Travis County Commssioners Court
April 8, 2003
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Item 36
Number 36 a is to receive report on proposed election precinct realignments. 36 b is to set public hearing for April 22, 2003, on proposed election precinct radio alignments. -- re-election alignments. And [inaudible] 34 b?
>> I do need it, thank you.
>> and we'll just take them up to the clerk.
>> keep your original.
>> good morning.
>> hi, delores lopez, voter registration. It's time again to look at the election precincts that have over 3,000 registered voters. We have approximately six precincts that have registered voters over 3,000. Five of them are in precinct 3, and one of them is in precinct 113. Commissioner one. What we have today is three different attachments to your backup. The first one talks about the precinct realignment boundary and what our recommendations are. I would be plor than glad to go over those with you in detail. The bottom of the attachment a are from special requests, those are from communities in Travis County that are requesting different things to occur. Attachment b is talking about minor bound reline adjustments. I just want to mention that very briefly, and what that is is the legislative council brings to our attention any time their maps and ours don't jive together. All this does is just to realign boundaries, don't affect any voters, just to make the effects such that we match up with the state man's. The third attachment, which is attachment c, talks about a field note boundary description changes. All that is is in the past-on or currently we've used the Austin city lime line as bound reto some precincts. As you know, the city line moves. What we want to do is fix this and just make them fixed boundaries so that when we change them, you all will make the approval to do so and not the city, the city of Austin, who changes those limit lines pretty consistently. Attachment b and c of that affect three voters only. And all of these changes. Attachment a is what I’m here to report about today. Now, what I would like to do is just to go over this with you very briefly unless you would like me to in more detail explain it to you. What we're here today to do is report on the, get your approval for a public hearing that is required for this process to take place. And the public hearing we're recommending to be approved for the 22nd, two weeks from today. And we would like to come back to you on the 29th for final approval. That's pretty much what my presentation is all about. If you would like, I can go over each precinct in detail. We've met with Commissioner Daugherty's office, Commissioner Davis' office, in detail explained our recommendations, and then the special requests as well.
>> what actual notice do we get out to impacted folk about the public hearing?
>> what we do is we send out letters to every single precinct judge, the democratic and republican parties, the green party, libertarian party. Any communities of interest, groups. The smaller democratic parties, smaller republican parties, community organizations, and let them know we will be having a public hearing. That's why we asked for it for two weeks so we can get the notice out. We also put a notice in the newspaper and asked that any interested party could attend. We have had a meeting preliminarily to talk about these recommendations. We invited all the precinct chairs, the precinct judges for those particular precincts, and some of these recommendations are an outcome of those meetings.
>> and the people actually attend the meetings?
>> we had six people show up. Pretty much all of the precincts were represented except about one or two. And they gave us some really good feedback. We don't know really a lot of the streets that have developed in the precinct, so these meets are real helpful to us. For instance, precinct 113 we have the judge helping us find the polling place. So yes, we had some good feedback. We didn't get every precinct represented, but we did get considerable feedback from those that did attend.
>> the thing that struck me were the number of ones -- I know kiker elementary was one. Just how darned creative we're having to be because of that 3,000 person limit, and that we have neighborhoods, I know in steiner ranch, certainly down in the other piece of precinct 3, down near kiker, of the neighborhood wanting to leave stay together, and so you are having to split the boundary on school property so that they technically can be at the same place, but we're having to double up in terms of the number of election judges, et cetera. As a side question, any word as to where that 5,000 limit bill is over at the legislature?
>> dana can cover that.
>> last Wednesday, I attended the elections committee hearing where that was considered. It has been amend to do increase. The original bill was written to increase at 4,000, had which quite frankly didn't help us much. But the bill has been amended to 5,000 voters per precinct. And it was voted -- the house bill was voted favorably out of committee last Wednesday and is headed to consent and calendars. The senate bill is also on the move too and is receiving considerable support. I anticipate we're going to get it done this time.
>> that's why I’m getting back to what the item is that we're posted for. Let us just say for sake of argument that we are successful in getting that upped. Would we have to come back again and perhaps make some adjustments here because some of them, like the one I mention understand steiner and kiker, the only reason we're splitting it is because we have to, and it is one where it is the same location. I think we are also doing that at wells branch in terms of the mud office.
>> several communities like that.
>> would we come back if the state law does give us that flexibility? Because it could save us dollars related to election judges.
>> right. What the senate and house bill do is increase the number of voters effective September 1st of this year. So that's something to consider. What that, I think, would be doing is eliminating the first part of your attachment a, those six precincts, we don't really need to touch them.
>> we really don't want to split them.
>> exactly. What you are referring to is the three special requests at the bottom of attachment a and those are not even considered. It doesn't have anything to do with the number of registered voters. This is just the time of year where anyone who has any recommendations would bring them forward for your approval. Really it would be up to you. You know, we can either just say if the house and senate bill get approved, we can say let's just wait and see what happens. And then move accordingly. Or you could approve these contingent upon, you know, the bill goes or the bill doesn't. Which in the past it has not gone. We are looking at this very closely because it's looking like it's gaining some steam and moving ahead so we're pretty excited about that. But no, it wouldn't answer the question for the special requests.
>> may I just add one thing, and that is that when -- when this bill passes, I’m going to be very optimistic, when this bill passes, we will have to come back to you with a whole list of other precincts where potentially we don't want to have to cause voters to drive a long distance, but this concept of neighborhood integration where we don't have to split people up and where we can put them at a really fine polling place instead of having to divide them, we'll want to bring you back as many precincts as possible that would qualify under the bill. And under our guidelines too. In far western and far eastern parts of Travis County, we're probably not going to be bringing anything back together because those precincts are large ain't requires people to drive a long way. But for the rest of the county, there will be other opportunities for you to consider.
>> dane in, in precinct 113, the polling place hasn't been established at this point. It's to be announced. When are we looking toward getting a polling place?
>> my election specialist is working on that right now. We're looking to try to find a location. He -- they are driving around, they are talking to judges. I anticipate not -- you know, unless I run into a big problem, I anticipate being able to find something in the near future.
>> there are four or five possibilities they are looking at in that area. As you know, it's heavy, it's got a lot of new development in the area, a lot of new houses, a lot of new retail areas that rick is looking at.
>> we may find an empty space in one of the shopping centers. I don't believe there's a school out there, but there may be churches, there may be a community center. There's also the possibility of one of the new apartment complexes out there might allow us to use their, what do you call that, their recreation --
>> community room.
>> community building. So there are options, but we're trying to weigh which is going to be the best one. And they are also trying to think ahead that if we were to locate a polling place out there and the law did change to 5,000, we wouldn't want to change it again. So we're looking at something more central to the area.
>> to the area, okay.
>> move that we set a public hearing more April 22, 2003, at #k- a.m.
>> -- 9:00 a.m.
>> second.
>> any more discussion in all in favor say aye. That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 9, 2003 1:25 PM