Travis County Commssioners Court
July 22, 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.
Items 25 & 26
Now, 25, consider and take appropriate action on participation agreement with plaza v 620 for the construction of anderson mill road and rm 620.
>> would it be helpful to call up 26 as well?
>> in the agreement, we have -- in the agreement we have on 25, the agreement is contingent upon the interlocal agreement with Williamson county being approved. So they are related.
>> I don't have my backup, joe, but I did send you an e-mail. I raised questions.
>> and I responded to your e-mail.
>> I did not see that. You must have responded this morning.
>> yesterday.
>> I didn't see it.
>> I’m prepared to answer knew court.
>> I went home early last night at 7:50 so I apologize.
>> no problem.
>> the interlocal, as I understood, has it basically doing part of a road in Williamson county and not getting reimbursed. Or did I misread?
>> that's correct. And we are maintaining those same sections of road currently. They are short sections of road.
>> and not getting reimbursed.
>> no. We've just -- for some reason -- because anderson mill road weaves in and out of Travis County, with these short sections of road, I guess we've had a gentleman's agreement that Travis County would maintain these roads because it's by and large our traffic. And for the most part, the bulk of the road is in Travis County. Now, I guess because of that I just thought that, well, when we went to do a c.i.p. Project, we would go ahead and do it. I understand your issues. In the past --
>> by the way, I didn't know that was the situation. I didn't know that was a single road in another county that Travis County constructed and/or maintained at no reimbursement. When I was [inaudible] county line road, others roads parts of two counties, one that I have in mind really just a plain old dirt road, but if bastrop went out and improved the road, we should go ahead and do the part in Travis County and pay them. If we were out there doing the Travis County part, we would say look, we're doing our parted. Do you want us to go on down the road while we're out here? Oh, yeah, that will cost x. Amount of money.
>> that is true. When the roads enter into a jurisdiction, keep on going, we stop at the county line. This is true of anderson mill road too. Our c.i.p. Project at the other end, this road goes all the way up to farm to market road 1431. On that end of anderson mill road, we stop at the county line. From there on, it's either Williamson county or Cedar Park that are responsible for this c.i.p. Project. It's just in this case with the section we're talking about here, it kind of just weaves in for a short section hundreds of feet. It would be very difficult for Travis County to do its c.i.p. Project without doing these 100-foot sections. So I just presumed all along we would go ahead and do it.
>> how much does the part in Williamson county cost?
>> all told, if you add up these sections, the c.i.p. Projects, the value of those improvements, about a half a million dollars.
>> how much does the part in Williamson county cost?
>> a half a million dollars.
>> [inaudible].
>> your memo seems to indicate it was not part of any kind of c.i.p. Program. They get their money the same as we do, same place we get ours, same places.
>> yeah.
>> why would we spend half a million dollars on a Williamson county road?
>> only that I guess in this case it's an integral part -- I mean it's very difficult to take out --
>> I understood that. But that begs for a interlocal before we go and argue look, this part of the road that's in Williamson county weaves in and out [inaudible] Travis County side. We are doing ours. It costs x. Amount of money. Your part only costs half a million dollars. While we're out there, we'll go ahead and identity for you. You can pay us back when you can, preferably this fiscal year. If you can't this fiscal year, next year. If we can do that legally. I’m just saying I would be more than agreeable, and it may be that as a very, very last resort, we conclude maybe we ought to go ahead and do it, but I would get some understanding about some road at some point in the future where the roles are reversed and they are able to help us out.
>> we've got one judge, and it does involve Williamson county in the back action point of view that we didn't realize and joe and I discussed this in terms of there may be a quid pro quo we need to articulate and put values to, but we may already be there.
>> the time to work the agreement is now. I was always told that legally, tom, there were problems with Travis County spending money on roads in another county without some sort of interlocal agreement, and some sort of addressing of the value. Those two things. Agreement and compensation or reimbursement of expenditure. This was before tom's days. But I recall it distinctly. And blake manor road, and this is city-county, it's a little different. The part of blake manor, just a short part where the county roads end, then there's a city park, then 973. When I was precinct 1 Commissioner and recently under Commissioner Davis, we went to the city and demanded that it be easier for us to go ahead and do their part, but we had to get paid. At one time we were on the verge of saying we can't do your part.
>> 1500 feet, to be exact.
>> right. So I’m not saying let's just be hard-headed, I’m saying it would be a break from what I understood our precedent to be. And the lessons i've learned from legal is it's illegal. And if it is legal now, it's borderline, isn't it? But if it -- I was hoping you would say $25,000, $30,000. Half a million dollars, I think that's even more reason we get either the similar treatment at some future point or we say, Williamson county, you may not have this in the budget right now, but we expect to get reimbursed.
>> didn't we have another situation like this in Travis County? In other words, where we have an interlocal as far as where we do have roads that cross jurisdictional lines and if so how have we dealt with that as far as interlocal agreements are concerned? I have no problem with interlocal agreements as long as both parties understand it, but especially if you cross jurisdictional lines, it is the -- it is the burden of the jurisdiction to maintain the road. But if there's an interlocal, of course, and I would like to hear if there are other examples where there had been an interlocal that have been reached as far as maintaining roads that cross jurisdictional lines with counties.
>> yes, we have -- as a matter of fact, we've had with Williamson county agreements where if you -- and we maintain this section of road in your county, you would maintain some other section of road, our road in your county. So we swapped out. And it's just --
>> i've known about those. They make all the sense in the world. That's basically tit for tat.
>> it won't be coming into the spring time, but Williamson county has a massive bond project that has to do with total realignment and rebuilding of old mcneil road, which is a road that comes out of Round Rock, past mcneil high school, and there's like this much of it that's in Travis County that they didn't come to talk to us about in terms of putting that in our bond project or something else. We have got to set aside in the capital metro -- I think it was part of the quarter cent money, it doesn't make any difference, in the capital metro dollars, they were willing to go with a can you help with some lump sum and it is not equal to what our true share of that road is going to be. And so this morning when I was talking to joe about this, i've asked him to see if we can better articulate what is the extra value that we are getting on the old mcneil road project that may compensate largely half, I don't know, we -- but when we talked about the lump sum to basically help on the old mcneil road project, I asked is this going to cover our costs. And I was told no, but anything would be helpful. And they said it in that kind of tone too, no, but this would help. So if we can get better dollars from Williamson county on what's going on on the old mcneil road project, it's quite possible these things may be the quid pro quo you are justifiably are asking for what are they doing in return for us?
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> if we need Commissioner Sonleitner to call --
>> boatright, hilgenstein...
>> and frankie.
>> send mike in to do this.
>> the one other thing that's interesting about this particular road is that it is literally on the county line. I'll be real honest with you, I don't know if anybody really knew what the county line was until we got in there with a cip project and started surveying things. I know it sound silly, but a lot of things in western Travis County, the roads aren't where they're supposed to be. I know boatright has told me that we're mowing that piece and I say it's actually part of mine. There's a great deal of ambiguity about where the line is and the road may or may not be where it's supposed to be.
>> another fine thing you got me into that you didn't tell me about. [ laughter ]
>> so we can know, judge, if wre we draw up something with Williamson county -- I can see where you might get something knee jerk and say here's a 500,000-dollar invoice, can you give us that? I mean, if we worked -- especially if we find out what we were talking about --
>> I think we can get to a place where there is a mutual feeling of quid pro quo and we just need to better articulate that, but it sound like joe may need to do a little bit of additional work related to the intrl. Can we get that done in a week?
>> both back on next week?
>> yes.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 1:52 PM