Closed Caption Log, Council Meeting, 9/10/98

>>Garcia: can you give me some volume on this one? hi. How are you? next week -- good afternoon, everybody. My name is Gus Garcia and I serve on the Austin City Council in place 2. At this -- during this period of the meeting, we present proclamations to recognize people that -- and organizations that go above and beyond the call of duty to make this community a better community. Next week here in Austin we will be celebrating the 188th anniversary of a first time that Texas became independent of a european power. It is also the same day that Mexico became independent of a european power. People think that mexican independence is just for Mexico, but for those of you that know history, you know that back in 1810, Texas was part of Mexico and this was the first time in current history that Texas became independent of a european power. So we will be celebrating, and today we have with us the Council general from Mexico and the chair of the foundation here to receive this proclamation commemorating this very important anniversary that the Council general will talk about in just a little bit. Correct?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: and this proclamation says be it known that Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, tempt Texas does hereby proclaim and call on all citizens in recognizing that this is the anniversary of Mexico's independence from spain and continues to be symbolic for the fight for independence of all people. In recognizing that the historic struggle for freedom, justice and freedom are monumental and basic ideals because it represents those ideals, saz saz has been celebrated for almost two sefrmg ris, also in recognizing the members of the fiesta independence foundation for their efforts to bring the history to the people and encouraging everyone to take part in the fiesta and the many other festivities of diez y seis. [Applause].

>> Ladies first.

>> I was asking the Council general to go first because I wanted him to give you a very brief history of this marvelous celebration. He's a wonderful story teller. He's new here -- and history teller. He's new here to Austin and his lovely wife is with us today. Welcome to Austin. We're delighted to have you here. The foundation is proud to sponsor this event. We are having a downtown celebration on tuesday, september the 15th starting at 6:45 p.m. We're going to be located on an outdoor stage between sixth and seventh street and trinity. There's going to be plenty of room. There's going to be food and drinks, soft drinks, and we're going to have the opening of the program with mariachi and then we're going to have a group of dancers folkloRico dancers from round rock so it's going to be an area celebration, and then it's going to be the program is going to be highlighted, the entertainment portion, by the grammy winning band called la differencea. It's going to be a wonderful event, but the highlight will come at 9:45 p.m. When the honorable Council general will step forward and do the reenactment of the call to arms in this struggle for independence. We hope you join us there, it's a family event for all of Austin. Thank you. [Applause].

>> Thank you very much. As gloria said, I have something to tell you about the background of this festivity that is so important for us mexicans. And as well for Texas too. Gus said it. I'm going to refer to the background of this moment, what happened at the beginning of the 18th several ri -- sorry, 19th century. We have to have in mind europe there was a person very important called napolean. Napolean was fighting all the countries in europe and the day he decide to invade spain. To do that, to do so, he took the King of spain and the prince and he invited them to france and then in france they took all the royal family to the -- or royal family as prisoners. And he sent to madrid, his brother joseph, for the King of spain. This news came bit by bit to the new spain. And all that happened in 1808, the situation of the new spain was very special. New spain was very, very rich country. The richest colony that has been had -- that spain had. Something very important, all the people that were working in Mexico, the new spain, since the ending of the 18th several ri did decide to cut the ties with spain saying we are not span yards. We have our own country, we have our own worth. What we have to pay a King in Europe, who was not a very good King too, and when Napolean sent his brother Joseph, he said, well, now why we have to give our taxes to someone who is not spanish. [Inaudible] but as in the movies, always there are the good and the bads. In the new spain, we had a group of very important and rich people that in the Mexican history we call peninsulars, that means span yards, that were not in the move to -- to cut the ties with the first move was cut. But in the countryside and all the groups of intellectuals, rich people, decide to go on and one of them was a priest called miguel. He was the priest of a small town called loloras. And he was a head of one of these movements that were against the -- of napolean. He had orders like agenda, a member of the army, a rich man with a beautiful hacienda, a couple, domingas. His wife, who was a very talented wife, woman, and [inaudible] for the second October 1810. But the bad of the movies appeared, so knew about that and the conspiracy was discovered. Then the news arrived at the loras, he got the news,. Saying we have been discovered and he said, well, the only thing that we have to do now is to prepare ourselves and the spaniards. How we are going to organize that. First he call all the important people of this town and they went to and they give the freedom to the political prisoners that were will. Afterwards they went to the quarters and took all the art from there and they put the Spaniards in jail. After that hidalgo went to the church deloras and with the bell he ring the bell to call people for this religious services that was performed. That happened more or less at ak in the morning on 16 September. And then when all these people was gathered around him he said join me, we are going to fight for independence of our country. We have to go against the bad government, against the europeans. Long live america, long live liberty, long live our independence. That is the act that I'm going to repeat it on the 15th of september evening. It's the call to arms. I'm going to be brief because I know the americans don't like long speeches, but he was successful. This is another fact very important. A member of the army organized these people, poor people and when he realized he had more or less 800 people around him. Then he took horses, half of them were in horses, the other were walking with more arms they couldn't get from the spanish military and they went to another small town. That is very important because they were quite welcome.And he went to the church and there he found a icon the image 6 our lady of guadalupe.You know our lady of guadalupe is like the mexican flag. He took this image and he said that that is going to be my flier. After that he went to a very wealthy City, one of the wealthiest cities in spain because all the mines were around it and when the spaniards knew that all these people were coming against the City, they went to a very strong fortifyed building. Hi dal go asked for the surrender of the City, the Mayor said no, well, the negotiation wasn't possible to get the City and hidalgo began the fight against the people. And there's another -- if I have -- I have enough time to tell -- two minutes?

>>Garcia: two minutes.

>> Yeah. He took and from there they went to another wealthy people. From there he decided to go directly to Mexico City. He won another battle, but we don't know why he -- decided not to take Mexico City. And from there, from this moment, you know, he was defeated and in January 1811 from there he went to the north of the country. He was betrayed, he was executed and after that he was beheaded and the head was exposed until 1821 when we got independence. This is more or less the story. Well, thank you very much for having me here. It's my first time that it take so long the floor in english, but I'm getting used. Next time we are going to -- thank you, everybody. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: if it's okay with the people here to receive proclamations if you could wait just a minute because we have somebody who is going to sing a song and rachel, if you could come up, she is going to sing a song that is very dear to the mexican people as we celebrate independence. Help me welcome raches cruz. [Applause]. (Music)
(Music)
singing (Music)
(Music)
[applause].

>>Garcia: we have a proclamation for you declaring today raches cruz day in Austin. [Applause]. I think she is a teacher at Fulmore.

>> Yes, sir.

>>Garcia: music teacher soon to get ph.d. Or have you finished it?

>> doctor of musical arts.

>> Welcome and thank you so much for all you do for Austin. Thank you. We have some other proclamations we want to presented to representatives here from very, very prestigous organization and Councilmember Beverly Griffith is going to do that. We are celebrating -- if you want to -- if you are going to do it from there, Councilmember, we are doing a proclamation for the family eldercare's 8th annual summer fan drive. And I think we are -- John hamgee, karen langley, executive director and stephanie bowman are here to receive the proclamations.

>> And may we ask them to join us here. Oh, hay. [Speaking spanish]. Okay. Proclamation, be it known by these present that the Mayor of Austin does hereby proclaim september 10th, 1998 as family eldercare's eighth annual summer fan drive day. In Austin. And all -- and we call on all citizens to join us in recognizing that exposure to the Texas heat can be very dangerous, even deadly. In recognizing family eldercare's eighth annual summer fan drive, Written more than 4,000 -- 4,300 fans were collected and distributed to low income elders, people with small children and people with disabilities in the Austin area and that this was more than three times the number of fans distributed in 1997. In recognizing the tremendous effort of all the volunteers and sponsors such as kxan tv 36 and mix 34.7 and commending everyone who gave time and money and energy to provide respit from the heat for needy people and in encouraging everyone to support this, most important program in the future. So be it. [Applause].

>>Garcia: Beverly, you can let John say a few words.

>>Griffith: that's a great idea. John, please respond.

>> Thank you. What I prepared to do today was just to give a report on the fan drive, on our eighth annual fan drive, and I'm not going to take a long time about it, but I think the summer of 1998 is going to be remembered for a lot of different things, but here in Austin one of the things it's going to go down as being most remembered is the record set heat which came upon us with full force so unexpectedly. And it placed in jeopardy many of the fral members of our community. But the response of our central Texas neighbors was absolutely overwhelming and in turn was record setting. Over 4,300 fans were distributed in Travis County and surrounding area. That's three times the number of -- number that had been distributed previously in 1997. It involved numerous volunteers, some of whom are here today and we will honor them a little bit later, and over 30 distribution centers throughout central Texas. Not only were the fans delivered to knows at risk in Austin and Travis County, but also our effort was enlarge to do include bastrop and Williamson counties as well. Including smithville, bastrop, buda, round rock, pflugerville del valle, jonestown, elgin, and rockdale. But it could not have been possible without the word being disseminated, and our special appreciation is due for the generous broadcast time donated by our partner, and this is our partner for the third year in a row, kxan tv channel 36, and by our brand new, 1998 media sponsor mix 94.7. Now, we look forward to many more years of successful collaboration in easing the burden of our frail citizens during our hot summer months and on behalf of family he would care, our volunteers and all of the members of our community who have participated in the successful venture, thank you. [Applause].

>>Griffith: and on behalf of the Mayor and the Mayor pro tem and all the Council, may I please invite to this podium kxan tv channel 36. Bravo. Okay. Community service award. In presenting acknowledgement and appreciation of their participation in the family eldercare's eighth annual summer fan drive and dedicated efforts to become personally active and to involve others in the community to demonstrate a spirit of volunteerism and to make a difference by shaping the future of Austin and other central Texas communities, kxan tv 36 is deserving of public acclaim and recognition and that is signed by the Mayor, Kirk Watson, on behalf of all of the citizens for Austin and the entire City Council. [Applause].

>> I'm stacie shibel along with Bruce bennett and the man responsible for getting kxan involved in the fan drive. With the record surgical heat nearly every day that's what we were talking about and that gave us an opportunity nearly every day to remind everyone who was watching us that there were less fortunate people out there who didn't have air conditioning and who were suffering through the heat each day. So it was a deadly issue. We know how many lives were claimed this summer across Texas because of the heat. We felt we were doing a public service and to hear that 4300 fans were brought in and we helped to do that, were on erd and I'm sure we will continue to be a part of the family he would r care fan drive. So thanks.

>>Griffith: and madame, before you leave tlrx is one more award. There is -- there is more to come.

>> Thank you. Family eldercare also wants to salute our partner, channel 36 and present a plaque in appreciation r its out stand being partnership this year. And I'm going to read it briefly. Family eldercare salutes our partner, kxan tv 36 in the 8th annual summer fan drive wherein a record breaking 4,300 fans were distributed during the severe heat wave of 1998. Stacie and Bruce. [Applause].

>> I just wanted to thank everybody who made this possible and especially kathy, I don't think a lot of credit is given to her, but she is the backbone behind this whole campaign and without her drive it wouldn't be possible. So we're very proud to be a part of this and I want to thank everybody who donated a fan or cash. You really made a difference. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Griffith: kathy, please stand up. Yes, kathy.

>> The driving force is Bruce bennett the promotions director at channel 36 and I thank you. Third year you came on strong as ever and thank you.

>> Thank you.

>>Garcia: we're going to present certificates to the --.

>>Griffith: yes, sir, we are, and on behalf of the Mayor and the Mayor pro tem, Gus Garcia, may I offer this certificate that through their many contributions to our community as sponsor of family eldercare's eighth annual summer fan drive, mix 94.7 has rendered valuable and distinguished service to the citizens of Austin, Texas and then certificate is issued in recognition there off dated this 10th day of september, ad 1998. The City Council of Austin on behalf of all the citizens and signed by Mayor Kirk Watson. [Applause].

>> Brass and stacie said it well, we're glad we could help participate and promote all the hard work done by the folks at family eldercare. We appreciate all the work that you all do. Thank you. [Applause].

>> Also I would like to add on behalf of family he would r care, we would like to specifically recognize mix 94.7 by presenting John height with a plaque and I'll read that. It's family eldercare salutes our media sponsor mix 94.7 for outstanding support of the summer fan drive, 1998. Thank you.

>> Thank you. We appreciate it. [Applause].

>>Garcia: we have certificates for the participants and we're going to present them. Certificates read the same as what Councilmember Griffith read, but we will present one to each one. Mikali bowman. Is she here? [applause]. Gavino and allison morris. [Applause]. Russell herman. [Applause]. Gretchen, ryan and gavin hawkins. [Applause]. Thank you so. Michelle fisher. Ms. Fisher? jim carter. [Applause].

>> Thank you.

>>Garcia: henry j. Fine. Did I pronounce that correct? betty bell. Dawn and jolie persamide. [Applause]. Last but certainly not least jennifer and cora hail. [Applause]. Thank you so much.

>> I just want to reiterate our thanks and appreciation to the community for its tremendous response to the heat wave that we experienced here in Austin. I'm karen langley, the executive director of family eldercare. As any wise executive director knows you can't do it without a terrific staff, and we are giving this award to stephanie bowman who was a summer intern and did just an outstanding job as performance for summer fan drive. [Applause].

>> Thank you very much, and thanks to all my volunteers. It couldn't have been done without them. [Applause].

>> And gloria who is here for the earlier proclamation deserves a huge round of applause and thank you for the senior centers and the Austin neighborhood centers who acted as the distribution sites for the summer fan drive. And if anyone is watching, if anyone out there needs a fan, they still have a lot of them. So thank you, very much, gloria for actinging as the drive and distribution.

>>Garcia: thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: we'll get started in just a minute. We need one more person in if chambers for a quorum.

>>Garcia: at this time I would like to invite pastor clyde poldrack from bethel assembly of god to bring us the invocation. Pastor, welcome.

>> Thank you, Mr. Garcia. We are glad to be here today and appreciate this opportunity to pray. We bring you greetings from bethel assembly of god in south Austin, and we greet this City Council. There are a couple of things that are on my mind in prayer today, is to pray for your wisdom today, guidance for you and that god would bless you and also just to ask of the citizens of Austin that are praying people to pray for this Council and pray for their Mayor every day in their home this. Is a formal moment for me and it's a passing moment in time, but also, Mr. Garcia, when we learned of your illness there were a lot of people that prayed for you and we're glad to see you here in good health today.

>>Garcia: thank you.

>> Heavenly father, this is a day that you have made. There are so many things to be thankful for and we do rejoice and thank you for this City Council and for our Mayor. Lord, the business that they have at hand is a tremendous load on their shoulders so I pray first of all for their unity among themselves. Peace in their heart that when they have made a decision, they have made it for the benefit of all. I pray, lord, for their wisdom and I pray for their knowledge and that you give them guidance in their understanding. We ask for your blessings upon our City. We ask for your bless innings upon our Mayor and upon every member of this Council and of their staff. We pray that you would take care of them today, keep them in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

>>Garcia: thank you, pastor. There being a quorum of the Council I would like to call this meeting to order. And the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to read into the record the changes and corrections and the time certains. Item no. 23 Should read as follows: approval a contract with smart track in the amount of $105,000 with an option to purchase up to 20 additional recycle bodies over the next 24 months in an amount not to exceed $350,000 for each fiscal year for a total contract amount of $805,000. Item no. 47, Approve a construction contract with Austin filter system is pulled off the agenda. It's not ready for action. Item no. 49 Should read: approve a contract with lamar sixth Austin, inc., whereby Austin energy services will provide the following. No. 1, Aes will purchase up to $1 million in central chilling plant equipment for use in lamar sixth Austin marketplace project. Such equipment to be purchased by lamar over a 20 -- over a 20 year period. No. 2, Related engineering service for which aes, and this is the change, will receive a one time payment of $125,000. And 3, related billing services for which aes will be paid $30,000 per year to be adjusted annually during the course of the agreement for the 25 years. Item no. 54, Staff report to funding is pulled off the agenda. The time certains are as follows: at 2:30, item no. 11, Acceptance of a epa brown field assessment demonstration grant in the amount of $200,000 is at 2:30. At 4:30 we have our regular zoning hearings. And action on those items. And at 6:00 we have a public hearing -- a public hearing on an appeal by joe quintero and kathy vaz committees of the Planning Commission's decision to approve a permit for the Arnold oil company. Those are the changes, corrections and time certains I will read into the record after we have citizens communication general the consent agenda, but we may wait until after the time certain to do that. First item is to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of september 2nd and 3rd, 1998. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

>>Griffith: so moved, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Griffith seconded by Councilmember Goodman. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Motion carries on a vote of five to zero to two with the Mayor and Councilmember Spelman absent from the meeting. I think Councilmember Spelman should be joining us momentarily. The next item on the agenda is citizens communication general and the first speaker the Mr. Robert l. Thomas, and following him Mr. John k mc Millan, and following him Mr. Gus pena. Mr. Thomas, welcome, sir.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem Garcia and members of the Council. I'm honored to speak with you today concerning the rosewood park and recreation center. I'm Robert l. Thomas of the building and construction trades department of the laborers international unions of north america. Texas and Austin afccio and the national football league, world football league and american football association. I'm the advisory Council for the renovation projects of the 1987 administrative office building al the rosewood recreation center and including the central City entertainment center. It's been many years since I've -- since rosewood has undergone revitalization project that I've been speaking to you in concern of the condition of rosewood. Today I would like to speak with you in concern of termination of athletes within the parks and recreation department. At rosewood there is management that must be changed and those should be discussed now within areas of trying to remove away the old management and bring in ours as new management. Now, the reason why is that we've not been treated very fairly within the employment process within speaking with the parks and recreation directers. I must explain now for years rosewood has been my project for revitalizationization and during a span of 20 years we have explored industrialism in areas where needed. I must speak of the rules of the central City entertainment center and affiliation that I've had with contractors there. First it was the clovis and his engineers. Then came southwest construction incorporation. [Inaudible] demolition of the old shopping mall at the -- soon to be central City entertainment center. Now under construction is descon with don hennings as supervisor which has grown into a project with plumbers and carpenters and laborers. Now I must speak of the termination of the old management at rosewood. We need the athletic management there that would be able to bring on some fairness toward what we have given rosewood. I've spoken to you so many times about the condition of rosewood and what we needed to do and nothing has ever happened for the administration of athletics there. Now, Mr. Garza, I would like for you to help me with this project. I need you and requesting you that we speak with Jesus ol var ra in concerning of getting that old management away so we can have an opportunity to bring ours at least before december. [Buzzer sounds].

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Thomas.

>> All right, thank you.

>>Garcia: Mr. John k. Mc Millan followed by Mr. Gus pena. Mr. Mc Millan welcome.

>> Thank you, Mr. Garcia. I'm John mc Millan president of the progressive prohibition religion, a quality of life religion here in town. I'm here to recommend that the City of Austin personally establish an advisory traffic safety commission that would hold monthly meets on a year round basis here in Austin. For many reasons. No. 1, The incidents of motor vehicle accidents on roadways throughout Austin in our rapidly growing City here is alarmingly high. As the Austin american-statesman of January 6th, 1998 reported, the Austin police department recorded 67 motor vehicle deaths at Austin in 1997, eight more than the year before. 20 Of those happened on the interstate highway. No. 2, Poorly designed roadway conditions including poorly designed intersections are contribute to go the hazardousness of driving conditions on -- in Austin. Lieutenant howard Williams of the Austin police department's traffic division was quoted as saying the same January 8th, 1998 american-statesman article, quote, what makes it even more dangerous on interstate highway 35 is that so many of the entrance ramps in the City are so small. This forces motorists on IH-35 to speed up between the ramps and then slow down again to let traffic in from the ramps. Another example of a hazardous driving condition can be found in the bottles neck created along north lamar boulevard, the one lane bottle neck on the far right lane there where traffic is expected to merge if they want to get to highway 183 or to anderson lane. No. 3, At present a deplorable lack of communication with -- within our City government is occurring in regard to traffic safety issues. That's partly because a traffic -- the traffic soldiers for the City of Austin are not required by the City of Austin to officially consult the traffic division officers of the Austin police department regarding to proposed changes in roadway design features around Austin. Officer Robert hassleman, a senior policeman from the Austin police department's traffic division told me in a phone interview last month, quote, we can make recommendations to the City's traffic engineers, but they don't listen to us much. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Mc Millan. Mr. Gus pena is next followed by Mr. Gerald daugherty and then Mr. Leonard lyons. Mr. Pena, welcome, sir.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem gauze Garcia, City Council members, I'm Gus pena president of East Austin concerned hispanics. No. 1, I would like to speak on the issue of the budget. This coming Monday you all are either going to pass on first reading, second reading or whatever the budget, the 1998 budget. We are requesting, first of all, that you all remember the commitment to the taxpayers and residents of Austin in and for the best interests of the people of Austin, the children youth, senior citizens, youth programs, road infrastructure, pay raises for the City employees -- I use to be a City employ he also, got $6.80 as a bay live, wasn't much more to job we did. Police, fire, e.m.s., basic services. We also still are requesting that the City of Austin allocate and appropriate funding for the after school programs at ortega elementary, brook and other elementary schools and two middle schools much these programs provide educational services and other projects to keep elementary students active after school. Chip harris of the library commission last week brought up a concern about the potential loss of children's programs and services within the Austin public library system. You cannot cut the funding for youth programs at the libraries. These are very key and essential programs. You need to look at revitalizing the community such as ortega community. The residents of ortega community and community leaders are assisting the community in their needs and concerns, but we also would ask the City Council target that community for assistance similar to what the assistance that you gave to dove springs and also saint John's and central East Austin. This community needs help and they are crying for help out there. Remember ortega community needs help. It is incumbent upon the Austin City Council to provide resorsz and outreach to a proud and outstanding community. Remember ha the City charter categorically states, the assistance to all of Austin. Not just parts of Austin. On tuesday we will be meeting with Chief Knee to continue our dialogue on issues pertain to the community and the police department and its direction under the reorganization of the Austin police department. We appreciate the prudent, diligent hard work you all have done on the budget. Don't hurt the people. Make the right decisions to fund services and programs for our youth and the best interest of the people. As people celebrate Mexico's independence on september 15th and 16th we continue to wage our war on poverty, it lil ra si, social injustices, disparity, crime and lack of appropriate responses from our elected officials and this is regarding our elected officials to our community. One day we the people will celebrate our independence from the social indifferences and social injustices. When will our elected officials listen to the cries of the people? [buzzer sounds]. Listen to them. Do the appropriate thing. Thank you all very much.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Pena. Mr. Gerald daugherty followed by Mr. Leonard lyons and Mr. Kenneth snyder. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor pro tem, I'm glad that you are feeling better. I mean Garcia. And Mr. Garza. I'm glad that you are feel better, Mayor pro tem Garcia. Gerald daugherty, I have lived in this town for 30 years. Some of you probably know my passion to be a small organization that we have here in town called capital metro. I'm really am excited about you all giving the citizens the opportunity to vote on things like the palmer retrofit, I think that's a grade idea. I mean I think there's a lot more that can be done with that over there than what is being done and I applaud you for letting us have the opportunity to do that. I know that you think that I'm sometimes a nay sayer about this whole mess of mobility and transportation, but I will assure you that after having lived here for 30 years and with every intent to live the rest of my life here, I would like to be able to get around in this community like everyone else would. But we do have a problem with this organization, and you all know that there is a problem. About two years ago I got 11,000 signatures, and I got 11,000 signatures to do something about capital metro not to skwach capital metro, but to put them in line with what I think most of the people in this community think where they should be, which is part of a City service. The City service of public transportation is just like anything else. I did about a thousand of these surveys where I just said would you rank these City services, and there are everything from e.m.s., fire, garbage, libraries, parks and recreation, police, public transit and street repair. No. 1 Out of a thousand would the police, new 2 e.m.s. And 3 fire. With a 7.1 average is public transportation. What is wrong with this? our police department this year will have a budget of about $80 million. Our e.m.s. Will be somewhere around 12 million. Our fire will be around 55 million. In last place on this survey with a 7.1 average is public transit with a budget of $135 million this year. Something is wrong. This community deserves the opportunity to look at that again. I'm here to ask you if we can put everything on the ballot from a $10 million baseball stadium to partnership insurance that would have cost five to six hundred thousand dollars to the palmer retrofit why can we not allow this community one more time to ratify and say we want to leave you out a penny or we want to take you to a half a penny. I have no intentions of doing away with public transit. That's not what this thing is about. You all can help do this. Don't make me get out on the street and go through the rig ma role of getting 25 or 30,000 signatures and going to the legislature. It's not necessary. You all can do it. Don't be frightened by this. Give us the opportunity, please. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Daugherty. Mr. Leonard lyons and Mr. Kenneth snyder.

>>Goodman: can I ask Mr. Daugherty something before he --.

>>Garcia: sure.

>>Goodman: could you tell me what the language was again? did you say satisfaction or importance or priority? what was -- what was the answer to --

>> are you talking about in the survey that I did?

>>Goodman: yeah.

>> It very simply just said would you rank these municipal services in the order of what you consider to be the most important, with one being the most important and go down through eight.

>>Goodman: okay. Thank you.

>>Garcia: Mr. Lyons welcome.

>> Thank you very much. I want to talk about purchasing, rfp. I've been stabbing at this thing, it's too big a subject to talk in three minutes and I'm wasting time now. We bought a telephone switch, a telephone system $600,000 switch, $1.2 million rfp. We didn't need it. What does that have to do with an rfp? what's the process of get an rfp? it's establishing a need in the business plan. But we overpaid for it. First off, we didn't need it because we have two others. Second, we are outfitting the call center. Our furniture was 400% more than market price on that rfp before it was pulled. I don't know what it is now. The electricity, cabling for electric phone and cable was 80 times market price. My point is on an rfp process, who is responsible? who really knows what is going on? who is held accountable? nobody. Why was it pulled off? well, you tell me. You guys pulled it off the agenda. What is happening to it? it's going to be put out in little pieces so we can't recognize it anymore and we'll probably pay even more. No place in the rfp process did we have legitimate -- I don't say legitimate bidders. These are two detective others of people having to do with tell Marting centers and telephony centers. We have two local retailers that were bidding and only one qualified. No national company was so list it. An rfp, it's a pretend, it's false. It is an illusion, an excuse for doing something because they don't know how to do anything. Whoever they are, and someone has got to say enough. Mr. City Manager, that's you. Enough. We can talk using serious words like malFAAce, misfee sans and nonfee sans, look them up in the dictionary. I'm going to distribute the dictionary explanation of those. No one fee sans is -- well, I'm not going to get into that. You have situations time after time whether we talk about the concessions at the airport, whether we talk about the parking agreement, wherein complete thinking and inaccurate kinds of solutions are developed by people that don't know much about it and it's not put out in public and we buy it. If we put out a bid for a $100 bill, I guarantee we pay $250 for it. And no one is looking, no one is watching, no one cares because if we run out of money all we do is either reduce services or increase taxes. What have you guys done in the years that you've been here? we have more employees, we have a higher budget and a lower level of service. [Buzzer sounds].

>> Mayor pro tem?

>>Garcia: City Manager.

>> Two quick points. One, the issue of the switch, there was extensive discussion at work session with the Austin City Council. We had the engineer in charge of that project from electric department come and ask all the questions. There were a series of issues raised about whether we needed that switch. She was able to in short order be able to explain why we needed it and why the issues that were being raised by the opposition or people who thought we didn't need it, they were simply wrong and inaccurate. I would be happy to sit down with Mr. Lyons and walk him through that information and data so he could have the benefit of that. He may have missed the discussion. The second point with with respect to the call center, that was a bid and we pulled it for reasons having to do not with the bid, about but there were issues -- we do specifications. People pick those up and bid the project. And we as are required to go with the low bid unless they are nonresponsive and he knows that process. Those are the two points I wanted to make.

>>Slusher: I would also -- Mr. Lyons, if you have any evidence of the City paying 80 times over market for something, I would appreciate if you would put it in writing because it's a lot easier just to get up and say those things that might sound good on tv, but I personally, if you have evidence --

>> I'm not on tv, I'm talking directly to you.

>>Slusher: I remember also when you came down to talk about the bond election, sounded very thor at a time I have and you had the funding sources backwards and were lambasting us for that. Whatever the case, if the City is paying 80 times over market eight times over market, three times over market, I would be interested in seeing that, but I would rather see it in writing from you than just hear you hurl it out at the microphone. You've certainly got every right to do that, but if you really want something to be done about this sort of thing, I would like to see the evidence so I can act on it.

>> That would be fine. I would be happy to give it to you as long as you are going to do something with it.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Lyons. The last speaker is Mr. Kenneth snyder. Welcome, sir.

>> My name is kenneth snyder, I live in northridge acres. Hopefully I won't have to come up here.

>>Garcia: can you hold just a second? put it back to three minutes, please. And make sure that that mike is on. Bring that mike down.

>> My name is kenneth snyder, I live on northridge acres subdivision. Basically I'm just here from the resolution, I gave you all a resolution last week from City of round rock when they passed a resolution to help us and trying to get help from you all too. I'm sure -- I don't know if you all had a chance to go over it and everything, I just wanted feedback what you all think about it and everything. It also had a petition in there too everybody signed out there at northridge. We got another -- probably about another 100 people out there besides that, a lot of renters out there. Can you all tell me anything?

>>Garcia: Mr. Goss?

>> randy goss is here to try to answer those questions.

>> Councilmembers, the issue about providing service to northridge acres, I think last time Mr. Snyder brought up the fact that the Council of round rock had passed a resolution, I think this resolution has been passed out to you all. We -- we in the water and wastewater are working with the City of round rock to do two thins, one is on the waste water side enter into an interlocal agreement with the City of round rock that would be brought back to this Council for approval of course to be able to take the northridge acres area on a wholesale basis and be served by the City of round rock. As you know it's a water supply corporation, they would need to build their own internal facilities, but being within the Austin ety, we've offered this, this has been on the table for a listening time here that we would work with them to provide that wholesale waste water services through the City of round rock. Likewise on the water side, once their system is built, we would provide a wholesale water agreement with northridge acres and we've been dealing with the proper authorities within that water supply corporation, the board members and the president and so forth related to that. So I think we're well on our way and have been talking with round rock and will continue to do so.

>>Garcia: thank you. Councilmember Slusher?

>>Slusher: well, he's -- if you still want to say something, go ahead.

>> We're going to kill the supply corporation out there. The program is not working. I want City of Austin or round rock to take it completely so we won't have to worry about boards or anything like that because everybody out there is incapable of run thg system. And the step program is not going to work at all, never going to get off the ground, they don't have the money or the people to do it. We got the resolution where we come in and get a contract to put it in and what they want and City of round rock and they want to combine Austin and round rock is going to help us and they want the travis and Williamson county to come together and get this thing done. We have been fighting it for almost four years now, and the step program been going on three years and we still ain't get nowhere. We got sick people out there and it's getting bad and I think I'm about ready to drop myself. That's all I'm asking for is just get you all to take -- come in there, take it in completely so we don't have to worry about it because we don't need no corporation out there. There ain't that many people going to support it anyway.

>>Garcia: thank you. Councilmember Slusher?

>>Slusher: you say this offer has been on the table for four years.

>> I didn't say -- it's been, golly, within the last year and a half, two years that we've informed the northridge acres people that we've been willing to work with them to enter into an agreement with round rock on the waste side and also to provide water on off -- off on our mains that actually put a line under need 1325 there so they could put in their wholesale meter and tie on to our system. And I don't know, we've talked to ken about this some time ago and so that's been on the table.

>>Slusher: and tell me a little bit about the governing ebt entity and the subdivision.

>> Well, there is a -- it's like a water supply corporation, Mr. Snyder maybe will explain more bit, but they have their own ccn, which they have the right and the obligation to serve water and waste water within that area. And it's similar to some of the other entities that we've dealt with, thi or lamp light village. So we can deal with them on a wholesale basis and that's been our intent is work with them to provide wholesale water and waste water to them.

>> You can't take -- we need City of Austin to take care of it completely.

>>Slusher: okay, I understand. Now, this is an area that was previously annexed into the City a few years ago and they petitioned and got out of the City; is that correct?

>> that's my understanding, that there was a petition to get out at one time they were in City of Austin and desired to get out of there.

>> Takes five years, didn't get nothing.

>> That's been a few years ago.

>> We've paid taxes for four or five years. We got a --.

>>Garcia: Mr. Snyder, sir, this is the period of time for the Councilmembers to ask questions of staff or you, whichever.

>>Slusher: yield the floor to Councilmember Lewis.

>>Garcia: Councilmember Lewis.

>>Lewis: I went out there and did a tour of northridge acres and I understand I was with one of the people from the water department. It's 2.1 miles from our line down to the entry to northridge acres, and as I read the resolution, and tell me if I'm incorrect, but the round rock was -- would supply the water to the ccn to -- so that they could supply it to northridge acres if we gave them -- if we sold them water on a wholesale water, is that the way it is?

>> on the water side, we have a City of Austin main and it's the same main that goes out to serve round rock, but it's -- they built it and turned it over to us for operations and maintenance. and this would be the main that we are currently in the process of designing a section of line that will go underneath 1325 because that's a fairly difficult construction portion to get that line underneath the roadway. And in that -- that would allow northridge acres as a wholesale customer to tie on at that point and tie it into their many is. On the waste water side, what round rock is proposing is that on interim basis they have a line that has capacity that they could serve for interim time and then eventually would have to be tied into a new line that is not built yet.

>>Lewis: they just built an apartment complex that backs right up to northridge acres, and now I had talked to some people at one point to just have round rock to service -- round rock is already buying water from us on a wholesale basis, right?

>> they have contracted. They have not started taking water yet.

>>Lewis: oh, but what would be the -- and that was my thing, what would it be -- what would be involved to -- for round rock to service the ccn that services northridge acres because their line runs right to northridge acres. We would have to drill under 1325, I understand that, I was up there, but they -- they have apartment complexes right there at northridge acres, plus the commercial area is what, 250 feet from the end of the line over there?

>> two inches -- about two foot from us. Right next door [inaudible].

>>Lewis: that one factory is -- has water and it's fire hydrant, fire hydrants there right next across the fence from the end of that street, and I was asking why couldn't they just tie onto it there and block off the wells and flush out the system, because everything is connected up, I mean as far as water goes. I understand that the sewage line is going to be a little more complicated, but just to be able to get water, you know it's -- I don't know, what, it's one point -- no, I think it's 1.8 miles down that street to the new apartments from the main street that goes into northridge acres and it's only about 200 yards or so from the commercial on the -- at the end. But -- you know, I don't know -- I'm not sure what all is involved in -- with the third party. I mean, well, the supplier of the water, the -- so is it possible that they could -- they could buy water from round rock and -- as a wholesale customer and resupply it to round rock or what? how would we do that?

>> well, that's possible. I think round rock's position has been that since it's in Austin's etj that -- and it also has its own ccn their desire thought to take them on as their customer. Two other considerations certainly is do they have capacity in that system in order to be tied on to. They should, but the other is there's still a concern about the internal system within northridge acres that the current organization is planning to get funded and get built. And that -- you tie it on to a City system with higher pressures it may ble the whole thing out. That would be something that would have to be looked at.

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem? Mr. Goss, so basically it comes down to financial issue in large part?

>> certainly, as far as the organization that has a ccn, the water supply corporation to be able to get the financing to build the internal system, the internal pipes, both on the water and waste water side and then to simply tie on to round rock or Austin is what we are trying to accommodate to allow that to happen.

>>Slusher: okay. Does -- two things -- let me ask you about state powers. Does -- it seems like that the ccn or the -- whatever the group is that is servicing this area, it apparently is not going a -- doing a very good job. Now, does the state have any power to come in and compel them to do better based on health concerns or any other type of concerns?

>> well, I don't want to speak out of my expertise here, but certainly as a public water supply the state does have jurisdiction over that to make sure that they are providing the safe -- safe water for those customers. So yes, I would say in answer to that, yes, they have jurisdiction over that.

>>Slusher: okay. And what about are there any state programs that could aid this group maybe in con juns with the City of Austin but -- conjunction with the City of Austin, is there anything like that in funding?

>> that's one of the areas this particular group is looking at and they mentioned the step program. There's been some difficulties in getting that to closure similar to some of the colonias issues that have been in the paper recently.

>> Requiring people to pay back.

>>Lewis: yeah, and as I understand it, with the step program, the only way they can get it is to be incorporated. Is that -- I mean you have to have some entity to accept it.

>> Right, you have to have an entity, but that's what they have formed out there. They have -- I'm not sure if it's a water supply corporation or what exactly they are calling them, but they have a board of directors they've elected and so forth that has been working with accepting this funding.

>>Slusher: that was --.

>>Lewis: that's what I understand --

>> the homeowners to start with.

>>Garcia: Mr. Snyder.

>>Lewis: I was going to ask Mr. Snyder, is it that the homeowners form a corporation or did they -- I know they had said they was because they had an engineer that was going to do the engineering at no cost at one time.

>> The way it started out --.

>>Lewis: would you get the mike?

>> the way it started out, we was in a om owners -- homeowners association, we break even on the bills, barely have enough to pay bills, all it is is a nonprofit thing. Then they put in for a grant. They dropped the grant -- federal passed it but the state dropped it. We found out the other way around. We had that there going and everything, then they turned around and said we're going to have to form a corporation. We didn't want to corporation because we want City of Austin and round rock to take it. Told us if we don't get the corporation we are going to drop the project. So we went on and got the corporation and that's the reason we have a corporation. They got to ccn about two, three months ago. But we had coliform in our water three times in a row and the board never said nothing about it, we had people getting sick, water never been any good from day one. Right after that brushy creek spill, our water was contaminated the day after that. We're in the edwards aquifer. We need waer water and sewer. Our lines is like an inch and a half to less than two inch, small lines in there, but they can put a reducer on there where you can reduce it where it will be the same level until we get the lines in. But we need to get the lines in and everything, the step program has been going on, they told us get a new board, then we'll start with the step program. We have people lined up that could have done the job but they backed off, they are all gone because they made them mad. Okay, now they don't have anybody to do the project. They even got enough -- they ain't got enough money to do the project. That's why I've been begging you all and the City of round rock to get something done. We had 14 deaths in less than two years. I don't know if it's related to it, but I'm about ready to drop myself. I'm coughing all the time. I'm under a doctor's care. Water is bad, all kinds of chemicals, cancer agents and everything. You've been out there, I saw you out there, you know the problems out there. When it rains, got water in the ditches, we got krau dads out there almost as big as lobsters. Kids play in the ditchers and it's get worse and worse every day. Yes, we was in the City of Austin. When the City of Austin came out -- when I first bought out there we was in the City of Austin and I said we have it made because City of Austin put sewer in there. We paid for five years solid out there to City of Austin we never got nothing out there. Had a kid get hit by a car out there because the county didn't cut the grass out there and when the kid got hit they sued the City of Austin. I don't know if you know all that or not, but they did sue the City of Austin. I don't know if they won their suit or whatever. But anyway, about a couple months after that they said we're going to take you out of City of Austin. And that's when they took us out.

>>Lewis: let me ask you, now, you said a corporation is in effect now.

>> Yes. It's the same -- well, it's homeowners that got the corpse.

>>Lewis: right. I understand that the commissioner -- your Williamson county commissioner was working with the group.

>> Well, working with -- with h.u.d., the housing, with the step program. When I say working with the homeowners and the orption too. Homeowners and corporation same thing. Supposed to be in name only until we get the project on the road is what it's supposed to be. Now we got people up there got a big head I guess and they are trying to form corporations and push people around out there. Calling the health department on everybody out there. We just got a bad board out there now. And it's volunteer, nobody gets paid on that board, it's all volunteer. I think they are trying to make a big business out of it. I think got about a -- about 97 meters and another 50 houses on private wells. People out there is just low income neighborhood. And we're just trying to get better and everything. We will be glad to take it even have the pay some money, we'll pay it out like City of Austin like my dad do in Austin, pay so much a month until they got it paid up, whatever it takes. But we are begging, I guarantee we are begging, but we will build ourselves up. We got a serious problem, it's got to be addressed and fixed. I don't know any other way to do it. Step program would work, I would be all for it. But tell you they are going to bring the army in there, corps of engineers, I called and said they don't do that kind of work.

>>Lewis: who is your commissioner? son light -- sonleitner?

>> sonleitner on one side and hilgenstein.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Snyder.

>>Lewis: I'll be doing some checking on it.

>> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Maybe I won't have to come up no more.

>>Garcia: that's all the general communication. Citizens communication general speakers that we have. At this time I'm going to call up our time certain item of 2:30. And I'll read it intoist record first. Resolution authorizing acceptance of the brown field in the amount of $200,000. In your backup, Councilmembers you have in the rca an explanation of the project and I will not read it into the record, which I'm sure you already have. What I would like to do is introduce the region 6 epa personnel and some elected officials that are here. I'll started with the elected officials or their representatives. Margaret lauder back from the -- senator kay bailey hutchison's office. Is she here? patty everett, I saw you back there. Welcome. Third district director for Congressman lloyd doggett. Daniel shau representing state representative donna dukes. From the federal government and the state, myron knutson, super fund director. Welcome, sir. Stand head, epa -- he is not here. Monica smith, epa region 6 brown field project manager welcome. Mr. Charles eperson. Volunteer clean upprogram manager. Welcome, sir. Barn ellington, voluntary cleanup program project manager, welcome. Do we have any representatives here from capco? okay. We also have from the City of georgetown, Mayor leo wood. Formerly from zapata, Texas, now from georgetown. I know that because I used to be from over there. We're related I guess a little bit in that manner. From the property orntion, we have Mr. William faust, walnut creek improvement association. I saw you here earlier. There you are. Welcome, sir. Lee ellison from objection ford commercial, inc., and earl britain also from oxford. From metcalf and eddie jeannie wiggington. Welcome. And from the City of Austin, I'm going to ask you, Mr. Rhoades to introduce everybody here from the City. Mr. William e. Rhoades director of solid waste services.

>> Thank you. It's a great honor I'm here this afternoon and hope that Council approves acceptance of this grant application. City of Austin will be -- solid waste services will be using this money to be seed money to help redevelop properties mainly in east Austin. The properties are undeveloped because they are perceived to be contaminated and we want the find out if they are contaminated and if we can to find out what is wrong with them and have them cleaned up and redevelop into usable property for the tax rolls of the City of Austin. Work with with me on this program will be joe word from solid waste services. Katherine esparza, our brownfield manager. Bernadette is a program specialist. Also supporters of the project is mike looits l. Heitz from watershed -- heitz, tear race mike from the manager of keep Austin beautiful, lawrence darcy and greg smith from the neighborhood and community development services. And so at this time I would like to just turn it back over to Council and see if you approve this grant.

>> Mr. Rhoades recommends approval.

>> Yes. We also have my ron knutson. [Laughter]. We also have myron who is here with a -- a little check. For the amount for this grant.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Rhoades. I'm going to ask patty from Congressman doggett's office to bring us a few remarks. Patty, welcome.

>> It's a pleasure to see you, Mayor pro tem. I hate to -- I'm glad I'm speaking before the check. Hate to speak after the check. Congressman doggett is in washington, I have just a very brief message. We've worked with the City on this and certainly he has supported all the epa funding for this in dc so I have a short note. I regret I must be in washington and cannot join you to announce the City's grant to develop this project. I applaud the City's initiative to begin clean up sites that have been neighborhood problems for many years and their efforts to include neighborhood residents in the planning. I believe that this program gives us a real opportunity to get resources specifically targeted at neighborhoods which have fallen victim to long abandoned properties and create new businesses and new jobs on these sites. I think focus on East Austin is a good compliment to the redevelopment projects underway. As always I will work with the City of Austin on additional grants from the federal government to continue projects which help neighborhoods in Austin. Congressman doggett. Thank you all. [One moment please].

>> Back several months ago on this, it's an honor to see epa award the citizens of Austin and its leaders in this outstanding endeavor, so I congratulate you.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. Mr. Knutsen? now is the time:.

>> Seems like I was like popcorn, just popping up and down. Just certainly a pleasure to be here representing the environmental protection agency. This, as you know, is -- as far as we are concerned, this is we are sort of like the trojan horse, we hope we come in and infilth rate you, contaminate your mind, so that -- in fill at any rate you so you will want to continue this in your urban areas. We wish you the best of luck. This program is -- is a little different than other federal programs. Almost no rules. This is an experiment. This is something that you all can decide what you want to do with. Each of our grants are a little different. Whatever the City proposes, if it looks good, we say, well, let's try it. We are local government -- local government, of course, is where all things develop and start from. We have several grants now to various cities in our region and our agency around the nation. We are hoping that coming from this people will gain knowledge about what works best in their government, what works best for their community. And obviously we are hoping there will be a lot of public participation and -- of how the urban areas can be redeveloped, how -- how the properties can be put back into commercial use, jobs created and, of course, for some of us that live off the tax roll, we hope the taxes come back to street and to the federal government. With that, we have a symbolic check.

>>Garcia: you have to gift it to the City Manager.

>> I have to, oh, sorry.

>>Garcia: the citizens of Austin in all of their infinite wisdom decided that the Council should not touch money. [Laughter].

>> I am not sure that I believe you. But -- [laughter].

>> Thanks you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Knutsen.

>> I just hope the Council does approve this item. [Laughter].

>> Celebration after.

>>Garcia: at this time I would entertain a motion to approve item 11.

>> Move approval.

>>Garcia: Mexico by Councilmember Spelman, seconded by Councilmember Slusher. All in favor signify by saying ". Opposed no, motion carries.

>> Mayor pro tem we have a few refreshments in the back to visit with the officials that are here, get a chance to visit.

>>Garcia: motion to recess for five minutes. Motion by Councilmember Slusher, seconded by Councilmember Spelman. We recessed for five minutes. If the officials and their guests would join us in the room behind the Council chambers. We would like to visit with you a little bit. Thank you so much for this grant and I can assure you that we will use it in the right way. (Council in recess for five minutes)

>>.

>>Garcia: being a quorum of the Austin City Council in the chambers, I am going to call this meeting back to order. If all of you will take your seats, please. Council we will now take up the -- the consent agenda. And the following -- the following items -- yeah, let me -- let me -- well, go ahead, Councilmember.

>>Lewis: I would like to -- [inaudible].

>>Garcia: put your mike on.

>>Lewis: okay. Item 12 and item 46 --.

>>Garcia: item no. 12 And item no. 46 --.

>>Lewis: I'd like to pull number 29. I just have a question.

>>Garcia: 29 is pulled.

>>Lewis: someone can answer it.

>>Garcia: the following items will be considered in the consent agenda: tim no. 12, No. 13, No. 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 -- Well, I thought that I would speed it up a little bit, we are getting used to this. 42 -- I mean 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, and the consent agenda -- I will also include that item no. 54 Has been pulled off the agenda, when you make the motion that approves that item being pulled off of the agenda.

>>Lewis: also put no. 17 Back on. So people can -- solid waste can go to work.

>>Garcia: 17 is back on the --.

>>Lewis: but I am going to be watching my street to make sure. I got a little flag out there every time they sweep it.

>> Stephen miller thanks you very much, he was terrified of having to answer in front of Council. Mayor pro tem you mentioned 47, but that has been pulled off the agenda. Austin filter systems. That should be pulled.

>>Garcia: approving item 47 is off the agenda. They are pulling it off. We have a few -- we have three speakers on the consent agenda. First is leonard lyons and he signed up for items no. 18 And 41. Mr. Leonard lyons. And he is registered against both of those items. Mr. Lyons. Mr. Phillip burkes. Mr. Phillip burkes. Is he here? Mr. Burkes is registered in favor of items 42 and 43. Council that's all of the items that we -- all of the speakers that we have on the consent agenda. I will entertain a motion for approval?

>>Lewis: Mayor pro tem, I would like to put number 29 back on. I got my question answered on that. I had pulled it on --.

>> He pulled it just a minute ago.

>>Garcia: I will read those into the consent agenda. We have somebody here signed up on item no. 41 And item 4 1 is on the consent agenda. Mr. Helmud barnett. Mr. Barnett? he is registered in favor of item no. 41. Mr. City Manager?

>> yes, sir. On item no. 49, It should read services -- next to the last line or -- I guess the third line from the bottom, services for aes will receive a one time payment --.

>>Garcia: I read that as 125. [Inaudible].

>> 145.

>> Okay. 61 And 62 will be at 6:00. Item no. 63 We have the following board and commission appointments that are recommended. Mr. Donald dawson for the south Austin neighborhood representative consensus, for the downtown commission, gene mather as a planning commission representative. Consensus appointee. Theresa dravago for the history landmark commission. To the electric utility commission, recommended by Councilmember Lewis, thomas owens. For the ethics review commission, karen haskee being nominated by the league of women voters. A consensus appointee. Also mary necessarily mathis nominated by Councilmember Griffith. To the historic landmark commission, laurie limbacker from the american institute of architects. To the mean week advisory committee, joyce smith, reappointment. From the non-certified contractors representative group, consensus appointee. Frank lamb, reappointment from the professional organization representatives. Consensus appointee. Jesus Ramirez, an owner of certified m.b.e. Firm, consensus appointee. Mechanic plumbing and solar board, Paul hovey, natural gas utility representative, consensus appointee. Medical assistance program advisory board, surduwal, consensus appointee. To the renaissance market commission, richard conde, reappointment and also consensus appointee. Resource management commission, albert dietz, reappointment, consensus. Max woodfin reappointment consensus. Robert mutual municipal airport advisory group, mike leibre from the parks and recreation department consensus. Ray rudulla from the planning commission. I suspect Mr. Leibrick is a representative from the parks board or is he from the -- okay. He's listed as a parks and recreation representative. Mr. Ray rudulla planning commission representative, consensus both of them. To the water and wastewater commission, Mr. Darwin mckee, reappointment, nominated by Councilmember Lewis. And that -- 55 and 56 are also on the consent agenda. Do you want me to read the consent agenda one more time everybody? any questions on it? following items are on consent: 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, to be pulled off this agenda, 49, 50, 51, 52, item 54 is pulled off the agenda, will be approved -- to be approved during the consent agenda, item 55, 56, and item 63. 63. Councilmember?

>>Spelman: I believe I heard Councilmember Lewis say that 29 would be back on the agenda.

>>Garcia: all right. 29, Yeah. 29 It's back on the consent agenda. Any questions of staff? is anybody ready to make a motion to approve.

>>Spelman: move approved.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Spelman, seconded by City Councilmember Lewis? discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye., opposed say no., motion carries on a vote of 6 to 0 to 1 with the Mayor out of town. Where's -- what time is our next time certain? 4:30. Okay. We now go back, Council, to item no. 14. This item was pulled by Councilmember Lewis. Let me recognize Councilmember Lewis at this time.

>>Lewis: thank you Mayor pro tem. I have a question that I would like -- I guess that I would have to direct it to smbr or to someone from the City staff. This is in regards to the last contract for '95-'96 and you 7 with red simpson. I understand from the information that I got that they have a problem with distributing some work and with one of the subcontractors. In the contracted amount. In fact I have a letter saying that supposedly they had contracted for over $200,000 and they was paid $21,000. But the work, the scope of work was done. You know, my question is, if we -- if they did that during that contract, what is it to make me think that they wouldn't do it, if they get another contract?

>> good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Mayor pro tem and Council, tim warren, director smbr. You were referring to a contractual dispute between unisom and red simpson, where unisom has alleged that red simpson didn't issue work to them in accordance to their contract. We have visited with the law department and the law department has advised smbr that this is a dispute between unisom and red simpson as a contractual issue and that smbr should not be involved in this issue. Now, we do have some concerns as to whether or not red simpson met their mean and -- m.b.e. And w.b.e. Goals during the contract period. We have requested an explanation regarding those concerns. As it relates to monitoring contracts, we do monitor each particular contract for compliance, we do periodic site visits to the site, periodic phone audits to ensure that those commitments to m.b.e.'s and w.b.e.'s are actually carried out.

>>Lewis: well, you said it's a contractual agreement, but isn't it also a compliance agreement? isn't they required to by compliance -- I mean once they give you the contractor and unless they come back for permission to substitute or to change contractors, it may require it to issue the work to that contractor, the code -- that fall within that scope?

>> if they are going to be changed as subcontractors, they are required to seek our approval. In this particular case they never requested to replace unisonm, again we have concerns that red simpson did not fulfill their commitment in terms of meeting their goals. We have requested an explanation from red simpson to explain that. After we review that information and were uncomfortable with it, we have options to consider. One option is we can actually recommend that the contractor be suspended from doing business with the City for up to five years.

>>Lewis: yeah, but at the present time we are considering giving them a five year contract. Though. That mean that they wouldn't be suspended for another five years, correct?

>> it's my understanding that you would be taking action to approve a contract today for one year and those extension options are optional. Subject to the department director, Mr. Milton lee, I visited with him this morning about that.

>>Lewis: so what you are saying if smbr determines they didn't meet their goals on the last contract, then -- and the suspension was in place, then we wouldn't renew their extension next year.

>> That would be one of the things that the department director would have to look at, if in fact we recommended suspension and that suspension was implemented.

>> The suspension, Councilmember Lewis, there's a process that you need to go through. It is not just the director of smbr saying we are going to suspend you. You would have to go through a process of getting information. In fact if there was an issue or breach of contract, then there has to be a hearing, they have to be afforded an administrative process to determine in fact whether we have information which would take them off the list. Then make that decision, it's not unilateral, law department is involved, purchasing office is involved and in this instance the electric department as well as smbr. What tim is saying is that subsequent to this review that they are doing now, if there is -- if there are some issues and it's serious enough in terms of a breach, in could be a recommendation that we go through a process of going through a review whether in fact we would be suspending them or not.

>> Well, as I understand it, this has been going on since april of 1998. All of a sudden, they've had time to bid again. Submit another bid. But they haven't had time to give you or refuse to issue the information that's been requested. I don't -- you know, I mean to me it's a -- it's a thing of -- of how am I going to feel about giving them another contract when they haven't submitted any of the information requested on the last -- on the contract that they own? I have a problem with that.

>> What were their total numbers over the three years period?

>> the goal was 10% m.b.e. And five percent w.b.e., their actually numbers was 8 and a quarter percent w.b.e. And a little over six and a quarter m.b.e., so we are requesting an explanation as to why the m.b.e. Goal was not met.

>>Lewis: you know, I am looking here at the -- in the backup, and the same scope of work that unisom had for a total of I guess less than -- for $234,000 in any given year, now curtwood and harner has that scope of work for $950,000. I understand that's for one year. If they didn't issue the work for 234,000, in '97, what is it that makes me think they are going to issue 950,000 in '9. Those are the questions that I have a problem with, especially when they haven't submittedded any answers as to why -- to the request.

>> I am not sure as to whether or not the scope of work that Kirkwood and hunter is going to be doing is the exact scope of work. I believe there's some additional areas of contracting that they would be performing for that dollar amount. But we have checked with Kirkwould the and00er, we verified the dollar amount. We do have a letter of intent and they confirm they submitted a bid to red simpson.

>>Lewis: so did unisom, didn't they? we had a commitment, right? this is what I am saying. They refused to submit any information as to why it didn't work out like they said. According to the letters, all that was asked for is just to submit the information as to why.

>> We do have information from red simpson as to the reasons why they did not issue work to unisom, we have been informed by the law department that smbr should not get into that, that's a contractual issue, but that still doesn't eliminate red simpson from addressing the issue that they did not meet the m.b.e. Goal, we have requested an explanation from them.

>>Lewis: I am not so much concerned about meeting the goals as I am about compliance, if they don't comply with the contract that they had with the City, as far as changing or substituting work, what is it to make me think that they wouldn't do it again, that's my question. I don't know if red simpson is here or not, if they are, I would like them to form the answer. Because if you did it last year, what is it to make me think that he wouldn't do it this year.

>> I would just like to reiterate that they never did request to replace unisom. It is my understanding that they conducted or performed that work that unisom did not perform themselves.

>> Councilmember, there were issues that I am is not getting into -- there are two sides to --.

>>Lewis: the legal thing.

>> No, there's two sides to a story. We are not -- it's difficult for us to be the referee of this. And there's a reason for that number not being what it's at. What we would like to do is continue to get information on this specific issue, find out in fact if we have a breach or substantial problem with the way they did their business to determine in fact whether we move them off of the contractor list. But we still recommend this. This is the second time that we've had the contract on the agenda. In fact the first bid was a little higher, so we have even a better price for the electric utility in terms of --.

>>Lewis: you know, my only thing is disregarding unisom or anyone else, red simpson know as I understand it if you are not going to -- if you are going to change from your agreement with the City, then you are supposed to inform them of that. So if they are not going to replace the contractor, then they should come back to the city and said we are going to delete the contractor, we are going to perform the work ourselves.

>> I understand.

>>Lewis: or we are going to replace this subcontractor. That's between them and the city. Not between them and anyone else.

>> I understand. You are correct.

>> My question is if we did it last year, will they do it?

>> my answer, we will do the monitoring, if it does happen we will take the appropriate action.

>>Garcia: Councilmember -- do you want to listen to the speakers. Loose we will listen to the speakers first. Thank you, Mr. Warren. We have 18 speakers like the Mayor does when he's up here. I will tell you that if what you are going to say has been said before by somebody else, you just want to say I am for this contract. You can just raise your hand from where you are, I will recognize you as being in favor of. Michelle perez. Following her sandra Martinez and fred carson.

>> I will keep it brief. I wanted to come here on record just to note our -- the Texas center for women's business enterprise, the support we have for rs I. Over the past several years, red simpson has been quite involved with our group. They have given us a lot of support. They have given us their time, their energy. We feel they are quite committed to the expansion of the women's business community. And what's happened in the past I am not here to speak to that, I am talking about right now. Right now what we see is a very pro active contractor trying to work with the women small business community and trying to follow the City's ordinances, also I would like to take a minute to note that if Council has any concerns or any question regarding the performance of any of the w.b.e.'s in this contract, I would like to let you know and confirm that the center will be here to work with any subcontractor to help with any education, provide and furnish any necessary training or support that they may need. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Perez. Sandra Martinez. You are in favor of. Thank you, Mr. Fred carson. Fred Garza. Following him jill shackleford and delores hunter. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem. City Manager, Jesus Garza and Council. We are here in support of the contract being awarded to red simpson as well. This company has repeatedly shown to us an honest and genuine effort in meeting its m.b.e. W.b.e. Participation, they have worked very closely with our particular organization. Has repeatedly sought our support. Our participation in all of the projects. As I understand the City staff and smbr has looked at this particular contract, I believe it has been recommended at this time. This company has also shown a good track record with the city. As you well know, our organization is always concerned with the compliance of m.b.e. And w.b.e. Goals. We are happy on this particular project this effort is being made and goals met by this Mr. Company. We feel this contract is good for the City of Austin as the numbers come in, I think it's a good deal for the City and also for w.b.e. And m.b.e. Businesses as well. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: jill shackleford. Following ms. Shackleford, delores hunter.

>> Thanking you. I am president of the women's construction network. And I also own a company called industrial asphalt. Which produces hot mix asphalt here in Austin and in buda. I just want to show my support for rsi. I have worked with them before. And in their contracting opportunities they have great, they have supported the women and minority people in this industry. Like everyone else has said the City is getting a very good deal, the numbers are probably under budget. And any time I have worked with them, it has been strictly business and all the compliance opportunities and everything have been very, you know, to the line. There's been no short-cuts or anything. I know that they are very well to work with, you would be getting a very good contractor if you award this. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you. Delores00er. Following ms. Hunter barbara covington and then warren may.

>> Thank you Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers for the opportunity to speak and say a few word here. I am delores h00er, I am the president of Kirkwood and hunter. My company has been doing business with rsi for at least a year now. Kirkwood and hunter is a small growing and responsible viable business. And I certainly do believe and accept the understanding that we are a country of free enterprise, enterprise system and this is an opportunity for Kirkwood and00er, which is a minority female owned business, to partner with a major prime. And this as I understand it is a very unusual type of thing because there are not that many successful small minority businesses in this particular field and even fewer women owned businesses in this particular field. I see this as an investment of the experience and the guidance and leadership of a prime who has willingly chosen to support and to help build a smaller partner. I think that rsi has been nominated or selected as an outstanding contractor for the city of Austin on at least three occasions in the past. Which speaks to the ability of this company to do the work satisfactorily ily, to live up to their word and be a representative of what Austin leadership is asking for and paying for. My company, Kirkwood and hunter has invested a significant amount of money and equipment and materials and we have been providing employment for families in Austin and we think that this is what is a part of the nature of inclusion, rather than exclusion. I would like to ask that Council approve the recommendation of the city-staff for rsi to continue this service agreement. Thank you very much.

>> Thank you, ms. Hunter. Ms. Barbara covington. Following her is Mr. Ben warmate then Mr. March continue --

>> good afternoon, thank you Mayor pro tem, good afternoon Councilmembers and thank for you allowing me to speak. I just briefly want to say I do support red simpson getting awarded the contract. We have worked for their company for almost four years. I have never worked for a finer company in my nine years of existence. And they are fair to everyone, their door is open to anyone, whether they are purple, black, white, green, it makes no difference. This has been a long haul on this rebid, about two years now. And I just want to say that we all work very hard, I have 38 employees now and it's all due to the efforts of jack taylor and red simpson and the same thing with delores who he allowed me to introduce him to and start working with her and mentoring her from a point that's making her grow, they are very hard working company and do a good job. I hope that you will consider awarding this to red simpson finally after all of this time. Thank you. Following Mr. Warmate, Mr. Matter sin sesco.

>> Welcome, sir.

>> Excuse me, good afternoon, Mayor pro tem. Councilmembers. My name is ben warmate, I am president of the company, [inaudible] development. I was here a couple of months when red simpson was protesting awarded the contract, I was not for ike, I was just there to speak against red simpson. I have worked on this project now for over four years. As a matter of fact I can say that we have been on this project longer than red simpson has been on this project. So we have gone through a lot of headache. Right now I have got all kind of documentation that we have turned in from trying to get red simpson to issue us our work, contractually they are obligated to do. We had a problem with that. Now I want everybody to understand we are not just talking about the last contractual year. We are talking about the last two years that the contract compliance plan has not been met. So that needs to be considered. I am just choked up because everyone comes up here and say how nice they are. I wish they were very nice to me. I wouldn't be here, I will be here talking for them, you know, I would be here on their behalf. You are right, you injested a lot -- invested a lot of equipment, I do. For four years, you just did it for a year, how do you think I feel? I have documentation from the city, it's the City's document that shows the amount of money and amount of work that was taken away from me. I didn't come up with that. As a matter of fact I had to go to the open record act to obtain that information. Okay? now, you are telling me how nice they are. Of course. I will say the same thing if I was wearing your shoes, but I am not. I am saying like it is, this is documents, this is not fiction. If you have -- if they have any information like my lawyer have requested of them, evidence, not -- not allegations, evidence. That's two different words. Evidence. We haven't got nothing whatsoever. To sit here and watch the Council award another contract to a company that have not complied two years in a row, contract for $234,000, we only was given work for $21,900. That's ridiculous. And I'm supposed to come here and, well, they are so nice to me, yeah, sure, I lost a lot of equipment, also. So please I need you all to consider this, there's a lot of documentation, City Manager you are aware of this. You can look it over. Everything is still in review. I think we should review this before a decision is made. You cannot make a decision without having a total review. That's just the way it goes.

>>Garcia: Mr. Martin sasco.

>> [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: okay. Mr. John phasel. Mr. Jack taylor.

>> [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: thank you. Those three individual registered in favor of. Mr. Roy taylor.

>> [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: registered in favor of. Mr. Freed man.

>> I would like to pass [laughter]. The maximum amount that you can get, Mr. Mayor, is 15 minutes and that's what you have, you have 12 minutes being given to you by somebody else and your own 3 is 15.

>> Thank you, Mr. Pro tem, members of the Council, Mr. Martin. Mr. Manager. Let me first by way of protection for my client explain to you that some of the things that are being brought up by Mr. Warmate are potential items in litigation. The Council has been submitted a letter by Mr. Warmate's Council, we were not on the mailing list and it was a response to a letter that we provide with documentation to the City at their request. That wasn't sent by us to the Council because the Council was not part of the request for the information. Mr. Warmate's lawyer sent you a copy of his response to our information and that is his right, but we are not going to litigate the matter between us and Mr. Warmate at this Council meeting. But there are a couple of things in a need to be clarified. One is Mr. Warmate just described that he only got $21,000 this last contract year. The facts remain and this can be checked out through the city, that red simpson applied to and received pefr mission -- permission from the city of tuesday remove Mr. Warmate as a subcontractor due to problems with getting the contract fulfilled. The fact that he didn't get the full contractual amount is a function that he was removed from the contract. Not on the contract, you don't get the work. The other things that have been brought up by Councilmember Lewis I think are very important issues for the Council always to keep in consideration. And that is when a contract is let and there are goals submitted and contractually agreed to, are the prime contractors doing everything they can within their power to make sure that the minority and women businesses in this area are being given the jobs? but I need to call to your attention while that information is being gathered for smbr, in fact Mr. Warren and I had talked the other day, he is sending a letter which he explained to me was mailed yesterday, asking for some additional information from what we had previously provided to the City, obviously mailed yesterday, I haven't received it, the people in louisiana our home office haven't received it yet, so we can't respond to it today. We will be responding. But in general one thing that I believe the Council has to keep in its mind when it award or considers awarding this contract, the scope of work is dictated by the City of Austin. And as we contract, as have all of the previous years contracts called for, that contractual amount that we are agreeing to accept from the city is conditioned on the scope of what the City asks us to do. Likewise, our contracts with our subcontractors are also conditioned on the scope of work that they will provide to us based on what the City's scope of work to us is. In many cases, the scope of work over the last several years from the City of Austin to red simpson has changed. By necessity, by a different policy, by a different approach. Whatever the reasons, and I'm not here to explain all of those to you, that changes the amount oFAAlable work that could be provided to a subcontractor. So when someone says, I have a contract for $280,000, but I only did $230,000, the first question is was there a change of scope in the working ordered by the City of Austin that prevented us from passing that work on to that subcontractor? those are the issues or one of the issues for sure that we will be able to explain and show and work with smbr in Austin energy and showing what kind of work has been done over the last several years. We don't make the rules as to the work assigned to us. We just follow it. What the City of Austin dictates to us, says this is the job that we need done today, this is what we need tomorrow. One last side effect, and I think you probably all realize that. As the change occurs in the scope of work, the amount of money collected or paid to the prime contractor can vary. It can go down or it can go up. But if it goes up and in many cases it has, and the scope of work has been minimized for the subcontractor, the percentages do change. So if overall the contractor is paid more money by the City of Austin for doing different scope of work and the amount of money paid to a subcontractor stays the same or is a little bit less because there isn't that much work in their scope, the percentages change. That is another set of facts and figures that have to be gone over with the City of Austin because they have all of the numbers, they have issued all of the work, they know what the scope is, we have the job documents. And we will be able to compare what does a subcontractor's scope include in this job and what is not included in this job. That is an effort to try to explain why I think legal has rightfully put this as a dispute between two contracting parties, City of Austin -- I'm sorry, red simpson and unison and not the city of Austin. You are not the referee, not the mediator. Insofar as Mr. Warmate's allegations. You are the arbiter and mediator and the determineor of whether this contract before you, which is over -- approximately $400,000 less than the last time we were before you, based on the savings made in the rebid, that rebid begin was a benefit for the City because the scope changed a little bit. They had some fine tuning, and we have come in and the bid is $400,000, our bid is $400,000 lower than the second bidder. And that is still lower than our bid was several months ago. So we are talking in round numbers almost a half a million dollar out of the Austin energy budget that no longer would have to be spent. We think we deserve the contract. We think that we are providing everything we say we will do in our contracts. How the percentages come out, I can't answer because tim and I have to go over the numbers and we will get all of the information he's asked for from alexandria and from the city offices, but the issue here is not whether red simpson can do a contract and has done the contract. I think Austin energy will tell you we have done the work the way they want. The issue here is it's a personal dispute between one subcontractor who thinks that they are entitled to money that we don't think they are entitled to because they didn't do the work. That should not cloud the Council's judgment on savings the ratepayers and all of us here in Austin close to half million dollar where we stand right now. I don't have anything else, I would be glad to answer any other questions, I know Councilmember Lewis wanted to be sure we are going to live up to our commitments. Yes, we are going to live up to our commitments and those commitments are going to be watched very closely and monitored by snbr, Mr. Warren, Mr. Lee at Austin energy because this issue has been raised. We have nothing to hide. We are more than happy of justifying and proving all of our numbers, whether it's today, tomorrow or as this thing is monitored over the next period of time. The bottom line is the Council ought not to be a position of having to make decisions based on a personal legal claim that may or may not be accurate. I don't want to debate that right now, because no matter when you think you are not the final court in this issue. With that, I thank you, if there's any questions, I will be glad to answer them.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor.

>>Lewis: I have a question. Sir, my questions wasn't in regard to whether it was with unisom or anyone else, the information that I have is on city lerd heads addressed to red simpson, which they state it was -- the second letter states that it hadn't been an answer received. That was my question.

>> What date is that letter?

>>Lewis: 22 july from energy, it is referencing a -- an april date that energy staff met with red simpson staff and requested information and they followed up the 22nd of july, requesting the same information. Those are my questions. It's not concerning any contractual agreement. I am talking about the person that you have the contract with, which is the City. Requesting information that they feel that you are obligated to deliver and it wasn't forthcoming. So those are my questions. And if this happens again, what is the recourse? so --

>> I understand your question. I did not see the april inquiry. My understanding --.

>>Lewis: they said staff -- it says in april 1998 Austin energy staff met with rsi staff and requested rsi's provide an explanation ... This is it is letter dated in july requesting, stating that the information hadn't been received.

>> My understanding, Councilmember, is that the request in april dealt with staff asking for information to be given to Mr. Warmate and there was some confusion and perhaps improper interpretation whether the document had to be given to the City or should have been given to the City. In july that letter came from milton lee, at Austin energy, then a followed communication from Mr. Warren at smbr, and I responded with documentation and with an explanation of what we were doing. That you don't have. I don't believe. Unless it was in your backup because that was sent to the people on the copy list that was on the letter from Mr. Lee. We figured this was internal city staff stuff, we didn't bother to send it to the City Council. I can get you a copy if you would like to see that response, but we weren't sure this was a Council issue, so it went strictly to staff. That information has been provided. Mr. Warren has now explained -- Mr. Warren, by the way, has been very helpful in this process because he wants answers to these questions to make sure that the contracts are being lived up to. He's made it real clear what he wants. He did tell me two days ago he will be sending a follow-up letter because he has some questions about the way the numbers are. He says the percentages look low. We have not had an opportunity to discuss this with Mr. Warren another anyone else oregon or anyone else, because we don't know what numbers he's using, how we have to follow it. But we do have an obligation, I believe under our contract, to get a response back to him with our documentation and our explanation as to what was going on. I can only go back to what I said earlier. That is the numbers will look different based on the scope of work, as well as the fact that Mr. Warmate was removed by the City with City permission in January of this year. So -- but that information will be forthcoming to Mr. Warren and if you want to be copied on it when we send it in, I will be glad to do that.

>>Lewis: well, you know, I mean the City, if the City staff had the information, I can get it. I understand what you are speaking of about the scope of work, by the same token I hope that you realize the City also has a copy of the amount of work that they issue in certain scopes.

>> Oh, absolutely.

>>Lewis: so I mean you know that is to me is a determining factor when the City issues a scope of work to the contractor, if that scope of work is subcontracted outlet, then my question is if the subcontractor don't get it, the contractor hadn't requested any changes, then the contractor is not providing -- not living up to the contract.

>> With one careful addition to that statement. Councilmember. There are times when the subcontractor returns the work or can't do it.

>>Lewis: yeah -- [everyone talking at once] I am saying, you know, as far as I believe, the contractor, if he issues it to the subcontractor, then the contractor subcontractor says, hey, I will like for you to do it or, you know, give some permission, then it's no problem. It's the same as if you went to the City, say I would like to have the subcontractor removed. So -- you know, my statement is still regarding the information requested versus not being received. And I don't -- you know, the contracts is one thing. When you start requesting information, the City started requesting information, is -- is my only problem with this. I am looking at the numbers in the backup, I know that you have them, also. It bothers me to think with this type of contract that we could -- you know, it's just not forthcoming as far as I am concerned. I am not going to hold this year's contract up, but I will make a motion after this is over. So ....

>> I assure you that we will provide the information that the City requests. If we were in error in not supplying documentation directly to the City in april, then that is an obligation that we fell down on and I certainly apologize on behalf of my client. But I think Mr. Warren already indicated that we did send a detailed response to the july letter putting together all of the information they asked for. It was not what Mr. Warmate's letter wanted based on his letter sent back to the Council. Our responsibility is not to answer him, it's to answer city staff and I think we have done that. Thank you all for your time.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. Suzanne taylor. Following her cruise and --

>> I am just for it.

>>Garcia: she's registered in favor of.

>> Kruze. Mr. . I'm sorry. Registered in favor of. Mr. Robert turner. Favor of. Mr. Alan frasier, favor of. And Mr. Lucas -- [inaudible].

>> Favor of.

>>Garcia: reg centered in favor of. All -- registered in favor of. That's all of the questions that we have. Councilmembers any discussions for or questions or discussion on this item?

>>Lewis: I would like to make a motion to approve the contract, with the -- but before the extension is awarded it comes back to Council for review. Every 12 months.

>>Slusher: seconded.

>>Garcia: motion to approve with a review in 12 months, seconded by Councilmember Slusher. Discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Vote of 6 to 0 to 1. Council, that's all of the items that we have on the agenda. Nope. We have 53.

>>Lewis: that's mine, isn't it? didn't I pull that? 20 was pulled by Councilmember Lewis?

>>Lewis: 20?!!

>>Lewis: I just have a question for staff.

>>Garcia: Councilmember Lewis, item no. 20.

>>Lewis: on item 20, we are buying possibly going to buy $150,000 worth of batteries and I don't know why I pulled it. Mayor pro tem asked some questions on it. But my question on that is if we spend that on batteries and we are exchanging vehicles as often as we do, what are we putting them? my vehicle, I am in Austin, also, the reason I asked is my vehicle battery lasts for three years, last three years, and I don't know -- I'm trying to relate that to the City vehicles and the number of vehicles we sell, you know, I am wondering if we are doing the prudent thing if we are selling old vehicles with new batteries in them and keeping new vehicles with old batteries in them.

>> Councilmember, I can tell you the basis on which we get the numbers and the way we put together the items that we put on the bid. And that's taken right off of the inventory issuance lists through the fleet department. As far as the work orders and how they are applied, I don't -- I can't answer that for you. I will get the information and --.

>>Lewis: you understand what I am saying.

>> I understand what you are asking.

>>Lewis: we just sold a group of vehicles at an auction, my question is did those old vehicles have new batteries in them, you know? we do have fleet mechanics. I just can't visualize here in Austin the way we turn over vehicles having to pay that amount. This is for what, one year?

>> yes, sir, it's a one year contract.

>> That's my only question on item 20.

>> May I respond back in writing with time. I will have to get the information.

>>Lewis: if there's no other --.

>>Garcia: any other questions on item no. 20?

>>Lewis: no other questions. I move approval, I would just like to get an answer.

>> We will provide a battery report.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Spelman. Discussion?

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, is there any -- do we have any mechanism for determining how long we use a battery?

>> we can. We can pull the data from the vehicle use and how long batteries will last us. In terms of the serviceable life and in fact are they within the tolerances allowed by when we buy the batteries at 36 month, 52 month, et cetera.

>>Slusher: I think that would be good.

>> When you put them out for auction, I would caution you putting out an automobile or a truck or whatever and I wouldn't want to go in and yank out what might be a relatively new battery and put it in a junker and then auction it to somebody.

>>Slusher: I am not advocating that or sawdust or anything.

>> Well, because I think you need to -- it all comes out in the wash, it works out well for us, because we do get good value on our salvage.

>>Lewis: I don't want you to -- just make sure the police department and fire and e.m.s. Do change their batteries on a regular integrals because I don't want one of them to have to come pick me up, their car won't start. But people in non-emergency vehicle, you know, I mean, same as if yours and I -- if you or I one walk out there, our car don't start, we go ahead and call one and -- someone to get it started. It seems like a lot to be spending on something as common as car batteries.

>> We will get Council a report on this just to get you take data, that information. That data.

>>Garcia: Councilmember Lewis's comments brought a question to my mind. How many vehicles do we have and how much do we pay on average for the batteries?

>>Lewis: $400.

>>Garcia: 400?

>>Lewis: 40. 37, 38, Something like that.

>>Spelman: 4,000 batteries this year.

>>Garcia: 4,000 batteries, how many vehicles do we have?

>>Lewis: we have at least one for each employee. [Laughter].

>> Councilmember, Mayor pro tem, we have about 3700 rolling stock vehicles. But I would also say that these batteries are used in our non-rolling stock, so you have got parks, equipment and you have got a lot of that stuff, so I will make a list for you of the -- of the rolling stock and then the non-rolling stock and show you in some -- sometimes they are battery propelled, sometimes they are not. This includes all of the batteries that we use in all of our fleet and equipment related pieces of equipment.

>> Some of the equipment have more than one battery. Rolling stock that backups, power supplies for some of the equipment that we have. So that's what that report will provide you in terms of -- so you can understand how the number of batteries we have in some of the units and some of the equipment that isn't rolling stock that's fixed equipment. Needs to have power supplies as well. Loose like sweepers, each engine have a battery. Where did Mr. Rhodes go. Okay.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Spelman. Further discussion? all in favor, opposed say no. Motion carries with the Mayor out of town. Item no. 46. Councilmember Lewis.

>>Lewis: didn't I put that back on?

>>Spelman: 48. It's 48.

>>Garcia: he put it back on. 48. Could you somehow provide us with an stm nation of this very what appears to be a very complex --

>> it's routine. Mayor pro tem, I would like vicki shubert from our information iss to explain it very briefly.

>> Good afternoon, Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, this budget amendment relates to Austin energy services. The bottom line of what we are trying to do is currently Austin energy services operations are budgeted in two different funds. The first fund is the performance contracting fund and that's where we contract for our purchase of energy savings equipment, that's where we account for the loan activity. And any services like feasibility study. All of the rest of our costs are accounted for in the planning and environmental services operating fund. That's where we account for staff salaries, rents, office supplies, capitol. Capital. In trying to prepare financial statements for the Austin energy services enterprise, we have difficulty because much the budgeting into funds. In two fund. In governmental accounting generally accepted accounting principles prohibit you from preparing a financial statement using bits and pieces of two different funds unless you put a disclaimer on it. Once you put a disclaimer on it people begin to question the validity of the numbers. What we were trying to do here is move all of the budget related to the Austin energy services enterprise into the performance contracting fund. We are taking about 40 ftes and the corresponding requirements, both personnel, contractuals, commodities, capital and moving that budget from the planning -- pecs fund into the performance contracting fund. When we do that, we also have to move money to cut -- to pay for that. So we are doing a transfer in and transfer out between those two funds.

>>Garcia: what manages the performance contracting fund.

>> Planning environmental conservation services. Actually the Austin energy conservation group manages that. There's no change, either increase or decrease to totally appropriations for pecs, it's only movement between the funds. What we would like to do is amend this career's budget so that in our first year of operations we have financial statements, we are going to want to get those are those audited by an external auditor, that will facilitate the audit.

>>Garcia: separate and apart from the City?

>>.

>> Kind of as a part of the city audit. Just as they right now audit the electric utilities, so if there's an opinion on them expressed in conjunction with the City audit, it would be similar to that.

>>Garcia: none of this operation here pertains to any changes that may have come in Austin energy services department for what was projected as operations for this -- for this fund at the beginning of the year as opposed to how much we bid?

>> no, it's just moving the budget from one place to another.

>>Garcia: thank you very much, questions? I will entertain a motion.

>>Spelman: move approval.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Slusher, seconded by Councilmember Spelman.

>>Spelman: I think he just beat me on that one, yes.

>>Garcia: all those in favor signify by saying aye? opposed no, motion carries. I apologize I left out the report from the resource management commission, monthly management report, but milton said -- milton, Mr. Lee said he could report on all of those three items at this time. If anything, needs to be reconsidered, I will entertain a motion on that. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you very much, minor and Council. I just have a few highlights that I would like to give the Council for this month's management report. First of all, system operations, the system has really been operating good for the summer, as I have reported. The past prior months with all of the hot weather that we've had. And the -- one should take the credit for that is all of the Austin energy employees. The system has been very reliable, of course to the end use of our system. So they are to be congratulated. It certainly appears that the system peak that we reached on august 3, 270 megawatts may not be -- 270,000 megawatts will probably be the peak for this year. That peak generally occurs in august. It generally occurs in the latter part of august, but with extreme heat that we had in the first part of august, latter part of july to Bill that, it certainly appears that the peak is done, we had predicted that that peak would occur in the year 2000 or 2001, so we are two years ahead of that, we are continuing to see growth on Austin's system. The second thing that I wanted to mention to you was tropical storm frances is brewing in the gulf. We have crews, trouble call operators, consumer reps available through the weekend, we anticipate potentially some winds, when wind blows we typically get trees blown in the distribution facilities. Crews available to hopefully restore service available. We will monitor that storm. Hopefully be able to restore service rapidly in case we get any major activity here in the Austin area. The last thing that I would like to mention is the financial report. It's included in your backup. I would only highlight for this month, if you take a look at item 10 on page 12, year to date budget versus year to date actual. The bottom line for the utility through july, we are almost $15 million to the good. It took us 10 months to get there. As you know we have been behind almost every month during this fiscal year, but with the continued hot weather in june and july and we anticipate a continuing pattern like that for august, so as that data comes, in, we think that we will continue that. We think by the end of the fiscal year we will remain close to the $15 million or a little bit below, with Austin energy following the Council rest sligs passed in december of '96, putting all of our excess funds in our debt management fund. With that, Council, that's this months's -- month's management report, I will be delighted to answer any questions for you.

>> Questions?

>>Lewis: do we get any portion of that savings on the rebid? [laughter].

>> Any savings that occur, I would hope we put in our debt management fund.

>>Lewis: thank you. Okay.

>>Garcia: questions, Councilmember Griffith?

>>Griffith: may I ask Mr. -- Milton lee to talk just a minute in following up about -- on our conversation about global warming and about the importance of trees and a tree inventory. [One moment please] as part of our cycle and approach to this. It's never been done before, but I think there's enough priority that's been placed on tree management within Austin that it really is good for all the departments to get together. We also have arrest bore rifts on the Austin energy staff. We have others on the parks and I know we have some in the various departments to come back with a plan and a schedule that will allow us to come back to Council hopefully in the next 90, 120 days to allow us to do that. I believe we have expertise within the City to do that and we look forward to working with the other various departments and the various boards and commissions to bring that back to Council.

>>Griffith: may I con grate late the City Manager on his leadership in putting together this group and Mr. Lee on taking the lead?

>>Garcia: thank you. Quick question. In your -- in your information that we got from Mr. Warren's office with regard to this in your department, some of those figures were a little bit low. In years past you used to have mentoring programs for some of your large contractors who mentored small contractors. I haven't heard about that in quite some time.

>> Let me give you a couple of examples. If you take a look at our report, especially the one that has the total amount of -- the total amount of information that's been bid over the last several years, there's potentially low availability from the m.b.e. Community here in Austin based on a lot of the type contracts and equipment that Austin energy needs to do its business here in Austin. But if you take a look at what we're trying to do with the 5,000 and under program where we think we've targeted availability and if you look at those numbers that was provided by the smvr office, you can see in that category, especially in commodities for 1997 and for 1998 for w.b.e. For 1997 we were roughly at 25%. For 1998 we were at almost 29%. We think that is where Austin energy is making available the type services and goods that we so that there's a big category for availability from m.b.e.'s. Mayor pro tem, we think that the mentoring opportunities, we City need to work on. One that comes to mind is the one that we had with western in the environmental area where they proceeded as bess toss training to some of the m.b.e.'s and I think we have one or two that have been certificated from their training to these subs not only to western and any other entities here also. We need to continue mentoring similar to that where there's an interest that's been shown by m.b.e.'s in some other areas of services and goods that the department needs. We need to continue that effort and use that particular one as a model.

>>Garcia: thank you. Other questions for Mr. Lee? thank you. Thank you very much.

>> Thank you.

>>Garcia: now we go to the 4:30 time certain zoning haergs and approval of ordinances. Ms. Glasgow? welcome.

>> Good afternoon Mayor pro tem. Alice Glasgow, City staff to present zoning cases for today. Starting off with item no. 57, C 14-98-82, located at 12500 tomanet trail. The request is from neighborhood office district to community commercial district. The Planning Commission recommendation was to grant community commercial overlay with conditions. This case is ready for first reading. Item no. 58 Just very briefly, Council, this is a case where the property owner asked the Planning Commission to initiate a rezoning of the property. We are the applicants at this point on item no. 58. The attorney for the owner of of the property has asked that we withdraw our case so they can proceed under the zoning upon annexation, which is interim rural residence. So we're the applicants since we initiated the zoning case. The owner of the property would like for us to withdraw this case so it would not be subject to the conditions the Planning Commission imposed on this case. I'll just -- I wanted to mention that, but if you would like to pull the item for additional discussion, that would be okay. I just wanted to make you aware of the applicant's request on 58.

>>Garcia: 58?

>> we'll leave that for discussion. Mayor pro tem, on item no. 59, Case c 14-anyway-91, located on old bee caves road, the applicant has requested a postponement to october the 1st in order to spend some time with a few neighbors who have protested against the case.

>>Garcia: is that the first request? this is the first request. On item no. 60, Case c 14-98-18, this case has a valid petition. We do not have a full Council. The applicant would prefer to be heard and then the case continued for action when there's a full Council or to postpone, leaving that to the desire of Council to decide which of those two options you would like to act upon. And that concludes the zoning cases for today. Except for the discussion item.

>>Garcia: okay. So item no. 57 We have that item for consent a first reading. And on 58 you want the City to withdraw that application did you say?

>> actually, it's not staff that is requesting the withdrawal. It's the attorney for the property owner.

>>Garcia: okay. We need to lock auto that one. Item 59 we also have -- this is a postponement request and the policy of the Council -- let me see who's here. Just a minute. Paul seals? John hikman? sara crocker, dick leverage, Beverly dunn, casey dunn and rick patrick. The policy of the Council has been when either the applicant or the neighborhood requests a postponement, the first postponement, we grant it, so would you prefer to speak at the time that the item comes up?

>> this item has been postponed several times, but to get to your question, it would be on behalf of the neighbors and I think I have a consensus of the neighbors, we would prefer that the matter be postponed to that time -- where you have the meeting of the Council to where the action is going to be taken. So if the issue is do we have a public hearing to postponed it to a later date, our preference is to speak at that time.

>>Garcia: okay.

>> Mayor pro tem, we realized that you were --.

>>Garcia: there's no speakers on 59. Well, you signed under 58. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: I don't have a card for you. It's got in the wrong place. 60 I think is still on. I'm going to put you back. It got under 60. They just put it in the wrong place. Mr. Bunch, you're the only speaker on 59. There's a request by the applicant for postponement. Do you want to --.

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, can we get a clarification? has 59 been postponed before?

>> no. This is the first request. This case is appearing before you for the first time. 60 Is the one that has been postponed before.

>>Garcia: 60? it has a valid petition?

>> yes. Yes, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: and you want a full Council to hear the case?

>> it's really up to the Council to decide whether you want to postpone this and not have any public hearing or you can hold a public hearing and delay action until there's a full Council. It's entirely up to you.

>>Garcia: Council, what is your wish on this item?

>>Lewis: Mayor pro tem, I would prefer to wait until we have a full Council if we're going to wait to take action on it, because whoever is not here, they're going to want to know what the public -- what was said at the public hearing and in many cases that's how they would vote.

>>Garcia: it would be to october 1st. Tell me again about this item 58.

>> On 58, this is an area we annexed last year and as you all know, upon annexation that we had decided to do was that we would decide interim zoning depending on the status of the property at that time. We then followed up with an ordinance that created established prominent zoning based on the size of the property. This particular property was assigned an interim rural residence because of the property was one big 11-acre tract. And the -- the applicant of the property owner then I think had planned to subdivide the property into smaller lots. He's requested for the Planning Commission was to be given an ability to pursue zoning that would allow him to have smaller lots than those that are allowed in the rural residential district. The Planning Commission directed staff to initiate the zoning case. We did that. The Planning Commission then heard the case and decided they really wanted to maintain the rural residential zoning district and impose a lot size limitation of two and a half acres a lot. Which is inconsistent with what the owner had intended. So what the owner would like to do is -- or rather he would prefer the Council do is withdraw the zoning case and allow them to proceed with their previous plan, which would allow one-acre lots as opposed to two nan acre lots. The two and a half acre lots would result in four lots and, of course, the other -- the rural residential without any conditions would result in 11 lots. So there's the distinction, 11 versus four.

>>Garcia: I think the Council received a letter from the neighborhood association of the bull creek neighborhood association, they sent letters to all the Councilmembers. They requested that we consider it today and take action on it today. What are the wishes of the Council?

>>Goodman:, I have difficulty with a comfort level of whether we're doing something legal right now because although technically we are the applicant, it is because we annexed these folks that we offered to waive fees and things like that to put them through, so even though we're the ones that initiate the action, the applicant is in fact still the applicant and I think that there's a fine line here of who can withdraw and I'm really uncomfortable with us taking the thorlt as if we can withdraw or not withdraw. I think there's an applicant issue here.

>>Garcia: madam lawyer, what is your response to the Councilmember's concern?

>> the City can initiate zoning on any tract of land regardless of whether it has been annexed. The difficulty here is that -- is that I suppose it is a matter of comfort level in the sense of even though we can initiate zoning and even though we made that commitment during annexation, it is not something that this particular landowner desires. In that particular instance I'm not really sure that it is -- it riess to the level of the City being -- it rises to the level of the City being able to take the action that it wishes to take in the sense that the City does have the authority to initiate zoning. So the bottom line is you've got the authority to do it. You can do it. The difficulty here is the comfort level in terms of we made these promises during annexation and we do this to relieve the burden off of these landowners and this is something that this particular landowner doesn't want us to do or doesn't want the Council to do.

>>Goodman: and Mayor pro tem, there's one more thing while we're talking about that. And that is my understanding is we the City told the applicant he needed to go to the zoning process to get a different zoning, is that not so?

>> well, that would definitely be the case. If he had an interim rural residential zoning and what we've told people throughout the process, you can obtain permits under that designation while it is interim provided that the base district, which is rural residence, that you can subdivide the land, you can get building permits provided, you adhere to the zoning district. And that's fine. They could have done that and that's what most people did in all the areas we annexed.

>>Garcia: can we handle the consent agenda and get those out of the way and then come back to 58? we have 57 for consent on first reading. And then we're going to postpone 59 and 60.

>> That's correct. Fwar fwar on 59, is there a date?

>> 59 is october the 1st.

>>Garcia: and 60 is the same.

>> Yes.

>>Garcia: I'll entertain a motion? motion is made by Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Slusher. Discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries with the Mayor out of town. The vote is six to zero to one. Okay. 58. --.

>> I'll go ahead and finish up the train of thought that I was following through to create some logic as to what occurred. I briefly explained the status of interim designation that proceeded once a development of the interim designation, one did not does not need to change the zoning at all. In the event one would like to modify the standards in this case, the landowner would like to achieve 11 lots as opposed to -- or more than 11 lots in this case, getting a zoning change to single family 1, the minimum lot size is 10,000 square feet. The minimum lot size for rural residential is one acre. So there's a big difference right there. So the owner would like to develop more than what was allowed with the interim designation. And that's really the distinction with the interim designation or seeking a different zoning district that allows you to do more than you were previously allowed. The Planning Commission wrote in initiating the zoning case was to have the applicant having to incur the expense of paying the fee, but not to keep us from having to have a discussion about the appropriateness of the single family one zoning versus that that was assigned upon annexation. So that's briefly where we stand with this case.

>>Garcia: Council, we have several speakers. Do you want to listen to speakers first?

>>Lewis: yeah. I can ask ms. Glasgow after the speakers speak.

>>Garcia: what direction would you like to take? Councilmember Lewis?

>>Spelman: I suppose we should hear the speakers first.

>>Garcia: Mr. Bill bunch? Mr. Thomas w. Lowry, Mr. Elton pru it.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, I'm here on behalf of the save our springs alliance, largely in support of the homeowners position, but I wanted to put it in a larger context of the drinking water protection zones that you have designated, which includes this area and the area including the barton springs zone. We have asked and have not yet gotten a clear answer that the city undertake a comprehensive infrastructure study, but especially looking at traffic to figure out what you can approve or what density increases you might approve in the drinking water protection zone without creating the need to then go spend some more money down the road on more infrastructure. As you know, a huge part of the smart growth effort is to shift our investments out of the drinking water protection zone and into the preferred growth corridor. And yet as we're making this move, case after case is coming forward to you, this being one of them, at least potentially, depending on how you look at it, to increase density in the drinking water protection zone. And I would again ask you not on any case to increase density in the drinking water protection zone until you know that doing so is not going to cause you to have to expand a road or expand a sewer or spend money facilitating development where I thought we were all clear we were trying to reduce development rather than increase it. So thank you. Those are my comments.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Bunch. Mr. Thomas w. Lowry. And following Mr. Lowry, Mr. Pruitt. Welcome.

>> Mr. Mayor pro tem and members of the Council, I am tom lowry, president of the upper bull creek neighborhood association. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today to discuss this zoning request. We are pleased that you are considering the responsible development of this beautiful rural area of our City. I understand that the published purpose of the hearing today is to act on the request by the landowner and developer for a change in zoning from interim rural residential to international family one. That's as stated on the agenda. This would allow a large number of houses to be built on this tract. Since we are here to talk about zoning I will restrict my remarks to that one issue. The original planning commission staff recommendation was to zone this property as sf-1. The according to Mr. David walgren, single family zoning would allow for 30 closely spaced houses directly across the street from five houses on multiple acre lots. From after four meetings before the Planning Commission, the commission voted on june 2nd six to one to rezone this 11 acres in the bull creek valley as rural residential with a minimum lot size of two and a half acres. The reasons given by the commission vice chair, walter brown, for establishing the minimum lot size were, no. 1, To develop this land in keeping with the neighborhood and no. 2, To provide a transition from the more densely developed land up on top of the ridge to the leslie -- less densely developed land properties along bull creek. Although we strongly prefer maintaining a minimum of five acre lots in the valley, we are willing to support the compromise approved by the Planning Commission. Any more dense development we think would be out of character with the neighborhood, and I will speak to that issue. The citizens in our neighborhood need your help to protect bull creek and this unique valley. The majority of the land along the creek upstream from bull creek district park is under the care of either the City of Austin, district park, travis county or the property owners in our neighborhood association. We take very seriously our stew ward ship of this land along bull creek. The members of the planning commission were told by the developer of this tract that his proposed rezoning would simply move this land to a classification that would, quote, fit in with the neighborhood. All this may seem to be true on a map, it is simply not true on the ground. This is easier to understand when you know that the straight line that borders the back of the subject tract is the approximate location of a --. [Buzzer]. -- Steep high cliff. Ga.

>>Garcia: let me ask some other speakers if they want to give you some time. Mr. Pruitt?

>> okay. He has given me his time.

>>Garcia: okay. You have three more minutes.

>> Okay. We need some photographs here. Old lampasas trail runs the length of the valley --.

>>Garcia: excuse me just a second. Can you give three minutes time? stop the clock and put three minutes back on? okay. They had you --.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: they were taxing you while you were not speaking. [Inaudible].

>> Old lampasas trail runs of the length of the upper bull creek valley. The neighborhood here is down in the valley on either side of old lampasas trail, not up on the top of the 60-foot cliff. Fronting on old lampasas trail there are a field with cattle, a church on over 10 acres, mud land set aside for a park, a 10-acre home site, six five-acre home sites, an estate of over 20 acres and the City of Austin bull creek neighborhood nature preserve. None of these lots is less than five acres. That is the real neighborhood. It looks like this. The left picture there. The neighborhood with which the developer says his plan is compatible is to the north of the subject tract and is above the steep sikt-footed rise and is on another street, grand oaks drive. There is no street directly connecting the subject tract to the land above and the up land plateau area is actually in a neighborhood association. The citizens in that neighborhood association who live adjacent and above the subject tract also are against the proposed denser zoning. I have here the sittle of over 20 landowners -- signatures of over 20 residents and landowners for you who oppose this rezoning. I have found no person living next to this land who is in favor of dense zoning. The rezoning of 11.3 acres along old lampasas trail from rural residential would be incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood, would present a serious water runoff problem endangering bull creek and would be a major threat to the environment. The zoning of rural residential with a minimum of five acres lot size would be in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood, would provide more impervious cover for runoff and would protect the sensitive environment of this valley. We want sensible development compatible with the neighborhood and we want sensitive development to protect bull creek and the bull creek watershed. Thank you.

>>Garcia: sir? Councilmember Lewis has a speak?

>>Spelman: you mentioned a couple of times as you were talking that you oppose dense zoning.

>> Yes.

>>Spelman: two and a half acres lots, that's clearly not dense zoning. Sf one classifies has dense zoning in your lex con.

>> Yes, sir.

>>Spelman: how about one acre lots.

>> That's more dense than is compatible with the neighborhood.

>>Spelman: I saw the picture of old lampasas trail. Where was that taken.

>> Where?

>> where along old lampasas.

>> That was taken approximately 50 feet from tally rand and old lampasas trail.

>>Spelman: to the?

>> yes.

>>Spelman: what's old lampasas trail look like to the east? if you shot the other way what does it look like?

>> you would see a church, parking lot, one driveway, a house, further on down there you would see an electrical substation, some undeveloped land there and there's a side street that goes off after tally rand to a cul-de-sac.

>>Spelman: the reason I ask is we have a plan that has edges on it and the edges are too close for my understanding but it looks like we're dealing with something like quarter acre lots to the east right on old lampasas trail and then --.

>> I don't know of any quarter acre lots that front old lampasas trail. There may be some that back up on it.

>>Spelman: they may be siding on it. One looks like it fronts on tally rand at the corner.

>> That's Mr. Hunt's. He owns three lots there together.

>>Spelman: are they developed?

>> he has his house on that property. Spell all three lots he owns them and has one house on them.

>> Yes. He's trying to buy more property.

>>Spelman: a lot of people are these days. Okay. So we don't have very much development at least immediately to the east on old lampasas?

>> that's correct.

>>Spelman: how about to the west of the subject tract?

>> west of the subject tract is City park nature preserve.

>>Spelman: the reason I asked about this is because again we're on the edge of my map here, but it looks like we've got five single-family lots approximately quarter acre in size that have been zoned on the west side of the subject tract on old lampasas trail, on the north side of the street. And then beyond that --.

>> Those have been taken over by the City as part of the city preserve.

>>Spelman: okay. So they're no longer subdivided tracts. They're part of the City of Austin's preserve.

>> And old lampasas trail has been cut off at that point.

>>Spelman: that's been cut off. So it no longer goes through the drive and beyond.

>> It never has.

>>Spelman: well, we need a new map around here, I can tell.

>> Yes, sir, you do.

>>Spelman: okay. So from tally rand west --.

>> There is a wagon trail there that was used in the late 1800's.

>>Spelman: I haven't used that myself and I left my horse at home, so I won't be trying it today. After that it cuts off and old lampasas trail heads to corely drive, thereabouts.

>> Old lampasas trail dead ends where that undeveloped -- the word undeveloped appears.

>>Spelman: okay. And so there's no way of getting through from one side to the other right now?

>> well, one could break down the City gate there at that point and go through.

>>Spelman: that would be illegal and as a City Council I was going to uphold the law and not break it. So I'm not going to break down that gate. Okay. Thank you very much.

>> Thank you.

>>Lewis: vi one question. -- I have one question. Here on -- are you saying the whole complete length of the subject tract has a cliff all the way -- at the point that you thought we was speaking of down at the west end, is that -- I see I guess the tree bend cove coming in with the cul-de-sac with lots that back up to the subject tract, is that a cliff between that tract and --.

>> Yes, sir. That straight line is the approximate location of a 60-foot cliff.

>>Lewis: so the whole subject tract has a cliff?

>> yes, sir.

>>Lewis: okay. Is it -- well, the other property use you were speaking of here, is that the five-acre tract where it says dr only?

>> no, sir. That property has been purchased by the owner of the adjacent property and I don't know how many acres that property was, but it is now part of the property that is now labeled Travis County undeveloped.

>>Lewis: okay. So we don't -- at the present time we don't know what's going to happen with that Travis County undeveloped property?

>> yes, sir. It's the land owned by Mr. Sam talkington who is here and can speak tow that issue today.

>>Lewis: all right. Thank you, sir.

>>Goodman: Mayor pro tem?

>>Garcia: Councilmember Goodman?

>>Goodman: I can ask whoever comes up next if they live around here.

>>Garcia: let me ask the Council, I've been operating without a Council assistant today due to a death in the family and I keep the resource management commission report, brief report, do we recess this hearing for a minute and we'll get right back to it?

>>Lewis: that's fine.

>>Garcia: if you all don't mind. It won't be two seconds. I didn't see Mr. Pfeiffer and I didn't know you were here. Sorry about that.

>> Thank you. Who's the comedian, steven wright who says my plan is to live forever and right now I'm right on schedule? I don't know why that came to mind. My name is michael osborne and I'm here today because I serve on the resource management commission. I also serve on the Texas energy coordination Council appointed by governor bush and I did serve under governor richards on the sustain able energy Council. And generally I'm known as the spokesperson for the industry in this part of the world. I'm here today because chairman pfeiffer asked me to join him in communicating to you the adoption of a resolution that we passed at the last rmc meeting supporting the recommendations and report of the sustain able energy task force that we had here in Austin. And I hope that you have those in front of you. I did ask the clerk to hand those out. So I don't see anyone looking at it yet. Do you have one there, Beverly? do you see if you've got one? good. I also notice -- yes, that's it. It's just a copy. I'm also here today just very briefly because I noticed in article 31 that the resource management commission is supposedly involved in a lot of renewable energy communications to the Council in the 24433 were to advise city Council in developing and reviewing City plans and programs in the area of energy, technologies and renewable energy. We're to advise the Council and report to the City Council on the status of the activities at least annually. And we're also supposed to prepare a report, which I suspect has not been done in a long time, but now that I'm on that Council and commission, maybe we will be able to get a report to you. But very briefly, I jis want to share this with the Council. Renewable energy in Texas is really beginning to move. The 35 mega watt project with Texas utilities out south of -- out there by big springs. It's about a 35 mega watt project and that broke ground just in the last couple of weeks. As you know, there was a 75 mega watt project with central and southwest. That project got into a bit of a regulatory problem at the public utility commission and went out for rebid, but the rebid on it has now ploes close and it does look like that project is now back on line. Other things you probably don't know that boeing has moved an office to Austin here to help promote their central power technology, which is a see lar power plant technology and they're working in connection with the saudi government and they have a plant that they're willing and anxious to srve Texass with and they believe that they can produce power in that five cent range. A british company recently bought in to the aclra fields in which the City gets part of that power from the field and have made some preliminary plans to develop that field out further for some new activity in the state. And, of course, from a regulatory standpoint, we do now have a green pricing rule which has been published at the public utility commission and there will be hearings on that over the next month. And I know that Austin energy is considering green pricing and moving in that direction and it's happening at the state level and it's being pushed through by governor bush and his appointees there. On basic other levels, the company that I've worked for for many years, the little wind company was brought out by en ron. Shell oil made a major announcement in the last six months to get them into the renewable energy business big time, as did british petroleum, as you might remember John brown, who is the member of british petroleum, who is one of the few ceo's of a major oil company that says a global changes and things that the companies need to pay attention to or they will be convicted ultimately in the court of public opinion. The point being renewable energy is capable of moo meeting Austin's growing needs in the future. Over a year ago the sustain able energy task force began workogthis report. This report is in its final draft phase right now and just briefly, I just wanted to go over a few pages on it. Obviously on page 3 in the Austin energy vision statement, the final sentence, we add outstanding value to our community and ensure that Austin as a sustain able City. If you look down there on page 3 you see that our fuel mix is about 46% coal, 29% gas, 25% nuclear. Then moving to page 4, you can look over and see -- Mayor pro tem, you can see the carbon dox side. If we're going to get back to 1990 levels as we are required to by a treaty which of course has not been ratified by the senate, you will see that right now at 1996 we're at about 5,000 metric tons and we'd have to get back to 4,000 metric tons and the line, of course, just continues to go up and will continue to go up unless we make some sort of effort to move towards sustain able energy development. On page 5 you will see that Austin's commitment to sustain ability, our net annual investment in renewable electricity is zero. On page seven, you will see that as we go and ask Texass and Austinites what they want, they over and over and over and over again say gosh, we would like to have clean energy. Every time we run a poll with central and southwest, the poll with and a poll with hl and p, somewhere between 65 and 75% of all Texass say that they want renewable, they want clean energy and they want to spread across the entire rate base. Here in Austin and the renewables are important to approximately 91%. On page 99 you can see our Austin energy's capacity and peak electric command and you can see by the year 2000 and 2002 the capacity is ee cliptioning the supply there or the supply is eclipsing the capacity. It's clear that we're going to need to be adding or buying some power. And finally on page 17 of the report, you can see the cost of electric generation for the city of Austin existing plants are about 4.3, new wind at 3.6, new bio gas at 3 and new gas at 3. The blend between bio gas and wind and other affordable resources is clearly within the cost range that we can definitely afford. The seven recommendations that came out of this sttf are on the page 2. I'll quickly go over there. It's to generally adopt a policy of energy sustain ability for the City. Two, to vigorously seek public input. Three, enhance sustain ability oversight in the electricity commission and in the resource management committee and what we've suggested here is that a joint committee be formed. Four, to ensure high level executive oversight in Austin energy and commence sufficient staff to support, to work on developing green power, develop a green power business, five. Six, acquire new renewable energy supplies. This is to issue a 100 mega watt request for proposals for renewable energy structured that Austin incurs no new debt and seven, craft a business plan to maximize success. And I also want to point out on page 17 something that's going to be very important as we begin to look at resource -- resource selections in the future. And that is when we go out to start buying this power that we're going to need, if you look in the box on the bottom right-hand side there where the recommendations for future solicitations for electric generation resources, one of the most important recommendations there is is that we have consistent evaluation criteria that will be used with the focus on evaluating offers based on anticipated future market conditions. The point here is this, is that if we put out an rfp, if Austin energy puts out an rfp and they put a bid back for a natural gas plant, the risk of the cost of that fuel is still going to be on the citizens of Austin because they're going to have a fuel cost in there dh allows that to pass through based on some sort of cost of living index which will be based on some sort of commodities. What we're saying is that we need to require an option in which the bidder absorbs all the fuel risks. Move the risk away from the people of Austin and move it to the bidder because in the renewable energy business we're already doing that. We can give you a 20-year contract that's fixed because we know what our price of fuel will be and that way you can get an idea of what the difference is between a renewable energy resource and a fossil fuel resource because if you make them bid it for 20 years, they're going to bid that price of fuel up to where they have a comfortable feeling with it. So it's very important that we come up with solicitations in our future rfp's for any energy that put renew abls on a par with the fossil fuel. And the way to do that is to make them bid in that particular way in which they have to deal with those uncertain tees.

>>Garcia: on a long-term contract?

>> that's right. It's clear to me after working on this for the last year and a half, that these recommendations will not grow into accomplishments without some sort of major change in the actual culture at Austin energy. It's going to take more than just changing the name and it's going to take more than giving an advertising agency some money to deal with it. It's going to take a major cultural change. We have a real opportunity to begin to move toward powering Austin. Austin's needs in a clean sustain able way that most of the citizens of this City prefer. We can move Austin energy into an innovative and profitable enterprise that makes and meets -- meets the needs of today's citizens without prejudicing the opportunities of tomorrow's citizens. And that's what sustain ability is all about. The resource management commission has voted to recommend that the Council accept this report and adopt its recommendations and that's why I'm here today. Thank you so much.

>>Garcia: thank you. Questions? a very good report. I really appreciate it. I think the point that it brought up about global warming and all the other things are so very critical and I'm glad that you all are looking at this in such a visionary way. And I think we need to have the Council consider it.

>> I believe the electric utility commission will be moving on this in the -- in their next meeting and I hope we'll put together a joint task force between those two commissions and then I hope, of course, that the City Council will embrace this and embrace it in a way that we truly do -- thank you.

>>Garcia: I apologize for the delay. Great. Back to item no. 58, Mr. Pruitt. Following Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Sam talkington, Mr. Earnest gave his time to Mr. Lowry. Mr. Pruitt, welcome, sir. Are there any questions? you're going to be here in case there are questions?

>>. [Inaudible]. Here is an updated map of the region. This is an updated man of the region. This is the subject tract in red right here. The black line is old lampasas trail. As you see, all of this is city preserve, all of the attached area here.

>>Garcia: okay. Mr. Pruitt, welcome, sir.

>> Mayor pro tem, members of the Council, I am a resident of wall den oaks subdivision and a member of the bull creek neighborhood association and bull creek foundation. Thank you for the opportunity to address issues affecting zoning of this property. I live in the wall den oaks subdivision directly across old lampasas trail from this tract. My neighbors will speak to the character and environment of the neighborhood. I would like to address the recent history of our part of bull creek valley. In july 1987, four families purchased undivided interest in a 30-acre tract now known as wall den oaks. Our purpose was to establish homesteads on the tract. We spent three years writing deed restrictions more stringent than was required by the Austin etj. These were filed with the in july 1990 long before the City enacted a kprens active watershed ordinance for bull creek.

>>Garcia: wait. We have a quorum. We have to have a quorum when we have a public hearing.

>> The next three years were spent creating the subdivision. Early in the process we contacted as many of the nearby neighborhood associations a as we could identify and requested a joint meeting to present our plans and to seek their input. This meeting was a resounding success. Judy generallings and other neighborhood activists used that meeting as a novel that came of the north Austin neighborhood coalition or nancy. Following this meeting we made presentation of our plans before northwest Travis County mud no. 1. In addition to nancy and the mud, we were in contact with the adjacent landowners. These individuals were made aware of our plans and were kept informed throughout the subdivision process, which was completed in 1993. The tract at 94 hundred old lampasas trail now old by Mr. Soaley, was in trust by the resolution trust corporation and those folks refused to talk to us. Wall den oaks is now comprised of six five acre lots that cannot be subdivided further and which are owned by six families, homes represented homesteads have been built on four of the lots. In short, my point is that we talked on our neighbors, we listened to our neighbors and we kept our neighbors informed. The folks at 94 hundred have done none of these. Thank you, sir, and I will pass to the next fellow.

>>Garcia: thank you, very much, sir. Mr. Sam talkington. And following him, lare, lowry. Welcome.

>> Thank you Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers. I'm sam talkington and I live on old lampasas trail. I've lived there since 1980. My home has been approved for historical marker. It was built bhi a gentleman by the name of David wall den and I've kept that home and have got it improved a little bit with two log cabins to start with. The area is so sensitive and it's very difficult and I can see what you would be going through looking at a map. The Planning Commission did the same thing. It took them about four meetings. They finally come out and visited the area because looking at a flat map and looking at the residents up above, I would say there's no reason why you could not let one acre tracts take place here. But if you visited and see how sensitive it is, I think that you would agree with the Planning Commission on the two and a half acres. We have -- the City has purchased 44 acres recently above my land to put a regional detention center so they can set bull creek. It's a real sensitive area. We've got all sorts of wild game and everything, but the main thing is the people that spoke before and those that are not going to speak tonight have taken on themselves and restricted their properties and they did it where they could never diswiebd so they can protect this area. I was really appreciate you taking the time and considering what the planning commission did do in visiting this area. Thank you very much.

>>Griffith: Mayor pro tem, may I ask him a question?

>>Garcia: sure.

>>Griffith: would you please point out what your -- what you show on the map where your place is?

>> this is my area right here here, 25 acres. It's the one they were talking about awhile ago.

>>Griffith: right. Could you tell us -- you said that that area has a rich history and is exceptionally sensitive. Could you say a little bit more about that?

>> there's a book that I have, in fact, I just got it recopied today that I got out of the Texas library or historical library, called the wall den home in the valley. That's my house that they're walking about. That valley that stretches on 360 all the way back was developed by a dwroup group in the 1850's. Elton pruitt could speak a lot to that. The area -- we had it tested on bull creek 100 yards out of my property, which is now City property, there is four million gallons of water a day that comes out of that hillside. At that point you could bottle the water and sell it, it's that pure. The City has purchased that land and has protected that part. The City has also protected the upper part by purchasing 44 acres so flooding will not take place. I was here in 1985 asking that we do something about it because spicewood springs road is closed after a two inch rain always and used to it would take five or six inches to make that happen. If you could visit the area, and I encourage you to, you would understand why we are wanting these homes not to be as dense as they're requesting. I really encourage you to come out and look. It's a beautiful area and I think that this book was Written in 1965 by a lady that was a grandchild of David wall den and she talked about this valley and it brings a tear to my eye, but I think it's pretty neat. And she talks about how green is my valley and in 1965 or 64 she drove back through and at the end she says it's not what it used to be. I'm sure she's not too happy with the way it is right now. Anything else?

>>Griffith: no. I got familiar myself with the area in '90, '91 and '92 when we were putting together the hang tract, the lanier tract and when we came to call the 151. Do we want to put that map back up that shows where hank's, lanier and the 51 are? point to your place.

>> Okay. My place is here. This is the lanier and I think the 151 belongs to. [Inaudible]. We also have another 80 acres that I do not see here that the City owns that belongs to hanks. And they just now bought -- closed the lampasas road and bought 44 acres to put a regional detention pond in place. [Inaudible]. This is the area right in here. [Inaudible].

>>Griffith: what I came to know during those three years we were working on the land acquisition is this particular area that spicewood springs road runs up and that old lampasas road runs across is an area that is as loaded with natural beauty, with sensitive, important land in terms of water quality and in terms of Texas history as I think you will find anywhere in this state. And that's what makes it so special. Old lampasas trail is exactly that. It's the wagon train trail. And some of those ruts are still there to see.

>> It was dedicated in 1836 is what Mayor todd came out and looked at it once and that's when they found the dedication.

>>Griffith: well, I'm glad you're here to tell us some stories.

>> Well, I would really appreciate Councilmembers, I would love to have you come out and look before you make a decision.

>>Griffith: I think the point you're making is it's hard to know what there is there to lose until you've seen it, until you've been there and walked it and talked it with some people like yourself who are Texas treasures who have lived there for decades and who keep the faith and keep the tradition. Thanks for coming today.

>> I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

>>Goodman: ms. Lowry? [inaudible].

>>Goodman: okay. Mr. Ikhart?

>> good evening. I'm a member of the moulden neighborhood association and I'm a long time resident of the area and I'm here because we have a special interest and because we are one of the adjoining areas in that neighborhood. And we considered that area to be one of the special jewels and one of the reasons that we enjoy living there. And I am here to express our sincere support on behalf of the other members who have spoken in favor of less dense development in this area.

>>Lewis: yeah, I have a question for you. Could you point out on the map where your neighborhood is located?

>> I don't know if it's depicted on the map here. We're actually. [Inaudible].

>>Lewis: okay. All right. Thank you. [Inaudible].

>>Goodman: greg getman? and after Mr. Getman is jim nias. No, alaire wanted to go.

>> I'm a property owner at 9113 old lamb passes trail where I live with my family. And I think one of the things that we've all gone through over the last several months as the applicant came forth and went through the process of pursuing zoning is we've been back and forth through the process and the process has done what it's supposed to do. The Planning Commission -- if the applicant chose to go this route, that was his decision. Originally we were shocked when this original proposal of 30 homes were going to be across the street, which sf one would have allowed him to do. So we got involved. And we went through the planning process. I think the planning commission has looked at this. That's what you get them there for, that's why you appoint them. They've done a lot of work, we've had this thing postponed as mentioned several times. We've all compromised. That's the thing about it. Those of us who live there agree with ms. Griffith and others who have been down there before and you've been down there before as well that we'd like to see everything be on five acres tracts, but we've come to a compromise. Whether we like it, whether the applicant likes it, we've compromised and I think that's what the political process is really all about. So to come back at this stage of the game and say, well, one side doesn't like the compromise, we want to go back to what we could have had, I'm confused as to what staff said about the impression that if they had stayed with interim rr they could have done whatever they wanted to without going through zoning. That was my understanding of what was said, and that kind of scares me. But we've gone through zoning and gone through the process and I think you should allow the proets to work. We've agreed to accept less than what we would prefer. I think the owner, the commission looked at giving the developer an opportunity to develop the property and we've come to a middle ground in public process and I think you should let that -- let that occur as it should. I've been one of the people that walked in the neighboring neighborhood associations and have talked to people around us and there's nobody in favor of this density. It's as good as we could hope for and we're ready to move forward with that and to do something different now means we're going to have to go through this thing all over again somewhere down the line and it pro longs a decision on this 11 acre prakt tract of property that's been around for many, many years with nobody able to do anything with it and let's get it zoned and get it moving the way it needs to be developed and I think that that's one of the things that is really paramount is that you let the commission do what they were supposed to do so they make good decisions in the future and they don't get gun shy. Thank you very much. Any questions?

>>Goodman: thank you.

>> Hello. I'll be very brief. I think there are just two issues here really. Basically neighborhood compatibility and secondly saving this wonderful treasure, the ba beautiful bull creek valley which you've heard several people speak about. And all we would like to do at this point is urge you to accept the planning commission's recommendation of two and a half acre overlay on rural residential so that we can proceed and get on with our business and still protect this valley. Thank you.

>>Goodman: thank you. Mr. Nias?

>> thank you. I represent the land otherer. I failed to sign up earlier because I thought I was the applicant, but I guess I wasn't. The owner has owned this property for five or six years. He lives in this neighborhood directly behind the property. What he wants to do is to subdivide this 11 and a half acre approximately tract to 11 single family homes. 11 Single family homes, one acre minimum lot size and in strict compliance with the current watershed ordinances of the City. He's had a subdivision working for about a year. It's been thoroughly reviewed by the staff. It is in complete compliance with current watershed ordinances of the City, no variances, no exemptions. It's about approximately a 15% impervious cover project, which is sos biased impervious cover. You've heard a lot about the tract that the smallest tract on old lampasas trail is five accusers. You've heard about the wall den oaks subdivision right across the street. And this is my client's project, one acre lots, win mum lot size. The wall den oaks are gross acreage of five acres each are really not five acre lots. This bright blue indicates the critical water quality zone of bull creek. Bull creek is actually inside these loots. Those are not five acre lots inside the creek. They are substantially in the creek. The dark you see is slopes of over 35% gradient. You are never ever supposed to build in the credit cell water quality zone on slopes of over35% gradient. When you goat through taking that out of the five acre lots, they're really about an acre and a half. When you see what my client is proposing, they're really comparable. I've heard about environmental sensitivity, but no disrespect meant, but I gave you all this documentation to your offices this week and this wall den oaks so-called five acre lot subdivision was platted pursuant to an exception in the si sti's watershed ordinance, the so-called five acre exemption, which allows you if you plat five acre lots to avoid a lot of other things in the watershed ordinance. This was really kind of an abuse of that exception. You're supposed to plat five acres in the uplands, not in the creek. And after a couple of subdivisions like this came through, that five acre exception came through so that you have to have five acres excluding the critical water quality zone and floodplain. This somehow slipped through before that was change and it's not a pair gone of environmental conscious and you've been hearing. The big estate here, sam's estate, it's a nice place, but if you look closely at the map, there's all sorts of improvements built down in the critical water quality zone of bull creek and there's nothing to keep that 20 acre --. [Buzzer]. -- To keep that from being subdivided. If I had a couple more applicants. I am the applicant, I think. Shouldn't I get a couple more minutes?

>>Goodman: well, what does the Council want to do?

>>Spelman: well, if necessary I would move that we suspend the rules and allow the applicant to have two more minutes.

>> I thank you very much. I think as far as environmental sensitivity, something that complies with the City's current watershed ordinances and which is a 15% project is really and truly a lot more sensitive than something that was done pursuant to really an abuse of an out dated exception which allows people to build right down here on the creek, on the critical water quality zone and not even have to do things like identify and set back and critical environmental features or observe slope categories or cut and fill limitations or anything like that. And I -- if -- the planninging commission had none of these facts before them when they made the decision. My client had no representation before the Planning Commission and and if you follow their recommendation and allow him to have two and a half acre lots, in terms of buildable areas, I mean, his two and and a half acre lots would actually be required to be about an acre larger in terms of buildable acres than these so-called five acre lots across the road, which is about an acre and a half if you take out the water quality zone and the 35% slopes. So he would actually be required to have bigger lots than the folks closer to the creek by about an acre and probably 10 times the size of all these sf-2 lots behind him. And I just have a hard time seeing the equity and the fairness a in the zoning process of something like that. Again, this is a mere 11 single family homes on single-family lots in strict compliance with the current watershed ordinance and s s.o.s. I am nervious cover project and I would ask you to be -- impervious cover project and I would ask you to be fair to my client. And they are really not big lots in buildable area. They are substantially in the creek. Thank you very much. I'll be glad to answer any questions.

>>Goodman: so your client's desire at this point, as I understand it, would be if you were really the applicant, to withdraw and to build 11 Austin acre lots?

>> either withdraw and k-eye opener news the interim rr zoning or have permanent rr zoning without this conditional overlay at two and a half acres, which actually makes him bigger than the lots across the street really. Rr is fine.

>>Goodman: thank you.

>>Lewis: I have a question. Let's go back prior to annexation. Had he been able -- had he developed that what would he have been able to do, 20, 25 houses on that property?

>> probably so, but -- probably so.

>>Lewis: and the darker colors on the properties, what are those?

>> the dark colors on both sides are the slopes in excess of 35%. I wanted to fairly portray it. You see he has some small areas. There is a little tiny bit of critical water zone from a tribted terri of bull creek which is not on his property, but it is over here and it nips the edge of two lots, but substantially this is going to be an an acre of buildable size each.

>>Lewis: old lampasas trail, does that have a curb and gutter?

>> I don't believe it does. Am I correct on that, no curb and gutter?

>>Lewis: so all the runoff from that -- from that property would have to go across the other properties before it would get to the creek?

>> all the runoff from that property goes across those other properties now.

>>Lewis: I'm saying --.

>> It will actually be a better situation because it would be an engineered runoff so it would be a better situation than exists now.

>>Lewis: and the properties out there have septic tanks or is it sewage?

>> I believe they have sewer; isn't that correct? yes. And that's another of my client's problems with having to put in $150,000' worth of infrastructure and getting four lots out of this.

>>Lewis: so they do have sewage out there? [inaudible].

>>Lewis: all right. Thank you.

>>Goodman: according to our backup, there are water mains existing in right-of-way. Okay. I guess technically since we're the applicant, we may get rebuttal. Do you want to give staff questions or did you have a question for anybody else?

>>Lewis: I have a question.

>> We'll probably change this process where we won't let you be the applicant any more.

>>Goodman: can I ask you if we have environmental staff here?

>> no, we don't have someone here, but we'll try to get someone here. If you want to pull your question, we might be able to answer it.

>>Goodman: dwed.

>>Lewis: I have a question. The Planning Commission recommended that on an overlay of two and a half acres. Is it any reading the material that I have with sewage there, what is the reading -- reasoning? I'm trying to come up with a reason for the oversize lots for something to be incompatible with the properties across the street. Is this subject tract, is it in any type of mud?

>> no, it's not. It's not in a mud at all. The Planning Commission based its recommendation on what it heard from those who spoke at the hearing.

>>Lewis: okay. That's all I have.

>>Goodman: Councilmember Lewis?

>>Spelman: I had a qi for Mr. Nias -- a question for Mr. Mnias. You could build on any of the sections that were not in dark blue here; is that correct?

>> yes. There are very nice, flated -- you're actually supposed to try to build on zero to 15% if you can. And there are very nice building sites on each and every one of those lots.

>>Spelman: could you point out the section of the lots where those nice building sites would be?

>> the flat evident parts are kind of running through here. They're closer to kind of the whole I'd say 50, 75 feet off the street. Kind of running through like this.

>>Spelman: okay. So they would be a long ways from the back of the lot so that what you would be having is a relatively small front yard and a relatively large backyard.

>> It wouldn't be relatively small. These are acre lots. The set back is 40 feet.

>>Spelman: I was saying it would be small relative to the backyard.

>> Yes.

>>Spelman: but you would have a big backyard.

>> Yes.

>>Spelman: how long is that slope in the backyard? how big is the elevation change from the back lot line to the back of that probable area that you'd be building on?

>> I think it varies. You can kind of look at the toep poe map here and it may be 60 feet in some areas and less in some areas.

>>Spelman: what --.

>> What we heard is the bluff runs along like this and none of it runs like I've gikted on the map is 35% slopes.

>>Spelman: it looks to me as you kindly provided me a copy of your map and I was looking at it in the back room and it looks like you're talking about a roughly 50 foot drop from the back lot line to the 800 foot elevation that you just pointed out a second ago.

>> That's probably about right. And that's over -- that is over about 200 to 250 feet of travel.

>>Spelman: right. So you've got 50 foot drop, 200 foot of travel. You may not be at a stage yet and if you don't know, certainly no one can hold it against you, but do you and the applicant have an idea for what kind of houses you're talking about building here? are they going to be two-story, three story, one-story? do you know?

>> my client really does not have that idea. He's a small business person in the sign business. This is his first foray into this. He lives in the neighborhood behind. He's not a builder, he's not really a developer.

>>Spelman: he may not be again after this.

>> I'm sure he doesn't want to be anymore more. But I don't have any idea. That was an idea I through out when I met with the neighborhood association about height limits or muscling or something.

>>Spelman: one logical buffer would be to have a setback from the back lot line so you wouldn't be impinging on their backyards at all and you wouldn't be impinging much on their view. It looks like the topography is really doing that for you.

>> It really does that. Not only is there a distinct difference in elevation between this sf-2 neighborhood and these lots, but there is a distinction difference in elevation between old lampasas trail and where these lots are built in the wall den oaks subdivision and this other home as well.

>>Spelman: so the wall den oaks subdivision houses are built another 50 feet down in elevation?

>> yeah. I don't think -- I think. Y'all can disagree if you think I'm wrong, but I think it would be hard to see the houses up here from where they live. Of course, they will be able to see them when they drive up on the road, but there's a distinct elevation drop between old lampasas trail and where these houses are built down here.

>>Griffith: can we talk about that distinct drop? could we refer also to this map right here to show what I think Dr. Spelman is asking about in terms of this lot and the steepness that we're trying to get a feel for without actually being able to look at it tonight on the ground?

>>Goodman: are you asking a question, Councilmember Griffith?

>> I think what you're asking is -- we've developed this on elevations that were put together that shows the basic elevation of the creek and where bull creek is located and the elevation up on old lampasas trail, which is down here, okay? then we go up about 50 to 60 feet or more to go up to the grand oak area that is currently zoned sf-1 and the subject tract is right in this area here and it slopes up in various degrees of steep grade. And so our -- this was create kind of to give a good feel as to how it's more a part of this area and that's the way the Planning Commission looked at it when it was zoning for compatibility, as opposed to being up here at this elevation. There's a very serious break, but any building up here is going to be obviously as far as views are concerned are going to be more intrusive to the people on top of the hill. They'll be looking at rooftops now where they haven't been, not our association down here.

>>Spelman: right. Where I was going with my series of questions is are they going to be look at rooftops right in their field of vision right in front of them or looking at rooftops down the hill and will they be able to look over the rooftops down into the valley?

>> from up here they would be looking at our rooftops because the buildable area that was pointed out there is a very narrow strip right here.

>>Spelman: about 800, 80010 feet.

>> Right about 80010, 815 feet.

>>Garcia: Councilmembers, do you want to close the public hearing and then they can continue with the questions? motion by Councilmember Slusher, seconded by Councilmember Goodman to close the public hearing. That doesn't mean you can go away because the questions will go on. He those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed no. Motion carries. Back to you.

>>Spelman: so if you get a house on grand oak and it's about 860 elevation on that flat spot on the far right there --.

>> That is right here.

>>Spelman: and looking out my back window and I see there's a house 50 feet down --.

>> You would see a house right here, yes, sir.

>>Spelman: and it would be able to go up no higher than 35 feet because that's the hip kel height limitation on rr, sf one, sf two, any of that stuff. Say about 30 feet. That will take it up to about 20 feet below where I'm standing. And then as I look out over that would I be able to see the valley?

>> you would be able to see the rooftops here, guessing. I'm not an engineer, I'm an arcologist. I study people who live in floodplains. Maybe that's that explains why I like to live in one. The view from up here would most likely with that drop, the elevation that's there now, be able to see the rooftops of a 35 foot tall house. Currently their view is across the valley. They have to get up on their roof to see our roofs.

>>Spelman: because you're way down.

>> We're built at the edge right here at the break of the floodplain and the valley wall. And we're above the 100-year floodplain, but we're at the base of the valley wall.

>>Spelman: so we're not in a position where these positions built would block the view, but on the other hand we're in the in a position where these houses if built would be invisible. They're in that range where you see them, you can still look over them.

>> And in speaking to that, the representatives of that neighborhood association were at previous meetings. At the Planning Commission, if you go back and review what they spoke to, that was a big concern of theirs is what happened happen to their views. They're not here tonight, but that was a concern they had because the density would make that more of a problem and I think that was their position if you go back and look at what they presented at the Planning Commission.

>>Spelman: so a row of rooftops is obviously different than a sporadic rooftop.

>> Right now the south side of wall den oaks is their view and that's what they get taxed on and they would be real unhappy paying that tax and having rooftops in their view.

>>Spelman: the tax assessor would eventually take that into account, I guess.

>>Garcia: Councilmember Griffith?

>>Griffith: yes, sir. Would a motion be in order at this time?

>>Garcia: absolutely.

>>Goodman: well, Mayor pro tem, I had asked if environmental staff was available and I understand that randall gaither was somewhere in the building and he hasn't gotten here yet, so I still have an environmental question or two.

>>Garcia: okay.

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, I've got some questions of ms. Glasgow.

>>Garcia: we will hold off on your motion. Councilmember Slusher?

>>Slusher: ms. Glasgow, Mr. Nias was talking about the lot, the existing lots near bull creek and what their net site area would be if that was to come in today. Do you have any idea what the size of those lots would actually be under our current regulation $?

>> what he described was correct, that we used to have a provision that allowed the five acre provision if you had five acre lots and your exception did not include the calculations to include the critical water quality zone and the area that is in the -- in the floodplain. I would have to determine the exact acreage for the -- for the net size area, which I don't have now.

>>Slusher: do you think it's in the area of one and a half acres out of each five acres as he described?

>> I'm not certain about that.

>> Councilmember, if you want to talk about the strict lit ral definition of net site area, I was talking about buildable areas. If you're talking about net site area, by the code, you're supposed to subtract in calculating your net site area, not only the critical water quality zones, but also water quality transition zone. And if you do that within the 300 foot water quality transition zone next to the critical, these lots actually have virtually no net site area really.

>>Slusher: so is that your understanding, ms. Glasgow, that under current regulations you wouldn't be able to build on those as all?

>> I didn't say you wouldn't be able to build on them,.

>>Slusher: but the net site area is what you can build upon.

>> No, it's what you get a percentage of impervious coverage on. You can have some limited building in the water quality transition zone, but your your allowable impervious cover is based on net site area, which takes out both critical and water quality transition. So that's why I wasn't talking about net. If you talk about that, the real strict lit real definition, these lots have no net site area. They have a buildable area, though, of about an acre and a half.

>>Slusher: then what happens when you get to impervious cover limits?

>> there is some impervious cover allowed in the water quality transition zone, unless you're over the aquifer recharge zone. Slush/then that part would be included in the net site area.

>> No. The difference is if you're over the edwards aquifer recharge zone, you can't build in it at all. If you're not over the aquifer recharge zone, you're allowed some limited building, but it's not still calculated as part of the net site area for impervious cover limits. I know that's kind of confusing. That's why I didn't talk about net site area, you because there is no net site area here strictly.

>>Slusher: I may want to ask the environmental department when they get here also.

>>Goodman: Mayor pro tem?

>>Garcia: Councilmember Goodman?

>>Goodman: what might actually happen is environmental staff is that this is ready only for first reading tonight anyway, so maybe in between now and then it's a better way to get environmental information from patrick and randall I don't think has been really involved in this.

>>Garcia: thank you. Grf?

>>Griffith: Mayor pro tem, I'd like to offer a motion on first reading as -- and I think that's a good idea that Councilmember Goodman had. I realize that it's difficult to understand exactly what the Planning Commission was think when they put that overlay on unless one has seen and knows this valley. We could get all interested in are those really five acre lots or not, we could get interested in what you could have built before annexation, which you might be able to built after annexation, but when you know and see this area, what gets important to you and I think why the Planning Commission after they visited the area made the recommendations that they did is because when you see it and know what is important is the protection of the astounding natural beauty, the environmental sensitivity and the early Texas history that you see rur surrounding it. So for that reason, I would affirm the planning commission's recommendation, offer that as a motion.

>>Garcia: motion for first reading to adopt the commission recommendation. Is there a second?

>>Goodman: I'll second it for a first reading and discussion.

>>Garcia: Councilmember?

>>Griffith: I know that the Planning Commission didn't -- did do some site visitation and I would hope that between first reading and second reading that we might avail ourselves of that opportunity as they did.

>>Goodman: is that a second? -- I've been to the area and I know what they're talking about. I don't know that I can actually vote for the two and a half acres on third reading because I have a real bad feeling about the ethics of what we're doing here and I need to have a talk with legal along with environmental in between. This is the northern edwards and it doesn't recharge the same as the southern edwards, so some of your assumptions may not hit even though we're all pretty knowledgeable about the basics of recharge of the aquifer. I want to double-check on that. If this applicant is coming to the process in the normal way, it would be the applicant's prerogative on whether to withdraw or not and that would be their property, their choice. And in this case in an effort to make things easier for those folks that we take into the City I think in some cases we may reverse that a little bit. So I'm seconding the motion for first reading because we do need time, I think, to find out about things.

>> You do have an environmental person.

>> Councilmember Goodman, randall gabe is here from environmental review and he can walk you thrt the implications of the water quality protection zone calculations. [One moment, please] in regards to the overlook at bull creek, the section listed here, you do have the primary con traint would be the slopes. In terms of building on this one and its environmental sensitivity. Little heavily vegetated, as I recall, once you take the vegetation off, that's when you would, you know, have the impact. I know of no springs or seeps in this particular area, but that is also likely. Due to the interaction between the glen rose and edward in this type of area. In addition, of course, critical zone with its potential on this side of the tract. I see that there's at least two lots that would drain into the critical zone portion of the -- of bull creek there. This is not -- I don't see this as being labeled slope map or the slope categories labeled, but it does have -- some analysis of steep slopes zones through here. Okay. These are the 35s, so those would be completely unbuildable, then you have got fairly steep slopes throughout the rest of the site.

>> More detail on the slope map.

>> Yeah. Okay. This looks like the -- the submitted slope map as required showing potential driveways and buildings. Just taking a lot by lot look, it looks like there is some 15, accessible for each lot. With a few little -- some gerrmmandering. You can get back to the driveway piece, a good one. Yeah. Keep that one. I see a waterway coming through here with a drainage easement, but I do -- it does not indicate that it's -- whether or not it would be classified, if it has a drainage area in excess of 128 acres in its watershed, it would have a critical zone associated with it. As well as a transition zone.

>>Goodman: okay. In between now and next week, if I give you my question -- well, would I give you my questions? because I have some that are a little more detailed and since you seem to know about them, would you give them to you?

>> I would be glad to take them and get back to you.

>>Goodman: thanks, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: thank you, Councilmember. I don't think we have a meeting next week. And -- they are talking about canceling the 24th, so it may be october 1st before we get back to this. That will give you plenty of time to cover all of the issues. Further questions on the motion? a motion for first reading to adopt the Planning Commission recommendation. Which is rr conditional overlay. All those if favor signify by saying aye. Opposed no. Motion carries on a vote of 6-0, to 1. With the Mayor out of town. Thank you so very much. The second and third reading will be scheduled for october 1st. We are now to the 6:00 public hearing. This public hearing is on an appeal by Mr. Joe your your and kathy vasquez permit for the Arnold oil company located at 1645 east sixth, file number spc-97-0441 c. Ms. Glasco.

>> Council, item no. 61 Is an appeal of site plan approved by the Planning Commission, this is our first conditional use permit for under the area that's covered by the east Austin overlay. But Council approved a year ago. The proposed development, background, this is a piece of property previously zoned limited industrial. The owner of the property voluntarily came into -- to the City and filed a zoning change to downgrade the zoning from industrial to commercial services. This was right after the approval of the East Austin overlay and obviously the concern of the overlay was the abundance of industrial zoning in East Austin. And the roleback in zoning was certainly a step towards reducing the number of industrial -- the number of lots that have industrial zoning. The proposed use is for development of a house, the applicant has submitted a site plan to us that shows warehouse distribution facility comprising of 2600 square feet for the first floor, 8,000 square feet for the second floor. The height of the building is two story building, with a height of 30 feet. The allowed impervious cover is 95 percent, the applicant has a proposal of 78% impervious cover. Their parking spaces that are required and they are provided. It's a driveway proposed on to east sixth street that is 40 feet wide. The site currently has an office building, storage sheds and packed caliche drives which will be removed should this site plan be approved. The site plan complies with requirements of the current zoning district, which is cs commercial services, and we believe is compatible with standards of the land development code. The Planning Commission found that the proposed plan is in compliance with all applicable regulations and recommended approval of the site plan. That concludes my presentation. I will be glad to answer any questions following citizen presentation.

>>Garcia: questions for ms. Glasco? I had a quick question, ms. Glasco. The issue of -- of whether this easement and whether that is a -- a controversy, it not something that we decide here. They would have to decide it somewhere else; is that correct?

>> that's correct. The issue of whether there is city public rights of way or an alleyway that is owned by the City has been researched and the real estate division of Public Works surveyor went out there, surveyed the property. There is no record of the City ever owning that property. So we -- the -- if there's a dispute on boundary between two adjoining property owners, that is a matter to be resolved elsewhere, not -- not through this process. Does that answer your question?

>>Garcia: uh-huh. Further questions for ms. Glasco? anybody? okay. Thank you very much, ms. Glasco.

>> Mayor pro tem -- you have the procedures in front of you.

>>Garcia: the procedure we will follow is that first we will have a report from ms. Glasco, which she d.then a presentation by the party bringing the appeal. That is ms. Vasquez and Mr. Your your. I don't have a card for Mr. Your your. But if he is in the room, if he could fill out a card.

>> Councilmember I am going to use the overhead. Bear with me, I haven't done it since I was a school teacher.

>>Garcia: I this the the person bringing the appeal has what, five minutes? five minutes. If people --

>> yes, Mayor pro tem, five minutes.

>>Garcia: and the own are in has five minutes.

>> Yes, either side.

>> That's correct.

>>Garcia: we also have provisions that if any of you want to donate time, you can sign a card, you can indicate that you want to donate time, you can do that. Some of you -- may have not indicated on this -- on these cards in the right way specifically, Mr. Avino Fernandez indicates he's against, against means that you are against the appeal. And for the applicant. Do you want to change that, Mr. Fernandez? you are in favor of the appeal?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: you signed up against the appeal. I will change it for you.

>> [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: if I can find my pen.

>> Excuse me, Mayor pro tem, a lot of us were confused on the for or against, does that matter?

>>Garcia: I am going to go through it to make sure that we are in the right place.

>> Thank you.

>>Garcia: let me go -- some of these I can tell because you all wrote some of the things in. Because darlene rosales indicated for.

>> Against.

>>Garcia: okay.

>> Councilmembers --.

>>Garcia: can you hold on just a second. Just a second. Gus pena has it indicated properly, salvino properly. Mr. Fernandez for the appeal. Linda Johnson says against. Linda Johnson? are you against the appeal? marcos deleon, you are for the appeal? correct commissioner?

>> yes, sir.

>>Garcia: phillip wood. Against the appeal. Monica terrasas has indicated properly. Norman gray. David quintina.

>> He's against the appeal.

>>Garcia: okay. Jim Arnold against the appeal. Sandy lender. Against the appeal? John ronhuasen indicated against. Don contreras.

>> Against.

>>Garcia: against the appeal. David polinand I. Haul hernandez -- for the appeal.

>> I am against the appeal.

>> Against the appeal. You signed for the appeal. I have changed that. I will explain to you here in just a minute why we are doing this. Paul foster is -- jimmy walker, it says against the appeal. You did it correctly. Okay. John hussey.

>> Against.

>>Garcia: against the appeal. Okay. Willie cortez.

>> For.

>>Garcia: for the appeal. I am going to change your card. Suzanna almanza, for the appeal?

>> [inaudible].

>>Garcia:.

>>Garcia: joe your your. Joe is here. Joe quintero. Joe is here. The way that -- the way we are going to do it is -- consistent with code procedure 13-1-255, which first has the report from the director, that's been done. Then there's a presentation by the parties bringing the appeal. And that will be two, each one will get five minutes. And they can -- people that are for the appeal can give their time. Each one will have 3 minutes. Then comments by parties supporting the appeal. Then comments by parties opposing the appeal. And this one, the presenter, will have five minutes. And then a rebuttal by the parties bringing the appeal. That's the procedure that we are going to use. Does anybody want to give time to ms. Vasquez?

>> [inaudible].

>>Garcia: you are -- are you? okay. Carmen quintero gives 3 minutes to kathy, willie cortez, find your car there. -- Your card there.

>>Lewis: Mayor pro tem? I am going to be off the dias, but I will watch it on tv.

>>Garcia: okay. Let me go through here. Carmino do you want to give time, speak yourself? talk to me.

>> I can't hear. What?

>>Garcia: do you want to donate time to ms. Vasquez?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: okay. Marcos de leon do you want to donate time?

>> [inaudible].

>> Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: yes.

>> My sister and I have prepared our presentation together, it kind of feeds into each other.

>>Garcia: you have 8 minutes plus the time going to be donated to you. You have five, she has three, then commissioner marcos deleon gave you three, three, three, willie cortez gave you three.

>> But our presentation is together. If I don't need it, she can go back into it, it's like the same presentation, one presentation together.

>>Garcia: fine.

>> Okay. I appreciate that.

>>Garcia: between the two of you you have 8 minutes, if you just use five, then she has her three.

>> I gave her my time, too.

>>Garcia: she can only have 15 minutes, so we have enough time already.

>> I give my time to her sister then.

>>Garcia: okay. Okay ms. Vasquez, you are on.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem and Councilmembers. My objective is to demonstrate that Arnold oil should not be granted the conditional use permit based on the fact that it fails to meet the review and evaluation criteria set aside to evaluate conditional use permits. It fails to meet one or more. As you can see, when we wrote the East Austin overlay, light industrial, which is number 6, was identified as one of those uses that we felt was intense that we would look at in terms of any expansion or new operations into the area referred to as the triangle, and I wanted to show you that, which I am sure you are aware. This is the conditional use -- this is the evaluation review and evaluation criteria. I will be making my comments to number 2, number 4, susan almanzo will discuss five and 6, of course, and 7. This is a zoning map of the area. We are particularly -- I represent ole Mexico. We are particularly interested in this area which is comal, to this area which is chicon. As you can see, what I discussed last week when I came is that 1931, when the city blanketed East Austin with industrial and commercial services and cs 1 zoning, they did so very much like a blanket. And many -- what the east Austin -- the East Austin land use study found that if -- in particularly near the railroad, there was a need or a -- there was a motivation to sort of stimulate the -- the industrial use around the rail way line. And that's why a lot of the land by the railroad is -- is li. And -- and the other -- what the East Austin land use study found was that, of course, as we all know, that East Austin has a disproportionate amount of li, cs and cs 1 zoning for its size as compared to the rest of the City. This one, the transparency. Section -- I don't know how to get this on there, but section -- section -- okay, this is number 2, the compatibility with existing or permitted uses. In regards to scale, height and setbacks. As I mentioned, the large tracts of land that were zoned, and the consume active nature of the zoning -- cumulative nature of the zoning allowed for a real mixed use area in terms of having incompatible uses adjacent to one another, like li next to family uses or either cs next to a family use, even though they both have the same zoning, the -- the business development, the small business development and the industrial uses needed the li zoning. They needed it to kind of accommodate their use, but many of the uses around the area could be accommodated with gr, lr, lo and we will go into that further later. But Arnold oil is a case in.. It's a large scale motor oil business that distributes and warehouses and transports thousands of gallons of motor oil in the immediate area and general vicinity of neighborhood homes, neighborhood restaurants, neighborhood bars, automotive repair shops, a coffee shop, art goodwill allergies, offices and other businesses -- galleries, offices and other businesses that would require in the zoning requirements in a less intense zoning district. The case manager's recommendation found that the proposed project is consisting with zoning and as I talked to you all last time, when you look at a zoning map, you say, well, this is cs, this is li, well, everything matches, let's go ahead and approve it. Well, the staff was certainly correct that the zoning is consistent, but the use is not. For example, there is a large area of li zoning to the south of the project, which is here. Right here. Almost 45,000 square feet and while it was li for the purpose of -- of using the railroad and all of that, it is now offices and art gallery, coffee shop, a neighborhood restaurant, homes, and a wonderful project that is -- that has come online that will transform an old gulf oil bulk storage warehouse site that was recently a bath house to office suites with amenities such as a mexican fountain to compliment the ole Mexico development plan, a volleyball court, ann arbor picnic area. The arbor picnic area is on actually the -- the concrete structures used to hold old tanks and now that will be a picnic area. So the conclusions -- less than 50 feet of the proposed warehouse space is the property that is being used as a single family home, it's zoned cs 1, it's not even a bar, it's a home and the owner, our neighbor, is -- has a small sewing machine shop in the rear and he's raising his grandchildren. Next to him is another single family home to the east and a two story office building and a half block area that used to be a bar and just some vacant warehouse, willie cortez runs his youth center there and provides family life training and also -- also tutoring. And I guess Diane could you help show me where that is there. I'm not coordinated. Willie's office.

>> On here? or on the large map?

>> here.

>> Willie would be -- right in front. Don't take up time. Show it on the large map. Show it on the large map.

>> It's easier for me on than on this map.

>> Willie's -- he is right here, this one.

>> Across the street to the north we have three more families, single family homes, two of them have been restored, one by the holland family and the other by the valero family, Diane may show you a picture of it, but the holland home was just a disaster and the improvements on that are exemplary. There's another neighborhood restaurant, two neighborhood bars, three automatic repair, all of these uses are not triggered in the conditional use permit. They don't trigger that conditional use permit. The other thing to the north on east seventh, of course you have a medical clinic, more single family homes, a dance studio, planned parenthood and huston tillotson. (Beeping) the conclusion is that Arnold oil would never met today's compatibility standards if he was moving into the area because of the land uses and ongoing improvement in the area. Around oil is -- Arnold oil is inconsistent.

>>Garcia: kathy? can I give you 3 more minutes?

>> I am almost done.

>> You are past your time. I am going to give you -- Mr. Fernandez will donate time. Put three more minutes.

>> The traffic, I faxed all of you all a traffic study.

>>Garcia: three.

>> That was done by --

>> Mayor pro tem, mark -- [inaudible].

>>Garcia: I don't want to take time from anybody if ms. Vasquez doesn't need it, I will take 3 minutes at a time.

>> Instead of mine, he's offering his. [Laughter].

>> The criteria --.

>>Garcia: commissioner deleon is donatesing three minutes.

>> It fails to meet criteria four and seven because it will create inconvenience and really traffic problems. And traffic already is at a critical mass. They are estimating another 68 vehicles coming in. We still have the 30 or so 18 wheelers coming in from everywhere else. East sixth street is used as a short-cut instead of going to 7th street. The type of street is not a commercial collector, it is being described by our traffic engineer as a neighborhood collector. And I really want to get to his findings because they are really just wonderful. He did a traffic study for us, he said that you will not classify it as a commercial collector street. That he would classify it as a neighborhood collector street. And that the street doesn't continue, it's a dead end street. It's very atypical. And the -- it's totally incompatible. Enhancing neighborhood and pedestrian flavor in a community, discourage pedestrian activity, is incompatible and talks about land use incompatibility with what already exists and as I described earlier with the mixed use neighborhood restaurant, occasional residence, boutiques, things like that. He goes on and I hope that we have a copy for you, we will give it to you if you didn't get it by fax, but he leasts all of the criteria. Steve whartman is a well 1999, ban land use planner, he worked as a high official for cap met and he goes over each criteria and gives his opinion as to why he feels that it does not meet the criteria. Because of -- of basically because of the incompatibility of everything and the high traffic volume. And he talks more about the hazards. I will end here because this is suzanne's. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you, mess vasquez.

>> You used the time for commissioner deleon, that means you still have your time. Put that at 3 minutes. Okay. The next speaker for five minutes is Mr. Joe your again tear ro, the other appellate. Quintero.

>> Good evening, I'm joe quintero, I represent the greater Austin neighborhood association. I would really like to speak from my heart. I would like to really stress the concern about what is going to takes place here, another additional expansion of li, because as we continue to speak to you about what has been the injustice for the East Austin residents, neighborhood, and not only that, our grandfathers and even my mother. It makes it difficult because when you practice a little real estate like I have, and when you begin to acknowledge and run up a block for some reason, if some of these guys were looking for a house to buy in East Austin? guess what? you couldn't. You can almost couldn't do it. You know why? I want you to go to the pedernales and sixth street neighborhood. We worked on that four years ago, fact. These are the grandmothers and grandfathers, minority people that live in East Austin. The City of Austin had initiated grants, grant money to improve our housing. You are going to give me the address, let me give you the address, go to 26th 2605 dia street. 2603 Dia street. Let me tell you what happened. We fought and we came here, balcones recycling company was located on pedernales and east sixth street. And if you ever want to begin to work in neighborhood issues, the story I like to relate is it was located on burleson road off of ben white way over there on the other side of ben white. And if it would have stayed there, it would have made us happier. But guess what happened? li was available in east Austin, they came and bought east sixth and pedernales street. I have good faith and good integrity and I like to sell houses and put people in houses. But the reason the City could not grant pedernales neighborhood because all of those houses were sitting on li industrial site. These -- these minorities, Mexican Americans have been paying li taxes for years, decades and decades and decades. Somebody was cheating them. And nobody -- nobody knew what was happening. You asked my wife, she's right here, carmen quintero, I was on comal at the comal neighborhood center when gene watkins came and said we have improvements for the facilities, for homes to be improved and we started on one of the houses, on two of the houses, and the City tore down the houses and the City broke the law. You know what that law was? they shouldn't have never destroyed that house because it was sitting on that li zoning. And guess what? out of that whole neighborhood, only two houses were renovated. And the City would not grant no more loans because li was next to li. I have been working on this for a long time, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know what to believe anymore what the City has planned for me or for my neighborhood. You know, I got this three days ago. This is another neighborhood plan. I am in the neighborhood plan. Don't send me no more neighborhood plans, please. What you are saying in here is not what I want to believe about what housing is all about. So what did I have to do? I have to go knock on every door on dia street and say, sir, would you roll back this li zoning to City planning so the City made a mistake so they can build a house for these people because they are going to be left outside somewhere where they don't have any housing? you see these maps, you go to the grandfather maps, decade, decade, decades. It's an embarrassment. And I don't know what to tell you. But I hope tonight that you will deny an expansion so we can begin to set affordable housing, what's mostly needed, for our grandkids and our kids. I have four grandkids. And I am concerned about the safety and I live in between east Cesar Chavez and east sixth street, I I see those semi trucks past through those streets all the time. We don't have enforcement. Thank you Mayor pro tem Garcia.

>>Garcia: that's the presentation from the appellates. The next group that will be speaking are the people that are supporting the appeal. Before we go to that, let me ask --

>> I was going to do a presentation, also.

>>Garcia: sure, I will recognize you at the appropriate time.

>>Garcia: your time was used by kathy, so somebody else will give you time. Your daughter will give you time. Mark rodgers, you are for the appeal. Correct?

>> correct.

>>Garcia: you ceden nice the cup, that's for the appeal, you checked against. Mario just wrote deny. And wrote against. Is that to deny the appeal or to deny the --

>> for the appeal.

>>Garcia: for the appeal. Gilbert Martinez signed up against. That means you are against the appeal. Are you for the appeal? for the appeal. Carmen donatedded time to you and Mr. Bob foster donated time, so you have six minutes. Yes, sir?

>> [inaudible].

>>Garcia: how many time do you need? everybody is giving you time.

>> I think six minutes will do it.

>>Garcia: we will give you six, if you need more time, some of the other people who have volunteered will then pass them on to you.

>> Thank you. Thank you very much. Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, and guests. I would first like to say my name is Diane volera, I am a property owner and president of ole Mexico. I would also like to recognize that all of the leaders of our different organizations in East Austin that were born, raised, work and help that area are here tonight. Gay, concilo, all of the offeringses that are in that area. Also [inaudible] is here tonight to support our community effort. I would like to address the issue of compatibility because staff recommended that this project, Arnold oil was compatible with the area. I would like to go back to a map that we used about six years ago, if Mayor pro tem can remember, when we first started the plaza saltillo. If you can direct your attention to this map over here, staff said address north, east, west and south of this project. What I have done is gone in and colored in all of the areas green that are either used for business, restaurants, bars, offices, and the yellow are homes. The orange is el galindo, li, a tortilla factory. The red is where Mr. Arnold is now, sliced red is where he is proposing his project. The staff said to the north I would like to say that to the north is green, there are bars, there's an auto repair, but there is also houses to this area. Small businesses. Not as I said, it was li. To the east we have coffee shops, which has been a transformation. We have a restaurant. We have over here which was formerly li will now be Mr. Fosters project, which will be a computer programming firm and offices for attorneys. Willie cortez is on the corner here. Mr. Foster's structure, as was said earlier, used to be an oil facility. Willie's was -- was also formerly the bath house. Willie cortez's was a bar. It is now a youth center and we will be working jointly to combine Mr. Foster's, willie and this area in here to have pedestrian traffic coming all threw these businesses here. These yolando lows, as I said, it was a home yellows was a home. Three or four homes right in here. Darios, all of these uses, even though they may be li or cs 1, that is not what they are being used for. Two of these -- to the south, the City staff said there was li down here. I would like to point out that the li down here is a vacant warehouse. So it is not being used as li. So I think that this needs to be taken into consideration. When you are going to bring something such as Arnold oil who is going to be bringing in 68 more trucks a day deliveries in through this area. They say pictures speak louder than word, so I would like to run a quick slide presentation in the event that the pictures don't work, the slides don't work, rather, here are some pictures. Go ahead. These are churches that are nearby. Go ahead. Events, that looks like Paul hernandez singing there. Okay. Go ahead. Nuevo leon, on 7th. Mi rae restaurant, two doors down from the proposed site of Arnold oil expansion. Playground from zavala. Another restaurant. Keep going. Green and white which is on 7th. This is leon hernandez's restaurant, also on sixth street. Cisco bakery on comal and 6th. This house is directly across from Arnold oil, this is Robert [inaudible] house, he tremendously improved it. I hope the day he does have children, the 68 vehicles that are coming by will not hinder them. This is a house that is to the east of mi rae restaurant. Three doors down from Arnold oil. Keep going. This is a house that is next door to Robert harlin's little area, does car repairs in the back. This is Mr. Benito's house. This is Robert harlen's business. He's renovating it. This is directly next to the Arnold oil proposed expansion site. El galindo, light manufacturing tortillas, willie cortez' youth center. That used to be a happy days bar, now is going to be the computer training program for youths and that's brown building is all his area, which he improve, also. That's another overview of the ymca. Zeke smith's building and perelli. Another view of sixth street. Arnold oil. These are building materials being delivered to Arnold oil. Looks like it. These are oil -- the oil rig that's come in to deliver the oil coming down sixth street. They are going down west after a delivery. These are the size of them. We also have all of the recycling trucks still coming down, we have baum road coming, u.t., recycling. Now this is -- this kind of gives you a view of sixth street. The width is only 40, versus 48 what it should be for a commercial corridor. (Beeper).

>> Can I keep going?

>>Garcia: do you have some additional time -- you have additional time donated.

>> I never talked so fast. Go back to that one. If you can see when a truck --.

>>Garcia: wait just a second. Put six minutes on the clock, please.

>> Okay. If you can see, when these 16 wheelers need to turn, they need to take the whole street. So that means no traffic goes either way until they can figure out how to turn. That means also they cannot get into Mr. Arnold's facility unless they are straight across north to south. They cannot go in straight just way. When they come in from I-35 and you have one turn like that, they both hit heads, right in the middle of the street. Okay. Austin recycling. Go ahead. U.t. Still making deliveries. The budweiser trucks have trouble. That's chamers street, they cannot turn there. Mr. Arnold's site across the street where he's storing some of these barrels for the oil. That's also his sight. The barrels are hidden behind the fence. That's also a view where this is a proposed expansion site and there are already oil barrels back there and building materials. Okay. All of the recycling trucks, one after another, there are three there. Coming down. This is to the east. On sixth street. This was a low traffic day. They only had about 10 of them, there's usually about 2016 wheelers down right in front of the main post office.

>>Garcia: if you could keep your comments to yourself. Let the -- let the speaker speak. I am sure when you speak you would not want to be interrupted.

>> The last part of my presentation, will refer to an -- my daughter handed you out a copy of this. A few months back the City approved a neighborhood pilot study, it's the east cesar chavez land. I think some of the member are here. And it's curious that some of the members in fact the leaders of this study who propose to promote good things for the area are now on the opposing side. And this is a -- there is a draft in there and then also different points that they would like to see happen in the area. They refer to compatibility with the neighborhood, neighborhood scale, they emphasize culture being reasonably appropriate design. All of these items that they are proposing and professing to believe for the area I think that by -- by approving this project will not happen. We are dealing with a project that is not compatible with the uses that are now in place and have been for many years. People are coming in, as Mr. Foster, trying to tear down fences and trying to tear down the barriers that have been in our neighborhood for many years. Here's Mr. Arnold still trying to build up fences and barriers. And that's sad because that is going to affect not only the business and residents that live in that area, but our children's future. So I think that the City is saying that this is compatible, you can see by the map that it is not. You can see by the traffic pictures, the slides, that the street is too narrow. The traffic studies that were done, the ropes were placed down in the street, they were placed on Monday, on a holiday. On tuesday, they were placed in the morning and taken down at 10:00 in the morning. So they did not get a traffic count of the lunch, so I don't think that this was a fair study that was done. That is why we went ahead and had our study done. I hope that all of you -- I know that -- that we don't have a presentation of the -- of maybe the prettiest or best maps, but it comes from the heart. These are the people, these are the representatives of the group and we ask that you take into consideration the many years of the people who settled that area that are still in that area and want a future for that area. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thag you. Mr. Martinez, will you come up, you will have 2 minutes and 38 seconds left from your time. When you come up. The rest was used by ms. Vallero. Not now. When you come up. The people that have donated time, linda Johnson donated 3 minutes to, Mr. Bob foster donated three minutes to diana. Ms. Carmen vallero donated 3 minutes. And commissioner marcos delien donated 3 minutes to kathy vasquez. Okay. The next part of the presentation is comments by parties supporting the appeal. The first speaking is Mr. Galino fern dez. Welcome, sir. Fernandez. Am I speaking loud enough?

>> traffic problem here. Good evening, Council, I am galino Fernandez with el concilio. Some have suggested that I should also mention that it might help, vice-president of the Austin neighborhood's Council. I do want to once again come before you to inform you that this -- this part of sixth street at one time was a vital corridor for our community. From any of us, from our parents, that were born and raised in East Austin, sixth street is 11th -- 11th and 12th street activities are compatible in the sense of these were the congregating areas for our community. It was flooded with many neighborhood bars, neighborhood restaurants, and neighborhood hotels. As a matter of fact right now on sixth street, there's a new hotel that has opened. And we have a transforming of land use in this area that we -- that we hope that you will embrace and enhance and allow us to redevelop this area now that we have an opportunity and now that we are visiting the land use and are learning that over the years the current zoning is no longer compatible. But now we have homes that are adjacent to these properties, we have businesses that are thriving, in the area, this is one of the areas where many Councils have spoke about revitalizing East Austin, injecting economic development. Well, let me tell you that I have not seen many people that congregate west of sixth street from IH-35, want to come into this area. There's a reason for that. One is that these type of businesses that currently exist in the area we have personally nothing against Arnold oil, we are -- as a matter of fact are related by the -- elated by the fact of his success as a businessman here in Austin. But we ask that he reconsider expanding his business and further hurting our neighborhood. Once again, the land use of Arnold oil, when it first began must have been or at that time was compatible. The use -- the land use now has changed and is transforming movement and therefore it's sad to become compatible to expand this type of business with an area that's surrounded by so many families and that is in the proximity of a housing authority, that's in the proximity of neighborhoods south of sixth street. Once again we don't want to come up here and be perceived as anti-growth, which we have always been labeled, it's just the kind of growth, type of businesses that have kept people from coming into this area. Once again there's been a high increase of 18 wheeler traffic and that in itself is a hurdle and a barrier of inviting people from other parts of the community to come and enjoy the taste and life of east Austin. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Fernandez. [Applause]

>>Garcia: let me ask kathy, could you come up, kathy vasquez, please. While she's coming, let me explain that the Council's responsibility is to evaluate nine criteria items under the conditional use permit that is part of the land development code. And this section 13-1-663 lists these nine criteria items, I think ms. Vasquez you appeal on number 2?

>> 2 and 4 and 6 and 7, and ms. Almanzo will be discussing the materials, the gallons of oil.

>>Garcia: that would be nine. I think -- no. 5.

>>Garcia: five. Okay. So that -- speakers that are coming to speak for the appeal know, those five criteria items I am going to read them, so that everybody understands what we are talking about, no. 5 -- And the applicant to get the conditional use permit has to establish that his property is -- his plan is compatible with existing or permitted uses or on abutting site in terms of, building height, bulk and scale, setbacks, open spaces, landscaping, drainage or access and circulation features. The Council is restricted in this particular area in that they have to establish whether the applicant not appealant, but applicant complies with this. If you direct your remarks to those particular provisions of the conditional use permit that would help the Council make determinations. Number 4, excuse me, number 4 is that the application adversely affects the safety and convenience or vehicular traffic and pedestrian circulation in the vicinity including traffic reasonably expected to be generated by the proposed use and other uses recently anticipated in the area considering existing zoning and land uses in the area. I think that's one of the ones that you address, commissioner. No. 5 The plan fails to reasonly protect persons and property from erosion, flood or water damage, fire, noise, glare, and similar hazards or impacts. And commissioner almonzo will be talking about that, number 6 adversely affects traffic control or adjacent properties by inappropriate location, lighting, or tieups of signs. Types of signs. No. 11 Fails to provide adequate and convenient off street parking and loading facilities. Those are the ones, correct, ms. Vasquez?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: the next speaker is Mr. Paul hernandez. Welcome, sir.

>> Members of the Council, my name is Paul hernandez, I am from el concilo, the coalition of Mexican American neighborhood. One of the biggest issues is not necessarily the appeal, as much, as what's been done to East Austin. Whether the technicalities of this issue are superior to the quality of life of the people who have resided and will reside in East Austin is the major issue. Just like Arnold oil does not belong in East Austin, just like bfi does not belong in East Austin, just like balcones does not belong in East Austin, just like the power plant does not belong in East Austin, just about all the crap has been put over there does not belong in east Austin. This is what's been done to this area. So this issue is really an issue of justice. If Mr. Arnold had any conscience at all he voluntarily would move his business elsewhere. If those people who support him would also have any conscience at all, they would support his moving that business and helping find another location. So I thank you very much. [Applause]

>>Garcia: Mr. Willie just cortez, following Mr. Cortez, is suzanna almanza, welcome, sir.

>> I come here as -- with our family center, I have been not living in East Austin that long, but what I have tried to do is help the technological level of the kid and also the feels in that area. But what I am beginning to see, feel, realize many of the families are having a hard time to find a place to live there in East Austin, I would hate to see any expansion like it would cause where the housing would have to be moved. I know that it's kind of like I said, why pick on Arnold oil, but it seems to be that this is the first test case that -- because in my situation, I had a bath house right beside me, nothing could be done because there was no City ordinance. This -- overlay that we have now is at least something that we can use to try to control what moves into our particular neighborhood. I would not like to see any expansion, Arnold that's the first case, it didn't make any difference, let's go and expand also. My perception would be that other bes also would want to expand, balcones and all of the others. One of the things that I see as I begin to help families, is the negative impact that it has because they do not want to come to the student center because of all of the traffic. One of the things that I have tried to do is I go and pick them up, that's the only way that I can solve some of the problems that happens. I am here to say that I have not lived in East Austin long, but I see it can become a problem if businesses start expanding. Where are the families going to move? they have no place. You say well, they can move somewhere else in Austin, some of these families as you have seen have been there for ages, and they would rather stay in East Austin and live there and make a -- what you would have a good family place. Not just somewhere where there's a lot of businesses. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Suzanne in a almanza. Welcome.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem and Council members, I am suzanne unless a alemanza. Almanza. First I want to state this is definitely not a personal issue against Arnold oil, especially its workers. We would never say anything against workers. We are glad that he employs members of the community. And in no way would the denial of the expansion affect his current employees. So I just want to state that for the record. One of the criterias that I am concerned with is the whole issue of hazard, hazardous impacts. Even though through -- to the state the tnrcc, Arnold oil, it's refined oil does not have to have a state permit, it did have to register, what it did have through the natural protection -- national fire protection association and its ranking it, it did have a hazmat permit. The reason it has a hazmat permit is because it does have flammable combust stibl materials there. With a rating of 0 to 4, 4 being the highest end the nfpa, propane is number 4, it is there. They also have anti-freeze, which has a rating of 3, another high rating. Then, of course, brake fluid, which is 2. And also freon, which is 2. So you can see that there is -- if -- there's a probable thing that something could happen, then it's possible, and so you do have a risk factor there. Beside the oil, which would allow to burn and would have smoke and, of course, I don't know what -- if you burn for so many hours what would be -- if there would be any particular matters in that time that the oil will have to burn. So that is a very big concern because in a lot of these fires you cannot use water. And if you do, what would be the runoff situation in such a fire? and we have seen that happen just not too long ago, I think it was mccombs that had their storage auto parts that caught on fire. And that was a 7 -- I believe a 7 alarm fire. The other thing is under number 6 is it does adversely affect the traffic. You saw the 18 wheelers, big trucks that come through there, there's not enough to turn around. Parking, even though there's a small amount for employees to park in there, employees are still parking on both sides of sixth street and you know that that is a very narrow street. So it doesn't provide, you know, added verns for off-site packing -- convenience for off-site parking. The other thing that we have to look at is criteria nine -- (buzzer).

>> Mr. Martinez offered to give me his 2 minutes.

>>Garcia: 2 minutes, 38 second, put that on there. We are going to use his first, if you need it, Mr. Quintero will donate that time. His.

>> If I need it, I will, I don't think I will. The other one also fits under number 9 where it says will be detrimental to the public health and safety or welfare or materially injurious to properties or improvements in the vicinity and this is definitely not an improvement to the vicinity. I think it definitely fits there. And because it does have combustible and hazardous materials on site, it definitely is -- will affect the public health and safety and in case of a fire, it definitely would close that sixth street, which would definitely also deny access to the public there and to the traffic coming in and out of that area. I just witnessed not too long ago a wreck that happened right there in front of galindo's, they actually cut off sixth street and right -- you would have to access to the little street there by -- by church's chicken, chamers, so you would have to go all the way around just to go through there. It's too small of a street, corridor. Like I said, it is a neighborhood corridor, not a main collector, not a through street. So the traffic is definitely one of the points that we need to address in this criteria. And I think that is definitely not in an improvement. It doesn't bring what we are trying to bring to that community. What people try to do and have done on sixth street west of IH-35 and also in the lamar section, west of sixth street, making it so beautiful to walk to your eaters, bakeries, stores, that's what we would also like to have. That same vision that has happened, that has developed west of sixth street also come to sixth street. I might say that that was once there. It's just that we haven't added, we are now just barely addressing the whole zoning issues where the zoning does not match the use. And we are just now working on trying to expand the east Austin overlay district and trying to also expand the cry fear I can't or be more specific so that it not just triggers a public participation process, but that it actually triggers a zoning change. That is really the result that we need here. We need the East Austin overlay to trigger an automatic zoning change, not just a public notification process. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Alemanza. We will keep ms. Quintero's card in case anybody needs some additional time. Mr. Robert donally. Followed by Mr. Mark rodgers. We will call gilbert at the appropriate time. Mr. Mac rodgers and then mark rodgers then gilbert rod rods.

>> I am president of east town lake citizens neighborhood association. I am a member of el conceal I don't. I might add also a member of the Austin neighborhood Council. I would like to bring to your attention the -- the fact that East Austin, east of I-35, would -- would love to be just like sixth street west of I-35. And that is one of the dreams that we have always had. As Mrs. -- Suzanne alemanza pointed out. I was born and raised there in -- well, in East Austin and I can remember as a child what a safe haven it was there in that area, in that particular area that we are talking about. Because families and people who, mothers and children could walk there because we must remember there are schools there. On both side of the street. And there are neighborhoods, residential neighborhood, you know, families, women, old people, and children and -- and all kind of -- of family activities. And they have always been there. To impose such an -- a -- a horrendous thing as -- as what we are proposing here, I think it's criminal because it is criminal because this is harmful, it has been pointed out that it is harmful to the children that have to walk past those streets, the families that use that street passing to town and back. I would like to say that if you picture sixth street, in particular west of I 235 there, because my father had a business there on the 700 block of the street, for many many years, and I can remember all that activity, that was a mexican section, sixth street was the mexican section of downtown. How beautiful it was, driving past I-35 east now and the -- with that came all of this -- this industrial zoning and all of the things that -- while it's been there from the '30s that they try to put us in that part of town and bring all of these -- all of these hazardous things there with us. I think this should be considered that we do want a safe haven for our children. We want a beautiful place there for -- for our families so they can walk to and from downtown, because this is downtown. I would appreciate you also consider this being part of downtown and give that to us, give that to our children. And to our grandchildren for the future. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: Mr. Mark rodgers. [Applause]

>>Garcia: follow by mario and gilbert Martinez. Okay. If mario could come closer to the mike to be ready when the commissioner finishes. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you, good evening, Mayor pro tem. Councilmembers. I have been trying to read the overlay and it was read the -- if it's read the way that I have read it, the criteria that you have set, it's going to be very, very difficult for the neighborhood to gather some of the ammunition it needs because it's kind of -- consuming to understand the criteria that you are in kind of a catch 22 situation where I suggest to the neighborhood because I think the Mayor need to be here as well. It is a very, very important issue to vote on. If it's possible to request a week's postponement because some of the criteria I can't that you have there may work against the neighborhood. Not for the neighborhood. It is time that the type of development in our community needs to be seriously looked at. I thought for a while the Mayor with this overlay something could be done to really make compatible usage of the area. The zoning, the way it's set, works against the community, it might tie your hands legally. If we could have a chance, another look, to look at the criteria to not satisfy the appeal, you may have a chance to understand it and argue the points, point by point that you have laid out there. We need another week to look at that. I am willing to work with the neighborhood to develop that. Because we have to argue against an ordinance which is a law that you set forth because the City Council is one of the smallest organizations that can set laws and enforce them. The ordinance is an enforceable law that you have. We tested it back when another Mayor and it worked. You have those laws because they were tested in court. That's why you have the houses in front of brooks because the neighborhood fought it and you were taken to court but they were upheld. We need more time. Because I suggest to the neighborhood, you need to my knowledge to look at this ordinance because it works against you, not for you. But we can if we have more time to look at that. Also I feel it's very important that the Mayor be here, that his constituents, which we all our your constituents will be able to answer to his vote. That is very important, I am requesting another postponement to deal with this and ask that the Mayor be here to hear his vote. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Deleon.

>>Spelman: Mayor pro tem? I would like to ask commissioner deleon a question if I could.

>>Garcia: commissioner deleon, please.

>>Spelman: thank you, you said several times that you felt that this ordinance worked against the neighborhood. I wonder if you could be a little more specific and in what ways do these criteria work against the neighborhood?

>> it's very basic. When the spot zoning occurred in our community with no regard as to what we felt, was done to us, we had no say so what happened. Now those -- those zoning cases, those zonings are in our neighborhood and if we tried doing anything, we are always stopped one way or the other. It's a disadvantage because if you -- if you look at your criteria, how many of those does he meet? it's compatible because they are all ll. Right? but do you -- the usage is not there. So how do you consider that legally? how do you consider the usage of the neighborhood what's going on now? how do you -- how do you go there and spot zone a house to light industrial and that homeowner never have the chance to say hey, I've been living here all of the time? it's the same thing that happened from, -- across from zavala, commercial zoned commercial, light industrial, they couldn't make improvement because of the wrong zoning. It always happens -- you understand what I am saying? right now we need to look at that. That works against you. If you say -- the usage is wrong, but the zoning is correct. Legally how do you vote?

>> I understand what you are saying about zoning.

>>Garcia: where is your mike?

>>Spelman: probably heard my feet rustling around down there. I understand what you are saying about single family housing being zoned cs or li or something like that, not being able to improve that. That makes good sense to me. What I don't understand is what you would be able to do in the next week that you haven't been able to do in the last two weeks.

>> I don't know, let's look at that. [Laughter]. Let me share with you, that's just a joke.

>>Spelman: I understand.

>> Look the criteria that you set for denial, we need to look at it. One of the things that I think the community sometimes fails to do, I learned this being an elected officials, the situation was quasi legal, you learn the law. He have to argue those points so you can make a decision. We have to argue against those points that protects our neighborhood on the issue. We can't go on emotion or pleading. What I am asking is another week to look at those so you can look at them. Other thing is important, the Mayor should be here. If the Mayor is a front runner of saying smart growth, et cetera, et cetera, he need to be here, because this pertains to his agenda. That's two issues there.

>> I agree with you entirely. I would like the Mayor to be here to join in our decision, too. I will give him what for as soon as he comes back. But I am not sure what an additional week would give you, this has been on the agenda for quite some time. I understand that there's some technical legal issues involved in talking about conditional use permits. But I don't understand what a additional week would actually buy you and your neighbors.

>> I think -- what I want to offer to the neighbor is the idea that -- make sure what they are talking about, how these criteria, how to be able to argue their point because they are not arguing right now very clearly. The usage is different. But if you could go right now and move everybody out of the area because they are not using it correctly, there's a barber shop there that shouldn't be doing that, you could do that if you wanted to. When I -- what I want to offer the neighborhood is to be able to argue that point.

>>Garcia: let me explain one thing so everybody understands. The point that we are talking about. In the conditional use permit, conditional use permit criteria, commissioner, it says the commission, in this case the Council, shall not approve a site plan for development of a conditional use if it find the proposed development does not conform, is not compatible, so on. After number 8, before it goes to number 9, there's a word with two letters. Or. If we find that the applicant for the site plan did not comply with any of these, then we don't approve the site plan.

>> All you need it one.

>>Garcia: one criteria item. So this is very clear and in this particular case the Council has to evaluate the appeal on the basis of this -- that's what the rules, that's what the rules say. But like I say, it's a very key word, has two letters, or. He can't say, well, I comply with seven and I will comply with 2, therefore 7 to 2 is a majority and I win. He has to nine to zero. Or he doesn't win. If we find that he doesn't comply with one of those criteria items, then he doesn't get his sight plan approval and the appeal is granted.

>> So what you are saying is that -- you are ready to make a decision tonight?

>>Garcia: well --

>> because I see one very clearly --.

>>Garcia: that's what I wanted to -- that's why we are talking about those things, that's why I said earlier when you speak on this issues, speak to these criteria items so that we can hear your testimony. We are here, this is a public hearing to hear the public testimony on whether the applicant complies with all nine of these, there's a bunch of people that are going to speak that are going to say they do. Okay? the Council's job is after we hear everybody is decide do they comply with all nine or do they comply with seven out of nine?

>> it only takes one.

>> It only takes one. The word is or, not and.

>> Okay.

>>Garcia: thank you, commissioner. Mr. Mario [inaudible] and following -- following him, gilbert Martinez, then ray.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem. Good evening Councilmembers, I am mario rentinnlla, I currently serve for the guadalupe association for improved neighborhood. I want to commend all of the employees for around around no oil for being here, I think that's a very positive sign. This has nothing to do with Arnold oil and their employment of their people, has nothing to do with that. Our concern is specifically on the conditional use permit, number 4. It adversely affects the safety and convenience of vehicular or -- or vehicular and pedestrian circulation in the vicinity including traffic reasonably expected to be generated by the proposed use and other uses reasonably anticipated in the area. Some of the anticipatesed uses will be very powerful. I believe plaza saltillo is in the planning stage, we are going to have people hopefully attracted to that area. Sixth street would be a vital way to get to the plaza. If there was an expansion of 28,000 square feet with an increase of vehicular traffic and increase of hazardous materials, that does throw a little curve in the mix. So all I am trying to say is that in -- reviewing, cry fear I can't number 4, anticipated use of the area, for proposed pedestrian traffic is subject to questioning. And a lot of our youth, in our neighborhood, use the -- our lady's youth center. They use the pedestrian, walk across 7th street from navasota and use sixth street going east to the youth center and they have to come through this -- this specific traffic hazard. So it is a -- a hazard for pedestrian traffic at this time. And it doesn't meet the vision of what the community wants. The community worked on this conditional use permit in -- and they wanted to make a statement. That the people in the neighborhood have a say in what will happen there. And this is all that we are asking from you tonight. Thank you very much. [Applause]

>>Garcia: thank you. Gilbert Martinez and vology him ray Ramirez. Welcome, sir.

>> Mayor pro tem, City Council, I am not used to coming up here and speaking, so I am a little nervous. I would like the rest of my people here, for the appeal, I have lived on east second, which is four blocks from this site. And for the safety and convenience, criteria is I really don't understand it, either. I don't know whose safety and whose convenience this is for, but 18 wheelers coming down this, I don't know in which direction, are definitely going to be a detriment to the neighborhood. That alone would justify that Arnold shouldn't expand at all. Nothing against Arnold. I really don't think that company should have been there in the first place. But oil and whatever chemicals that they have there is -- it's not good. It's not good for the neighborhood. If you are really wantedding to expand, expand somewhere's else. In my opinion I would like for them to expand somewhere out of town. I have -- I would suggest they do environmental tests if you really want to see exactly what impact this company has there. But -- but just speaking from the heart because that seems to be the concept of all of the people that are coming here, is speaking from the heart from the neighborhood, that they really don't need an expansion of any type of company of this nature in the neighborhood there. I think everybody would agree with me. I will make it short and brif because like I said I'm not very outspoken to this, but I believe the City Council will do the right thing because they did it for my neighborhood, the neighborhood right there on comal, second, third, fourth, fifth street, went through a zoning change a few years back. It was a zoning change where it was just going to be on second street between comal and 35. And they told the lady who wanted to zone the house, just go one block south or go two blocks north. And that would -- wouldn't affect the nature of the neighborhood. The Council -- actually the Planning Commissioner decided -- it never did come before the Council. I think that the City Council could probably look at this -- look at this whole situation and see the reasoning why we want to keep our neighborhood the way it is. And clean and we really don't want to -- any 18 wheelers, I hope they do the right decision. Thank you.

>> Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Mr. Ray Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez, welcome, sir.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem, members of the City Council, from the get-go, I want to refer quickly to the criteria that you mentioned. The vehicular traffic that's going to be generated by this proposal is absolutely unacceptable. The large number of trucks, 26, I believe, that are going to be running daily, in addition to the large number of huge trucks that we have already, that's what's shown clearly in the pictures that were shown here at the beginning, that congests and block the narrow streets and don't have enough room to turn, well, this is going to be a real, real problem. And in addition the type of materials that are going to be handed by this facility also -- handled by this facility also is something that we really have to be concerned with. But in general, I -- I simply want now to get away from the criteria. Simply say on your way -- on my way down here, I was traveling west on east sixth street approaching IH-35. Then I saw what -- what -- what's east of -- east of I-35. It used to be a very lively place, a place where you could communicate with your neighbors. And it was a safe place and a place to bring -- to raise your children, to raise your family. That is not the case anymore. We have outdated antiquated unacceptable zoning in place now, which was put in place, I think, in the late 20's or early 30's. And I don't know what -- what mentality existed at that time, but I consider it now and then when they put it in place, a total injustice and a total insensitivity to the people that were going to be affected by it. They were -- they were being affected negatively then, and of course they are being affected very barbarically now. I will ask -- this question of any one of you here: would you like to live next to a tank farm? next to a balcones? next to a hazardous materials? would you like to live next to a computer center? next to playground? this is what we want. But we have been served a type of dish on and on and on and on and it continues, we are looking at it now. We are being offered another situation here. That's not acceptable. It's absolutely barbaric. So with due respect -- I will finish up, to the Arnold oil, we do not have anything against development, it's just the type of development that we are concerned with.

>> Thank you. [Applause]

>>Garcia: thank you, that concludes the -- the comments by parties supporting the appeal. The next section of the process is comments by parties opposing the appeal. And I suspect that the attorney for Arnold oil, you are going to make the presentation?

>> yes, Mayor pro tem Garcia. Actually I have brought with us everybody who has had anything to do with this process because of the fact that I thought that Councilmembers may have some specific questions.

>>Garcia: do you just need five minutes or do you need more?

>> I think I actually need more, only because I want to make as a part of the actual presentation the presentation to you all from our traffic engineer and little from the architect engineer who did the site plan.

>>Garcia: okay, what's their names, what are their names.

>> Bj corneal I can't say and -- cornealias, mike makinturf.

>>Garcia: you want to put them together?

>> applies, mike mcinturf, bjcornelis, you would have 11 minutes, is that enough or do you want more time?

>> I think that's fine. For those of you that signed up in -- against the appeal, if you want to give -- if you want to give your time to these 3 presenters, raise your hand, I will get your name, then we will -- not now. [One moment please]

>> as I said, we've brought with us all of the experts who have worked with respect to this conditional use permit, in case the Council does have specific questions, which I expect you will. We've got b. J. Cornelius here with site specific, mike mcinturf with the traffic consultants, pat rooter who is the architect who designed the actual facility. We've got the owners of the applicant company, jim and rhonda Arnold. We've also got the business manager of the applicant company who is steve cutler. And then we've got probably lots of expertise elsewhere as well if you have specific questions. Hopefully we'll be able to answer everything you've got. Pat roader and he should have -- I think he signed up. I have some things that I want to address particularly the criteria, the conditional use permit criteria. But before that, I just -- there are quite a few issues that were raised in the previous presentation that I really feel like I need to clear up and maybe I'm a little upset about. I'm not upset about the issues but more upset there is so much misinformation and I feel like had the neighborhood folks who are opposing and had the appellant even had all the information we may not even need to be here tonight. But first of all, this is not a li property. We were at one time zoned li as many properties in east Austin are. We about a year and a half ago down zoned that property to cs. It's not a li property. The property is not adjacent to residential. There is two -- a strip of about two miles between the subject property and IH-35 and in that entire two miles there are nine residences. I'm not talking about what you see on the zoning map she I'm talking about what is actually used, was actually being used in eat Austin. And I acknowledge the zoning in East Austin is horrible. As a matter of fact, I've been practicing law for about four years and the very first case I had was -- came to me through volunteer legal services and it was a gentleman who had a home in East Austin that was zoned cs 1 and -- he needed to correctly zone this property to get a loan to do some improvements. But that's not the situation we're talking about here. This is -- this property is adjacent to commercial property. It's not the situation that I think is -- has tried to be painted that you've got all these homes and playgrounds and schools and then you've got Arnold oil. That's just not the situation. And b. J. Cornelius will talk more about the exact site plan and what we're adjacent to and so will I later on. Also, we are -- we talked about, or the previous presenters talked about all the businesses that are in the area and how -- what a detrimental effect we'll have on them. We've got those businesses' support. We've got the support of Robert harlan, the support of the restaurant, the sport of the small guy they talked about who owns the sewing machine factory and happens to live in the business. This is not a situation where our neighbors are opposing us. This is a situation where there are folks in the community who have very legitimate concerns about east Austin because so do I and so does Arnold oil. They've been there for almost 30 years and this is as much their home and the home of all those other businesses that are there and residents that are there as it is the folks who are appealing this couldn't use permit. Also, sixth street is a commercial collector. There is a question with respect to its width. I will have our traffic engineer address that, but it is classified by the City of Austin as a commercial collector and that's what it is, it's not a neighborhood collector. In addition, it's unfortunate, but all the trucks shown in those pictures are not our trucks. And they are not enclose to our property. And when I say our, I guess I'm taking this case kind of personally because we've been working on it so long. I mean the Arnold oil trucks and Arnold oil property. For instance, one of the trucks was delivering grocery items, one was a beer truck. We don't have beer on the property. And I almost wonder if we do rezone this property to -- or if we do use it or ask for a different use, like a convenience store, which is one of the few suggestions we've heard, like a bar, you will have those beer trucks and you will not have what our clients have come up with which is a design to pull trucks off the street, pull employees off the street and actually improve traffic. I just -- there are so many things I want to address I'm trying to get to them quickly before I get to the points. The proposed development is compatible and we'll get into specifics, but I want you to understand that the churches and the playgrounds that you saw in the slides are not adjacent to this property. The closest school is huston tillotson college and we've got a letter of support from them as well. We have 250 signatures from not only residents but businesses, schools in the area who support us. Some of the Councilmembers have the signatures. I've brought two sets of copies of each and every page that was signed by these folks so that you can see them. Also, the misconception that the traffic analysis was done on a holiday mike mcinturf is one of the most experienced traffic engineers in this City if not the state and he -- he has the common sense enough nod not to do a traffic study a holiday. He will talk about how the study was done. It was an official 24 hour study. The lines were laid on the holiday so he could get the entire 24 hours the day after. Which probably was an increase in traffic because of the decrease that we experienced on the holiday. It's just -- I hope that everybody understands what is really there. Some Councilmembers had the opportunity to come out to the site, but I think all of you are familiar with the site and all of you know what is in the vicinity and what is not. And unfortunately as I said, this is just not a residential area. We're not a power plant. We're not bfi. We're not, you know, spilling oil and, you know, chemicals all over sixth street. We have -- Arnold oil has been exemplary when it comes to environmental come plinsz and jim Arnold and steve cutler will talk about that. They have been exemplary when it comes to participation in the neighborhood. We've got a site that needs to be cleaned up she it's not a good site she it's not near where anybody would want to hang out with friends and drink and talk, it's a site that needs to be cleaned up and they are proposing to do that. I've got a lot of other things I want to say but we need to get into the points and I'm going to let b. J. Cornelius talk about the site plan and we'll come back to the exact criteria. We may need kra time since I kept talking, Mayor pro tem, sorry.

>>Garcia: you've got three minutes and 15 seconds.

>> Good evening. My name is bobby joe cornelius owner of site specifics and I'm here tonight representing Arnold oil company. at this time I would like to have all of the individuals that are here tonight support this project to please stand up and be recognized. Sthees are hard working people that have taken time out of their evening to come here. No one is being paid to be here. Thank you. Again, Arnold oil is not an oil refinery. Most of the products that you would find in Arnold oil are found in any auto parts store which is allowed in gr. And it's packaged goods. Auto parts, motor oil and various -- in various sizes and equipment sales. There is no gasoline products. Arnold oil began in 1977. They've been on the site 21 years. They have 70 employees at the site. This project began with the purchase of mckay lumberyard in 1995. Mr. Arnold knew at that time that he could build an additional warehouse under current codes. We began master planning the site, we played it out, we redesigned the truck turn around, we decided to rezone the property cs, down zone it. After we were submitted, the more tore wrum was put in place. We were in the middle of it. We postponed many a time waiting for the moratorium to be over and eventually we down zoned with the condition of a conditional overlay. We finished at City Council in front of you all may 8, 1977 with our zoning case. We've always been very open about what the expansion consisted of. We have been in contact with the neighborhood representatives from the very beginning. We attended neighborhood meetings, presented the same site plan that's in front of you, answered all their concerns and offered to tour the facility at their convenience. Based on positive feedback we completed the construction documents, submitted to the planning department. Our smilgts date was november 1997. We have addressed all the staff comments, all the required fees t planning commission approved our conditional use on may 15, 1998. We are here with a project ready to be constructed. We have placed a stack of approximately 250 signatures in front of you to show you we have done what commissioner sullivan asked us to do which was to get out in the neighborhood and talk to the neighbors. The employees of Arnold oil actually the ones that went door to door. We are proposing to build a warehouse with a building cover 20,000 square feet. There will be a mez is a neen of 8,000. Half of the square footage allowed by code. Our impervious cover is below what is allowed in cs by 17%. We have 22% green space on the entire site. Cs allows two to one building coverage. Our building is only .598 to one. We meet the come pattability ordinance. Our lights will be hooded, our material are not reflective, our sound level doesn't exist at nighttime and height is only 30 feet. This is lower than what a two story house can be. Let's talk a little bit about the East Austin overlay. In the text it says limited expansion of a business already in existence is also allowed after creation --.

>>Garcia: let me see if people want to give you time. Mr. Arnold? do you want to -- do you want to give her time?

>> I'll give her time.

>>Garcia: what is your name. Okay. And how much more time do you need?

>> one minute. Two minutes.

>>Garcia: they've given you three. Limited expansion of business already exists. -- Already in existence also is allowed after creation of the district. Arnold oil is a business that should have the right to stay at their same location and continue their business. They are good neighbors as you can see from the stack of signatures in front of you. Let's talk about the architecture. We have brought a rendering of the front elevation for you to see tonight oil.

>> The front elevation will be split face block. The roof will be a nonreflective standing seam roof. The building will have two restrooms, one for men and one for women. There will be no grease trap, no floor drains. We are spring elg the new facility along with the attached warehouse. On the jay jay sent lot. Since the Planning Commission meeting we have added windows to accomplish a corporate office look. We have also extended the rod iron fence to encompass the existing facility to the west. This was all added at a neighbor's request. Planning commission and City staff both concluded that we met all the requirements of the conditional use overlay. Please support their decision. Thank you very much for your time.

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Cornelius. [Applause]. Ms. Immediate indicated that Mr. Mcinturf -- mead indicated Mr. Mcinturf and Mr. Roader were going to speak and your time Mr. Mcinturf -- are you he?

>> yes, sir.

>>Garcia: has been consumed so you need somebody to give you time. How much time did you need?

>> three minutes will be more than adequate.

>>Garcia: what is your name? norman gray has given you three minutes. All right, sir.

>> Mayor pro tem Garcia and members of the Council. I'm mike mcinturf with whm transportation engineers. I'm here to speak to you specifically on the review and evaluation criterion no. 4 Concerning safety and convenience of vee heck you lar and pedestrian with respect to appeal. I conducted a traffic study at the site and just to clarify a couple of points as nikel mentioned, the traffic counters were placed on street Monday afternoon and picked up wednesday morning. The counts reported in the study that all of you have copies of were for tuesday, the day after the labor day holiday. We also conducted turning movement counts during an hour and a half period on tuesday morning. Based on input from Arnold oil staff who I interviewed prior to conducting the study to determine whether the peak condition would be so we could get an appropriate picture of the operations currently, the other work I did on the project consisted of looking in detail at the site itself throughout the site, the storage facilities on the site and oil operations on the street, at the driveway at the site as well as the one north of the site. Several undesirable conditions exist. There are a number of employees traveling north and south across sixth street, some of whom are carrying materials, some of whom are pushing push carts carrying materials. There are for lifts being -- carrying materials across the street. And even trucks making maneuvers across the street. In addition, there are tractor trailer rigs required to make several maneuvers within the street in order to gain access to the site where there is extremely limited amount of unloading and circulation space available on the site. The data collection that we did indicated somewhat over7,000 vehicles per day on east sixth street, which has been previously mentioned functions as a commercial collector. Adjusting for the multiple ak sell vehicles out there, there was probably somewhere around 6,000 to 6500 daily trips. The existing and projected trips for Arnold oil amount to about one percent of that daily total. The actual counts that we conducted during that morning peak hour indicate about one-half of one percent of the volume of sixth street being trucks associated directly with Arnold oil, those that we counted actually using the driveways. Level of service indications, based on the volumes currently on sixth street indicate level of service c. As most of you know, desirable levels are a, b, c or d and we are within the desirable level for sixth street. And again, Arnold oil trips account for about one percent -- one-half to one percent of that daily total. The intersection operations, that is the intersection of the driveway and sixth street are level service a which is very desirable. [Buzzer sounds].

>>Garcia: you need more time?

>> volunteer for a little more time.

>>Garcia: anybody else? what is your name? how do you spell your last name? you got three more minutes.

>> Thank you. The proposed construction of the warehouse will solve several problems, one of which will provide a place for materials that are currently stored on the site outside of cover in various locations on the site. As well as across the street. Providing the warehouse will provide a means of enclosing currently materials that are stored on the site and across the street will provide the opportunity for reducing deliveries to the site. There are multiple trips with Arnold oil trucks have to secure materials and parts in order to maintain the distribution activities they have because of significant lack of storage space on the site. As I mentioned earlier, we counted in a morning period 35 pedestrians, ie Arnold "company employees, walking across sixth street carrying materials to and from the limited storage they have on both sides. Multiple crossings by form lifts we counted ten during that period. All of which are very undesirable for crossing a commercial collector. As again as I mentioned, multiple deliveries can be eliminated by having adequate storage on the site. Most importantly those few, and there are have you few that are actually tractor trailer rigs, 18-wheelers that are making deliveries to the site that currently are required to maneuver within sixth street will be provided an adequate roadway, driveway on the sixth street roadway with adequate radius and the ability to turn around, back up and store and do their unloading on the site itself. These will be eliminated completely from the sixth street operations. In summary, the impacts of the project will be the same as they are today or most likely less due to the ability to eliminate trips that are currently being made because of multiple deliveries of materials where there is inadequate storage. Access to the site by large delivery vehicles will be improved significantly by having an adequate roadway. Adequate driveway for the sixth streed roadway with adequate turning radius and ability to moo noofr within the site. My recommendation would be to approve the permit and provide an opportunity to improve operations on sixth street in the vicinity of Arnold oil. Thank you. Oil oil [applause].

>>Garcia: I'll probably have some questions for you after we close the public hearing. Patrick

>> I don't think I'll take my entire three minutes.

>>Garcia: appreciate that.

>> Really, as said earlier, it's 30 foot high building, entire masonry construction. We have split faced block with granite and limestone accents on it. The building sits well back from the street and it is landscaped, wraut iron fencing in the front. It is a much improved situation over the lumber company that's there now. As you know, the property now is an abandoned lumber company which is a real fire hazard. This entire facility will be fire sprinkleed as well as the existing facility so it will be a much improved facility offer e. Over the situation now. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have later on.

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Roader.

>>Lewis: may I ask him a question?

>>Garcia: sure, Councilmember Lewis has a question.

>>Lewis: what is the setback on it?

>> it sits back -- b. J. -- 130 Feet from the street so it's well back.

>>Lewis: the -- okay. All right. Thanks.

>>Garcia: okay. We go now to the rest of the speakers. This section is called comments by parties opposing the appeal. And the first one is darleen salas followed by laurie quintero and Gus pena.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem City Council members. I'm darleen r ocht sellas a resident of East Austin for 38 years. I would like to speak on behalf and to commend jim Arnold oil. They have been in the neighborhood for 21 years. They have held on to their land, bought more land and developed this land in our neighborhood. They hire and employ many of our residents in our neighborhood. For many of our residents have no transportation. They have joined our neighborhood organizations and helped out our neighborhood. Some other property owners have different dreams and thoughts for our neighborhood. Like having fifth street with curbs. When there was no commitment for this, they came out with other dreams, thoughts and information for our neighborhood. Which has misled our neighborhood residents, business partners and City Council members once again. Creating friction and confusement in our neighborhood. Causing a truck town on sixth street, yes, I notice wondering what going on. Counting trucks? what trucks? whose trucks? no one says anything about the other semies, 18 whiler trucks rung through our neighborhood. Brown distributor, ak budweiser running their trucks through our neighborhood what, because of demand of budweiser in our neighborhood or for small businesses to stay in our neighborhood. Who, what and why are we counting trucks? so let's educate, work, live and support our East Austin neighborhood. Together and peacefully so we can survive. Support Arnold oil and I do enjoy drinking bud light. Thank you. [Laughter]. [Applause].

>>Garcia: I do too. [Laughter]. But I won't admit it publicly. [Laughter].

>> You have now.

>> Mayor pro tem, it's past miller time for me so can I get going?

>>Garcia: welcome.

>> Thank you. First I want to speak to you -- heim ooim laurie, I bought a house ten blocks from Arnold oil company 20 years ago and then -- in all those years I have only been hung up on traffic with a semi truck turning three times that I can remember in 20 years. I think that the improvements that are going to be made to the property are asset to the neighborhood and I think that if they have the expanded space, we may see a decrease in the number of semi trucks going there because they won't have to stock up so often. I just -- the landscape design all of those improvements that they are willing to make I think are going to benefit the neighborhood. I -- it's my understanding of the East Austin overlay that we're stuck with the current facility, and they can make an improvement on their current land, but the big argument is about the mckay property, and mck yachlt is a disaster and they have the option of just bulldozing it, he bought it, you could deny the permit, it's not going the remove the antifreeze she it's not going the remove all the products they currently have on the one side. But what it will do by letting them expand to the mckay property is get -- is change. Get a better traffic pattern, get a better looking building, get that cross traffic off sixth street. So I really encourage you to please approve the improvement because it will be an asset in the neighborhood. Now I want to speak to you as a member of the neighborhood planning team. It is just totally unamerican for us in using smart growth and in trying to do neighborhood planning to try to deal with a private property rights issue. The East Austin overlay has some problems in it and Arnold oil is a victim of it, but I do not believe in the neighborhood that we are going to help the East Austin -- east Cesar Chavez neighborhood plan by turning off bun of our business partners. We only have four of 40 people who are business owners participating in the neighborhood plan. And jim Arnold has come to us, we did not endorse his project because we're not through with our process. We haven't endorsed any project. But he committed to trying to help us recruit other business people, because neighborhood planning -- this whole zoning case would never have come before you had our neighborhood plan not been tied up, not been broi cotted by the same people you -- boycotted from the same people you heard tonight. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: just like I told the group on the north side of the -- of this room not to interrupt the speakers, I'm going to can the same of the people sitting on the south I'd. Please be courteous. Mr. Gus pena, following him Mr. Phil lip wood.

>> Good evening, Mayor pro tem City Council members, Mr. Garza, I'm fwus pena president of East Austin concerned hispanics. How are you --.

>>Garcia: how are you doing?

>> I was leaning to the right now I'm leaning to the left after the auto accident. Thanks for asking. How are you doing?

>>Garcia: I'm doing fine. You told me you were in an accident.

>> I was a statistic over at airport and lamar. I just got out of brackenridge hospital. Thank you lord, I'm fine. The car is a disaster, but thank the good lord.

>>Garcia: there's your three minutes. [Laughter].

>> And I had a case of bud for you. You don't have it anymore.

>>Garcia: I'm saying we're starting right now.

>> There you go. God bless you, Mayor pro tem. I want to let the people know the environment and the safety and health of the resident of East Austin is our no. 1 Priority. I grew up on east fifth street in front of an oil tank farm. I lot of you don't remember that because you didn't grow up in that area but we had a tank farm and the train passing through pedernales street to build the holly plant. That is our priority. Organization each work hard, diligently and prudently on the moratorium issue and identifying the proliferation of li zoning. Arnold oil, in may of 1997, Arnold "requested a zoning change to down zone the lumberyard property. They are doing something positively. As a part of that zoning since the East Austin overlay was completed, Arnold agreed to submit a site plan regardless of whether it would be required to once the overlay ordinance was in effect. Zoning was approved and Arnold submitted a plan. The City staff recommended it and the Planning Commission approved the plan adding only the condition that Arnold oil fence the property with a chain-link fence. They are going the extra mile with that. And they are to be commended for that. Traffic. Arnold oil proposed building will not increase traffic problems. I we want down there wednesday along with Councilmember Bill Spelman, only one truck backed in there and it was out of there within two or three minutes without any impact or blockage of traffic. That is nonexistent right there. The promd building would not increase truck traffic, it will decrease it by not causing a barrier or hamper or obstruct traffic. I've observed it. It's a primary location, it's a positive location. The problem is mckay business. That business right now is dirty and if these people go out there and build whatever they are going to build it will clean the environment. Let it be known that east Austin concerned hispanics is environmentally conscious. Safety conscious and health conscious, force and for most for the residents of east Austin, not only East Austin but the whole City of Austin. It's important to remember that I come here representing our organization and its big membership. In 1996, I also told the group that were support the moratorium that we cannot penalize businesses. We cannot penalize businesses because of the moratorium or any other entity that the City tries to input in keeping our businesses in East Austin. Clean environmentally safe and conscious businesses will enhance a community and its well-being and smart growth. And revitalize East Austin. I inspected Arnold oil truck traffic and any possible compromise in the environment but I found none. Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, you may not believe what I have to say, but believe what the people have to say and I toured that whole area, businesses and one resident that abutts the area south -- excuse me, east of the property. It is -- its owner is conscientious. I think strongly this is a positive, will enhance the community and revitalize the community. Mayor pro tem, vote for this issue. It is a positive issue. Thank you very much. [Applause].

>>Garcia: Mr. Rotena and following him Mr. Wood. Welcome, sir.

>> Mayor pro tem Gus. I'm glad to see you healthy and at it again. And maybe when we see you at the feees sta we will drink a -- fiesta we will drink a budweiser together. I'm chairman of the united East Austin coalition. Also past member of the environmental board. I served three years on the environmental board. And I -- I went out there and checked Arnold's place too and I can see why they need this facility. I mean, the place next door is a disaster waiting to be -- waiting to happen. I seen the improvements that he's going to do. We need these kind of improvements right now because everything that the way it's set just runs out. The runnoff just runs into the back to the railyard and with this improvement that's going to happen we can have water retention set up that, you know, will cut down on the runnoff. And there's another reason that I'm supporting Arnold oil. I have two sons working there. And if I thought that place was a hazardous dump with chemicals and poison and all that I wouldn't allow -- I would talk them out of working there. But I really feel that Arnold really takes care of his employees and I want you to -- I and other group is supporting Arnold oil on its permit. Thank you. [Applause]. A.

>>Garcia: thank you. Mr. Philip wood?

>> I'm giving my time up.

>>Garcia: okay. Ms. Gonzales, I'll call you at the appropriate time. Monica teraces. Is she here? following her, Mr. Steven cutler. Let me explain that the rules say that we'll call you up where your card comes up. When you do, you will have six minutes. Welcome.

>> Hi. Good evening. I'm a resident of East Austin and my children attend brooke elementary school. All I wanted to say was that I really think this is a positive expansion for my children's future and myself. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: steven cutler. Following Mr. Cutler is Mr. David rentivera and following him is Mr. Jim Arnold. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you very much. Ip to talk to you a little bit about us being a good neighbor and a clean neighbor. Arnold oil company was contacted by susan tyler, environmental quality specialist for the City of Austin who has worked on the Austin clean water partners pilot program. Which is an effort to protect Austin's lakes and creeks, and since Town Lake is views down the road from us it was important. It protects the Austin lakes and creeks and promotes environmentally friendly business practices. Specific criteria was to be established to comply -- to be selected. And I have that criteria here, I would like to pass on to you all. Not only was Arnold oil company selected for the program out of 55 businesses notified, but we were the first along with capital metro to meet this criteria. We are a good, clean business in East Austin. And so we need to be -- we need to stay there as we have been for 21 years aallow to grow. I've been with Arnold oil company for nine years, been involved with the expansion for a year and a half. We've utilized all the property at our current location, we've purchased the property next door to take the inventory that's now stocked in our current warehouse and even outside on our parking lot to create and design to alleviate existing traffic problems. I'm going to ask you to look forward if you will, forget about the project, forget about everything else. Look into the future from ten to 15 years from now. And picture what each of you might vision for the area around our property right now. Some of us could picture a small shop on both sides of the road, maybe ms. Vasquez's plays with a cobblestone on fit street. Some of us could picture a trolley type rail car or to a market along the same root east. These are visions that can come to pass if that's what the neighborhood wants and the market will allow. But the market is now there now. Paul told me previously it took East Austin 60 years to get into zoning shape it's in now. Mr. Ramirez said that also. But it's not going to correct itself overnight. In ten or 15 years with the saltillo plants be built, I hope so. Will the streets be paved behind us, could be. Would will there be light rail? maybe. Who knows what ten or 15 years will bring. One thing can be done right now, you can allow jim Arnold to use his dollars to build a concrete building and pave the parking lot that can be used for any of these things in the future. Do you think he's going to want to go through this again when the future when he outgross his facility? I think not. I think he will look somewhere else and try to lease his existing buildings as profitable as possible, as any unof you would do. As a mercado maybe, housing bootsz and shops and the like. With --. [Buzzer sounds].

>>Garcia: how much more time?

>> about 30 more seconds.

>>.

>>Garcia: why don't you go ahead and finish.

>> As anyone would like for it to do with a walking entrance on fifth street and a large parking lot on sixth street. If this is what is envisioned who is going to build it? the City of Austin can't reasonably buy all the property in East Austin and build its own shopping center. We're here. Right now. We own it. Let us build it. Thank you very much. [Applause].

>> Mr. Mayor pro tem Garcia and the City Council members, I live at 2512 Cesar Chavez. More important, I am employed at jim Arnold's oil company which gives my first hand experience with the operation and effect of his business. I am not here to represent the company or to protect my job. I am here to tell you the truth. First, traffic. The business operates in a way that allows the cars and trucks to enter the property in very little if any auto spills out into the community. Second, impact on communities. The business is one of the last remaining employer of the neighborhood people. A lot of young East Austin citizens who cannot travel across the City for jobs because of lack of personal transportation or unable to -- unreliable transmission system the community is strengthened by the jobs located because employees tend to stay into the neighborhood and naturally keeps land speculaters from buying out East Austin neighborhoods. I believe that this whole thing is political and business fight where several groups are trying to gain a future business opportunity, and you also have several groups that are trying to use their new political power orch our community. I ask all of the -- over our community. I ask all the local community people to open their eyes and they are taking you for a ride while they are saying that they are saving our neighborhood. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you. Mr. Jim Arnold. Mr. Jim Arnold. And following Mr. Arnold, Mr. Sandy -- or ms. Sandy linder. And John ross -- rush. I have trouble with that one.

>> I would like to take as I understandy's three minutes -- is that fine sandy? I didn't intend to do that and I know you are tired and so am I. You are tired for tonight, I'm tired for this has been going on almost two careers and I'm super tired. I want to just touch on the four points, if I might briefly. I didn't intend to do this but I want to go through it since you said that should be the focus of this thing. No. 2 Side this is not compatible with existing uses in terms of building heights, scale, whatever. In my opinion, the bulk and scale is the same or better. The sitbacks with 120 feet are certainly better. The open spaces with the 120 feet are certainly better. The landscaping as we all know many of you have been there and seen it, is certainly a much improved scenario and the drainage has a 1 hundred year retention pond on it. Access to circulation in our opinion is the best portion of this whole project we're trying to impose on you. The no. 3 Item was creates a greater and potentially unfavorable effects on existing permitted uses. Well, all I can say is with the exception of ms. Kathy, we have the support of every one of our abutting sides and who better to be the judge than those people. Adversely affects safety and convenience of vehicle pedestrian traffic in the vicinity. I think our gentleman with the traffic has already explained that very clearly. This in our opinion, again, has nothing but extremely positive effects on both the vehicular, especially that, but what limited amount of pedestrian traffic is in that portion of the street it is a much better scenario. Will be detrimental to health and public safety or welfare or materially injury property. Our oil is on li property. It's not going on the move. It is there. That's where we down zoned. The health situation shouldn't be a concern -- it is a concern obviously but not a portion of this project because this project is a parts distribution project for a chain of auto parts stores. Shipping to those parts stores and those -- ford and lincoln dealers in our area. Thus, safety -- or healthy guess you would say. Safety is always our concern, something that is that type of scenario shouldn't affect us. I thank you for your time. Much has been said about the things we're going to be doing this this warehouse. Contrary to popular opinion this progress is based and started being based on the efficiency of operation, not some kind of a media gulf boom. Our estimates say this whole project could be paid on the efficiency basis alone with the handling of merchandise as few times as possible, limiting the amount of lost time by doing things many times. Putting merchandise staging areas rather than in the parking lot in a -- or in a storage container. Consolidations of warehouse inventory from storage containers to a location across the street. Our east 7th street store, our south Congress store, our oak hill store all of which we check merchandise into the warehouse to relocate to take back to satisfy customer demands. We're doing this to be more efficient. Those of you that -- who have visited our site understand what we're saying and those projections are backed up by traffic counts. Our warehouse trips to collect inventory will be eliminated with the consolidation of this inventory and we estimate that to be a total of 50 crossings a day. That's our estimates again. I want to say that. All of this to collect inventory that should and could be stored in the warehouse we're proposing to build. The history of this area is a business corridor and original overlay was proposed because it was 85% business operators. Fact, we have been there 20 years. All of my working life. And have never in a neighbor complain about what we've done in the past and prior to us there was at least ten years of people doing the exact same thing. Fact, we business and landowners are also east Austinites with huge investments in this community and we want it to improve as well. Fact, we have never been cited for a violation of any City code or rule of operation. Fact, we have been a good neighbor in this area to many of the organizations, baseball leagues, schools, track clubs and other fundraisers not just on the east side but all over Austin. Fact, we need to have businesses and neighbors work together not torn apart by the confrontation I see daily. In my pirn we are in compliance with all the terms of the overlay and our proposal to build this building includes several very expensive compromises to upgrade the appearances. As you can see there. This will improve the looks of an area -- of this area and it far exceeds what is required by City code. How we went from seconds from being approved on a consent agenda with a planning commission almost a year ago to being front page news is something I've never quite figured out and probably never will. But we have the support of your City appointed staff. We have the support of your appointed Planning Commission and 250 of the neighbors of both businesses and residential alike. Including all of our abutting neighbors with the exception of t kathy. Yet we are still struggling. People say hear the people and support us. My question is who is us? it's obviously not everybody. Where does it say someone should spend all his working life he is extremely proud of and be asked to forfeit it all? no one has offered me an option other than go away. That's not an option I can accept. Please don't consider this a challenge to see if the overlay holds up. The overlay has many good points, but we must not overlook the basis that each project is looked upon on its own merits. It's not a do or die approach. It's not a line in the sand. This is a good thing, a step forward in the goal to improve East Austin. We did not create injustice over the last decade and it will take many years to return it. Positive goals are what the aim should be. This is one of those. It improves what you have today, traffic appears answer, all future possibilities. Please judge it on what it is, it's progress. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Arnold. John, I'm not going to pronounce your last name. You do it. [Laughter]. And is Mr. Don contreras here? you are next. You are next. You are next, don. Did I not even get your first name right?

>> no, that first name is fine sir. [Laughter]. I'm John and I've been an employee of Arnold oil for a little over 15 years now. What I'm going to address is some of the accusations we carry hazardous material and combustible materials on our facility. As per osha, the occupational safety and health administration, motor oils are nonhazardous. Per osha regulation cfr 1910-200 they are not hazardous in any way in if form in which we carry them. They are not combustible either. The osha definition of a combustible liquid is any having a flash point at or above 100 degrees fahrenheit but below 200 degrees fahrenheit. All of our lubricants fall in the range from 367 to 577 degrees fahrenheit. They are out of that combustible range. As you can see, I've handed out some msds sheets and other things. If you will notice on the sheets it's -- it talks about health, the final product is nonhazardous. All of our motor oils carry this designation. If you also look on the labels I have put there you will see the tri logo, it is blue, red and yellow. The blue color on the left denotes a health hazard. You can see there is a zero there. That means the material is normal. There is no health hazard with motor oil. The red label denotes fire hazard by flash points. It's a no. 1. That moons the flash ointed is above 200 degrees. On the other hand, I know everybody brings this up about the tank form over there with the gasoline. Gasoline is a three, below 100 degrees. The yellow color denotes the reactivity and that's with oxygen and of course oil doesn't reacted with oxygen in any way. It's not a reactant. We do not carry hazardous materials, we are not a hazard to the environment. As we said, we have been the -- the City has come to us and wanted us to be one of their clean places. We've done that. If you have any more questions on any of this I'll be happy to answer them at this time. Thank you, John.

>> Thank you. [Applause]. Plr contreras and following him the David polinsky. Let me announce that liz gold signed up to speak and did not indicate whether she was for or against the appeal. We cannot recognize you as a speaker unless -- under this procedure unless you indicate whether you are for the appeal or against the appeal. Liz gold. Is she here?

>> she stepped out.

>> Would you like me to get her?

>>Garcia: are you for or against the appeal?

>> neither.

>>Garcia: you can't speak under "-the rules allow people to speak in favor of the appeal or against the appeal but not in a neutral capacity. You can't take your three minutes doing that either. [Laughter].

>> I wish to clarify something that was said earlier. In relation to the [inaudible] glr I'll recognize you at the end of the -- this group of speakers. Welcome, sir.

>> Good evening, Councilmembers, I've been working for jim Arnold for six years and we run into this problem like you have heard different people about the expansion on the warehouse. We need room. I'm a team leader and I got about six people pulling parts and we are just working on top of each other and we are expanding this building -- expanding this building, we'll be better off and I hope this can be done. And I want to thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you. [Applause]. David polinsky.

>> Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak. I have been a member and been with Arnold oil company for three years. Everything that I have seen there has been very well taken care of. The improvements that this will make will take a lot of effect to the area and make it a whole lot better. I've been around a lot of hazardous material, I've been doing a lot of different things, but it is going to be for the better for the whole community in itself. And I would just like to say thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: Mr. Jimmy walker.

>> Thank you.

>>Garcia: followed by Mr. John husbandy and rosy gonzales. You have six minutes.

>> I'm jim walker, I've lived in Austin, Texas for 55 years. I have been in business here in Austin for over 30 years. And in the last two weeks I purchased property in the neighborhood next to Arnold oil company in the o 2 zip code. I see no problems at all with their project. In fact, looking at the whole neighborhood, it can do nothing but upgrade it. The plan as I see before us tonight will certainly be -- if you will drive down sixth street after it's done, I'm sure you will see it's one of the cleanest, nicest facilities that have been put on east sixth street in a long long time. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you. Mr. John hussy. Ms. Rosy gonzales. And z. Smith.

>> I would like to give my time.

>>Garcia: she does not need time. She has already had her time. So --

>> I'm John hussy and I don't have a lot I can add to what Mr. Arnold and everybody else has stated before you. I would just ask you to deny the appeal. Thank you very much.

>>Garcia: thank you so. [Applause]. Rosy gonzales.

>> Can I speak now?

>>Garcia: z smith and philip fantas. Ms. Gonzales you have six minutes.

>> Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and -- I'm sorry, the Mayor is not here, but Councilmember. I'm rosy gonzales and I have been in -- I have been an Austin resident for 37 years. My husband was born here. He has been here for 54 years. We have lived in East Austin. We have a business, retail carpet business here for 26 years. 16 Years ago we decided to purchase a building and we could have gone north, south, west, but we decided to be in East Austin because that's our hometown, our place, where my husband was born, my sons were born in East Austin, my grandchildren were born in East Austin, and we live also in East Austin, and I'm proud -- very proud to be in East Austin. Okay, our hopes and our desire was to expand in East Austin to help build our community and occupy and clean up the vacant lots in our neighborhood to expand all businesses and bring new businesses to East Austin. To open doors and being friendly to all business and residents. Now, as a business person today I'm here to represent the businesses, most of the businesses and to welcome Arnold oil company and to support him because of his achievement and we are very proud of him that expanding his business. And East Austin which should be for him, not against him. Okay? I myself, my husband, my children, my grandchildren roll the red carpet to you. Where was he? he was somewhere in here. For being in -- and contribute to go East Austin. And we are very proud of you. There -- the reason I asked for six minutes is because I want to talk to -- since I'm in East Austin and there's a lot of hispanics, I want to talk in spanish, if I may.

>>Garcia: just don't ask me to translate because I'm not good at it.

>> I'll try not to. [Speaking in spanish]. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Gonzales. Z. Smith. Following Mr. Smith, philip fantas and then lois keldorf. Welcome.

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem and Councilmembers. I'm z smith, I have owned property for 27 years five parcels east of Arnold oil. I came down here to watch the East Austin overlay be adopted confess to you I was opposed to it initially, I didn't think we needed it. One of the reasons was because the divisiveness I felt it would bring to any proceeding in East Austin and I think that's proved to be true. I understand the things the neighborhood are concerned about. They have some legitimate concerns. But the Council's wisdom adopted the ordinance, I think that's why we're here. The Council in its wisdom also leveled the playing field in the ordinance. The sixth street corridor was originallies I go natd a commercial core -- designated, but the Council leveled the playing field and it also adopted some criteria that said a site plan must be approved by the planning commission, meets all the criteria. This site plan was approved by the Planning Commission. And the last thing the chairman of the planning commission said when the vote was taken was that if we just summarily turned down every application that comes in from any business in East Austin, we're going to lose our credibility of judging site plans on their merits. Unfortunately the first one is a real test case. It's tough on you all, it's tough on the applicant, but I think the site plan is an improvement. You don't need to hear all that again from me over the property as it exists currently. I would urge you to deny the appeal and approve the site plan so that there is some credibility and balance in that the City Council and the Planning Commission does judge a project on its merits rather than the political desires of some of the opponents to a particular project. I think this will improve east Austin as a whole. I'm looking forward to a lot of the I want proochlts that the neighborhood groups want to -- improvements that the neighborhood groups want to see. Kathy and their sister have done a lot and I'm looking forward to that continuing, but I really don't feel this one is going to be detrimental to that process. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thak you, Mr. Smith. Following Mr. Fantas and ms. Kildorf is ms. Shannon nelson. You can't do that. She's already had her time to speak. She has already made her presentation. [One moment please]. [Applause].

>>Garcia: Mr. Shannon nelson.

>> Hello Councilmembers. My name is shannon nelson and all the points I wanted to discuss tonight have already been covered and so I wanted you to know that I'm here against the appeal. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you so much. [Applause]. Ian nelson? you are one of the first guys from san marcos to testify here, so welcome. [Laughter].

>> That was my wife. Sheefs from san marcos too she's from san marcos too.

>> It was mentioned earlier that this was nothing personal against these employees but it really is because it affects our jobs. What we do right now is really inefficient and the more efficient we can get the better our jobs will get and I just want to say that I hope you do approve this plan. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: linda vogues, danny acker? danny will follow ms. Vogues.

>> Hi. How are you. I work for Arnold oil for 15 years. I've known the Arnolds for much longer than that. Everything that I wanted to discuss has already been discussed. The Arnold oil company is a fine place to work for. I think the expansion is -- would be an improvement to the neighborhood and I wish you would vote in our favor. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: ms. Vogues? Mr. Danny acker.

>> I'm danny acker and I've been working with Arnold oil company for about a year and I've seen one problem with this mess, lack of parking space. With this expansion we would be able to get all the cars off of sixth street and put them into our parking lot. And that would really help out with the traffic and that's all I wanted to say.

>>Garcia: thank you, sir. [Applause]. Then Mr. Jack habason and then the last speaker against the appeal is Mr. Robert harlan. Welcome.

>> Good evening. I worked for Arnold oil for one year and basically I just wanted to address one question. It's been asked from the opposing side who would want to move to East Austin with companies like Arnold oil company. And in the past three months, I moved to East Austin to be closer to my job. I live approximately two miles from Arnold oil company and if any of y'all have to battle the Austin traffic, you would understand why I want to live close to my job. That's basically all I can say is that I am very much in support of this expansion and I hope for my sake, for jim Arnold's sake and for steve cut letter's sake so they do not have a heart attack that we get this expansion. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: what is that supposed to mean? [laughter]. I'm the one who goes to the hospital and you're hoping owe he I'm the one who has to sit here for 10 hours. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you. I'm not an Arnold oil employee, although I have worked on the east side in this neighborhood for 33 years. I own property near this, a little east of it, about a block away. I'm very familiar with the East Austin overlay. I was down there when it was being discussed last year. I think this improvement meets all of the criteria protecting the area. I go by the mckay property, have gone by the mckay property for the last 10 years and watched it deteriorate. It's currently a safety hazard, an eyesore and I feel it falls well within the venue of the East Austin overlay intent to rid East Austin of these pockets of dangerous, has shard dus pieces of property and improvement. Thank you very much. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you, sir. Mr. Robert harlan? [inaudible].

>>Garcia: I thought it was a duplicate so I marked duplicate over it. [Inaudible]. Mr. Robert harlan.

>> Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, I lived on the east side since 1985. Iefd lived on -- I had my business on east sixth street since 1987. I own the property at 1701 east sixth street, which is directly adjacent to the jack mckay lumberyard. And I have to say that I talked with Mr. Cut ler when this whole process first began and asked him very specific concerns because I plan on living on sixth street for the rest of my life and raising on family there and I have to say that Arnold oil answered all my concerns. And they've been a great neighbor to me. I am worried about the jack mckay property being a danger to my -- the warehouse that I just purchased next door to it and I hope that you let Mr. Arnold proceed. Thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you. I should have known because you had a c after siveni oochlt. Welcome, sir.

>> I would just like to say this this is going to be actually a positive outlook on East Austin and it really does need to be built due to the fact that it looks terrible out there, you know. You look at a lot of these other properties around there and it looks real good, but you have that lumberyard there and it looks terrible. And thank you for your time.

>>Garcia: thank you. [Applause].

>>Garcia: that is all the speakers that we have that are making comments opposing the appeal and I'm going to ask the Council if you have any opposition to recognizing liz koe, who is neither supporting the appeal nor supporting the appeal. That would be suspension of the rules to do it. Any opposition to that? okay. You got two minutes according to Councilmember Lewis. [Laughter].

>> Thank you, Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers. I'm liz gold. I'm on the leadership team of the east assess sar chavez planning team and I simply wish to correct any misunderstanding from earlier speakers. We as a team have never taken a position on Arnold oil and I want that to be clear because our name has been used by people on both sides here. Unfortunately, we have -- still do not have a plan. We have been pursuing a very inclusive process. We felt that we could not come out either in favor or opposed to any project like this until we have a plan that has been ratified by all the members of our community. So I simply wanted to correct any misunderstanding about that. Unfortunately this project was very much too far gone for us to be able to have any effect on it through our plans. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you, ms. Gold. Council, that's all the speakers that we have. I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

>>Lewis: so move.

>>Garcia: wait a second, wait a second. We have rebuttal from the two appellants. Five minutes for each. Sorry about that. That's item e of section 131125.

>> He was going to give me his time if I need it. Just for one moment I want to go back to the East Austin overlay and to discuss the intent. Paul couldn't be here, but we had several working sessions together and the one thing that he kept saying was that the definition within the east Austin overlay is that it would encourage acceptable limited expansion. A 28,000 square foot building, nearly doubling the size of the existing facility is not a limited expansion. The intent of the overlay was to begin to limit the con administration of commercial -- con administration of commercial and industrial straining that was placed in close proximity to homes, schools and small businesses. Earlier I know better than anyone that this is a cs zoning. I also know, as many of you know, that you can do a lot in cs zoning that is not compatible with a neighborhood bar, a neighborhood restaurant, a gallery, a youth center. When I decided to appeal, it was in request of all the property owners on that section that my sister had outlined. All of the people that supported us, many were here, willie cortez, Mr. Foster, myself, my sister, other people. We were actually here and we spoke outlining the kind of incompatibility that this exists. None of the people that were mentioned that support this facility who were actually on sixth street were here. None of them. The point that I've tried to make is that yes, it's cs, but the other uses on this strip of section of town could be accommodated in lr, believe me. Gr, mu. The trucks. It's not just the trucks that will come in, a percentage of the 68 that is george zapalac predicted would occur. It's the ones that already reasonably, like the criteria said, that already traverse the area and come in. So you create a critical mass. The site plan of the fire department. I want to reiterate that you're talking about eight -- 10,000 gallons of motor oil sitting outside on the adjacent property to the west, an additional 25% in the existing warehouse, which by the Austin fire department requires that there be a sprinkler so we know that that kicks in at 13,000 gallons of oil. We have in the statesman Arnold oil was quoted as saying that they were going to have a sprinkler system in the new facility. Well, that means that that's an additional 13,000. The fire chief did say that there was a has matt permit and I have his report here that Mr. Saldana gave me and I'm going to pass that around. Out of all the speakers the woman that impressed -- the one that impressed me the most was Mr. Cut ler. I've tried to maintain an open mind. He talked about the dreams of the neighborhood, but they're not dreams, they're actually happening. We're building a multi million -- well, two million dollar plaza. We're choosing the artwork right now. Residents can afford the development. We found the money we're recruiting investors like Mr. Foster into the area. We're partnering with some of these individuals. [Buzzer]. It's not a dream, it's a reality.

>>Garcia: just a second. Put another five minutes on there. Okay.

>> And the point is that it's not only incompatible with what has existed, what is happening, it's incapable with that. -- Incompatible with that. And also the fact that if we put it off another 10 or 20 years, I personally don't have it. You know, a lot of us don't have it. We can't go on any more. We passed the East Austin overlay because we were going to turn East Austin around. Arnold oil is a good neighbor, as he is. An expansion that would double the size of his spaings is not operation is not welcome because of the traffic and the incapability. -- Incompatibility. I don't know what else to say, but I have -- I have supported many projects west of I-35. You know, I've said some bad things to try to make a point about our condition, but I've supported west sixth street development, I've worked with those groups. We do want the same kind of things. We're not living back in 1931 any more or even 1980. We can begin a new day today and turn back the clock and start creating a real neighborhood. Thank you very much. [Applause].

>>Garcia: thank you. Now I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

>>Slusher: so move.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Slusher, seconded by Councilmember Lewis to close the public hearing. All those in favor say aye, oppose said no. Motion carries. Questions, Councilmembers?

>>Lewis: I have a couple of questions?

>>Garcia: Councilmember Lewis?

>>Goodman: should we close the public hearing?

>>Lewis: if the department would come up, I'd like to ask a couple of questions, one or two questions for him. Are you familiar with the proposed development as far as the type of material that's there now or proposed to increase?

>> we have information on the current location.

>>Lewis: I mean, did you have to issue a hazardous permit for it, and if you did, was it because of the quantity or the materials?

>> they do have that permit and the reason is because it has met the threshold for the quantity of the material that they have. It's not for the oil that is existing there.

>>Lewis: and the sprinkler system that's going in, is that because of the quantity or the material that's going to be in the warehouse? do you have any idea?

>> we have not seen a plan come through yet, so we haven't reviewed the plan.

>>Lewis: okay. Thank you, sir.

>>Slusher: I have I've got a clarification. You said the permit is not for the oil?

>> the hazmat is not for the oil.

>>Slusher: what is it for?

>> some of the other materials that are there, scott stuckey from our has matt section is here and he can answer your question.

>> If I can answer your question, the permit that Arnold oil has is not for the motor oil. The permit is primarily for propane which is used as the fuel for the forklifts. About 2500 gallons of anti-freeze and then small quantity of refrigerant and brake fluids, but the permit does not -- is not for the motor oil.

>>Slusher: okay. Thank you.

>>Lewis: my other question -- that's all I have for the fire department. It was mentioned that --. [Inaudible].

>>Griffith: yes, sir, vus just very quickly. That is a cumulative affect. That it's not for any one material, but it all adds up to so many gallons and so you have to have a permit? is that the way it works?

>> yes, ma'am. The basis for a permit is two things. No. 1, -- Actually, three things. One of them is quantity. Two is what its hazard ranking is and the third thing is the material's physical state, if it's a solid, material or gas.

>>Griffith: what's the term in rankings of hazardousness. You said there's a scale?

>> yes, ma'am. There's a scale that the fire department uses. It ranks from four down to zero for the three criteria of things that we look at, health hazard, flam ability and reactivity. Four is at the top end of the scale since it's the greatest hazard from a response standpoint. Zero is the fairly low risk, but there is still that potential. Motor oil, as one of the speakers previously pointed out, has a flam ability rating of one based upon the materials of what we call its flash point, it's ability to burn depending on conditions.

>>Griffith: what's the highest ranking of a material that is in this operation?

>> the highest ranking of a material at this facility right now is the propane, which is for the forklifts because it's a flammable gas.

>>Griffith: and what's its ranking?

>> it has a flam ability ranking of four.

>>Spelman: I'd like to follow up with the fire department if I could. I realize you haven't had a chance to see the site plan yet, but if none of those hazardous materials were to be stored on the expansion site, would that require any change? the hazardous materials would be the same level, would there be any need to have a change in the permit just because the expansion is taking place? would there be a need for a change in the permit if those materials were going to be moved to the spans site? -- expansion site? so the permit would stay the same even if they were moved to a different place? [inaudible].

>>Garcia: criteria item no. Five says sales too reasonably protect persons and property from things that don't apply, fire and similar hazards or impacts. Is any of the operation there such that it fails to protect or are you in issuing the permits you apply that concept to determine if people and property are protected?

>> I'm sorry? could you repeat the question, sir?

>>Garcia: okay. In the -- in evaluating the conditional use permit they give us nine criteria items. No. 5 Says that if it fails to reasonably protect persons and property from fire and similar hazards or impacts, then we cannot grant the conditional use permit. Is there anything in the current operation or in the proposed operation that would qualify under this particular provision?

>> the materials that are there now, they do have the permits that are required. Under that condition they meet the code requirements.

>>Garcia: so they do not fail to protect persons?

>> they do not fail.

>>Garcia: or state understand a positive way, they protect persons or property? the way that they store the material protects persons and property from fire and other hazards?

>> that's correct. It meets the code requirements.

>>Garcia: okay. What happens if -- when the proposed plan for the new warehouse, they don't, then you will not issue a permit?

>> that is correct.

>>Garcia: okay. The certificate of occupancy will not be granted until they clear those items.

>> Actually, no building permit will be issued.

>>Garcia: okay.

>>Lewis: I have a couple of questions for someone. It was mentioned that -- where is the closest school to the subject site?

>> the closest education facility is huston-tillotson, which is about a thousand feet away.

>>Lewis: and -- well, I don't know if you would be able to answer this or not, but can the storage that is on the north side be moved to the mckay property even though the permit is denied? I mean, you own the property, I understand that, but would you move the -- I mean, I know you're going to clean the property up because you own it, but would you then move the material to the mckay property from the north side of the street? [inaudible].

>>Lewis: don't you use the storage across the street? [inaudible].

>>Lewis: that's what I'm saying. Would it be moved to the south side of the street regardless to whether or not the warehouse is built?

>>. [Inaudible].

>>Lewis: okay. [Inaudible].

>> I can address it from the planning point of view. We would have to have a development permit to put any impervious cover down to have any buildings or do anything to that site, which would kick us back through this exact same process again.

>>Lewis: okay. But under the property is zoned, what, cs.

>> Yes.

>>Lewis: so you could ask for a building permit under the cs zoning, not in connection with the expansion is what I'm saying.

>> Well, to do -- to put anything over there we would need to pave it. We'd probably need to put some kind of structure and then it would be a storage facility. We'd be back to the same overlay.

>>Lewis: the other question I have is will the number of delivery decrease because of the increased size of the warehouse, I mean, the number of deliveries coming in, would it decrease because of the expansion?

>> Councilmember Lewis, I'll try to answer your question. If you need more information, I'll ask Mr. Arnold to add more to it. But the situation that is occurring --. [Inaudible]. [Laughter].

>>Lewis: you should have waited until tomorrow. [Laughter].

>> The situation as is occurring right now, they don't have the space for the amount of project that they purchase and distribute, so what's happening is several deliveries are coming to the property periodically to bring the same amount of product because they don't have the space physically to put it. There's no place to put it. So what will happen with the expansion is the expansion is approved -- if approved is the number of deliveries will be able to decrease because -- and you're exactly right, because one delivery can bring a certain amount of product, the same amount of product that's being brought now, but being brought in several deliveries.

>>Lewis: right. And this is for the employees. Is there any of the employees here that walk to work? well, my other question is I know -- I know about sixth street, but how many parking spaces is -- are you -- what is the number of increased parking spaces for employees that's going to be on that lot? [inaudible]. A lot of people ride the bus to work.

>>Lewis: how many people ride the bus to work then? [inaudible].

>>Lewis: okay. All right.

>> There will be 28 parking spaces.

>>Lewis: 28? okay. That's all the questions I have, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: my biggest concern is with k-eye tear I can't item number -- criteria item no. 4 Because with sixth street being as narrow as it is and because I think -- you have 17 employees? and you have 26 parking places for employees and customers?

>> Mayor pro tem, there are 28 additional spaces provided on this site. The existing site next door has some additional spaces. I'm not sure exactly how many, but the 28 spaces are simply for the expansion.

>>Garcia: let me ask you the question. Will any of the employees park on the street? [inaudible].

>> Will they park on the street?

>>Garcia: do they or will they when this facility is completed, will they park on the street?

>> no, Mayor pro tem. To answer the first part of your question, currently yes, employees are parking on the street. Part of the question for this expansion and part of the reason for the design that you see. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: 28?

>> exactly. And we expect that to be able to pull at least -- I think our estimate was 10 employees who are currently parking on the street off the street at one time on any given day.

>>Garcia: thank you very much. We don't prohibit parking on sixth street, do we?

>> no, sir, not at this time. Gar on either side?

>> not at this time?

>>Garcia: so how long are those 18-wheelers that are coming to there?

>> generally the trailers are 50 feet long. They have a wheel base of 50 feet.

>>Garcia: including the tractor?

>> that's going to be the wheel base. The tractor is an additional 10 feet or so.

>>Garcia: so about 60 feet long. And I think that the architect indicated that the area of turn around is how long?

>> about 120 feet from the property line to the front of the building.

>>Garcia: so how many 18-wheelers can be queuing at the gate at any one time?

>> there is one loading space designated on the plan. It may possibly accommodate others, but there is one space that is reserved loading space.

>>Garcia: for the 18-wheelers?

>> yes, sir.

>>Garcia: so if an 18-wheeler is loading or unloading and another one comes, what would happen?

>> it appears that there is room for another trailer to come in and wait while -- or even to maneuver a bit while there is still one truck loading at the loading space.

>>Garcia: would the second 18-wheeler have difficulty maneuvering in? in other words, would they have to spend some time on sixth street waiting to maneuver into the entry way so that they could que up to.

>> The loading space is marked at this location so that if there were a truck marked here, it would extend out about this far and another truck could come in and by means of a backing maneuver -- it may take several maneuvers, but it could probably turn around. I wouldn't think any more than two could get on at the same time, but I think it's possible for two to get on.

>>Garcia: on the current site I've been through there at times when there's an 18-wheeler blocking sixth street. To back up into the current site I think they have to go into the northern part of the -- northern side of sixth street and then back up or something like that. Do I have that correct?

>> that's correct. For this site plan we did require the applicant to widen the driveway so that when a truck is exiting they would not turn across the center line of the road, they would be able to stay on their own side of the street. And also that there is man nuferg space on site and they could turn in without obstructing traffic on the other side of sixth street.

>>Garcia: and you're not going to prohibit left turn lanes coming out -- left turns of 18-wheelers coming out of that site into sixth street?

>> no, sir.

>>Garcia: so they could go either way?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: okay. Thank you. How wide is that entry way that you all are requiring?

>> I think it's 40 feet wide.

>>Garcia: 40 feet wide?

>> that's correct. Yes, that's correct.

>>Garcia: during the week -- I'm going to step out of item no. 4 And go into other item. It talked about an easement and I'm not going to talk about that easement because I understand there is controversy over the easement. That will have to be slrd somewhere else other than at the City Council -- settled someone else other than at the city Council. But there was discussion about this building being too close or the fence being too close to the property that's owned by ms. Vasquez and would in essence not allow ms. Vasquez to get out of her building on the back side. Did y'all check that?

>> it's my understanding --.

>>Garcia: maybe he can talk about that. I don't know.

>> Mayor pro tem, the lot is not prohibiting you from putting a fence on your own property line. There are, per City regulations, building regulations, certain setbacks from the property line that you have to start building your structure. If you are adjacent to a property line owe he which doesn't always happen, but if they line up against each other, with no alley in between, hur not prohibiting from erecting a fence at your property line, but the other property owner if they do choose to build closer than that set back, it is permitted or it will permit, and which happens because of grandfathering, that type of thing. You're required to notify them that you are going to put that fence up, but it doesn't prohibit you from doing so.

>>Garcia: well, my question has to do, are you injuring in any way, shape or form the adjacent owner by the manner in which you are building that fence?

>> according to the law, no. It's that property owner who has built within that set back requirement, it's anywhere responsibility to -- their responsibility to relocate --.

>>Garcia: but they were grandfathered and approved by the City, so as good neighbors, what are you going to do to accommodate that.

>> Well, Mayor pro tem, I don't think we've got this issue in this particular case. We researched that because we thought we had that issue per your inspection department. We were asked to look at that issue to see if that was going to be a problem. If this particular case there's about four and a half feet from ms. Vasquez' structure to what we think is the property line or we don't know exactly where it is. I don't think there's necessarily a dispute over where ms. Vasquez's property line is or the Arnold oil property line is. The dispute is really over whether there is right-of-way in there, City of Austin right-of-way. So it's not erecting a fence on the Arnold oil property line in this particular situation is not going to block any exits of the vasquez structure.

>>Garcia: let me ask ms. Vasquez to comment on that issue since that's one of the things that has been circulating.

>> Excuse me. I --.

>>Garcia: I can't find my glasses. Do you want mine?

>> this is the part of the whole story that I have not mentioned at all. And then did not intend to mention, but since it's been brought up, I will. When Arnold oil visited us and said that he was going to do this project, I told him --.

>>Garcia: that's a mic over here.

>> I told him that the 16 foot -- the 16 feet that are represented right here that's marked green and goes all the way to sixth street was a City right-of-way. It was -- it's on a county plat. It's approximately 16 by 100 square feet. I didn't really see the site plan. I must have seen it seen it and not noticed it, you know, because I saw it again a couple of days ago and I realized that it was always there. The improvements, the construction improvements were always on the right-of-way. So I asked Mr. Arnold what we need to do is to run this all the way through. This is what I was talking about, the City right-of-way, so that we could use it as a real alley or we could have it vacate and you take half and I take half. He said let me get back with you on this and I'll research it. He came back and said that he had done a survey on it and that the survey showed that I was on the City right-of-way and that this green -- this green, all this, was not City property, but it was actually his property. And so then they sent me a letter saying that I --.

>>Garcia: who is they?

>> their lawyers. Their attorney sent me a letter saying that I needed to remove the improvements because my building was on the right-of-way. This wasn't the right-of-way. The right-of-way was over here and my building was on top of it. And so then I immediately got a lawyer and my lawyer wrote to them and said, ms. Vasquez has a survey. Their lawyers contacted me and said oh, you have a survey? I said, well, -- it was a really big insult. If I own a piece of property, if I got a building permit, I had to have a site plan, I had to have a survey if it's financed by a bank. Yes, I have a survey, I have a site plan, I have a certificate of occupancy. And then they said -- I said talk to my lawyers. So then what they did was they talked -- they talked with the city. And all of a sudden, poof, there was no more right-of-way. The City said they researched everything back as far as 1884 and that this property here, there's never any records that it had ever been acquired by the City, maintained by the city or that it had ever been dedicated to the City. So what essentially happened, Mayor pro tem, was that on the one side the issue of whether I was on the right-of-way was gone. That was good for me personally. On the other side now Arnold oil could put a did he pond right here that's going to flow into an unimproved street that doesn't have any sewage system and that he was going to use this property here for parking. The people who lost are the artists that have been using this for over 10 years. I let the artists skull want there. They work on iron, they work on concrete. I have been using this property for over 10 years and my daddy has been using it for 20 years. The artists loflt, but more importantly the community lost, because -- lost, but now the property is available for them to put a detention pond and to increase their ability to come in. I maintain as a property owner who owns property and who knows about engineers and surveys, you know, thank you very much, that the issue is who has been using this property and is has allowed it. Jack mckay owns this property before Arnold oil bought it. He has a fence erected. 16 Feet away from my property. He has allowed my daddy, he has allowed me to use that property. I have acquired rights. It's called adverse possession of property. And I at least have as much property rights at least or rights to an easement. And I'm going to exercise those rights in the proper channels.

>> Mayor pro tem, I know you're not asking for any response from me, but this really is a matter that is a legal --.

>>Garcia: it's a legal matter. What I was trying to establish is to what extent her business operations or the people that rent from her would be injured or damaged by what it is that you're doing.

>> They will not be prohibited from having their required exits. We are not encroaching over to their building and other than the emotional or whatever else there may be, there really is no --.

>>Garcia: well, there's a legal issue.

>> Right, there is a legal issue with respect to -- I think it's going to take -- we are not -- we don't want to dispute it. It's not a big deal to us. We were told by the inspection department that we had to notify if we were putting up a fence, but if it does go to court, to litigation, whether or not there is damage to that property will have to be decided by a judge. [Inaudible]. [Inaudible].

>> There are one, two, three, four, officers offices on that strip of land, in that 16 feet right here. Everyone has a door that they exit from. They need it. Everyone is very frightened because Mr. Arnold has individual ted all of them and telling them what was going to hapen to them. From day one this has been ever present in my decision to continue. And I have continued to fight. I know that nothing will deter me. But it's not an emotional issue. It's only an emotional issue because I have been so percent cuted, but it will affect my renters.

>>Garcia: I think I know the answer to this question, but this is a legal issue, right?

>> absolutely.

>>Garcia: and we don't have any jurisdiction in this one?

>> that's correct.

>>Garcia: do you know anything else that will work? [laughter]. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: -- Councilmember Slusher?

>>.

>>Slusher: we heard one side and it's a legal issue that's not going to be decided by us and I feel like we've heard a lengthy talk on one side of it and it seems appropriate to me to get the -- give the other side a chance to say something about it if they would like to. [Applause].

>>Garcia: well, they started to and then I asked ms. Vasquez to comment on her side. She went and explained probably more than what I had asked because I didn't know the full extent of her story. And what you're asking is that based on the comments that ms. Vasquez made that the apple lee have a chance to respond?

>>Slusher: yes, sir.

>> Thank you, Councilmember Slusher and Mayor pro tem. I really, you know, again, this is such a personal case to me because we've been working so hard on it, but this whole issue was not brought about by Arnold oil. This issue was brought about by ms. Vasquez, who took the allegation to the City of Austin that our site plan was drawn in the right-of-way. Now, we were -- I called myself the inspection department, did not tell them what property I was talking about. I work with several property owners all over the City. Didn't tell them what property I was talking about. I didn't want to cause an issue, but asked what do we do in this situation to be fair and to do the right thing. I was told that we need to notify the adjacent property owner that we are constructing a fence so that they can take the proper precautions and relocate exits if necessary. And in this particular case it ends up not being necessary. Now, about a day later I hear that there is a mass investigation per City staff going on to investigate this boundary dispute that we had -- no letters had been copied to the Council, no letters had been copied to the staff. We did not attempt to make this an issue to had hurt her feelings. I consider her a friend. She may disagree, but I consider her a friend. We were not trying to make this a City of Austin issue and it really has nothing to do with this case. We at this point -- I mean, I don't want to discuss -- we have talked to the City surveyor because they called me. I never once called anybody in the City surveyor's office to say look at this issue.

>>Garcia: you say this is not a City issue. It is a City issue if -- in that the City has to review your survey, right, to make sure that you're --.

>> Well, actually, no, that's not necessarily correct. We have -- the City -- it became a City issue because the dispute was whether there was City of Austin right-of-way involved. And the City surveyor and real estate department --.

>>Garcia: my question has to do with do you or don't you have to submit a survey for them to determine where you can build?

>> we do, but the survey doesn't address the issue because the survey is of our property.

>>Garcia: and the survey goes all the way to the end of the green?

>> exactly. [Inaudible].

>> And, you know, like I said, the only other thing I want to say about it is just that we don't want to dispute it. It's not a big deal to us. We were just trying to ensure for review purposes that our site plan was accurate and that what we were planning with our property to put the detention ponds on was our property. We have gotten that verification back from the city staff that our survey is accurate. I've spoken with the surveyor that did kathy vasquez's survey, ralph harris, who I'm sure you know did our survey, and an sell glofer and the city staff reviewed both surveys and went back to City maps. We don't want to dispute it, we don't want to kick anybody off. It's not our property to kick anybody off of. We want to be sure because the appellant brought this issue to the Council that our site plan is accurate and shows the actual property and we've gotten that verification back from the staff that it does.

>>Lewis: may I ask a question? if I remember correctly, isn't the present part of mckay's property, doesn't doesn't it abut the adjoining property? the gentleman over here, how far is that fence from your building, sir? I mean at the front? [inaudible].

>>Lewis: that's what I thought. If I remember correctly, that's -- that fence is -- your building is almost -- almost one at the front. Now, I don't know what it is at the back, but -- because this is sixth street, khalmers dead ends right in front of your building, right?

>> right. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: and you need to get on a mic, please.

>> I just handed over an as built survey that shows the fence line and what happened up at sixth street is on the property line and then it has a bend in it about halfway back where the alley was to go perpendicular or parallel to sixth street and then bends over in that area is what we discussed.

>>Lewis: of course, I'm looking at the diagram and the west side of khalmers is where the fence of mckay's property is. So --. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: can you get on the mic, please?

>> you see, many years ago Mr. Mckay put up a fence very close to Mr. Harlan's property and began using it for 20 some-odd years. By the same token, he put up a fence right here, right here on this side, not over here. The fence does not go all the way through in the back of my property. So what I'm saying is just as he put a fence there, in a sense you could argue that he acquired use of the property because he was using it and it had adverse possession because my survey that I just passed to you shows a 16-foot alley that was done in 1994 that I used for my building permit and everything else. So the fence that Mr. Mckay has is right up against here and I have been using the property in between here, the same way that Mr. Mckay was using the property over here. So see it goes all the way through.

>> Actually --.

>>Lewis: my question is as far as the City survey goes, the metes and bounds is -- should be stated someplace on the survey, an official survey as far as your property line on the front and the property -- the metes and bounds on the rear of the property. [Inaudible].

>>Lewis: I see here that it's 200 and -- thanks. But I'm saying one is -- at the front it's 66.5 --159.93 feet. And on the back it's 160. No, wait a minute, that's not right. This is east. This is 159.3 and this is 160. All right. You know, I know that somewhere it's an official metes and bounds map, so that's the reason I was asking.

>> Councilmember Lewis, if you want the actual -- we can give you the complete survey if you need it. We absolutely will do that. And I think the whole point is that it really -- I mean, you don't establish who owns what property by where the fence it, you establish it by the deeds and the metes and bounds descriptions. Mckay didn't own that property. The owner didn't own that property because he put a fence there on the north end, you know, and he doesn't not own this property because he put a fence somewhere else. You can put a fence on your own property wherever you may like, but the issue is what do the deeds say. And you don't have to take our word for it. Somebody launched a huge City investigation and they came back and told us that the deeds are accurate and the mistake was the City's and there's no right-of-way on it. And I hate to stand here and argue adverse possession because it's not just cut and dried. It's very difficult to prove and it would take a court battle.

>>Goodman: let me ask a question. So there was a mistake somewhere on a City map? there was a designation of that strip of land all the way from one end to the other as being a City right-of-way or a county right-of-way?

>> what I was told by ancel glofer is on some City maps it does show that the City owns right-of-way there. Not the strip you see on our map.

>>Goodman: you want to grab the microphone?

>> what was actually disputed you can't see on our survey because it's actually the property adjacent to our survey that was the disputed right-of-way. It's the property that's located right along this strip that was per ancel glofer what they showed the City right-of-way, however, they were not able to show any documents showing that the city acquired that right-of-way. They thought it was an easement or something like that, but he was not able to find any documents that verified that. So really the dispute wouldn't be between whether that's City right-of-way or not wouldn't be our fight with the City, but would be ms. Vasquez's fight with the City, because she's claiming that's her property.

>> Councilmember, I have a answer this because you know that my sister and I --.

>>Garcia: do you have a point of order, Councilmember?

>>Spelman: I do. I would just like to inquire of the City attorney, does any of this have any bearing at all on the decision before us right now?

>> no, sir, it does not.

>>Spelman: okay. I would prefer -- I understand it's an important issue to both of you, but I would prefer that you continue this discussion somewhere else because it's getting late and we've got a lot of people here. [Applause]. [One moment, please]

>> the issue in dispute is who owns what tract, whether or not there was dedicated right-of-way, if so where that is, that is not within the jurisdiction of the Council to decide. The other issue is the impact, the impact of what this Council -- of what the conditional use permit, if granted, would be on the neighboring property owners. And that is are there exits, are there exiting hindered, are there -- is a -- well, you can look straight to the criteria. Let me see. Which one is it? four. Adversely affects the safety, convenience, or vehicular and pedestrian circulation in the vicinity.

>>Goodman: number 6.

>> Yes, number 6. Well, again, gets back to traffic control. Adversely affects traffic control or adjacent properties by inappropriate location. Lighting or types of signs. That is not the issue of legal ownership or title to property, which is not before the Council and is not within the jurisdiction of the Council to decide. And that is the distinction. It may be a subtle one, but there is a distinction between whether or not there's an adverse impact of the proposed conditional use permit upon the vasquez property, which gets into, for example, the doors that ms. Vasquez spoke to and whether or not the renters in her property can properly exit those doors under safe conditions. So the question then is: is with the conditional use permit, with the proposal that is being made, whether that allows, for example, sufficient egress and ingress for those renters into that property. That's a very concrete example. And that's the difference.

>> To add to that, what we were told by the inspection department was not that you block an exit, but that you leave them without the minimum number of required City of Austin exits for fire safety. So for instance, in this case, like I said, we do not -- the fence would not block her exit, she has five feet to open the door. But the issue would not be that you are blocking the door of a property owner that's built closer are than normal to the property line, but that that door that you block is a required City of Austin exit. And in this situation I don't think that that exists, Councilmember Goodman.

>>Spelman: if I could follow up, very quickly, it may develop that as result of some legal action that the site plan before us would need to be changed. If that's the indication, and I have no idea what's going to happen here, but if that were the case, what would -- what effect would that have on the decision before us here? would that site plan be able to be changed without having to come back before us?

>> what would happen is that, for example, if there's an adverse decision to Arnold oil, this is pure speculation, and they can't build the site plan as approved, then what they would have to do is go back and process a new application for a new conditional use permit or some modification there of whatever that process would be to modify that conditional use permit to make it to -- to comport with what the legal limits of that their property is.

>>Spelman: okay. So I guess that answers my question. I won't even need to comment on it. Thanks.

>>Garcia: other questions, comments?

>>Goodman: yeah, Mayor pro tem. I had questions that I needed to ask about the trucks and I suppose that would be Mr. Arnold or whomever.

>> Yes, ma'am.

>>Goodman: on the slides, I don't remember now, but was there an oil truck, does anybody remember? and if there was, was that one of yours? I thought you told me that you no longer had oil that -- that the oil in Arnold oil was from a long time ago.

>> No, ma'am. What I said was this new facility is not going to be an oil facility. The existing facility that we currently operate under is an oil facility. We have those oil tanks there. They were there 10 plus years before I ever came there. Those will remain exactly where they are, they are totally permitted, they are totally approved, they are inspected from time to time by these gentlemen. But this will not be the case on the new site plan. Which is the issue is the appraisal of the new site plan. The old site plan is existing conditions and is in total compliance with everything. And every other truck goes to the other side with the exception of those oil trucks, which is approximately one and a half a week, that's all.

>>Goodman: okay. I'm sorry, I didn't follow what you just said to me. You do or don't have oil?

>> yes, ma'am, we have oil in our existing facility.

>>Goodman: you will not have --

>> will not have oil in this new facility. This new facility -- all of the bulk oil tanks that you saw on that picture, they are there, Councilmember Spelman visited our location the other day, one there at that point in time. They will continue to be there. But the new proposed facility is to star auto parts to supply our auto parts issues. And it's not -- that is the issue is the site plan on the new facility. The existing facility is existing conditions, totally permit, totally in compliance with all rules and regulations.

>>Goodman: well, I understand that but the issue is also that you have an existing business and you are about to expand or you want to expand. Therefore cumulative -- the business is a cumulative impact and takes what I am trying to figure out. How many -- that's what I am trying to figure out. If not oil trucks, how many trucks of any kind do you get each day or each week?

>> we surveyed --.

>>Goodman: average.

>> When Mayor pro tem Garcia asked the question last week, I had jason Ramirez keep a count by time, by date, the first day we had jason still here? I think we had nine total trucks, not counting our trucks, which are delivery vehicles, but I am talking about incoming vehicles, we had nine trucks, two of which were 48 foot trailers, the rest were bobtails, the second day six, I am saying this off the my head, somebody has that documentation somewhere. The third day three. Jason do you want to help me with this, you did the survey. Here we go. First day one at 9:00, 9:15, 1:30, all of which were bobtails, 10:00 18 wheeler. These are bobtails again. On the second day we had one at 11:30, 11:37, 11:45, 12:so, all of which were bobtails, 9-3 all bobtails, 9 disturb 4, a 25 foot trailer, 10:25, a 45 foot trailer, 28 foot bobtail, at 2:45 a 28 foot bobtail. If you would like to see this, I would be more than happy to show this to you.

>>Goodman: I just wanted to know --

>> high of 8 trucks, two were trailers. Low of 3 trucks of which one was a trailer.

>> What is a bobtail?

>> that's one that's -- that's 28 foot long, I guess is what I would say.

>>Goodman: okay.

>> A short truck.

>>Goodman: thanks.

>> U-haul.

>>Goodman: okay, I understand u-haul. Of the trucks on the slides, were any of those coming to you all's place?

>> the one tank -- I didn't take the slides, so I don't know. But I would -- the tanker that we saw was a grondike truck, it was at I-35, I am not going to tell you it wasn't or wasn't. Budweiser wasn't, lumber certainly wasn't, I don't know -- the City -- only one that I would estimate that was ours out of what I saw was in fact -- certainly the cisco food trucks was not our truck. I didn't identify any of those other than the grondike truck possibly coming to our location.

>>.

>>Goodman: when you expand, aside from the fact that you say that will -- that will improve the -- certainly the blockage of the street, will you be getting any more trucks than you already do?

>> no, ma'am, what we have been trying to sell, other than the oil trucks, which is again one and a half trucks on an average a week, which today we have also put a stop -- stop watch on the trucks, I think jason back me up, but it was 40 seconds for the guy to get off the road? backing up? other than that, that particular oil truck, which is again not even on an average of two a week, we have been tracking this for quite some time because we knew it was going to be an issue, all of the rest of the trucks will be able to turn into the driveway at the maximum of two at a time, directly off, without having to block. Is that your question?

>>Goodman: yeah.

>> If I can show you, I will be more than happy to. We designed it this way.

>>Garcia: get a mike. Please.

>> The first truck would turn in off the street, make a semi circle, back up here. Allowing at least 60 foot for the second truck to come in and be in a holding pattern. It will hold two trucks without fail. Now, three would be a little tough, but I am not going to ever say never, I am not going to tell you a lie. There may be three show up on the same day, but that doesn't happen very often.

>>Goodman: okay. Thank you. Thanks Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: further questions?

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, I have one for ms. Glasco or ms. Terry, then I want to ask Mr. Arnold the same question. If we were to approve this, what guarantees do we have that we will get the -- well, the building -- would you put the drawing up out there? okay. How can we guarantee that we will get that building if we approve this?

>> you have my word.

>>Slusher: I am going to ask you in a minute.

>> That's better than anything else. [Laughter].

>> Well, I think --.

>>Garcia: we don't take trust us as an answer, Mr. Arnold.

>> The yellow handout we gave you in considering this type of a site plan, you can modify it or approve it with conditions, one of the conditions would be that the building would be constructed to look like that, and referenced as an exhibit because we do not have a plan, I believe that looks like that. We just have a footprint. So with this type of conditional use perm, you can reference the -- permit you can reference that exhibit to the extent that we can describe it or attach it to the site plan as a rendering to go along with it.

>>Slusher: so the answer is we could require that as a condition of approval. Okay. How would you describe that as masonry, landscaped, windows.

>> Where is the architect?

>> the landscape is on the plan, there's a full landscape plan. The building is concrete cmu block. Split face with the accents and we would be glad to include a rendering that is labeled, showing the materials, roof materials and include that as another sheet to our non-set sheet.

>> Councilmember Slusher I am the architect on the project, the rendering that you see, the construction drawings are already done for this project. We are waiting for the approval of the site plan so we can submit the construction documents. The only thing that's different on the construction documents that's not presently on this rendering are those windows because we added those. So we will modify the construction documents to add the windows, other than that, the drawings are all finished and good old jim is not going to pay me any more money to redraw this building.

>>Slusher: okay.

>> Can I say one thing in that regard? one of the conditions of the site plan approval by planning commission was a request to have the iron fence up there, that is part of the conditional use permit approval.

>>Slusher: okay. That's Planning Commission put on. Okay.

>> Councilmember Slusher what I would really recommend is getting a copy of that plan attached to our overall records, of the City, so that we can be able to enforce it, that's what I would recommend as an attachment to the site plans that would be submitted to us.

>>Slusher: when you say plan, copy of that plan, tell me exactly which plans you mean?

>> this is the site plan that we received that has the various requirements reflected on the plan. There's a landscape plan, a plan that addresses compatibility standards, we show you height, elevations, et cetera. I would ask that an extra sheet be provided to us that will be attached to this plan. The documents that are submitted to us, the sheets that are this blue line is reproduced from is calmed a set of mylars, those would include that rendering would would be attached that would be kept with our records.

>> The drawing in there, we will probably attach that as well, like I forget her name.

>> If that's Council's desire to ensure that building looks like that, that's what it would need.

>>Slusher: Mr. Around no, tell me -- you have got an attachment here retail center and shops. Is that new?

>> I'm not sure that I know what you are looking at.

>>Slusher: huh oh.

>> One thing in our discussions with Councilmembers, that came ups, was the whole idea of the marketplace that we hope to have developed on fifth street. One thing that we proposed to do would be to -- if that actually -- you know, is actually completed, and fifth street was actually completed and improved, one thing we would do would be to use a certain portion of square feet on the back side of the property that faces fifth street and actually do an auto parts retail. That was something that was suggested by some of the Councilmembers and also by some of the folks in the neighborhood. That they would like to have actually a store that they could go in and out.

>>Slusher: so this is a possibility for the future?

>> precisely.

>>Slusher: I was going to ask about how rail potential, because if you get light rail, I guess this could work alongside there, although it would be a little odd to have an auto parts store by the railroad. [Laughter]. Go ahead, Mayor pro tem.

>>Garcia: one of the things that was -- one of the things that was mentioned by ms. Vasquez was that in the eastern side, can you take that one, that -- that rendering off and -- and in the eastern side of this property, where it's -- it's marked green, that there's going to be a detention pond. And that then the water would flow to an area that does not have curb and gutter. In conjunction with item no. 5, Where it says fails to reasonably protect persons and property from flood or water damage, what -- what does the watershed protection do in a situation where we don't have curb and gutter, where is that water going to go in.

>> Those are some of the things we look at. Our engineering section, looks at the -- the requirements. One the requirements we have in engineering cry fear I can't manual is that when you take a piece of property not developed or upgrading it, that you were not creating an adverse effect on adjoining properties. We look at how you detain the water, release it when it does rain. So it does not create an effect. I would assume that engineering staff would have --. [One moment please] so that it never flows on to fifth street and any more capacity than it's doing right now.

>>Garcia: is this on a regular basis?

>> yes.

>>Garcia: is that something that we inspect, Alice? those holes that allow water to flow out of them sometimes get --.

>> Well, part of the site inspection will be that we have a plan that shows how the water will be detained and how it will be on site to detain the water and let it out.

>> As part of the drainage utility what we do with these is ensure that they are in working order.

>> The developer is responsible for maintaining -- they were just handing me what they have on storm water runoff. As part of the inspections for water quality, the developer is responsible for what is on site, but what goes to the streets would be inspected under the drainage utility inspection as the City Manager indicated.

>>Garcia: that's all the questions I have. Any other questions? I'll entertain a motion on this item? and the options are to grant the appeal, deny the appeal or put a motion on the table to wait for the Mayor. [Laughter].

>>Slusher: go ahead, Councilmember Lewis.

>>Lewis: let me say that based on what I've heard tonight and the lack of adverse effect, I'm going to move -- make a motion to deny the appeal?

>>Slusher: second.

>>Garcia: motion made by Councilmember Lewis kml to deny the appeal, seconded by Councilmember Slusher. Discussion? Councilmember Goodman? -- Councilmember Lewis? Lewis lus and let me explain the reason that I made that motion is because the planning commission have heard this and I know they've researched it a lot more than we have the last couple of weeks or the time that we have had it because it's always came to us with the one side or the other giving us information at a time where the planning commission members is greater than ours in most cases and they've heard this argument back and forth I don't know how many times you've been to the Planning Commission, but over the last two years. And so based on their approval of it with the conditions is the reason that I made the motion.

>>Garcia: okay.

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, I wanted to add --.

>>Garcia: let me recognize Councilmember Goodman, then you. Okay. Councilmember Slusher.

>>Slusher: I just wanted to add a friendly amendment that it would be subject to being built as per the plans that Arnold oil has submitted to ms. Glasgow referred to a minute ago and the to be built in accordance with the rendering as presented at the Council and would include the wrought fence as per the plans.

>>Garcia: is that friendly amendment?

>>Goodman: I want to say this was a really difficulty one, surprise, surprise. And as I've looked at the different criteria that we can evaluate to grant the appeal or not, every question that I asked that would enable us to grant the appeal was answered by fire or traffic or other staff reassurance that no, it complied. So if I wanted to help the appellant, because I know that their big vision goal is something we're all trying to work to as well, I can't find a way under what we legally have to grant to do that. And I wanted to also say it's not a clean and simple argument here. It's not easy, black and white. Some of the neighborhood is on one side and some on the other. And I wanted to -- actually, I wanted to thank David renteria for being -- all right. For being so passionate. Now that you've grown up --. [Laughter]. I think he's a real asset for all of us and I'm glad he came down, even though it made it more difficult for me. But I understand the issues on both sides and I wish there was some way to do something that would begin to answer both sides. Somewhere I think there is, but at this one I think we've come to a point where I no longer find a mechanism for us to be able to do something for both, to both continue to decrease the industrial use, to upgrade the aesthetics and the mixed use within the neighborhood and keep a good neighbor and allow him the support of the neighborhood that he obviously merits. In this case I can't find a way to do that.

>>Slusher: Mayor pro tem, I just wanted to speak to why I'm voting the way I am. I understand the issue of wantedding to transform the area from real heavy concentration on light industrial to much more of a mixed use and I support that. Also as to how you do that and maintain the health of the community as you go along, and part of the choice here was that if we were -- and let me say first that I think that this meets all the criteria and that I think what I'm going to say mostly will fall under -- will be detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare or materially injurious to properties or improvements in the vicinity for reasons specifically articulated by the commission. I think that can be fairly broad, especially if you look at it in the context of what's going to happen in East Austin over the next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years which is what we have to be concerned about here. So the immediate term, if you didn't -- if we didn't approve this, you would have Arnold oil remaining as they are still operating there, but you would have the lumberyard there without any improvements on it. And we're going to wait for a multi-family or single family or some sort of retail to come in to this property, but the wait would be for Arnold oil to finally decide to move and not -- and in the meantime wouldn't be doing anything. It's almost you have to wait for some decay to happen before you do -- get something that would -- you folks would consider more positive in there. So I didn't think that was the way to go. I think that actually the way this is going to happen, now it's going to improve the traffic flow over what exists there now. You can look at the buildings and we've put that into the plans. That's going to improve the aesthetics, the fence is going to improve, the land kaipg scaping is going to improve the aesthetics. That's going to improve the pedestrian flow in the area. I think you're also going to get and maintain business for the restaurants in the area, many of whose owners were in support of Arnold oil and you're going to maintain business for them and you're going to increase business not only for the restaurants, but for other retail uses in the area. So I think this is in the best interest of East Austin and the best interest of the City and I think it's a fair thing to do.

>>Garcia: any other comments? let me make some last comments on this particular issue. I think what we have here is a situation where the conditional use permit criteria does not incorporate into it the essence of the East Austin overlay oord unanimous because the east Austin overlay ordinance says that the East Austin overlay combining district is intended to address the kons of intended commercial and industrial use in close proximity to residential areas in East Austin. When we passed this particular ordinance, what we were saying was that this area has problems, severe problems caused by decisions that were made 50, 60, 70 years ago. And that the Council intended to mitigate, to something to mitigate those problems. The conditional use permit criteria doesn't give us that flexibility and I don't know how it is that we can incorporate it into the conditional use permit because it conditional use permit applies to properties all over the City where the East Austin overlay does not apply. So I'm going to have to vote against the motion if for no other reason than to issue a protest to how the cup process comes -- interfaces with the East Austin overlay. I think there's an inconsistency and I'm going to ask the Planning Commission to look at that because this will affect all of you. This will affect the people in the the sea sar chavez planning district. Because if you plan only this and you don't combine the planning districts and you have those li zonings, it will affect you. Believe you me, it will affect you. And what the Council started to do when they passed the East Austin overlay will be basically evaporated. We will not have the essence of the ordinance incorporated into what it is that we approve because we don't have the flexibility under this. Ms. Vasquez tried to incorporate the essence of the East Austin overlay, but that's not within our -- from our understanding from our lawyers, that's not what we can decide. We can't use this ordinance as a criteria for determining whether we can grant the conditional use permit because the criteria set out in the code. So that said, I guess I'll shut up and ask for a vote on it and go on about our business. All those in favor of the motion indicate by saying aye. Opposed no? so the motion passes on a vote of five to one to one with the Mayor out of town.

>> Mayor pro tem, we have --.

>>Garcia: we have one more item. Audience, if you could take your conversations to the hallway, we have one more item and people have been waiting here for quite some time. I will have to entertain a motion to waive the rules so we can go beyond 10:00 o'clock. Signify by saying aye. Motion carries and the rules that says we will end the meeting at 10:00 o'clock is waived. We now will go to the last item on the agenda, which is item no. 53 And it was pulled by Councilmember Lewis.

>> Peter reek is here to answer questions on that item. It's for the four points fire station. It is recommended the approval of brawn and butler. They're in compliance with your m.b.e., w.b.e. Ordinance and they've made a good faith effort.

>>Garcia: Mr. Riek, now that I've got the mic on. Welcome, sir.

>> Thank you. Was there a question?

>>Garcia: the City Manager says you had all the answers.

>> The unfortunate thing is I don't have all the questions, so I tried to make the answers up to the questions I don't know. But in essence, Councilmember, the action in front of you is to approve a construction contract with brawn and butler company for the construction of the fire and e.m.s. Station at four points located at 7701 river place boulevard, the contract amount is 1,770,000. Rerecommend the approval of this fire station is in response or is part of the annexation that Council approved last year. We had represented to the newly annexed citizens that we would strive to construct and make this fire station available within 16 months, although the service agreement had a longer duration available for the construction of the station.

>>Garcia: Councilmember Lewis, we have seven speakers. Do you want to hear from them before you ask any questions?

>>Lewis: not really. [Laughter].

>>Lewis: there's not seven people left. But yes, we'll go ahead and hear from the speakers.

>>Garcia: okay. The first speaker is sandra Martinez. Is sandra here? she's registered against. Fred Garza? welcome, sir. Following you is Mr. Phillip burkes, is Mr. Burkes here? he's registered against. Mr. Jimenez, he's registered against.

>> I'm the loan survivor here tonight.

>>Garcia: joe estrada, is he here? he's registered against. Jesus Ramirez, he's registered against and John brown, so you will be the next speaker. Mr. Garza.

>> Thank you Mayor pro tem, Council, City Manager. Thank you once again for allow is us this time to voice our opinion on this particular item. As you well know, the hispanic contractor association are very strong supporters of the m.b.e., w.b.e. Ordinance. We are here again to talk about the same issue as we did back on august the 20th pertaining to this particular contractor. That issue being that this company is not complying with the ordinance. We believe that the Council has to send a message to all contractors that they must live up to this ordinance and make a general went effort and allow m.b.e., w.b.e. Participation. It is vital to the growth of businesses and the contribution to the community. We again ask you to rebid this particular project on the spirit of your ordinance. We ask Council to go ahead and reiterate that Council will not tolerate any contractor that takes this ordinance lightly, nor counsel's view on this particular subject. I don't know whether or not you guys received the letter from Mr. Fuentes --.

>>Garcia: yes, we did.

>> Okay. Wonderful. But again, we're here asking for your consideration for rebid. This particular contractor on several occasions has failed to meet the minority participation. His numbers have been way below and he has done that on several occasions. So we're here protesting and asking for you to rebid this particular project. I just would like to make a little note here. Since 1994, brawn and butler has been low bidder on nine of our City contract projects. Of those nine he was awarded seven. Totaling almost 10 million dollars. Of those seven contracts awarded they failed to meet the m.b.e., w.b.e. Participation goals on five of those particular projects. We realize that the Council made a commitment through the annexation proceedings to address the needs of these new any annexed areas and the service agreements that includes the fire and e.m.s. Stations, but we ask you to consider the track record of brawn and butler and reject all proposes and rebid this project. Thank you.

>>Garcia: thank you. Mr. Brown?

>> Mayor pro tem, Councilmembers, Mr. Garza, I appreciate your time. I'm John braun, brawn and butler construction. We've been doing work for the city for 10 years and I can assure you we do take the m.b.e. Ordinance very seriously. We strive to meet the goal on every project. In the low bid environment in city contracting, low bid takes priority if you, the Council, want the m.b.e. Goal to be the no. 1 Priority, I can assure you that I can deliver that on every project, but in the low bid environment that I'm forced to operate under, I have to be the low bid on the project to even stand up here so you can beat me up, okay? on projects where I meet or exceed the goal, if I'm not the low bidder, I don't even get a chance to argue with you. I have to operate in the low bid environment. On this project we solicited over 170 m.b.e. And w.b.e. Firms. Less than 10% responded. We used every low bid that we received from an m.b.e. Or w.b.e. Firm. In nticipation of being awarded this project -- I'm not trying to count my chickens before they hatch -- we've already signed up another m.b.e. Firm and we're continuing to look for others. I know that you've seen a matrix on our performance over the last 10 years. One thing that I suggested to Mr. Riek was that there's another set of numbers that you ought to see and that is what's your m.b.e. Participation percentage at the completion of the project. We take the ordinance seriously, we continue to try to increase minority and women participation in the construction industry because we feel it's beneficial to the industry overall and we continue to recruit, increase the percentage all the way to the end of the project even though I don't get to stand up here at the end of the project and tell you what the numbers are. So I can assure you that we take this seriously. We're trying to do the best job we can under the rules that exist. Like I said, if you want to change the priorities, I can deliver every time. Thank you for your time.

>>Garcia: and before you leave, let me ask you a couple or two questions.

>> Yes, sir.

>>Garcia: the concerns that they have fundamentally is that, you know, the record that comes off the agenda for your company has consistently not been good in this particular area. That's one of the concerns that they had. There are other -- there are other contractors that come before us, win low bids and get prays for the work that they do. Red simpson was praised, a lot of other companies were praised. The Monday mental question that I have for you is -- fundamental question I have for you is what is your company doing above and beyond discuss asking for bids. Do you belong that the black contractors association?

>> no, sir, not yet.

>>Garcia: do you belong to the hispanic contractor association.

>> Yes, I do.

>>Garcia: do you take the contractors and mentor them? that's one of the things we encourage, that mentoring take place.

>> Yes, sir.

>>Garcia: what the Council wants to do with the money that we spend is open opportunities. That's all we're talking about. Now, some people say say that the ordinance is this or the ordinance is that. All we're doing with the ordinance is saying to the contractor, hey, guys, it's important in the context of how we run the City to give opportunities to these folks.

>> I agree.

>>Garcia: and the question that I would ask and I'm not going to ask you to respond totally tonight, but it's what is your plans for, you know, developing that kind of relationship that other companies enjoy with a minority contractors?

>> on the airport, rescue and fire fighting station that we built at Bergstrom, the first new construction out there we exceeded the goals. We exceeded the goals on mill wood library. What I would suggest that the Council take a look at is changing the direction of what smbr offers. You have an out reach program at the airport that seems to be very successful and my impression of what smbr provides to the minority and women business enterprises is they're more of a police force than a force that is there to foster their development. They spend -- they seem to spend all of their time certifying people. They don't seem to spend very much effort in training, in helping small businesses learn all those tough lessons that unfortunately they may not survive through trial and error. Just a suggestion.

>>Lewis: yes. Well, I'm not going to dwell on it, Mr. Braun, but like Mr. Fuentes said, I'm one of the people that look at this constantly because I know that the money that -- the papers for minority businesses go to help people in the minority community. And being a person that has lived in the minority community in Austin for the past 40 years, I know what that means. So just on that ground alone it causes me to look at it, you know -- and you're right, it is not no. 1 Priority when they're looking at the bids because like you said, if you're not low -- if you're not the low bidder, you don't get a chance to get beat up, but my goal and one. Reasons that I'm here really is that -- to try to help the minority community increase the productivity of that community, so based on that I'll be quiet. [Inaudible].

>>Garcia: the commitment that the City made with regard to fire stations at four points?

>>Lewis: because of the commitment that we made to doing the -- during the annexation, one of the things was that we were going to do the right thing. I'll move approval because the people in this area needs the security of the reduced time of fire and e.m.s. That the city can offer by building the station at this time.

>>Garcia: motion by Councilmember Lewis to approve. Is there a second? seconded by Councilmember Slusher. Discussion? all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries by a vote of six to zero to one with the Mayor out of town. There being no other business to come before the Council, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion by Councilmember Slusher, seconded by Councilmember Lewis. All those in favor say aye. We're off here. -- Out of here.

End of Council Session Closed Caption Log