Travis County Commssioners Court
August 19, 2003
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Citizens Communication
Citizens communications are next, two citizens signed in, ginger harrington first, April [indiscernible] is second.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> get comfortable, give us your full name, we will be happy to get your comments.
>> hi, good morning. My name is ginger harrington. And I'm here on behalf of the forest creek estates neighborhood. Our situation on gatiskill road is getting more dangerous, especially now that school is in session. The school buses stop right there with 4,000 cars a day speeding going past as the children have to embark and dis embark on their school bus. I'm really glad to hear this is a supportive Commissioners court and that betty robertson is so good with children. Maybe she can come out to gattis school road and help our children get on and off the school bus safely. Maybe a road can be built around our neighborhood so that children don't have to be end dangered getting on and off their school buses. Now, we know that frankie lemon, Commissioner from Williamson county, has land that gattis school road leads to and that the extension of our road to f.m. 685 directly benefits him. And the developer, mr. Timerman. We want to know what you are getting out of it? Can you not rise up and right this wrong for us, please? Is it worth even one life lost? Somebody will be hit or killed sooner or later. It is inevitable. It is inevitable when it is a "30 mile per hour two lane street." Nobody goes 30 on it anymore. My husband almost got hit taking out the garbage, I almost get hitting getting my mail. Mundane, ordinary every day things that shoot not be dangerous are dangerous. Going across the street so my daughters can play with their little friend is dangerous. We don't want this. When s.h. 130 comes and our little road, big road becomes an off ramp it's going to be unlivable. So if you cannot build a road around us and cannot close our road, please condemn our houses. You have already condemned us. Do the right thing. Protect us. You have already protected star ranch residents. By directly, by prohibiting them from directly acting the road, it's a dangerous arterial now. It was no knocker a quiet street. It was right of you to protect star ranch. Please protect as well, thank you.
>> thank you.
>> just to update the court, we just got legal documents in on this particular situation last week. That's been turned over to tom nuckols and t.n.r. Is still working in-house on various scenarios. And that is one of the reason that's we have not brought forward or annual request on how we are going to spend the build greater Austin dollars from capital metro because we are presuming that that will be one of the sources of working on this program until we know what is the solution and how much it will cost, we are still working on it. But I just want to assure ms. Harrington and you all that we are still working on this and we will bring this forward as quickly as we have some scenarios for the neighborhood and this court and the Williamson county Commissioners court to consider.
>> are you in the Travis County part or the Williamson county part?
>> we are in the Travis County part.
>> Travis County side. The platting occurred on the Williamson county side.
>> yeah.
>> these actions were taken some time ago and I don't recall any of them or are being involved.
>> we weren't.
>> looks like we ought to get involved now.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Ms. Beckham?
>> my name is April beckham, I am a county employee. I work for the Travis County auditor's office. I have been a county employee for almost 18 years and much of that time i've spent in various areas related to the justice system. I'm also a citizen of Travis County. Which I guess in some way, small way perhaps makes me my own boss. But I want to take a moment to come before you and take a little time to congratulate a group of people who have been doing some really good things on behalf of Travis County, but they don't tend to get up and toot their own horn. The Travis County civil and criminal courts were awarded a Texas association of counties best practices award for superior innovation in their management of the appointed attorney system. A few years ago, I'm sure we all remember, that the media was full of horror stories about how -- how the poor citizens of our state were receiving incompetent legal representation. And the legislature went out and decided to correct that bypassing the fair defense act and when they did that, they went around the state and tried figure out who was doing that correctly. And they actually modeled parts of the legislation based on the system that was developed here in Travis County. That our judges developed and used to make sure that -- that the poorer citizens of our county had fair access to our court system. The fair defense act, however, has additional requirements to it. Which -- which we were -- which required some quicker appointments than we were used to making. Required some documented contacts by attorneys and it also required an annual report to the state, which -- which the first year we put that report together really took quite a bit of man hours to do that. Even before the act was -- was passed, both the civil and criminal district judges were evaluating this process and looking at ways that they could make it more efficient. And one of the things that they did was develop with some systems assistance from the auditor's office a program that provides greater management information. It -- it provides a more efficient trend analysis, more accurate forecasting and budgeting, some just in time status reports and it will also produce more easily the state mandated report at the end of the year. They then worked with county i.t.s. To apply for a grant that will allow them to expand this system, to a broader base of use because the initial system that was developed was done using some software that was already available in Travis County so -- so from that perspective it was a low-cost solution. For this they were recognized with an award. I would like to -- to show you the very nice award that they received for it. I think that our legal system tends to be very backward looking. Tends to rely on precedence. It looks to things that have happen understand the past, but I think in Travis County we have some very forward looking judges. I think that this is one of many project that's they have been working on, that they have undertaken in the past few years that improve the quality, efficiency and the cost of justice in our county. As a county employee I want to tell them congratulations for this award. And as a taxpayer, I would like to thank them for a job well done.
>> thank you.
>> thanks, April.
>> thank you. Thank you we join you in congratulating them on such an outstanding job.
>> thank you.
>> anybody else for citizens communication? Whether you signed in or not.
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 7:52 PM