Travis County Commissioners Court
July 6, 2004
Housing Finance Corporation
Let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation. 1. Consider and take appropriate action on request to approve contract with deloitee & touche, llp for external audit services.
>> good afternoon, I'm harvey Davis, manager for the corporation. And I'm asking board approval to approve a contract with the deloitte and touche for our outside audit services. The contract is patterned after Travis County's contract because the corporation is a component unit of the county. This county is a one-year contract with automatic renewals for maximum of four years. The -- the fees are for the year -- for the accounting year ending septembe 30th, 2004, 6 240dz and each -- $6,240 and each year after that increasing approximately 5 percent a year, year ending September 30th, 2007 is 7,224.
>> questions, comments?
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> any discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. 2. Approve minutes of board of directors meetings of may 11 and may 25, 2004. So moved.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. 3. Consider and take appropriate action to approve a flyer describing programs for first time homebuyers in central Texas.
>> as you well know, we live in a metropolitan area that has lots of government entities and a lot of these governmental entities provide programs that are similar to the freeman that -- to the program that Travis County provides to help people purchase a home. And it seems -- we get calls all the time from people wanting to buy a home. Sometimes we want to buy a home in Travis County or sometimes in the city of Austin, hays county. What I have attempted to do is sort of consolidated all of the programs that I could find into a document so that this information could be provided to -- to people that are wanting to know about what programs there are out there for -- for helping them in purchasing a home. If you could see -- as you could see from the document, it can be quite confusing for first-time home buyers to know who is providing the programs, what -- what the program covers, exactly what are the rules of the program. So I -- i've attempted in this document to have something that somebody could easily use to help them in their search for a home. I've gone over this document with the other entities, city of Austin, capital area houseness finance crption, Texas affordable housing corporation, so I am requesting the board's permission to put it on our website as an assistance to first-time home buyers. This would be a -- an ever evolving document because programs end, new programs start up, for example, when the housing authority begins their lease/purchase programs, then we would add that to this document. And I think Williamson county is -- will eventually be -- has just been designated as a participating jurisdiction. So presumably they would be having these types of programs. So that's the idea of this document.
>> okay.
>> do you know whether there is a live person at these phone numbers?
>> yes, I do. There is a live person.
>> my first thought was to put a contact person. But if in fact these phone numbers will get you a live person, you would avoid a whole lot of phone calls.
>> they all do -- tom one that is somewhat difficult is the Texas department of housing and community affairs. The others, I can assure you, you can easily talk to a person and not a machine. I do like it with just a phone number, not a person, because personnel changes. Phone numbers don't change quite as often.
>> there is a -- website for all of them, also.
>> yes.
>> participate where folks can refer to it? I know that they have that -- the corporation coming up with the things that you would like to include in this particular rendering. When would you anticipate that one?
>> when would I participate -- adding their information --
>> as far as adding to the --
>> as soon as they -- as soon as they officially have the program on the street in that people can actually use the program. I think that -- that this time they still need to issue the bonds and -- and, you know, the staff still has more work. Seems like it would be in a month or so, they would have the program where people can actually use it and that seemed to be the -- the time to put it, include it in a document like this.
>> okay. All right. Thank you.
>> so you are asking us to authorize putting it on channel 17 and blessing it with distribution to inquiring persons.
>> and to put it on the Travis County website.
>> right.
>> put it on our website.
>> yes.
>> move approval.
>> under the housing finance corporation category.
>> permission to approve all three of those actions.
>> second. The only question that I have, I don't want to assume anything, but are we pretty sure that -- that that population will have a computer to look at our website?
>> no, not at all. I certainly get calls from people and fax documents to them or send documents in the mail. So -- so, no, we don't assume that at all. There are a lot of --
>> I don't want to assume that, either. But the other thing is on our channel 17 then, do we have our phone numbers so that they can call us for a copy?
>> yes, yes.
>> harvey, you might also talk about, since it would be something brand new on the web, to talk to steve broberg and the gang over there, a lot of times they will highlight something brand new on front main web page because a lot of folks might not know, I think that i'll look at what's under the housing finance corporation today to see what interesting news is there. That kind of will be a trigger where we hope more to that --
>> they did that when we initiated the down payment assistance program. They gave us a little headline.
>> you betcha. Thank you.
>> any more discussions or helpful advice? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. 4. Consider and take appropriate action on request for southwest key program, inc. For assistance with the contruction of a new facility in the govalle/johnston terrace neighborhood, one block from johnston high school. We have been asked to receive evidence, ask questions, consider -- et cetera today but to delay action.
>> the southwest key organization has made a request to the corporation for a -- for $100,000 to defray the costs for a building they wish to construct. This building is located on janes street, approximately one block from johnston high school. It is on a 7-acre vacant piece of land that is owned by southwest key free and clear. No debt on the land. The cost of the building is approximately $4 million. They have told me that they have raised approximately half of that amount. About $2 million. Southwest key has had a relationship with -- my understanding with the county -- since 1996. They -- they provide services to -- to juveniles through the -- through the justice and public safety department that we have and currently there are three contracts that they work on. My understandings that their service to the county has been positive, they have a good record of doing good work for the county. I think if it's okay with you, judge, they would like to make about a 10 minute presentation to describe this project. So doctor sal cavasos will be making the presentation. Other representatives, I think, are going to talk or johnny, mr. Johnny limon who is a citizens and -- a citizen and veronica del galdo savage and reverend thomas snead.
>> welcome to all of you.
>> good to see you.
>> we wanted to take a little bit of your time this afternoon to share a little bit about what we are doing out here in our recently acquired property. First to tell you that southwest key program I incorporated is a 501 c 3 non-profit corporation, been in business for approximately 17 years. In those years it's operated in several states, has approximately 600 to 700 employees. It is headquartered here in Austin. And we do some of our work here in Austin. We have approximately for approximately those 17 years along a mission that we believe in whole -- hold true to our hearts and minds is that -- is that of intervention. And about creating models who work with at risk youth and families throughout these states and community that's we work in. Create models of intervention. Intervention for youth when they get involved with the juvenile justice system, create models to help them stay at home and get the appropriate services that they need and continue in their home life. We understand that some youth do need to be detained, but we believe that the majority of youth can serve their time in the community with appropriate models and appropriate programs to monitor them and have them go to school and be with their families. But in that time, in about approximately three years ago, there was a transition, a paradigm shift for our organization and that was that we moved from -- from intervention to prevention. And that is what this project is all about. Prevention. Creating a model that can serve the community and help the community and prevent youth from ending up in the juvenile justice system. We have acquired seven acres of property, about a half a block or a block away from johnston high school. I have been working with the community about two and a half years with an advisory council, two of the co-advisory chairs are here, they will speak in a little bit. In that time I got to know this organization very well. I was the principal at johnston high school so I got to know the work that this organization was doing there. Got for work with the community for the year and a half that I was there as the principal. In that community I will share in my closing, I will let the others share some other information, I wanted to share that the demographics in that community continue to be dismal. We have 81.6% of the population right now are -- 10.4% latino, african american. What is dismal is that the per capita income in govalle, johnston terrace is 9,533 versus the national per capita of 21,000. Unemployment rate continues to be in this govalle johnston terrace area 13.3%, which versus the national average or rate of 5%. 27% of the families in this area live below the poverty guidelines and 52% of the people in this area over the age of 25 do not have a eye school diploma. -- a high school diploma. We believe that this project will help in -- help in this community and help in our -- help our people in this community in Austin, the residents there in the govalle janseston terrace who help themselves to -- with services of after school tutoring, with other services, g.e.d., E.s.l., Other services, state-of-the-art computer lab, a business incubator to help inspiring entrepreneurs that want to do that kind of work. So we have received a lot of support about the services. We are also moving our national headquarters there with about 60, 65 professionals that will be joining the community. We are very excited about this project. But we are not the only ones excited about this project. We have lots of community support in the two and a half years that we have been involved with the community. Veronica is going to talk a little bit about the community support that we have had in this project and during this time.
>> thank you. My name is veronica del gado savage. I have been there for 8 years, started at a clinician social working at the jjp, I was a program director for three years. So I know since '96 I have been involved with those programs. Very dear to my heart. Now I am in a different role as a director of community affairs. In that role I have taken quite a bit of responsibility working with the community. Informing them about the project and about southwest key. About two and a half, three years ago, we formed an advisory council made up of activists in the community, leaders, neighborhood people, and those people, the core that started with us almost three years ago are still with us, we have some of them here. That are here in support of the project. Some of those people are people that are well-known in the community, limon, susana almanza, we've people involved with school, business, ms. Tyra duncan hall, the provost at a.c.c. She's been supportive of the project. That's part of what we have been doing. We have been doing a lot of [indiscernible] some of the efforts that we have taken are doing some community block walking. Recently in may we surveyed, we circulated a petition and we received over 425 signatures, which I believe every one of you have a copy of that. I have extras if you need any. Those surveys showed support. We actually had community people that volunteered their time to do this. Staff, a variety of different people went door to door knocking, spending at least 10 minutes to 15 minutes with each family member or not family member, with each family and letting them know about the project. 425 of those signatures were specifically from that area. Immediately around that area. I would say half of the advisory council lives right on the perimeter of that block, of that seven-acre parcel of land that we have. So they know full well, they were very involved from the very beginning in designing the project, letting us know what their needs were. We actually did a survey of 120 houses when we started about 3.5 years ago about what those needs were. As the doctor mentioned there's a lot of services that were needed in this area that we have now incorporated in this project based directly from those outcomes that we received. We have done house meetings where the neighbors have invited us into their houses, their homes, they invite neighbors, so we can let them know about the project. If they have any questions. We have done some of that. We have actually met with a variety of different organizations that are now saying we want to be involved in this project and be able to bring some of those services. So it's a collaboration, it's a project that's not a southwest key prong, it's a collaboration of different organizations and individuals in the community saying this community needs this. So that's the piece as far as the community involvement. And we have had, at city council meetings, over these last six months, we have been going through city council through the cdbg process which is a process that's lengthy and it requires a lot of support from the community and we've had over 100 people at each of the city council meetings. In support of this project. Because of that, because of the support that the city council members have seen, we have actually been able to get $367,000 committed to this project through cdbg funding. The city council people were very supportive of the project. They are still, we ask them for a million dollars, they are trying to find that money. They actually at the last city council meeting passed a friendly resolution stating that they would make an effort to find the additional monies, you know, from city butt, which I know is a difficult thing to do, they are making that effort, we are continuing to have those relationships with the city staff and city council members to try to find the additional money we have requested from them. They are trying to find the money from the city budget. As far as the funding is concerned, I know that we have asked -- well, this project is $4 million. We have asked for 100, we are asking. Requesting $100,000 from you all to approve -- to develop this project. Really that is a -- a small fraction of the cost. But it's -- we need it. We need those $100,000. You know? We have approached -- there is actually, we have submitted some additional information on how we are planning to be able to reach that $4 million goal that we have. Eda, economic development administration already committed $1.5 million. Specifically to develop economics. The business incubator. We also have of course from the city of Austin $360,000 already committed. Southwest key has an employee giving program where we as staff give to this organization to develop this project. Internally we are doing our own fundraising, we have $100,000 of those moneys committed already. We are also looking to different foundations and corporations and of course government support for the additional million -- for an additional million dollars. We have submitted at least 8 proposals to different foundations. We are in the process of submitting at least another 8 to 10 more. We are constantly working on that. We know moneys are tight, but we need every bit of it that we can get. We are confident that we are going to be able to get the whole amount. Of course, if we run into any kind of problems with raising the whole $4 million, we have a commitment from chase bank to loan us up to 1.5 million. We are a Monday profit. I want to -- we are a non-profit. I want to make sure that everybody knows that, because we are a non-profit we really cannot afford to have a $1.5 million loan. We would love to be able to invest that money back into the community instead of paying it out to a bank. But just for, if there's any questions about whether this project will be done, it will be done, we have ahead that commitment to the community. And to the people that live there and the families. So on that note I would like to pass it on to mr. Limon.
>> good afternoon, Commissioners. And judge Biscoe. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. For the last, well, over 25 years, I have been active in my community, volunteering my time, to make my community a better place to live for my family and for all of my neighbors. All of those years, this is the first time, this project with southwest key, is the first time that I can remember that the community, us, have been given the opportunity from the very beginning to take part in developing a -- a project or a program, you know, for our community. And that means a lot to us. Because, you know, we have been used to many broken promises. With this project, because we have been involved from day 1, from the time that they bought that property at that particular time, the community, doing a neighborhood plan, they -- they named it the govalle and johnston terrace neighborhood plan. And for two years we worked on that plan. To do things, to improve our community for our future. I think working with everybody that we did, you know, the business people, the residents, property owners, all, we did a very good job in our neighborhood plan. And since that time, was when southwest key came because they had just purchased the property. And they asked us, they were the owners of this property, but their project that they had that they were already working on was the youth in the jjm program. But they had enough land there to turn it into a community center. Small community center for that area. What makes this area very important and the -- crucial is that it has been kind of overlooked because you know since I can remember, I went to johnsston in the '60's, I graduated from johnston in 1969. The only thing that has happened in that area has been when they built johnston and the surrounding community, but nothing else happened there until the last five years when they built a whole bunch of warehouses around there. That's been the only thing, the only development in that community. That area is an area that has been overlooked. Neglected. However you want to say it. Mainly I think because of where it sits. That area sits in an area that is the boundaries to the east is highway 183, to the west is airport boulevard, to the south is town lake, and industrial and to the north is boggy creek and railroads. So there hasn't been no kind of development. What makes project special to us is that we, the community, volunteers like myself have had the opportunity to meet with the neighbors and have discussed with them what they think would be best for this particular property, what did they think would be good to see there. That's what we got, the -- the programs that we want to put in that area. So again from the community standpoint, a volunteer that has worked in the community to improve the quality of life in our community, you know, we feel that this project is a big step for this particular community. And I hope that you all can find you know the money that's we are asking for today. To help build, to help improve a community, not just the youth, but the whole family. The whole family structure. So thank you very much for your time.
>> my name is thomas l. Slayed, sunny rock church, organizer and founder of the church, we have been in this johnston terrace location from -- from about 23 years. Out of 23 years I have not seen anything positive. In that -- in that area, oftentimes I wonder why the lord sat it down there. I'm beginning to see the potential of that community. So when southwest key contacted me about what they were proposing to do, I was excited. I shared this also with our congregation, what southwest key is all about. They are very excited also about it. I have several members who are residential members of our church and they expressed the same thing to me, that they had not seen anything positive in that neighborhood. The only things that I can see in the neighborhood were johnson high school and solid rock church. That was just about it. But when we heard about what southwest key is going to do, I'm very positive about it, it's going to be done. One way or the other it's going to be done. I think it's going to touch a lot of lives in that neighborhood, a lot of families are going to be helped by having the facilities there because it's in a location where nothing is very close, you know, such as a store or a shopping center. People down there have to travel miles to buy food. So it's all -- this is a community, it seems like it's just sitting out there all by itself as someone has said, has been overlooked for all of these many years. You know. I have been here all of my life. I was born right here in Austin. Born at brackenridge high school. Some folks say I don't know brackenridge was that old. But it has been around a long, long time. So I tell you, this project really is the best thing that I -- that I know of that could happen in that community. Certainly we would appreciate anything that you all can do for us because I'm very excited. There are a lot of people who are excited about it. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> I want to thank the Commissioners this afternoon for allowing us to present from southwest key. The economic development administration calls this area that has been identified for you in the johnston govalle terrace neighborhood, identified it in Austin, in Travis County, has identified this particular area as a pocket of distress. Distress in the areas of economics, education, social services and the list goes on and on. The east Austin community development project is going to work with the residents in east Austin to help improve the quality of life for their children and for their grandchildren and for the adults in that area and we ask this after newspaper for your support -- this afternoon for your support in allocating $100,000 to pawrlt this project -- to support this project. Thank you.
>> yes questions? I have I have two. The first one is how would you use the county's $100,000 if we --
>> primarily we have several services that are going to be at this location. We are going to have the juvenile justice alternative education program. Juan cot tara -- cotera here is the architect of our project. I can answer that question by sharing with you the 100,000 would be at low indicated for the expansion and building of the school.
>> okay, that's one. My second question is can you give us just a description of some of the programs and services that you would hope to have once the project is completed.
>> we have a variety of different services. I have included actually down here in the bottom of the front, there is a site plan, also include understand your packets -- included in your packets. As far as services, juvenile justice alternative ed education would be housed there.
>> for those that don't know, these are kids suspended from school.
>> exactly. Suspended or expelled from school. Youth that may not have a felony offense, just troubled youth that have not been able to make it in the school district. Other kids that have been expelled because of felony offense, maybe there for six weeks to three months. So those be the types of kids that would be there. We have the jjp about two miles down from where we want to actually have this new setting. It's still there within the neighborhood. People in the community have -- don't even know that it's there, you know, we have been talking about it. They don't really know that it's there because it's a very quiet, peaceful campus, actually. That's one service. It will allow for expansion. Right now we have a cap on the jjep of 50 students. So the schools have been asking for more space. It would allow us to serve more students. Also allow additional money to come into Travis County probation department who really now has to fund some of that. Increasing the numbers would help with the revenue for the county. The outreach and tracking program is the only program available there. It's another one that we contract with the Travis County juvenile probation department. Completely community based. The case workers actually go out into the community, which large portion of -- percentage of the kids that we serve live in east Austin. So it would make it a little bit more accessible to be there available for the youth. That's one of the other programs that's there. The other services that would be provided there would be after school tutoring. We would like to be able to use the jjep in the afternoons to be able to provide after school tutoring and mentoring for youth in the community. Not just teenagers, but even younger children. We would have a state-of-the-art computer lab. For adults, too. Some evening classes for the adults, that would also include esl, imed classes. As the doctor mentioned there's a large percentage of adults there don't have a diploma or g.e.d. We would like to be able to offer that to them. Of course any additional classes that the community says we would like to be able to maybe get this kind of service. We would work on working with other community providers saying can you come in and maybe provide one night a week this service that the community is asking for. We would also have the business incubator, which is currently scheduled to be about 3,000 square feet of that whole space for new business. Which we would offer support and training to people hopefully from that community to come in and start small businesses. We have already been approached by some people in the community saying I would like to start a dentist clinic, dentistry for free services, those kind of things. Recreation, amphitheater, basketball courts, soccer fields that would be used by the jjep students during the day and then available for the public in the evenings. The amphitheater we have actually gotten commitments from a lot of arts people and organizations in the community that says we would love to come in and bring in, you know -- use this as a venue for some cultural events. We would also have community gardens. Sustainable foods has agreed to help us with that. We would also have let's see, some small retail. Actually just a little cafe area. That would be available to the public. As well as two staff here.
>> that would actually be phase 1. We have three phases. The other phases would include child care, which is desperately needed throughout Austin but in that area specifically, child care and low income housing as well for the elderly. Three phases, phase one has been articulated as far as services by veronica.
>> also college prep, help with any kind of financial assistance getting them ready to go to college.
>> I have one question johnny. You did know about the existence of the jjaep there from the very beginning, right?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> we did.
>> you didn't have any problem with that.
>> I took a tour to go see it. And I think the only thing, the only negative that I would say about it is that I feel so sorry for those kids that they are in portables, you know, but hopefully with the new facility they won't be in portables. I was very impressed. And I was very impressed because the students that were there actually took us on the tour. Some of them were going to be there for a month or two or whatever until they were able to go back to the school. Of the four kids I talked to them, three of them warranted to stay, one wanted to go back to his school because he missed his friends. That really impressed me because that was probably the one thing that I was real concerned about, this whole project. You know, bringing in students that, youth that we hear have gotten in trouble. The first thing we think as a community is bad kids what was. But what changed my mind about that, also, was that another very active person in our community, she said, but johnny, she said, those kids are our kids. How can we throw them away. How can we just ignore them and let them get into worse trouble? Why not help them? Once they take their first step, first foot, you know, of getting in trouble, isn't it better to correct it? And who can correct them better if it's not the community? Because they are our kids. And that really changed my mind completely and -- so I would have no trouble really supporting this program completely.
>> thank you. I guess I wanted to add on to this, in 1996 when we first had to implement the jjaep because the legislature actually told us that we had to do it without telling us. We found out later reading the legislation that we had to do this. So it was an unfunded mandate. But, you know, the county is in charge of the criminal justice system, which takes care of kids. And adults who get into trouble. And wouldn't it be better to find a way to educate them, even if they got in trouble, suspension or getting expelled, they need to know that regardless of what happens, they are not going to get away without an education. So we had some -- some concerns from the community over in slaughter lane who thought that this was going to be a really bad situation for them. I think y'all stayed there about a year, the juvenile department reported that there was never any incident of any sort of those kids because they are in a controlled environment. They are there for education. And then they got bused back home. So I think the -- any location where you all have been housed in, has never reported any kind of incident. So I think there's some concerns and fears, once we are given an opportunity to take care and follow through on the plan, we find out that nothing bad happens. It's just kids getting educated and they go back to school. Yes?
>> I do want to add one thing. Right now they are located right across the street from the a.c.c. Eastview campus.
>> on wheel street.
>> no incident has occurred there, either.
>> no. Ms. Tyra did you thinkcal hall totally supports this program. If there had been any problems with delinquency or whatever from this -- from these particular kids, the community would have already heard about it.
>> thank you.
>> I'm so glad you brought up what happened on slaughter lane because we had gotten the mandate from the ledge, get it going, got it going over at gardner-betts and then we immediately turn around and have a massive reconstruction project on that very tight site. We had to relocate southwest key, just down the block from bowie high school, the very same kinds of concerns, I think people have the right to say I have concerns. But it was about the traffic, it was about the idea somehow these kids being bused in from all over Travis County would somehow arrive and then mysteriously walk outdoors or as soon as class was over they would inappropriately kind up in the neighborhood. And there was concern because it's just down the block from bowie. From other schools in the neighborhood and kids that were walking to school. Nothing happened. And again I think southwest key had to prove that indeed they were an organization of their word. This is not a situation where there this is a group coming in from another city county or state and we don't have a track record. We've had a very long track record. You all were very much put to the test because people did fear the very worst would happen when we had to relocate y'all to slaughter and nobody even knew you all were there. Question for you veronica. Just for clarification, will you all be consolidating the two east Austin locations at the one site if you get this facility?
>> yes.
>> okay. And dr. Cavasos, if you could visit with us a tad more about your time at johnston high school. You are not a stranger in terms of working within this community. And I know that you kind of glossed over that just a tad. But many of us remember with great distinction your time that you spent at principal over at johnston.
>> thank you. I worked with the aisd five years, four years were as principal of fulmore on south congress, then after johnston high school had been low performing for three consecutive years, I decided to apply and take the challenge. And I decided to join and be with the community. They were having walkouts, student riots walking down all the way to sixth street to the superintendent's office, things like that. So the police out there all of that. I said, you know, I need more challenge in my life. So I wanted to do this. I applied, got the job. Right away the superintendent, the board president and myself were summoned to the Texas Texas education agency to submit a plan. As to how a school that was low performing for three consecutive years was going to be turned around. At that time I had worked on that, prepared the plan, met with the assistant Commissioner for t.e.a. At that time laid out the plans of all of the facets that would be involved into turning this school around. Working with -- many days, weekends, Saturday mornings, Sundays, evenings, all kinds, all times, with the community and with the staff, their excellent staff, were able to turn the school around in one year, became acceptable according to the standards of the Texas education agency, got education back on track, fluency back on track, truancy back on track, with a lot of assistance. A lot of foundation funds and such to help turn the school around. So -- so one of the reasons for my transition has been very public, but my transition has been the fact that the school was -- I will conclude my comments by saying the school is a part of the community. And I very much wanted to have in the bigger picture have more of an impact with -- with helping the community help itself to -- to help youth stay on the right track. There's a lot offkt distress --t of distress is really a euphemism because there is a lot of need in this area. I established very close relationships with a lot of people in that community. And a lot of tears of joy of their kids graduating and their kids staying in school and their kids not staying in school and such, hundreds and hundreds of families. My time there was very dear. I joined southwest key because I thought that I could have a broader impact in that community, along with other communities throughout the state that southwest key was involved with. I appreciate you asking. That year and a half at johnston high school was very dear to me, the four years at fulmore middle school are very dear, too.
>> appreciate that.
>> anything else from the court.
>> I just also appreciate that this is a one stop shop.
>> any comments from anybody else on this item? Thank you very much. We will have this back on next week then.
>> next week. I requested the delay because there is a neighborhood association there that they have gotten in touch with me, there is some opposition. So I just wanted if at all possible for you and the neighborhood association to work whatever opposition that is out is, work it out. Of course this is -- the location is in precinct 1, it's in my precinct. As Commissioner. And of course when neighborhoods complain, I don't care where they are, I think we ought to give them an opportunity to work the differences out. That's why I asked for the one-week delay. So you all could meet and get together, work out your differences, thank you very much.
>> I wanted to respond to that to give you an update. I know Commissioner Davis met with us and you asked to us do that. I have done that, I have spoken with the president of the neighborhood association.
>> you all will be getting together.
>> I have offered my egyptian, any opportunity -- my evenings, any opportunity, at this point I have gotten a response well no, we don't have anything scheduled, we don't have time for it. And I just wanted to let you know that I have continued continued to offer. When is your next meeting? There's no next meeting. I basically got a -- not a very nice response. I wanted to let you know that we are making the effort. We have offered ours to have it any time, anyplace, we will continue to do that.
>> I appreciate keeping an open door, thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> have you seen the objections --
>> we have seen those, we have actually responded and provided a copy to --
>> okay.
>> we will have it back on next week.
>> okay. Thank you. 5. Consider and take appropriate action to approve amended and restated bylaws of the corporation.
>> on this issue, our attorney has noted in our by laws that -- that it does not explicitly state that the board of directors have to be residents of Travis County. And so he has deleted language and added language to make this correction so that -- so that it is -- so that we comply with state law that the board of directors have to be -- have to be residents of Travis County.
>> not only did it not state that they needed to be residents of Travis County, the by laws stated that the director did not need to be residents of the state or Travis County. In review of the by laws for the old manor transaction and getting all of that together for the attorney general's office, we noticed that and just thought it was a good time to -- there's never been a problem. All of the directors, also been the county Commissioners, county judge. There's never been a problem, but we noticed that and thought we ought to get that amended and restated.
>> talk about something that ought to be implied considering we can't run for office for these particular seats unless we are residents of Travis County. It's just okay, whatever.
>> well, you could appoint different citizens to the board of the hfc. But this will clear up that little problem.
>> the state law does require that you be a resident.
>> yes, sir, the housing corporation act.
>> I would move approval of the amend and restated bylaws.
>> discussion? All in favor that passes by unanimous vote.
>> move adjourn.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote, also.
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Last Modified:
Friday, October 28, 2005 9:38 AM