Travis County Commssioners Court
January 27, 2004
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Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next and two citizens have signed in. This item gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda for up to 3 full minutes. We do have our new clock today. [laughter] you should -- it should go off after 3 minutes. The first is david cavalier. And second is scott johnson. If there's somebody else who wishes to give comments during citizens communication, please come forward. Mr. Johnson, we do need you to come forward, too. To expedite this matter for us. If you would give us your full name for the record, we would be happy to get your comments.
>> good morning, my name is david cavalier.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> I'm a real estate broker and I represent the openers of a property located at 4135 gattis school road in Travis County in the Pflugerville e.t.j., I believe it's in Commissioner Sonleitner's precinct and I have spoken with Commissioner Sonleitner on several occasions and she has been very helpful with -- with expediting the approval process of -- of the subdivision of this 46-acre property. The reason that I'm here is I would like to address in particular -- in particular Commissioner Sonleitner regarding the -- this property. The access for this property is off of gattis school road. It is a 50-foot wide by 1200-foot long county easement. And we are attempting to subdivide this property into 130 building lots and there's a -- there's a subdivision right across the street, across gattis school road and there's a new road called links lane, which has been approved and it is under construction right now. In the center line of links lane is approximately 13.5 feet off center from where the center line of our roadway would be. And I -- I believe it's in the best interests of the community to have these roads -- the center line of these roads line up. It would be a much safer intersection. We are currently in discussion with the property owners acrots street and -- across the street and for the past two months we have been meeting with them and trying to get them to relocate their center line 13 and a half feet. And in fact I have a meeting later today with the property owners and -- and I think this will be the last ditch effort to try to make this happen and if it does not happen, if thelt not -- if they will not relocate their center line to line up with our center line, I'm -- I would like to request your help, one additional time, to maybe call a meeting in your office with the engineers and property owners to try to resolve this matter. And make it work for everybody.
>> happy to do that, yeah. We could have handled that with a phone call. But yeah happy to do that, we have -- but it is going to have to line up. It is a huge safety issue on gattis school road. There is a reason for the requirement that we have got related to the center lines.
>> yes, I agree.
>> because of safety and access on gattis school road for everything to north and to the south. But whatever I can do to facilitate, I am happy to step in.
>> I appreciate it. Because our 50-foot county easement has been there for 50 years, we really can't really move that. So our only alternative [buzzer sounding] is to have links lane be relocated and really --
>> I can't force anything, but we are happy to help facilitate wherever we can.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you very much.
>> mr. Johnson.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> my name is scott johnson, I'm here to speak to you principally about air quality. I have been advising governmental entities for several years and was directly involved with the county's first early action plan that we developed in 1999. It has led to greater things that you talked about last week. Air quality in road, one of these icials that definitely we need to discuss more in the community, there's some mionceptions, in my opinion, regarding these matters and i've come down the past to speak to you all about it. I have come to campo meetings as well. One of the challenges that we face right now, is we are not able to move people from certain parts of the city to other parts of the city for their job, for their work. For play, for recreation. And we -- I asked specifically for a presentation from the Texas transportation institute back in September of last year, we got that at the clean air force board meeting. This -- this gentleman is one of the principal researchers for that group for that entity which advises texdot and governmental entities throughout Texas. One of the conclusions that 's drawn from his research, there's two main ways to reduce ozone or improve air quality relative to building roads. One is to lower vehicle miles traveled. This is well known, indisputable. One of the conclusions that he draws is that no high-speed peripheral routes can be built. Loops, for instance, that create increased vehicle miles traveled, thereby causing more gasoline to be consumed. Another observation that he makes is that you need to optimize operations, which means speeds and speeds between 15 miles per hour and 45 miles per hour are optimum. If speeds are below that, idling, that's an issue, that's a challenge that we need to address. If speeds are above 45 to 50 miles per gallon -- per hour, then the nitrogen oxides, one of the ozone precursors are emitted in greater quantities. He also goes on to say that emissions can be reduced through emt and operation and connectivity. Connecting roads together, connecting transportation corridors together. These concepts are new, but when I continually hear about building more roads, increasing the roadway network and then people assume that there's an automatic air quality benefit, air quality we are talking about ozone, that's not necessarily true. Unless you have the documentation, the scientific background, the modeling that supports that, you cannot make that assertion in public. And one of the things that I'm going to do is to try to continue to try to educate and even challenge people that make those comments in public because it's not necessarily true. There may be a benefit. It may be neutral, there may be a disbenefit. We don't know unless we do the scientific work on that. Briefly, regarding the inspection and maintenance of last week, some of the rerchlss that were made -- references that were made were ones that I would encourage you to challenge this -- the sources and doubtations -- documentations when people say inspection and maintenance does not work [buzzer sounding] or the e.p.a., So and so said it doesn't work. Unless the e.p.a. Administrator says that or one of the deputy administrators says that I would challenge their documentation or their sources.
>> okay.
>> be happy to answer any questions.
>> thank you very much, mr. Johnson.
>> you're welcome.
>> anybody else for citizens communication? Whether you signed in or not?
>> thank you, john, thank you.
Last Modified: TUesday, January 28, 2004 6:44 AM