Thursday, March 27, 2025, 10 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
0:10 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim Vanessa
0:20 Fuentes, council members Natasha Harper.
0:23 Madison, José velazquez, cheat Vela Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe cadry, mark uchin.
0:48 Interim city attorney debra thomas, city clerk myrna rios, and city manager, tc broad.
1:02 Good morning everybody. It's 10:00 am on Thursday, March 27th, 2025, and I will call to order the Austin City Council
1:11 regularly scheduled meeting for this date.
1:13 We are meeting at the City Council chambers in City Hall, which is located at 3 0 1 west second
1:19 street, and we have a quorum of the City Council present, uh, at this time.
1:25 Members, uh, and members of the public, let me quickly run through our order of the day.
1:30 Uh, after I, uh, read changes and corrections into the record, which I'll do momentarily.
1:35 Uh, we will then go to the consent agenda.
1:38 Uh, we will hear from speakers on the consent agenda, and at the conclusion of that, depending upon
1:46 where we are in terms of time, we will either vote on it or we will, uh, vote
1:50 on it after we have the 12 o'clock, uh, time.
1:53 Certain members, we have had two items pulled from the consent agenda.
1:58 Those are items 58 and 1 0 3 58 and 1 0 3.
2:04 I will also point out that on items two and 62, you have a version two.
2:12 So the consent agenda motion will be for the version two of items two and 62.
2:18 Uh, 62, I put up on the, uh, con, uh, message board earlier in the week.
2:24 And then you have a copy of item number two, I believe, at the diocese, and it's being,
2:29 uh, put in, it's put in the backup.
2:31 Uh, we will then go to non-consent items and for the public, uh, items that are non-consent include
2:38 things like items that are coming from a recommendation of a council committee.
2:42 Those are items 64 and 65.
2:45 We will take up imminent domain items, which are 66 through 72.
2:50 We will also conduct public hearings.
2:52 Those are items 73 through 84 members and members of the public.
2:57 I'll just point out that items 73, 83 and 84 are public hearings that we will take action on
3:05 today. Items 74 through 82 are technical code amendments requiring a public hearing, but you, you need to
3:13 have, uh, the law requires us to have two public hearings.
3:17 They have to be heard twice before we can take action, so we won't be taking action on
3:22 items 74 through 82.
3:24 As I previously mentioned, at noon, we will take up public communication.
3:29 We will also, uh, take a break for live music, uh, as soon as that's completed.
3:34 Uh, the public communication is usually completed at 1230 to 1235, at which point we will go to
3:40 live music. I anticipate that we will recess until about one 10, um, to do that.
3:46 We, of course, also have the two o'clock time certain for zoning items, uh, members, my suggestion is
3:52 going to be that at the, we take up the executive session items that we have posted at
3:58 the end of the day after we've completed other business that I've just walked through, unless there are
4:06 questions I'll read now, changes and corrections into the record for Thursday, March 27th, 2025.
4:11 Item number four is related to item number 13 and state the state of item number 11, it
4:19 should read item related to item number 13.
4:23 Items 10, 11, and 12 have been withdrawn.
4:27 Item 67 has been withdrawn.
4:31 Item 25, uh, I'm going to read the whole thing just to, to make it make sense.
4:37 Authorize an amendment to a contract for continued equipment rentals related products and services for the fleet mobility
4:43 services department with herc rentals, inc.
4:46 Dba hertz equipment rental corporation to increase the amount by $3,500,000 and extend the term by two years
4:55 for a revised total contract amount not to exceed $10,292,000 funding.
5:01 And this is the change, delete $3,500,000 and replace it with 1,020,833
5:12 is so that would read $1,020,833 is available in the fleet mobility services department, fiscal year 20 24 25.
5:22 Operating budget funding for the remaining contract term is contingent upon available funding in future budgets members.
5:29 Those are all of the changes and corrections to be read into the record for the day.
5:34 So we will now go to the consent agenda.
5:37 Again, items 58 and 1 0 3 have been pulled, so they will not be part of the consent agenda.
5:43 They will be taken up separately.
5:45 Items two and 62 have a version two that is in your backup.
5:51 Uh, and the motion that I will take ultimately on the consent agenda will be for version two
5:56 of items two and 62.
5:58 With that, I will turn to the city clerk's office and ask that you begin the process of
6:05 public comment on the consent agenda.
6:08 Thank you, Mayor. First speaker for item number two is pat sres.
6:16 I see her coming.
6:28 Um, thank you Mayor and Mayor, pro tem and council members and city manager.
6:36 Uh, my name is pat reyes and I live in district three, and I have not spoken before
6:43 City Council since the new council members joined the day.
6:46 So, welcome and thank all of you for your service.
6:50 I really appreciate that you're here and that you're listening to, uh, comments about animal services and, and
6:58 thank you for your concern about animals in our city.
7:01 Um, I don't know what's the version two of, but it does actually, Council Member Vela, why don't
7:11 you describe your proposed amendment, uh, that creates the version two so that the public will know it,
7:17 it deals with reporting back to the council.
7:19 Just, we'll, we'll, we'll hold your time because I think that's a legitimate request.
7:24 Council Member Vela, uh, thank you, Mayor.
7:26 And in fact, we're posting it to the message board, to the, the City Council message board, uh,
7:30 uh, momentarily if it's not already there.
7:33 Uh, but it, it, uh, essentially, uh, asks for, uh, uh, two basic items a ways.
7:40 Uh, the animal service office has expanded marketed resources and education on responsible pen ownership, including microchip, spain,
7:46 ter, and vaccination. We're asking them to report back to the public health committee at least once a
7:50 year on, uh, a couple, uh, on that item in particular, uh, the average length of available days
7:55 in shelter fostered by species and size of dogs.
7:58 We're trying to get some more kind of granular information.
8:01 'Cause it's really not just about the, the, the overall averages.
8:05 It's, it's the, the medium and large dogs that we're really struggling with.
8:08 And, and that's kind of making that distinction is, uh, is important.
8:12 Uh, the, the full amendment is on the message board for folks to look at.
8:16 And I, I understand I will be offering, I don't know, we had discussed a version two, but
8:19 if, if we're not ready with the version two, I'll go ahead and offer the amendment.
8:22 We can pull the item and, and offer the amendment.
8:24 Okay. Well, it, it's my understanding we had it as a version two that I'll, I'll, we'll, we'll
8:30 go ahead and take testimony on it as part of the consent agenda as opposed to pulling it
8:34 so I can figure that out.
8:35 Primarily what it does is it creates more reporting back to the council, but the reporting will only
8:41 occur a year from now.
8:43 Well, that, that's what I was afraid we would be doing by doing this this late.
8:47 Um, my request is to pull the item.
8:50 I, I wanna pull item number two and, and we'll just, we'll bring you back so that everybody
8:54 can look at it, it, and see what exactly what it does.
8:56 Item number two is pull from the consent agenda.
8:58 Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.
9:00 Next item is item number eight.
9:03 We have craig naser, bill bunch, roy whaley, eric iff, and monica guzman.
9:13 Your name's been called.
9:14 Please come forward, even if you're testifying on multiple items, please come forward outta respect for the people
9:21 following you so that they, they can be heard today, uh, as well.
9:27 And if there's an open microphone, go ahead and take the microphone.
9:31 Welcome. Well, that's not Madam clerk.
9:38 She, uh, ms. Guzman has indicated she's donated time.
9:43 Monica guzman has donated time to bill bunch.
9:45 Okay. On item eight.
9:46 So he gets four minutes.
9:49 Thank you, Mayor. Council Member bill bunch, resident district five, um, and former member of your tourism commission
9:57 for a number of years.
9:59 Speaking on item eight, which is an agreement between the city visit Austin, which is our convention of
10:07 visitors bureau and the new Austin tourism public improvement district that y'all approved in January.
10:15 Um, you're, you're authorizing here proposing to authorize the staff to negotiate and execute a contract, but there's
10:24 not even a draft here, and there's a very skeletal, uh, description of what that contract, uh, might
10:33 include. Uh, there's not a single word about transparency, disclosure, uh, meetings being open to the public, et
10:43 cetera, on how this funding stream, which will be substantial, uh, yet another 2 cents assessment on hotel room
10:52 nights. Um, and for which, uh, what it all intents and purposes is yet another funding stream to
11:01 fill the, the magic black hole of the convention center that y'all seem committed to rushing forward with.
11:09 Uh, there needs to be some basic accountability here on how this money is really being spent and
11:16 how much money. We're talking about your staff has some projections of revenue for this and also some
11:26 projections of costs, administrative costs for this.
11:30 Um, y'all should have that.
11:32 The public should have it, it should be part of the backup.
11:35 There's no backup. There's the one short summary, uh, of staff recommendation, no draft agreement.
11:45 Y'all really need to step back and do some basic due diligence on the whole convention center project,
11:51 but especially on this new animal, uh, that was just created that people don't have much of an
11:57 understanding of. And my guess is that, uh, y'all, to some significant, significant degree share that lack of
12:05 understanding of what exactly this money's gonna be used for and how it's gonna be dispensed, how it's
12:12 gonna be managed, and whether there's gonna be any public transparency at all involved.
12:17 Thank you.
12:23 How to y'all? My name is roy whaley.
12:26 I'm the conservation chair for the Austin regional group of the sierra club.
12:30 And, um, I'm glad y'all are here and not actually a part of the district of texas, and
12:36 you're still our City Council.
12:37 Congratulations on surviving that.
12:40 Um, I agree with what mr.
12:42 Bunch said. My concern is, I, I think about the old cartoons I used to watch when I
12:48 was a kid. Uh, road runner cartoons were, you know, wiley coyote would stand in front of a
12:55 bulldozer and it would just flatten him out into a pancake.
12:59 I feel like that's what we're doing with the convention center here.
13:02 We're, we're standing in front of this bulldozer 'cause it's gonna happen.
13:07 Um, and I don't think there's much doubt about that, but we do need more detail.
13:13 I am glad from the presentation I saw earlier that you're going to divide it into four separate
13:19 buildings so that that way when it fails, which I think it will, considering every city in texas
13:27 is putting tons of money and to getting convention business will at least be able to repurpose the
13:34 buildings instead of having one just giant building.
13:38 Um, at that work session, I was very happy that, uh, uh, Council Member Ellis and Council Member
13:45 lane talked about the, uh, transit possibilities there.
13:50 Um, and I don't have a picture I'll share with you, but it's one of the few public
13:55 restrooms in Austin is in that area.
13:58 And I think we need more of that.
14:01 And again, I'm gonna get on the horse and talk about public showers.
14:06 If we're going to have this expenditure of public money and we're going to talk about alternative transit,
14:12 we need to make it possible for people like me that normally ride a bicycle but did not
14:18 today, to have a place to clean up before I come here and sit next to someone usually
14:25 in a suit that doesn't like the way I smell.
14:32 Craig naser on item eight.
14:45 Hello, craig naser. Uh, you know, I'm a long time artist, uh, who lives in the city for
14:53 many years, and what I have seen is a lot of events get unaffordable.
15:01 And I think when you put more, a whole bunch of more money into a convention center, uh,
15:06 I think that goes to help it in the long run.
15:10 Unaffordable. When I look at the, you know, your map, I think it's item nine where it shows
15:14 this circle. When I will come down to the city and I look there, that's like the most
15:19 unaffordable place of the city where I can't afford parking.