Travis County Commssioners Court
March 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.
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication next. This is to give residents and non-residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda. For us to -- for up to a full 3 minutes. Melissa does have her clock ready. Today if you are here on an agenda item, we request that you -- we have interviews scheduled for this afternoon. This morning we are trying to get a full day's work in in a half a day. Judge bob perkins is the first speaker, followed by kenneth schnieder.
>> good morning, commissioners and judge. We have some good news here for you today. I would like to introduce. I know that you already know jim rust. Head of our probation office. I would also like to introduce to you isco livanos the chief bookkeeper for the probation department. As you all know for the last couple of years we have been on a computer system that did not do bookkeeping very well. All of the transactions that we have done in the last few years have had to be done manually. Had to be done by hand. She is the chief bookkeeper, you all sent over I think an attachment of 10 book keepers, how many extra people, seven more people that you all gave us I believe a year and a half ago to work on that. So that they could do everything that the computer was supposed to do. Last year $4,867,000 that was for fine and court costs tendered to Travis County. Some of that was treal transactions -- actually transactions from the budget year of 2001. All of that was done by hand. By ms. Livanos and her staff. In addition to that, they also disbursted $3,182,889 to -- in restitution to victims of crime. A few months ago, you all voted to help probation by signing a contract with -- with csc which started doing our bookkeeping for us financially. And today we have a check for you for $313,639.29 which represents the first check given out under csc's auspices, in other words since they have been doing the bookkeeping. This represents the amount of money taken in through February the 26th of this month. And -- and also I wanted to say that when we would have to do these disburstments last year, ms. Livanos would have to come in and work on the computer because it would crash if you tried do it during the week. She would have to come in on the weekends and do it. It would take her 10 hours to do all of the disburstments to the state, county, all of these victims. Now with csc with the system that you all are paying for for us to get this bookkeeping done it takes her 30 minutes, right? She can do it during the day while the computer is still processing other payments, everything, we are here to thank you, give you all this check --
>> judge -- how much, the amount of the check.
>> this check is 313,639.29. And this represents February 1 through February 26th. And these are fines, court costs and attorneys' fees. Also we wanted to recognize ms. Livanos, judge Biscoe I believe that you had given an e-mail back to jim about the work that she had been doing everything. So we -- pursuant to your e-mail we wanted to bring her down here and introduce her to you all and thank her for the work that she's been doing.
>> thank you very much for all of those weekends.
>> good to meet you dragon slayer, we appreciate your work.
>> we think that pretty soon we are going to have even all of the amended conditions changed over this month, which is actually a lot faster than anybody anticipated. We were thinking that at the end of March we would have all of our regular data on there. And we would have to do the amended conditions later. Now it turns out that things are accelerating so quickly with this system that we are going to probably be able to get a lot of that on in March, so we are going to be able to bring back to you the employees that you all give us those extra bookkeepers, we are going to be able to give those back to you all pretty soon, so you all will be able to redeploy them to another department or whatever it is that you all need to do. Thank you very much.
>> on behalf of the residents of Travis County, we will accept that check. [laughter]
>> thank you, judge.
>> kenneth schnieder.
>> my name is kenneth snyder, north ridge acres, capital city colonial. I feel there's a conspiracy somewhere with the county and with the city. Somebody is trying to do something. We lost three families out of there last week. They could not pay 648 for water. I gave you all a coach it and everything but -- a copy of it. I forgot my briefcase. I can't understand how come we have to be out there with the disaster neighborhood, fighting -- trying to get help out there. We don't have a commissioner to go to. I have been talking to doherty, I appreciate everything that I have been hearing from him, but we do not have a commissioner in precinct 2 at all. In Williamson county we don't have a commissioner at all. Nobody to talk to. This is a -- this is something that's got to be fixed. All of the water lines sitting there in the ditch is -- daugherty has seen what I'm talking about. Made out of conduit, half the time we don't have any water. When we do turn the water on, water running three or four hours to get the trash out of the lines because they do not flush the lines outs there since the state took it over. They do not send boil water notices out there since the state took it over. Tnrcc can do anything he wants to. Mine was 85 last month, probably $150 this month, I have been watching it real close, I don't know pumping the meters, making them run more, I guess the pressure going down, up, up, down, is what's kicking the meters over. There's no way that anybody can use $680 -- $647 in water. I had a restaurant and car wash, they never run that much water back then. 48 for 2,000 gallons of water. Every over there, you pay $5 for a thousand gallon, then up from there. It's the rate is all it is, being raped out there. Some kind of conspiracy to the county and to the state on account of this here. I don't know what it is. I wish that I could find out what it is, there's got to be a problem when they dig ditches out there, you can put a body in that burial. Thing about it is, it's in front of my house, dug out so wide and deep everything, I'm all going downhill. I don't know what the problem is there, there has got to be a problem. They are digging all the way to the utility easement. Digging up the utility easements for the drainage. That's how come the water line is sitting on top of the ground. Of course two inch water lines is not -- not enough for our 300 families sitting out there. 10 houses on a two inch water line, 10 houses. Tnrcc said if you have any complaints send them a letter. They will not take a complaint over the telephone. And I called government's office, she made a call for me and everything. She said that they are supposed to take the complaints over the telephone, supposed to come out immediately when you turn a complaint in. They told me, brown, everything, if you have any kind of complaints and everything, send a letter. Water bill, you don't like your water bill, they charge you to come out there and read it, change it, I cannot understand how come they can do anything they want to do, we were on the system years ago, we had violations, they come out there and fine us and everything else. But this guy can do anything that he wants to. We need sewer worse than water. We have water sitting on sewer, behind the houses even worse. I cannot understand how come we have such a heartless person sitting there in precinct 2 who do not care. She said right up there at the city council in Round Rock she ain't going to do nothing for this neighborhood.
>> thank you, mr. Schnieder. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> thank you. .
>> good morning, commissioners, judge Biscoe, thank you for the opportunity to address you. My name is Karen ascott, and I currently serve as the chair of the Austin regional group of the sierra club. I'm addressing you today on the issue of the northeast county landfills. I think you're well aware by this point that there are some very deeply, unpleasant, sometimes naws 80ing odors emanating from those landfills. This may affect only a small percentage of the county population, but I think it has a very severe detrimental effect on their quality of life, really bad impact on these people. Nobody should have to put up with this given the technology to today's landfill operation allow the landfill to be operated without producing that kind of odor. Something really needs to be done because these people have been suffering for quite awhile. But in addition, these problems extend far beyond the odors. We need to find out what's causing that stench. And right now I don't think anybody has a good answer for that question. That same site out there I think underneath what is now the wmi suit used to be a recipient of industrial waste for a year or two back in the '70's. According to what I read, nobody knows exactly what kind of chemicals were dumped in there, but there were some huge pits that were just filled with hazardous and toxic chemicals. 30 years ago when that site was operated that way, the regulations governing landfills were very, very different from today and much more lax. I'm not the expert, although I think there are some experts in this room, but pacifically I think they were just digging pits and dumping things in there. That produces a lot of stuff probably leaking out of there and we probably don't know what it is. And I think we're looking at a potentially very severe groundwater pollution problem, but there hasn't been enough testing done so far to really even establish how bad the problem might be. I'm asking you to do everything in your power, first of all, to have some thorough testing done. And secondly, to make these landfill operators comply with the best available technologies to eliminate the problems of leachates and odors. There should be no expansion of the landfill permitted until they've complied with modern technology and up to date regulations and really eliminated those problems. And in the long-term as a region, I think we need to be addressing the question of trash production and just looking at how to reduce that as a society. I realize that's a big question, but overall we should be making efforts in every -- every opportunity because the problem won't go away on its own, it will always be in somebody's backyard. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much. Ms. Thorson.
>> yes. I'm reading this letter which you all received by e-mail. I would like to read it into the public record. And it's from a number of neighborhood representatives. Our position on the northeast neighbors -- the position of northeast neighbors on landfill issue. We respect that the county has an obligation to cooperate with the city of Austin and capco for the proper disposal of solid waste generated within the county. We also know that the county has an equal or greater responsibility to protect the health and safety of its constituents. There's certainly merit in passing at the earliest possible date an ordinance that will protect the health of the county residents and affect sensible land use within the county. This ordinance should include strong signing provisions as incentives for private operators to find less populated, rural sites for future populations. It would also assist capco in addressing the balance of reasonable landfill site location over the broader region and the utilization of transfer stations in more developed central portions of the metropolitan region. Such an ordinance would do nothing to protect the health of northeast area residents who are already in endanger byked existing toxic landfill within the northeast cluster of landfills. Only strong enforcement of state environmental laws by tceq will afford public health protection on these particular existing permitted sites. No matter what the county does, this health threat to the northeast area residents will probably continue for the life of the existing permits. Therefore it is vital that the signing provisions implemented in a new ordinance also apply to any vertical and lateral expansions of existing landfills. So just what are we asking the county to do? We are asking that there be no county contract provisions that allow or construction actively sponsor expansion of the northeast area landfills, either laterally or vertically. If the city of Austin can pass a resolution expressing care and concern for the citizens of the world resulting from the infinite impact estimates of a war in iraq, then Travis County and the city should do no less for its sit accepts and pass a resolution against further expansion of the northeast landfills. This will allow time for regional alternative sites to be explored by capco. There is no capacity crisis in Travis County requiring that you now address the expansion of the northeast landfills on an emergency basis. And without studying the possible impact on the health of residents in the northeast area. What position will the county be in if it now implements contracts that in effect sponsor expansion of the northeast landfills and more ominous fact service by the closed toxic waste landfill. What will be the final price on public health from the impact of these landfills? I would just like to read the people who signed this letter, if you don't mind. Derek english, northeast action group. Mark and melanie mansion. Joyce best, harris branch. Joyce thorson. Due we brooks, chimney hills north, the impact of chimney hill Austin. Zora williams, l.b.j. Neighborhood.
>> thank you, ms. Thorson. Thank you very much. [ inaudible ] israel.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> anybody else for citizens communication, whether you signed in or not? The consent items are next.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM