>>Mayor Watson: our first prok clammation today -- is carla good dri here? come on up. I apologize. Be it known by these presents that I, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, Texas, do here by claim Austin first through fourth, 1999 as athletic achievement week in Austin. And I call on all citizens to join me in recognizing that athletics are an integral part of our lives and society, promoting health an fitness and providing enjoyment and in some instances careers. In recognizing the development academy as a nonprofit corporation established in 1997 for the purpose of providing information and assistance to amateur and professional athletes and inspired by the need no athletes. In recognizing that the athletic achievement of the development academy will host the ex-traf began is a to raise funds to send youths to its summer development camp and encouraging everyone to support the achievement and the academy of Austin's young athletes and it's signed by me, Mayor Kirk Watson and I'm pleased to present that to you. Congratulations and thank you for all you do. [Applause]. Why don't you say some words for us.
>> We're very excited about the event that we've put together for this week for Austin. It's in conjunction with the Texas relays that's being held this weekend in Austin, april 2nd through fourth. We're raising money -- we're raising funds for our camp that's held each summer at st. Mary's university in san antonio and it's to benefit disadvantaged youth in Austin and san antonio areas. Thank you. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: mike may and terri smith. Am I pronouncing that right. I'm sorry.
>> Good to see you again.
>>Mayor Watson: be it known by these presented that I, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, Texas, do here by claim april 10th, 1999 as clean sweep and the great Texas trash off day in Austin. And I call on all citizens to join me in cleaning up Austin and central Texas by picking up around your neighborhoods, parks, schools, businesses or by joining the board of directors vr board of directors of keep Austin beautiful. Such as several roadways leading to the new airport, including interstate 35, highway 71, 183, east riverside drive, east seventh street and airport boulevard or a m.d. Around montopolis and ol turf and in recognizing all the sponsors of this very worthwhile event. A m.d., motorola, Austin community landfill, bfi.
>> Texas disposal systems, h.e.b., City of Austin solid waste services and public works department, the Texas department of transportation, texaco and office specialists and in recognizing that it's everyone's responsibility to keep Austin and our area beautiful and it's signed by me, Mayor Kirk Watson for clean sweep and the great Texas trash off day. [Applause].
>> Thank you all. I want to make a personal invitation to have all of you join us as we get the City ready for the opening of our new airport. It seems fitting that we took a u.s. Military installation and now turned it into an international airport. That's what I call recycling. So I really do call on you to join us. There's some brochures that you can pick up if you wouldn't mind doing that, some clean sweep site maps if you would like to join us at any of the sites. We would love to have you. Show your support for Austin and the new airport and of course the clean community that we are so proud of. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you Saturday the 10th. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: anthony Johnson? holly cow. The next pro clammation, be it known that I, Kirk Watson, could here by proclaim april 9th, 1999 as history month in Austin and I ask you to recognize the son's of the con fed rat veterans and camp 59 in promoting awareness of awareness in our City by cleaning con fed rat head stones, participating in rereenactment of battles and it's to be held at wool drij park, Saturday, april 4th, 1999 and it's signed by me, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin. [Applause].
>> Thank you. We are honored to be here today and with this proclamation to help promote our heritage in the City of Austin and Travis County, Texas. It is only through education that we will ever defeat the forces of prejudice and ignorance in our society. If you would come out on april 24th. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: walter cooper? hi. How are you? very nice to meet you, sir. Be it known by these presents that I, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, Texas do here by proclaim april 8th through 11th, 1999 as fhi, feta, regional Texas days in Austin and I join all citizens in asking you to join me in raising the mission of the national honor society, which is to support and promote academic excellence by providing opportunities for scholarships, enrichment and personal development in recognizing the founders, organizers and supporters of the honor society as well as the 1.2 million participating members. And in welcoming everyone attending the fhifeta kappa regional convention in Austin and best wishes for an exchange, signed by me. And I make this presentation to walter cooper. Thank you very much for being here. [Applause].
>> On behalf of Texas, our region, which is the largest of all the regions in the United States and abroad, we appreciate this prok clammation. Thank you. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: we have a lot of folks in this community that spend a lot of time working on our behalf. And they do it many times in very difficult situations where their lives are on the line, but they put their lives on the line in order to protect our lives and to make us safe. And every now and then folks go above and beyond and we take an opportunity to pause and thank them for what they've done. And that's one of the things we're doing here today with distinguished service awards that we're making available to a number of people that serve in the Austin police department. And the service awards say the same thing, but I want to read -- I'm going to read the service award and then I'm going to read out each name of the folks that are here. And thank them personally on my behalf, but also on behalf of all of the citizens of the city of Austin for the good work they do. The distinguished service award reads: in acknowledgment and appreciation for extraordinary bravery and selfless undaunted determination during the rescue of residents of the friendship apartment complex from the fire that en gufld their homes on March 7th, 19 sniend and the person they would give them to and I'm going to name names in a second. It shows courage and is disrveging of aclam. The victims of this tragic and our community are deeply indebted to this heroic Austin police officer and it's signed by me, Kirk Watson and on behalf of the entire Council of the City of Austin, Texas. And if you would step forward when I call out your name, I would appreciate it. Sergeant Robert puwett, officer gary Christian berry. Officer carlos domingos. I tell you what, did I give you the wrong one?
>> yeah.
>>Mayor Watson: there we go. I thought I was lost for a second or somebody had stolen it it right in front of all the police. [Laughter]. Officer jeff dwier. Sorry. I was lost there for a second. Officer mark yelyseficik. Officer lyndon, looters. Officer Robert kilion. Officer debra trevino. And officer peter wright. [Applause]. I want to say again that not only the folks that were victims of that horrible fire where they lost their homes that night, thank all these officers for their uncommon bravery, but all of us in the city of Austin thank them for what they do everyday to make our lives safer. Public safety is the number one priority of this City and when we have folks that are willing to put their lives on the line the way you do, we're very thank of theful and we appreciate it. Commander, would you like to come forward since you're the chief and say something?
>> I was going to let sergeant puwett, but he's probably nervous from having seen received the award. We want to thank our dispatcher who was on duty that day. [Applause]. Just to clarify for you, when the officers were at the fire, they didn't escort people just from their apartments, they had to kick in doors and actually had to awaken people and even some people when we were awakened were startled and thought it was an intruder or something and actually fought with the officers and they had to actually restrain them to get them out. So we're talking about dozens and dozens of lives that were saved that otherwise would have pair rirbd in fire. So what they did is commendable for all of the police department, but certainly reflect their individual heroic actions, thank y'all. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: do you want to say something, sergeant? you're welcome to. We appreciate all you do.
>>Lewis: you mean for once the sergeant doesn't have something to say?
>>Mayor Watson: hypothetical him to be the one breaking down my door if I need it.
>>Lewis: you guys remember that when you want to say something that you had a chance to talk. [Laughter].
>>Mayor Watson: we appreciate y'all. Thanks. Good to see you again. Thank y'all. Well, now for some music. You're going to cut out. [Laughter]. Guy forsyth. After staking out a musical career that has changed from a variety of music, he rurns this month with the release of a long awaited album. His songs evoke blues, gospel, back alley sair naids and antique popular sound tracks of another era. So we get to enjoy the unique sounds of guy forsyth. Is that today? well, it so happens that today he's also featured in the Austin chronicle, the april 2nd edition of the Austin chronicle appearing on page 59 and the title of it is better too much than not enough and that's a perfect segue for me to declare and proclaim I, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, Texas, do here by proclaim april 1st, 1999 as guy forsyth day in Austin. And I call on all citizens to join me in commending him on the many contributions to the music community toward Austin's cultural diversity and in recognizing the dedicated efforts of artists which further Austin's status as the live music capital of the world and it's signed by me, Mayor of the City of Austin. Ladies and gentlemen, guy forsyth. [Applause].
(Music)
(Music)
in times of trouble we decide that we need what we take with us what we leave.
(Music)
(Music)
and how much of your answers can we believe? nothing going to save you if you're deceived. Can you live without
(Music)
one or four or five days. Can you live without shopping when you get paid?
(Music)
can you live without having someone to blame? can you live without
(Music)
the loser of your game?
(Music)
(Music)
can you live without this fine new car? can you live without knowing exactly who you are?
(Music)
(Music)
did you ever doubt you would have your house on the hill? could you live without all the can you live without your dope, whatever it might be?
(Music)
budweiser, it looks the same to me. Can you live without?
(Music)
them whispering your name? could you live without cashing in your fame? can you live without her?
(Music)
(Music)
you'd best make up your mind. Can you live without her? boy, you're running out of time. Can you live without her?
(Music)
(Music)
because that's the way it's planned out. Could you live without her? can you live without?
(Music)
(Music)
in times of trouble, we decide what we need.
(Music)
what we take with us what we leave. And how much of your answers could be believed? nothing going to save you if you're deceived.
(Music)
(Music)
can you live without her breath on your neck? can you live without
(Music)
(Music)
did you ever doubt you would have her picture on your wall? can you doubt anyone at all? can you live without the cal las on your knees? can you live without the scar that no one sees? can you live without living by degrees?
(Music)
(Music)
can you live without doing exactly as you please?
(Music)
(Music)
in times of trouble we decide what we need. What we take with us what we leave. And how much of your answers can be believed?
(Music)
(Music)
nothing going to save you if you're deceived.
(Music)
(Music)
. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: give us a little background, the album and everything else.
>> I play every Sunday night at antones. And this weekend, april fool's day, which is appropriate.
>>Mayor Watson: but the pro clammation still is okay. That wasn't an april fool.
>> I'm playing this Friday night at the saxton pub and this Saturday night at steamboat on sixth street and every Sunday night when I'm in town at antone's. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: please rise and join with us in the invocation. Today our invocation will be delivered by the reverend tom a. Carroll of lakeway interdenominational church. Reverend, thank you for being with us.
>> Thank you very much. Would you boe your head in prayer. Dear God, each elected person here fills their mind with thoughts about walkers and runners and drivers, boxers, barton springs and things. They care about our trees and things that fly for salamanderers and potholes and stuff that don't work. They annex and plant and are careful about the beauty of our space. And most important of all, they care about us, our comforts, or safety. Our todays and our tomorrows. And most important of all, they worry about schools and pools and parks for our kids. God, it is true you can tell we are from Austin by the way we brag about our beautiful skyline and our blue lakes and our constant progressive improvements of things. We are from Austin and we wear our pride well. For those reasons we now take time for freeway prai for those whom we have elected. God touch them and make them strong, not obstinate, just strong, so they will have the courage to make the hard decisions wisely and that they will respect the other hard head with whom they disagree and move them to put self aside and Austin first and then we will always be glad our vote is well placed. And God, a very special prayer for one of our great lady heroes, barbara bush, bring her healing and bring her health.
>> Comfort other families and comfort all our sons and daughters in harm's way around the world. God bless Texas, God bless america. Amen.
>> It is april 1st, 1999 and we are meeting at the City Council chambers located at 307 west second street. Changes and corrections to the agenda, pate bren dpel who is signed up and listed as the third speaker or item no. 3 Has cancelled. Item no. 24, Approve a resolution supporting the passage of the passage of a bill by the Texas legislature is sponsored by Council Member Lewis and Mayor Kirk Watson. Items set for a time certain, at 4:30 p.m., zoning items, items 12 through 15. 6:00 O'clock p.m., a public hearing on an appeal of the sign review board's decision to deny a variance request to install a freestanding sign. At 6:30 p.m. A public hearing regarding the proposed plan for the City of Austin to lease downtown property to computer sciences corporation. [One moment, please].
>>Mayor Watson: the motion is made to approve the minutes of the March 25th meeting. The motion is seconded by Council Member Garcia. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Option $say no. The motion carries with Council Member Slusher and Council Member Spelman off the dias. Next item is citizens communication. The first three speakers will be joe riddell, followed by michael bonds and Charles t. Waits Jr..
>> I have some slides. My name is joe riddell. I'm here to ask your help in restoring some natural open space in south Austin. At the end of the block of south fourth street is about an acre of public right-of-way. Most of this right-of-way is wooded, but part of it was an open green area next to a quiet turn around on a dead end street. Unless plans are changed an area that used to be an informal playground and gathering spotted for the neighborhood will be an ugly road. This slide shows the street stub where we've had a basketball court and beyond that the once pretty area that's being taken up by the ugly caliche road. About a year ago construction began on a subdivision bordering this public land. As part of that a storm water detention pond is being built on one of the lots and a drainage swale flowing into this pond is built along one edge of the subdivision. Unfortunately, these plans were not well thought out and indeed in several respects the plans submitted by the engineers do not meet City requirements but the City approved them 98 I anyway. To the neighborhood the worst aspect of these plans is that city vehicles would access this detention pond not from 5th street which is right in front of the pond, but from a block away. As planned this access route includes 120 feet of an ugly caliche road through this public land right where we used to play and have picnics and occasional campfires. It would also destroy a buffer to the apartments to the south. According to City maintenance people, vehicles would use this road only about once every three years. This road would needlessly waste precious urban open space. When this pond was designed, city rules required that a 12 foot access strip be included all around the perimeter of the land -- of the pond. I'll quote it. This is from the drainage criteria manual. A 12 foot maintenance access strip is required around the perimeter of water quality facilities. This 12 foot strip was not required as part of this pond and as a result there's no room within the easement for access to it right there from fifth street, which is a lodge we will place to have it. I've Written to the owners of the lot on which the detention pond is being built asking them to share their future driveway so that the City can have access right there. I hope the City will be cooperative in obtaining this better access instead of being defensive about the plans that were so foolishly approved. You need to see the place to appreciate it and when you do I would like to show you the other problems with the design and construction that's going on there. This drainage swale is supposed to have a six-foot wide flat bottom. It doesn't and as a result it's eroding today. Another problem is most of the drainage from the hillside doesn't flow into this pond. It flows into a side wall from the pond and from there is washing out into the left along the side wall and along the the front of the bond. [Buzzer].
>> Finally it discharges through a hole in the wall with no --.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Ris dell, I do need cut you off because of the time limit.
>> That's fine. For the sake of the neighborhood these plans need to be changed. I'll be happy to answer any questions. I look forward to meeting with y'all. The subdivider is here. Mayor what we'll do, City manager, can we have somebody look at this for him? Mr. Heights, are you here? Mr. Heights, if you would please get with him and we can start that process right now. Mr. Riddell, thank you for being with us.
>>Mayor Watson: Council, and for those who may be watching, I announced a sick observation public hearing. A public hearing on an appeal of a sign review board's decision. It is my understanding that staff has requested and the applicant has no objection to a postponement until april 29th. So the 6:00 o'clock hearing will be postponed until april 29th unless there is some accident with regard to that specific item. For those who are listening, the 6:00 o'clock public hearing on a sign appeal hearing to deny a variance request for install a freestanding sign, that will be postponed until april 29th at the request of staff.
>>Lewis: Mayor,. [Inaudible]. Are we having a meeting april 29th?
>>Mayor Watson: that's a good question.
>>Garcia: no we don't.
>>Mayor Watson: so it will have to be may 6th. I'm sorry. Thank you very much for catching that. May 6th. The next speaker is michael bonds followed by Charles t. Waits and then jim walker.
>> Hello City Council. Back again to ask y'all to consider the review board. This is due to previous reevents over the last six months. Also following an article Written in the state man that asked for y'all to consider this to be in the process. One of the things I wanted to come by and ask is why we had somebody get shot over pointing a stick at someone. And to help with this, I understand from the newspaper it was a 14 inch stick, so I brought along something. It took me awhile at the gun store to find them, but here's a 22 caliber stick, here is a nine-millimeter stick. You know, if somebody deserves to get shot over, I would like to know where the policy came from. Also I intended to bring a box knife, but thought next time you're at h.e.b., have one of the box boys show you what a box knife is like. Six people surrounded a person and shot him. That's unnecessary and unacceptable in this City. We're trying to be a progressive, forward looking city. You're trying to get silicon valley people here. When I downloaded some information to Council Member Spelman about california, they're demographically similar to Austin. They're not going to accept this sort of behavior from their police. We would like to do more of what you did earlier, which is present awards for excellence and ability. These are guys I would like to see you pay more money to. But the people abusing civilians and doing those sorts of things, I don't want them on the force. They're a danger on my life. I checked in the paper. You know the sheriff's department doesn't have this happening. They aren't shooting civilians. They aren't overreacting to force. I looked at d.p.s. Numbers and nor do they. And until I looked around the state, it seems to be something that's a device of police departments onld. So maybe we should consider that the training is in serious error with this happening. The one part where they -- you can shot somebody in the legs. Most of these guys are carrying a 15 shot bar retta. If you can't squeeze off shots and hit somebody, I don't want you carrying the gun because you can't carry that safely. It could go off and hurt me or shoot another sheriff's deputy. These events have already occurred. I truly hope after the election time. And I understand this is a real feature and that's scary, that the Council will actively take this on and bring this into bear. I was hoping Chief Knee would stay in here, but he ducked out and I was hoping to talk to him face to face about this. This is something that we cannot have access to our police chief. Y'all haven't even had access to him over questions you've posed. So this is the question I said fools in april. Please don't continue it. Let's call it down and fix it right now. It's time for Austin to grow and let's grow healthy. We don't need a bad attitude. Thank you.
>>Goodman: we'll let chief know know that you wanted to talk to him and he left too quickly to be able to do that. We'll let the chief know that you wanted to catch him and that he left too soon. Charles waits?
>> thank you. I'm charlie waits. I want to talk to you about perceptions. I've been watching our channel six and what Mr. More land is doing, letting us see the things going on at the City Council and I was shocked to learn that Texas teachers, if you can see that, said they were -- there were 47 out of 50 states and that bothered me. And I couldn't sleep, so I thought I would try to figure out how much the teachers at aisd make. And so I called them and they said that first year teachers with a bachelor's degree and no experience, they received 26,730 dollar base. Retirement 1,737. Social security 2,246. Nrs, 1,678 and 276 worker's compensation. And I talked to several people panned they had the perception that these people made 21, 22, 23, $24,000. And that's a total of 32,378. Now, if you teach bilingual or special education, you get $2500 more the first year, which gives you 34,878 dollars for the first year teacher with no experience. Now, also, the legislature as I watched it was having a big problem. They were trying to determine whether to give teachers statewide a 2,000 dollar rise raise or a 6,000 dollar raise. If they give them a 2,000 dollar raise, the first year teacher at aisd will make 34,378 dollars. If they give them a 6,000 dollar raise, the first year teacher with no experience for 10 month contract will receive 38,378 dollars. Now, that's a 10 month contract. That means they make 3,837 dollars a month. If they wanted -- if they were to work the full year as most other folks do, the first year teacher at aisd would make 46,054 dollars. Now, in that context I think smart growth is a good idea because you're going to tax us to where we can't afford a home and light rail is a good idea too because we won't be able to drive an automobile. It's out of control. It's totally out of control. Thank you for your time.
>>Goodman: thank you, Mr. Waits. Jim walker. Councilmember Garcia?
>>Garcia: let me say that most people with vacations and other benefits that accrue work about 1800 hours a year and teachers in the 10 months that they work, work slightly more than that, more like 2,000. So it is -- the 10 month is really not an accurate depiction of how much they work. They work basically the same number of hours.
>>Mayor Watson: 158 days, Gus.
>>Garcia: I know, charlie. They work more than that because my wife is a teacher.
>>Slusher: I have first hand experience in our home and I would have to second Council Member Garcia's points.
>>Goodman: thank you very much. Mr. Walker.
>> Thank you for your time. I'm jim walker and I'm with the Mueller airport neighborhood so will lition. You called a presentation yesterday with the final master plan. I know you are busy and have issues going on. I want to speak to you today and over the coming weeks to keep this kind of on your plate. And I want to say two things today. One is I think the coalition was formed, cultivated a good relationship with the City staff and I hope that we can continue that. I know that sometimes I get over ex-sub rat in my thus yam for this project, so I sometimes jeopardize our relationship with staff, but I think it's a good relationship and I would encourage you to set up the board commission idea in the coming week. I know you are anything about doing that so we can continue that good relationship with staff. And that is really the main point right now and as well as to keep an eye on the financing it because that's what's going to really help us get it out of the gate good and you have the opportunity to set the tone for the next couple of years just in the next month. So thank y'all for your time. If you have any questions --.
>>Spelman: Council Member Slusher, could you make sure jim doesn't get access to that nine-millimeter stick.
>>Slusher: I've got it right here.
>> You don't solve anything with sticks. Thank for your time.
>>Goodman: thank you. William foreman. And jennifer gale is our last speaker.
>> Please, no one salute or bow your heads. Can you hear me? looking out across this land of ter ra firm ma, I see many mansion ws a large member of are rooms. They have four walls, a window and one occupy occupant. Each of which as han ee ternty to study the image from their window if they so choose. I would like to tell each of them that the security they seek by isolating themselves from others is nothing more than an illusion that does nothing more than object skur they're own view of the one that sees and hears everything that is heard. Just as this world has mountains that are higher and waters deeper than you've ever known, so shall you if for an instant you will look through the window that has no walls and begin to see the infinite sky why in we dwell and looking into the shoreline below, ee ternty in a grain of sand. Blessed are the eyes that see what you see and I am blessed because I have looked through this one and only window which has no walls and I hope you understand what I'm referring to. If not I'll say this poem, which more or less describes it. It was Written to a lady friend. I call her princess wendy. But I've altered the words slightly at the beginning. Once in the City of Austin tairbs no one knew what to do until one day a thought jumped up and quickly shouted boo. This thought continued by speaking a faith as knowledge of things unseen, even though dealing with things unknown except by the King and queen. As the youthful knight rx I must do as I can with paper and pen in hand for my pen is a fountain full of colors made of rhymes, flowing swiftly like a river in other people's minds. Where a stage I dance from left to right, though lights may dim and occur tains close, the message will remain in sight. In fact, my soul is a bolt of lightning which soon will guide the rains which fall upon the rivers that flow upon the plains. From the plains to the oceans, from the ocean to the skies and then fall upon the desserts and the image never dies. The sun will always set and the moon will always rise. Some may act like fools as otherwise become wise. The shark will swim the oceans as the eagle flies above. As we try to understand a gentle power known as love. But remember, as eagles flies, so flies the dove.
>>Goodman: thank you very much. Jennifer gale? is jennifer not here? okay. I guess we'll go to the consent agenda. I thought the Mayor would be back by now. Number 11 -- and 24, I think.
>>Garcia: I move approval of the consent agenda.
>>Griffith: second.
>>Goodman: there's a motion and a second for the two consent items, 11 and 24. Comments? discussion? 11 and 24. All in favor.
>> Aye.
>>Goodman: that passes with the Mayor temporarily off the dias, which takes us back to item number 9d, which was pulled by Council Member Slusher.
>>.
>>Slusher: thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. This is the contract to read utility meters. And my concern on this contract is it's already with a private contractor, but that's expired. We're going to a new contractor. My concern is that the primary -- one of the primary ways that the City saves money in going out to a private contractor in this instance is by the employees of that company not having benefits, not having insurance. And I've met with the staff about this and our options are somewhat limited in large part due to the uncertainty in the utility industry about deregulation, the uncertainty about exactly how meters are going to be read in the future. And the duration that the City would be reading them in this manner if we brought it in to the City. So I'm going to offer an amendment to what's on the -- move to approve an offer and amendment to what's on the agenda, but Council Member Garcia has done some really good research on this and I'd like for him to take the floor and present that.
>>Garcia: thank you very much, Council Member.
>>Goodman: we need a second, actually.
>>Garcia: I'm going to second that.
>>Slusher: I want to wait until he presents this and then I'll make a motion.
>>Goodman: okay. So we're discussing before the motion?
>>Garcia: I think all of you received a memorandum from Mr. Manning, Charles b. Manning from the Austin energy. It's the yellow three-page memorandum. And what I was wanting to do is he goes to the second page and to the schedule where we talk about the alternative cost estimate. At the bottom of that schedule are two amounts. One is the estimated cost for in-house meter read and that's 42.6 cents and the second line below that is the average cost per meter read under the proposed service agreement, which is 34 and a half cents: what I was trying to do was look at apples to apples comparison. So I sent you another page that I noticed your paper that looks like this. It's entitled City benefits cost estimate. This is the cost of the benefits that are given to all the City employees, so what I was trying to do here is if the contractor is not offering this benefits to its employees, then what would be the cost? would it be 42.6 --34.5 or something? what I did with the amount that totaled 69,0249. I subtracted that because it doesn't matter whether whether they're with the City or anyone else. That meant what the City offers an individual that makes 17,243, which is what the estimate is for these employees is they offer them 57,$5700 in benefits. That makes throw.15 percent of their salary. When you add that amount to the 34 and a half cents that they're projecting for their cost per meter read, the cost goes from.345 to.459, which is higher than our estimate for doing it locally. One of the questions that Mr. Manning asked me is -- one of the comments was we would have to buy 1.2 million dollars in vehicles to do that. My response to that is that in this schedule that is presented in his memorandum, that is loaded in. When you look at vehicle expenses, that 90 cent per mile includes depreciation of the vehicle, so it's built in. This is a loaded -- totally loaded cost schedule. So I wanted to make sure that we were looking at apples to apples and it appears to me that if we compare how much it costs, if we do it in in-house it looks like 42.6 and I looked at the schedule and the costs appear to be, you know, appropriate. If we were to take the proposal that we have on the table, which is cheaper, and we load on the things that we want to load on because we want the people that do work for us to have those benefits, then that cost goes to 45.9. To me it is not appropriate to take a contract that is lower than what we can do it in-house when in essence the contractor is not offering the benefits to the workers that other people working for the city are getting and I think that's one of the things that we talked about last week when we had this on the agenda. And I'd be happy to answer any questions if I went too fast on this particular schedule.
>> You would have to add the capital costs for vehicles. This is just the depreciated cost.
>>Garcia: that's what I said. In the vehicle expenses you have 12 vehicles times 12,000 miles a year times 90 cents. That includes the depreciation.
>> If its replacement but you have to have the out lay of capital costs to have them brought on board and then you dpleerbt so you can have funds set aside for its replacement at the end of its life. Unless I'm missing something, in this analysis, from the way we do accounting in Austin is you would have to load in the cost of what it would cost to buy those vehicles.
>>Garcia: you cannot double dip. If you're going to do the 1.2, you cannot put the cost of depreciation here. You cannot count it twice. My understanding is that this category of vehicle expenses is a fully loaded cost, gas, oil, tires, repairs and the cost of the vehicles. Over their useful -- amortized over their useful life. And actually, 90 cents is mile a a little high. I think I.r.s. Lets you have 40. So this is a pretty loaded cost per mile. [One moment, please]
>>Lewis: I think it's 3,700 some vehicles in the City. And I still question that fact because I think we own more than that. But even at that number, when you calculate it out, that's about one vehicle for every two and a half people that we have employed. And we have less than half of those people that actually use vehicles in their daily employment. So when you take away half of it, that means that every person that uses a vehicle has their own vehicle. And this is, to me, a little -- is a little far fetched to say that we're going to buy 52 vehicles for 56 people to work. I mean -- and if you do that, you know, you only have to people left and every day it's going to be somebody is going to be off and so that means that the supervisors are never going to be in their office, they are always going to be in a vehicle. That or are are going to have one standing by for them. So that calculation doesn't work either. My only question is whether or not we want we want to pay the insurance, and the insurance would be if one of these people is in an accident and goes to brackenridge without insurance or without coverage, who is going to pick up the cost? that is why we buy insurance is so that in case something happened, we would be covered. Now, if we want to gamble and say, well, we'll gamble that none of these -- what, none of these 61 people will get in an accident or be needing medical that they can't afford, then, you know, I say go wit. But I know one thing, that at $29 a -- I mean what was it? they charged me $2900 for about ten hours over at brackenridge, that mounts up real fast. So -- and they didn't even find anything wrong with me. [Laughter]. So, you know, I could imagine what it would have been about they would have found something wrong with me. Because I just don't think that the City is in a position at this point to gamble on whether or not you are going to buy insurance.
>>Goodman: Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: well, what I was going to say is if the assumption was that we would pay mileage to these people instead of buying them automobiles, I can guarantee you if we paid our people $10,000 a year, which is this $129,600 divided by 12, it's likely over $10,000, that they would take it, you know, we only get 3600 as Council Members. These people would get over $10,000 for their vehicles. In the case of the other vehicles they would get about $7,000. So the idea of whether we need to buy those vehicles or whether we could offer to people, you know, use your vehicles and we'll pay you 0 cents a mile, which is is an alarmingly high mileage rate, but it may be appropriate because of where they have to go or whatever else, you know, wear and tear that may be incurred with this particular vehicles.
>>Goodman: City Manager or Mr. Manning, did you want to comment?
>> first of all, we don't pay 0 cents a mile. Let me see if I understand how we've done this calculation. There's two things that are being done. One is when we buy a vehicle, you have to do two things. One is obviously you have to pay for its maintenance, and we have a part of the 0 cents is for the operation and the maintenance of that unit. In addition to the operations and maintenance of that unit, we set aside a sum of income each year so that we can go replace that unit at the end of its useful life. So I'm assuming that there is some ratio of this 90 cents that is set aside for depreciation. If you were going to ask somebody to use their own vehicle, you would put them on a car allowance, and I'm assuming the car allowance, if it had certain miles -- I think there is a standard if it goes above so many miles a month or year they get a $400 stipend or $240 a month stipend or something like that but they pay the operations, maintenance, gasoline, it's totally their nickel. So I think that we didn't load depreciation twice. I think what we're trying to show in that 90 septs is you have operations and maintenance money in there, you have some replacement cost money in there, and that's over and above the 1.2 million you have to spend to acquire at the outset. I may be wrong, but --
>> that's my understanding. I did not put the 90 cents together, I understand it's a charge by cost, operating our own garages, it's the entire fleet cost spread back over the fleet would be my guess of that rate. Because each type of vehicle has a different rate. The other thing I would suggest also is that when we do a comparison, and it just dawned on me when we looked at the benefits loader -- loading on 42 points -- .42 compared to .34, I think we have to dissect the both numbers get down just to the payroll costs and take the benefits on that and not on the per unit. So I think that is one -- and that was very hurried calculation I know, not on Council Member's part, but I was doing some scribbling and that's very quick because we didn't back out all non-payroll costs which would not be included in the benefits projection.
>>Garcia: my understanding, Mr. Manning, was that per estimated costs per in-house meter read would be a fully loaded cost. Salary plus all the benefits that accrue to all our employees. The issue was should we contract with contractors that bring people to work under this agreement with the City and they don't pay those workers the same benefits that we pay our workers. And the overall concern -- my concern is that a $17,000 a year person working for the City, if he gets sick and he goes to the hospital and he doesn't have insurance because he can't buy it in the market, in the open market and he doesn't get it from the employer, it's going to be an indigent patient at brackenridge. And we're going to pay for him the City is going to pay for him. And that individual has to go through the process that humiliates him because they are indigent. I would much rather they somehow h. Show up with a card that says I have insurance with the City of Austin and get treated by a normal human being because that person has insurance. Let's face it, being poor in this country is not a real pleasant experience. So what we want is this employees that work for us doing the things that we need done in this community, we want them to have insurance. We want them to enjoy the -- we want them to have retirement. That's why we pay those benefits to all of our employees.
>> We agree. We are not in disagreement at all, it's just on what base would the number be calculated against and that's the only thing I was offering, it would be on payroll costs.
>>Garcia: I try to make comparisons of apples to apples. If their cost is 34 and a half cents per meter read and our cost -- and it's fully loaded, because it appears to be, because it has all of the components in the staff and estimated worker's comp and estimated supplies, if that's the fully loaded cost, it's 46.2 cents and we add the fringe benefits to the contractor, it goes higher. You know, I'll be glad to look at your figures after you recalculate them if in essence this 34 five is not correct. But just using the figures that the City gave us, and if we add those benefits to the -- excluding medical, social security and medicare, we have to add substantial amounts to be able to get to where those individuals get the same benefits working for that company as if they were working for the City.
>>Goodman: Council Member Spelman.
>>Spelman: I just did the calculation Mr. Manning suggested. Making the presumption that since 70% of the total costs when we read the meters are personnel and the other 30% are the appear tall costs associated with transportation and so on, that the same thing was going to be true for them, 70% of all their costs would be personnel. What I came up with was an estimate is 46.2%, for them 42.6 cents per meter and for them that number is 42.5 cents per meter. It's absolutely even steven. I would also like to ask how many -- since I started talking anyway I may as well continue. How many miles do we keep cars before we dump them and replace them?
>> I would have to defer to fleet management on that, but it's not only mileage, I'm sure it's condition.
>> If it's general fund we stitch them wide. We keep them with bailing wire. Utilities usually we move them out about 70 to 100,000.
>>Spelman: and if we were paying for example 30 cents per mile for o and m and 60 cents per mile for depreciation and capital expenses somehow defined, then I could calculate the total amount we were paying on that car over the 100,000 miles we were keeping it.
>> Yes spell ends up being $60,000 total for that car which would more than cover costs of purchase with an arrest bye trarly high percentage rate if we took it over 36 months, for example. I think we could certainly more than pay for the car at 90 cents a mile.
>> Like I say, I do not have the specific detail on that rate that is being charged which includes overheads and everything.
>>Spelman: do we have an estimated rate for operation and maintenance expenses per mile for our cars?
>> I'm sure fleet does. I do not have that with me today.
>>Spelman: okay.
>> We can get that certainly.
>>Spelman: thanks.
>>Lewis: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: Council Member Spelman.
>>Lewis: I just -- if you add the $5,716.50, if you take an average that all of the -- 61 employees is going have that expense to the City, which some will have less or just a little more, but it comes out to about $372,000. So that tells me that the contractor is going to make $372,000 profit basically is the way I read it because if that is about the difference between the two, that means he's not paying the employees this as benefits, so it means that he's going to be pocketing that if everything is even. And we're going to be gamble that difference in insurance, so --.
>>Goodman: are we ready for a motion?
>>Garcia: one other question. My understanding, Mr. Manning, is that before we went to contracting this, the meter readers that we used to hire, we paid them mileage. Is that correct?
>> I believe that is correct.
>>Garcia: did we have cars for them? or did we pay them mileage.
>> I want to know why I saw so many utility customer services vehicles that were out on meter reading routes if we were paying them mileage as well. Seems to be a little inconsistency.
>>Lewis: my meter reader uses his own car, I know that for a fact. This was five, six, seven, eight, ten years ago. I meter reader always used his own vehicle.
>> One of the costs not in here if a person provides their own car is insurance for commercial vehicle and the last time we looked at that, and you may be Council Member Lewis more familiar with specific numbers, but that's a very expensive cost and I would assume as a City we would require -- I know the policies we looked at recently from the City on other ae employees that the employee would have to carry that commercial insurance and it's significant.
>>Garcia: I don't know how much that is. Does anybody -- does anybody know? because in this particular scenario, a person driving one car, even if he was paying commercial, gets 10,000 plus dollars a year driving -- for driving 12,000 miles.
>> This would not be for someone providing their vehicle. We wouldn't be paying for garage and mechanics and overhead and other things.
>>Garcia: well, how much did we pay them per mile the last time that we asked them to use their own vehicles?
>> I would have to look. I assume it's the I.r.s. Rate, probably in the 26 to 32 range somewhere in there.
>>Garcia: so I would like for this to be recalculated along with what we would pay because I don't understand why we have to pay 90 cents a mile either in our own costs built into our system or pay 90 cents to anybody who is using their own vehicle.
>> We can try to give you that. But the issue here is I don't think from our standpoint that the Council wants us to do a plan to bring -- to do this function in-house, we'll do it. I think the analysis that we did before when we contracted this out was that this was a much cheaper operation for us. Now, I will agree that the social cost of that, that is, the lack of insurance and the lack of those kinds of benefits, is really purely a policy question and if the Council wants that to be part of the City operation, we're ready to roll. We'll just need to have some transition time to get that done. Sure.
>> Let me make a statement about why we wanted to contract it out the first time. At that time when I did the analysis, it was taking me four employees to get one employee working per day. So the cost was extremely high. There was a lot of turnover. There were a lot of people out on sick leave. Lots of -- you know, worker's comp, at least return to work issues. So the costs were extremely high at that time, particularly in the summer when construction jobs were in play, we found that a lot of our employees would really leave and go do construction and then come back. So the analysis that I actually did, it looked like we were having to hire four bodies to get one body to work extremely high skosz costs. In addition to that, we thought that the electronic meter reading would be here within the next couple of years, so we thought if we could phase out the meter reading without really laying off too many bodies through attrition, et cetera, get a lower cost over the next few years and try to drop the a and e cost and then when the electronics stuff came on line you wouldn't have a huge volume of people to lay off at one time, that was the reasoning behind the idea to contract it out. So -- now, since that time there have been some changes in personnel policies that perhaps might mitigate in a four to one ratio, but at that time that is really what it was running.
>>Slusher: what were the meter readers making at that time?
>> at that time -- let's see if there is anybody here. Gerald, do you know about what -- I know you weren't there.
>> 7 .33.
>> Now? then. Was that -- I would think between 7 and 9. We'll have to look at it. He said 7.42, but it was a little before we started doing rate adjustments.
>> As of april this year -- this is april.
>> We've done-market adjustments since then too.
>> The minimum wage was $8. I think starting in april.
>> We can certainly find that out for you.
>>Slusher: well, why would -- the current contractor, I realize that's different than who is on the agenda today, but the private contractors doing it now, have they had these sort of personnel problems with getting people to work?
>> the current contractor does have the same type of turnover rate we had back in those days. Those problems with inherent with bee stings, dog bites, all the things that happen with meter reading, so yeah, they still experience the same kind of problems that we experienced at that time. I think the difference is that the managementability of that in having someone who can quickly turn an employee back on to a reading route is probably a benefit aside to contracting.
>>Slusher: I didn't understand the last part.
>> When we manage it, we have to go through our process, the City's process of advertising, hiring and that kind of thing. A contractor generally, because of the turnover rate, it's almost like they have people kind of in waiting. They've already got advertisements out when a meter reader is lost and they can get them back into the labor force a lot quicker than we could in the City system. But they do have a turnover rate pretty much like ours.
>> One other thing, when people are out on extended leave, we can't fill those positions, and so we end up having to have these -- the other regular employees that are there doing overtime. So not only did we have to hire more people, it was the equivalent of four people because of the excessive overtime and the additional folks that we had to have. So that's again where those costs come in. If somebody is sick, they may be on our payroll six months or longer and you may have a number of those and so it's very difficult and you get two and a half times -- or one and a half overtime really adds up pretty fast. So that was another element.
>>Slusher: wrl, seems to me like a lot of things make sense on contracting this out, but then it still comes down to the way the savings is being achieved is by not providing the workers insurance. And that's what I'm having a hard time getting beyond.
>> We very possibly also may have understated total cost. What betty and gerald talking about, one, there's no overtime, there's no additional costs t contractor has a flat fee, if it takes them 24 hours overtime to read a route she that's still 34 cents. If we go in overtime then we have an additional cost. The worker's comp is in a 1995 when we were downsizing the activity, was over $300,000. Historically, and I wouldn't want to pick on meter readers, but typically that work group has a highest vacancy rate and highest number of accidents because they have the highest exposure. Stepping in potholes, twisting their ankles, bee stings, so from that perspective also our worker's comp are understated in that regard.
>>Lewis: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: here in this -- you said an average of 495,000 meters read per month. How many meters do we have? how many --
>> approximately 495,000. And that would go up. I mean that number of meters increases daily, but that's the reason it's an approximate number, because we add probably 8,000 to 10,000 accounts per year.
>>Lewis: so we're not going to do any more averaging, is that what you are saying?
>> no, no, that's additional meters. We're adding volume.
>>Lewis: I meant at one time they was reading 25% of the meters each month.
>> We read every meter every month.
>>Lewis: oh, okay. Did you -- what information did you have that you wanted to give us on this?
>> my name is Bill ford, the manager of the current company that reads meters, and I was going the make myself available for you folks if you had any questions that I could answer for you from our perspective.
>>Lewis: oh, okay. Well, my one question is what is your turnover -- how long have you been doing this?
>> I've been with bermix since december of '97. This is the operations manager who actually started this contract in september of '95 with the City of Austin so he may be answer better questions than I did. I wanted to make you aware we were here.
>>Lewis: what is your turnover rate?
>> our turnover rate in 1998 was 213%.
>>Lewis: 213%.
>> Yes, sir, and that's based off an average employee base of 65 plus employees on pay roll.
>>Lewis: so -- and -- well, if you had a 200% -- 213% turnover rate?
>> yes, sir. Mostly during the summer.
>>Lewis: what was the average increase in cost to you for -- because of the turnover rate? do you have any idea?
>> I can say our average costs where I pencilled in per employee, I would say it takes three months to make a good meter reader and you probably start seeing performance within the initial three weeks. The average cost is about $1200 per employee. Now, that is uniforms, shoes, training, everything, insurance. Our salary, our base salary starting out is $8.25. I believe our highest salary is $9 and some odd cents and our average is about 8.40. We do offer insurance for our employees, a and you can figure in our cost on that is an additional 25%. That is without the workmen's compensation that we also offer as well, and that's required to have.
>>Lewis: yeah, but you said insurance. At whose expense is the insurance?
>> the company's expense. We pick up 60%, employee picks up 40.
>>Lewis: okay.
>> And that would be an additional 25% cost to us.
>>Lewis: and --
>> and we offer paid vacations paid holidays. And reimbursement for mileage.
>>Lewis: at what rate do you reimburse mileage?
>> average route size on mileage, residential routes is about -- what we have is about 16 miles. Average demand route per day is average about 46 miles a day. We pay 20 cents on the mile. Butt but one of the -- Council Member Lewis, one of the biggest incentives we have is that the meter readers when possible, there's times where you fall behind and as they were saying of course we would go back out and you team up and you get the work done. But on average with the high injuries and the working, one of the biggest incentives we try to enforce is whether where they read a route and go home. Some days they work three to four hours, some days they will work a full eight hours. And that is costly, but another thing that we offer, and I think there was a question on retirement, we at bermax, one of the things, I don't think I'm going the retire just because of the knowledge of automated meter reading devices, so one of the options we offer if they say with us for a year with the company, we offer to pay their tuition in college. You know, not basketball we'ving of course, but something out there that will get them trained for the job market.
>>Lewis: all right. Thank you, sir.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: I was getting close to making a motion, but new things keep coming up. First of all the City Manager is off the dais, I wanted to ask him a question. I wanted to ask the City attorney just to clarify things. There is state law does not allow us to require that our contractors provide insurance.
>> That is my memorial day understanding. We've looked -- my understanding. We've looked at that very closely and I think that's the advice we've offered to you previously.
>>Slusher: because that would certainly shorten this discussion. Now, Mr. Manning, bermax came in second in this competition, rfp?
>> no, carol Martin -- I'll let carol address that. I understand they did not qualify in the rfp.
>>Slusher: okay.
>> We did qaelt bermax's proposal for comparison purposes. We received a total of two proposals and so in order to judge that utility meter services proposal was competitive and was acceptable we did go through the evaluation matrix on the ber mix proposal. And when the points were scored up and totaled, utility meter services was in first place and bermix was in second place.
>>Slusher: you were saying it was nonresponsive.
>> It was deemed nonresponsive under the m.b.e. Ordinance.
>>Slusher: so they were thrown out over the m.b.e., but they have insurance or they pay 60%. What was the cost difference between -- if they didn't have the insurance, would they be cheaper than utility meter services?
>> I could not tell you that. Our cost points are judge td on a per meter read basis and we did not ask for the specific breakdown. However, the cost comparison on a per meter read basis came out that bermix was 20 cents per meter read higher than utility meter services.
>>Slusher: they were up around 52?
>> 34.5, so it would be --.
>>Slusher: 54.
>> 54. Additionally, utility meter services does offer an incentive program to their employees based on volume and safety and customer satisfaction, and a number of their employees buy insurance with that extra money that they earn each month for their -- in their incentive program above their base hourly wage.
>>Slusher: well, -- do you have any figures, you say a number, do you have any idea how many that is.
>> We don't have a representative here, I'm sorry he's very ill and in the hospital, but when we spoke last week he said it was not especially unusual for an employee to make 400, even up to 500 dollars a month on the incentive program in addition to his wages.
>>Slusher: okay. There is just -- there's part -- I mean I'm fine with the program like that, in fact the motion I had which I'll probably put out there has that the City should look at doing things like that too to improve the efficiency of the City and improve the salaries of the employees. But that also just have this tinge to me that -- your incentive to work harder, which you want people to do, but that's so that they can have insurance for themselves and their families. There's just something about that that bothers me.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: let me ask a question. What would they do to earn incentive I mean other than doing their route? would they do two routes or what? how do they calculate it?
>> I don't have the exact formula -- excuse me, but it's based on a number of meters over and above a standard number per day, and then they deduct from that any violations in safety or violations in customer satisfaction. So they don't allow someone just to race through a large number in order to get an incentive.
>>Lewis: all right. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: any other questions? Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: on the issue of the 20 sent per meter reader -- meter read, the difference between the two contracts appears to be about 200,000, 1.7 and 1.81 and 2.0 in the other one. Does that difference cause it to be 40% higher, it looks like? or thereabouts. Because you said one was 36 and the other is 56.
>> Wrof those numbers in front of me, sir, but it should calculate out to that differential.
>>Spelman: I get 36.8 cents.
>> For --.
>>Slusher: yeah, because -- out of 1.7 million and 1.9 million, how could the difference between -- that's like 200,000, I'm not sure the percentage, but it's not between 34 and 54, that's what 60% more.
>>Spelman: that's only 12% difference, that's right. Actually I think -- I've got another question which may solve this conundrum for you. This is a two day read estimate or a one day read estimate?
>> I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question.
>>Spelman: in that case it doesn't matter. Never mind.
>>Mayor Watson: any other questions or comments before I entertain a motion? I'll entertain a motion.
>>Slusher: well, Mayor --.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: I'm real reluctant to make this motion because it seems like the numbers are -- keep falling apart, frankly. Because there's just -- I just don't see how you can have 30 cents, 34 cents per meter and 54 cents and then that comes out -- when the te tall cost is 1.7 versus 1.9, I don't -- and if we -- and there -- ber mix was rejected on other grounds besides that, but that just bothers me. That's not the first time during this discussion, I just don't know if we have many options at this point. And what I'm also -- I don't even know if this will pass through the rest of the Council, but I'll go ahead and make a motion which would be to approve the contract with the following amendments and I think you all should have this in front of you. Staff is directed to report to Council within six months from today with a detailed plan to either bring this work in-house or work with the contractor regarding their future plans to address this issue. This report should include how long it will take to hire and train the appropriate staff or in -- for in-house meter reading, how long it would take to acquire the necessary equipment such as cars, uniforms, et cetera, a plan for offering performance incentives to employees similar to what the contractor offers and other measures to decrease City costs and bring it closer to private companies and of course that -- on that one, Council Member Garcia has already shown that that raises questions about whether we actually do cost more. Back to reading the motion, technology options and decisions faced by the City of Austin, furthermore because we seem to deal with this issue Council directs legal to include an analysis of the tennessee law regarding benefits and other legal alternatives that would result in contractors providing benefits to their employees. That's my motion. I would like to elaborate if I could in -- if I get a second.
>>Mayor Watson: seconded by Council Member Spelman. Kmurb.
>>Slusher: let me say where it mentions the tennessee law, that is something Mr. Manning talked to me about, that the way I understand it is that if you offer a benefit and another state -- if a company offers a benefit in another state then they have to offer it in tennessee, and this contractor has a contract in tennessee, so if we were to require them to have benefits, which of course we can't by our state law, but if somehow we were able to do that, then they would have to pay more out for those benefits to their workers in tennessee. So I would like to have a fuller explanation of exactly the situation -- situation there. The part of this about technology options and decisions faced by the City, that's one reason for the uncertainty I talked about at the outset of this discussion. I want to know more in detail about that because as ms. Dunkerly pointed out, that was also part of the decision, how many years ago was it? four years ago? that we thought we were -- this was going to be real short term then because of the technology changes that were coming. But they haven't come yet or hadn't settled in largely because of the uncertainty of deregulation. So I put this forward and like I say reluctantly because I think it's been shown that the way-toe main way that this contractor is a saving money is by not providing benefits, insurance, to their workers, and I'm very reluctant to do that and if other Council Members have alternatives I would be happy to entertain them. We have a lengthy discussion and haven't come up with anything yet.
>>Mayor Watson: any further discussion on the motion? Mayor Pro Tem? Mayor Pro Tem has a question.
>>Goodman: was there only one person for this company that was able to come to Council and answer questions and since that person is in the hospital there is no one available?
>> no, they have been here several times. Carolyn, if you would like to answer that.
>> They have been in town several times and spoken with us. There were two people here last week. That one person had it in his schedule to attend today and he is the person who is ill.
>>Goodman: so there is no one today?
>> they don't have a local contract where they have staffing in the area that could come in on short notice. So it's not as if they could call someone to drive somewhere from -- within Austin or san antonio. They would have had to plan it
>>Slusher: Mayor, if I could have one more thing.
>>Mayor Watson: yes, Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: a little on the blunt side. Really this report that we're offering, asking to come back has six months, the report we asked tore this week there's only a week there, so I understand that didn't have much time there, but I would really try to firm these -- firm the numbers up a lot more than they have been than they were for today.
>>Mayor Watson: any further discussion? Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. One further question. As it regards compliance with ordinances 9603218, which is the m.b.e. Ordinance, how do we evaluate that? it seems to me that neither one of them met the m.b.e. Goal because as I understand it the goal was 2.5% african-american, 9.9 hispanic 1.7 native american, asian and 15% w.b.e.. The preferred or the recommended or low bid, whatever we call it, met the w.b.e., but did not meet the m.b.e.. So how do we decide that one is in compliance and one is not?
>> good afternoon, Council. Tim warren, director of smbr. The recommended firm is in compliance because even though they didn't meet all of the goals, Council Member, they did make a good faith effort. That particular area that they are subcontracting is the only area that they are subcontractedding. As it relates to bermix, they did have an area of subcontracting in that they did not send the required Written notices to all the m.b.e. And w.b.e. Firms we had available to perform that particular area. So that's the basis of bermix being non-compliant.
>>Lewis: I have one question. You said they did send out notices to the number required. Did they reject them because of high bids or did they not get an answer?
>> if you are referring to the recommended firm, okay, they only have one area of subcontracting, Council Member, and that area is going to be performed by a certified w.b.e. Firm.
>>Lewis: well, you said they didn't meet the goal, but they made a good faith effort. Are you saying that they didn't meet the goal because of what? I mean if that is the area that they have for subcontracting.
>> They are subcontracting 15% of the work. The remainder of the work is going to be performed in-house.
>>Lewis: okay.
>> So the 15% that they are subcontracting is going to be performed by a certified w.b.e. Firm.
>>Lewis: well, what was the goal for 15%?
>> yes, the w.b.e. Goal was 15%. That is correct. But we did have other goals. We had the ethnic sub goals, african-american, hispanic and native american and asian combined.
>>Lewis: but they didn't meet the ethnic goals, ethnic specific goals?
>> that is correct. But the only -- the 15% of the work that they are going to be subcontracting is going to be performed by a certified w.b.e. Firm.
>>Lewis: well, that does a lot for the other two ethnic groups that didn't -- that's not going to be subcontracted. See what I'm saying? so I mean if you are only doing it with one group, whether it be women or hispanics or african-americans it helps -- it don't help the other two groups at all, and I think that's the reason we went to ethnic specific goals is to help the groups rather than come up with a total percentage.
>> If they were subcontracting a portion of the 85% that they are going to be doing with their own workforce, then we would have something so look at. But of the subcontracting that they have, the 15%, it is going to be performed by certified w.b.e. Firm.
>>Lewis: well -- that's all I have.
>>Spelman: let me follow up quickly just on the bermix contract. They were way out of compliance as far as numbers go, but by the same token had -- was a m.b.e., was it not?
>> that is correct.
>>Spelman: and is no longer a certified m.b.e. From the state's point of view.
>> That's correct.
>>Spelman: if raymond's were still certified m.b.e., would bermix have been in compliance?
>> yes, sir.
>>Spelman: because 100% of everything we were contracting was going to either m.b.e. Or w.b.e.?
>> I would have to look, but that probably would be the case because they do have some other subcontracts.
>>Spelman: the other two are with w.b.e.s.
>> Absolutely.
>>Spelman: because 100% were either with m.b.e. Or m.b.e., they would have been in compliance even though they are doing 99% of the work themselves?
>> that is correct.
>> Mayor, just to clarify because I want -- in terms -- is it the numbers in the memorandum that was dated the 31st of March where you -- where -- were those the numbers you are wanting better work on? I want to know where we screwed up.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: okay. One would be the difference -- there seems to be a mistake in the per meter numbers. If you take the one point -- this is not in the memorandum, this is in the backup itself. But if you take the -- between the two contracts, utility meter services, 1.7, bermix 1.9, the percentage difference between those two totals is much smaller than the percentage difference between the unit numbers that we were -- per meter that we were quoted. And then -- and -- as calm Garcia -- in addition to that, as Council Member Garcia went through his points, there seemed to be uncertainty about the -- whether it was fully -- all the costs were in there to make it a --
>> I understand.
>>Slusher: apples to apples.
>> I'm not an accountant like calm Garcia, but I had a different view terri chappelling the numbers.
>>Slusher: if we can -- interpreting the numbers.
>>Slusher: it probably is impossible to do it entirelily.
>>Mayor Watson: motion made by Council Member Slusher, seconded by Council Member Spelman. No further discussion, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. That takes us to item 10.
>>Garcia: if I may have a personal minute here.
>>Mayor Watson: sure can.
>>Garcia: I would like to call my assistant, my executive assistant Paul saldana up and recognize him nor ten years of service.
>>Mayor Watson: oh, wau!
>>Lewis: he thought you were going to call him on item 10.
>>Mayor Watson: he only looks 15.
>> Actually I started when I was 15.
>> The cost for answering rfa's just wentz up. [Laughter].
>>Garcia: Paul, this is a ten-year opinion pin, butts it's more than that, I think it's a manifestation of the high quality of service that he provides to the City and also the fact that you have dedicated yourself to im proofing yourself. The only thing you have not done and I'll mention it here is get your degree, but I understand that is forthcoming and you better get on with it otherwise we not give you the 15-year one. [Laughter]. [Applause].
>> Are you buying the beer?
>> absolutely.
>>Mayor Watson: I'm glad you did that, Paul, we're proud of you. Thank you for the service you provide not only to him but to all of us. Thank you. Item no. 10. Councilmember Garcia.
>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. The department of Public Works and transportation has issued a memorandum dated today which they respond to the issues raised by the two memorandums -- two letters from the hispanic contractors dated March 31, 1999, and by the Austin black contractors association on March the 30th. I think the responses to their questions are appropriate and, you know, I can understand the issue very well, Mr. Guerra is here, and one of the questions had to do with should we have an out of town company do it or should we have a local company do it, and I looked at the matrix, and the numbers -- I think the memorandum that Mr. Reeks said we could use either one, fisher or the kimble/zetty. In looking at the matrix, one category called prime -- primes expertise with Austin issues, Garza fisher which is an Austin firm got zero and kimble/zetty got 8.75 and they are from san antonio. I didn't understand the logic there.
>> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, I'm leno guerra. Councilmember Garcia, in this case we had no option but to give the second firm zero points on this one item in that in the package, even though on the checklist of all documents that are contained in submit al, there was a check for pons to this one item. When we opened the package there was no response that we could find. And on that basis, we had no choice but to give that scoring.
>>Garcia: I think representatives from that company are here today and I would like to ask them if they can comment on that particular issue.
>>Mayor Watson: there is no one here -- please come forward.
>> Good afternoon. I'm norma Garza with Garza fisher and associates. At the time we were pregnant the proposal together, we were pogt several proposals together and in an effort to get all the proposals out on time, we may have inadvertently left that information out. We definitely have Austin experience. We've been here for six years doing partnering training and facilitation for six years and in addition to that we have local participation experience. We've done workshops for Texas department of transportation, for general services commission. We even did a couple of workshops for the new airport project team with arnie rose even berg. And so we are very qualified to do this work.
>>Garcia: thank you. Let me ask one other question. In looking at the matrix again ms. Guerra, we have a category that has 12 points called proposed staff, and in that one kimble/zetty came in at 10.75, Garza fisher at 10.5. But when it went to the team's structure and work plan, those-he that -- there's a big difference in there. The no. 1 Proposal came in at 9.5, the no. 2 Proposal came at 2.5 and I don't understand, is there a relationship between those two matrix items and if so why.
>> There is, calm Garcia. The disparity in points though is that it's basically a two-part response. Again going back to the checklist, it had been indicated that the responses, the comprehensive response should have been in the package, again, it was not. We received in the package half of the response. The work plan portion, the second half, was not in there. Consequently that garnered the low points.
>>Garcia: are you familiar with the work that they've done with the airport planning --
>> yes, sir. As a matter of fact, we called their references and we are familiar with the work that they have done.
>>Garcia: and what was --
>> we're convinced that both firms can successfully deliver the services we're looking for.
>>Garcia: thank you. Mayor, I'm going to recommend Garza fisher for this partly because -- with the explanations that ms. Guerra gave and with the recommendation that came from the minority groups as to where specifically they said they wanted to have a local firm, that would be my recommendation on this.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made by Council Member Garcia. Is there a seconded? seconded by Council Member Lewis. Discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries on item no. 10 With Council Member Spelman voting no. Council, the next items that we have up are for a 4:30 zoning hearing. I'll entertain a motion to recess. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. We're in recess until 4:30 p.m. Mayor hair I'll call to --.
>>Mayor Watson: I'll call back to order the Austin City Council. The item we will first take up will be items 12 through 15, which are zoning hearings, and approval of ordinances. Ms. Glasco?
>> good afternoon Mayor and Council Members. Alice glasco, City staff to present zoning cases today. We'll start off with item no. 12, No. C 14-98-214 located on 2222. Staff would like to request a two-week postponement. We just found out that there's been a new property owner on property adjoining this site and he would like for us to have time to assess the case and also to indicate whether he should have been notified since he just recently purchased the property while the case has been in process, a little bit longer than he may have owned the property.
>>Mayor Watson: they're requesting a two-week post pointment.
>> To april the 14th. On item 14, case c 14-98-239, the applicant is requesting a indefinite postponement, however, staff is considering a two month postponement. And that would take you to june the 3rd if you go with your postponement policy of two months. On 14, we'd like to offer this case for consent on first reading, case c 14-98-267 located at 9725 anderson mill road from interim rural residence to gr, which stands for community commercial district. The Planning Commission recommendation is to grant a different zoning designation of lr-co, which stands for neighborhood commercial conditional overlay with other conditions. And the Planning Commission recommends this on first reading. Item 15, case c 14-99-15 located at 12708 hunltsville drive from multi-family three to general office. The Planning Commission it to grant general office with a conditional overlay and this case is ready for all three readings. This concludes my presentation on zoning cases today.
>>Mayor Watson: Council, the consent agenda -- I'm not going to entertain the motion right now. I'm going to ask questions of people who have signed up. But on item 12 a two-week postponement until april 14th. A april on tull 14, consent on first reading only. And item number 15, consent on all three readings. Let me ask a couple of questions. Jeff dunahoo, dale sellers and Mr. Gonzales, folks, the request has been for a postponement and in accordance with our policy people are entitled to get a postponement and our policy would be that this would come back up on june 3rd. I note that all three of you have signed up against this. Do you wish to be heard if we're going to postpone it? [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: hang on one second. What is the reason for the postponement? is this a first request?
>> we have a petition that has been filed and is valid for this property so the applicant can determine whether there can be some resolution reached. It's the first request.
>>Mayor Watson: our policy typically is that a party, including the neighborhood association or group, is entitled to a postponement on their first request. We typically do that, stiemgs even when it's not a first request, when there has been a valid petition. And so you will know, in order to get a zoning change once there has been what's called a valid petition, and you may already know this and apologize if I'm preaching something you don't need to hear about, but what that means is you have to have a super majority in order for that to occur. And typically we allow as a matter of fairness the opportunity since it is such a strong tool of the neighborhoods, we allow as a matter of fairness an opportunity for them to make a review to determine the validity and be able to deal with that and maybe even see if they can work something out. They had requested an indefinite postponement. We are not going to do that. Our policy is it has to come back in two months and as you heard her say, that would be june 3rd, so we wouldn't be inclined to grant that. The point being that if -- if we follow our typical policy and we don't breach our policy here tonight, we would be -- we would be grantedding this postponement. Now, I know you feel like you've been at it awhile --. [Inaudible]. You're certainly welcome to do that. But if we're not going to vote on it is the reason I bring it up.
>>Lewis: Mayor?
>>Mayor Watson: hang on Council Member. [Inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: keep in mind that typically our policy is if they've never made a request we go ahead and grant that.
>>. [Inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: okay. Fine. We'll let you talk. Councilmember Lewis?
>>Lewis: let me say one thing. They asked for the postponement because the valid petition was filed; is that correct?
>> that's one of the reasons. The petition was just filed March 26th, so obviously just a few days ago.
>>Lewis: so that is the reason they asked for the postponement so they can try to talk you out of the petition. And she said it was filed the 26th, so that is the reason rather than --.
>>Mayor Watson: the bottom line is he's already talked probably more than the three minutes he would have had, so what we'll do is we'll call it up and it will be on consent. Councilmember Garcia?
>>Garcia: do you want to get the other consent items out of the way?
>>Mayor Watson: I'm beginning to do that. The consent agenda will be, and I'll entertain a motion, item 12 for a two-week postponement. 13 On first reading only. 14, Consent on all three readings. I'll entertain a motion. Councilmember Garcia moves approval, seconded by Council Member Lewis. Is there any ni discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries with Council Member Griffith off the eye das.
>> The applicant is not here, so we will give a brief presentation and hear from citizens and continue the hearing. Item 13 is case c 14-98-239 and it is located on -- at 1200 through 1300 west braker lane. The request is from no, which stands for neighborhood office and also neighborhood commercial to general office, which also allows office uses. The property is approximately seven acres and the applicant is seeking to change that zoning that obviously would allow additional height and the Planning Commission recommendation is to grant the zoning with conditions that include limiting it to no zoning site development standards building height, which would be the height allowed at two stories and enhanced 40 feet. The applicant is required to provide a 20 foot vegetative buffer and trips that would generate less than 2,000 vehicle trips a day and also prohibit a number of uses that are list understand your backup. I will pause there and await questions from you.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Dunahoo? our rules are that each speaker is entitled to three minutes.
>> Okay. All right. I just wanted to give you a quick background and then if that is the policy to go ahead and -- to do this, that's fine. This was brought with the intention to put a convalescent services facility on this lot and the developers agreed with all the neighborhood groups to work out a restrictive covenant to handle all of the restrictions. That was put off and the people never presented that to the neighborhood group and never discussed it with us beyond that. So we believe that the only reason that the commission approved this was based on that restrictive covenant being put together and since it never has been and it's never been discussed with the neighborhood, that this is an open carte blanche rezoning. If it goes through right now it's just go and we don't have any input right now on the restrictive covenant because the people that were going to do this development have pulled out of the project so there is no -- nobody behind this now. And we're very concerned that essentially what we're doing now is giving the owners new value because they're taking it from no to go and we have sf-2 right up to the back of it and that's our backyard. That's why if a new developer wants to come in, we're more than glad to work with them, but we believe it should be a new application and we should start again with this framework even, but to let this go on with no developer in sight and -- in sight and just for the owners is not real acceptable for our neighborhood. If there's any way we can do that, we can keep from coming here and seeing you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Dale sellers? Mr. Sellers, do you wish to speak?
>> yeah. I was going to tell you about the same thing.
>>Mayor Watson: there's no need to say the same thing.
>> It was our understanding that zoning changes were specific to the development which was a convalescent center on the gracy property. And I spoke with richard gracy Jr. This week and he shed they were going to not attempt to have any zoning changes at that time and they were going to let it remain no and the application is a bit bafling to me at this point. We held a board meeting this week to discuss the proposed zoning changes and our decision is that we are opposed to any changes without a specific development or a contractor in hand by the owner.
>>Mayor Watson: okay. Great. Thank you. Mr. Rosales, do you wish to speak?
>> I live on 1201 gemini drive, which my backyard is that big lot. And all that we want is to get with the people that are going to work doing some development, but we don't want any changing of the zoning because that's going to be a complete change in our life-style, so that's all that I can say.
>>Mayor Watson: great. Thank you. Thank y'all for being here. One of the things that if the Council goes ahead and votes in accordance with our previous policy to postpone this, the -- I'm pleased that you have spoken because what we will do is each one of our staffs will -- I'm confident will be visiting with the applicant and the applicant's representative to ask the questions that you specifically raised here tonight. So I'll make that commitment and I'm confident that everybody up here, somebody is going to be asking those questions and we'll get those answers. I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing on item 13. Motion is made by Council Member Slusher, seconded by Council Member Spelman. Is there any discussion?
>>Goodman: yes, Mayor.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: this does not preclude us from reopening?
>>Mayor Watson: no, no. And, you know, you've probably raised a good point. Instead of closing the public hearing, why don't we just move to recess the public hearing and postpone it for two months until june 3rd.
>>Slusher: I'll withdrawal my motion and move for two months.
>>Mayor Watson: seconded by Council Member Spelman. That's a better motion and thank you for pointing that out. The motion is to recess the public hearing on item 13 and postpone it for two months until june 3rd, 1999. Is there any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye., opposed say no. The motion carries on item number 13. Council, the next item that we have is a 6:30 public hearing. Let me just say for those who may be watching, the item that was set for 6:00 o'clock p.m., which is a public hearing on an appeal of the sign review board's decision to deny a variance request for install a freestanding sign has been postponed until may 6th. So if you were planning on coming down to the 6:00 o'clock public hearing, that has been postponed until may 6th. I will entertain a motion to recess until 6:30 perform. It was made by grf, seconded by Council Member Slusher. Opposed say no. We're in recess until 6:30 p.m..
>>Mayor Watson: I'll call back to order the Austin City Council. Item no. 17 Is to conduct a public hearing regarding the proposed plan for the City of Austin to lease downtown property to computer sciences corporation. Here's what we're going to do. This is the third public hearing since we had originally as a Council had conducted public hearings and voted to send staff back to engage in negotiations with computer sciences corporation and then bring back an agreement to the Council. Since that time, as I say, we've conducted two public hearings. At both of those public hearings -- and the plan we had passed as a Council was to conduct two public hearings and vote tonight. However, we decided what we would do is we would conduct three public hearings, the third being tonight, and then vote tonight. At the two previous public hearings, the City Manager's office has made a presentation regarding the essential terms and an outline of the proposed agreement. What I'm going to do tonight, and I don't see ms. Futrell -- okay. What I want to do tonight is because there has been -- I'm going to go ahead and just start with the public testimony part of this. If there are questions that need to be answered or if you have some questions and you would like to have those answered, then we will make sure those are answered and then if there is a need for a presentation at some point during this process, we will take action to do that. And we have people here that can answer any questions that you might have. So with that, let me start with those who are signed up to speak. The first being will winn. He will be followed by ann hartunian and michael chaffin. Welcome.
>> Thank you. Good evening. My name is will winn. I served this year and this year only as volunteer chair of the downtown Austin alliance. I've spoken before and our organization -- in our organization's support the pretty well documented. I want to relate a story to you. Last year -- the downtown Austin april lines is a member of a much larger world wide organization called the international downtown association, and they have thousands of members from, you know, south africa to norway to the pacific rim, all of the americas, last year I represented Austin at their annual meeting in victoria british columbia and it was at that meeting that they announced that the 2000 conference would be held here in Austin in part because the vast majority of those folks knew Austin, had heard good things about us, wut he -- but we had presented a plan, said look, we got this Council that -- and community that is now, one, setting aside thousands of acres of pristine environmentally sensitive land and we're trying to start directing development to our innercity and desired development zone and specifically downtown, we're going to build this Waller creek tunnel she wirb going to do City sponsored downtown housing on a couple of blocks and that was very well received and we won what was a pretty competitive situation to host that conference in 2000. The '99 conference will be in charlotte, which is a very thriving downtown. They purposely choose cities that have things that the group will learn from. And they were here recently just a couple weeks ago doing their -- their scout group organizing the hotel rooms and whatnot and trust me, this is a big deal and we're very proud to host them and we -- essentially we're going to have sort of a hard hat tour. We're going to have thousands of folks from all over the world touring our Waller Creek tunnel, perhaps our convention center hotel construction, our downtown residential construction, et cetera, and when I had them here a couple weeks ago I sat them down and said hold on to your seats and I presented the c.s.c. Proposal to them and I can't tell you how -- you know, I brought tears to their eyes. These are folks that spend all day every day worrying about innercity vitality, about the strength of our cities, about smart growth, about environmentally sensitive issues, and when they heard the c.s.c. Story, you know, they were in awe and they essentially said this is going to be the most dynamic annual meeting we've ever had by coming to Austin and having this tour of these very innovative -- generally City sponsored activities and the c.s.c. Thing they are so interested in and very proud to be and I was damn proud to be an Austinite that today.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Ann hartuniay and then michael chaffin and amalia rodriguez mendoza.
>> Thank you for taking the time to hear our opinions regarding the c.s.c. Development proposal. My name is ann and I have been proudly living in the Austin metropolitan area for the past 20 years. From kindergarten to earning a bachelor of science degree I have obtained all my education from public schools in Austin. I am currently working for an Austin born and raised woman firm. As you can see, Austin is home for me and I care about the issues that help shape its future. I have come tonight to speak in favor of the c.s.c. Proposal because I truly believe this proposal will help revitalize the downtown area while opening a huge window of opportunity for local firms. This Council has proven to be fair in its disbursement of projects to local versus non-local firms. With this in mind I am confidence that many small local businesses can capitalize on the benefits of this proposal. From the design and construction stage to the leasing of retail spaces, to the maintenance of the buildings, small, local officials have ample opportunities to grow their businesses in the downtown area. In doing so, we will also help keep Austin dollars in Austin. As a member of the board of directors of the hispanic Chamber of Commerce, I had the privilege of attending a presentation by ms. Toby futrell given specifically to minority Chamber of Commerce. Some issues were raised that I would like to reiterate at this time. First, it is my hope that the City continues to involve local and m.b.e. Firms throughout each stage of this proposal. Second, from what I understood the City has full control of setting the time line for the renovations of City buildings and infrastructures included in this proposal. It is my hope that the City will not make these projects fast tracked. By not making them fast tracked, the City will give an equal opportunity to all businesses to go after these projects. Third, from what I understood, the City has not yet contracted for the lease of the retail spaces available in this proposal. It is my hope that the City will mirror the diversity of its inhabitants when selecting the businesses that will occupy the retail spaces. In closing, it is my hope that the Council will vote yes for the c.s.c. Development proposal. This proposal will help keep Austin in the leading edge of technology, it will revitalize the downtown area and it will open a huge window of opportunity for small local businesses. I wish c.s.c. And the citizens of Austin the best of luck. Thank you for your time.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, ma'am. Michael chaffin. Then amall I can't rodriguez mendoza and mack pike.
>> Good evening, Mayor Watson and Council Members. I've been here before on this topic so I will be brief. I'm pleased to again address you on behalf of the Austin hotel motel association and the Downtown Austin Alliance. As president of the hotel association, I'm here to express our very strong support for this c.s.c. Downtown project. While there are some mitigating issues such as parking which require further study, the positive aspects of this deal far outweigh the negatives. A few points to consider. The c.s.c. Development design and location will have a great and far reaching impact in improving our increasingly diverse landscape. Currently the proposed land area is far short of anything to be proud of. And makes a negative impression on the many visitors to our City. C.s.c. Employees will provide new business for surrounding restaurants, lounges and retail establishments that in turn create additional jobs and sales tax revenues for the City. Finally, c.s.c. Will be a katd take list for additional retail, residential and services development which will be enjoyed by tourists and locals. The c.s.c. Project is good for the City of Austin, the citizens and visitors. We appreciate your work to bring this project to fruition. Thanks.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Amalia rodriguez mendoza. Mack pike. And then --
>> good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm amalia rodriguez mendoza. This evening I'm here as a representative of the Austin museum of art and also as a citizen involved in cultural endeavors in this community. I too want to express my support and my gratitude for the forward thinking approach that led to the planned c.s.c. Complex. For years the museum has been a place for people to go and visit. Through the mixed use of the c.s.c. Project, the museum can now become a place for people to be and live. The proximity to the new museum location to this new development will allow people to integrate art into daily living instead of experiencing it through occasional planned activities. This is what art is meant to be. How it can achieve its full potential in enriching our lives. I want to thank you for your create activity and innovation in bringing this project forward and urge your support. Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Mack pike. Then malia jordan, then mark pratt. Mack pike signed up for. Malaia jordan followed by mark pratt and jeanette ward. So you are donating your time to Mr. Pratt. Mr. Pratt, if you will come forward, you will have up to six minutes and followed by jeanette ward and then John scott.
>> Thank you very much for having me here tonight and just to put everyone at ease I'm not here to criticize what is going on. I think it's a great thing downtown and I think it's long overdue, it's been a long time coming. I'm mark pratts and I have been an employee, a manager and an owner at liberty lunch for 20 years, 21. I wasn't going to do this. I was responsible for the music there for all that time. I'm very proud of it. I am sad tonight, and I'm only sad because it's such a part of me that is going down over there. I will get over the quavering. I talked to John insider and he talked about his grandfather when the snyder store moved out and I sort of feel a little like that. It's like losing a family home or a friend. As I was driving in from round rock where I work now as a principal or assistant principal had a school, I had lots of tie to think because I was parked down by camp mabry and I thought smart growth smarts for some. But I still think it's a good idea what you are doing and what is happening here and I say go ahead with it full steam. Now, I want to tell you just a little bit about liberty lunch. My first job I stood behind the cactus at the front door so people couldn't get in and not pay. We used to shoe the bats out at night. It was a crazy place. It was a place that was born terminally ill. I think it was just a mistake someone made and it just kept on going on. Don't know why. People loved it and it grew and it prospered. And rebirthday, which was our lease renewal, we were told this is it, it's over guys, you don't have more than six months, we're going to build this and that and it never happened and it never happened and we always knew it would so it was kind of like walking around with a disease all the time, but we kept doing it because it was so damn much fun and people seemed to like it. And it seemed to make a difference. I have a lot of people to thank and mostly I want to thank the City of Austin because they -- they just let it happen. I think it was benign negligence. I think it just kind of came up late at night and they went oh, hell we're not going to build it this year, sure, you got another year. [Laughter]. After a while we got five year leases, but we always had 180 day move out clause. Give us a 1 hundred year lease I urge c.s.c. To read their lease carefully. I want to thank all the Councils before, this started back before this was a mopac you all. [Buzzer sounds]. I have three more.
>>Mayor: you have another three minutes. You can take that now.
>> All the people. I can't mention them all, but Jackie and Gus and Daryl, you have been around, I want to thank mation, all the Mayors that just kind of let us go on and on. I want to thank the employees and managers who brought into that silly little dream. I want to thank charlie tesser and sheila who fought for 15 years for keeping it open. And helped us build it into a great place and build a reputation for Austin. And I want to thank jeanette ward, my partner, and she is suffering a lot more than I am now. I want to thank the fire department for teaching me that 1200 people under a rotten roof with two doors was not a safe thing to do. [Laughter]. And I know that now, captain, nye, I do, but I was sorry I was such an a sshole. I would ask a few favors of you. You guys must be suffering up there through this thing. [Laughter]. I would prefer that you --. [Laughter]. I would prefer if we could find a way not to bulldoze it but maybe dismantle it there's still a lot of good wood and habitat for humanity could use it. Some of the steel is from the old armadillo, maybe we could hang it in the Austin museum, put it's in the schlotzsky's down there. There's a couple of really great pecan trees and I know an elementary tree that would take them if we could get them out of there. They have survived in spite of us. I want you to think about the homeless people because amongst them are some really evil people and we need to make sure they are safe from those people and they are down there every day on that corner and it's a bad thing and it's not helping the truly homeless that want to work. This is a really powerful piece of land that we stand on and I felt it every day. And I just came to say --able I can't get over this. I came to say good-bye, this is really not so much of an era but the end of an error. If I were 20 again and could do it again I would. It's very much been like the -- where you just roll that damn rock up the hill and it rolls back down every day. We spent, I don't know, thousands of dollars and build the palace we thought we had and the next day we opened the paper and it said City hall is going to be built on your property. It just went on like that. It was endless. I would like to close now with a little bit of a song. I'm going to really punish you now. [Laughter]. It kind of summarizes that whole experience and if I weren't crying I would sing but I might read it to you. It went something like this. If the wheel is fixed, I would still take a chance. If we're treading on thin ice, then we might as well dance. So I play the fool, I just can't sit still. Let me roll this rock to the top of the hill. [Buzzer sounds]. So we do it until we're sick of it, we do it until we can't do it no more and we do it until they make you quit. And we do it till we can't do it no more. Good luck, God bless.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much, Mr. Pratts. [Applause]. Ms. Ward.
>> This is going to be tough. I didn't know he was going to say all that stuff. So yes, we are sad. Wow! okay.
>> You only have three minutes. [Laughter].
>> We're sad. I kind of expected that the City was going to make their presentation first and so that I wouldn't be the one announcing this, but I guess I am. As you know, liberty lunch, we've always been a supportive of public private venture and once again the City is going to help liberty lunch relocate. We are in the final stages of all the lawyers speaking and writing and all that good stuff. And the City is going to have a relocation loan program and they are going to assist us with fees and permits. The City, the Mayor and the City Council Members here have been totally behind the relocation of liberty lurchl. Yes, they are going to vote tonight for c.s.c., yes, we're for that. I'm not going to say I'm for the destruction of liberty lunch because as everyone knows I'm not, but I'm going to be for the relocation of liberty lunch and because of this City Council, I thank all of you all because you have taken the time and spent the energy and the loan money that I do have to repay so I know that, but you all have seen it and you know where the music venue and how important music is to Austin, and I think liberty lunch is very important, we've always brought in a lot of money and a lot of people to Austin to make it what it is. And so, folks, I'm going to announce that liberty lunch is in the process of a relocation move to the corner of 9th and red river. If you all don't know where that it is, it's right next door to stubs. As all the newspapers articles have said you are moving there they are moving there and we just kept saying no comment. But it looks like that is going to happen. With everything the City is helping us with, we're going to be able to survive and to move to make it a place that everyone is going to be proud of and that is my goal and has been my goal is that if liberty lunch moves, it needs to be a place that the citizens of Austin, the City Council, the Mayor, myself, that we can all be proud of and tell the visitors that come, hey, this used to be right down, you know, on second street where the computer place is now, but they moved it here and isn't it cool? and the music is still going to be there, the people that work there will still have jobs. In fact, I hope to hire more people. And I just want to thank this City Council for looking ahead seeing that there was a potential problem with. [Buzzer sounds]. The development down here and they looked beyond the destruction of liberty lunch and looked forward and said let's help move it and they did. Thank you. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Scott.
>> I'm John scott with stubs and I'm here to give our support and admiration to the City of Austin. We support the c.s.c. Project and also the liberty lunch relocation. We are thrilled that the City has shown such vision and courage through this whole process. The decisions have been very difficult and -- but it seems that you have looked and saw a greater vision for Austin, for all people, and we -- our story started on red river when there was a burned out building and a lot of people went down there and said we were crazy to go into such a desolate area. And with the City's help and the police department and a lot of sweat and some luck, we've been part of an urban revitalization down there and as we look -- as we look to the future and we see the development of Waller Creek and the City support for this relocation, we see a lot of activity where it wasn't before and we just look forward to working very hard and being a small part of such a big thing and look forward to building a better Austin so we just applaud you guys for your vision. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Scott. One of the things as part of this proposal so that -- as it's been kind of discussed generally here is if you can imagine where stubs is and the block that just -- stubs occupies and north of that up to -- along red river up to 9th street, what would happen is liberty lunch would become a part of that complex and one of the things that is a part of this proposal is that as the Council was examining how can we address the issues that ms. Ward has brought up and Mr. Pratts about being responsive to the needs of the music industry and liberty lunch and sitting on City property, one of the thoughts that always was part of that was we wanted to come out in a way that was actually advantageous to liberty lunch, meaning that it was something even better than their current situation. In addition, we wanted it to be something that is advantageous to downtown and the citizens of Austin. As compared to the current situation. One of the things that as part of this is that the same kinds of things with wider sidewalks turning -- doing the kinds of things that you want to do to allow for a vital part of your downtown to exist is part of this proposal too. So if the Council votes to do what it's talking about doing with c.s.c. And it goes forward with the proposal involving liberty lunch, in essence, what started as one event ends up perhaps revitalizing two parts of downtown and having a positive impact in that regard. So our goal was to be -- and I want to say on behalf of myself, the City Council, the City staff, the approach that you all have taken both the liberty lunch folks and the stubs folks in dealing with this and in talking about what is great for Austin and downtown and the Austin music industry, you have been wonderful and we all really appreciate it so thank you. Lee thompson followed by Charles bets. And gary hyatt.
>> Thank you Mayor and members of the Council. My name is lee thompson, I'm a trustee of the Austin museum of art and I'm speaking in favor of the c.s.c. Project. Computer sciences corporation's proposal offers a unique and timely opportunity to transform an underutilized and unattractive portion of our City center into a thriving, attractive, economically productive area. The mix of business, retail and cultural interests which will come together as a result of this project will attract a broad cross section of Austinites to work, live in and visit this downtown area. I believe it will create an economic and cultural stimulus to accelerate the revitalization of this section. In addition with the new performing arts center and opera school a block or two across the river, I look forward to the time which now seems close at hand when people who live and work downtown as well as others and visitors to this area will enjoy a thriving arts district with galleries, shops, restaurants and other venues which create ate an exciting high energy experience complimentary to the business and rrl interests in the area. The c.s.c. Proposal place a key role in revitalling this area. At the hue seem we like to say great cities have great arts t museum anticipates krkting to and benefiting from this growth. In addition we support the c.s.c. Project for its anticipated role in making Austin one of the great cities of the world. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Charles bets. Then gary hyatt. Then pedro matias I think.
>> Show me in favor.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Bets shown in favor. Gary hyatt. [Inaudible] I may be mispro nouns your name. Pedro, matais, if you want to come forward and please address the Council. Yes.
>>. [Speaking in spanish]. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to express a concern of the 26 of the december of last year, I was hiring to work in day labor to bring the people who are on second street inside [inaudible]. Looks to me in my job told me like we find a place to move the people there and [inaudible]. There is not -- the installation we need to have a program who can be managed in the best way and in that way we can show to the City what great of operation and support these people give to the development, to the City also. So I ask you please to tie in some ways to see again it's possible to try to look for a better place because the installation is not big enough to bring 300 or 250 people there inside. So that means if we don't think before these things happening, maybe something can happen there, especially in the winter, we don't know what will happen there so we ask you to try to review again this case. Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, sir. Gary hyatt.
>> [Inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Hyatt did not check either for or against.
>> [Inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: well, but is it -- it's not on this subject okay. Joyce boskiano donated time to Mr. Hyatt. Do you wish to speak? she signed up against. Edlara mendez: thank you very much.
>>. [Speaking in spanish]. She works as what is called in day solutions. Her job is basically to try to bye the people in from the streets into the day labor program. And she like everyone else here supports the growth of the City. And the progress that the City has made toward positive economic growth. San span [speaking in spanish].
>> The complaint that she has as well as Mr. Matais is they both think people deeply connected to the problem of day labor market in Austin, that the day laborers themselves should be included in some of the decision making that is happening today.
>>. [Speaking in spanish].
>> What they do and were hired to do is to establish and develop different kinds of programs that help make the day labor program as-help make it as efficient as it can be and eliminate some of the problems that have existed in the past that are have created problems. [Speaking in spanish].
>> A very, very critical problem that she faces daily is that many, many day laborers are used to basically help the economy grow, but those day laborers aren't and don't receive any kind of legal protection when employers who pick them up on the streets or through the day -- through the labor solutions program, when those employers don't pay the workers. And this is a problem that she encounters daily. [Speaking in spanish].
>> Very importantly the case -- the current problem, this problem of ex employ tation of workers is a problem that's not being address understand terms of the resources. The resources haven't been given to the program in order that these kinds of problems, especially non-payment of wages, be addressed by the City. [Speaking in spanish]. [Buzzer sounds].
>> Again she asks that workers and the needs of workers be considered in this decision making process.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much ms. Mendez. Yes, Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: and that's one of the things that we think we're going to do now, one of the problems we have had is that the resource center for the homeless is right next door to the day labor camp and that has created problems. When we make this move, we're going to separate them, and I think that that will allow those individuals that are looking for work to find a safe place to come to and be there ready to go to work. We also want to make sure that the exploitation issues are addressed, it's enormously important that those issues be addressed and that the workers that put in their day working be paid a fair wage and we will be working on that. But I want to say thank you to both ms. Men dedz and Mr. Matias for bringing those issues to us. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: daniel greco. She will be followed by mark murdoch. Barbara and junior I carlson signed up not wishing to speak but for.
>> Good evening. I'm a legislative fellow with the environmental defense fund and what that means is I usually help prepare our testimony, but I don't have to actually present it so please bear with me. Dean marston would have liked to have been here but he has been detained. I would like to start by telling you what the environmental defense fund is. It is a national nonprofit organization that has about 14,000 members in Texas and one of the issues that they are concerned about is urban sprawl. As you know, urban sprawl is a growing environmental problem that creates an array of problems such as the impacts it has on air quality and endangered species. And while we recognize urban sprawl as a problem we know we need to do more than say don't grow, don't lok locate here, we need to offer a solution. We think the c.s.c. Does just that it offers a solution. It brings retail and business interests all back into downtown Austin. We think this is a smart strategy to help fight urban sprawl and we would like to offer edf's support. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Mark murdoch. Mark murdoch. Mr. Murdoch signed up for. Pete winsted. Followed by will bozeman and Bill renfro.
>> I'm the past chair of the greater Austin chamber of commerce and a past president of arrow and the president elect of the real estate Council and I'm also connected with 2010 and arts center staj and I'm here tonight not to speak for any of those but rather to tell you from my perspective from all of those organizations and what we are about, I think this is one of the most exciting things this Council and this City have probably ever done. The unique situation of the convergence we have going on now with a new century upon us a new airport, essentially a brand-new Convention Center and Waller Creek and a new hotel, coupledded right in the middle of that wech a new digital downtown really beginning and we have urban compact City happening to us. I don't think you could be any more exciting times to be in Austin than it is today. I told someone in five years when you look west from Congress avenue towards the hills, you are going to see a very different landscape. With all of the projects that are going to be up and built. I urge you to proceed on this and I think you should pat yourselves on the back in that I think you've really turned the talk about smart growth and compact cities into a lot of reality that will support light rail and other kinds of things that need to happen in our City. I would also urge you to do one other thing, don't stop now, don't stop with this project. Please pursue the state properties and blend them into this if you get the chance. I think that would make abundant sense also as I've watched this unfold. I would just say to you Council Members thanks and congratulations on a project well thought out and well done. Thanks.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Winsted. Will bozeman followed by Bill renfro and kent collins.
>> Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm president of the Austin neighborhoods Council. I just wanted to quickly recap and make a statement for the record the positions that the Austin neighborhoods Council has taken as it has considered this project. These viewpoints are varied and have been difficult to convey. Let me mention that in February the anc offeredded, expressed our support tr the move that was taken to avoid development in environmentally sensitive area at the site and we welcomed rbltion we saw the value of locating a major employer downtown. We appreciate the response that you made to that letter. However, in the final version of the project proposal was made, the anc executive committee voted to take no position on the proposal in its final form, but did express our dissatisfaction and concern that the City advisory commissions did not take up review of this. I state that not right or wrong or to be unfair that is correct is our concern. But let me also note that -- well, a number of people have admitted concerns over the process, this was a unique process -- circumstance from the response taken in response from the opportunity from a tear race site being looked at at the opportunity at this site and that is appreciated. But let me suggest that part of the concern that lingers over the process is one that I think evolves from if you merely tell the community what you are doing, you know, we listen and show us we see. Involve us we understand. And I think that is the gap that as we look to the future needs to be spanned. And I would suggest that we look to the future with hopes that this project is successful and achieves the very objectives that you have set forth and are supported widely in this community. I wo ld also suggest, and what I think Jesus Garza as well as other City Managers did in response to our request provide a special briefing that was held last night, a very extensive list of questions was respond to do very thoroughly, I appreciate that. Ultimately I think one of the conclusions we drew from that briefing was that where the public is making an investment in both infrastructure and also fa sill tagt this development, this stands alone in some respects. We have no yardstick really to measure whether the return that we can realize here, you know, is worthy. Obviously there is return that we can achieve, but is this the best opportunity, and was we go down the road in future projects, do we have that kind of measure to weigh whether or not our City investment is well spent. [Buzzer sounds]. I will close on this, that we hope this project turns out. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Bill renfro, kent collins. And mark isanaga.
>> I was a organizer along with others of the downtown management organization, now the Downtown Austin Alliance and the public improvement district. A key recommendation of rudat revitd and the kizer study was utilization of public private partnerships to develop and revitalize our downtown. I think the c.s.c. Transaction is a wonderful example of such a partnership. It's a wonderful opportunity for our City, its citizens and the Austin independent school district and I applaud your leadership. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Renfro. Kent collins. Kent collins. Kent collins signed up for. Mark isanaga. Signed up and wrote strongly for. Kevin conner. Kevin conner. Kevin conner didn't sign either for or against. Tom stacie signed up not wishing to speak but for. Frank larosa. Frank fuentes has signed up not speaking but for. Jerry crio not speaking, for. John wilson will follow frank larosa.
>> Mayor, City Council Members thank you for letting me share my concerns. I was informed before I showed up here that to talk about the day labor program was a wasted breath, this was a done deal, it was already signed, sealed and delivered. But from my past experience that I've learned as a phrase that goes let them now speak or else here after forever hold his peace and after that experience I now speak up. [Laughter]. I've seen this progress, this change before in the mid '80's with the business community complaining about the City cleaning up sixth street from its problems, removing all the bad, and I understand it because I come from a family on business as -- family owned business as well. Sixth street now looks great. But to go to the east side now on a weekend night that's not very pretty. The problems were just moved. The ones -- the move once again was not dealing with the root of some of the problems. And this move is like -- I call it kind of like the out of sight out of mind approach dealing with the human factor when it comes to the moving the day labor program. A majority of service for the day labor laborers are located downtown and the workers' mentality is being that if I don't even stay in the fenced area of the day labor program, what makes them think I'm going to go way up north when the day labor program moves? and they tell me, tell me, frank, surely they are smarter than this. My grandfather said a phrase that I'm sure some of you all have heard before that you can lead a horse to water and you can't make him drink and I have a feeling that's what is going the happen here. I hope the day labor staff doesn't get blamed for failure once the move is done and I commend them on the job they are doing now. I believe that there will be a demand for work at the old airport site. The day labor program moving close by there that makes some sense. There's definitely some sense, there's going to be job opportunities there. But I believe a majority will be picked up on all other areas than the north side. Now to get the laborers from a to b is another touchy subject. The only way that I can conceive this is by maybe a little bullying, maybe a little force, and I kind of say that loosely. Because that's what I feel that it's going to take to get these people over there. That -- the laborers. The final line right there is, again, dealing with civil rights. Then you got busing, that's another factor. Capital metro, I don't think they are going to come up to the plate. [Buzzer sounds]. Dealing with this.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, sir John wilson, then gordon by ran and marry ben ramsey.
>> Mayor and Council, my name is John wilson, I'm a sheet metal worker by trade and I served my apprenticeship here in Austin, Texas starting in 1971 and 1975. I'm here tonight as president of the central Texas building and construction trade Council. Our Council and its afill I it's a represents a large number of construction workers who both live and work in the City of Austin. The central Texas building trades Council supports the City in its effort to reach an agreement with computer science corporation. However, we do want the City to negotiate into its agreement with c.s.c. Certain conditions which assure the contractor and the construction worker from the Austin area a fair opportunity to work on a project that their tax dollars are helping to make happen. These conditions include requiring the building construction to fall under the same prevailing wage requirements as current City projects, requiring an approved bidder list which will be made up of reputable contractors from Austin or the surrounding areas, requiring all contractors awarded contracts on this project to provide hell and welfare benefits which cover employees and their families; and require the use of local suppliers when possible not only to help support local companies but the local tax base as well. In closing I want the Council to know that the central Texas building and construction trade Council will be available and will help in any way possible to bring in not only this construction project but others as well that will provide comparable wages and benefits for this area and be constructed under specifications and standards which we can all be proud of. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. [One moment please]. Happy with what's going on in the City as a result. While the transaction represents that prosperity as we know, not everybody in the city has been blessed by being touched by some of the growth that's going on. And I -- I just want to point out that fact is not something that this Council has ever overlooked. And as a result you all know that c.s.c. Necessitates the relocation of the Austin resource center for the homeless, the arts and the city has made that commitment to relocate the arch and make sure those services continue on and not a cessation, I just want to probably less for the Council's benefit than anything, you all have truly been very aware and sensitive to the needs of the homeless, not only in this transaction, but in so many other actions you all have taken in the past couple of years, we want to thank you for that. The services that go on down at arch are very important because a lot of people, when they become homeless, if they do not have access to services and resources, they continue to be on the streets. And the availability of those services can spell the difference for someone being on the street, a matter of days or a matter of weeks versus a matter of months and years. And so we do appreciate and thank you for your commitment. Unlike the folks from liberty lunch, we don't have a location yet, but the City staff has worked diligently and has worked with a couple of the task force members and kept them apprised of the situation, we appreciate the communication, we appreciate the efforts and the commitment of the City to make sure there is an appropriate place for the arch to relocate and for those services to continue.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, ms. Ramsey. Grace manchaca reeve. Then David l.reeve. Amos botka.
>> Mayor, Council Members, good evening and thank you. My name is grace manchaca reeve, today I wear two hats. I will start with my chamber hat. I am a member and I sit on the board of directors of the hispanic Chamber of Commerce as an executive officer. The hispanic chamber of commerce has always welcomed you to our board meetings, encouraged you on bringing us to the table on issues, important to our chamber businesses and community. We have always met you with an open mind and open ears. Many times we have publicly supported you on irs and bonds. Now we strongly encourage you to support our local business and citizens. There is a great deal of dollars that will be invested in this project you wish us to support. We do support the c.s.c. Project. We ask you to support using local businesses to construct, provide services, products and labor in the c.s.c. Project. We also stipulate that primes will use local subs. If you hire firms and contractors from outside our areas, the dollars will also leave our area. Keep the dallas here by using local businesses -- keep the dollars here by using local businesses and labor. I would now like to speak on behalf of myself, a business owner and citizen of Austin. My husband and myself made a conscious well thought out decision to buy a home within the Austin City limits. That's because we both believe in getting back, investing in and helping support the community we work and do business in. I pay tax as a business owner, I pay taxes as an employer, I pay taxes as a property owner. I pay taxes as a citizen of Austin. I want my investment, my taxes, my dollars to say in Austin. I want this Council to follow my example. To invest in the community, the City we live in and do business in. Keep the dollars local. Invest locally. So the City we are so proud of, the community we love to live in, will grow stronger and our citizens prosper. I leave you with this thought: think local. Use local businesses. Use local contractors. Buy local products. Hire local labor. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmembers.
>> Thank you. David reeve. Do you wish to speak or just be shown in favor.
>> Favor.
>> Shown in behavior. Amos boto. Paul vitalise Austin, glen west.
>> Good evening, my name is amos boto, I am a volunteer at casa marinella, it's a homeless shelter for recently arrived immigrants and refugees here in East Austin. And I am here to speak -- to speak on the issues of what the guys that come to our house feel about the relocation of the day labor corner. We are not opposed to the relocation. What we are opposed to is where it is proposed to be moved. Last night when I had a meeting with the guys who live at our house, asked, you know, well, they are going to be moving this to the corner of 51st street and I-35. The general response to the guys of the house was, where is that? they don't live around there. That's not anywhere near where they are. And after -- after I explained where it was, several of them expressed a large doubt that they would tale take that trip up there every morning. And -- how this works for them is most of these guys have to get there as close to 6:00 as possible because the later in the day you get there, the less likely you are to actually get work. For the guys that live at our house, they have to specifically get out at a bus stop, the first bus that runs near our house only comes at 5:30 or 5:36 to be precise. They get on the no. 17 Bus, it's 18 minutes near the capitol, five minutes over to the corner of the day labor corner. But if they were going to actually go to the corner of 51st street and I-35, in this case what they probably would do is get on that 5:36 bus, take it to the capitol and wait until 6:18. 6:18 They would get on the bus and they would finally get to the new site at 6:36. Now, my experience has been watching because I have spent several days at the day labor corner, I have actually spent a night in the park and tried to find work in the day labor corner just to experience this. The earlier you get there, the more likely you are to get work. These guys are going to have to take probably an extra 40 minutes just to get there and in their cases the buses don't run earlier than 5:30 past their house. They can't get there any earlier than in their case around 6:40. Which means they will add an extra 40 minutes to their journey and get there at a final later than when it's a good time to get work. Basically what the guys at the meeting last night told me, well, if that's the case I am not going to go to this new day labor corner. I have an extreme doubt that they are going to make that transition. And this is not just the people that are coming from -- from where casa marienella is located. As everybody knows the bus system runs like a spoke. [Buzzer sounding].
>> It goes downtown. They have to take the bus out.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Taiese Austin, glen west, stuart shaw.
>> Mayor, members of the City Council, I am taiese Austin, the vice-president of government relations for the Chamber of Commerce, I have spoken before, so I won't take up much of your time, I want to applaud you for what you have put together and give you my enthusiastic support for this c.s.c. Project.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you ms. Austin. Glen west.
>> Show in favor.
>>Mayor Watson: shown in favor. Stuart shaw. Stuart shaw. Mr. Shaw signed up in favor. Chuck mcmullen. Chuck mcmullen?
>>Spelman: Mayor, Mr. Shaw informed me a while ago that he would be here about 8:30 if they are still having the hearing at that time.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Mcmullen signed up against. David stevens signed up not speaking but for. Robin rather. Robin rather? robin rather signed up for, wrote go for it. Bobby barker. Followed by rue golf -- rudolph green, richard fonte.
>> Good evening, Mayor and Council Members, I am bobby barker, I am a business person here in town, the past chair of the downtown Austin alliance and I am on the executive board of the chamber of commerce. I will not repeat what other folks have said before me, but I do want to say that we elected you to lead and make decisions and I am proud to say that that's what I see that you all are doing. I want also to xlient your staff, toby fretell particularly for making herself very available for those who want to learn more about the c.s.c. Initiative. I urge you to vote in support of this initiative, I thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you ms. Barker, rudolph green? rudolph green. He signed up for. Richard fonte. Followed by -- well, richard Martin signed up not speaking but for. Charles nave signed up not speaking but for. Chris riley will follow Dr. Fonte.
>> I think c.s.c. Is a very fortunate initiative to bring high tech downtown the goal of the digital downtown. Acc stands ready to work with all new employers. If it becomes apparent and appropriate to be nearby to these now developments, we stand ready to expand our education and training services downtown. We would gladly work with the city and private employers to assist them to address their work force needs. And as a concerned citizen of Austin, I urge your support for this project. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Chris riley. Mr. Riley is shown in favor. Mike laosa, followed by Paul robbins and John corey. Welcome.
>> Good evening, Mayor. Councilmembers. My name is mike laosa, I am here this evening in my capacity representing the Downtown Austin Alliance as its vice-chairman. I would like to thank each and every one of you for the extraordinary amount of time and effort that you have devoted and will surely continue to devote to this issue. But frankly, though, it's a project that demands that amount of focus. When a creative and complex opportunity such as the one you are considering tonight presents itself, the easiest course of action for many folks is to simply step aside, avoid the risk and turn it down. Today you and our City's staff have not done that. Indeed you have stepped up to your leadership roles and have dealt with the issues in a forth right, responsible, responsive and creative margin margin -- manner, all the while keeping our collective eye on the pursue dent and practical as well as long-term implications of the project. The possibilities provided to the downtown area in particular and the Austin and central Texas region in general by this multi faceted project are numerous, among others it's a possibility to provide a huge under pinning for the long-term vitality and health of our central business district while making great use of under performing real estate. The degree of density coupled with a mixed use nature of the project is a strategic com appropriate in the long-term plan for our central business district. Is it a perfect situation? I believe Mayor Watson answered that question best when he said, and I am trying to quote directly from the newspaper, there are no perfect proposals and there are parts of this that you wish you couldn't make more perfect. His grammar, not mine.
>>Mayor Watson: assuming the paper got it right. [Laughter].
>> Thank you. But overall what we are asked to do is what achieves the greatest good that you can chef and this proposal does so much positive for the taxpayers that in my opinion it's something we should go forward with. End of quote. I don't think there's a better answer to that question. Will this project present challenges as we move forward? probably. Anything this complex usually does. As you face those issues, we would urge you to continue displaying to the citizens of Austin the fiduciary responsibility that you have thus far in the project. As situations warrant, we ask that you keep us posted and we invite you to call on us to help where we can and when we can. We strongly encourage you to stay the course and approve this project. Thanks very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you Mr. Laosa. Paul robbins and John corey. And carol hadnot.
>> Is John here?
>>Mayor Watson: John. John corey. John corey?
>> he was going to yield his time to me, I guess that's no longer possible.
>>Mayor Watson: not possible if he's not here.
>> Mayor and Council, I first well start off by saying that this is not a -- this is not a sale. Depending on the figures that you look at, the worst that could happen is that we were -- we are giving away $13 million. The best is that we are giving away $1 million. So I am going to start by doing something that a $7 billion corporation and no one else in this City is going to do, I am going to offer you real money. This is a dollar. This is the first real money that has ever been offered for this land. Now, since this land isn't competitively bid and since I believe in the process, I am offering anybody in the audio audioence to outbid me. This is one dollar. Do I hear $2? 2, do I hear three? okay. We have $3 now. Consider, Council --.
>>Mayor Watson: I hope that's not the better deal that you have been telling me about.
>>Garcia: four.
>>Mayor Watson: Gus just bid four.
>> If you will give me three more minutes, I think that I can get you 50.
>>Mayor Watson: 3 more dollars?
>> competitive bidding is done in Travis County. It is done in most state agencies. It is -- the government -- excuse me, the general land office requires it in its oil leases for state land. The triangle, the biggest land battle to affect Austin in this Council term was competitively bid. Your lawyers say City government is run on different laws. While I am not yet convinced, even if that's true, should we do it?!! I don't think so because it offers too much abuse. Even if you all are doing it for the right reasons, someone can come along after you and do all of the wrong things. And it will be to the detriment of Austin citizens. My last point is that under worst case scenario, this is $6,000 per new employee of subsidy. Now, I have been in Austin 20 years. And I think that I have done a few good things for the City. No one has ever offered me $6,000. There's Jackie Goodman, not too many people know this, but she almost lost her home because she wouldn't quit being an activist. Nobody ever offered her $6,000. Daryl Slusher did lose his home once.
>>Slusher: that was just one night. [Laughter]. [Buzzer sounding].
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much.
>> Could I finish my sentence since I got interrupted.
>>Slusher: oh, yeah.
>> Please. This isn't to put you on the spot, it was quite admireable. According to Daryl he quit being an activist and got into big economic straits. There has to be 500 others who deserve this as much. Yet --.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, that's more than one sentence, but thank you. Carol hadnot, aerial maxwell, Kirk becker.
>> Good evening Mayor and Council Members. I am representing the Austin black contractors association. First I would like to thank.
>>Garcia:'s office for host -- Council Member Garcia's office for hosting a briefing to the minority women business community last Monday. It was very informative, there were a lot of questions and issued we raised, a lot of concerns about the project. Okay. So yeah we agree that it's a good idea. But we have lots of ideas ours that we would like to recommend to be incorporated. Since we are stake holders you want to call us stockholders because we own part of this city land with the investment of our taxes, we want to make sure that this community mirrors -- this project mirrors the diversity of this community. Many questions was raised about have the design teams been selected for the project because we really believe that if the design teams have -- are selected, it kind of sets the tone how the project is going to go down. We would like to make sure that the design teams, I don't know if this is possible on the other two, they have already done their thing, but especially the City on City hall project that the design team mirrors the diversity of this community. And that dsmbr tomorrow morning start putting together a plan on how m.b.e. W.b.e. Participation should look like based on the project specific from the design team to the construction of the project as well as the retail. There are other issues that we were concerned about, we weren't just concerned about ourselves, but we were also concerned about housing and the employment issues and we want to make sure that those of us who can afford it will be able to move downtown some of those projects and walk to some of those restaurants that we will be having in the c.s.c. Proposal. So I will say yeah, the idea is good. We need it. We need to get out of this place and have a nicer place for the Council to have a meeting. So -- that the City employees would have a nice place, a good environment to work. The equity issue, we are very concerned with that. We hear an organization that I won't call their name, they talk about environment economics and equity. They go through the whole process of discussing environment and economics, but they never get to the equity issue. We hope that the equity issue will be incorporated into this c.s.c. Proposal.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you ms. Hadnot.
>>Garcia: ms. Hadnot did you get a copy of the responses to all of the questions --
>> no, I did not get a response. I did get the questions, but I have not received the responses.
>>Garcia: let me give you a copy.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Maxwell, welcome.
>> Thank you, Mayor and Council, I am earl maxwell, I chair the greater Austin chair Chamber of Commerce, we are here on behalf of our board and membership to tell you we continue to strongly support the c.s.c. Project. I incorporate by reference all of the comments that we have made and the letters we have Written since this project was first announced and again thank you as a Council for your leadership and particularly thank your staff for the many presentations that they have done in a most professional and thorough manner. Again we are here to strongly support you and will offer our help in whatever way we can in the future, thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Kirk becker, jennifer gale, marsha elle.
>> Yeah, and I have couple of people giving me their time. Marsha, she's around somewhere, downstairs.
>>Mayor Watson: is marsha here. Marsha elle.
>> She's downstairs.
>>Mayor Watson: I will let you talk.
>> Eric and janet?
>>Mayor Watson: I'm sorry.
>> Eric and janet.
>>Mayor Watson: okay. You will have up to nine minutes if you need it, Mr. Becker.
>> Okay. Let me find the beginning of my notes here. There's dozens of people here saying we want this, we want this, we want this. Look at what this is, 7 buildings half of them parking garages, I haven't heard anybody say this is what we want. We want this, this isn't what we want. It's starting to look like smart growth is an oxymoron. What is smart growth in the context of an office building, office workers, office desks, office cubicles, I guess it's when your desk and cubicle take up more area than your car. I thought smart growth meant saving your employer money on leaving your car at home, by saving your retailer money by leaving your car at home, by saving your restaurant money, by saving yourself money by not needing a car. C.s.c. Is saving money by having the City pay for the parking garbages. The City recoops its costs by doubling parking meter rates, fines, booting derelict autos and supporting the tax base into a family value. What if the families don't want to support the tax base. It will kill off smart growth or at least this kind before it quite pays for itself. Unquote. I have been kind of stumped trying to figure out how the city will collect property taxes off a lease, it's not real clear in the statement of essential terms. What are we going to tax? c.s.c. Can put off construction of its third building for up to 15 years or even indefinitely. Would that affects the amount of taxes collected from c.s.c.? this is getting complicated let's talk about something else like the homeless. The City Council created a homeless task force, then dumped on it the community action network. The community action network came up with this neat goal, environment, economy, equity. The environment deters one project from the sensitive barton creek watershed, though it doesn't save land from development, it contributes to the environment. Economy. That one sure seems to be covered. The 30 years ekt -- the third one is equity, but there isn't an equity component in this project unless we consider free City hall to be an equity project. Maybe it will save office space. Actually City hall isn't that free. Tax dollars saved from other office buildings will be used did pay for the free City hall. What about those ex-tax dollars, maybe they can contribute to an equity component. The City staff has been going around explaining this deal to community groups except the part about collecting property taxes on the lease. It's still not real clear. The market fashion they call these focus groups. The City staff comes back and tells us the tax dollars can fund 40 additional police officers to enforce the camping ordinance. It doesn't sound like equity any more than it sound like smart growth. 10 Years of downtown growth, what has that led to so far? the Convention Center started making a profit except they got an energy rebate. As soon as the convention center started to break even, they told us they had to double its size or it it would go bankrupt plus bid a river walk. Funny thing about downtown development, the cash flow is never positive. The City is going to build a new homeless center. Except the City doesn't have any money for it, so they are going to have to build it on land owned by the salvation army and have to construct the new building using federal fund that could be used for housing. It's not that there's a shortage of housing, it's just cheaper to build a homeless shelter than it is to build houses. One thing after another they cut that back from 250 beds to 100 beds, which probably is why you are going to need another 40 police officers enforcing the encampment ordinance. This is discouraging, let's talk about something else. Let's talk about the tif. Increased taxes don't mean increased City revenues because the increased taxes go to a special fund for pay for landscaping and security. Rising property values don't increase the costs of trees and landscaping, but they increase the cost of security to fend off all of the homeless people who can't afford the increased property costs, what about the surrounding properties? this project is likely to increase their values. We could put a tif on them to pay for the nearby homeless shelter. C.s.c. Will elevate property values, the homeless shelter will restrain property values since families don't feel like they are supporting the tax base every time they venture downtown. I'm not sure it's legal to create a tif for social services, but if incorporated into this deal it would be enforceable as a part of the contract. We talked about issuing debt not backed by property taxes. That's a legal issue there. And I wonder what happens if you just stop paying off on that debt. What happens? are they going to take our land and pay taxes on that? there's a lot of legal issues involved. There's public investment, there's private corporations, which is something we are not supposed to do. I wonder about the City retailer, are we going to be clerking sales taxes on that that indicates it's a private venture. I have looked at those laws, the exceptions all involve a public intercom point. I think it's important to add an equity component in this over the next couple of weeks to support not just homeless but all of the other social services we need and to put them downtown. I think about these people on the east side of downtown don't want the salvation army expanded there. They don't want any homeless, they deserve what they are getting. Somewhere we need a balance. Having a balance to accommodate the lower income people is one thing that's going to keep this too expensive for the middle income family. Finally valerie is not here, she has a tv show on Mondays at 5:30, cable channel 10, a lot of homeless people on discussing this issue, how to survive with digit tee as we get back on our feet, prosper whatever, I wanted to mention that. For along with this 5:30 on Mondays on channel 10, I encourage people to watch it. Thank you. [Applause]
>> jennifer gale.
>> Thank you honorable Mayor. Hi Austin, honorable Mayor Kirk Watson. I live in north Austin, I am an Austin City Council candidate. I am jennifer gale, I am vehemently against this proposal. The deploreable way the poor through incarceration, intimidation, years of lying to those mentally ill, alcoholic, infirm, those routinely discriminated against again without a solution and in the name of imagine progress. Each one of you minus place 3 candidate Jackie Goodman continue to be an after front to the constitution of the United States. And an affront to the good people of Austin. You don't have a solution for the people who can ill afford to be incarcerated. Against the City Council has decided to radically alter the face of Austin. You are taking the City with a small town look and feel and turning our City into a met police densely populated with a large monolithic and lock down City hall totally surrounded for blocks by a computer giant c.s.c.. The lease agreed to for 9 years with a 40 year option, we are talking about a commitment for several generations, for several facilities that willfully surround Austin City hall for blocks, if Austin continues to grow we will rapidly outgrow city hall. Which is to be placed -- on one City block. We haven't even determined how our City hall is supposed to look. Let's take back -- let's take this back to the drawing board. This is not smart growth, but a sunset on how beautiful of a city we have. Honorable City Council, members, honorable Mayor Watson, let's keep Austin special, let's keep Austin caring and unique. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, ms. Gale. Marsha elle. [Applause] marsha elle.
>> She gave me her time.
>>Mayor Watson: she wasn't here at the time so she didn't. That's why I was going to give her a chance to speak. Okay. She signed up against. Brigid shea. Followed by ricky bird, gary farmer.
>> Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thanks for all that you guys have done to -- you guys and girls and your staff have done to really make this possible. I have really nothing but praise for all of the entities that have been involved in this and I really want to applaud c.s.c. In particular for setting a tremendous example for the business community. At the 11th hour they -- I mean they were on the verge of making a decision to go ahead and build on the bluffs of barton creek at the terrace. At the 11th hour they changed course after hearing concerns about why we in particular, I am here representing both s.o.s. And myself as a downtown resident -- why we didn't think it was appropriate to locate there and why this community in particular has for decades now tried to advance a vision of managed growth that began with the downtown -- the Austin tomorrow plan. That said it was not appropriate to locate intense development in the sensitive watersheds to the west and that instead growth should be redirected into the -- I think they called it the prefered growth corridor which was in the middle of the City, north and south. They articulate in that plan that the vision is to bring together people from the east and the west so as to stop economic and racial and other kinds of division within this community they saw forming back several decades back. So I applaud c.s.c. For having I'd say the courage to listen and reexamine its corporate decision and look at other options. Then I really applaud this Council and staff for going over board in trying to work with the company that was seeking to do the right thing, to help us manage our growth in this community so we don't foul our nest and really going above and beyond the call of duty to find various locations to work with the company, to see what might work for them, and I think it's just that you have all set a terrific standard for both companies and future Councils to follow. I especially appreciate what it takes to try and move forward with bold action. I suffered on a Council that wasn't able to do that. So I really appreciate what you all have put into this. You and your staff. So gralgs, I want to say keep it up, good work. Congratulations.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, ricky bird followed by gary farmer and then chris somank. He said he does not have time to speak, but asked me to write he's against. Although I do not have time to speak, I would like to say that I am concerned about the environmental impact this project will bring. If this is bringing 3500 workers downtown I seriously doubt these people will come here via mass transit, bicycle, walking, car pooling, the traffic and pollution this would add should be of u.t. Most concern. Scott Johnson? is scott Johnson here? scott Johnson? are you Mr. Johnson? okay. Mr. Bird, please go ahead.
>> Mayor, City Council, I see we are about to jump into the c.s.c.. I still have numeralrous questions about it. I wanted to list them just briefly, hopefully they will be dealt with. I have the feeling that this is kind of like the president -- the developments in kosovo, we bomb, we bomb, yet everything seems shrouded in a fog, has the impending tone of tragedy to it. The first thing that I have is I don't understand how it is that you can create a single jurisdictional tif for maintenance and upkeep or if I am reading this right, a tif, tax incremental financed redevelopment zone, I hope that's the right translation, turn around with the same item create a multi jurisdictional tif for added public I am pufmts in and around the project. -- Improvements in and around the project. How do you have a single and multi tif at the same time for the same project. There is the issue of public land. We are trading public land to a private corporation for its use, we are getting relatively little public space, relatively little public use. Certainly the economics to finance the thing is there, but again this is public land, it's supposed to be for public use. At least that's my understanding of it. There's a question of how the am beence of downtown Austin is going to be affected on this. Ambience. Will we have another set of generic national chains moving in around this imagegic solution or are we going to have somewhat of a hometown business approach as most of the businesses that have revived downtown on their own have managed to do? how will the rents be affected? how will the traffic of 3500 people be handled? I see we are going to do -- tip, I believe it's called, but I don't see how we are going to handle 3500 people most of whom are going to drive their cars in and out of downtown. That's going to affect the traffic patterns. Will c.s.c. Super heat the property values, how will that affect businesses like la zona rosa, waterloo brewing, et cetera? the homeless, the day laborers, well, that's kind of fallen off the radar on this project. If you don't believe it, pick up your chronicle this week, safety first, are the homeless targeted in the name of crime prevention? don't fence me in, the City wants day laborers off the streets, those are the lead articles in their politics section. Finally I noticed something that arosed my curiosity, we are going to build a facility for central heat and air conditioning for the entire project, am I reading that right? I have never heard of [buzzer sounding] such a thing before.
>> Central plant. Central heating and cooling district. Something that the Council had directed us to study about three years ago. Mayor Pro Tem Goodman was the sponsor of that and this is something we hope to bring to fruition with this project.
>> That's one more [inaudible].
>> Thank you.
>>Goodman: scott.
>> Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members. I am here to speak this evening about the c.s.c. Project. Generally in favor of it. However, I see it as an opportunity because the City won't have that many opportunities to develop land in a partnership with a private company and develop it in a way that offers opportunity to provide more in the interest of social equity, social services. I believe that the City should also try to -- always try to lead by example. Here I believe if they are going to consolidate City buildings and in effect have several hundred City employees in one building, they should look at the opportunity to provide on-site child care. Or if they can't afford it themselves to partner with c.s.c. And other companies in the area to provide that service. With this development, the land values will obviously rise in the central City in that area in particular, there will be a ripple effect in that part of downtown. When that happens, smaller businesses will tend to have to flee that area. I believe that this is a benefit that the City could offer their own employees, c.s.c. Could offer theirs. This would be more attractive for people to want to live downtown as well. I would call it sort of an equity node that you look to place equity within the City that's within a reasonable amount of walking distance for people or reasonable am of driving distance. Right now there is no child care within the downtown area central business district. Certainly affordability in child care is a major issue that has been identified by the community action network. They are working on that with the help of Jackie Goodman and others. I would like to emphasize if we are going to gain substantial revenues from c.s.c. For this particular project that we should look to do our best to provide with the incentives for some of these social services that we are starting to not be able to provide as a community as well as we would like to. I encourage you to look at other opportunities as well to share resources with c.s.c., neighboring businesses, as well as the community I think will be much better off for it. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Was gary farmer --
>> I want to say thanks to all of you for your leadership and express support.
>>Goodman: thank you. Mary margaret qylander and following is valerie young I think had to just leave, right? and Bill bunch.
>> I am very much in favor of this c.s.c. Project with the city. The revitalization of downtown is way overdo in my opinion. However the citizens of Austin could be and probably will be taking on major responsibilities for this package. With all due respect to the momentum of this project, I sincerely hope this Council has negotiated the contract to its full possible extent. 99 Years is a very long time. Thank you.
>>Goodman: thank you very much. I will call valerie young again.
>> She had to leave.
>>Goodman: she did leave. Okay. She is for. And said help people help themselves as well. Our last speaker is Bill bunch. He's not our last speaker. David dominguez. Bill bunch was here.
>>Lewis: I believe he's outside.
>> He said he didn't want to speak.
>> Are you -- I am going to help translate. I am -- he's going to speak and then I am going to give the meat of the plate of exactly what he is saying there. [Speaking in spanish].
>> He's addressing this not only to Gus but the whole City Council Members. His concern about -- he's not for or against, but he wants to move into a -- move forward in this direction on the move. To help for what's best for the laborers, his friends. And so he's wanting to move forward for betterment for the day labor people. [Speaking in spanish].
>> He's hoping that the move is in a place that would be best for the day labor workers, something that would benefit, that would be more feasible, that would make more sense for the people at the day labor corner. [Speaking in spanish].
>> He would like for this move to not only benefit him, but for the next generations to come. You know? for the day laborer families and other day laborers.
>> Thank you very much.
>>Garcia: I am going to say a few words in spanish to my friends that are here. That may not speak english. [Speaking in spanish] [applause]
>>Goodman: okay, we have one more person who apparently had to go down the hall just at the wrong time. So I will call chuck mcmullen.
>> Thank you. I'm not against the c.s.c. Proposal, but I have some problems with the mechanics of it. Years ago I had a lady friend that was an heir to the land that the woolsworth headquarters sat on in new york City. I said my goodness I bet you are wealthy. She said no. She said my ancestors negotiated a lease with wool woolworth around the turn of the century for 99 years but they failed to escalate the lease and she said so now adays I get -- I think the original lease amount was $5,000 a year. And of course that was nothing after you have 100 heirs and so forth. Second get a hamburger around maybe have french fries once a year with that lease money. I think one of my primary concerns is that we haven't escalated the value of the lease. I have some rent property, I wouldn't even think about even a 10 year lease without escalating the value of the lease. And another question that I have is why is it 99 years instead of say 40 years? I don't think the buildings will still be functional and operable in 99 years. So why not a 40 years lease? those are my major concerns and I appreciate you letting me share those with you. Thank you.
>>Goodman: thank you very much.
>>Garza: Mayor Pro Tem, there were some representatives of c.s.c. That wanted to make brief remarks after all of the speakers had spoken.
>>Goodman: right that was my intention. Thank you for waiting.
>> Thank you very much. I am tom madison, I am the senior executive responsible for c.s.c.'s operations here in Austin. I'm also a corporate officer of the company and have worldwide responsibility for our financial services business. I wanted to take this opportunity on behalf of all of the c.s.c. Team members who have been working on this project to first of all tell you how impressed we are with the process that you followed, the thoroughness of it, we have already started the benefit -- to benefit frankly from the partnership with the city and Council in this respect in some interesting ways. One of the things we picked up very early attending the meetings is the creativity of the time box, the alarm limiting people's time to speak. We started using that in management meetings now, our productivity has gone up tremendously as a result of. If I can get the board of directors to buy into that, it will make my life a whole lot easier. We are already seeing the results of the partnership pay off, I want to approximate be sure and take this opportunity to thank you for that opportunity. I also feel compelled to say that this is a pretty extraordinary event for our company in terms of opportunity for several reasons. One in particular is that our company like many organizations in our type of business today as we expand and grow do that in a suburban way. It's often the easiest path to for. In this case I can't tell you how proud I am personally, how proud our management team is and how proud our employees feel to have the opportunity to be considered to do something different, frankly. By recommitting to a City. I think one of the interesting things about this process, any time you relocation or consider relocationing is you might expect when you announce that to your employee base, no matter what point on the compass you pick, north, south, east, west, at least three out of the four have an opinion about to offer about that. One of the really neat things about the options of this is we are right dead center in the middle of the City with this proposition. The feedback that I am getting from our people is overwhelming positive about this. Not just in terms of the proximate community, of course, to their homes, but the -- proximity to their homes, but the part they feel in being part of the revitalizing of Austin. We are very pleased to have you consider that. I want to just close by telling you we are very excited about the prospect of getting on with this. It has been an extended period of time, I know that has been time well invested. We are very optimistic that we will have the opportunity to begin this project very soon and we are enthusiastically looking forward to it. Thank you very much.
>>Garcia: Mayor Pro Tem, let me say, ms. Chairman, that -- let me say, Mr. Chairman, you notice that the Council does not have the lights in front of us here. [Laughter] we are the board of directors. So my recommendation is that you may not -- [laughter].
>> As you might expect I have gotten a similar reaction to the proposal.
>>Garza: if you accomplish it, tell me how you did it. [Laughter].
>> I will take that offline.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much for being here, anybody else have any questions of Mr. Madison at this time?
>>Lewis: I would like to make sure you sent us our royalties since you made a copy of it.
>> Okay. Be happy to do that, thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: ms. Frutell there were a couple of questions that came up. I would like to see if we can get those answered before we close the public hearing. One of the questions was most reaply asked, I am not going in any particular order here, but one of the questions involved the concept of the tax increment financing district. And there was a question raised about the one place it talks about a single jurisdictional tif, another place it talks about a multi jurisdictional tif. The question is how can you do both single and multi tif.
>> You might explain the purpose of that, what would happen you if you didn't have the tif.
>> Part of it would help to look at the boundaries, but for a single jurisdiction tif, what we are talking about is not requiring participation in the incremental tax improvements within the boundary of the tif from any of our other taxing jurisdictions, either county or school district, it is simply the City of Austin. It is a very limited and neuroboundary. Meant to be blocks two, three, four 21. We are talking about a 10 year tif, $100,000 a year. The purpose of the tif is to care for the public infrastructure on these four blocks. The center block being the new city hall and public plaza. The fif would be drawn from the same funding source we would have to pull from in these same blocks. The single jurisdiction tif is a way to show our commitment to a dedicated funding source and the starchd of care for the public infrastructure on these blocks. The multi jurisdiction tif is our best effort to create a multi jurisdiction tif. It would have a much larger boundary, extending through to the seaholm power plant which would help us down the road with a possible funding source even for the seaholm reuse. That will not occur if we do not have a partner. We will be looking with our other taxing jurisdictions for a partner that will leverage our dollars in sort of the gateway to
>> can I can a question? does the t.I.f. Stay in effect for 10 years?
>> I believe tonight you have your first action item that will get started from the process. The moment the t.I.f. Is created, then you have a 10 year window. The t.I.f. Without the other jurisdictions participating and be able to waive some of those requirements can happen on a pretty fast track. Somewhere about three to four months we think we can have it in place.
>>Garcia: but the added value in the early years will produce very little additional income, so if this is going to be tax increment financing, can they Bruce $100,000 revenue in the early years?
>> we won't need the money the revenue off of the t.I.f. Until the first phase of the construction is complete, which will be about 36 months out. At which point we will be capturing an incremental part of the property tax off of those improvements.
>>Garcia: that's when the 10 year period begins?
>> yes.
>>Slusher: Mayor?
>>Mayor Watson: yes Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: ms. Futrell back several years ago there was a proposal for a t.I.f. That covered all of downtown, up to u.t., across the river, into east and west Austin. Obviously this one is considerably smaller than that. There was also talk at that time of a $10 million initial investment in that t.I.f.. Now, this one doesn't require any initial investment, correct?
>> ifs that's exactly right. It does not even -- we need to define the boundaries, define the increment we are talking about dedicating. It may be that you only dedicate a certain portion of the incremental improvement, but it's simply a way to find a funding source that will help us with the publicism improvements in an area of town we are going to put substantial interest and time into end straighting.
>>Slusher: it is a portion. Not the -- into renovating.
>>Slusher: it is a portion, not 1/8th.
>> Actually you can take any portion in a t.I.f. And you will define that as we go through the process.
>>Slusher: okay.
>>Mayor Watson: another question that came up was with regard to design teams, particularly with regard to city hall. Would you talk about where we are in terms of the design and one of the questions that I have heard -- it wasn't asked here tonight, but since we are going to be talking about design, but would you address the issue of what we are going to be doing with the design of the area and not just the buildings that the City -- like the City hall, but the other buildings.
>> Let me start with the bigger picture first. Off of these seven blocks, there is the potential to have four different architectural firms employed. What we wanted to make sure of is that this worked together and blended and was compatible, but that it also had a very distinct and unique nature through each of the specific projects on these seven blocks. We have planned to be working very closely with the design commission. We are using the -- they are currently draft design guidelines as a foundation for our design standards. And we are going to be putting together a design team that will be made up of the different -- from each of the different projects. We hope to have the Austin museum of arts participate, woolly project, amli-woolly project, c.s.c. Project, design commission with a representation. We just recently hired an urban planner in our planning and environmental conservation services department that will serve on this team to help coordinate, design, connect all of the opening green space on these blocks, ultimately we are goodbye to be going out and select an design team for the City hall for block 3. I am assuming at that point where there's going to be a lot of public input into the actual design of the City hall and plaza. The goal is to make sure we are all working together, create some form and sense of standards, but we preserve the unique characters of each of these different projects. I think it's important that we have a diversity of all forms on that team and we will be striving to make sure that occurs. [One moment please]
>> csc has a very, very strong track record of how they handle both minority participation and other labor issues. Last year annually to small and disadvantaged businesses I think they paid in excess of 625 million dollars of the subcontracting and supply work. They do a lot of government work. They just recently landed the I.r.s. Contract. They are used to working in the kind of environment where these type of expectations are in place. They have policies in their company that follow these guidelines, so they will be using and have committed to use our goals as guidelines for how they move forward. They've committed to using an open competitive nondiscriminatory process. They've agreed to work with our small and minority business resource office and to work off of our certified vendors list as a way to maximize participation. So I think you're going to see a very strong commitment from them in doing what they can to make it an open and participatory process and of course once again on the 58 million dollars that will be either reimbursed by or constructed by the City as part of this, we will be in full compliance with our m.b.e. Ordinances.
>>Garcia: Mayor, let me ask on that issue, have they said -- I think they said they're going to comply with our ordinance or use it as guidelines?
>> they're going to use it as a guideline. They're going to work within the goals and parameters of our ordinance wherever possible. They're going to work on our small and minority business office. They're going to work with our certified business list. They've agreed to come and participate with some of our meetings with the minority contractors so we can share information, make sure everybody has a chance to move forward. The -- of all of these different entities, amli, csc, they have all reached a similar agreement in their different agreements with the city that they will use our goals as guidelines and they will try to maximize whenever possible the miernlt and women participation on their projects.
>>Garcia: I don't know what that means as guidelines because we -- we have not used that terminology in the enforcement of our ordinances.
>> None of the three different projects, neither the agreement that we had worked through with amli woolly or for that matter post or with the understanding with the art museum forces compliance with the City's m.b.e. Ordinance. But in all cases it mentions it, it structures it and lays it out as a framework for them to try to follow and they've agreed to cooperate and work with us in trying to maximize the participation. None of the different entities have in the agreements that they are under an obligation to meet and follow our exact ordinance. Csc on its own has a policy that's been very successful and they will be following their corporate policy, which is to maximize participation and diversity in their contracting and they're going to work locally with us to make sure that local labor, our certified vendors list and our goals are used to help frame the contracting work that they do.
>>Garcia: that's just not the way I understood it when we met. I thought that they were going to, you know, comply with our ordinances. That's the understanding that I had when I met with them.
>> No, sir. They do not have an obligation in this contract as I might add, neither did post or amli as part of their contracts. I can read you the exact term that's in the essential terms.
>> It says csc agrees to to an open, non-discram in atory process to select contractors and consultants and disadvantaged business ordinance tond to work with city office of small and minority business resources to identify qualified minority and women owned firms. And that's the language that's consistent with the language we used in other -- the other agreements that toby mentioned or ms. Futrell mentioned a few minutes ago.
>>Garcia: that is different than guidelines. If they say it's going to be consistent with, that means one thing to me.
>> The wording is consistent with the --.
>>Garcia: that means something totally different to me.
>> I can see you making the distinction. The exact language that Jesus read, the City Manager read, is what we have in the contract.
>>Garcia: that's what I understood.
>>Mayor Watson: another issue that's come up and I want to make sure that we're clear on is the issue of wages. There was an issue that was brought up with regard to payment of prevailing wages. And I want to make sure I'm clear and everybody else is clear. On projects that the City of Austin is involved in -- and I think the number you used was the 58 million dollars.
>> Yes.
>>Mayor Watson: in those instances that would require the payment of prevailing wages.
>> Yes.
>>Mayor Watson: in other instances csc would be able to utilize a low bid process; is that correct.
>> That's exactly right. They operate much the same way we do and they go out on competitive bid, but they are and have in their own policy statements consciousness of looking for the type of subcontractors and general contractors that take care of their workforce and are viable employers.
>>Mayor Watson: are there any other questions for ms. Futrell at this time? Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: explain to me what the differences would be that apply -- the wage laws that apply to the City versus what csc would be under.
>> I don't think you're going to find substantially a difference. I don't know if there is some fine point. I'm not a labor attorney. And one reason I don't think we're going to have a problem here is our market is obviously so hot right now, wages in the construction field are substantial. But they're going to meet all federal guidelines for wages and we certainly do on our projects.
>>Slusher: well, but --.
>> I might be missing, so help me understand.
>>Slusher: the City will be paying the prevailing wage on their projects, but I'm understanding -- I think what you're saying is that csc will not have to.
>> Well, I tell you what. Let me be absolutely sure so I don't try to speak for them, but I don't believe it is contemplated to pay anything less than prevailing wages.
>>Mayor Watson: they would be paid market.
>> They would be paying market wages. And nathan, can you help me out here?
>> the prevailing wages simply establishes a minimum. It's not the federal wages. It's established based on what is currently being paid in the surrounding area. It establishes a minimum and generally through competition the contractors will pay more than the minimum prevailing wage. So I'm assuming the same competition and minimum standards will be met by csc.
>>Mayor Watson: any other questions? all right, I'll entertain a motion -- before we do that, we have a number of people that have signed up on behalf of the Austin museum of art. In fact, I think they told me it was something like 42 people. They were not speaking, but they asked that this be shown as basically a petition in favor of the csc proposal. I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing on item number 17.
>>Goodman: Mayor? I'll move that, but there is one more comment that I want to make.
>>Mayor Watson: the motion has been made to close the public hearing. Is there a second? seconded by Council Member Garcia. Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: of all the issues that were raised tonight, virtually all have been talked about with csc and of course speaking of legal issues, lawyers have been right with us every step of the way for every conceivable, possible future happening. So I feel fairly confident that we have crossed all our t's and dotted all our I's, the one thing we didn't get into detail with csc on may be a relatively small one of child care, but I do want to invite them or whoever you might choose to send to a task force, a child care task force because the other thing we need downtown with all of the mixed use are places for children to be. And right now we don't have such things. We had only one that had to go out of business because the property owner had to expand, so that was that. There are going to be children downtown if beer going to have families and -- we're going to have families and workplaces downtown. So I invite csc to choose someone to be a part of the child care task force which is going to be a down and dirty four-month long with implementation ideas at the end of it effort to find a way for us to do that. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. The motion has been made and seconded to close the public hearing. Is there any further discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye.. Opposed say no. The motion carries and the public hearing is closed. That will take us to item number -- what I'm going to do, Council, is instead of going correct directly to item 19, which is the tax increment financing item, let's go to item 20 and we'll go back to item 19. I will entertain a motion with regard to item number 20 had. Yes, Council Member Spelman. The motion is to approve item number 20. Is there a second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. I'm assuming that is approval on all three readingsings? the motion has been made. Is that our second? the motion has been made and second todd approve on all three readings. Discussion? Council Member Garcia?
>>Griffith: thank you. There were a -- Council Member Griffith?
>>Griffith: thank you. There were a couple of issues I've been addressing and I've been working to protect the general fund and working with colleagues and staff and I would like to propose two changes two modifications. There seem to be an open-ended exposure to the general fund for traffic mitigation and I hope we can agree to make a couple of changes in the language on page 4, line 8. Essential terms could be modified to say the traffic impact analysis will include a study of those off site measures --.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Griffith, just real quickly, for people's reference, it's 2.3.5 and then the aiteds line down. There's a sentence that ends on that line and a sentence that begins and that's the beginning of that sentence. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
>>Griffith: that's okay. Thank you, Mayor. The traffic impact analysis will include a study of those off site measures and the City will make its best efforts to provide for the smooth transitioning of traffic to and from the parking facilities for blocks 2, 3, 4 and 21. The cost of any reasonable off site measures to provide for such transitioning will be borne by the City.
>>Mayor Watson: -- let me come at it this way. The proposed amendment is at 2.3.5 just as Council Member Griffith read it beginning with the -- a the eighth line with the words the traffic impact. Let me ask Council Member Spelman, do you consider that to be a friendly amendment? Mayor Pro Tem, do you consider that friendly? all right. That will be considered a friendly amendment. It will be an amendment to the main motion. Councilmember Slusher?
>>Slusher: do you have a copy of it so I can look at it?
>>Griffith: certainly.
>>Lewis: here's yours, bill.
>>Griffith: got enough?
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Griffith, I'll recognize you for another proposed amendment.
>>Griffith: all right. There was another area that I felt needed revisiting and some modification, and that was the area of retail. There have been some citizens who were concerned about the city of Austin being a big retailer downtown or anyplace else. And this amendment would not -- would not take that out of the realm of possibility because if there are problems down the road, the City could still end up being in the retail business, but this would be -- that would state the intent of Council.
>>Mayor Watson: if I might interrupt you. You're talking under 2.3.6 adding a sentence at the end of that paragraph?
>>Griffith: that would work. Council directs the City manager to negotiate and execute agreements whereby a third party would finance, construct and operate the retail component of the project subject to the reasonable consent of csc.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Spelman, do you consider that a friendly amendment?
>>Spelman: yes.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem? that will be considered a friendly amendment and be grafted upon the main motion. Are there any other proposed amendments to the main motion? we'll go to discussion on the main motion. Councilmember Garcia?
>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. I have a question on the last amendment. And that pertains to what kind of control would the City have over the quality of the leases that are going to be -- or the actual construction of the finishout on the commercial -- on the retail property.
>>Mayor Watson: correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe what the intent is to do is when it says that the City Manager will negotiate the agreements with the third party regarding operation of the retail component, the financing and construction and operation, part of that negotiation would be to put us in a position where we will have some quality assurance and some say in that regard.
>>Garcia: okay. So long as that's understood?
>>Mayor Watson: is that your intent, Council Member?
>>Griffith: yes. The intent is simply to the greatest extent possible remove the City from being the retailer in the --. In the terms there are provisions for quality assurance and that quality assurance would still be a pip between partnership between csc and the City. That responsibility is still a shared one.
>>Mayor Watson: and for clarity purposes, what this would do is reduce risk on the front end because if a third party was available to do that, then the third party would be the one providing the financing and doing that aspect of it. There are a couple of other possibilities, of course. One is that we cannot find a third party, although based upon previous testimony we've heard down here at two previous hearings, I don't anticipate that's going to be real difficult, but the second part of that is -- but let's assume that that happened, we weren't able to find a third party. Then the City would be back in that position. Another possibility is that we find a third party, a contract is executed but for one reason or another, that third party runs into financial problems. Under such a scenario, the city of Austin obviously would be quite interested in the way the retail worked as would be csc and we'd all kind of be in that together at that point and we would be back, as Council Member Griffith I think said it well, back in the retail business if that were to occur, but her goal is to reduce the risk on the front end here and this amendment seems to address that. Councilmember Garcia?
>> in the financial --.
>>Garcia: gar in the financial model the retail construction both shell and the ground lease itself amended to 8.2 million dollars. Is that correct, ms. Futrell?
>> yes. The shell construction is 5.8 million and the lease back was 2.4.
>>Garcia: and the retail revenue and the cash flow to satisfy the requirements of the debt service was --.
>> One million annually.
>>Garcia: so does the removal of both of these two items both from the requirements and from the sources do anything to disrupt the equation?
>> no, it doesn't. Let me go ahead and give you that exactly. We ran the scenario to make sure of what the -- it would look like if you were to remove both the expenses as well as the revenue side. And if I can pull it up here, it is basically a wash for the city. By giving up the expenses on the front end -- and I'm having trouble. Here it is. What you end up here with when you take out the retail is 48.3 million in requirements. The amount that you have to finance is 21.5. The debt service on the 21.5 is 1.81. And your total annual service -- sources of funds are 1.84. So you -- once again you're in the black. It's pretty much a wash. You have a remaining balance, but not a lot, and you have reduced the risk. Of put of putting in the retail on the front end.
>>Garcia: so the balance would be 0.05.
>> Yes.
>>Garcia: gar so it cuts it in half.
>> Yes. That's about it.
>>Mayor Watson: any other discussion? Mayor Pro Tem, then Council Member Slusher.
>>Goodman: not about any amendments or features of this, however.
>>Mayor Watson: all right.
>>Goodman: I'll defer because --.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: ms. Futrell, I'd like to go over the finances just a little bit one more time. I've heard some people around the City have said that we're giving away the City land, and I understand that's not the case.
>> That is not the case.
>>Slusher: would you explain both the price we're getting for the land on which csc is going to locate and the due diligence that was done to determine that price?
>> there's been a lot of speculation on what the value of these blocks are. I think sometimes some of the disconnect is that people are looking forward to what could be as opposed to what is or what has happened. We have conducted now two separate independent outside appraisals on the property. The amount of money that we are getting, the lump sum present value or in annual payments with escalators is more than either of those appraised amounts. What we are actually getting is a blended rate of about 52.50 per square foot. 55 Dollars on the waterfront blocks and about 50 on the back block. Just as a marker, the covert property, which is right in this area right in the seven blocks we are talking about sold just a few months ago for 41.6 per square foot. So I think we have a very good proposal in the 11.9 million lump sum or in the payments with a 10 percent a year ex-ka later on the -- escalator on the lease value of the property.
>>Slusher: and when will be able to release those appraisals?
>> as soon as your contract is let we can release them.
>>Slusher: okay. And the City is putting money into parking that csc will use and the City?
>> yes.
>>Slusher: it will be available for our citizens non-work hours; is that correct?
>> that's exactly right. There's one floor of underground parking in this proposal under block three that will have daytime use -- constructed by the City that will have daytime use by csc but night and weekend use by the City either for large public hearings owe a Council night or -- which we can all look forward to or for retail. Or for that matter for the warehouse district, for the children museum, for the Austin museum of art, for all the different uses that are down there on these seven blocks.
>>Slusher: okay. Another concern I've heard is that folks now use the surface parking on the state lot between the hobby building and the parking garage to the west by the music hall. Now, that's not going to be available for parking any more, so are we going to have more or less parking places available for that sort of use after this?
>> more than four times the amount of parking will be available after this proposal than from that surface lot for the public. And the surface lot that's being referenced would be the surface lot if we were successful in purchasing from the state the original art museum site.
>>Slusher: and Mr. Pratt and ms. Ward announced the liberty lunch proposal earlier this evening. I think you were back still working on details of this. But that is a loan to liberty lunch and -- a low interest loan of two percent; is that correct?
>> it's actually two and a half percent. The loan will be a 600,000 dollar loan taken from the cash flows of this project for 20 years at two and a half percent interest. The payments go back into the cash flows of this project. And there are some small things on the side as part of the proposal, a fee waiver that has a value, an electric line relocation, and we have agreed to initiate a zoning case change so that the zoning on this block will be consistent. And I think we have a deal. I think we're going to end up with liberty lunch and a larger venue as one bock end and stubs, which is an existing and popular thriving venue on the other end and in the City you're going to have a fairly large concert open veen new, patio, concert venue venue.
>>Slusher: and tell me how we're going to deal with the traffic here. Because I realize that by getting this many folks downtown, having two apartment complexes built downtown as part of the overall package that we're going to have people living right near where they work, but of course he, they won't be true for all of them, so tell me about the traffic.
>> Well, there are a number of things that we worked with on the traffic and I'll try to summarize and go through, but right now as we talked about before, you know we have plenty of capacity on our roads down dounted. For those of you who work downtown, like I dorx you can move around easily. The roads have a lot of extra capacity. It's your intersections at peak hush hour that fail. And during rush hour the traffic backs up, so probably the single most important thing we can do in terms of traffic demand management is to keep a concentrated load of employees from hitting these intersections during rush hour, so staggered work hours, flex time, telecommuting, all of these are going to be things that csc uses and that the city has made a commitment to start uses with their some 950 employees downtown. In addition to that we already have alternating one way capacity roads. We have 60 million dollars in the recently passed bond election that's going to go toward the sin kron eyes sin kron eyessation process and lights. We're working with capital metro on vans that can take groups of employees straight to their headquarters and drop them off. Light rail is proposed along fourth street. If that proves to be a successful referendum. All of these blocks anticipate bike racks, wide sidewalks. There are some 1300 residential units going up now or permitted to go up. Over 900 of them are within eight blocks of this project. So there are just a number of measures that will be out there to manage the demand, to help with the traffic flow and we're going to try our hand at all of them to see what we can do to make it as invisible as possible.
>>Slusher: okay. And as part of this -- and this is going to be my last question. I was thinking of another one -- unless I think of another one during our answer. And during this process you've met with a lot of other business people existing business people in downtown and this is one of my concerns is if this project causes values to escalate and the cost goes beyond the means of some of our local long existing businesses, but what kind of feedback have you been getting from those folks?
>> it's a thorny issue you raise. It's not just related to retail. It sounds kind of funny to say, but it's the genderentication of downtown. We're going to struggle with that as we grow. I don't know that I have -- I have an answer to it. You hear a lot of discussion about it. I think in some ways the retail that you have on these blocks has a wide range of rates built in. Some on a very low end for downtown rental rates, as low as 15 and 16 dollars a square foot. And in other ways by putting -- and almost a supply and demand argument. In putting this additional retail on the streets, you may have actually opened up opportunities for local or smaller groups to come in. So I'm hoping that this project can serve as a model for not just being shiny and glossy and high end, but will reflect the flavor of Austin and in terms of the general issue downtown, I think we need to be very careful and watch it project by project. Property values can and will go up as downtown builds out. And it's just going to be an issue we're going to have to work on.
>>Slusher: I'll yield, but I might want to say more about that later.
>>Mayor Watson: other discussion? Council Member Griffith?
>>Griffith: yes. Could we speak to someone from the csc organization to confirm that these changes are going to be -- that's who I was hoping we'd get to talk to. Hello.
>> I wanted to say we confirm or we agree with the changes, the amendments that you proposed tonight to the language. We have no problem with them.
>>Griffith: good. I wanted to tell you, first of all, how much I enjoyed my tour of the operation and how much I have enjoyed meeting with your executives and you and appreciate the long hours and the hard work and congratulate you on this agreement. And I hope these two changes will meet with your approval.
>> Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Any further discussion? Council Member Lewis?
>>Lewis: yes, thank you, Mayor. I have -- since I've sat here during three public hearings and listened to other people talk about the value and the value added that this project is appearing to create in the downtown area, I'm encouraged by the economic benefit of the csc project and what it could provide for downtown as well as for the rest of the City. For a number of years we've had a lack of development in the downtown area and we've missed out on a lot of tax dollars which the central business district should provide to a City. And time and time again the experts have said meaningfully that downtown requires public investment that result in a massive positive response by the private sector. And from what I've heard and what I understand, the csc meets this test. During the major part of the century, in other words, the city has purposely carried out policies that harm neighborhoods with ethnic minorities. Over the past couple of decades, however, we have made efforts to address some of the open pretion that have been -- oppressio. N, but it's been too dependent on federal loans and federal grants as opposed to local generated resources which this project attempts to do. We need to change the trend. Many of our present -- many of you present tonight, including the great Austin chamber of commerce. Some of them are gone now, but that was here have endorsed the wide focus on so-called three e's, economics, environment and equity. We've heard about the economics and the environment, but the community has not focused nearly enough on equity. And I'd like to try to change that. Over the past few weeks I've been working on a set of initiatives focused on improve ing houses, workforce training and infrastructure for underdeserved neighborhoods and I'm calling it an Austin equity campaign. The major proposal in the kmain is to attempt to accomplish the goals of similar -- that's similar to the project that we're discussing tonight, public investment that results in major private development. So tonight I'm asking all of the supporters of this downtown project to work with us and -- to work with me and the rest of the Council to focus more on the equity. We need the same level of passion from the chamber and other people of -- that have supported this project to build an investment in underdeserved areas of the city. I've found in the last two years that we can encourage positive growth anywhere in the City if we have the will. If anyone is interested in learning more about the equity campaign, you can call my office and I'm going to put my aide on the spot, dwight burns. I'm sure if he can't find me, he'll be able to be more than able to take care of you. However, I -- for some reason, and it's nothing against you, Mayor, but I know you've spent a lot of time on this since the first announcement. I'm encouraged by the csc agreement and -- but moreover I'm encouraged more about the agreement to work with our small and minority business offices to identify opportunities during construction for the minority and women owned businesses. I also understand that the corporation is open to a proposal that will increase the opportunities for minority college students to participate in a professional internship which could lead on permanent and well paying jobs after graduation. However, while I support the goal and objectives of this initiative, we need to remember other areas in the city have been neglected much longer than the 30 years that we're speaking of that this -- that these seven blocks have been. I just want to say that it's been some tense moments in this project. I've had a lot of questions asked, you know, this is going to revitalize the downtown area, how is it going to affect the other areas? one of my first questions was, as Council Member Slusher stated, was the traffic. But I'm not one to disagree on a project just -- if I don't have an answer or a solution for it. I'm hoping in the near future that we can get light rail downtown so that we can decrease some of the traffic on the streets and -- but that's in the future. So with that, I'll yield to the other Council Members.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Griffith?
>>Griffith: yes, thank you, Mayor. I'd like to acknowledge the almost super human effort that the City staff has put out for the last several months on bringing this agreement to the point where it is tonight. And what gives me a great deal of comfort about the prospect of the third party for the retail is that I have the commitment that the same intensity will be focused on finding that group and securing a beneficial arrangement. Also, I'd like to join the Mayor Pro Tem in expressing a serious interest in a child care component being found that would be accessible and affordable and I'd like to offer my help to her in working towards that goal.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Garcia?
>>Garcia: thank you, very much. With Council Member Lewis's initiative, I think that is one issue that can be addressed here in this particular initiative, at least to get it off the ground. We've talked a lot about sustain ability and sustain ability includes social equity. This is one way to begin the process. I just wanted to go down the financial model because some questions were raised during the time that we were receiving public testimony and I wanted to summarize what it is that we're getting and what it is that we're giving up. The package has a new City hall with a plaza and underground parking and that's about 31 million dollars. We also are providing a new infrastructure in this area and we're putting it in the form of incentives for the fee waiver, frublgt incentives. We're going to demolish some buildings that we should have demolished a long time ago.
>> Amen.
>>Garcia: I wish that we could take a picture right before we demolish and one after we got through so people can see the difference between what we have here. It's really an embarrassment for the City to have this kind of a City hall considering that we're one of the premiere cities or so we think one of the premiere cities in this country. We're going to relocate the liberty lunch and finance it through this model. We're going to relocate the day labor camp and we're going to finance that one through, I suspect, the budget of the health and human services, correct?
>> that would be my expectation at this point too.
>>Garcia: correct, City manager?
>> yes, sir.
>>Garcia: and we're going to relocate the resource sister for the homeless also -- center for the homeless under financing options that we have. We're going to lease three blocks -- actually for all practical intent and purposes, sell them, because nine year leases are like sales. We're going to sell our municipal building at eighth and Colorado. We're also going to provide some incentives to get the museum of art here and to place it across the street from republic square where I think it would add great value to the beauty of this City. We're going to subsidize by way of reduced ground leases some downtown housing. And that negotiation has been done very well. I think that the numbers attest to that and I'm glad that in the rental rates we have some rates that are affordable. We're also going to provide under the -- Council Member Griffith's amendment the opportunity for the private sector to come in and do the retail in the new development. And we're going to do all this with only about 22 million dollars in financing. Now, some people may say, well, you're doing this without voter approval. Well, that is correct, we're doing this without voter approval, but the financing model that we have shows that the annual debt service is obtained from the operations of this particular transaction once it's carried out. Whether it be an avoided rent expense or parking or in retail or in ground leases or in other minor sources. So the financing package, though a little bit too tight for my, you know, liking, it's still makes sense. And this financing package does not take into consideration the property taxes that would be generated not just for the City of Austin, or more importantly for the Austin independent school district, Austin community college and travis county. So it is a step in the right direction. I for one have longed for a day when we could see a new city hall in this City, one that we could bring people from other parts of the world and point to the building and say that's our City hall and not be embarrassed. And I think the location of this particular building facing beautiful Town Lake and the design that I anticipate will be forthcoming will be one that doesn't have the City hall dwarveed by everything around it, but that -- and if some architects are listening out there, by the very design of the plaza and the City hall that this building actually stands out and is consistent with the quality that's around the City. The idea --.
>>Mayor Watson: just like other things, we're going to have as many designs as we have architects in the City coming down here.
>>Garcia: some people have said that there's too many buildings around City hall. That does not bother me. Portland has hi-rises all around on both sides and across the street, hi-rises around their City hall and it still stands out because it's a magnificent looking building. So I commend the staff and the Council, those of you that took the time, Council Member Griffith, I'm going to point you, single you out for, you know, looking after the issues that you found so critical. Councilmember Slusher, who doggedly looked at these issues. Mayor Pro Tem and the Mayor who, you know, led the charge on this. Councilmember Lewis, for his dedication to making sure that this is a tool for equity as well as for improving the city. And of course Dr. Spelman for his insigh sieveness and his very articulate matter of dissecting this transaction. So thank you have very much everybody. And the staff, of course, gets a real big kmentation commendation for this particular project. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: thank you, Mayor. I want to praise the staff first of all and toby. I want to add a friendly amendment that she has to go on vacation after this, but I think she's going to.
>>Mayor Watson: I'm not sure you'll get the votes. [Laughter].
>> Actually, I have not approved that vacation.
>> You let the cat out of the bag, Council Member. [Laughter].
>>Slusher: I'll try not to micromanage too often. Well, let me start off with the day labor issue. I think that's going to need some more attention. I don't think we've handled that one as well as we could. And I think we need to look for a place -- a place downtown. And I would just leave it at that. We are going to need a lot more work on that issue because it's being displaced without having a definite site for it.
>>Mayor Watson: if I might interrupt you, Council Member. One of the things that I'll commit is that I will spend some additional time working on that. I know what your concerns are and what your issues are and as part of all this I'll get after some things along the lines of your concerns to try to help with that.
>>Slusher: I appreciate that Mayor, and I think that will help an awful lot.
>>Lewis: Mayor, I want to say that Council Member Garcia threw another mix in the -- some more seeds in the pot, s to speak. He said we're going to sell the municipal building. I can't go along with that. I mean, I think it's been around -- what are you going to do with the name on it?
>>Garcia: it's in the financial model.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: thank you, Mayor. I wasn't quite through. [Laughter].
>>Slusher: the central thing here I think overriding all this is we have over 20,000 people a year moving to town every year during the 90's. And we've got to put them somewhere. And this everyday, every night I hear two things. One is we don't want them to sprawl out over the aquifer, and I'm very happy that the csc has agreed not to participate in that. And another thing I hear is we've got to protect the existing neighborhoods. So those obviously -- those contradict, but they're very genuine sentiments on the part of folks of Austin. A lot of times the same persons that have these sentiments. And that tells me -- this project having people come downtown -- and this is the opportunity for a lot of folks to live downtown and to work downtown. And even though I wanted to get this project off the aquifer, that it has to stand alone without deciding it based on, well, it might back over the aquifer. That might or might not happen if this doesn't pass tonight, but I had to make my decision based separately from that. And what -- there's some negative points to this, I think, some positive points, but I think the positive out weighs the negative and what it comes down to is I think we get this size of project downtown and it's not a speculative project. It's going to happen. Csc has the funds to make it happen and has the employees to make it happen and it's going to. We're not -- it's not dependent on any real estate deals or anything like that. And that's one of the reasons why the area is having -- haven't developed when the city tried to enter deals to do that before. And getting people downtown and sparking other development to make downtown so hot instead of the suburbs. And one of the csc executives mentioned that tonight. It's kind of -- the kind of change this is for them because it's easier and in -- most cases preferred to do suburban development for the high-tech companies. This changes that and I hope this leads that kind of change throughout Austin because when I look at it and try to look into the future the amount of folks moving here, we need something like that I think to spark this. One thing I do -- I agree with Council Member Lewis, though, all the way on the equity, the third e, as he put it. We've just got to look at ways to make sure that's included in here. I would suggest that we look at some of the proceeds from the tax money that comes from this project to go back into things like the -- trying to help businesses downtown, whether it be he -- I'm talking about our small existing Austin businesses. Whether it's low interest loans. I think we need some more studies for that. I can't sit up here and tell you five ways to do that. It's a very thorn any problem. That's something we have to look at. Now, I went around as part of my diligence on this and talked to as many of the small business folks downtown in this area as I could. And there was some concern there about their rents going up or their taxes going up and in some cases both, but I found that these folks by a wide margin supported this project because they think it will help their businesses. It's a little risky, but it will help them. So that was a key factor in my decision. So in closing, I would just ask the csc folks to -- we welcome you here, especially welcome you downtown, and try to -- really try to understand the City. And I guess you sort of got a crash course in it from coming to so many public hearings, but we like to think -- we think we're pretty unique here. There's lots of wonderful things about the City and as we've grown over the last 20 to 30 years we feel like we've lost a lot of that. And that's what you see with liberty lunch, a very touching moment tonight when Mr. Pratts and ms. Ward got up and talked and that's the place that thousands of people in Austin have enjoyed. And there's even been some criticism that -- we have all kinds of different opinions here that we shouldn't help liberty lunch because it's helping a private business than some of the other ones don't get that kind of help. But I would say this is somebody that rented from the city for many years. It's a business that we think is very positive, just really part of the nature and soul of Austin, so I think it's appropriate that the City would help them. So maybe we can all go over there one evening after they open. So thank y'all.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Spelman?
>>Spelman: thank you, Mayor. I have a perverse reaction to togetherness. The fact that so many people early on in this process said this is a great deal. They were so supportive for this project made me really uneasy because it made me suspect that none of us really knew what the heck we were talking about. Fortunately we do not have to make a decision on this issue several months ago. We've had had months to think about it, raise concerns and reservations and to improve the deal that's before us today. And this is basically not the same agreement as it was four months ago and I think we're all much the better for that. Over the last few weeks in particular the City staff and the staff of computer sciences corporation have been working to take those reservations and concerns into account and I thank you for the hard work you've done. I'd like to thank you all who were here several months ago to tell us how happy you were about this project. You were right. It's a project deserving of your enthusiasm and support. I'd like to thank those of you who came by with reservations and concerns have have been expressing them all the way along. You were right too. There are a lot of reasons for reservation and concern of any deal of this magnitude and we've been able to take those things and concerns appropriately into account and make a better agreement and again I'd like to thank the city staff and the csc staff for having the wit to recognize -- to take those reservations and concerns for what they were worth and to incorporate them into a better agreement. I am very proud to be a participant in this process and I hope all of you who were in this process are half so proud I am about the process itself and about the final result. I think we did really, really well.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: I'll be brief. 20 Years or so ago there started to be an immigration to the sun belt and we were the logical target for a great many folks who moved to where there were thought to be jobs and warmer weather and friendlier people and great hospitality. We do not take a hand in directing the growth that started coming hot and heavy right about then. And if you think what downtown looks like now is what it always looks like, no, you're very wrong. What we got out of that real estate boom and mass migration was a downtown that was totally unfriendly to people. There were a lot of big beautiful buildings that were not inviting to passers by. There were no retail opportunities of the. We've only recently begun to put the people back in downtown. So for me, to take a hand in making growth work for us, since there will be growth and this will be change, is critical. No more of the kind of short sighted buildings that I think became the mode of day downtown for those years. I also know that this particular initiative is fairly high profile and it is -- somebody said we were going overboard. I don't think that's the term I like, but we have bent over backwards to try to make sure that every single contingency has been talked about, projected and various end results projected to try to figure out what are the best steps to take right now. The pieces, though, do have something to do with people too in the relocation part, so I'll reiterate as others have that the resource center and the day labor center are two critical pieces that we know and everybody should understand that we care about finding the very best answer to that that we can. And I'll mention that Kirk becker said the task force for the homeless was dumped on. No, it wasn't dumped. It wasn't dumped. My turn, my turn to talk. It was a logical place for ta task force to go and canmented that task force and I think some of the great people working on that task force are a great credit going to can. The day labor center also has a bunch of folks, good folks working on it too. I will forewarn you all. I don't think 51st is the best place and I'm not at all convinced that I can support that at all. I do want to also just thank everybody, quickly thank csc, thank s.o.s., thank all the folks who worked on this, thank all the staff because they have done something incredible that nobody has ever done before here. Staff have had a lot of hard jobs to be with this Council and this is one of the hard evidence, so thank you, toby, kind of the point person for everybody else who helped you out on this. And thank all the citizens and advocates who came down to each of these hearings to make sure that we did hear a positive voice because on something like this in Austin it's very easy to hear only the negative. And I'm amazed and gratified that I think we are finally deciding to take a hand in our own future a very visible and affect active way. The last thing I just want to thank liberty lunch. I want to thank janette and mark. That really was a hard, hard thing for them. And glen weichert, all the time they've put in trying to find the answer to liberty lunch, which is a landmark and which is history and it's very much a part of the music scene that makes this downtown initiative of ours work. We are the live music capital of the world. I don't care who says to the contrary. And if we don't have live music downtown, part of what is Austin doesn't continue downtown. And also to John scott for coming and being so supportive about their new place by stubb's. If a long time ago somebody had helped the armadillo world headquarters find a place that was their own for them to survive on their own without having to depend on someone else's hospitality, we'd have a very different memory of that, and so for us I had two analogies, neither are very good, but I thought of one that was like the cat ter pillar turning into a butter fly, but you couldn't see it because it was stuck in all this -- our pictures of really bad surroundings and so now we're going to give liberty lunch a someplace place where they can be a butterfly. Add and spread their wings. I know it's corn any.
>>Mayor Watson: it's a night for corn aniness.
>>Goodman: and the other was the flour that goes up in the crack in the sidewalk. We're going to give the root and the flower a whole field to grow in. So I think liberty lunch will be sustain able and will be a part of the rest of the downtown's blossoming. So thank you, Mayor, for being a part of all it this too.
>>Garcia: Mayor, I have a question for toby? where is that plant going to be?
>> she thought you were talking about the plant growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk. [Laughter].
>> That is exactly what I thought. I thought how am I going to answer that. They actually have several sites. It depends on how they're going to approach it. If they use the intake structure, it will be different than if they need a cooling tower. Right now I think we are favoring trying to talk about using the intake structure because of the as thet tixs of the seven blocks and wanting to maximize that. Both roger duncan and chuck manning have been working hard on this and we'll get you information on design issues. They've even done some travelling looking at other cities who have central plants and how they're skiend designed and been structured. We'll work on getting you more information, but right now I think the preferable way to go is to try to work using the intake structure.
>>Garcia: I don't know what that means.
>> The sea hom intake structure, Gus.
>> What that does is you don't need the cooling irrelevant tower, which is probably the hardest part of a central place. There's a little more cost because of the pipe, but overall I think you end up with a better project. And then after that each building has their own component, but the intake structure is the primary infrastructure.
>>Mayor Watson: let me finish this up. This is a special night, not the least of which is I think we're going to finish before 10:00 o'clock.
>>Slusher: it's up to you. [Laughter].
>>Mayor Watson: it's all up to me. Guys, you're getting ready to see me at my best. I don't want to reiterate and I don't think I can say it better than what's been said by the six members of the Council tonight. I do want to personally thank some people. I want to thank the City manager. At the very beginning of this process, it was a lot of his ideas that got all the different places on that map working out the way they were and he spent a lot of time working on that and from the very beginning was with us when we first made our trips out to make -- enter into discussions with csc and has been involved throughout. And of course, the rest of the staff, including ms. Futrell, who we've all mentioned tonight. Jim cowser and the folks outside the City that have been helpful in this, I want to also say some things to them. And then csc, of course. Y'all have handled your businesslike the first class operation that you obviously are and one of the reasons that I think we're looking forward to having you in our downtown and being part of really a wonderful future for our downtown and playing a major leadership role. The others that have been involved have been mentioned, liberty lunch and others like that and so I won't go on to that. But let me thank one other entity and take a point of personal privilege to thank the members of this City Council. You know, Austin is on the right track and it is on the right track because the City Council and my colleagues up here who I enjoy so much working with put the kind of time in to this job that needs to be done to have a City that is growing like this and is seizing such a position in the world. On this deal I can tell the public, every member of this Council has spent an extraordinary amount of time looking at this from all sorts of different perspectives to try to make sure it is the best that it can be. It's also a Council and a group of people, and I'm speaking of the six members of the Council, to have a real vision for what they want to see this City be. And they are then willing to plan for that, more importantly they're willing to act on it. They're willing to act on plans where others have been unwilling to act on those plans. And that is as important as the planning is that buy as for action. And I really do want to thank all of the members of the City Council for the role that you play in this City. It means a great deal for me to get to serve with you. So thank you very much. The motion has been made and seconded. There being no further discussion, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. The motion carries on a vote of seven to zero. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: item number 19. Congratulations everybody. Item number 19. I'm sorry? item 19 is to a proof the resolution to authorize the City Manager to prepare and send on behalf of the City of Austin the notices by the Texas tax increment financing act to create a tip zone for each of the taxing entities that levies taxing entities and to request that such entities waive the statutory 60-day period. I'll entertain a motion. The motion is made -- hey, folks. Folks. If the tax financing thing doesn't go through, this all dies. Can I get everybody's attention for just a second. Can I get everybody to be in order? I want you to notice the csc executives are already acting like Austinites. They're up talking, even when I'm trying to call things to order, that kind of deal. We've got a motion to approve item number 19. Is there a second? seconded by Council Member Garcia. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye.. Opposed say no. The motion carries on a vote of seven to zero. There being no further business to come before the Austin City Council, Council Member Slusher moves to adjourn. Seconded by Council Member Griffith. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries on a vote of seven to zero. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much and congratulations: