Travis County Commssioners Court
October 7, 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 signed in [indiscernible] Moore smith, number one, barbara hankins and marjorine beeman together second.
>> good morning.
>> I'm director of human resources for Travis County. It's my pleasure to introduce to you today h.r.'s new manager of our staffing, training and employee relations division. Before introducing and sharing with you a bit about our new employee, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank the departments and individuals who served on the selection and interview panel, [indiscernible] our new employee, those departments are transportation and natural resources represented by carol joseph, health and human services represented by nancy nashville, last and certainly not least the county attorney's office who, yes, represented by todd clark who performed this task on his way out of the door for Travis County as an employee. So I'm especially appreciative to that interview panel because we had in of course today's labor market a very healthy applicant pool and many qualified applicants and through their efforts in helping me to screen through some 125 applications, we bring to you our new employee, harold hardin. Earl hardin. He has some 14 years experience in human resources management. His experiences are those that relate specifically to each of the areas that he will be managing for us here in Travis County. That again staffing, training and employee relations. Those experiences were gained at motorola and also most recently he's coming to us from the city of Austin's corporate h.r. Department. So I would ask the court as well as those who are listening from around the county to join me in welcoming earl hardin, our newest h.r. Manager and staff member. Welcome.
>> welcome.
>> just to be brief, I'm very excited by this next phase of my career in joining the family here at Travis County. And look forward to working with each one of you all. Give me a call, let me know what I can do for you. How we can raise the bar. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> I was about to tell you what a hard job you have before you. If you come here from the city you know that already [laughter]
>> indeed.
>> welcome.
>> I'm glad you said the word family because it really is a family over here at Travis County. I think that you will enjoy working here.
>> looking forward to working with you.
>> ms. Hankins and ms. Beeman. From our Travis County historical commission and many other activities. [laughter]
>> good morning. I'm the -- barbara hankins the chair now of the Travis County historical commission. And marjorine beeman is our past chair. We are here to tell you this morning that the Travis County historical commission has received a distinguished service award from the Texas historical commission for the work that it did during the year 2002. And we are going to give you the presentation. The award since we have no place to put it. [laughter] it was awarded to us at the annual -- (no video, please stand by).
>> to let you know about the award and also about what we have been doing lately. I would like to recognize marjorine as the person who was chair of the commission for the time at which the award covers. His (no video).
>> Travis County schools. Children are encouraged to write about their familiar lone star cultural histories. The best essays are collected and published each year. We were fortunate to have judge Biscoe present the awards at our most recent ceremony and I know the students and parents were very grateful for his participation. Copies of the publication are provided to each school which participates in the program as well as to the Austin history center. We have been working with some other Travis County historical groups to revive the heritage alliance, an informal networking organization. We are working with alliance members to survey the county's talents and villages outside of the city of Austin to determine the status of historical preservation in the needs of those local communities. Eventually we hope to submit an application to the Texas historical commission for inclusion in their visioning program, which would provide us with technical assistance in developing a long-range historical preservation plan for the county. We have been very busy with -- (no video) application before they are submitted to the Texas historical commission. And the last fiscal year we submitted 11 applications and assisted with the dedication of 8 markers. Because of an increasing interest in historic cemetery preservation, we are seeing a greatly increased activity in this area this year and expect that it will continue for the next couple of years. As I'm sure you know, the assist -- we assisted judge Biscoe's office in preparing an application for Travis County to become a certified local government. This will allow historic groups in the county to be eligible for preservation grants for which they were heretofore non-eligible. The application has cleared several hurdles and is still under consideration and actually the national -- at actually the national level right now, but we expect to hear back sometime in the next several months as to whether it's been approved. Finally, we are continuing to work on our african american schools project. We are making good progress in collecting and assembling information and hope to have a draft of a history of rural black schools in Travis County by sometime next spring. We would like to thank you all for your support, both financial and in many other ways and to tell you that your commission is very active and busily working. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all, you all have really been doing a great job. I really appreciate the work that you are doing and all of us do, in fact. I know every once in a while I hear a person in the community that really want to get on board with the -- cemetery, the cemetery aspect because we -- because we continue to get calls and gives the historic cemetery, how do we preserve it, how do we do this, how do we do that? And of course our -- I refer many of those folks to you all as possible. Again, this is a great need to preserve a lot of things that I think we should preserve. So I just -- my attitude, hats off to you all for doing a great job.
>> thank you, thank you.
>> we appreciate your dedication and hard work. It amazes me how much work some of these volunteer opportunities really can --
>> really is something.
>> -- can involve. Thank you ms. Beeman for an outstanding --
>> dwoant have a place to put that-- we don't have a place to put that.
>> we are a little embarrassed to receive this, you all did all of the work, but it's part of our job. We will proudly accept and proudly display.
>> thank you.
>> look forward to working with you another year. Don wheeler is next.
>> good morning, judge. Good morning.
>> good morning, don.
>> I don't get to come up here that often. Good morning, I'm don wheeler, with the t.n.r. Road and bridge department. I'm here this morning to introduce to the court and welcome a new manager as linda had to t.n.r. Road and bridge division. We have been looking for almost a year to find the right person for this position. And I believe that we have done that. With don ward. Don ward comes to us from a public works department. But he graduated from Texas a&m in 1983. Moved to Austin in '84. Went to work at -- at different engineering firms here in the area. He also worked for the county in '89 and '91, I believe, for pitv as a project manager in the c.i.p. Program. He went on from there to the private industry and then went to the work -- went to work for the city of Austin as their manager and -- in their solid waste department. And went from that to --
>> georgetown.
>> -- georgetown as an engineer and public works director. From there went to Leander as their public works director. That's where he -- he was the public works director in Leander last Friday. He came to work for us yesterday. I'm very proud to welcome and hope the court will welcome don ward to the road bridge division. I look forward to working with don. As you all know the road and bridge division has come a long way in the last 15 years. I know we have more areas to improve in. I'm looking to don to help us get to another level. I'm sure with his qualification and credentials he will be able to do that for us and also help the court.
>> don.
>> good morning.
>> welcome, don.
>> that was very gray shows, I'm -- gratious, I'm really excited to be here, can't wait to get started. I have been a previous Travis County employee years ago, feels like coming home, I'm glad to be here.
>> great.
>> welcome back. Looking forward to working with you.
>> I know don doesn't fit the road and bridge profile, but that's one of the things that I hope he help us with.
>> I cracked up myself when I heard solid waste mentioned. We can use you there.
>> don has been the president or is the president --
>> I'm the current president of the Texas chapter of [indiscernible], the lone star chapter. My presidency runs out this April, but I currently serve a membership of 950 members state-wide, municipal representatives in the solid waste industry.
>> that's good, good experience, thank you.
>> looking forward to working with you, thank you.
>> wes benedict is the last citizen under citizens communication. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning Commissioners and judge. My name is wes benedict, I'm secretary of the Travis County libertarian party. And I had a question for you regarding I believe it's agenda item no. 18 as far as the bond for u.s. 183 a and 130. And the question is if those toll roads as proposed fail to generate enough revenue to cover the cost of those bonds, who will be responsible for covering that shortfall? Will that fall on the bond holders or will Travis County taxpayers be asked to cover the shortfall?
>> I can tell you the definite who it's not and that is the Travis County taxpayers. We made a contribution, that's the extent of it and those bonds documents were very carefully written that we are not in this deal at all. And in fact texdot, the state, richard help me out if I don't say this correctly, helped back stop the investment grade sawed that was done on the tolls to guarantee that maintenance would occur on s.h. 130 on their tab if indeed the numbers are off. But absolutely, guaranteed, not Travis County nor Williamson county.
>> okay, thank you. Of course we will be watching to make sure that happens. We are concerned that charging a toll on the long way around Austin may not work and it may actually -- pay actually be funneling more people towards i-35. But in any case, I just wanted to go on record as saying that the Travis County libertarians are against using Travis County tax dollars to pay for these bonds. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank you, mr. Benedict. Anybody else on citizens communication, whether you signed in or not?
Last Modified: Tuesday, October 7, 2003 7:52 PM