Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

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Greg Casar
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:20 pm

Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Greg Casar »

CM Tovo and Co-sponsors,

Thank you for bringing forward this item on resilience hubs to help our City further prepare for future emergencies. I would like to offer the following amendment to elevate the need to appropriately prepare and operate these facilities to benefit our community.

http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 100923.pdf

Thanks,
Greg
Gregorio "Greg" Casar
Council Member District 4
Kathie Tovo
Posts: 128
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:18 am

Re: Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Kathie Tovo »

Council Member Casar,
Many thanks for engaging with this resolution and proposing these amendments. I've redrafted them to emphasize the community's role in identifying needs and co-creating the hubs and processes; as you'll see below, I've retained your reference to the Urban Sustainability Director Network’s Resilience Hubs Guidance and Analysis Tools as a document that should guide the City Manager's work and added an additional reference to USDN among the WHEREAS clauses. Hope this works for you, and thanks again!

Insert after the 11th Whereas clause:

WHEREAS
As stated in the Urban Sustainability Director’s Network report, “Resilience Hubs: Shifting Power to Communities and Increasing Community Capacity,” much community resilience work relies on top-down approaches that often “fail to meaningfully include equity-centered strategies considering the most vulnerable populations”; and



Insert after the 4th Be it Further Resolved clause:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

The City’s effort should include not only the necessary facilities planning but also engagement with each community around communications, personnel, transportation, and supplies and resources to ensure that the process and the hubs themselves embody the principles articulated by the Urban Sustainability Director Network’s Resilience Hubs Guidance and Analysis Tools to center the needs of the most vulnerable and affected community members.
Council District 9
Alison Alter
Posts: 211
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2017 3:52 pm

Re: Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Alison Alter »

CM Tovo,

Thank you for bringing this item forward. I am proud to be a co-sponsor. I would like to make what I hope will be a friendly amendment to acknowledge related action called for in our climate emergency declaration that I sponsored. I am pulling the item to make this motion, but would be comfortable adding on consent if that is the dais' preference.

Amend the resolution by adding the below on line 32 (additions denoted with *), cleaner version with redline is on its way to the agenda office.

WHEREAS, in August 2019 City Council adopted a resolution declaring a climate emergency and calling for an immediate emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate, *and that resolution called for the creation of community resilience hubs to serve as “shelters, evacuation centers, and disaster response hubs during climate emergencies”*; and

Regards,
Alison Alter
Council Member, District 10
Greg Casar
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:20 pm

Re: Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Greg Casar »

CM Tovo, thanks for your amendment. I think it captures much of what I intended. Please see some small suggestions below.

The City’s effort should include not only the necessary facilities planning but also engagement with each community *to ensure adequate* communications, personnel, transportation, and supplies and resources. *Such engagement should also* ensure that the process and the hubs themselves embody the principles articulated by the Urban Sustainability Director Network’s Resilience Hubs Guidance and Analysis Tools to center the needs of the most vulnerable and affected community members, *including ensuring communities successfully receive communications in their native language.*

-Greg
Gregorio "Greg" Casar
Council Member District 4
Alison Alter
Posts: 211
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2017 3:52 pm

Re: Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Alison Alter »

As I mentioned on the dais, as part of item 28 I would like to offer some direction. I have included it below for reference.

I would like to offer direction in 2 parts.
1. Direct the City Manager to report back to council by May 7, 2021, an update on the implementation of the climate emergency declaration resolution passed by council on August 8, 2019.
2. Once that report is complete, the City Manager should provide to council a review of which pieces of the climate emergency declaration resolution if fully implemented might have made a difference in our preparedness and/or response to Winter Storm Uri. This review can be offered as part of the after action report(s) for Storm Uri if the City Manager prefers.
Council Member, District 10
Ann Kitchen
Posts: 294
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: Item 28 – Resilience Hubs Amendment

Post by Ann Kitchen »

All

Thank you so much CM Tovo (and your cosponsors) for bringing this resolution, as well as CM Casar and Alter for their amendments.

I have a brief amendment that I will offer today - to CM Casar amendment: Insert: "response planning" to the line about engaging the community.

I think it is important to reflect the intent to ensure that community and neighborhood organizations are engaged in the response planning as well as the creation of the residence hubs.

There is a role for neighbors helping each other during emergencies, which so many did during this emergency, often in frustrating and fragmented circumstances due to the need for better, more coordinated communications with the city emergency response systems. We must ensure that community and neighbors have a role in planning the residency hubs, how those hubs are actually deployed during emergencies, and the role that neighbors can play in that response.

I believe this amendment aligns with the intent of the authors - and would like to more explicitly make this statement.

Best
Ann Kitchen
City Council D5
Ann Kitchen
Council Member District 5
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