Travis County Commssioners Court
November 12, 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 12
12. Discuss and give direction on use of satellite 3 located at 14624 hamilton pool road by public, semi-public or private vendor.
>> yes, we are really here to get direction today from the court. As you know, we consolidated our road bridge operations taking the satellite 3 crews and moving them to satellite 2. Now, some of those facilities at satellite 3 are still occupied by t.n.r. And the constable. But we have the maintenance shop, which is a for pay, fully equipped shop down below. There's also an underground storage tank and there's some sheds that we use to house vehicles. All those facilities are now vacated. We have had several different entities approach us about using the vacated facilities. Including the est in that area. We would like to find out from the court just what you would like to do with these assets. We believe t.n.r., Also we have asked -- we have asked other county departments if they have any need for those facilities. No one has indicated a near-term need for the facilities. Although they have value. And they probably have value to the county government over the long term. But in the near term, we believe they have at least some lease value to the county. As a revenue generation. But that is a policy decision on the part of the court. Which is whether you would want an outside entity using the facilities. If so, on what terms? So that's really the question today. If we allow others to use the facilities, for how long and under what conditions and terms.
>> we legally have the authority to lease this property if we --
>> yes. You can lease property that you are not using. Private individuals, certainly to another government entity.
>> the best model of this is probably the lease that we have with the landfill operator who leases the 620 transfer station. And we are -- we have a revenue stream from that property not far from the satellite 3 office.
>> it's the first thing that I ask, joe, his opinion with regards to selling this and I got that loud and clear that -- that joe's opinion would not be -- would not be to sell it. So since that's off the table, you know, really this thing really got started I know they are making a presentation this morning with what they would like to see or have the ability to do out of the facility. And then we've -- as we have gotten our -- got in our backup, there have been a couple of folks indicate that they would be interested in looking at some sort of a lease arrangement when we can generate some dollars out of it. Now, you know, it may be that we have the room out there and -- and once you have determined what these other users might be, that -- that we also could take part of it and use it as esd, but I would like for the chief and for terry to come up, joe, if it's okay with you, so we can listen to their presentation because I think they have something that's very interesting and it can -- it can -- we can talk about two different things that we can do with -- with the -- with the esd.
>> thanks for coming.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, mr. President.
>> I'm terry browner, Commissioner for esd 6, hudson bend fire department. I have chief watson, who is our top chief in the area. Also in the audience, who I will be speaking to and about is -- is major pickering with the sheriff's department. What we are attempting to do, if you will notice I -- I have a brochure on your desk, which -- which I gave joe a couple of weeks ago, so he has one. And it a Travis County esd 9 proposal for facility use at parmer t.n.r. Precinct 3 site. Now, in this, I think to sell you -- to save you some time, we have now with the help of Commissioner Daugherty talked to lamar smith, the federal congressman and stone to see if we can get some grant money to help offset the -- possibly the way you all want to lease the property. This was mamed to them -- mailed to them Friday. I talked to [indiscernible] Friday as well as Commissioner Daugherty. And she is going to see if we can get something through the homeland defense. And with that, when we are talking about homeland defense, this is going to be a project that we can use for all esd's. For the sheriff's department -- the sheriff's department can use, with swat and a lot of other facilities. We will build a mock village that is portable, can be moved, in the building where we can use for -- for as I say swat for all of the fire departments and all of the esd's in the training. Especially into hazardous material and to standard fire apparatus use. When I speak of hazardous material, we will not be using any hazardous material, we will be using theatrical smoke and water. On one of those pages that I have in front of you, you will notice that we have the -- the moon suit that's the people use -- Monday suits that the people use for hazardous material, just to give you an idea of what we are doing. But this is the ideal place for both agencies to use this and also with all esd's for training. We have been designated as the training right now for all of the drivers with all of the county. With our expertise we have been holding training sessions and can do it through hazardous material and through several other areas. We have now been fortunate in obtaining a -- the largest ladder truck in the state of Texas. We are going to do training with that with all esd's. This will be an opportune place to do that in conjunction with this large building there. This truck as well as we have two other trucks coming in, will be conducive to hazardous material and homeland defense, which of course is a big thing. With that I would like to turn it over to chief watson. Who can elaborate on some of the other things that we have discussed.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> basically, our biggest problem right now is if our staff wishes to train or train with any of the other esd's, we would -- we have facility grounds needs, we have to go to Pflugerville who has a complete training center. What that does to us, it amounts to overtime, time away from our own district, apparatus that we have to move from our district over to another area. With this option, if you would grant us the opportunity to use a portion of your facility, this would allow us to stay within our own district. It would allow us to -- to allow training from other support staff through my training division and also our prevention division to bring in outside agencies that are close to us to where we would not -- they have the same problem we do, where they have to travel across town or down into Austin for additional training. This would allow us to offer this training out in our own area. We have -- we have many needs ourselves and I know law enforcement has many needs for practice. For homeland criteria requirements that are coming upon us from the federal government on things that we -- that we have to have, like similar to the hazardous material criteria. We -- we have one of the science trailers in our district. We can work closely with the other esd's that are involved in this venture as they -- as Travis County hazardous materials response team and we can actually work in our own districts which would also allow us when we do train as a team of -- of the four trailers, it would allow us another site to operate from as well. This would allow to give us some different scenarios. The facility needs that I believe us and the sheriff's office both have are some storage of some of our -- some of our excess equipment to get them out of the weather to make sure that they last, they don't deteriorate, things of this nature. Which this facility would be just used as well. Commissioner broder alluded to the building of a small town type of scenario within the building. There was some square footage area that what we would do, we would build walls and such that are movable, which is similar to the training facility that are constructed, similar to the one in Pflugerville. Where we can move walls around and this allows firefighters to -- to make entry into the facility on search procedures. Where you can change the room up and give them some different scenarios. As like the -- the swat team with law enforcement, they operate through the same issues that we do, as no one building is alike. So they could also use this type of facility to move the walls around for entry and access and detaining, apprehending people and such. Really, what we need to know is -- is what are your thoughts on this? Is this a venture that we could work together on and what would be the stipulations. If you would like to visit our operations, talk to any of our support staff, feel fr to do so. We would be happy to schedule a meeting with joe involved and sit down and talk about this at greater length.
>> what are we asked to do today, joe.
>> just give me some directions, if you want to proceed on this. If so with the esd or do you want to open it up to other uses. So I'm just looking for what do you want to do. Nothing or do you want to move forward with the esd or in other -- some other entity.
>> we are looking forward to a time after -- after precinct 3 constable has moved on.
>> he no. This is available right now.
>> all right. So okay. Would you all use all of the facilities there that are available?
>> no, sir.
>> it's -- just the main building as you see in that picture there. We should --
>> the shop.
>> the shop area.
>> the shop.
>> in my view we ought to ask joe and maybe somebody from facilities to get with the interested parties and get a bit more detail about the needs of each. I mean, I see esd 6 here, capital metro is interested in using part of it or all of it.
>> they were interesting in the land joining state highway 71. A different issue.
>> it could be that we could accommodate more than one interested entity. And I certainly have no problem with that. I guess at some point we have to figure out the -- the public purpose and compared to the profit for the county. [indiscernible] weigh that. I mean, seems to me that we ought to have a small committee to work with the parties that have indicated an interest in -- and come back with some sort of recommendation.
>> all right.
>> and guidelines, judge. I'm thinking guidelines, especially, if there will be other facilities like the precinct 4 satellite office will probably be some of that will be available, not all of it. Because of the flooding. But -- but it could be that the same groups that are asking, you know, for -- for this one would be interested in the other. On the other side of the county. General guidelines to how we will deal with the request. Would be good.
>> I think it's also important that we look at the -- at the revenue opportunities. Our budgets are incredibly too tight for us not have to ask that question. And this esd, I see where it says that your revenues are flat, but what's the budget these days of esd 6?
>> oh, a little over 4 million.
>> yeah. And the city of Pflugerville esd wound up getting a training facility because they put out a bond issue. And had their taxpayers pay for it. I think we owe it because it could also come up on palm school building. This is not just this building. I think that we have to look at all revenue possibilities here. Because you all would be looking at -- you are already paying, to lease space. You do have some money that's in play related to what you are already budgeting for. But I think that we have to look at the revenue opportunities.
>> for the whole.
>> for all of it. Because I will tell you, we are getting it the back at ya when we are -- the city of Austin doesn't -- is not going to let us have the mueller airport silent land for free. None of this stuff is -- I know that it sounds like it's government taxing government, but it is a business deal. This is an extraordinarily valuable piece of property. We owe it to the taxpayers to see what is the highest -- what is the best use of this property. And we have to look at the money.
>>
>> one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> let me ask this question also. There was some discussion that was brought up during the san diego brush fire, the fires that really just [indiscernible] a lot of that part of california, and I heard here in Austin we are basically prone to a same similar maybe situation if the conditions are set or something similar that could occur in the hill country and stuff of that nature. Did you receive the same deal across the media as far as our enforcement, emergency enforcement would draws some of the same type of similar conditions if a fire or anything else could be readily ready and available to actually happen in some of the areas out there in western Travis County? Are you pretty much aware of that?
>> yes, sir. We were involved in a very small portion of the sema grant funded that fire marshal baum made in his staff. The portion that was included from the area where we have about one-third of that western area that was on the map that the statesman had on October 30th on their front page.
>> one-third.
>> it was -- I think there was some issues that were left out. Our district has been very pro-wild land-urban interface for about the last eight years. We have hosted the nfpa fire conference in, I believe, April of 2001. And the fire-wise conference is where you bring contractors, developers, fire personnel, code enforcement individuals together to sit down and talk about wild land-urban interface issues. How do you develop subdivisions and make them wild land-urban interface safe. That happened at the Lakeway inn. We have adopted our own fire code, as you are well aware. I believe that was April of 2000. Maybe in 2001. To deal with some of these same issues. We felt like that we had to have a code in police to assist us, to assist the developers on developing safe, smart communities. With that, we also have had the full cooperation of steiner ranch and the riverplace subdivisions over the years on developing by the wild land-urban interface manual produced by f.p.a. We also have the comanche trail homeowners association who has been working with us and lcra and Travis County on a fire-wise plan for the comanche trail area. We are very well aware that our areas within the hill country are prone at times, though we don't have the high winds like california does, the santa anna winds beat us bee sometimes 25, 20 miles an hour what we are prone to in our heaviest times. Usually our rain conditions are at high 25 to 30-mile an hour. And if conditions are right, yes, sir, we do have the potential of having a scenario similar to the san diego area. One thing that the county fire departments and Austin fire department has been included in is the county resource coordination efforts that has been in place since i've been employed with Travis County s.d. Six, which is coming up on nine years. The county resource coordinator, there's seven of us now, and we're all on duty about one to two weeks out of each month. And what this is is we coordinate our resources of all of our e.s.d. Departments, and what this does, it sets and a certain amount of equipment responding at a moment's notice by pager from one side of the county to the other where we don't strip portions of the county, we still maintain a certain amount of resources in all the areas of the county, but we send additional resources to other departments in need. This has proved very successful over the years in combatting what could potentially have been larger fires into smaller ones.
>> who else do you need on your committee? Do you need somebody from facilities?
>> yes. Yes.
>> do you want to get with roger later on?
>> that's fine.
>> so we have in mind guidelines that would help us make a decision, and you are gathering more specific information about each entity.
>> all right.
>> project. And about how long do you think you need?
>> oh, give me about two weeks.
>> okay. The other thing would be us trying to accommodate -- well, in terms of the specific proposals from interested entities, I guess we would need to know how they would use the property, what compensation, if any, would be available to Travis County. If homeland grant funding is available, I guess we would want to know specifics about that. I would think there needs to be a public purpose analysis also.
>> and also the length of any kind of potential lease because the backup seemed to want to limit it to more a couple of years and the proposal, for example, was five years. And I don't know what the other ones are looking at as well.
>> we can change that.
>> well, yeah -- what we want to lock ourselves in on.
>> I understand.
>> anybody making a decision like that, whomever it is, would prefer --
>> you would prefer five, but I guess if it's [indiscernible] a year it would be good.
>> and if we could come up with some kind of figure. Olean, who is the district person, give us some kind of figure to see what we can do with the federal-type areas. We've got everybody working on this thing, and with Commissioner Sonleitner -- what Commissioner Sonleitner said about what Pflugerville did, of course they have a 1% tax that we cannot do out there because everybody is up to eight and a quarter out there where we are, and you can't use bond money for this type thing. You cannot for any type of this issue, bond money cannot be used.
>> that use frees other money sometimes.
>> yes, but, for instance, labor, you can't use bond money for labor.
>> it was realty idea in terms of to build one -- really the idea of in terms to build one, you could have a bond program. That's what they chose to do is get their facility is to build it.
>> [indiscernible] will work with e.s.d. 6 and congressman smith's office real closely, because I think when they first came to me with this, it became very clear to me that looking at this facility was going to be -- it's going to be a lot easier to do this if there were dollars involved versus just saying can't we just take it on given that we have a pretty valuable tract there. That's when I started talking with terry about we might want to see if we could go and look at some of the other e.s.d.s and see if they could help. Although, you know, we know that money -- that everyone is pretty strapped with money. But if we can work with congressman smith's office with homeland security, we'll come back real soon and start, you know, being very aggressive with what might be possible with that because the one thing that is loud and clear to me is that we need to generate money out of it. And so that's the one thing that I think that e.s.d. 6 needs to know, if the court is pretty insistent on we really need to turn this into a revenue generator, which I don't disagree at all with any of the court members. That's what we need to do. And I think there are dollars we can go of a. I'll work closely with that while joe works the other.
>> should we have it back on in two weeks?
>> that's fine.
>> is there any need to bring in the neighborhood? I can remember when we had the lovely bambi situation in terms of the use of that property for the recycled stuff. The neighborhood weighed in in terms of the use of that property. And certainly that location there, they have been vocal related to the potential much us having a park down that road. It seems like we ought to check in with others if we are talking about a change in use.
>> joe, is that in the city limits of Bee Caves?
>> it is.
>> may have to deal with some regulatory issues.
>> exactly. Yeah, and I don't know in terms of, you know, any kind of training, if there's noise related to -- I'm just asking the question. Because certainly it's near birds, and birds during certain seasons are not allowed to be irritated. So it's just making sure we check on all of those kinds of things in terms of the potential change.
>> with Bee Caves, one of my Commissioners is on the board out there at Bee Caves so I think that will help. Cope, ceo of st.david's, is one of our fire Commissioners, so we have a good relationship with bee cave.
>> i've also, judge, Commissioners, i've also been speaking with james fisher, village administrator, on this subject. Just talked with him a little bit about it the other day. And didn't really seem, you know, to have a real problem with it. Obviously we'll get more indepth. And just to touch on a few issues on the e.s.d. Finances which we did receive approval of a $10 million bond sometime back, we have started using portions of that bond which had purchased the 110-foot aerial platform that Commissioner browder alluded to earlier that also has purchased another engine, which we purchased two engines at one time and took some reserve funds to purchase those two engines at once to save additional dollars. But please understand, we very close to 59, 60 employees within our department, and the payroll alone just for the employees, not including the benefit costs, are close to $2.4 million. And with the benefit costs included and so on, we had roughly about $30,000 in the black that was the difference between our overall budget compared to our revenue, and as well -- as you well know, with property devaluations occurring and people appealing to the appraisal board, that could change over this next year, which we've already been told that we may be able to -- well, we need to be considering a 3% loss in revenue for next year. So we're all on the same band wagon as you as far as trying to obtain grant funds. Most of the grant funds that are available for projects like this have been let out for this year. They are gearing up again for this next year, so this is a opportune time for us, depending on what your stance is, if you give us approval for a portion of it or not, it would give us time at this point to be able to go forth with a grant possibility.
>> would you see this being anything that you all would weigh in on? I mean because I would think that if we're going to go to the congressman's office, that we may want the assistance from the sheriff's office. Or does that make you nervous given that you may be trying to get grant money for something else versus tying in with this? Or wow see --
>> no, I don't think there would be any problem at all.
>> okay.
>> that's definitely something that we would be interested in. And just like terry and the chief had said, it's an ideal facility for us as far as storage and maintaining, you know, a lot of our watercraft off the lake in the wintertime or when it's not in use. It provides some security and such for that. Our command trailer is currently parked out there and it keeps it out of the weather and keeps it secure and stuff. And terry and bruce have graciously indicated that if they can work this -- something out with the court, that they would allow us to continue to maintain or store those items there. And just like you said, it's a great training facility. Just the overall square footage, you can do all kinds of training inside where it's heated or air conditioned or whatever and not have to necessarily be out in the west.
>> well, we'll be in touch with your office as well. And terry, let's -- the two terrys and our office let's work and see if we can't get behind the congressman's theme on this thing and see if they can't help us.
>> okay.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you all.
>> so we'll have that back on the 25th, joe?
>> right.
>> I think we gave directions, probably no formal motion is need odd that one.
>> judge, will this include -- the directions, will it also include what Commissioner Gomez brought up as far as guidelines to bring back also within the two-week time frame? As far as the overall --
>> I think they are general guidelines.
>> this is general guidelines, okay. All right. I just want to make sure. Thanks.
Last Modified: Tuesday, November 12, 2003 5:52 PM