Approved Minutes — original pdf

Approved Minutes

Technology Commission http://www.austintexas.gov/cttc REGULAR MEETING MINUTES Wednesday –August 13th, 2025 – 6:30PM Permitting and Development Center– Training Room – Room 1402 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Dr, Austin, TX 78752 Please go to http://www.austintexas.gov/cityclerk/boards_commissions/meetings/10_1.htm for backup materials associated with this agenda. All ATXN (City Channel 6) programming is cablecast on Spectrum, Grande Communications, and Google Fiber on their cable channel 6, on AT&T U-Verse Channel 99 and webcast online. Over 20 meetings per month, including this commission meeting, are available on demand online, typically within a found at: http://www.austintexas.gov/page/atxn-video-archive. the cablecast. Schedules and video can be few hours of The Technology Commission convened in a REGULAR meeting on Wednesday, August 13th, 2025, at 6310 Wilhemina Delco Dr, Austin, Texas. Current Commission Members Keith Pena-Villa ‐ Mayor Kirk Watson Brian AM Williams ‐ Council Member Natasha Harper‐Madison, District 1 Steven Apodaca – Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, District 2 Carina Alderete ‐ Council Member José Velasquez, District 3 Suzanne Heritage ‐ Council Member José “Chito” Vela, District 4 Thomas Rice‐ Council Member Ryan Alter, District 5 Rachel Frock‐ Council Member Krista Laine, District 6 Benjamin Combee ‐ Council Member Mike Seigel, District 7 Nicholas Eastwood ‐ Council Member Paige Ellis, District 8 Ibiye Anga – Council Member Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, District 9 Milena Pribic ‐ Council Member Marc Duchen, District 10 Board Members/Commissioners in Attendance in person: Steven Apodaca, Chair Milena Pribic Benjamin Combee Board Members/Commissioners in Attendance Remotely: Rachel Frock 1 Ibiye Anga Carina Alderete, Vice-Chair Brian AM Williams Board Members/Commissioners Not in Attendance: Thomas Rice Nicolas Eastwood Keith Pena-Villa Suzanne Heritage CALL TO ORDER Chair Apodaca called the Community Technology and Telecommunications Meeting to order at 6:36 p.m. PUBLIC COMMUNICATION: GENERAL The first ten speakers who register to speak no later than noon on the day before the meeting will be allowed a three-minute allotment to address their concerns regarding items not posted on the agenda. There were no members of the public that signed up to speak. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. Approve the minutes of the Technology Commission regular meeting on July 9th, 2025. Motion to approve the meeting minutes was made by Commissioner Combee and seconded by Vice Chair Alderete. The minutes were approved on a vote of 6-0. DISCUSSION ITEMS 2. Hold a public hearing to solicit feedback from the public and community stakeholders regarding the usefulness and relevance of the Technology Commission stated purposes and duties and its success in fulfilling those purpose and duties. Representatives from community organizations such as Latinitas Inc, Shining Light Consulting, Universal Technology Movement, Austin Free-Net, and Open Austin all signed up to speak and offer feedback on the impact of the Technology Commission. The full discussion can be viewed at this link: https://austintx.new.swagit.com/videos/352678 3. Legislative update on House Bill 149 and other technology hardware and software focused bills. (Rick Ramirez, Intergovernmental Relations Office, City of Austin) The legislative update presentation was delivered by Rick Ramirez and can be viewed at this link: https://austintx.new.swagit.com/videos/352678 2 DISSCUSION AND ACTION ITEMS 4. Approval of a Community Listening Sessions planning work group Chair Apodaca summarized this project, the commission plans to how some community listening sessions in collaboration with the district 2 and 3 offices to hear from the public on topics like affordability, accessibility, and education within the digital inclusion sphere. Chair Apodaca suggested having some of the invited speakers from the public feedback portion of the meeting to table at this event. The session is tentatively scheduled for February 7th. The goal is to eventually replicate this session within most if not all Austin districts. Commissioner Frock asked for clarification on what this event would be since it seemed like there would be a larger event surrounding the listening session. The chair and vice chair confirmed that the session would be more in the spirit of a town hall and this working group would be tasked with planning this session. Commissioner Frock asked to join the group and proposed renaming the group it to “Digital Equity Town Hall Working Group”. Commissioner Pribic disagreed with the proposed name change, citing concerns that it would limit the group’s scope if they decided to focus on topics other than digital equity. This working group would meet again with the district 2 and district 3 offices in September. Motion to approve the formation of a Digital Equity Listening Session working group made by Vice Chair Alderete and seconded by Commissioner Frock. The motion passed on a vote of 6-0. 5. Conduct an evaluation of the recommendations made and other actions taken by the Technology Commission throughout the year and how these reflected or achieved the commission’s directives, identify any overlaps in the role and work of the commission with other boards or commissions, identify policies or City needs that no current board or commission appears to address, evaluate the level of members’ and the community’s engagement, and identify potential bylaw amendments to improve or address any of the foregoing. The Chair relayed the City Clerk’s Office’s request to the rest of the commission. The Technology Commission has been asked to self-evaluate their performance and impact over the last year. Chair Apodaca read off the questions that the Clerks Office has asked that the commission answer collectively. The commission agreed that the commission has complied with their bylaws. The commission completed and submitted 6 recommendations for council consideration this year. Of those recommendations, this cohort agreed that all of them were closely aligned with their core mission. Commissioner Frock asked for clarification on the recommendation for “Improved Communications for Commissions” to which Chair Apodaca verified that this item was designed with the Economic Prosperity Commission with the purpose of expanding the use of the City Council’s discussion platform to commissioners as well. This 3 item is related to this commission’s purpose since the intent was to expand the use of this piece of software. Chair Apodaca gave further examples of recommendations centered around city infrastructure that are tied to this commission’s work. Commissioner Pribic asked what the purpose of the Clerk’s questions was and when it was due, to which the Chair answered that these are the self-evaluation questions that the Clerk will review when considering the future of this commission. The document is due in early October but was scheduled for discussion at this meeting in case of a canceled meeting in September. All the recommendations being addressed come directly from the bylaws and are focused on improving city infrastructure, funding capacity, access, equity, emerging technologies. Commissioner Frock added that all these recommendations were designed in collaboration with community partners. Jesse Rodriguez added that the recommendations were aligned with the 2023 City of Austin and Travis County Digital Needs Assessment. Commissioner Pribic asked if any recommendation passed in the September meeting could be added to this document to which the Chair responded that yes it could be added to an amended version of this document. The commission unanimously agreed that no other commission or board has overlap in the work that they perform. Commissioner Combee mentioned there could be overlap with the Economic Prosperity Commission, but Commissioner Pribic mentioned that these commissions were very different in their approach and policy areas. Commissioner Combee agreed and mentioned that this group focuses on both digital equity and city technology infrastructure. The Chair mentioned in that document that they have updated their bylaws recently. To the question “On a scale of 1-10 how engaged are the members of this commission”, Commissioners Pribic, Combee, Frock, Anga, and Vice Chair Alderete all agreed that the attendance and engagement is very high for this commission. The group rated their commission at a 8 or 9. The following question asked the commission to rate the community’s engagement with their commission on a scale of 1-10. Commissioner Pribic acknowledged that this group has not had the most community engagement but that with the upcoming passing of AI focused bills they may begin receiving more eyes. Commissioner Frock mentioned that the community stakeholder engagement is very high given the number of speakers that attended this meeting on such short notice. Vice Chair Alderete agreed with Commissioner Frock, that this group has actively met with community stakeholders regularly in her time with this group. The commission scored themselves an 8 on community engagement. The final question asked if there were any gaps in policy that are not covered by a current board or commission. Commissioner Pribic mentioned that this commission did conduct some gap analysis during their review of the bylaws. The group took a six-minute recess. After that Chair Apodaca read all of their responses into the record. Commissioner Frock recemented adding a note on how their community members are engaged to question 11. 4 Motion to Approve the responses to the City Clerks Office’s questions was made by Commissioner Pribic and seconded by Commissioner Combee. The motion passed on a vote of 6-0. WORKING GROUP UPDATES 6. Public Surveillance working group updates regarding further meetings with surveillance stakeholders Commissioner Pena-Villa was not at this session. Chair Apodaca mentioned that he and Commissioner Pena-Villa will scope out the need for this group since there has been a lot of that any overlap with recommendations on public surveillance could easily be transferred to the AI working group. the AI working group. Commissioner Pribic mentioned 7. Artificial Intelligence Working Group updates surrounding development of recommendation post stakeholder engagement Commissioner Pribic stepped in as representative of this working group. She mentioned that this cohort met with Kevin Welch from EFF-Austin to further discuss Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) and upcoming AI legislation. The group is working on a recommendation ALPRs. Furthermore, the group will meet with Commissioner Eastwood and request he bring in some labor union representatives to speak on automation. Commissioner Pribic asked if this group would be able to deliver recommendations on a breadth of topics or if this group should splinter into more specialized topic focuses. Chair Apodaca recommended that they keep the commissions as narrow as possible. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS • Continued Public Feedback on the Technology Commission from community members • Grant for Technology Opportunities Program annual action plan ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 9:22pm. The City of Austin is committed to compliance with the American with Disabilities Act. Reasonable modifications and equal access to communications will be provided upon request. Meeting locations are planned with wheelchair access. If you require Sign Language Interpreters or alternative formats, please give notice at least 2 days before the meeting date. Please contact Dan Martinez at the Community Technology Divison at (512) 974- 3510, for additional information; TTY users’ route through Relay Texas at 711. For more information on the Community Technology & Telecommunications Commission, please visit their website at http://www.austintexas.gov/cttc or contact Dan Martinez at dan.martinez@austintexas.gov 5 The Minutes were approved at the September 10th, 2025 Meeting on Commissioner Eastwood’s motion and Commissioner Combee’s second with a final vote of 6-0-1. 6