Travis County Commssioners Court
March 11, 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.
Item 38
38 is to receive report from envision central Texas and announce community test site workshops. And we have ms. Silas here with us. Afternoon.
>> great afternoon. I'd like to begin with a brief five-minute video aws jus to bring you up to date on the envision central Texas project because it's been awhile since I was here last year. So if we can roll the video, please.
>> and together they spark a third. (video playing, not audible).
>> this is about you. This is about the future of bastrop, caldwell, hays, travis and Williamson county. This is your chance to envision central Texas as you want it to be. Thousands of people decide every year to make central Texas home. They're drawn by the natural beauty and opportunities for jobs and education. During the past decade, central Texas was one of the fastest growing regions in the united states. And the population here could potentially grow to two and a half million people in 24 years. Where will more than a million new people live? Where will they work? How will they get there? How will all this affect the supply and cost of housing? What about health care, the schools that your children or grandchildren will attend, the environment, your quality of life?
>> we as residents of this area, have one of two options. We can continue to do business as usual or we can plan for the future.
>> planning for the future is what envision central Texas is all about, an opportunity for everyone to look at all the interconnected issues that affect our lives.
>> we've always looked at things in a fragmented manner. We've looked at transportation only or we've looked at the environment only.
>> in August, organizers crisscrossed the region to urge people to get involved in this project.
>> we're all connected together now.
>> it affects us all. And as -- [ inaudible ]. It's going to impact me even though we're far apart. So we have to solve a regional problem with regional planning.
>> [ inaudible ]. As a parent I'm thinking about my kids and when they're 18, 20, 25 years old are they going to look around and say, gee, it would have been nice if my parents' generation had something good here for a while -- [ inaudible ].
>> people from all walks of life are filling town halls to show where they would prefer future transportation routes, parks, neighborhoods and a business area.
>> we're not suggesting that -- [ inaudible ].
>> it's already there.
>> at each planning workshop, people discuss ideas in small groups, formulate their ideal growth strategy.
>> what about Mustang Ridge. It's slightly populated now, but it would grow if we targeted it for desired density.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> in Pflugerville we haven't done anything.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> at our table we have at least five of the county service centers, and -- [ inaudible ]. People do understand that all of us have to absorb some of the projected growth.
>> years from now thousands of central texans will have shared ideas on their vision for this area. [ inaudible ]
>> researchers will use the data from this to prepare computer models. They will consolidate designs and present various options to the general public. With each option -- [ inaudible ]. This will give everyone an idea of the cost of infrastructure and the optimal environmental impact. At that time everyone is -- [ inaudible ] the final plat will then represent the most comprehensive planning ever undertaken in the state of Texas. [ inaudible ]
>> so come on, help plan for the future. To find out how you can get involved, call 512- 916-6017. Or go to the website, www.envision central Texas.org. This opportunity is real and it is rare. Your ideas mean something. Central Texas needs you to shape the future here, to shape what life will be like over the coming years. You and your neighbors throughout the region have the power to envision central Texas.
>> envision central Texas is a project to design a plan to address the growth for bastrop, caldwell, hays, travis and Williamson counties. Focusing on transportation, land usage and the environment. With by-products with the issues of addressing affordable housing, affordable health care, social equity, economic development and education. It is the two-year planning project, and I emphasize planning because I'm going to give you some information contrary to that in just a minute. Currently the board of directors consist of 70 people, 23 of whom are on the executive committee. The planners and demogralphers tell us that since approximately 1860 the population in this region doubles every 20 years. 60% of that growth is internal growth. Internal growth is defined as us having children, our children having children, our children having children. They all remain in this area. Internal growth is further defined as our children growing off to school and coming back and staying in this area. Internal growth is further defined as other children coming to this area to go to school and staying in this area. I personally am a product of that third form of internal growth. So even if they have no economic development initiatives or drives, we can anticipate that the population will increase by 60% over the next 20 to 40 years. What makes this project unlike anything else that's been done in this region are three things. Number one, it's the first time in the history of this five-county region that people representing the environment, neighborhoods, developers, roads, mass transit, elected officials, business leaders and civic leaders have all come to the same table to help spearhead a project to address the growth. The second thing that makes it unlike anything else that's been done before is that the general populous is involved at five different points along the way, three of which have already occurred. We're in the process of number four. First, opportunity to people to participate in the pronl happened on may 18th when randomly selected individuals from all five counties were called to participate in focus group surveys to find out exactly what is it about central Texas that people value about being here. Is it the cost of housing, is it the social security, is it the quality of the schools, is it the air, is it the water? What is it that people actually value? The second opportunity for people to participate in the process happened between July 15th and July 27th when 150 people from each county were called to participate in 10-minute telephone surveys of 23 questions each. The results of the surveys and the focus groups are on the website under the resource tab. I won't delay your time by focusing on that, but I would invite you to look at it. It's broken down demographically by county as to what they had to say. The third opportunity for citizens to participate in the process happened September 13th and again on October 14th, 15th and 17th in the regional and sub regional workshops across the five county area. Six of them were held. The activity was 10 citizens around a table with a six-foot by eight foot map of the area. They were given chips that had been encoded with different density levels. They were first asked to identify where they did not want growth to occur. And then place the chips with different density levels on the map. At the end of this process all the maps, 130 plus, were gathered together. They were overlaid and the chips were electronically removed to see what pattern came out of this process. And I do recall commissioner daugherty participating in the regional workshop that we had on September 13th at the Austin convention center. Currently those scenarios are patterned, are being developed. Transportation infrastructure to accommodate each one is being designed by the transportation consultants and the economic consultants that we have hired are looking at pricing out the infrastructure associated with each one, and those will come back later this spring. I'll get to that in a minute. The fourth opportunity for citizens to participate in the process happened last Tuesday and Thursday and then again on March 31st and April 1st. Back in November we issued r.f.p.'s for small communities to submit areas, 20 acres to 2 hundred acres, that they would like modeled using our nationally recognized consultants to help them -- the communities to model how they would like that area to be developed over the next 20 to 40 years. I'd like to focus your attention on the powerpoint presentation, if we can go to that. And what i'd like to do is first of all start with this overlay of the five-county region. And I'm trying to give the media people in the back an opportunity to -- there we go. This is the five-county region. This is one of the tow poe maps that we used in the regional workshop. And this was just a base map. I want to forward ahead. This is information that you should have received in your packet giving you an up pate date on the status of the project and where we are to date. This is the old fertsdz light mattress -- fertsdz light mattress tract in east Austin. This is be one of the community test site workshops that will happen from six to 10:00 p.m. On Tuesday, April 1st, at david chapel missionary baptist church. There are nine neighborhood associations surrounding and included in this area. And we are outreaching to the residents of that area to have them come to david chapel on the first of April to model how they would like to see this area developed over the next 20 to 40 years. What is so special about this is that three of the neighborhood associations, upper boggy creek, crest chut nut, and rosewood, already have neighborhood plans that have been approved by zoning and platting and by the planning commission. So we're real excited about this site being one of the six selected for the community test site workshop. This is the second site. This site workshop will be held at mcneil high school on Monday, March 31st. If you notice the dotted line, that portion above the dotted line is in Williamson county. The portion below the dotted line is in Travis County. But practically all of this is in the travis e.t.j. This currently is a 200-acre site. When the consultants were here last week for the board meeting they got so excited about it that they wanted to maybe expand the area to be mapped or to be platted or to be planned by the residents of this area. So the 2 hundred acres may grow to be larger, but currently it's at 2 hundred acres. You notice there it's howard lane, walnut creek, abbott labs is on the right from where I'm sitting. There's mcneil high school and the -- so all the residents of this area will have an opportunity to participate in the hands on modeling for this particular tract. The third site that was modeled last Tuesday night was downtown Pflugerville. And this is it. I had an opportunity to go back to Pflugerville again last night to speak with the council of neighborhood associations, and mayor scott lynnton and one of the councilmembers were there and the chair of the neighborhood council were there, and they were all very excited about having downtown Pflugerville selected as one of the sites. So I wanted to make you aware that of the six sites that were selected for the community test sites from the r.f.p.'s that were issued last November, three of those involve Travis County. And I didn't know if you had been aware of that or not, but one of them has passed and the other two will be on March 31st and again on April 1st for these residents to actually participate and moandz how they would like those areas to look going forward. And this will be a plan they can keep. These six community test site workshops were just freebies that the consultant la threw in while they're working on the larger plan. Getting back to the three things that make this unlike anything else that's been done before, the fifth opportunity for citizens to be involved will happen beginning the Tuesday after memorial day until June 30th. And that is when we bring the four scenarios or the patterns that were developed out of the workshops this past October in September back to the public along with the infrastructure cost associated with them and the transportation systems associated with them, the pros and cons of each one, and ask the public to give us feedback on which of those they would like to see adopted in this five-county renal or parts of each one that they would like to see adopted. The feedback will not be by referendum, but we will have full page ads in all of the community papers, in the Austin business journal, in the statesman. We'll have tv spots, we'll radio spots. We'll have people at the h.e.b.'s, the randall's, the Wednesday night pray service, the cattle a auctions, wherever it is that people gather, explaining the scenarios to them, the infrastructure costs associated with each one and then ask them to get back to us via going to our website, the -- calling into a hotline number or faxing in a portion of the ad as to what their preference would be as to how we go in this five-county region. Once we have that feedback from the public, the consultants will then put together an implementation strategy, meaning if this is what the public has said they would like to see us develop to over the next 20 to 40 years, then these are the steps that may be implemented in order for us to get there. We will then distribute that to all of the jurisdictions in the five-county region for their voluntary implementation of the plan. Once that has been done, then the third thing that makes this project unlike anything else that's been done before kicks in to play in that envision central Texas will not go away. We will remain to assist the jurisdictions with their voluntary implementation of the plan. Sometimes what happens is that a jurisdiction will appoint a committee or a taskforce to study a particular issue. And the committee or the taskforce will go off, they'll study the issue, they'll come back with a very neatly bound presentation presented to the jurisdiction. The jurisdiction will thank them for their time and their energies and then dismiss them. And they'll give that particular issue or project to staff to implement. Should there be any questions or if there are roadblocks, staff then does not have the expertise of the people that initially developed the project or the issue and worked on it. So sometimes one of two things may occur. Either a work around will be developed that may or may not work. Or the plan could simply be shelved and not implemented at all. And for that reason envision central Texas is going to remain to be of assistance to the jurisdictions with their voluntary implementation of the plan. The project is also designed so that it can be revisited every five years to take into consideration any new initiatives that may have come online since last it was visited. And also so that it can be adjusted or adopted for the census information every 10 years. That is the end of my report. And I would like to ask if you have any questions of me, judge, and commissioners.
>> questions?
>> actually, I have a question for mr. Gieselman. Have we taken care of that issue? You know exactly what issue I'm talking about, so I would look forward to that being on the agenda?
>> not as of yesterday.
>> is that kind of like the n word? [ laughter ] I'm throwing that out.
>> not matrix, it's called money. We made a commitment to envision central Texas, we need to get an interlocal in place to dull pul down dollars from capital metro for that, not only that, but for the rma. Can we get this going, please?
>> how much money did we -- did the county commit?
>> it's split over two years. And the rebate from capital metro is covering the 50,000 that was going to be due this year. So next year we will be able to, but this year it's covered.
>> I promised yesterday to thet get that to them. So I'm responsible.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much for coming down. I appreciate your patience also. Commissioner Davis?
>> I would like to say that the area between manor road and all the way down to martin luther king, you're going to have a site there at the railroad line and all that stuff?
>> yes, it is.
>> so that's -- [ inaudible ].
>> yes.
>> we called it the rock quarry years ago. Hat's what we called it. That's what it was.
>> okay. I didn't know that. I wasn't aware of that.
>> yeah. Okay. I know specifically where you're talking about, though.
>> there are nine neighborhood associations associated around there.
>> right.
>> so we are -- our outreach includes having fliers delivered door to door to all of them. And we have a meeting set up with the heads of the neighborhood associations. I think it's on the 27th of March to make them aware of the -- I think -- is it -- no, it's the 24th of March, to make them aware and to help get the public out. We had 71 people at the community test site workshop in Pflugerville, and we'd like to exceed that in both feather light and mcneil junction.
>> thank you.
>> judge, I have a few questions.
>> okay.
>> can you tell me, ms. Silas, who are the contributors to funding envision central Texas? Who are they?
>> I can tell you who I'm at liberty to disclose as of today.
>> are they secret?
>> no. The others are in process and they have not been voted on yet. They haven't been voted on by others yet. So I can tell you who they are today. Bastrop county, Travis County, Williamson county, we're on the hays county agenda. That is coming forward in the future. The cities of Round Rock, georgetown, Austin, cap metro, lcra, Austin business journal, campo and capital metro.
>> and is there a budget that's been put together for this?
>> for the years of 2002 and 2003 the budget is currently at two million dollars.
>> I was interested -- as you mentioned, I had gone to the one September the 13th at the convention center. And what I was, you know, a little frightened with is that there seemed to be a very strong bent, if you will, so sort of directing what -- I guess the common denominator at my table of 10 seemed to be very strongly influenced by environment only, which bothered me at my table because it wasn't -- I don't think that my table had a well-rounded group of people that came and that was trying to play as part of the program. And I guess what bothers me about the whole program is that -- there seems to be a push towards a couple of directions that I don't -- I do not personally think that this is a totally inclusive organization from a community. And unfortunately, that's not your fault. That's no one's fault except for the fact that the people that tend to get involved in these programs are very narrowly minded with regards to what they're after. You know where they drive me crazy because it's all pushed to either public transit because of these corridors and sort of the bent that you have out of most of these groups. And I walked away with not a real good impression as to whether this was something that was really going to be embraced by the majority of the community. For example, I think that you showed in your little clip where somebody says, well, here is -- what was it, Mustang Ridge or something, they said well, nobody's there, so let's just put 50,000 people -- let's just designate that area as an area where that's going to be the case. I think Sunset Valley at our table was used, well, that's very sparsely populated, so let's just stick all of these people in this thing. I'm entertained by wondering how you all really feel like that you're going to get enough people and a cross- section of people out of a community to really come together and say, okay, we want to -- because you're not going to have this by refuse ren, I think you said, right?
>> that is correct, it will not be by referendum.
>> so what would you envision this -- how would this happen? How would you calculate those numbers and what numbers -- how many people would you think that will come to the table and really participate and have an opinion as to what exactly would happen with this whole plan? Is there a percentage that you're looking to try and get involved?
>> yes. I have a personal goal of a minimum of 30% of the populous of all five counties. That to me would be success. It's very ambitious, I know, but this board is committed to the populous of the counties being informed, being educated and being included in the process. I regret that the table at which you participated was not as well rounded as it could have been, but we try very desperately to get people to preregister so that we would have at least on a table of 10 not more than two people from a particular county. But we had a number of people that just showed up and didn't register, and in our attempt to accommodate them and put them at tables when they had not preregistered, we realized that we may have had more people from a particular stakeholder group or more people from a particular county than was desirous, so that may have influenced some of the decisions that were made around the maps at those tables. I also am very confident, because I know how this board is committed and I know the people that are on the board, including our county judge, that they want to be sure that we have allocated adequate fund in the budget to allow for outreach, which was one of the reasons why I shared with you the meetings by which we will be communicating with the public to make them aware, to educate them on the four different patterns or scenarios and then ask them to give us feedback. I don't know what else I could say, commissioner, to kind of put your mind at ease other than an additional fact we have challenged and we have -- we, the project, the board of directors, has directed the consultanting firm to come up with a method by which we would permit only an individual to vote once, so that there would not be any poll stake stacking, per se. However they vote, be it online, be it faxing in, be it calling in for a hotline number or by smoke signal, however they get the -- their preference back to us. It would only be one vote, per se, per individual. I wish I could give you more than that.
>> well, I probably need to sit down with one of the members of the court and let them walk me through what has basically been signed off on commitmentwise from Travis County and what are the benchmarks that -- kind of getting bang for the buck by going through this, because I think a lot of us in this community are a little cynical about having, like you said -- I mean, this is the first program that's taken this group, taken this group, taken this group, because we've all watched everything from the Austin plan to, you know, you name it, we have -- we have studied things to death in this community, spent gobs of money, and, you know, as long as I think that we're moving in a direction where we can qualitative and quantitatively identify, okay, this is something that we can use versus that at the end of the day I'm not real sure we got -- our $50,000 from where, cap metro? The county's pot comes out of what, cap metro?
>> precinct 2 gets a rebat back from capital metro as a participating entity. This is part of the light rail rebate where we used 250,000 for the rma application process and implementation, and 50,000 from -- for this particular project, and those were things that precinct 2 said were good for the entire county, and we would advocate that that come from that pot rather than from the general fund. It did not come from the general fund.
>> a.
>> and would precinct 3 -- because obvious through there are some of those areas out there that participate in cap metro.
>> not the unincorporated. The only unincorporated area of Travis County that is in cap metro is precinct 2.
>> it was a unanimous motion. The motion passed unanimously.
>> let them get their own money. [ laughter ]
>> I'm fully aware of it at this stage.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> thank you.
>> and there may be another opportunity on that second 50,000, though.
>> so we haven't committed ongoing years. Each year we have to look and see what we're getting, right?
>> I think we did this through the budget process.
>> we did do it through the budget process. But it was a commitment from Travis County, and they took our handshake instead of demanding a contract.
>> and they let us split it -- [everyone talking at once]. [ laughter ]
>> yes, sir. I'm trying.
>> thank you.
>> but I do think there are other questions, and we probably could have done a better job of staying engaged on this. I do think a world of good can come out of it. But I -- over the last couple of years I have been reminding my colleagues on the community action network to put together these fantastic reports replete with fantastic recommendations is one thing. Actually getting out there and I am plenting is another. And unfortunately, the implementing part costs money. But I'm happy to see that the board, envision board, has committed to staying around during the implementation phase. But I agree with commissioner daugherty, this community has done a really good job of putting together reports with fantastic recommendations, and is to follow-up implementation steps. I think we fall a bit short. But to be honor heft nest, most of the time they have cost money that we have not been willing to put up. So the thing I like about it too is you have a whole lot of partners here. Two million dollars is a whole lot of bread. If you if our contribution is 50,000, you can kind of -- you can bite that and chew it a whole lot more than that, you know, if we require I think a much bigger commitment than we seem to be willing to give during the budget produce proes. But I think it's incumbent upon us to try to stay engaged and try to implement especially the ideas that we they are real good for Travis County.
>> what I would like to do, judge and commissioners, with your permission, is forward to you a draft copy of the guiding principles that the board put together, along with the criteria from any of those principles. That's what we have given the consulting firm and the board in their meeting on next Thursday. We'll vote on those guiding principles. Et only a draft right now, but i'd be more than happy to forward those to you. Also, let me share with you that we had hired a grants consultant to go after private funding to supplement the public funds that we have to begin funding the project now and take it into the implementation phase. So our wish and desire as a five o one c three nonprofit organization and our goal is to not have to come back to you after your committed 50,000 this year and next year to sustain the project on private funding. That is our goal. And I will do my utmost to see that we stay within that goal.
>> do we only have one person off the court that's on -- that's on the board?
>> I thought commissioner Moore was on.
>> she still is.
>> actually, I was on, and I asked commissioner Moore to go for me one time when I could not, and she did. And when she left, I told neal kocurek that i'd be back.
>> Margaret Moore is also a member. Back last year in the board meeting in March, the board decided as part of the bylaws that any one of the members that came on board initially, even -- and they were an elected official, when their term expired, if they still wanted to remain on the board, then they would, because they would still be a value and they would be of benefit to the board, just because they weren't an elected official any more didn't mean that they did not have anything more to offer. So in my discussion with Margaret Moore after she was no longer a commissioner, I asked if she wanted to remain on the board, and she said yes because she thought that she could still be of value. So she is still on the board. But our representative from this commissioner's court is judge Biscoe.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ... That kept saying where are we going to stick them. And we heard folks say Pflugerville. I think we're going to be well prepared to deal with what is already coming, let alone the stuff that's really going to come when these three central Texas tollway projects come into being. I think it will play in nicely with the strategic decisions this court has made over the last eight years related to transportation infrastructure. We will actually be ahead of the curve, not behind it. That's why i've been pushing it and I think there's at least $50,000 worth of good advice we're going to get related to transportation if that's the only good stuff that comes out of this.
>> I will feel a lot better to see some of the stuff come out of here and it's not built around light rail because that's my fear. Anybody that knows me knows that is my fear. And so that's the reason that I will watch it very, very closely, and especially given who the consultants are. I mean, but maybe i'll be pleasantly surprised, beverly, and hopefully I will be.
>> you know, one of the most active members of this board and also on our executive committee is jim skaggs. I just thought I would share that information with you.
>> I knew that.
>> we want to be sure to be able to get you back again in the future.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thanks for coming.
>> thank you for having me.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM