Travis County Commssioners Court
July 29, 2003
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Item 41
Number 41 is to consider and take appropriate action on request from central Texas clean cities for Travis County to co-sponsor conference and for waiver of fee to use the expo center banquet hall on Wednesday, October 29, 2003. The executive director had other commitments and could not be here today. The letter came to my attention just recently and I went ahead and aagenda todayized it. Basically they are asking us to be a co-sponsor of this conference and they want it to be in Travis County. I think the previous one was in san antonio, and at that conference we either requested that it be in Travis County or indicated an interest in co-sponsoring one here, right?
>> yes, sir. There are two parts to the all-day conference. There's the advancing the choice, which is the annual event that cleans cities hosts to help basically they are called [inaudible] markets find cleaner technologies, cleaner fuels, and this year that portion of the conference would be actually concentrating on waste management haulers. So they will be having -- working with all the dump truck, garbage truck stakeholders in this region. And that -- they would like to alternate between san antonio and Travis County. They do this in conjunction with the san antonio clean cities program and in order to pool all their resources. So it happened in san antonio last year. They would like to do it in the Austin region this year. The second part of the conference is a 10 best fleet practices program that we actually did express some interest in trying to get that program -- that program held up here in this area. It was held in corpus christi not long ago. Mike joyce did attend that conference. He thought it was helpful. He is actually now a presenter at the conference because of the county's alternative fuel vehicle program. So clean cities was basically complying with the request that Travis County made to hold that portion of the conference here as well. So each one is half day.
>> being a co-sponsor is a good idea.
>> I would recommend it.
>> what I did in response to this request was to indicate that the expo center is a Travis County special fund, and that under our policy -- policies governing the expo center, we waive up to 50% of the fee.
>> right.
>> and I said that if we -- to get a full waiver of what it would be would be us waiving half of it and the Travis County general fund paying the expo center special fund the other half. And if we agree to co-sponsor the second part of that is do we follow our policy and waive one-half of the fee and say we think the other partners ought to come up with the other half or do we waive the other half in Travis County general fund, the other 50%.
>> I -- I visited with stacy yesterday and told her in terms of just the standard that if you come in kind of as a partner we can go 50%. She basically said we were asking for anything we can get. I said what if we only do 50% and she said they would take what they can get.
>> that's the message I heard as well.
>> that would be fine.
>> that was in my memo. Why don't we do that then. And if they -- my motion would be for us to co-sponsor, and invoke -- well, declare that they [inaudible] 50% waiver policy and make that offer to stacy.
>> second.
>> any more discussion?
>> the only other question that they had, that stacy had for me, and I know [inaudible] one, was the concessions, and two was being able to set up the evening before versus trying to do it all that morning.
>> she had the same questions for me and I got her the number of scott Davis who is the director over there and basically said get with scott and, you know --
>> and he is out until tomorrow, soy told her I would get back to her.
>> whatever is possible.
>> scott had indicated there was nothing scheduled currently the day before and that should be no problem. Now, in terms of the concession, I am not sure. I'll have to defer to administrative options and scott eye told her we have a contract with a vendor and we get a certain percent of proceeds. That's it. They would have to contact the vendor and scott --
>> you can pay the vendor x amount of dollars if they have somebody that comes in, which I understand they do.
>> she gets in-kind contributions for the food and would like to use that. She has a number of cities that provide it free of charge and [inaudible] and so she would like to utilize that. And the question is then what would be the cost to our -- is my understanding, to our contracted concessions person.
>> minimize the revenue for the expo center because then we run into problems right along.
>> if you would sort of stay plugged in, and if there are problems that need to be brought back to the Commissioners court, bring them back to us and --
>> there should be none.
>> otherwise try to work it out.
>> great.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 30, 2003 12:31 PM