Travis County Commssioners Court
February 4, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Executive Session
Now, let's do executive session then. 30 I mentioned earlier, I have a couple of legal questions, so 30 is to discuss results of interviews with city and county starflight program employees and take action. That will be the consultation with attorney to the exception to the open meetings act. We postponed 31 until next week. 32 is to discuss, approve and take appropriate action regarding real estate issues for county clerk's office. That's the real property exception to the open meetings act. That's also announced under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 33, receive briefing from county attorney, discuss proposed settlement and give direction regarding collection claim of Travis County versus jc evans construction company incorporate and take appropriate action. Consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 34, we announced erwin center that we would pull until further notice. 35, receive briefing from county attorney and take appropriate action in theresa shields versus Travis County, Texas. Consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 36, receive briefing from county attorney and give direction regarding Travis County subrogation claim in the matter of deke pierce and take appropriate action. Consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 37, receive briefing from county attorney and/or give direction and/or take appropriate action and/or accept, reject or counter a settlement offer regarding project number 97 b 06-21-3-c let's do that again. Number 97-b-06-21-3 ca, state highway 45 south, parcel number eight, denise b. Tomlinson and Travis County, it. That's a condemnation case, consultation with attorney and the real property exceptions to the open meetings act. 38 is to discuss starflight organizational issues, receive legal advice and take appropriate action. 39, discuss certain personnel issues regarding merlin spanky handily, receive legal advice and take appropriate action. In deference to mr. Handily's previous request, we will only take this under the advice of counsel in executive session. We will not take up the personnel matters exception part. 40, receive briefing from county attorney and take appropriate action in the matter of merlin spanky handily versus Travis County, Texas, city of Austin, Texas, diana dinwiddie individually and in her official capacity, casey pink individually and in his official capacity, gordonberg, ceerch mcdonald and richard harrington, cause number a 02-ca-606 jn in the united states district court, western district of Texas, Austin division, consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. And number 41, discuss pending notice of violation from the Texas commission for environmental quality regarding leachate seepage at the u.s. 290 eastland fill and take appropriate action, consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. We will discuss these matters in executive session, return to open court before taking any action.
>> we have just returned from executive session where we discussed part of our executive session items. And got legal advice on item no. 30. We will take motions on the item that we discussed this afternoon. But I indicated this morning that I have not completed my analysis and summary of information obtained through interviews with star flight workers. And I would have that done later today. Hopefully. Therefore, at the conclusion of today's meeting, I will ask the court to recess until 1:30 tomorrow afternoon, item no. 30. And items number 39, 38, and 40. Those are the star flight related items to give us an opportunity to discuss them further. That motion will be made at the conclusion of today's meeting and looks like that will be around 3:00 and under the law we can recess the item for up to 24 hours. We are told. But with that understanding I move that we recess the commissioners court until 1:36.
>> second.
>> second.
>> all in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>>
>> Now we are ready for the rest of the executive session, right? This morning we chatted about -- we did not discuss 32. Discussed, approve and take appropriate action for real estate issues for county clerk's office. That would be the real property exception to the open meetings act. Since we're here on number 33, I move that we counter the offer to settle this matter in the amount of $212,000, which is the principal, and that we would allow up to 60 days for a lump sum statement. -- lump sum payment. Any more discussion?
>> this is number 33?
>> right. Their offer was substantially lower than that. That should be the amount in principal. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. All right. Number 35, the matter involving theresa shields versus district, move that we counter the counteroffer in the amount of $32,500. So we take up our offer to settle by $2,500.
>> second.
>> any more discussion of that one? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. 37, the matter involving denise tomlinson and in the condemnation case, move that we accept the offer to settle in the amount of an additional $33,132 in exchange for a full final settlement and release, and also a non-suit of the condemnation anticipated district court case. [ inaudible ]
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> that's to allow them until April 25th, 2003 for her to remove that so we don't do it until after that date.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. And on the starflight items, we did basically agree to recess those at the end of today's meeting. On 41 involving the u.s. 290 eastland fill, joe has a few open court comments for funding of this. Joe, do we have a response to the residents who came down and asked questions really about whether this was our problem or whether it was caused by one of our neighboring landfills?
>> we do not have a definitive answer to that. We believe at this time that most of the leacheight that we are finding right now comes from our own landfill, from rainfall percolating through our own landfill. We have no proof that any of the leachate that we see is coming from adjoining landfills, but we do not know that definitively yet.
>> what the state inspector saw was on our property.
>> that's right. It was on our property, it was coming out of a toe of our landfill, so it was pretty hard to argue that it's not ours, at least in part.
>> and use of the word filler is intended to get us to visualize a foot and at the enof the landfill?
>> the toe is at the bottom of the hill.
>> on the end opposite our neighbors?
>> totally on our property. And where the leachate is coming out is at the bottom of the hill of our landfill somewhat in the middle of the landfill, not on the property boundary. So that's not to say that somewhere in the dynamics we might not have some infiltration of adjoining property.
>> all right. But we have no evidence of it at this point?
>> right now it looks like it's ours.
>> that's not to say we can't research another causation in the future?
>> yes.
>> I was out there yesterday, and if -- if you just imagine the little dome high part of ours and our road comes around, sort of not the base, but kind of the perimeter, at least three fourths of the way down, and our well -- we've got some wells that go along there, so outside of one of those wells is where I could see the seepage coming across the little road that we drove across. And that probably -- I mean, charlie burke and I were out there and that probably is a result because we had a little bit of a recessed area on top. And when it rains, really just the seepage going down in there. So that's probably where that's coming from.
>> that's right. That's the way our engineers are looking at it right now.
>> initially we need to do some well work. Just a really rough estimate right now is about $120,000 to do that. We also need to do some survey work to find out how much subsidence we've had and how much fill material. That's probably about $15,000. The fill material itself could be as high as $200,000, labor included. So the price tag right now on the outside is somewhere around 300 and $340,000. Now, i've spoken with pbo about likely sources of funding for that, and jessica has researched alternatives, and she's here to address that.
>> tell us the good news first.
>> the real news is that we probably need to do some additional research because from -- I have a perspective from budget; however, I need legal and the auditor's office to review this for legal issues to ensure that any of these sources are available sources and free of any legal restrictions. There is a liability account out there, and I'm not going to speak very much about it other than there is one out there and it exceeds this amount. And there needs to be a discussion with county auditor and legal on that. There are some old loss fund, some of which are closed, but still budgeted this year, that has allocated rferz that might be tapped. When I set out to look at fund sources, the number I had in my head was 120,000. That was last Friday. The number, as I have heard this morning, has grown to 300 something thousand, and I haven't really researched it at that magnitude. So I do think that there are some funding sources out there. I think they need much more careful review than what i've been able to do so far.
>> how long do you think you'll seed need on that?
>> it really depends on the auditor's office and legal because I need their expertise to help me make sure that funding sources are appropriately used.
>> I think you better get it done by next Tuesday.
>> necessary.
>> yes, sir.
>> and anything -- car reserve.
>> obviously car reserve is a very obvious answer. And I don't have an idea how much money is in there, but there are resources in the car reserve that is basically like general fund money. You can use it for this purpose.
>> I think there's a message that I would want to send I think you hear here, the willingness of this court, we need to do what we need to do. And we need to find the money and we look forward to those discussions as to what is the appropriate thing to do.
>> your estimate is pretty firm, you believe?
>> pardon?
>> you think your estimate is pretty close to what the actual cost will be?
>> it's very rough. Until we have a survey, I'm afraid we're really doing a very conceptual estimate.
>> why don't we find the money for the survey first?
>> I presume we will be able to find that without any difficulty.
>> so do we need to authorize that contract or is that already in the works?
>> I believe we already have a way to do that.
>> that would be my advice. We may as well go ahead and start identifying possible sources and identifying restrictions, if any. That way we can get the hard number and we'll be ready.
>> our intent is to move as quickly as possible and to remediate with as little, you know, expenditure as needed.
>> we want to be sure that after we issue co's that we have not determined the amount before including this, but if we give assurances that we have identified other possible sources for which we think we'll be able to take the money, that makes you feel a little bit more comfortable, doesn't it?
>> we'll tabulate those first.
>> thank you, mr. Gieselman for being understanding. [ laughter ]
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> it sure does. But actually, that was the county clerk's item. I was just going to hold it until after that item, which we've already announced. We will discuss that one item in executive session and we'll return back to open court before taking any action.
>> we are back from executive session where we discussed item no. 32, I move that we ask facilities to work with the justice and public safety department to determine the feasibility of relocating. That we continue to gather information on the airport location. That we reset this matter for one week or two weeks to do an additional work on the financial analysis. To ensure -- next Tuesday is a short meeting. We expect to be able to put together something in writing that we can see Friday this week. And discuss very, very briefly on Tuesday.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> well, will we have something in writing did Friday that's very, very short that the court can read between Friday and Tuesday for a very, very short meeting. The answer turns on that.
>> if we can go ahead and roll it, then we will discuss it with the two court members that were working -- that we're working with --
>> we will roll it one week. If we are ready, we're ready.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM