Travis County Commssioners Court
July 15, 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 12
12 is consider and take appropriate action on additional recommendations on air quality initiatives.
>> just for the record, I was awake.
>> sure you were, joe. We made you wait so long. That's my way of apologizing.
>> actually he turned 65 during that -- [laughter]
>> I can quickly get that information for you. Www..traviscad.org for anybody that would like to get on the web.
>> you had asked us a few weeks ago to come back with measures that Travis County government could implement this ozone action season. So what we have before you are some additional measures that we will consider, including in our action plan for this year. All of them are vehicle-related. Either we're trying to reduce the number of trips being made or we're trying to reduce the pollutants. The first item is the [inaudible]. This is having our county fleet idle no more than five minutes. Where that's possible. So instead of running our diesel trucks and just having them out there idling for 10, 15 minutes at a time, we would have a shutoff time of 5 minutes. No more than 5 minutes idling. If they are going to be idling more than that, turn it off. That would be a relatively inexpensive way to reduce emissions. Another program is to encourage ride share program among the county employees. On a voluntary basis. We would set up a bulletin board that would allow people to match themselves in the same geographic area and then set up their own carpool programs to come in, especially during ozone action days. Another one is to join the private sector in the clean air partners program. Ultimately this means finding out just how many emissions this county government contributes to air pollution and working with the private sector in putting together programs for county government. Much like those employers are doing for their own workforce. Next is just get out the word on ozone action days. These are private actions that can be taken by our workforce, like not filling up your gasoline tank until late in the afternoon. Don't mow your lawn until late in the afternoon. Take a bus or ride share to work. Flex time, come to work later in the morning. Instead of at 8:00. These are actions we believe the employees can take voluntarily. Then we need to be looking at new fleet purchases with an eye to reduce emissions. Purchasing vehicles that are low in emissions. This would be part of our fleet acquisition program. Then moving on to more capital intensive measures, we could purchase an emissions testing device that would test our own fleet and that of our county workforce to find out if their own vehicles are running as clean as they can run. And if not, maintaining those vehicles so they are cleaner burning. This would mean purchasing the equipment and setting up emissions testing stations in our satellite and downtown fleet shops. And then finally, doing as much as we can to reduce trips by any government, much like we have paying your taxes by e-mail, finding out information about county government, perhaps ultimately permitting by e-mail. Doing as much as we can by internet to avoid vehicle trips. These are some of the items, some of the work programs we can initiate immediately to reduce emissions. All of this will take action on the part of all of our county departments. And we would recommend a committee spearheaded by a -- one of t.n.r.'s employees. And would coordinate the activities of all the departments through coordination. So it is not just a random event, but one that is coordinated through a concerted effort of all the departments and the leadership of those departments. So we would recommend these items to the court.
>> joe, of the -- it appears there have been 21 counties I'm guessing in central Texas region area have been identified as non-attainment counties. Travis County being one of those. But since Travis County volunteered and participated in the early action in some type of program or plan to actually address some of the things you have brought up or brought forward, I understand that some recommendations may not be as severe on Travis County as on other counties that may not have participated in eradicating or addressing the situations that have placed counties in non-attainment in 8-hour standard non-attainment situation. My question is that in the -- you mentioned something about flex time, employees coming to work and things like maybe come later in the morning. Have there been any consideration to the point where the tour of duty for employees may also be altered? And if so, an example, maybe like a 10-4-1, a 10-hour workday four days a week, one day off. And I guess looking at a varied way of looking at tour of duty, what kind of impact would that have overall as far as supervision, the auditor, of course, the payroll, the whole nine yards, even though we are looking at an effort to reduce emissions by altering tour of duty, have there actually been any example of a change in tour of duties to actually do and address those concerns that I just illustrated? Is there any inkling of governmental entities that are dealing with this issue and how they may have addressed it through tour of duty or change in tour of doubt for their employees? And if so, how? Do you have any answers on that?
>> there are local governments that have programs, either work-at-home program, flex hours, and also changing workdays. I'm not that familiar with the results of those programs. One thing you have to be careful of, like an extended workday. Just because someone is not coming to work on the fifth day doesn't mean he's makingxd trips on that other day of private trips. So there's no -- there may be no net gain. What we're looking for in aggregate is reduction in trips. So that a trip is not made and thus the emissions are not made. So if the -- if people -- if we had a work-at-home program, that would obviate the need for someone coming to work. We would encourage that, I think, as long as the employee isn't making other private trips during the day that would off set that gain. On so in all these measures we're trying to look for programs that have a net reduction in emissions. And I think some of them will be more successful than others. I think most of the measures that we're recommending in our packet are not significant enough in themselves to prevent Travis County from ultimately becoming designated as non-attainment. I mean, we just don't have the workforce big enough to make that kind of impact. But these are things that Travis County government doing. Ultimately, in the next two years, we're going to have to reach measures that affect the mass of the commuters in trip making in Travis County and surrounding counties. Those are measures that definitely hit the private fleet. And I'm talking about things like inspection and maintenance programs on every private vehicle in that fleet. That is the way Travis County will ultimately be able to reduce emissions and have an effect on the attainment or non-attainment designation.
>> and joe, the last time we had spoken on that, I remember looking at the equipment that it would take to actually operate and maintain to do a proper inspection of vehicles to see if they were at the level of acceptable emissions. Those type of equipment was, I think, running about $40,000 a pop, I think, for operators to acquire and then, of course, actually provide the necessary inspection to ensure that we look at those automobiles closely that are causing a lot of emission troubles here in Travis County. And have those numbers changed?
>> no, they are the same. But these are type of programs that have already been implemented in those areas of Texas that have already been declared non-attainment.
>> right.
>> so we can have a choice of sitting here waiting for that to happen or we can get ahead of the curve. We're not pioneers here. The [inaudible] program that's implemented in dallas and harris county, those are the type of things we're going to have to be looking at if we want to avoid being designated as non-attainment. These are innovative programs. They've been tried elsewhere. But they are meaningful programs in they affect everybody. And yes, they do come with a cost.
>> judge, if we really want to do something about this, this is a subject matter I had been very interested in for a long time, you are not going to do this by appealing to people's simple mindedness. It's not going to do it. You have got to -- you have got to put something into motion that makes sense. And the one thing that makes sense, because you are right, the automobile is the biggest culprit, although the automobile in the last 10 years has gotten hundreds of times better than it was. But staggered hours -- now, what you have to have as a community, you have to have the gall to really put something in place. The largest employer in Austin, Texas, is the government. And that being from the fed to the state to the county to the city. And there's no reason why if we are really interested in doing what we say we are as people, oh, yeah, I want clean area, it's kind of like clean water, nobody is going to tell you they don't want clean water, they are not going to tell you they don't want clean air. I think Travis County ought to take the lead in this. I mean, i'll participate in this, but where we get the other entities, those fed, state, county, and city -- I mean, if you got those four and say we are going to come up with something to where we really stagger these work hours. Four-day work weeks are not -- you know, they would help, but you are right, people would go places on Friday if Friday was the day they had off if they worked the four days. Although what you would find, joe, is that people wouldn't go somewhere at 7:00 in the morning. The culprit is 6:30 to 8:00 in the morning. 4:30 to 6:00 in the evening. Those are the times that you have got to really do something because the idling automobile, and with the lack of road system that we have in this community, we have no choices but to idle. So I think that if we really want to lead by example, we really ought to -- let's get off the nickel. Let's stop talking about -- we know people aren't going to ride share. Not that it's going to make any difference because you can't find enough people that say oh, no, I need to go to the store. There's 50 reasons as to why you wouldn't do it. But I do think that we ought to -- I mean, if we're really serious about this, and I think we ought to be, I think we ought to really force people to recognize this is something we're going to have to deal with. Because if we do stop getting federal dollars for road systems here, it is something that really, really does affect us. So I mean I think -- now, what would that take? That would probably take a pretty big paradigm change and some real logistics. I don't know if t.n.r. All of a sudden says t.n.r. Operates from 9:30 until 6:30, I mean that's what that department s the coordination of that. I mean there's some issues and some real logistical problems that you've got to work out. But as opposed to taking paper to talk about all these things -- and I'm not throwing rocks at you, joe. It's kind of like this is what is expected of us. Somebody give us five or six page toes make it look like we're trying to do something. I mean we could do everything on these pages here and you probably wouldn't recognize. We couldn't really tell if no one else is doing it. I don't know, have we ever made an attempt to say, okay, you need to put somebody in this program, state you have to have somebody and feds and we are really going to institute something so that we really get something going here. Have we ever done --
>> I think staggered shifts ought to be added to the list.
>> it's not just a list that you say, well, here are some things that would be nice to do. I mean really get behind, say no, we are going to do this, we are going to create a different culture -- if you really want Austin, Texas to be different with this, and I think we're going to have to be given what we're fixing to get stuck with, then it is the most effective way, I think that we could get something. It's not without its pain, but unless we're committed to really doing it, I don't think we'll ever show anything.
>> there's one that hasn't been talked about and that is I think folks would say there's a huge difference in travel times and idling times when the university of Texas is in session versus when they are not. And when regular school is in session versus when they are not. It is actually not too bad on mopac right now with u.t. Out, but I will guarantee you that every road gets clogged into u.t. And everybody trying to get there once school is going to be back come August.
>> all of those things are true and I agree with you, I think we need to get going on this.
>> [inaudible].
>> watch it, joe would actually want us to do that one.
>> we can add staggered shifts. But I agree with you. But it does seem to me if you go to private employers and ask that they do some of these things, you need to say we have tried these, we assure you these work. You know the governmental entities [inaudible] getting it done and if you are talking about an earlier shift and one that's kind of later to avoid high peak traffic hours, even if we just do it for one month, there is ozone month, right?
>> actually there's five or six months.
>> kind of like hurricane season.
>> even if we just -- it gets dark now almost 9:00 anyway.
>> but I think we can also start just like the campaign for the combined charities, let's at least start and appoint someone from our county, each of our departments and get moving on what we can do as an entity, but also what we can do -- can we apply some of these to our personal vehicles, our personal lives.
>> drew is asking for one f.t.e. To get this done, and this would be funded through the road and bridge fund.
>> we can do that, but also have the county departments appoint somebody to work on this.
>> you have money in road and bridge fund? It would be basically forming a committee there for us to -- it doesn't really matter the order, but I would get the one with the biggest bang. And if staggered shifts is what we ought to shoot for, I would get with the other governmental entities. We're all part of the clean air force.
>> we're also recommending, though, that we become part of the larger campaign, the clean air partners. The clean air partners is what you are talking about. These are firms like i.b.m. And others who are dead serious about doing something on air quality. We may be the first local government to become a member of that. Now, it doesn't just stop with flex hours. I mean, they go into a lot more to kind of put the real commitment to it.
>> I think there are --
>> they commit to a 10% reduction in emissions as a corporate entity. However they can do it.
>> and a lot of those corporate entitie , joe, are participating in a program that is offered by the city of Austin related to the generation of electricity in a different way. I think what do they call it, green partners or something in terms it's not just the way they -- the electrical generating plants are also contributing to this. Big contributors to this. I would like to get some more information back on that. I notice there are a lot of those clean air partners that are on that list, but I did not see any government on that list. And I would like to get some more information about that. How much more expensive would our electricity be. Whew are the options. What does it mean. That could be something -- electrical generation is one of those big deals.
>> well, I can remember one time asking senator barrientos about, you know what you ought to do? Maybe you ought to charge for state parking. You want to give somebody some incentive to take something other than their single-occupant vehicle. But of course there's not a politician around that --
>> we tried to charge parking here.
>> -- that is going to do that. But these are the things that -- I mean you've really got to try to do.
>> I think you are right.
>> in order to really have the effect as opposed to just going through the motions. Because that's what it is. I mean, okay, I want all of you all individually. Look at us at a court. We've had 20 ozone days and there's not a one of us that has changed our life -- if I'm out of gas, I tell you, I'm going to put gas in my car, and everybody else is.
>> gas up every seven.
>> okay. Then you are one.
>> and I don't mow my lawn, so -- [laughter]
>> joe, you've got [inaudible].
>> you still want to know about your f.t.e., Right? You got funding available now?
>> yes, I do.
>> joe, while we're on that topic, john hilly and I were just discussing this. I know the county attorney's office looked at this issue on and off for three years or so now and different people have looked at it in terms of can we use road and bridge fund to fund clean arizona -- clean air type initiatives. Have you opined whether it would be permissible to use road and bridge funds for this?
>> I would say given what we've used road and bridge funds in the past, yes.
>> you think this is consistent?
>> yes.
>> let me move approval. We'll have it back on next Tuesday just in case --
>> we'll bring it back if it's a problem.
>> I was just going to put it on anyway and if you let me know later on, we'll take it off. It's easier to put it on and take it off than to --
>> and did I hear you volunteering for committee about charging county employees for parking?
>> no. I just asked the senator if he was willing to do that for state employees.
>> we've been here, done that.
>> but we're always the ones to try new people.
>> when you say flex time, is that the same as staggered shifts?
>> yes. [multiple voices]
>> I was hoping that's what you were referring to.
>> you can make it mandatory.
>> no, I mean when I think of staggered shifts, though, you would be assigned to come in at a certain time, we would assign some early, some later to make sure we miss that morning and afternoon trouble period.
>> and the sheriff's office is already on rolling 4-1 shifts. They are already doing -- 4-10.
>> joe, we'll have it on next week just in case we talk to you. [multiple voices]
>> I second it.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 11:52 AM