City Council Regular Meeting Transcript – 10/22/2026 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 10/22/2026 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 10/22/2026 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [9:59:07 AM] Well good morning everybody. It’s 10 o clock in the morning on Thursday October 22, 2026, and I will call to order this regular meeting of the Austin city council for this date. We have a quorum of the city council present. [10:00:16 AM] Councilmember Fuentes is joining us virtually, and she'll be with us today virtually. We also are meeting at the city council chambers in city hall, which is located at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas. The order of the day is. We will go to our consent agenda. Members. I'll read in the changes and corrections in just a moment, but the consent agenda. We have had no items that have been pulled from the consent agenda, with the exception of item number 42, which has been withdrawn. Item number 42 has been withdrawn. So if you've signed up to speak on item number 42, we will not call it. It has been withdrawn. And again, I'll read that officially into the changes of corrections in the record. Once we finish with that, we will go to as close to 1030 as we can to the Austin housing finance corporation board of directors meeting we'll do is we'll recess the Austin city council meeting to call that meeting to order. Then we will come back to the Austin city council meeting. We will take up items that are referred from committee. We will take up our eminent domain items and our public hearing items. We will also, at noon, wherever we are at noon, we will pause and we will go to our 12:00 time. [10:01:24 AM] Certain public communication. During that period of time, I anticipate that that will be finished by about 1220, maybe a little bit sooner than that. And what we will do is we we will recess. At that point in time, we'll have live music, and then we'll come back around 1:00 or 110, unless we have completed our business. And the only thing left is our 2:00 time certain, and we'll come back at 2:00 with that, unless there are questions or comments from the council, what we'll do is I'll now officially read the changes and corrections into the record for Thursday, October 22nd, 2026. The action I under action items. As I indicated, item number 42 has been withdrawn. Members, before we go to our speakers, our first speaker is signed up on item number six. But as you note from the agenda, items four and five relate to legal settlements. So what I'm going to do is ask our law department to come up and speak with us with regard to items four and five, and then we will go to item number six. [10:02:34 AM] >> Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Mayor pro tem, city manager, council members. I'm assistant city attorney Jeremy Thompson, and I'm here today to recommend that you approve two settlement payments and personal injury lawsuits that appear as items four and five on your agenda today. Item number four to hay versus city of Austin. We recommend that you approve a payment of $250,000 to settle the lawsuit titled Daniella hay versus city of Austin et Al. This lawsuit relates to a July 2024 motor vehicle accident involving an Austin police department vehicle, where the plaintiff seeks payment for injuries she allegedly sustained. In exchange for the payment, plaintiff will release any and all claims against the city from the incident and will also dismissed with prejudice. Her lawsuit, filed in the district court of Travis county. Item number five. Torres versus city of Austin. We recommend that you approve a payment of $110,000 to settle the lawsuit titled Elena torres versus city of Austin. This lawsuit relates to a March 2024 motor vehicle accident involving an Austin resource recovery vehicle, where the plaintiff seeks payment for injuries that she allegedly sustained. In exchange for the payment, the plaintiff will release any and all claims against the city from the incident and will also dismissed with prejudice. Her lawsuit, filed in the district court of Travis county, the city attorney's office recommends that you approve the two payments based upon the stated terms, and I'm available to answer any questions you have. [10:04:04 AM] >> Thank you sir. Members, do you have any questions? All right. We appreciate you. Thank you. With that, I'll turn to the city clerk to start calling people for speaking on different items on the consent agenda, as I indicated. We'll start with item number six. What they'll do is, in most instances call 2 or 3 names, maybe more than that. If you hear your name, please go ahead and come forward so that we'll know you're here and wish to be heard. [10:04:32 AM] >> Thank you mayor. Starting with in person speakers on item six. William bunch. [10:04:37 AM] >> Mr. Thank you, Mr. Bunch. [10:04:40 AM] >> Item seven, William bunch. [10:04:43 AM] >> Thank you. [10:04:44 AM] >> Item 11 Vicki kidder. William bunch also on item 11. [10:05:12 AM] >> Thank you, mayor. Council members. Bill bunch, executive director, save our springs alliance district five resident for many decades. This is y'all's proposal to approve a community wide fire protection plan. I certainly commend the effort, and there are some good pieces in here that recognize that, for example, fire travels much more quickly in grasslands and than it does in in thick, dense forests, mature forests. So we have a high fire hazard, for example, as it spells out on the sh 130 corridor in east Austin. However, the very first provisions in this plan and a huge emphasis of it, is based on junk science coming from the trump administration. The timber logging industry, the oil and gas industry, and their think tanks. The whole circle of folks who are telling you that trees are not our friends, they're not reducing urban heat island. They're not providing us oxygen, wildlife habitat, they're fuel and they're dangerous and we need to cut them down. We need to thin them out. We need to burn them. This is all wrong. You know, as a cub scout or girl scout, you know, you start a fire with a tiny piece of grass, not a big thick TRE, big trees, dense forests resist fire. They retain moisture, which we desperately need here. They help recharge our aquifers. We don't need to be spending a bunch of money. And that's what this is all about, getting grants that shouldn't be given at all to cut trees, fend them, and build roads in areas where we should be protecting. [10:07:18 AM] >> Thank you sir. [10:07:19 AM] >> Speaking on item 21. [10:07:20 AM] >> You're on. Item 21 as well, Mr. Bunch 21. [10:07:34 AM] >> Okay, I'll pass on that one. [10:07:35 AM] >> All right. [10:07:37 AM] >> On item 22. Zenobia Joseph. [10:07:41 AM] >> And close. Mr. Bunch, you're on. You're going to be up again. [10:07:46 AM] >> Item 25, William bunch. [10:07:49 AM] >> I'll pass on 25. [10:07:51 AM] >> Item 27 William bunch. [10:07:54 AM] >> I will speak on that one. Okay. This you know, when we when we hear all this about financial accountability, fiscal accountability, transparency, this item 27 is a contract increase out at the airport redevelopment and expansion project from a base contract of 100 million and increasing it more than 200% to 344 million. And there's absolutely minimum backup. There's no discussion about, well, wait, if we're having this huge change, a quarter of $1 billion, should we like, be rebidding this? Should we be thinking about it differently? And this is just like, oh, it's just a little minor amendment on a preexisting contract. That's not fiscal accountability. It's not transparency. The tiny bit of backup does say, oh, this is guaranteed maximum price contracting. Well, the guaranteed maximum price contracting that I've seen at this city on water treatment plant number four, for example, it doesn't guarantee a maximum price. It's a title that is false. So we need some fiscal accountability at the city desperately. The community is demanding it. You should start with this item, please, and take a closer look. Thank you. [10:09:30 AM] >> Also on item 27, Zenobia Joseph. Item 31, Zenobia Joseph. Item 34. Zenobia Joseph. Item 35 William bunch. [10:09:47 AM] >> Yes. Good morning, mayor, council member bill bunch. Again, we'll save our springs alliance. This item is proposing to purchase almost eight acres of land next to the bright leaf preserve. To add to that preserve and our county's canyonlands preserve system. I'm supportive of this. The price tag is pretty steep, but that is pretty prime property out there. I will again note that though there's conflicting information in here saying, oh, it's going to help us reduce the urban wildlands interface and that that edge place, that's where we absolutely do need to be focusing our fire fire prevention efforts. But it's on the edge in inside the preserve, inside of all of our wildlands. We should be preserving them. We should not be building roads, burning, thinning, trying to manage as if there's something wrong with our forests. It's not. And it's been shown over and over again. [10:10:57 AM] You can't prevent fires that destroy structures and kill people by trying to manipulate wildland habitats. So with this tract, yes, please preserve it, protect the edges, preserve the interior to add to the bright leaf preserve. And thank you for doing that. [10:11:21 AM] >> Item 36 Zenobia Joseph, item 37, William bunch. [10:11:29 AM] >> Yes, thank you, mayor. Council bill bunch. Again, this item 37 is a service extension request to serve property at 1107 castle ridge, 2.85 acres in our drinking water protection zone. And I recommend that you not do this consistent with our long term policies, without some assurance that the property will be strictly limited in its development capacity and that it's not a cost burden onto your existing rate rate base. We have this policy in place. We have limited water at this point. And so we need to be thinking now carefully everywhere, that we do not provide water to project. That does not further our immediate and most important community goals. And extending water on this case does is inconsistent with our both our environmental protection goals and our economic development goals. [10:12:45 AM] Thank you. [10:12:47 AM] >> Item 39 William bunch. [10:12:50 AM] >> Passing on that. [10:12:53 AM] >> Item 40, hunter Dumas, Rachel Mcgee, Dorothy Hudgins, Sean Duncan, all on item 40. [10:13:03 AM] >> If your name has been called, please come forward. Mr. Mr. Bunch, you're also signed up on this. They're going to call your name in about two people. [10:13:14 AM] >> Sean Duncan is on his way. [10:13:16 AM] >> I'm sorry. [10:13:18 AM] >> Sean Duncan is on his way. He's not here yet. [10:13:21 AM] >> Well, please state your name and begin speaking. [10:13:26 AM] >> My name is hunter Orlowski. Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem, city councilors and all members in this chamber. I'm 22 and I'm a member of local 205. I'm here to speak in favor of agenda item 40, the resolution, which will help guide the convention center towards labor providers who have workers best interests in mind. I personally have not had the chance to work at the convention center before its closing, but I know many who have a great number of. My brothers, sister and kin relied on the convention center to stay afloat for reference. For between. For reference, it equated for between 38 and 49% of our union's income. It was especially vital during the summer months when theatrical season slows down, providing stability and reassurance for all stagehands in the greater Austin area. Agenda item 40 is meant to give local workers, workers like me, workers who are just striving to make it through these trying times ground to stand on when the convention center reopens. If you didn't know, most jobs for stagehands outside of our union are contracted 1099 jobs, meaning we get zero benefits, no taxes are taken out, no health care, no retirement, nothing but a check. If agenda item 40 is voted for by this chamber, you will provide the stagehands of this city to have greater access to these necessary functions that w-2 jobs receive. As a young stagehand, I have stated many times that it is my goal to retire from this industry happy and healthy with no major injury injuries. Agenda item number 40 will make sure that I can continue to live a mobile and active life that I should be able to. It ensures that proper guidelines, safety procedures will be adhered to at all times, pushing for proper certification and allowing all workers to leave at the end of the day in the same condition they entered. [10:14:58 AM] Stability, safety and comfort is what we all seek, what we all need, and what we all deserve. So I implore you, with everything that I am to vote for agenda item number 40 so that we may continue to do this profession we love. Thank you. [10:15:10 AM] >> Thank you. Yes, ma'am. [10:15:12 AM] >> Good morning, mayor. Mayor pro tem, city councilors. My name is Rachel Mcgee and I am speaking in favor of item number 40. The resolution concerning the consent convention center. For nearly 30 years, I've worked as a stagehand in Austin. Almost ten years ago, I spoke several times in support of expanding the convention center as the then president of the international alliance of theatrical stage employees local 205. Subsequently, I served on the tourism commission. Today, I'm still excited about having a larger consensus convention center, but its closure has been devastating. Annually, roughly 50% of our union's work came from convention center events. We are determined to find creative ways to help offset our current hardship, and leveraging the city's contracting authority is a good start. When the center reopens, I hope as much work as possible is funneled through our union to ensure workplace safety and to promote wages commensurate with Austin's cost of living and the temporary gig to gig nature of our work. Also, I hope events contract with us for their labor needs, because we are the only labor provider that dispatches stagehands as employees, not independent contractors. This is important for several reasons employees have employee rights, employers share the cost of social security, and medicare employees are eligible for worker's compensation if they get hurt on the job and unemployment benefits when times are tough and under our contracts, stagehands receive employer contributions towards health care and retirement. We are the only stage labor provider offering employer funded benefits. We are also the only recognized labor provider in Austin. Moreover, many of us are osha certified. [10:16:50 AM] I commend the city's commitment to safety because installing, operating and dismantling event equipment is physically demanding and potentially dangerous. Employing stagehands who can correctly identify and mitigate possible hazards protects the health and safety of crews, performers, and audiences. I support leveraging city resources to improve the economic stability of local people. Vote for item 40 to help improve the livelihood of Austin's stagehands. [10:17:14 AM] >> Thank you very much. Yes. [10:17:17 AM] >> Good morning. My name is Dorothy Hudgens. Hello, mayor. Mayor pro tem and city council members. I am asking you to vote yes on agenda item 40, because the people who build, operate and support Austin's major events deserve a fair opportunity to work in their own community. The convention center represents a significant public investment, and the contracts connected to it should create real opportunities for qualified local workers. That means prioritizing skilled labor, creating pathways to good paying jobs, and ensuring that workers have fair standards and safe working conditions. Austin's live entertainment and convention center. Convention industries depend on experienced professionals who make these events possible. Behind the scenes. Investing in qualified local workforce strengthens our community, supports working families, and helps ensure that public dollars benefit the community that supports them. And by having a strong working class, we then have the opportunity to buy houses and pay property taxes and contribute and continue to help grow this economy. This resolution is an important step toward making local hiring a priority rather than an afterthought. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you for your time, and thank you for hearing me out. [10:18:48 AM] >> Thank you. [10:18:49 AM] >> Continuing on item 40, William bunch, Zenobia. Joseph. Cosmo. Norman, please state your name and begin speaking. [10:19:07 AM] >> Thank you, mayor council members, again for your service to our community. Bill bunch, speaking as a private citizen, former tourism commission member, I've done extensive research on the convention center, have opposed it for many years. As you're all aware. I think as you also all are aware, the convention center is a tiny like literally 1% or less of our tourism and visitor economy. It is utterly shameful that you're still hiding all of the financial information about this project. There's been zero progress reports on the project. If we're on time, under budget, over budget, how much? Et-cetera and and this matter before you, which I basically support the thrust of it. I support you adopting it. The. Some of the whereases are absolutely false. The convention center really doesn't contribute much to us. [10:20:06 AM] What you really should be doing is funneling the vast majority of this money to be supporting arts and culture across the whole city, at our smaller venues where they're featuring local artists and employing these kinds of local technicians that are necessary to produce events that feature local artists, local small businesses, and support our entire community. This is this is not even a real fig leaf. This is a distraction from the fact that you're literally robbing money that belongs to our local culture and local small business to throw at giant construction firms to build us what we already know is a white elephant and will be an albatross around the neck of this city for 30 years while we pay off the debt. It's a 1.6 billion sticker price at this point, the interest payments alone are over $1 billion. [10:21:13 AM] >> Go ahead sir. Good morning. [10:21:17 AM] >> I'm speaking here today for my brothers and sisters of iatse local 205, Austin, Texas, in support of item number 40, a resolution to support Austin entertainment workers supported and endorsed by council members Vanessa, Ryan, zo, Mike and Jose. My career with entertainment work started in 2023 with local venues such as moody center, germania amphitheater, moody amphitheater, etc. The vast workplace and work quality expected from the workforce in the entertainment industry should be matched with quality, safety standards and accountability for labor companies. As an anecdote, I myself work as a rigger who works at heights, and safety is my number one standard above everything. I had to learn how to say no to unsafe standards, no to situations I was put in, and no to me working at jobs which expected too much of me. Now it is important to me and it's important that this gets passed because the safety standards need to be matched with the quality of work. There are times where I have a lack of sleep, a lack of money, and a lack of resources because of the demands of the job. And it means a lot to me that there is somebody that is working with us, Vanessa Fuentes, that is able to see our needs, see what we need to survive, see what we need to get our resources and help us get this going. If there is anything that. Any questions you have for me personally, you may ask. [10:23:02 AM] >> Thank you very much for being here. [10:23:04 AM] >> Could you please state your name? [10:23:05 AM] >> Cosmo Norman. [10:23:06 AM] >> Thank you. [10:23:07 AM] >> We'll now move to remote speakers on item 44. Jose Loyola. [10:23:17 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council. My name is Loyola. I'm a district six resident and a parent speaking in support of item 44, a more people centric polgar Laine. A park might be just a few blocks away. A friend might live just across the street, but along Parmer Laine, being closed doesn't mean being able to get there safely. And when the road becomes a barrier, we lose more than a convenient way to get around. We lose the everyday connections that make a neighborhood feel like a community. Imagine a different Parmer Laine where people can visit their friends, families can bike to the park, and all their neighbors can move around their community with confidence. This sounds like simple things, but for children they mean something much bigger Independence, confidence, and the freedom to explore the world around them. That's the infrastructure of childhood freedom. This resolution gives us an opportunity to imagine a Parmer Laine that connects communities rather than divide them. I urge you to support item 44, because a child's world should extend beyond their front door. Thank you. [10:24:25 AM] >> Thank you. [10:24:28 AM] >> Continuing with remote speakers on item 44, Miriam Schoenfeld. [10:24:36 AM] >> Good morning, mayor, mayor pro tem and council members Miriam Schoenfeld here with connected central Texas, speaking in support of item 44. Thank you, council member Laine for sponsoring this item. And council member qadri Ellis, Fuentes and Siegel for co-sponsoring. If you ever peruse campos long range transportation plan, you'll find. Buried deep in appendix a all kinds of wacky ideas that txdot and campo have cooked up for our city, from north to south and east to west. Whether it's turning a road like palmer lined with homes, businesses, daycare centers into a highway or eminent domain, land from a historic family farm started by a former slave to add six lanes of frontage roads on 183 south. Like all of you, I love Austin and am so grateful that we have a council that sees the city potential and fights for it every day. But down in the depths of appendix a live, the plans to take more and more land from our city and turn it into a place that people travel through, rather than travel to. [10:25:37 AM] Austin already has more lanes per capita highway lanes per capita, excuse me, than any other large metro in Texas. And that's before all the new lanes being added to I-35 and proposed for mopac. Nobody has ever visited Austin and said, you know what this city needs more of is highways. The city is strongest when it gets many years ahead of the bleak visions of appendix a before schematics have been developed and money has been invested. These are the moments to make our voices heard, and we are so grateful to council member Laine for looking at the big picture and taking action when it matters most. Thank you. [10:26:11 AM] >> Thank you. [10:26:12 AM] >> Moving to in-person speakers on item 44. Zenobia. Joseph. Moving to item 52, William bunch. On item 53. Zenobia. Joseph. Mayor, that concludes all consent. Speakers. [10:26:35 AM] >> Thank you very much. Members, as you just heard, that concludes all the consent speakers for the consent agenda. Let me ask, is there any item that any member of the council would like to pull from the consent agenda? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. The motion is made by council member Siegel. Is there a second? Second by council member Ellis? Excuse me y'all. That'll take us to discussion on the motion. And if you wish to be heard on the consent agenda, please let me know and I'll be happy to recognize you while I'm waiting to see if there's anybody who wants to speak. I'll speak briefly on item seven, eight, nine, and ten, all of which are important place based investments that help keep Austin affordable, preserve Austin's culture, and bolster our legacy businesses. And they also expand our much needed child care capacity. Item seven supports Waverly north and historic adaptive reuse development that will provide 76 income restricted affordable apartments in Austin's north university neighborhood. And importantly, I'm happy to note that this project is in alignment with the city's equity based preservation plan. Item eight supports Esther's follies, a nearly 50 year old cultural institution in the heart of red river, and a place that I've been made fun of more than once. [10:27:55 AM] This is exactly the type of investment we ought to be making in the in the arts, by the way, not in necessarily in making fun of me, but in the arts, preserving spaces that are inclusive and active and, and they are as an alternate in an area predominantly focused on nightlife. Item number nine will help stabilize operations for a legacy Spanish immersion childcare provider following relocation, preserving essential childcare capacity for communities that are at immediate risk of cultural erasure and displacement. I also want to recognize the massive community support that enabled this business to find a new location for the next 17 years. I really appreciate that and say thank you. I know the whole council does. And then finally, item number ten supports royal blue, a 20 year old business right down the street that I think everyone at city hall appreciates. Not only is this an investment in a legacy Austin business, but it's also an investment in pedestrian oriented retail fabric that is so important to a functional downtown. I'm very pleased that we're doing item seven, eight, nine, and ten councilmember zo qadri. You'll be followed by councilmember Siegel and councilmember duchen. [10:28:58 AM] >> Great. Thanks, mayor. I just wanted to an item 41. I know there's about $34. Councilmember duchen there he is. There's about $34 left on the on the waiver. And I just wanted to say that our office can cover that remainder. [10:29:12 AM] >> All of it. [10:29:14 AM] >> It's $34. Yeah. We can do all 34. Yeah. So that's all I wanted to say on that. And then item 43. I just want to say a quick few words about the Sunday sessions. Austin fee waiver. Today we passed a fee waiver for the October Sunday sessions by legacy on a plate collaboration event that took place on October 11th. Since I've been in office, I'm proud to support Sunday sessions here in Austin, Texas. This event brings folks together to be outdoors and promote. Promotes mental well-being, creativity, music, wellness, just really making you know, everything, everything, everything that everyone loves about Austin, you know, I think is Sunday's session. So our, our city is lucky to have an event like this. I want to thank councilmember harper-madison and her chief for leading in this fee waiver waiver and working with our office. [10:30:01 AM] >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Siegel. Councilmember duchen. Councilmember Laine. [10:30:06 AM] >> Thank you mayor. I saw councilmember Fuentes raise her hand before me if you wouldn't mind. [10:30:09 AM] >> Okay. I'll be happy to do that. Sorry, councilmember Fuentes, I didn't see that. Please. [10:30:14 AM] >> Thank you. Good morning everyone. I wanted to I want to speak briefly on item number 40. It's our efforts to empower Austin workers at the convention center. Colleagues, when the convention center closed, the technical workforce that supported the production of events, particularly the rigging, rigging of stages and events were significantly impacted. The tourism commission received a briefing from local 205 that stated the reduction in work of up to 70% for some workers. When reopened, our convention center will be twice as big. And with such a drastic increase in hosting these large scale events, we have an incredible opportunity to make sure we're creating new opportunities for local, quality jobs that prioritize our local workers. So this item does just that. It gives staff direction to prioritize our local workforce and certain qualifications. As we develop this, the solicitations to rebid this work next year. I also want to bring to your attention to letters of support that were added to the backup yesterday from local 205 and from the Austin central labor council. I'm proud to stand with our local workers and prioritize them as we continue to grow as a city and to invest in our future. I want to thank the convention center staff and the leadership at etsy for their continued collaboration on this item, and a special thank you to our cosponsors council member Ryan alter, councilmember zo qadri, councilmember Mike Siegel, and councilmember Jose Velazquez. [10:31:40 AM] Thank you. [10:31:41 AM] >> Thank you, councilmember, councilmember Siegel. Councilmember duchen. Councilmember Laine. [10:31:45 AM] >> Thank you mayor. I just want to thank councilmember Fuentes for bringing item 40 forward and also to tc for working with all of our offices to address issues that workers in Austin are facing when the city spends our taxpayer dollars to serve our community's needs. Those funds should also create good jobs that are family sustaining, safe and dignified. So I look forward to seeing the convention center become a site that provides many such jobs. Thank you mayor. [10:32:10 AM] >> Thank you. Councilmember duchen. Councilmember Laine. [10:32:13 AM] >> Thank you mayor. I just wanted to flag two items for item 11. This is our community wildfire protection plan. It's the culmination of nearly a year's worth of work. I want to thank community members, Austin emergency management, Austin fire departments, wildfire division and city staff for providing incredibly valuable input. We received nearly 400 survey responses and held several open houses. We gathered feedback to help shape a final draft. The wildfire risk that we've got here in central Texas and specifically in west Austin, is not going to go away. Climate change is going to likely worsen it. Updating the wui last year and the cw Erp now is going to help us prepare for the future by implementing best practices to help us create resilient, resilient landscapes, improve home hardening defensible space, and expand public alerts and warnings. And one other thing I want to add, which is this new version, is going to create new reporting provisions that will help us measure our progress by implementing the plan, including acreage, acreage treated homes, assessed home hardening actions, outreach, and more. It's going to guide ongoing and future wildfire prevention and preparedness. I look forward to supporting its progress with you all for item 45 on no wrong door. I just want to reinforce some numbers that were shared by staff earlier this month. [10:33:28 AM] >> We're not at 45 yet. [10:33:30 AM] >> Is it off consent? [10:33:31 AM] >> Well, it's it's because it comes from a committee. It's automatically off consent. So we'll take that. [10:33:36 AM] >> Okay. I'll deal with that later. [10:33:38 AM] >> Thank you. Good deal. Thank you. Councilmember councilmember Laine. [10:33:42 AM] >> Thank you. Mayor. I want to take a few minutes to discuss item 44, which relates to Parmer Laine, because the decisions that we make on Parmer over the next few years will shape north and northwest Austin for the next 50 years. Parmer Laine is home to apartments, offices, shops and child care centers. Mcneil high school and jollyville elementary are within walking distance. People live here, work here and send their kids to school here. My office and I personally hear regularly from constituents already concerned about the safety of students navigating the Parmer corridor, especially near Mcneil drive, which has long been featured on the the high injury road network. We also frequently see residents who are here for residents who are seeking to walk or bike safely to both major employers like apple and small neighborhood businesses. Right now, the long term recommendation from the campo and txdot study is to turn this portion of the corridor into a limited access highway with 4 to 6 frontage road lanes, based on questions that my office has asked of of campo, we have learned that the current recommendation was reached without modeling traffic time, a traffic counts, travel time, or safety impacts for multiple distinct options, the. The extra driving that new highway lanes reliably attract was not accounted for, nor were the safety impacts of high speed frontage roads. A preliminary look at our own crash records suggests that frontage roads have roughly twice the rate of fatal and serious injury crashes per mile. Driven versus state managed arterials like Parmer Laine. I'm not confident that sufficient analysis has been completed to conclude that the current plan, in fact, best serves the many Austin residents along this corridor, now or in the future. In addition, I will note that research indicates very clearly that property values along highway corridors are depressed versus otherwise similar properties. Future impacts to property values are potentially even greater, as the Williamson county portion of Austin's Parmer corridor connects to connects multiple large tracts under single ownership, with entitlements already in place for transit oriented development and multifamily high density development. [10:35:50 AM] Because of their proximity to rail stations like lakeline station, these properties may sound familiar, as the lakeline station pod and Robinson ranch. This area offers a very significant opportunity because of these large, vacant tracts not yet developed to guide development patterns and the transportation decisions that ultimately connect these these parcels and neighborhoods should be guided in ways that support our city's broader goals, affordability, quality of life, and new development that also supports new development with strong property values so that we can expand our tax base. The resolution resolution that I bring forward asks campo and txdot to hold any proposals to the standards council has already adopted safe crossings, no increase in vehicle miles traveled, reduction in deaths and serious injuries. I'd like to thank my co-sponsors, council members Fuentes, zo qadri, Siegel and Ellis and the advocates who did the work to dig into this, and the Parmer Laine alliance of neighborhoods who have been partners in this work, as well as the many families who have reached out to our office and to me about these concerns. Thank you. [10:36:57 AM] >> Thank you, council member members, without further discussion, let me ask, is there anyone wishing to be shown abstaining from a vote on the consent agenda? Anyone wishing to be shown recusing themselves from a vote on any item on the consent agenda. Anyone wishing to be shown voting no on any item that's on the consent agenda. Hearing none. Without objection, the consent agenda is adopted with council member harper-madison absent. That will take us members. Now it is 1037, so without objection, we will recess the meeting of the Austin city council and we. I will call to order recessing the meeting at 10:37 A.M. It's 10:42 A.M. And I will call back to order the meeting of the Austin city council. We were in recess for the meeting of the Austin housing finance corporation board of directors. We will go to items referred from committee. Those are items 45 and 46. And what I'll do is I will go to the city clerk to call on speakers, and then I'll recognize the chair of the committee. Once we've completed the speakers to discuss the items, please. Item 45. [10:42:49 AM] >> Thank you, mayor. Speaking on item 45, Stacey Schmidt, Laura bowman, Liz Schoenfeld, lily Hughes. [10:42:59 AM] >> If your name has been called, please come forward. [10:43:05 AM] >> Please state your name and begin speaking. [10:43:07 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council. I'm Stacey Schmidt and I represent over 400 business investors of opportunity Austin, which is the economic development partnership. We thank you for your continued leadership and commitment to strengthen Austin's economy and quality of life. I'm here today in support of Austin's no wrong door initiative and encourage council to preserve the operational framework and partnerships already delivering measurable results. As we know, a growing city has its challenges. But working together, we can solve these and and have creative solutions. That is exactly what we are seeing with the no wrong door initiative. By coordinating public safety, mental health care and housing services, no wrong door is helping individuals break cycles of repeated crisis while reducing pressure on emergency response systems. The early results that were presented by staff show 31% fewer crisis contacts among 99 high utilization utilization individuals, more than 300 fewer police contacts, allowing officers to focus on other public safety needs. As council considers the initiative's future, I urge you to maintain APD's leadership and operational authority, preserve the essential role of service providers, and reject proposals and amendments that would give outside agencies or advocacy organizations a formal role in operational decisions. I encourage you, the council members, to build on this early progress and give the agencies and partners the do this work right now to the support they need to succeed. This is a true community coming together to find creative solutions. Thank you. [10:44:50 AM] >> Thank you. Whoever wants to go next. [10:44:54 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council. I'm Laura bowman, speaking on behalf of the central Texas public safety commission's community council. Austin's no wrong door initiative is an important collaboration between APD and service providers to address two of our city's most pressing challenges homelessness and repeat crisis contacts. And according to city staff, the program is already showing promising results within the first 90 days. Contacts among 99 participants declined by 31%. Among the 28 highest risk individuals, the reduction was 57%. These early results are encouraging and demonstrate the potential of a coordinated approach between APD and service providers together to connect vulnerable individuals with the care that they need. As council considers additional oversight measures. We support strengthening accountability, but we ask that you do so without excluding APD from the process. APD is an essential partner in this collaborative effort, and we thank you for building upon this early progress. [10:46:08 AM] >> Thank you. Please. [10:46:09 AM] >> Good morning council. My name is Billy Hughes. I'm a social worker, the capacity building manager at Texas harm reduction alliance and a district five resident. First, I would like to thank council member Velasquez and the quorum for the work you have done to advocate for improvements to the no wrong door initiative. This is an important first step toward creating the continuum of care we all want to see. I've sat before this dais, along with many other service providers, to advocate for a cohesive continuum of care. I've worked closely with the community members who need the services that have been promised in the no wrong door program. For years, I have watched our already overburdened system fail people time and time again. The success of the no wrong door program hinges on creating opportunities for the service providers, mental health, public defenders and people with lived experience give feedback and guidance. We know and love this population. We know the strategies that are effective, and we know the gaps in care. We know the care that people need does not exist. If we want the same goals of compassionate care that does not involve incarceration, why are you not ensuring that the experts in our community are included? If the police are unable to keep up with the needs of high utilizers, why do you why don't you want to increase the involvement of ems and mental health professionals? [10:47:19 AM] Investing in a comprehensive continuum of care will benefit everyone in our community. We are asking you to invest strategically. We are asking you to use our personal, professional and educational knowledge to guide policy both locally and at the state level. We want to help provide the direct services our clients need and help ensure the policy priorities our elected officials support lead to positive change. You have a chance to make that future for all of us a reality. [10:47:44 AM] >> Thank you. Thank you. [10:47:47 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council members. My name is Liz Schonfeld, and I serve as the CEO of lifeworks, a nonprofit here in Austin dedicated to solving youth homelessness. I want to begin by acknowledging that the concerns raised by the aclu and other community organizations deserve serious consideration. Any initiative involving law enforcement, sensitive health information, and people whose liberty may be at stake must have strong safeguards, clear boundaries, transparency and accountability. At the same time, we should not lose sight of what. No wrong door has already accomplished. Early data show a meaningful reduction in crisis contacts among the individuals initially engaged, particularly among those with the highest acuity. Most importantly, the officers assigned specifically to no wrong door have not arrested a single program participant, and that matters. It suggests that this initiative is beginning to do exactly what it was designed to do, which is to replace repeat repeated crisis response and criminal justice involvement with coordinated care. No, wrong door is still in its infancy. Coordinating such a diverse array of public and community partners around people with extraordinarily complex needs was never going to produce a perfect model on day one. The right response to legitimate concerns is not to abandon the model, but to measure it, strengthen it safeguards, learn from experience, and keep improving it. Law enforcement must remain part of that partnership, although not the only part and not necessarily the lead in every interaction. Under current Texas law, peace officers have unique authority to initiate an emergency detention without a warrant. [10:49:20 AM] When someone presents the level of risk as defined by statute, and there are moments when someone is in such acute crisis that they cannot recognize the danger that they face or voluntarily accept help, and a carefully used emergency detention may be the only way to keep them or others safe. And finally, I do want to speak to stakeholder engagement. I believe that the team's willingness to hear from everyone is a big reason why the city has been able to pull everyone together, and this has been the case from the start. [10:49:48 AM] >> Thank you. [10:49:50 AM] >> Continuing on item 45, Ashley Copeland, Jennifer Stevens, corby jastro, Cheryl Scully, please state your name and begin speaking. [10:50:14 AM] >> Might we start with you and we'll go this direction? [10:50:16 AM] >> Perfect. Sounds good. Thank you. Good morning, mayor and council. My name is Ashley Copeland. I'm the chief operating officer at the central Texas public safety commission, and I'm here today to speak about the no wrong door initiative at the heart of the program. It's taking an incredibly compassionate approach. I remember hearing about it last year from chief Luckritz specifically, and falling in love with the idea behind it, the vision behind it, and the compassionate approach. It will really help make an impact on the city. As we've heard already this morning, this program first, this program has shown some impactful results in just this first 90 days, crisis contacts have dropped 31% among 99 participants. Among the 28 people at highest risk, it's dropped 57%. And what's powerful about those numbers is that they represent fewer repeated emergencies and more opportunities to connect people with the care they need in a way that will create long, impactful change. Our first responders bring essential experience to this work, and I hope they will be included in any advisory process. APD officers work alongside service providers to build connections and help participants access the support. The units officers have not arrested a single participant. Community advocates have a valuable perspective too, and we can make room for those voices without excluding our first responders, specifically APD, while keeping operational responsibilities clear. I respectfully ask each of you this morning to use those opportunities to use opportunities to assess the results before making any structural changes to the no wrong door program. It's operating with existing resources, and it's working. [10:52:04 AM] The early progress gives us something important to build on. Please give this coordinated effort time to grow, to strengthen the partnerships behind it, and to reach more people who need help. This is how we can make a lasting difference for people in crisis for our community. [10:52:21 AM] >> Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. [10:52:22 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council members. My name is corby jastro and proud resident of district ten. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today about Austin's no wrong door initiative and the progress it has made in addressing homelessness and repeated crisis contacts throughout our city. As you've heard over and over this morning, in just the first 90 days, the program reported a 31% reduction in crisis contacts among the among 99 high utilizers even more impressive, the 28 high risk individuals saw a 57% reduction. These numbers reflect the positive impact that can come from law enforcement and service providers working together to connect individuals with the help they so desperately need. An important part of this success has been the involvement of the Austin police department. APD officers are working alongside service providers to help individuals access resources, and not a single participant has been arrested by the units officers. [10:53:25 AM] What makes this initiative even more significant is that it operates using existing resources without requiring additional taxpayer dollars. As the city considers the future of no wrong door, I believe it is important to recognize the progress already being made and the partnerships that have contributed to these results. Accountability and oversight are important, but so is maintaining the coordination that allows this program to operate effectively. I encourage the council to build on the progress of no wrong doors, strengthen accountability, and continue including APD as an important partner in this process. Thank you for your time and thank you all for your service to our great city. [10:54:07 AM] >> Thank you sir. Yes, ma'am. [10:54:09 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council members. My name is Jennifer Stephens. I'm the president of the board of the central Texas public safety commission. For years, Austin has struggled to help people who cycle repeatedly through homelessness, emergency rooms, jail and crisis. No wrong door is bringing police and service providers together to interrupt the cycle, and the early results are impressive. The city staff has reported a significant reduction in crisis contact. Behind the numbers you've heard today are people experiencing fewer, fewer crisis and first responders with more capacity to answer an emergency call? APD is an essential part of that progress process. Officers in this unit have not arrested anyone, but they have been building relationships and connecting people to care, and we should strengthen that collaboration. I urge you to please preserve APD's leadership and ensure that any advisory body must also include first responders and frontline service providers. [10:55:16 AM] These are the people doing the work and they should have a seat at the table. Outside advocates should be heard, but advising a program and directing operations are two very different responsibilities. Council should keep operational authority clear and accountable for decisions. There is already a process in place for evaluating the work quarterly reports, established oversight, and an outcome outcome report that is due in December. Please use that process, ask tough questions and require transparency. People living in crisis need consistent help. Our first responders need effective partners. Austin residents deserve results. Please give this coordinated approach time to demonstrate what it can accomplish before changing its structure. Thank you. [10:56:10 AM] >> Thank you, miss Scully. [10:56:15 AM] >> Good morning, mayor, city manager, council members. My name is Cheryl Scully. I am a homeowner and resident in downtown Austin. I'm here to speak in favor of the no wrong door program, as it has been structured and agreed to by partner agencies, including the district attorney, county attorney, integral care, central health, echo, sheriff's office, ems, ascension Seton, the homeless strategies office, and other city and county government departments and agencies. I'm a member of the downtown Austin alliance board of directors and chairwoman of the daa public space experience committee whose focus is a clean and safe downtown. Both the daa board of directors and the public space committee recommend your support of no. Of the no wrong door program as developed by the persons and agencies I just mentioned. No wrong door is an important and effort that provides the framework and guidelines to help high system users with chronic mental health and addiction issues. As David gray said at a recent council work session, there is no justice in letting people with acute mental illness languish on our streets and in and out of our systems. To date, 30% of the highest in severe complex cases have made significant improvement, including short term housing, psychiatric, psychiatric, long term treatment, Rainey, engaging family members, medical needs addressed and active case management with social services. [10:57:43 AM] All the critical players have painstakingly developed and agreed with the operational aspects of this program over several months of deliberation, no wrong door is developed gives Austin the best chance for success in helping those living on our streets with acute mental and physical illnesses. Please support the no wrong door program as recommended by the city manager and as developed by our partner agencies. Thank you. [10:58:11 AM] >> Thank you. [10:58:12 AM] >> Continuing on item 45, David barber, Jeremy shirk, Ryan poppy, trey. Salinas. Please state your name and begin speaking. [10:58:26 AM] >> Good evening, mayor, council members and city manager. I'm Davon barber, president and CEO of the downtown Austin alliance. Da has worked alongside the city for years in conducting homeless outreach, reconnecting families, funding, supportive housing and more. We are also a member of the no wrong door coalition. The significance of this unprecedented collaboration to identify and provide care for people who cycle through the criminal justice and health care systems and homelessness cannot be overstated. These are people with severe, untreated behavioral health issues who are unaware they need help and unable to make decisions in their own best interest, and who, due to failure of our systems, languish in our streets and in our jail. And das 2026 downtown user survey a statistically significant report 69% of respondents attributed their negative perception of public safety to homelessness and behavioral health. Survey respondents included property owners, businesses, residents, visitors and workers. Now, through no wrong door criminal justice agencies, healthcare providers, city and county staff and key homeless service agencies are working together to identify and provide crisis care and step down services for this population, no matter where they enter the system. Da is rallying our stakeholders and supporters to support this effort and applauds the many partners who are working to to effectively address the needs of people who cannot help themselves. And we encourage city council to put its full weight behind this program. [11:00:01 AM] Thank you. [11:00:02 AM] >> Thank you sir, can't we go with you, Mr. Poppy? And we'll work our way down. [11:00:07 AM] >> All right. Sounds good. My name is Ryan poppy, and I am speaking on behalf of the united workers of integral care and cwa local 6154. My members are the clinicians. No wrong door is connecting people to the appropriate services, and we support item 45 and appreciate the public health committee's continued attention to no wrong door. Our members recognize the program's potential to connect people experiencing behavioral health crises and treatment with treatment and supportive services, rather than cycling them through jails and emergency rooms. We also appreciate that this agenda item aligns with one of three requests outlined in a coalition letter. We sent counsel regular briefings on the city's legislative agenda concerning mental health and criminal justice issues. However, we want to remind council of our other two requests first, eliminate law enforcement's involvement in no wrong door. It can be counterproductive. Second, direct city staff to clarify basic program details and bring any necessary policy revisions back to council for approval. [11:01:22 AM] These requests are rooted in the fundamental concern protecting the civil liberties of people seeking behavioral health care. We support the goal of no wrong door, but the program cannot successfully connect people to care if the very mechanisms it uses destroys the trust that require to provide that care. We appreciate, council, for your continued oversight and look forward to working together to ensure no wrong door connects people to care while protecting their rights. Thank you, thank you. [11:01:55 AM] >> Good morning mayor, members of city council. My name is Jeremy shirk. I am a district five resident and a local restaurant owner. I am here in today to speak in support of the no wrong door initiative. I believe connecting vulnerable people with the services that they need, while reducing the burden on our police and first responders is a very important step forward. But helping vulnerable people and protecting the safety of our neighborhood must go hand in hand. For years, I've watched the safety of our neighborhood deteriorate in the neighborhoods surrounding sunrise navigation center. At least 2 or 3 times a week, I find myself having to ask individuals to leave one of my businesses because of disruptive behavior. Last Thursday, just before I was scheduled to host a fundraiser for a local school, I asked a homeless man to leave my restaurant. He then pointed handguns directly at my face. I had to talk my way out of potentially being shot in the face simply for operating my business and staff. And as a business owner, I have become the first line of defense in between criminal activity and the safety of my employees and customers. And that is not a responsibility any business owner in the city should have to carry alone. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not claiming that this individual was directly connected to sunrise navigation center. However, I have documented many incidents in connection to sunrise. Now, after years of hearing promises and plans to relocate sunrise operation and hearing a proposal [11:03:15 AM] >> Expansion near ultra I-35. What safeguards are in place to prevent the problems we've experienced? Members of the city council. I'm here to today to demand action before somebody loses their life. I want to ensure that our community and first responders have that protection. We deserve better. I want to be clear, full transparency, meaningful communication, involvement for every neighborhood affected by these operations. We have an obligation to both protect the homeless and our community. Thank you. [11:03:45 AM] >> Thank you. [11:03:51 AM] >> Good morning, mayor and council. My name is trey Salinas, and I'm here this morning with two of my nonprofit hats, opportunity Austin and lifeworks board of governors. Austin's no wrong door initiative is an important collaboration between APD and service providers, and according to the city staff, the program is already showing promising results. These early results are encouraging and demonstrate the potential of a potential coordinated approach between APD and service providers together to connect vulnerable individuals with the care they need. One of the big reasons for this early success, I believe, is the service providers, along with APD providers, often hold the strongest standing relationships. Providers understand their histories of what works and what doesn't. As council considers additional oversight measures. We support strengthening accountability. We also ask that you do so without excluding APD from the process. APD is an essential partner in the collaborative effort. Thank you for building upon all the progress that we've made so far. [11:04:56 AM] >> Thank you. [11:05:04 AM] >> Continuing on item 45, David Gomez, Eli Cortez. Grace einhart. Kyle walker. Please state your name and begin speaking. [11:05:27 AM] >> When we start, we'll start here and work our way down the road. Okay, so my name. [11:05:32 AM] >> Is David Gomez and thank you for listening. I wanted to say that I was involved in the running of a no wrong door demonstration program in the mid 90s to the late 90s, and it was very successful. I think that the results that have been mentioned already were proven up back then. The coalition that was built not by walking with the individuals who were in those vulnerable situations, which no wrong door does, added to the number of providers that we needed to bring in based on the individual needs of the people that we were finding, and this individuality of being able to get them what they needed grew the coalition of providers to the point where we were able to inform then the mayor's task force to end homelessness and created a an approach to create a pavilion. [11:06:31 AM] So to go with the no wrong door policy and philosophy, to have a one stop shop. I think that as we move forward with the successes that no wrong door has proven to to provide, I think that we need to also keep in mind that. How do we make. How do we keep it growing? How do we keep it going? When we did this in the mid to late 90s and early 2000, there was not the political will or the funding to make sure that we could continue this type of program. I'm hoping that with the technology that we have now, 30 days later, 30 years later, that maybe we can make that coalition and collaboration work not just for those most vulnerable individuals, but to grow it, to include to keep people from losing their housing and, and walk with and assist individuals from being unhoused to having safe and stable homes. [11:07:32 AM] >> Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. [11:07:36 AM] >> Good morning council. My name is Eli Cortez. I'm a resident of district three and an organizer of local Texas. I'm here and speaking in favor of item 45, and I'd really like to thank council member Velasquez and the members of the quorum that have taken seriously the concerns around protecting the civil liberties of people who are participating in this program and stepping up to put in some defense measures. It's quite alarming that staff needed council direction in the first place to include defense attorneys in this program, and many of us have doubts that they will be meaningfully, meaningfully included. But we are excited to see some of these safeguards taken seriously and begin and begun to be investigated. I understand the appeal of the program. Look, we want people to have meaningful who have high needs to have meaningful, intensive, coordinated care around being connected to services. But there are some serious, some serious core components of this program that are incredibly concerning. APD is not the the entity that should be responsible for creating treatment plans or being involved in the treatment plans, or mandating in service care coordination. Those are not professionals in that field. [11:08:40 AM] Without a elaborate and visualize and executed plan to expand shelter and housing opportunities, you don't have places to put these people. So where are they going to go? And then, most concerning of all, we see tpff and the Cicero institute's collaboration with staff during this program development. The fact that a government relations position is developing a homelessness program is concerning in the first place. But Kerry Rogers, collaborating with a billionaire right wing think tank instead of the county's own mental health public defender's office, that doesn't make any sense, but it's in line with a trend that we've seen in this building over the past few years. More and more lately, the data and stories that we hear from staff in this building and in their briefings ring less and less true for our neighbors that are outside being experienced and being subject to these programs that are coming out of this building, the safeguards being passed today are important. But I want to be honest, there's so little trust that staff will follow council direction and be transparent about the. [11:09:39 AM] >> Real things. Thank you, sir. [11:09:41 AM] >> And I'm not sure. [11:09:42 AM] >> How we thank you. Thank you sir, your time. Your time is up. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. [11:09:48 AM] >> Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is grace winters. Austin's no wrong door initiative is showing that when law enforcement and service providers work together, we can make a measurable difference in addressing homelessness and reducing repeat crisis contacts. Austin police is not on the sidelines of this effort. Our officers are among the initiative's key providers, working directly with individuals in crisis to connect them with the services they need. Excluding police representation would leave out an essential operational perspective. I've worked alongside many of our police officers and I know they want to help. They are here to serve the city, build trust and guide people toward the best solutions available. As council considers how to improve our no wrong door, we should build on what's working, strengthen accountability and preserve clear operational leadership. Service providers must remain essential partners. Let's strengthen the initiative by bringing everyone to the table, not by excluding the people helping make it work. Thank you. [11:10:49 AM] >> Thank you. Yes. [11:10:51 AM] >> Hi. My name is Kyle walker and I'm the director of advancement at echo or ending community homelessness coalition here in Austin. I am also a person in long term recovery, and I also exited homelessness in Harris county in 2015 by way of the psych center. So I come carrying or holding a couple of hats. But what I want to say most, most of all is that we haven't gotten this perfectly right. Like, absolutely. I'm, I'm previous co-chair of the black committee, which some of the council members have come to prior. I have been in contact with Cory Rogers. We are trying to fix some of the safeguards that that are being questioned. I absolutely think defense counsel need to be involved, but most importantly, I think we need to have some strengthened agreements around non usage of any information. [11:11:49 AM] This is not a legal this is not a legal initiative in in my viewpoint. I mean it's not doesn't revolve around the legal process. It is a health care and a housing initiative. And so I am definitely all for strengthening that. Nothing that comes out of any of this case conferencing is in any way used in any court case. And that is something that I think is very important. I would hate to lose the momentum that this that that this has, has garnered. And also I think that we're going to make mistakes. And my early recovery, I made lots of mistakes. And I stand before you today as someone who has been arrested, who has been swept and another city. And I want you to know that we just have to pay attention, stay the course. And I also agree that APD does not need to be leading this charge, but having ems having the sobering center at the table that is like the og deflection center, and it bridges the healthcare and the legal gap. Thank you. [11:12:56 AM] >> Continuing on item 45. Bradley Hargis, Zenobia Joseph, Michael bullock, Chris Harris, Alicia Castillo. [11:13:06 AM] >> If your name has been called, please come forward. We'll start with you, sir, and we'll go down the the row. [11:13:20 AM] >> Thank you, mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. I'm Bradley Hargis, the executive director of the capital area private defender service. Adeola and Melissa from the public defender's office couldn't be here today, but have asked me to their support for our shared position. Thank you council members and staff for working to improve. No wrong doors. First, I must clarify something that I've heard today. While no wrong door officers have not made arrest, clients have been arrested because of this program and officers are coming to the jail. This program cannot make this program not a law enforcement. Simply by having good intentions. It must include legal safeguards. We welcome the proposed improvements in version two of the committee resolution, including defense attorneys and staffing, providing participants lists to the defense, including defense organization and releases of information so we can help coordinate our client, our clients care. These are meaningful steps, but important issues remain unresolved. We're not outside advocates. We are constitutionally required advocates, and we work with these clients every day. [11:14:19 AM] Defense participation must be extended to the program policy level, our parole in the mou and participation in policy and implementation meetings remains an essential item. We ask council to make these commitments explicit and direct staff to continue to work on greater participation for defense organizations. We want to work with stakeholders on clear written safeguards that function in practice, meaningful access to counsel, voluntary and informed participation, and coordinating with existing defense teams, our case managers and our social workers. Defenders want no wrong doers to succeed. We are ready to help build a program that earns our clients trust, connects them with care, and protects their rights. Thank you. [11:14:59 AM] >> Thank you, Mr. Harris. [11:15:03 AM] >> Yeah. Mayor. Council. Chris Harris, I'm here today on behalf of the Texas civil rights project and a resident of district nine. Thank you for the opportunity to address you about no wrong door. We similarly support version two and thank councilwoman Velazquez, as well as the quorum that helped bring that forward. I think this includes meaningful steps, as Mr. Hargis just just noted, including defense counsel. And the staffing is a really important step to ensure that people's rights are being protected. However, as was also been noted, serious problems continue. Notably, I think it's also important that the defense counsel be included in the mou and that ongoing guidance of this program at large, including over whatever changes occurred to it over time. Folks need to be at the table at all the tables that have constitutional interests, right. And the outcomes here, we also are very concerned about just some of the other inner workings of the program. We understand we're talking to people who, in some cases have been deemed unfit for trial. [11:16:09 AM] They're being put in front of them, four page, single spaced documents asking them to sign over their rights, rights to medical information, rights to other things. This is completely inappropriate, especially without counsel present, and especially being led by someone with a with a badge and a gun and a uniform. We've heard repeatedly today that about the successes of this program. And I think that, you know, assuming that the data being shared, and I think it's a big assumption, is accurate about the reduction in crisis contacts, that's good. Why do police need to have a leadership in this program? Do they need to have the leadership of this program for the crisis contacts to continue to decrease? If so, why? And if not, why not try an approach that actually ensures the protection of people's civil rights throughout this program? Thank you. [11:17:00 AM] >> Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. [11:17:04 AM] >> Thank you. [11:17:06 AM] >> Good morning. My name is Alicia Castillo. I'm here today representing equity action. And I want to echo just the resounding thanks to Jose Velasquez and the sub quorum for their work on implementing some of the safeguards that were recommended in our September 30th letter to the mayor and council about this program, it was public defenders, mental health professionals, behavioral health professionals, advocates who sign on to that letter and came up with a recommendations there. And we today stand by those those recommendations for safeguards. But I also want to raise two concerns. Of course, equity action. We're focused. Our whole focus is on supporting social services that don't lead to incarceration and arrest and the harm of the carceral system for people. And so that's one reason we're also recommending that we that we don't lead with police on this program, because this is a mental and behavioral health, or it should be a mental and behavioral health program. And it won't be if police are leading it. But the concerns are that, number one, this is a direct result of our budget decisions. We have chosen to fund the police budget. Well give the lion's share of our budget to the police. So naturally, we're leading a mental health behavioral health program with police when that's not appropriate. So we would recommend that the city as they can as we move into the next budget cycle, really consider what it means to actually fund social services so that we don't have these concerns pop up in the future. Second, I fear that part of this is a bit of a Trojan horse because of what I've seen at the capitol during this interim. The legislature has had several meetings that talk about removing the ability for people to be deemed incompetent, to stand trial. They want to punish people with mental illness who are not competent to stand trial. And number two, in the most recent government oversight hearing, they discussed wanting to be able to lock up more people for public safety and roll back criminal justice policy reforms that make it so that we choose diversion. So we would ask the city to move away from those those proposals. [11:19:13 AM] >> Michael bullock has time donated. Is Christopher Irwin here? Perfect. Mr. Bullock will have four minutes. [11:19:20 AM] >> Thank you to those of you who've taken the time to speak with me over the last couple weeks. I appreciate it for you being willing to have the conversations and to talk with us about this. I don't come up here much. [11:19:31 AM] >> I apologize for interrupting, but you need to write your name for the record. [11:19:35 AM] >> Michael bullock, president for the Austin police association. I don't come up here much, obviously, but today is a day where I can't help but point out some of the hypocrisy and what y'all are considering. You've been shown a program that works with no new money, no wrong door, brought together every public safety agency, zo mental health authority, and many others around one clear solvable problem breaking the cycle of jail and emergency calls for Austin's most vulnerable people. This council has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on homelessness, and the results don't match the spending. Now you finally have a program that works and costs nothing new, and you're about to slow it down by giving its opponents an official seat at the table and a louder voice. And like it or not, this program fails without a pd in large part because of state law. Our officers have been more involved in helping solve and respond to Austin's mental health crisis than anyone else in this city. They know some of Austin's most vulnerable citizens by name. They've talked people off ledges and overpasses, they've stopped suicides, and they've dealt with the aftermath when someone has taken their own life. And that's not occasional. That's every single day. And not one group you're you're considering for this advisory group has handled those calls. Last legislative session, the city and the Apa stood together on house bill 1656 so mental health professionals could perform emergency detentions and we could scale back law enforcement involvement and the need for law enforcement and mental health. But not one of these groups that you're considering supported it. In fact, during the April 28th, 2025 hearing in front of the house public health committee, disability rights Texas testified against it. So let's be clear about who you're seating. These are groups that sat out or fought the city's own mental health agenda at the capitol, and now you want to give them input on legislative and operational decisions within the no wrong door initiative. They've already shown you where they stand on getting people in crisis help faster. And it wasn't with you. They have no vested interest in seeing this program succeed in an oversimplified way. No wrong door seeks to eliminate the need for many of these groups amongst high utilizers. And since no wrong door has started, the APD team has not made one single arrest. But now you want to slow down. You can ask for reports, you can ask for updates. That's appropriate oversight. But this level of micromanagement fails and that's what will happen here. [11:22:07 AM] Handing operational influence to people who have worked against you and against the officers doing this work is ludicrous. It's exactly why Austin voters have stopped trusting much of what comes out of this chamber. People scream about affordability, and a tax increase was proposed. Council solutions on homelessness only cost more, with little to show for it. And now city staff, with help from the mayor, has developed a program that, in short amount of time has made measurable progress and show signs of hope for more. And now you're looking to undermine that work. And I know that there will be well crafted arguments around a lot of this, but no amount of careful wording changes the fact that you're giving operational input to people who oppose the very tools this program depends on. Because if you do this, if you allow these groups, this level of influence, no wrong door will be doomed to be anything more than another council failure. So I would ask that you either vote no on item 45 or at a minimum, remove the advisory group. [11:23:07 AM] >> That concludes all speakers on item 45. [11:23:09 AM] >> Thank you. Thanks for everybody that spoke on the item council. I'm going to recognize this. This is an item that comes from the public health committee. I'm going to recognize the chair. Councilmember Fuentes, you have in your backup version two of item number 45, and I'll recognize councilmember Fuentes at this time. [11:23:28 AM] >> Thank you colleagues. After the no wrong door briefing we received at work session on October 6th, the public health committee considered and adopted three recommendations one motion that I offered and two that were offered by my colleague and committee member, councilmember Velazquez. Those recommendations are combined into one committee recommendation, so I'd like to lay out the intent of my motion and then hand it over to councilmember Velazquez to lay out his portions. And I believe he has an amendment, version two that will be offered today. So for my motion, it starts on line 22. It directs staff to develop additional operational metrics that are more specifically based on client outcomes, such as connections to housing and services. This is in addition to the proposed metrics that were presented. It also directs staff to return to the public health committee with quarterly updates on these metrics, as well as any other programmatic or operational updates. I want to reiterate my strong support for the no wrong door program. I believe it is critical for us and for the public to understand and acknowledge the progress that we are making with this program and the improvements we are seeing for its clients. I believe this additional reporting will only strengthen the program, and with that, I will toss it over to councilmember Velazquez to lay out his recommendations. [11:24:41 AM] >> Thank you, councilmember councilmember Velazquez, you're recognized. [11:24:43 AM] >> Thank you, mayor, and thank you, chair. First, I want to start by saying nowhere in the language of the motions did it ever indicate or direct the removal of APD. And I'm going to say that again, because folks have come up here and said that a number of times, and that's just not accurate. I want to start by saying that nowhere in the language of the motions did it ever indicate or direct the removal of APD. What I have put forward within item 45 as cities that says the city management should provide more consistent legislative updates on no wrong door to council, that city management should address the concerns, questions and proposed safeguards in the letter from the aclu of Texas and others to mayor and council, and that we should organize regular stakeholder meetings to gather feedback on the no wrong door program. We have heard numerous concerns from our community and important questions from this dais about how this program will be implemented. Those concerns deserve answers, and our community deserves a seat at the table. That's why council member Fuentes and I brought forward motions at the public health committee to strengthen this program's implementation. [11:25:59 AM] I support no wrong door in its mission to better serve our most vulnerable neighbors. But how we do this work matters just as much as why we do it. The direction before us today responds to community concerns and reinforces our commitment to protecting the dignity, safety, and the rights of our neighbors. I want no wrong door to succeed, but that requires transparency, accountability, and a meaningful and meaningful community input at every step of the way. This program may be good, and we have an opportunity to make it exceptional. And that starts by keeping the people of this. Dia serves at the center of this work. Thank you to council member Fuentes, mayor pro tem vela, councilmember Siegel and council member alter for helping craft the language of the proposed amendments today. And mayor, with that, I move to amend item 45 as shown in the attached version to read line of the resolution indicated in item 45. Backup. [11:26:56 AM] >> Thank you, councilmember members, for clarity and for the record, council member Velazquez moves to adopt version two, which is labeled version two. Read line item number 45, which is in your backup. Councilmember Fuentes seconds that motion. We have a motion and a second on item number 45. Councilmember Siegel, you're recognized. [11:27:23 AM] >> Thanks so much, mayor, and thank you very much to council members Velasquez and Fuentes and the public health committee for this item. I also want to say I really appreciate the ongoing dialog with folks like ems assistant chief Andy Carr, the public defender's office and capital area public defender service, all of whom are helping work out changes to the program so everyone can come together at the table at what are called the case conferencing meetings, and bring the resources available to the table to help vulnerable community members. It's important the defense attorneys are included in the case conferences about their clients. They have strong relationships with their clients. They know their needs. They know where they have ties and support. They have access to resources that nobody else in the system has, and it's their job to vigorously advocate for the best interests of their clients. We need them, and this won't work without them. I'll also add that Travis county stakeholders have requested their presence, as have council and community. From our conversations, it's clear that assistant chief Carr and the new Rhonda team recognize the importance of having everybody at the table, and I want to thank everyone at the city and also all of the community advocates who have engaged to make this program a success. [11:28:27 AM] Thank you mayor. [11:28:28 AM] >> Thank you, council member. I want to also say I'm I'm I'm appreciative of the public health committee and its work. And I appreciate the work that councilmember Velazquez has put in to the version two motion that we have in front of us. I want to speak generally and say a few things about why I think no wrong door in this program is important, why it's worth moving forward on it, and why it's worth protecting. I support, by the way, version two, and we'll be voting in favor of it. We have people in this community who are cycling through systems that simply aren't working for them. They end up on our streets, in an emergency room, in a mental health crisis, in jail, and usually in jail for longer than they should be. They end up back on the street, back in an emergency room, sometimes back in jail. That's not success. And I don't think we should call it compassion or positive Progressive policy, simply because we're reluctant to intervene differently. No, wrong door starts with a pretty basic insight. These problems don't fit neatly inside the boxes that we've created in government. A person in crisis, a person who has significant mental illness, doesn't become a different human being, depending on whether the person standing in front of them happens to be a paramedic, a mental health professional, a homeless service provider, or a police officer. The whole point is to connect those systems so that whichever door someone enters, we have a better chance of getting that person where they need to go, the help they need, and the care to help them get better. And has been has been pointed out the early results of no wrong door show success. They give us a reason to keep going. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask hard questions about this program. We should. We should protect people's privacy and civil liberties. We should make sure information is handled appropriately. We should listen to clinicians. We should listen to people who have experienced homelessness and mental illness. [11:31:03 AM] We should listen to ems, hospitals, service providers, police, victims of crime advocates and neighborhoods. And when those people identify a problem, we should try our best to fix it. We should seek continuous improvement. But there's an important difference between improving a program and imposing an ideology on it. I've spent my life considering myself a Progressive, and I think I've accumulated enough credentials over the years to prove it. Progressive government ought to be measured by something pretty basic progress. Are more people getting help or fewer people cycling through jail and emergency rooms? Are fewer people living in crisis on our streets, our fewer people becoming victims of crimes that might have been prevented if we'd successfully interrupted someone's cycle of crisis. Are people able to use and enjoy our parks, public spaces, and neighborhoods without the disruption and damage that comes when serious problems go unaddressed? Are we reducing unnecessary interactions with police? Those outcomes matter. They matter to me when that they matter to me more than whether the way we achieve them satisfies some purity test. And that brings me to the role of police. I understand that some people would prefer police not be involved in mental health and homelessness response at all, so would I. If by that we mean fewer situations in which a person in crisis ever needs a police officer in the first place? But as a practical matter, police are going to encounter people experiencing homelessness and exhibiting profound mental health issues. [11:33:04 AM] And as has been pointed out, under Texas law, peace officers have specific and unique authority. When the requirements for an emergency mental health detention are met. We don't have mental health professionals standing on every street corner at 2:00 in the morning waiting for someone to experience a crisis. And some mental health crises involve circumstances where where clinicians or other responders need police assistance to keep everyone safe, including the person experiencing the crisis. Police officers are going to encounter people in these circumstances. That's reality. The question is what happens next? Pretending otherwise doesn't make those encounters disappear, and it's really just ignoring practical realities and the common sense challenges we face. If police officers working alongside ems, mental health professionals and service providers can break the cycle so that fewer police officers are needed tomorrow, removing them from the partnership today makes no sense. When something is beginning to work. I believe our responsibility is to keep moving it forward, improve it, measure it and address legitimate concerns. If we want less policing, let's measure whether we're getting less policing. And the early data on no wrong door shows we can get less policing, but that requires us to address the problems that keep bringing people back into contact with police. And that doesn't happen simply by measuring whether police are present at the table and part of the program. That's too simplistic, too ideological. [11:34:58 AM] It ignores reality. Governing is more nuanced and, frankly, harder than just advocating a position. Advocacy focuses on one value. Governing requires us to reconcile all of them. I've said many times that compassion and accountability aren't opposites, neither are compassion and public safety. And protecting someone's rights is not the same thing as meeting all of that person's needs. Civil liberties are essential, but a system can scrupulously, scrupulously avoid infringing someone's rights while still allowing that person to remain psychotic, unhoused, repeatedly hospitalized, repeatedly arrested, victimized, or dangerous to themselves or someone else. We don't have to choose between respecting civil liberties and interrupting a cycle that is destroying someone's life. We don't have to choose between helping a person suffering from serious mental illness and protecting another person who might become a victim of a crime. And we don't have to choose between wanting fewer police interactions and allowing police officers to help us produce fewer police interactions. Those are false choices. Now, no wrong door is imperfect. We should improve it. We should measure it. We should protect people's rights. We should demand results. And when something isn't working, we should change it. But when something is working, we ought to have the good sense to recognize that too. Civil liberties concerns are real. [11:36:52 AM] Victims of crimes are real. Homeless people suffering on the street are real. Neighborhood impacts are real, and the limitations of government systems are real. Governing means holding all of those realities at the same time, and building something that produces the best human outcome possible. Progressive government should produce progress. No wrong door means exactly what it says. Whether the door is M S, a hospital, a mental health professional, a service provider, a courtroom or a police officer, our responsibility is to make sure that door leads somewhere better. That's compassionate government. That's Progressive government. That's good government. And it's what our city deserves. I will support version two of item number 45. [11:38:02 AM] Council member duchen. [11:38:04 AM] >> Thank you mayor. Like others, I appreciate the work my colleagues and the public health committee have done to continue to improve this item. I think the reporting is healthy. I think addressing the procedural gaps are important, but I just wanted to reinforce some numbers that staff shared with us earlier this month, and I really hate to reduce this challenge to dollars and cents, especially because we are dealing with vulnerable, maybe even the most vulnerable people that are in our community. But in this moment of financial constraint and repeated and ongoing budget deficits, I think we have to talk about money. And according to the staff presentation we had, we have roughly 950 high utilizers in Travis county. And on average, those individuals cost the city $144,000 per person per year. And that works out to a staggering $137 million a year, primarily in ems charges and a pd and staff wages. So, colleagues, if that number is accurate, that's roughly 9% of our entire general fund budget. [11:39:16 AM] And that math is simply not sustainable. To put that in the budget's context, that's roughly the same amount that we spend on the entire parks budget. So it's imperative that we're open to new ideas and solutions that help us address community needs. And that's both in serving vulnerable people, but also managing finite city resources. I think no wrong door could be a huge step in the right direction. I hope we can continue to work to build on what the program could accomplish, while continuing to address, as we are today, the outstanding procedural issues. [11:39:50 AM] >> Thank you. Thank you, councilmember members. The motion has been made and seconded. With regard to item number 45, it is version two. Red line item number 45. There being no further discussion. Without objection, the motion is adopted with council member harper-madison absent. I want to again say thank you to the public health committee and councilmember Velazquez and councilmember Fuentes for their work on this item. And thank you for everybody that's spoken. I think you can see we want to have success with no wrong door, and people will be listening. So thank you very much. That will take us to item number 46. Council member Fuentes, I'll recognize you as the chair of the committee on item number 46. [11:40:29 AM] >> Thank you, colleagues. At our last public health committee meeting, we received an update on our social services strategy. So you all know this is a continued conversation for our council. And so the committee adopted a motion that I offered that direct staff to provide reporting on the services provided by. [11:40:46 AM] >> Councilmember Fuentes. I apologize, everybody that's in the dais, please. I'm dias everybody that's in chambers, please take your conversations outside. I'm looking right at you. Please take your conversations outside. Councilmember Fuentes, please begin again, if you don't mind. [11:41:11 AM] >> Sure. So at our public health committee meeting, we received an update on our social service strategy. The committee adopted a motion. I offer that direct staff to provide reporting on the services provided by the social service, contracts by council district, or by zip code as best as possible. The intent is to better understand the geographical distribution of social services and what populations are being served. I think this will be helpful information for us as we consider the social service reset overall, and I hope you join me in support of this direction. And with that, I move approval. [11:41:41 AM] >> Councilmember Fuentes moves approval of item number 46. It is seconded by councilmember Siegel. I'll turn to the city clerk to call out the name of the person that signed up to speak. [11:41:53 AM] >> Thank you mayor. On item 46 Zenobia Joseph. [11:41:57 AM] >> I've not seen her this morning, miss Joseph. All right, members, the motion been made and seconded. I'll call for any discussion with regard thank you, councilmember Fuentes. That will take item 47. Item number 47 is an eminent domain item. Let me call on the clerk to call for any speakers on item number 47. [11:42:15 AM] >> On item 47, William bunche. [11:42:18 AM] >> Mr. Bunche, Mr. Bunche, I believe he is left. [11:42:24 AM] >> That concludes all speakers. [11:42:26 AM] >> Members. Item number 47 is a non consent condemnation item. The motion will. That I will accept will be to the effect that the city council of Austin authorizes the use of the power of eminent domain to acquire the property set forth and described in the agenda for this current meeting, for the public use that is described therein. The motion is made by councilmember Ellis. It is seconded by the mayor. Pro tem. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. Without objection, item number 47 is adopted with councilmember harper-madison absent members for the record, on item number 46, the record will reflect that councilmember harper-madison was also absent. What I'm going to do is any other items we will. Just for the record, councilmember harper-madison will be shown as absent. So if I forget to do that, we haven't missed. Called the vote. Item number 47 is adopted members that will now take us to public hearing on item number 49, item number 49. [11:43:26 AM] And I'll. This is, as I indicated, a public hearing. So without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 49. The public hearing is now open and I will recognize the city clerk. [11:43:40 AM] >> Speaking on item 49, William bunche. [11:43:42 AM] >> Mr. Bunche, Mr. Bunche. [11:43:47 AM] >> That concludes all speakers on item 49. [11:43:49 AM] >> Members. There are no other speakers in the public hearing on item number 49. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 49. The public hearing is now closed, and I'll entertain a motion with regard to the resolution. Council member Siegel moves approval of the resolution. It is second by councilmember zo qadri discussion. Hearing none without objection. Item number 40. The resolution of item number 49 is adopted with councilmember harper-madison absent members. That concludes our business before the 12:00 time. Certain. So without objection, we will be in recess until promptly at 12:00. Which. At which time we will take up our general public communication members. What I anticipate will happen is that will complete a little around 1220. The council will then recess until 2:00 pm. We will have live music that we'll do that the way we normally do. But the council will be in recess after public communication until about 2:00 pm. Without objection, we are in recess until 12:00. It is 11:44 A.M. Thanks, everybody. We're in recess. [12:02:11 PM] >> City clerk do we have Vanessa online? Councilmember? [12:02:17 PM] >> Because she's been. [12:02:24 PM] >> Just one minute, folks. As soon as we have the quorum of six council members here, we'll get going with public comment. Good afternoon everyone. Let me continue with the Austin city council meeting. We are at noontime public comment, and I will turn it over to the city clerk to call the names of our public commenters. [12:03:24 PM] >> Thank you, mayor pro tem. First we have Laura Guerrero, Gilbert Ruiz, Jaron spillner, or spindler. If you could just please step up to the mic. Yes. And if you'll just state your name and begin speaking. You'll just let them know. [12:03:52 PM] >> I'm Laura Guerrero, sorry. Done this before? Don't remember. What time. Okay. Hi, I'm Laura Guerrero. Thank you all. I own two condos in highland park west next to the weed cuauhtli fish crematorium. This is a view from my daughter's window. We have to run from the smoke when it comes out of the stack. I first came before y'all on may. On March 27th, 20, 2025, asking for help for the crematory emissions affecting almost 19 months. And nothing has happened. There have been 29 complaints to the tc, and they have found that they have fined them up to $30,000. It doesn't matter. This didn't help. Now who owns this? Okay, so this used to be owned by a local family. We'd cuauhtli fish. They sold it in 2017. Now it's owned by SSI. I don't know if y'all are familiar with BlackRock, but that's who I'm against. I can't even get a lawyer to help me. No one will help me with this. We've been on the news. This right here is the stack right next to our community. When they first put in the request to build this building, they put in a different building and then they added the stack later. I'm not sure who approved this or how it's been approved. This reaches our windows. No one is testing what is coming into our community. We have asked for help. Henry Davis, representative of Howard's office, has actually helped us. [12:05:41 PM] They've tried to put in a bill making sure that everyone has to know what is going on in the crematorium. Nothing has passed. I would like a coordinator with the city to investigate in a name of a contact, a written report. We should do something with where we shouldn't have to run from smoke. Even our smallest neighbors deserve clean air. This is my daughter's dog. And? And we're just tired. I don't know what to do. No one will help me. I'm trying to read all this and do all this, but, I mean, I'm a person. Y'all are people like the city of Austin's air quality is so bad. My friend Marlene and I text each other all the time. We're like, oh look, we're equal to Bangkok today. I don't know if y'all noticed, but this is on top of us having bad air quality, us having to run in our parking lot when the emissions are coming down. And I've had visitors over there and they're asking me, are we running from crematorium remains? And we are, and it's really disturbing. So someone help me fight BlackRock. [12:06:39 PM] Sigh because no one will. [12:06:43 PM] >> Thank you very much. And the deputy city manager, Mr. John fortune, is going to touch base with you right now. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. [12:06:53 PM] >> Just state your name and begin speaking. Whoever wants to go next. [12:06:58 PM] >> Hello, my name is Gilbert Ruiz. I'm here to talk about the Tims program, in case y'all are not familiar with that. That's the traffic incident management towing program that the city has. I believe there's no oversight being overlooked over it because I experienced a unpleasant experience with APD. I was broken down on state highway 45 going towards vuda, and I had a flat tire. I was waiting for a tow truck to arrive, and APD officer took it upon himself to pull behind me, blocking a Laine of traffic, and said I was blocking a Laine of traffic and called a tow truck and was stating that we'll see whose tow truck gets there first. And at me, I'm thinking he was playing a game. But when I realized what he impounded my car, which cost me about $500. He said that it was a scam that he thought the city was doing, and I was like a scam. I was kind of puzzled by that when he said scam. So I kind of, you know, looked over the city's website, found the program's details, the record enforcement [12:08:08 PM] >> As opposed to details. And there's no way saying that I should have been been paying that much for a toe that the city was supposed to pick up the bill if I was, you know, in a roadway, which they designated as a busy roadway. I talked to the tow company. The tow company says that they it's hard for the city for them to get to the city to pay their invoices that they send them. That's why they're a lot of them don't want to be in the program. I've talked to a lot of APD officers in my line of work. I do security, and I've talked to a lot of them. They don't know what the program is, and even sergeants don't. So I'm kind of wondering who is overlooking this program, who's invested in it because it says APD manages it, but who's the one that actually started it? Because I feel like there's a lot of citizens that are probably, you know, as myself who don't have the funds, you know, to pay for a tow, storage fees, everything like that. And I just would like for the council to just to look over it because it just seems like citizens are getting taken advantage of. If nobody if you know, we don't need the tow, but the city tells us anyways, you're more or less. Thank you, sir. [12:09:20 PM] >> Thank you very much. And if you want to just give us just a minute, we'll get someone to talk to you about this too. We would like to get more details on this. Thank you. [12:09:30 PM] >> Thank. [12:09:34 PM] >> Hello. My name is jack spindler. I'm from east Austin. Thank you for your time. I came down to city council because I do feel you guys are being deservedly bashed for how you guys are spending money in this city. The city is increasingly being controlled by wannabe activists and bolshevik socialists. I recently found out that the city gives $700,000 to illegals. I didn't know we had special rewards programs for certain crimes. So these people did not have permission to be here and are not needed. There's no freaking farmland in Austin. The. They're currently one of nine young men cannot find a job, and 27,000 of them live in the city of Austin. Why not give these displaced citizens, instead of giving thousands to the aliens to crack down on immigration? That's been much needed, has made rents so much better. And grandma's shop down to a level that that Garza dejoria that very much have a problem with, can only dream about. The reality is that these people broke the law and we do have laws in this country. [12:10:48 PM] It's clear illegals don't make this any better. The city happy to give thousands for their legal protection. I do hope prop by passes so we can finally get ready to dig into things. And the city can just focus on its citizens, because that's what the United States government's job to do is to look out for the citizens of this community. The I do really support Kirk Watson and what she was here, because I feel like he is the only wall protecting the whole city from these radical socialist ideas that I feel like would tear the whole city apart in a week. On a side note, I got really tired ideas of trying to fix climate change because it's just a delusion that this one little city can change the weather. Thank you. I yield the rest of my time. [12:11:36 PM] >> Next we have Alan Roddy and Steven wolf. [12:11:44 PM] >> Del valle. Thank you. [12:11:50 PM] >> Please state your name and begin speaking. [12:11:59 PM] >> I'm Alan Roddy. Good afternoon. For the past two years, I've told you about the serious problem of lake Austin's riverbed erosion. We have lost 2 to 3ft of soil around our boat docks. We must be given the opportunity to repair the damage to the riverbed and docks. Lake Austin must be lowered in December or January while lake Travis is full, the lcra can generate electricity at Mansfield dam. Even lake Austin lowered. Hydrilla would take over most of the lake within 2 or 3 months. Now, according to the Texas water law, anyone born after September 1st, 1993 must take a voter education course. I understand there is a petition to ban jet skis from lake Austin. A few years ago, I saw a boat hit a paddle boarder who was only about 20ft from the shoreline. I have an important question for the city council. I think the public and news media would like to know the answer to the boat ramps. When you're collecting money from the boaters, do you verify the boaters has a valid boating certificate? Do you verify the voter is qualified to be on the lake? The problem is not with the jet skis or boats. It's about the idiots you let on the lake. You will not open a public swimming pool without a lifeguard, but you have a 20 mile long swimming pool. [12:13:15 PM] Without any enforcement. There is no law west of Tom Miller dam. In case you're not aware of it, we now have airplanes landing on lake Austin. I have seen three different airplanes land on the lake this year. Austin energy has several power lines crossing the lake that need to be marked with aviation marker balls, so some idiots do not fly into the high power lines. It will take longer than 24 hours and millions of dollars to repair the power lines. The downed power lines could start the wildfire. Please understand we will have a major wildfire in the Austin area. If the wind is blowing to the east, we'll take only 2 or 3 hours to burn through west lake hills, rolling woods, zilker park, west Austin and even downtown Austin. So in review, please have Austin or excuse me, please have Austin energy Marc the power lines over lake Austin, lower lake Austin and keep your idiots off the lake. Austin. Thank you. Do you have any questions? [12:14:18 PM] >> Thank you very much for your comments. Clerk. [12:14:25 PM] >> Please state your name and begin speaking. [12:14:27 PM] >> Steven wolf, thank you, mayor pro tem and in particular council members. Duchen and alter. My title today is is zilker the best place for acl? First, I'm not here to complain. My ask is to get this issue considered as a matter of city policy. I'd like to start by telling you the story of my relationship with zilker park. In the late 90s, I bought an old house in the deep eddy neighborhood. Shortly afterward, I got laid off and divorced. So unemployed. Divorced. What do I do now? Well, to fill my time, I'd pack up my kites and walk past deep eddy pool, past community gardens across the Roberta crenshaw pedestrian bridge and emerge in zilker park on the great lawn, just to hang out and fly my kites. Well, I met people. It was great. I recharged, rejuvenated, reinvented myself and restarted my life. Zilker park remains a very special place to me. Cut forward to this year's festival. [12:15:36 PM] Much has been said, I won't rehash. My concern is not with the festival itself, but rather with the extended loss of public access to substantial portions of our park during the setup, the two weeks long event, the teardown and subsequent remediation all during some of the best weather for kite flying. It's about eight weeks. I think the city should commission a comprehensive, transparent, resident prospective study to assess the financial and cultural benefits of continuing to hold the ac acl festival at zilker park versus somewhere else. To me, it would be interesting to see an analysis of the percentage of attendees who are local, who are out of town, who are out of state. I'm 100% certain that no attendees come for zilker park, comma, Texas. They come to Austin, Texas and they come primarily for the music. It's all about the music, not the great lawn. I'm asking council to consider preserving zilker park for our residents by relocating the acl festival to an alternative Austin area venue specifically designed to accommodate very large, ticketed, for profit commercial events. Several come to mind. I'd be ecstatic to hear some day. It's a great day on the great lawn. Stephen, go fly a kite. I think the public deserves to hear the answer to the question. Is our zilker park the best place for acl? [12:17:12 PM] That's my time. That's my ask. Thanks. [12:17:17 PM] >> That concludes all speakers. [12:17:20 PM] >> Thank you very much. And the city council will be in recess until our 2:00 time certain. [2:00:04 PM] good afternoon everybody. It's October 22nd, 2026 at 2:00 pm, and I'll call back to order the Austin city council. We have a quorum of the council present. The next item on our agenda is our 2:00 time. Certain related to zoning. Miss harden, you have the floor. [2:00:17 PM] >> Thank you, mayor and council. I'm joy harden interim assistant director. Austin. Planning zoning agenda begins with item 50 C one for 2026 0026. This item is offered as an applicant, indefinite postponement and item 51 is C one for 2026 0019. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. This concludes the reading of your zoning agenda. And as always, this is at your discretion. [2:00:45 PM] >> Members. The consent agenda is item number 50, which is an indefinite postponement, an item number 51 on all three readings. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? The mayor pro tem moves for approval. A second by councilmember Velazquez. I'll turn to the city clerk and call for speakers. [2:01:00 PM] >> Thank you. Mayor. Item 51 Bianca Guerrero and Valerie Menard. [2:01:06 PM] >> Bianca Guerrero or Valerie Menard, Bianca Guerrero, Valerie Menard. Okay. [2:01:17 PM] >> Sorry, mayor, we have one remote joining. [2:01:20 PM] >> Okay. [2:01:24 PM] >> Speaking remotely on item 51, kiya Denson. [2:01:34 PM] >> Kiya Denson. [2:01:36 PM] >> It looks like they dropped off again. [2:01:38 PM] >> Okay, well, those are all the speakers folks on, on these items. And they were all signed up on item 51. So we have a motion. And a second, is there discussion with regard to the consent agenda members. Is there anybody wishes to abstain from a vote of any item on the consent agenda? Anyone wishing to recuse themselves from a vote on the consent agenda? Anyone wishing to vote no on any item on the consent agenda. Hearing none. Without objection, the consent agenda is adopted with council member harper-madison absent members. That concludes all the business to come before the Austin city council at this regular scheduled meeting of the Austin city council. So unless there's objection, we will adjourn the meeting at 2:02 P.M. Without objection, the council meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everybody.