 We have big dreams and we plan to make it happen, but we need your help. Thank you. Ms. Harris, the next item on your agenda is the public hearing regarding proposed rates and extensions to the newly established municipal grade in YouTube. Establish and levy a schedule of range charges for property and sub-commitation of new municipal grade. The next speaker is Olive Hershey. Mayor Parker, I'm Vivian Harris. I'm here before you again asking you to take a real close look at what some of you council members are asking and expecting voters and non-voters alike to do. Please believe me when I tell you I'm a boss of experience on churches and their operations and I promise you with my experiences some of the churches you are fighting for are not what they are pretending to be. Now before I go any further please do not judge me nor my relationship with God. This is not about God, nor my relationship with God and I dare any of you to question that because if I do not have anything else I'm sure of I know my relationship with God is secure and personal. For the ones of you who think you are sitting here supporting the churches wanting to be exempt from their drainage fees because of election time, beware. Gone are the days when ministers have the ability to sway voters. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 20 verse 24 and 25 reads, show me a penny whose image and superscription have it. Then he answered and said, Caesar's, and he said unto them, render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and to God the things that be God's. I believe the same money that you and I use are the same money that we contribute to the churches and I do not see where there's a difference in the obligations that churches have and the obligations that we the people have. Thank you ma'am. Thank you ma'am. I didn't finish. Thank you. Please, there are but approximately 20 or more churches in about a two square mile area in my community doing absolutely nothing that I can determine is beneficial to our community. I have dedicated 35 years of my life trying to do the right thing for my community. I'm not taking muddies under the table. No kickbacks have not gone along to get along. What consideration are you all giving to persons such as myself? It has a limited income each month and has not had an increase in income in more than two years with everything continually increasing in costs. When will the churches ever feel their need to pay for anything? Churches are a billion dollar business. Could you please round up? I just need to move on to it. Okay, just a minute. I'm in it. Churches are a billion dollar business. I thank you all for your time and your consideration, but I can promise you you will not get the votes out of the churches. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Harris, thank you for coming down and thank you for being a civic leader for a very long time. We've all worked with you down here and we appreciate it. Okay, the next speaker is Clyde Bryant. Excuse me, the annual schedule. To be followed by Connie Edgell. Good morning, Mayor, Members of the Council. My name is Clyde Bryant. I'm brought with me this morning a contract with Costello Inc. And they're distributing that now. And I'm just trying to understand the timeline of this contract in relation to Council Member Costello's appointment to the chair of the drainage committee. This contract was evidently executed in October of 2009 and that was prior to Council Member Costello's election. I would like to point out that this was 2005. But he did receive the contract. It's 1.7 million. He was then appointed to the chair of the drainage committee. I'd like to ask you, Mayor, was that appointment made by you or by the, okay, were the other Members of Council or Members of Council aware that you were, at the time of the appointment, that he had a 1.7 million dollar contract? Since it was my appointment, I didn't pass them, but I was not aware of it. Well, I know you as a controller. You probably signed millions of, I mean, hundreds of contracts, thousands probably, but it did pass through your office as evidenced on page two of the handout. Again, you signed many of them, so you probably could not have been aware of it, but the point still stands. You signed a 1.7 million dollar contract for the infrastructure appointments. He was appointed to the chair of the drainage committee. Yet, as you were instrumental in the Charter Amendment action that the city went with Unproc one, and I just, I want to throw this out to some of the other Council members. Council member Radford, did you have knowledge of this? Mr. Filman. The purpose of this public hearing is to discuss rates and exemptions. You know, there is an active OID investigation going on. Is there not? In fact, it's being completed and a report will be on the desk today. I would ask that we not engage further in this discussion until the OID report is present to Council. Mr. Filman, the complaint. Chief, I've made a request, a public information request for all the contracts and the purchase orders of all sitting Council members. And that was done over three weeks ago, and I'm still waiting for that. I don't think the Council should vote on this until we have it. Information because we need to know if there's a conflict of interest here. Have you received any response at all? Well, Chief, they sent me an email that said that they were checking into it, but I also wanted to point out that David Welch, through Secretary Stephanie, made another request which was over three weeks ago. And that was over three weeks ago, excuse me. Who responded to you about the TPI request? Who did you submit it to and who responded to you? Do you know? It was someone. It was someone. I can't remember her name, but I can send you the email. Thank you. Okay. Connie, Etcher. I'm Steve Ruggle, and I'm not sure. I want to admit that I'm past her in Grace Community Church after what I hear here. We, as a church, are opposed on principle in terms of we view this as a tax, and a tax against the church, and an open door to things that have not taken place before in our culture as a nation. And so I want to go on record as saying that another point I want to make is that when you ask the people to vote on something, do they clearly understand what they're voting on? I just saw a video of Councilman Distilio in the last public hearing, and my judge been rebuking one of the speakers and saying that he was insulted that the people, that the idea would be brought that people didn't understand. Well, I just read it. Sitting right here, sitting right back there, and I'm going to college, and I'm 60 years old, and I'm a pastor of a church with thousands of people, and frankly, what's happening now that's proposed is what that said, I didn't get it. Councilmember Bradford. Thank you, Mayor. Pastor, please speak to the mic. Thanks for coming down, and for your supporters as well. You know some previous speakers have said some things that reasonable minds could differ, but we know at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, that we don't differ when it comes to one aim, one destiny, okay? I think we can connect on that. Pastor, I want to say thanks for your comments because when we talk about a drainage fee or a tax or whatever you want to call it, openness and real transparency is important. You and the thousands of people that attend your congregation, you pay a fee through your residencies, through your homes where you live. You pay that fee now because you choose to worship because you choose to praise and uplift God. Why should you pay twice? And someone who does not choose to worship any place, they don't pay that second time around. That's just wrong, my dear. Thank you. Councilmember Noriega, there's three more in the queue. Don't go away. Thank you, ma'am. I just wanted a chance to say thank you to you. I've been very blessed in your church at Funerals for our first responders, and I'm the daughter of pastors and the granddaughter and the great-granddaughter of pastors. And I know a lot goes into putting those kind of services on so I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilmember Royne. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Pastor Ford, coming down here. I just wanted to echo my concurrence with Councilmember Bradford. I know, as you just said, that if we are going to compose a fee on your church, on the church, the church will have to cut some of the activities. Some of that program is like after-school programs and junior programs and a crime will arise and it will cost the city more. So I concur with Councilmember Bradford, and I'll do within my duty and my power to make sure that churches are going to be accepted. I think what's important for everyone here is that whatever final resolution is, that we get to where we move to clouds. There's definitely a cloud that exists. The cloud affects all of you and affects our city because we want the issue before us agree or disagree to be resolved in a way that everything was done properly and right. Pastor, I think it's my turn to talk. Okay, it's Mayor Parker. I'm Councilmember Costello. I think it's interesting how my reputation has now become a political part for people who don't want to discuss the merits of this program. It's not a debate about Steve Costello or Costello E. This is a debate about the long-term future of our city. As an engineer, when I campaigned in 2009, I campaigned on a long-term source of solutions for streets and drainage. I was also interviewed by a number of local stations and radio stations questioning my firm, and I told them, we are going to have contracts with the city. Less than 2% of my business was in the city of over a 20-year period. I will not do any work of the city as a city council member. And when it comes to the churches, this is my view. You pay for utilities. Drainage is a utility. You pay for water, you pay for the sewer, you pay for your electricity. You should also pay for your drainage services. Why, for years, I've advocated for everyone to contribute to this program. And this is relative to my conflict of interest. I don't have a conflict of interest. Am I going to abstain from voting? No, I'm not. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to advocate for this program. And Pastor, I do appreciate everything that Grace has done for our community, and I know you will continue to do that. And whenever this program of yours comes out in the long run, I think we will all benefit in future. Thank you, sir. Yes, well, with all due respect, I think we can disagree agreeably. And I certainly respect your opinion. I just agree with that. I think it is a task. I think it is the opening of, it is the cracking, the door open to the tap to tap the church. Thank you. Council Member Noriega. Thank you, Madam Mayor. One of the things we talk about is, you know, how do you walk that line? Because everyone works for somebody. You know, do lawyers vote on laws? Yes, they do. And I have found my colleagues' expertise helpful. And when I had the opportunity to talk to a group of engineers, they told me that they were concerned about the future. They said they were really scared that we were all going to be underwater in no time. And their expertise combined with their real concern got my attention. I think there's a real belief on their part that this is a desperate situation and not just a money issue or a tax issue, that we have a very serious, serious concern here. And I listen to them because they know what they're talking about. Again, I don't question that. That's not my question. I think my question is on that this is the People's House. And if it's the People's House, the people ought to know exactly what they agree to. And if they agree to it, fine, but I think that that's my only issue. I understand that there is an answer to Mr. Brine's request, but DPI, a request? Yes, ma'am. The record shows that a request was made by one Stephanie Welch for all the contracts that Costello we had with the city of Houston. The record also shows that those documents were timely provided in CD form approximately three and a half weeks ago. That's what I have to report, ma'am. I'm glad to know that we did respond to the TPA, T-P-I-A request and through the controller's office. This concludes our public agenda, and we are now on to open agenda items for the open agenda. Everyone who signed up has three minutes. Three's downtown. I'm Nancy Horman, belongs to downtown. And I'm here representing the board of directors of the downtown community. And I wanted to talk about the Mail Avenue landscape. And today, I wanted to make sure that the council knows that the DTC voted unanimously to support keeping Ficus trees on Mail Avenue. Over three years ago, we presented a report showing if Ficus trees have been maintained properly, that they are a good alternative for down here. And we feel that, like the Mail, the bridge, our Ficus trees are a brand of downtown. And we would like to continue that brand and see if there's a way that we can work with all of you to complete the leafiness of downtown without Ficus trees. So it's just a very simple request. It's that you listen to the stakeholders of downtown and take into consideration what they would like for their trees. Thank you. Our next speaker is Josh Davis, speaking on audience participation in a live performance. Hi, the new mayor. This is not me saying this side of the table now. I have no idea where to start. Are we working together? Are we capable of it? Is that why this structure is here? Or is that what the structure prevents? Maybe I don't like you. Maybe when your opinions come up in conversations with other people, I disparage them. I don't enjoy honoring your feelings or beliefs. My tolerance of you is tested daily. Most of the time, I dismiss you in my thoughts. Let me get a show of hands. Who thinks we can all agree on something? Who thinks it doesn't matter? You made it to this room. I made it to this room. I think this is the only room we could find ourselves in together. No, that's not true. We could go to the same coffee shop. You could date my cousin. You could fight for our country. Or change yourselves to a polluter's fence. I thought about doing that. Can I get two volunteers, please, to come to the front? Seriously, I need two people. I'll have two people. Thank you guys. If you want to do pass out index cards, I want to do pass out pencils. Thank you. This is an invitation. We're passing out little cards and pencils. Please write a resolution. Something you want the public record. Something you think no one here will agree with. Or that you care so much about you can't stand it. About yourself. Or about God. Or about drainage. Or biker's trees. Or something more important. Write down the opinion you think no one will think is okay. For instance, I might say, I love yachts for common. Some call it pretentious. I think it's necessary. I wrote that myself. Write to make concern that the small worries have a place. Free yourself of the thing you think you can't say. Don't put your name on it. Make sure it's readable. And someone will say it for the record. That's how we are community. Excuse me, excuse me. We want to get on with the meeting. So we can hear the speakers that have signed up. If you can call speakers. As I call your name, please come to the podium in any order and state your name for the record. Those of you who are standing in the back of the room, can you leave and shut the door please? Thank you. So we can hear the public speakers. As I call your name, please come to the podium in any order and state your name for the record. Again, we understand that some people may be coming from different areas outside. So we'll allow time for that. Our first three speakers are Gail Orr, Ronnie Yates, and Jennifer Gardner. Gail Orr, Ronnie Yates, Jennifer Gardner. We, and by we, I mean the humanity on this earth right now are mired in an infinitude of deeply-seated illusions about the nature of reality. And these illusions are based on fear. We have been asleep for thousands of years. Although of course, there have been glimpses of the truth. People waking up over time, crushed by the forces of oppression, and had their message co-opped by those same forces. It's a wave of love and peace and understanding and compassion that is raging, sweeping through our souls. You can act in fear, you can think in fear, you can speak in fear, or you can act and think and speak. Passion. I know that many of you are standing up here and understanding and compassion. It's very important that you do this. Think deeply. I know that you have many moral dilemmas going through your head. But this is really a time of celebration. So please, join us and celebrate life and help us to create a world in which we all can thrive. My name is Sadia. I'm a resident of District 2, East 18th and 6th. Good evening, Council Member Kernigan. I work in downtown 19th and Franklin. My favorite restaurant is Rico's. I go to a room all the time. Shout out to Brother Maurice at Cafe Madrid who suffers from loss. So please accept all this street cred. I'm a resident. The entire city, community, workers, youth, and you all as our leaders need to come together and lead this city. I support, I ask that you support Council Member Natal's resolution in support of free speech and its supporters, that you return and become accountable to East and West foreclosures. Remember that while broken glass, graffiti, trash and displaced families, it's just ugly all over the city, not just downtown. Lastly, I appreciate your taking the time to show a few things that were wrong with yesterday and the last two weeks while taking no time to lift up the things that were wonderful about the march. Where were the pictures of the baby brigades? Where were the pictures of the community and the families that got started at 8 o'clock in the morning and went till dusk? Where were those pictures? Where were the pictures of the families that are foreclosed by the banks that took so much of your city, so much of your power going to show us? Where are the pictures, lastly, of you all? Many of you who know and need to get on the correct side of all of this. Many of you were out there yesterday. Where were your pictures of standing with us? Thank you. My name is Max Alstead. I just got out of jail a couple of hours ago. I'm going to start off with a slight tangent and announce Mayor Juan and the city administrator Santana to immediately contact the police department to return on the necessary belongings. They're still being held. There was a bit of a snafu in terms of moving personal effects that were confiscated. There were people without their house keys. There were people without their wallets and cell phones out among them. I would like you to get somebody down at OPE to immediately take action on that. Now onto the actual topic at hand. I can support maintaining a dialogue with Occupy and I can support maintaining a dialogue with the police and safe. What I cannot support is the idea that we can use conversation to deal with violence that we saw last night. There were people there. There were people there who were waving claw hairs at people who tried to put out fires. There were people there who caused serious, serious damage and there are people there among the movement who are saying that vandalism is not violence and those people are wrong. People who vandalize our city, those people ought to be prosecuted because those people are preventing and criticizing our free speech by endangering us by potentially provoking serious police action. You cannot have a conversation about a giant fire in the street. It's not possible. But the people who started need to be held accountable. Thank you. This is Salisman. Can you please read item 396? And so if you must, if you must, you could just wave your hands and support what somebody says that that would be appropriate. Item 396 is a Sheila Harden testifying the illegal testing on citizens. Sheila Harden? Ms. Harden. Does anyone have a piece of paper with the name Sheila Harden written on it? Testing the illegal testing of citizens? Apparently she's not here today. Item 397. We have Mr. P. Colt who wants to thank the city civil servants. Here comes Mr. Colt. Mr. Colt, it's always a pleasure to have you here with us. You know the rules, but for the record, please state your name and you have two minutes. Thank you. My name is Pete Colt. It's good to see you all there. Commissioner Fish and Commissioner Salisman, I want to apologize to you because I lost faith in you. But when you were running the parks department and you were worried about the dogs and testing the park on 11th and 19th and the feces, you said something that struck a chord with me and made me say, oh my god, he really is who he says he is. And I'm going to go to the people I talked to and I'm going to say I was wrong. Commissioner Salisman does care about our kids. You're right. We care more about our puppies and ponies than we do our kids. So thank you. I'm sorry. Now, I'm here to talk to you today because I live in the kids zone. The kids zone is everything with a quarter mile walk of the Northwest cultural district and that includes Cognitus and Park on the river there. The kids zone is a zone where infants, toddlers, and youth come to play, work, learn, entertain, entertain and live. I'd like to invite Mr. Paulson to come and surely Riley is selling her home I'd like him to move in. It's a historic home for a neighbor who'd have little cars three years old. The reason he wouldn't want to move in is this, and I'm sorry to say, these are from the McDonald's on 18th the Episcopal Learning Center, the Catholic Girls School across from the Children's Sinfonic Choir. Those of you who are here from the neighborhood know that I pick up this stuff every day. I do not clean up the vomit on Thursday Thursdays, I draw the line and bodily fluids. You're about at time. Thank you. Director at Trinity Seminary and I agree. It is very tiring to pick up used condos. Mr. Cole. Your time is up, but I have a more fundamental concern. What you've just put on that table is actually just considered hazardous material. And I don't know what you put there, what drugs are involved, but we now have a public health issue. Thank you for agreeing with me. Thank you for making my point better than I could. Thank you for stating exactly what this is. The question now is what are we going to do to help our kids? You know, the secretary just reminded me that we have other people come up here to testify on that chair so I think we're going to have to take a recess until we can get someone to come up here with some alcohol, florons and it was really weird to have another one. We appreciate your passion but this was not at all well thought out. We're going to take a recess for about 10 minutes, but we're going to need everyone to clear the room so that we can disinfect. That's it folks, we're going to take a recess. Please clear the room now everyone. Thank you. One player please. Key one player please test that mic. Yes. One two, thank you. And the band is ready. We have six singers, but if you want to do a quick sound check please. Speaking quickly, somebody hold my mic. Check, check, yes. Got it. All right, we're good. Hey Aaron, you think the band maybe we should be on stage? And then the choir on stage? See? Yeah, how about you guys, you guys can be here. Okay. Okay. And the other one. Just a minute. The band, this is how to make homes through the little word. Right in the enter. Rather than we said. We'll give you a good long time so. When they said yes. Do you start? Yes. Yeah. All right. Mic working? Yes. Thank you so much. How's the piece? It's good. Are we at the limit? We're at the limit. So. It's good. Okay. We're at five, six now. Okay, so we all have that here today. Yes. I didn't feel like I've seen it yet. It's been working. What's my rent group? We had some little groups every night. Oh, my God. You're like, okay... We're so good. And we always have the enemy player out by the time it appears. I've probably seen it many or something. It's something. I've seen it before though too. It was like. It's not like I... It's not like I used to play this. You know, I used to I want you to do the accent and it's a perfect mix of the natural character and this other character that we're going to work with. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Yes. Great. Band, are you all ready? Yes. Are you ready to go? Yes. She's in bed right now. She's in bed. Wow. Actual fact-checkers, not fake fact-checkers. Nuclear war is our world. I hate life. This is my third time, and I simply do not like the discussion about water. God lets children die because they deserve it. I think goatees are a blatant display of court judgment, and I don't trust anyone We should suffer with other creatures. Find a way to stop the corporate accumulation of surplus value and institute the 20-hour work. I think we can all agree. I think we should all agree. This is our city, ours alone. We have to stop consuming and go green, or our future is imperil. I can't stand when people say something is very unique. It's redundant. My baby should be allowed to smoke. More sports choices. It's not okay to park in any kind of parking space if you are not truly handicapped. War is the waste of gas and people. I like cats. I think we should get 100 in English for this. We should tax churches, and more importantly recognize the secular individual and their right to be offended by religious actions and demand actions. I'm in love with my teacher. I think that people who don't clean up after their dogs should be incarcerated. If you are on your phone and driving, you deserve a terrible accident that is bound to happen. It's not all my fault. Abolish cars. Turn down a parkway and memorial drive into massive bike lanes. String up giant traps and summer sun and rain. Affirmative action for all state college. I like English. I think kids these days are total brats and overcrowded. Kids need limits. This performance piece is an example of idealist thought. It is a virginess mentality and drives the political view of this piece. If there's a bustle in your head growing, don't be alarmed now. Just to sprint them by the main creek. I think that all plumbing problems should be paid for by the city. I love my teacher. I'm sitting next to Morgan. I like English. I resolve to have a point. I think we should have more sports choices. When I was in private practice, I had a rule. The rule is that when you hear from someone who doesn't like what you are doing, you give it a day. You get an email. What the hell do you think you're doing? You wait a day. You can't respond without reacting too strongly. In politics, you can't do that. Everything is right away. Even if we can't do anything, we have to hear you. You make your complaint. Maybe we don't want to help you, but maybe we can ignore you a little less the next time. I do civil engineering. This is mostly the stuff that goes on underground. A developer buys some land, let's say. They want to know how many houses or buildings they can put on it. So we figure out how to get water in, sewer in, and then in addition to that, the electricity, cable and phone. And then we build on it, and they sell off the land in plots. Engineers have a habit of questioning faith. We see things in black and white. You do this, you don't do that. But now I'm on council, and this is a performance. And everything is in shades of gray. The city we make is invisible. It's what's underneath everything we do. On the street, in their homes, people with their lives. Point A to Point B, just get me there. Work, school, home, a date, a movie, a restaurant. Every city has a life force underneath its life. This morning with my mind, stays us. I walk up this morning with my mind. Businessmen who build companies out of thin air, they didn't really exist. You had your Ken Lay's, the Enron's, who had a whole lot of influence. And when those guys were disgraced, or at least some of them, you had a vacuum. At a certain point, four of us got together for lunch and said we got to do something. The infrastructure is old. It's over capacity. It was built into 40s for a lot fewer people. We never thought the footprint of the city would be so big. We talked a lot. We became seven guys. We made subcommittees. And then we said that we had to get somebody on council who can represent the plan so that we could do it right. And we looked around, a group of engineers. And it was like, who's the only one who has enough personnel? Maybe the bar was set a little low. Some of the guys at work would think we should have done something different. They don't like the way things are playing out. I'd like to remind them that it's not all about them. It's hard to listen when you know what's right. The right thing according to you, which because you're an engineer is probably the right thing, may not be the thing that gets enough people to say yes, because this is the people's house. Are you trying to solve a problem or make it go away? Because those are two very different things. I don't need this. Meaning that if people don't want me here, I can go back to my old job, ripping up streets, putting in pipes, making paperwork, running. I run like crazy. I run like hell. Nothing slows me down. I just make a new road. I get myself away. I started running already, but not a lot. And then one day, I saw these people go by with a number on them. And I asked somebody, what's that? And they said that, so you used a marathon. And I said, what's that? I didn't know what a marathon was. And so I went and bought a book about it. And I thought I could do that. And I did. Doing a triathlon is really a powerful mind-body experience. The race itself is actually an anti-climatic event. You've trained for the race, so it's not about whether your body can do it or not. You know you can. It's about telling yourself to keep going. Honestly, I run so I can eat. I love food. I used to just eat one meal a day. I'd wake up with coffee and a cigarette and wouldn't eat until dinner. Now I eat five times a day. Who else here has seen something that you didn't know and then done it? In salvation, they quit an easy process. Neither is government. The soul is complicated. The city is complicated. There are so many directions people want to go in. And we can't all agree. We can. I believe in a higher order. I just don't know what it is. I wish I didn't have to sing like that. I wish I could map fate with my voice. It's so beautiful. The invisible city above the city below. Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Victory is...