Closed Caption Log, Council Meeting, 08/07/08

Note: Since these log files are derived from the Closed Captions created during the Channel 6 live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. These Closed Caption logs are not official records of Council Meetings and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records or transcripts, please contact the City Clerk at 974-2210.

Mayor Wynn:.

Good morning, I'm austin mayor will wynn, it my privilege to welcome michael jones, pastor, pressing toward the mark church of god in christ , to lead us in our invocation, pastor jones also is a proud employee of our austin police department, welcome, please rise.

Good morning, let us bow our heads, please. Gracious father from whom every good thing cometh, who pourth out all who desire it in the spirit of grace and supplication, deliver us when we draw nigh to thee. [01:20:02] With steady fast thoughts and kindleed affections we may worship thee in spirit and truth. Through jesus christ's name, amen.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, pastor jones. There being a quorum present, at this time I will call to order this meeting of the austin city council, it is thursday, august 7th , 2008. Approximately 18 minutes 00 in the morning, we are here in the council chambers of the city hall building, 301 west second street. Before I walk through sort of our changes and corrections to this week's posted agenda, council, i want to also talk about our schedule for the day. This time I would like to ask if there are any potential upcoming items from council that you might want to alert everyone to. Councilmember martinez?

Martinez: Thank you, mayor, real briefly there was a story that ran yesterday, most folks might already have heard about it. I will be working on a resolution to ask the city manager to help us draft an ordinance that relates to using cell phones with hands free devices and banning texting while driving. Something that I believe is -- is not going to be easy. It's -- it will cause folks to change some of their habits, but I think based on the 06 to 70 fatalities a year on the roadways, 60 to 70, many of them being auto-pedestrian, I think anything that we can do to help improve traffic and citizen safety is a good thing. So I will be bringing that resolution forward in the next few weeks.

Mayor Wynn: Agreed. My understanding is there's been some good discussion in our public safety task force about that.

That's correct.

Any further potential items from council for the next few meetings? If not, I will read the changes and corrections to this week's posted agenda. [01:22:04] They are as part of our consent agenda, we will be postponing action on item 3, also austin energy's bio mass purchase power agreement or ppa, we will be -- we will postpone that TO AUGUST 21st, OUR NEXT Meeting. We also will be postponing item 23, this is a long center expenditure, we will postpone that action item to our next meeting, august 21st, 2008. 52 regarding signature waivers for the bat fest, we will note that mayor pro tem mccracken has been added as an additional co-sponsor of this item. We should note on zoning 73, the planning commission recommendation is to be REVIEWED ON AUGUST 19th, 2008. So my instinct is that we will be postponing action on that item later today. Our schedule today, after we get through our consent agenda and potentially a discussion item or two, we will have a morning briefing, that will be regarding our design commission's recommendation to revise our downtown design guidelines. We will get a nice powerpoint presentation from the commission on that. At noon we break for general citizens communication. We have 10 speakers signed up to give us testimony on any topic they would like. We will go into closed session likely right after our general communication to take up a few items that we have posted on our executive session agenda. 00 we will have our afternoon briefing. This is where we begin now a series of departmental summary presentations of the city manager's proposed budget. Today I think our briefings will be from our enterprise [01:24:02] departments. Those being aviation our wallet utility, convention center, solid waste and our partnership with the acvb, the convention and visitors bureau. We then post for -- for a public hearing whereby citizens can come give us testimony about the proposed budget. We try to organize it to where -- where the information from our enterprise funds will be fresh in our minds this afternoon with folks -- but folks are welcome, of course, to give us testimony regarding the proposed budget on any aspects of that budget, whether it's the departments that get presented this afternoon or not. Sometime in the afternoon, 00, we will technically recess the city council meeting and take up our austin housing and finance corporation board of directors meeting, walk through that brief agenda. 00, we take up all of our zoning matters. 30 we break for live music and proclamations. Our musician today is bo porter and his dixie rockits , stay tuned for that lively show. we take up our public hearings. So so far, council, we have just a handful of items pulled off the consent agenda in addition to those that we are postponing. Technically, items number 4 and 54 are taken off the consent agenda because that relates to the process by which we -- which we begin to identify the proposed ad valorem property tax rate for next year's fiscal budget. 4 we have a procedure where we have to do a roll call vote, although we have recorded on all of our actions as a council. Then item 54 will technically just be setting the public hearing for folks to give us testimony about that proposed not to exceed or maximum property tax 52, the signature waiver item from council regarding the bat fest has been pulled from the consent agenda. [01:26:01] So additional items to be pulled from our agenda before I propose the consent agenda? Hearing none, I'll propose today's consent agenda numerically. It will be to approve item 1, which are the minutes from our previous meetings, including the canvassing and the brief inauguration MEETING WE HAD JUNE 25th. From austin energy, we will 2, the -- but postponing to AUGUST 21st, 2008, ITEM No. 3. Our one item from our budget department has been pulled off the consent agenda to follow our roll call procedure. From our community care services department, we will be approving item no. 5. From our contract and land management departments, we will be approving item 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. From our economic growth and development services department we will be approving items 13 and 14. From our health and human services department, approving item 15, from our neighborhood planning and zoning departments approving items 16, 17, 18. From our public works department approving items 19, 20, 21, from our purchasing office we will be approving items 22, we will be postponing item 23 to our NEXT MEETING, AUGUST 21st, [01:28:04] 2008. We will be approving items 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. From our watershed protection development and review departments we will be approving items 46 and 47. 48, our board and economics appointments that I will now read into the record. Nominations, rather. Those are to our asian american resource center advisory board, cameron graeber is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To the austin mayor's committee for people with disabilities, jesus nordizalo is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our building and fire code board of approvals, scott stuckey, councilmember shade's nomination and councilmember martinez's nominated james sullivan. To our commission for women, molly barker councilmember morrison's nomination, darlene lanham is my nomination and sarah weep is mayor pro tem's nomination. [01:30:01] Our design commission joan hyde is the mayor pro tem's nomination and councilmember kinney is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our downtown community court advisory committee, charles lockland is councilmember shade's nomination, and chip mccormick is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our downtown commission, susan McDaniel, daniel leary is councilmember leffingwell's nomination, representing the design commission, richard weiss is my nomination and representing the arts commission bruce walisnek is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our electric utility commission, phillip schmidt, shaw morrison, and [indiscernible] patty hanson is councilmember shade's nomination. To our human rights commission, councilmember shade also almost nateed he would beth bren -- also no, ma'am mated elizabeth bren in a. Daniel buda is councilmember martinez's nomination. And hank kidwell is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our library commission, councilmember leffingwell has nominated karen havelka, and small business enterprise procurement program advisory committee, I have nominated laura stromberg. To the renaissance market commission laura wisdom no, ma'am mated by councilmember leffingwell. To robert mueller airport plan implementation advisory commission, celia israel is councilmember leffingwell's nomination. To our travis county appraisal district board of directors, bianca zamora [01:32:00] garcia is my nomination, to the urban renewal agency i have nominated daffy henry. To the urban transportation commission, sarah krause is my nomination, bryan thompson is councilmember morrison's nomination. To the waller creek advisory committee, shea or shee kline who is recommended by the hotel and lodging association is my nomination. 48 on our consent agenda. Our board and commission appointments. As part of our consent agenda we will also be approving item 49, 50, 51, we will be setting the public hearing by approving items 53, 55, 56, 56, and 58 that's our proposed consent agenda, I will entertain that motion.

Motion by councilmember martinez seconded by councilmember leffingwell to approve the consent agenda as read. Further comments? Councilmember -- mayor pro tem mccracken.

Please show me abstaining from item no. 50.

Thank you, in fact we do have a citizen who signed up on item 50 and on item no. 6. Perhaps before further council comments, first on 6, george cofer signed up wishing to give us favorable testimony, welcome, george.

mayor, thank you mayor, mayor pro manager for this opportunity. I appreciate your support on item 6 for the ranch. It will be a great [01:34:01] conservation open space addition to your current aquifer open space portfolio and I look forward to the hill country conservancy for working with city staff and hays county, we will also secured some federal funding to leverage the city's investments. I would be glad to answer questions but I'm here to say thank you for your support.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, councilmember leffingwell.

Leffingwell: I wanted to echo george's comments. Several of us have been out there and visited this property. It is truly a unique opportunity that we have and the price is really right. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the 770-acres that the city of austin is participating in, the entire parcel is about 2500-acres i believe. That portion will also be available for public access, limited public access that will be controlled by the dahlstrom family who will continue to manage that property. Congratulations to the hill country conservancy and the city of austin staff. I think this unique opportunity to establish a partnership with hays county as we continue to do our best work down there to acquire water quality protection lands for the aquifer. Thank you, george.

Thank you, councilmember.

Thank you, councilmember. Let's see, also on item no. 49, Frank fuentes signed up wishing to give us favorable testimony. If juan in the chambers, he was offering to donate three additional minutes to you, frank. I don't see him this morning.

Thank you, mayor, I'm not sure that I will need it, you never know. Mayor, mayor pro tem, city council members and city manager, thank you for this opportunity. I'm always nervous when -- when one of the issues that we have is on the consent [01:36:01] agenda and we're supporting it, I'm afraid to say something that's going to unconvince you, but here i am anyways. I want to share statistics that are very important to us. In fact I am hoping that you have received our letter with our statistics and in this country we -- hispanics constitute 26% of the labor force across the country, obviously in texas. In states in the southwest we constitute a greater number, plus the 80%. But we also constitute 80% of the fatalities. Hispanics are 80% more apt to die in the construction industry than any other population in the industry. So relative to cranes, there's been an increase of 50% of hispanics that have died related to crane activity or crane incidents. Texas has led the nation in -- in crane accidents and crane fatalities. So we are very concerned obviously for those reasons and others. But more importantly we look forward to working with staff and creating an ordinance that's going to protect not only our construction workers, but also the citizens because there's been some incidents where just your everyday citizens have had -- have died. So at any rate thank you so very much for supporting this item and I look forward to working with staff. Thank you.

Thank you, mr. fuentes. Councilmember martinez?

First, thanks for coming down and providing this information for us. This ordinance just does a couple of things. It asks the city manager to look into our current practices to see where we can find some improvement in the short term and bring it BACK ON AUGUST 28th, BUT At the same time it alloy yous for a -- allows for a 60 daytime period to go out and study best practices throughout the country, determine what it is that we need in place to make sure that our workers are safe, our construction sites are safe and that the citizens and people that are underneath these cranes, which is the one that's going to swing over city hall for two years are also safe. I don't -- you know, I don't [01:38:00] want this to be -- to be thought of as something that's punitive, something that's going to harm our economic development, harm our economy or the construction industry. We just need to improve on the safety and try to be a little proactive about preventing an accident before it happens here in austin. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, councilmember.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, frank and councilmember. Let's see, also on item no. 50, I believe we have one citizen that wanted to give us testimony, is kerdie sheth here, welcome, sorry, seth, you, too, will have three minutes, welcome.

I'm a -- I have been offered the position for 676 which is a single pair universal health care. And this bill is adopted by pnhb, economically it was investigated by dean baker [indiscernible] for health policy in economics. And while we need single payer universal health care is that time and time it has been shown if there's an excess for the patient -- access for the patient of medical home and continuous chronic disease care, which is clinically cost effective, this will prove as the best medical result cost effectively. This bill, which is a universal [indiscernible] regardless of the disease that you have, which is continuous and comprehensive so there is -- nobody will reject you because you don't have insurance. Accessibility because everyone does not have to pay up front any cost like a co-payment or any deductible [01:40:03] or upper limit of normal or low limit of normal. It's accessible. Plus it's publicly financed and privately delivered. So the patient has a choice to go anywhere in the united states. And take any private provider. And all physicians and all the health care facility is private. Then we are to remember when the operator has a choice then it could be automatically determined which physician gives them the best treatment or which medical center gives them the best treatment. And they have a choice to go there. And secondly we remember if we give a medical home to the patient, then we have preventive care and continuous chronic diseases care which proves as the best result. So I ask councilmember to support hr 676 because we are 18,000 member right now in pnhp, there are 445 labor unions, 110 central labor council, 91 congressmen in the 110th congress, presbyterian church, unitarian church, they all support and first time in american history the green journal, which is known as the american journal of medicine, editorial supported single payer universal health care [buzzer sounding] for medical care. So I say support hr 676, thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, doctor seth.

Leffingwell: I don't have a question. I'm going to make a comment. I sponsored this resolution along with councilmember martinez and councilmember shade, we are the members of the council subcommittee on [01:42:01] public health and human services. That subcommittee heard a presentation on this item about three months ago before councilmember shade was on the committee. At that time, the other committee member was mayor pro tem betty dunkerly. At the time we all discussed it, we were not properly posted to take action at that time so we just discussed it among ourselves later and decided that we all supported this item. And after the united states conference of mayors endorsed hr 676 last month, we decided to go ahead with this since several other cities have already done the same thing. The resolution in effect endorses the action of the conference of mayors in supporting hr 676. And I would also add that i talked just two days to mayor pro tem dunkerly and she asked that I convey the information that she remains in support, had she been still on the council she would have voted for this resolution. Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, councilmember. Councilmember martinez?

Martinez: Just one clarifying point. On item 51, where -- we are doing the free swim day at barton springs, we are declaring august 8th as barton springs and edward's aquifer day. I just wants to clarify that this is replacing the council action we took last year designating the second saturday in july as the official barton springs edward's aquifer day. I just want to make sure that we don't have two free days because I'm sure stuart is going to have a hard time finding the money in the budget.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Council, that's all of our citizen testimony on our proposed asked. Further council comment? Councilmember morrison.

Just to add to that, because we passed that day over without taking the appropriate, so I just wanted to make sure that we did get in at least one free swim day for this commerce and hopefully we will get [01:44:00] back to july next year.

Mayor Wynn: Councilmember cole? Coal company yes, mayor, i would like --

Cole: Yes, mayor, i would like to point out item 16 I think it's important that we note that we are renewing our membership to the austin-san antonio rail district and that this shows our commitment to form a comprehensive plan regarding transportation. This district is designed to not only alleviate traffic in the trip from austin to san antonio, but also within austin and would start in georgetown and actually have proposed stops at mcneil, 35th street and seaholm and last council meeting we had a presentation from roma about the downtown circulator and one of the proposed stops for that circulator where it would interconnect with this rail system is at so he seaholm. We have to make this commitment not only because of the rising gas prices but also so that we deal with the problem of non-attainment and air quality. So I would just like to point out that we are making that long-term commitment to our transportation needs.

Thank you, councilmember. Further council comments on our proposed consent agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Wynn: Opposed? Motion passes on a vote of 7-0, noting the mayor pro tem's single item abstention. Thank you all very much. So -- so council, let's see. A couple of quick little items here. 4 which we have taken off the consent agenda is our formal roll call procedure for setting and proposing the maximum not to [01:46:00] exceed ad valorem property tax rate for the year. This came about from state law about two sessions ago. You probably know that the state legislature, of course, doesn't record any of their votes, never has, probably never will. The city of austin, the austin city council has always recorded every single individual vote that we have ever taken and always will. As we just took votes on the consent agenda, every single vote that we take has always been declared exactly what it was. 4-3, 7-0, Who an obtained, who voted no. The legislature doesn't do that. So as part of their tax reform, you know, I'm on my soapbox here, as part of their property tax reform two sessions ago they decided to make all cities and local governments take a roll call vote, we have to be on record for how we vote on the potential ad valorem property tax rates because they never have and won't. Even passed a law that scripted how we have to go about doing it. Clearly every single vote that we have taken we record who votes yes, who votes no, who doesn't vote, who is off the dais at the time. So the legislature has us go through this silly procedure in order for us to do what we have always done for you as citizens, that is take a very public, very recorded vote on every action that we do as a city. So here's my script. we will now take up [laughter] -- council, we will now take up items number 4 and 54 related to the maximum proposed property tax rate for council to consider. The date that the council will adopt the tax rate and setting the dates for the public hearings on the proposed tax rate. 4, mayor wynn, this is me. We have one resolution to adopt a maximum proposed property tax rate that the council will consider for fiscal year '08-'09 and secondly set the date that council will adopt the fiscal year '08-'09 property [01:48:03] tax rate. Under state law, a vote on the motion to adopt a maximum proposed tax rate that the council will consider requires a roll call vote. I will entertain a motion to adopt a proposed maximum property tax rate. Councilmember leffingwell moves -- also -- I'm sorry. I fill understand the blank here. Councilmember leffingwell moves that the maximum proposed property tax rate that the city council will consider for fiscal year 12 cents we are $100 evaluation. Councilmember cole seconds councilmember leffingwell's motion. We now have a motion and a second to adopt a maximum tax rate of 4,012 cents for council to consider adopting during the fiscal year 2008-'09. City clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember cole?

Cole: Yes.

Councilmember leffingwell?

Yes.

Councilmember martinez?

Yes.

Councilmember morrison?

[Indiscernible]

councilmember shade.

[Indiscernible]

the motion to adopt the 12 cents per $100 valuation for fiscal year '08-'09 passes on a vote of 7-0. This is me again. 4, we also need to set the date that city council will adopt the fiscal year '08-'09 property tax rate. The proposed times and dates ARE SEPTEMBER 8th, 9th AND 10th, '08, BEGINNING at austin city [01:50:01] council chambers, austin city hall 301 west second street, austin, texas, 78701. I will entertain a motion to set the times and dates as proposed to adopts the fiscal year '08-'09 property tax rate. Councilmember shade moves approval of the motion as proposed. Is there a second? Councilmember martinez seconds councilmember shade's motion to approve the proposed time schedule for adoption. Looks as though perhaps we don't have to do the roll call. All in favor of the motion please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes on a vote of 7-0. Now, council, now that we 4, pursuant to state law we can 54 briefly which is actually just setting that public hearing for -- for testimony regarding this proposed not to exceed maximum property tax rate. So this is an action to set the public hearing on the proposed tax rate for fiscal on THURSDAY, AUGUST 21st, on THURSDAY, AUGUST 28th, 2008, At the austin city council chambers at austin city hall 301 west second street, austin, texas, 78701, I will entertain a 54 to set the dates as proposed for the public hearings on the proposed tax rate for fiscal year '08-'09. Motion, councilmember morrison moves approval of the motion as proposed. Is there a second? Councilmember shade seconds councilmember morrison's motion. All in favor of the motion please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passes on a vote of 7-0. Items number 4 and 54 have been passed unanimously, thank you all very much, pardon my sarcasm. [01:52:02] Okay. Council, we did have I guess just one sort of typical 54 has been pulled -- item no. 52 Has been pulled in part because enough citizens signed up wishing to give us testimony for it to come off the consent agenda. Technically this is an item from council waving the signature requirements for street closure, I don't know if staff can perhaps give a very brief presentation of that format, maybe just go to testimony? Very brief staff presentation as to how we go about, you know, administratively closing streets for events.

Good morning, mayor and council. Mayor pro tem. Typically, what we expect on these special events is that at least 60 days before the event that we get notified that someone wants to close off the street for whatever event that they are planning to put together. And typically, about 45 days before the event happens we expect to have all of the paperwork, all of the insurance, all of the forms, all of the sign-offs, everything completed and as you would expect that doesn't always happen. In this particular case, this event has been held for four years. Signoffs were accomplished in 2006, I understand all signoffs were gotten at that time. In 2007 not all signoffs were required. There was one owner, gigi in your living room that made a presentation last year that was not in favor of the event being held. That situation has occurred again this year. We -- as far as I know, we have three neighborhood associations that have not signed off either. So we are expecting those to come in soon. The event I believe is on AUGUST THE 31st, AN [Indiscernible] weekend on that date. [01:54:00] That's where we are today we are still waiting on the one other detail that I will give you, if it is a fee based event, we need 90% of those owners that are within that blocked off area to sign-off. If it's not a fee based event, then it's 80%. It's does drop down. If you have two or three businesses it pretty well says that you have to get all of those people to sign-off.

Mayor Wynn: Historically, I know that i have voted numerous times probably to waive signature requirements, oftentimes those I suspect those are for perhaps the marathon or other, you know, road closing events that might pose just a logistic almost impossibility for someone say to get signatures along 26 miles of a road. So we have certainly waived signature requirements for different reasons, probably throughout the course of the year correct.

Yes, sir, it is difficult to get everybody to agree, obviously. In this case technically this is an item from council whereby in a very appropriate way kind of number 3 I guess three councilmembers are proposing this specific waiver of that I guess 90% rule on this event.

Yes, sir, that is correct.

All right, thank you. Council, we do have just five or six people that want to give us testimony. I'm not sure if perhaps one of the sponsoring councilmembers might want to introduce their thoughts or we could take the testimony first. Testimony?

Cole: Yeah, testimony.

Mayor Wynn: All right, without objection we will go to the testimony. We will just sort of take them in the sequence that they signed up. The first couple of speakers signed up in favor of this event. French smith who I saw earlier. Mr. smith, welcome. Let's see. And is mayor crawford todd here. Mary, welcome. [01:56:00] So she offered to donate you three minutes. Six minutes, welcome, followed by rachel hully.

First of all I would like to thank the mayor, city manager and all of the council for their time their staff's time that they have put into trying to find a resolution for this. I've organized lots of large street closures in austin for years, dealt with the pecan street festival, no longer anymore deal with that. I do the street closures for the republic of texas biker rally, in almost every instance we find that there are people that are inconvenienced by these events. We -- what we do is try to do our best to hold the event and accommodate the people that are inconvenienced. Some people in the case of larger events like the biker rally are completely land locked, meaning that there's no access to their business at all. In most cases we are able to work something out for them to make them happy, continue to do the events sometime for many years. Like -- like I see lieutenant boyston came up with a plan where we created turn around. So -- so if we kind of push the festival back a little bit, we create a turn around and people can still get to their business park in front of it, get to the gar garbages things like that. About five years -- garages things like that. I witnessed an event take place on first street bridge. I thought it was genius. They had a show at the ragweed out there. It wasn't the most successful event, but I said this location solves a lot of the problems that we've had in other downtown settings. We can have an event downtown, all over the water, not a lot of businesses affected. Part of the problem is that if you do have a handful of businesses that are affected, the current way that the ordinances read that we have to have 80 [01:58:01] percent just one business can throw that out of whack. We can't hold the event. In the case of the bat fest, being on the congress avenue bridge, we have the radisson who is -- who is one end and basically they open out to cesar chavez and it doesn't cause a lot of problems, the statesman has full access. They can drive right straight in from barton springs and sherri matthews is closed to the weekend from my understanding. The only business that remains open is on the corner of barton springs and congress, which is your living room. We do leave barton springs open for access. What we have done in the instance of last year is left the first 300 feet, the 200 block of -- of congress completely empty making it turn around as we do at the biker rally for people to still get to the business and park, that's about five parking spots in front of the store your living room. We had a police officer that was sitting on his vehicle for two straight days to make sure no festival goers parked there, that only people going to your living room were able to park there. This year, you know, realizing that we probably had to go to further extremes. We offered to make your living room a sponsor of the event to help promote business for their store. If the people that come to our event aren't enough, we thought being in our advertising might help them gather more business. We offered them a space in the event. Offered to put banners up saying that their store was open. And offered $4,000 cash which we don't really want to make a practices on these events because if we offer one business money and the situation we are closing the entire length of congress there could be expectations to give money to every business when we do these closures. In any case we felt there's one business there, we can give them some money, it's money they can just put in their pocket, they don't have to sell anything that weekend. And they take that with them. This event I guess it started off the first two years. We had approvals from your living room. We had I guess a rocky first year. The show had some issues with any new event has some problems. We had a water container left out from a vendor that was left in front of their business first thing in the morning. The person repeatedly like hey this is a 300-gallon water tank, please remove this. She was unhappy with our cleanup. I went out there myself with a trash bag and picked up the items that the nighttime crew had missed in the dark ness. Every year since have got out there personally every morning with a trash bag to make sure anything wasn't left behind. I dug around in the hedges and found things that might have been sitting there for six months. I'm certain last year I left the bridge cleaner than it had ever been on any given weekend. And I talked to my traffic control companies that i hire and told them if they have a race or some other event going on that they cannot leave their barricades laying on the side of the road for the next event and laid those rules out with them very specifically because I know that it's unsightly to have barricades left even if they're going to use them 12 hours later for a run or something like that. And I noticed today just driving down there, there were barricades, nothing do with me, in the bushes beneath the rotating bat out there. Seems to be a problem with the traffic control companies. But I really would like to see something happen where we could continue to have bat fest every year [buzzer sounding] and still make these businesses happy. Any questions?

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, mr. smith. Questions for french? Councilmember shade?

Is it on? Do you need 80% or 90%.

We would need 90% because it's a fee paid event. Really, we have something like 26 approvals but there are more people that initially through the process unfold by the right-of-way management, basically from pressures from organizations like the downtown austin alliance that we need to, we couldn't first close this bridge without identifying the embassy souths. Some of the major -- embassy suites. Some of them you can do -- without talking to shoreline grill, they hold weddings, we have to stop the music each nights for them during their weddings. We have a lot of signoffs. Physically on that bridge there's only four addresses there. One no put us at 75%.

So I guess what I have is that you need three businesses to sign-off. And that two of the three refused to do that.

I would think the statesman, radisson and sherri matthews and your living room would be the people that literally live there. That's where their businesses operate.

You do this business every year. Have the rules changed from one year like last year to this year?

From last year to this year, what we did last year was, you know, just requested the closure of the 100 block. That was a last minute decision like we will just drop part of the festival. We lost the 200 block.

Then how many businesses did you need to sign-off.

I didn't have any businesses. It's the radisson was the only one. They dropped us down to one signoff. Basically the street closures looked at on a block by block basis. If you have 100% in -- in the 100 block, then you can hold an event in the 100 block, so we had the roundabout done where people -- traffic could turn back around in the 200 block this year for safety reasons we were told that we couldn't do that again rather at the last minute. We put our application in in november to do the same thing that we had done last year which was just close the 100 block.

I went back and looked at the discussion that occurred last year on the dais. I have to tell you as far as you -- seeing your website, I have been to many of your events, even to bat fest in the past. I know this is your business, you do events. So I'm a little frustrated when I read last year's testimony, you know, discussion that occurred here in the council chambers that, you know, the rules haven't changed since last year and that we're in the same position as we were last year where, you know, you are asking for the council to take care of a situation that you couldn't get the businesses to sign-off on. You have a business that two years in a row supported the event and then last year had issues. Seemed like you skated by because the council gave you this waiver. Now we're in a situation this year where you are requiring the waiver or the event doesn't meet the rules that are stated that haven't changed from one year to the neck. I want to understand why, you know, issues weren't addressed last year on SEPTEMBER 2nd, 3rd, 4Th the very weak to start working towards this event -- very week to start working towards this event.

To understand this, last year we asked for -- we didn't ask for a signature waiver. The only thing we asked for was the consent to charge admission because we did a technical thing which allowed us to just close the 100 block. It was a technicality. We changed our street closure to -- to be one where it was not required to have those signatures. That's why all year long we were under the assumption because no one told us that we can not close the road under that same technicality. Just using the 100 block that was not articulated from anyone from the city. That we weren't going to be allowed to do this again. We had felt that last year we had done -- if we were going to have a bat fest in austin, we had done all we could for your living room in that scenario. Other than not have the event. It was -- we could do a closure or we do not do an event in front of their business.

They are a furniture store, right? So the number one weekend for sales is labor day weekend, right?

It may be for furniture stores. I'm not sure if she is the same as all furniture stores. We think that we bring a lot of shoppers downtown when you go to a festival it's probably not realistic that you are going to walk home with a coach or some kind of furnishing that day. But I do think that people are exposed to her business and may come back next week or the week after or window shop, you know, standing there and looking in and saying hey this is a cool austin store. I think that it's a really i don't do these events maliciously --

I'm not suggesting that you do. Are most your attendees local people that would be actually good potential customers?

We have about -- a high number of people, maybe 25% of the people from out of town, but that still leaves a whole lot of people from austin.

Then another question which was just what -- how many -- how much money do you raise for bat conservation?

They told me they make between, you know, 10 to 20,000 off of this event each year.

Last year how much did they make?

That's -- I think they will give you better specifics he's signed up to speak. But we got hit by a rainstorm on sunday and cut us back a little bit. It was a rough year for us.

Okay.

I think that was isolated.

Further questions of mr. Smith? We do have a couple of other speakers, councilmember cole? smith, will you stay up there. Because first I want to ask legal a quick question about the process or either the gentleman from right-of-way because it's my understanding that this is a -- two step process and where we issue the waiver and then we also have to issue a permit. Can you explain that?

I guess -- yes, councilmember, this is deborah thomas with the law department. This week there's an item from council waiving the signature requirement. But in addition to that, as -- as stated before, since this is a fee paid event, council does i believe it's on the 21st agenda have to approve allowing a private entity to use our right-of-way and charge a fee. So they will be coming back for -- for approval for the fee paid event itself.

Thank you. We as a council make certain requirements regarding this event having to do with signage and parking and maintenance and cleanup.

With regard to those conditions, I'm assuming that you are saying that perhaps they will provide signage to show where the living room is and where the parking is, yes, and that -- yes, you can do that.

We can do that as a condition precedent?

Or next week when approving the fee payee vent.

That's my question. Fee pay event.

I wanted to ask the promote ter of bat fest whether he was able to make those conditions as part of our permitting process.

Absolutely. I'm also willing to meet with someone to do a site inspection after the event to make sure that it's returned to the same condition before the event, hopefully a better condition. We can have people out there to -- to direct traffic, have signage, we can monitor, sound, any kind of issue that's seem to surround all events, we can do that. In this case more specifically to the needs of -- of the people that are -- that are opposed to the events.

Okay.

Cole: I ask that you directly work with our staff and the living room opposed to this event so that we take care of some of their concerns.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Further smith, council? If not, thank you. Our next speaker signed up is rachel hully, sorry if I'm mispronouncing that, good morning. You will -- you will have three minutes, welcome.

Hello, everyone, thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is rachel hully, I'm with roadway productions. I'm here to support roadway and the upcoming fourth annual bat fest scheduled for the 30th and 31st on the bridge. Roadway productions, which is formerly road star productions has been an austin family business for 30 years now. During that time, we have produced and promoted some of austin's largest and most successful festivals and events, we work extremely hard at what we do and we really don't have a history of asking for waivers or for money. We just do good shows and we try not to rock the boat. The road star roadway resume is really very impressive. Our recent accomplishments include the fourth of july with austin symphony and the fireworks at auditorium shores, we do the louisiana swamp romp and crawfish festival, the grind extreme music and water sports. Obviously our loudest event is the republic of texas motorcycle rally and that we do at the expo center. We are also hired to produce the parade and concert on congress avenue. That event is just huge by any standards. And it involves absolutely every city service and department. We close congress, surrounding streets and we make it work for the merchants, the residents, the participants and we don't hear any complaints that are not resolved. We try to work with the public not against it. We -- roadway does a lot of good things in austin that benefit a lot of people. We have produced the t-bird river fest, willie's picnics, summer six packs, the rights of spring celebrations, countless other events most of them in the downtown area. Aside from the entertainment aspect of what we do, roadway provides a venue for local, national and international merchants, entertainers, just to do what they do best and make a living at it. Roadway employs numerous local services, businesses and workers. The events support charities and non-profit groups. As a matter of fact our next events is happening this saturday at waterloo park, it's the austin ice cream festival, hope you all can make it. It benefits the austin children's shelter. We have been doing this 30 years without rattling too many cages. We started bat fest in 2005. It became an immediate hit with the vendors, local people, tourists, the watts and their champions, bat conservation international. Artists, vendors, musicians, everyone contacts us a year in advance just to be try -- try upon part of the show. We must be doing something right. Our goal is to simply continue this tradition of producing quality family entertainment like we have done for 30 years. The tact that the bats -- the fact that the bats and bat fest generate about 10 million tourist dollars doesn't hurt anything either. If we lose bat fest it will obviously cost the city a lot in tourist revenue. [Buzzer sounding] it will create a severe economic hardship for at least 150 artists and vendors and realistically force roadway productions out of business. I am personally speaking if bat fest doesn't happen i will probably be out of a job along with a handful of my co-workers, about 200 temporary event staff that we hire for this. I've been part of this road land, road star since 1988, 20 years and counting and understand that roadway is just -- it's a small home grown company that does big things. I don't know if it can survive losing bat fest.

Mayor Wynn: Please wrap up your testimony. Your time has expired.

Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Questions for rachel, council? If not -- councilmember shade?

So -- I was going to ask, how much revenue does this event generate for your company? I mean the 10 million-dollar is the overall tourism number for bats year round. If 25,000 -- if 25% of 40,000 people expected to attend, that's not a $10 million event. What's this event? Revenue wise, do you know?

The bats and bat fest combined -- I'm asking bat fest. What's the revenue of bat fest, do you have a sense for that?

Well, french can probably answer that question give you the exact figures better than I can.

Since you have been around -- again, I don't dispute that you are a very good company. But I do want to ask your opinion then because I got french's on, you know, you are an event planner, why didn't last year's events precipitate some kind of different approach for this year? That's my question.

I'm not sure I think we went under the assumption as it did last year where we just wouldn't use that first block.

Okay.

Further questions for -- for rachel, council? If not thank you rachel. Our next speaker is jonathan freedman. freedman, you, too, will have three minutes. Followed by isabella -- [indiscernible]

thank you.

Thank you very much. My name is jonathan freed man, I'm development director for both conservation international. For purposes of this meeting, you can call me batman. I will take off my shirt, my jacket and show you that -- is that popular month for you.

I am indeed bruce wayne. My other persona. I'm speaking on behalf of -- of half of the mamilian of your constituents in austin, that's the one million bats at the anne richards congress avenue bridge. Our mission is educate the public to provide research and to provide programming to save a habitat for bats. This festival allows us to reach tens of thousands of children aside from the adults. Tens of thousands of children who for the first time learn about bats. It's the first time many of them ever see the bats. It's the first time many people in austin have ever seen the bats. I lived here for two years before I ever saw the bats at congress avenue bridge. We don't make much money on from this event. We are not looking to make a lot of money. We generate somewhere between 10 and $20,000 depending on how many members we sign up. How much merchandise we sell and what the profits of the events are. But we do reach thousands and thousands of people and that's our primary objective. If you haven't been at the event, you may not have been able to see the expression on the children's faces when they see the bats or when they see a bat that one of our biologists brings to show people what they actually look like. They fit pretty much in the palm of your hand. You don't see the expressions of the children and the adults as the bats fly out and you hear the ooh,s and ahs and finger pointing because it's really an amazing experience for people to see the bats at congress avenue bridge. These bats provides economic value as was stated before for businesses in austin, including tourism. There are many businesses that directly benefit from the bats, all around the bridge. And this is a chance for bat conservation international on behalf of those million to million and a half bats to take advantage of this situation as, educate the public about the importance of bats. We are strongly in favor of continuing the festival, hope that you will agree, thank you. [One moment please for change in captioners]

it forces event promoters to take into consideration an plan and organize taking seriously their interests. It protects small business owners from the adverse effects that are sometimes associated with these festivals, economic harm, property damage, pollution, congestion. These citizens have been given a right under the signature requirement to object to these terms. These citizens have objected because they have suffered property damage as well as extensive economic harm. Every year that this festival has taken place, cordero has lost 10 to $20,000. It's labor day weekend. It's a huge weekend for retail, especially furniture stores. She can't tolerate those losses anymore. And last year you explicitly recognized the fact that she was indeed suffering from economic harm. We all know we're on the verge of recession. She can't tolerate that now. There's been this impression that they've been sort of caught by prize by the fact that they would need this signature approval, but the fact of the matter is from last year's meeting it was clear that this was an issue and it was also clear that they wouldn't be able to continue as they did last year. In fact, mayor wynn along with other councilmembers, specifically recommended that they consider changes to the location, site or structure of the event. Furthermore, the changes that they made last year had very little impact on changing the circumstances. No one -- still no one could or are dero's store. You could only access it by coming southbound and the bridge was still blocked be off. Further more, if you look at the pictures that I sent you in the materials yesterday, you can see that it's really blocked. What you have there is an overflow from the event. Furthermore in addition to last year we mailed them a letter on june 5th explicitly constituenting that our approval would be required and citing the ordinance at issue. They made no toafort contact us until about two weeks ago. They should have known. They've been doing business in this town for 30 years. They should have known it would be an issue. They've had more than enough notice to prepare. I feel bad for the artisans that will be adversely affected by this, but they ir responsibly planned this location, knowing they would need the approval of the citizens. I thank you for your time and consideration.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Goes the attorney, council? -- Questions for the attorney, council? Thank you, ma'am. So our next and final speaker is gigi cordero. Welcome back. You will have three minutes.

I'm gigi cordero and I'm one of the owners of your living room and this is our third year with roadway productions. The first -- this is our fourth year. The first two years we together on it, and we started having problems with garbage left over on the street, customers, our customers were complaining that they could not get to our store. Last year was a disaster with them closing off at the 100 block where realistically congress avenue bridge was shut off at barton springs with an opening towards our parking, which ended up with several taxi cab drivers parking vertical, going the wrong direction. Our business was horribly affected. We project and buy a lot of advertising for labor day weekend because it is a big retail weekend. And we went from doing 20 to 30,000 to a thousand dollars on saturday, and zero on sunday. It was very hard for us. And it would be very difficult again this year to have a road closure. I can't have 30 or 40 people in my entranceway, if it rains on sunday like it did last year. It poured rain and there's photographs of 20 or 30 people hovering in my awning because there was no cover for rain. So please, don't approve it. I'm not against any festival, I'm against road closures. I'm against closing ann richards bridge for two full days. I'm for the local businesses and I'm for all the businesses, including the -- which we haven't discuss is the fire stone across the street from me, the little nail salon across the street from me, and none of their pay ontrons can -- patrons can get to them either. Thank you very much for your time.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you very much. Questions for gigi, council? Thank you, ma'am. So that's all of our speakers who have signed up on this item, council. Additional thoughts? Comments? I'll just say that it was -- I remember -- believe i remember the discussion pretty well year. This is sort of deja vu. And someone was kind enough to actually call up the transcript from that meeting last year, and I was heavy involved in that discussion. And my very specific -- like everybody, we empathized dramatically with the dilemma that was posed to us last year that we had to face last year, but at least my request at the time was that immediately following last year's festival, then let's work this out. Let's figure out what is the format that doesn't force council to choose between who -- which local entity is going to be harmed financially the most. And as I am very disappointed that that obviously didn't occur prior to again just a few weeks before the event. I'll just also add, it was several weeks after the event last year that I got a phone call from the u.t. Athletic department pointing -- very much complaining about our decision to allow that bridge to be shut down for 's homing game, when apparently they got flooded by complaints of folk who were out of town guests who were staying in the two hotels south of the bridge, and being from out of town didn't know different alternative routes, I guess, but had a very, very difficult time getting to 's home opener. And of course this year once 's home opener is saturday night the 30th when the bridge will be shut down. So again, I really don't like this dilemma to be facing us again, but last year I was -- thought I was as clear as I from my personal standpoint. Of course obviously not speaking for the council or for the city administration for that matter, but that i specifically requested that right after the event last year, some accommodation be made, including the literal opportunity of perhaps moving the event to a different location or a different day or different hours or something to that effect. And so I respectfully won't be supporting the signature waiver in part because of that specific dialogue we had last year. And lastly -- I'm sure there will be other comment. You probably know that we have a street closure taskforce underway now. It's been spearheaded mostly by councilmember leffingwell. I greatly appreciate that. My perception -- and we've gotten a lot of e-mails from folks, mostly in the running community. And we all are -- I am a very big supporter of our running community and the events that occur in town and the money that's raised for local nonprofits, mostly health and nutrition related, is there's a perception that somehow we're targeting the running community with this taskforce. And my perception of the taskforce, and speaking for myself, is that frankly it's events like the bat fest, it's events the art -- again, the successful events when you look at the actual event, but the art festival that occurred here on cesar chavez this past year where cesar chavez was shut down for two and a half days. So just the process by which administratively folks just filling out some paperwork can shut down major arterials in our downtown literally just by filling out some paperwork, I think frankly we have outgrown that luxury as a community. I think the time has come when we have to figure out -- that's my hope with this taskforce is to figure out what are the parameters. What's the maximum number of hours or days or are there some arterials that frankly are sacred and can't be closed down administratively for an event. And should we look at things like -- I'm a proud aggie. Should we look at some 's football schedule and we know five years in advance when there's going to be 100,000 people in that stadium on a saturday, and when there won't be anybody in that stadium on a saturday. And so my hope and request of the taskforce is as they continue their good work they help us come up with i think what are the realistic parameters for a growing 21st century urban american city when it comes to this concept of closing down major arterials for multiple days on big weekends. Councilmember leffingwell.

Leffingwell: Thanks, mayor. I think you said it well. I strongly associate myself with all of your remarks and I was here last year for this discussion and I think the clear understanding among some of us up here on the dais at least is that we were going to do this last year, approve this event so as to minimize the hardship to them, but that we had to look for a different way to do it. And I'm a big supporter of bat conservation international and I'm very proud of the fact that here in austin we've got the largest urban bat colony in the world. At the same time to shut down the ans bridge, the main street into the city of austin, texas, for two full days on a holiday weekend is just something that I find very hard in my mind to justify for almost any event. And in view of the fact that we discussed this last year and I think in my mind gave fair warning, fair notice that we had to find a better way to do this, and echoing the mayor's remarks we do have the street closure taskforce sitting right now to try to fine ways to accommodate community events and respect the rights of the people for the city of austin who own those streets to be aige to those -- to be able to use those streets, to be able to co-exist, that taskforce came into place because of many instances like this where people complained about being inconvenienced by events. So I'm not going to be able to support the waiver either, and regrettably because as I said, I do support the cause which it ultimately purports to serve be.

Mayor Wynn: Further comments? Councilmember morrison?

Morrison: I apologize about not being here last year and not hearing the conversation, but obviously this is a very challenging situation, trying to balance the different interests. As councilmember cole pointed out, this is a two-step process. And if this waiver is approved today, there's still a second step that has to be approved two weeks from now. So my interest, especially in terms of the work that -- the bat conservation international does during this bat fest -- during the bat fest and how important it is to them, it's not just money, it's about bat awareness. And bats are certainly one of the things that make austin unique. My preference is to use these next two weeks to continue the conversation to see if there's any way to mitigate the impacts to the businesses by bat fest. Hopefully there will be some creative thinking, but all the while knowing that we have another opportunity to weigh in on whether that's been successful or not. So I will be supporting this waiver.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Again, further comments? Councilmember martinez?

I wanted to ask staff, what is that process and does it come back to council? And if we make -- do we have to make another decision at this second step?

Yes,. On the 21st there will be an item to council to approve a fee paid event. If -- all events that require -- that will charge a fee for the event and when they're using the public right-of-way, they come to council and council has to approve the actual event itself.

Martinez: So on the 21st, IF COUNCIL DOESN'T Approve the fee paid event, then the festival will not take place?

There can't be fee paid.

Martinez: There can't be fee paid, but it could still take place.

It could still take place, but it couldn't be fee paid.

Mayor Wynn: Councilmember shade.

Shade: I'm sorry, i don't understand that. It will take place --

the only reason it would be on council agenda on the 21st is because it is a fee-paid event. People have to pay to come to the event. If it was just an event that anybody could go to without having to pay to be a part of it, then that approval would not to council.

Shade: So in other words, it would become a non--- they could -- it would an free event for everybody to go to, which would significantly impact the event from the roadway perspective. They don't want to have a non-fee revenue-generating event, I would assume. All the money that goes to bat conservation international is based on admissions, right? So it totally changes the event if it's not a fee-paid event.

Yes, I would assume that would be the case.

Shade: I want to make a comment and just say that this -- I was not here last year either, but I did take the time to read the transcript. And I really feel like instead of talking about the children who benefit from the event and the overall tourism about bats and how bat conservation international benefits, what we really have to stay focus odd is we're look at one that's in the business to do events, and another business that's in the to sell furniture primarily on -- it's their biggest weekend. And I feel like if no changes were made from last year to this year, it again doesn't have -- this is not about supporting bats. I mean, the bat industry, the bat tourism preexisted since the bridge has had the bats before this event. This is a great event, it's a lot of fun, but it's one -- it's one business and the vendors there who are negatively impact fire department this event doesn't happen pitted against businesses who are doing business on our most important downtown corridor on a holiday weekend. So I just -- I really want to make sure that we stay clear on at least from my perspective the decision of one group of businesses versus another group of businesses, and following the rules that are currently in place, not about voting against bat conservation or not being in favor of children getting an education about bats. I mean, if we stick clear it's about business doing business and following the rules. And I want to echo the comments of mayor wynn, which is that I'm really glad that next year this taskforce will come up with its recommendation so that none of us will be in the position to be sitting here next year with this same dilemma. I think it's really hard to pit businesses against businesses. We're supporting all -- all the local business be. We represent you all.

Mayor Wynn: Councilmember martinez.

Martinez: You know, I'm clearly frustrated as well based on what we talked about last year, and how we asked to try to find alternatives to resolve this issue and nothing, not one thing was done. If bci remains committed to their work here in austin and wants to continue the festival, and if the organizers of the event also remain committed as was stated earlier, work with the folks that are having issues. Figure it out. It's not that hard. Nobody up here is saying we don't support the festival or bci. And I absolutely know that those bats wouldn't even be there if it weren't for bci. Txdot was going to close those holes up to get rid of them. You guys do wonderful work. But in this particular case you've slipped a little bit, and we need you to sit down with these folks and work this out. I'm going to move that we postpone this item, that we bring it back on the 21st with the fee paid event. And then you have two weeks to work it out.

Mayor Wynn: Motion by councilmember martinez to postpone item 52 until our next meeting, which is THURSDAY, AUGUST THE 21st, 2008. Mr. smith? Concerns?

I'll second.

Mayor Wynn: Okay. Just to claire. This is the motion on this item. So motion by councilmember martinez, seconded by councilmember cole to postpone action on item number 52 for two weeks to AUGUST 21st, 2008, AT Which time we also request that -- it sounds like staff is going to be prepared to bring back this additional approval for matt as well. So we'll consider those jointly. Councilmember cole.

Cole: Mayor, I have a couple of comments. First I would like to ask staff and the bat fest promoters, along with the living room, to make sure that the university of texas -- at least two our alma maters, are informed of the potential that we will be holding this event again on opening game day. And that the hotels, the radisson, and other -- i guess the hyatt, are aware of that event and will have alternate maps for anyone attending that game. And that we will get a report on that issue when we BRING IT BACK ON THE 21st. And I also want to add that -- I look at this issue more from an entire city perspective. I know all of my colleagues understand the importance of this event, but in the year of budget constraints and where the only bright spot on the horizon be was our tourism industry and what they contribute to the economy, I don't think that we can afford to deny any festival event because we can't work out a few issues with one particular landowner. And also, I think that it's important that we support our local merchants that benefit from this event. So my office -- and I know councilmember morrison's office, who has also been working very hard on this issue, will bring back hopefully to council something that shows that we have made a good faith effort to accommodate the landowners that are concerned about the bat festival.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, councilmember. Again a motion and a second on the table to postpone item 52 as posted. Further comments? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Mayor Wynn: Opposed? Motion to postpone passes on a vote of seven to zero. Thank you all very much. So council, that will take us then to our morning briefing, and I apologize for the delay, but we certainly wanted to give that item as much attention as it deserves. The item -- posted for our morning briefing, item number 59, is a presentation of the design commission's recommendation for revisions to our downtown design guidelines. And we have a hard copy i think of a nice presentation here in front of us. And I think we can now see it on the screen. Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, mayor and councilmembers. I am erika leak from the neighborhood planning and zoning department and also liaison to the design commission. This morning I will be providing you with a little bit of back be ground information on the downtown design guidelines and then richard weiss of the design commission will summarize the commission's proposed change to those guidelines. As you may know, in 1999 council requested that the design commission developed design guidelines which would provide the recommendations to developers seeking dressed entitlements to ensure that the city was developed in such a way to make the urban environment be a great space for its citizens as it became more dense. In may of 2000 council adopted those design guidelines as recommendations for all downtown development and project. In the intervening time the design guidelines have been used by developers to cied development that will provide benefits for urban residents and also just increase the urban environment for all of us. However, times have changed since 2000 and in september of 2006 council directed the design commission to revise and update those guidelines and to make recommendations for density bonus options. Today richard weiss, interim chair of the design commission, will provide a summary of the design commission's recommendations for those revisions the disietion commission has also recommended that the name of the guidelines be named to the urban design guidelines. And richard will give more information on that proposed change.

Welcome, richard. Also newly appointed downtown commissioner.

Thank you, good morning, council, mayor and city manager. Thank you for the opportunity to present the urban is design guidelines to you. The downtown -- has proved to be very helpful in shaping design downtown. These guidelines can be be used to inform that density and ensure that the common values that we share for positive development are fostered. Before tucking about the content of the guidelines, i would like to thank the design commission for all of their effort in this document and specifically thank gerard kinney who served on the commission for 10 years, perry lorenz who served for 18 years, and phil reed who spearheaded this document and served for 10 years as well. Their combined service to the design commission lasted loarng than I've been alive. And I really appreciate their time on the commission and their contribution is evident in the improvement of our downtown and in these updated guidelines. There are several revisions made in adapting the downtown design guidelines what urban design guidelines. Primary they're no longer focused solely on downtown and can be used to track density wherever it occurs without specifying where it should occur. The section on downtown districts and the boundaries diagrams have been removed. Additional values regarding sustainability and open space have been added and the structure of the guidelines including our shared vision, our shared values, our goals, and vision and the guideline categories remain inpacket. The shared values are the broad concepts that we want to foster with the urban design guidelines. The goals of the guidelines, they're the fundamental basis for the urban design guidelines and they emphasize our community as a community of people first. The shared values are aspirations, they're for why they want a humane sustainable city and what makes austin unique and desirable. And why it's hard to codify things like a sense of time or authenticity, this document ties these ideas back to specific guidelines, which really the intent of the design guidelines. Whiem the shared values present the concepts, the shared concepts have shared vision for our urban places derived from and informed by these values. They focus on how our you are bawn environment is laid out, how it's connect be 'ed and how it's experienced by the pedestrian. They include promoting an intuitive understand of our city grid similar to grids of the great cities of the world that were built prior to auto 17 trick cities like austin, that are easier to retrofit and navigate. They encourage a mix of uses, activities and a scale for development. Creating a safe and comfortable urban environment where the transportation hierarchy begins with the pedestrian and promoting the kind of activities and uses that help define austin as unique and vibrant. It really is about the community. It's funny, last night i went to see a band on sixth street and as I was surveying the crowd and 00 in the morning, I saw dave sullivan there, the chair of the --

Mayor Wynn: And then you didn't feel so old, right? [ Laughter ]

but he was doing the same thing, looking around. But I think it's pretty amazing and telling that austin allows for that kind of interaction on a wednesday night. And is important that we continue to support that. Our vision includes satisfying goals with quality sustainability -- quality sustainable buildings, fofting economically and environmentally balanced urban spaces with residential uses and connected open space. The guidelines derive from this vision are collected into four categories, area wide, which refer to all the areas which density is desired and implemented, public street scapes, which concentrates on the space in between buildings, plaza and open space guidelines, and building guidelines, which concentrate on how the building interacts with the individual and how it fits within the urban context. The area wide guidelines refer to an area where density is desired. They focus on creating dense and mixed use developments while respecting and buffering neighborhood eblgz. Many of the guidelines drafted for downtown lay the foundation for the design standards. And this document ties the standards back to the goals and values that they support and address more he is so tear rick issues that are easy to talk about, but hard to codify, like avoiding the creation of theme environments and avoiing historical misrepresentations. The public streetscape guidelines concentrate on the pedestrian experience and the humane character of spaces between buildings. The comfort of the pedestrian is crucial to the development of an economically viable project and an economically viable corridor, and an economically viable city. These guidelines focus on protection of the pedestrian and the enhancement of pedestrian experience, including street trees, lighting, screening of equipment, windows, and pedestrian friendly materials at street level. The plaza guidelines have been enhanced to focus on very specific goals. Specifically in downtown to treat the four squares with special consideration and hopefully eventually reclaim our four squares. And there are also larger goals for density nodes, like incorporating open space into residential developments and making sure that individual projects contribute to open space network as a whole. There are also more specific guidelines detailing the use of public plazas and ways to enliven them and make them more functional. Signage and weigh finding and maintenance and the incorporation of civic art, food service and more intimate and complex environments are also highlighted. Finally, the building guidelines, many of which have been codified in the commercial design standards, are aimed at enhancing the pedestrian experience through the use and orientation of entrances and by bringing buildings closer to the street. Including local character and design, which includes designing for our climate and for the elements in austin, creating quality construction and sustainable construction and building buildings with a human scale and with a level of detail at the lower floors. A new guideline that we've added addresses controlling off site park being, which encourages locating parking below buildings or if they are going to be located above, making -- putting them behind inhabited sections of the building. The design commission recognizes that the cost of these building design features are extensive, but we want to stress the value, which this is a value document, of removing cars from the environment. And we hope that a guideline like this can be used as an incentive for more humane development. Now, next steps for this document, we would -- we view them as guiding principles for successful urban development, free from the prescriptions of code. They're what we intend to create in our community, and this document of intent and vision isn't as mired technical data and requirements. And we feel like these principles can serve multiple purposes within our current city and climate. Most importantly, we hope that the urban design guidelines will be integrated into the comprehensive planning effort and the downtown planning effort and serve as a vision and goals for our future urban development. Additionally they can serve as documents of intents for the commercial design standards, station area es and anywhere where we want to have positive density and urban design. The principles can also be used as requirements for density bonuses, similar to the way the downtown design guidelines were used as part of the smart growth matrix. So perhaps some of these principles can be used to allow for density bonuses. In conclusion, the design commission hopes that the next steps are adoption of the urban design guidelines, some staff support to finish formatting them, and adding images so that they can be adopted as a policy document. And then incorporating them into the comprehensive plan and using them to inform wherever it may occur. Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Questions for richard, council. Is it object what our next items would be?

This is a briefing, but what I would hope the next texas action item would be would be to allow some staff time -- and maybe staff can speak better as to how much time, to incorporate the images into the document. Right now the draft that we have is just a text, and so the images haven't been incorporated in. So formatting this in the form of a city document so that it can be approved as a policy document.

Mayor Wynn: Okay. So thoughts from staff perhaps on those series of steps?

Thank you, mayor and councilmembers. George adams with neighborhood planning and zoning department. We'd be glad to work with the design commission on incorporating images into the document and formatting in a way to create kind of a final draft. Given all the other items that we're working on currently, I think we would probably like to take somewhere in the neighborhood four to six weeks to get something back to council if that would be acceptable.

It certainly is by me. I don't want to create a burden, but at the same time I want to take advantage of the momentum that the commission has created. Further thoughts, comments?

Mayor Wynn: Thank you all very much. George, in the interim, is this on our website advance? I think I saw it on channel 6 right now and I think it will be replayed a time or two, but I wonder if there would be the draft recommendations available for the public.

We can get this up on the website. Thank you all.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. So council, I believe that concludes our discussion items for the morning. It's a few minutes before noon. We technically can't take up our general citizen communication until noon. Frankly it's not words us going into closed session for just a few minutes, so without oxidation, I'll now recess this -- so without oxidation, I will recess this until our noon citizen communication. We are now in recess.

Mayor Wynn: There being a quorum present, at this time I'll call back to order this meeting of the austin city council. We've been in recess for the last five or eight minutes, allowing us to get to our noon requirement for time certain citizen communication. We have a full lineup of 10 citizens who would like to give us testimony. Our first speaker is patty sprinkle. Welcome, patty. You will have three minutes and be followed by fat valls-trelles.

Hi, everyone. I'd like to welcome laura and randi to the council and I'm hopeful that with some new blood to the council that perhaps some of the neighborhood issues can be resolved a little bit. I'm here today because i really would love to see the values of austin shift in a different direction. I have been involved now for about five years in community work, and I keep seeing the same trend over and over, which is that a community we seem to be treating our citizens as a commodity. Our land as a commodity to be basically bid off to the highest developer. I just really like -- I'd just really like to emphasize that every transaction, human or otherwise, does not have to be about money. In my own neighborhood we're faced with a lot of development issues. Our neighborhood plan is on hold, yet it hasn't stopped many developers coming in and looking at draft neighborhood plans. And basically wish to go put density right in the center of our urban -- into our neighborhood. I feel like at this time the commissions that we have available for citizens to come in and give their opinion, such as the planning commission, are not really serving us very well. As a neighborhood association president, it's obvious that we're not informed in time of many decisions that affect our neighborhood until the very last minute where we're forced to come in on short notice and defend sometimes an egreej yows use of our citizens land. I would to ethe ombudsman position get funded. We really have a need to have a little more impact in this process. In my neighborhood a few weeks ago we had a citizen call me who tried to have a case postponed here before the planning commission, was denied that, although the applicant was allowed to send out notices before they had even filed the formal application. Over and over we see instances of the developer is just given everything they need and the citizens again are just left waiting at the last minute to try and get hurt. We were denied a hearing and it was the last place that the subdivision would have a public hearing. So we didn't get a voice arrest a say. I would just also like to ask that if you could please ask your appointees that you appoint to these boards to let them know that they work here for the citizens of austin. They're not just working for the developer. They need to treat us all with courtesy and respect. And that we all deserved to be heard. And if they really feel that they can't do that anymore, then perhaps it's time to step down and let somebody else take on that role. And that's really all I have to say. Thank you. [ Buzzer sounds ]

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, patty. And pat I saw earlier. Welcome back, pat. Tiew will have three minute and be followed by anthony walker.

Thank you, mayor and mayor pro tem and councilmembers. Today's chronicle has an article comparing reno's success in reducing the killing of animals at their animal shelter to austin's not so successful effort in that area, one that I'm about to propose today. The proposed budget just released by the city manager zeros out the pet registration fees, which we have had in place for quite some time. Recently the fees were changed to be $5 for a lifetime registration for an altered animal and $20 a year for unaltered animals, there by giving a financial incentive to people to spay and neuter their animals. By abolishing the pet registration program, one you remove what I think is a good financial incentive for spay/neuter. And two, you diminish capacity for returning animals to their owners. I would like this a correction in the budget before you take it up, but if you need to vote in september, I would hope you would vote against abolishing these fees. I think we need a public discussion at our september and october animal advisory commission meetings. The reason I'm requesting september and october is because in august the animal advisory commission will meet at noon when it's hard to have a public discussion. But in september at the evening meeting there can be a public hearing and a discussion. And in october hopefully the animal advisory commission can vote. my request to you is to not approve the zeroing out of the pet registration fees. As I said before, the chronicle article today talks about reno. Let me talk a little bit about reno's success in returning animals to owners. In 2007 reno returned 38% of their animals to their owners that were picked up by animal control. That's pretty high in terms of any shelter in the country. Our success for doing the same thing was we returned three percent of cats and 21 percent of dogs. So we're much lower than reno, yet we have not had a single public discussion and we're not anywhere near that. These statistics are on org and I hope you look at what the statistics are there. We need to reduce intake, increase adoptions, increase rescue and increase return to owners. The pet registration program only relates to return to owners, but I hope you will vote for an open process. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, pat. The next speaker is anthony walker. I saw mr. walker. Welcome back be. You will have three minutes, to be followed by paul robbins.

Before I start I'll open up by saying greetings and peace be unto you. To the mayor, councilmember, everyone who made this a point of making it out here this evening, I want to wish them and their family the best of health and the greatest of spirit. As a community and a civil rights activist, my heat feels the pain and sufg of some people in certain communities in this city. If there's one council scown that truly believe in their mind and opinion that they will stand for every race and every community in this city, that city council is worse than a three-dollar bill, which you dleerly stem straight as a whole. You don't want for every race in this city. Some of you consider yourself good christians, go to church every sunday. You need to read the scripture. God say how can you say you want to me when you never seen my face? And you see your brothers and sisters everyday in flesh and blood and you treat them like you just don't care about them. You are our leaders and elected officials, which make you the government of the people, for the people and by the people, which means you have the duty and responsibility to respond to whatever critical need that is affecting the people t doesn't matter what race, it doesn't matter what community they're in. What y'all have chose in this city is you have divided this city. There are a lot of issues that need to be address understand this city, but the city council have demonstrated that they just don't have the test or fortitude or the will to stand for every race in this city. I've been a lot of places in my lifetime out of all the places I've been when it comes to city public transportation, austin, texas is one of the most racist, segregated of them all. Let me give you an example. Pflugerville, for example. Capital metro serves there. What do they do, still drive all the way to the city limit, provide service cratering to the same group of people. People who have to walk a mile and a half to the bus stop. You take the man in the wheelchair struggling in the rain and heat trying to get to the bus stop. A 70-year-old lady walking and have to take three and four and five breaks because she can't get to the bus stop. You have people confined to their apartment because they can't walk a mile and a half to the bus stop. But you as our leader supposed to be a voice for those people, but simply one of the biggest issues that i have came up with a conclusion, the reason why a lot of those issues hasn't been addressed out there is because there are poor people's and they are black people. This is real. I didn't come up here to make friends with nobody. At the same time I didn't come to make enemies either. But if we're going to go down this road and make a covenant for change, you can't do it for one race. Have you are to do it for black, white, hispanic, asians, every race in this city. Ly me close on this neat noat. If there's a city council who has an intention of running for mayor in this city and you have not made an impact in every community and race in this city, then how in the hell will you make an impact be as a mayor? To all our politicians, if you do not stand for the truth, you will continue to be in denial. Those kind of politicians like that is on their way to hell. [Bell ringing] and if I've got any power, I will help push them into hell as fast as I can. Peace!

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, mr. walker. Paul rob be bins next speaker for three minutes. To be followed by david colbert.

Mayor, council, citizens of austin. I'm paul -- could you please wait for the slide? I'm robbins. I'm paul robbins and I'm an environmental activist and consumer advocate. I've been a supporter of renewable energy in austin since 1977. So the recent proposal for a wood burning plant in east texas to supply 100 megawatts of power to austin is of great interest to me. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the source is largely renewable be and the pollution mitigation has to meet current standards. There may be carbon emissions due to the collection and transport of the wood, but the emissions are probably greatly reduced compared to a fossil plant. But the cost per kill low watt hour for this plant are quite high in comparison to the average price of power today. To be fair, the cost of construction materials due to exaggerated worldwide demand is almost unbelievable. And construction of any new power plant will be more expensive than it was just a few years ago. However, the situation has not been explained to the public, with the result that many rate pairs will be upset or outraged when they start to pay for the plant three years from now. Oddly enough, many rate pairs will be blaming people like me for the increase because they did not understand the context. And I promise council that they will receive their proportionate share of the blame that is not relegated to environmentalists. So my strong advice is that a better job needs to be done of explaining this because right now the public does not know what's going on. Another point I want to raise is that not every renewable energy option has been fairly reviewed. I know a way that renewable energy can be stored economically with the same dispatch capabilities as the wood burning plant. It is called compressed air energy storage. Could I have the slide? It uses geologic formations such as salt domes, saline aquifers and oil wells to store high pressure air, which you can see the plant pumps it down. Then it releases this air with the assistance of a heat booster when the energy is needed. This levels out the gaps in fluctuating renewable energy sources such as wind power, which are less costly than bio mass. It does require a supplemental fuel, it natural gas or bio mass -- [ buzzer sounds ] , but overall this is only a supplement and about 86% of the overall power is from renewable energy. Our utility has looked at this, but only in a very limited economic context. Meanwhile, a consortium of municipal utilities in iowa is moving enthusiastically and aggressively to build such a plant to store wind and off peak conventional power. Has austin, the newable energy capital of the world, been out classed by iowa? Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, mr. robbins. Our next speaker is david colbert. Welcome. You too will have three minutes to be followed janet jones.

Ladies and gentlemen of the city council, god bless you. I don't always agree with you, but it's hard running a city where there's a lot of whiners. Now, I've been in this town for about 12 years, and for eight years I've heard people yammer, I've heard people on the city council say what they want to do about affordable housing in this town. And every time that somebody gets elected, the rent goes up. And basically the affordable housing that we got is being bulldozed. Things that are affordable are being thrown away, and you're making this place affordable so that people can escape the astronomical rent in california to come here and pay a little bit less than what they're paying in california. And that is not affordable housing. One of my ideas was for the city to take the initiative to buy and build apartments -- not projects. Apartments. And privatize them and give them names, you know, like really nice, you know, names and make people feel like they're human beings and charge them $400 rent. I really think that -- as a country we need to get out of the project mentality and start making people feel like human beings. I believe that people should try to work for a living or try to do something, don't sit around and expect a handout from anybody. But I really think that if this city really value the people that have built this city, you know, the poor people have gone and built this very city council that you sit in, this building that you are in, day laborers, people have helped to build everything that everybody lives in here. And I just ask that you would have mercy and try to do something with the people here who have helped to build this place and have helped to make this place a crazy city and a place that you know is one of the best places to live in america. I think I've said enough toasd about that part, but i did want to talk about the ordinances that you have on the homeless. Every two or three or four years you guys come up with an ordinance to make homeless people feel uncomfortable. And I understand there's a lot of homeless people and i understand there's a lot of them that are undesirable be and unliked. And really they're not quite wanted here, do you know what I mean? Their behavior is not wanted. But what I am recommending -- can I finish up? [ Buzzer sounds ]

Mayor Wynn: Yes, you may if you can conclude briefly.

I'm recommending here is that we take all of these ordinances, the sitting down, the panhandling, all of that, and lump it tog as disorderly behavior. Take be all this stuff away and basically say if you are doing certain things that really classify you being a nuisance and a danger to society or what have you, to just basically lump it down to one thing. We're overcrowding the jails with penny ante stuff that really is a waste of money if you're talking about the budget. To take some 70-year-old man to jail for sitting down on the sidewalk, you know, or to do something to somebody who is weak and is sitting on the sidewalk and getting $500 from social security and isn't able to pay the thousand dollar rents here that are starting to be average around here, I just ask for your mercy. And one other thing --

Mayor Wynn: Please conclude be, mr. better. Your time has expired.

I just want to tell you and I mean this in a good way. You are the craziest mayor that austin has ever had. I don't think I've ever heard of a mayor jumping off a bridge. [ Laughter ] I hope you can accept this award here. This is a cd, this is my cd. It's blue zydeco jazz mixed together.

Mayor Wynn: I'm sure i will enjoy it. Thank you. Our next speaker is janet jones. Councilmember martinez.

Martinez: I'm going to have to step out, but I want the remaining folks that are speaking to know that my staff is watching and will make note of your comments. We have a young boy who is in town with a make a wish foundation --

to be a firefighter.

Martinez: His final wish was to be an austin firefighter. So I'm going to go back and do the little presentation with him. But my staff is paying attention.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, and for playing that role, councilmember. Janet, welcome. You will have three minutes, to be followed by danette chimenti.

Thank you very much. My name is janet jones and a concerned citizen, especially whenever I heard of the policy that our new police chief was going to try to force by the end of this year to forcibly take blood from individuals who refuse a breathalyzer test. I have several things that -- I have a problem with this because first i would like to ask you several questions. What is the intent of this law? Is the intent of this law to prevent harm from somebody or from an accident, save lives? Because if that is the intent of this law, it is absolutely going to fail. We have extremely stringent laws for individuals who are caught under the influence of alcohol while they are driving. And I would ask you have you ever spent a night in jail? Has any one of you ever spent a night in jail? I once in my life, not for intoxication, tbow a speeding violation that i didn't know about. But you know, it was hell. 13 Hours in jail. And the current laws that we have set up, if you are caught and there's even a reasonable suspicion that you are intoxicated, you will go to jail, especially if you refuse a breathalyzer test, you will spend the evening in jail and your license will be revoked. Now, this is sufficient to preventing any accident, to preventing anybody from being harmed from the imminent fear of somebody causing an accident while they are intoxicated. Our founding fathers did not intend for laws to be preemptive in that. We have the right to be in our persons, to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. And if no one has been harm, if there has been no crime committed, then there is no reason for that unreasonable search and seizure. That is your blood. The second question that i would like to ask is what is going to happen with that blood? Once it is taken? Is it going to go into a database? Is the person going to be branded as this or are we going to be take dna from people? And that is a major question that I have. And I would like for you to ask the police chief about that. We also have the other amazing thing that we have with our country is that we have the fifes amendment, the right not to self-incriminate, not to incriminate ourselves. We have the right to refuse. And with every passing day, we feel from the federal government an encroachment upon those rights and those liberties. Again, you know, whenever there has been no crime committed, whenever nobody has been harmed, then absolutely you have the right to refuse. , You cannot take my blood. The next question I have is once this thing is in place -- [ buzzer sounds ] I'm a city employee and i know once you are trained in something, you will be expected to follow through with that in many different capacities. Will the police officers who will be performing these, will they be giving vaccinations later? Forced vaccinations for people? This is a very dangerous road that we're working upon, and we really need to seriously consider it. I would ask you to vote this bill down immediately before it can even get implemented. And if that is not possible, I ask each and every one of you, I would love to meet with you individually and we would like to set up a public hearing for this event to make sure that -- so that all the public input can be setforth. Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, ms. jones. I'll just say briefly, i haven't seen a specific proposal from our police chief, but a number of texas cities, perhaps as many as a dozen, just in the dw area, have been doing this. My understanding of what occurs in texas, no police officers draw blood. So you're pulled over for suspicion of drunken driving. The police officer then ultimately has to go to a judge and through the formal process a judge can say '88 or nay for a subpoena to have that blood drawn. And then some medical personnel does that. Why cities at least in nor texas are implementing it is because then with the blood results you have 100% conviction rate. And because you have 100% conviction rate, what happens is you don't have trials. Everybody pleads. And so when everybody pleads, then all the thousands and thousands of hours of police officer's time aren't sitting in a courtroom. They're back out on the street. People are driving drunk and they're not getting convicted for different reasons, because we do have a -- some strenuous bars to then -- parameters to be met. And so my -- austin has not implemented that. I haven't seen a specific proposal, but I know that -- my understanding is the reason why many, many cities have gone to that, often times they'll do it just on labor weekends or memorial day weekend when they know that a lot of people goirng to be driving and tragically a lot of people will be be making the mistake of driving drunk. And then the resulting positive affect on the rest of the overall policing and public safety dynamics of a community, and that is having officers back on the street and not having to spend countless hours ultimately millions of dollars of overtime pay to sit in a courtroom waiting for procedures instead of being back out on the street. So that's my understanding of the conceptual idea why cities are doing it. And if austin were to have that specific -- very specific proposal, my strong suspicion is we will have a very healthy dialogue and debate before implementation. Thank you, ms. jones. Danette, you will also have three minutes to be followed by karen mcgraw.

Thank you, mayor, mayor pro tem, councilmember. My name is danette and I'm president of the austin neighborhoods council. Karen mcgraw and I have a coordinated presentation and will speak to six specific requests that are in the document that you have before you. But first I want to recognize leaders from across the city who respectfully ask for your attention to this matter. Would you all please stand to acknowledge your support for this effort? We all have come here today to urge you to establish and support a fully operational preservation program for austin by asking the city manager to implement the adopted 81 historic preservation plans. While the current historic preservation program was established in 1974, the goals of the 81 plan have not been implemented. Preservation was also mandated in the 1979 austin tomorrow comprehensive plan, and should be given priority treatment in the comprehensive plan update. Austin's historic preservation system in general needs attention. Perhaps austin should undergo peer review by other cities that have dealt with preservation while experiencing growth at the same time. Consider that historic preservation is essential to and consistent with austin's sustainability and green building goals. Without preservation, a green building program ignores its greatest resource, existing buildings and cultural resources. The greenest building is actually the one that doesn't go in the landfill. So if austin is to have the best green building program, it must have an excellent preservation program. A fully operational preservation program can also provide clear policies and alleviate some of the controversial cases that currently must be resolved at city council. The highest priority for establishing a fully operational preservation program is an updated, comprehensive inventory. The 1984 survey of cultural resources. This database is the foundation for appropriate cultural resource management and is grossly outdated. It is based on city limits in 1935. So only buildings at least 74 years old recognized. And minority area are totally excluded from the survey. Private survey efforts should be included in the database and the database should be integrated into the city's gis system for use by citizens as well as all city departments. Funds could be dedicated annually for years to accomplish this in phases. The current budget has only 2 treive $37,000 -- $237,000 allocated for historic preservation and zoning out 8 million for planning and zoning in general. To ensure a successful preservation program, we ask that you augment our currently understaffed program and create a department with trained, experienced preservation professionals who can carry out all aspects of the program. This includes both historic and archaeological staff in add adequate numbers and present all cases, including demolition requests, and to initiate an accomplished program tifs and provide annual reporting. Thank you.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you.

Mayor pro tem and councilmembers, I'm karen mcgraw and I'm going to continue with the presentation. Integrate this program with other departments, austin redevelopment authority, the green building program, neighborhood planning, all permitting procedures, and public works. No department should be at odds with preservation, but should rather work cohesively towards common geelz. The new amanda system should include historic preservation case information. Currently it does not. Implement procedures in the adopted historic landmark report regarding demolition policies and procedures. This include the adequate review of any designated or potentially historic building over 50 years old prior to releasing the demolition permit. Based on our experience, the current process limits reviews to buildings that are at least 74 years old and have readily steabl accessible historic documentation. Subsequently almost all buildings are released for demolition. Demolition should be delayed to reduce the potential loss of contributing buildings. Finally, remodeling permits are regularly used to demolish existing historic buildings. The city is not pursuing these illegal actions because of errors they've made in rosing and are -- in processing and are understaffing. Staffing need to be increased. Make procedural policies clear and workable so that buildings are not lost due to procedure alone. Staff should have support from the law department to prevent such errors. Adequate research should be achieved before a recommendation relative to a demolition request may occur. Preservation staff should be advocates for historic preservation. [ Applause ] staff should present the historic landmark commission recommendations to the land use commission and to the city council. Staff historic landmark preservation should have training. It should be regularly updated. We appreciate your attention and we request that you ask city management to review these concerns and report back to you with actions that need to be taken to ensure a fully functional preservation program for austin. We request with that you identify adequate funding for a functional historic preservation program in this budget cycle. Please note we have at least 77 names which were obtained in the last 24 hours that are signed to this letter. Many more were coming in as we left to come down here today. I will draw your attention to the appendix in the document we have.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, ms. mcgraw. Councilmember morrison.

Morrison: Thank you. First I want to thank all of you for coming out today and bringing this focus on to historic preservation. I think there's -- I think everyone knows we could do a whole lot better in this city and be more proactive in historic preservation. So I thank you all for putting the focus on this. It looks like the preservation plan that you're preferencing, the plan from 1979, has pieces about historic preservation. We had a long drawn out taskforce a couple of years ago that had recommendations. And unfortunate thank all of those end up shutting on the shelves at times. So I would like to ask the city manager if we could get some nomples some staff -- some information to some staff specifically on what actions we could take from all three of those, the taskforce recommendations, as well as the two plans that we're talking about. And then secondly we all know that the budget is extremely constrained. We're looking at cuts here in some pretty important places so I think that now more than ever it's important to look at the alternate funding sources, which karen has provided to us as a start to look at. We know that the hotel bed tax for one specifically is called out as being able to be used for historic preservation, but there are several others that I don't think that we're taking advantage of. So I would appreciate it if we could get that information. I think there's a lot of interest in being able to get some initiatives to move forward.

Mayor Wynn: Mayor pro tem.

McCracken: And I know, karen, you had a map and i wanted you to explain what was on the map for us.

This is a piece of the 1984 survey of cull cultural resources, the 24-year-old comprehensive survey that we work off of. About 24 years ago, noticing that they trigger a review prior to demolition, we went down and looked at the. There were notebooks in a closet in the planning department. We made copies, drew on our own streets and creeks so we could see what the status was of these buildings. This is unique because no other neighborhood has this information at hand. So this is -- this is where our information is in some notebooks someplace, but the citizens do not have access to this information except for this one map that you can't have. I'm sorry, it's ours. [ Laughter ]

McCracken: You sound like the city of austin there. [ Laughter ] I'm going to echo my colleague's comments and the speakers' I don't think there's a day that goes by that we all aren't glad about the public investment and the schneider building next door as an example. So holding on to our heritage, protecting what's special about our community is a worthwhile public investment and part of growing with values like i think patty sprinkle spoke earlier about. One of the ideas perhaps that I heard was the idea of a peer review. We could learn from san antonio and other great cities like savannah, charleston, fort worth all have great programs, and i think we have probably a good connection to what happens in fort worth here inside of city hall and city managers. We have good poibles. Thank you for your efforts.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Mr. guernsey?

Greg guernsey, director of neighborhood planning and zoning. They were nice enough to give me the presentation notes that she gave you, and we can provide a briefing. Hopefully in the next month or two that can tell you where we are and the taskforce recommendations of what has happened to them since time.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you. Councilmember leffingwell.

Leffingwell: I would like to also join councilmember morrison and her why for some kind of analysis from the city manager and perhaps we need a resolution. If we do, let us know to get this process started. We've talked about this for a long time. We've made some baby steps along the way. We've been working on a demolition by neglect ordinance for over a year and a half now. I understand that weave we've asked the -- we've asked the heritage society for their help and they're abouting ready to come forward with a draft on this and I anticipate we'll be reintroducing that very shortly. The remodeling issue is one that we've had to deal with too and actually we did pass a resolution several months ago directing a redefinition of what is remodeling and what is not. And frankly I need to find out what the status of that is. I think you're correct. What we need is a comprehensive approach looking at all aspects of this problem. I don't think there's any question that the -- no question in my mind that the city of austin is well behind our peer cities in historic preservation efforts. We need to correct that. And I would like to finally just say a word about the comment that the greenest building is one that doesn't go into the landfill. I support that. And actually, I have a pin that says that on it, which I was given that pin by some members of this group out here. Maybe be you would like to pass more of those out. Thank you. [ Applause ]

Mayor Wynn: Councilmember cole.

Cole: I'd also like to say that I agree with all my colleagues' efforts, but i especially wanted to applaud the historical society along with many of you I have been informed and are following very closely your preservation efforts in east austin. It is badly needed and I am aware that you are aware of that fact be and i appreciate your efforts.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, councilmember. [ Applause ] so our next speaker then is judith grimes. Judy itdz signed up wish to go address us specifically regarding the east oak hill neighborhood plan. Judith grimes. And we'll hold her spot for a few minutes. To be followed by gavino fernandez that I saw earlier. Welcome, mr. fernandez. Tiew will have three minute. You too will have three minutes.

Good afternoon, council. My name is gavino fernandez and I am with el concilio, the coalition of mexican-american snriefntledz issue that we have been dealing with since may of this year. Because of the increase of construction in the inner city, we have been experiencing 18-wheelers travelling up and down cesar chavez street, and we'd like to see basically be educated on what the meaning of no through truck signs means. I have been given one interpretation. And I am very well aware if a truck of that magnitude or that size is going to deliver within that parameter that they're allowed. So I understand that. What I cannot understand is why 18-wheelers that are carrying dirt are being allowed to travel that street. And before I come here the majority of the times I've gone through the whole process, attended a commanders meeting, i attended -- I received numerous phone call from that organization. But one of the things that we had requested was two motorcycle police officers any given morning to monitor these trucks that are coming down east cesar chavez. As of to date we have not been able to accomplish that. It seems to me like that task of bringing and taking dirt has already expired because within the last week we do not -- I have not seen that many trucks travelling up and down cesar chavez street. But I would like for someone to educate us as to type of enforcement that this sign calls for, if any. If not, it's very misleading. If they're not going to be enforced, take them down because they are misleading. We have a lot of children that travel, that walk from the north of cesar chavez to terrazas library, to the metz swimming pool. We have two housing projects on the nors of cesar chavez. So you always have children coming back be and forth. And a lot of them are children ages six to 15 or 14 years old where where they go to these places and are coming back be and forth. The other issue that I also want to bring the attention to is the contact team. How difficult can that be of a challenge. 2006 To 2008 and we can't get a contact team? Good luck to this group if greg is going to get back with them in two months. I'm here two years and we still haven't been able to address the issue of a contact team. Recently we have a bar that is going to open on cesar chavez and chapa street, and I was under the impression when we passed the neighborhood plan that all those properties -- the c-1 was deleted. And it was all nothing but cs. [ Buzzer sounds ] so because of us not having a contact team, now we have a new tavern that's gone through the process and it's between two single-family homes on cesar chavez. So I'll just leave it at that and hopefully someone will come across and guide us from city staff. Because if you're not going to recognize our contact team, we need to get information anyway, some way, some how. Thank you very much.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, fernandez. I trust somebody with staff has heard those comments and we can figure out how to get that information to you. Let's see, earlier I called judith grimes? Did she come back in the room? So if not, council, that concludes our general citizen communication for this afternoon. We don't have any potential action items before us until well into the afternoon. The mid part of the afternoon we have simply posted for an afternoon budget briefing and sometime 00 an ahfc board of directors meeting. So without objection, we will now go into closed 071 of the open meetings act to discuss potentially two legal items, item 61, legal issues related to our neighbor labor negotiations with our public safety departments, and item 62, legal issues regarding the proposed minority and women owned business enterprise ordinance changes. We may also take up pursuant 086 of the open meetings act, an austin energy issue, posted item number 60 concerning austin energy's fuel and generation resource plans. I've been told earlier that that posting is also broad enough to us to talk about the very specific items related to item number 3 on our agenda, that being the bio mass purchase power agreement that we have postponed action on until the 21st of august, that we may take up those detailed suggestions in closed session pursuant to this posting. So we are now in closed session. I anticipate us being in closed session until sometime approaching , whereby we'll take up budget presentations, the ahfc meeting, which should take us right into our zoning cases. But before we do recess, i see chief holt who might want to say a few woshedz. Words.

Be [inaudible - no mic].

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, chief. Without objection, we are in closed session. Thank you very much.

Mayor Wynn: We are out of closed session. In executive session we took up three items, two legal issues, item 61 and 62. One related to our labor negotiations with our public safety departments. The other our mwbo procurement ordinance. No decisions were made. We also took up vis-a-vis competitive matters, austin energy's fuel and resources plan, item number 60. Again, no decisions made. That ends our executive session agenda for the day. That takes us to our afternoon business a little bit behind schedule, but i think we can catch up quickly. The first afternoon set of business is a briefing. These are the presentations of our manager's proposed fiscal year '08-'09 budget, and we have lumped together our -- some of the funds. And with that I'd welcome leslie broader, our chief financial officer, to start us off.

Thank you, mayor. Mayor and council, this is the first in a series of presentations during august on our proposed budget looking at the various departments that we will be talking to you about. Today our focus is on the enterprise funds. We have robert good, our assistant city manager here torks review the budgets, the proposed budgets for solid waste services and aviation, followed by rudy garza, who will be presenting the proposed budgets for the austin water utility, the austin convention center and then followed by the austin convention and visitors bureau. The presentations will continue in august. We have presentations planned on the 21st and the 28th as well, and then public hearings of course to follow those presentations in the evening. And then as always, just wanted to note we invite the public to visit our website, www.ci.austin.tx.us. Go to the budget web page, and you will be able to view the documents, the presentations, various questions that council has asked and the public may also submit questions there as well. So with that I will turn it over to robert goode.

Mayor Wynn: Thank you, leslie. Welcome mr. goode.

Thank you. I'm doing two departments today. I'm going to do solid waste services department and also do the aviation department. And knowing that y'all like my presentations so much, i have an encore presentation set already for the 21st with the public works department. And with that we'll talk about some of the street maintenance alternatives that we have prepared to you. To begin I'd like to talk about the solid waste services department, and some overarching things that are facing this department in the future and really operational chal floangz this year as well. Solid waste as you know collects refuse, recyclables of our community, the yard waste as well as brush and bulky. They also do street cleaning and as well we also have the code enforcement element within solid waste services department. This department's goals have changed dramatically in the last few years. They really have changed the paradigm that they're operating under and really what we're focused on throughout the entire department and every program is this vision, the zero waste vision. And all the -- this is a critical unifying mission of every program within solid waste services. Many of the programs are making good progress on that vision, but some still need some work to identify their role and their clear part of that vision. I'll talk about that a little bit rairt in the presentation -- a little bit rairt in the presentation. First lied like to move on to some of the operational challenges that the solid waste department has been facing the last few years. This slide reflects the growth they've seen since 1997. That's when the pay as you throw program, the refuse clerks was implemented, and that's the last time there was a fee increase was in 1997. As you can see, the population, the customer base that we're searching as increased dramatically. We have 167,074 customers. This year we expect to have about 174,000 residential customers in '09. That's about a% increase in the customer base since 1997 when the program was implemented. The red line in this graph , the employee count during that same period. It's a little bit misleading because it also has the code enforcement personnel in there as well. If you take be the code enforcement personnel out, there's been about a 10% increase in that same time period since 1997 and the count for that same -- again during that same period. So the customer growth has grown dramatically more than the f.t.e. routes -- f.t.e. Count. In this year's budget, with a customer growth and as well as a single stream recycling, we'll estimate we have to add 61 routes to our this year to handle our customers. On the code enforcement side, we're seeing a dramatic increase in this area of the department. 33% Increase in one year in property abatement investigations. 82% Increase in the zoning investigations. So a tramatic increase in the demand of our community on ensuring that the code violations are mitigated and rectified as soon as we can. This part of the department is also seeing a challenge to move toward more of a preventive education based compliance model versus the enforcement model. And we'll be planning in the next few years to try to make sure that we're making that shift. It's much more cost effective to prevent the code violation than to enforce it in the end. We'll be working on that in the next few year. We also are working on a need on the complaint resolution process. It's simply take too long to rectify violations through the court process and through the internal processes of the department. And we'll be looking at doing that this year. As well as we're looking to do development of benchmarks to make sure that we have the best practices and we are implementing those in the code enforcement side. Fuel costs and personnel costs are really the drivers that drive the budgets of both these areas of the department. Solid waste services has been dramatically affected by fuel costs. This chart will reflect that. Current estimate for this year is in the year spend 9 million on fuel costs. We're proposing -- we're projecting to spend almost 9 million next year on fuel costs and solid waste services, a two-million-dollar increase. That's actually two and a half million dollars over what we have budget understand this year's budget for our fuel costs. Moving on to the other major expenditure in this department, I mentioned fuel. Included with the fuel, the vehicle maintenance cost as we continue to maintain a growing fleet. You add that to the fuel and 3 increase in fuel and maintenance combined. 6-million-dollar increase for debt service for vehicle replacements, equipment and then as you recall we purchased a single stream carts. We have 600,000-dollar increase as we continue to move our snreet towards a green fleet. And that alternative fuel. Wech a 450,000-dollar increase in service contracts. Those are the contracts for when we mow the vacant lots and whools we take down unsafe structures, demolition of dangerous structures. We have about $250,000 in increased land disposal costs this year. As I mentioned earlier, it's a labor intensive department. We project to add 17 new positions to handle this customer growth. Historically the solid waste department has been age to not have the rate increases since 1997, as I mentioned earlier, because they have relied on their cash reserves. And since 1997 when that rate increase was implemented, the pay as you throw program, you can see by this graph that in 1997, '98, '99 the cash reserves began to continue to increase. The red line shown on this graph is the policy -- the reserve requirement that we keep 30 days of -- we should end the year on an ending balance with 30 days' worth of operation expenses and debt service. 3 percent of our budget should be held as cash rrch at the end of the year. To try to minimize the rate impact be, we're actually proposing that we still remain at 5-point # 8% for this upcoming year. That's a one-year only proposal and we'll suggest some different things on a go forward basis, but again that was to minimize the rate impact. This really outlines some of the high level budget facts of the department. As I mentioned earlier, the -- we started this year with with nine million dollars as a beginning balance. And as you can see, we're ending this year with a $3.3 million ending balance. And that again means we're spending our cash to balance this's expenditures. We started this year with a 51-million-dollar revenue projection, and we estimate we believe we'll end up with that estimate. For fy '09 we propose a 66-million-dollar revenue, 66 million dollars' worth of expenditures. And again we'll end the year 4-million-dollar ending balance. We should be at about a four and a half-million-dollar, 9-million-dollar balance to reserve the requirement. But we are proposing that adjustment in the policy for this year. We will end the year with -- we propose to have 463 's in the department with a 17 additional f.t.e.'s. There are no new appropriations for the proposed capital budget for this year, and I'll talk about that a little bit later as we are recommending that we do a master plan through this fiscal year to determine what those capital programs should really look like. This is an expenditure, just a breakout of where the money is going in this $66 million. The pays you throw program is 37% of the budget. The code enforcement is 10%. Litter abatement accounts for almost 15% of the budget. Transfers and other requirements is about 19.8%. That includes the wo