Travis County Commssioners Court
November 4, 2003
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Item A2
Is ms. Holtz here, cyd?
>> okay.
>> that's good, we have a few minutes. A 2. A2. Consider claim of bill ludwig, len layne and washing equipment of Texas regarding drainage easement in ludwig 2 subdivision for precinct four office building, and take appropriate action.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> roger el khoury, relayed out the -- the solution for them and then [indiscernible] a ditch and a pipe. We gave them engineered drawings for them to go ahead and review those -- the -- the layout. And the plan. Today they reviewed the plan -- after they reviewed the plan they sent us a note they not only want a ditch and a pipe, they want the pipe all the way. I think tom nuckols has some information to share with the court on that. We discussed that with them that we have a 30,000 -- they pay for the pipe and we'll pay the other half of it. And if the city of Austin does not approve the ditch and pipe and we cannot tell at this time if the city is going to approve or disapprove, but my feeling is the city is going to approve because we have a good engineering plan, it shows that it's going to cost about $52,000 to build a ditch and pipe. But the landowners, they say we want the pipe all the way, it costs $60,000. I don't know where that $60,000 comes from because I did not design their pipe. This is the information that I have. Tom, do you want to add anything to it?
>> well, I think this was on the agenda two weeks ago. I think the two fundamental assumptions that the landowners presented to you all were that the city won't approve the ditch and that really the pipe will cost about the same as the ditch. Roger doesn't agree with either one of those. We are to the point where nobody knows for sure -- the deal -- we met with them yesterday the deal we pitched was okay you think the city won't approve the ditch, if the city does approve the ditch, why don't you all contribute $15,000, which was the cost that you said that you were going to have anyway for your drainage and the county will pay the balance. That seems to me to make you all whole. And as of yesterday afternoon, they were willing to entertain that. However, since then they have said, well, no, we are just absolutely convinced that the city is not going to approve the ditch. So we want you to do the pipe. And they will pay up to $30,000 for the pipe, but as roger pointed out, based on roger's numbers, that would leave us paying -- them paying $30,000 and us paying 48,000. So before we -- before we made this deal final, we wanted to give you all one last chance to say, yeah, that's okay with us or to go an alternate route.
>> do we have agreement now?
>> I don't think we have an agreement --
>> no. I just talked to the attorney --
>> okay.
>> they are -- he's -- he was going to call his clients and call me back. I just got off the phone with him, so I literally haven't heard back from him, but he said he doubted his clients would take the either/or kind of thing, we talked with them yesterday about.
>> these come from the Travis County Commissioners court's minutes. Clerk's note: judge Biscoe noted that the option that has Travis County partnering with the neighbors to install a second [indiscernible] of pipe and share its costs up to $30,000 on their part, being the neighbor's part, is the one that makes the most sense now. Commissioners court also expressed their appreciation to the neighbors for working with us on this matter. Motion by judge Biscoe and seconded by Commissioner Davis to direct staff to take the steps necessary to get that implemented, including securing their approval from the city of Austin subdivision department and other appropriate steps to get it done. My reading of this is that our goal was that we would put the pipe in. The neighbors had said, the ones that wanted to give us like 14, 15,000, whatever it was, we said okay, do half of it. They said we will do up to 35 --
>> thousand, right.
>> we basically said okay we will take your 30 and basically get it done. That left me with the impression that if it costs 65 or 70,000, we would get their 30,000, pay the difference and get it done. When john -- when I saw it on the agenda, my first thing to tom was didn't the court already dispose of that. Tom said well, roger has got a better way. He thinks that he can get an agreement on it.
>> let me --
>> let me finish, though. My position was okay. If you got a better way to save us money and they will agree to it, fine. This came after tom said he got notice from their lawyer that they would file suit unless the matter were on the court's agenda today. So we put it on as an item, added item on Friday. I guess my question is are we going over the same territory?
>> uh-huh.
>> why don't we put together what we promised, keep our word. If the city won't approve it, I don't know that we promised miracles. We just said we can count on you up to $30,000, but not more than half, right? And all in excess of that we will pay. And we will to go the city and try to get this approved. Aren't -- [indiscernible] we ought to do that, keeping our word?
>> I think that we are keeping our word, judge, in due respect to the landlord. When last time we presented to the court, we put the [indiscernible] number 3, and the -- alternative number 3, the landlord said they haven't seen the plan. I said okay we will give you the plan, engineered, some ditch, some pipe, yes we have to have a pipe in there. We have about [indiscernible] feet of pipe, about 400 feet of the ditch to pick up the pipe and get the water and go. We are presented to them what they agreed last time.
>> but now we are not.
>> not for the whole pipe --
>> the motion last time was to implement them paying 30,000, us putting the pipe plan together, going to the city, trying to get approval. Now, we never promised that the city would approve it. We promised that we would go to the city and try to get it approved. We made a financial commitment that we achieve after a long discussion I think, what I am asking, we have not made progress since that meeting, this was --
>> judge, could I add one thing. I think this explains it. After it was on the agenda two weeks ago, they basically said, yeah, we'll do the deal where we chip in 30,000, roger said to them if I can find a way to do it cheaper, can do it for 15, will you all consider it. They said yeah we will consider it. Roger put that together, they considered it, they didn't want to do it. They want to go back to what's two weeks ago. That's what happened.
>> so where are we now? Four votes here with one absent. Everybody on the court that day voted for the motion.
>> judge, unless their attorney calls back and says they are ready to go the either/or approach, we are back --
>> it doesn't require another action by us because we have already said half of 30, we will do the differential, if it's the half pipe solution fine, if it's the full pipe solution, fine.
>> the one thing that I would add, this is a settlement agreement. We need -- if we are going to spend this money, we need to get them to sign something that releases us of liability so we need to authorize the judge or somebody to sign the settlement agreement whether it's on the terms from two weeks ago or should they agree to something --
>> well, we need to post an item to allow us to rescind the action we took if -- if you and roger suggest that you need to override us. The action was taken on October 14th. This is November 4th. We have not made progress. If we need a settlement agreement wherein they agree to certain things, let's get it together. Now, I would never stop you from saving us money, but at the same time if you take three weeks and we have not made progress, I wonder -- I mean, when we make the motion, I thought we had agonized over it enough to compromise. So --
>> judge, I'm -- I will do whatever the court, you know, never say, you know, whatever the court decides I will do it. My understanding [indiscernible], that was the, you know, the consideration, you know, with the -- with the landlord because we went and met with tom nuckols' office and laid out the issue. I tell you what I will do, I will get the engineer in priority, put the pipe in there, stop right there. Get it going.
>> unless there's a better cheaper agreed to method, I think the court's action ought to stand.
>> judge, my misunderstanding on that, I thought it was a pipe in the ditch already. Turned out to be all the way. No problem I will go ahead and design a pipe and get it going.
>> let me make sure that I'm hearing tom's point correctly. That is this is a settlement. Therefore if as part of our original motion we did not include and these folks will all sign and release the county from all claims, then there is still an unfinished piece of this and it sounds like they are waiting to find out if the full pipe, the half pipe, the ditch pipe, whatever thing is going to work, the city will sign-off before they sign-off on releasing us from any potential liability. So it does sound like there is still a county attorney's portion here unless -- unless we have a new motion today authorized the judge to sign whatever thing we can get them to sign to release us from liability. That just talk abouts the -- about the techcal solution, it does not talk about the judge being authorized to assign a settlement document.
>> it also calls for him going to the city to see if they approve that. Not just put it in but approval. Trying to see if you can get the city to approve it.
>> that's right. The [indiscernible] was put it together, take it to the city, try to get approval. The motion was to implement the steps necessary to implement the plan. There is plenty on tape to indicate basically what the discussions were. If we need a written document to evidence the agreement, if the court authorizes me to do it today i'll sign it. If the court doesn't authorize me we will put it back on the agenda to execute it. I'm just thinking we have lost three weeks. We usually -- if I was one of the neighbors I would be a bit frustrated, too, we had three or four options before us that day. I don't know that anything new came up. If we need an agreement really to clearly define the parameters of the agreement, so be it. I -- there have -- they are twice as frustrated as I am. There is some wheel spinning observable. Let me -- let me make sure that I have got something out of here. Isn't the problem with the property owner is that they can't get comfortable with whatever we are going to do, that the city is going to sign-off on it. And I'm -- I don't blame them for being -- I mean, I can see what we were trying to do, to do something, you know, cheaper. I can see where these folks are saying, we have signed up for 30,000, but all of a sudden we don't know whether that's going to pass with the city. Find the property -- I'm not giving you $30,000 to say okay this is what the agreement was because I think it was predicated on making sure that the city was going to give you the okay on what was going to be done, whether it was a ditch or whether it was a pipe. So I can -- I don't know -- there are a couple of things that you can see that are the issue here. I don't know how you can definitively decide or determine that the city is going to sign-off on something i've never seen them say, yeah, go ahead and do that, we'll sign-off on it. You have got to be brain damaged to enter into that agreement. So -- I don't know how do this.
>> my thing was we designed the deal, we pay for it, we sent them a bill, if half of it was less than a thousand dollars, we sent them a half. If half is over 30,000, we just send a bill for 30,000 bucks. If the city says no way we are not doing this, we will go back and tell them it won't work. Then we look at other options and come back to the court. Do we need this on the agenda next week?
>> judge, I think if you all are comfortable with the deal you approved two weeks ago, if the court will authorize you to sign the settlement agreement, it will be the same settlement agreement form-wise that we approved a thousand times and that way it wouldn't have to come back on the agenda ever again.
>> [multiple voices]
>> and we are not permitting you to make the city do anything, but get to you ask the city, if you take over your always perfect design, well thought out, I'm sure the city will --
>> there's no guarantee with the city, but we will try.
>> remain optimistic though.
>> I will.
>> all they are asking for is they want something that's going to pass muster with the city of Austin, they are good for half up to 30,000, and they want our help to help get it done. If -- if the half pipe does the trick, they're happy, if the full pipe does the trick, they're happy. But no pipe doesn't do the trick and they are not happy. So we just -- we need happiness.
>> my motion, seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Yes? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Tuesday, November 5, 2003 9:52 AM