Travis County Commssioners Court
June 10, 2003
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Item 16
Number 16 is to discuss and take appropriate action on interlocal agreement with the city of Pflugerville for improvements to Travis County's northeast metropolitan park.
>> we did have a previous interlocal, and I think the question is what happened to it and how does it overlap?
>> thank you. Joe gieselman with the transportation and natural resource department. We have a northeast metropolitan park and we have constructed soccer neelds on the northeast portion of the park. Several years ago a developer dedicated 59 additional acres of land adjoining the park and dedicated it had to both the city of Pflugerville and to Travis County. The city of Pflugerville has a sewer treatment plant on the other side of the 59 acres. Both the city and the county wanted to construct ball fields, baseball fields, on the 59 acres. And so we started talking about the use of the 59 acres. And also allowing the city to have access to a sewer treatment plant by way of the park road that the county constructed to its park. What this agreement does is several things. Number one, it memorial memorializes that both entities want ball fields on the 59 acres. We have subsequently gotten voter approval for bond fund to develop ball fields on the 59 acres. The city of Austin -- city of Pflugerville, through this agreement, will supplement those bond funds up to a million dollars to complete for the ball fields. The county was going to go in and put practice fields in. The city will come in and actually allow us to complete the fields with lighting, irrigation, bleachers, the whole nine yards. So the four practice fields literally become completed ball fields. So now we will have eight completed, fully irrigated ball fields on the 59 acres. So the city, with its million dollars, will enhance the park road to accommodate truck traffic to the sewer treatment plant. That's the first thing. The second thing we will do is build the spur road that goes across the 59 acres to the sewer treatment plant that will give them new access to the sewer treatment plant, but will also build a park road to the ball fields. We will jointly build the ball fields and give us eight fully developed ball fields. Then finally, we will participate 50/50 in the gate that gives access not only to the park, but to the sewer treatment plant. A card-actuated gate that they can get in and we can get in as well after hours. Now, the other element to this is new, and that is the easement for the raw water line. In the intervening two years, the city needed a reliable water supply, and they are developing a reservoir up on pfluger lane. They're going to draw water from the colorado river and pump it up, a raw water line to this reservoir. They have asked us to use an easement along the eastern boundary of the park as pasht of the route to get the raw water line up to the reservoir. So this is the easternmost segment of the park. We will have a public hearing basically allowing them to use that 40-foot easement along the park boundary. In exchange they will fence the entire eastern boundary of the park. We expect at some point the adjoining property will develop into subdivisions and we'll need some kind of a fence to delineate the boundary. The city will pay for that fence in exchange for the easement. And the easement will not in any way get in the way of our involvement of the park. So we thought it was a good way to share costs. That's pretty much the deal.
>> judge, the only thing I would add is in relation to the sewer plant, that is the source of the water that we get for northeast metro park, so we have a vested interest in making sure that that plant is operated and run well. Also in terms of where this money is coming from for the city of Pflugerville, they had set aside money to improve a parallel road to our park road that is lovingly called sewer rat alley, which I hope with this interlocal goes away, but it's quite entertaining to see the street sign that says this. And rather than improve sewer rat alley, they are going to put those dollars into upgrading our road and it's one of those win-win situations, rather than them going through all the expense of upgrading a parallel road to our road, these dollars can appropriately be going into an extension of the park road to serve the 59 acres, and monies that can go in to upgrading the practice fields into full fledged fields as opposed to sewer rat alley. So I think it's really an example of win-win for everybody in terms of a better way of us leveraging our resources.
>> second.
>> I would move approval if there are no further questions.
>> so the other interlocal goes away?
>> there is one interlocal agreement that we set up for the water rates. That does not go away. Nor do we want it to go away. So we have referenced that other interlocal. This is the only other agreement we have with the city on the park. This agreement had earlier approval from the court, but we had not executed the agreement.
>> that was the 2001 agreement?
>> that's right. Because there were several things that were happening. First of all, we had the bond election. Subsequent to that the city at the new reservoir and the raw water line, so we said why don't we just go ahead and further amend this draft agreement and get it executed.
>> so we pulled the provisions from the 2001 agreement and put them in this one?
>> that's right.
>> and the water purchase information, that still stand and remains related to our purchase of water from the treatment plant?
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> judge, and on item 5 --
>> I'm sorry. One final comment. You will see the award of the bid on the ball fields on your agenda next week. And we will certify this revenue because we needed the revenue to pay for the construction.
>> nice job on getting this thing worked out. It's a creative way to make things work. Congratulations.
>> the other creative thing is we got an addition of 59 acres of land that these days is probably valued at 15,000 an acre. We bought our land out there for five thousand an acre, but things have upped and that is land that comes into the public domain at no cost.
>> great job.
>> good job.
>> judge, on item of I would like to be added as being the second.
>> have Commissioner Gomez voting on 6.
Last Modified: Tuesday, July 10, 2003 7:52 PM