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Austin City Council 1h 27m 1 speaker 5 agenda items transcribed 2 months ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Who is on the Austin City Council and how does the meeting open?

Narrator/Announcer (opening roll call) / City staff (introductions) - Unknown 0:07

You're watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor Pro Tem Cheeto Vela, Council Members Natasha Harper-Madison, Vanessa Fuentes, Jose Velasquez, Ryan Alter, Krista Lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis. Zoe Khadri. Mark Duchin. City Attorney Deborah Thomas. City Clerk Erica Brady. And City Manager T.C. Brodnax.

Kirk Watson 0:59

Good morning, everybody. It's 10 o'clock in the morning, and I will call to order the regular Austin City Council meeting that is scheduled for today, April 9th, 2026. We have a quorum of the Austin City Council present. Council Member Harper-Madison is joining us remotely, and Council Member Velazquez will be absent today. We are meeting in the City Council Chambers, which are located at City Hall at 301 West 2nd Street in Austin, Texas. Quickly, I'll run through the order of the day. In just a minute, I'm going to read changes and corrections into the record. Then we will go to our consent agenda members. We do not have any items that have been pulled from the consent agenda to my knowledge. So if you have something that you want to pull from the consent agenda, please let me know.

Kirk Watson 1:43

We will hear from the public on the consent agenda items, at which point we will have discussion and vote on the consent agenda. At 10.30 or as close to 10.30 as we can get, we will recess the Austin City Council meeting and I will call to order the Board of Directors meeting of the Austin Housing Finance Corporation. We will take up the agenda items for AHFC. We will adjourn that meeting, and we will come back to the Austin City Council meetings where we will take up non-consent items. Members, I'll read this into the record officially here in just a minute, but item number 41, which was a non-consent item, has been withdrawn. Item number 41 has been withdrawn. We will take up items 43, 44, and 45.

Kirk Watson 2:30

At noon, we will... pause wherever we are. We will pause and we will take up our 12 o'clock time certain, which is public comment and music. We will recess until at least once we finish the public comment, we will recess until at least 1.15. I'm anticipating that may be until 2 o'clock. And at 2 o'clock, we will take up our other time certain item, which are zoning items. Unless there's questions, I will read changes and corrections into the record. Seeing none, as I indicated, the one item that is an official change and correction to our agenda is item number 41 has been withdrawn. Item number 41 has been withdrawn. So, members, unless there's objection or any questions or comments, I will turn to the city clerk to ask the city clerk to please start calling the names of people that have signed up to speak on the consent agenda.

City Clerk Staff/Assistant (in-person caller) - Unknown 3:32

Thank you, Mayor. We have no remote speakers this morning, so we will begin with in-person. On item one, Jen Robichaux.

Public speaker / member of the public (Jen Robichaux) / also other public commenters - Jen Robichaux 3:56

Good morning, City Council. I'm Jen Robichaux, a longtime Austin resident. I'm here today to speak about trust. Taxpayers deserve representation, and our government exists to serve us first and foremost. On March 12, City Council voted to take a step backward and choose to reduce transparency, avoid accountability, and erode trust. Amendments to the lobbyist ordinance were short-sighted and counterproductive, and your constituents want to know who has your ear. As the remote speaker pointed out, you've also missed an opportunity to show how well you attend to your constituents. Tracking community engagement and making the data public is more than simply holding lobbyists accountable for their attempts to influence local policy.

Public speaker / member of the public (Jen Robichaux) / also other public commenters - Jen Robichaux 4:40

It's also an opportunity for the city to demonstrate that you are in fact listening to your constituents. I am grateful to my council member, Vanessa Fuentes, and to Ryan Alter for taking a stance against these changes to the lobbyist policy. However, I am disappointed in the council members who justified the changes as a way to save resources and improve efficiency. This shows a lack of understanding the problem and a lack of creative problem solving. Without assuming any negative intent, this body as a whole opted for a lazy solution rather than a well-considered one.