Travis County Commssioners Court
November 4, 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 29
10:30 was the one we told stakeholders we would try to call up. If they wanted to come down, they could. 29-a, discuss and give appropriate directions on proposal for chapter code, joint Travis County/city of Austin subdivision code. B, consider strategic plan to retain independent audited of city and county inspection and subdivision related services to avoid duplication. Now, while we're waiting on our folk to get here on 29-b, I sent out a memo yesterday setting forth my views. We put in the budget $100,000 to retain outside audit. After thinking about this matter, city of Austin says it does not have any money. It seems to me that we will be questioned on whether or not we have made diligent, genuine efforts to get an independent objective determination of duplication of fees without getting some outside assistance. I don't see the city of Austin agreeing with our analysis. I don't see us agreeing necessarily with theirs. And so my thinking would be for us to go ahead and try to use the money that we have budgeted to do the audit, and then if it comes back basically that we are duplicating some of the city's fees and not providing service -- if it comes back the city is duplicating our fees without providing the service, we ought to expect them to eliminate those. I would spend $100,000, and if we come up with results that the city should have paid for, I would send them a bill for half of it. Realizing that if we can't -- we can't control whether they pay it, but I would send that bill. And my concern is if we try to get this done between now and the end of the year, it will take some time to line up on those big -- line up one of those big cpa firms. My suggestion would be deloitte and turb that we already have on contract, but the kind of audit that can get this done for what we have budgeted or a little less, and if that is so, I think we ought to do it. I think the worst thing would be for us would be the legislature to come back to town and us not be able to go over and show in fact we have taken good-faith steps to make this determination. And the culmination may well be that we are not duplicating any fees. That the fees we charge are for services we provide. And so if that's so, I guess -- might be worthwhile to have an independent auditor back that up.
>> and also there is that core issue of its not people are charging for work not rendered, it's a duplication of the work that's occurring and then appropriately each side is charging. So it's who is going to be doing the work to begin with. Who should be doing it so that we're not having duplication of work needlessly. And, you know, I have a great deal of respect for the city auditor and their staff, but the reality is is the outside stakeholders -- if they come back and say it's a-okay, nothing is wrong, no one will believe stevens team over at the city of Austin. They just aren't going to believe it because it's internal. You've got to have some kind of distance. And I have extreme respect for joe and his staff, but it's just -- to have somebody step backen say here's where we you see it falling, and I think deloitte is reasonable to be the won to say it is what it is or it isn't what it isn't. I think the legislature will come back with a vengence if there is not something done. This is the second time around on 1445. They've done 1445, then 1204. I'm afraid their next number is not going to be a pleasant one if they don't see at least one of us moving into a direction of carrying through on what they mandated. Go ahead.
>> yes, sir.
>> I guess my biggest concern is why would we spend $100,000 -- I think you've said it, Commissioner Sonleitner. We can do this and give it to the city and the city is going to go "so?" We're not buying off on that. If we are headed to arbitration, and maybe that's the question, I mean, if that's where we're headed, then I don't know why we wouldn't go there first before we would spend $100,000. Because I see us spending $100,000, and toby left nothing -- there was no ambiguity in toby's comment to us that the city is not going to spend money on doing an audit. Now, I think that they are willing to, you know, pitch in, you know, the professional help and whatever. And obviously a lot of it has to do with just plain budget more than just, I think, Austin wanting to leave get involved in this thing, or at least I'm hoping that's the main reason. But, you know, I don't think that the stakeholders are wanting things that are unreasonable. I mean not that I have seen. But I also am cautious and a bit apprehensive about the city accepting what the stakeholders really want to see done in this process. And if that's the case, unless I'm reading this wrong, we're headed to arbitration. Through this deal. I mean unless the city is going to say -- because I'm very comfortable with taking the stakeholders' questions and desires and say is this something that the city can live with. Now, maybe i'll be fooled and i'll be surprised even, I mean, if the city says, hey, we're okay, these are reasonable and we can get there with this. I don't think that that -- unless I'm missing something here, joe.
>> I don't think -- I don't think we're necessarily headed toward binding arbitration. Unless you are saying that our position is the stakeholders' position. I think we need to spend some time discussing that. If it is the case, then perhaps we are headed toward binding arbitration. But that's assuming where we started and not our expectations that we would end up there. And binding arbitration, the city council and the Commissioners court have to certify we comport with them all as it is written. I believe we are headed in that direction of comportg with the law. But is that saying the same thing as are the stakeholders happy with where we're going. I think that's a different question. So I think part of our discussion all along here should be what is the county's position with regard to conforming with the law. And that is a serious question.
>> well, joe, I mean the reason that I'm so insistent on finding comfort with the stakeholders, what we are trying to keep from happening here is the 1204 -- or 1604 or 1904 or whatever is going to happen, and that will happen. I mean if we can't please the stakeholders in this thing, then they will go back in 2005 and say, again, we weren't able to get a single code, we weren't able to get a single office, whatever they are wanting to call it, where we feel like that we have been given relief. Now, I don't know, I mean I guess we can talk as a court, are we going to be uncomfortable saying, okay, stakeholders, unless you get 100% of what you want here, again, I go back to there aren't many things that I find that would be what I would consider to be unreasonable that the stakeholders are asking. And now, if you think that we're going to be -- if they are going to say that's the best we can do and we'll live with, I mean I think we can ask them that pretty point blank.
>> that's a different position, in my opinion, than comporting with the law as it is written. I do not think that what the law -- 1445 and 1204 in its final form does necessarily is what the stakeholders wanted. And so if you are saying we're not through until the stakeholders are completely happy, that is a new house bill something or other. There were four options in the bill. The court and city council selected one of those options and we have been moving since then to implement that option including the codification of one single code for the e.t.j. And so we have been making good-faith effort, I believe, in conforming with the way the law was written and understanding this law was a final compromise. The Texas association of counties, the text municipal league, the stakeholders, everybody was in that mix. What came out of it was the law. And no, it's not exactly what the stakeholders set out to do, but given what we ended up with, I think we are headed toward conforming with the law.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> certainly. Absolutely. We have [ indiscernible ] now.
>> here's my thinking on b. It will take some time to line up audit firm. But if we're going to do that we need to start doing it. What -- based on what agreement of plan achieved because we need to tell the audit firm here's how the services will be provided. So our deciding to retain an outside independent audit is like step 1. We ought to have them on standby so when we achieve the plan we can go here's how we identity. I'm thinking it will take some time between us and [ indiscernible ] being funded and hraoeup up the audit firm, get it committed. At some plan either we have a plan or we don't. If we are to achieve this by January, I'm assuming it will be a month or so worth of work, won't it?
>> right. But what I'm thinking, I talked to cyd, this falls under professional services, and we can bring an exemption to court and I can start looking for a firm that can do this. My first choice would be to start with the firm that does our audit, which is deloitte. And some of the rules with these audit firms, this is more of a management audit than a financial audit, and if in fact they are not comfortable doing that because they've kind of had to carve out what they do, then to contact barron point. We have done business with them before and they do management kinds of consulting. And so that's what my thought would be to bring what we have to them, see what they might charge and if they can do it within that time frame and make sure that they can line up the expertise to do that. Because we met with joe and absolutely agreed that there needs to be an engineer or two involved in this. It's not just a financial audit. It's more of a management audit on financial and engineering issues. So I agree, judge. I mean, I need to start working to locate and firm and then work ng with t.n.r. That doesn't happen overnight.
>> the other thing is if you take the city of Austin out of it, the question is is Travis County charging a fee, one for service that we're not providing, two, for aer is vase that the city of Austin is providing. So I'm hoping if we can get a firm they can kind of look at both of us for the amount of money involved.
>> I think you have to.
>> but even if the city says we don't want to be part of this deal, then I would think we have some responsibility to at least look at ourselves and see our fees. But my goal would be we spend up to the amount budgeted to get the city and the county looked at. After that, I think we look at what part was provided the city and basically tell the city you owe us x amount of money. If they pay it, fine, if they don't, I guess we can't make them.
>> can I make one point. They say they don't have the money. They are willing to put in-kind effort into it. She says I share the objective of eliminating duplication and administrative activity. Okay. So I think there is room there so say we can do the outside audit and we can do it in cooperation with the city. [ indiscernible ] put money into the audit, but we will. But I think we have to have some cooperation from the city for the external auditor to look at the processes of both the city and the county. The issue is duplication. Duplication because one or the other is doing the other job. So unless our auditor, external auditor can actually look at the processes of the city and at least review what their staff is looking at as the processes, I don't think you have an objective study. So I would suggest that there is still a cooperative effort here. We're just going at it a different way and we will have a set of outside eyes that will make findings independent of both of us.
>> right.
>> what I'm looking for today really is not spending the money, but it is authorizing that we put in place -- we take whatever steps are necessary to get ready to do the audit.
>> right.
>> so when we get the green light, everything is ready to go.
>> right.
>> that will reduce the time necessary to complete the audit. But it will be our intention to spend the money to get the work done. Now, it could be especially if the auditors are trying to bring in soldiers to help with this, -- engineers to help with this, it will take time to get ready for the audit than I thought officially. We ought to offer as much time as we can.
>> we'll start working on it today. I didn't want to call any firms without touching base with purchasing and see where you all were to even waste time if we're not interested. But yeah, I need to get right on that and work very closely with joe.
>> it's kind of like when we were going to jail standards a year ago. We wanted to go to jail standards with a plan showing that we had made movement, and when we did, they cut us some slack related to we see you are making progress, we see that you've got steps in place. You are making a good-faith effort. And immediately after us was bexar county, who didn't have a plan, and they threw the book at th. If we are headed towards a situation with the ledge, at least if we have a plan in place that although the audit may not be complete by January 1, I'm going to feel a lot better than we have the plan and strategy in place to complete our work related to the duplication while at the same time I am still hopeful that we will have that indeed consolidated code that both the city and the county can sign off on. My hesitation related to saying, well, just let it go to arbitration is there has been an incredible amount of work cooperatively between the city of Austin and Travis County that I do not want to get lost. That we may say in our minds, well, they will just focus on those one or two things where we can't agree. My concern is they will open up everything and things that we all have cooperatively agreed to, an arbitrator may come in and say, you know what, I don't see it that way, and they may open up areas we thought we already had closure on and it's not good for the city and it's not good for Travis County. It is tempting to say we'll just let it go there and it's like I'm not ready to go there. I think there's been too much good work, including good work that's been incorporated from the stakeholders. So I don't want to lose any progress.
>> let me ask you a legal question. If, for whatever reason, the county is not at the end of the road in January as far as working with the city of Austin as far as looking at house bill 1445 issue. Issue, is there anything in the law that the legislature has that suggests that you can't go beyond the time lines of January, especially with the city of Austin. Are there provisions for other municipalities within the county that allow us to go for an extended amount of time up to whatever that time is. I think 2006, I believe. I believe that's the right year. Is there any provision in the law that suggests that we could get an extension of time if the city and the county and whoever else is working on towards the common goal of coming in, is there any provision to allow that. And if not, then what must the county and the city do to assure that we come within anything less than forced arbitration.
>> I don't see anything in the statute that provides for an extension of time beyond the end of this year. As I read the law, it is literally both the city and the county have to certify that they are no compliance with the statute by the end of the year. And the failure to certify triggers arbitration automatically.
>> okay. I wanted to hear that because it doesn't seem like there's much room to wiggle.
>> now, if it goes to arbitration, what the statute also says is what -- the entire setup between the city and the county doesn't get arbitrated. You don't start over from scratch necessarily. The statute says you only arbitrate the issues where the city and the county are not in agreement. So -- and that's, in my mind, one purpose of the statute requiring a certification. You can certify that we are in compliance with all parts of the statute except this one, and then that one is the only one that goes to arbitration. So I think it's real important leading up this to be thinking in your mind exactly what is the dispute between the city and the county. At this point I see two. One is we don't know whether there is duplication or we don't know if cost of service is being exceeded. That's the purpose of the audit, to find that out. And if the audit comes back and you all are satisfied, there's no did you happen -- satisfied there's no duplication and you are not exceeding kofs service, I would say there's not going to be a dispute between the city and the county. If the audit comes back and you all think there's duplication and you are exceeding cost of service and the city doesn't agree, then I think that would go to arbitration, you know, whether it exists or not, and if it does, what to do about it. So it's sort of two issues, does it exist. If it does exist, what are the city and county going to do about it.
>> I wasn't through yet.
>> sorry, Commissioner.
>> and if that is the vein or the intent of the legislature is avoid that setting, my next question is is there any way possible that the audit, independent audit, whomever we select, would have enough time between November 4 and the end of this year to come back with some audit report that will address those two concerns tom just mentioned. And I really need to know -- get a good firm grip on that.
>> I won't know until I contact them. So I ought to be able to give you a feel perhaps next week.
>> okay.
>> whether that's impossible -- if they say that's impossible, I could come back and tell you that. But we would be hopeful that -- that we would be able to do that, and I think tom's point is a good one. By hiring an independent firm, I think it shows the county operating in good faith to comply with the law, determine the facts, have an independent organization look at that, and then once you see the facts, you notice know, you react appropriate 'ly. But I think that's another good argument for independent. Then there's no controversy about -- I mean I believe my office is independent, but there's no question externally about that either.
>> and lastly, this is my last question, if we can convey what we are discussing here today and to the city of Austin in some way, shape, form or fashion to let them realize expediency of everything, I'm quite sure they are very much aware of that, but for us to go ahead and if we're going to go ahead and fund this and come back with an independent audit on both ends, the city and the county, to be as open as possible in this process so we can get to a good end before the end of the year. I do not want to go until fiscal year -- until the next calendar year on something that the law does not cover. That's why I asked tom the question. Even though we say we're doing it in good faith and all these things, as far as the legislature is concerned, as far as the statute is concerned, it doesn't address what's in good faith. It does address we must be through by a certain time. That's what it does say. So I'm kind of concerned about some things here. So -- and I don't want to go into arbitration if we can avoid that.
>> Commissioner, I just had one thought. Let me add this. The law says you have to certify by the end of the year, and if you don't certify, it automatically goes to arbitration. What that means is the arbitration process has to start, but arbitration is sort of like litigation. There are a lot of preliminary stages, and it takes a while before there is a final arbitration decision. I would say if the audit is not done by the end of the year, if you want to preserve all the issues that may arise out of the audit, you can say we're not going to certify this issue and kick it to arbitration and start the preliminary parts of the arbitration like selecting the arbitrator and you have preliminary hearings and so on, but arbitration is like litigation in that the two parties can settle it the day of trial if they want to. So -- but if the audit is not done, you start the arbitration process, but if the audit gets done in the middle of the arbitration process and it shows no duplication and no cost of service, then you uld say, well, the dispute between the city and county has gone away and you settle the arbitration. So that's not an extension, per se --
>> let me see if a compromised motion works on 29-b. For us to authorize the county auditor to work with purchasing and t.n.r. To contact firms and get them ready to perform an independent audit for us upon notices.
>> second.
>> second part of it is for us to contact the city of Austin and try to reach agreement on how we can collaboratively get this -- follow up with a letter that joe referenced a few minutes ago.
>> very important.
>> third thing is this is not authorization to spend money, but it is authorization to prepare to spend it. Now, I mean what we would like to see is a work plan that the audit firm would recommend to us as well as cost. And at that point we would make a final decision. So the -- basically the motion is for us to get ready to contract with an outside firm for an independent audit. Susan, go ahead and do whatever work she needs to do with t.n.r. And purchasing. Say, okay, here's howly get it done for you and here's what it will cost. At the same time we would get with the city of Austin and try to see how we can collaborate and get this deal done.
>> great. That's a good motion.
>> second.
>> seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussn of this motion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Gomez, Davis and Sonleitner and yours truly in favor. Voting against Commissioner Daugherty. A is really the plan itself, and we did get tpwr- the stakeholders goal a fairly [ indiscernible ] document to look at and you have ideas to share wi us in response to that.
>> yes. I think that's -- I mean we'll discuss, you know, waiting until we had a chance to go through all of this. Given our timetable, we opted to go in and start the discussion today. So we've w. That said, we're -- so with that said, we're done. We are prepared to give you comprehensive view. But I don't think the best place to start is wher Commissioner Daugherty's comment about what is our direction with regard to conforming with the law. I think it's a very important question. Becae of all the comments that have been provided, there was one central question and that is the division of labor between the city and t county with regard to subdivision review, inspection fees, whatnot. Several options. One of those options was option 3 is to divvy up the e.t.j. By geography. City, you take this, county, you take that. And you don't mess in each other's territory. That's option 3. Option 4, on the other hand, was the single office where neither entity gave up their authority in the e.t.j. But will you devise a process and a method of [ indiscernible ] a single office. But that it would eliminate the conflict between the reviews of the two agencies. Again, neither the county nor the city, under option 4, gave up its statutory authority to review subdivisions in the e.t.j. We both maintain our full authority. And that's the option that we adopted by the interlocal agreement and the option we have been pursuing for many, many months at this point. At one point in discussion with stakeholders we realized there many be times when someone needs to make a final call. And that typically is with the variance and the waeufrplt for some reason, -- waiver. For some reason we have not come to a single mind and there has to be a judgment call. And that is on the way to the so-called matrix. And we said, okay, we have to use some method of making a judgment call. Who gets final say on the waiver or variance. Within and he went back to who has the most at stake in that decision. The utilities or the city or the county does not have -- has very little authority. We don't offer utilities. It's pretty clear the city should have final say on judgment calls on utilities. So that batch of decisions went to the city. And we went through the entire process of the matrix. We ended up with [ indiscernible ] some of the traditional duties of county government. And we, quite frankly, we had the major stake in the outcome. We also divided up by geography. We said, where the city intends to annex an area long term, they had should have the consequences of a decision. So for larger area we'll defer to the city in all colors of decisions on variances and waivers. So that's kind of how it was divvied up, on variances and waivers. It was that concept, I believe, that the stakeholders want to [ indiscernible ] a much more fundamental change in how we do business. The authority that the county have complete authority and -- of our decision on roads, drainage and [ indiscernible ] that the matrix called for on matrixes, on variances and waivers. So when you are talking about migrating from where we are on the matrix for variance and waivers, moving to fundamentally adoption of 3 under the statute which says the county has full authority on those areas in the e.t.j. And the city has no say whatsoever in those areas. And for areas in the matrix, for instance, the city has full, independent authority and the county has no say whatsoever. And this is why -- this is fundamentally different. And this is why we come back to the court, and quite frankly, to the city council, where the fundamental question is do you want to amend the interlocal agreement to go in that direction. Because that's not the direction we've gone heretofore. And the very fundamental question, one the stakeholders has raised and it deserves an answer, but it's not within the framework of what we agreed to by t interlocal agreement. And it hasn't been only in negotiating with the city up to this point.
>> this is a better idea.
>> I think you need to ask yourselves whether we're giving up. [ indiscernible ] and are we comfortable would that position. I don't think in looking at what's been -- I think you should be prepared to rely 100% on the city's decision on [ indiscernible ] in that area. Whatever decisions they make are final and you get to deliver whatever decision that is.
>> [o ne moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>>
>> we would get assurances from the city that the roads will be built properly.
>> how are we handling -- I remember something strange that happened in kind of the anderson mill area where they winded up doing annex agreement that really kind of left things, i'll just say, kinds of a status quo, they were able to collect sales tax and a good portion of the responsibilities that are traditionally county government were left to us. So -- so how are we handling those kinds of things, very creative annexation agreements were figured out. Today economic benefit because they didn't have to take -- to take on the responsibility of the road, they got? -- got some controls, picked up all of the sales tax, we were left with the maintenance of the roads.
>> it basically would be a three-way agreement, city, county and the people being annexed. In that case if the county felt like it were being sad dealted with -- we would say that's not a contract that we are signing. That doesn't become a near term annexation area.
>> we are very precise about what near term is, okay.
>> let me add, judge, I think in response to your question, is it a better idea or not, it really depends on y'all. Because I look at -- at the stakeholders' comments and their proposed redraft of the joint code and I think that it raises a fundamental question of what's the role of the Commissioners court in subdivision platting. Historically, in the e.t.j., City approval was required by the city had a stake because they may annex it. The county approval was required because until it was annexed, the infrastructure was the county's to maintain. And the decision on whether to approve the plat or not was always made by the Commissioners court. You hired transportation and natural resources to revw the plat and advise you on that. And you delegated certain engineering type of issues to them, but by and large, the final decision on whether it complied with the requirements was made by this Commissioners court. I look at the comments from the stakeholders and they seem to be implying that what house bill 1445 mandated was that the Commissioners court no longer approve the plat that the single office approve the plat. In other words you have to relinquish your authority to whoever the single office is. So I think that's something that's got to be clarified. I mean, I don't read the law to mandate that. Now, if you all choose to do that, that's obvious lay possibility. You can always delegate your authority. If you think that's the best arrangement that's possible. I don't know that the law mandates, however. I think the way we handled that, because this issue came up when we were drafting the joint code with the city because they historically delegate a lot more decisions to the staff and so when we were going through the code, they would have a provision that says the director of watershed protection makes this decision and it's basically final. The applicant can appeal to the planning commission if they don't like it, but really that -- that decision had been delegated down to the staff. The way the Travis County code was always written and the way y'all always operated was t.n.r. Makes a recommendation, 99% of the time you follow it. But legally it's still your decision and not t.n.r.'s. And I don't know whether it's inadd vermont sent or not -- inadvertent or not, but the way the stakeholders want the code drafted I see a lot of delegation of authority from -- from y'all not only to joe but to city employees. When the issue came up with the city, we said we need it to read like it's always worked at the county. There's a recommendation from the staff and that's why we had all of the references to the single office doing something by consensus that was basically the single office is making a recommendation to the Commissioners court, but ultimately it's the Commissioners court's final decision. It's not the single office's.
>> let me ask this question. Will this item come back before the city council any time soon.
>> it's on the city council's agenda Thursday for the public hearing.
>> I'm sorry, joe?
>> the city council has a public hearing this coming Thursday.
>> Thursday. Okay.
>> and yes it will be on their agenda many times before the ends of -- the end of January.
>> okay. I think it would be a good opportunity for some of these things to maybe be flushed out.
>> I heard 8 or 9 different responses I guess. Why don't we get a side by side comparison that the court can look at. You all seem to be saying this boils down to what the Commissioners court thinks its jurisdiction ought to be in the future. How much do you plan to delegate, how much do you plan to retain. Give us a side by side, and let us decide ts on Wednesday of next week.
>> okay.
>> literally we are not ready to do it today, I think. Now the stakeholders did bring the document, it is voluminous, in the backup I provide the executive summary. Whoever wants to see this is fine with me. But in terms of what the differences really are, and the import of each, I'm not sure that I appreciate that today. So my request is that in the side by side comparison, you do the best that you can to -- to simplify and clarify. For the court. How is that? Then next week we basically come in with the intention of making a decision one way or the other.
>> uh-huh.
>> now, of staff we need to ask the question, in your view, is it better for us to keep going in the direction in which we were headed, using the single office, and thinking that the city and county will be able to achieve consensus where necessary. And I can understand variances in waivers, et cetera. Or is this other way simpler, more efficient, and in the long run more effective? I mean, 99% of those subdivision applications come to us, we follow staff's recommendation. My guess is that the Commissioners court will follow staff's recommendation on this, if we can see simplified presentation of the two choices that we have. What we have approved in the interlocal on one hand, on the otr hand what the stakeholders is -- what the stakeholders are recommending at this time. Now, not speaking for the stakeholders, but my guess is y'all are trying -- were trying to come up with a way that you thought complied with the law but at the same time would allow the city and county to work together and with you all wherein in the end we will be a whole lot better off.
>> correct. My name is hank smith. More on the stakeholders. The intent of what we are trying to get is compliance with the house bills and the legislation that's out there. We are not trying to take any authority away from the city or county in the case. What we are looking at is the single office is more of an administrative role. They don't make hard -- they are to make sure that the application gets to the right people to submit one fee, one time. Make sure the fee gets out to the right people. They issued one comment letter and one approval letter for the updates and things that come in. The city counc would still or zoning and platting commission will still approve the plats, the Commissioners court will still approve the plats. We will just have an administrative role which would be the single office. In trying to segregate discretionary authority to who actually maintains the infrastructure. In other words, outside of the near term annexation and outside of the areas that have agreements existing, the -- the county would have discretionary authority over anything to do with streets and drainage and conveyance, which is what they own and intain. And then within the limited purpose annexation areas, within the near-term annexation areas, the city would take that authority over. Then out in the e.t.j. If it's a water quality issue or an environmental issue, that would stay with the city. When the city approves those, that's done at the city. But there's clear discretionary authority over who is looking at what issue. You don't have the city and the county both looking at the same issue where if you do that you have the potential for conflict coming up down the road. And we believe the legislation was passed to -- to get rid of those potential conflicts. The best way we see to do that is to give discretionary authority to the city and to the county to cover all of the issues but it's separate and apart. When the county approves a plat, they are approving it based on their discretionary authority for roadways, the city is approving for discretionary authority for providers and utility if they are utility water provider and environmental issues --
>> can we put together that side by side comparison, get the city, county, stakeholders in the same meeting, but we basically make sure what the courtesies is an accurate representation of where we are right now and what is proposed. In the end the question is what is best for us. And I can go with either. But I also appreciate that in the end I'm kind of relying on the city, county, stakeholders recommendation. To the extent that you all are together on it, you simplify our chore, come to extent that there is disagreement, then I think it makes that much more difficult for us but it also makes that side by side comparison a lot more important. This is a whole lot of stuff, but there is a fundamental change in the direction, as you say. I think that we need to make sure that we know exactly what the fundamental change is and being fundamental doesn't bother me because ultimately the question is which one of these two is better for all of us?
>> that is a good recommendation. We have not had a chance to sit down and go through, they spent months for the stakeholders, but we haven't spent an hour yet going over their comments. So I think that ought to be first up.
>> judge, I still have my calendar a hold on a work session next Thursday, the 13th. Are we still doing that? Or not? And if we are, could it be double posted as a work and voting session next Thursday? Because I --
>> yes, yes, yes.
>> because I'm looking at next Wednesday, we got a whole bunch of stuff that isn't going to make today, american housing comes back next Wednesday, perhaps. It's just -- it's a full day and this seems to be something that -- that deserves our time, deserves our attention, but deserves it and not competing with a whole bunch of other stuff. I mean -- [papers shuffling - audio interference] so the answer is yes?
>> we will have it posted next Wednesday afternoon.
>> no, Thursday.
>> next Thursday afternoon. Yeah.
>> Wednesday is the real meeting.
>> be posted as the voting session.
>> great.
>> gives us flexibility.
>> that way if we -- if it takes a couple or three hours, we will have that time available. How's that?
>> okay.
>> I don't know that we can achieve more than this -- [multiple voices]
>> thank you all.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
Last Modified: Tuesday, November 5, 2003 9:52 AM