Okay, time is now 2.08 p.m.

and we'll call B sessions order order.

Madam Kirk, could you please call the role?

Hi.

Councilmember.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez is here virtually.

Actually.

Councilmember Via Gran.

Here.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Councilmember Galvan.

Councilmember Alderete Gavito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

President.

Councilmember Spears.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Mayor Pro Tem Cor.

Here.

We have two items on the agenda today.

Eric, you want to go ahead and start us off?

Yep.

Thank you.

Uh Mayor Pro Tem.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

So our first item is an update on the development of the Code Compliance Strategic Plan.

Amin will give this presentation.

This began as a council consideration request submitted by Councilwoman Dr.

Adriana Rocha Garcia in 2023.

But also previous council committee conversations.

So I mean we'll give an overview of the plan as it's been shaped over a couple of different briefings with the committee.

And looking forward to the update from Amin this afternoon.

There's still a little bit of work to do, but we wanted to bring this to council, full council to uh share uh the update and uh and get additional feedback.

So Amin, go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Amin Tomaz, Director of Development Services, and I'm here to brief you on the Code Enforcement Strategic Plan.

City Manager Walsh already gave a lot of updates.

Uh, but really quickly, in 2023, we received uh council consideration request from D4, and as the uh Mr.

Walsh mentioned, the reason for it is the results from the budget priority survey in 2023.

50% of the respondents stated that code enforcement did not meet or partially met their needs.

So the CCR is asking development services to create a strategic uh plan for code enforcement while we are utilizing uh the community to obtain feedback from them on their priorities.

So again, the main purpose here is to conduct a comprehensive evaluation for the existing standard procedures we have and to find and identify any strength gaps or opportunities to improve.

Obviously, with a meaningful community input.

Definitely the end result will be improving customer service, uh increasing the engagement between code enforcement and the community.

The ultimate goal is to improve transparency, that's the key.

And if we do that, we will have uh we will reinforce the trust and the capabilities with the community.

Some of the milestones in 2024, we presented to governance uh committee and to planning community development committee, and then we paused a little bit to have uh a one-time uh budget improvement of $50,000 to hire a consultant.

And then we started again in February 2025.

We did research and we did hire a consultant.

And after that, the consultant took it from there where she did listening sessions with staff and with the community between May all the way to July, and provided us with a final report in September.

We took that report, we analyzed it, and we came up with a proposed uh plan for the strategic plan basically, and we went to uh brief building standards board and the planning and community development committee in October this year.

Before I dig into the plan, I'm really proud of code enforcement.

The City of San Antonio Code Enforcement is accredited by international accreditation services.

We are the first department in Texas and the fourth in the nation that received this high award or accreditation.

So what that means is we have policies and procedures in place, and we do comply with local, state, and federal laws all the time.

But I'm sure with creating this plan, we will elevate our services and we will shape the future of code enforcement in San Antonio.

So I'm sure we're gonna go from good to great by having this plan.

So let's talk about the community outreach.

The consultant did 12 in-person listening sessions with staff, had 61 participants between code officers, supervisors, and managers, got their feedback.

And she also did 11 in-person listening sessions with the community, one in each district.

The reason why we have 11, we started with district three and we had some technical difficulties.

So we committed that we're gonna come back to make sure we capture all the information and feedback from the community.

That's why we had 11.

266 participants attended, and I want to thank all the staff from council offices who attended those meetings, and especially the council member district four and five.

They actually attended the full meeting and they participated in it.

So I appreciate that.

In those meetings, the consultant basically identified some common concerns and then opened up the floor for questions and answers and discussion, and then towards the end, asked the community to vote on the priorities and the focus areas they want in this plan.

And that's how we ended up with these five focused areas that I'm gonna talk about each one in a second.

When we are looking at these, they are all kind of connected together, especially the top two communications and educational materials.

These two are going to be actually used for all the other items as well.

So we came up with short, mid and long-term goals and objectives for each one, and that's where I'm gonna discuss this with you and brief you on it.

So starting with the short-term goals and objectives.

The plan is to complete those between one to six months.

So, in regards to communication systems, again, we the goal is to strengthen communication systems to ensure clear and consistent information is shared between all the staff we have.

So we are providing a consistent service to the community.

One of the main things we are actually working on right now is we are centralizing all the data we have for code enforcement in one location.

We are using SharePoint.

That way, all the code officers and supervisors and managers, they have one location to get all the information from.

Also, we want to provide all the messages that we send to the public to our staff because sometimes we send messages to the community, but we don't send it to staff, so they're not aware of what's what's being pushed out.

Definitely we want to develop stronger partnership with the community and the staff.

And the way to do that is we want to hold quarterly meetings with stakeholders.

We are developing some materials for neighborhood association and community organizations, also creating some reports that provides the council office with briefing to show them all the activities we are doing in their district in certain time frame or monthly basis or even annual basis.

We heard the community loud and clear when they talked about the delivering the information.

Again, they want a transparency.

One of the big items we heard over and over is they want to know case updates all the time and they want accurate information.

So one of the things we're gonna work on is enhancing our system of record build essay to hopefully send automated notification to the residents with those updates.

And if we do that, then we're gonna train the community on how to use it and how to utilize that service.

And I know a lot of community members don't use social media, but on the other half, other side, there's a lot of them who do use it.

So we really want to explore that more and we want to amplify that because using social media will help us send our message out to more community members.

Lastly, we want to expand our training of staff, not just the technical aspect, but really how to communicate with the residents effectively and in a proactive way.

That's the key, I think, for success.

Moving on to educational materials.

We definitely uh want to develop new materials and we submit it to the community to meet the community needs.

The way to do that is to create easy-to-read publication for all the services that code enforcement provides.

One of the other things is to connect with the community is to increase the face-to-face interaction with the residents, and that will lead to improved quality of service.

Lastly, for accessible resources.

Again, we talked about improving build essay, but here I'm talking specifically about improving build essay customer portal where it will be easy for them to navigate and see all the cases they have and any updates on it.

If we do that, and when we do that, we're going to create some tutorials for the community to follow so they can know how to use it and how they can obtain information and navigate the portal.

Hardship referrals programs.

We do have a lot of programs between development services, neighborhood housing services, and DHS and other actually city departments.

The one big thing that we are noticing, and we heard from the community is a lot of people don't know about these programs.

So we really want to promote all the existing programs we have by doing a lot of education and outreach to the community so they are aware of what's available and they will utilize it if they qualify for it.

Also, we want to educate and inform the property owners of vacant lots.

I'm sorry, I jumped into vacant lots quickly.

So now going on to vacant lots, two things.

One is increased enforcement, the second thing is expedite abatement.

We do have rules in place already.

All we're gonna do is enforce that more and make sure we are following all these those rules.

If a notice is issued to a vacant lot, then we don't have to issue another one.

It's called annual notice.

We can immediately summarily abate those properties.

If the property look is located within 1,000 feet of a school or a daycare, or if the property has grass that is taller than 48 inches, we can immediately abate those.

So we're gonna utilize that.

One of the things is we need additional contractors.

So what we did is we increase the number of vacant lot contractors we have from five to nine, and we increase the number of uh dangerous premise contractors from three to five.

So now when we have additional contractors available, we can abate those in timely manner, and we will make sure they are performing accordingly.

Lastly, um the vacant lot owners, some of them they're not aware of the rules.

So one of the tasks that we're gonna do now and push really hard for is inform them of their responsibilities and what are the abatement requirements that they need to take care of.

If they understand that, we hope for more proactive compliance.

So now moving on to midterm goals.

The goals here will be completed between six months to 12 months.

So again, in regards to communication systems, we want to review all the notices that we have, and we want to rewrite them in simple language that is really user-friendly.

We want to try to stay away from any code enforcement terminology because sometimes when they read that, they they don't understand it.

So we want to make sure it's very simple and everybody can understand that.

In regards to proactive and reactive, we heard mixed feedback from the community.

Some of the community stated that they value the proactive inspections for preventing issues before they escalate.

But then others expressed concerns that proactive cases sometimes did not feel as community focused.

But again, what we're gonna do on this one, um, Mr.

Walsh mentioned that we still have some work to do.

So this is one of these items we're gonna work on.

We're gonna reach out to our uh you know peer cities around us and try to research what they do, get best practices.

As soon as we obtain all this information, we will develop a plan to balance the proactive and reactive enforcement in San Antonio.

Hardship refers in regards to midterm goals.

Uh we talked a little bit earlier about hardship, is we're gonna push some notification out so people know what uh programs we have, but this one is kind of the next level is we want to incorporate information about hardship programs into community events and presentations.

We want to go out to neighborhood uh meetings, neighborhood association meetings, any community leaders uh we want to present to them and actually take that information and try to distribute it on that level so everybody's aware of it.

Also, we want to continue to expand our staff training to ensure that employees are confident and they are knowledgeable in all the programs that we have, and they can help residents to apply for those services.

Moving on to vacant lots, the department will hold community meetings led by code enforcement officers to educate and support property owners, promote proactive compliance, and provide guidance and resources to prevent violations, which will lead to strengthening community connections.

Lastly, in regards to the goals and objectives, this is the long-term goals and objectives, which will take more than 12 months.

In regards to communication systems, we will create a public facing reports.

To do that, we need to find a database or a source that we can utilize to have all the information at the citizens' fingertips.

So we're gonna obviously work on that and do a lot of research to find that out, and then create uh dashboards and reports that provide all the information.

As I said at the beginning, the goal is for transparency.

That's that's really the big item here.

So we're gonna work with 311 and our software to make sure the integration between those two systems is really up to par and all the information is flowing both directions completely.

That's one of the things we're gonna look into.

Also, we're gonna explore some more technology and see if there is a way to send automated text messages and or emails to the public with case updates.

Finally, in regards to proactive and reactive cases, again, the department will evaluate staff workload and enforcement boundaries to balance the reactive and proactive enforcement without compromising timely responses and quality of service.

Talking a little bit about our workforce.

Our staff is our main asset for code enforcement, and we will continue to evaluate opportunities to strengthen code enforcement.

One of them could be by potentially increasing staffing.

The reason for that, if we do increase staffing, then the officer will have more time dedicated for the inspection.

They will have more time to communicate with the resident and explain the code and explain the requirements.

Also, long term that will provide a proactive approach for the city, and hopefully, we have less violations citywide if we continue to do so.

Now I want to switch to some of the tiers.

In code enforcement today, we have four tiers.

Tier one is health and safety, and the response time is in two days.

Tier two is property use and building maintenance.

The response time is one to three days.

There is a lot of confusion with the residents, and rightly so, because some of the tier ones, they are required to be completed in 45 days, but then others are not.

And the same thing with tier two.

Some of them are required to be completed in 45 days, and some are not.

So what we did is we reviewed every case we have, every type of violation, and we are proposing to move into only two tiers.

All the health and safety will be in tier one.

The response time will be in one to two days, and all of them are required to be completed in 45 days.

And then we moved some of the minor or all the minor issues into tier two, and now the we are changing the response time or proposing to change the response time down to two days as well.

So anytime we get a call, regardless if it's tier one or two, we will respond in max two days.

And again, only tier one have 45-day compliance.

Tier 2s, it goes up to 18 months, and I know I know that's a long time, but it's it's in reality due to the due processes that we have to follow.

I'll just give you the longest one.

So if we have a dilapidated structure, we have to send no notices, we have to schedule meetings with the owner and go through the process.

That takes time.

Also, if the owner is qualified as a hardship deferral, then we will give them nine months.

We pause the process for nine months to allow them to comply.

Then after that, if it's not completed, then we need to initiate new notices, additional meetings, then we go to the building standard board for final decision.

That time frame is about 18 months.

So that's why we said these cases can go up to 18 months.

But hopefully, that will minimize the confusion in the community and everybody knows what's expected out of code enforcement.

So, next steps is December 5th and December 11th.

We will do four community meetings just to brief them on what we have today.

Two in person and two virtually.

We wanted to uh have all these options out there to have as many community members attend if possible, and with the goal to go to City Council A session January 15 for final uh hopefully consideration and approval.

In closing, this strategic plan is really about partnership with the community, transparency, and continuous improvement.

With that, thank you for your time, and I'm available for any questions you may have.

Um, one last thing, everybody should have one of these packets in front of you.

So, this is just the start.

I know the strategic plan is not approved yet, but we didn't want to wait.

So we start creating some flyers.

If you open it on the right hand side, you're gonna see a lot of new flyers that we created.

Again, easy to read, easy language, each one is specific topic.

Each one is specific topic.

So again, we did this, we actually distribute some of these to the community, they love it.

So I think we are on the right track.

This is not everything, this is the beginning of what we want to do.

On the left side, you have the briefing one page, but then you have this document.

It's kind of a short version of the strategic plan with the goals that I just talked about.

Um when everything is approved, hopefully, we will create a complete strategic plan document.

Again, I'm available for any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

I started diving into the materials.

Thank you.

I mean, we're start off with council discussion.

Councilmember White.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Um, I mean, thank you so much for the presentation.

Uh and you know, I think we gotta thank former councilwoman um Adriana for uh for this CCR because I think that code enforcement is an area where um all of us get get a bunch of bunch of calls every week, and so I'm happy that we're doing what we can to improve our our code enforcement program.

Um I do want to say though, at the outset that we have to make sure that proactive enforcement uh never becomes intrusive enforcement.

Uh we've always got to remember that um you know people's homes are are important to them, and and for the most part um people can do what they want with their property.

I'm a strong advocate for property rights, and and so I do want to make sure that people's rights are at all times protected.

Uh with that said, we we can't allow uh some of these uh code violations to go um unchecked because they they negatively affect people um in their neighborhood.

And so uh I'm happy we're looking to get better here.

And my first question is is slide 14.

Uh, do we have data that that shows staff uh inefficiencies, caseload per officer, um, and how potentially adding staff would improve outcomes.

So we we did some of these other than all of our cities.

But at the meantime, one of the big items is we haven't done one of these studies for code enforcement since I think 2012 is the last time.

So now we have additional areas in the city that they get annexed into the city as well.

So we have additional areas, we have additional uh population.

Um, but at the same time, we are looking at similar approach to what PD is doing, is when they are going from six 40 percent to 60 percent.

I think the same thing here.

Our code officers are in general rushing to, you know, when they see violation, they want to address it and keep going.

What we want here is we want that interaction face-to-face with the community and to explain the process, explain what the violation is.

I think more education will help with more proactive inspection and proactive compliance down the road.

So you don't have exact data yet, that's why we said potentially increased staff, we don't know yet.

Okay, we are working on that.

Because you mentioned PD and their I just that's in my head.

Yeah, to move to the 60-40 ratio, though.

One of the things that that was discussed is of course adding adding officers to to the streets.

And so um, as you stand here today, do you know whether we need to add additional code enforcement folks on the surface?

As I said, we did like really small studies.

So, based on just the additional square footage that we gained in the last 13 years from 2012, I would say we might need about 10 to 15 percent additional staff just to address that.

But uh, as I said, we don't want to provide that information yet till we do full analysis.

Do we have about the same number of code enforcement personnel today as we did a decade ago?

We have I believe seven additional code officers from compared 2012 to today.

Um four of them are for the apartment program that we created, so that's actually separate.

So, really, we have like about two to three, maybe more offices.

Two to three more only in the last decade, and and the city has grown pretty substantially in the last decade.

So about 10 10 percent.

That may speak to your your need for for more officers.

Um, do we know what the projected cost would be of 10 to 15 percent uh more on personnel?

Um you know, there's gonna be additional equipment and technology and everything that go along along with that.

That hasn't been done yet.

No, sir.

Okay.

Um do you guys have the uh baseline productivity numbers, inspection times, case closure rates, backlog.

Is is that data available?

Yes, that data is available.

Okay, and so that's something you could you could distribute to us.

Um pretty quickly over the next week or so because I would I would like to uh to see that.

Um build essay enhancements and um how it's it's really the build essay enhancement is to provide the citizens with the case updates uh-huh uh at their fingertips.

So now what's happening is more of a communication tool.

It's it's communication tool, yes.

Okay.

So in terms of of workload or or offsetting, you know, the number of cases staff has, it won't really do that.

I mean, the the the idea here is if we are getting a lot of calls to get updates on the cases, if we provide them the data, then hopefully we get less calls.

That will save a little bit of time, so we can utilize it somewhere else.

Yeah.

Well, I'm happy that we're focusing on the communication because I know you and I have actually talked about it.

One of the biggest frustrations we get is when citizens um see that a case has been closed, right?

And the problem, the problem still exists, and so folks want to know you know how the case has been resolved.

So I'm happy that we're doing that.

Um the listening sessions you mentioned on slide six.

Were there concerns from residents or officers that did not make it into this new plan?

So what what we did is we when we received the uh full report from the consultant in September, we looked at it and we went through it.

Even the consultant kind of gave us the breakdown.

These five areas were the top ones.

There is a few items that they were mentioned, but there was no really data to back it up or a lot of issues with it.

So if we fix these five, I think we are fixing about 90 to 95 percent of what we heard from the community.

Okay.

Um last question is on the long-term goals.

Um, what data is going to be included in the public dashboards?

Um, and I'm assuming that we're not gonna be putting names and addresses of of the violators out there.

Correct.

So that's one of the issues.

We we we looked into this a couple of years ago a little bit, and there are some concerns about what information you can put out there.

There is several companies now that they have that service, and they do provide only the address with the violation, no names, no date of birth, nothing like that.

So we already start looking at some of those uh companies and the programs they have.

Um, but hopefully, again, we would find something that complies with again all the rules and regulations, and we don't have any information, private information listed uh and in that database.

Okay.

Well, again, to to the extent that we can target these these health and and safety threats and and these issues that are affecting um our neighbors' day-to-day quality of life.

Uh I'm all for that.

Uh, I do want to make sure that we don't have homeowners that are um unnecessarily uh subjected to to investigations or fines or things like that.

But um I think we're on the right track, and I appreciate the presentation.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Munchia.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

So uh first, just kudos on this.

I think it's done a really good, you've done a really good job with the strategic plan.

And the consultant that you had was really great.

I think she navigated these meetings really well and handled some of our difficult residents really well and trying to get down to the root issue of the feedback.

So I appreciate that.

And you know, I helped write this C CR up when I was on staff, and I remember when that survey came out, and I remember I worked with code compliance every single day.

I know the work they do in D4, they're out there every single day.

And then I was at a neighborhood meeting and I saw a pamphlet that they passed out that was like 10 years old, it had to be really really old.

So I knew that there was something larger that we could do uh with the department to help uh you know make the outcomes better for residents, and so I think this is a really good start to it.

Um I think the proactive work that certainly has to be a balance based on case.

So I think if folks are calling in problems to their council office or 311, that is the absolute priority versus a proactive case because we have to make sure that residents know that when they're reporting these issues, it's being responded to.

So if if you have a large amount of proactive cases and you're not getting to the actual cases submitted, that's where we have a problem where people decide not to submit them.

I think obviously if you pass by a house and it's just you can't miss that, that that's one thing.

But I do think being proactive on vacant lots is important.

Uh D4, D3, we have a lot of those vacant lots where it the grasses grows, there's illegal dumping, uh, there's a vacant lot by my house where somebody dumped cement for some reason.

Now there's a pile of cement.

And so I think we have to be really focused on those vacant lots uh for quality of health issues and things that happened there.

I also appreciate which was part of the CCR that you completed was a staff survey.

Uh and I thought that was really important.

And I spoke to staff, and I I heard that they actually um, you know, have we were a little skeptic, you know, a little skepticism about it, but they actually walked away feeling productive with that.

And I think that's really important because these are folks out there every single day without protection in some cases, right?

They're in the weather, they're dealing with some really aggressive residents, and it's hard, it's easy to not feel valued in that position.

Uh and so I want to make sure that that they did, and that's their input was really good.

So, what were some of the key points that you heard from the staff survey?

Staff talked about they agreed on the communication with uh citizens is as a key, and they believe that they don't have enough time to do some of that.

That's again one of the the part that we are talking about.

Potentially we might need more staff to allow them additional time to communicate with the community and citizens.

But one of the other ones you hit on is the proactive versus reactive as well.

They talked about that specifically saying if I have my uh workload list today, and I have a lot of reactive calls, I need to complete, then I might not be able to do any proactive.

Uh but again, what's happening is exactly what you mentioned.

They deal with one location, and if the location next door has violation, if they just skip it, we will hear about it.

Say, how come you address this, not my neighbor?

So as you said, we need to find that balance on how much proactive inspections we need to do.

So those are the two big ones that staff talked about.

That's good.

And I guess pay didn't come up.

Compensation didn't come up.

I'm sorry, compensation didn't come up.

Did yes, that's it?

No, good.

Yes, definitely.

Okay, good.

Good to know for our budget discussions.

I think we also have to do a better job of working with 311.

So I know you put the build essay on there, but I mean if these folks are putting into 311 and with their emails, they should probably get that step-by-step email back to them from the department, uh letting them know what the timeline looks like, right?

So when you submit it, you get an email from three one stating that it'll be 10 to 15 days by this call.

Um, you know, an email coming back saying officer may inspection, this is the 10 days after that, whatever it could be maybe.

I think that communication line is is helpful.

Um 311 and getting those things better.

And as I mentioned before, if you put in a case on the app, you get an email only when it's closed, and then you have to go back to the app, open up the case, and find out what the resolution was, it won't just state that in the email.

And so I think we've got to be putting more things on the email side of it, uh, so not everyone has to check their app all the time.

And I think one thing that is missed here that we is more for vacant lots, I guess, and people are not complying, is the contractor side of it.

I know sometimes that's a reason for delay, or because the contractors get tied up, and you know, it's happened to me several times, right?

Where they say, Oh, actually, we're tied up with these lots over here.

We were scheduled to work on this lot today, but it's gonna be next month, and then you all have to make an executive decision about what to do with that.

So I think that needs a little bit of work, and if it's you know, unfortunately means paying more to do lots.

I think we need to look at that.

Um I think another key piece that's always missed by residents that we don't explain very well is the the judicial side of this case.

So we've got plenty of cases in D4 to look at, right, where we're going through legal issues, and sometimes that takes months outside of the code process, and residents have no idea about that, right?

And some of us don't even know the process to that.

And so I think when it becomes legal issues, we've got to communicate that also, right?

That now it's municipal core, this is the step.

Um, it could take months at that point.

So I think that also has to be explained well.

And I think you know, these are great um graphics you have here in Flyers.

I think we also need a better graphic of that the actual code process, you know, step by step and a really easy way to navigate.

I think that's really important.

So people can kind of follow along what happens if this, if that, and then I think Austin has a code compliance.

They actually have like a YouTube video, right?

Where you just an introduction of co-compliance.

I think that would be helpful to do also, just to kind of put a face out there and educate folks on that.

Perfect.

Yeah.

We we I didn't mention it today.

Uh, but yes, we did talk about tutorials and videos and things like that to help with every single type of case with the process step by step, things like that.

So definitely that's part of the whole plan.

Yeah, that's great.

And the 11, you know, public meetings you had, which was the highest attended.

I shouldn't say that, but do we know?

I'm pretty sure he has should I say it?

Should I say it?

D10.

It was not D 10.

It was D4.

It was okay.

It was it was D4 until we did D10.

We'll do an open records request.

Uh I had more.

But I was at my meeting, actually, so it's I'm just easy.

But thank you.

I mean, I appreciate all the work you're doing.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor Purdue.

Uh oh.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Uh, thank you, Amin, for this presentation.

Actually, Councilman Mungea said a lot of the things I wanted to mention.

Um, and really I do want to stress that residents don't know what's happening with the cases, and so you know, there could be a legal process or whatever, but no one knows what's getting done.

And oftentimes, like you mentioned, even our council offices are in the dark, and so we're spending time and bandwidth trying to dig in to answer to these residents who are also left in the dark.

So I think that there's a couple of fronts, uh, not only um you know better communication to the residents, but just the overall process, just a general here's what happens when a code compliance is you know, an issue uh uh ticket is opened, um, because all of us are left scrambling when when we don't have that communication, and I think for something as um as important as you know that they're seeing a house in their neighborhood that's bringing the neighborhood down or toxic or you know, bringing all those things, and so that that's an important issue to a lot of residents, and so when they feel left in the dark, then yeah, they're gonna jump and scream and rightly so.

So, you know, I just want to to echo his um his thought on really increased communication.

Um not again, not only about the process, but where the specific uh instances are.

Um vacant lots, that's a big one too.

I think schools and daycares are important, but we also need to prioritize uh the activation of vacant lots or just the cleanup of vacant lots in residential neighborhoods.

I know Councilwoman Castillo has done a lot of good work um on vacant lots, and so I feel that we need a partner because partner on this um effort because you know we uh a lot of things can happen in these vacant lots in residential neighborhoods, you know.

Um they can cause a lot of unwanted activity in those neighborhoods and they become um again nuisances in those neighborhoods.

And so I'm glad we're prioritizing vacant lots near schools and daycares, but I would say vacant lots in residential neighborhoods are equally as important.

Okay.

Um let's see.

You uh one of the suggestions that we were thinking is that if if you all can make it a point in these awareness sessions to educate owners of vacant lots on how they can temporarily activate the space until they have a plan to develop.

So whether it's a community garden, a pocket park, a mini skate park or whatever, um if the development of that law is gonna take a while, it doesn't also have to sit empty.

And so if y'all are providing them with suggestions on what to do, that might be helpful.

Uh and also too on the um timeline slide, the uh something where it said 18 months.

Sorry, I think it's slide 15.

That is a long time.

I know a lot of that is tied up because of of a legal process, but is there any way that we can look at shortening up those timelines?

Shortening those timelines.

I mean, uh again, it's it's based on the due process.

So um when I said 18 months, we just went to the extreme.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Dilapidated structures take, I would say the shortest would be about six months to go through the process.

But again, if you add that um hardship deferral, that's another nine months that that fits in.

So most of most of these due processes are state law that we have to comply with.

Well, and we don't do that.

Okay.

Go ahead.

So uh specifically about vacant lots or vacant structures.

We have a CCR going to governance next week, and that would be part of the that analysis.

So we can look into it, but most of what we do is a state law.

Uh but we would look at everything else we have in the councilwoman because it's an exception, right?

The the the one that extends it to 18 months, you can put the six months and just put an asterisk and can go up to 18 months.

Yes, correct.

And even six months, you know, because again, when um residents see uh neighbors out of compliance and you know, where they feel like they're always uh being held to compliance, it just becomes such a problem, and they're hounding council offices every day to say where we at?

I'm not seeing any action.

How come this neighbor's allowed to do this and that kind of stuff?

It's bringing out the neighborhood, especially if it's in the front of a neighborhood.

So we're we're just having to field so many calls and concerns because it's a long time, you know.

And so we we wanted to look at ways um if it's feasible on just cutting that timeline wherever we can.

And and so it'd be helpful to know what is legally bound and what you know, what is not, um, or what just takes time for the department to do.

So more of a breakout versus uh between what we locally control and what we if the council chooses to you know uh attempt to go through the legislature to get some consideration on reduced timelines.

So kind of breaking it out that way.

It's almost like the um it's almost like the uh spay neuter issue.

Right, right, right.

How much of that does the council control the city control, how much of that is driven by by uh state law.

Yeah, we could do that.

Okay, yeah, that would be helpful just so that again we can um kind of net these cases in the bud as quickly as possible because um they they do become big problems for for our residents.

Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Castillo.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, I mean, for the presentation, as well as to uh the entire development services team uh and our code compliance officers.

I know Marcus uh is a really good example, and our constituents love the way he presents information and also walks uh constituents through why there may be a lapse in action, right?

Uh and I've learned a lot from him going to neighborhood association meetings and him walking through just the the legal process that uh code has to follow, and then of course the due process component.

And I think uh the historic structure at the intersection of South Flores and Nogalitos is an example in which we had a lot of calls of why isn't this being cleaned up?

Um, but there are um guidelines in place that we have to allow them the property owner the opportunity to clear before it can go in and be abated.

Um with the process, um, just want to commend you all on the milestones that are listed.

This was a really robust uh community engagement process, and I know there's still more in the queue for the month of December before council takes action.

Uh and as already mentioned, the facilitator did a great job in navigating community concerns and discussion, uh, especially with some of those heated concerns, right?

And ensuring that their concern was was uh heard and reflected within um the report out in terms of what next steps would be.

Uh, as mentioned, I think a lot of this work complements the council consideration requests that we submitted regarding vacant lots, uh, as highlighted by my colleagues.

We know that these serve as a host of issues from illegal dumping, questionable activity, and so much more.

Uh and we uh I'm pleased to see that there's uh consensus from council districts in terms of uh needing to take action uh with these vacant structures.

And as I mentioned during the last presentation, District 5 um we received over 650 vacant lot abatement cases, and that's very high.

Uh and again, that's just what's reported to our constituent services office, not what folks are seeing, but not necessarily reporting, but we'll learn about uh at a neighborhood association meeting.

Um, as folks have highlighted, what I would also like to see in terms is uh more collaboration with 311 uh as council member Monkey I mentioned, uh, how residents can receive why a case was closed.

And I don't know, and I'm gonna make my pitch that each council office gets access to a cell of because that's where on our end, our constituent services team could see why things are closed, where there may be hiccups, and I think that could also alleviate some of the caseload that uh our code officers get with calls and questions from our team, just having access to that dashboard, I think will help answer a lot of uh questions that our constituents may have.

Um, and what one thing that I wanted to highlight in terms of the handouts that got passed out, I really appreciate the backyard access uh and the violations of the Fourth Amendment, because this is something that uh I I would say four out of the five neighborhood associations I attend, um, folks want to know how come something's not being done, and we always highlight, you know, if I don't like the color of your pot or the type of pot you have, like do you want me just to go in and take it?

Uh like there's an entire process uh and one that's not illegal having ugly pot, right?

Or a cold violation.

But um, point being that folks have rights with their property, and we have to abide by those.

Um and lastly, just wanted to highlight this pamphlet.

Uh was this the RCNE team?

This is amazing.

Uh I really like what the resources in terms of resources to call.

It tells you which numbers to press so that way uh you're not on hold listening to all the prompts.

It tells you which prompts to navigate uh to move through the process to get to a resolution.

So uh great job on that, and then of course, just uh really grateful for um DSG and our code officers out in the field.

Those are all my comments.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mayor Proton.

Okay.

I would mark those knowledge about those comments as well as councilwoman.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Spears.

Thank you.

Um I was just wanting to ask if you are your officers for code and enforcement officers, are they trained to identify um maybe vulnerable populations that maybe need more additional services and other departments like mental health services or seniors that are in isolation or anything like that?

We we we do uh I call it soft training, they're not experts in that, but if they do they see any indication, they do report it to the supervisor, and we do normally engage either Metro Health or a PD if needed, or sometimes DHS as well.

Okay, that's good to hear.

Um I would say I would be an advocate for more code enforcement officers because I I mean I I feel like in district nine we do have a lot longer response times because of the geographic officer coverage.

Um are there any boundary realignments or staffing adjustments we could do to address these disparities in the interim?

Uh part of the analysis we are doing is reviewing the geographic area and the amount of calls they get from that area because it might be sometimes very small area, but you get a lot of calls.

So we're gonna we're gonna try to readjust those boundaries for the code officers.

I would concur with that.

That's what we get a lot of calls about in our district, and our district's very um vocal.

And that being said, we would love for you to come out to a community meeting soon in district nine if y'all are open to that and bring your new great materials that you made.

I think those are wonderful.

Um, and having you engage with our HOAs.

I think the more we can strengthen this communication with our council offices, and as you see trends um either across the city or in different districts that we need to communicate to our constituents in our newsletters or whatever is the best path forward.

We want to start doing that with you.

Um I think that could be really effective.

And it and I do love what councilman Mungia said about the uh the graphic or the video, maybe for the code compliance process.

That would be tremendously helpful for my district.

Um and I echo what my colleagues said about the three one-one tie-in.

And um, yeah, I would I would think I would like to see more if you would be open to more training to help those vulnerable uh individuals identifying when they need something, and then we can step in and help or or take it from there, however, the training says.

But thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Govan.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you, Amin and the entire department for doing this incredible work.

Um I really appreciate all the pieces here within uh within the recommendations.

I think they look really good.

Um I think everything that's been said so far has been really informative and aligned with a lot of it with it, of course.

The main focus being how can we make sure that we're seeing some of the status publicly uh of these cases.

Uh of course, understanding that we don't want to be too detailed about what everything went on, but as much detail as possible of the public to see if there's a barrier in the way, understanding why it got closed because there's a barrier blocking the actual view there, right?

If there's a court case going on, it's in court at the moment.

Um that understanding will be helpful for our residents to just be able to uh be a little bit more proactive on it and be able to see it, uh, be able to understand what's going on, and then of course, can easily follow up with uh our teams or DSD directly about any other further information.

Um I think that'll just be go a long way.

Um thing I to Councilmember other the Govita's point about uh the kind of activation versus abatement.

I'd be interested to see, I guess, what uh the process is for activation uh versus uh abatement.

Uh there are easier ways that we can address some of these concerns long term while what the development's happening or in the process happening, or simply not if it's not overgrown weeds, but simply people uh constantly are going through the the area.

Uh is it fencing or is it boulders or is it something of the sort that can be used?

It's a bit more creative sometimes because it could be easier to contract out or uh be able to do in-house in a way.

I think that'd be interesting to see what is possible and what that process looks like.

Um the only other thing I was gonna add was I'm also interested to see uh what the potential could be for we're talking about staffing, uh even code kind of case managers would look like.

That way there's some folks who can actually kind of go through some of these cases versus having our officers have to move out of the field to then answer these questions.

Um I've just been just interested in seeing what that would look like to impact workload uh for officers, um, as well as even for our council officers to be able to reach out to the folks uh so we can go through the details versus the officer who's trying to be proactive at the same time.

Um just would be interesting, uh I think study or review internally with staff of what that could look like.

Those are all my questions and comments.

But thank you so much, Amin and the entire team for doing so a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council, Councilmember Viegran.

Thank you, Amin.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh, and I I do appreciate Councilman uh Rachel Garcia's efforts on moving this forward.

I think what we saw in district three is a lot of what you uh the vacant lots, proactive versus reactive, and then the communication system.

I want to thank you for your team.

Some of the best practices that we've done in district three is have the neighborhood association gives us give us their five hot spots, and your team has been very responsive.

I appreciate when they show up to um when they show up to all the neighborhood association meetings and address those issues.

I think that a lot of frustration with my uh call my uh my my residents is the the dis the time between when they get that violation, the number of violations they need to get before they have to go into the municipal court.

So we've also had them talk to the municipal court judges regarding who's an actual hardship case and who's just uh kind of you know, kind of hustling the system of like, oh I you know, I've got this condition, I've got this condition.

So uh and the neighbors are really in tune to that.

So I I want to thank you on that.

I think we do, and I've said this from the beginning when I got here is we do need more code officers.

I think the more, even if it's just a warning, the better.

And uh, we always hear when someone thinks they got an unjust warning because they wanted to grow daisies and maybe their yard got a little too high.

We hear from that, and your team has been good to address that.

So um, and like before, like your uh predecessor before Mike Shannon, code is the one I talk to, we talk most about the the calls we get fielded about, but when Mike would show up at the meetings, no questions.

Like they suddenly forgot to ask a question.

So hopefully that's with you because the team is doing a great job handling it, but we'll see.

But um, yeah, I think I think the one thing is the communication, especially between when they get that last violation and when it hits hits municipal court, and then how we move forward from there.

Uh, the other aspect that I'd like in terms of as we're reviewing this process is the threats, because we know that it happens in district three, the threats and retaliation that starts to come because neighbors start to argue, and that's when my safe officers have stepped in to try and uh kind of de-escalate that situation.

But I really would love that communication between uh code, city you know, city staff and um and my staff there.

So uh thank you for the work.

I think I think at the end of this, we're going to see the um the need for more officers, but I think right now it's it's that communication piece, and I want to thank you for being great communicators with uh my neighborhood associations and my staff.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any other council discussion?

Well, thank you so much, I mean, for this presentation.

I think you heard um a majority of folks really excited about the 311 connect, and it's because when that's not there, they're coming to our offices.

And um, so I think if we can, I know that's on the long-term side of things.

Um, and I feel like we talk about this, we talked about it during budget too with the communication aspect.

And so if there is a way that we can really prioritize that component, I think we would all very much appreciate it, and I think at the very least the residents would very much appreciate it.

So that component, and I think that would be connected to the texting, right?

Because you could, if you could, instead of having to do text updates, if we could just get 311 to respond and provide more more detail and more um consistent updates, that would be uh wonderful.

And then um, since Councilwoman Castillo shouted out her favorite, I'm gonna shout out ours, um, Steven Sanchez is at literally every single Los Angeles Heights meeting for us.

I was there last night.

Um, we met their holiday party, and he is literally beloved by the community.

And so I wanted to say kudos and thank you for his work, and then also say that's why it matters so much about how our officers are trained, because when they are great for the community, we don't know we have so much gratitude, but that we also have situations where they're not.

And so I think as we talk about staffing, we need to really look at how all of our officers are being trained so that everyone gets to experience what it feels like to get really clear communication because we've had multiple situations recently where an officer will come in and provide citations and not take the time to really say this is why.

And the you know, you mentioned this this slide, this first page is awesome because it says like why it's a violation, and sometimes people don't understand like what they're getting it for, they just see it as a ticket.

And so I think if we can do maybe even an audit or on all of our officers to make sure that they're all being well trained and all have the same level of customer service for our constituents, even if they're in uh in a violation situation, I think our residents deserve that.

Um on slide eight and the communication updates.

I love that y'all are gonna provide reports to our council offices because we do we really want that.

One of the ones that we've been requesting, and I know I mean you're working on this recently is a senior tree assistance program that my council colleagues helped push.

So I think it's Councilmember Via Gran is using some of her funds to support additional folks that need it.

But we wanted to see really what is how is that program working, but it requires communication from other departments, which I understand, and so I just think it's um if we could get data and numbers on how our offices are doing in terms of or how our residents in each district is doing in terms of utilisate utilitization of those programs, it would be helpful in helping us determine not only policy, budget, but also if our officers can still step in and help.

That program has been a hit, at least in um our in district one for our residents.

So I'm glad we were able to add more funding to that, but we just want to be able to see what those numbers are.

Um, and then the workshops on educating property owners on when they have vacant properties.

Thank you.

We uh councilwoman Castilla talks about this a lot, and it's uh a challenge for us too.

We were just walking by one on uh Cincinnati Avenue that the neighbors the neighbors are the ones that are telling us about this, and there's challenges, right?

We we say that the we've been told that the the properties locked up, and then when I walked by it the other day, the lock was like open, or it was on one side of the door, but you could still push the door open.

So there was a lock there, but it wasn't functioning in a as a lock.

And so that being said, that I think is a really big issue for us as well.

Um, so those workshops, how are we gonna get folks there?

Because that's my big question.

Do we do we have faith that folks will come attend?

I mean, we're gonna do our best to push the notification out, and I mean we can't force people to attend, but I think what if we offered an incentive, like we'll reduce your fine or give you an extra uh month if you come.

I mean, everything everything is possible, but I think if we give them additional months, we defeat the purpose we are saying we want more and faster enforcement.

So yeah.

We we can look into it.

I don't know the answer right now, but I was just thinking of an incentive that might make because a lot of our vacant pro like either one they're not here or two, they just don't care.

So I feel like there has to be like the carrot approach too, right?

I don't know, just an idea.

Maybe you all could explore it.

Um okay.

And then the last question that I have really is um for long-term consistent properties that are challenging.

Is there a way we could create a similar program to like the proactive inspection program where they're after a certain number of violations, there's an increased fine amount.

Can we look at yes, okay?

Let's see if there's a way that we can look at adding uh so you you're you're talking about like repeat offenders, yeah.

Maybe increased fines or things like that.

So, for example, we have one offender that parks has a lot of uh cars parked in the front, and then as soon as they get a violation, they address it, and then it happens again.

Like, could we have a series of increasing fines if it's the same location for the same um violation?

That way there's a little bit more of a I know I just mentioned carrot, but uh more of a stick in this situation.

And um the the last question that I really have is on neighbor disputes.

So I'm not sure if my other colleagues get this, but we get this a lot where this code enforcement creates the most amount of heated conversations between neighbors because the folks that are getting called on obviously don't want to be called on.

So, and I know that again goes to a different department, and I just wonder if there's anything more that we can do with neighbor disputes or how we help um address the situation there.

I don't know if that's an attorney question, but um I'll attempt to answer it, but then yeah, maybe Andy can't clarify.

I believe at that time it's it's a civil matter between two individuals or two entities or whatever uh they are.

I don't think we have much to do there, but again, we can we can certainly work on educational and uh other materials.

Um uh councilwoman that can probably try to mitigate that, but we'll work with the team on it.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, I don't know if there's like a um like therapy that we could have everyone sit down and attend uh air out grievances just tonight.

We we do help them or at least give them some information to go to the Bear County dispute center to help them out, but really that's that's what we do.

Okay.

Okay, well, I appreciate that.

I think those are the biggest things that I have.

Thank you for I didn't get to see the short term, midterm, and long term at our PCBC meeting, so I was really glad to see it broken down like this.

So appreciate that.

Just one comment.

And um I know the the biggest item is the case updates, and we are talking about looking at 311 and build essay and finding another software if we need to.

So I know we said it's long term.

We are working on all of them now, but just our estimate that this is gonna take a lot longer because potentially it might require some monies to do it, or it might need some programming to get 311 and build this A connected.

So it just requires more time, but we are not gonna wait till the short term is done than midterm than long term.

We are working on all of them, but we believe it's gonna take additional time.

Yeah.

I understand API integration is hard, especially because 311 was built for us, but um I also yeah, is if there's any way we can continue to press on that because we've talked a lot about communication in other ways too.

So okay, thank you so much.

I mean, for the presentation.

Is any other council discussion before we move on?

Okay, let's do it.

Councilwoman, just uh our mayor pro temp, sorry.

Um just just to kind of recap this this conversation has been helpful for us, and I I think um it's been um I thought about saying this on the front end, but it's probably better to say it on the back end because I think a lot of you touched upon it.

That there's a constant balance between um facilitating understanding um, but also at the same time pressing down on enforcement, and that is a almost impossible challenge.

And and we've got great employees, and you guys have talked about a couple of them that are constantly uh managing that line.

And and so this this conversation is important, and I don't I suspect it will obviously won't be the last one.

There's a CCR that was written uh that'll be going to governance next week that doesn't touch upon all this stuff, but does touch upon some of these issues around vacant buildings and lots, and you all talked a lot about those issues in terms of the budget this last year.

It is it is it is a difficult line to walk.

Um and uh I've been to the same neighborhood meetings where uh one side of the room says they need more time, and the other side of the room says we're not doing enough to enforce.

And and a big part of this, and they're not I don't think they're in the room today, but as we talk about some of those options about how we do uh amplified enforcement or or penalties, we've got to have municipal courts in here because they are the back end and backstop of that.

The the code officers can do that stuff uh if we change policies and ordinances, but we need to make sure that we do that in coordination with the court system so that we don't have uh leakage and um unintended consequences or or a diversion of intended consequences.

So that that's kind of the homework that we'll do as we as we march towards in January and and if we need a little bit of time, maybe we we we bring it uh towards the end of January just to be ready for this type of conversation for the full council.

May I have one more thing?

Actually, you're gonna remind them of something.

So we do have in place right now administrative citations on the first violation we charge or we set it up for $300, the next one 500, and the third one and after is a thousand.

So it does go in progression.

Um if we do have repeat offenders that they keep getting the thousand dollar, then we contact the city attorney's office and we work on potential lawsuit or something.

So uh we kind of have that, but we will review it again and find maybe maybe better approach or or not.

But we do have that in place today.

It'd be great if you can add that to our report for our council offices because then we know when someone is calling in about something, okay.

This is where they are in the the escalation process.

Thank you.

And and uh since I'm not on governance and I'm chairing this meeting, I'm gonna take a point of personal privilege to say in y'all's meeting next week for a vacant building.

Would love for you guys to consider whether that is a with that that should be an OHP thing or a y'all thing, because I feel like at least from our office, we get a lot of challenge in communication with OHP and DSD in terms of like what's included, what's not.

And I know Councilman Castillo put that CCR forward, so we'd just look would love for you guys to consider that.

Okay.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

All right, item number two, Eric.

I'm sorry, Councilman.

Yes, item two.

So uh item two, uh, thank you, is our annual procurement forecast.

Um, and and many of these you'll see in the presentation.

Um, will our proposed to go through our prescribed processes, whether that's the audit uh committee, audit and contracts committee, B sessions, or normal agendas.

Uh and um, so we're looking for some feedback from you all.

We've taken the the liberty of of uh making some recommendations on items that should go through those distinct processes, and uh Troy and the team have presented this previously to the audit committee.

You didn't know how these we have it.

We have good to go.

Yes.

Well, good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tim, members of the council.

I'm Troy LA, I'm the chief financial officer.

As Eric mentioned, we'll be presenting the annual uh procurement forecast.

And I'll be the first to say that this is not the most exciting presentation, but I think it's one of the most important presentations because it gives you as a council the opportunity to have visibility and transparency into the 300 and plus um solicitations that are going to be issued over the course of the fiscal year.

Not only you as council, but our um interested um respondents who may want to participate on these solicitations as well.

This uh the forecast is actually divided into two components, which is your high profile items, and we'll go through those criteria.

These are items that many of you have um provided input into the past, and then those that are not high profile on the path is they're gonna go through.

As Eric mentioned, this is really an opportunity for you to provide us feedback on our staff recommendation on really the path that they're gonna follow.

If there's an item in there or particular of interest or a policy issue that you want to bring up, you know, please bring it up today, or you can contact me or my team after the presentation, and we can make whatever adjustments are necessary.

As Eric mentioned, also this went to the audit committee.

Um they had a more lengthy presentation.

This one has been somewhat shortened.

Um I did, however, want to go through kind of the procurement methods that we use on a an annual basis.

Um, as you all know, procurement is highly technical and highly um statutory statutorily regulated by the state.

I won't go through each of them, but we provide with the state statutes that really govern each of the procurements that are on the slide above.

But there's about five of them.

Imitation for bid is an imitation for bid.

We develop specifications, and um we get bids back based on the specifications and based on price, we award those bids, little discretion to none.

Typically gonna be office supplies, fleet, or auto parts as far as examples.

We also have requests for competitive SEAL proposals.

This is also low bid, but also can sit allows us to consider other factors such as experience, background, and qualifications, and a proposed plan is typically gonna be used for your annual contracts or on calls for things such as janitorial services or landscaping services.

The moving into those that even have more discretion is the request for qualifications.

Um these are typically gonna be used for planning and architectural, and also your first phase of your design building or CMAR.

Then after that first phase, um it also moves into the request for proposals, and that's the second phase of that design building that CMAR.

The RFP, which you're probably more familiar with, um is typically gonna be used for your professional services, financial consulting, and marketing.

And then you have the request for offer.

Request for offer is those that we use that um to go directly to those uh vendors under a cooperative, or that are a sole source or their offer through an exemption through state statute.

Did also want to mention, and there is an appendix back here that goes into more detail on each of these.

Um, but as far as city preference programs, there's a variety of preference programs that um council has adopted in the past.

Our local preference program, a local preference program is used on our low bid based on state statute, but also governed by council ordinance on our discretionary programs.

We also have a veteran-owned small business preference program.

You're familiar with the Seba program and the DBE programs.

Also on the back, there's a listing of the extensive outreach that we do with each of these different solicitations through either our digital and online platforms, through state and federal resources, media and publications, and directed and targeted outreach.

And this presentation day is also a form of that outreach because the presentation and in your package and on your desk, there is actually a detailed presentation that goes through each of these 380 to 383 procurements in detail.

That's actually posted online on our website, and it's a resource for vendors and potential respondents to actually see what's being projected or forecasted for the upcoming year and start preparing to bid on those if they're interested.

Other requirements, we have the prohibited campaign contributions that are tied to those procurements that are designated high profile.

Then we have restrictions on communications that are that applies to all procurements, not only the high profile.

And again, in the back, there's an appendix that actually goes through some of these things in more detail if you would like to wade through that.

What is a high profile contract?

Um, high profile definition excludes low bid procurements.

Uh typically your high profile is going to be those contracts that are valued at 1 million or more.

They have a high level of community interest or other exceptional interest, or they're highly complex or technical in nature.

Our contract terms and conditions that are non-standard are complex.

If it meets one of those three, then it's high profile and those other conditions attached to it, such as campaign prohibited campaign contributions, and it goes through a separate process.

One of the things that we notice over the years is through our high profile, there's certain high profile procurements that would always end up in B sessions.

So we put some guidelines around those to help us look at what path these solicitations should go through.

So they'll be presented at B session if they typically have a financial impact or value over 25 million.

Contract terms, 10 years or more, and then also if they have community stakeholder impact or interest, and then we reserve professional judgment because there's some that may have a high value, but they're just high value.

You will see some of those when we walk through there in the future in the future slides.

Once it's designated as a high profile, there's a separate process that goes through, really to give it more visibility and transparency to you as a council, but also to the public as well.

It usually starts with the annual high profile forecast and working with the city departments behind us to identify all the procurements over 50,000 that are going to go through a solicitation process, and then going through and identifying those that are meet the criteria of high profile.

If they're high profile, I'll talk about that.

They'll go through a staff briefing, typically either to the audit committee, city council B session.

We have the special aviation B session briefings, or it gets posted directly to the council agenda.

But one of the extra extra steps, and there's a pre-solicitation briefing to one of those bodies.

The pre-solicitation briefing, we will provide a briefing on the scope, the evaluation criteria, the evaluation team, and the preference programs that are actually attached to that.

We get feedback from city council.

Based on that feedback, we'll incorporate those into the solicitation document, and we will issue it.

It's out on the street for 30 to 45 days to conduct the actual solicitation.

It comes back, we have an evaluation team that actually evaluates that.

We have a recommendation, we negotiate a contract, and then we come back to council in terms of a B session or audit committee to actually present the results of that solicitation.

Once we've gone through that process, then it'll be moved forward to city council for approval.

When you hear me talk about high profile paths, there's several paths that once it's designated high profile, it can go through.

As I mentioned, it meets the criteria for over 25 million.

There's other select high profile criteria.

It'll be a pre-solicitation and a post-elicitation.

We also put in place a separate process given the visibility and the speed at which we need to move on our high profile procurements for aviation to have special B sessions to keep council informed.

And it's really designed for the aggressive timeline to deliver the terminal development program.

And then we have those that will walk down the path for the audit committee for those that range from 5 million to 25 million.

We also put in place, I guess last year or the year before last, those on call or annual contracts, we exempt them from the process because they're typically very routine, they don't have any policy considerations, and really wasn't a need to take those through the audit committee.

So we recommended to take those directly to the consent agenda through the full city council.

And then below the rest of them between 1 million to 5 million, we'll go directly to the consent agenda as well.

So when we conducted the forecast, we worked with the city departments.

Annual forecast includes anything valued over $50,000.

There are a total of 382 solicitations that we are estimating to be issued during the fiscal year.

Now, this is a when you look at the document, what we're presenting today, I guess I'll call it like a living document.

This will change throughout the year.

The timelines will change and things as well.

So this is the best information that we have today.

82 of those solicitations met the high profile definition that we um that we uh briefed on the previous slide.

And there are remaining 300 solicitations that we're recommending proceed directly to the city council consent agenda or through the city manager delegation.

The 82 solicitations that meet the definition of high profile, we're recommending that seven of those, and I'll share the um the detail in the next couple of slides, be presented at B sessions.

Four will be related to the aviation city council special B sessions.

Twenty-two would be going directly through the audit committee.

22 briefings or 22 solicitations, but 44 briefings, and then 49 would go through the city council consent agenda as we're recommending.

As far as those high profile individual B sessions, and several of these may have already been through the process since we're three months into the fiscal year.

Some of these will look familiar to you through some of the B sessions you've already received.

The first one is the animal care services, the high volume pet partnership of 3.5 million, partnering with a with a firm or organization to actually help place those pets.

This will be an extension of the strategic plan and incorporating some of those items that were identified in the strategic plan in terms of the improvements.

We have our communications engagement.

This is an on-call marketing and communication services citywide.

We went through a process with CE to actually look throughout the city, consolidate all of our marketing and communications into one contract for the entire city.

This went through a pre-solicitation process through the audit committee, but given the demand that we have come back, we're recommending that it come through as a B session and given the dollar value of 23 million to come back to you as a full council.

Then you have neighborhood and housing services.

As I mentioned, several of these have already been through the beginning of the process.

The one I will point out is the residential rehab contractors for 67 million dollars.

As far as those that are being recommended for the aviation special B session, there are four.

We have the food beverage retail prime concessionary for the terminal C.

Centralized receiving and distribution center, about 11.2 million, our advertising concession at 10 million, then an on-call that really is fairly routine, but just a high dollar value for contractor and elevator escalator maintenance.

Moving into those that have been identified for or that are being recommended for the audit committee briefing.

Capital delivery has quite a few.

Then you have fire stations, Father Ramon, Culebra, Kenwood, and District 1 parks.

You can see all the pieces.

Again, all the details and the backup that y'all have that gives you more information than what's on these slides.

Continuing with the high profile audit committee briefings, center city and convention sports.

There's a public parking access and revenue control system of 6.5 million.

This is looking at replacing all the revenue control system and all our parking garages.

Also looks at on-street parking and also helps facilitate convention sports for parking at the Alamo Dome, providing them with a solution there as well.

City clerk, the preservation and digitization of the city historical records.

We're looking at this.

This one actually may go through a cooperative, about 5.4 million dollars.

We have the convention and sports facilities.

This is a high dollar amount for an annual contract, and because of the high dollar amount, we're recommending it go to audit committee, but it is fairly routine.

This will be used to provide temporary utility services, electoral and plumbing for events at the facilities that we have.

Finance, there are two, both of these two are related to the entertainment district.

We have an executive program manager at an estimated amount of 10 million dollars.

This is a program that we have put in place and used in the past, for example, with the prior convention center expansion.

It's also currently a process that we're using out at the terminal development at the airport.

And it's worked very well to coordinate all the construction logistics, the timing, the budget, and all the pieces that are going on.

And we'd like to also look at putting this in place for the entertainment district for the new convention center expansion coordination with potential arena and development in that area.

All the 10 million dollars there that would not be hitting an operating fund, that would be capitalized as part of any bond issuance that we have and as part of the capital project.

There's another item here that we're calling cost of service analysis.

It's probably not well named, and we probably need to look at kind of how we rename or restyle that.

But those costs of services are affiliated with the entertainment district as well.

That'd be looking at the public services that are gonna be offered within that district and the cost of the service to include public safety, maintenance, transportation, and the management of all those pieces.

The other component that we're looking there, in addition to just the cost of the services, and why I think it probably needs to be renamed is what revenue opportunities are there available as part of putting in place the district that we can capitalize on and how those would impact our general fund.

The next two items are government affairs.

This is for our state representation services of 1.6 million.

Then when we have our human resources solicitation, temporary staffing services, once again, it's a large dollar amount of 30 million dollars over five years.

Um fairly routine, it's typically gonna be used to backfill our vacant positions in city departments either as a result of a promotion, vacating the position or terminations.

Continuing with the audit committee briefings, we have our ITSD.

This is our annual contract for citywide security officer services, again, big dollar amount of 44 million dollars, but fairly routine.

Print material and ancillary services of 25 million with the library, providing print materials, municipal court or case management system of 9 million, toxicala toxicology analysis for police at 6.2, Redbury Dam, 11 of public works, and then another routine one with on-call architecture and engineering services 9.3 for transportation.

We're also recommending that 49 of these high profile solicitations typically gonna be more of your on-call and your annuals that really don't have any type of policy considerations, move directly for placement on the city council consent agenda.

Those are in the detail that I provided, and y'all can look at those at your leisure.

For the 300 solicitations that do not meet the high profile definition, they're going to be recommended to move through really two pieces straight to the council consent agenda or the city manager delegation.

Of those 300, 207 are being identified to go through the city manager delegation.

This is an area last May or April that was implemented that we recommended to city council.

Um, so for goods and supplies, less than 2.5 million.

Our fleet items that are approved in the adopted budget that are also typically going to be low bid.

And then you have professional services, construction, architecture, and engineering or other services less than one million dollars.

Anything less than those thresholds that are fairly routine, we recommend 27 of those through the city manager delegation.

The other 93 that are above those thresholds would move directly to the city council agenda.

One of the things I wanted to show, and this is um the comment along the lines of the conversation that we had when we were introducing the city manager delegation.

So taking those 82 high profile contracts and then 93 that are non-high profile, make up 175 that are gonna be placed on the city council agenda.

That 175 represent 40 percent, 46 percent of the total number of procurements that are estimated to be procured next year.

That represents 92 percent or 1.2 billion dollars of the actual costs that will be going through the council.

So it's really working the way we identified it to work.

So a low number of solicitations or contract awards, but a high number of actual dollars in terms of contract awards.

So 46% going to the count uh city council agenda, while 54% would be moving through the city manager delegation.

In terms of the dollars, 92% would be hitting the city council agenda, but only 8% would be running through the delegation.

1.2 billion dollars versus 107 million.

Very quickly, I just wanted to wrap up the presentation.

Um kind of give you an update on you know work that we've been doing with the EWDC or the Economic and Workforce Development Committee.

The mayor had asked or tasked the EWDC with um leading a review on the city's procurement processes in collaboration with um stakeholders.

We presented to the EWDC on September 24th, and we focused on really three areas in terms of where we want to focus in terms of our recommendations, those being supplier engagement, um capacity building, then the procurement process improvements.

As far as the timeline on that um that study or that review, we wanted to actually have an opportunity to present to the audit committee, present to this body as well the forecast.

Um come back to the EWDC in February with um potential recommendations and uh briefing on current strategies, solicit feedback from the committee, also give them provide them a list with the current stakeholders that we um anticipate going and soliciting feedback from through February and June, based on that information or based on the feedback we get from the EWC in February, going out and start meeting with the chambers, meeting with labor groups, meeting with construction groups, and actually start getting that feedback in terms of the procurement process and getting their feedback and taking it back to the EWDC in July of 2026.

We would finalize those recommendations and then after um obtaining that feedback from EWC, provide a report to the full council and the committee recommendations and start implementing those improvements.

That um Mayor Pro Tem that concludes my presentation.

Be happy to ask and answer any questions that you may have.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and uh thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you, uh Troy for the presentation.

Uh and looking at slide 19, when I see uh over 642 million in construction contracts for the fiscal year 2026, I'm uh grateful that the council consideration request that made its way through governance yesterday regarding wage theft is uh on to the next step because we need to ensure that as we talked about um a sports district and the budget of over 642 million that those who are building our city are receiving uh their well-earned wages.

Uh I I did have a question uh regarding um the concessions uh in particular, and I know this is very broad in that it could apply to the airport, it could apply to the Almo Dome, um, but this is more a policy conversation specifically to the Alamo Dome.

Uh at the last event I attended, I spoke to some of the concession folks as well as the maintenance crews there, and what some of the employees shared with me is that their wages have actually decreased.

Uh so I would like to see if there's opportunity through the procurement process and through a policy discussion that we increase the wages of the folks that uh are responding that we're considering through the RFP process for maintenance and concessions specific to the Alamo Dome and then potentially applied to and within the sports district.

Is that a conversation that we can have?

So councilwoman, did these were these were not city employees, these were contractors?

Well, let it let us follow up on that with specifically at the at the Alamo Dome.

Yes.

Okay, yes, and and again, uh I understand that depending on the task, there are different contractors.

Um, but with the folks that I spoken to, there's been a decrease in their wage, and I think you know, given the projections that we've seen with sport districts and the impact they're expected to have.

Uh, my expectation is that the folks cleaning up the facilities uh are earning a livable wage.

Uh and my understanding, I believe it's section 62 of the Texas labor code.

There is opportunity for the city to set that standard in terms of these wages.

So uh my expectation is that we could come back with the policy conversation and how we can uh increase wages through this process.

Yeah, okay.

Well, we'll follow up on those contracts.

I'm not familiar with what what what what provisions we had in there, but but that's certainly something we can come back to you about.

Great, thank you.

I'd appreciate that.

Um, those are my comments.

Thank you, Mayor Proto.

Thank you.

And just echoing that, maybe is there a way that we can say you have to pay what we pay for similar positions in contracts?

Sorry, I'm speaking at terms.

I think we'll have to go back and look at that.

We did revisit that probably some years ago.

I don't recall what the outcome was.

I can tell you that currently in our solicitations, we don't mandate it.

Um we'll certainly work with Andy and his team to see if that's something that we can do in the procurements.

What we do now, we do ask for what they pay their employees.

Um we also asked for their benefits that they pay their employees so that we can actually take that information and provide it to the evaluation committee as part of the proposed plan so they can consider that.

Okay.

But we don't currently we do not mandate a mandate a certain amount.

Well, at least when it comes to audit, maybe those numbers could be shared so that we can see whether it's audit or B session, we can see what the wages are too.

Mayor Proten, I think the short answer is on city contracts.

We can mandate just about anything.

Okay.

If it's related to city contracts.

Okay.

I think that's good then.

Thank you.

Um Councilwoman Vieken.

Yeah, I I want to move.

I I I appreciate the comments of my council colleagues, but I do want to focus on what uh Troy has brought us forward because as we're going to take this to audit and bring to B session, I do want y'all to understand that the point is if there is something you want to pull specifically, that's correct, Troy, that to let us know so that we can have a bigger conversation.

So I think what you're hearing right now is it is our concession and our construction that we may need to take a look at.

But if y'all could be more specific, because as you notice, it's a number of contracts that we have, and some of these are on call.

Uh we we're more than what uh Misty sits on right now on audit with me, and Mark does also, and we have two community members, so we're willing to take that there or make sure it gets agendized for a B meeting.

I know it's a lot of information because it was a lot of information when we got it in audit.

But if you could please take a look, and Troy, do we have a date of when you would like them to know uh what they want to see?

Uh I don't have a specific date in mind, but I mean it's certainly I mean it's a lot of information to go through.

If you could look at it over the next couple of weeks and get back to us, we can make those necessary adjustments.

Yeah, I especially if you want to bring it to a B session or a uh or have us review it at audit because I just want to make sure that we can we can get this agendized and it doesn't start to uh backlog.

We had an audit meeting this morning, and we we think we're caught up with everything, but this is it's really gonna be dependent on what you guys want us to look at too.

So we want to make sure that it's done in a timely manner because I think uh in terms of high profile and especially capital delivery, some of this gets delayed if we can't make quorum or if y'all decide, hey, let's go out for a second a second round because we'd like to see more um more people try and contract because we know there's people out there that'll do higher bids.

So if y'all could just take a look at that, I'd appreciate it.

Troy, thank you for the efforts and the work.

It's a lot of contracts and a lot of work, but that's why we get elected.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Is there any additional council discussion?

Okay, well, I will wrap us up by just saying the one thing that I would love is I don't know if it's possible before something goes to audit specifically for the items that like I trust the audit will do a great job, but if they're located specifically for like district one items, I don't know if anybody else wants this, but like uh I'd like just like a quick either briefing or whatever the results were for some of the district one specific items that are going, like i.e.

the fire station 10.

Um, and so okay, so same for some of so maybe if it's like a district specific item that's from the bond election that we that district can just see what the results were from the um solicitation, so we're aware of who's on the project, and if we have any questions, we could relay it to our colleagues.

I don't think it needs to be a full B session.

Okay.

Um I did also just want to give kudos like um for some of the ones that were selected for B session, just like highlighting that I'm very interested in the Spay neuter high volume spay neuter conversation that's gonna come up in March.

I uh gotten some feedback on that from some of the ACS advisory board members.

So I think the ones that you picked, I'm glad that you picked them because I think they are uh good B session discussions, but and I know all of the aviation ones are gonna come up, but I mean, for me at least, like the elevator company is not as huge, but I don't know if that can yeah.

I I think the concession one is a important discussion, but um there's not that many elevator companies in the first place.

They kind of have a monopoly, but I'll um let y'all uh if you feel like it needs to come to B session, because that's what we've done.

And yeah, but I think that's all the comments we have, and I know some of us will thank you for the push, Councilman Viewran, and some of us will respond back to other things that we think need to come to B sessions this upcoming year.

But appreciate it, Trey.

All right, all right.

So here we go.

Uh please stay seated.

The time is now 3:39 p.m.

on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2025.

The city council of the city of San Antonio will now meet in executive session to consult with the city attorney's office pursuant to chapter 551 of the Texas government code to deliberate on discuss on the following items.

Economic development negotiations pursuant to section 551.087 to purchase exchange lease or value of real property pursuant to section 551.072 and legal issues related to litigation involving the city, emergency preparedness, and collective bargaining all pursuant to section 551.071.

Are you ready for me?

The time is now 441 p.m.

on Wednesday, November, oh Wednesday, December the third, 2025, and the San Antonio City Council will now reconvene in open session.

No official action was taken in executive session.

The time is now 4 41 p.m.

and B session is adjourned.

Sorry about that.

No, you're fine.