Travis County Commssioners Court
May 13, 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
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That brings us then to the executive session items. And they begin with 16 a and b. That is to consider offers and take appropriate action for land acquisition and exchange along blake-manor road (cip # 01-b01-05-1ra): a. Accept, reject or counter owner's offer to sell land for additional right-of-way from bell/nash - rathgeber joint venture; and. B. Accept, reject or counter owner's offer to exchange land for additional right-of-way from robert m. Schoolfield.
>> > those are posted under the consultation with the attorney and real estate matters exception. The next item would be number -- number 22. 22. Consider accepting, rejecting, or countering an offer to sell right of way for the grand avenue parkway project in precinct two (parcel numbers 5, 11a and 11b). That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act and real estate matters exception to the open meetings act. We also need number 25. To discuss in executi e session first, only 25 a which is to consider recommendations for assigning duties to a manager(s) and officials from duties now handled by the executive manager of justice and public safety, and take appropriate action. This will be under the consultation with attorney, because I do have a couple of legal questions and the personnel matters exception to the open meetings act. 28. Receive briefing from county attorney and authorize county attorney to accept, reject or counter offer for settlement and/or take appropriate action concerning the matter of fortview, inc. V. Travis County, Texas, in the district court of Travis County, Texas 353rd judicial gn300127. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 29. Receive briefing from county attorney and authorize county attorney to accept, reject or counter settlement offer and/or take appropriate action in murray, et al. V. Earle, et al. No. A-02-ca-252-ss. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 30. Accept, reject or take other appropriate action on counteroffer received from r-bar-b properties, inc. For land for bcp purposes. This is the bccp.
>> > [indiscernible]
>> > don't need that one. Need it next week or just pull it?
>> > next week.
>> > all right. We will have number 30 on next week. That will be may 20th. We will not discuss that one in executive session. 31. Receive briefing from county attorney and take appropriate action regarding barbara oakly, as legal guardian for richard danzinger v. City of Austin, hector polanco, et al. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 32. Receive briefing from the county attorney in Travis County v. Lillian plemons (r. Unnikrishnan appropriate action. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 33. Receive briefing from the county attorney in Travis County v. Gerald lucas payne, jr. (coyne gibson resale deed) and take appropriate action. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 34. Receive briefing from county attorney and authorize county attorney to accept, reject or counter offer for settlement and/or take appropriate action concerning the eeoc claim of helen hodge no. 360a300151. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. And the final action that we will discuss in executive session will be number 35, receive briefing from county attorney in Travis County v. The russo companies (r. Unnikrishnan resale deed) and take appropriate action. That is different from number 32, although it involves the same buyer. That's posted under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. We will discuss these matters in executive session and we will return to open court before taking any action.
>> > we have just returned tr executive session where we discussed the following items. Item number 16, involving a possible.
>> > change of right-of-way to facilitate the Travis County make-manor road project.
>> > judge, I move that we accept the offer for land acquisition along blake-manor from bell nash joint venture for the amount of $1,880.
>> > and that would authorize the county judge to execute the prepared purchase contract?
>> > yes.
>> > [inaudible - no mic].
>> > and the b portion, that we accept the offer of exchange of land along blake-manor from a robert m. Schoolfield for that property along blake-manor. And that we authorize precinct 1 Commissioner Ron Davis to execute the real property exchange contract prepared by the county attorney's office.
>> > I go along with that motion.
>> > any more discussions? We have a second for each? All in favor? That passes by a unanimous vote. And the next item is also a real estate matter. It is number 22. And it involves the grand avenue parkway project.
>> > judge, I move that we accept the offers related to the acquisition of parcells number 5 and 11-a and 11-b and we do everything we can to expedite moving along with this project in accordance with the terms and conditions.
>> > and that we authorize the county judge to sign the Travis County purchase contract prepared in both cases?
>> > yes, sir, that would be along with it.
>> > okay. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Number 28, we did discuss. I move that we reject the offer to settle and have it back on the court's agenda next week in case action is necessary.
>> > second.
>> > any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote and that was a matter involving the fortview incorporated versus Travis County. Item number 30 we postponed until next week, did not discuss. 29, the matter involving murray versus ronnie earle.
>> > I move that we reject the offer.
>> > any more discussion? @l in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Do we need that on next week or pull until further notice? Have is back on? Okay. I'm the one with the sore throat. I expect you to speak up.
>> > yes, sir.
>> > 31 is the matter involving richard danziger and the city of Austin and others. We did receive the presentation. No action required today. Back on next week just in case?
>> > yes, sir.
>> > number 32 is a proposed resale deed. I move that we execute the retail deed to r.unnikrishnan because he has given us in cash the bid of $2,659.16.
>> > second.
>> > any more discussion? All in favor? Thars fa passes by -- that passes by unanimous vote. Number 33, I move that we execute the proposed resale deed to coyn gibson for the amount of 3,546-point $55, which he has given us. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. On item number 34 involving the eeoc claim of ms. Hodge, we did receive the presentation. No action required today.
>> > [inaudible - no mic].
>> > we can renew our settlement offer, which was in the amount of $12,500.
>> > second.
>> > any more discussion? That was the final offer last time, and based on the facts that we know in the law, that still is. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Number 35 is another resale deed to the same r. Unnikrishnan, but for a different amount of $4,917.63, which he has paid us. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Now, going back to number 25, which involved several matters. The first is a recommended assigning of duties to individuals in the court. I recommend that we approve the proposed reorganization, which has a criminal justice coordinator on one side to really cover for what used to be criminal justice planning. We have posted this position and I move that we ask carol coburn to serve as the acting coordinator at the same rate of compensation she receives now. And that's that part of it, unless katy broderick changes her mind. I keep looking for the coordinator. Haven't changed your mind yet?
>> > no, sir. [ laughter ]
>> > you don't have to say it so lovingly. [ laughter ]
>> > the second part of this motion is that we ask dan any hobby to serve as emergency services coordinator, that we ask the county judge to chat with him about reasonable compensation for the additional duties and responsibilities, which the court believes should be from the 10% increase range. We will put mr. Hobby at a grade 24 at a salary of around 80,000. And that's important because if we do not act on the grade increase for the criminal justice coordinator today, let's indicate our intention to find the suitable candidate and have the coordinators make roughly the same, but we have posted that with enough flexibility for us to pay less or more for the same, depending on the qualifications of that person. And then the starflight part of this be coordinated by a subcommittee of the Commissioners court, and in addition to starflight, I guess it's consolidated with dr. Roth. And those two members of the court will be?
>> > i'd love it if it's me and Gerald.
>> > i'd love it if it's Karen and myself. [ laughter ]
>> > we would love it if y'all would do that. [overlapping speakers]. [ laughter ]
>> > and there's a method to the madness in that I sit on the e.m.s. Advisory board on behalf of the Commissioners court and as Gerald loves to tell us, he's got 49,000 esd's in his past.
>> > don't be making excuses as to why you want to be on this with me. [ laughter ]
>> > the final part of this will be for the person recommended for the newly created administrative associate position, which will constitute a reclass. That's hrmd has already been asked to take a look at that. We have them expedited, the intention of the court to follow that recommendation to reclass this person. I asked this person to pick up the additional duties and responsibilities, and I think that covers all that we're going to do today. We'll have this matter back on next week for follow-up and cleanup action.
>> > judge, I think you had made mention that danny was going to go to a pay grade 24. And I think we're going to leave him at the -- I thought it was at 23 and then taking him up. Is that --
>> > he was a 21.
>> > he was a 21.
>> > [inaudible - no mic].
>> > okay. So 24 is correct then.
>> > yes. 24 is correct.
>> > danny is like me, he believes the compensation is a little more important than the classification grade.
>> > yes, sir!
>> > but I think the other thing is that if we leave that open for a short time and indicate to be equitable moneywise, I think we can hold that position for a while.
>> > judge, can I say --
>> > ms. Broderick?
>> > on behalf of the cord administration -- court administration office and pbr, I wanted to ask if you might be ready to go ahead and make that move of the research analyst from criminal justice planning to court administration permanent? That's the one they have temporarily this year. And that way they can withdraw the budget request that they have already made for a se research analyst, so pbo won't have to work on that any more.
>> > they have borrowed, and it's absolutely needed.
>> > I think we ought to see a memo indicating what good this person has done and how critical the person is to that office. I do know part of this is this person not ending up in this reorganization, but another question is should the person go over there. I chatted with ms. Hail and what she said was consistent with what you just said, so I don't think we'll have any problems, but I think we ought to get us a memo basically setting forth the justifications.
>> > I'm sure she's already written up a justification for the budget request. Thierks on for next week, judge?
>> > yes. There will be some cleanup--up.
>> > have it back on next week?
>> > for administration purposes also, since y'all have already adopted the organizational structure with starflight and with e.m.s., Reporting to a subcommittee of the court, can you state that that will be a separate department for purposes of accounting so that a new department number can be established in hte so that their budget can proceed for '04?
>> > that's friendly.
>> > yeah.
>> > and also ij we need action on a new division number being established in department 47 for technology and communications to be moved under the emergency services budget for '04.
>> > I don't have any problem with it. One reason I was bringing it back was I was left with the impression that the court was out of time, so I caught myself doing what was critical today and some other little things that I know we didn't quite discuss, but those were all friendly. So let's get them done.
>> > I'm not sure this is small enough from the department's perspective. There was an interest in transitioning one of the slots to yet another slot to free up the posting of an admin associate's position. An employee who has been on leave without pay, we had wanted to make some arrangements to create a situation where we could clear this position for posting for the department. We can bring that back.
>> > I had planned -- I wanted to approve this reorganization scheme. I marked' mine we were going to get another one. There's a narrative that clarifies the motion. What I was trying to do was really hit the highlights of this today, which I think the motion probably does, but on some of the other little fine tuning, I know I will get in the minutes a copy of this without my markings, along with a little narrative that indicates sort of step by step what it does.
>> > and judge, I think one of the points is always that we wanted to make sure that we had told hr to please go ahead and post it in terms of looking at what is a proposed administrative associate's job in terms of looking at the paperwork associated with a conversion of that particular slot that we can discuss.
>> > that was in the motion?
>> > yes. And I have one one more little cleanup thing to think about between now and next week. This is to tie into what was part of the pier report on starflight. -- peer report on starflight. We have this on this chart as kind of this dot, dot, dot, dot around our program manager as though somehow that that's an alien being. The reality that was reinforced to me if our starflight report is that that is a county reimbursed position and we act as though that is not a county person. 75% of that program manager slot is paid for by Travis County. I'm trying to think if we can figure out some creative way to take more ownership of that slot that even though they may be on a city of Austin payroll, 75% of this is a county reimbursed position, and we need to act like that person is more of a part of our organization as opposed to not being part of our organization. So I think that's one of the problems that we've got is that somehow we've got the city-county thing and that's really not a starflight thing. And we need to figure out a way to address the fact that that is a county-reimbursed position.
>> > well, all the fun that you and I are going to have on that committee...
>> > but I started to think about that. That's one of the problems is that we act like that person somehow is not beholden to Travis County and nothing could be further from the truth.
>> > I feel real comfortable that the two of you will handle it. [ laughter ]
>> > any more discussion of the ever-growing motion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. Thank y'all very much. Appreciate y'all's patience too. We're adjourned.
>> > second.
>> > all in favor? That pass by unanimous vote.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 13, 2003 7:52 PM
