Travis County Commssioners Court
April 20, 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 27
27. Consider and take appropriate action on the following: a. Lease no. 04-6770-00631 and contract agreement form between Texas department of mental health and mental
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>> preview related to -- 27. Consider and take appropriate action on the following: a. Lease no. 04-6770-00631 and contract agreement form between Texas department of mental health and mental retardation, city of Austin and Travis County for lease space at Austin state hospital for the sheriff's office crisis intervention unit for the 2004-2005 contract term; b. Interlocal agreement between the city of Austin and Travis County for sharing of expenses under lease of space at Austin state hospital; and c. Request for payment to Austin/Travis County mental health and mental retardation for rental of space at 56 east avenue, Austin, Texas that was occupied by Travis County sheriff's office crisis intervention unit. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> ... To space that became available at the Austin state hospital when they had shut down a unit they had used for administrative purposes. So what you have before you again are the contracts that the county attorney's office has worked with the city attorney's office to make that happen. The third item really deals again with -- let's take a. We understand a is -- it's just a lease agreement of land out there at Austin state hospital.
>> that's correct. It is a lease agreement for the building. We've cooperated in trying to get together with t.n.r., Our facilities management as well as other county staff to make sure the rate they were looking at is a good rate.
>> you have the money in your budget?
>> yes, your honor, we do.
>> questions, issues?
>> judge.
>> yes, sir.
>> technically a also includes the service contract agreement form which the lease itself is just the space, but then they also provide services and that's lumped together in a. I just wanted to clarify that.
>> you are assuring me this is a form the state requires.
>> yes, sir.
>> as far as we know it does no damage or harm.
>> it just spells out the way they are going to provide services and that includes the utilities that are provided there. Yes, it's something that they require.
>> we normally don't use this form, but in your view there's no legal reason why we wouldn't.
>> that's correct.
>> move approval of a. Discussion? All in favor say aye. That passes by unanimous vote. What about is about basically is the city and county splitting costs 50/50.
>> that's correct, your honor. The county in this case is the lead agency for this venture. And the agreement that you have before you details the breaking out and how the payments for the city of Austin to Travis County would be handled.
>> okay. Now, the contract says that the city also agrees to pay the county the amount of $828.23 so the total -- or is the city actually paying half of the $800.
>> the total is twice. That the 800 is what they are paying us. We make the payment to the state hospital. They didn't want to receive two checks. We pay and the city reimburses us for one-half of what we pay.
>> so we will actually pay the state almost $1,700 a month, but the city will pay half of that.
>> and that's under the contract agreement. Then we also pay 500 in rent taken city will also reimburse us for one-half of that.
>> and this is the same amount that's in your budget that we talked about.
>> it's close to the amount that we currently have, yes, sir.
>> discussion, questions, issues? Move approval.
>> second.
>> that's of b. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> now the weird one. [laughter]
>> feel free, sir.
>> Commissioners, your honor, apparently back at some point when the city and the county mental health units were at a point where they could move into the space at 56 east avenue, there was kind of a ground swell of support for that. Judge herman tells me that he was involved in terms of the encouragement of that and he made some effort to make sure that the contracts were properly completed and signed, et cetera. Unfortunately, everybody has conducted a thorough search for those contracts and have not been able to produce any. He did tell me yesterday that we found an interoffice memo from our office tpr-rbgs the sheriff's office to the court that's describing the arrangement, but we never did follow up on it. And as a result, we occupied space that is property of the mental health, mental retardation facilities at 56 east avenue for some period of time without a contract. I'm told that we were allowed to move into that space rent free for a period of time and then they said that they would initiate at the proper time some documentation, and that just never happened. As a result, when we came to this point where we were ready to move, they reminded us that we did owe them some rent. We did set aside money from last year's budget to cover that, and that has been pending. Your vote and your approval. And I apologize for all of us who failed in that regard and failed in regards to obtaining a contract and simply bring to you the information that we've been able to gather.
>> judge, at the risk of giving you more information than you really want or need, I was present at some of those early meetings. Judge herman oversaw an application for a federal grant about three years ago, and the purpose of it was to integrate and coordinate the mental health, law enforcement folks and to more carefully address the needs of mentally ill persons who were being caught up in the criminal justice system. And the grant included money for some things but not for rent, and mhmr said, well, as our contribution to this coordinated effort, and the idea was to co-locate all of the folks that deal with these people including the h.e.c., Spell m.h.m.r., And they said they will contribute the space for these people to be located during the period of this grant and we won't charge anything for that. So they all moved in out there and during that period they were all located there and when this grant and the period covered by that agreement expired, no one ever put the agreements together to continue that, although the -- h.e.c., Mhmr said this is what the agreement is going to be if you decide to stay here, but it just never did happen.
>> where is that note? Do we have a copy of that?
>> yes, sir, I have I believe in my file here a detail of --
>> that's the date of the notice and how much they they say the rent would be and who at Travis County approved it? Realizing question number 3 may be tougher than 1 and 2.
>> well, I can't tell you -- answers those other questions, but I do have here a memo dated April 24th, 2001, subject is -- and it's from -- it's to the honorable ramirez in p.b.o., Charles at -- the subject is lease cost upon termination of the grant to house the mental health deputies at the anyway dean l. Jay building. And it goes into how much the space is, how many square feet and what the rent's going to be and it's his understanding the county would pay two-thirds of the cost and the city one-third based on the number of personnel they were going to have in the space. That's just a document. I don't know the history of that. It was provided to me in the last week along with a lot of other documents that people forwarded to me to look at.
>> and if we were to agree to that, quote, it would again when?
>> I don't know the details about what their claim exactly is, what period it is, but -- do you know what --
>> bill wanted --
>> rather than go through -- there are some basic questions that we need to get answered in order to try to figure out exactly what it stands for and why. Why don't we give you those questions now and try to get the answers. I'm thinking the answers can be on one page and it may be just pulling out the backup we've been shown here what the answers are. Seems to me at least we ought to know, okay, if you -- Austin-Travis County mhmr provided the space free of charge. The first question is what period was free space provided. Right?
>> yes, sir.
>> second would be that if we assume that the letter from I guess the financial person at Austin-Travis County mhmr is basically notice to us as if you stay here, here are the conditions, and if you don't meet these or don't agree to them, we want our space back, then the question is what would Travis County owe, what's our two-thirds per month, when would that begin, and if you add up all the months, what do we owe. So there's a demand I guess from Austin-Travis County mhmr right now for a certain amount of money.
>> that's correct.
>> a total. Somewhere I need to look at that total and figure out if in fact we had approved their memo and the terms set forth therein, what would we in fact owe. So there's agreement on that. The other thing is jim connally did have this short discussion last Wednesday. For this to be an agreement, the Commissioners court would have to approve it at some point. At the same time, if we have been there two or three years without an agreement using Austin-Travis County mhmr space [inaudible], I would think we would want to do the fair thing. The only question is legally what's the best way to get that done whether it comes to us as a claim or what. It cannot come as a contract because there was none. See what I'm saying?
>> correct.
>> I mean so I would -- you know, I would give the court those in one document and let us respond to that.
>> okay.
>> now, it's been three or four years since we had a knock down-drag out who has the authority to contract for the county and [inaudible] his contract doesn't bother me at all. Come in here and get the money much later is the kind of bothersome part. So it occurred to me when this came to my attention in the agenda setting meeting next Wednesday.
>> i'll go one step further. They don't have the right to contract. The Commissioners court is the legally defined group that gets to contract and my question to add to the list why was this not posted as a quant america claim, which it is. The fact they approved money and rolled it over, there was never a legal authorization to enter into a contract to occupy the space. It's always been my goal in terms of -- i've warned chief bailey about this, I don't vote for them because it seems the only way to get across the message in a loud and forceful way this is not correct and we don't do things this way and please stop it. It is going to be my goal that we get through an entire year without a claim. It's been a while since we had them, but we need to get them down to zero. Nobody has the right to enter into k-rlgts other than the Commissioners court and we are here every Tuesday and look forward to your continued bus. So I -- business. I wonder why it's not put down as a quantamerica claim.
>> we don't know we had the merits on a legal claim.
>> whatever legal approach we need to do the right thing, we at least ought to post it that way.
>> right.
>> so we have an opportunity. The other thing I guess would be you would think that Austin-Travis County mhmr would also notice the absence of an instrument that obligates Travis County to pay a certain amount of money. I mean and it's not like we're looking at a few months, looks like we're looking at a few years, right? Good news is you all have had the money in your budget and this has been like an annual obligation that you have respected and planned for. But we haven't paid. Am I hearing you right?
>> there has not been a payment no,.
>> so you would think that mhmr would notice that they weren't getting 20,000 a year from us. I mean I certainly would notice that if somebody was being a little bit derelict. And we need to talk about some of these leases, they either go under our real estate manager or it goes under purchasing. I don't care which it is, but we just can't have these things out there because this is where we get into trouble if it's somebody other than those who are great at doing this is not watching out to make sure that the electric bills are getting paid or that the leases are being renewed in a timely manner or the parking is being renewed. Purchasing has a place in this and/or real estate manager, but -- lectured enough.
>> it's a good time to -- [inaudible] purchasing and the contracts do need to come through us even if we're not included in the negotiations, contracts need to get to us so that we can enter them in the system so that payments can be made. So it's just a good place for purchasing.
>> the information we need next week. Commissioner Davis?
>> I was going to ask --
>> I believe we had some problems with the inventory that was gotten with these grant moneys too. Because we had just an oral agreement between parties and not anything written. I'm sorry, Commissioner.
>> so as of today you haven't seen basically anything in writing?
>> uh-huh.
>> on this particular item in the past.
>> no. And I haven't seen the lease agreements. Once they are approved they need to get to us so we can put them in the system.
>> that does pose a problem, but we'll just wait and see what develops. We definitely need to correct the problem though. Thank you.
>> have we had like a recent communication from Austin-Travis County mhmr that says in writing here's what you owe us and here's how we calculate it?
>> we do not at this time have a formal claim from them. My understanding there have been several e-mails between my supervisor bill campbell and mhmr on that. And we can make sure those get to the attorneys.
>> find out exactly what is the [inaudible] address the issue next week. I guess -- I mean I assume we were down there with a.p.d. Using the space.
>> that's correct, sir. After the 18 months expired, both parties stayed in the space after the termination of the grant which of course was there in-kind part.
>> actually, judge, I talked to judge herman this week and he said that the Travis County mhmr had actually allowed these folks to stay in there much longer without paying rent than had originally been intended as part of the grant. The grant period was extended and in addition to that I think our people moved in several months early before the grant award actually occurred. And so the period that they did provide free space there was much longer than they had originally agreed to, but as far as the exact dates on when did the free time end and when did the pay time begin, I can't tell you. I think he indicated to me he thought October the first, 2002 was the date on which we should have started to pay.
>> well, it seems to me --
>> whatever the calculation is for that.
>> seems to me we ought to be able to negotiate [inaudible] a compromise after due consideration of all factors, including the absence of a legally binding instrument. At the same time, this is -- Austin-Travis County mhmr is kind of like a brother or sister to me so we want to be fair. So we want to be fair to ourselves tame. Tame -- at the same time. Any other information we need?
>> let me say to Commissioner Sonleitner your message is well received and we'll work hard to make sure we're not a part of this. I want to introduce darrin long, our current supervisor over at Travis County. And I would report from all accounts in visiting with the folks from the mental health community and the representatives of the Austin police department, our mental health units have really come a long way in the last few months. They are conducting training for not only Travis County and city of Austin officers but folks from surrounding agencies and jurisdictions and there's a lot of good things happening there despite this little hiccup that we have.
>> sergeant long wasn't around in 2001.
>> no. [laughter]
>> but he's got the message.
>> call on ann richards.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you. See you all next week. We'll have this back. One week enough you think long enough to get this --
>> I think we'll definitely refer to the attorneys.
>> we'll have it back on next week. Thank you very much.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:31 AM