Travis County Commssioners Court
March 18, 2003
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Item 26
On the advertising issue, number 26, actually, a phone call came in from -- was it a Travis County newspaper, I guess, not on this list?
>> yes, it is.
>> some issues were raised. One was why was he not on the list. I know we rotate these. The second issue was that one newspaper on this list apparently, according to this person, used to be in Travis County, but is now in Williamson county. And our approach has been sort of two parts. Some of our advertising has to be in newspaper general circulation, and I view that as the state man and chronicle.
>> yes, our legal requirements, a newspaper in circulation, we have to advertise in a general circulation newspaper, and there's two in the county that meet that legal requirement, and that is the statesman, Austin chronicle. So we about four or five years ago competitively bid this, and most of my advertisements or bid solicitations go in the chronicle because we save about $100,000 by doing that. The other public notices of a lot of the owe lekted officials -- elected officials still goes into the american-statesman. So we have a contract with those two newspapers to meet that legal requirement. In our hub efforts, we started letting people -- we were rotating advertisements. And what we decided to do about a year ago was the ad that I passed out to you, we are putting this ad in each of these newspapers once a month, and it's very generic. It tells people that we want to do business with them and where they can get to get information on solicitations and get in touch with our office. When mr. Submits from our office called me yesterday, he said that it was the hill country news that had concerns -- or somebody was calling about the hill country news, that they were not in Travis County. Now, I have not called this gentleman, but I will after court. But in the bid that he submitted, he said that he was a minority or small business newspaper in Travis County with an average circulation of about 28,000, and a reader ship of about 90,000. So we will call and verify that hill country is still circulating in Travis County and it's not -- if he's only in Williamson county, we can save this money. We're paying about anywhere from 100 to $150 a month to advertise this ad in those minority and small newspapers.
>> our office has had a subscription to the hill country news for a long, long time, and I think technically it is published in Cedar Park, but the range of what they do in terms of coverage, we were regular willing visiting with the reporters from the hill country news to talk about things that were going on on the north lake shores stuff related to precinct 2 and things going on in the 183 corridor. They very much cover what's going on in Travis County, whereas the only other paper that's on the north shore on that side there is the one out of lag go, and it has a very small circulation and would not meet the definition of general circulation, and only really serves that small purpose, whereas the hill country does that and everything else.
>> the question here is the hub. Do they meet the hub definition?
>> they are a small or minority newspaper. I don't know if they are just small or if they're minority.
>> what about the other one that was left out? What about the other one that was left out?
>> I don't know --
>> not hill country. It was another one.
>> was it the log?
>> well, the way it was explained to me, there was one company that owned the hill country news, the lago vista, the north shore --
>> his only position was if we're trying to do this to help Travis County businesses, which was our intention, then the hill country news is not in Travis County. Now, I don't know that our intention was to promote business with newspapers that had some circulation in Travis County. I thought it was Travis County business focus.
>> Karen was saying that there is circulation in Travis County.
>> absolutely. --
>> in my view that wasn't sufficient. That wasn't the purpose of what we were doing. In my view all the businesses listed here basically have offices in Travis County. And if you're a Williamson county business that has some circulation in Travis County, in my view that does not squarely cover our intention. Now, involve to be wrong -- I don't have to be right on this deal, but two questions. The guy was concerned about how he could get added to the list, and the second thing was -- and I didn't speak with him. Dan talked to him and then he passed it on, so we can get back to him and just let him know. I do think that hill country news is important enough for us not to include it in the motion at this time and just have it on next week.
>> I guess I'm confused --
>> see what the facts are.
>> I guess I'm confused because our intent was to -- it didn't matter if the business was in Williamson county, it was the reader ship and the circulation that we were reaching those readers. And we do this not to meet any sort of legal notice, but just to improve the minority and small business community knowing what we're doing and that they can do business with us.
>> I have never had an intention of helping a hub business in another county unless I intentionally did that.
>> we're trying to reach the businesses, not the newspaper business, but the businesses and individuals who do business in the county and find out about our solicitations through that newspaper.
>> can we find out the location of all these businesses, not just hill country news?
>> so you want to know the location of a newspaper business, not the circulation of their newspaper is not important or it is?
>> well, bring back circulation too.
>> bring it all.
>> need to verify that what he submitted in his bid was correct, is that he has --
>> answer those two questions, where the business is located and the circulation.
>> his business is located in Cedar Park. That's where the newspaper is.
>> Williamson county.
>> let's find it out for sure. So we won't pick on him or it, let's find out the same information for the businesses listed here. Then there's a policy question and we'll just address it next week, however the court shakes out. I have a firm belief on it. I don't have to be right, I just have to cast my vote as I think I should. The third thing, though, is I think we will find out who called and basically the same information from that business. Dan ought to have the name of the business of whoever called yesterday.
>> he called me yesterday late afternoon and i've got that phone number.
>> judge, it we can take it next week, but I tend to agree with you. I think i've heard over and over that Travis County can't spend money in other counties for those -- for serp things, but -- certain things, but I think we ought to be consistent, that we need to take care of Travis County businesses, small businesses, and we ought to take care of Travis County business. And if Williamson county wants to support that paper so that they can circulate in Williamson and travis, that's Williamson county's business.
>> the point I need to make is that the readers are in Travis County who are reading that newspaper.
>> please understand my point.
>> I disagree with you. There's a newspaper in elgin that circulates in manor. They're not on this list. I never promoted it. They're not in Travis County.
>> when we put a solicitation out, they didn't bid.
>> that's okay. We're trying to make a point to you.
>> can I ask for one more thing to be added for information. Could you please let us know what we put in the solicitation, whether they would be disallowed if they were not located in Travis County? What I'm concerned about where this is headed is that we have construction bids on a weekly basis and we're not asking people where are you from in terms of if they are the low bid --
>> is your circulation in Travis County. [everyone talking at once].
>> there's no way in the world to compare this to a construction bid. There's no way in the world to compare this to a bid that we receive on transportation projects from out of county firms. Different laws kick in on construction bid projects. The low bidder, unless disqualified gets the contract. On this, though, this is our effort --.
>> this is like public relations to get the word out what our solicitations are so these other companies that are doing the construction can bid on it.
>> but it's $150 in the pockets of small business, and I'm saying small businesses in Travis County ought to be our intention. If the majority of the court thinks small business in the world or in central Texas, so be it. I'm shoat voeting in small business in Travis County.
>> are we going -- it's okay. We'll deal with this next week.
>> are we going to take a motion on all but the hill country news today?
>> I think we'll hold the whole deal back.
>> so we can check everybody out.
>> I guess move it forward.
>> explain to me one more time about what you said about the statesman. How do you do the statesman?
>> what the purchasing ablght says is that by law we have to advertise our solicitations that are over $25,000 in a newspaper in the county of general circulation. For years and years and years, the only newspaper that met that requirement was the statesman. Several years ago the chronicle started getting their membership up to where it counted. We put out a competitive bid, and the chronicle gave us about a 50% discount off the statesman. We've saved probably $100,000 a year on advertisements. We also, which is important, did a survey of our bidders, where are you finding out about our solicitations, and and only one percent were finding out about it in the newspaper. So part -- so what we had to do was we advertised our solicitations in the chronicle. Other elected officials wanted it in the statesman, so we have a contract with the statesman for those notices. As part of our hub outreach in the community, we are advertising in these minority and small business papers that are very community oriented, and that is just to get everybody the businesses that want to do business with us, that read those newspapers to find out how to get in touch with us and how to go on to our website to find the solicitations. So we've got two purposes. We've got a legal requirement and we've got a hub program outreach effort in putting our advertisements in these small newspapers and minority newspapers.
>> it really is more of a cost thing. I mean, it was a better call to make to meet the letter of the law with the chronicle versus the statesman. It's not like the statesman is going to come up to me and go, you know, you've got everything in the united states on that page other than the "austin american-statesman." And the response is, you know, we put it out for a bid and this met the letter of the law, this is the reason we did that. It was more of a cost thing, right?
>> with the statesman. And that meets our legal requirements. I mean, we are not required to advertise in any of these other newspapers.
>> and the statesman, that contract I think came forward four, six, eight weeks ago. We've already renewed that one. Plus when you have all the tax rate information, the statesman is about the only one where you can fit everything so we're not dealing with like a .2 font where you physically couldn't read it.
>> I guess people respond to the bids as they see fit, but I don't think i've ever noticed some of these minority-based hub newspapers that are located in Travis County. I was going through here and I was just wondering -- and they were not on the list. And I'm not saying that they weren't aware of it as far as receiving business from Travis County, but there's a couple of them that I notice that aren't on here that I thought should have been here. But as far as them not responding to the bid, I guess that's -- they didn't respond to the bid. I'm quite sure you may have gotten everything out according. Because this is an annual thing.
>> what we have done, commissioner, is when -- we did have some newspapers that did not submit bids. Because we're spending well under $25,000 with these smaller newspapers, I have added some newspapers in this because we're only spending about $1,200 a year with these smaller papers. So we have added newspapers that were small, minority newspapers to the list.
>> we'll have the whole item back on next week.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM