Travis County Commssioners Court
Ferbuary 24, 2004
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 9
Now that brings us to executive session. We did indicate this morning that we would call up item 9 a and b for consult -- item 9 a and b. 9. A. Approve sole source exemption order pursuant to local government code, section 262.023 for maintenance of ez-vote, ez-tax, ez-vip and itp software with easy access inc.; And itp software with easy access, incorporated and nine b to approve modification number 4 to contract ma960322, easy access inc., For maintenance of tax office computer system. Both of those will be under consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. Posted for executive session discussion today ...
we did discussion in executive session 9-b. There were three issues called to our attention. Maybe a -- it may be a good stpo el take separate motions on the three. First off I move that we just drop the definition for government mandate or governmental mandate and leave the contract as it has been over the lasts nine or ten years.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. My second motion is we drop the governmental immunity non-waiver language and simply rely on the applicable law if this become an issue.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. This may be a little more controversial. I move that we accept the counteroffer of up to 5% as a compromise and that we just add language with justification.
>> second.
>> [inaudible].
>> right.
>> which justification.
>> maybe a 5% cap with justification is the wording that -- similar language would be fine. I just think there ought to be with reason, with explanation, with justification. I just think as a public entity we ought to see the reason.
>> that it is a cap.
>> right. And I guess I'm guided by what appears to be a long-standing good working relationship with this company. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> then related, judge, all those instructions, would we need to repost this for ratification or is this something that the county attorney can go ahead and get the appropriate language so that we can accomplish our task force today? We've got a Sunday deadline. Otherwise we have to get it on for Tuesday.
>> I think that if we can -- if those changes are agreeable, I move that we authorize the county judge to executed the contracted.
>> second.
>> if those changes are not agreeable, we'll put this on the agenda next week anyway.
>> did you all decide on what you want to do?
>> yes, ma'am. We had three separate motions on it. Tp-rgs now, so it really would be for the county judge to sign the contract if those changes are agreeable.
>> right.
>> if one or more are not, then we'll have it back on the court's agenda. I will post this anyway. If we don't need it -- any objection to that?
>> no.
>> did we vote on that motion? Then is that friendly?
>> way friendly.
>> all if favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Mr. Blunt, do we need you?
>> did we need to do a related to the sole source exemption?
>> we sure do.
>> move approval.
>> any discussion? All if favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, may ask you to revisit item number 25 on your agenda because it is related to this item 9-a. I had $30,000 that I planned to use for an up grade for the e-z vote system.
>> I don't know that we can revisit that. Unfortunately we indicated we would take up the second two items next week.
>> we did?
>> yeah, we passed one. There was some clarification needed. If somebody from the county attorney's office came down here --
>> i'll wait.
>> my concern was we indicated to the world that we would discuss number 2 and 3 of this item. If we can get it back in legally, that's fine, just hold right there.
>> all right.
>> and we will come back to 25.
item 25 referenced item 9a) tom, we did have one question. We called up this morning item number 25, specifically the part about a couple of transfers. There were three, like, subitems much we moved on one and indicated we would reset the second to 2 and 3 to next week. And the question is not with standing that representation, are we able to call that back now?
>> yes, I think legally you can reconsider. Legally you can, it's just a matter of fairness to anybody that was watching. But legally you can.
>> okay. We were told that various items -- various aspects need to be clarified. Have they been clarified?
>> do we need an actual motion to reconsider?
>> yes.
>> I would move we reconsider item 25.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you, judge and Commissioners court. Yes, on your list it's vs-1. Now, what number -- what item 25 does is pay for 9-a. And I had originally placed in my budget a $30,000 line item to have a connection between the new early voting system taken new e-z vote system so when voters are qualified to vote there's a realtime connection so you can tell immediately whether this is their first time to vote, exactly who they are, all of that. And there is a subsequent component to that. What happened was that hart stepped in and basically did that connection for us for free. And I don't want to overstate, but it's a security issue. You don't want to have a big gap between the time when you identify that a voter has voted and the time when the system knows that the voter has voted. That's a oubgs one. What I would like to do is now that I got that first part of it done, what I would like to do is finish and use $25,000 of the initial $30,000 for a part that takes care of an emergency module. I have had a little more frequency of down time in the connection between e-z vote and the voter registration database or that the polling place and the e-z vote system than I anticipated. What that means is that we have to go to an emergency module. We have an emergency module, we have a backup, but they are two completely different systems and the judges have to be trained in two completely different ways on these systems and you have to shut down one, open up the other. And what happens is that anybody who votes during that emergency situation where we don't have realtime connection with the voter registration database ends up getting data entered later on. We don't make that information well known, but that is exactly what happens. What I would like to do is to take this 25,000 of the 30 and spend it to finish that module so that I end up having a seamless emergency backup system with the connection, with e-z vote so if I lose the connection, what happens is is that I have an emergency backup that's seamless, it looks exactly the aim, it does not -- same, it does not require the election judge to go to the different module, there's no different training program, and better yet, once the connection is restored, then it's instantaneous update for anybody who was voting within that time period. It saves us manual data entry later on at night. It greatly compresses that security time freezing rain and it's a whole lot ease year everybody else. Since I ended up getting the first part for free, I was hoping you would let me spend 25 of the 30 to let me get the rest of this. That's what the-a is all about.
>> in terms of us trying to get -- since the money has already gotten into your budget, is there a way that you would voluntarily send the other $5,000, it would not be -- that would not be necessary back to the c.a.r. Reserve?
>> be happy to. No problem.
>> move approval.
>> in fact, the exact amount is -- I think it's 24,690, something like that. So you can have 5,000 and change.
>> I would move approval of this item with the taking up the offer of the getting the money back and putting it back into c.a.r. That is left over.
>> I think the only thing that I understand about this whole thing is it's going to be another $5,000 going back into the c.a.r. Program. [laughter]
>> we had a -- we had a project -- [multiple voices]
>> it does get complicated.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> what does that do for t-1?
>> t-1 was something separate and there's an issue with the auditor and activity codes and that's something different.
>> so you want to be back on next week?
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> judge, after consulting with john hille, we have a suggestion for you. Out of abundance of caution, you might want to list this on the agenda next week. When somebody was watching and when you said you would postpone it, they left their television set and went and did something else thinking they could come back and talk to you about this, you could have it on the agenda, if no one shows up --
>> stick it on consent.
>> I thought there was advice given over to last 15 years, we'll do just that.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 6:44 AM