Travis County Commssioners Court
August 26, 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 A1
We indicated earlier we would try to call up a 1 a at 11:00. Let's take the subdivision first.
>> carol joseph t.n.r. [inaudible] division director of development services and susan mcdonald and [inaudible]. In our subdivision, we propose that we simply increase the fees for 25% -- 4.5% inflation right rate for the past three years. Since we've been working with the city closely with the one stop shop, we're looking at hopefully getting together an r.f.p. Where both parties go out and have an independent audit performed by one company and audit both the city as well as the county. And in that review hopefully tell us where we have duplication of service as well as what should our fees be in the city or county. Joe has been working with lisa gordon and we have not finalized that. We set aside $100,000 hopefully and they will be the same to be able to fund that in this year's budget. Our expectation is that that will occur between October and December, and so January we will have something. That's the premise on which we're basing our increases.
>> the 4.5% inflation, that's since when?
>> 2000.
>> that was the last time those fees were --
>> no, no, it was earlier than that.
>> actually we just did a three-year adjustment from, well, 2002 over [inaudible], which is the 5: and that was just a national.
>> I don't think we increased fees since '94, maybe.
>> well, the short form fees have been revised, but some of the other fees have gone back to '93.
>> I'm sorry, the short form was, I believe, in 1999 for fiscal year 2000. Was the change. The last change on the short form.
>> okay.
>> what's the recommendation again on subdivision fees?
>> what's the recommendation gain?
>> again. Repeat it.
>> that we increase the fees 4.5%. And we have done the calculation and we rounded to the nearest dollar per fee.
>> what do we do to ensure that the audit review is indeed done, and whatever those results are, we act accordingly and we're dependent on our fends at the city of Austin in -- friends at the city of Austin, but seems like if we put a time limit these fees are good for the next year and they expire means you have to come back. And there would be expectations this study would be done and we would act accordingly. I'm raising the question so that the industry is going, oh, great, you are just raising the rates and that's the last time we'll ever see any kind of accountability related to these rates, and certainly justification by travis and the city of Austin related to who does what, who gets to charge and makes sure there's not any duplication of charges.
>> I doubt that this will be the last time you will see [inaudible]. I can't guarantee that we, the city will agree with what we're proposing. However, we will review our fees whether or not they agree. And to the extent that we could find out where there are duplication of services, we will hopefully come to some agreement where the city charges for that and we don't charge, and they review this and we don't review that. Whether or not it's done by an independent audit, we will have to do it. So the hope was the independent auditor will be independent; therefore the results will be one that we could both agree on and industry can say that you won't bias city or bias county. But if that does not occur, we will have to study the fees, and thankfully we have a good financial staff that along with hopefully a couple of [inaudible] if it comes to that where we will do our own review. We would just hopeful that we would get independent review, and I can't guarantee that it will occur that way.
>> yeah, the backup plan was always to be -- if we could not get an outside consultant was to bring in the auditor's office, internal audit department to help us with the review as well. The other thing is that, yes, we will have to revisit those fees internally [inaudible] and we will come back and adjust accordingly.
>> our goal would be to identify duplication and eliminate it.
>> absolutely.
>> hopefully in partnership with the city of Austin. If the partnership does not materialize, we basically commit to do our part ourselves.
>> absolutely.
>> have you a chart, you say, where you have the calculations?
>> yeah, in the backup memo that you received late yesterday, the flood plain permits would go up about $11,000 and subdivision would net another 132,000. It's a 4.5% increase an all fees across the board.
>> was that delivered by hard copy or e-mail?
>> no, you should have gotten a hard copy yesterday afternoon.
>> okay.
>> yeah, we do. It's in there.
>> do you? Okay, good. It's ana and b memo with the subdivision part at the back view a copy of this available tomorrow?
>> absolutely.
>> okay. Any questions of the staff on this? Proposal? Comments?
>> good morning, judge, terry savvy, the executive vice president of the home builders association of greater Austin. We cover a five-county area and represent the residential building industry. I have to my left is hank smith, who is our vice president elect of our executive committee and currently serves as the chair of our government relations committee. We've been working for some time with the Travis County t.n.r. Staff to improve communication and our understanding of subdivision rules, development changes and as an extension of that, we've had regular discussions initially on 1445 and now I guess 1204 is replacement legislation. I think you can understand why it would be difficult for association staff to stand up here and say we support a fee increase on our industry. But what I can say is we do recognize and in the e.t.j. Of many cities, particularly the city of Austin, there is a disconnect on what is going to be required of the county and how the fees are being allocated. We support these changes with the understanding as Commissioner Sonleitner pointed out and county staff that as required under house bill 1445 and subsequently 1204, that we are all going to sit down together, at least the city and the county will review those fees to eliminate duplications. We concur with Travis County that the best way for that to be done is with an independent auditor. The final result, we believe, will be a win for everyone. The revenue to the county should be sufficient, and we support the -- obviously the revenue being sufficient to recover their costs. The city should be able to deal with reduced staffing levels with reduced responsibilities for eliminating duplication. But most importantly, there should be the -- the bottom line should be reduced fees to the property owner and ultimately the home buyer. So we are in support of this recommendation. Thank you.
>> yes, sir.
>> my name is hank smith. I'm the vice president of the -- president-elect of the home builders association. I brought with me a copy of the city of Austin's fee structure, and they are proposing some increase in fees. I'm not going to go through this. Buried somewhere around page 385 is the watershed protection fee. They've got about 12 pages of fees for everything they collect. And there is considerable overlap between what the city charges a fee for, what the county charges a fee for. Obviously the county, we greatly appreciate working with fred and the staff. They sent us their summary of what we want and this is what we get from the city to look at and try to figure out what fee changes are going to be. The concern we have is that -- it has been expressed by Commissioner Sonleitner and harry, if there's not outside audit -rblgs there's more than enough money coming into the system right now. There's supposed to be a single office in theory where everything comes into the single office, everything gets reviewed, you have a single set of resraols and a single approval process. Today what we have is everything comes into what is a single office and there's a dual review. The county reviews the plans, the city reviews the plans. We used to get the county comments directly to us so we could respond directly back to the county. Now the city has taken those comments and rolled them in with theirs. When we get a set of comments, it will have transportation comments and with city of Austin and a couple Travis County comments. We'll have drainage comments and a couple of Travis County comments. And it's -- the city who is -- I understand, kind of coordinating the overall process so it's difficult for us on the outside to see what are the county's concerns and questions on this. Who do we call to get answers. Do we call the city staff because his name is on it and his answer is well, I'm going to have to call the county and get back with you. That single office hasn't worked as well as thought. The planning council, the city council and the kheurbg. Commissioners court. We making head way trying to consolidate that. Whether or not we'll make it by January 1st is rapidly approaching. I don't know if we're going to make it or not. We're willing to help out any way we can. But the fees are the major issues. There's more than enough money coming in overall to the system, being allocated whether it be to the city or county for their jurisdiction is the key. Without doing an outside audit of both programs, I don't see how that could happen. If the county can only take a look at theirs, and I understand you have to have cooperation from both sides, but if the county only looks at their fees, there's no way to tell what should come through the city because there's some delegation. I think it's a critical item to have the consolidated outside review process take a look at this.
>> that's a good point and when is this going to come back before the city council as we are going through our fees, fee structure and stuff like that.
>> city council has this on their agenda for Thursday night.
>> I'm sorry, when?
>> Thursday night. This coming Thursday.
>> because definitely what we want to do is streamline also the same thing that you brought up to also ensure we don't have duplication of services. Ensure that 1445 works correctly. So you say if they are going to have theirs and it's how many page stphes.
>> it's probably 400 page necessary this document which is our fee structure. We had to go to page 385 to 435 to see what was tied to development review and inspection department. There's is split into multiple departments. Public works, transportation, sustainability, watershed protection, development review. So you have to go through all of their pages and look at all their fees to see how it comes back to what you all have on a single page and how that corresponds back.
>> but as far as the county is concerned, basically in agreement with the approach that we're taking and been laid out and presented here today?
>> basically, yes. I mean I think the county hasn't raised their fees in a number of years. Certainly you have to keep up with inflation to pay your staff. I think a 4.5% increase is not an unreasonable amount. Our concern is there's more than enough money out there coming in to the single office now to pay for all of that. The county's share of that is very small right now and the city's is very large, and we think the county, if they are going to assume responsibility through some of the new legislation that's passed, they need to get some of the money that's coming into the city or coming into the single office as I refer to it instead of having it come into the city and the county, have it go to a single office and the single office divvy that up for whoever is taking responsibilities for those activities.
>> thank you.
>> as far as we know, the city will work with us on getting this audit achieved?
>> as far as we know. I can't guarantee it, but right now joe has been meeting with lisa and we're hopeful when he gets back he will know more.
>> well, we don't -- we don't know exactly where that is. I will tell you I'm not happy with where we are to date. We are not -- you know, we have not been at the table I mean almost by design, but this past week, you know, my office has sent a couple of correspondence over to the city to let them know we are going to be involved in this. And if we're not, well then we'll let them know. And we'll move forward. But we are extending, you know, every opportunity to the city to deal with us, and we've also put in our correspondence that the stakeholders need to be involved with that as well. And that is something that we've got to push. I mean because we know that it doesn't happen naturally. I know that part of our t.n.r. Folks just happened to intercept things to know that things are happening and that's not acceptable. It's not acceptable for my office. So hopefully with a couple of directives that we've had this week, maybe we've gotten somebody's attention so we can sit down and again be part of the process that we've been trying to for the last six months.
>> we would I guess try to move on this immediately after --
>> hopefully within September we could get some [inaudible] assuming we get everybody in agreement and get it out. Our intention is to have this completed within the three-month poured and hopefully have a decision for the January work session.
>> judge, are we needing a motion related to what we're going to have in tomorrow night's hearing related to the proposed [inaudible]?
>> yes.
>> I would move staff approval of a 4.5% [inaudible] on our rates rounded up to the nearest dollar as reflected in [inaudible].
>> second.
>> any more discussion? You keep us posted on that communications with the city about getting that done. Thank you all very much.
>> thank you all for coming down.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>>Now, park fees.
>> charles and roy, charles is the division director of parks and natural resources, and roy is program manager of parks, and cynthia [inaudible]. You have in your backup not only comments from four public meetings that we held, but e-mail -- I lost the word -- e-mails that we've received over the last month or so since we first introduced the parks fees in July. And i'll have roy talk to you about some of the changes we've made or charles, whichever one is going to, since that first initial fee that we gave you.
>> good morning. Roy [inaudible] parks program manager. I wanted to walk through real quickly some of the changes that are before you right now. First of all, in regard to the day use permit, based on their budget hearing and direction that we heard there for making a recommendation of changing that $5 fee that was Monday through Thursday and then having an 8 dollars fee Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that would $8 Monday through Sunday for the -- basically the lcra lake parks. So that will see an increase there in revenue. Other changes that you will see as we look at the revenue is the annual day use permits. One of the recommendations was to have -- maintain the permit at $50 having blackout dates, dates that the permit was not available for use. The other option was to raise that fee to $75. We're recommending that we raise the fee to $75 based on public comments that we're hearing, e-mails and such, a lot of that is attached, they would much rather see an increase, not necessarily $75 in all cases, but much rather see an increase than have days that they cannot use that pass.
>> that would be e as opposed to --
>> correct.
>> i'll wait until you finish.
>> okay. Additional fees that we're looking at, one is a -- the athletic fields, and basically there, based on the public meetings and listening to the user groups that are out there, looking at a different tournament fee than what was originally recommended. Originally we recommended a $500 per complex per day fee, and that seems high for some of the users and for some of the parks. And based on the information that we received that there really should be two different sets of fees associated with this, and based on the type of facility. So what we're recommending is that northeast metro, southeast metro and when east metro comes on line, that the tournament fee is a $75 per field per day as opposed to a $500 per complex. And then at del valle, webberville and moya parks, different facilities, that is a $40 per field per day. So that way when we have smaller tournaments that are using two or three fields, it's more affordable. In fact, some of our older parks that are still nice parks but may not be at regulation size or those types of things and can make that available to them. At that time newer parks, there's more involved in the maintenance and such, so we're looking at the higher fee. And that is recommendation p under additional services.
>> let me ask this question.
>> yes, sir.
>> .
>> [inaudible] fee per day, I understand that the expense, [inaudible] operation phaeupbtd necessary significantly for these particular parks online?
>> webls. When you look at, for example, webberville park, Commissioner, when we have a soccer tournament or we do flag football, the cost involved in having staff to do parking, the to help with the ranger patrols and those things are much less than what it would be at northeast metro where they are using 10 or potentially 18 fields. And so that's where we made that recommendation.
>> I think one thing needs to be clear though on this is that cost is really intended to recover the cost of the event. The event that's going on. It does not cover all the baseline operating costs that go into maintaining that park day to day. So you need to be clear on that. That cost is really intended to cover the additional staffing and personnel costs that are involved in managing that particular event.
>> okay, now, where is that portion of recovery come from? If this doesn't bite into it, then that's -- that portion that you just spoke of, where would that be assessed here?
>> we don't -- we don't have a fee that covers 100% of your operating costs in the metro parks. A portion of that cost is going to be covered through the general fund.
>> we do have the $50 per field use for non-use, or nonprofit use. But that is only a portion of the everyday maintenance. The $40 and the $75 is for primarily trash and litter collection as well as restroom cleaning. Those have dramatically increased when you get a tournament or large event.
>> we're really just trying to off set some of the general fund.
>> absolutely.
>> -- costs.
>> .
>> and those big events really can drive up costs. You have baseline costs that are built into it you have to pay regardless when you open up the park it comes with the business. But when you have a big event, the demand spikes up, you get a lot more people in the park, a lot more people using the trash cans, restrooms, and that naturally drives your staff cost up. What we're trying to do is recoup that with these types of fees.
>> in terms of to try and be sensitive to the nonprofit youth, those add-ons like lights, field preparation, if they want to do daytime tournaments, they are not going to be hit with that. If they want to do their own field prep, have at it because --
>> many groups do their own. They have their own equipment and come out and identity. Where they get under a pinch is where they have a large tournament and they had asked us in the past to try and prep their fields. We don't have fee structure in place to do that. This allows us to do that.
>> the overlay add-ons and I like the way due that related to the big three metro parks. It's far more complicated with the people coming in there. And the second tier, the neighborhood parks like del valle and webberville, it's not going to be getting those humongous tournaments. That's a nice way of doing it.
>> the other revision that is included in here is recommendation t and recommendation u. And that's in record ra rd to a parking fee associated with their east park, southeast metro, northeast metro, del valle, moya and east metro. From our budget hearing we've heard we should look at that. So there is a $2 per day parking fee in recommendation t. However, that will -- the potential revenue of that is $103,000. The cost of doing that is $57,000. So we're going to realize 45 some odd thousand dollars. I'm probably off on my math, but somewhere in that general neighborhood of actual revenue, bottom line revenue.
>> yes and no. Because you got to remember that at least on southeast, northeast and eventually east and moya, they are already during tournaments on the weekend and therefore you've got something under you related to a tournament fee, so to me it gets extraordinarily complicated t idea of instituting a fee and you lose half of it simply because you need somebody to staff it, that something doesn't really work for me.
>> that's why we added the next recommendation.
>> exactly. I love you, and that is --
>> thank you. [laughter]
>> the way that unfortunately came out. That basically is the parking fee is being embedded at the time of the reservation fee from the very folks that are doing that extra impact thing. They don't need any staffing. And that's something I think your revenue is going to be a whole lot more than that because I'm just going by some of the tournaments that we've got coming in. It's huge. I think that is kind of low balling what the potential revenue is.
>> and we try to be moderate in our estimations for that reason. I don't want to overestimate, I would rather see the potential revenue --
>> and also my sensitivity is related to just plain old league play, i'll just call it my kid playing soccer, unfortunately the reality of a lot of families these days is one parent is dropping off the child, another parent is picking up the child. The idea that they could be charged to see a game with their kid that's going to be less than an hour, that doesn't sit well with me. Or somebody just coming for a picnic or whatever. To me, I would like to see it all embedded in a tournament parking fee where you have the visitors, many of them not living in Travis County, coming to use our facilities. We don't have to have any additional staffing, and it's collected on our behalf in one lump sum as opposed to having somebody stand there and slow the flow of folks coming into our parks. If we have to get to a parking fee, I would like to see that as being kind of, okay, we're not recovering as much as we had hoped. I would like to see that as a fall-back position in a year or so, but I know it irritates people to no end at zilker that you get hit with a $2 parking fee when all you want to do is have a picnic. That just doesn't sit well with folks.
>> in discussing this with one of the user groups, they felt this was more appropriate than someone collecting the fee up front. They would rather see that as something that they are able to get from their users through their tournament fees than someone collecting the money at the gate. Again, we looked at the two different types of parks, northeast metro, southeast metro, east metro, versus webberville, del valle and moya and tried to look at the different types of play and whether it be youth or adult, and you know, in a soccer tournament, youth, small kids may take one soccer field and have three teams playing on it, but each team may have five kids. So we tried to look at a per-team charge and we're going to rely on lot on the user groups to help us on this item. And these are -- those are the basic changes from what we've had in the past. The other additional change that you will see on here that I skipped was in regard to loop 360, and that is recommendation s.
>> s?
>> uh-huh. As in sam.
>> as in sam.
>> as in sam. All right.
>> and what we're recommending there is initiate that $10 per day launching fee that leaves 360. There's no fee currently in place. That is a fairly active launch area. And in initial conversations with txdot and Texas parks and wildlife, they've been notified of the proposal. They see no objections to charging the fee. They do probably want an audit of how we utilize those fees and where that money goes. Is it going back to that park or parks in general is one of their questions. But at this point, and initially they have no problem with the fee being charged.
>> so how do we collect the fee, though?
>> we will staff -- we will have to staff that. What we're proposing is taking existing seasonal staff that we use to staff some of the western parks or lake parks and really adjusting our line schedules where we're not collecting what I would consider enough fees in, say, arkansas bend or some of those more remote parks and utilizing them at this location instead. So it's adjusting of current staff instead of adding additional dollars.
>> so you would -- you think you can get people there at 4:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., Which is what a lot of your launch fr ing is going to take place from the fishing standpoint?
>> we're looking at what we would have to staff someone there. I don't know, charles may want to volunteer to be there.
>> I may come in early on Saturday morning. If you want to spell me. Actually we monitored 360 for a number of years and it gets a lot of turnover. All of our boat ramps get early morning visitation from the fishermen. Every one of them on the lake you have the 4:00 a.m. Crowd and yeah we miss them. 360 gets a lot of turnover throughout the course of the day and I think because of that turnover, number of cars coming and going in the parking lot, this will become a cost effective fee alternative for the county.
>> whether we want to consider the feed box that they use downtown?
>> you mean the -- what do they call that?
>> a sign that says basically five dollars to park, put your five dollars this that slot?
>> we can try that. I don't know how successful those are. I mean they get probably maybe 10%, you know, success rate based upon the total.
>> every time I see one next to a [inaudible] sign, I'm sure to put phaoeuf $5 in.
>> maybe we ought to get one of those out there and see. I mean, we can try it as a trial run, but I think we're better served by having staff there.
>> those are costly. We looked at them some time ago. I think joe was visiting some park and he saw the same thing. And it's about $15,000 or $20,000 for one of those machines that you put your money in and you still have to monitor it at some point. So it seems we're proposing seasonal staff, it should not be -- it is not going to be any increase in staff fees.
>> walking along decker lake, the city has [inaudible] a person there that -- [inaudible]? Pay $8, I want to do some fishing. But they charge for boats coming in and you don't even have to have a boat. They still charge you $8.
>> having the gates staffed helps a park operate more smoothly and reduces vandalism. If there is a problem staff can call additional personnel to come deal with the problem. It makes a lot of sense. I wish we could do it for all of our parks, we just can't afford it. I think at loop 360, it's, you know, probably the day has come for us to take a look at it. To consider a fee for that facility.
>> [inaudible] with the shelters?
>> yes. Shelters were included in the inal proposal.
>> where are you at?
>> that would be recommendation recommend q.
>> q, okay.
>> and we would look at the -- what is currently on the small shelters is a $20 fee, raising that to $40 per day. That includes electricity. And the large shelters would go from $40 to $65 per day with electricity.
>> and that seems to be -- that's doubling the fee. And I think what I heard at the meeting that we had at baty was that maybe something a little bit more reasonable. Rather than doubling. Because these are families that are using these parks and the fee may be, you know, if we get it too high, they are not going to use them. They've already said that. What is the inflation rate from 1993 through 2003?
>> inflation rate, the c.p.i., It's the national that we use, there's roughly about 19%.
>> so one of the recommendations that the public meeting at baty was why couldn't we increase them 19% to make up for the inflation rate. They didn't understand that.
>> on the shelt senators just on the shelters? I'm sorry, I didn't everything.
>> on everything, the park fees.
>> related to our employees and the health insurance that has nothing to do with c.p.i.
>> also we've added three major parks since then that have facilities that are drastically different from what we had before. Ideally in you are looking at the same thing, inflation adjustment would be appropriate for the same facilities, but we don't have that current.
>> and just in terms of this -- these rentals, $40 a day, you are taking that shelter completely out of circulation. So if you are there for eight hours, that's like five dollars an hour. That really is not very much. It's not like somebody is going to use it for an hour and then somebody else gets to come in and use it. These things are completely taken out of service.
>> well, it's just that to families, I think passing that cost on to families, I don't agree with that.
>> well, you never see a shelter used by one family. I mean so if you are talking about, you know, a small shelter and having five families, my gosh, the cost -- the truth of the matter is nobody wants anything to go up. I mean something that's as reasonable as this, I mean it would be one thing if a family got the shelter and they were the only ones that used it. That doesn't happen. I mean you are either having a family reunion or some kind of a gathering of a number of people and whoever is organizing that thing can't say, you know what, will you give me two bucks for this, I don't think that's unreasonable.
>> I'm not in agreement with it.
>> just as a summary --
>> I'm sorry, the one other one was related to recommendation a. Related to the day use permit that you are talking about going up to $8 per vehicle every single day. I would like to offer a slight, slight change and that is for hippie hollow it be $10 per vehicle every single day. There are -- and it's not just the funny ones in hipy is different from the other ones, but if you look at the attention that has to be given to hippie hollow, if you look at our weekly reports, there's a great deal of time and attention that has to go to hippie hollow that is simply not necessary at tom hughes or pace bend or cypress creek. And to me, it's just very slightly more, but hippie hollow is different in so many different ways and scenery being one of them, but I personally thing that hip kwroe hollow out to be the $10 every day. And those -- but we get a lot of visitors from around the nation, and believe me, they can't believe it's five bucks a car to get into hippie hollow. It's amazing. So to me $10 per vehicle every single day for hippie hollow is warranted and just take a look at the offense reports in terms of what happens in the parks, both the time and attention that goes to that park, I think it's justified.
>> do we have the data to substantiate a sort of surcharge at hippie hollow?
>> [inaudible] incident reports. Probably 50% of the incidences occurring there. If not more. It's true.
>> hippie hollow for eight years.
>> are we never going to get a vote from anybody who wants to take their clothes off, $30 a person.
>> and you know what, we could probably get it.
>> imagine that.
>> to me --
>> it doesn't bother me.
>> it just absolutely is not one that I even -- and it's modest, it's a very modest differential and I think we should look at hippie hollow again next year.
>> and we say the reason is because it's costing more. And we think --
>> costs more to operate it.
>> and we can substantiate that based on our records and I guess county sheriff's.
>> absolutely, judge. Look -- you just pull the public records related to what it -- the park reports and get them on a weekly basis and I used to pay close attention to that because that was part of my precinct. Believe me, it's there in a disproportionate amount compared to other places.
>> you don't have hippie hollow anymore in your area, do you?
>> no, I don't.
>> I just wanted to bring that up.
>> I'm fond of the place, never took my clothes off, but I'm fond of the place. It's a cool place.
>> at the public hearing tomorrow, if we are thinking about changing some of these recommendations, I guess we notify people of that. Just announce it at the public hearing?
>> I thought today you were going to decide a, b or c or do. Once you make that decision, we will have the documentation there to hand out at the public hearing. I don't know that we have the fees on the web, but we could also try to do that and get that on there as soon as possible. And the folks, charles and roy know to contact will get the information out by e-mail or voice mail. And we'll certainly have the handouts available tomorrow.
>> do we want to [inaudible] judge, bus I think on -- because I think on certain things we may have differing opinions. We need to get something out there.
>> I think we do.
>> I can start making motions whenever you are ready. I would move staff recommendation on a, the day use permit with the exception that hippie hollow, based on cost of service, go to $10 per vehicle every day.
>> any discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> I would move on b and c and d we go with staff recommendation.
>> second.
>> discussion? B, c and d?
>> yes, sir.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> on the next one we have a choice between e on how to handle the annual day use permit, and based on user input, their preference is e, which is that the permit would go to $75 per vehicle per year with no blackout days. And so I would move approval of recommendation e related to day use annual permits.
>> second.
>> let me clarify something. We're recommending that these be forward to do the public hearing tomorrow.
>> absolutely.
>> but these are not done deals.
>> no. This is -- we just need to give them more focus as to where we're headed.
>> because I think that was one of the questions, you know, at the public hearing was was this already a done deal or were we really listening to people, but that clarifies it.
>> on e, I am listening to the e-mails I got that they would prefer a rise in the permit as opposed to blackout periods.
>> I just need to understand that.
>> move approval of the e.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> on g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, yeah, go through all of those, staff recommendation that's been put forward that that continues to be the recommendation.
>> seconded.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> okay. On o, this is where year now started to get into the athletic deals, there is a new staff recommendation related to all of this, and I would move approval of o, which is the basic -- the basics related to athletic field use age.
>> that includes the $40 per field at del valle, moya and webberville?
>> no, ma'am, that is actually coming up on the next one. We're separating these.
>> okay.
>> second.
>> okay, so o is --
>> just the basic how much it to get just a basic field, non-tournament, it's no charge for the nonprofit youth and for others it's $50 per field per day.
>> and removal of the $500 fee.
>> no tournament fee associated with this, just the basic. And no charge to [inaudible].
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously.
>> this is the one Margaret, that I want to pay attention. P, I would move the new staff recommendation which has to do with it gives us a new way of figuring out tournaments, and it would be a per field, per day higher charge on the our three metro parks, assuming when east comes on board, a lesser charge -- again, these are tournament charges, and this eliminates that $500 charge and replaces it with a per field, per day charge, and the other things here are the same staff recommendations on lights and field prep, which would be an optional service that folks could do without lights or do their own field prep.
>> so for lights it's basically per hour.
>> per field, per hour.
>> non-lights it's per day. Is that what I'm seeing?
>> yes. Yes. And again, it's getting the money -- not that $500 fee on the tournaments, it would be a per field, per day.
>> second.
>> but the per field on the tournament is the $40?
>> $40.
>> del valle and webberville. But the $75 per field per day remains at the northeast, southeast.
>> and east.
>> and that one I'm not sure. I think I need to hear a little bit more from the public tomorrow.
>> okay.
>> again, this is just what we're going to put before the public tomorrow, so I thoroughly respect that anybody can wind up at a different place once we get to that final hearing, but we need to give them something to focus on, and I would move that fee be given focus. This is what we put forward related to handling of the additional services and the broke down according to the parks. -- break down.
>> the rationale for the tournament per day is here's the turnsments we think where the change pay for entry?
>> right.
>> correct.
>> and we're thinking there is additional work required of us.
>> there is.
>> for tournament play.
>> uh-huh.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Daugherty, Davis, Sonleitner, yours truly voting in favor. Voting against, Commissioner Gomez.
>> and again, in terms of recommendations to take forward tomorrow night, I would move recommendation q, which is the one related to the shelters, that they would go up in price depending on whether they are small, medium or large. But I would move staff recommendation on shelters.
>> second.
>> I have a substitute motion on q.
>> happy to hear it.
>> that is to increase 20 to 30 and 40 to 50. So both go up $10. My rationale is neither one would generate a whole lot of money for us and if in fact keeping it kind of low promotes family picnics and the ones I'm familiar with, that's what the shelters are used for.
>> I will second that. I find that friendly.
>> second friendly.
>> can you just withdraw?
>> I will withdraw my motion.
>> that's my motion to just increase both $10.
>> and i'll second.
>> we still retain the $10 reservation fee.
>> right. [multiple voices]
>> right. I'm looking at the revenue there and it's not that big.
>> I like that.
>> but for the family it may matter.
>> we monitor it over the next year.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. R?
>> r and s I would move staff recommendation.
>> discussion?
>> second.
>> seconded by Commissioner Davis. All in favor? That passes unanimously.
>> okay. This is where I digress from what staff is recommending. I am not in favor of t which is a general per day parking fee. I think it costs more than what it brings in. I would, though, move u, which is the parking fee for tournaments that does not require additional staffing and is collected at the time of the field reservation and brings us money without getting those [inaudible].
>> let me ask a question. That's a motion?
>> uh-huh.
>> second it for discussion. How would it be done? How would it be handled for the most part as far as collections. I mean --
>> when a team comes in and reserves a facility, they generally know how many teams they are planning. I'm give you a example, the [inaudible] tournament coming next June, 190 teams. We already know. Sometimes they don't have all the registration at the time they make the reservation, but as they get up close to the event, they are going to have a pretty good number of the number of teams that they are anticipating because they need to know in order to hire the right number of referees.
>> scheduling. You have to know how many teams you are going to have in order to do your schedule. That's the day and that usually is the Monday or the Tuesday preceding the weekend, which we probably should say we would like to know Tuesday the number of teams that you have and we need to spotcheck that occasionally.
>> right.
>> as opposed to not.
>> again, a lot of what we're seeing at northeast is teams coming in from out of Travis County, and if you do -- like the snickers tournament, 1090 teams times 20 per team per day is 3840, times the days, that's $11,000 and that's moneys that would be come to help recover the cost of that tournament from out of state.
>> how is this fee collected in other urban counties? Or is it?
>> I'm not aware of -- you know, we know how the city does it in georgetown and Round Rock. Round Rock actually intercepts them at the entry gate.
>> by car?
>> car. And I can tell you because i've taken my kids to supporting events, it's confusing when you are trying to drive through at a venue and you have to pay a fee. Up in Round Rock it's a little confusing because if you are going to play baseball, you have to play a fee. If you are playing football, you don't have to pay a fee. But everybody gets held up at the gate. If we can institute this type of free structure to let the organizations embed the fee into their tournament fee, it makes our life much easier.
>> so we collect a parking fee per team.
>> right.
>> and whoever is sponsoring the he haven't basically collects that.
>> they coordinate that.
>> no additional staffing.
>> my only question is what happens if not all of the teams come that they guessed? Or counted on coming.
>> it's insignificant. I mean on Monday before the tournament, Commissioner, 99% of the -- 99.9% of the time they can tell you who is coming. Occasionally you will have -- if they tell you day of say you know what, two teams didn't show up, you say okay. I mean you just take that for -- but it's never going to be, you know, 16 teams didn't show up out of the 44 that we told you. That just doesn't happen.
>> a team doesn't show, they can't park, we give the parking fee back.
>> I would think so.
>> don't charge them.
>> we just don't charge them. [multiple voices]
>> refund it.
>> yeah.
>> it is the best way to do this specifically because you don't have to have labor involved.
>> no labor. You get it up front.
>> you get it up front. I would move u and we ignore t.
>> moved and seconded, right?
>> I seconded.
>> there's a motion and second. Any more discussion? All in favor. That passes unanimously.
>> did we get them all?
>> I think so.
>> thank you.
>> these particular recommendation will be actually given out to the folks that -- stake hold thaers have an interest in the -- stakeholders that have an interest in the park system.
>> we'll try to get them posted on the website this afternoon.
>> and I know that you guys can make some new calculations on the budgetary impact. If you can go with these presumptions, it's not final, we're still waiting, but we're building that input.
>> yeah, we'll have those ready tomorrow.
>> especially on hippie hollow.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 7:52 AM