>>Mayor Watson: jennifer -- jennifer reardon and thomas sykes. Hello.xd jennifer reardon and thomas sykes. Come on up. Welcome, everybody, our first proclamation todayt(, be it known by these presents, that I, Kirk Watson, Mayor of the City of Austin, do hereby proclaim may 15th,ni 1999 as the 12th annual City-wide skin cancer screening day in Austin. And I call on all citizens to join me in recognizing that one million cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed nationwide this year according to the american cancer society and thatco early detection is critical to minimizing the impact of this disease. In recognizing that theq centers for disease control estimate that one in five americans. [One moment please]w3xd [music playing]
>>
(Music)
preciousnusr)m cargo that we cf1 o haul.rp cf1 o we seldom think ofo cf1 o (
(Music)
singing
(Music)
(Music)
.m->
>> thank you, thank you very much. [Applause]uw
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Thank you very much, mike.acj
(Music)
f would everyone please rise and join with us in delivered today bypass store greg mcdonnell q of1+uu central presbyterian church church.
>> Delivered by associate pastor sally Watson.
>> It's good0=/ to see you,?a1 hi cousin, how are you, let's join togethere loving God, thank you for another day of life in we canb?ewz you and others. Bring your spiritlzf into this day that we may hear your voice and seek your well over our own. Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your leading that your will may be done throughout the City of Austin, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
>> Thank you very much, pastor Watson for being here. I will call to order the City Council of Austin, Texas for a regular meeting of the City Council. It is Thursday, may 13th, 1999. We are meeting@clfthe City Council chambers at 307 west second street. Changes and corrections to the agenda. Item no. Recommended by the music commission.-aas item no. 12 Should read recommended by the music commission. Item no. 16 Should read: approve a resolution4] the official -- delete 5,700,693, replace with.4z 6,162,818 for developer reimbursements. Go to the first patternnalcal, funding in the amount --(g 12456461, replace with 1,33,488 for the1qc water utility and")!4yenm replace with $1,698,394 for the wastewater utility to be funded by the issuance of commercial paper. After the semi colon delete 2,908,and replace withw 3,129,999 to be1xv funded by the issuance of generalypa&zc obligation debt. Item no. 17 Should read, amend ordinance numberu 890915 b, the 1998-'99 capital budget, follow through to where it says by, then delete 2,792,016. Replace it $3,032,882. You will -- further into the paragraph where it says a%yi appropriating delete the 2908677 replace withgmye43c#7n 3,129,999. Go to the parenthetical funding in an amount of delete 2792016. Replace with3,032,882(x for water and wastewatercmzaaility. Follow until it comes to the 2908677, delete that and replace with 3,129,999 for2-[ watershed protection to be funded by future certificates of obligation.o%z item 41, set a public hearing to receive citizen xhekts on the City's 1999-2,000 proposed community development program. The suggested dates of june 3rd, 1999 and delete june 10, 1999, replacing it with july 1, 1999 at 6:00 p.m. Item 53: create an ordinance creating and specifying the makeup of the census 2,000 complete count committee. Item 61l"s postponed indefinitely. 62 Is postponed2h+m indefinitely. Itemi6/jn9u 63, c14-98-, public hearingo tol$ amend ... Zoning property locallyxgx 8en as 3014 afton sure way is postponedn"to july 1st. Item no. 62 Is postponed]5 june 3, 1999. Item no. 67 Is postponed to may 20, 1999. Item 68 is postponed to may 20, 1999.dr item 71 is postponed! to may 20,buc '99, as etw no. 72. Items that are set for a time certain.x immediately followingfola reading of]%I the consent agenda item no. 10, Aa7 briefing on options and estimated time line for the completion of the land use study, at 3:00 p.m. A resolution to appoint relief judges to the municipal court. At 4:00 p.m.94i zoning items 54 through 63. And at 6:00 p.m. Arwp public hearing authorizing the construction5o ofifu right-of-way through .473 acres of dedicated parkland as onion creek district parkez, item no. 64, At 6:00 p.m. Conduct p2zwn public hearing authorizing a resolution of aebn; .041y<2jut license agreement and a .052 acre temporary construction space to allow construction of a sub surface storm sewer through dedicated parkland known as grand meadow park in acc6n#ntu)ud 26.001 of the Texas parks and wildlife code. [One moment please]tnc
>> also at 6:00 for a time certain a public hearing to receive citizens comments on proposed amendmiho "to the city's 1998-'99 development program and federal annual plan. The first item on f agenda is the approval of minutes for the regular meeting of may 6th, ioy< I will entertain a motion9n. Motion made by Council Member Garcia. Is there a second to approve,Paul seconded by Council Member Griffith. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye-te possessed no, motion carries. Next general citizens --.
>>Garcia: Mayor, on the one dealing with the east cesar chavez neighborhood plan, I would like to be recognized for a suspension of the rules so that we can give priority to thetx? presenters of the plan first sorc can do their presentation, then we can take comments from everybody else.
>>Mayor Watson: at 6:00 when we cyex/ to that time certain, I will call that up and recognize Council Member Garcia for a suspension of the rules. General citizens communications, Mr. Waits, pedro metiz and jennifer bowls. Charles waits. Is pedro metiz here?cf5 if you will make your way to the podium.gn welcome Mr. Waits.]h
>> Mayor, Council, I amb3 charlie waits, thank you for allowing me to speak to youiwxrn today. I -- I came last week to talk about green power and I asked the Mayor a question and he took two and a half of my minutes, s/ee)qg't get to talk about green power.
>>Mayor Watson: anything you want to ask me today? [= no, no, no, not until the last?h#ew seconds.
>>Mayor Watson: all right.
>> But, it's my understanding that green power is going to beem fact and it's my understanding that we are going$?qi to buy green power from ourselves in the amount of what theqz City1%m uses. I came once before7n and went through andqq clear to myself and I have checked figures that it anm: investment of! n $85 million$,n to produce one megawatt of power from solar and wind is not much better. Andncv'as, I don'tadz know where you get that much gas, but I really would vite you to go[kmy slow, on green powern#,,xfu before you let any contractsq solarMr]bom some other place or windg9v from some other place, please look and see what has happened toc/ wind and solar in the past. As -- andqkn nobody --u these -- all of the renewables do not even accountfsex for -- for one-half of one speakers of)%e the -- of one percent of the energy in the United States,x there's just no way that this is goingxa/d to work. I went through the tapes that I havevc of -- of the exchange between Mr. Duncan and Mr. Robins and the Council. And if you were at that meeting, and can get to that tape, please listen to it.u/g again,,+ar8/ be sure that you want to commit contracts stating that you will use wind or that you willj>v use:gy solar percent of Austin's energy with solarr would cost $4 --:j!n $4,80 million if we did it with the same type! llnu@ of solar systems weo&f> have today at the airport and other places, thank you very much for your time. Ic!aat that I have done a very like to alertnj the -- the newspaper and thej,I radio stations to look at this green power thing, it makes no sense to me.se.g
>> thank you%-, Mr. Waits. I am sure we will all check those numbers.i4] pedro metiz. [One moment please]lra
>> good afternoon, we are here to talk again about the new change in thevbd day labor site. [Speaking in=q spanish]uo.
>> With( almost inevitable to the 51st and airport.padrug9n; pedro estimates there are between 3 and#0a/ 400 people that get workl?o in the street and not through the program.g:yq ue,e] the proposed site on 51st and airport is really a site that can only containi/ between 100.v+d and 150 workers and not those that are currently working in the street. This"v make is almosted inevitable that many of these people are going to (r)p found again downtown looking forw because of the smallness of the new space.)t7l the only way that9 this program can work, the new program can work in an effevom]t way is that if -- is it's basically a new administration take over the program.fh,nna >> if the site change is made without a fundamental change in the current;/o structure q, the only thing that we arejn/ to do=if isnjy problem to a new place.?q0mok$cj% I think that it's time that Austin through its generosity and its tradition of generosity comes up with a new program that really addresses the needs of workers/sn and employers alike.fi#/%h
>> it really is the only way thaoll we can sit and be0r comfortable and be proud of the fact that we3]v hak-n solved really truly the da?; labor problem. Again for this to happen, for the program to really be effective, there must be a change of administration. It doesn't matter how many millions of dollars you spend3w, the truth of it is the program hasn't worked andgi1c hasn't been to the satisfaction of the majority of thkb% population of people who are5.[ work in this the street.
>>Goodman: thank you very much.
>> Gracias.
>>Goodman: jennifer bowls.
>> This is easy. Good afternoon, Council, thanks for hearing again the day labor sitey issue. I wanted to bring to thel% Council's attention some issues that maybe normally don't come to the attention of the Council around the day labor issue. First of all, historicalu , the issue oftq been addressed as people call day laborers and ir >>Goodman: thank you very much, Council Member Garcia. [Applause] >>t
>>Garcia: ms. Bowles?l5oaty:wje. Garcia had a question for you.
>>Garcia:j6u thank you. What the Council is trying to do is several things. Number one is we are trying to separate the resource center for the homeless from thenh labor site one. In directing staff]z% that's basically what we said.; secondly is we want. To operate a'gc site that in essence protects the interests of the,1;&o"n workers. Sow manages that site needs to be somebody who knowsnk8 labor issues.
>>Kvo exactly.
>> Third, we want to make[n sure that we don't affectg)z neighborhoods.c this para>b&ar operation that we have right now affects all kind of people,0? be neighborhoods that have people living, but they are business people thatlox0 are affected by what happens on second street from the Convention Center to san antonio.=xy" to have more than one site because I think the numbers that -- that Mr. Metiz mentioned are correct, they are probably -- that site is probably not big enough for a cityq our size. So our hope is that we take a of those things into&pd5"vy train theif1r contractors to come4xwd8to a place and/ef train them in such a way> that they understand the responsibilities that they have to the -- to the workers and also to the neighborhoods. It's a big task, butu that the Council has directed the staff to do in that particular manner because youxpjdvy in the street right now come here to work. I travel a lot on second street, this morning I was traveling there, a truck sl4nvqb58 or 10uzy guys jumped in the back of the truck. They are eager to work. This economy can abqu all of that energy.d so my hope is that we can work withwxs a group so that we can have# a model that[/ really works.@rmsbc%m plano has a model that really works.!('t the police, we are going to pass anapn ordinance that says if you don't pick up peopler the day labor9cdx site, a contractor you%p% are going to get ticketed because if you start spilling out, you are going to affect the neighborhoods negatively. So we hope to be able to do all of those things. We hope that we have your
>> absolutely. Thank you so much, youri: staffq> has been very helpful. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>>Goodman: Gus pena. Mr. Pena. Let's go to John dolleyz=2
>> my associate is going to pass out some backupy,k materialzw//cz. Good afternoon0t] Austinilj/ the City Council. We were reallyjn represented regulation committee hearing yesterday regarding andrews county. Giving testimony to and stating opposition to the house billyt 1910. That wouldwcreateg nuclear waste facility in Texas. The senate committee is formulating a substitute Bill at this time. We hope will reject the house bill 1910 as offered and at the very least bring the nuke bill back to a more favorable intent in compliance with"&.1 the federal compact bill. I want=c to state for the record that I personally oppose any waste dump facilities in Texas. Generally as a ruler. Other than stored+eg7guz at their site of generation.ta I am now asking the City Council to adopt a resolution specifically regarding=)z this waste site,dxz proposed for andrews county,a Texasn. And I am also asking Austinites and the councb [ to contact state senators and the6$cj% governor today]o phone. E-mail, fax or with these post cards that I have herenki, that I willt!ve0nn you8g[, after I speakcw or I can leave them in the forrier, you can pick them up out there, but I encourage you all to take action on this. It's very important to ourdc/q drinking water foruut the Colorado watershed. Thankz-wyou.
>>Goodman: thank you, Mr. Dolley. Felipe salazar Garza. Mr. Garza? jeremy dixon. Is this Mr. Garza?
>> this is fell leap pay Garza.
>> -- Felipe Garza.
>> Thank you -- first cj% wanted to thank the Council for allowing him to talk before the Council.>v program in effect right now that hasn't fulfilled all of the possibilities that it could have fulfilled.gihhc the only thing#3hat's happened through negotiations is the more deficient.@tmkvpc/c the fundamental problem is that the current centerbe hasn't really known how:c to deal with workers.nfhq;0n Mr. Salazar wants to bring the attention to the fact that only 25% of the people are really using the current center.ewsqqt;if/ it's also very, very important to conduct a public%w campaignpnn to let'%a contractors know that this site exists, officially, under the auspices of the City.[oop/z because it really is an official facilitation of freedom of contract basically.fn;=v3cp if employers don'twr dnowj(m that there's a central site where they can get workers, then there are going to be workers on the street looking for work thata-o, way.et!a@ it's crucial make a coalitionuf basically between contractors'v workforce that you find in the street currently."5q
>>Garcia: [speaking in spanish]um n there are people coming from the north and south, varies sides, workers./#c it would be very goodi&#z if these four key points could be -- could be made into reality withyhn new program. [Buzzer sounding]hgn.
>>Goodman: thank you very much.
>> Thank you very much. [Applause]d=(
>>Goodmanli0:]qg$z jeremy dixon.lg["fz)px edelmira mendezr.wn?
>> I'm sorry you have to see so much of my face, but ourn translator didn't: come.
>> Good afternoon.bnt I am here again to talk about day labor23k.gl the day labor0q a method of sustainment%j big group of workers.nr/ it's critical to know that in terms of8 workers risking themselves in thez street?#e2c, we need to work with them to$uf develop a program, a work program that really works. And that's designed by workers for the benefit of@h5 them. I am[g thinking aboutvi program that would it shouldhn be -- it should be established bpnh knowledge of -- of the goals of the workers.. >>Mayor Watson: thank you.
>>Garcia:ni and I want to make sure that everybody y9 lot to do with gettingni this thing off the ground.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. We have a number of people signed up to speak on numberlp no. 51. Since it's on the consent agenda what I'm going to ask you to do is please not -- you arwo welcome to, but thetj$ is really know need to if it's going to be on the consent agenda. I will read plrly if you are for it. What I will do is read your name into the record.I] michaelco vonohlen in favor. Ebil guerra in favor. Dianer earl mostly for. Marthaq cast steel for. Annenr harutunian for. I never can -- say it again.
>>Garcia: (speaking in spanish).
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Thank you all6ze1. On item no. 55, That is -- has been pulled for discussion. I don't knowni why this was pulled.
>>Garcia: 4 p.m. I'm certain, Mayor.
>>Mayor Watson: yeah. Let me just double-check.xd all right. Is there any further discussion on the consent agenda? hearing none, all those in favor say aye? opposed say no. Motion carries, consent agenda is passed.coxdct(xd item no. 10 Is a briefing on options and estimated time lineq formy completion of the landju?e study. We indicated that would be brought up at a time certain so let's bring that up.ninro[nicop,('cw3i]coninre1connd<
>> we'll be right with you. I'm just trying to get this up on the projector.
>>Mayor Watson: while we're doing that, on item 85 I'll recognize the City attorney for a brief presentation. That was an item that was discussed in executive session and before we take it up I would like for their to be a presentation.
>> [Inaudible].
>> Resolution to authorize the --.
>>Garcia: you need the mic on.
>> This item is a resolution that authorizes the institution of a eminentok domain proceedings against thet( bfi site, thexd public purpose is toe1 establish administrative offices for theni solid waste services department.b and this will start the process of the City condemn t0eking land.
>>Mayor Watson: what is the difference between 85 and 92?
>> it was double-posted,:m[ session as well as beforew3 the executive session.
>>Mayor Watson: we have!u a number of people signed up to speak? if you are in favor and it's on consent. And I'm -- the way I'm going to ask for that will be as a months firsti] and -- motion first and call on the peopleh]eeuz speak. If it's going your direction I would ask that you not -- everybody has to stand up and talk about it. Is there a motion?
>>Spelman: I move approval of items 85 annual 92. Second? secondedn by Council Member Garcia. Let me call out thelp names of the people signed up to speak or signed up to indicate their support. If you are not in support or you feelxd like we need to hear something, (p:q feel free to speak, but suzanne in a almanzaev sylvia herrera.jf orten sismt io polamaro. Jamie. Marcus de leon. I'm sorry?ko ms. Rangel, do you wish to speak? all right.co Mr. Porter, are you going to want to speak?
>> yes.
>>Mayor Watson: you will followc ms. Rangel.
>> Good afternoon. I'm with!u the neighborhood association which is right across the street from bfi. I am in support of this because bfi really needs to -- we've been trying to get them to relocate for several years. We've hadni firesc, rodents, traffic, trash, all in our yards because of this facility. We've tried several times to try to locate without having to be pushed out, but nothing. So I think it's time that the Citynr Council do try to condemn them. If they really cared about the neighborhood, they would have relocated on their own without having to just be there waiting for somebody to give them theni five million that they've been asking for. What it is is a slab of cement and a whole bunch of trash and inmq able to get the job done.r so again, thank you. I'm glad, I hope that you all can approve this. I would like to get a good night's rest, my family would like to be able to go to sleep knowing the rodents are not going to be in the neighborhood, no fires, no nothing.2jp and I really appreciate it.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Porter.
>> Good afternoon. I applaud your efforts at resolve whag is a difficult situation and in need of solution in long -- for the longterm. I wanted to bring to your attention an issue related to this and that has to do with the fact this is the only regional facility for processing recyclables in theb. Area and I would request that you be judd shus aboutjf theni time frame and look at solutions for the problem that may come up, which is that have passed anni ordinance with mandatory recycling for kmurbl and multi-family businesses and residences. And that many small businesses use this facility and largeco businesses as well that process those recyclables. And 61 City currently, City staffco is currently working on developing plans for a City owned material recoveringni facility, a prototype of which is now in operation. And I would likeni to request the City Council consider directing the City Manager and solid waste services to look at expanding the capacity of the facility that they areco currently planning to complete andmbking it available to businesses that may previouslyq haver serve thosec?$tqzxd are affected by the mandatory "a ordinance that you all havenr passed. I just ask you to not put the rock and hard place and allowxd regional capacity for processing. Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Porter.
>> Mayor, we would be happyr evaluate that, bring back a recommendation to City Council.
>>Mayor Watson: great. Thank you. Michaelw3 vo nochltco ohlen in favor. Johnnyni limo in in favor. Paul hernandez is in favor and Gavino Fernandez is in favor. Motion has been made and seconded to approve items 85 and 92. 9Y'9any further discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed sayf co. Motion carries. On item no. 50, That item -- it's my understanding there is a Council Member who is asking for an additional condition, however, the applicant has asked for a postponement until june 3rd. Inr will entertain a motion to postpone item 50 until june 3rd.
>>Garcia: so moved.
>>Mayor Watson: motion made. Seconded by v:ugcilmemberfa Griffith any discussion?'@3 hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries on item 50 as postponed until june 3rd.ni are you all ready?
>> yes, sir.
>>Mayor Watson: okay. Mr. Murphy.
>> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is patrick murphy with the watershedni protection department. I'm here todp to present to you a report on aco study of the land development analysis for the barton springs zone. As you may recall, we have been working on a draft mitigation policy forq non-grandfathered projects in the a that project is ongoing. As part of this project, the Council requested thatnr we look at a land -- land uses andq development information in the barton springsco zone and bring thatok back to you, and this is a report today on what that would involve and how long it would take us to do. The purpose of thisni analysis is to aid the Mayor and Council in the consideration of a land mitigation policy for development in the barton springsfa zonecnr. The project will cover the barton springs zone both inside and outside Austin's planning jurisdiction. This a/% is 370 square miles this is anmap of the barton springs zone, to give you an idea how big the project is. As you can see the contributing zone in the light blue and thejf recharge zone in the dark blue extends well into hays and over into blanconi county. The products that we will be producing withnr this would be impervious cover for the entire barton springs zone. We would get that informationnr using aerial interpretation. A general land use of commercial and residential in our planning jurisdiction, that includes our etj, as well as development project data in the planning jurisdiction. The basis for our analysis includes digitized aerial photography, plant(imetric impervious coverni data, land use andq development project data. This is an example of thqi digitized aerix/ datao[ and gives you an idea what we look at in looking atw3 the impervious cover and land uses. This slide shows your planimetric impervious cover for this same slide which basically shows that the roads and buildings are now gridded off and showco that those are different types of cover types as impervious covero[. The third slide shows you land use coverage map which basically gives you a general overviewu of different land use coverages in this same general area that was in the aerial photo. This is an example showing spread sheets that many of you have seen of development in the barton springs zone which gives us a lot of informationni about projects which has taken a great deal of time to put together over many, may staff hours. The workd four months, approximately 500 staff hours.xd during -- with that time wefa will enterco subdivision data into gis, update the spread sheets with building and site plan data that we currently have, combine gisxd and development data and performn4r@v and maps. The staff that are involved include watershed pro pro sex, infrastructure support services, planning and environmental conservation services and development review and inspection. In sum rye, we will usexd existing staff and available information and take advantage of our investment in technology to the greatest degree possible.q we will reallocate and redirect existing resources to accelerate data input so that we can produce the analysis and required time frame. That concludes my presentatao]. If there are any questions, I'm here to answer as well as mike heitz.
>>Garcia: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: Mr. Murphyym, I suspect that this information couldco be presented alsoq to county commissioner courts and municipalities that are +fq s that so]Mrg/ that you have planned?
>> it is something that we really haven't discussed, to be honest, where we would present this information to. Right now;or we are providing that information to you all, and we wilor take your direction on that. We -- as far as setting public hearings, as we continue to go through the mitigation policy with the environmental board, Planning Commission and backl% to Council, those are currently on hold until we get a read on whether we will be doing the study as parted of that.
>>Garcia: I didn't ask the question properly.kofa at the appropriate time, that's what I wanted to say, at the appropriate time, if the Council, you know, wishes to direct you to make this presentation and if you can get, you know, a he/ beforew3 thosei] commissioner's courts and City Council thatt( have part of the recharge zone and the contributing zone in their jurisdictions.
>> Certainly we would be happy to do that. If that is something --.
>>Gqr%: I think it would be very use fell to them too.
>>Garcia: thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: will there be with way we can calculate traffic impact from these numbers once we have them?
>> the answer is I really don't know specifically how that will be done, although it would be logical to me that wio(n land use that exist we should be able to give you an idea of traffic generated. It is not part of this current report and whether that could be donenb in the four-month time frame or not I'm not sure. We would have to discuss that and get back with you on that answer.
>>Slusher: okay. Could you -- I don't want to add on a bunchni of stuff,$x but that seems like an important factor, if you could just check with the other folks on the staffr:bu doxd that.
>> We'
>>Slusher:nr what we're looking at.
>> We'll give you a response to that question.
>>Slusher: and did I hear right we're going to look at what is approved beyond the City's jurisdiction?
>> yes, that's correct. We'll bexdnr looking both within our planning jurisdiction and throughout the entire barton through hays and into blanco county. Ql
>>Slusher: great. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: any additional questions? all right. Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.
>> Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: that concludes item no. 10. Item no. 52 Was set for a time certain. A Council Member has requested thatlp therefa be an executive session. I'm assumingi] -- calm Lewis, do you want to make a motion?co
>>Lewis: a motion?
>>Mayor Watson: iq myr understanding you requested an executive session. Would you like to move to go into executive session?
>>Lewis: yes, I make a motion that we go into executive session for item no. 52.
>>Mayor Watson: and the question I need tofa asknr is --xd [inaudible]nlit would be under personnel matters so it would be pursuant to the section I think isxd 075 of the government code, which would allow for a discussion of personnel mattersco in executive session. Is there a second to the motion? it.
>>Griffith: second.
>>Mayor Watson: secondedr Council Member Griffith.co any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. The motion carries. We will go into executive session. I tell you what, instead of doing it that way, we're goingco to need to go back into executive session on other items.w3 if -- what we coulde1 do is go ahead now and go back into executive session on thosexd other items, I'll entertain a motion to reconsider the motion to go into executive session.
>>Griffith: so moved.
>>Mayor Watson: seconded by Council Member Garcia. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favo@zay aye. Opposed motion carries. I'll entertain a motion to gono9@6hcj% into executive session with regard to personneljf matters tuned Texas government code with regard to itemxd no. 52.Xd in addition tot( that motion or part of that motion it would be to go into executive session pursuant to -- concerning legal issues concerning the intellect y'all property matters, discussion of legal issues concerning the application of the interim development ordinance to certain lapped in the northco Austin municipal utility district 1, discussion legal issues concerning the rights of axd developernr to continue a development proposal after andtzwrwdngext situation, to discuss village of beeveco versus Travis Countyxd water control and improvement district no. 14, Causeco no. 96-03683, Travw3/ county district court, causexd no. 97-12332 In the Travis County districtnr court and request of the travis county water control and improvement district for cease and desist orderr village of bee cave, Texas and lower p that is currentlyco undoktded. Motion made by Council Memberxd Lewis. Q]seconded. Any discussion.
>>Slusher: how does the amount of people signed up to speak tu+k en 52 comparedw3 to 11 and 12 because I'm concerned that we're delaying that item onw3 into theni evening when we53 could -- if we wanted to do executive session weym could do that.
>>Mayor Watson: it is a world of difference.ni and there are a lot more people signedi] up on 11 and 12.
>>Slusher: well, I would ask Council Member Spelman -- is it necessary to do this one?
>>Mayor Watsonxd: Council Member Lewis, you mean?lp the only reason I didw3 that --.
>>Slusher: this is set for 3:00.
>>Mayor Watson: it's set for 3:00.
>>.
>>Spelman: we did that so the judges could actually beq here. How much time do you think you will need, Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: welllp, I don't know.
>>Mayor Watson: you are the one that requested the executive session.
>>Lewis: not long.
>>Mayor Watson: we could always go back into executive session. Let's go ahead and go in for all items named and we can quickly take care of it. D >>Garcia: yes, Mayor. I was wondering if staff couldnr give a very brief presentation as to where we are on=n this operation. We originally committed $500,000 for this year. We're being asked to commit another $200,000.I] and I would like to know can -- has the staff been able to d after thisi] $700,000 are used up in year one, if the station can continue operatingc year two and year three with just $100,000.
>> I'm suec=n brewbaker, purchasing officer. Let me address those questions Council Member Garcia. We just -- just a brief history. We brought this contract forward in september. You all approved the contract. And I believe we executed it the end of5a october, like the 30th of october, and then the channel actually started productions in mid-november. And what has happened duringg that first six months, quitew3 honestly, is that they front-loaded the costs to try to build up thet( production. Change the production, make it more commercial, make iti] more -- you know, more mainstream media so they would have a product to sell advertisers with. You know, you are going to advertise with a good product. The first sixoki]onths they have not made a wh=su of money in selling the advertising. So we met with Mr. Melkier,o+ esther matthews and I did, starting about six weeks agonr, I would guess, going over the marketing plan, where you are and what's going to be coming in. And -- and what have you done to contains7 your costs. So in essence what I think we believe is that he is -- and we're going to put on a slide and showco you. He is starting just now to. Generate revenues, and if -- when you look at this slide, you are going to see a trend of starting in may, it just starts this month. Thismy is going to be the first month that he actually has made what I would consider very much money. I think heretofore he's only made about $11,000. So z/t can see that that trend is going up. And these are committed advertising. These are committed fundraisers. Yeah, this is what we've passed out to you too. So I'm -- I'm going to say to you that if he is real lucky within the next six months, that might get up to a $50,000 a month number. Although I don't know that that is going to happen that fast. I don't think he can bexe- totally self-sufficientxd looking at the projections so far. I don't think he can makexi with 100,000 next year. I think that wouldnr be very optimistic. I'mxd not sure he wouldn't need a subsidy even the next year, but I think if he cannr continue at this rate, within three years you would have pretty close to anixd self-supporting channel.
>>Garcia: have you been able to estimate how much more we have toi]xd allocate beyond 800,000 to keep them operational for the first three years?
>> if I've -- I've looked at his preliminary budget numbers Council Member, andc I'm looking at 160, I would say for sure, but I would -- I would beco more realistic and say it would have to be 20 which would be 100 above theqn 800. And I think it's going to be 150 to twoc the next yeare1, probably 100 the next year or 50. So I think you are lookingt( at realistically three to 400 dread thousand dollars additional over the 800. But that would not be within the three-year period, within the three-year period it would be-9 about 300 more.
>>Garcia: and you are saying that beyond thenr three-year period, we still would have to subsidize it?
>> looking at what I'm looking at today, I would say there would still be a need for some subsidy, yes. I don't know whether it's going to be 150 to the 200 or whether it will be down to the 100,000. I couldn't say that. But based on what I'm looking at now, I would say that.nr
>>Garcia: Mayor, I have some other questions, but I prefer hearing from the speakers. I think other Council Members have questions.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Griffith has some questionsd before we go to speakers. >Griffith: just very quickly and it's probably Council Member Garcia's question stated another way. At what point, if any, do you realistically expect the network to be self-supporting? that was our goal, and do you think that is going to happen at some point? if so, what might that point realistically be based on the actuals that you are seeing now?
>> goodness, I would feel better ifw3 Mr. Melker answered that. Looking at what I'm looking at -- andoke may come up and correct me, and in hope he does I think you are looking at this year -- you are looking at three to five years longera5 of subsidy. I think at the end of five years you should have a self-sufficient channel. There has been a lot of interest, he'sco gotten tremendous interest within the last three or four months.:e"- so, you know, in any business, it starts feeding on itself, and it may grow much morexd quickly andr forward than it has thus far, but at this rate, we're looking at about a five to seven thousand dollars a month increase. So I think -- and that's going to have dips and spurtsz. So I think it would be overly optimistic to say it would be self-sufficient earlier than five years. >Griffith: it's been the income side that has been short, the way I'm reading this. Do you see realistically that the income side is going to come up enoughjfq to -- to sustain the business?
>> well --. >Griffith: and veptdly make it self supporting in five years? is that what you are saying?
>>Garcia: well, if you look at this peak over here in october he will be bringing in about $30,000 that month. If he can sustain that kind ofl-5p growth -- and these are advertising dollars and promotional dollars, and if he can sustain that kind of xuo.dn >> we're going to look at that. He had someup front costs that would be one-time costs so nexny yearn costs should be decr?ed somewhat. Some of those initial startup costs, production costs, equipment costs, stuff like that will notjf be as aqut. Now, what he is -- whether he is going to off set that withw3 increased marketing, that's kind of one of those business issues I'm not sure. >Griffith: thank you.
>>Spelman: I'll probably have more questions,sa but just while this is up before us, what is the basis for these numbers?
>> okay. These are numbers that I've looked at that he has commitments of advertising. And what we did is we took these and put them into the months in which they will be recognized.
>>Spelman: okay. So I'm sure I understand this, there is alp commitment to spend $8,000 on the network bye1 !n] may.
>> Yes.
>>Spelman: and there is a commitment to spend $30,000 worth ofnr advertising six months from now in october.
>> Yes.
>>Spelman: okay. Help me with this. Why is it that weg of commitment in october, we have advertisers who are willing to spend money six months from now but not willing to spend money now.
>> I think he will be able to address this a lot better than I will, but I think probably what is attributing to that is that as the marketing effort is beginning to bew3 developed and come around,xd people are placing their money further out, and some of this money in october, and he will tell you about this, the september and october, somer one-time big event money. You know, you are going to come and put on an event, that kind of thing. So that's going to bump that up. And those are done in those kind ofrey activity months, and he knows more about the musicians doing those sorts of things.w3 but those start becoming booked and becoming more regular and more frequent. That starts pushing those up. This early, early0l $8,000 you are looking at is, you know, 500 here and a thousand theret( and 250, they are the smallerni but steadier, you know, $500,000 for eig 800 for two months and those kind of ads kicking thate1 up.
>>Spelman: so the revenues in october may actually be higher sthan $30,000.
>> Yes.
>>Spelman: isco it conceivable it would be lower? this is a dmiltment, but if somebody backs out --
>> I don't know the rules of the game in the -- in putting on special events, butted I couldn't imagine that people would do that because a lot of8- work goes into that and I know thatw3 Mr. Melkier is going the talk to you about some of that. You are doing a lot of pre advertising of the eventqq at the backyard or a big auction or< whateverhe those kinds of things are, so I don't foresee them backing out. On the other hand, everybody is bottom lined -- everybody's bottom lineym can be looked at at the second or third quarternb of a fiscal year and they may be told to cut their advertising and that's always a possibility too. So I couldn't say it wouldn't happen.
>>Spelman: and because so much of that, august, september, october revenue is based on advertising for a few big events, it would be imprudent of us to expect that november, december, January would necessarily also be $30,000 a year or -- $3,000 or more in advertise sng.
>> Except there you are getting into the holidays. So I would think there it would be more.
>>Spelman: okay.
>> See, I think -- I think that's when your big advertising is going to come is over the holidays. A lot of events going on, a lot of parties going on, all that kind of stuff. So your whole holiday budgeting should be more.
>>Spelman:q this is certainly something we can check out in the next three ora5 for months just to make sure we are on target.
>> And we can do a train gravel for -- graph for you evur? quarter or month.
>>Spelman: this is getting a little ahead of what we wanted to go, butted for future reference, do we have an income statement? do we have a sense for what the monthly costs are?
>> yes. We have all that.
>>Spelman: I would like to take a look at it. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: we have a number of people signed up to speak. Some are signing up but not speaking. So we can get into discussion, we do wantxd to hear from you, but if you are just repeating what somebody else said or you are just saying I'm for this guy or against this guyq orni whatever you want to phrase it just say it that succinctly if you can.lp lynn cook si is for but not speaking. Fred schmidt is for. And writes I am in support of this funding increase in view of the much improved Austin music network and ask Council support as well t quality of the on air product is clearly evident to anyone who watches channel 15 today andist management compan well within its budgeted expenses. Shortfall in revenue disappointing but notxd unexpected in a startup turn around of this kind. The new Austin music network is the most powerful economic tool available to the Austinco music community. The handle is now finally rsed to have the impact on that level. More time to sustain the model will enable the commercial revenue streams to develop.xd ty crane not speaking but for. Don harvey not speaking but for.cook megan kreshefsky not speaking but for. Steven barron for. Steven ueler did not sign up for or against.
>> For.
>>Mayor Watson: for? okay. Wayne -- irm sorry, do you have something you need to --
>> [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: did I run over you?
>> yes, sir.
>>Mayor Watson: I apologize. Mr. Barron, why don't you come forward.
>> Hello and thank you for your time. First I would like to say I'm very proud of the Cityni Council and I put on the mother earth festival every year. It's a benefit concert. It all began with Mr. Slusher's article back in '91 about barton springs and the beginning ofco the s.o.s. Coalition.ni the reason I'm speaking is because the Austin music network has been a huge parti] of mother earthnr festival the last few years. They brought out and shot the event -- excuse me, I'm a little nervous. My first time at this podium. I would like tonr say that I've had an opportunity to be the fly on the wall with the Austin music network and watch the people who work there. They remind me a lot of some of the bands that play around in town. They work very hard to try to get a good product that people want to see. They pour their souls intoi it and I am very impressed with the work they do with the equipment they have to work with. I know that starting -- trying to requisite sponsorship for mother earth, I contacted a lot of businesses around town trying to support the mother earth festival whichco is by the way for the sims foundation. I -- in myni sponsorship recollect situations I asked people to consider putting in time with the Austin music network and I think I was successful.I] kristine celis could not be here today but she wanted me to mention her name. Also many of the bands,c valejo and ian moore, nc overLord andjf all those people are very much for this wholeatn >> speak.
>>Mayor Watson: okayr
>> good afternoon. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm wayne gaithright, vice chair of the Austin music commission. As you know, the music commission did vote to support continued funding for the Austin music network. Continuing the funding. I would likexd to talk in terms of the Austin music network as a sound business choice, one that Austin can't afford to lose. We -- the commission, we've looked at financial reportsfa from the group and we know that the expenditures are right on target. The channel with a a promise has been delivered and I've heard an overwhelming agreement that the quality of this channel is excellent. The problem is the advertising revenue has -- as has been mentioned, the initial projections were overly optimistic. However, more and more businesses are now becoming familiar with the network. They are seeing the market that they want to target expand and now they are starting to want to be included inco this happening. The Austin music industry is a major force in the welfare of our community. South by sut west alonexd generateds $18 million. On any given night there are at least 100 bands performing in Austin entertainingr thousands of people. There are 13,000 people employed by the music industryq in Austin and Travis County. Over 1500 musical acts. Our new Austin-Bergstrom international airportni boasts a music stage and local music on the intercom.ni Austin is sixth in the nation for number of art sttion and musicians per capita. Attendance at local arts theater has surpassed houston and dallas creating an overall impact ovr nearly $70 million yearly. Ourxd Austin convention visitors bureau includes the slogan the live music capital of the world in all its marketing materials. Grammy nominations for Austin artists are becoming commonplace. In short, Austin is known world wide for itsxd music and the overall impact of the Austin music industry must be staggering. Yet none of the tourism revenue gets paid to musicians other than a below average performance fee. I would venture to say the averagenr musician when you calculate everything sue8u practicing setting up perform is below minimum wage t Austin music is the answer. It's the tool that we need to market and to continue to grow our valuable resource. All music, music education, the symphony, u.t. And more. It will become self-sufficient eventually. Eventually there will be stars that get their big break on the Austin music network. And it could eventually become a gold mine for us. But not unless you vote to keep it going and see the incredible value that it is to us right now. [Buzzer sounds]. Please vote to support it.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Yes, Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: let me ask you a question. You said on any given night there's 100 bands performing in Austin. How do those -- how do the places advertise other than print media? I know I see tonight the chronicle and some of the other weekly papers where they advertise who is going to be playing.
>> You are right. The print media is big, it's advertise understand thenr chronicle, in the excel, in the american-statesman and there are now start to be clubs that are advertising on tac9 the Austin music networkni now they that they know they have a bignr target audience watching the network out there right now.
>>Lewis: all right. Thankni you.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Ueler.xd
>> yes, Mayor, Council Members, thank you for letting me speak. I've been an Austin resident since 1997 where I moved from new york where previously I was creative director for marketing sales at abc network so I know a bit about media and marketing and advertising dollars. I think it goes without ag that the ausi music network is a tremenz/ks benefit to musicians, advertisers and the City of Austin.ni world. It's better than advertising itself at the allergy capital <9of the world, which I didn't find out until I moved here, butnr that's another story altogetherxd. Basically what I would like to suggest is that it's quite obvious that ther values and the content values of Austin music network's programming have skyrocketed since rick melkier's stewardship has taken over, however, revenue has seemed to fall short of expectations. We're talking about ad dollars here. Those of you familiar with the business world understand advertisers allocate so many funds for proven mediums where they are going to sell products and these are often done at least a year in advance and those are generally allocated for proven entities. Austin music network is a unique hybrid. It's neither fish nor foul and therefore it presents tremendous promotional opportunities. Advertisers use up their advertising dollars and they have those allocated well in advance. However, there are promotional dollars often hidden away that can be expedited and can be -- didn't know I said anything funny. That can be obtained for dynamic promotions and I would like to suggest that in the futureco, first of all, that the funding and the sub siization of Austin music network continue, but a certain amount of that money goes into a marketing and promotional department that would bring inxd promotional dollars for event marketing, point of sale purchases, cooperative advertising, and that in turn will bring in advertising dollars. So I would like to suggest that we look into the possibility of generating promotional dollars fromxd advertisers because those are quickly and a lot more expediently obtainable than advertising dollars that hav been allocated a year in advance. I speak from experience. I know that there is money hidden away. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Richard trockenburg. Jim hudson still here?xd
>> right here.
>>Mayor Watson: it's my understanding you wish to donate your time.
>> Yes, sir. You have six minutes if you need it.
>> Thank you, Mayor Watson, thank you Council. I'm here to speak in opposition toes ka lagt the $200,000 payment to music management and also press my puzzlement as to why we're even here talking to about this issue. It's my understanding music management came before the Council in the fall of last yearynd put forth a plan byni which with $500,000 of seed money and their ability to market that they would be able to make a self-sufficient 4p<9 channel in three years. Their plan was they would need 200,000 in the second year and 100,000 in the third year. A big reasonok why theyco were selected or at least why we were told as citizens they were selected was that they had a private sector perspective to managing this channel, unlike some of their competitors. Well, I mean it's the private sector. If you decide to front-load your money and you lose, what you do is you suck it up and you make it through your contract through other sdurces. I suggest to Mr. Melkier he go out and get it.ns@6hcjij- if he wants toxd con+ managing the contract get a loan, other type of money, we have honored our commitment. I don't even know why we're discussing it any more than that. Second point though, and by the way, there are hundreds of contractors who come before you to do business, and I would like toni think that most of them make money. I would like to think that the City of Austin isr to do business, but I'm sure there areco many contractors who have bid?4n business and lost money on it and they've sucked up the loss because they wanted to have an opportunity to do business in the future and I think you are send ago terrible message to every one of those contractors if you even consider doing this. Second point, contract management. How did we get ourselves in a position where we all/.c a contractor to spend a year's worth oft( funding in six months? isn't that contract management 101 to oen sure that -- that you have enough money to last for a whole year. That seems to be pretty simple to me. I think if Council could ask Mr. Garza or ms. Brewbaker or utility matdly the contract managers for an explanation. I'm not suggesting that music management is in non-compliance. We're in the talking here about revokingoh contract. I watch the channel. I enjoy it. But I think you should say to them today we expect you to meet all of the things that you agreed to for the rest of the year on the money we have given you. And if you fail to do that, then we will take actions like we would do with a#cn other contract to revoke your management contract. That seems very simple to me. And I would ask some other questions ofnrco Mr. Melkier or ask staff to do that. Are there any contingentfa liabilities that have and accrued during this first six months of managing the contracted. As I read the proposal it seemed to me that he was getting some -- some of his suppliers to sort of give him a break in thenr early going of his contract with the idea things would get better later. Well, are there subcontractors tow3 Mr. Melkier who are something right now? I don't know that's true, but I would ask that question. I would also make another issue about the marketing. We always talkxd about marking plans.xd I heard him speak before the music commission about some of theni wonderful pipeline that he had of 150,000 dollars of contracts that werex$du8rting on the table and a couple of the entities he mentioned that werefa under consideration were Austin energy and the Austin qe"9convention bureau. To me that's likenr taking tax dollars, rate dollars I pay to the electric utility or bed tax dollars to come in to supplement general fund is not what I was thinking we were getting when we were getting a private sector. I thought what he was doing business community and getting private dollars. I would structure staff to make a suggestion that we don't count those dollars the we we would if we got a dell corporation or a 3m to contribute money here. Finally I want to mention something about on air st. Louis tations. I sent an e-mail to every member of the Council several weeks ago. I don't know how many people watch the network, but several weeks ago when it became clear that the channel was in trouble, there were times on the network where on-air staff I assume they are paid, were making solicitations to me as ar my calm to come support this channel.ni are we setting a precedent right now where Channel 6 can lobby me to get more money for Channel 6? does anyone else see that is a horribly bad thing to do? and if there isn't a law or an ordinance against doing that, that that is what you ought to be doing, telling our -- vendors they can't lobby the Council that way. I would like again for someone to address that issue. I thinkq it's a profoundly wrong and bad precedent. Again, in caseni I'm not being totally clear, I am absolutely against --.
>>Mayor Watson: are you really worried about that?jf [laughter].
>> Absolutely against giving $200,000 today toniusic+4 thank you.
>>Lewis: is that the reason that you are here because of [laughter].
>> I would say that thet( escalation of my venom occurred when I was being slis at this time. Degrees I sent an e-mail to Council Member Slusher when he asked for specifics about time when there was actually no video being played. I mean isn't thatnr the purpose of this channel, to play video of Austin and Texas based musicians? I mean, you know, I'm getting solicitations, I watch that on other channels. Thanks.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Leonardni lions had also signed up. He didn't sign up for or time to Mr. Trockenberg. The rules which say you have to be present -- and I know you leftxd ' seconds on the table, which is also a precedent that I hope you will stick with in the future, because rules require youco be present to donate time you didn't donate his time to -- count it as part of your time. Again Mr. Lions didn't sign up for ornr against but I assume he had talked to you beforehand and knew what he was going to say so I'm going to indicate he was probably against. There you go. Wendy morgan. Ms. Morgan, this isn't directed directly at you, but for those of you all coming up again, if you are just reiterating what somebody else has said or you are just saying you are for or against, we don't necessarily need to hear everybody. We've got 60 people so far signed up on this side.
>> I will be brief. I'm the director of music marketing for the Austin convention and visitors bureau. And I have worked in this position for -- actually almost four months now. I have worked with the Austin music network in helping them promote themselves. I think that the Austin music network is an incredibly valuable tool in marketing Austin who situations. I think it's a valuable tool not only for the musicians but the venues that get publicity on the show like what's the cover that talks about the bands that will be playing at the club that evening. It's also very valuable tool for the visitors of the City. 16 Million visitors come to town. They open up the Austin chronicle or the excel and hat? to decide what band to see, they can turn on the Austin music network and see what bands are available for them to see that evening. That's a very valuable tool for visitors. Also we're trying very hard to market Austin in terms of its music. We're trying to get visitors from the out sides of town. We've got a lot of people living in north Austin that may have never been into the City to see the capitol let alone a live band, so the Austin music network/n allows citizens of Austin that may never have wen downtownco before to have a chance to see music, maybe help spur them to buy a cd. So I think that's a very important tool for Austin. Some things that I have done in my office at the music marketing office, we have sponsored tent cards and we had a pripter sponst tent cards that we put to promoteni the Austin music network in 5,000ni hotel rooms that carry Austin cable vision or time warner cable vision and that promoted thenr viewing of the music network drg southwest southwest. We got them in before sxsw started. We have also been working with the university of Texas public relations department, one of their classes has doia5k spent all semester working on a marketing campaign for the Austin music network. They came up with an incredible package of press pre leases as well as marketing ideas as well as logos. So using some tools we have this the City whether it be students and interns and just developing relationships with folks, we can work very hard to market the Austin music network. So I would like again to say the music network is a very valuable tool and I appreciate your time.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Sharon fielding.zv brond today nester signed up not wishing to speak butco in favor.
>> I'Mr
>>Mayor Watson: is jeannie Ramirez here? do you wish to speak -- if you will please make your way toward the podium. Welcome, ms. Fielding.
>> I am an Austinite musician. This is what I want to do with my life and career. The Austin music networkni has greatly helped me forward my career when I've only been doing this for two years. And I have created a cd, I've created a music video that is now going to record labels this. Is a very important thing to me because they have invited me back several times to play and I have done it and I've played several songs and they have played them over and gefr again where I wasn't even present. One timenr I found on the tv and found myself on tv and didn't know. I've had people come up to me and tell me, they are like we saw you on tv and I never knew. I never knew youni could play giz tar or sing like that.ht they will come support me when they've never hoard me before. These arexd co-workers, people ico don't even know. I've had people come up and say aren't you cheryl fielding I heardhy>u on tv and I really liked you. Where can I get your cd. )H have a lot of gratitude for the Austin music network for helping me do this. Austin is a very nurturing City and I've lived outside of here much of my life and when I came to Austin they sucked me in and made me feel wem come and let me know that it was okay that I do this. They let me find my own voice here. I've never been happier in all my life and I'm very grateful for music and the commission who has put this Austin music network together for us and I would please ask you to continue funding it. Sxsw made $18 million for Austin. We're only asking for $200,000 to keep it going. And as people like me, I am a product of what the Austin music network has done and what Austin stands for. Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. [Applause]. [One moment please]. I mean, it goes up depending on the -- on the popularity of the show.
>>Mayor Watson: on who?
>> dudley and bob and debra show, that morning thing. Bud bud.
>> But the music network, will be able to do that soon. Right now they're giving you rock bottom prices to get you to advertise. And, you know, have I talked to joey with saxton pub. He is going to start advertising. I've talked to cel sismtno' lis brew ri. I've talking to my peers to see if they can afford something a month to try to get this thing, help it out. You can see the growth by chart how fast they're growing. They started this thing in november, which was unrealistic. Everybody's advertising dollars for this holiday season last year was already done. You're asking asking about why do you have this october? we figure out six months to a year in advance where we're spending our money. We don't say maya.s is when we're going to do is. People for october know halloweenlp is coming up, they know Christmas is coming up. We'r%u budgeting for that in our money. That's whya.a it keeps taking longer. And the more people advertise, it's like anything else. You put a mcDonald's on the corner, prettyn other things there. As soon as you get people advertising, there's going tov be more and more clubs, more music related type people coming on this thing. I can see it happening.
>>Spelman: I don't want to ask another question, but I appreciate your answer.
>>Mayor Watson: you just taught him never to ask a question. [Laughter]. Chap clap.
>>Slusher: I don't think he pointed this out during his answer, but steamboat is doing monthly benefits.
>> We've already got joe eely. Once a month we're doing is show at steamboat for the Austin music network. I think the Austin music hall is also going to jump on the band wab gone.
>> And Mr. Trach enburg is not herewz considers that a horrible promotion, butfvf we'll deal with that later. Thank you, Mr. Crooks.
>>Mayor Watson: let me use this as an opportunity because you make a very passionate statement about the music network and you also do something that some other speakers have done, but I think you do it very well, which you have pointed out many of the benefits. One of the speakerst that came just before you, and I apologize that iech forgotten your name, yeah, made a real good point about being a beginning or starting her career. And one of the advantages of having an Austinb music network is the incubator effect of having such a thing. And I think I can speak for the entirec Council, all seven of us, that this is not a question of keeping an Austin music network. All of us see multiple values to having the Austin musi network. Some of us, if you ask us to start annual lie liesing it and giving alln the different values, we might come up with different lists or different orders on list, but there's a whole lot of reasons that I think all of us want to see the music network continue: the issue we're faced with as a goch earning body to address -- the question is how do we have an Austin music network. I believe I speak for everybody. It's not whether we have an Austin music network, it's a question of how do we haveu >> I moved here to Austin from massachusetts aboutkbon four yearso[[ ago and like most people=) I moved here because of the music scene, because of the film industry and things that were going on here. And one of the first things I see, I came to visit a friend and they were like Austin is so cool. And one ofywc the first things I noticed were all the things on television, all the publicczpaccess and all the crazy shows that they had on there and the Austin music network. And I had never seen anything like that before. It was like wow, here's a whether it's rzz9dk4 <1)vht+ music or really light music or jazz music or rock or whatever style it is, it's not as discriminatory as like some of the more mainstream conventions of trying to get your music on the radio. They're willing to giveb anyone a chance. And I think as Austin gets bigger and bigger it's going to be harder for?n it to retain all of the cool things that brought people likegob me here and it'su going to bring more people here too.sxsu and I think it's 5f upfsz to us ans? I think it would be worth the money. It would be worth the money to spend to think something like Austin music network going because you want to keep many of the things that are going to keep?h culturally die verse. I think it would be worth spendi2#v the money on that. As the City is growing, I know you dpies I aware of this, you have to keep moving withb it so Austin will retain the values that made it great in the first place. Thanks.
>>Goodman: thank you very much. [Applause].s
>>Goodman:0 here, was in favor. Amy Williams in favor, not speaking. Sam pena doesn't want to speak, is in favor.xd1+u darcy fromholts.
>> She's on the air right now.
>>Goodman: pretty much in favor, I would imagine. Sheila cosper.
>> That was me. And I've beenadonated time and I also have a video that needs to be qued again. And it was jim he will injer and John jagu and Mr. Johnson just in case.
>>Goodman: that gives you 12 minutes. I'm a producer aty5c Austin music network around the auspices of music management and I want to start out by saying that as we have these people come up here and speak in favor, they are all speaking in favor of music management group. It's been a hard time for the.h"& Council, for the commission, for the opposition and certainly for music management group. We have all worked feverishly on our various agendas. The network has certainly devoted much time and effort to reaching new goals and setting new standards. One of those goals is to makezv a difference in the lives of the people of the community. It cannot be denied that we have made a difference in$. The careers of musicians inqn-Austin. And now we submit to you that we are working at makingu>cu difference in the lives of all people. In conjunction with peter-9n yaro of peter, Paul and mary, I have recently kmeeted a video that will make a -- completed difference. It will receive worldwide release. Thisan video is going to be used as a fund-raising video#v for charities all over the world, fund-raising and consciousness raising. Peter could not be here today, but he hasqvz#tc-5q @0ydho/; given)v us a video he would like to show. It'si] an introduction of the video that I completed and we'd like to go ahead and show that now. V/o before I leave, we also have signed and autographed copies of that video for each member of the Council.7otdvideo. Kue the video.
>> They said there's no guys there. The mother said home is where the heart is. And there's another song about a down syndrome child called Johnnie's down. And there's another song by billy wheeler called the coming oi inz the one new song is don't laugh at me. And that song, because sheila called up and sheila called up aund becausetm rick said let's do it, we now have something, a tool for doing exactly what you're doing. Our little bit to say what are we going to do about it. And all of a sudden the tragedy of5(f/ kolumbine made]ky this -- which they wanted to do long before the tragedy. It was notw3 making advantage of a situation, which would be uncon shun nabl. They wanted to do this song and made a video of it. It is this is -- this is what you're watching here at Austin music network. You're watching people who have the guts and the courage and the heart't to turn something which is a piece of music into a national message. And I predict this is the first time it's being seen on the airm forth and it willq/hu do its work. And maybe one child won't die and maybe five children won't commit suicide or maybe hundreds of thousandsbky will be affected by this and it will add to other people's efforts. And the very thing that we're talking about will change. And if I didn't believe that, then I didn't March with Martin Luther King. If I didn't believe that, then I didn't co-coordinate a March on washington to stop the waruspin vietnam. We can change it. Music can be a part of it and one of the critical, critical institutions in our country that does it# so my passion for doing what I do is made -- because I can speak my mind here. I'd be talking to David letterman this way?
>> no, you wouldn't be doing that.
>> Let's go ahead and take a look at the video. Allfa right. Thispdn is peter, Paul and mary, don't laugh at me, here on t[p8Texas best..zo
>> let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt. ) Music playing)
(Music) >> the whole world is watchingc you. Look how far you've come. [Applause].I/n
>> thank you for the video. I would like to submit to the Council that music management group has a/+ staff of dedicated andi] talentedym individuals. We can do this job. We want to do this job.nb we ask fori,yourr thank you very much.aan [applause]. >>. N[inaudible].
>>Goodman: okay. I'm not/c going to try itg# even, but you're in favor? okay. Thank you.v: brad van0a in favor and not speaking. Roberty/? b.9, ikn o'keefe? not here, in favor. S)-zanthat@ kabarinas perhaps? was in favor.b lisa short? or shirt.
>> She left, but in favor.
>>Goodman: in favor, not here. Mic pdimm she's in favor. Jay ashcroft?un
>> hi everyone.o5 I faxed y'all some stuff that I wanted I've got copies I'll distribute out. First I want everyone to understand that I've been in favor of the Austin network since 1987 and have actually put three proposals for it. But my concern is that the process has failed ina-3 practice and I think that one thing that youkwj all need0u to dov whether it ever happens today, is you need to apply for a/" contingency plan to keepxn ama on the air andy- preserve the arrest chiefs because they're real valuable. First I want to talk about the contractor's proposal made unrealistic promise $that skewed the evaluation process+gdb two matrix that y'all used(ae choose from. What was proposed is not what was contracted and what was contracted is not what's been performed. Secondly, the music commission told you so. I don't know if you remember, but one of the people when they came=n here from then!w/ music commission stated that the red flag was that the!/e $750,000 was really high. In fact, it over 2,000% more than any of the other proposals, previous experience and even staff recommendations in the past. The contract has terms of giving 20% compensation on sales received, yet to date they've already% $18,000 in draws on only -- this is as of March, onko only: 86 $70 ofrda commissions -- of sales received. This is really bad. They've also given all the money that the City had for subsidies out already, and supposedly there's 430,000r> dollars that aren't on any numbers that I've seen anywhere. The City is supposed to have a six-month performance review and this is supposed tolp be may 1st and I suggest that+ this item has failed to go through the subcommittee,< that you should refer it back to the tel come committee andio5 ask for@c4 that review, that review,sand maybe give them 60,000 dollars to buy enough time so they have ax&ther month to get by. I also -- I want you to hold purchasing accountable because they're the -- and we also have to understand whenoc we look back at this that the process has failed. And finally I want to saym pleaseyv preserve the archives and considering issuing an$ rfc, which is a request for comment to allow other options to come on the table for how to preserve the archives, provide a backup plan in case Mr. Malshorp fails to perform. Thank you.
>>Goodman: thank you. Natalie zoe?
>> I have a couple of things to say. First of&ag/ all, I would like to tell you I've been in the music community here in Austin for a very long time.nn I've played my first gigicn+nre in december of 1972 at a place called castle creek. I don't know if you remember that place. So I've been here a long time and I've watched the music business develop here. It's been a veryopg/ interesting process. I think that the Austint music network has been a reallyoki/k valuable tool, as everybody has already reiterated, for the music community and also for our business community as promoting Austin as the live music capital of the world. I know this hs already been said,/ but one thing I would like to=n point oi as a mom and as a long-term citizen of this community is that I think it's also shown / itself to be a good source of family entertainment. I tell you my daughter attends boon elementary school int< southwest Austint(n and they had their carnival there about a month ago and I went there with my daughter and during the course of our visit at the carnival on the schoolq grounds, I must have had 30 people both young, young children and the teachers and parents, come up to me and say, oh, you're natalie zoe. I saw you on the Austin music network. And I had a number of people tell me that it's the only music network they will allow their children to watch. There is no violence, there is no sex, there is no foul language, there is nothingd objectionable on that network. And as a mother andkwn a citizen of the community, I think that is something really crucial we should all consider. And as far as our current dilemma, I think that it would just be just incomprehensible for the City not to provide the funds that the music network needs to make the transition into commercially viable station, which I do think is possible. And the reason I think that's possible is because what I'veznwitnessed from communitying c with people who have nothing to do -- communicating with no especially pooem#gn who have nothing to do with the music business. They watch the network, they listen to what they hear and they have gone out and bought my cd and come to myvm, gigs because of the network. People who have no super in the music business. So this network is not just capital of the world. It's becoming a real important part of our community. People are watching this network. Children are watching this network. And one idea that I had, I haven't really talked to anybody about this, but it seems like, okay, if we say $200,000 is what we're going to need right now for kind of a band-aid, it seems like a betternb contingency plan could be put into position. I don't know exactly -- personally I don't know --. [Buzzer]. Is that my time?
>>Mayor (fuo?ceu time.mx
>> all right. I made my point.
>>Mayor Watson: you did. Thanku you very much.
>> Actually. I want to say to make ag/ transition that I think we can make a transition to combine it -- combine the funteds.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you.c office sara lang? she signed up for. Wes flips? do you wish to speak?
>> yes.#g west phillips?@
>> Mayor, Council Members,rsn thanks for the time. I'm wes fill lips, I'mq=u a local mortgage broker by day, lead singer at river bend church on the weekends and host a little show called rock late night on the Austin music network, so I'm at trouble at both ends of that for whatnh, do.#1fq and I wouldn't trade it for I guess. It's been a great opportunity for me as an individual to get to do what I do on the air and>-npsort of as a result of this process crystal stevens, who is another host of our show, and I went to chicago about a month ago andn/7 awe ditioned for that mtv looking for one host across the country deal. And I think the opportunity --.
>>Mayor Watson: they didn't pick me either.
>> I think they're looking for#dln a jesse kind of guy and you and I are in trouble on that. But it was a great opportunity for me and it wouldn't'p have happened if it hadn't been for the flu of Austin music network and the chance to geti, toao@vndevelop my skills as a communitier on the air. It's been a lot of fun. I will say that I think is a benefit is4ti the broad demographic range that thisninn network appeals8h to. Natalie mentioned that withqwh her kids watching. One of the segments we do on our show, the last half hour we do call ins and allow people to call and recommend what they want to see. And on any given night we have a kid named reagan who is nine years old that likes rob zombie and all the way to people in their 40's who don't like to tell their age who regularly call in. So I don'tcow very manyus. Mediums that have that broad a range ofkl& appeal and it's entertaining for me to figure out what's going to be appropriate to say for a nine-year-old and a 45-year-old at the same time. Icou hopen that we can put ourq heads together and find a way to stretch the budget and allow the funding to continue. Because I think this is as a kid that grew up here since 1972, had my first guitar55fs lessons at jr read and have developedin my talents asmy a singer that Austin and the music part;o@ of Austin hasdn been a tremendous part of my life and I'min grateful to you for recognizing that andor enforcing the Austin music network.
>>Mayo+an Watson: thank you.l grahamu! satenenger.q( he signed up for. Bob living ton? followed by John2i graham and then lee wise.nrrbc lane orsak signed up not speaking, but for.
>> Welcome. I'm bob livingston, chair of the Austin music commission. No mattero.f agree with thel'ayor, the musig co network must survive. If it goes dark, time warner will get it back. And the City will lose this channel. In april the music chition passed a resolution recommending Austin adnnce friendly to musicians, song writers and the music business. Soon there were hundreds of recording studios, publishing houses, record companies and thousands ofdag music relatede.c jobs. Big money and economic#od development by supporting the music and arts. And even at this late date%y, Austin has a window of opportunity to do the same thing and even surpass this wouldn't want to do business in Austin rather than nashville. As a commission we are trying to do our part in making music a central issue to the City Council. The problem we have here is money.cl the amn has improved when look and in content. The potential is thereoc and I think it's still improve ing. We have a committee on the commission headed by danny crooks that is planning&/ benefits and fund-raisers for the Austin music network, but that will only go so far. Some other possibilities that I think the City Council; continue -- could consider, I'm sorry, staff to look at the possibility of accessing otherw+1v fundsy./, two potential funds are the access fund and the 7-11 fundat ar equipment.=(qn I don't knowirn why when the Austin musiw r network was first established none of these funds werejk>ccessed oru considered, even if they were. When the/ka franchise agreement with negotiated, the access channels. [Buzzer].mki
>>Mayor Watson: anybody want to give Mr. Livingston three minutes of their time?eofezjbdn 6!.ejm$=c"o;ni2e /faffab.h/"nn>xagojj John graham?
>> he had to go to work. Mayor they're that doesn't count then.
>> I would be glad to give up my minutes.
>> The Austin access chwh+nnels were taken care of., question is I was asking the how much, and how long and I'm trying to make sure that as I make a decision here today, and I thinkrei everybody is kind of feeling this way, maybe not, but if you[n go onwe a vote to put $200,000zo7 of next year's budget into something today, you're making -- in many ways you're making a long-term commitment at that point. Otherwise you wouldn't be putting next year's money into something. And I know that there's been a lot of discussion, even in thej music community,f about whether or not there is some#;w alternative available and some degree there hasn'ti been sufficient time to come uphmn with that al tern and my question to you is -- alternative. And my question to you is from the:tn music commission's point of view, is this theu only choice we really have if it is that we want to the Austin music network.
>> I don't think it's the only choice. I >> that will pull them in. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you commissioner connor.I] willis allen ramsey? there you go.
>> Thank you Mr. Mayor,4rtCouncil. I'm a tran plant back to Austin. I used to live here back in the 70's. I've had' recording studio business, a music publishing business. I'm here to speak out on the music network in favor, of course, but not against the current contractor. And I think that Mr. Track enburg did raise'p then pivotal question that we're looking at today and that is what type of job is the contractor doing,3w why are we even looking at this righte& now? so I believe that the City Councilon and the Mayor and the music community atroz large love tibie concept ofgnb Austin having a music network, howevernr, I think theyotal question is whether we keep supporting the current+ regime, putting these expensive man dats on the regime and -- and to sayda their business plan failed in terms of projections is grossly underestimating whatiwi has occurred here. I mean, it's -x there's3om been somewhere around eight or $9,000 worth of revenue..dckthis is not what we were all hoping would happen here. So I vote that we go back, form a task force and look at this problem and take a good, long look at it. I know there were)w. Questions about the processes, the 9ren they were looked at before. But I think that this is an incredible asset for and I think that it neeteds to be evaluated -- needs to be reee valuated. Keep it on the air. Don't let it go dark. I've lived in los angeles, new york, london, no other City like that has an asset like this. So please don't let it go dark, but let's look at it again and take a good hard look at it. Thank you very much.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. Those are all the people signed up to speak on items 11 and 12.
>> Mr. Mayor, --. [Inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: ms. Ramos, come on.
>> Hi. I'm glad you guys are taking the time to discuss this. We appreciate it a lot. I think when you asked us as a community or as a network or as a group of people who we feel like can be done because it's not a question of if or if we want this or if we're going to work to make this happen, but how we can do that. I think that -- and we are dealing with intangibles here in terms of art and music. And this is -- owe I guess you could say this is an intangible thing you could do for us because it's not tangible, but if -- I think that potential advertisers and advertisers in support of the network will be much more comfortable investing money in the network if they know that the City Council is united for this project. Because I think that when advertisers look at what comes across in the press and look at what comes across from Council meetings, I think that fans some of their concerns.8wy and if advertisers and potential advertisers can see that the Citynrcj trulydhqlieves in this project and is willing to support it8e2n think that that will do a great bring inokn advertisers at a morezl3 rapid rate. Ize?zp accomplished by the network since november has been astone initialing. And I'm humbled by the unwaivering commitment by the staff of the network and I'm very impressed that rick has managed to stay on budget. I think that -- I think that music management could not necessarily be faulted tremendously for overestimating income because it degrees measure and to be quite frank.o7! I don't know if they're contract would have been approved if their numbers were any lower than what they were. But knowing your hard costs is a hard tthing. And he does. So I think that that's important to<" take into account. And once againnof,7n' as someone who has been a music commissionermy, who has both done work for the7zot network andzeez also is a vj on the air right now, I can tell you that people are watching. I can tell you that it's hav8 community because not a day goes by that I'm not somewhere and someone disont come upfcun and say I recognize I, I see what you're doing. I love how network looks. And until we find a more accurate way of measuring the demographic, that's probably going toson have to do. But I believe that+o presenting a united front and making sure that poi8!ntential advertisers and and community as a whole knows that the Council and the press support this project did do way more than almost anything else for actually dwayneing advertisers. And that's all I have to say. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. Council, that concludes all the people signed up to speak. I'll either, depending on the will. Council, intlain a motion at this point or -- entertain a motion or allow for Council Members who may have more questions to ask questions of staff. Councilmember Spelman?
>>Spelman: I have a question of Council Member Garcia. Gus, -- does that count?
>>Mayor Watson: if he's willing to answer.
>>Garcia: absolutely. Even to ask for a pay raise.
>>Spelman: you will get one as soon as I get one. You mentioned a few minutes ago that you smiment estimated that at the current rate of increase in advertising revenue that you thought that the network would be self sustaining about 25002, 25003. I wonder if you could walk through our logic on that.
>>Garcia: what I did was I projected the increase in revenue. It costs about 900,000 to operate, $75,000 a month to operate the station. And that will increase. And then I took the revenue and increased it on the basis of how much it's increasing right now and the projections. And we will need -- I don't know what I did with my figures, but we will need 700 this year. I suspect that next year we're going to need somewhere between four and 500,000 and three the next. And then we've spent -- and the last two years is what I did. We've spent about 1.8 already and that's how I arrived at 2.8 to three million dollars. That would be the investment. Spell the reason I asked is I was doing a similar calculation, but with a different bottom line. I was sfimenting we were only going to need to cover expenses of about 60,000 dollars a month rather than 75,000 a month. And --.
>>Garcia: they're spending 70 right now. They're spending 70g# right now. So if we're going to keep the quality up, they're39 going to have to on owe it's going to get up to 75. And betty is going like this.y3
>>Spelman: betty, could you address that?an
>> well, I think from an historical perspective, I've been with the music network at least as long as Council Member Garcia. And when we first started putting it on the air, we put it on the air on a shoestring. And I think that budget, we thought it was going to be like 250,000. I don't think we've ever spent less than 300,000 a year doing that shoestring. About four years ago, the subcommittee asked us for determine what it would really cost us to put on a3nn good quality, a lot of live programming, and at that time we were estimating on the side for it tou be about a million=n dollars.n/c and that's aboutow we're seeing now,e maybe a little less thanlp that, but we weren't thatjfn professional at that time. And at the time we thought that if we were running it that we could probably only recover about a third of thatso3 cost in advertising revenue. So I think we've seene3 the quality of the programming really increase and be a lot better than we evern Mr. Garcia I think it's going difficult to have ae1 very high quality program in theu]w short-term without some assistance, but I think long-term it may well have a chance to at least/ produce e8rough revenue if not to be totally self-sufficient, at least more closely self-sufficient than it was when we were doing the really shoestring sort of approach.w and by the way, the staff did a great jobo on that shoestring. I'm not]I criticizing them. But it was all that we felt at the time that we were learning that we wanted to put in. Is that how you kind of remember itnn,iue':,tsy)q?etn]?aqhnjq Mr. Garcia?
>>Garcia: yes. And the reason we did that is like I indicated to Mr. Livingston, we always thought that we were putting in seed money. Every year when we've done this, we've talked about this being seed money, not financing money to continue the operation. Because the people that asked us to do this said we need need this. And they're music people and they're people that benefit from this channhl being on the air.ue so we figured they were going to invest some of their money. That investment wouldkwc take the form of buying advertising. So wv%0ng he brought the proposal in, we said, well, instead of spending 300, we're going to spend;mb 500 this year. And I remember Council Member Griffith asking some pointed questions about, you know, will you ever come back for more for this year? and the answer was no, this is going to get us there.I#s so looking at what is happening now and6op looking at the revenue projectips and the expense projections, it's going to cost about three million dollars, and that+o I mus5n. Off the gri andea Mr. Livingston said, thisir may be a real good investment for the City,) concern has been that the music industry hasn'te4 come to the bat -- to p nat on this one. They haven't shown up. And I have a package here from -- that includes american bandstand and some others. I'm very encouraged by this because it shows some people are willing to put their dollars in, and that -- to drived+bn thee@ fund-raising equation in such a way that we can get to/ where we need to be.
>>Mayor Watson: additional questions by counsel?
>>Spelman: Mayor, I'd like to address the same question to Mr. Melke or someone else who works for music management.n&f
>> I'm sorrynbn, someone was talking to me.
>>Spelman: sure.n/oc Council Member Garcia and betty dunkerly, our financial officer2l,lpn are both estimating that it will take until about 2003-'h or q 2002 until it will be self sustaining. Do you think that's about the right time. Do you think it will happen quicker or later?be
>> I sta,w'n by believing that it can happen more quickly, although I'm certainly -- haven't qualified myself as thee=1 best progress no, sir ta<91y3 indicator ofgs advertising -- prognastnagator in all of this. And I think that Council Member Garcia picked up in all of this. We have become to turn the corner in terms of credibility and in terms of getting the business community I&g0'ved in3ypthis network. And I know that we had to make an investment in the quality of thecor nest work. It was the premise upon which the whole proposalkn" was built.jn beforede advertisers, before in9kt fact musicians in large numbers, clubs were willing to give u< venues and talking about benefits=n aoh' talking about(dfa investing and certainly investing their very,.c very precious advertising dollars. The projection to 2002 and 3 goes far beyond the projections I've made because I have seen us breaking even ken after this bad start. Over a three-year period+r/n, possibly into1/ the fourth year, trying to be a little bit more conser.xtive. And the reason I still believe that is that I know from my experience that the first 50,000, theqnhp first 100,000 is the most difficult. That advertisers follow advertisers.8hn and we've already seen that to be true. We have had advertisers call us up and ask us for proposals because they saw another club on and they called that cluby9rn and said did it work for you? we aretu hampering and moreiw greatly pampered than I ever thought we were by the lack3w of ratings information. Advertisers have become very sophisticated,. Even localitiesers. And the only thing that we have to sell is success of adverti;h . And these ang neck doets froms musicians who network and my audience the next night was substantially bigger than it's ever been. And these things take time. I thoughtipen, quite honestly,t8n that we would find advertisers or corporationsgjn7 swho saw thei?z value of the music network for the community and would take a chance, and we(g. Had one advertiserun, mark katz at katz's deli who wnw was our first advertiser. He said I don't know if this is going >n to work, I d;+n't know what you'retlm going doing, but I want to support the music network and here is a check. I'm going to do it. I believed others would do that. That hasn't been the case.=n and iw3 think this addresses -- this informationbin is useful in evaluating whatfo1 the other financin be. Certainly if it's difficult to get corporations to put their money into this channel for their own economic benefit through advertising to believe that they are going to do so through underwriting and withoutjg>v hope of pers3al or corporate gain is probably41j even less likelyy thought it was.;u as small as our advertising revenues has been, our grants have been zero.mnin we have hadv&0 nobody offer us money justnr to support us or just to help us.l2 and we'veun had a professional staff under contractasince december looking for that money, headed3? by lynn cook si, andj6mn it hasn't been there. So the question of who fundsn isio5 a very difficult one. I wish that we had not been here taking up all your time with this, that my projections had been=n5a more accurate, but we are1'lc /orknnpc5okr >>.
>>B+sencoir4/jnsn is goingcoc to keepco the same patterns?
>> well, I,)wan know -- wellco, I --. >Griffith: I mean we have no -- we have no good or bad neilsen or not neilsenni numbers on how many folks are watching at what time.
>> We only have anectdotal evidenceni that we have viewership. >Griffith: and that'sjf probably not going to change. Do you have any plans to change that?
>> actually we are going to beco talking with the business department at u.t. To seei] if we can get a student projectw3 to give us some sort of research project done by students to give us some numbers, at least to give us a base number. I haven't been anxious to do that because until the last 30 or 60 days, I did not get the feel from the direct communications to the network that we were really at a level of audience that could be measured, that was beginning to be high enough to be measured, and I do think we're there now and should we two forward, that will be one of the things that we try to do. We may also try to allocate money to some sort of research project. You know, we have this -- in talking about budgets and a speaker brought it up earlier, I am faced daily with not only keeping the budget down as much as possible, but what to put in marketing and what to put in programming.ni and --. >Griffith: and those are your business plan items?
>> yeah. What do you mean business plan items? >Griffith:, well, that's part of what you would put in yournh business plan is how much you are going to put into what?
>> right. Well, that's in there. I mean we have more detail. The budget is more detailed to save space. I mean, we have itxd down toe1 salaries and paper clips.xd we did not provide you with that because it gets to be a four-page document that -- but it's there and the City has seen that. So they know n7tb only, you know, does it cost 60,000, but where that 60,000 is being spent.
>> And one of the other issues that we keep talking about is the fish foul thing where we're not public, we're not private, we're not analogous to anybody else anywhere. That fundamentally is not going to change, is it?
>> no, not without a dramatic change in the contract. You know, as one of the earlier speakers suggested, that we should do, we have int( fac+9gone out and south outside capital under the contract with the City, we're -- music maaement group willnr never make enough money to justify any outside investors putting money into4ja- it.ni h]all the money fund mentdly in the contract has to stay in the network. We get a very small net operating revenue perhaps some day if revenues pick up, but if revenuesnr don't pick up, we get nothing.
>> So we're not going to be able to sell stock.
>>Xd nojf.xd >Griffith: so the corporate structure is going toxd stay -- is going to stay the same.
>> Yes. >Griffith: okay. Thanks.coxd andco what -- what seems to be coming out thisni eveningqnixd is thatni we very well may be looking at subsidizing atnr some level for the life of the musicco network because of those uncertainties that you just ticked through. That's what I'm hearing you say.
>> Yeah, no,nrfa I -- yeah, I thinkni that's certainly possible. You know, we are going to work hard to not make it so, but, you know, thatni is perhaps the price of having a musiccoxd network. Certainly if you go back to the old plan, you will be just paying the bills for the music network. Unless someone can be given the economic incentive to come in and put their own money into this channel to put a million dollars into it and run it, which, you know, I don't know of any situation like that otherni than ownership which is prohibited under the time warner agreement, I don'tnr see how you can have a free n8 music channel other than staying the course with one that isco well progragm and professionally run to see ifconr the community will support it with their advertising dollars. >Griffith: and presuming no big revolutionary changes, d<0u we may be looking at is at what level are we willing to invest from now on.
>> Uen a music network -- or to have a music network, yes, and I think that's a legitimate question and option for Council to consider. >Griffith: thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: Council, I'll entertain a motion with regard to items 11 and 12.
>>Spelman: I move approval of items 11 and 12.
>>Mayor was9: motion made by Council Member Spelman to w, is there a second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. Any discussion?
>>Goodman: yes.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem.
>>Goodman: that's okay, I'll defer.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: I would like to put some metrics on this one, some benchmarks asxd to where we're going to be, the points that Council Member Griffith was making, and I know we can't do it today, but I would like for that toni come back so that we have a good ideanini as to howpk#ee.](r we're going to have to put inxd the budgets, because I think we want to keepr and maintain this quality, we're going to have to do thdw my guess, you know, my guess is maybe -- my guesses may be off so I would poerxd somebody refinen$uhose numbers with -- you know, working together with Mr. Melkur so that we know where we're goingr on this one becauseq obviously we have already committed a lot and backing off at this time, you know may no+gn be advisable. So I would like to have those numbers given to us at some point.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem?xdw3
>>Goodman: well, that was almost what I was going to say too. And on the reporting, on being able for Council to be able to tell what is happening, perhaps the staff reports can bexd passed on to us as well. Andco theco commission cagi, I think, the music commission can be better informed as well. So together if we are going to keep on supportingr longer time frame than we hadfa originallyni thought,ni although let me sayco I never thought we could do it this quickly, and thatgmi the only I told you so I'm going to make. [Laughter]. Along the way, not only benchmarks, but I think just a few sort of safeguards just reassurance issues come up like the preservation of the archives and the protection and the whole copyrighting kind of thing, and also can we have City legal look into that solicitation thing, about whether there is in any way an inappropriate or conflict of interest orw3 illegal issue involved innr thatxd. And there was one more thing,xd butni on-if we're going to see this back to kind of fine tune the benchmarks, then there was one more issue I had and I'll bring it up then. Oh, the task force. I thought that woody's idea about a task force, even if wexd incorporatefa pretty much what the music commission is, right now with somer don't normally go on the commission or come to these meetings would be helpful, and we could alsor more realistic understanding of a future possibly without subsidy, but if with subsidy, I think the media folksj>iuill be able to give us a better handle on that. And that's for another time. I'm not asking to do that today.
>>Mayor Watson: yeah, and I might justni react to that. Since it is for another timeco, but as we think that through, one of the things that concerns me about the concept of that is that I rely upon the music commission to do a big part of that and our appointments to the music commission hopefully help us achieve those things, and if we're going to get into a situation where you have a task force, a music commission and we're also going to be requiring that we know what is going on with regard to management, atni some point I worry that we've got too many w%its out there. So that is for another time,niwc,pv but let's think through whether there is a need for that and how we would go about doing that.
>>Goodman: I think right now on the commission we have obvioespv media representatives who know about the media, but we don't really have the dollars andni cents.
>>Mayor Watson: maybe we need to fix that as part of that whennr we make our appointments. Councilmember Slusher and then Council Member Griffith. I'm sorry, I already had told him.xd
>>Slusher: first of all, I wanted to -- the music commission doesn't have a lawyernr attending yet and I would like to restate that request to the management, the City attorney. I think they've requested that and I think it would be a good idea. So hopefully we can do that. I th >>Slusher: okay. I have, too. That was back when I wast( writing about him. [Laughter].
>>Slusher: I think he is right about the musicni industry needing to -- to show up. What I want to get beyond this cycle of what I've seen happen through the -- both strations a that the music network that it comes down to time for the Council to reallocate more funding and then we get a big lobbying campaign, likexd Mr. (Nckenberg goni onni the area other),enue, not just kevin's but around the City and then trying to lobby the City Council, they all call the City cda;cil, get them to fund the music channel, the music channel is important and we believe all that stuff, that's why we keep putting up the money, but to me that's annr? >>Mayor Watson: the proposed friendly amendment is to approve items 11 and 12, but as -- in addition to the direct City Managerco to identify funding for future subsidies that would bei] outside of the general fund. Councilmember Spelman, do you consider that friendly.
>>Spelman:x >>Lewis: thank you, Mayor. The -- one thing that I would like to see and we haven't had since we funded this is a report, at least a quarterly report from the commission. We have other boards and commissions making reports to us and I -- you know, when this came up, I was the -- I was a little in shock to find out that we needed more money after, you know, only six months. So I think if we could get a report from the commission on a regular basis, at least we would be able to know what is status of the situation is. Because I mean it's enough to be hit with it, but to be hit wit and not know where it's coming from is a different story.co so I would request that the -- that the commiss the agenda to at least give a report, at least quarterly, to the Council at work session or you know, probably at a work session. But I would ask the Cityni manager if heco would to -- so that the Council would be aware of the status of the situation rather than waiting and getting, you know, 200 e-mails about support or not supporting the music networkxd.
>>Mayor Watson:nr I'll make a quick comment. Again lp%u to reiterate I believe that Council's pozaaion is very clear that it's not whether we have an Austin music network but how, at least that's the goal and the desire of theco Council. Innthinkqn everybody recognized there are true benefitsbo the City to come out of this. I'm going to vote in favor of the motion, after spending a lake travis of time trying to figuret( out how to get there and visiting with a number of people about it and discussing it, because I'm worried about the alternatives. I'm worried about if we just talk in terms of dollars, the cost of just running a bare bones operations. Wife talked to staff about that and what costs would be as compared to the 200,000 now. I'm also worried about ramping back up and how long that takes and not just the cost of ramping back up, but where wew3 go. And as commissionerxd conner commented that the worry about not getting any better, and I hearq that. So to some degree it's a bird in the hand and the bird seems tofa be doing better and getting better and so I want to see us continue if we can. Is there any further discussion?
>>Slushernr: Mayor, I would like to speak to the amendment briefly, which I have said before that I think the bal 1rlnaax is an appropriate source of revenue for the music channel because music brings tourist is in here, the tourist (r bring folks in and tourists willok use the music network d.dn they get here, both to -- see the local bands and toxd know where they are playing. So I would encourage the City manager to look there and I think the bed tax revenues are doing pretty well. And I think we even had a member of the --xd from the convention bureau that spoke in favor of the item coming out of the general fund today.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made -- Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewisw3:ni quick statement, Mayor. I'm going to support this motion today, but I'll tell -- make it -- put it on record that if it comes back with another early release, don't counted my support and take me off your e-mail list. [Laughter].
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem.
>>Goodman: I wanted to make one clarification. The music community comes out in support of this not only when we have an item on the agenda, butfa ifxd we're loojkng for the subsidy and the financialxd resources to make a really qualityxd operation overnr at Austin music network, the musicians are not where the money is, neither are the music venues, but they do try and they do support and it's other resources we're goingni to have to go to for the commercialni backbone of the financesni.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made and seconded toco approve items 11 andjf 12 with a friendly amendment. There being no further discussion, in favor? opposed. Motion carries. [Applause]. Let's go to 84 and 86. It's my understanding that there are no questions on items 84 and -- or 86. They haveco not been pulled for discussion. I'll entertain a motion to approve both of those as if they have on the consent agenda.xd( motion made by Council Member Garcia. Is there a second? seconded by the Mayor proxd tem.ni Mr. Richard Mayor, richard Mayor signed up in favor of itemco no. 84. Is there any discussion?
>>Spelman: Mayor? I didn't pull 86 because I didn't think I needed to, but I would like to askt( a question of the staff on item 86.
>>Mayor Watson: all right. Why don't you ask that question.
>>Spelman: sure.
>>Mayor Watson: if I could get everybody to please hold it down, we've got a long night.
>>Spelman: item 86xd represents andn0n increase in the use of temporary clerical services boone $220,000co and it's justified by the need we've had more need for those services. Could we address why we've had more need for those services.
>>Mayor Watson: do we have someone here who can answer the question?
>>Spelman: perhaps we could just take a votew3 on 84.
>>Mayor Watson: that's what I was bg tofaxd say. The maker of the motioni] was -- coun)ussqsaer Garcia, would you considerco it a friendly amendment to drop item no. 86 Out of the motion?ni
>>Garcia: that's fine.
>>Mayor Watson: who made the second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. Would you consider that a friendly amendment? motion has been made and seconded on item 84. Is there any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries on 84. That will take us to 86.
>> I'm the assistant director at the human resources department.(1 could I get you to repeat your question.
>>Spelman: not exactly. But let me tra,
>> I was running town the hall.
>>Spelman: sure. This is an increase ofxd $220,000 in authorization to provide for temporary clerical help. And presumably the justification is because we need $200,000 and change, more clerical help on a temporary basis than we expected. I wonder if you could explain why.
>> When we set these contracts up, we're setting up a Citywide contract and hrd, the human resources department, tries to estimate what we think we're going to need Citywide for the types of usage that we have on this contract. And basically this kind of a contract provides three kinds of things. We providexd substitutew6staffing for short andxd longterm illnesses, people oa: on familyni medical leave act and that sort of thing. We use it for peak period staffing wher@I it's not cost effective to have a staff person inr but you have an event where you have a high sol of work for a very short period of time so you bring in temporaries to handle that. The third thing would be special projects. Because a contract is used Citywide, we're trying to estimate what we think is going to happen based on past usage and we may haveco events that happen out in the department where they do have for exam project this year, they are going to be us)95 some clerical staff to wn up the final construction documentation and that sort of thing. So we do have needs that the departments will identify thatco are going to come off the Citywide contract.
>>Spelman: what was the original contract amount?
>> $400,000 for the "!gn year and then it had two additional years atx$$I
>>Spelman: have wen cenaict of this kvcf in previous years?r
>> yes, sir.t( we used tibh, we just finished up a three year contract in december of '98.
>>Spelman: how much did we use in the last fiscal year for tibh?
>> I don't -- do you know? I don't have that number with me today.
>>Spelman: assuming it's another $400,000, this represents a 50% increase in temporary clerical help. And I can understand what it is that we're using our temporary clericalxd workers for and these seem like perfectly good uses, but I'm concerned about what appears to be a 50% increase in our use of temporary workers. I know in a lot of private sector industries when somebody is out sick,xdni other people kind of pitch in and help out and maybe work a little longer oad harder for a couple weeks until they come back, stuff like that. And I wouldn't advocate we do that as a regular practice all the way through, but if -- it's certainly cheaper to do it that way from time to time. And if you could come up withni a goodb. Explanation for why it is that wr had that size of increase in our need of temporary and clerical help I would appreciate it.
>> Well, ini think that the problem we'rew3 up against is that we have one central department that's trying to estimate the needs for 25peg+ep other departments, and we may not be aware of all the projectst( and all the plans that thei] departments have in place. We're trying to set this contract up centrally as a way to facilitate the purchasing process so people aren't having to go out and get bids ani that sort of thing and wrote think that the estimatingfa methodology that I've been able to getnr to is working as well as wexd ought to have it working. And that's really the problem is when the contracts coming up forr departments all out there with different projects and needs and things like that going on, they may get -- and this contract is not synied up with a fiscal year, they may have a project they are going to need temporary help on we at any time know existed.
>>Spelman: isni this a source of temporary help.
>> The departments can hire directly, a person can apply and they can hire them directly into a temporary position. Bids with otherxdxd temporary agencies. This was primarily focused on administrative and clerical help.
>>Spelman: so it could be this is a 50% increase, but that may be matched by $220,000 reductions in going out forbids or --nr
>> yes, sir.
>>Spelman: hiring directly from kelly girl or somethingaq departments.
>> Exactly.
>>Spelman: would it be possible for you toym identify that for me and get some numbers so I could get a sense --
>> I could try to get an analysis ofconi temporary uses Citywide.
>>Spelman: my concernnr is -- it's called a kmons problem. If there is nobody in charge and you havenr 25 departments going their own way, it's easy for each of those departments to increase a need forni temporary help a little bit and when yai add up all 25 departments we end up with a
>> yes, sir.
>>Spelman: I'll move approval.
>>Mayor Watson:q motion made by Council Member Spelman to approve. Seconded by Council Member Slusher. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries on itemw3 no. 86. Council, here's what I would suggest we do. Let's go to thefa zoning items and takeni up those that are on consent so if there is anybody to deal with those we can let them go. Then) there's going to be at least a motion to suspend the rules on item no. 66, Two to item no. 66 Because that is a ftter we can take up and get out of the way and then we'll ?5e back to other discussion items. If there-9 is -- if there are groups outnr therexd that have hearings herexd tonight or items where they could reach some sortxd of agreement on a suspension of the rules forxdq a limited period of time, please let + know because we might take that up more rapidly.
>>Garcia: Mayor?
>>Mayor Watson: yes.
>>Garcia: on item no. 25 Which I had pulled, I'm going to move that we postpone thatxd for a week. The contractors are still -- the minority contractors are still working with the main contractor. They want a week to finish up some work they did not do when for oneni week.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made by Council Member Garcia, seconded by Council Member Slusher to postpone for one week.r any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no.m motion carries on item no. 25. Ms. Glascow3nrco.
>> Good afternoon. Item 54xd, case consider 14990055. The zoning changes from sfvle family 3 to community merbl and neighborhood office district. The Planning Commission recommended the requestg zone the property into three zoning dis4$kqm, community commercial with a conditional overlay, neighborhood officeq withlp a conditional overlay,xd and for the area in thenr flood plain they recommended that be zoned rural residential. That is tract 3. This case is ready fgrv all three readings.ni item no. 56, Case no. C14-98-248 locatedni on pecan park boulevard at close to the intersection of 620 and 183, the request is for multi-family 3 tonr community commercial zoning. The Planning Commission recommended that requestlp as requested bur the applicant, and this case is ready for firstfani reading only. Item no. 57 -- Gool l..
>>Goodman: Alice, were you just sayingt( on item no. 56?
>>Nr yes. No?
>> the applica morning that those cases be heard today. They are zoning changes, I know you've heard that there is a request to consider a managed grww isc on your agenda next week.co since the managed growth agreement addresses how long they can lock in development regulations, they requested that you hear these cases today.
>>Goodman: okay. I was just going by the corrections and it says it was going to be asked for postponement. So that we don't go by that in theco future.
>>Glasgo: ixd believe theni man did not announce -- weni changed --.
>>Mayor Watson: what happened, just so you will know, what reported to me prior to the beginning of the Council meeting and prior to my -- obviously prior to my reading into the record any changes and corrections into the agenda that that item had not been postponed. So I pulled it off of that and when I read changes and corrections to the agenda, I did not read that as one of the changes and corrections to the agenda. The same is true of item no. 57. Item no. 589, Item no. 60, Item no. 61 I indicated inr believe a pplt indefinitely to may 20th and item 62ni a postponement to june 3rd. Item 63 was also a postponement to julyco 1stnrnr. The discussion has been that becauser zoning hearings, we would have the june 3rd meeting and the only thing that would be on that agenda would be zoning mattersnr. Item no. 57, Ms. Glasco.
>>Glasgo: item 57, casexd c14-98-251 located on fm 620 north and at the intersectionxd of -- close to the intersection of 183 and 620, is from interim rural residence, single familyxd 2, toxd multi family 3. The Planning Commission recommendation isxd to grant multi-family zoning which is medium density and this case is ready for first reading.co item no. 58 Is c14-98-253 located at lake line maldrive. The request is forco multi-familyni 3 residence to recommendation is to grant community commercial zoning district. Th9sd case is ready for first ibding only.q item no. 59, Caseco c14-98-254, located at 10,000 700 to 10,724 l request is from multi-family to community commercial. The Planning Commission recommendation is to grant the request for community commercial and this case is readyfa for first readingco only.co item no. 60, Case c14-98-255, located on lake creek park way and high meadow drive, the request is from single family 2, I wantedni?; rim rural residence and the change is to limited office. The Planning Commissionnr recommendation was to grant limitedconi office zoning with a conditional overlay forxd tract 1 and noco zoning for tract 2 and rural residence zoning for the area within the flood plain this. Case is ready for first reading only. On item no. 61Jf, case cesar chavez 27, as the Mayor announced earlier, the Mayor -- the applicant requested indefinitely postponement, but you have considered such cases be postponed for two months and let the applicant come back and request additional time so the two months would take you to july 15th. So I would recommend that we postpone item 61 to july 15th, which would be in keeping with the zoning postponement policy. Item no. 62, Case c 14 r 85360 thexd applicant -- or staffni would recommend that we postpone this item to june 3rd because this is a restrictive covenant amendment andni is associated with items no. 58 And 59. We would bring it then together for zu!rovalco because it does not require an ordinance. Item no. 63, Case c14-98-245 located atr way, the case wasco on last week and you asked we bring it back this week so you cancidji:rber whether to postpone it to july 1st.co cents were able to reach all interested parties and they concur with the postponement no july 1st so we offer that postponement. I9f9that concludes all the zoning consent items.
>>Mayor Watson: itemco no. 54 Will be consent on all threeni readings. Item no. 56 Would be consent on first reading only. 57 Consent onq first reading only. 58, First reading only. 59Ni, first reading only. 60, First reading only.co 61 postponement no july 15, 1999. 62 Postponementq no june 3rd,xd 1999 and 63 a postponement no I'll entertain a motion.
>>Sjher: I'mnr not going to make a motion yet. Onco the question earlier aboutqn the changesxd andco corrections listing several items as being postponed,xd also the Council questions and answers it says that 56, 57 -- no, 56, 57, 60 and 61 are going to beni postponed --.
>>Mayor Watsonxd: the questions were not answered.
>>Slusher: and I didn't give them the amount of study that I normally would beca] in this -- and this is by theni applicant. Then now we hear that at 6:00,e1 6:30, that the applicant has requested first reading. That's a little out ofxd the ordinary.
>>Mayor Watson: what I would do is I will entertain a motion for the consent agenda to be items 54 on all three readings, 58 on first reading only, 59 on first reading onlyxd 61 a postponement to july 15thni 62ok a postponement to june 3rd, and 63 a postponement july july 3rd and we will come back to those other items because of the answers given to Council questions. That would be the consent agenda. Is there a motion?
>>Garcia/ so moved.
>>Mayor Watson: motion made by Council Member Garcia. Is there a second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. Discussion?
>>Slusher: would you run through them again.
>>Mayor Watson: 54 on all three readings. 58 On first reading onlyxd. 61 -- I'm sorry, 59 on first reading only. 61,Xd postponement to july 15th. 62,Co a postponement to june 3rdr and 63 a postponement to july 1st. That will be the consent agenda. We will come back to those other items before we move on here in just a second. Motion made by Council Member Garcia, seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem.
>>Spelman: I would like to offer a friendly amendment. As -- as with Council Member Slusher I found myself in the same situation where did I didxd not give these items the study I had intended expecting these would be held over untilco next week. I have justco found out from my secretary that as of 1:30 this afternoon the secretary of the law firm which is carrying these items was still telling us they were going to be held over for another week as well. So we would have had an opportunity at that point tofaco have pickedr studied them in between other things that were going on during this meeting, but we didn't have that opportunity either. So Mayor, I would like to add a friendly amendment, that items 56, 57 and 60 be postponed until the 20th of may, our next meeting.
>>Mayor Watson:co maker of the motion was Council Member Garcia. Is that a friendly amendment?
>> 56 --.
>>Mayor Watson: it would be item no. 56, Item no. 57Aougd item no. 60 Would be postponed until may 20th.
>>Spelman: this was our original expectation.
>>Mayor Watson: which was the original expectationni and was the response of staff to questions.c16hc Mayor Pro Tem,xd do you consider that a friendly amendment?
>>Goodman: well, I'm not sure I know why the postponement was unpostponed in the first place. Are we putting someone in a dire hardship by doing this now?
>>Mayor Watson: it was only first reading anyway, so I'm not sure anything is gained by --.
>>Glasgo: the applicants are here and I can just probably try to explain the change of events. You have an overall proposal coming to you nextnr week that relates to the development standards and locking that in and that covers all the properties thatr are represented here tonight. You haveni two different owners represented here and on two of the cases the owner wanted to proceed today and not have to really wait on the outcome of the managed growth gement. And the other -- agreement. The other owner wanted to wait until next week. That's the reason for the change.
>>Mayor Watson: first reading only.
>>Glasgo: first for all those cases.
>>Mayor Watson: okay.
>>Goodman: I guess it doesn't matter then.
>>Mayor Watson: yeah.
>>Goodman: okay.
>>Mayor Watson: well, it -- Council Member Griffith, it wouldn't matter in sterms of -- from the standpoint of what she is saying it doesn't matter -- if it's first reading only, they can be changed between now and then anyway, but it dozens matter, I agree with you, from the standpoint of the Council having believed that itxnwasn't going to be brought up tonight and Council, so that you will know -- well, that will work out fine.
>>Lewis: I was just going to say that if these items are passed on first reading, which I didn't -- you know, I didn't go enthusiasm them to the extent, butsy@ en ifn)hi voted for it tonight wouldn't mean I would vote for it on second 4p(.g/ third readings.
>>Mayor Watson: that's why when the Mayor Pro Tem says it doesn't matter, I think that's whatco it meanings. So thet( postponement puts us in a position where even if you are voting on first reading, you have more of an opportunity when we had the expectation you would have the information here before you voted. Do you both -- Mayor Pro Tem, do you consider it a friendly amendment? let me read the consent agenda. Item no. 54Xd on all three readings. Item no. 56 A postponement until may 20th. Item no. 57, A postponement until may 20 n.. Item 5xn fum 59, first reading only. Item 60, postponement to may 20th.co 61 a postponement nowd 62, postponement to july 3rd. 63, Postponement to july 1st that. Is the motionxd we will be voting on. Any discussion? Council Member Slusher.
>>Slusher: now, which of the meetings were contemplating cancelling?
>>Mayor Watson: june 3rd zrb there's one set july 1st.
>>Mayor Watson: june 3rd was originally contemplated. The meetings in june were contemplated as being cancelled. The difficulty that we've run into is on zoning matters you post and -- you tell -- how many days?
>>glasgo: three weeks in advance. So where we are on that is those are already posted. So contemplation isco what we would do is hold a meeting on june 3rd and it would dealco just with zoning matters. Since we had already posted those items.
>>Slusher:/?day. Sox would have a meetingninr on julypk#ekj the discussion. Now, we can change that because we haven't yet posted anything.
>>Slusher: but we're getting ready to.
>>Mayor Watson: let's talk aboutok it and figure how to fix it. I think everybody was just looking at the calendar of june. So if you are talking about doing itq june 3rd and taking it to july 1st we can certainly doq t by postponing the matter that --co item no. 63 To the following week.
>>Slusher: yeah, although we also have the meeting already cancelled on july 8th by the regular calendar. I just wand to point that out that we are making that decision, we'rejf putting ourselves in the sas%/ situation we did with june 3rd if we postpone something --.
>>Mayor Watson: the concept was the month of june is the way people were thinking about it. You have meetings scheduled currently june 3ni, 10ni, 17 andni 24th. The concept would now be that we would meet on jun/ 3rd onni zoning matters only. Not the 10th, 17th --ni I guess we're not scheduled to 17th. Ther then go forward-toe next0e>6hcj% meeting would be july 1st. You are right, the 8th is cancelled.
>>Garcia: put july 8th back as a --.
>>Mayor Watson: that's a possibilityni. We could post that fp8 nextxd week. That's a go- that's a real good idea.ni next week we could post -- it will be p: on next week's agenda to cancel the meeting of 10th -- the 10thc and thexd 24th. So what we would also do isni cancel the meeting of thefa 1st, but add the meeting of thet( 8th.
>>Slusher: well, if that's the case, can we then postponexd this one until theni 8th before we take that vote onnr thee1 postponing?
>>Mayor Watson: because we can always fix itjf later.
>>Slusher:ni okay. Well, I would amend it to say --.
>>Mayor Watson: the friendly amendment Council Member Slusher is offering to Council Member Garcia and the Mayor Pro Tem is itemnre1 no. 63 Would be postponed to july 8th.
>>Slusher: allco three [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: we'll toast you. Okay. Considered a friendly amendment. So that's the only change on that one.ni any furthezi discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Councilmember Lewis is shown voting aye.nini that will take us, kun, there is no fiscal impact associated with adopting the plan. A partial estimate of the fiscal impact to implement all the recommendations in thexd plan isnir the library costs already approved. This plan is vicely and does2jp notw3 legally object fwat the City to implement any particular recommendation. This item is the public hearing, itemnr no. 70Ni is posted as the action item on this hearing. I'll recognize Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: thank you, Mayor. As you may remember, weni had a presenta,I the work session and questions where I asked them we had a very healthy discussion. This is the public hearing and because we have so many issues come before us, I would like to makeco a motion to suspend the rules to allowco each side 10xd minutes. If the presenters on behalf of the plan wantb(= reserve a couple of minutes to rebutt,conr that's finexd, but that would be 10 minutes to each side.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has beene1 made to allow 10 minutes a side and to allow those in favor of the plan to go first andnr if they would like, they can reserve time out that have 10 minutes for rebuttal. Is there a second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem.co is there any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Councilmember Garcia.
>>Garcia: Mr. George villarreal chairingw3 that committee is going to be making the first presentation and telling>ws what the sequence of the speakers is going to be.
>>Mayor Watson: here is what I would suggest.co when -- that you do that for me. Please also let me know if you wish to reserve m time. What I'm going toco do is have them setht the clock atw3 10 minutes and you can go through that whole 10 minutes if youxd all want to.xd otherwise you need to letni me know and we'll try to reserve your time and I'll try to give you a warning as you get up to whatever amount ofni time you want tot( reserve. Then what I will do is I will go in theni order -- unless somebody gives me an ordert( of thoseni in opposition in which you wish to be calledni upon, I will just go directly to the cards and start reading through the cards forjf those that are in opposition. And what we will do is we will do it -- unless somebody makes a formal -- tells me what their forbl al presentation will be, three minutes apiece and the last person will have one minute. And then we will go to rebuttal. I will also read into the record all the people signed up to speak or let their opinion be known either for or against.
>>Goodman: before george, I would like to point out that this is a very good opportunityc for a lot of people to find out about smart growth and it has been also the opportunity for three french students in the audience to have come over from france, specifically to find out information from us. And if you all would stand up forc just a second. We could be on our best behavior. [Applause].nini soxd I think we should be on our best behavior. [Laughter].
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Villarreal thank you. 1Njwa Council Members, we bring good news and better p+ws. The good news is that we finishednrxd the plan, and the best news is that we are ready to go to the next step and we're very anxious and we proud of what we've done. Asxd you well know, this plan was initiated two years ago, a very difficult and tedious process has brought to the table at this point a plan that willxd help to guide -- to serve as a guidec for development that will preserve and protect the neighborhood and also provide businesses and neighbors opportunities for economic and improvement in quality of life. The process that we've gone through was a very far-reaching process of con sense us and trust -- consensus and trust building. In that process we had a lot of participation, some of which are here today, and amn this point I would like those neighbors that are here for them to please stand up. Council, these are some of the members that participated in thisni plan and thank you very much. And I would like toco introduce toni you,co Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, the order in whichxd we're going toxd make our presentationni. I would like to start with transportation -- no, I take it back. I would like to start with land useq, transportation,co housing, crimexd andt( safety, parkjd and education, inqgvironment, neighborhood character and economic development. And if I may, your honor, I will direct traffic f
>>Mayor Watson: appreciate thatnr and goxd for it.
>> Thank you, sir. This is Mr. Martinez. He will present very quickly land use.
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Martinez, you all have eight minutes left.
>> Eighte1 minutes. Joseph Martinez, resident homeowner, Waller street. Have I the privilege to represent the land use committee. What we did was basically divide up the neighborhood into five corridors, the rail c7rr%r, I-35, Cesar Chavez, Town Lake and sixth street tco intent was not to isolate these corridors but to have the corridors the focus of future planning. In effect we want to provide for a vibrant economic activityni along these corridors that support growth in the neighborhood. We want to provide zoning for mixed use that will allow forni creative uses both residential and business. We want to ensure that new structures and renovations in our neighborhood are compatible withco existing -- withco theco existing neighborhood. Ultimately we want to protect the homes andxd families from incompatible businesses and activities. And the last goal was we are proud of our neighborhood. We are proud of its history. And we want to create and preserve the physical featuresco that make East Austin so unique, those features that draw us to live in East Austin and to reinforce our neighborhood's cultural identity, it's history and it's place in the history of this City. With that I will close and we ask for your support.
>> Thank us, Mr. Martinez. Next would be a presentation and that would be engineer lozano.
>> Good afternoon, members of the Council, Mayor. I want to just in a few minutes explain to you how hard we worked on putting this plan together and I believe it is very important for you to consider funding of some of the proposed action objectives that we have for this particular plan. Because no plan is good with no money. So I really want you to consider that. Traffic andxd transportation, in my opinion, are goingco to be one of the most difficult challenges that our City is going to be facing rightxd now and in the next decade and we worked very diligently and very many hours on establishing what we feel is a good transportation plan for the east Cesar Chavezxd k [inaudible] -- we doled our mission on the basis our neighborhood should be accessible and safe for all types of modes of transportation and we want to encourage [inaudible] through the neighborhood and at the same time discourage the use of the neighborhoodco%reets as throughout 1stxd to the main airport. Weni also believe that the railni corridor should be developed in ways that is going to benefit our area directly and the people in the businesses that surround this area. Our transportation traffic plan was developed with four goals and a total of 14 objectives with 48 actionto items. I want you toxd really consider implementing these action items to see that we will have a true neighborhoodni plan that d/is going to enhancexd the living of the citizens and the residents thatni live in this planning area.c I would like to yield 50 seconds to julia who was -- who worked with us very diligently in putting our plan together. Thank you.
>>Goodman: Mayor, I'll be off the dais, but I will be able to hear. Work on the transportation and also on the environmental committees. I'm just going to read to you the goals that we have.nr no. 1 Is improved traffic safety on neighborhooy streets. No. 2, Improve bicycle and pedestrian safety on neighborhood streets. And nom 3 isnr make better use of the 4th, 5th street rail corridor. And I wanted to bring to your attention that initially we took a neutral position on light rail, but however thisni final plan says that if neighborhood concernsni about we will promote the useod the 4th, 5th streetc?dcorridor for light rail. So personally I don't agree with that. We never said we were going to promote light rail. And finally, goal 4, improve and promote massco transit service in the neighborhood as alternatives to cars.t( thank you very much.
>>Garcia: Mayor, if we could stop, I would like to ask one quick question.
>>Mayor Watson: stop the clock please.
>>Garcia:nr you understand that that area of landxd is owned by capital metro, so we will have to coordinate what we do with cents pa they do.
>> Certainly. Railco, we have taken a neutral stance on it and now it says:p we're promoting it. Somehow something was lost in one of the rewritings of it. So -- and at a planning commission meeting there were people who are very much opposed to the fact that we supported light rail, so I$; basically just a thing in the wording that --.
>>Garcia: appreciate it.xd
>> thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: three minutes and 16 seconds left.co
>> wow! I'm going to call [inaudible] and I'm going toq give her one minute. [Laughter].t(
>> I can do it. I'm going to pass this along because this is a vision document that we have used to show the different kinds of housingni options thatni our plan is going tonr take a look at. I also want to say that even without being adopted, we have received amazing support from community and business partners, and not this Saturdayni but next Saturday as our plan states we will hold our first affordable housing fair and have questionsr input and solutions to housing problems in the neighborhood all the wayw3 from spg the can man who is homeless to the comacho family who needs to buy their first house on my block. I'm going to invite you to please participate in our housing fair. As far as the mixed use zoning that we're asking for, it is smart for us to be able to take the incompatible uses that we have along the corridor and apply the mixed use zoning because that will give us the opportunity to build morexd housing which we need in the neighborhood. Thank you very muc(ed
>>Mayor Watson: thank you. There's a minute 57.
>> Mayor,xd ms. Darleen camacho will address crime and health.
>> Good evening. Health,t( we're working along with all City agencies,ni all health agencies that are within the area. We would like to come up withni a -- like a phone book that each resident can have so they can access health facilities they need. Also workingni with a. Are working with our neighborhood officers, we alsoxd have an exxd plorer postnr which we will be having East Austin rangers this summer. I believe we have two in the audience if they will stand up please. These youths have really helped and participated withq this plan. [Applause]. And glad that we have them and glad of all the work they've done for us. They went out, they've got youth participation, they got youth involvement and they gotni the ideas that youth wants. Our plan includes all the plans and ideas of residents, old and new. This isxd something for our neighborhood that would complete it, that will develop it so that we can pass it on down the line. Thank you.
>> And finally tofa conclude is liz coalni.
>>Mayor wat]4n: [inaudible].
>> We'll reserve that. Thank you. [Laughter].
>>Mayor Watson:ni if you had just spoken quicker, it would have been 42. Reserve 40 secondsco forco those in favor of the plan and then we use that as rebuttal time. Those who are in opposition, could your you are here in opposition? ms. Quintero,nr do you have a presentation? why don't you -- is there anybody else otherxd thane1 Mr. Quintero inok opposition?co
>> [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson:yrair enough. Why don't you come forward and you got 10 minutes if you want to express your opinion. And then I'll read into the record -- allow that 40 seconds and read into the record.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you.
>> Good afternoon, Council members. My name is jose quintero, I'm with the greater East Austin neighborhood association. I've been in my neighborhood for many, many years. I've managed to be involved in the early years as in 1991 regarding gangs, crime. We had initiatives to try to get support from the Austin police department. We only went to limit to where we supported us. Most of people that are on this committee or have been on this committee other than accept for -- except for a few I had never seen them participate. But what we were doing, cleaning up east Cesar Chavez, asking Council Member Gus Garcia to come out and support us for the soup kitchen to try to get them out. [Buzzer sounds]. I don't know why they finally gave up or what happened with Alice glasco who was going to support us try to shut down. Then I have a problem recently Arnold oilco because it wasb warehouse distribution thatni the City Council decided to go ahead and give them the vote so they can expand their business, favoritism which in my opinion was through the east Cesar Chavez neighborhood plan people.q they came in herei], brought a pep rally. I guess it takes a pep rally. The neighborhood plan sounds good and it is good and I support some initiatives. But I do not support when we havenr a moratoriumnr right now in place and these people that are sending -- sitting on this neighborhood committee know about it. And we ask them to come out -- or we didn't ask themco to come out. They don't come out with thec crisis is on. Our neighborhood is going through crisisxd because people are submitting permits forjf more li distribution warehouse that continues to deteriorate ery neighborhood. I wouldn't doubt in my mind that the recycling companies that are around where I live, thereos(three of p(, that these people would go to the east Cesar Chavez neighborhood plan and ask them for support for increase in warehouse distribution. I'm tired of hearing -- I'm tired of hearing this and I have Arnold oil trucks passing through my neighborhood. See, they didn't consider that. You didn't consider that when you voted for him. So you go to sixth street and you find outok what you did. You cannot prevent [inaudible] coming from our neighborhoods. Now, you might have a transportation study here, but it does not mean that that is not going to keep them away fromco my neighborhood. You go to sixth street, ?1pthere's nothing but semi trucks nowco. The only -- thexd onlyco thing that this plan should take place -- I mean the only reason I'm requesting that -- saying that the type of community policing that we need is the policing that we need with the planning commission and the City Council Members. There is a plan, yeah, there's a plan. But when it comes down to the vote, you vote against us. We were here Tuesday at the Planning Commission. They denied a rollback zoning from single family to cs. Nobody from the east cesar chavez neighborhood plan was here. I'm pretty sure that guy is going to protest, appeal it and bring it before the Council. And more than likely you will probably give them the vote. That's what you have done in the past. And I hate to see people that just sitni around and pencil push --g to implement that this plan might work. So that's my fear. And you demonstrated that with the pushxd foundation, sending 50 homeless people that now are going to be living on east Cesar Chavez because of the grandfather clause. Whatever it is. One of the members of the east c%&nr chavez neighborhood plan lives right behind and he didn't know what is goingw3 on.co now we got another people, meals on wheels]r they want to come into the neighborhood. We'rew3 t only ones fromni pueblo neighborhood to come here tonight fight for our neighborhood. Yqkxd the plan is there. But I'm -- I'm asking you toco consider next time you vote againxd on lics that are coming to our neighborhood constantly. Its case by case, that'sxd the way we have to fight I that's why I couldn'tnipend time at case by case every property to try to get it zoned because of the grandfather clause. You tell me you figure out how you can keep semi trucks out of my neighborhood. I'm asking the east cesar chavez neighborhood plan people to figure it out, figure it out, think about it. But you are the same ones whoco came here who votedni for jim Arnold oil, expand his binsxd, give me some jobs, give me some candy. That's what I fear. And I hope -- I hopenr that you will not use this neighborhood plan for political purposes for people that have money to roll back zoning and give themnr warehouse distribution. Go to sixth street, please, take a tourxd. Capital metro take a tour. Look at all those semi trucks.xd thankxd you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you, Mr. Quintero. Can you please set the clock for 40xd sects.ni
>> one thing you can count on in East Austin is we are all veryni passionate kb we dpt maybe everybody happy. It wasn't possible. Every pip on that map represents someone's opinion that we tried to I into our plan. We think it's a good plan, we think it's a good balance of manyco people's intsz and we think it's time for some good things to start happening in East Austin. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: great. You still got 29xd seconds. [Laughter]. I hate for you to leave any time on the table. [Laughter]. I love that. The way that looks.xd that's a good idea to have something like that to show. That's very well done.
>> Your honor, we want to thing you for your consideration and yourni support through this process. It's been a very difficult process. But we feel very good about it and like I said earliernr, we're ready to go to the next one, the next step. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very unn let me read into the record2gekjp those people who have signed up. Asnr I call these names it will be for until I say otherwise. [Reading registered speaker names into the record].ninrt(xdnico5axdxduxd
>> those two are right here.
>>Mayor Watson: sorry. I got them out of order. Thank goodness you are there.xd debbie lopez is for. Charlie cardenas for. [Reading registered speaker names into the record]. I'll entertain a motion to close thenr public hearing. Motion made by Council Member ney-ber Garcia tot( close the public hearing. Any discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye.xd opposed motion carries. Item 70 isni to approve ana- ordinancenit( is toni approve an ordinance amending thenr Austin tomorrow comprehensive.
>>Garcia: I move approve.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made =s approve on all three readings, second by Council Member Griffith. Any discussion? Council Member Garcia.
>>Garcia: what I want to say is that this group faced opposition and faced itco so very well, you took the criticisms, you incorporated the issues into theni plan. It's a very well thought out plan and I want to thank you for doing the work that you did. It's enormously important tor the Councilco thatr support for this kind of planning. This is intelligent planning. This is planningco thatt(ni is both short, mid and longterm. Some ofok the short term issues we can address. After we approve it tonight, my recommendation is that you take it out and show it to people,nr as many people as you can. Capital metro needs to look at it because they own land in this area. Theni businesses in the area need to understand it well. But I think you are well on your way. You know, I'veco looked at this plan several times and that's lot of discussion. I'm glad they are here, I'm glad they are here to show their support but I would urge everybody to votee1 in favor of this plan.
>>Mayor Watson: Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: can I justco reiterate what -- I almost called you Mayor Pro Tem afterth7v what Gus said. And 2, so that you all do remember and ini did point out the french students that are lookingnr at smart growth and yours was the neighborhood plan they are looking at, could I ask four Channel 6 folks to also getco a video of this for them to take back because they are going to give a presentatinq and that aside, I do thinkni that so much hardxd workni has gone into this. It was difficult to get it going in the first place and people remained committed throughout some very difficult times and actually put in all the many hours of effort it took toxd include all theco neighborhood folks who don't come down toni these meetings and don't normally likeni to commit that much time to something. So my admiration and respect is even greaterxd than it was at the beginning of this processh-j- and thank you for sticking withni it.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Memberni Griffith. >Griffith: thank you, Mayor. All the neighborhoods that have done plans have beenco Mrheroic and inspirational.nr butco for me these are the sear just heroes, the big time heroes. T2 are the comeback kids. It's been up, it'sxd been down, it's been a roller coast stefr it's/d been a mine field and these people havenr such commitment and such endurance that they have certainly inspired us all and provided models and examples for us all. Thank you, thank you.
>>Mayor Watson:xd any furthernr discussion?
>>Goodman: [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: that's right.
>> You are allxd invited [inaudible].
>>Mayor Watson: the historic [inaudible]. There being no further discussion, all those in favor aaye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. [Applause].
>>Mayor Watson: thalo@kwan all for your hard work. Itemnrci]ni no. 55. Nz glasco.
>>Glasco: item 55 will be presented by barbara stockland the City ofxd Austin historic preservation officer.
>>Mayor Watson: folks,xd everybody, thank you all veryqni much. But if you could hold your conversations outside, we would appreciate itni.
>> Good evening. I'mco the City historic preservation officer. I'm here to present item 55, the george w. Allen house, c 14 h 9000 onxd 1, 1206 san antonio. It's a zoning case proposed from general office to general office historicnd there is a valid petition by the record owner inco opposition to the historic zoning. I would like to briefly give youxd some backgroundn@3 information on the case.xd explain the historic landmark and provide you with staff recommendations and some options. The Texas association of counties filed a development assessment applicatioeo with @m%nr office in september of 1998 to assess what development procedures were required to demolish the building at 1206 san antonio street. No development plans were submitted for the property. In informal a the owner, the ownernr has indicated that there are plans in the works to expand their current offices at 1204 san antonio on to the other properties that they own on that block. According to the travis central appraisal district, the Texas association of counties owns five 6912 -- five of the 12 lots onxd thisok block and if you look in your addendum packet, I think on the secondco last sheet thereq is a zoning map thatni has in red -- I outlined in red the properties in that block that they own. Three of these lots, including the property at 1206 san antonio street, contain older housesw3. Under the code, if the City receives a proposal to demolish or relocate an older building and that building is included in the City's comprehensive historic survey, then reviewed by the historic landmark commission is required. The case bass brought to the historic landmark commission in accordance with the code in January and the options were either to nir ate a zoning case or approve the demolition of the structure. They voted unanimously on January 25th to initiate a case and then voted 7-2co to recommend historic zoningni at its February 22, 1999 meeting. Based on six/ being met.ni the land development code lays out 13 historic landmark criteria for you to consider for historic zoning cases and this is included as page 6 -- I believe the 6th page in your packet. And these are directly from the code. To be eligible for historic landmark status an historic property must meet one or more of the followingco criteria. Did you want me to read through these? you've got them. Okay. I think one thing to notice is that there are a wide range of criteria. And ordinarily the landmarkw3 commissiord only forwards you adjnw more of tehe criteriani areni metni and ordinarily it is incumbent on the owner, the applicant for the historic zoning, to show thatxd theni historic criteria are met. In this case it was a City initiated case and the owners of theni property provided us with some information on the case, but the staff performed most of the historic research on this case. There are 138 City historic landmarks and I just wanted you to be awareni that they are zoned historic for a wide range of reasons. Some havefa more architectural cry tear I can't, some are neighborhood for being a home or leader or opinions pral of ?1pa school or educator,tr something like that. There's a wide range of reasons why something can be zoned historic. Let me show you a few slidesni.xd this is a contact slide this. Is a view looking north down san antonio street from the corner of 12th and san antonioni this isok the currentc Texas association of counties offices at 1204.xd this area of town developed inco the late 1880's to the 1930's and youni see a couple of houses from the era surviving. Typically there were the smaller houses with large victorian houses interspersed and most of thosew3 larger houses are gone. This is the Texas associationn. Of counties offices right here and this is the house inx- question at 1206 snabt san antonio. This is a view looking south on san antonio at the house and that's the Texas association of counties in the background. This isr house on san antonio street. The house is currently being j4(uhied by ochesz, or offices by thexd Texas association of counties.ni this house isco a queen anne style house. The bottom story -- what that means isnr true queen anne victorian. If you look at the next slide, this is what this house is. It hasnri] a brick bottom storynr, a stuccoed and halfcoco timbered second story. With multi light windows and all the features that you see here. That's what this house is. You can see here the red brick that's been painted gray. You can also see -- I think I have a closeup view coming up where you can see the half timbered details that have been painted. These are dark timbers that have been painted gray and this is the stucco infill here. These are the original diamond shaped intricate windows that are also distinctive of this style and they are all surviving on this house. This is kind of the effect that the upper stories of this house has and this is an english house. This is a view that shows the original -- this is the original fencing and the wrought iron fence work. This is brick, all red brick with white limestone cap. This is the front original wrought rirn gate. This is a back view of the house, just shows some ofni the tuqkek'nu)(y details and you can see again the second story hasni its original windows.nrlp and also has the half timbered effect. This is a view of the house looking south. This is the parking lot on the corner.nr this is another view of the house with the parking lot. The Texas association of counties officqi is (dms this is san antonio, the front the house was designedco by a gentleman called george endress, one of the first 12 graduates of the u.t. College of swreeringr first instructor of architectural engineering at u.t.ni he worked as a project architect in association with a lot of arc tebts in town and he designed u.t. Rs second power plant that was demolished and a lot of their k#9buildings that are not surviving in Austin. He served as u.t. Rs first resident architect and helped tofl the master plan for the campus much he designed a lot of builds in Austin and very few are you are is surviving. There are no buildings in Austin associated with this man. When you look in the City directories of the year when this house was built which was 1907, he was one of 12 architects in Austin and many of those architects have seven or eight houses surviving and land marked. There are no houses associated with him who was an important local architect, that are land marked and very few buildings surviving. The other person he designed it with as edward bantells, the first assistant dean of engineering at u.t. So the house was designed by these two gentlemen who were very prominent. The house was built for this man, george w. allen. George w. Allen was the owner and original occupant of the house in 1907. He was a special judge appointed by the Texas text supreme court and the governor of Texas. He was a partner in the firm of allen and hartd, a prominent local law firm. He is most famous for being hired by the attorney general's office in 1906 to -- as part of a suit by the state against the waters pierce oil company, a subsidiary of standard oil for violation of the antitrust laws. He argued the case before the Texas supreme court and also in front of the u.s. Supreme court and won and Texasxd received $1.6 million in the process. There was also a bigq controversy at the time, there was a u.s. Senator who was receiving loans and money from -- his name was senator bailey,ni fromxd the pierce company and that all came out, had been a big scandal, was in the newspaper for months and months, and this case kind of raised george allen to prominence in the Austin community. He is featured in a lot of sources thatn1 I found at the Austin history center including a history of Texas and Texass, a handbook of Texas and heq is -- thew3 architect was alsoco found in the u.t. Architectural archives. There was a lot of information on these people.xd soni after -- after finding all this material, the staff recommended that criteria 1, 3 4, 11, 12 and 13 are met. Thexdxd landmarkxd commission3 also voted 7 to 2 thatxdco the -- that criteria 1, 13, 4, 11, 12ni and 13 is met, which isni sixxd criteria. And they are checked, on page 6 thoybre the ones I haveht checkedq off and they relate toconi value as distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type tore style. It's the only true english queen anne style house thatco is known to survive in Austin. The identification is the work as an architect master build r 1 1rx identification of a person significant in the development of the City, because of the location it's been a value to our neighborhood and 13, value to a sentiment ori] publicxd pride. I s+5u ni 12 and 13 waus the neighborhood has a petition with 107 names on it and 11 additionaw lettersnr in support so I think that shows that there is a lot of community sentiment and pride to save this building. The Planning Commission is -- has forwarded you no recommendation. There were four votesco in support, two abstentions and one in opposition. In termst( of incentives for historic zoning, whenr something is zoned -- a property is zoned historic there is a tax abatement and staff hasw3 estimated that to be about $9,716nr annually for this house. The house appears to be in good condition. Several people on the landmark commission, including one of the architects, have indicated in writing, and that's in yourxd packet, that the house appears to be injf good condition and that the paint is basically a cosmetic issue that could be easily reversed.ni tf restrictions toni having historic zoning basically you have to maintain ther a as-is condition. It doesn't require you to restore it to its original condition or anything, you know, to that effect. It just requires you tocoxd keep the houseni up,xnwhich basically they areco doing. A couple options that you have one would be to zone the whole lot historic. I thinknr it's an 8 .d by 138 foot lot or 11040 skir feet which is what is recommended by the landmark commission. A second option wouldco be to zoha the portion ofok the lot that actually contains the footprint of the house. Which would benr about 60% of the lot and would free up the back part of the lotnixd for development,xd if that's what theco Texasni association of counties is looking for. And so that would -- that would involve only zoning about 60% orni 6400 square feet. And we would probably need a survey to determine exactly what thenr footprint of the house is on the lot. Of course yourxd third option is not to zone any portion of the ljtn historicfa and allow removal of the house.
>>Lewis: Mayor?
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: let me ask you a question. If thenr house footprint is zoned historical, does that include the fencing that's in front of the house?
>> yes, I calculatedw3 that based on the assumption that it would include the 80 linear feet across the front and it would go back about 80 feet, it would just cover q back of the house. So it would include the whole frontni with h. Widthnr of the lot.
>>Lewis: thank you.
>>Spelman: Mayor? thank you. In the notes of the historic landmark commissionco, one of the commissub. Against landmarking this house saying the home had been considerably altered. Could you talk about the alteration for a moment?c
>> if you look atnrco this slide, this was -- thisni wasc originally a porch, an open porch. These were columns here and here and here, and this was an open porch. And thatco was in-filled I believe sometime in the earlyni '30's. When you look at the 1935 fire insurance map of the City, it does not show a front porch on this house. So the way that I'm looking at this isq thatw3 the alterations areni 60 plus years in their own right and traditionally this style of house did not have a porch, that would have been a Texas adaptation to the house anyway and it's a very massive house and I don't think the infilling of the house take+d away from the styling of thexd house.
>>Spelman: in a traditional queen anne house there would not have been that open porch anyway?
>> if you remember the picture I showed, it did not have a -- the one near the beginning, the colorizeed.
>>Spelman: the tedd turner itversion. That's actually almostco identical floor plan. Whether that house was filled in in the '30's, was it filled in with brick or wood frame or what?
>> it appears that it was bricked in.
>>Spelman: okay. So actun,a that would have been in keeping with what the house would have beenw3 built at how it would have been looked had it been built according to traditional queen anne form.
>> It appears to be a red brick that matches the rest of the house.
>>Spelman: is the house -- what indication do we have the house is structurally sound?
>> there is a structural -- I received page 1 of two pages of a structural report that the owners have had prepared for them. And I don't have the second page so I only have half much it. The firstxd half indicates a few little cracks andco things liken that, but it didn't --"wbn know what page 2 says.xd the thing that -- the housem being occupied by them and it was designed by two civil engineers and so my assumption is that it appears there2s nothingco in the first page of the report that evidences that it's falling down or anything so my assumption is and the assum#:ion of thet( architects in our commission who have looked atni it is that it appears to be structurally sound.
>>Spelman: and if this were a house on Texas clay 90 years old that didn't have cracks in it it should be a [inaudible] of the world. I'm not atnr all surprised by that. It's also registered in good condition. Doesni tcat have any other -- do you know how they would know what condition the house was in?
>> I can't answer that.
>>Spelman:nhat's all I have, Mayor. [One moment please].xd residents in the area.xdni the -- first I want on thank the City faf for what I think was an amazingly compelling presentation. The case for historical designation in this case is justni overwhelming. Theco historical experts0 voted overwhelming to designate this property as a historic landmark and I have certainly no disagreement with them what was.r I do have one thing to add about the planningo[ commission action. as ms. Stockland mentioned, there was not a majority at the Planning Commission hearing. Unfortunately there wereni two Planning Commissioners absentconr. Commissioner voted in favor, I have his e-mail here if anybody would like toni seeok it which means a majority supports historic zoning on this property. I would like to briefly address a couple of arguments that have been made against historic zoning at a couple of previous hearings. The argument has been made first there's no filewcrj9rz house in the Austin history center. Well, I have spoken with the archivist at the center she says that's often the)p:qfa with buildings in the area that frequently the only way they get a fire inxd the first place is through a case like this. In fact as to this particular building she is eager to have the materials that we havexd built up. Whatever the Council does, there will soon be a file on this house at the Austin history center. Another argument that's been made, wellxd this book hasn't made it into the any of the historical books that deal with historical homes in Austin. I would just like to refer toe1 one of the books that's cited there. It's a book by mynr landLord sue mcbee, a wonderful book from 1975, called Austinp:uo the present. It's true it doesn't covers a house just withint( two blocks of here at 504 west 14th. The very first thing#y( says isni that it's the tradition housed historic pair ofnr identical cottages inxd residential neighborhood. That is what this neighborhood was. That isco the significant thing. The reason that is so critical is because that's our heritage.ni thenr heritage of this neighborhood is residential. If you will refer to the criteria that the historic landmark commission relied upon, in fact three of them relate directly to that sort of thing. Number onet( the character, interest or value as part of the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the city of Austin. No. 12, A building or structure that because of itsq location has become of value to alp neighborhood community area or the City.ni and 13 is value as an aspect of community pride. [Buzzer sounding].ni
>> all of those things are met here. And I realize we are at aco time of smart growth, but there is nothing smart about growth that rolls over historic housing and -- historic building in thee1 one neighborhood downtown where we still have maintained some residents.
>>Garcia: thank you very much.
>>Lewis: may I ask a question?
>>Garcia: sureni, Council Member Lewis.
>>Lewis: now the -- the historicalxd staff person said that we couldni zone the -- part ofn a footprint historical. Wd significance in the back ut I don't know how deep the lot is, but I would presume that it's -- it's deep enough to be used for something commercial. Probably. Ifxd nothing else except parking. But would it be -- would it be a problem if the footprint including thei] house from the back to the street would be zoned historical?
>>nr I -- I would haveco to consult with the historical commission on th. But I don't see a problem with that. We will want toco protect the house. Our neighborhoodco is not against enfield, wcp want to protect our treasures, our neighborhood has been one of the principalni4&supportersfa of denz enfield. As long as younr protect wh -- as long as you protect thenini historical house, historical integrity of thelp structure that would probably be okay.
>>Lewis: thank you.ni
>>Garcia: Council Member Griffith?
>>Griffith: yes. Could I ab[c our staff person a question? is there anyone here from the history landmark commission?
>> there are three members here.
>>Griffith: there are three. I would like to ask one of more of them what their thinking was in recommending that the lotnr also beni= designation?
>> good evening, Council Member Griffith. I am loretta dunn chair of the historic landmark commission. I camexd here tonight specifically to represent the majority opinion of the landmark commission. We often have disagreements, we often have split votes, veryxd common. But my personal opinion and I think the majority opinion is just that this house a specific architectural style that we don't have ani strong representation of in our story of historic buildings. It is in an area that is highly endangered by the threat of redevelopment. As a matter of factni with this particular applicationw3, wexd have an agenda item on our commission agenda on the 24th for another demolition by the samenr owner adjacent to the parking lotni that's shown. The house itself isco very substantial, I think it showed rather well on the slides that it is a strong house. And if you will notice just withjf the existing building, that they occupy, that they did not build, that they wereco not the people that demolished the house toxd put that building there. But if you can see just the impact that that building has on the original buildings that remain, it's just -- it feeds to be done in a real sensitive margin. Each -- manner. Each building is important when you have so few. I think that was the opinion of the majority of the commission. Did that answer your question.
>>Griffith: partially yes, thank you, I am so glad that you are here this evening with your members. There's -- what you have recommended is zoning historic the entire lot; is that correct.ni
>> yes.I] howeverco, compromise is always a good thing. I think that, you know, we are sensitive to the needs of the developerser,ni the owner of the property. You have a vacant parking lot orco vacant lot next to it. And so that is prime for redevelopment. So --.
>>Griffith: how big is that area that is outside --xd
>> I don't know the dimensions, but I believe it's two single family lots, in that area. I would defer to staff if I am incorrect. But justfxi=5 being very familiar with that area, it appears to be probably what would have been two lot forni single family just for those larger homes.
>> I will be glad to answer any other questions.
>>Garcia: you will be coming up to speak in a little while, I will call you then. Karen richardson is signed up in favor of,nh not speaking. I want to read her note: please zone 1206 san antonio historic, it helps make the street pedestrian friendly. Just oneni orni two blocks away, guadalupe and lavaca have been too hot for pedestrians because there's nothing butni high rises and parking garages. There's axd beautiful house of mammothnilp proportions which calms the area with its beauty. I live acrossco the street from the bremond house and pedestrian tourists tell me every day they love the old houses and Austin is lucky to have them. Blake tollet, following Mr. Tollet%m janet guilles orni giles? gillis? ist( she here? Dr. Robert wright.
>> Dr. Wright went to supper, he thought it was coming on later.
>>Garcia: okay. Is lisa lake key here?co ms. Lakeky is here, you will follow Mr. Tollet, welcome, sir.
>> Thank you, City Council Members. I am blakeni tolette, I have owned the property at 1202 san antonio since 1982, also property at 601 and 603 west 12th. First I would like to say that the Texas association of counties have upxd until now beent( excellent neighbors. I was there when they moved in. I just feel that theirnr opposition to this historic zoning is wrong. Most of what I had Written has been covered already. I will say that the neighborhood is very unique mix of offic[d, retail, neighborhood service and residential.ni the vast majority of present property owners have strived to maintain this character and they have kept the facades of the original structures. I think this is a very bad precedentx this building. You know, obviously once the building is downni, there's really no going back on this.nico one thing from working with other -- from working with westco Austin neighborhood group, I am very familiar with the valid petitions and I know that the zoning on this is a go.nr and I know that tbe0 are looking for somethingw3 probably a little more up zoning from that. I am very confident if this whole half block is destroyed or demolished which is the original plan, I am very confident we can get a zoning --fa a valid petition up against this. Basically I am just asking you to go forward with thexd historic designation, it's a real smart choice in my mindni to preserve the beautiful house and help the neighborhood retain itsw3 character. Thank you.
>>Garcia: the property is zoned go and they are requesting go (/uju)(n
>> yeah.
>>Garcia: from go to go historic.xd
>> yes, sir.
>> Janet gillis, following her is Dr. Robert wright register understand favor of, janet gillis is not here. Lisa lakey is here, correct? following ms. Lakey isnr virginia andrewsq, is she her! you are next. Welcome.
>> Thank you. My name is lisa lakey, one of the members of the historic landmark commission, I am herei] in support of the majority opinion in support of historic zoning for the committee. I think the staff presentation was excellent. It's important for you all to know in addition to the information that you were told tonight and because the applicant is taking the position hninr Mr. Allen's legal career is not all that different or distinguished from the rest of the lawyers in town at that time, it's important for you to know that Mr. Allen was also served as a special judge for the cour)n of civil and criminal appeals and Texas supreme court and that that particular house was the office for senator doggett when he practiced law here incy I think that's important. Let me tell you the main reason that I am here/d tonight, I have my five-year-old son marshal with mend he's been here almost four hours now, ixd drove him by thisni house to explain why it was that we were here j.j I don't think he has as deep an appreciation for these kind of structures and his his mommy does. My sincere hope is that he will be able toco see the house at 1206 san antonio when he's old enough to have that kind of an appreciation, that's really what the landmark commission is for and what we are really@uf& trying to do I think. Thanks. [Applause]xdnini
>>ni gregory smith. Mr. Smith. You will be following ms. Andrews.
>> Good evening, Council Members. My name is very endress, granddaughter of the architect george albert endress. Barbara covered most of the historical points of george. Aside from my personal interests, I am most interested in the preservation of the historic downtown homes that give Austin its unique charm and atmosphere.nico there are just a few cities left in america where you canxd be taken downtown in a blindfold and when that blindfold was removed you would still know exactly where you arenr, san francisco, new orleans and Austin are those types of cities. What give them their unique quality is the preservation of historic downtown neighborhoods. Thisco building in this neighborhood are part of the historic fabric wovenxd into downtown Austin. When that fabric unravels it's gone forever. You are left withco just another City like a thousand other stress. The architect mayco not have been the most important architect in Austin at the turn of the century but he was certainly important to the university. In this house in its current state may not be the most beautiful on the block,co but when it and others like it are gone forever, then we and our children and grandchildren will be hurt by the loss. Please vote for historic zoning. Thank you.ni
>>Garcia: Mr. Smith. Following Mr. Smith is thomas wood. Is Mr. Wood here. You will be following Mr. Smith.r welcome.
>> Hi. My name is gregory smith, I am a historian with the commission. My office oversees the national register of historic places program in Texas as well as recorded Texas historic landmark designation which is a state designation. I am here to attest tow3 the significance of the george allen house as a professional historian and also as a concerned resident of Austin. Eligibility list in this the national register of historic places is a standard by which properties throughout the United States are determined to be historic. At national,q state or local level of significance. The allen house is eligible for listing in the national register under two out of four criteria and only one is actuallyxd required for a list in this the national register. The first is its association with a significant person.t( it's associationxd with well respected state supreme court justice george allen whoxd served as special counsel on the waters-pierce case before the u.s. Supremet( court innr 1907. He commissioned the house and lived there until his death in 1911 at age 42.nr it's important to remember that he died at a very young age andnhad accomplished quite a bit in a very short career.nh thet( allen house is also significant in the area of accidenture as a finew3 and rare example of a late queen ann style house, strong tudor influences designed byco u.t. School of engineering facultyq georgexd end rangers and edward banteau. Houses attributed to end ress are rare, this is the only one. It's important to noteq that the -- although they arejf working through the school of engineering, the school of architecture did not exist at that point, it developed from the school of engineering in 1910, so they were working as architects even though their tile wasnr engineer. The buildingnr retains historic and architectural integrity of locationxd, setting, feeling, association, workmanship,co materia,&d and design.ni the only compromises to the building have been on unsympathetic changes to the porch which actually may be a historic change if they happened in the 1930's and unflattering paint job which covers the original materials. Fortunately, however, both changesco are reversible. To determine whether a building is historic, one must look at it on its own merits. The historic landmark commission found it fulfills six outs of 13 criteria for local landmark decision. It's important to note that one qnt compare the allen house to theni driskill hotel or actually any other Austin city landmark any more than you can compare the driskill hotel to the state capitol building. It's apples and oranges, they are both significant. The allen house stands as a good examp of its style, it may not be the biggest, oldest or best. [Buzzer sounding].
>> It's also critical that it mains to maintain the character of the neighborhood.
>>Garcia: thank you very much, sir.
>> Thank you.
>>Garcia: Mr. Thomas wood. Following Mr. Wood is miss lisa richards.
>> She has left.
>>Garcia: okay. She is registered in favor of.xd dora monek, you are next.
>> Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I am thomas wood at 504 west 13th street beaween san antonio and nueces streets. I have lived in this neighborhood for several years now, enjoy the general tranquility of the area. During the daynr this by office workers and acc students. At night this is an area that is one of the quietest and most peaceful areas in Austin. Recently it was brought to my attention that thexd Texas association of counties has a plan to demolish the building located at 1206 san antonio for the purpose of constructing a multi -- multi story office parking facility.ni this is a plan that I am strongly opposed to. I have lived nearnr construction sites and the prospect of being shaken out of bed at 70 a.m. Or earlier is not a pleasant one. The months andco months of noise, traffic inconveniences, trash from construction sites and general disruption ofni the neighborhood's atmosphere are not something that I look forward to. When buildings are demolished there's generally a large amount of vibration which occasionallyni causes damage to adjacent properties. The building that I reside in is overq 100 years old, would certainly not stand up well over such stressfulnr conditions. There's also a general concern for the environment in Austin, the proposed action of removing this building would also include the removal of 20 older trees of varying types. Removal of these trees would be detrimenw to the quality of Austin's air as well as the loss toni the aesthetic beauty of thesexd trees in my neighborhood. I havr listen living in Austin for 10 years now and have enjoyed the last six living inn" this location. I implore the Council please do notni allow the destruction of this property. Please go ahead with the historic designation for 1206 san antonio. Thank youni for your time.
>>Garcia: thank you very much, sir dora monek, following her is richard subtle. Welcome.
>> Thank you. I thank you for the opportunity to address you about this, I am a long-timeco Austin resident. I have lived here since 1972, I have lived downtown since 1979. As such I have seen the demolition of a significant number of historic buildings. I urgexd you to take this opportunityxd to protect the history rick fabric of the City of Austin. Thank you. And to provide the livability of downtown in the process. Thanks.
>>Garcia: thank you, Mr. Suttle, following him is Mr. Terry would I I can't tell. You are next.
>> Council, I represent the openers of the property, I am not sure I haven't been in this situation before. The staff is the applicant so they made their presentation, I)aguess everybody now has spoken in favor?
>>Garcia: that's correct.
>> Now I guessni the landowner will have his chance.
>>Garcia: the way we have itnr Mr. Suttle, there's three of four of you signed up against. You all together, then there's more speakers signed up in favor of. Generally not speaking, but we will recognize them in the order in which they signed up. Do you prefer to stay until the end?
>> I think that I would prefer to keep the way the cases are done where the proponents make their case, we will make our case, then --.
>>Garcia: the City can
>>Garcia: okay, I will call you at the end. James steely, not speaking,@$1te):uq)ed in favor of. Charlesni tonetti, not speaking, registered in favor of. Loretta dowd. Following her is theresa -- she answered a question for Council Member Griffith, but she has not had a chance to speak on her own behalf.
>> I don't have much to add to my original comments, but again my loretta dowd the chair of the historic landmark commission.ni one of the main reasons that I showed up tonight besides, you know, for my feeling for the buildings itself is just the number of residents that have signed the petition. I think that's very important.nr when I see that kind of support I feel that as the chair of the commission I should show up to help support the neighbors that are trying to preserve their area. I was the one that took commissioner lakey's son out of the chamber, he is back now. So I will fess up to that. If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them.
>>Garcia: okay.
>> Good evening, Council, I am theresa pravado. I am one ojr the commissioners on the historic landmark commission. I would like to remind everyone, if I may, that this home is a queenxd ann style, very rare architectural style, and I ask for your support in designating it as a general officet( historic building, thank you very much.nr
>>Goodman: thank you. Kevin english.ni he was signed up in favor, jayjf ashcraft. Not speaking, but in favor. Okay. Those are the end of the cards in favor. Mr. Suttle you and your last three speakers wanted to be in that order, suttle, wyatt, Lemons and norris.
>> Those folks after me are part of Texas association of counties and they don't don't wish to speak. If I run over they are going to give their time to me if that's okay. I would like to just start out bypassing some photographs out, there's basically three so that you get theco full flavor, in case you didn't get the opportunityni to drive by the house of the -- what's next door and across the street and then also so that there's no mystery on what's on the inside of this house so nobodyni thinks there's special molding or anything, there's not, just wanted to have this information.I] my name is richard suttle, here on behalf of the Texas association of counties, which is the short term for Texas association of counties or the workers' compensation -- okay workers' compensation self insurance funds, I think that's the right/%e-way to say I.c-4 subdivision with a fiduciary duty to its members, over 200 counties thatxd self insure through this fund. I will refer toxd them as tac or association of counties.xd they own the property at 13th and san antonio and they holdxd it as an asset for the benefit of their members. It was purchased in 1994 ap4cr atojn/ due diligence period that the association looked at this very issue.nr specifically they knew it had an old house, actually twoxd on the properties, theyxd researched the historical significance and used all ofco the available referencese@ and found that this house and this structure was not mentioned in any of them. That's very important. Because if you ever thinkjf about it when you are thinking about zoning something historic, you would think if it had any significance it would be in a publication. It's not. And some of the ones that were checked off &z Austin,ing illustrated history of 1937, Austinw3 illustrated historyxd of 1998,co Austin travis county a pictorial history, Austin albumxd, 1978 and Austin the pastnr in addition,co since this case has come up, we have also looked at these publications, 19th century Austin, historic Austin a walking tour, its -- Austin architectsxd and architecture, Austin album and austi county. This house is not referenced in any of these publications. Once the historical significance was researched by the association of counties, they were made comfortable that it just did not pass the muster of either the state or the City criteria forxd historic zoning. Possibly one of the most historic points at one point was lloyd doggettxd as an attorney officed there. Now Congressman doggett is known for his preservation, his attitude towards preservation, in fact he's been involved in several, but he did not push to have this or work to have this sought as a landmark designation. Tonight we could have had, you know, 200 county judges down here saying we looked at this, we bought it as an asset [buzzer sounding].
>> Can I have my other folks' time, they are here.
>>Goodman: could one of you speak out and say that you are going to give your time to Mr. Suttle.
>> [Inaudible].
>>Goodman: thank you very much.
>> But we didn't want to bring the 200 county judges down here to talk about how they did their due diligence, figured this out. It probably would have been not a good time spent by all of us. But theni purpose of purchasing the property and theco house was for the expansion and parking for the Texas association ofcounties. When you get into the case,xd the county is put in anjf awfully awkward position here. If you think about it, the City initiates the zoning, what is our response? we are put in a position of having to convince you that, one, Mr. Allen was not an important man; number two, the architects were not important people, and, three, that there's nothing special about this structure. It's an awkward position because who wants toco say somebody is not important, everybody is important. George allen lived in several places in Austin, this is as far as I'm g)pgg to go on these folks, all longer than he lived in this house. He was one of many fine lawyers in Austin.xd and he was one of many lawyers that worked on the waters-pierce case. In fact his firm was hired by the ag to help on the case. He was not on the supreme court, he served as a special judge occasionally, like many lawyers did when they hadxd a backup of cases he was selected as a special judge like many lawyers were. Which was not his long-time residence much if you research the history he was there very littleni and in fact probably didn't live there a year. Probably lived there maybe a year beforexd he died in galveston. Mr. Endress was an engineer and a u.t. Professor. Andxd Mr. Bantel same thing.ni if you get deep into the research of what those gentlemen did, it was basically institutional stuff. U.t. Power plant torn downi] in 1977, some schools, some air"xane hangars, these men werenr engineers, they are not well known, if you were to think of Mr. Allen or the engineers that designed or -- we don't even know if they designed this house because there's verei little they don't ring a bell. Then you get down to the house.I] again, thexd house was not listed inlp any publication. Every research tool that you find in Austin, this house isn't mentioned. It's important you think, well, maybe they just missed it. But in every one of theseco publications that we4zzplooked in, houses all around within a four block area werenr mentionedw3 and photographed and chronicled as significant houses.nr this one, these respected authors went by and went, ummm, ah, it doesn't rise to the levelni ofe1 being put in the publication.xd the house is not original. It's had additions, nobody can tell you when the additions were made, it's been everything from an apartment complex to an office, the pictures that I handed out earlier to you are to show there's no mystery, no trim, significantni woodwork like atxd another house or something like that. [Buzzer sounding].
>> The half timq bers that are all inni the house -- I think I have that one more, terryxd wyatt will give me his time.
>> [Inaudible].
>>Goodman: thank you.
>> We talk aboutxd queen ann style intzu:urg, Texas, what I think are is the tavern down at 12th and lamar because that's probably the best example, but you can drivexd around -- drive around in many of the suburbs, milburn houses, where the queen ann style was mimicked. This house although it is a big queen ann style house, the half timbers are not real, they are nailed on. It is a brick house with ar but it is just not any much different than what's being built by many home builders today trying to mimic a style. Long-time commissioner on the landmark commission, Mr. Fowler, summed it up when he said that the house has been considerably altered and does not in his opinion rise to the level that the City should be marking. Those two gentlemen have been on the landmark io anybody else there.lp they both voted no on this case. Does it rise to the level of the bremond hays, swedishcor housec, judge clayburg house, the list goes on and on. When you think about those houses, those are historic houses.9 this one doesn't rise to the level of historic zoning. The association of counties ask you to vote no on the historic zoning. We are asking that the historic zoning process not be allowed to thwrwart development. The overwhelming attitude is nobodyco wants more in fill. What they want to do is expand theirxd office to serve their fund and the counties they serve. If it was historic the association of counties wouldn't be here. They either wouldn't have bought it or they would be preserving it. We have researched it, hired people to research it, and w4/ just doesn't meet the criteria. I will be happy toxd answer any questions that you might have. There were lots of questions raised by petitions and all. I think if you look behind some of that, it would be interesting, but I am -- I am through if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them.
>>Goodman: thank you Mr. Suttle. So this is an extra card?
>>Garcia: no.
>> That concludes the association of counties presentation.
>>Goodman: okayw3co. So Council, what there isni of us, do we have qut rjn] do we want to closti the publicco hearing?
>>Griffith: when is the rebuttal from ther applicant? is that what's about toni happen?
>>t( the applicant I%d thexd city. Soni I guess barbara would gotn to rebutt.
>> I made notes while he was speaking. Real quickly,ni just point byni point what he was discussing. The historic zoning only applies to the exterior of the house and there are a lot of properties in Austin, a lot of properties this that areaco in west Austin that are zoned historic that are law offices. The purpose of the historic zoning is to keep the exterior of the property and the street scape of that property intact for the citizens of Austin. It's not to tell people how to decorate their house or how to divide the walls in the house. So the historic landmark commission hasni no purview overco the interior of the house, that's not a factor in their decisions, the house was included in the cultural resource survey of the City as a prioritizedxd cultural resource, aboutxd 70% of the houses2il the survey do not have r]c prioritized ranking, so it was included in the survey.xdv%q may not be included in publications ofni the City, which tend to highlight, you know, the great Austin structures, there are 138 City historic landmarks. And very few of those are the same 30 or 40 usually show up in publications. As I discussed with you earlier, it takes six criteria to be zoned --xd at least five, in this case it meets six.nini high examples are architecturally, others have combinations of reasons on why they are historic. There are houses zonedxd historic thatni were houses of leadersxd and -- in the community,ni educators, lots of different reasons, so I just want to make that point.ni lloyd doggett's association with the house was not ani factor and is not included as $ reason -- it's an interesting bonus, but it was not aco factor, the sixt( criteria are met without lloyd doggett's association with the house. We do havenr a compromise on the house which will be zoning two third of the lot historic. Month since I've had this job, we've hadni four different -- three different properties where>x+e've had owner opposition and we have worked with those ownersc to come up with axd compromise.nr in this case theni owner has not been willing to sit down with ust( to discuss any compromise atco all. Thoseni other three cases the houses thus far have been saved. George allen was -- his firm was hired by the state to represent the<-d8state againstjf the waters-pierce oil company. He argued the case before the Texas and u.s. Supreme court. His firm was ozt)inedo but he actually was the one who argued the case, which is why he's featured in the history of Texas and Texass and things like that because that's what made himjf prominent in the community.ni george and son -- george endress was the first architectural engineering professor at u.t., the first u.t. Resident architect. There was notq a wellni developed architectural profession at that time. He was training the architects and u.t. A's lp he was an engineer andlp an of architecture at the time. The house does have a lot of distinctive features that you saw [buzzer sounding].
>> The queenni ann style features, I just wanted to make that point.
>>Goodman: I think weok probably have questions for you, or at least I do for a while. We could close the public hearing first.
>>Griffith: so move.
>>Slusher: second.
>>Goodman: there's a motion and a second to close the public hearing, those in favor please say aye? aye. Opposed. An obtaining Council Member Lewis, Spelman and the Mayor
>>Griffith: the landmark commission's recommendation was to zone the entire thing historic and I am wondering what theirxd rationale was and what the public would lose, what the risk is in not zoning the entire thing historic, but only the compromise position that are you were suggestinu what's the risk there?
>>nr well, I guess the goal was to try to reach a compromise that would retain the street c@aaacter and the street visibility of thexd house, but would still allow the Texas association of counties some square footage. So I guess you could havew3 a huge looming unsympathetic structure behind it and that would probably be -- then or the worse case scenario. Or have it surrounded I guess on three sides.nr
>> usually you mean things like parking garage and --
>> correct.
>> I understand.
>>Goodman: let me ask you, if we have known --c3n course we have known about this house for some time. Why is it that we are justnr now looking for historic zoning? what was the genesis if.
>> Well, the reason the case wasni initiated was because the owners came to the City and filed a site plan exemption determination form. They wanted an assessm!v)4 would require in terms of city pr demolish that house.;8a3 and that triggered the review by theco historic landmark commission because it was a house included in ani cultural resource survey of the city.ni there are lots of houses that are priorij)vqb in the City's hits rick survey that are not zoned historic. Unfortunately we haven't had the staff time at this point until I was didn't have ani full-time person in this position. So one goal is to go ahead and find -- pinpoint all of the buildings in the historic survey of the Cityo that are prioritized and toco start contacting those owners about initiatingi historic zoning, that's something that I wan start doing in the next six months or so, but I haven't had that opportunity thus far.
>>Goodman: okay. On a more specific item, can you respond to Mr. Suttle's reference to the fake half timbers?
>> well, yes I did. The thing that you have to remember about the queen ann style is thatni it's an english precedent. What was happening in europe in the 1870's is that english architects were drivingjf around to the countryside and they were b-ing at their houses, the traditional houses that were built, you knowt(, inr 16th centuries in the countryside, they were built of local materials. They had brkqbase, they used the half tim bers asco stefrbing -- serving a structural role. They stuccoed them in. They startedw3 populari ing that again in yurp. When it was transported to america what happened as that style moved west, the queen ann style started to lose its characteristics and people started adding turrets and ]hr& of this woodwork and millni work was available. People were adding spin del work, shingles. The style kind of lost its character. Thisco house looks verynr much like what its precedent was. The queen ann houses on the east coast look a lot like this. They are trying to re(lte with whatco was an ancient or primative style of building in europe. The intention is not to necessarily have the tim bers serving a structural role. You could have that same effect for one-fourth the price by just having the timbers on the outside and stuccoing it. That's what the stylenr wasxd. It was taking advantage of the fact that we had all of this millxd uv)k and carpentry available now and machinery to mass produce things so that you could ju&ld something that looked ancient but really was not. Do[3/ that answer your question?
>>Goodman: yeah, I think so. More even than what I asked. [Laughter]. So thanks, I learned a lot.
>>Spelman: if I could summarize that to be sureni I understand it. Authentic queen ann style then was fake half timbering?
>> correct.
>>Goodman: could havenr been --.
>>Griffith: if that means non-structural.
>> The tavern is 20 years after this. This house is really a true queen ann house and it's in that era, 1907.
>>Mayor Watson: additional questions? ixdj>iu)s& entertain a motion. Is there ani motion?
>>Griffith: Mayor, I would move the landmark commission recommendation.w3
>>Spelman:ni second.
>>Mayor Watson: motion made to approve the landmark commission recommendation by Council Member Griffith, seconded by Council Member Spelman. Any discussion?
>>Goodman: Mayor? tem?
>>Goodman: ico am really not comfortable with this. I know what the neighborhood is trying to achieve and I am all forni thatnini. I think it's a very significant house and a very pretty house. But of my historic landmark type mentors, two of them were in the process this went before, neither of them could reconcile thisnr with historic zoning, I am really uncomfortable with those two folks and two different places having voted that they could not support this as historic structure. I don't have the expertise thatconi they do. But it makes me uncomfortable as if this is not the proper way toxd use historic zoning. I have asked City legal if there was some other way that we could preserve the character by the presence of this house without giving it historic zoning.e- does not know of such a mechanism. Nonetheless I am just -- I am so uncomfortable that I don't think that I could vote yes.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: Mayor, I understand what the Mayor Pro Tem is sayingw3 and even thought Mr. -- I thought Mr. Suttle made some good points about some of the criteria. But I think even if you took out distinguishing characteristics of architectural typeni or specimenni, criteria number 3, identification of thec workman,co architect orxd master builders individual work influenced development of the City, it may meet it on that one, I think you still under number, character, interest or value as part of the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the City of Austin or state of Texas or the United States and then no. 12 Ini think clearly a building or structure that because ofni its location has become of value to a neighborhood community area or ther city, or no. 13, Value as an aspect of community sentiment or publicnhp6hcj% pride. I think it meets it on thosgn three criterion even ifnr you throw out some of the ones thatnr the landmark commission passed on a majority vote.ok
>>Mayor Watson: further discussion? Council Member Griffith?
>>Griffith: yes Mayor, thank you. One ofjude things thatr disturbing and e.%s frightening to a lot of usxd isxd the cumulative loss in terms of the character and the feel and the charm and the attraction of downtown that is happening as one older home right after the other comes down. We need to keep the attraction. One of the things that has stayed with me he is the points that -- the rudat team in 91 was here for five days and four nights and a lov3q of us tracked them around. They were landscape architect, City planners, some of the best in the country. Volunteers who were -- who gave their time and their talent to cities all over the country. And they made several points9szco us over and over and over again and I began to see Austin in a new way through their eyes. With a fresh look. And they kept stressing two things: don't ever stop seeing what you have, don't ever stop seeing your urban natural beauty. And don't ever stop seeing your history and yournr culture. And theq vestigaes of those and the physical evidence of those because those are your unique sellingco propositions.ni those are the things that nobody else in america can compete with because they are yours and only yours and they would almost take us by the shoulders and shake us and say,co "don't stop seeing it and don't ever let it go." and so for that reasonnr, along with the technical reasons that have beenco presented for its historic significance as a national treasureni, as a state treasure and as a local treasure, I -- I hope that we will keep it as part of what we pass on from now on.xd
>>Mayor Watson: further comment? Council Member Garcia then Council Member Spelman then Council Member Lewis.
>>Garcia: thank you very much, Mayor.xdco I -- I agree with some of the thingsnr Mr. Suttle said. Ir worked inside this house and quite frankly by my standards it doesn't meet3qucc the tear I can't, butc Austin criteria it doesn't meet the standard, but Austin as a City is relativelyni old but we are a wash andni wear and throwco away sort of a they. We tear up everything and put up new buildings. I guess at some points we are goingni to have to startco looking at what it is that we are going to preserve soco five, 10 generations down the line people can look and seenr things that were done in the 19th century when I was born, Mayor, [laughter], and look at what it was that the people thatxd live here were thinking about. You know, the united states of america has only one City that has -- that has the designation as a patrimony to the world. And that's san juan peter reike. Strange that no other city in -- san juan peurto wreak come. That's because we tear down a lot of things that if we would maintain them for a long period of time we would be able to find outlet some of the history. Forw3 that -- find out some of the history. For that reason I@c goingxd to support this particular recommendation from staffni like I say, I don't think that I agree with richard in some respects. I don't think this house has theco qualitiesjf that perhaps are necessary and I am not an expert, I am not an architect. That doesn't know anythingco about architecture. But still I think this is a house that's been there in that neighborhood for a long time, people have admired it, people like it, itni is symbolic of what was done in a specific era of Austin.xd0@v the early part of -- the latter part of the 19th century or the earlyq part of the 20th century. For that reason I am going to support it.
>>Mayor Watsonnr: @ancilmember Spelmanni, Council Member Lewis.
>> I sharew3 somejf of Council Member Goodman's concernxdq about the historic quality of the house. I take jim fowler's recommendations especially seriously, since I know jim. I don't know blake al legsco sander -- alexander, I don't know him. If I doxd know jim if he votes againstq something I am going to take it seriously. I haven't had a chance to talk to him onjf this particular house. Ixd look in the minutes to see what he bases that recommendation on. He says three things, first that theni house has been considerably altered. Which we have talked about. Paint salt lake City inappropriate. Commission should bexd marking.ni as far as the alterations go I think it's fairly ,clear fromnr observing as ms. Stockland pointed out to us whatxd has been changed, if anything it makes the house more authentic in its look and feel than it was in the first place. If anything it's more of a queen ann house after the alterations in the perfectly consistent with the historic designation, the paint selection is the easiest thingnr in the worldco to fix, if I owned that house I would have fixed it a long time ago. Somewhere aro+"d the line we decided victorian's must have been gray people. In fact real victorian houses as I'm sure ms. Stockland knows much better than I do were not gray, they were brightnr colors, very interesting to look at, that should probably happen to this house. If I were owning that house so would fix it right away. In any case it canco be fixed by some future owner without any trouble at all. The third issueg whether this is the level the commission should be park marking. I think a better way of thinking about this is whether it fits this designation on could I tear I can't 1, 3, 4, 11, 12, 13. I would invite Mayor pro tem Goodman and anybody else who thinks this house is not worthy of landmark status to look at those bases and identify which ones really don't apply because if withinnr of them applies the house is lands mark worthy, if none of them apply, then it's not. I think it's very clear on the record at least two or three of those,[applies as Council Memberxd Slusher suggested.xd I think it looks like a hard call, but after careful examination from me it's a very easy call.
>>Lewis: is there anyone that can tell mei] what the size of this lot is? because if I remember correctly, one of the alternative --ni alternativesfa to do the footprint of the house house to the street, how much lot is behind the house? can you --
>> estimate? the lot is 80 feet across san antonio street and then it's 138 feet deep. So it's 80 by 138 feet, which isxd 11,040 square feet. If you zoned acrossxd the 8 on feet of the lot along san antonio street and aboutxd 80 feet deep to contain the house, that would benico 6400 square feet. Whichco would be 60%, I think. Of the lot.
>>Lewis: so that would mean that theni back 52 feet could be usednr fornr 52 by 80 could be used for either parkingni or -- or -- portion of a buildingxd on?
>> that's correct.
>>Lewis: Mayor, I would like to make a friendly amendment to -- who made the motion? griflt I did.
>>Lewist(:xd to.
>>Griffith: I did.
>>Lewis: to zone the foot print of the house from 80 feet from the street 80 feet back, to allow the use of the reapportion ofni the lot for a more commercialxdni use. I guess.
>> I am estimating the 80 feet back off of an aerial map, it would probably require ah6hcj% survey.
>>Lewis: well, lerws say whatnr, five feet from the rear of the house, five feet, from the street, to five feet from the reaz feet.
>>Griffith: before we make a decision o ohat, would you review -- Council Member may hy,@ not been in the room when we talked about that. You explained what@(oexd risks and what the possible lossco would be if that happened.co and I'm not sure Council Member heard that.
>> Okay. Well,ni I guess the worst case scenario would be if the back part of that lot was developed and the lot on the north side is also owned bynr the Texas association of counties, so if they develop all of this land, they could basically build something and surroundxd it on three sides. So you could have a very unsympathetic building in the worse case scenario that would basically be surrounding this house and it would just be kind of contained within something larger on threexd sides.xd
>>Spelman: if ini could just clarify, councw,gember. Do you know what thefa height limitation is on go zones?x;
>>Spelman: so it couldco conceivably go as high as 60 feet without seeking any change in zoning at least?
>> that's correct.
>>Lewis: hum, so we would have another 15th street situation.xd 15thr
>>Mayor Watson: guadalupe.xd
>>Lewis: 15thc and guadalupe where they have built aroundco that little thing. Yeah.q all right.
>> Then)hharking lot on the north -- the lot on thexd north side is currently dnu.ni
>>Mayor Watson: do you consider that ani friendly amendment.
>>Lewis: I withdraw it.
>>Mayor Watson: motion made and seconded to approve the recommendation, any further discussion? Mayor Pro Tem?
>>Goodman: I have one more question, ixd had not been here to hear that, are you trying toni prevent any other property around this from being developed in some different way as well? that's what I thought that you just said?
>> no. I was justjf explaining the different properties that they own adjacent to this property.
>> Right. You talked aboutw3 incompatible. And the reasonco that that strgci me is because that's what we are about to do withw3 the schnieder building is we to build aroundw3 it to preserve the historic quality that that building represents. But we areq going to build around it.
>> That's correctt(.
>>Goodman: but you said something that sounded very different.
>> Well, that's not from a preservation standpoint. That's notni the best -- it's acceptable,fa but it's -- if you take a pure wristxd points of view it's notxd the best case scenario, but that's life. I mean that's compromise. On the schneiderxd building, I have been working with the architects and we are trying to work together to try to do some things architecturally on the park knowledge garage that will make it correspond to some extent, not ideal, but that's compromise is what you have to do sometimes to save the building.
>>Goodman: I am not understanding what we are compromising exactly.
>> Well, from a --.
>>Mayor Watson: she would prefer there be nothing around it, it's framed as it is.
>>Goodman: how much around it?
>>Mayor Watson: apparently the whole lot and the lot next door.
>> No, not the lot next door. I was just clarifying that they own the lot next door and they could build all theni way around it. That was the question thatni was requestedninixd.
>>Goodman: well, Mayor, my last comment is I think there must be some more straightforward way to do this. I don't know what it is obviously since we have no mechanism in place. When you go through the criteria of what does justify historic zoning, usually you go through many more than just one checkoff. The most legitimatexd onesi]w3 on thexd check-off list forxd me has to do with the value to the neighborhood,nr am beence and character and flavor almost of the historic. They arexd not a historic district, but I think maybe they should be or some other mechanism we have that allowsr to keep the character and culture that's embodied in structures that they have, even if it's not technically historic. Like ini sayq, I have never disagreed with jeff fowler before$k so I am not going to start tonight and I will an obtain andni bettie baker as well. But I think there must be some more straightforward way to protect the character of the neighborhoodni than by I think padding a little bit.
>>Mayor Watson: ir say ingree with that.ni l -- I can fit this into items 12co and 13, I have difficulty, my concept of ani historical building fitting it into some of the others. I understand whatninr the goal to be achieved here is. I also by the way agree with Council Member Garcia at some point you do want to stop tearing down things. Liz and I live in a house that is made up in a big part of the house is made up ofco component parts out of a house that used to beni located at the corner of 7th and lavaca. That was torn down. Fortunately they saved the parts, although it's -- it would be right down there in that district now that we have three or four houses down there, beautiful, beautiful homes. It would be nice -- we have looked into and done research on this house and it would be great if that were still there as part of thexd historyni of thatco areaxd. I am troubled by this doesn't feelxd straightfor. I can ration it into 12 and 13,fa but I am -- it doesn't really feel as comfortable on historical designation. And I feel very stronglyco that it shouldn't be done inni a way where when you use the word compromise, I mean, that -- that is particularly strong on something like this, ini don't like really the answer that what could happen there is you might have a whole lot of other things happen on other pieces of property and somehow that diminishes the historical nature of that house. Particularly when at least from my perspective this doesn't fit as neatly into ]hy historical designation as I would like to see. But with that being said, if there's any further? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say noni.xd Mayor Pro Tem are you abstaining?
>>Goodmannr: abstaining.
>>Mayor Watson: the vote is six votes in favor,co zero against, one abstention.
>>Goodman: Mayor as a follow-up toni that, could we perhaps ask planning staffni and -- what title did wejf give you? what is your official 4us%q1
>> City historic preservation officer.
>>Goodman: okay. And the City historic preservation officer to get together and figure out some overlay or some other mechanism that we can work with the neighborhood and come up with some criteria, someni features, that are --xd you know, not too general, but not too specific, either, so that we can find a zoning mechanism toni protect buildings orni homes without having to I feel stretch the definition and theni criteria. Couldx#ut maybe make that a land development code amendment?
>> we can look into that, yes.
>>Goodman: t great. Thank you. [One moment please]nr
>>Slusher: Mr. Riek, could you tell us a litv:tle bit about the history of this project, the current status?
>>Mayor Watson:c itc has notfa yet reachedco historical designation.
>> We're 35 years shy, Council Member, 36. Goodu evening Mayor and Council, peter riek. Directorawqb. Of Public Works and transportation. I assume, Council Member Slusher, you are"nn asking about the William4 cannon project. And this wase a Travis County bondnr project on the bond election in 1984. The City annexed William cannon inu 199686 and also had -- 1986 and allwy had 300,000 originally allocated tcezzhat was the City's contribution to some right-of-way acquisition relative to this project.bgh until october this project wasu7fa entirely managed and/ financed with the exception of theeauc small 300 dollar portion by travis." county to the extent of two million dollars in bond funds, and about one and a half million dollars in developer funds, and to the tune of some five million dollars or actually closep,n to six million dollars by the state of Texas. In pass through federal funding. The4n project has been delayed partly because of the economic downturn originally, and then because numerous issues relative to the floodplain and the flooding of onion'ez creek inzv the area en of William cannon. And these issue -s/!/e-9s7nmy[n5aco/I]ninrp)(as/ng#nbnb7se1avn@ >> in favor.
>>Mayor Watson: all right. Thank you very. Is there anyone else that wishes to be heard on this matter? did y'all sign cards?
>> yes.
>>Mayor Watson: okay. I don't have your cards, but please come forward and identify yourself and you will be three minutes to speak.
>> Hello, I'm valerie ramnus.v: I own a business on barton springs and lamar. I'm here to speak in favor of helping the Austin resource center for the homeless. I also speak on behalf ofona the/ coalition for the homeless.w3 and one of the chair people for public relations. I would like to speak as a business owner. I/ feelv: that our City will havef more commerce when we enable the homeless to help take care of themselves, and I feel that aswy new location for the shelter wouldf greatly keep our City in balance.I] I feel -- iv: feel real concerned because they've been getting pushed aroundym and we kindht of don't want them here.htt as an examplec of how we can?; work with them better, I've had my business for six and a half years. For six years I've had what I call a security team on thec grounds. And I have a story about last night there was a burglary to the business next door in progress and the gentleman who sleeps on my back porch curbed the burglary. It was three men who had piled up chairslu going l over razor wire, and the neighboringd business has commodities there with -- in a warehouse and the vans have merchandisejn inc there that has been robbed before. Andu now that the security team has been there for six years, there's been much less burglary. Can7ko I say on the wholer and I know the restaurants on broke into a number of times, so I feelrg6 it's really important that we work with the self-esteem of the homeless. Right now they're camping at the movievom theater to seec/ star@< wars, and that I could imagine might upset the homeless because there's people who are camping outside and there ought to be a place. That's what I would like to say.
>>Mayor Watson: thank you very much. I apologize. I said I didn't have cards. They were behind another tab in the little box that we use. Judith landry. Is she here? hangqvl on n ms. Lancaster. You're the next person.my he signed up for. Q/ rose lancaster.
>> Good evening Mayor and2g? Council Members. I am rose lancaster and I'm president of the board of the&j capital area homeless alliance which operates the resource street. And the first thing I would like to do is express our appreciation to the City staff who have been very3wn diligent in assisting us in finding an interim spot fo:mz the resource center. Myc main thoughts are on the downtown area and how it%/g should reflect and mirrorcu-b the broad constituency of Austin. And I come at it from thisu angle because of conversations whichex thinkw3 wevi consider myself a downtown resident. I live niner>n blocks from this place we n are tonight. And some ofom7 us mayfa be no, sir stall jik for the Austin of 50 years ago, but most of the people I speak with are very excited aboutn what's happening in downtown Austin I'm talking about downtown neighbors. It belongs to all of us. The 70,000 or so people who come downtown daily to work inop the banks and the business offices, at the capital, the students at the university,bfe we welcome the tourists in the Convention Center,I]7sn the entertainment district has a role to play, the recreational areas are certainly an assetq% tobs4 downtownymwb @jfa=)w3g#wokcc4 3wi]voducdfacnbw3dc=nq%w3cs ncmya&sfayMrof;;anr[nc/I]+o ckcm[osv:3wngoalpiu$ Austin, the cultural centers, especially those<9nhat are on the drawing board. And it's exciting to contemplate more residents in the downtown area, but we want these to be inclusive of of us in the next two months because we're getting ready to go through our consoliq/ited planning process, which is nextko year's%w allocation. What we're doing here is recommending reprogramming of this year's allocation into these categories. And I know you know that.
>>Garcia:$xn I know that one. I was just talkingxd about 99,ooo zeroko 00 and 01.
>> And that will show up in the next allocation. It's a way for us to spread out the funding of a project that's going to takezv potentially several years of allocations to support rather than taking 3.of million dollars of our allocation this year and not being able to use it on our activities.d8
>>Garcia: on the uses for theg#w3 1.762, why are we taking so7 more money for administration. I thought the administration of the monies for this yearjn were are already in thet old budget.
>> They are in the old budget and it has the allocations at 17 percent.co we are allowed to go tos20%, and so we are requesting Council action to take/ that -- take the additional three percentok to fund some of the activities that we have ongoing in our department. And so that is for in-house administration.
>>Garcia: but I thought that you already had done that already.cp when you presented thee? plan for how you were going to spend this money from all of thkois years --.
>> Yes, sir, we did, and we have found ourselves in need of an additional three percent or"o $200,000 for the6oz/kaudv:-1v& administrative activities of our department.
>>Garcia: okay. That's all the questions I v.
>>Mayor Watson: I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Let me close project thfm8u w1meur)n or will we be using some of the future monies to complete it? in other words, what I'm --.
>> Onc 11th and 12th street.
>>Lewis: are we going to start something and if wev: don't get the money, will it have/n to end withoutc will we have to findko other funding for it?
>>clp you're talking about the 11th and 12th street?
>>Lewis: I'm talking aboutok3v/ the homeless.w3
>> the furp of that is to be able to forward fund and -- purpose the that is to bgn able to forward fund with cdbg dollars. So the City will be able tone ter into an equipment in which we willv: be able to reimburse the City over three years. And we already have a million dollarsnr committed. We're going to add the is.1 and 1.5 in the next two years, which means the City will recoup the money it's expended for the construction of that facility within a three-year time period.f so the answer to your question is if something happens, we-sstill have the opportunity then to;orni reprogram those funds.=n and not pay the City back.
>>Lewis: provided we get the funds?
>> yes, sir. I guess one last point is that hud allows you and it is in hud guidelines to allow you to forward fund allocations --.
>>Lewis: I understand that, e but 2000 is another presidential election, you know. It may be decided that they don't need to give up so much money. That's the point- that I'm getting to.
>> And that's a good point.&jn everything we'll say pending funding authorization from the Congress. That's exactly right,%qn Council Member.
>>Lewis: I'd hate to see a project a; half complete and stopped because of funding or have to use general fund money to threet kplooet it.
>> I'd hate to see the federal government stop the hud program, believe me.
>>Lewis: I'm not talking about the hud program. I'm talking about cdbg.
>> There was a threat in Congress to do that this year.
>>Lewis: all right.
>> You're exactly right.
>>Mayor Watson: anything else. That concludes item 69 and somebody will belu back with/n us next week for our nextok public hearing. Folks, ms. Lancaster, ben, others, thank you for being here tonight. Itemt no. 13. Yes, Council Member Lewisco4/, did you have something before we got to 13?
>> no. I --.
>>Lewis:nxno. I just wanted to make an announcement. This is my finalw3 announcement on this thing and nrn I promised them that I would make one more announcement forb thefotown hall meeting on Saturday,u! may 15th at 10:00 o'clock at the Austin high school, to get to know your kids.
>>Mayor watnsb: good deal.
>>Lewis: so I!/e hope we don't suffer a tragedy, and that's the title of it, strategyvu=t avoid tragedy.
>>Mayor Watson: item?oi no. 13 You pulled. I'll recognize you again. We're not done.
>>Lewis: item numbere 13?
>>Mayor Watson: yes. We're now concluded the public hearings, but items 13,c 16, 17wn, 31w3, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 were pulled.cu.=n
>>Lewis:zv okay. The question from purchasing answeredgob it about the radios, beinge purchased as sole source and my question was was these some of the radios that was purchased sole source, and if they were, how are we buying parts from someone else. And she explained to me that part of the radios was purchased sole source and part wasn't. But I understand now.
>>Mayor Watson: do you move approval of 13?bp
>>Lewis: yeah.
>>Mayor Watson: motion is made to approve item 13. Is there a second?v: seconded$xe by Council Member Spelman. Is there a discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Councilmember Slusher?5a do you want to take up 16 and 17?
>>Slusher: we're7s going to do a short presentation on that.4hfa
>>Mayor Watson: Mr. Goss?
>> yes, m@gqayor and Council Members, our chief financial officer is going to give a brief7 item which relates to developer reimbursements that cameu! about as our annexation occurred last year. These are particularly for the village of western oaks and south land oaks, two of the areas that we annexed last year. Where we are andx2nvow we figure these.
>> When we had the annexation there wasq% six muds that we had developer reimbursement for. And as you'll=n recall, once we do the annexation, we stepped into the shoes of the mud and we were in a position tokwj reimburse these developers that had put in some water, wastewaterd drainage infrastructure ing even before the annexation happened, the City was very active in trying to get information from the muds, trying to figure out how much money was due to the developers because we needed the information for the financial model to find out to find out what our debt was going to be and what our rates were going to be and how much needed to be paid back. Once the anntoxation happened and we were ready to do the developer reimbursements, we wanted a process that was tried and true and the Texas tnrcc had a process that they had been doing for years. And instead of trying to develop a new process, we decided to use that process. In the times7n since that happened, we havef used this process, we have hired some consultants to help us, some experts, an engineer that will look at the construction that was done tob make sure there are eligi4 !ble costs, to make=) sure the frublgt was done to the standards of the City and to accept or we also hired an accounting firm that will audit theses papers, make sure the payments were made, make sured cancelled checks and we also&j had legal support to make sure that we -- the contracts that the muds had signed with the city were being met.bu/"'7oxdfaw3fazv(dlw;d8kocugu-9sc at this time this will take care of all but three developer reimbursements that we still have to make. We don't have information for two of them, so we're unable to move on those. We're going to escrow some they're in the middle of finishing up one construction project and as soon1wz as they're through we'll be able to release ac small portion of this dollar amount. It's about $800,000.4/ can I answer any questions?
>>Slusher:co and what was the paying, so I can see what we disallow?
>> when we started -- yo a I?pn/ when we started during the annexation?
>>Slusher: uh-huh.
>> Those numbers have changed right aujfnt. Wev: startedv: out with numbers for water and wastewater and I think Bill has some for the drainage area. What we started out with for water and wastewater was 24 million dollars. And what we're be right now is about 19 millionnb dollars.ir but those numbers for theoc circle c muds haveu several times. There's also beenw changes some some of theu have been-9 -- there's been some --.
>>In let me point out that oee are in litigation over the circle c claims.
>>Slusher: I was only asking about these two tonight.
>> About these?d these particular ones --.
>>Slusher: I thought'7c I might be bm:nterested in those.n
>> thesenh:particular ones, actually, we started out with the estimated total claim for village of western oaks)+p at 7.3 million, and as you know, we're reimbursingco of.1. The south land -- yeah -- the south land was only 30,000.b. We've already approved one million dollars and there was some erosion were changed from ineligible to eligible, so it's only $30,000.
>>Slusher:w3 100an thirt thousand, you@< mean?qjj
>>co the difference is different thousand. Yes. We had already approved it. We had an additional 30,000 for and erosion control that so the $30,000 we had to come back andt get additional approval for this $30,000.ea but the total amount for@jhis particular claim2i issnfn(]incg 1,048,,000, but you're only seeing 30,000 timent because the other was already approved. And -- at this time, because the other was already approved. Andc the morning wood isn only $19,000;l.ko and this number (n' remained pretty much the same.4[d
>>Slusherw3: okay. You losty(bn me back there. Okay. We're appronrved proving1eu million on number 16 and 2.79fa on 17.
>> Councilmember, in your corrections, actually, le amounts on item 16 is reimbursed in the total amount ofok/]inm-k cnrd I don't know if you have a copy of the change sheet. And let me add also that not only are we satisfied that this satisfies the City's obligation under the to: motion is made by Council Member Garcia to approve item 31 s there aw second? seconded by the Mayor Pro Tem. Councilmember Garcia?
>>Garcias one ofe/ theirn things that this awards of this contract has is they don't have to satisfy the3w m.b.e., w.b.e. Requirementv they make azo% commitment that they're going to do all the work themse.es, and that's a provision of the m.b.e., w.b.e. Ordinance that we have in place. However, I do not think that wece dedicated to the test of making sure thatco this contractor actually do what they said they'rewok going to do. If they go out and subcontractor, we don't know and I don't think we have enough folks to go out and check this work out. I think we do it by telephone calls, is that not correct, Mr. Warren warren?
>> good evening Council. We do some telephone calls and we also dowo1 a contractnr closeout on every single project. So at contract closeout if theyok indicated that they've used sub consultants, then weok would have a problem with that because on the front end they indicate that they would do all of the work with their own workforce?
>>Garcia: wouldn't that be too late?&
>>c itjf would be too l:rnte to prevent it because we could take some action because that's misrepresentation and we could apply sanctions for violating the program.c which wouldfa include suspensionc3from the program. We would be able to suspend them4c] from doing business with the City.
>>Garcia: okay. Well, I would like for your office to consider doing something and report back to -- proactive and report back to the Council City on the m.b.e. And/ w.b.e. Ordinance that's still going through the processes.
>> We can do that Council Member Garcia.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Lewis?oqu
>>Lewis: let me ask you a question, Mr. Warren. You said at the closeout. Why would they indicate that theygnp used subcontractors at the closeout? I mean, --.c
>> because that's the process that we go throughfa before they can -- before finalt( payment isnb made to them, they have to submit a contract closeout to the s and br office, and we review all of the that information, as a matter of fact, we have suspended a company who indicated that they were going do the work with their own workforce doing during contract closeout they had several subcontractors, so we suspended them for not keeping up with their commitment that they were going to do it all in-house.
>>Lewis: but that would only mean that if -- they only -- their only indication is all the subcontractors and -- owe and there's all the material and subcontracts are paid, right? that's the indication where you get that information from, right?
>> that is correct. They submit all of the information on their subcontractors in the contract closeout processwus7.nb
>>Lewis/j: I'm justt>nrying to relate that to whynooc would anyone tell you that they used a subcontractor if they already paid the subcontractor and now they're just coming for their final pacwh? I don't understand who would everm-o that if you said someone did it, I can't even imagine it because they're not just working on one contract. If theyfcun said they're using a subcontractor on --s7 they paid the subcontractor for another contract. What I'm saying is I can't even imagine telling -- coming back and telling you that they used a subcontractor on a contract that they said they was going to use all their people if you didn't know it.fa
>> well, part of that review, Council Member, is to review that particulnr -- those closeout documents as itym also verify that all the payments that they've indicated that they'vefa made to actually true and correct before we approve the contractxd closeout form in those documents.
>>Lewis: well, it just don't figure. If I'm saying I'm doingg# 100%, I know n that -- I'm the only one that you're going to make a check to, so if I pay someone else, you knowa it wouldn't make any difference. All right. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: motion has been made and seconded to approveym item number 31. All in favor? opposed say no. Motion kaergs on itemun 31. Item 43. Councilmember Lewis?
>>Lewis: 43? [inaudible].c my question isr>n on 43 through 47 it was indicatedg# that these are life insurance companies. Is this lifee insurance that we're doing or do we have some other type of policy? or isn there an increase because of an increase in personnel or what?
>> items 43 through 47 through not only life insurance but also accidental death and disability. It is a stopgap or a]in stap loss contract for our City medical plan. It's also a change in one of the2osgob hmo plans also. These are all current contracts. And the reason for those changes enrollment within those plans or changes in decisions byhte1 the employer, themy retire reabout the volume of coverage that we want to have. So we're not asking for additional money, we're just asking for the ability to revise or modify those plans to reflect the changes and decisions that either the employees or theb. Retirees have made insthe enrollment or volumes of coverage they want.
>>Lewis:e,kn. [Inaudible].w3g#
>>Mayor Watson: is there a motion@< to> approve 43 through 47?
>>Lewis: did you have something, Council Member Garcia?
>>Garcia: yes, I was waiting to see if you were going to make a motion.
>>Lewis: I'll move approval.
>>Mayor Watson: motion is to approve items 43 throughlu 47. Seconded by Councilmembi"rd8 Garcia.e1 Council Member Garcia?
>>Garcia: thank you. In the health insurance area, I think several of the%,on offices of thenr Council have beenc contacted by retirees who have had difficulty in cases where they're carryins7ng -- where hmo insurance. There have beenjncoxngol'g#t,cnrww3yvc/+okghahh/4n6mh/n/fazv8rc/;o@wmont(w3so3cok< nt( some changes and some retirees have found themselves losing the insurance coverage and I have had to do some things that I didn't know about until one of them, you know, called my , didn't want to share the risk. The retirees arequ costly, so they separate programs that they participate in. One thing about the humana pca. It is a cheaper offering to them, so we want to get them back to the level of service they want because it's one of the least expensive and most affjnordable plans.ko
>>Lewis: because I had some contact from a/ number of people, well,hw three, to be exact, that was talking about and my question tonr7mg them was, could they got( to the City plann and they didn't know.
>> No, thb cannot.
>>Lewis: okay.
>>Mayor Watson: Council Member Slusher?
>>Slusher: let me make sure I/I >>Slusher: okay. And do we have any idea how many people this is? : there was about 90 people that fell through the cracks. We identified them immediately and got them backw3 intow3 the system. We had open enrollment last november.co the folks that are over 65 arenra-eligible fornw3 humana gold federal program, and those folks, they have a new paper system and so some of those folks did fall through the7s cracks and we have worked with them to get those people back in. And if we can't do it through an automated system, we do it manually.
>>Slusher: so they are getting their coverage then?
>> yes, sir, yes, sir.
>>Slusher: and was there a lapse in there where some people weren't getting covered?
>> we require that they make that coverage retroactive, so if there were any expenses incurred covered.
>>Slusher: well, that sounds good. And I want to make sure. When I was saying they weren't koeferd, Council Member Garcia mentioned prescriptions, was this for people they thought they weren't insured at all or just some aspect of thev: insurance?
>> it's somebody went to the pharmacy and they weren't in the system, then they could be denied coverage fora that prescription. Once we're madeg#2os aware of the(c% situation, we manually make sure they get back into thejf system so when they go back to get their prescripti5 be covered.
>>Slusher:- so this was limited to prescriptions?
>> that's where the problem@ >> We didn't hear very manyc complaints about those lines. It was accessingfa to medication.
>>Slusher: you did hear some.
>> Yes, sir.
>>Slusherxn: so all of that has been dealt with retroactively. And basically it amounted to a paperwork or a computer error, it didn't actually cost anyone either coverage or funds1e that was entitled to coverage?
>> if somebody was eligible and incurred an expense, then npwe manually sent thee #vn claim in so that the carrier couldco reimburse them.
>>Slusher: okay. I guess we're following up to make sure that's happening?
>> yesqoir.
>>Slusher: okay. Thank you vrb much.
>>Goodman: Mayor, could I follow up?w3 so arew3 we fairly sure that wec have found everybody who did get lost somewhere?n
>>n on the3w average we have done eligibility file checks and we've done exception reports and anyone that wasc missing we've gone back and worked with the company trying to get them in. We might have two or three that/n are still out there for lack of paperwork on thew retirees' part, but we know who those are and we'ret3 working with those.
>>Goodman: okay. Soc there was nobody who was denied theirq prescription or denied some care in anr serious situation because they just weren't merged yet?
>> not that we're aware of. Thank you.
>>Mayor Watson: any?;n further discussion? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. For items 43 through 47. Opposed say no. Motion kaergs on items 43 and 47. Council, that's all the business to come before the Council on6zn this regular meeting. Motion is made to adjournu! by c is there a second? seconded by Council Member Garcia. I thought if I can't get a second onin that4/t( one -- all those in favor say aye aye. Opposed say no. We're adjourned. Thank you very much.
I'm a little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek. A little girl who never smiles because I've got braces on my teeth) and I know how it feels to cry myself to sleep.
(Music)
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I'm that kid on every playground who's always chosen last. A single teenage mother trying to overcome my past. You don't have to be my friend, but is it too much to ask, don't laugh at me (don't call me names, don't get your pleasure from my pain
(Music)
. In God's eyes we're all the same. Somee@ day we'll all perfect wings. Don't laugh at me) n
(Music)
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. !Q the corner you pass me on the street and I wouldn't be out here begging if I had enough to eat.hw
(Music)
andir don't think I don't notice that our eyes never meet)1au
(Music)
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but don't laugh at me. Don't call me names, don't get
(Music)
some day we'll allv have perfect wings. Don't laugh atn me.
(Music)
(Music)
fq I'm sad, I'm thin, I'm short, I'm tall, I'm deaf, I'm blind, hey, aren't we all?
(Music)
(Music)
don't laugh;or at me don't call mevom names,0n don't get your pleasure from my pain
(Music)
(Music)
in God's eyes we're all the same.ko some day we'll all have pm7pperfect wings. Don't laugh at me.
(Music)
e1 don't laugh at me.w3
End of Council Session Closed Caption Log