Public Health Committee (PHC) Meeting Transcript – 11/5/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 11/5/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 11/5/2025 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [10:02:05 AM] Good morning everyone. I call to order this meeting of the Austin city council public health committee. The time is 10:01 A.M. On Wednesday, November 5th, 2025, and we are in city council chambers. Welcome everyone to our November public health committee. Thank you all for being here today. I am Vanessa Fuentes, chair of our public health committee, joined here with committee members, council members Ryan alter and Jose Velasquez. We for our agenda today, we'll start with public communications. Then we'll move on to approving the meeting minutes from October 1st committee meeting. From there, we will discuss the public health committee meeting dates for calendar year 2026. Then we will receive a briefing on bond priorities from several city departments. That includes our homelessness strategies and operations office, Austin public health, Austin public library, Austin animal services, as well as Austin parks and [10:03:07 AM] mall, April, as well as April is what it says in my notes. Oh, the Navy. Okay. Are there any questions or comments on the agenda? >> Let's get to it. >> Before we get dive further in and start public communication, I do want to highlight that there are a number of city memos included in our committee meeting packet. Two of them were previously distributed, including updates on the citywide encampment management prioritization initiative. I want to acknowledge that for me personally, this initiative has fallen short of our needs for unhoused community. I'm very concerned with the failure of proposition Q for the city to continue to be able to offer services to our unhoused community. And so I will be asking for us to take to get a briefing, either at our upcoming work session or at the very latest, at our next public health committee meeting, so [10:04:07 AM] that we can have a greater conversation on the outreach that's being conducted and facilitated by the city of Austin. This is done concurrently, while we also have the state of Texas dps troopers in our city who are actively also doing sweeps of encampments throughout Austin with no connection to resources or services. So I think it is important for us to have a conversation with the limited dollars that we have around homelessness services on how we might best ensure that we are compassionate and humane in our response, and that we have a comprehensive outreach program. Colleagues, you'll probably have received a letter by several homelessness service related organizations that highlighted a number of concerns, and I want to make sure our homelessness strategy office has time to look at those concerns identified and to address those. And so, while that's not on the agenda for us to discuss today, I want us to keep this top of mind for our [10:05:08 AM] community, especially as it relates to ensuring that we have compassionate resources and real opportunities for folks who are exiting homelessness. So we will now welcome speakers from our community. May the clerk's office please call the first speaker. >> We have sj. >> S J. >> Okay. >> They are not here. Anyone else? >> Nope, that'll be it. >> All right. Seeing that the speaker who is registered is not here in the chambers with us, we will move on to the approval of previous meeting minutes for item number one. Can I get a motion? Thank you. Councilmember alter. Seconded by councilmember Velasquez to approve October 1st, 2025 meeting minutes as presented. Any objection? Thank you. Now we will move on to committee meeting dates. Colleagues, item number two. It's included in [10:06:08 AM] your public health committee meeting packet. And this is for meeting dates for our committee. Any discussion conversation this has this meeting in February 4th. So in January since we'll be, you know, in a delayed start, our first meeting of the year would be February 4th. We'll meet in March, April, may, June, August, September, October, November, December. I think for me, the only meeting I would suggest that we strike is the August committee meeting date, just in recognition that we are in budget season at that time, and it is difficult to have a committee meeting in the midst of that. >> Okay, later in the month. Okay. >> Any other changes? Okay. So [10:07:08 AM] we will let's not adopt the meeting schedule yet just because we now that we have feedback on that, we'll provide this to our committee clerk to update. We'll remove the August 5th committee meeting. And then if we could also look at an alternative date for the June 3rd committee meeting, to ensure that our vice chair is able to participate. Very good. Now we'll move on to I'll close that item for discussion and we'll move on to item number three. This is a an update from several city departments around our priorities for use of possible future bond elections and funds. So I will welcome Greg Mccormick with the Austin homeless strategies and operations office. And David gray to kick us off. >> Good morning, everybody. [10:08:09 AM] David gray, director of the Austin homeless strategies and operations. Thank you for the opportunity to present today on our bond priorities. I want to introduce Greg Mccormick. Greg leads our shelter operations and expansion unit with zo, and he'll be providing the overview today. So with that, Greg, I'll pass it to you. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. David and I wanted to invite up possibly Chris Anderson who is our new deputy director. I'm not sure if he's had a chance to meet everybody or be introduced, but we can have the whole gang up here and present this. So thank you. David. Mayor pro tem council members, for allowing us to talk about our bond priorities for our homeless strategies and operations. So we believe in the vision that everyone should have access to stable housing and the support they need to thrive. We know that that requires lots of mechanisms, lots of steps in getting there, [10:09:11 AM] and we believe that shelter is crucial in it. And so it's why we are really targeting shelter as one of our bond priorities, which I'll get to in a couple of minutes. These are some numbers from echo from their homeless response system report. You guys have probably seen these in other presentations. We feel like these numbers really indicate and enforce our need for additional shelter. We're seeing about 6300 people homeless each evening. And I think you guys know that there are different mechanisms on counting folks who are homeless. And sometimes we do a point in time count. We also have an miss data system, which tracks folks who have touched the system in some way. And so 6300 is kind of the best ballpark figure that we can get. We've had an increase in people exiting homeless. This is great news. Up 14% from 2023, 3055. [10:10:11 AM] People exiting homeless is great and we want to keep that increasing and serving people who are on the streets and homeless, unique people served. It's about 28,000 who have touched the system in some way. And then we've got some first time folks data for you guys who they have not touched the system. In 2024, we had about 8000. That was a little bit of a decrease from 2023. So we like to see that our chronic homeless rate remains high. This is something that we've talked about with council before and think that there's a good understanding. This is really a big hurdle for us when we've got a higher than average chronic homeless rate. And so if we can really dig into this and tackle this, and we think shelter is a good path to starting that, it opens up the resources for someone. One of those first time that touches it gets the assistance they need because it's available. Then we're able to get them out of homelessness quickly. So [10:11:17 AM] looking at our shelter system right now, this illustrates our city owned shelters, which you guys are familiar with, the arch and eighth street, the Austin shelter for women and children run by Salvation Army marshaling yard, and then southbridge and northbridge shelters. Those make up a little over a thousand beds. And then we've got community organizations that are doing a lot of good work and providing shelter for others. And so you can see that our shelters capacity has increased considerably, especially since 2022, 2021. We'd like to continue to increase this. We have a goal of adding 500 to 600 additional shelter beds within our system. We're talking about how to do that. We think that the bond might be able to provide an avenue to to do that as well. So, you know, it requires ongoing investments. And we're looking at this [10:12:20 AM] constantly. We want to make sure that our investments are prioritizing systems that will decrease homelessness. We want to look at how we're measuring it. We're looking at the prevalence of homelessness. All of our investments really want to ensure that not only those that are on the street are getting the assistance, but those who may be at risk of becoming homeless, people who are getting eviction notices, people who are starting to hit hard times. If they reach out to us, we'd like to make sure that we can find the resources to help them in that moment of crisis so that they do not become homeless. And so this is kind of looking at all of the appropriate interventions across the board and how we're looking at what resources we allocate for each. So on to the meat of this, the looking at the bond priorities for our department. We are looking at proposing a homeless shelter [10:13:21 AM] bed expansion. I believe I talked about this at another presentation before. This would be a large shelter that we would build. We know the marshaling yard is temporary, so it will have to go away at some point. That's almost 300 beds that we would need to be able to provide for. We don't want to lose those beds. And we'd like to add on top of that, our estimate right now for cost for this is 50 million. We are continuing our due diligence on both scope, site and cost, and we'll have more to present in the future on this. But we we're looking at a large shelter that could replace marshaling yard potentially. We talk about the downtown area and whether the arch and eighth street will continue to be there. If we needed to replace those, this would be something that could help with that. And then a navigation center. And we've talked before about how key navigation centers are to helping. I talked a little bit about when people get into a [10:14:21 AM] difficult situation, they need to know where to go and what resources they can access before going into shelter. We want to keep people from going into shelter if at all possible. Housing navigation centers really do this, and we we need more of them. We're we've just purchased one for a south navigation center. We'd like to get one north so that we can cover the population. Austin is so big with the transit systems difficult, we want to be able to reach out to individuals where they are. So our next steps, we're we're looking to identify sites. We're looking at different locations. We're looking at zoning and accessibility and all kinds of things. As we assess where a shelter could be placed, could be built, we're looking at the feasibility, environmental conditions, how ready could it be? What what would be the timeline on doing something like this? We are engaging with city planning, with public works and community [10:15:22 AM] stakeholders. We started some conversations about what would you want this to look like? And then we're looking at program and feasibility finalization. We have engaged with an architect who we've been working with for probably the last 2 or 3 months. They have gone and visited some of the larger shelters in the state. They've gone up to Austin and gone up to Dallas. Sorry for the Austin street center shelter, which has about 400 individuals. They went to haven for hope and visited that as well. And so they've gotten some really good ideas in education on what a shelter looks like, what the needs are, what worked and what didn't work. And they're going to be putting together a plan for us. The next step with that, and I'm not sure if I'm getting ahead on the slides or not. The next step of after we get the plan, the preliminary plan, we'd be looking at cost and trying to see if we're in the ballpark of what it would cost to do something like that. Next [10:16:25 AM] slide. Oh. >> Do you want to. >> Touch on. >> Yeah. Actually do you want to talk a little bit about how. Yeah. >> So I'll just kind of close it out. Thanks Greg. So just to kind of wrap up what Greg had been talking about. So we're engaging with cbre right now to help, as Greg mentioned, finish looking at what the portfolio of the shelter would be, what services we provide, how many people would we be able to accommodate and in what format as we get a better understanding of that, that will help further inform our thinking around the cost to build and the cost to operate. Along all of this, we are engaging with stakeholders, current shelter residents, previous shelter residents, other community members to understand what their priorities are, what they want to see in a new shelter and a new shelter environment, and making sure that we're building that into our program. And then if bond funds are allocated, then we would proceed with issuing an rfp and moving forward with developing out the the shelter. And so that [10:17:26 AM] concludes our our presentation for today. But madam chair, happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you colleagues. >> Councilmember polgar. >> Thank you all so much for this overview. I, I wanted to start with, in conversations with other municipalities, whether it is haven for hope or I forget the name of the shelter up in Dallas, did you all talk at all about like, are there economies of scale in terms of service delivery? You know, if if you had a 300 person shelter versus a 400 or 500 person shelter, what types of economies of scale you get? And then on the flip side, the challenges of at what point you get to a shelter that is really difficult to manage. >> Great. So I'll take that. So Greg and I have done a couple of site visits, and we've had some of those conversations, especially with the larger shelters, trying to understand [10:18:26 AM] kind of what is the tipping point at which you kind of go from something that's large but manageable to something that's large and very chaotic. And I think what we've learned is really it's about the design of the shelter itself. You know, Greg had referenced Austin street shelter, which is a congregate shelter, has about 350 or 400 beds in it, but not chaotic, very organized, very it has a very community oriented atmosphere to it. And a lot of that has to do with the intentionality with which they built out that, that shelter. We also, when we were in Dallas, visited the bridge shelter, which was established, I think maybe 10 or 15 years ago, another large shelter that has a day center on site, some congregate beds, but then also some semi congregate and non-congregate beds for people who are preparing to transition into housing. And again, the key takeaway there was, you know, number one, the built environment, making sure that you have the services on site, that their safety, that you [10:19:28 AM] have things that can accommodate people's needs and the needs of their pets, etcetera. And then second is making sure that you're constantly checking in with the community who is residing there to kind of pivot as you go. So so those are things that we're trying to keep in mind. You know, our our goal is not to cram in as many beds as possible, but we do want to make sure that we are adding more capacity to our system, because right now, our system still has one bed for every five people seeking help. So a 1 to 1 swap is not something that we're moving towards. We do want to add more capacity to bring more people indoors, but we are being mindful about not going too big and creating a problem for us down the road. >> Okay, and one thing I would ask, as you're doing this planning and design, exploring the possibility of of joining these two items into one, right? [10:20:29 AM] Having the navigation services being on site of the shelter, I think of that not only from an efficiency perspective, but I mean, let's be honest, it would be much better to have one siting fight as it is to Wright know, we have just gone through locating a navigation center. It's difficult and I get it. Shelter. Same story. But if we can do it right in one location, I think that is is beneficial as well. And also, you know, I do see you know, I think about sunrise. Sunrise offers daily food. So does a shelter. You might have some efficiency there. If somebody came there and said, you know, I'm in desperate need of help. And we had three shelter beds open. Great. Let me walk you down the hall and we can help you right now. So I would just be interested to know what type of [10:21:30 AM] co-mingling we might be able to do and what what that could look like. >> Yes, sir. And that that's something that will keep in mind, as you know, from this most recent navigation center purchase, one of the reasons why we proposed that site was the co-location and proximity to the southbridge shelter for exactly the reason you're, you're talking about. So that that's an important takeaway from us. So I appreciate you raising that. >> Absolutely. Well, appreciate your work. >> Thank you sir. >> Yes. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you chair. I just have a couple of quick questions. One is about the navigation center. Do you already have an area that you're looking at exploring or geography in mind? I'm just thinking about the Charlie center in northwest Austin. Are you looking further east? Can you expand on that? >> So our our most recent conversations around the north navigation center has been some talks that we've had with central health about co-locating, some navigation services at a complex that they recently purchased on Cameron road near Cameron, and 183 and [10:22:31 AM] those conversations are ongoing. There's, you know, nothing finalized yet. We have also been having conversations with the Charlie center. I know Chris was just there last week having some some discussions with them about their needs and operations and how we might be able to help them as well expand their operations if that's something that they're interested in doing. So, you know, we're still in an exploratory phase and really trying to make sure that we're covering all corners of our very large city. >> So it sounds like two options, at the very least that you're looking at. One is further east and then or northeast, I should say. And then one is maybe collaborating or expanding on the existing work that Charlie center is doing. >> Yes, sir. Okay. >> Next question. You gave us a really compelling, I thought, in my view, presentation last time we convened on diversion and prevention. Are there any. Is there any way to approach [10:23:33 AM] that from a capital perspective, in the same way that you're looking for with navigation and shelter, for the for the $5 million or whatever the spend is for investing in that kind of solution? >> Let me look into that. We try not to kind of commingle the capital funds and the service dollars, but it's something I could look into. What I can say, though, is about a year and a half ago, we made a programmatic change with our shelters, and we started allowing all of our city city shelters to use some of their service dollars for diversion and move in assistance and stuff like that. You know, again, the goal is to help people get out of shelter as quickly as possible. So even as we think about what a new shelter looks like, obviously we're thinking about the beds and the head count and the food, but we're also thinking, you know, how do we design spaces that get people out of shelter quickly? And so diversion, rapid exit prevention, you know, all those things are things that we're keeping top of mind [10:24:34 AM] for what we would include in this new space. >> Okay. I'd be curious if there's any way to look at how to use capital dollars to invest or address the diversion and prevention challenge. Again, may not be possible, but I'm I have no idea. And the last question is just in terms of it sounds like if I understood correctly, most of the shelter bed expansion is to replace the marshaling yard. Is that correct? >> So so it could be. So the marshaling yard is a temporary shelter. And so at some point we need to turn that asset back over to the convention center. And you know, we want to make sure we're able to provide a better experience for folks who are currently calling that place home. I will say Greg and his team and the folks at endeavors have done a phenomenal job transforming this warehouse into a functioning shelter, but it was never envisioned to be a permanent home. In addition to that, we're also, as Greg mentioned, looking at the future of the arts and the H [10:25:35 AM] street. You know, those shelters are serving a lot of people, but they're also very old buildings with very high operating costs. And so so as we think about the future of shelter for the city and also what some of our partners are doing, like our friends at the other ones foundation and their phase three expansion at the Esperanza community. We've used some of that as opportunities for us to close temporary beds and maybe even move people from buildings that aren't very operationally efficient into spaces that are designed using today's standards around trauma informed design, around crime prevention, and that give us more opportunities to provide critical services on site like health care clinics, job training spaces, opportunities for folks to to engage in other social activities with their peers. So that's kind of where we're at. Okay. But but again, [10:26:36 AM] councilmember, I just want to be clear that we're not looking at doing a one for one bed swap, right. So we also want to make sure that we're adding more capacity in wherever we're moving to. >> Well, my the real intent was to understand, to the extent that you are in your calculations, thinking about or already planned for whatever the other ones, foundation or mobile loaves and fishes community first village. I know they're doing two expansions, recognizing that may not all be shelter, but that there will be other things potentially coming online by, I would assume community partners that might help address some of the the need. So anyway, I appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you, chair. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. >> Next up we'll go to Philip gidseg, facility planning manager for Austin public health. As you get situated colleagues, just as a reminder, we do have a citizen led bond advisory task force that is currently considering all of [10:27:36 AM] these briefings that they're receiving from city departments and will be making a recommendation to council for my understanding, by may of next year. So we really I know several committees have requested an update from staff so that we are getting kind of that first sneak peek preview of priorities for the department as it relates to any potential 2026 bond packages. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Welcome. >> Good morning. Mayor pro tem council members, my name is Philip gidseg. I'm with Austin public health and I appreciate this opportunity to talk about our bond priorities. I will give you a brief department overview and our bond funding history, followed by our past successes. The data that is driving our new proposals, and then a closer look at the two new facilities that we are proposing to understand why these projects are so important. It helps to briefly look into [10:28:38 AM] what health department is. We believe we present the heart of our community's well-being every day. Our staff works directly with residents, preventing disease, promoting health, protecting the well-being of all from vaccinations and health screenings to food assistance and environmental health inspections. We reach people at every stage of life, despite of the scope of what we do. Our department has historically received a very small portion of the city bond funds. Over the past 26 years, we received less than 1% of all the city bond appropriations, 2.7% to be precise. However, despite the small share, we have used every dollar strategically to complete multiple capital projects that directly benefit residents. Every facility was delivered on time and within budget, serving as a proof how [10:29:39 AM] we manage the bond investments. So I'll just share briefly a few examples of our past successes. The dove springs public health center is our newest success story. Mayor pro tem knows quite a bit about that. Being a huge supporter of ours, it was completed in 2024. It integrates multiple health programs, neighborhood center, immunization with youth services and a high quality child care center and all under one roof. This is a great example of what a future public health facilities can achieve. We had a similar success at montopolis recreation and public health center. By the way, dove springs was funded with 2018 bond funds and completed in six years. The montopolis rec center was funded with 2012 bonds and completed in 2020. It has been a cornerstone for our community connection, offering both [10:30:40 AM] recreation and essential public health services in one accessible location, and it is also a great example of how two large departments can partner. We shared a bond funding with parks and recs, and now we've been working with them in the same location for five years. Another great example of the a Paige bond investments that greatly improved our communities, women and children center. That facility was also funded with 2012 bonds completed in six years 2018, and it provides vital services for moms and kids without a stable housing. It also shows how even a modest investment can, in public health infrastructure can make a profound difference. We almost doubled the bed count there with a fairly small investment. Beyond these three large projects, we completed several smaller projects, a better [10:31:43 AM] campus improvement. We added some kennels to animal shelter, and we did some parking expansions. And these projects might not be as visible, but they're just as important in strengthening our services across the city. So looking ahead, our 2026 bond proposals are guided by data, community needs and public health outcomes. Our two new proposals are not chosen by convenience or geography. We did a toro data analysis and looking into health outcomes and social determinants of health to identify where these two new investments would be best suited and could serve community in the best way. If we look into the colony park public health needs, by the way, these maps are just snippets from a much larger data presentation in interest of time. Just to illustrate situation here, colony park is [10:32:45 AM] a clear example of a community with significant health disparities and limited access to public health services. The highlighted census tracks represent communities with overlapping social determinants that contribute to negative health outcomes. The gray areas demonstrate a broader systemic inequities impacting the health and quality of life for thousands of residents. The north east area of Austin faces many of the same challenges. It has a limited access to healthcare, transportation, it has transportation barriers and a growing population needs. These maps also reflect the CDC's social vulnerability index. It refers to the demographic and socioeconomic factors such as poverty, lack of access to transportation, crowded housing that all adversely affect our communities. So based on the data we are proposing, two new public health centers, one in [10:33:47 AM] each in these areas. By the way, these centers where. Just one of my slides disappeared. But these centers were proposed in previous bond cycles in 2012 and 2018. They just didn't make it. But they would represent city's next step in expanding equitable access to public health. They share a common design and philosophy, sustainability, efficiency and community connection. Each center is a practical, forward looking investment in public health infrastructure that will serve residents for decades. Both projects will be designed to be resilient, efficient and ready to serve during times of crisis or need, and offer daily public health services. So in the specifics of each center, [10:34:48 AM] colony park public health center is estimated to cost 42 million, with 8 million included for a potential land purchase or existing land improvement. If we are able to find available city land to build this, it will be at 30,000 square foot multi-purpose facility that will serve 125 clients daily, and it will offer very similar services as our newest dove spring center. So it will be neighborhood center with youth services childcare center and immunization. We also plan to build this center in collaboration with Austin public library. If we can co-locate at the same land. The second proposal, northeast public health center, is estimated to cost 51 million, with also 8 million included for a potential land purchase or existing land improvement. If we are able to partner with part again, maybe in that that part of the city, it will be [10:35:49 AM] 40,000 square foot multi-purpose facility that will serve 150 clients daily. It will offer two additional services. Refugee clinic that we would relocate for from the current location at tarrytown, which is a prime real estate that might be able to be redeveloped for housing or other purposes, and we would also relocate immunization clinic from the currently leased space, freeing more space there. And it would provide housing for the second sexual health clinic. Right now, the only one, probably in central Texas is the one downtown at Erp building. With this, we would have two centers that would have a much wider reach for those services. That brings us to the end of the presentation. I would like to thank you for your time and consideration. These projects are about long term public health investments in our community, and we really look [10:36:50 AM] forward to making them a reality with your guidance. >> Thank you. And I really appreciate the the thought that has been put through to propose these projects, particularly the colony park, you know, in as a co-location with the library. I think that's a really efficient use that meets both of those community needs for the colony park area colleagues. Any questions? >> Marc. >> Yes, vice chair. >> Thank you. I just had a couple of questions about the cost. And my guess is my colleagues understand how this works since they've been through the bond process. But when I look at the two proposals for the health centers that you've offered, they are significantly more expensive than the health centers that we've recently built, more than a factor of doubling the cost. I don't know whether that's construction or the, you know, where we are at this moment versus where we were planning for several years ago. I'm curious if there's an option that exists that still [10:37:52 AM] satisfies a good portion of the health needs for those communities, but at potentially reduced cost, if that's something you've explored, have you looked at sort of what a base and optimistic and a pessimistic version of these facilities might look like? If, for instance, we didn't have $90 million to accomplish this. >> The this has been a challenge to all our bond proposals in the past three bond cycles. The estimates are done through our capital service delivery department and project managers. That really helped us build all these previous facilities. So in the past, we would go with the most optimistic one and then we would run, you know, like a danger of being considerably short of the funding when it comes to construction on that springs. We had to lose a whole floor like so. It was supposed to be a three floor facility, but in order to build everything, we had to give up on some of the services. So this what we are told is the [10:38:54 AM] most realistic when this gets to get built. So if approved, design will take some time. We can pretty much promise you by the next bond cycle this will be done like so 6 to 8 years. But what we were surprised about Dow springs was the supply chain, the covid. All the prices doubled and tripled literally. So we were watching in real time how steel goes up like three times and and this and that. And the lead times were going from a month to 12 months, which would add the cost to construction subcontractors and everything. So whether this can be done cheaper, we're always hopeful and we're super frugal. You know, this is the bare minimum. We go for a bare minimum that can provide comfortable environment for the clients, and that can be scaled like a good example is. Most of our centers were built in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and 50 years later [10:39:54 AM] they're still offering services. So bang for the buck. This is a very good investment because you can almost guarantee that next half a century you will still have a place that will offer all these public health services. >> Thank you. Last question then, is out of the two that you've identified, which in your view, based on cost, urgency, community needs has the greatest priority at this moment. >> So well. >> Thanks to our partners and leaders at capital service delivery, we had a very elaborate matrix on how to score our programs, and that was a multi-month process. And colony park came, you know, a few points atop that's you know, we were aware that asking for two at one bond cycle might be really too much. But if we get to choose that one based on a bunch of from, from, you know, equity, sustainability, the ability to collaborate with other departments to have synergy with multiple sort of services. Location. Colony park [10:40:54 AM] came on top. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair. >> Yes, councilmember alter. >> Starting with the colony park health center, that almost $42 million cost. Would that be in addition to anything that the library department would incur? Or if you were co-locating with that, would a portion of that number be shared with the library? >> So so we're hopeful that out of those. >> 42 million, 8 million is for the land, either purchase or redevelopment. So we're hoping if we co-locate, it will be $8 million less, because we could share that cost and existing land. The plot of the land is has challenges, so that land would have to be sort of developed, but it wouldn't cost like a new purchase. And if two departments co-located and this is really three departments, because we took under our umbrella economic development proposal for child care. So the [10:41:55 AM] child care is not under public health, but that would be additional service. So really three departments in one location. >> And that kind of leads a little bit into the next question that I hate is the reality, but it is the reality. And that is you have 40 staff members listed here. I assume those are new staff members. >> For colony park, correct. We might be able to relocate from some of the other facilities and make that number smaller. However, we wanted to give you a 100% realistic. This is it is what it is. And just to be fair for the people that come after us as public servants, they don't have to deal with, you know, absolutely why that Serbian guy said 20 when it's really 40. >> So and, well, I mean, we need realistic numbers. We can't pretend one thing and then, you know, get to the end, you know, 40 staff members, that's probably north of $4 million child care you just talked about. If these are new [10:42:55 AM] child care services, there are costs to that. And I am trying to figure out in my mind how we pay for services like this, expanding services like this. In a time when, you know, we we are struggling to pay for the services that we're providing today. And I, I, I think all of these are are really necessary and important. I'm just you know, I think we have to highlight what things cost and, and just figure out what the priority is. But on that, on that front, I am hoping that you can help provide some kind of roi. You know, make the case. What is if we do this, what kinds of savings are produced. [10:43:56 AM] And and I think it is important for us to understand are those savings because someone is now not going to the emergency room. So is it really the hospitals that are saving? Are those savings that we are, you know, maybe we're picking somebody up and fewer ambulance trips. And so that would be a city saving, you know, where what kind of benefit do we receive from centers like this? Same with the northeast public health center. You know, those three that you listed, the freeing up the refugee clinic, Imam immunization clinic and the wick? You know, I assume there are some types of savings. Correct. And that so help us I, you know, understand what that is. I was also wondering, are non Austin residents eligible to go to these facilities and receive immunizations or other services? >> Yes, sir. >> We don't really ask for type of identification that would put people away from public [10:44:57 AM] health services. You raise a very valid question, but I think in terms of public health, these equations have been done for, you know, decades. And they really showed that $1 of public health prevention saves you ten, $2,000 down the road. You know, we are that one step before people go to homeless services. You know, where we offer food, we offer all kinds of consulting, really help them, you know, stay housed and be healthy. Once you get ill, you lose your job. You go out of work. All those things are tied. And we do offer services to everyone that comes and asks for help. >> And and I think that is laudable and something that, you know, does impact our community. But once again, we have to start asking new questions. And is the question that if if this is, you know, close to Maner or close to [10:45:58 AM] pflugerville and we are serving their residents, do we need to be going to them and saying, at a minimum, you need to help fund the operations because your residents are using this same story with, you know, our existing facilities. These are questions I hate to ask, but it's. >> What I do just want to highlight. We have a contract with Travis county to administer public health services for the county. >> And that's, you know, there are unincorporated areas where a lot of I know our. Our clients live, but we're going to have to figure out some of this stuff. And, and it's it's a tall task. So I appreciate it. I'm just trying to. >> Think through it. If I can offer a perspective because this has been a, you know, challenge since I've started 22 years ago. I remember the same questions when we were sort of separating from the Travis county and deciding on that interlocal agreement, the way [10:47:01 AM] public health works, you could be living in manor, but you could be working in Austin, which is usually the case. So even if we vaccinate you, you're a remainer. When you're ill, you bring your disease to heart of Austin for a lot of these other services, you know, sexual health services and stuff. The when you look at the charts, how these things spread cause benefit analysis, very easy for this type of services. It's a little less easy for social services, you know, and that's where we sort of play on your heartstrings to try to sell it better, but also, you know, it just takes one visit to any of our centers to see, like a mom with three kids coming where she cannot go anywhere else. And, you know, we can definitely put a value on that. But it's rough. That's why in the last three bond cycles, we would get one facility per bond cycle. So we came to us for more. So thank you for your time. >> Thank you. We're going to move on to our next department. Thank you. [10:48:01 AM] >> Thank you. >> We'll now have Cody Scott, facilities process manager for Austin public library. Our favorite topics. We all love our libraries. >> No we're the favorite. We're the favorite. We're the favorite. Good morning. Chair mayor pro tem and public health committee. Thank you. This morning, Hannah Terrell, interim director of libraries I have with me Cody Scott, our facility process manager, who is going to run through our presentation from the library of our operations capital program and give you an overview. >> Good morning and thank you for this opportunity. Again. Cody Scott, facilities process manager for Austin public libraries. So we're going to [10:49:02 AM] begin by kind of just going over our operational overview for the Austin public library. The public library has 24 total buildings that support the public's access to to the library. We have our central library, our flagship, which is the city's Leed platinum building, the first Leed platinum building in the city of Austin. We have our 20 branch locations throughout the city. We have our Austin history center campus, which includes the John Henry Faulk building. And then we have our warehouse that supports all of the inventory needs for the library system. And then in March of 2024, Austin city council expanded access to free library cards for residents in the Austin etj in limited and limited. Basically, this has increased our footprint by over 250,000 residents, further than what what it was in the previous year. So what we have [10:50:02 AM] here is a quick bond history. Our first bond started in 1928. This is two years after the inception of the Austin public library in 1926, which actually means that this next year will be our centennial. So we're moving into the next bond cycle into 100 years of service to the public. These are not all of the bonds that we have participated in over the years. This is just some highlights of some key points in time. And you can see that there's some gaps in there. Once we get past the 1990 1998 expansion and and in improvements to the, to the library's. And then our biggest bond obviously was in 2006 with the construction of the central library, 2020 or 2012 and 2018. These are primarily interior and infrastructure improvements that have happened to multiple [10:51:04 AM] library locations across the city. On average, the Austin public library since the 90s has received about 9% of the total bond funding that that's been out there. So here you'll see a couple of pictures of the work that we have performed on the 2028 or the 2018 bond projects. We have a lot of new roofs. We've replaced roofs on seven facilities. We have replaced the hvac systems on five. We have a few more to go. We have renovated the John Henry Faulk building, which is now the Austin history center campus. All of the archives from the Austin history center have been moved over to the Faulk building for research on the second floor, and expanded the ability to house the city's archives on the second and third floor for many more years to come. It's a very beautiful building. The renovations are fantastic. You can see the image of the staircase there in [10:52:05 AM] the center, and the exposed ceiling, which is the architecture of the building and is very beautiful. If you haven't gone, I, you need to go. And then you see some renovations there. To Cepeda branch, we did an interior renovation. We also did a new pollinator garden recently and we're in and then the urban trail connection from the community on that side, connecting underneath the the seventh street bridge at pleasant valley. And here what we have is an a review of our spin down of the 2020, the 2018 bond, currently, out of the $34.5 million that was budgeted for the bond, we are down to less than 5.75.7 was about a month ago. We're probably around 4 million left now to spend, and on the right hand side, you'll see that we have a list of the projects that we have completed. These are, like I said, mostly infrastructure [10:53:06 AM] improvements, roof replacements, hvac, but we also have some interior renovations that we have been doing along the way. And what you don't see here is that over the course of the last two years, we have spent $3.4 million in certificate of obligation funds to improve a large amount of our facilities with for deferred maintenance, including the work that was done to the southeast branch to replace the controls, access readers, new fire systems and intrusion systems, exterior paint and some interior furniture in that building. Among the fact that we have gone from five locations with building automation systems to now 15, with a few more left to go, and by the time we are done in the next couple of years, we will be in a completely centralized automation system for managing our hvac systems at our buildings. So active and [10:54:08 AM] future projects for the 2018 bond. Right now we are currently working on the old quarry branch library and the William Kirk library. Those are both closed for renovations. We're expecting old quarry to open up in January and William Kirk shortly after that. We are in construction on the construction phase of the Hampton and oak hill branch parking lot expansion. This is an expansion that has been in the works since it was originally constructed in the 90s. We finally got funding in 2018 to move forward with it, and although we have not broken ground, we are in the construction phase now on that one. And then after that, what we'll see is the roof replacement for carver, and then and then we'll move into our last two projects for the 2018 bond in spring, which will be the Menchaca branch and the walnut branch renovations. Those renovations include some work that we've already done, like replacing the roof and the hvac systems in those two buildings, but it will include a complete revamp of the [10:55:10 AM] interior of those buildings, with all new amenities for the public. Shared learning rooms like we have at the central library, meeting spaces and outdoor spaces is actually a key part that we're working on right now. So what we have here is the Austin public library strategic and facilities plan that was approved by council in 2023. These are our strategic goals associated with that strategic plan. And today we're focusing of course, on design and developing spaces for community connections. That is part and key to the expansion of the library system. So during the study and research for our strategic plan, we identified some key factors for for the city of Austin. And you can see on the right hand side a chart that shows the per capita square footage of the library system throughout the course of history, with the growth and the population growth for the city, we had a big bump when the central library was opened up, but it has since we have not, you know, [10:56:12 AM] grown much in the course of the population has has blown up, including the expanded etj as well, which so these numbers are a little lower than what than what it was when this report was put together. But you can see here is that if you can't really see here, but the last branch library that we built was Ruiz in the, in the early 2000. We did open up a relocation of the twin oaks branch in the late 2000, 2008, but we have not built a new branch location in over 20 years. And so we are we are if you we are below what the what the the the public need for space as the city continues to grow, the chart on the left shows you that the Austin public library is well below our peers, our peer urban library systems. And so this this bond package here is getting us, is moving us towards the the direction of increasing the amount of space that people have to access in [10:57:13 AM] libraries. So here's our master facilities plan kind of in a in a map view you can see all the locations and some identifiers on the right hand side. The blue circles are the new branch locations. These are regional locations in the strategic plan and facilities plan. You'll see that we it was recommended that we build 30 to 40,000 square foot buildings so that we have plenty of space for the community to to use these large locations, because most of our libraries across the city are rather small. On average, there are about 7000ft S. We have four locations that are at 13,000, but we go from 7000 to 13,000, and in these new locations would bridge the gap between that and our 20. Our 200,000 square foot central library on this, you'll see there's some other expansions and stuff. Two of the projects that we have in that we're proposing are those expansions. But there's there's a lot to do in this facilities [10:58:13 AM] plan. This is a plan that we look at as being a long term plan that would take us to about 20, 40 to get all of these things done. So our proposed 2026 bond projects include colony park library, which was talked about, has been talked about earlier in public health's presentation. This is a new facility on city land, and it would roughly cost around $58.8 million. We have the oak hill and Millwood branch expansion. These are expansions of existing facilities. These facilities were originally designed to be twice the size that they are currently, but due to the funding that we received in that bond cycle, we had to cut back on the size of those buildings. And then we have safe and ready libraries. This is a project that would enhance our sustainability and resiliency of our buildings. And I'll talk more about that here in a little bit. That's at a at $10.5 million. And then [10:59:14 AM] land acquisition, which is for the future library construction. These are for the libraries that we want to build in the furthest corners of, of the city of Austin. The total bond project projections, if approved, would be $128.3 million. So I'll talk about the design vision for the new colony park branch. What you have here are some examples of what a standard facility would look like. Some of the the infrastructure associated with that, and then a future ready library, which would put us in a position to build another branch library that is at the status of our central library. Our central library has offsets its usage by about 79%. It's not carbon neutral, but it's it's close. As the city has come in a public facing building. And our goal with the colony park location would be to to become a carbon neutral building, if at all possible, [11:00:14 AM] if the funding is there to do so. But these are just some examples of of what you would see in a standard facility for the city of Austin, based off of our requirements for, for green building and then and then what the variance is to do future ready libraries. And it's roughly around 5 to $8 million of upfront cost to take us to that next level. And sustainability, which definitely pays it's pays for itself after 25 years. And then you see the savings increase over time in 100 year building because of the sustainability features like solar and rainwater collection and whatnot. The next project is safe and ready libraries and I could say safe and secure. To be quite honest, this is a project that will focus on our priority locations. These are locations that operate as cooling centers and warming centers to make them sustainable, so that in the moment of an emergency, the lights stay on at the library and people have a place that [11:01:16 AM] they can go in the community when their community might be without power or or water. The goal in these buildings would have solar panels. We would have battery backup, generator backup of some kind. We would be replacing all of the windows with low E glass in order to help control the climate inside, we would introduce rainwater collection and greywater if possible. And then of course, we would be doing retrofits to make the rest of the interior of the building sustainable and resilient. And that is about about $10 million to accomplish that goal with some of the solar initiatives that are in place right now across public facing buildings in the course of the next year or two, we might actually see that we can expand this further than our priority locations, which would be Ruiz, Terrazas, little walnut. Those are our primary locations that we use for cooling and warming centers when the city calls for us to. But we could expand that to some other locations further out into communities that might [11:02:19 AM] be impacted by emergencies. So your roi for a safe and ready library is, you know, you're talking about a $10 million investment with a break even of about 7 to 10 years, and then $6 million in savings over 20 years for the energy that's being saved from being efficient. And of course, the community roi is that we have a safe place in during crisis. It reduces the strain on hospitals and another services continuity with the city. And then, of course, strong neighborhood trust. And then next project list is the expansion of the Millwood branch in north Austin and the expansion of Hampton and oak hill in southwest Austin. Both of these locations you can see from these drawings here. We're originally meant to be twice the size they are. And so our goal is to to give the public what they wanted back in the 90s when these were originally built and expand [11:03:20 AM] these locations. Because these two libraries are two of our busiest libraries, and they are busting at the seams when it comes to being able to provide the services and the programs that the community are asking for in those areas. These improvements are not just expansions of space. These are sustainability improvements. Taking these buildings to the to to new code and new standards for green building to make them become resiliency centers as well. Whenever, whenever they open up after, after they've been expanded. This is a total of $39 million to accomplish these expansions. And last but not least is land. So in order for us to meet the recommendations in the strategic plan, the master facilities plan, we need to purchase land. So we're looking at purchasing land in the farthest corners northwest, Austin, northeast, Austin, southwest and south southeast. These locations. The goal of this purchase for $20 million would be to acquire the land so [11:04:21 AM] that we can start the process of design ahead of not this bond cycle that we're looking at now, but the one after that. So by the time we're we're presenting this to the public, we will be ready to, to build those locations. And that's the end of the presentation. >> Thank you. Questions. >> Councilmember alter. >> Appreciate it. I'm just going to go backwards here right where you left off I have. Told this to capitol delivery services as well as other staff. But now that you're here, you as well, I would like for us to consider within the land purchase item, what additional dollars would be needed to also do the design and planning work for those libraries so that come 2032, we have a a library or multiple libraries that are already designed ready to go and that will ultimately save money in the long term. [11:05:22 AM] >> So it's a great question. Great, great comment. This bond that we're looking at now, the geo bond cannot include feasibility studies that cannot be funded as part of this process. So we would have to look at other avenues in order to accomplish that goal. >> And I'm going to interrupt you there because I have heard 1 or 2 people say that, and I completely disagree. We have done it so many times as a city. I could dig up a list of ten different times in our geo bonds. We have included planning dollars, design dollars. It has. That has to be tied to a capital expenditure, which this would be. We can't just go do a design for something that if it is my understanding and I'm happy to have this conversation more offline and with lawyers smarter than me, but that we have not only done this routinely, but it is something that is done across the state and is well within our allowable use of bond dollars. [11:06:23 AM] So I'll we'll talk more about it, but I just want to offer that thought. I also want to talk more broadly. And y'all are doing a lot of this in especially around the conversation around colony park, you know, using a site to be more than one thing. And we have had conversations about how might we integrate other. Community spaces or amenities and what comes to mind. First and foremost is, you know, we've had conversations with the inquiry about children stem learning. I have visited other libraries, and I would love for this committee to take a little trip up the road to. I'm trying to remember, is it Round Rock that just built it or. Cedar park? Cedar park? Yeah. You know, they took a library space and integrated, you know, youth [11:07:24 AM] learning spaces. And I've been to these in other cities as well with my kids. You know, it's a great it's such a natural fit of spaces. And you get families there for one purpose or the other. You know, maybe they go do a stem activity and then want to check out a library book about electricity or, you know, just it is the opportunity really, I think, is hand in glove. And so I would love to continue to figure out how we incorporate those kinds of things into our libraries and, and also in conversations with groups like the thinkery, you know, they bring operations dollars to the table. So great. We need more of that. And then, of course, I see our friends with the Austin parks and recreation department or whatever we're calling it now. The apr. There we go. We'll get there. You know, having a playscape outside an [11:08:25 AM] area for families to play, and then they can go into the library and cool off and get a book. You know, these are such synergistic type things. We can't just do one thing anymore. And I know y'all are thinking that way, and I really appreciate that you are. So I think our libraries have really endless opportunity. They're such cool spaces for for kids, for families, and for adults for that matter. We often forget about, you know, the adults and seniors who go to libraries and and love to use those spaces as well. The last question I just have for you is very district specific, but the manchaca library on the map, you have it as expand or replace. Can you just walk me through the thoughts on that particular library? What what a potential vision is there. >> Yeah. So. Ideally these [11:09:27 AM] current locations that are 7 to 13,000ft S should be expanded in order to support the community that that surrounds them. Some of our locations. That's not possible. I would I would say that manchaca is not one of those that could be expanded. It's kind of locked in. But what we can do in that space is which is what we're looking at right now. And to touch on your your point earlier about outdoor space. We are working. I just met last week with our landscape architect to to determine and identify how we can expand the use of our outdoor spaces for programing, for the use for the community, which includes pollinator gardens, a playground, an amphitheater type environment for for outdoor programing and storytelling. And we are working closely with pard on our APD. Whichever the April April, sorry, we're working closely with them on that and many other locations to to try to expand that outdoor space. But, you know, I think that [11:10:29 AM] what we need to the first focus really has to be on these new regional locations, because the regional location in southwest Austin, which is near, would be near manchaca, would support manchaca, oak hill, pleasant and pleasant hill. And so that would be a centralized location so that when the community needs more space, they can go to that regional location for that support, where we would have more shared learning rooms and things like that, that that would would serve their needs. So that's generally my that's my first goal. And then I think from there, we once we have identified the land and we have an opportunity to build those locations, then we can look at what we need to do to expand access to the some of those other existing structures. >> Very good. Thank you guys. >> Councilmember duchen. >> Vice chair. >> Thank you. Chair. I just have one question, but it we're talking about investing in either reinvesting in existing physical structures or expanding into new ones. [11:11:29 AM] Generally speaking, I know you've got four different proposals, but for my purposes I'm trying to just simplify it into that. When I look at the data for that you all have shared with us in the past with the transition into a digital circulation, it makes me wonder how much that graph that you shared with us in the presentation about physical space is as relevant today as it might have been 50 years ago. And in terms of the roi that we can achieve by reinvesting digital, I'm looking at the data even between 23 and 24, where we've got, what, 700,000 more digital circulations, even though physical dropped. I'm looking at the data you share with us that we have like a 4 to 1 print, a 32 day wait on some digital content that obviously I think you know where I'm going with this, which is where is the best place to invest? And is that metric still relevant in the same way it might have been [11:12:29 AM] before? >> Thank you. Councilman duchen. And you bring up a great point. And you're right. Digital checkouts, the need for digital has outpaced print. But the thing about libraries, as we are evolving and have evolved, along with digital revolution, is that our spaces, our community spaces, so we're our more not not being cliche, but we are beyond books physically and digitally. We are a place for community. We are a place for job help. We are a place for partnerships, which is the bread and butter of what we do. We as library staff, library industry can't do it all even though we're asked to do more and more. But that's where we rely on strong partnerships that partners doing what they [11:13:30 AM] do as it relates to health, as it relates to all these different things using our spaces, because our spaces are where people congregate, they are what people rely on in their communities. So as we are hubs and in historically Austin, it does look like we have clustered somewhat, spreading a little bit from downtown. And as you see from the maps that we are provided, our outer areas of the four quadrants, quadrants of the city are deserts for spaces. And so again, when we look at us have evolved. We were not spaces that were heating and cooling centers 30 years ago. But here we are today. We are part of solutions for cities and counties. And so we, as you are right, that digital is on the rise and takes more of the dollar to buy that we're still very relevant as it relates to to the space that we provide. [11:14:30 AM] >> Well, I think I'll just end with this, which is I would be very curious to understand, and I think this builds off a prior question. Councilmember alter asked, is there a way to consolidate with other organizations, including some that we've heard this morning, where we can achieve a certain efficiency by collaborating? If, for instance, you don't need the full space for library because we are moving to a more digital model, that we can potentially reduce some of the costs that we might have otherwise laid out for physical, as well as the operating costs that he touched on earlier for other facilities, too. So that's my curiosity, is if there is in a knowing that we are making this digital transition, if there isn't a really economical and smart way, we can get the community space, but also check off a couple of boxes or needs at the same time, that's more efficient than just building a single library or devoting that full space to library utility. >> The answer is yes. I'll let Cody kind of drill down. [11:15:32 AM] >> Yeah. So obviously there's huge benefits from co-locating. I think county park is a good example of how we could have a truly energy efficient, sustainable civic center. And that kind of a civic center is kind of unheard of from the standpoint of having, you know, a complete, sustainable building that serves the community in a broad scale. Naturally, if you co-locate, you can look at things like shared learning rooms and meeting rooms and break spaces. Staff spaces have to be somewhat separated because of the nature of the two departments, but there are definitely savings that can be had from co- locating and obviously some construction costs decreases. Whenever you put all of that, that money together to build one facility essentially, or at least, you know, on the same property. So there's definitely opportunities there to look at where we can scale back, you know, on some of the services or the spaces that we would provide because public health has it, and then vice versa, [11:16:34 AM] for that matter, because we are really good at shared learning rooms and meeting spaces and things like that. So we would be able to provide that for public health and for the, you know, for their for their customers. >> And also, one more thing to councilman duchen, we have also talked with housing as well. That's another area where when you look at libraries in the same place as as housing, that's another thing that is in line with what you are suggesting. >> Okay. Thank you for that. I will try and follow up and learn a bit more about some of the ideas that you have to do that. Thank you. >> Thank you, thank you for the presentation. We will now move on to Austin parks and recreation, now known as April, formerly known as Pritchard. And we have director Jesus for that presentation. >> Well, excuse me. Good morning. Mayor pro tem council [11:17:34 AM] members. I am Jesus Aguirre proud, director of some of our one of our favorite agencies, Austin parks and recreation. I appreciate the opportunity to be here to share a little bit about our 2026 bond development project as well process, as well as how we've prioritized and come up with our recommendations. So, you know, I know we don't have a lot of time this morning, but I do want to share a quick, you know, today we'll do a quick recap of our prior bond programs, give you some insight into how we've approached our development for our 2026 recommendations, and then review those recommendations. But as I jump into it, and I think you all know this, as you drive around your districts and across the city, we have one of the pretty robust parks and recreation system. You know, it started off as as four squares downtown and has evolved into a system that you see some of that here, 220,000 acres, more than 350 parks, miles and miles of trails, 190 playgrounds and growing our nature play spaces, [11:18:35 AM] our officers golf courses, etc. And 45 aquatic facilities across the city. And there's a lot of stuff that's not listed here. And I want to share a couple more numbers here. 25 recreation and community centers, 65 multi-purpose courts, 15 pickleball courts, 100 soccer and baseball fields, 100 basketball and volleyball courts. Not to mention our five cemeteries, 115 restroom buildings, 197 historic structures and 11 maintenance and 12 office buildings. So there's a lot of amenities, a lot of public facilities, and we're proud to to steward these both for the residents as well as the visitors. But but obviously in order to make sure that they continue to be useful and accessible to our residents, we need ongoing investment. And the way we do it, of course, is through our capital improvement program. And this sort of shows you a little bit of the, the, the way that we fund our capital improvement programs and the capital improvement is the way that we obviously the way that we repair, replace, restore, as well as keep up with growth of our city. The [11:19:36 AM] primary funding source for us has been bonds, but we've also been able to access parkland, dedication grants and other things that you see listed here. And we our department's done a really good job of leveraging the various sources of funds to support those capital improvement programs. I'll point to a couple of examples. For example, with with grants, we've received over $3 million to fund the the replacement of montopolis pool. We've got $4 million for Joe Trevino park, $1.5 million for Walter Lang, a million for another million for Joe Trevino park. And we continue to to seek out those grants. In addition, we've got several partners and community groups that work with us both on the operations and maintenance, but also on capital investments and organizations like Waterloo greenway trail foundation, peace park have invested on the capital side. And of course, the parks foundation continues on an annual basis to invest in some of our capital needs. A little history on our bond. [11:20:38 AM] Spending and allocation. I'll note we also got our first bond in 1928, so we're also going to be about 100 years old there. The department was created in 1928, but but this shows the most recent bonds. Two two that I want to talk about are the proposition B and proposition C that came out in 2018. Proposition B had specifically named projects, so it named the Asian American resource center, the carver museum, Duarte art center, and the Mexican American cultural center as specific projects. Prop C, on the other hand, provided for programs. We had an aquatics program, parkland acquisition, parkland improvements, building renovation, and infrastructure program. Now, the challenge with prop B is we struggled spending down those funds, and really that's due to the inflexibility of those named projects. We spent down and allocated about 57% of those funds. As costs continue to increase and communities continue to change, we've not been able to deliver on those projects as quickly as we wanted to. As a recent example, with the Dougherty arts center, [11:21:38 AM] we've had to reduce the scope of that programmatic program space available for programs by 50% to be able to deliver the project as funded under the under the bond project. So, you know, these are sort of the lessons that we're taking as we've put together our our bond program. Conversely, if you look at proposition C and this is the one that had the various programs, as I stated, of the $149 million that were allocated to us in 2018, we spent 73% encumbered 80, excuse me, 11%, and have already assigned 9%. So we've got about 93% of those funds already in process of being spent and supporting the development of facilities, not to mention all the other funds that we've leveraged. And we've set aside about 7% to help us deal with emergencies and contingencies that come up. So we're proposing the same the same type of programs for the 2026 process so that without these prescribed specific named projects, we're able to be much more flexible. And one note, the other thing that I think is [11:22:38 AM] really powerful, I mentioned some of the grants that we received, and having these programs allow us to to really leverage grants in a real way. I'll speak specifically to the montopolis pool rebuilding that's happening. We had a bucket of funds for aquatics facilities. We had set aside a certain amount for each of those pools. Montopolis. Northwest, givens, etc. Because we were able to apply for these grants, some of the funding that we had originally allocated for montopolis, we were able to move to another pool that wasn't eligible for those grants, and then we were able to spend those grant monies on on the pool. So it really gives us more flexibility and frankly, more access to funds. This slide shows you sort of our annual spending. We have a pretty, I think, high performing capital improvement planning division over the last since 2018, we've delivered on 170 projects and 57 land acquisitions, again leveraging bond dollars as well as other sources. And this slide shows you sort of our [11:23:39 AM] capital expenditures over year over year. And we average about $50 million a year that we can spend. And it adds up to about 300 since 2019. So one of the key areas of focus for us as a department, as we continue to to both focus on dealing with growth, but also with our changing communities and access to public parks and spaces and programs. Is land acquisition this this slide shows you sort of the progress we've made since 1998. We've acquired about 3300 acres, again using combinations of bonds, parkland, dedication and other dollars. And of course, whenever we can, we try to combine those fund sources. And one one interesting data point there is we've been able to to for every bond dollar, we've been able to allocate about $0.70 of parkland dedication funds to support that land acquisition. So again, we're being as creative and strategic as possible with our funding. >> Not to interrupt, but do you still have the parkland money [11:24:40 AM] to do that? >> We do, but it's significantly smaller, I think. I won't throw out a number, but but it is much, much smaller than we've had in prior years. >> So $0.70 would not be what we'd have going forward. >> That's right, that's right. Yeah. And one of our key metrics for land acquisition is, is to it's about access and making sure that all of our residents have access to a park or an open space within a ten minute walk of their home, which is about a half a mile in the core area. It's about a quarter mile that we're seeking to to achieve that metric. Over the last several years, we've gone just last year, we've gone from 67% of our residents that have they're able to do that to 70%. So we're continuing to make progress through our very strategic land acquisition program. Just to show you a little bit of our long term progress against sort of how continue to acquire land. Our city of Austin, our standard that we've selected is about 24 [11:25:41 AM] acres per 1000 residents. Currently, we're about 18.2 acres per 1000 residents. And this this graphic just very, very quickly shows you sort of how we're starting to fall behind in terms of the amount of acreage that's accessible to our residents. And, you know, we we do a lot of comparisons to other cities, both here across the state and nationally. And although we we're falling behind, we're still comparable to some of the other Texas cities. So as we dive into developing a bond program to support all of the amenities and facilities that we have, you know, we we really look at several guides that are in that are existing, that drive our work every day in this area. We have existing technical criteria. We have a parkland dedication plan, an aquatic vision plan, recreation and senior center gap analysis plan, shade structure plan, security lighting, etc. So we have a lot of technical criteria where we [11:26:43 AM] look at all of our amenities and try to prioritize. And all of those are also supported and driven by the the outcomes in our long range strategic plan that was that was approved by council in 2019. And all of those plans really require significant community engagement as we make those prioritizations now. In addition, we have vision plans for very specific parks and facilities that also require community engagement. So as we go through and have these technical criteria, we obviously want to make sure that the community has input into all of these. Now to supplement these plans and to to look at the maybe the infrastructure that necessarily may not be one part of those plans. We've created a set of criteria that you see here on the slide. And these are prioritizing social equity as our highest priority, looking at proactive reinvestment, sustainability and resilience, the ability to leverage other funds and or other partnership opportunities. It's also important to note that these criteria that we developed when we started our bond development [11:27:43 AM] process also follow the same guidelines that that were developed by the citywide bond development plan, our development team. So to jump into the specific programs that we're we're recommending, again, akin to to the proposition that that that allows us to create programs of of funding. We'll go through each of these. The first one is a parkland improvement program, which this one will provide funding for the development of existing city parks and all types of parks. This we received $25 million under the 2018 bond program for that. But I'll I'll highlight in each of these slides has this number but our rolling needs list. And this is a list that we maintain as a department of all of our facilities and sort of where they are in their life cycle, where they are and their needs, safety, security, etc. In this particular area, we've got a rolling needs list of about $167 million. So for this, this category, we're recommending we're recommending a $70 million ask. And at a minimum, [11:28:45 AM] we'd like to to receive $40 million if possible. On the parkland infrastructure program. So this one supports the improvement in replacement of the infrastructure within the parks. Things like the playscapes, the trails, the parking lots, etc. We don't, as a department have a dedicated asset renewal and replacement program, which which really is, is what we should be moving towards to make sure that there's a pot of money that allows us to to go in and replace and deal with safety issues. Et-cetera as they come up. In 2018, we received $17.5 million for this area of work. Our rolling needs list in this area is pretty substantial at $346 million. And this shows a recommendation for the 2026 bond at $40 million. On the acquisition program. And I spoke a little bit about this, of course. And this is to to acquire new land. And our strategies really are looking at parks, deficient areas, looking at areas that might provide connectivity to other [11:29:46 AM] amenities, schools. Et cetera. And we really look at trying to leverage the limited dollars that we have there. In 2018, we received $45 million to do that. And as part of that, we acquired 30 new parks or expanded other parks. Our estimate for for the the rolling needs here is a tiny bit different. Obviously, it's just these are the properties that we're looking at trying to fill the gaps and need is at $120 million. And we're recommending are asking for $100 million in this category. This next category, recreation and senior center improvement programs. This is, as it states, for renovations, rehabilitations and additions to existing senior center programs and recreation centers. And we've just completed in 2024 an assessment and a gap analysis for these types of facilities and sort of have our prioritized list there already. This was not an individual program in 2018. It was part of the building renovations program and received $21.5 million. Our estimate for the [11:30:46 AM] the rolling needs here is about $115 million. And that was reaffirmed through this gap analysis and assessment that we just completed in 2024. So it's pretty current number. And so we're asking for $55 million under that program. The next one is the building renovation and replacement. And this is as it states, to to renovate and rehabilitate existing parks. We're focusing on our maintenance facilities this time around. As you can see, some of the photos of those maintenance facilities, they're just not up to standard for where we believe our employees should be working. And again, because we don't have an asset renewal or management program, this is the sort of continue to to to decay despite our best efforts. The, the, the rolling needs here is about $223 million. So we're asking for 85,000,000 in 2026. And then finally our aquatics program I mentioned we have 45 aquatic facilities with pools and spray [11:31:47 AM] parks. I think that's a really large number for a city of our size. But and many of them are aging. And so we, we, we need to continue to invest in repairing the ones that exist, but also replacing and in some cases. Eliminating some of them that aren't being used or they're past their useful life and not worth not really can can justify the investment. But we have a vision plan that that was approved that drives that. And so that's what we use to to focus. And as I mentioned, we have two pools under construction right now, montopolis and northwest. We just opened colony park and givens. And you can see our rolling needs list. There is 195 million so overall and I know it was quick. But overall our ask is is about $300 million at a minimum, which sort of matches what we've had in the past and what I believe we can spend as a department. But the need is much greater. If you total up. Our total rolling needs list is over $1 billion. In terms of what's in [11:32:48 AM] the system that needs to be repaired, replaced, renovated, or just loved. >> So thank you colleagues. >> Councilor alter. >> I just want to highlight 1 or 2 things on this. One. Is hybrid aquatics hybrid not. And we've had many conversations about this, but just for my colleagues who have heard me say it, I think and one of my top priorities is something we don't have in any part of the city. And that is a splash park, essentially like a playground with a lot of water features or like a playground in a pool. You see this in cedar park in Round Rock and other surrounding communities where families go and, you know, for the older kids, not the splash pad for, you know, the really young ones, but something where when it's 100 degrees outside, they're not going to go on the slide because, you know, it's 150 degrees. But allowing for [11:33:50 AM] families who can't necessarily afford to go to a kalahari or something like that to have access to that. And I really think some of the parks that we've talked about as great opportunities are in district two and district three. So, you know, areas that would really benefit, I think, greatly. And so I appreciate you helping us work through that and get it hopefully closer to the finish line. I did have one question as it relates to the. Maintenance facilities, is the work that y'all do there similar to the work that fleet does for. Their vehicles and other things that they maintain? Like essentially the heart of this question is, could you co-locate or somehow use fleets maintenance facilities to accomplish your maintenance needs? >> Yeah. >> I think specific to fleet, [11:34:51 AM] there probably is is is a more different scope of work than maybe some of the other agencies that do have maintenance work like dpw, like watershed protection, like water. So in fact, we've been internally having discussions among all of us as directors, as agencies to try to figure out how we can better sort of utilize and share agencies and looking. Excuse me, shared facilities, looking at the city as a whole and identifying what makes sense and where we can have some shared facilities. So we're looking at that. I do think there is some synergy we can bring into that, you know, our facilities and it's not just ours sort of. Our partner agencies also have facilities that are aging, and the city's investing in some new facilities, which I think is really important. But but I do think we, we, we there's some work we can do there to build some additional efficiencies and get better facilities for all of our employees. >> Excellent. And on the parkland improvement program, you you highlighted this for existing city parks, but is that existing city parks that [11:35:51 AM] are developed or is that we might have purchased land for park or as parkland, but it's kind of sitting fallow and needs to be turned into an active park? >> Yeah, I think it's all of that. Yeah, yeah. >> Okay. Very good. Well, I appreciate the presentation very much. I think this is something that the public kind of expects out of a bond program and always is willing to support. So I look forward to supporting as many of these as possible. Yeah. >> Great. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, colleagues, our final presentation from departments today will be from Austin animal services. We will have the assistant director Jason Garza, as well as the interim director join us today to kick off this presentation. Welcome. >> Hey. Good morning. Rolando Fernandez, interim director for the animal services, Austin animal services. And I'm joined [11:36:52 AM] with Jason Garza with our assistant director from Austin animal services. Thanks for having us here. We're really excited to share this information with you and answer any questions you may have about our 2026 bond program. So this is what we do at a high level. We do a lot of community work in terms of providing care for our animals that come in through our intake process, whether that's through, you know, owner surrender strays. And then we also obviously serve our community in terms of our community members coming in to adopt, foster our animals from us. We are working on, you know, how to best do that in alignment with the strategic plan. So council early this year passed a strategic plan. That plan has six focus areas. Several of those areas look at our infrastructure needs in terms of providing a better space for our staff, for our volunteers and for the animals that we have. And so, as Jason and I and the rest of the leadership team have been [11:37:53 AM] working on, this effort is how to best deliver a facility that meets all of our needs. That's aligned with the strategic plan, but also looks at the future in terms of the services that we provide to our community. These are the six focus areas of our plan. We focus on humane care, spay and neuter, open intake, live release, health and safety, and staff volunteers. We've been working on this plan, have achieved some of these items already and some other many areas. We're establishing baselines, but as I mentioned previously, this plan really informed in terms of our programs that we provide, but certainly how we can best enhance our shelter to provide the needs of our community, the needs of our staff, volunteers and obviously inform the many. Well, there's 63 strategies within the plan that will drive our services for the next five years. This plan right here, [11:38:57 AM] this slide, excuse me, looks at, you know, a couple of things. First and foremost, it looks at our capacity. You know, our facility is very responsive to the needs of our community. That responsiveness is really based on two things. In my opinion. It's the space that we have available and then the staffing that we have available to provide care for our animals. So when we reach space capacities in terms of kennel systems, in our in our shelter, we get creative and try to find temporary spaces for for our dogs and our cats. Many times these temporary spaces become sort of a long term solution for us as we are at today. But also what's then impacted is our ability to provide the attention and the needs that each animal has. In our capacity. Staff is stretched by that capacity to provide the care that they want to provide and need to provide for these animals. And then we're also doing a lot more work in terms [11:39:59 AM] of being data driven, in particular looking at the work that we do, not just in the city at large and the unincorporated parts of Travis county, but also being specific in terms of work that we do by zip code, but also adding in there the the council districts so that we can make informed decisions regarding programing delivery. But also as we look at, you know, how do we enhance the service that we provide to our community, not just at our shelter but other areas of town? We can have that information to make those decisions based on on data. Just an overall summary. Since the shelter has been open, we've received over 236,000 animals for our care while maintaining council's you know, goal of 95% live outcomes, and also being really responsive to the needs of our our community, but also the nonprofits that we work with on a daily basis. This right here [11:41:00 AM] really kind of provides an overview of our operations at our shelter at the Betty Dunkerley campus. So we've been open since 2012. Really important to note that our facility design and construction was not informed by the no kill policy that council adopted. You know, right before 20, 2012, as we were working on this, this facility in terms of capacity, as I mentioned earlier, that's a really driving force for us. And in addition to our capacity for care by staff, we have 121 nonpublic kennels. These are for medical holding, rabies quarantine. We serve as the official agency, lead agency and holding space for rabies in our community. So that's really critical that we maintain those spaces to manage triage. You know, all those things that come in through through those areas of responsibility. And we have 69 public kennels for cats, including six group rooms. And the group rooms allow us to increase the space for our cats. [11:42:00 AM] And we've also been really creative in terms of providing additional portable, movable kennel systems for our cats as we get into those high peak seasons of cat intake 87 kennel capacity in terms of litters is for, you know, small kittens and that we have in our in our in our care. And again this is a fluctuating number just because it's not a constant number of the animals that we have come in. So we fill our base kennel space and then we find creative ways to, to house the rest of the animals that come in through our system. We have 234 kennel capacity system for medium to large dogs. One of the jobs that we do on a regular basis is that pairing, that matching of dogs that can cohabit with one another for a period of 1 or 2 days to just create more kennel space, that we can then allow for that intake process that we provide seven days a week. And so [11:43:01 AM] that's really important for us. It you know, in some days we're able to do a lot more pairings just because of the dogs that we have in our care. Some days it's not as much. But again, this is a really big system that we use to manage the capacity that we have. We have 37 public kennels for small dogs. The area, this area right here is of utmost concern for us. And since our establishment of as a shelter in 2012, the small dogs have been existing or living in spaces that were designed for cats. So we're working on a small project with building services to accommodate better spaces for these small, small dogs, but also make it easier, more efficient for our staff to do the daily care for these animals in these kennels that don't currently have existing drainage systems. And so it's just a lot more robust cleaning effort to maintain these spaces. And then a major challenge for us is that 190 public kennel spaces, these are for medium to large dogs. So again this is [11:44:01 AM] just a snapshot of our capacity based on design space. And when we did the shelter in 2012, we really want to focus now into backhouse areas for supporting the animals in our care. First and foremost is our surgical area. We have five full time vets. We also augment them with temporary vets that come in to provide relief. We really focus a lot on spay and neuter, and it's been a major focus of ours, both internally using existing staff to provide these services. So any animal that gets adopted or fostered will be spayed or neutered. We also leverage our existing contracts with vendors to provide external spay and neuter services to our community. And really proud of that effort. Working with our partners such as emancipate the Austin mane society to kind of get ahead of our capacity internally by using those vendors to do spay neuter services in our community. One of the areas that we want to [11:45:02 AM] focus on in this bond project is expanding the capacity that we have for our medical team by to be able to provide more care in terms of spay and neuter surgeries, but also just the adequate space for our staff and the animals while they're going through this process of receiving medical care. On the other side of the slide, you'll see again, more back of house areas. The first one in the top corner, this is our dishwashing area. In order to prevent disease spread, contamination spread, we manage the cleaning of our, you know, dishes and bowls that we use for feeding of our animals. And so once it's utilized, we'll go through the system of getting that clean through our one really fancy high pressure, extreme heat dishwasher. But as you can see, it's just it's it's a small space and it just doesn't allow us to adequately staff, volunteers or staff in there to do this work. And it's a daily struggle for us. So that's the [11:46:04 AM] dish washing area. Okay. Yeah. So as part of this effort, one of the things that we were looking at really focused on was, you know, what do we need now and then? How do we make informed decisions that will help us, you know, our our capacity down the road? You know, our five year strategic plan is important. Critical provides us that strategy for five years. But what would the future look like. And so we've done a lot of work on that this this plan that we're going to share with you here in a little bit is informed by that effort of utilizing the Betty Duncan campus to provide space for all our needs, but also then recognizing that as the city continues to grow, that we're going to have to expand outside the shelter. So this is just a high level overview of the Betty Duncan campus. We are in the southern part of that [11:47:04 AM] campus and on the bottom part. And so I'll kind of walk you through what our proposed investment in our existing facility is for this 2026 bond project. So the first thing that will have to happen is currently staff that we have for our department is we have about seven team members that are currently officing in the vital records office that belongs to Austin public health. And so we're really great, really appreciative of their partnership to allow us to have staff sit in that area. And if you look at this, this map right here, it's that building that's on the top left above that number two number. So again, our goal, our goal would be to utilize that that space that vital records office for the remaining of our staff that's currently sitting in that number two numbered area. And by allowing our staff that sits there to relocate somewhere else, you know, just north of the lawn right there, that would create space that we would reconfigure to serve as [11:48:05 AM] our cat space. And by moving our cat space there, it would allow us then to, which is currently on number one. So that's the current space. By moving number one to number two, that number one now becomes the new area for our expanded medical care facility, which is currently residing in that number four area. And then by moving that medical care facility over to number one, that number four area will be allowed to be renovated to better back of house space for our staff, more holding rooms for the animals that we have coming in through intake, which is a a major problem for us right now. And why you see us housing animals and kennels in the hallway space in the back of house. So just wanted to explain that because that really informs our ability to utilize the existing shelter by renovating it. But the first domino is to create space by moving staff over to that vital records office, where we currently have 17 members. And then on the north side of the [11:49:06 AM] campus, number three, that right there is an independent project where we want to create another kennel system. And that kennel system will be designed specifically for housing of dogs that have behavioral concerns, behavioral challenges. As we've been working on addressing the number of behavioral dogs that we have coming in through our intake process, we're learning that, you know, the best place to help these animals is not necessarily a kennel system that's already at capacity, that's loud. It's creating separate spaces for them where you can have designated staff that's assigned to them to help them go through some behavioral support process that would hopefully, hopefully mitigate those behavioral concerns and allow this dog to be adopted. So we're envisioning that that space to be up in that number three designated area on that map. So just a quick layout of the overall plan for our bond project. And I'll go more into more detail about each one in the next slides. So again, this [11:50:08 AM] is really looking at our need to provide a comprehensive veterinary clinic for our staff. About 5500, you know, feet of space that will be dedicated to enhance increase the number of care, medical care that we provide for our animals. One of the things that we're also looking at wanting to do is create some programs with community organizations or school district, whether it's a university of A&M or aid or other school districts in our area, that we can provide space for training for vet techs, veterinary technicians, or even veterinarians. We struggle in the market to hire veterinary techs. We also had a hard time hiring veterinarians. And so the last two times that we've hired vets, it was just one applicant. Those two times we loved our vets. The ones that we've gotten are awesome, but we got to do more on that and why we rely so much on our [11:51:08 AM] temporary vets and, you know, spend a lot of money in that on that effort. And so we believe that by creating the space for we can host these kind of programs for training for vet techs and also veterinarians. We're able to kind of fill the pipeline of our future staffing needs that we have currently. But also, you know, kind of see in the future in terms of this, the challenge of hiring these medical professionals. Again, this will only happen if staff is relocated of the current space. This currently housed our cats program. The cat program will move over to the staffing space and we would be able to do this. This new reconfigured, expanded capacity for our medical care program. This is a cat ward. This is just a reimagined corner of the space of the facility that's currently occupied by our staff. And when I say staff, it's support staff, leadership team and also our field services animal protection officers. And so we would want to relocate [11:52:09 AM] those to create the ability to house bigger, more expanded, better served. >> Dog behavior kennel that we want to create on that north side of the facility. The campus. And by moving the as I [11:53:10 AM] mentioned earlier, by moving the the vet care clinic over to the cat space, then we're able to reconfigure the the existing space for vet care team into better, more robust. More space that's greatly needed to provide some care for for intake, for evaluation of dogs, for laundry services, for our dishwashing area, and just make it more efficient for us to house volunteers to to have staff working in those areas, to have spaces where staff can come in and change or shower, you know, as they're doing the animal daily care, which is really important for us. These are two small projects that did not make the the cut for our bond project proposal. We recognize that it's a difficult time for the city in terms of the capacity for bond program. And so we wanted to prioritize our biggest needs. Through this effort. We identify additional needs. And right now, our team is working on finding other creative means to to construct these two projects and in close play area and a storage warehouse, which we we obviously don't have any of these spaces right now. They're critical, but we made some difficult decisions in terms of what we submitted overall for the bond project. As every department had to submit criteria and score it. This is just a summary of how we derived our needs and how they respond to the criteria that was established by capitol [11:54:10 AM] delivery services. So there's a strategic plan that that drives the strategy, the criticalness of the factors that we establish of our biggest needs and shared in the previous slide that that not everything made the cut response to our community, especially for us, is the volunteers that we have come in and provide numerous amount of hours on a daily basis to provide that animal care, animal support that we desperately need above and beyond our existing staff. The efficiency, the fact that we're able to really launch on this project and we're making steps already in the plan to clear the path, and so that if the bond, when the bond project is approved and voted for and approved by the community, that we're able to launch on this fairly quickly, certainly the city of Austin, through its design and construction process, has climate initiatives like the green building systems for Austin energy. We will meet all of those. We want to be efficient in our facility. In fact, we've already taken steps [11:55:10 AM] to work with building services to set aside some investment money to replace existing hvac systems so that we do it one time when this project passes. And it's a better design system, a system that really supports the fact that we're building, that does multiple things. We have a staff, we house, we house our community, they come in on a daily basis, and we have housing of animals, and that's a really big impact for our facility. It's a lot of wear and tear. And we we believe that through this project that we can enhance that greatly and not go to the struggles that we go through on a daily basis where our hvac system fails for us, and we're having to add cooler coolers to keep the temperature at a nice, comfortable space. All right, five minutes left. All right. This is our effort. >> Probably just maybe a couple more minutes because we want to take any questions. But we only have five minutes total. >> Our overall number that we're asking through this effort is $40 million. And it's been informed through working with capitol delivery services. We put in some. The contingency amount in there that would serve us well in terms of being [11:56:10 AM] able to deliver this project within that means of $40 million, and that's that's it. So, Jason, I can take any questions. >> Yes. Thank you. Colleagues. Friend. Very good. Very informative. Well done. That was a very informative presentation. We appreciate your time. >> For your support. >> Thank you colleagues. That concludes our briefing. Our next ite any consideration of future items for the committee. Any feedback on items for discussion. Seeing none. All right. Thank you everyone for your participation and contributions. Today it is 11:56 A.M. And if there's no further business and no objection, I adjourn our committee meeting. Thank you.