common agreement on many of these high profile issues. I think you know, trying to get, more trees back into our [2:04:24 PM] more trees back into our community as it grows, trying to deal with flood mitigation is going to be a really huge impact. A lot of our mobility projects that haven't broken ground yet are kind of stuck in a place because of the floodplain changes that have happened with atlas 14, and so we need to take that into consideration and see how we can best partner, where we're coming from and where we are headed and what we want to see as a dais for these projects. There's a number of other issues that that we're tackling with the city, like, rebates for electric vehicles and electric bikes, a lot of my district is not on Austin energy and they don't qualify to participate in some of these programs that are hugely successful that we're already doing as a city. And so I want to make sure that we're putting items into this package that will help all parts of town every time these come up. I've been involved in just a couple of bond packages. Being able to be put together, but there's always someone that will say, oh, I have a project that is almost ready to go, or we have a preliminary engineering report, [2:05:25 PM] preliminary engineering report, and if we just add this or tweak that, then we can get a more comprehensive plan. And so I'm very excited to be moving forward with this. I just want to make sure we don't miss any opportunity and have to wait another five years, because we didn't think of something in that moment. So I appreciate everyone being able to take a moment to really build this and build it well and build it very strong for the community, because I think we're going to have a successful program at the end of the day. >> All right. Thank you. Council member members. Councilmember Allison alter, thank you, >> I just want to be really clear that what I just said is our land acquisition money that we had in our bonds is completely spent right on time, right on schedule. You don't work through the land acquisition process the same way. Thanks to the work you did earlier. Mayor, on the air water quality lands. We have a process. We know what we're targeting. We have a sense of that. We have a long range plan for Pritchard. We have a food plan. We know where we want it. We don't control the market. If we don't have money, we will not have the land. And that is the bottom line there. And it's not [2:06:26 PM] bottom line there. And it's not the same thing. I'm not. None of us were advocating a bond this year that would have required engineering studies that were huge and other things. You know, if you put the solar on our city buildings, it's a process that you can figure out in that timetable and make happen. If you have the money to do it. We're obviously not moving forward with that at this point, but I did really want to make sure that we were transparent about what we're what we're giving up. And I want to challenge each of you on to challenge you, mayor, want to challenge the whole dais and want to challenge the city manager to figure out ways that we can acquire this land if we don't acquire this land, it will be developed, there will be other headaches that we have to deal with. We could easily have said we want to acquire land that achieves multiple goals. Perfect is the enemy of good. We do not have time to waste on this, and so I really do think that, you know, if we're not going to go forward with the bond, then then then I really want to challenge you, each of you, to be creative, you know, what are you going to do to help us? You know, secure the land we [2:07:27 PM] us? You know, secure the land we need for our food plan. What are you going to do to make sure that there's parks in your neighborhoods? We've lost parkland dedication for all effects. I mean, there's going to be no parks added to your to your neighborhoods, you know, for this couple years. So we need mechanisms and we need opportunities, so that we can make, those things happen, I also want to ask my understanding from mayor pro tem pool that she is planning to have a draft of her, resolution by Friday, and I would invite all of you to join us at, at in finance committee next week. We've placed an additional item on the agenda so we can continue the conversation and not in finance. And I think that audit and finance for a bond process and this implementation plan is the appropriate committee, to do a certain amount of this work. And I invite the mobility committee, also, I think has an important role in advancing these pieces. And then finally, for the city manager, I mean, there was a ton of stuff that was identified in the work that followed from council member [2:08:28 PM] followed from council member Ryan Walters. Resolution. Many of that is already in the works in one way or another. And I don't want any of what we're talking about today to be interpreted as a stop or slow down on things that our staff have already decided we need to do, and we need to make these investments. And that can move the needle on things. And I want to encourage you also to be creative, you know, if there's a way to get more solar on our buildings, using codes or other things, you know, we need to start thinking about it. The longer we wait, you know, the, the higher the temperature goes. And, and, you know, we've seen with the recent hurricane in Houston, I can only imagine what we'd be going through here if we own the utility that that failed. And we were dealing with people still out of power, you know, week plus in heat like we have. So we have to take these actions and we cannot let planning, you know, perfection be the enemy of us. Actually addressing an issue that we've [2:09:29 PM] addressing an issue that we've heard loud and clear from our community that they want addressed. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Fuentes. >> Yes. Thank you. I just want to underscore that yesterday I had a town hall on the budget in my community, and I heard from constituents that live in south Austin, south central Austin, who were asking me about why is it that the city isn't buying more parkland. You know, what about more parks in south Austin? So it is very disheartening to hear that we do not have funding available for land acquisition until 2027. At best, that is, it's disappointing. I think that we have really missed an opportunity to go to our community, to go out for a bond, to be able to acquire more land, you know, three years from now is too long. So I'm, I appreciate my colleague's comments that there is, an interest in looking at 2025, but ultimately, I do think we've lost an opportunity here to move forward in the coming months. >> Thank you, councilmember [2:10:29 PM] >> Thank you, councilmember members. In closing, I'll just say that, this will have the city manager bring back two big items for us. One is a comprehensive climate investment proposal and a comprehensive, bond package. As we I think this has been a good discussion for clarification purposes, and with that, we have a motion and a second, all those in favor of item number 93, version two, which was the motion indicate by saying I, I all those opposed nay. All right. There being council member harper-madison, if you're capable of, showing your vote, there being nine in favor and one in opposition, the and council member harper-madison, temporarily off the dais, the motion on item number 93 is adopted. >> Mayor, mayor, if I just might add, I'm voting yes, because I [2:11:30 PM] add, I'm voting yes, because I always wanted a yes. And we do need the planning for the comprehensive plan. We need a bond in 26, but I just thought we should be putting that climate bond sooner. >> Thank you, members, what we'll do at this point is go to our 2:00 time certain, which is zoning and, neighborhood plans, and then we will come back to item number 96, and then we will go to the public hearings. So I'll give, miss Hardin an opportunity to run down the aisle. Of course, now I can't find my. Can I get you know. There it is. [2:12:34 PM] Can I get you know. There it is. I knew I had it, >> Good afternoon, mayor. And council. I'm joy harden with the planning department. A quick note before I begin reading the agenda, each of the zoning and related neighborhood plan amendment cases on today's agenda, which are requesting 90 combining district zoning, are being offered as staff postponement to your August 29th council meeting. The reason for the postponement request is to allow the db 90 revision code amendment to be reviewed by the planning commission on July 23rd. In addition to the staff postponement request, the east Austin conservancy requested a postponement of 11 db 90 cases located east of I 35, while the cherrywood neighborhood association and montopolis neighbor neighborhood plan contact team each requested individual postponement, and we also received late correspondence requesting a moratorium on all db 90 cases from the govalle Johnson terrace [2:13:36 PM] from the govalle Johnson terrace neighborhood association. But again, these cases will be offered as staff postponements to your August 29th council meeting. But of course, that would be up to your discretion. So I'll begin with, reading the agenda. The zoning agenda begins with item 127 npa 2023 0015.05.8. This is an applicant requested postponement to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 128 c1 for 2023 0141. Sh. Again. Applicant postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 129 is c1 for H 2023 0137. This will be a discussion item. This is the historic zoning item and this will be heard on third. The final reading and this will require nine votes for passage. Item 130 is c1 for 2023 0106. This item is being offered for consent. Third reading item 131 is npa 2023 0015.03. This item [2:14:38 PM] is npa 2023 0015.03. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. The related rezoning is item 132 c1 for 2024 0021. Again, this item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 133 is c1 for 2024 0061. This is a db 90 item, so again staff is requesting a postponement of this item to your August 29th council meeting. Item 134 c1 for 2024 0059. Again, another db 90 item. So staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 135 is c1 for 2024 0068. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 136 is npa 2024 0030.01. This is an npa associated with a db 90 request. So staff is requesting a postponement to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 137 c1 for 2024- 0033. Again, staff postponement request to your August 29th [2:15:39 PM] request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 138 is c1 for 2024 0028. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 139 is npa 2022 0020.01. This item is being offered as an applicant postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 140 c1 for 2022 0062. Again, applicant postponement request to your August 29th council meeting item 141 npa 2022 0005.01, this is an npa associated with a db 90 rezoning, so staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 142 c1 for 2022 0107. Again, staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 143 is npa 2023 0002.02. This is being offered as a neighborhood postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 144 c1 [2:16:40 PM] related rezoning is item 144 c1 for 2023 0153. Again, this is offered as a neighborhood postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 145 c1 for 2023 0109. This item is being offered for consent. Second and third readings. Item 146 c1 for 2024 0039 this is a db 90 item, so this is offered as postponement to your August 29th council meeting. Oh, I think I might if I skip 144. Let me read that. >> I thought you said on 144 is related to 143, and it's also the neighbor. I thought I said postponement for August 29th. >> That's what I thought I said to you. Okay, okay. So that was one for my notes. >> Originally indicated that both of those were consent on all three readings. Right. But what. >> But the neighborhood requested a postponement and the applicant is in agreement with that postponement. >> Very good. >> But but I want to be clear. P143 and 144 are both neighborhood requested [2:17:40 PM] neighborhood requested postponements to August 29th. >> Correct. >> And the applicant is in agreement with that. >> Very good. >> Thank you, I read 145 and that was, that's being offered for consent. Second and third readings, 146 is c1 for 2024 0039. This is a db 90 item. So this is offered as a staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 147 is c1 for 2024 0052 another db 90. So staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 148 is c1 for 2024 0018. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 149 is c1 for 2023 0131. This is Demayo 90. So staff requested postponement to your August 29th council meeting. Item 150 is withdrawn and replaced with item 188 and that is on your addendum. So we'll get to that, item 151 is c1 for 2023 0151. This item will be related to item 188 on the [2:18:41 PM] related to item 188 on the addendum. And this is being offered, it's the planning commission's recommendation just to be clear, on consent on all three readings. Item 152 is npa 2023 0023.03. S8. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 153 is c1 for 2024 0012. Sh. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 154 is c1 for 2024 0055. This is db 90 item. So this was a this will be a staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 155 is c1 for 2024 0056. This item being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 156 is c1 for 2024 0074. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 157 is c1 for 2022 0162. This item is being offered for consent. Second and third readings. Item 158 is npa 2023 2023 0013.01. This item is [2:19:42 PM] 2023 2023 0013.01. This item is being offered as an applicant. Postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 159 c1 for 2023 0021. Again, this item is being offered as an applicant postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 160 c1 for 2024 0049. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 161 is c1 for 2022 0118 ct. This item is being offered for consent. Item 162 is c1 for 2024 0022. This is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 163 is c1 for 2024 0042. This is a db 90 item, so staff requested postponement to your August 29th council meeting. Item 164 c1 for 2023 015 for this item is being offered for consent on all three readings. [2:20:43 PM] consent on all three readings. Item 165 is an npa 2022 0017.01. This is being offered as a staff postponement request to your September 12th council meeting. The related rezoning is 166 c1 for 2022 0035. Again, staff post one request to your September 12th council meeting. Item 167 is c1 for 2024 0014. This arms offered for consent on all three readings. Item 168 is c1 for 2024 0045. This was offered for consent on all three readings. Item 169 is npa 2023 0019.01. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. The related rezoning is item one seven c1 for 2024 0035. Again, this item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 171 is npa 2023 0025.01. This is a db 90 item, so this is a staff postponement request to your [2:21:45 PM] postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 172 c1 for 2024 0040 db 90. So staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. 173 is c1 for 2024 0025. Sh. This item is being offered for consent on all three readings. Item 174 c1 for 2024 0044 this is a db 90 rezoning. So this is a staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. 175 c1 for 2024 0043 another db 90 case. So staff postponement request your August 29th council meeting. Item 176 is c1 for 2024 0038. This item is being offered as staff postponement to your August 29th council meeting, this is a db 90 case, there is also a request from the neighborhood to postpone this case is September 12th meeting. But again this is offered as a staff postponement to your August 29th council meeting. But of course that's at [2:22:46 PM] meeting. But of course that's at your discretion. And item 177 is, db 90 staff postponement to August 29th. Item 178 c1 four 2024 0073 db 90 staff postponement to August 29th 179 is c1 four 2024 0053 db 90 case staff's moment to August 29th item 180 c1 four 2024 0070 db 90 staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 188 is c1 four 2024 0076. It's a db 90 item, so staff postponement request to your August 29th agenda number. >> Did you say that was I'm so sorry. >> Say it again. >> I worry what number you just called out. >> Oh 181 okay, I thought you said 188 so. >> 0a1 81. >> Let's go back for clarity purposes. >> 181 c1 490. >> So it's a read the number again. [2:23:48 PM] again. >> Yes. >> So postponement August 29th. >> Yes. >> So 181, sorry if I misspoke. Item 181 c1 for 2024 0076. This is a db 90 request. So it's a staff postponement to your August 29th council meeting. Item 182 c1 for 2023 0110 db 90. So it's a staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. Item 183 npa 2024 0016.01. S8. It's a db 90 item, so staff postponement request to your August 29th council meeting. The related rezoning is item 184 c1 for 2024 0019. Sh again db 90. So staff postpone request to your August 29th council meeting. And lastly, on your addendum item 188 npa 2023 0023.04 which is related to item 151. This is being offered for consent on all three readings. And this [2:24:51 PM] three readings. And this concludes the reading of the zoning and npa agenda. And as always, this is at your discretion. I >> This is the day I should have asked you to go backwards. >> No. >> Thank you very much for that. Members. For purposes of a motion on the consent agenda, what I'm going to. Here's what I'm going to do. She's called out the case numbers on all of these items. What I'm going to do is accept a typically what we do is I go ahead and read these for purposes of the consent agenda motion. I'm not going to do what she just did, I'm not sure any of us can survive that, but what? Here's what I am going to do. I'm going to first read those items that are being postponed. And in all cases, unless I say otherwise, they are being postponed to August 29th. And then I will read the consent items and the number of times [2:25:52 PM] items and the number of times that what reading we're passing those on. I just want there to be a clear record as to that. So please, please help me. Postponements are 127 128, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140. 141 142, 143, 144. >> Not postponement 143. >> Oh yes. Okay. One 143. Neighborhood postponement requests to August 29th. >> It's not on this list. >> Somebody questioning me? >> 143 144 146 147 149 154 158 159 163 165 and 166. [2:26:58 PM] 159 163 165 and 166. >> But they are postponed until September 12th, 171, 172, 174, 175. Members 176 would be postponed at a staff recommendation for August 29th. The neighborhood has requested September 12th. I'm looking to see if anybody wants to go. 158 no, no, no, if anybody otherwise if I don't hear an objection right now, the motion on consent will be to postpone 176 to August 29th, 177 178 179, one 8181, 182, 183 and 184. Those will all be postponed on the consent agenda. And as I said, those are all of those [2:27:59 PM] those are all of those postponements except for 165 and 166 will be to August 29th, 165 and 166 would be to September 12th. Now passage, can I make a correction? >> What number are you? 158 159 for items. 158 and 159, you read. 829 yes, I did, but there is a reason for what there is an agreement to September 12th, so that would be an applicant and neighborhood postponement to September 12th. >> Okay, members, I've read the postponements. The only four that would not be August 29th would be 158 and 159. 165 and 166. And those would all be for September 12th, correct? That will be the consent motion items that will be past 130 on all three readings, 131 and the [2:29:01 PM] three readings, 131 and the companion 132. All three readings 135, all three readings 138. All three readings 145. Second and third reading 148. All three readings. Members I'm going to pause on 150. That has been withdrawn and replaced with 188, and I'll come back to that 151 all three readings. 152 all three readings. 153. All three readings 155. All three readings 156. All three readings 157. Second and third readings 160. All three readings 161. Is a restrictive covenant termination, so it requires only one reading. 162 all three readings 164 all three readings, 167, 168, 169, and 170. All three readings 173. All three [2:30:05 PM] three readings 173. All three readings 188. Which is the replacement? It's in your agenda. The replacement for 150, and it's related to 151 will be on all three readings and members. It is the planning commission recommendation. Is harden are you in agreement with the way I read that, >> All except for item, not the right answer, but okay, all of them. But item 130 instead of all three readings, we're at the third. And so we've had first reading, we've had second reading, and we're on third reading on 130, on 130. >> I'm sorry. My notes were say it again so that that will be the consent agenda motion. I'm asking for. >> So item 130 is being offered for consent. Third third reading. >> Yes. Thank you I my notes weren't correct. All right members you've heard now ad nauseam, the motion for consent is there a motion to adopt the [2:31:05 PM] is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda? Council member qadri moves adoption. Seconded by council member Ryan alter. Mayor. Yes. Council member Alison alter. >> Two things. One, I just want to clarify. So the only discussion cases 129 the only discussion cases 129, and you may be about to say this, but I need to recuse myself on 135 I, out of abundance of caution, I'm within the notification area for the we are blood case. >> Fair enough, and that's that. I was going to get the comment public comment on the consent agenda, but for the record, let the record reflect that council member Alison alter will recuse herself from a vote on 135, even though it's included on the consent agenda. Thank you. All right. I'll now turn to the city clerk to see if there's anyone signed up on the consent agenda. >> Thank you. Mayor, I'll start with Alexandria. Anderson signed up for item 127 and 128. Speaking on the merits of the postponement. >> Folks, if you're here to testify on an item that has been [2:32:07 PM] testify on an item that has been postponed, all that you can testify on is the merits of the postponement, but we're happy to, I suppose we're happy to hear you testify on the merits of the postponement. So, she's now going to call your names on those. >> Marc Besson, speaking on items 127 and 128. The merits of postponement. >> Keep going. >> Carmen Yanez speaking on items 127 128 133, 134, 137, 142, 146, 147, 149, 154, 163, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, one 8181 and 182. All [2:33:11 PM] 179, one 8181 and 182. All postponed. Jennie Grayson, Noah. Elias, Brad Massingill if your name has been called, please come to the front. >> If your name has been called, please come forward. Welcome >> Jennie Grayson, president of the Mckinley heights neighborhood association I agree that these items db 90 cases should be postponed since we don't even know 90. Thank you. And, hopefully that will give us time to work with y'all and y'all to work with the community a little bit more. >> Thank you. Thanks for being here. >> Noah. Elias Brad Massingill, Chris Paige. Chris Paige just signed up for [2:34:18 PM] Chris Paige just signed up for items 127 128, 133, and 180. Speaking on the merits of postponement, I agree with what miss Grayson just said and I would ask all council and staff to have full transparency about what db 90 is supposed to entail, and I think after it's been determined, the community should have enough time to meaningfully consider it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Hey y'all. Brad Massengill, I agree that these need to be postponed as long as possible, these db 90s are going up like everywhere you just read off a list of, what, 40 of them? 35. That's going to change the landscape of Austin forever. So we need to talk about this stuff more thoroughly. And the notification process I don't know if that was part of why this has been postponed, but it was woefully lacking. I mean, the information included on how [2:35:19 PM] the information included on how to plug into this process. You go to the third paragraph on the note notification, which we only had two days of city staff time to even question what this stuff was about before the hearing. Last Tuesday. So I'm glad this is being moved forward. >> Thank you. >> Zenobia Joseph speaking on item 130. Three. >> Thank you. Mayor pro tem. Mayor. Council I'm Zenobia Joseph, speaking in opposition to item 130. That's 11209 metric, which is across from the Walgreens at metric and breaker. I want you to recognize that on [2:36:20 PM] I want you to recognize that on page four of the staff report, sherry Wyatt's report, it specifies route 142 and 325 142 only runs about two trips in the morning to in the afternoon from downtown, and 325 has operated at 60 minute headway. It was 15 minutes before cap remap. June 3rd, 2018. I want you to recognize that on may 30th, 2024, it was council member vela's amendment for 120ft, specifically 3 to 1 area, four of Florida area ratio. He said he was trying to mimic the domain, but I want you to remember that at the domain on February 17th, 2020, Terri Gruca over at the KVUE did an investigative report and the developers are paying a fee in lieu of affordable housing. There is no affordable housing in this development. It's 495 units specifically in the backup materials. It specifies five floors and it also says [2:37:20 PM] floors and it also says specifically that there may be heritage trees there. You just finished talking about environmental protections, environmental impact statement and so I want you to recognize that on each breaker just down the street from this particular development, you're going to have over 500 units there as well. And you're raising the land. So one of the things that you can do is ensure that the developer actually figures out how to do landscaping around the trees, as opposed to just cutting them all down. And so I want council member vela to recognize that there's more that can be done. My comments are in the context of title six of the civil rights act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin. You are simply increasing the traffic in this area. Project connect will not actually diminish the traffic. No one in their right mind is going to sit at a hot bus stop, a flat silver bench for 60 minutes waiting for the bus. I want to give you a real example. This week there was a black male who actually rides the bus and [2:38:20 PM] who actually rides the bus and catches the rail, and he actually told the driver at 7:01 A.M. It's too late. I'm not going to make it, so you're not going to get people out of their cars. There's no affordability. And I would ask you to recognize the need to postpone the third reading and to actually do some analysis to tell us what the community benefit is, because as it stands, it is simply more density on routes that operate every 60 minutes. And lastly, I will just tell you, it is, yes, a quarter mile from bus stop. But route 392 breaker actually requires individuals minority specifically to wait an additional 25 minutes on Saturdays and Sunday. So the white choice riders who are going to Austin fc can actually get to their game on time. If you have any questions, I'll gladly answer them at this time. >> Thank you, miss Joseph. >> You're welcome. >> Monica Guzman, Francis schenken amber or. >> If your name has been called [2:39:22 PM] >> If your name has been called and you wish to testify, come forward, please. >> Monica Guzman, speaking on the merits of the postponement of items 133 134 137 142 146, 149 154, 163, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, one 8181 and 182. >> Thank you. I'm Monica Guzman, policy director, Garza lugo Austin Atmos Austin and I support with Jenny Grayson, Chris Paige, Brad Massengill and many others who could not be here are all thinking and saying thank you for the postponement. This allows more time for authentic engagement with the community to ensure we have a better understanding and hopefully a more equitable path forward. Thank you. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. My name is Francis schenken and I'm [2:40:25 PM] Francis schenken and I'm speaking on item 180. I support the postponement, but I do question whether the planning commission, which we attended last week, will have enough information by this coming Tuesday to be able to make, many recommendations to you. They seem pretty confused about db 90 and, ask the staff at one point what exactly are the limitations for db 90? And the staff response was, well, I don't think we can answer that holistically. So in the next what, five days we're going to have an answer to the planning commission. I suggest you think about giving the planning commission a little bit more time to get the information. Planning is done by one staff member. As I understand it. And so I think they may need a little more time to absorb this information themselves. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Amber or Mario Cantu? Jody [2:41:26 PM] >> Amber or Mario Cantu? Jody Zemel. >> Your name has been called. Please come forward. Please call some additional names. >> William weaver, Mary ingle, Susan Morrison. >> Please begin, >> Good afternoon, council members. I'm here on items 158 and 159. We support the postponement, but we really encourage you to, make this a transparent process. We would really like conditional use on a lot of the items that the applicant is asking for. And when we come back, we will talk about those further. But this is a single family property in the middle of residential, just on the merits of the postponement. And so we're willing to discuss this with the applicant further. But this case has been going on since February of 2023. Thank you. Thank you. >> If anyone's name has been [2:42:33 PM] >> If anyone's name has been called, please come forward. >> Philip Wylie, bill bunch. >> Mr. Bunch, if your name's been called, please come forward. If you're going to talk. Okay >> Hi. Philip Wylie, I live downtown. It's a tough act to go before, but I'll do my best, I have some charts. >> What item were you testifying on? >> Your name? Number 173, Philip Wylie. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Forward, please. Forward please. The third. The start with the third one, please. Yeah. There we go, so this is the, saint martin's affordable housing project. Oh. That's great, I'm passionately supportive of this project. It's [2:43:37 PM] supportive of this project. It's way overdue, I'd like to give you a little background on on how we got here. Ten years ago, before he was elected mayor, Mr. Adler came into our neighborhood after, the local historic district on the map was not accepted. It was not accepted by the property owners in the neighborhood. We had two valid petitions, the people who had property within the district did not support it. The people who were on the outside of the district did not support it. And we basically had a family feud that went on for 4 or 5 years. That was very ugly over this whole process. And I'm it's one of the most disappointing things I've ever been through in my life. But it is what it is, if you would go to the next chart, please. What you see here is, on [2:44:38 PM] please. What you see here is, on the outside of the neighborhood, is basically the transition zone. This is a compatibility zone. So we did something. You all did great work on compatibility recently, but compatibility is not just the distance between single family homes. It's actually built into the zoning table. These are downtown properties. So when I showed you a map earlier today of the census tract and what happened from 1020 or 20 10 to 2020, this was where wally is. This is where Waldo is. This is an area that did not grow for ten years in the fastest growing metro in the nation, we need to do something differently. So what you're seeing here on the outside in blue are five areas [2:45:40 PM] outside in blue are five areas that have pursued multifamily housing to one extent or another through discussions or through thank you. >> Thank you, Mary Ingles speaking on items 169 and one 76 minutes. >> I won't need all that time. Thank you, Mary ingle, resident of north university neighborhood, and I live on Duval street. I'm speaking about items 169 and 170. The Duval residence 3305. There's a back story to this property. It's been up zoned to mf1. It's an sf three property. That's single family. I live sort of across the street. All of the houses surrounding our single family. Duval separates. Separates two neighborhoods from each other. We were in different groups [2:46:42 PM] We were in different groups during the neighborhood plan in 2004. So the new property owner who bought this in 2023 did not do due diligence. He did not check whether this owner, the previous owner, had illegal units, he has not exhausted all remedies at the board of adjustment or other places where he could come into compliance. That's our process. So we're up zoning because why? Exhausting all remedies means he cannot come into compliance without getting a judgment. He's also got other options like re re up zoning, then then up zoning, like subdividing the property, furthermore, we just passed home one and two, which allows units in the setbacks and allows more than, you know, one unit on a [2:47:44 PM] than, you know, one unit on a lot or two units. Why are we doing this? Why do we up zone when there's also a remedy that we can use now, I feel that this is real injustice to the rest of us. On Duval, who have adhered to our, zoning regulations. This is rewarding cheaters. Maybe the rest of us with the same land mass would like to have an up zoning two to mf1, but nobody asked. Do we have to do something illegal to do that? I also think that this is a case of spot zoning, and at the planning commission, a lawyer appointee read out from black's law dictionary what spot zoning is spot zoning refers, of when a piece of property or a group of properties have special zoning laws applied to them that differ from the zoning laws surrounding [2:48:45 PM] from the zoning laws surrounding the property. The practice of spot zoning can be controversial and may be illegal. There are no adjacent multifamily properties. This area of Austin was platted early. We've had some inconsistencies in zoning. In 2004, we tried to clean up those inconsistencies and as the staff stated in the backup, one of the recommendations states, remove multifamily and commercial zoning along Duval street, where Creekmur current and traditional uses single family. Why are we up? Zoning to undo what the neighborhood plan actually tried to do? Make things more consistent. This property was always single family, and now we're doing the stuff that happened long ago. So please deny this unwarranted request. [2:49:46 PM] deny this unwarranted request. The answer is not up zoning the wrong. It's the wrong solution because it rewards bad behavior and it sends the wrong message to the public and those of us who still live on Duval and of who who have obeyed the law. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor, that concludes all the zoning consent speakers. >> Thank you very much. Oh ma'am. >> My apologies, ma'am. >> Was your name called? >> Yes. >> Feel free to speak. >> Susan Morrison and I just want to support what Mary Engel just said, because neighborhoods are being disrespected in this rush of for home one and two, and there is no reason for up zoning on this, on this land. >> Thank you, miss Morrison. I take it that completes the people members. That concludes the comment. Period. Comments on [2:50:49 PM] the comment. Period. Comments on the consent agenda as it was previously read. Let me ask, is there anyone wishing to be shown voting no on the consent agenda? Anyone account councilmember Allison alter will be shown recusing herself from a vote on item 135. Councilmember Ellis, there was one item I wanted to be shown voting no on for consent. I'm sorry. Good. Please tell me what that is. >> That's going to be item number 129. >> All right. Is there anyone wishing to be shown abstaining on a vote on an item? Okay, members for the record. Well, 129 discussion. >> I'm not voting on it just yet, >> So we'll take that. >> Yes. You're right. Thank you for pointing that out. >> Thank you. >> All right, members, the only. Councilmember harper-madison, let me ask you, is there [2:51:50 PM] let me ask you, is there anything that you wish to be shown voting? No recusing yourself or abstaining on the consent agenda? >> No. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I appreciate you asking, because my computer, of course, is about to restart in one minute, >> No, we'll try to get this vote done. Thank you, councilmember Bailey's going to keep you close your computer. Shut down. Councilmember Bailey. >> Sorry about that, is this the appropriate time to make a quick comment on item 130? I just wanted to note that in item 130, which there was a comment about earlier, the developers are creating a one acre, private park and going to maintain, a one acre private park as part of the development. It's a six acre piece of land. So they're going really above and beyond anything that they would be required to do. They're also agreeing to provide, affordable housing consistent with the rules that are just across the street in the domain, and then finally, I just wanted to also note that it is a pda, and the pdas are [2:52:52 PM] is a pda, and the pdas are really kind of a bulky and difficult, process. And today I'm a co-sponsor of council member harper-madison item that would initiate important changes to pdas that would in the future, hopefully require affordable housing. So I just wanted to note that, for the record, thank you. >> Thank you, councilmember Vila. Councilmember. Fuentes. >> Yes, I'd like to be shown as abstaining from item 109. >> No. Excuse me. It's not on the consent agenda. >> 109 is the floodplain mayor. >> It's not on the. Yeah we're not. We're. Yeah. 109. That's not a zoning matter. I'll get to that a little bit later. All right. Motion's been made and seconded. Without objection, the consent agenda is adopted, with [2:53:53 PM] consent agenda is adopted, with councilmember Allison alter being shown recusing herself from a vote on item 135 members that will take us to item 129. 129 is a discussion item. It is on third and final reading, and it will require nine votes. >> Oh yes, please. Thank you. >> Thank you mayor. Good afternoon. Council members, Colin Contreras from the planning department. Item 129 is an owner opposed historic zoning case initiated by the historic landmark commission. When a demolition permit was submitted for their review today. This case is up for third reading. It passed on consent, with one opposed on first reading, then was pulled for discussion on second reading, with two votes in opposition and some questions which I hope to answer today as we present this case for third and final reading, historic zoning for this building is recommended not only by staff, but also unanimously by both the historic landmark commission and [2:54:53 PM] historic landmark commission and the planning commission. The planning commission has crafted a compromise solution, which both preserves the intact front of the original house and allows its incompatible rear additions to be removed and the back of the lot developed in accordance with the home amendment, this compromise has staff's enthusiastic support. The east Austin historic resource survey, approved by council in 2016, identified the house at 1100 east second street as eligible for local landmark designation. Contribution to a potential historic district, and individually eligible for listing in the national register of historic places. As you can see from the survey, the additions to the back of the historic house and the secondary structure on the lot would not be zoned historic, per the staff and planning commission recommendation. Rather than applying zoning to the entire parcel as is typical for historic zoning, the planning commission acknowledging this building's critical contribution to second street, tailored its recommendation to allow the multiunit options provided by home to work in tandem with the preservation of the original portion of the front house. [2:55:54 PM] portion of the front house. Staff feels this is an excellent compromise that helps preserve one of east Austin's rapidly disappearing historic streetscapes, while also allowing the space to continue to serve Austin's housing needs. Thank you. >> Do you have any questions of the planning department at this point? Okay. What we'll do is, because this is a matter of for discussion, I will call on the, well, I guess the planning department is probably the ones making the. I'll now call on opposition and give a spokesperson for the opposition. Five minutes, and then we will go to speakers on this item. Those in favor and those in opposition. So is there a representative of those in opposition that would like to be recognized? >> Thank you. Mayor. We have Josh brunsman on the line. >> Okay. Let's give him five minutes. Sir. What was the last [2:56:54 PM] minutes. Sir. What was the last name? >> Brunsman. >> What's up? >> Mayor, we don't see him on the line. We can try to reach out. >> We do have some for speakers. >> If we have some for speakers. Calling them, please. >> Juan Ramon Rubio. Thank you for your patience, sir. >> Good afternoon. My name is [2:57:55 PM] >> Good afternoon. My name is Juan Ramon Rubio. I'm a board member of preservation Austin and one of the land historic landmark commissioners. Thank you all for supporting the item today to strengthen the preservation bonus, I hope you consider those ideas related to historic zoning of the citizen house, months ago we heard a lot of testimony from home two. The community is really upset because they feel they're being ignored. They're asking you during those testimonies to prevent displacement, more tax abatements, more preservation of affordable housing. They asked if you'll help seniors age in place. I beg you to take heed from those citizens that want to save their communities and its heritage. Take heed from your city planners. Take heed from your city commissions. Less than 1% of Austin property is designated historic, and most of that is in wealthy white neighborhoods. If you designate this property, the owner can still develop their land. That's what we've shown. That's what we've proven. That's what ordinances we have. You asked us to serve on these commissions. You asked staff to help guide community efforts. There's nothing worse than throwing all that away. You're throwing out all the time advice, money and energy down the drain. You can [2:58:57 PM] energy down the drain. You can use preservation as a tool to combat gentrification and affordability problems. The buck stops here. Our city's heritage is at risk of destruction because tough decisions here are favoring profits over people failing to save these places against an owner wishes endangers 99% of Austin. Imagine Austin without the drag. Imagine Austin without south congress. Imagine Austin without sixth street. You have the power to protect all of those places, but we're giving priority to property rights. Think of your role in legacy and preserving Austin. No one's going to remember the new houses that are under construction today. Those will be gone in 50 years. I've seen the shoddy construction myself, but hopefully this house and others like it will stand strong 100 years from now. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mary Kelly speaking on item 129. >> Hi, this is Mary Cale. It's going to be hard to talk. My fellow board member of [2:59:58 PM] fellow board member of preservation Austin one, Raymond Rubio, but I will give my little talk, we're here to express our support for the designation of the sinnickson house as a historic landmark. And let me reiterate what Ron Juan Raymond said with landmark status, the property owner can still develop the site. Landmark status does not have to be a burden. We love your support for Progressive preservation policy like the preservation bonus and we ask you to bring that same spirit to this case, as you know, the 2016 east Austin historic resource survey lists the building as eligible for local landmark designation and listing on the national register of historic places. The staff report identified its folk Victorian architecture and its historic association with the carpenter and builder Charles Stinson as the basis of its recommendation, both the historic landmark commission and the planning commission put in lots of time [3:00:59 PM] commission put in lots of time and effort, and overwhelmingly recommended this property for designation. We've said many times that the city has to take its surveys and the recommendations of our commissions, seriously. Surveys tell us about our city. What is important and what we must protect. And if we are not acting on the recommendations, we are failing to steward our own rapidly vanishing history, especially in east Austin. Properties like this have housed east Austin's working class residents for decades. With each older and historic home, we lose, the displacement of these communities is cemented. Furthermore, in the wake of the passage of the preservation bonus, this property is a perfect example of how, in Austin's current housing market, a home like this could be preserved, retaining the historic character of east Austin while also preserving the affordability of older homes. Again landmark status does not prevent the property owner from developing the site. Not every [3:01:59 PM] developing the site. Not every home that accesses the bonus needs to be a landmark, but this is one such property that has demonstrated its worthiness for designation by the criteria set out in our own land development code. We need to act urgently with the tools we have to ensure that we can protect what remains. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. >> I believe we now have Josh brunsman on the line. Josh, please unmute. >> Please, please press star six to unmute. Thank you. >> Josh, please press star six. >> Hello? Are you able to hear me now? Yes all right, my [3:02:59 PM] me now? Yes all right, my apologies, I appreciate everyone's time this evening, mayor Watson, thanks for your time as well, I'm the applicant on this 1100 east second street. You know, the I understand the sentiment in regards to the historic, preservation on this property, but this property is in beyond disrepair. There's a big disconnect in regards to associating the cost to bring this home back to life, majority of the home has been added on over the last 30, 40 years, much of the siding and exterior windows, they're not the original, home. So, you know, this this would be a travesty to give this home historic preservation against the owner's will, and also the misunderstanding of the costs that are associated with being able to preserve this home is much higher than it is for new construction. We feel, that we should be able to provide this home. The option for someone else that maybe would want to [3:04:00 PM] else that maybe would want to preserve this, but we should be allowed to move forward, and we would request to be moved forward with our demolition request. That's all I have this evening. >> Thank you. >> That is all the speakers we have. >> Thank you, members, that concludes the speakers on this item. 129, I'll entertain a motion with regard to item 129. Is there a motion to approve item 129 on third reading, council member Ryan alter moves approval seconded by council member Velasquez members. This will require nine votes in order to pass it on third reading. Council member Ellis, you are being. You had requested that you be shown voting no on that item. Is there anyone else wishing to be shown voting no on item 129? Council member Kelly, [3:05:01 PM] item 129? Council member Kelly, councilmember harper-madison are you available to vote? Council member harper-madison are you available to vote? >> Yes, Mr. Mayor, very good. >> All right. In that case, all those in favor say I. I opposed say no. We have council member Ellis and council member Kelly voting no. Council member harper-madison. How are you voting? >> I'm a no vote as well, Mr. Mayor. >> Oh, then the motion, there being eight in favor, three in opposition. The motion to adopt fails. All right, that'll, that completes all of our zoning and neighborhood planning items. Is that correct, miss harden? You got anything else? All right. [3:06:02 PM] got anything else? All right. Been good to being with you today. That will now, members, what we'll do now is. And for the public, we will go to item number 126. I'm sorry, I don't know why I said 126. I don't even know what that means. We'll go to item 96, item number 96, that is generally considered to be the charter amendments item members. What we will do after that, if you're if people are keeping a box score, we will go to the public hearings. And in some instances after we have a public hearing, we will take up a related item. For example, 101 is an item related to 123. We'll take that up at that point in time, but for now we're going to go to item number 96 members. My proposal on item how we address item number 96 is that we will have public comment with regard [3:07:06 PM] have public comment with regard to the item. I will then seek a motion as to the various items based upon the recommendation that has come before us. I will then allow or ask for any amendments that someone might want to offer. We will vote individually on those items. There has been some discussion and I'm not going to. We won't do it right now. But, when we after we've had the public comment, one of the first things I will do is ask for a direction to be given to staff with regard to how we letter the items, there's been some discussion that everybody has voted a number of times now on prop a over and over and over, and, prop B over and over and over. And so what we might want to do is as a city is start with prop C this time so that we can go from there and not have [3:08:06 PM] from there and not have everybody, creating confusion around prop a and prop B, I'll ask for direction on that before we then go to each one of the items. And that's how we'll take the items up based upon arguably the new lettering, assuming they pass. Let me ask if there's anything the staff wants to say before we start and we go to public comment. All right. Well, in that case, we're an item number 96, please. Madam clerk, help us. >> Thank you. Mayor speaking on item 96, delisha Thomas, Bobby Levinsky, Chris Harris, Monica Guzman, when your name is called, please come forward so that you'll be prepared. >> And if you're if you're if you're standing up and there's nobody at the podium, take the podium. Mr. Harris, are you going to testify? >> Oops. [3:09:09 PM] >> Oops. >> Excuse me. There was a statement I was going to make this morning, but not prepared. So I hope you give me a little latitude. If I hit the mark. No but please stay with the rules. I think you'll understand. Good afternoon, mayor and council. I am Monica Guzman, district four resident. Before going to my remarks, I want to share about a friend and community leader, David king, who spent many years speaking with and for the community here in city hall. He was and still is an inspiration to us all. I was torn between attending the celebration of his life this morning and being here in council chambers. Yesterday, a colleague asked, what would David do now? I asked for a few moments of silence. Thank you. Rest in power, David. I'm Monica Guzman, policy director at lugo Austin vamos, Austin on item 96, proposition C, removing the ordinance requirement for city council procedure. As elected officials, you are accountable to all people who live, work, play or pray in Austin. When [3:10:11 PM] play or pray in Austin. When each of you were sworn into office in accordance with the Texas constitution article 16, section one, you swore, quote, to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution and laws of the United States, unquote. However, removing the ordinance requirement is a blow to the democratic process, effectively denying us our right to speak and be heard in a public hearing proposition E increase the number of signatures needed for initiative and referendum. It is already expensive, and time consuming to petition the community for signatures for a ballot initiative. Equity Austin's petition to put the Austin police oversight act initiative on the ballot cost approximately $250,000. That's a quarter of $1 million proposing an increase in the number of signatures adds to the cost, and that is certainly not equitable. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. If your name's been called, please come forward. >> Good afternoon, council. [3:11:11 PM] >> Good afternoon, council. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. My name is Chris Harris. I'm here today in my capacity as a board member of equity action, and I'm here, one, I will echo the concerns raised by the previous speaker about the rule changes internally, not requiring an ordinance, but primarily, I'm here one to support proposition G and H. Believe that it's, really important that, that representative majorities decide, as much as possible when it comes to elections in this town. And so moving elections to November, even years makes sense. And in order to ensure that similarly, recalls that require very few, signatures to overturn a recent decision of a representative majority within a district are fundamentally undemocratic. And so it is important that we also see changes to the recall system, particularly as it because of the inequitable nature of how easy it is to recall members in [3:12:12 PM] easy it is to recall members in our east side, primarily people of color districts. I also want to note that it's been less than two years since the police association, perpetrated a fraud on this community, and there was an opportunity for this whole package to be more emblematic of all the changes necessary to our citizen initiated ballot process in order to help correct some of the wrongs that allowed them to perpetrate that fraud, and required my organization to win that expensive election with some of your help. Thank you for that, in order to not only, ensure that a really bad piece of legislation didn't pass, but it didn't also create confusion because of the fact that there were two similar initiatives on the ballot, and so the note of intent rules that I understand now are being pushed to an ordinance, it's a little ironic to me. I understand they don't necessarily need to be in in the, in the charter package. That said, this whole package had an [3:13:13 PM] said, this whole package had an opportunity to be a bulwark to our local democratic process. By including those things. And yet it still includes an item, a 3.5, signature threshold, which is going to do what it's going to push people to do citizen initiated measures through the charter process. It's going to push even more inappropriate legislation that citizens bring into the charter process, if that is maintained and put on the ballot. So, do encourage you to, to, to not move forward with the 3.5% requirement on, on the signature thresholds support G and H support the notice of intent rules. I would encourage them to be included in this package, though if that's not possible, then it in all immediate haste and. And finally, I want to also note the other importance of this city council having independent legal representation and very much the support, councilmember Fuentes amendment for that purpose. Thank you, councilmember alter, for your work on this package. [3:14:14 PM] for your work on this package. Thank you. >> Bill bunch, speaking on item 96 with time donated by Susan Morrison. Susan, are you here? If you could just raise your hand. >> Yes, you. >> She's here a total of six minutes while he's coming down. >> If you'll call other names, if there's anyone else signed up. >> Carmen Yanez, Rita Thompson, Jenny Grayson. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon. I start mayor Watson with raising the same point of order that I raised before, you have 14 different items here. That should provide for 3 minutes or 2 minutes minimum on each one. And I'd request that I be granted that this is not a single item. >> I'm not. We're not going to grant you that request. >> Okay. Wanted that on the record. So I have six minutes. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay, I'll just say that's, woefully unreasonable, given the [3:15:15 PM] woefully unreasonable, given the importance of what you're here potentially putting on the ballot. Almost all of these provisions, not every one of them, but almost all of them, reducing transparency in city government, reducing accountability to voters. And basically consolidating yet more power into your own hands, to the hands of the city manager as well. And, rendering almost meaningless the very limited power of direct democracy, that we currently have in our city charters, provisions for, initiative, referendum and recall, the power of referendum has already essentially been gutted. By the very short time window that is provided, what you're proposing to do now, is to put on to this November [3:16:19 PM] to put on to this November ballot where the noise and distraction levels, and the length of the ballot will be literally off the charts, so guaranteeing that people will have, minimum information, to, or an attention span to focus on these changes. I want to I'll start with just speaking against specifically the, raising the signature requirements for initiated ordinances. Right now, it's 20,000, a flat amount. That's consistent with. And we amended our charter to set it at the same level for, charter amendment petitions, it makes no sense to make it harder to do an ordinance initiative than a charter initiative, and it creates an incentive for people [3:17:19 PM] creates an incentive for people to amend the charter when it's not appropriate or wouldn't be as appropriate to do that. That's fixed by state law, as you know, so you can't mess with it. The idea that, raising it is somehow more democratic because it's too easy for well funded people, the rich and powerful, the Ubers and Lyfts and the police union and whoever you might want to point fingers at to bankroll a petition, raising the level doesn't deter the people who have the wealth, as it's ever more concentrated who it deters is the grassroots and makes it virtually impossible for a true grassroots initiative. And that's what initiative referendum recall is really intended for the people to speak up. When we have gridlock at city hall, gridlock driven by the incredible amount of real estate and now tech pro [3:18:22 PM] of real estate and now tech pro money that's bankrolling y'all's campaigns, and now here you are trying to make it almost impossible for true grassroots initiatives to get the signatures for an initiative. And then you're doing it on recall. Raising the signature requirement. To, 15% rather than the current 10. Nobody's ever even tried a meaningful recall petition. It hasn't happened. Because it's not an easy thing to do. And here you are running scared, trying to take this away. And this shortly, relatively shortly after we've extended terms to four years from three years. And when you have that longer term, it's even more important to have that rare [3:19:23 PM] more important to have that rare occasion when, there needs to be some attention to, gross mismanagement, malfeasance on behalf of a council member, that should not happen, you have now a whole raft of proposals that didn't even go through the charter review commission process, just thrown out there basically at the last minute from staff, and those are, posed as mere minor, you know, cleanup measures. They're way more than that, proposition B, deleting the weekly meeting requirement. Okay. Y'all aren't meeting weekly. There's no real mandate or remedy for that other than your own accountability, but you're not even come close to you're not meeting even two times a month. I mean, look at this absurd agenda. We have 180 [3:20:24 PM] this absurd agenda. We have 180 some odd items. You know. Sure. Take some vacation time. But the council used to meet fairly weekly when they were being paid literally nothing. And now, you know, you're being paid a quite a bit of money. You have a huge staff. And now we have these enormous agenda items. Is that my six minutes? >> That's your six minutes, >> All right. I have to see you in the court again. Thank you. >> Thank you, miss bunch. >> Natalie Hensley, Mary ingle. >> Hello, sir. I got lost along [3:21:27 PM] >> Hello, sir. I got lost along the way. Afternoon. I'm Natalie Hensley, and I'd like to speak about item 96. Item 96 is ironic in numerous ways. When I registered to speak on this item, I followed proper procedure only to find that the city had removed the comment box that previously allowed me 500 characters to express my thoughts on each item I registered to speak on. Consequently, an opportunity to express my views on an item focused on public participation was reduced compared to what it was last month. Moving along. Item 96 bundles 14 proposed charter amendments into a single agenda item for which austinites are allotted only two minutes to speak. This gives us. Approximately 8.57 seconds to comment on each proposed charter amendment that we will be voting on individually in November. How [3:22:27 PM] on individually in November. How can 8.57 seconds per amendment possibly allow for meaningful participation today? Some of these amendments concern reducing remedies for political oppression, particularly propositions E, F, and G. While oppression is often viewed as a small select group eroding the rights of the majority, there are also times when the majority erodes the rights of a minority. This is why checks such as initiatives, referenda, and frequent elections are crucial propositions E and G aim to make it harder for initiatives and referenda to pass by raising the signatures threshold, while majority affinity groups have the numbers to overcome the bar that these propositions will raise to get their initiatives and referenda passed, bipoc and other community minority groups [3:23:27 PM] other community minority groups will struggle due to these raised thresholds. Ironically, and with all due respect, propositions E and G bake in institutionalized racism into Austin's public participation processes. I'd like to comment further on proposition F's impact on decreasing the potential frequency of elections, and how that is particularly unfair to minorities. However, my allotted two minutes, 100 and 20s to participate via comment on city hall, diminishing public participation in the future will soon expire. So I will leave it with this. Please, I beg you, remedy this by allowing additional public hearing time beyond today. Thank you. >> That concludes the speakers for item 96. [3:24:28 PM] for item 96. >> Thank you. >> Members, as I indicated, what I would recommend we do so that we can have a discussion on each one of the items is, take them up one by one and have discussion. But the first thing is that there has been discussion that it may be confusing to the public if we start with the letter a, and B, because there have been so many propositions where people refer to a and B, so, I'll the way I would ask this is if there I'll say it out loud and then we'll call for discussion. If there is no objection, the direction to staff would be that if we vote to put anything on the ballot, it would start with the letter C, and then follow as appropriate. So C, D, E and going forward. And so in other words, what might otherwise be [3:25:32 PM] words, what might otherwise be considered prop a. And in fact in the initial packet said prop a on it. That would be if that were to pass that would be prop C. With the proposed ballot language that's here. So let me ask the question. Is there any objection to that being the direction that we give to staff? Councilmember Alison alter? >> I'm totally comfortable with that direction to staff as long as when we're talking about it today, we can refer to the letters that, yeah, we're looking at the way I, the way I more confused than fair enough. >> And I completely agree. So what what I'm going to do is do my best. And I bet you'll stop me and correct me if I do it wrong, I will say, for example, on prop a, when I call for a motion, on it, I will call for the motion on as, as prop on the ballot prop proposition C formerly prop a so that we'll [3:26:33 PM] formerly prop a so that we'll all be clear about it. And I'll try to do that consistently. But if I, if I mess up, y'all, I'm somebody will tell me. I'm sure, yeah. You do your best. Good all right. So that will take us then to what is currently labeled prop proposition a, and the ballot language members. What I'll do is I will call for a motion for prop a with the proposed ballot language, councilmember Allison alter, I make the motion. Councilmember alter. Moves. Councilmember Allison alter moves to place prop a as prop C on the ballot with the ballot language. That's there. Is there? It's seconded by council member Ryan alter. Members. Is there discussion regarding prop proposition C formerly proposition a? Without [3:27:34 PM] formerly proposition a? Without objection, proposition C formally proposition a with the proposed ballot language, the motion is to adopt and place it on the ballot. And that is that is adopted. Mayor, yes. You're going to get some nos out of me today. Well, just make sure you call them out because I object. >> Thank you. >> With with, council member Mckenzie Kelly being shown voting no members that will take us to what is currently labeled prop B, but will become prop, proposition D. With the proposed ballot language, and let me just ask, is there a motion to adopt, proposition D, formally proposition B, councilmember qadri moves, is seconded by council member Ellis. Is there additional discussion on this [3:28:35 PM] additional discussion on this item? Without objection, proposition D formally proposition B is adopt the motion is adopted with the ballot language to be placed on the ballot. Council member Kelly cry out for me. >> Okay, yeah, I'm going to say no, it's really not necessary in my opinion. Thank you. >> Don't don't hold back. >> I should just keep my mic on. Yeah. Don't. >> Yeah. Don't hold back. Thank you, that'll take us to proposition E formally proposition C, that's on page nine of the packet that you may have in front of you. It's the one I'm using, I'll ask, is there a motion with the with the combined with the ballot language, is there a motion to put it on the ballot? And council member Ellis moves that we place prop E with the ballot language formally proposition C seconded by council member Vella. Is there any discussion? [3:29:36 PM] Vella. Is there any discussion? Councilmember Allison alter, could city staff explain what this one would do and why we why we think it's necessary? >> Good afternoon, mayor and council. Neil falgoux, open government division chief in the law department. So this is just removing the requirement that you pass the, the rules by ordinance, you can still pass it by ordinance if you want, but it also will allow you to do it by resolution or some other method of, of majority vote by the council. We would still recommend that the council vote on their on their rules. >> Okay. So in a situation where we had a set of rules and somebody wanted to do something and it was against the rules and somebody called them on it, what would be? >> They could just change the rules right then and there and [3:30:36 PM] rules right then and there and that meeting, or would they have to post change the rules? I mean, yeah, I think if they wanted to change the rules, they would have to do it at the, at the next meeting and properly post that as an agenda item. >> Change rules would would require a vote. >> Right. I'm just we do we do Robert's rules and we there's things that we vote on that come up from Robert's rules, which is different than changing the rules. >> And so I was trying to get clarity on whether that could happen at the same meeting or, or, or like if it's a matter that's in within Robert's rules of order, then you can do that at the meeting. >> But if it's an if, if it's a matter that has been sort of that has superseded Robert's rules of orders by you adopting your council rules of procedure, then it would require a vote that's been properly posted. >> Okay. >> Thank you, thank you, thank you, councilmember alter, the motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Hearing? None. Without objection. Proposition E [3:31:37 PM] Without objection. Proposition E formally proposition C is adopted. >> Mayor, I would like to abstain on that one. >> And with council member Alison alter being shown, abstain, members that will take us to proposition F formally proposition D. With the combined ballot language is there a motion, related to the adoption of proposition F and placing it on the ballot, formally proposition D, council member qadri moves approval. Is there a second? Second by councilmember vela? Is there a discussion with regard to proposition F, formally proposition D yes. >> Councilmember Ellis, I have a quick question. I see that the limits on contributions to candidates is mentioned in here, and it mentions the $300 per contributor per cycle. I know that that number is actually [3:32:37 PM] that that number is actually updated consistently. Could staff speak to how we are to look at that number or where else in the charter? We find that number? >> Updates it according to council member, that number is updated with the adoption of each budget, and it's based on the cpi. >> Okay. And is that mentioned anywhere else in this text or somewhere else in the charter that that number is updated? Okay. So I want to make sure for clarity that we've had, the number updated as cost of living goes up as wages go up, which is the consumer price index, so there's been moments where it's been 400, 450 is where it currently stands. And so even though in here it says 300, it is updated in another portion. >> Correct. And it's in your budget document that's approved each year. Perfect. >> And the candidate packet. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Council member. Any further discussion with regard to putting proposition F, formerly proposition D, with the [3:33:38 PM] formerly proposition D, with the proposed ballot language on the ballot, without objection proposition. >> I will speak up. Sorry I tell you what. >> What I'll do is I'll call I'll call it out and I'll look to you and you tell me, okay. That way you don't have to jump in. >> Perfect. >> Good proposition F, formerly proposition D is approved to be placed on the ballot with council member Kelly being shown voting no. All right. That will take us to proposition E. Is there a motion? If proposition E gets a motion, it will be proposition. Formerly it was proposition E, it would be proposition G. If it gets a motion, is there a motion to place proposition G? What would be proposition G currently? [3:34:40 PM] be proposition G currently? Proposition E on the ballot. Is there a motion. There being no motion proposition. Former proposition E will not be placed on the ballot. That will take us to proposition F currently proposition F, and it will become proposition G. >> Yeah, it's down to one now. >> Yeah. We went with the. All right. The best. It's you know how when people are counting something and they start calling out numbers and it messes up their count, you start calling out alphabetical letters. I want to be really my. My six year old and three year old granddaughters are going to be so disappointed if they ever watch this, all right. So proposition F will now be proposition G if it gets a motion and is approved to be placed on the ballot, is there a [3:35:42 PM] placed on the ballot, is there a motion to place what will be formally proposition F new proposition G on the ballot with ballot language? Councilmember Vella moves. Is there a second by councilmember Ryan alter? Is there discussion with regard to what would be proposition G? Formerly proposition F? Without objection, proposition G is adopted and being placed on the ballot. Formerly proposition F with councilmember Kelly being shown voting no. >> I would also like to be shown voting abstain and councilmember Kelly being shown voting no. >> And councilmember Allison alter abstaining from a vote on that proposition. That will take us to proposition former proposition G, which would become proposition. H if it is, if there's a motion a second and [3:36:45 PM] if there's a motion a second and it's approved with the combined ballot language. So proposition G would become proposition H. Is there a motion? Motion is made by councilmember Vila. Is there a second? Seconded by councilmember Velasquez. Discussion with regard to proposition G. Currently to become proposition H. Without objection, proposition H formerly proposition G will be placed on the ballot with councilmember Kelly being shown voting no. We'll now go to prop as the current proposition H, which would become proposition I members just to follow procedure here. What I'm going to do is move adoption of proposition I so that we have a main motion [3:37:45 PM] so that we have a main motion out there. But I understand that there is a proposed substitute motion. So if I would like a second to the main motion seconded by the mayor pro tem, that what would become proposition I, current proposition H we is would be put on the ballot with this language members. We have a main motion. I now recognize councilmember Fuentes. >> I would like to make a substitute motion to approve the Fuentes alternative charter amendment proposition H, regarding the appointment of the city attorney members, you have in front of you. >> Council member Fuentes alternative charter amendment for what has been proposition H would become proposition I. It is seconded by council member Velasquez. Members, let me ask if there's I'm just going to follow the procedure here. If there's any proposed amendments to the main motion. All right. [3:38:46 PM] to the main motion. All right. Hearing none that perfects the main motion. Are there any proposed? Sorry I'm just missing. >> So is the main motion is the. >> We haven't gotten to that yet. Stick with me. I'll get you there. Is there are there any proposed amendments to the substitute motion by council member Fuentes? All right. That motion is also perfected. The vote. >> I'm sorry. Fuentes amendment. >> The Fuentes substitute motion. Does anybody have any amendment to the Fuentes substitute motion? >> I don't have an amendment to it. No. >> Okay. That being the case, we are getting ready to take a vote on whether the substitute motion should become the main motion. Should the substitute motion become the main motion? Without objection, the substitute motion becomes the main motion on which we will vote. >> I object you object to the substitute motion, all right. [3:39:48 PM] substitute motion, all right. >> And you object as well. >> All right. And I object. All right. Surprise yeah. >> How about you start telling me when you're for it, that be there being nine votes in favor. I'm sorry. Eight votes in favor of the substitute motion becoming the main motion. Three votes in opposition. Council member Kelly, council member Ellis and council member Allison alter, the substitute motion has now become the main motion. I'm going to assume it's going to be the same vote, but now we're going to vote on what is the main motion. >> But when do we have discussion? >> That'd be a good time. >> Okay, may I please. Thank you very much. I just want to thank councilmember Fuentes for her work on this. I think this responds to some of the issues, the tension that we see with a manager council form of government where we are the people's representative and [3:40:49 PM] people's representative and right now with the manager going, or the manager appointing the city attorney, you know, that is that direct client relationship, even though we are also within that purview, I think it is important to establish that direct attorney client relationship with the people's representatives. And so I applaud you on this work. I thank you for doing it. And it really brings us just in line with what we see across the state. So I'm looking forward to putting this in front of the voters. >> Any other discussion? Councilmember Allison alter, >> Can staff remind us? I thought there was a proposition that tried to do this and failed previously. If you could speak to my memory on that, mayor and council, I don't recall exactly which year it was. >> There was one proposition that made it onto the ballot that did not pass by a very narrow margin. And then there was another proposal, I believe, [3:41:50 PM] was another proposal, I believe, or 2 or 4 years ago, that was brought to council, but it did not make it onto the ballot. >> Thank you, councilmember Fuentes. >> I'll let you close. >> Yes. Thank you. It's a great question, councilmember Allison alter, it narrowly failed. I mean, we're talking about a 5149 percentage, and I'm not sure if that was a November election. So this is a opportunity for us to have a more robust conversation with our community. I also want to point out that Texas municipal league did a survey, and 73% of home rule cities authorize their city council to directly appoint the city attorney. So this really is ensuring that we're aligning our structure alongside other big cities in Texas, as well as ensuring that we have that more accountability in place for our community. So I look forward to should this pass to having that conversation with our community at large. >> Thank you. Councilmember. With that being said, those in [3:42:51 PM] With that being said, those in favor of the main motion on what it will now be proposition I, the old, which is the Fuentes substitute, Fuentes alternative charter amendment on the city attorney, indicate by saying I, I opposed. The motion carries with eight in favor, council member Kelly voting no. Council member Ellis and council member Allison. Allison alter abstaining. Members that takes us to proposition what is currently labeled proposition I. That proposition, in my humble opinion, would be in contradiction to what the council just did, but I will ask, is there a motion on old proposition? I is there a motion [3:43:52 PM] proposition? I is there a motion there being no motion proposition? Current proposition, the old proposition I will not be placed on the ballot. Members. What that has done beautifully is put us now where we're on the same lettering. So, well done everyone. So proposition J, both old and new, proposition J, I will ask, is there a motion to place proposition J on the ballot with te proposed language? It's made, motions made by council member Ryan alter. It's seconded by council member, Ellis. Is there any discussion with regard to proposition J? Without objection. Proposition. The motion is adopted to place it on the ballot and, council member Kelly votes to do that as well. [3:44:52 PM] votes to do that as well. Proposition K. Both old and new. Is there a motion with regard to proposition K? The mayor pro tem moves. To place it on the ballot as proposition K with the proposed ballot language? Is there a second, second by council member Ellis? Is there any discussion without objection, proposition K is placed on the ballot and I object. >> Okay. >> With, council member Kelly voting no. That takes us to proposition L. Is there a motion on proposition L? Council member Alison alter moves approval of proposition L, placing it on the ballot with the ballot language. It is seconded by the mayor pro tem. Is there any discussion? Without objection. Proposition L [3:45:52 PM] Without objection. Proposition L is adopted and I'm okay with this one. Unanimously that will take us to proposition M. Is there a motion with regard to proposition M? Council member vela moves adoption of proposition M. It is seconded by council member Ryan alter. Is there any discussion on proposition M with the ballot language hearing? None, without objection, proposition M is adopted, with the proposed ballot language, and it's adopted unanimously. That takes us to proposition N members. Proposition N you have in your packet one proposed amendment. And it's a proposed, it's an amendment proposed by me. Recommended based upon what, you have read on the message board [3:46:54 PM] have read on the message board that the mayor pro tem is going to offer as a proposed charter amendment that would become proposition O in order to make proposition if the mayor pro tem's motion is adopted, then to make section the what is what will be in make that section consistent, we need to delete the word candidate. If proposition so. So since we're taking this up in order I'm just offering it now. If the mayor pro tem motion were to fail, it wouldn't hurt anything. We just wouldn't have the word candidate in that section. It'd just be another cleanup item. But I'm just doing this in the order for less confusion, so what I so I want to do this where I first ask for an amendment. I'm going to first ask for a motion on poposition N as it's before you with the ballot language made by the mayor pro tem. Is there a [3:47:55 PM] the mayor pro tem. Is there a second? Seconded by council member vela. Now I move that we amend that main motion with the motion sheet that you have. Labeled item 96, council meeting agenda. Mayor Watson, is there a second to the motion to amend made by councilman? Second is by councilmember vela. The discussion will be on the motion to amend. Yes. Council member Allison alter. >> So just a question. Because I only saw this this morning, what is now part two on page 28 that talks about an unsuccessful candidate. How does that fall under it? If it's just if it's fundraising, officeholder accounts or does that mean that. >> I'm sorry, I can speak a little louder. >> I didn't, I'm just trying to understand. >> Is this section both fundraising and officeholder accounts, or is it only fundraising for officeholder accounts? >> This is fun. Just just on fundraising for officeholder. >> Okay, then then what does it mean to have the section two [3:48:56 PM] mean to have the section two about an unsuccessful candidate under that heading? >> I'll let since I'm bringing this on behalf of the legal staff, Caroline Webster. >> What? The law department, this the reason that taking out the word candidate here leaves it? Just saying. Fundraising. Semicolon. Officeholder accounts. And that makes it clear, because that section of the charter, which is article three, section eight, part F, as in frank, deals with fundraising of different kinds. It deals with some officeholder fundraising. It deals with candidates who Luz deals with candidates who win. So taking out the word candidate kind of helps to clarify that that section F there now deals with various different types of fundraising. Okay. >> But doesn't deal with just that doesn't. I'm just confused by the fundraising colon semicolon officeholder accounts. [3:49:59 PM] semicolon officeholder accounts. That doesn't mean it's only about officeholders, right? >> No, it's it deals with fundraising of various types of individuals. And then it also deals specifically with the use of officeholder accounts. >> I don't have a problem with it. Then thank you. >> All right. >> The vote is on the motion to amend. Is there any further discussion on the motion to amend? Council member vela mayor, I just wanted to make the comment that this essentially aligns the city council's charter with federal law. >> We have had these blackout periods knocked down kind of one by one over the last few years. And, I think this is a good move to prevent, you know, any kind of future litigation further discussion on the amendment. >> Without objection, the amendment to in is adopted. Now, we'll go back to the main motion, which is to accept [3:50:59 PM] motion, which is to accept proposition N with the combined ballot language as amended. Is there any discussion as on on that? That being said, without hearing any, then proposition N as amended, will be adopted with the combined language. And that's unanimous. >> I'm sorry. >> Where does less sorry? I'm confused, but where does Leslie she's going to have a separate item. >> Okay. >> A separate charter amendment. >> Yes. That her hers is proposed as a separate proposed charter amendment. Okay. Thank you. And as amended has been adopted. That will now take us to proposed proposition. Oh, what will be proposition oh. And that is a proposed charter amendment regarding unpaid campaign expenses or unreimbursed expenses from expenditures from personal funds that is being offered by the [3:52:02 PM] that is being offered by the mayor pro tem. And I'll recognize the mayor pro tem to make a motion. >> Thanks, mayor. Yesterday I posted the message board to the message board the amendment and you have the printed copy as well. This amendment would address the last vestige of the fundraising blackout period that the courts have invalidated, and it removes three words after leaving office. So that if an incumbent who is not running again has a debt, then the incumbent would be able to raise funds only to the limit of the amount of the unpaid expenses and unreimbursed expenditures. Only that amount can be recovered and that is existing language. So you can see the new proposition O, has, you can see the amendment there, the deletion of the words after leaving office, the mayor pro tem moves approval of what would become proposition oh. >> Is there a second to the motion? Seconded by council member Ryan altar. Council [3:53:04 PM] member Ryan altar. Council member Alison alter. >> Yeah, so I have a question about how their contribution levels do they have to adhere to the 450? How does that work? >> Sure. >> Hi, yes. The contribution limits would stay in effect. So it would be up to candidates and officeholders essentially to make sure that they're keeping track of what contributions they've been receiving, just as they now have to since, we've had various court cases that took out our 365 day campaign period. So this basically would so throughout the since the last election, since that person was elected to office, the first, the most recent time they would have basically until they've erased that debt, they would be they would be allowed to continue raising funds. But again, that contribution limit would stay in place. Thank you. >> Other, discussion with regard to the motion and second, to [3:54:06 PM] to the motion and second, to create the proposition, oh, that has been laid out by the mayor pro tem there being no further discussion, without objection, proposition O is adopted with council member Allison alter. >> I'm voting no. >> Thank you. Voting no. Are there any other no's? All right, the motion passes with councilmember Allison alter being shown voting no. Members, I believe that takes care of item number 96. Okay thank you all very much, appreciate that. So item number 96 is complete. Members. Thank you all. What we will now do is go to the public hearings. Item number 99 was withdrawn and replaced with item 120. Item 100 was postponed [3:55:07 PM] 120. Item 100 was postponed until September 12th, 2020. For item number 101, I will now call up item. Number 101. Members, without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 101. I'll ask the city clerk, the public hearing is now open. I'll ask the city clerk to call out names of people that have signed up to speak. >> Thank you. Mayor, there are no speakers for item 101 members. >> There are no speakers signed up to speak on item number one. Oh one, so without objection, I'll close the public hearing on item number 101. The public hearing is now closed, and I'll call for a motion, on item number 101, is there a motion council member harper-madison moves approval of item number 101. Is there a second? It's seconded by council member [3:56:08 PM] seconded by council member qadri. Discussion without objection, item number 101 is approved with council member Kelly and council member Velasquez, temporarily off the dais. Members, we will now go to item 123. It is related to item 101, and that's why we're taking it up in that order. And I'll recognize, someone for a motion to approve that the ordinance set forth in item 123, the mayor pro tem moves approval. It's seconded by council member qadri. Is there a discussion? Without objection. Item number 123 is approved with council member Kelly and council member Velasquez temporarily off the dais. Members that will take us to item number 102, to conduct a public hearing and consider an ordinance without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 102, and I'll turn to the city clerk to ask if there's anyone signed up to [3:57:08 PM] there's anyone signed up to speak. >> There are no speakers for item 102 members. >> You've heard there are no there's no one signed up to speak on item number 102. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item 102. The public hearing is closed. I'll entertain a motion with regard to item number 102. Council member Ryan alter moves approval of 102 council member Ellis seconds the motion. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. Without objection. Item number 102 is adopted with council member Kelly and council member Velasquez temporarily off the dais. Item number 103 is a public hearing, without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 103. The public hearing is open. >> Madam clerk, there are no speakers on item members. >> There are no speakers signed up to speak on item number 103. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 103. The public hearing is closed. Is there a motion to approve? Item 103 is made by council member Ryan alter, seconded by the mayor pro tem. Is there any, discussion without hearing? No discussion without objection. Item number 103 is [3:58:09 PM] objection. Item number 103 is adopted with councilmember Kelly temporarily off the dais. Members that will take us to item number 104. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 104. The public hearing is open. >> Madam clerk, there are no speakers on item members. >> There are no speakers signed up to speak on item number 104. So without objection, we'll close the public hearing, the public hearing is now closed. The mayor pro tem approves. Adoption of item number 104. It is seconded by council member Ellis. Is there any discussion? Yes. Council member Allison, >> I thought we already adopted that this morning. Isn't that colony park? >> No. 104? >> We didn't do a public hearing and adopt that. We did. 123, I believe, is what you're referring to. Yes. >> 123 okay. >> My mistake. 123 was the one that was related to that item. Okay. So we have a motion and a [3:59:10 PM] Okay. So we have a motion and a second to approve item number 104. Without objection. Item number 104 is approved with council member Kelly, temporarily off the dais. Item number 105 has been postponed until August 29th. Item 105 has been postponed to August 29th. Item 106 has been withdrawn. 000. Sorry >> 104 was conducted this morning and approved. >> Oh well. Okay. We did it twice then. Right? All right. Thank you, council member alter. And thank you, Mr. >> Should we count? Should we count? I think this morning we had a full day as well. >> Yeah. That's the vote that counts since it was prior time. Yeah. Okay. >> And. >> You're right. Good. It's got [4:00:24 PM] >> You're right. Good. It's got right there in my notes. Sorry to miss that. Here's what let's do. Just for clarity of purpose. Earlier today, we passed item 104, and, E did that because I was trying to keep it consistent with the, the board of directors meeting that we just had. I even remember talking about it. So I apologize for that. Members what I would council member Alison alter moves that we reconsider the vote by the second vote by which we adopted item 104. It's seconded by council member Ryan alter, without objection, the second vote by which we adopted item 104 is, is reconsidered. And now I'm going to get quiet and I'm not going to call it back up. Okay. All right. It's done. 105, I said August 29th, 106 is withdrawn. >> Mayor. >> Clerk. Yeah yes, we do have a couple speakers that have signed [4:01:24 PM] couple speakers that have signed up for 105 if they want to address the merits of the postponement. >> Okay. >> Do you have speakers? We have speakers here that want to speak on the merits of the postponement of item number 105, call out their names, please. >> Jenny Grayson, Mary Engel, Natalie Hensley, Susan Morrison. >> All we're asking is for you to speak on the merits of the postponement, not the item itself. >> Good afternoon. I think postponing is a fantastic idea. >> Thank you. >> Please state your name for the record. >> Natalie Frenzel. There you go. >> Good. Good testimony. All right. With that, we will close the public hearing on item number 105 and we will bring it back up on August 29th. Thank you very much for being here. Item 106 was withdrawn. Item number 107 members without [4:02:29 PM] number 107 members without objection, we will open a public hearing on item number 107, the public hearing is now opened. Is there anyone signed up to speak? There's no one signed up to speak on item number 107. Without objection, we will close the public hearing. The public hearing is now closed. Council member Ellis moves approval of item 107. It is seconded by council member Allison alter. Is there a discussion hearing? None without objection. Item 107 is adopted with council member Kelly, being off the dais. Item number 108. Item number 108. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 108. The public hearing is now opened. Madam clerk, no one has signed up to speak on item number 108. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item 108. The public hearing is closed. Council member villa moves adoption of 108 as seconded by council member Allison alter. Is there discussion? Without objection? Item number 108 is adopted with council member Kelly being off the dais. Item number 109. Without objection, [4:03:30 PM] number 109. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 109. Yes. We have a staff presentation on item number 109, and I will recognize you to tell you what, before we do that, is there any objection to open the public hearing? There's no objection. The public hearing is open now, now, now talk to us. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor pro tem and council members. My name is Kevin Shunk. I am the city's floodplain administrator, and I am in the watershed protection department. The item before you right now is a floodplain variance request at a property at 506 west avenue, and it is in the shoal creek watershed. Here's the location map with the property outlined in red, north south. That yellow line is Lamar boulevard. East west is sixth street. That gives you a little orientation where we are, and you can see a very large swath of blue, otherwise known as the floodplain. Through this area, zooming in closer to the property. The property is entirely within the city of [4:04:32 PM] entirely within the city of Austin. 25 year and 100 year floodplain. There are two commercial buildings on the on the on the lot that are in business right now to Caleb mucho and Irene's, as well as the parking lot that serves those those two establishments they are in in business today, on the on the property itself. As I stated before, this entire lot is within the 25 year and 100 year floodplain city of Austin floodplain. The parking garage has a ramp that goes down adjacent to the right of way, and that's how residents would leave the building. So it's at that point right now right there, which is where we provide these depths of the flood waters. And for a 25 year floodplain, the flood depth is approximately six feet. And for the 100 year flood, the depth of that location is approximately nine feet. Both of those floodplains [4:05:33 PM] feet. Both of those floodplains are not still not super fast, but they're about three feet per second, which is still moving. A flood depth of nine feet is significant, and that's that's a lot of water. That's not the amount of water that anybody can drive through that it it presents a very dangerous situation for the occupants of the building that might be getting out, as well as for first responders that can't get into the building. The distance to go from the building itself to an area that's out of the out of the floodplain is about 300ft, not a short distance to get out of flood waters and out of harm's way. I think I pushed something wrong there. There we go. So I wanted to show this map to indicate that this property has been mapped, shown in a mapped floodplain, and has flood hazards. For almost 50 years before FEMA was FEMA, the [4:06:33 PM] before FEMA was FEMA, the federal program that did floodplain identification was the was hud. And they came out with these first for the city of Austin. Flood hazard and battery maps in 1977. And they can you can see there in red the property is within that floodplain that they showed during that time. Okay, okay. Thanks >> It might be a good suggestion, but go ahead. >> I got you. >> There has been some historic flooding in the area. This is a picture of the memorial day flood of 1981. That's the sixth street bridge that we're looking at there. So the property is right to the right of this picture. You don't see the property in this picture, but there was severe flooding in this area during that flood itself. Fast forward many years later, same memorial day, but memorial day 2015. On the left there we see this is when the house park field flooded and on the right is really good picture [4:07:34 PM] the right is really good picture that shows in the foreground the fifth street in the background, sixth street and that lot that's in the right there in the middle is the undeveloped shoal creek, shoal creek walk lot. On the very right hand side, kind of in the middle, you see, you can see a building that's the Austin city lofts building just to the north of that is where the proposed property is that the disciples request. So during the memorial day 2015 flood, floodwaters did get out of the banks of shoal creek, flooded this area and caused a risk to the occupants in the area. What's being proposed on this lot is a residential residential tower. It's on nearly 500,000ft S of conditioned area, living area, it will be 47 stories high with 359 units within the building itself. The first floor [4:08:35 PM] building itself. The first floor of the building, which will be the lobby, is proposed to be two feet above the 100 year floodplain, according to code lot, the floors two through 11 will be parking area, and then the floors 12 to 47 will be the residential units above that. So of those 359 units, those 344 parking spaces that are proposed in the building itself, the request for variance. There are three essentially for this property. And the most significant one is the requirement to provide safe access out of the floodplain at a property that is in the floodplain. And I'll explain that in more detail in just a minute. The other two variances are prohibit the a building that encroaches into the 100 year floodplain, and then the last variance request is to not require a drainage easement around the foot, not of the footprint of the building. It's [4:09:36 PM] footprint of the building. It's basically the drainage easement will be the entire lot. Save and accept the building. So a little more more information about safe access criteria. The safe access criteria is not a FEMA minimum standard. And when I say that the minimum standards are rules that we're required to adopt and enforce in order to participate in the national flood insurance program, variances to the minimum standards can be severe, and FEMA looks very much looks down upon that. The safe access requirement is not a FEMA minimum standard. It is a standard that the city of Austin has. We go above and beyond the standard, the minimum standards in many ways and many communities do. But the safe access criteria basically says that you have to walk from a building to an area that's out of the floodplain. That's all at least one foot above the 100 year floodplain. To have safe access out of the building and [4:10:38 PM] access out of the building and safe ingress to the building. If, during a time of flood, there's a need for first or first responders. So again, the variance to the safe access rule is not a variance from FEMA's minimum standards. However one of the items that there's been some some some talk recently about the community rating system is a program that the city of Austin participates in. The female female program that encourages communities to go above and beyond FEMA's minimum standards when they're talking about floodplain, the floodplain management organizations. But one of the categories that the city of Boston gets, I'll say points for, is to have higher regulatory standards. Now, if we have regulatory standards but don't enforce them, then crs might likely say, well, you're no longer going to get credit for your higher standards [4:11:39 PM] for your higher standards because you're not enforcing them. That could affect our class rating of crs, which could affect the savings on flood insurance premiums for everybody in the city. So I just wanted to step through a couple of properties that are in the vicinity that have been developed and talk a little bit about those. This is the property in question at 506 west avenue. There are two properties that are adjacent to it that are office use buildings. The one north of sixth street is the cirrus logic building, and the one south of sixth street. To the west of the property is the shoal creek walk facility. Both of those properties at the time, they were developed had safe access, and so those properties were approved by administrative floodplain variance process by staff. They didn't city council. The gsenm building north of sixth street, while yes, it's in the floodplain, let's assume there's [4:12:40 PM] floodplain, let's assume there's that there's, exits on the west side of the building. Then the occupants would have to just cross the Henderson street right of way at an area that's out of the floodplain. So it's not a long walk, if you will, to get out of the floodplain. There are three buildings adjacent close to this proposed building, that are of residential use that at the time they were developed, did not meet the safe access rule. They did come to city council to request a variance. They were granted that variance, and they have built their buildings. The one on the far right is the fifth and west building. At the time they were they developed the safe access criteria was not met. I believe there was about 18in of water at the exit on the alley, and so they had to get relief from that. The Austin city office building and the monarch building were developed quite a long time ago and didn't have safe access at the time either. [4:13:40 PM] safe access at the time either. I don't know exactly what the depths were at that time, right now, the Austin city loft building has a very similar depth of nine feet for the 100 year floodplain that the proposed property does. The development that they're proposing in and of itself does not cause adverse flooding on other properties. That's very important that they presented that to us, and it's very important that we agree to it. This property is not increasing flood heights on other properties. However, there is no safe access to the property for egress to the property is or ingress. If first responders needed to get to it. Staff believes that this proposed use a very dense residential use is not appropriate. Where we have food risks as high as it would do for this property. Nine feet in the 100 floodplain is significant, and it's not an amount that we see a lot like I [4:14:43 PM] amount that we see a lot like I said, fifth and west was 18in. We've had other safe access criteria that mean safe access variances. The pearl comes to mind over on canyon and grover. Again, I'm pretty sure that was less than two feet. It was either around 18in or 12in. So some of those conditions have existed. But when you look at this situation in particular, the depth of flooding and the use, that's very dense, staff does not think that it's a very wise idea to put a very dense use in the floodplain. And we're recommending that the variances be be denied. Prior to certificate of occupancy in the draft ordinance that's in your packet, there are two things that I just wanted to point out. One is that prior to, receiving their certificate of occupancy, your co, they would have to indicate to us that the building in the, the first floor is indeed a minimum of two feet above the 100 year floodplain. [4:15:45 PM] above the 100 year floodplain. That's a standard requirement for FEMA and Sara. For example. And last is the dedication of drainage easement. Like I said, the variance is to remove the building itself from the easement. But all around the building, the rest of the property would be within the drainage easement. I answer any questions that you may have, and I know that the applicant is here to speak as well. All right, >> Members, any questions of staff? All right then, what I'm going to because it's public hearing, what I'm going to do is I'm going to, have them call out the names in, in order that people signed up. And then we'll allow for questions from the applicant. If the applicant is not one of the people that have signed up to speak, no. Yes. Council member qadri. >> Yeah, I was going to ask a question. I mean, now is probably the best time to ask Mr. A question, thank you for being here, and I appreciate the presentation. I was just going to ask, relating to the motion sheet that I had passed out, and I believe you have, as well. [4:16:47 PM] I believe you have, as well. Just just, you know, what is feedback on the motion sheet for additional conditions, members, if I, if I might interrupt real quick. >> Members. Council member qadri. If we if we have a motion to approve this item, motion and a second to approve this item. Council member qadri has provided a proposed amendment to the to the main motion, which would be to the approval of it. And you have a copy of that. And that's what he's asking about. I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. Councilmember I'm sorry to interrupt. Got it. >> That was my question. >> So I think the increase in freeboard from 2ft to 3ft is a is a positive move that reduces flood risk significantly to the building. I think that's very important, the requirements on the notification and the education of the tenants, I think those are great ideas. The concern that I have with those is how is that process going to be enforced? And it's not something typically we've done for the pearl. For example, in [4:17:48 PM] for the pearl. For example, in district seven, we did a we they were required to put together a flood safety plan. There was signage involved. There was a documentation and notification, and we had no way to enforce that those things actually occurred or are happening. So that's the concern I have. While I think that it's a great idea to have that outreach to the to the tenants, it's the enforcement process that I had. I'm not quite sure how we'll know if it's ever getting done. >> Thank you. Council member. Thank you. Yes. Council member Fuentes I do. >> If there is someone from the fire department or or emergency services who could also speak to the safety access, that would be helpful. I just don't know if there if we have them available. >> I'm not sure if they're here. Anybody want to take that one? >> No, but sorry, but and one of the things that we might do, what I was going to do is just have us go in the order of the sign up, but because we we've [4:18:48 PM] sign up, but because we we've asked questions specifically about this proposal, why don't we have the applicant come up and see if the applicant can help with the answer to any of these questions? >> Councilmember qadri, you'll be recognized. >> Mayor. Members of the council, I'm Richard settle. I'm here on behalf of the applicant. So we're just going to take public hearing just in order, not applicant. And then. Well, that's not yes, however you want to do it. I watched the whole meeting today. I'm however you want to do it. But but you're there and let's see if council member qadri has any questions of you. >> I'm sorry. Are we just in q&a? Right now? >> Well, of the applicant. But based upon what you're asking about mitigation, what you have is you have a recommendation from staff that we vote no on this. Correct. And your motion or your motion to amend would mitigate some of that. According to staff. And so I was going to offer the opportunity because there's some some additional questions. If the applicant [4:19:48 PM] questions. If the applicant could help us with how that would play out, how you would do that, that sort of thing, to mitigate the concerns that staff has brought forward. >> So, mayor, I can I can address I tell you what, let's just change it all up. >> Why don't you make a presentation? Oh, well, let me make, make, make a presentation. You make a presentation and we'll, we'll do it the way we typically do zoning cases. But, but we'll do it that way. Okay. Make a presentation, please. >> I will do it. And I'm going to start my presentation by answering councilmember Fuentes question. So this this project has been before. You all twice already zoning density bonus at every level. We've talked about the floodplain. Then we filed a site plan. And the site plan review process. We've met with all the departments, including the fire department and the fire departments. Request was we know there's flooding in this area. You've got to provide us a landing or an area to get to that's out of the floodplain. If we need to get somebody, if it's too much water in the road for our truck, we will bring a boat. [4:20:50 PM] our truck, we will bring a boat. And that was the response to how they how they get to the folks does does that answer your question? >> So the fire department would bring a boat to get to the landing area that we have provided that under councilmember Cordray's amendment would be three feet above. >> Basically what they do is they pull up to the ramp that goes up and they would have a place to get out and get somebody out. If they needed to. Because the issue would be is if the awful thing happened that you had a flood and somebody needed to be helped inside the building. At the same time, the fire department or ems could get to it and reach an area that is outside the flood area three feet above it, and help the folks. >> And are there any other flood mitigation efforts that we should be aware of as it relates to this project? >> I believe councilmember qadri has got a list of them, but basically what you've got is it's just like down at the coast, you've got a building [4:21:50 PM] coast, you've got a building built on stilts. The main thing we needed to make sure of is that by placing that building there, we're not increasing flooding anybody downstream or upstream. So everybody around us is fine. And then you mitigate the occupants safety during the flood. And we have worked with councilmember qadri office to help mitigate some of those through education signage, notices and all that stuff that anybody in that building is going to know that in the event that rain's coming, that there could be a flooding issue. >> Thank you. And, councilmember qadri, you feel comfortable with this motion sheet as it as presented in helping reduce the safety risk? >> And I'm so sorry, I do you feel comfortable that this motion sheet mitigates the safety risk? Yeah. Otherwise I would not be bringing it forward okay. >> Yeah. Colleagues I mean they were initially I'm concerned with the level of what was cited as a recommendation from our watershed department and [4:22:51 PM] watershed department and recommending a denial of this variance because of the issues of having our public safety personnel have access to the residents. But it seems like there has been conversations that have taken place to determine an access point to provide emergency services. Is that right? >> That's correct. Okay. Yes. Thank you. >> So I'll make a quick, quick presentation and let's let's what I I've lost control of this. >> Let let let's have the public hearing and then raise questions at the end of that. So if you'll make a short presentation then we'll. >> Sure. This is an area of downtown that cannot be developed with out a floodplain variance. That's why you saw that map that Kevin showed all those buildings all around us have all received basically the same or similar variances, Kevin is a great guy and we love to work with him, but he generally does not. He never recommends a floodplain variance, and we [4:23:52 PM] floodplain variance, and we understand that. So then it's up to us to prove that we're not going to hurt anybody else, and we're going to make the people inside as safe as we can. So that's where we are today. Again, this is a case that's been before you for the zoning. Where you up zoned it. Then we came before you where we redid the site plan to get everybody comfortable with the density bonus. And this is the final step I think we have two comments left. This one in a parks comment that we solve. Those in the site plan can be approved. Through working with councilmember Carter's office, we have enhanced the safety provisions of building of the building in this floodplain. I would argue probably more than the other variances that have been granted in the same area all the way around us. And with that, I'll close and ask if you have any questions. Short enough, mayor? >> Well, no, but okay. >> Now let's go ahead and get the other people. >> If somebody has signed up in opposition, I would like for you [4:24:53 PM] opposition, I would like for you to recognize somebody as a spokesperson for someone in opposition. >> Thank you. Mayor, I have Connie temple with time donated by Merriman Smith. If Merriman Smith thank you. A total of six minutes, minutes. >> Are you ready for me? Oh please. Good afternoon, mayor Watson, city manager. >> Mayor pro tem and council members. >> My name is Connie temple. I'm from district nine and I'm speaking to item number 109. I'm here on behalf of the Austin city lofts owners association or as we refer to it, acl. In the first photo, you see our building on the left just east of the west fifth street bridge over shoal creek, 506 west avenue. As you saw from the maps earlier, is adjacent to our property boundary just on the [4:25:55 PM] property boundary just on the north side. >> During the memorial day flood, the water was so high that the sidewalk guardrails on the bridge were completely covered by water. >> In another 2015 photo that you'll see there was on west sixth street, we'll see our building on the right, balconies facing towards west sixth and 506 west avenue is north of our building, sort of behind the visible tree line at the base of our building. >> And again, you'll see an immense amount of water, this proposed development. And I'm going to reiterate the point that Kevin made earlier, it's a 47 story apartment tower with 359 residential units. The tower would be situated on the bank, which you can kind of see better in this particular slide here of shoal creek. And it's located mid-block with access only to west avenue. By comparison, acl is a condominium building with 14 stories and 82 residential units located on the corner of [4:26:57 PM] units located on the corner of west fifth and west avenue, with access to both streets in full disclosure, as you heard, we were the recipient of a floodplain variance over 20 years ago, but we now know that climate change is increasing flood risks in Texas, bringing warmer temperatures to cause more water to evaporate from the land and oceans, leading to heavier rainfall. Central Texas holds a number of records for 24 hour rainfall events, making it one of the most flood prone parts of the country. A region the national weather service calls flash flood alley. Contrary to what the applicant has stated publicly, neighbors who live nearby do not support this development. The comments submitted in our ip forms for the 506 west avenue site plan case leave no doubt that neighbors are not supportive of this project. These interested [4:27:58 PM] this project. These interested parties live in various neighborhood buildings, not just acl. The proposed development would intensify the public safety threat, as Kevin Shunk reported on very well. It's not only for the occupants, but it is notably for emergency first responders as the nearest safe area is approximately 300ft. Watershed also noted that the depth of water during a 100 year flood event, and this is worth repeating at the garage entrance, is nine feet. The following is a quote from Carl Mcarthur with watershed during a q&a session. We use these floodplains as part of our regulatory toolbox to make sure that new development isn't built at flood risk. We don't want to make any new problems. We got enough old problems to solve already. FEMA advises that the reasons for granting floodplain management variances must be [4:28:58 PM] management variances must be substantial, substantial, and the proof compelling. Please ask yourself as you consider this request today, what substantial reasons and compelling proof are there for granting the variances being requested by the applicant? I respectfully request that council follow the recommendation of the watershed protection department because they are our subject matter experts. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Joe Alyssa Cathy Marcus, Philip Wiley, and Susan Morrison. >> If your name's been called, please come forward. >> Yeah. >> Good to see you. Please come forward. Mr. Wiley, you'll follow them, miss Morris. >> Cathy. >> Marcus, I live at third and bowie, I look over the railing [4:29:59 PM] bowie, I look over the railing of my condo and if I see something I don't like, that's when you'll usually see me here at city council. >> One of the things I don't like is the way shoal creek floods and we are at a right hand corner of shoal creek. So I am very concerned about shoal creek flooding. So people in Austin have short memories when it comes to flooding, especially along shoal creek. I was here in 1979 when shoal creek flooded and people and buildings were swept away fast forward to 2015. I moved downtown and witnessed shoal creek flooding again downtown. The water flooded the parking lot at fifth and bowie, which is now the whole foods office. As I was standing there, I had to move to higher ground up the whole foods stairs. There were kayaks on bowie street behind the nocona having a great time. People swimming. When the water receded, the cars washed into shoal creek were revealed. [4:31:00 PM] into shoal creek were revealed. When I got the notice of the high rise building in the floodplain, I felt I should remind people of the flash flooding and the very real possibility of 506 west of west avenue being flooded. We should all listen to Austin watershed and deny this variance. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Philip Wiley. I'm speaking on behalf of the downtown Austin neighborhood association, our group has, asked that you add a lot more people to our neighborhood. We've encouraged you to follow what some of the commissions have asked you to do, which is to quadruple the number of people within our neighborhood [4:32:02 PM] people within our neighborhood borders. Downtown is the place where big buildings should go to live. That should be the first place that we put them in the city, especially near the spine of our transit system. For the metroplex, which runs along Guadalupe, there are a lot of really, really good reasons to have a building this tall with 359 units in it. I'm. I partly came here mostly to, let you know, I think that we put developers trying to do an amazing project like this through a lot, we have got to really streamline and simplify and make it less burdensome and less expensive to build in our city, to build downtown. I would never encourage anybody to build a single family home in a [4:33:04 PM] a single family home in a floodplain. That's in my mind. It's really inappropriate. And, I'm going to have to just kind of punt this one and say, I am not a floodplain expert, but there are other buildings that are very close to this one. I have extreme confidence that this would be very well thought out. Very well done, this is going to be a quality building and, I leave it in your capable hands. Thank you. >> Thank you, miss Morrison. >> Good afternoon, Susan Morrison from district seven. I've lived and leased along shoal creek my entire life of living in Austin. And just this morning I got up and went and took photos of how shoal creek and just one hour's time in the rain we had this morning was up to the banks coming in the [4:34:05 PM] to the banks coming in the allendale neighborhood. I'm here to speak against this proposal because you need to listen to your experts. Those are the people in the watershed department. That's what they're for. That's their job. And you need to listen to them. We've had death and destruction from shoal creek and other creeks and with the additional, home developments, it's just going to get worse as long and as well as climate change, it's going to get worse, not better. Please listen to your experts and deny this. >> Thank you. Additional names. >> There are no other speakers signed up for this item. >> If your name has been called to speak on item 109. All right. If you'd like to close. >> Richard Seidel, on behalf of the applicant, it's important to note just a couple facts on this [4:35:07 PM] note just a couple facts on this case. One, there's existing businesses there today that are in the floodplain. The restaurants there are in it. They'll be removed this building will come in on stilts. There won't be any occupied space in the floodplain. A couple of the speakers were talking about, opposition to the flooding. Although we've we've shown through the engineering that was Joe Isaiah that didn't speak and waved off. But we've shown that we're not affecting the flooding on anybody else upstream or downstream, the Austin city lofts has been here at every step of the way saying the building is too tall, it's too close, and now it's too flood worthy. But we're not going to have anybody in in the floodway in this building. This project enjoys the support of now surprised to me another neighborhood association. But the old Austin neighborhood association, because what it comes with in the density bonus program is a significant financial contribution to both affordable housing and the shoal creek conservancy, which will be also helping along shoal creek. [4:36:10 PM] also helping along shoal creek. What we did is we listened to Kevin and he's right for making his recommendation and we jumped off of that and said, but if you can't develop at all under his criteria, how do you do it better? And we came up with a list of things raising the building up an additional foot, plus the other safety things that we agreed to with council member qadri. So with that, I'll close and answer any questions you might have and hope that you'll approve this. Thank you. >> Councilmember qadri. >> Yeah, I got two questions for Mr. Suttle, could you speak to the additional design requirements for new development generally, or what we had talked about in terms of additional things that we could do? I guess both. >> Well, I mean, generally what you you can't have is a finished floor. The minimum is two feet above the floodplain. And we've agreed to go three feet. So what that means is that water is going to if it floods, it's going to come up under the building, but it won't be in any [4:37:10 PM] building, but it won't be in any occupied space. Everything will be above it, the other design criteria is, again, we can't place anything in the floodplain when you do the measurements that affects either upstream or downstream flooding, as it doesn't make it any worse. And those are the basics. >> Could you also speak to the design of the building, specifically the first couple of floors and the impact flooding would have there? >> Well, they'll once they're out of floodplain, there's no different design standards. They'll be out of the floodplain. They're basically up on stilts. So they're out of the floodplain. There won't be any water in the building. Thank you, >> Thank you, Mr. Suttle. Oh, I'm sorry, council member. >> Ellis, I appreciate appreciate you were calling on me, right, I was okay. >> I want to make sure I heard that right, appreciate the questions from my colleagues here. And I know there's been at least one other case that we had to look at floodplain variances along shoal creek. I think it was closer to, ninth or 10th street on the other side of Lamar, and that was one that we as a council struggled with for [4:38:12 PM] as a council struggled with for a while, it was a building that was already constructed, and there were some rules about cars parking below. And so, you know, that building had a lot of good safeguards in place where it did have signage underneath it, where it says, here's the flood line, the folks that work in that building are fully aware to check the weather and make sure that if anything's, on the horizon that that flood waters could be coming or bad rainstorms that they alert their employees very quickly and make, you know, make accommodations. So that people don't need to be in the building during those catastrophic events. And so I know shoal creek is, definitely had some, some bad flooding, but I know that, you know, if we are to be able to work in and among our, our environment, especially in downtown, there's got to be some creativity in how these buildings come to be and what's on that ground floor. And so the first question I always ask myself is, you know, is it residential or people living? Is there furniture on the ground floor? Are there bedrooms on the [4:39:12 PM] floor? Are there bedrooms on the ground floor? And when I see people make an effort to elevate and make sure that it's not spaces that people are living in, I think that's a really creative way to try to make the best of a really tricky floodplain. And so I appreciate your, looking into that and appreciate council member qadri efforts to try to make sure that we can accommodate housing and to try to make sure that people are as safe as possible. >> Thank you. Thank you. I'll entertain. Can we get a motion? Is that okay? Would you have a question to him? Okay. Mr. Suttle, I'm sorry. Council member Allison has a question, so I wanted to go back to how, the first responders get in. >> I believe I heard you say you're going to have a landing space for a boat. Is that correct? >> So the discussion on the site plan was the only thing that's going to be coming down into the floodplain where the waters are, is the ramp that goes up to the garage. We won't have any cars parking in the floodplain. They're all above it. I don't know how deep a truck can drive [4:40:14 PM] know how deep a truck can drive in the water if it's 18 two feet, but it can get to our ramp and get up, whatever that depth is. When it exceeds that, just like in every other parts of the city, I think they come in one of their their boats. Interesting enough, we had conversations with them about purchasing an amphibious mobile for them for this project, and they said they didn't need that. They didn't want that, because if in the unlikely event, they had to get there when there's nine feet of water, they'll come in, they'll literally drive up the ramp on the boat and get to folks. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Suttle. Members, I'm going to get us a motion on the floor, councilmember qadri, I'll recognize you for a motion with regard to item 109, I move to pass item 109, motion. And we know we have an amendment coming, everybody. So, councilmember qadri moves to approve item number 109, seconded by councilmember [4:41:15 PM] seconded by councilmember Velazquez. I'll now recognize councilmember qadri for a motion to amend. >> Is this the time where I could speak on the motion, or should I just why don't we get get it all out there that you want and then we'll speak. >> Great, >> A motion to amend item 109. >> Okay, councilmember qadri moves to amend members. We've talked about this. You have the yellow sheet with the motion that would add conditions to part four of the ordinance. It's seconded by council member Vila, now, councilmember qadri, I'll recognize you, on the motion to amend, and you can speak to whatever you want to speak to, but we'll come back to the main motion. If the motion to amend pass. Great >> Well, I appreciate everyone who came today to, to speak. And I appreciate the applicant and watershed for also, presenting earlier today, you know, I just want to, you know, I think it's important to note the development, you know, and it's been said already does not cause additional flooding to other properties. And there is a hardship at the property in a variance would be required no matter what would be developed [4:42:15 PM] matter what would be developed on the property. So whether it would be a grocery store, a parking garage, it would still be required. And as the applicant noted, new development has to be built to FEMA standards to withstand the flood waters. >> And, and as the applicant also noted, residential units, you know, would not be on the first floor, would be directly impacted by, by these flood waters, so it comes down to shelter in place and tenant notification. And I think that, you know, going through the motion sheet and I hope everyone had a chance to go through it, that the applicant has agreed to additional conditions, which I, which I outlined, which are easily visible signs have been erected by the property owner or agent, a flood risk disclosure form or addendum notifying potential occupants, a notification system to communicate with building occupants in the event of an emergency or flooding the finished floor elevation shall be at a minimum of three feet above the 100 year floodplain, and then also making sure there's ongoing and continued education, because the reality is that the flooding is not side [4:43:16 PM] is that the flooding is not side by side issue. This is a neighborhood wide issue. And, you know, like I said, I heard watershed on, on, you know, on shelter in place issues regarding enforcement. And that's what I look forward to trying to implement, their community resilience plan in the area. That has been a recommendation from the shoal creek, feasibility study so that the city can provide assurance with helping people with helping people stay informed, I believe the city needs to take on that role of being the educator and making sure we are the informer. You know, we've been reviewing the recommendations to reduce flooding. In lower shoal creek watershed and would like to continue to refine those, as part of our future city infrastructure and climate conversations, because I don't believe the issue, of these of these flood of these of the flooding, you know, can continue to be ignored, our flood centers enable us to build more resilient in areas prone to flooding, and, you know, I think I want to acknowledge [4:44:16 PM] I want to acknowledge councilmember vela. He, you know, when it comes to us as a as a city, you know, we need to think about larger, more comprehensive projects to address safety. And councilmember Taylor brought up the need to look at regional flood water projects, rather than development by development, so I appreciate, you know, honest support. I appreciate the shoal creek conservancy, for supporting this motion. And with that, I move adoption of the motion. >> Councilmember qadri. >> Councilmember qadri has moved approval of amendment number one to item 109, which would change the conditions to part four. The ordinance. Is there any further discussion without objection, the motion to amend is adopted with council member Kelly off the Dyess. We will now go back to the main motion before we do that, is there any objection by council to closing the public hearing on item 109? We've had enough of Mr. Subtle. Okay, the [4:45:17 PM] enough of Mr. Subtle. Okay, the public hearing is closed, with, the now, let's go back to the main motion, as amended. Councilmember Allison alter, I would like to ask Mr. Cronk, if you could explain again the potential implications, with respect to FEMA and the rest of the city of approving this, I can tell you that what the possibilities may be not guaranteed going to happen, but what could happen is that during our annual crs update with crs, we present to them here's what we're doing for floodplain management. >> Please rate us. And if one of those things is higher standards, which it is, that's what we're getting points for now. And then they ask the question also is tell us about all the variances that your community has done in the past year. And if they connect those dots and there's a safe access rule, regulation, that's great. But here's ten times you varied that regulation. So we may not [4:46:19 PM] that regulation. So we may not give you points for your higher standards anymore. And that's that's not guaranteed can happen. But it's possibly going to happen. And that might then lower our score. Decrease our class and decrease the percentage of, of savings that some of the residents may get on their flood insurance premiums. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. Any further discussion? I'll recognize council member qadri to close on the motion to approve item 109, as amended. >> Yeah, I move I move forward with the adoption, >> Without objection. Item 109, as amended, is adopted with councilmember Allison alter being shown voting no. Thank you. And council member harper-madison, you were just there, there you are. Well, you're voting I or no, I voting I and council member Kelly off the dais. Thanks, everybody, that will take us now to item [4:47:21 PM] that will take us now to item number 110. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 110, the public hearing is open. Madam clerk. No, there's no one signed up to speak on item number 110, without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 110. The public hearing is closed, council member villa moves that we approve. Item number 110 and second by council member Ryan alter. Is there a discussion? Hearing none. Without objection. Item number 110 is adopted with council member Kelly being off the dais. Item number 111. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on. Oh, before we go to 111, let's go to item 122, which is related to item 110. Item 122 is related to item 110. And that's an ordinance approving this improvement. District council member Taylor, who made the motion on item 110 moves approval of item 122. It is seconded by council member [4:48:21 PM] is seconded by council member Ryan alter, is there any discussion with regard to item 122? Without objection, item number 122 is adopted with council member Kelly being off the dais. Members, that takes us to item number 111. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item 111. The public hearing is open. Madam clerk, there's no one signed up to speak. Members on item number 111. So without objection, we'll close the public hearing on item 111. The public hearing is now closed. The mayor pro tem moves approval of item 111. It is seconded by council member Velasquez. Is there any discussion? Without objection? Item 111 is adopted and now we will go to item 124, which is related to item 111, mayor pro tem moves adoption of item 124 and second by councilmember Velasquez. Is there discussion? Hearing none without objection. Item number 124 is adopted with council member Kelly being off [4:49:24 PM] council member Kelly being off the dais. And for the record, council member Kelly was off the dias on the voting of number 111. We will now go to item number 113. Without objection members, we will open the public hearing on item number 113. The public hearing is open. There is no one signed up to speak on item number 113, 113 and 114 should be postponed to August 29th. >> And that news to me. >> Good. >> Okay. And the public hearing should technically not be opened on this. >> Well, sure, if you're not going to do it. So tell me again 113 and 114 are being postponed. >> Yes, sir. >> I might just point out that when we have an agenda that is so loaded up and everybody's throwing everything they can because it's apocalyptic if it doesn't get heard. On July 18th, this is part of what happens is things get, get, get thrown off. >> Take a great you're doing a great job. >> This is to be fair, these had to be scheduled for this because it's an appeal. [4:50:25 PM] it's an appeal. >> So okay. Fair enough, so but you're telling me 113 and 114 are being postponed. >> Correct. >> To August members. We opened a public hearing on item 113. So without objection, we'll close the public hearing on 113. 113 is being postponed. Until when? >> August 29th. >> August 29th, 114 is being postponed. >> Until when? August 29th. >> August 29th. All right. Are you the person I talked to? About 115. We still have 115. >> Yes, we do have a 115. >> Okay, members, without objection, will open the public hearing on item number 115, there being no objection. 115 the public hearing is open. Madam clerk, no one has signed up to speak on item number 115. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 115, the mayor pro tem moves adoption of item number 115. It is seconded by council member Ellis. I recognize council member Alison alter for comment. >> I just want to clarify the adopting 115 is declaring that [4:51:28 PM] adopting 115 is declaring that the city is okay with the water rates and not okay with the wastewater rates funding. >> Who wants to answer a question? >> Hi, this is Christy Mann with the law department. That's correct. That's what the order and I'm sorry, the ordinance. >> So I wanted to make sure that we were communicating correctly what the termination of our water utility was on these on these rates. And that's the correct, and then I also wanted to just really thank, Mr. Qureshi and my staff and, Austin water for working with us really closely, to make sure that the six houses that are in my district, that are in this, utility are, are representative as best we can at the PUC. And through this process, through the difficult process, I understand we're not done with the process, but, hopefully this will make a difference. Thank you. [4:52:29 PM] you. >> Thank you. Council member. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on item number 115? Without objection, item 115 is adopted with council member Kelly being off the dais. I'm going to call out the next items item, and then I'm going to look to the city clerk to tell me if anyone has signed up to speak that wants to speak. As to the merits of the postponement. 116, 117 and 118 yes. >> Thank you. Mayor, speaking on the merits of the postponement of 116 is Jenny Grayson. Mario Cantu, Mary ingle, Susan Morrison, and on 117 is Chris Paige. >> Is there any anyone wishing to be that I don't see folks in the chambers anymore, that were called out. Is there anyone here that was signed up and whose name has just been called wishing to speak on 116? The merits of the postponement. All right. Is there anyone wishing to be that's been names been [4:53:29 PM] to be that's been names been called wishing to speak to the merits of the postponement. On 117 there was one name called. Fair enough, now that will take us to item 119. Item 119. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 119 of the public hearing is now opened and we have speakers. >> Thank you. Mayor we'll go to the remote. Speaker Betsy Greenberg. >> My name is mayor and council. My name is Betsy Greenberg. Can you hear me? >> Yes. Great >> I'm a vice chair of the central Austin combined neighborhood planning team, and I live within the planning area known as cam park. Thank you for considering item 119, which provides extra distance requirements for mobile food establishments within cam park without this change, mobile food establishments that are just 50ft from a residence may stay open until 3 A.M. If you pass [4:54:30 PM] open until 3 A.M. If you pass this item, those establishments must either close by 10 P.M. Or be 300ft away from sf five or more restrictive. I believe these rules should apply citywide, but today I can only ask you to pass item 119, which only affects cam park senior planner Maureen Meredith provided a list of businesses and addresses for the mobile food establishments within cam park. After checking the map and looking up the hours for all those businesses, I believe there's only one existing business out of about 40 that isn't already in compliance with the proposed rules. None of the mobile food businesses in the university neighborhood overlay area would be negatively affected. Please vote in favor of item 119 to maintain the quality of life in central Austin. Thank you for listening. >> Next, in person we have Brian Pena and Philip Wylie. >> Philip Wylie, I do apologize. [4:55:40 PM] >> Philip Wylie, I do apologize. I promise not to make a habit of coming up here four times in a month. Much less a day, Brian, unfortunately, could not stay all day. He's, was representing, UT DEMs, and they are opposed to this, they don't they did not get a notice. They don't really understand what's going on, and unfortunately, he can't be here. So, I didn't want to leave without somebody speaking to this. I'd like to, start with a brief. The reason I'm opposed to it is because this is within 200ft of the downtown. Border, west campus. And downtown combined make up what we refer to as the primary activity center in, in, imagine Austin. These are places that have different rules than other things. Other places in the city, [4:56:41 PM] things. Other places in the city, regardless of whatever zoning they may happen to have at the moment, whether appropriate or not. When it was applied, when, when, my daughter came to me about 15 years ago and said that she wanted to buy a school bus and renovate it and drive across the country, I had to find, make sure that it was okay for her to park that on the street. And it is. It is because I live downtown. Anywhere between the lake and 29th street. I-35 jetting over to Guadalupe and Lamar is treated differently in many ordinances in the city, we still have more work to do, but I think that this is completely inappropriate to do it on the west campus portion of can pack, [4:57:42 PM] west campus portion of can pack, I don't really have an opinion north of 29th what should be done and I'm not going to exert, you know, my beliefs on that matter. But but I think at a minimum, we should consider postponing this. If not, just recognizing some parts of town are different, and not everything applies equally everywhere. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That concludes all speakers members. >> That concludes all the speakers that are signed up to speak on item number 119. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 119. And the public hearing is now closed. Is there a motion on item 119? Is there a motion? Is there a motion on 119? There being no motion? Item [4:58:42 PM] 119? There being no motion? Item 119 fails. That will take us to item 120 before I go to 120, let me, point out on sick 116, 117 and 118. I may have failed to state the date to which those were postponed. And it's August 29th. August 29th on the items 116, 117 and 118. Item 120 is being postponed to September 12th. Mr. Bunch, are you here? You wanted to talk about the postponement earlier in the day. All right. Mr. Bunch, isn't here. Is there anybody else wishing to speak on the postponement? >> Two speakers were signed up, ginny Grayson and Rita Thompson. >> Okay, are either of those people here all right. That item will be postponed to September 12th. Item 121 will be postponed [4:59:42 PM] 12th. Item 121 will be postponed to August 29th. Is there anyone signed up to speak on that item? >> No, mayor. >> All right. Members, a couple of housekeeping items, council member harper-madison was temporarily off the dais and moving to a virtual presence when we voted on item number 93. She, asked that she be shown voting in favor of item number 93. It would not change the outcome of the vote, I would move that she be shown voting in favor of item number 93. It is seconded by council member Vila. Is there any objection? Without objection, council member harper-madison will be shown voting in favor of item number 93, with council member Kelly being off the dias. Council member Velasquez was temporarily temporarily off the dais when we took up items 101, 102 and 123, which was related to item 101. [5:00:44 PM] which was related to item 101. He is asked that he be shown voting in favor of those items. It would not change the outcome of the vote. Council member Vila moves approval. I'll second that motion. Is there any objection? Without objection, council member Velasquez will be shown voting in favor of items 101, 102, 103, and 123 with council member Kelly being off the dais. I'm getting ready to close this out, but I'm looking at somebody looking at me to make sure that, mayor I she had that look in her eye. Yeah, >> There was one person who was signed up originally as remote, but they're actually here in person. It's Zenobia Joseph speaking on the merits of the postponement of item 120. >> All right. In that case, before we adjourn, we will open the public hearing on item number 120, the public hearing is now open. Without objection, miss Joseph, please come talk to us as to the merits of the postponement. >> Thank you. Mayor, council. [5:01:47 PM] >> Thank you. Mayor, council. I'm Zenobia Joseph. Glad to talk to you about the merits of the postponement of the south central waterfront item. I just want to ask that when this item comes back before you, that either the planning or the housing department actually gives you an overlay so that you can actually see the density and the area median income in the area and district wide. It's a little difficult to follow these cases when there's nothing in backup that actually says anything. More than 60% area median income or 80% area median income. Actually having a map overlay would be helpful to see where the affordable housing units are. As a point of reference, I'll just say that I do appreciate the postponement until September 12th, 2024. However, I would just point to the pro housing application so that the staff has a point of reference. That's the pathways to removing obstacles to housing $10 million grant. That was an application sent to hud October 2023. And there it actually [5:02:49 PM] 2023. And there it actually specifies the area median income as it relates to the different districts. There is no map, however. And so once again, I just want you to recognize, and I do have to ask for you to have some disaggregated data specifically. I just want you to keep in mind that there's also a report that specifies the income levels. And that would be helpful as well, so that you can comply with the fair housing act of 1968. I just want you to recognize that African Americans earn about $42,000, hispanics $50,000, and that's in the economic development department November 2020 report. And so I would just ask you to use the data that you've received to make these decisions. And lastly, I would just say to you that specifically the July 2023 report from the city auditor specifies that the staff is not using data to actually make the decisions. And so it is a trend. It's been constant. And I would [5:03:51 PM] It's been constant. And I would just ask that you get these reports, put it in backup, so that when the citizens do come to testify before you, they can be informed and you can actually use the data to make informed decisions. If you have any questions, I'll gladly answer them at this time. >> Thank you, miss Joseph. You're welcome. Appreciate you staying with us. Certainly, members. I think that completes our agenda, there being no further business to come before the Austin city council at this regularly scheduled meeting of the city council on July 18th, 2024. Without objection, we are adjourned at 5:06 P.M.