Travis County Commssioners Court
October 21, 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 first. And this gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes. And the first one is a [indiscernible]. You can have a seat there and give us your correct full name. Brad beauchamp is second.
>> good morning. My name is sebastian castillo jr. And I'm on the fqhc board. But I come to you today for our agency who writes health loans, which was an agency which was formerly the h.i.v. Wellness center. A couple years ago we changed our name to also include hepatitis c patients and cancer patients. On world aids day December the 1st, we will be celebrating 15 years of our agency and we're going to invite you all to come and see us. We do get h.i.v. C.a.n. Money so we want to show our appreciation to you for the money that you have given us,en our agency started out with practitioners, two or three practitioners that were doing accupuncture and massage to people with h.i.v. To help them with their side effects from the medications that they were taking on. And now we've actually -- our agency has grown to where we have a food bank for h.i.v. People and case management, and we also have support groups. One of the support groups is for long-term survivors, and I'm on that one because have you to have been h.i.v. For eight years or more to be on that support group. And i've been -- i've had h.i.v. For 11 years, so I'm on that support group, and it's really -- the facilitator that we have is very good. He's been doing the facilitating for 10 years. We also have a support group for people who are newly diagnosed and up to five years, and they are in a separate group. So that's a little bit of our bio. We're going to be sending you some informaon on all of our services and invite to you our 15th anniversary day. It's from 4:00 to 7:00 on December the 1st.
>> okay.
>> okay? Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much. Mr. Beauchamp. And company.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners. I'm fire marshal for the county and want to take a moment to formally introduce brad beachham who is one of our assistant fire marshals and has been with us since the first year of its inception. Brad?
>> my name is brad beauchamp. The fire marshal's office would like to ask Commissioners court to join with us in our partners in the emergency services district and the Austin fire department by recognizing October as fire prevention month. We have three points pertain to go fire safety that we would like to quickly go over. As the court knows, cold weather is right around the corner and with it the dangers of fires caused by heaters and fireplaces. Many of these fires could be prevented by simply having central heating units inspected by professionals, by allowing space heaters to have at least three feet and not leaving them unattended overnight. They should be equipped with tipover safety devices. Here in central Texas we don't have a lot of opportunities to use the fireplaces and sometimes we forget to open the flue. If we choose to use synthetic logs, we should only burn them one at a time. Chimneys should be inspected annually. A spark arrester should be installed. It's simply a metal screen on top of the chimney that prevents spark from escaping. A metal fireplace screen should be used to make sure that the fire is out before going to bed or before leaving your home. Remember not to throw away hot ashes. A working smoke detector doubles your chances of surviving a fire. Most fatal fires occur between 8:00 at night and 8:00 in the morning. Most fatalities are attributed to smoke, not flames. Most of the people who die in home fires are asleep and never wake up, therefore we recommend you install and maintain a smoke detector in each bedroom, hallways and on every floor of your home wh-fplt the smoke detector sounds, your home evacuation plan should kick into action. An organized step by step plan is essential to your escape. You should know two ways out, have a meeting place outside your home, get out as quickly as possible and upbs you are out, never go back in. We recommend that you contact your local fire department or our office and obtain a copy of operation edith, exit drills in the home. We wish to thank Commissioners court for this opportunity to present this life-saving information.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you for the presentation. Dennis and danny, thank you for your role. Spoken eloquently as usual. Denny perrington.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, cindy perrington, human resources. I have been appointed or volunteered to be the combined charities -- I guess coordinator for human resources this year, and I'm here to announce our next fundraising efforts for combined kheur advertise. It's a appreciate your co-worker balloon drive. Notice you have balloons on your chase with cards on the bottom. We're going to be selling these cards to employees for a dollar. We want them to fill them out, put something nice about their koe work others the back and return them to h.r. We're going to attach them to a helium balloon with a ribbon and deliver them on the 29th. So the county, the downtown campus is going to be awash in colorful balloons and good feelings. We work closely with each other. A lot of times we spend more time with the people we work with than our families. But we forget to say thank you. This is our attempt to just take a moment and say I appreciate you to your co-workers. The cards are available by contacting h.r. Either by fax -- fax, phone, e-mail. They cost a dollar. We will -- if you have a need of several in your department, we'll bring them over to you on or you can come pick themñi up. We'll work with you. This is directed at the downtown campus since we don't have the wherewithal to deliver out to our various other areas. If they want to send a runner, we'll certainly sell them cards and they can come and get their balloons.
>> [inaudible].
>> the court's message is that we appreciate your hard work, your leadership and your support of Travis County employees, and we certainly do that. You show it to us every day.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> anybody else for citizens communication whether you signed in or not?
Last Modified: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 7:52 PM