Travis County Commssioners Court
September 9, 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.
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. And four citizens have completed the sign-in form. Number one is kenneth snyder. Number 2 is nettie brown.
>> my name is kenneth snyder, north ridge acres, third world. This here is the difference in our water. This came out Saturday night when my water went off and came back out. Die appreciate mr. Daugherty and judge Biscoe, I understand that you all have been working really hard on this. I do appreciate it everything. I gave you copies of this hear. We are sitting on the fire plug right now. It came out in black and white, didn't come out very good. I should have done some color ones, but this here is conduit, putting water through it. He put a band-aid on it, a deal to keep from it leaking instead of remacing the pipe. He paid more for that cutoff than the whole pipe. It's nothing but conduit. We understood water and sewer in the whole subdivision, when it rains that's what we get. Looks just like a swimming pool in our ditches. This is water that we are drinking out there, just like this. Should be like this. I didn't haven't been here much lately, I had a heart attack, taking medicine for that, I got rear-ended for that, I'm fighting that. Pretty bad shape now. Anyway we need water and sewer. And we are in the middle of the two richest areas there is in Travis County and Williamson county, growing faster -- like a wildfire. You have this dump fee, dump fines going on. I think we ought to have all of it. You can't really do very much with the dump. You have people creating the roads and stuff. Take that money and fix another dump area like ours. This smell here is there constantly. It's like that constantly, you have been out there, you know what I'm talking about. This is constants, when it's rains it's a mess out there. We need water and sewer. Williamson county came out there and dug out the ditches. This is an area that didn't even have any problems. This is what they put out there. They spent probably half a million putting this stuff out there. It's going downhill already. They doug it down so you can drive a car down the middle of it. They didn't touch the area on terrace where they needed it the most. They didn't fill ditch -- they fill the ditches so our houses are going to be flooded. We are in Williamson county and Travis County. The fastest growing area there is and we have a third world neighborhood right in the middle. 10 minutes from here. So I do appreciate what you all are trying to do, mr. Daugherty, judge Biscoe, but you really -- I think that you are going to do something for us, I really do. The thing about it is, right now it's a disaster, it needs to be fixed immediately, worser and worser every day. Especially this, you take a bath in this water, this is what comes out. 90% of the time we don't have any water. 90% of the time no pressure, you complaint take a shower out there. My doctor told me I needed to soak my back two to three times a day in water. I turn the water on, there's no water, how are you going to get the water? Real hot water? So I have got to put half this, half bolted water in there just to be able to take a bath, be able to soak in it. We definitely need help. We need water to look like this. I guarantee you if Sonleitner was drinking this stuff she would be out there trying to get this stuff, dogs, cats, dead birds in the ditches, drinking this water and they cannot get it off their system. This water is bad, thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Snyder. Ms. Brown is next. And after ms. Brown will be christopher [indiscernible]
>> thank you judge and Commissioners, my name is nettie brown, president of the north ridge acres homeowners association. I know mr. Snyder has made you aware of all of the health hares, I am just here to let you know that there are problems programs and judge Biscoe and Commissioner Daugherty has been working very hard to try to get us a grant for north ridge acres to try to take care of the water and sewer problems. I'm here to let you know that this Friday all of the regulations and rules concerning this grant program will be in place. Then the next week the water development board will approve it. Then we will ask the Commissioners court here, for water and sewer both. I hope and pray that all of the Commissioners vote for this. I mean something really needs to be done. And now we do have a program that can be put into place. There's no sense in putting a band-aid on it like mr. Snyder says. We are under receivership, there's $640 water bills, there's water lines laying under two foot of sewer. There's health hazards, my own family has health hazards. Two little grand babies that have colostomy bags on their sides from unclean water. I could not think of a more environmental nightmare than north ridge acres. I just want you to know that we do appreciate everything that you are doing, whatever you can do to help us we do appreciate it.
>> thank you, ms. Brown.
>> thank you.
>> mr. Theil is next and jimmy castro is fourth.
>> yes, my name is chris tealy, an attorney with the law firm of vinson and elkins. I work with mr. John riley who represent captex, inc., Mr. Riley is unable to be here at this time so therefore he asked me to provide a prepared statement. I believe that while they have not spoken here today it's my understanding that there are neighbors of -- of captex's proposed operations here today. Thank you, judge Biscoe, Commissioners for allowing me the opportunity to be here and comment. Again my name is chris teiley, an attorney representing captex, inc., We are here today because we understand the concerns of our neighbors of the proposed site and we want to respond accordingly. But it's very nature sludge application makes people nervous, as has been stated with officials by tcq sludge application could be beneficial to certain crops and should not cause health issues or odors when managed properly. It's similar in composition to dillo dirt. Other benefits of the site include potential low [indiscernible] disposal rates to the local communities to use our services such as the city of manor. At the same time accusations have been made that captex's environmental record is suspect. We acknowledge that one of captex's owners received deferred adjudication based on discharge at a bastrop county site. As we previously mentioned this discharge stemmed from the fact that the site owner who was not captex had allowed his authorization to expire and did not notify captex. As soon as captex found out about the lapsed authorization they ceased their operations at the bastrop site. Tceq has been aware of this since its inception and has no doubt factored it into their decision to move forward. We realize there is probably little we can do at this point to ease the concerns of our neighbors. We are letting you know that we are always be available to the public and continue to act as good corporate citizens. When operations are up and running we believe that you will find that captex is a responsible neighbor, running a business that on performs a necessary function in the community, thank you.
>> thank you.
>> do you have a copy of that letter that we can have for the court? Is it possible to get a copy of that letter?
>> yeah.
>> that letter that you just read?
>> I can make you one.
>> if you can give it to mr. Nuchols that would be great.
>> [indiscernible]
>> thanks.
>> mr. Castro is next.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe and Commissioners, my name is jimmy castro, I'm here to speak on my own behalf, also a former board member of the millwood neighborhood association. I'm here to encourage everyone to take the time to vote in the upcoming constitutional election this Saturday, September 13th and early voting is set between August 27th through today, Tuesday September 9th. First, proposition 1. Texas has over 500,000 veterans over the age of 65 for whom long-term care ace priority issue. The veterans land board will maintain these homes for these veterans. Proposition 10. This [indiscernible] donate surplus firefighting and supplies to rural fire departments. Proposition 13, this will permit cities, counties and towns and districts to establish an ad valorem tax break for elderly and disabled people. Proposition 14, this will allow [indiscernible] for transportation projects. Proposition 19, this will allow 75 rural fire prevention districts to become emergency service districts. Proposition 20, this [indiscernible] for defense related communities, especially our military bases. Finally, proposition 12. Constitutional amendment proposition 12 concerning civil lawsuits against doctors and health care providers will slow medical lawsuit abuse. Without relief from soaring medical liability rates, texans will continue to lose even more ground in health care affordability. The truth needs to be told. Proposition 12 will not take a way financial reimbursement. It will cap the questionable non-economic issues which are sapping the stability out of the entire health care system. It boils down to one question. Who pays for the damages done to the rest of us by those who rob health care with bogus lawsuits? It's time to think with our heads in order to save our wallets and ultimately our own lives. Reimbursement for appropriate issues such as negligence is an appropriate course of action. To dole out money for non-tangible issues is sheer nonsense. This proposition 12 is supported by the Texas medical association, and the Texas nurses association. Thank you, judge, and Commissioners.
>> thanks.
>> thank you, those are the ones who signed in for -- anyone else who signed in for citizens communication?
>> judge Biscoe, I would appreciate it if you would let me --
>> I was about to ask if there was anyone here for citizens communication who did not sign in, please to are come forward, if you would give us your full name, we will be happy to get your comments, yes, sir.
>> judge and Commissioners, my name is gary johnson. I'm here to -- I would like to read a letter requesting the Commissioners courted's assistance on a matter concerning the proposed sludge operation in northeast Travis County. I guess I beg to differ with some of the comments mr. Teiley made about the benefits of this. Based on what I have seen of cap Texas's operation up at briggs, I don't think the community at briggs thinks there's any benefit to his burnet county operation there's been -- that's been there a number of years. I feel lying based on the fact that there was illegal dumping in bastrop county that things have not really changed. I would like to read you this letter. I will give you a copy of it. On behalf of the black land prairie concerned citizens association, neighbors, property owners and friends of the northeast Travis County, I again come before this court and ask your assistance in opposing the sludge farm. As I'm sure you are aware, the owner of captex was granted approval of registration 710855 by tceq on August 25th, 2003. He paid a fine of $112,000 for illegal dumping in bastrop county in the year 2000. A major concern about the [indiscernible] captex proposed land use site has been the compliance record of that organization as has been previously expressed before this court on several occasions. The above find just reinforces the concerns of the past and illustrates the compliance that the company has not improved. The tceq letter of August 25th, 2003, indicated that a motion to overturn must be filed within 23 days of the August 25th, 2003 letter. We ask your assistance in this matters and request that the Travis County Commissioners court file a motion to overturn the registration. Thank you very much for your time and appreciate your assistance in this in the past, I will give you copies of this letter.
>> thank you all, I appreciate that.
>> that does it for citizens communication.
Last Modified: Wednesday, September 9, 2003 7:52 AM