Travis County Commssioners Court
December 17, 2002
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Item 4
Number 4 is to receive input petition to incorporate the community of webberville as a type c general law municipality.
>> move that the public hearing be opened.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, we have a -- quite a few residents that have -- that have come -- that have shown up for this. Again, I would like to thank the judge's office and staff and anyone else that has been working on this office. For bringing this to -- to the attention of the judge and also the commissioners court. So with that, let me -- could you let me know the folks that are here that are in the court for this particular -- that are in -- could you stand please, I think it would be more -- you all are all in support of what we are doing here this morning? So -- okay. That will give you some kind of an idea, judge, on -- on where we are on this.
>> thank you.
>> for those in opposition, please stand.
>> opposition. Please stand. Let me -- anybody here opposing this? No one.
>> good morning, judge. Travis County transportation natural resources. As you mentioned, this community has come forward to petition to incorporate. And the staff has verified that they do meet the requirements of the territorial regulations as well as the population for a type c general law municipality.
>> and we have from the -- from the tax assessor's office, who also serves as the voter reg a strar, a -- registrar, a certificate of voter registrar that indicates as required by law that -- equal [inaudible] voters were found as --
>> judge, actually the law is 10% of the registered voters.
>> 10%.
>> correct. I believe it meets that.
>> okay.
>> all right. 10% would be how many?
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> all right. 17.2. The certificate that I'm looking at says 50 voters were found to appear as qualified voters of the proposed district and one person is not a qualified voter. So we2hcveñi exceedednm÷4: the legal standard.
>> yes, we have.
>> on that. And -- we did look at the geographic area in -- t.n.r. Staff did, found the description to be sufficient?
>> yes, sir. And to -- and to comply with the law?
>> yes, sir.
>> now the judge's and the court's role is rather limited. That is that the legal standards are met, we call the election.
>> uh-huh.
>> and typically we have scheduled a public hearing to give residents an opportunity to come and voice their opinion. It is not for us to decide whether a vote, if called, should pass or fail. That is left to those authorized to vote in the geographic area. And as far as I know, even this -- members of this court must live in the area in order to be able to vote.
>> uh-huh.
>> right? So are there one or two representatives who would like to come and just give us a little inputs from the neighborhood? [ laughter ]
>> hector and --
>> good morning.
>> just state your name.
>> my name is hector gonzalez. First of all, I would like to thank the honorable judge, the entire commissioners court, all of the associated county agencies and staff, for all of their hard work and assistance thus far. We are really appreciative. Excuse me, I'm a little nervous.
>> that's all right.
>> I just wanted to -- to briefly touch on the historical significance of the community. Webberville is -- has been in existence for over 150 years. Webberville dates back to 1827. Which -- which was settled, one of the first areas settled in what is now Travis County. Which was -- which was before Austin was Austin and even before Texas was Texas. All of this is starting to be lost by process excavation of removal of sand and gravel. Essentially being wiped off the face of the map. I feel the people of the community, the community itself have made our south carolina guys and contribution to the sand and gravel industry by being book ended on each side of town, with sand and gravel pits. As far as becoming incorporated, initially the threat of strip mining in the heart of our community was the initial motivating factor. But since then there have been several other issues that have -- that have been additional motivating factors for our move to incorporate. We, the citizens of the community, will now have a voice as to what occurs in and to our community. While enabling us to preserve the quality of life. And offering some level of protection to the -- to the public health and welfare of the citizens of the community. As far as the petition, I was just -- it was just pointed out that -- that by law to -- to incorporate us at the type of municipality we are seeking to incorporate as requires 10% of the registered voters or qualified voters. We were able to collect 51 signatures, although one was disqualified and would have been able to collect many more. I just also would like to state that our map clearly shows the proposed boundaries of the municipality. And what lands are included as well as any lands that are excluded. I would like to point out that -- that the lands that were excluded do not contain any people and no peoples were removed from the process. As far as the inhabitant requirement, we provided an affidavit to the court attesting to the amount of inhabitants, the fact that they exceed the required amount. And as far as the public or the community being aware, val, which is village of webberville committee, is and always has been open to any and all members of the community, in which to attend and participate. This one final thing as far as the governing body, somebody is going to need to run this municipality. We have long-term members of the community that are prepared to assume the responsibilities of running this municipality. That's essentially it, thank you again.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. From a tvis county perspective, what it means to us, if you -- if you successfully incorporate, is that responsibility for the roads are shifted to the new city.
>> uh-huh.
>> yes, sir.
>> and on the state highway projects that state is accustomed to asking cities to -- to help with right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation and road improvement projects. Through my association with the county government, I have learned that that can be a big financial responsibility. I guess my question is you all are aware of that.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> yes, sir?
>> my name is ken moon. I came to -- to Austin area eight years ago to take a job with the state of Texas. And after looking around, I found that I could find a home over in the webberville area for about half the price I could over on the west side of town. So we moved there. And -- and in 1999 I kind of became somewhat of an activist when we found out that txi was wanting to put a big rock crusher in our area there that would increase the traffic and disturb the neighborhood. So I joined a new group out there, which was the webberville neighborhood association.
>> uh-huh.
>> and was there -- was their environmental committee head and eventually became vice-president of the organization. And at that time the -- the whole area came together, as a group, we had good response from -- from all of the people and that's what I first -- when I first met commissioner Davis, back then I was still able to walk. But he came out and was in support of our group and helped us with some of the -- of the things that went on as far as the road work and all of that sort of thing. But -- but seems like every time we turn around, somebody is wanting to throw something undesirable out in our direction. Things that the people on the west side don't want. They want to put it over on our side of town. We would like to have some say as far as what goes on out there. As you can see on the map over there, there's two red lines going from sort of the -- of the lower part up toward the upper right. The one on the right is the bastrop e.t.j. Line, the one on the left is the Austin e.t.j. We are in a situation right now, if Austin moves their city limits out, just a little bit, then the entire area of webberville is going to be taken in. And we won't be able to incorporate at that time. So we have got several issues that -- that have caused us alarm. One was the excavation of that peninsula down there, that now belongs to t.x.i., They have told us that they intend to purchase and excavate any properties in this area that they can obtain. Other gravel operations have contaminated the water supply in garfield, which is right across the river from us. And we are in a situation here where we have shallow water wells out there. There's a -- there's a phenomenon called underflow where the water is connected to the river and it flows across there. So any gravel operations or some of the other things like the city of Austin is talking about -- about putting in either a landfill or, well, in the fill just above our webberville area there, where the two little spikes run out, that's part of the property that's owned by the city of Austin. It's not just one little area. They have several thousand acres out there. In fact their property -- measured in square miles rather than acres. And historically, this has been the site where anything that they don't want or -- would be undesirable there, they want to throw out here. And we want to have some say-so in this area up there. And that was the reason for those -- for those -- that audit configuration there on the map. Right now, we know that they have been dumping treated sewer sludge in that area and we are concerned that -- that they are going to contaminate our water supply out there. And other -- other companies, trinity materials is wanting to dig up a good portion of that area there along with t.x.i., So we have a situation where our water supply is being endangered. The remnants of their operation, I believe, big holes that have -- that have mosquitoes, trash and vermin and we just don't want that sort of thing in our area.
>> so you believe that incorporating is the best thing?
>> we believe that by incorporating we have a group there that can -- that can address these areas of concern and we won't have to be starting a new committee every time a new issue comes up.
>> okay.
>> so -- so that's our concerns right now.
>> okay.
>> we would like to be able to do that.
>> we will assume that -- that if the rest of you were to -- to give comments individually, you would be super supportive of the petition. [ laughter ]
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> all right.
>> and we will let the record show that.
>> right. And --
>> now, is there anyone who would like to give comments in opposition? At this time?
>> well, the good news is that we will call up this item as number 8. Real, real soon. So that means within the next 30 minutes to two hours. [ laughter ] depending on how the other items go. And from what I hear and see everything is real positive.
>> move that the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> hang around a little bit.
>> mr. Gonzalez, you did a nice job, even if you were nervous. [ laughter ]
>> thank you.
>> thanks, y'all.
>> you all both do.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM