Travis County Commissioners Court
November 16, 2004
Item 28
Number 28 is to consider and take appropriate action on applications to the Texas racing commission for change in race track location by the Austin jockey club, ltd., In precinct 2.
>> judge, I知 going to go ahead and get this kicked off. Commissioner Davis and I in discussing what was going on with the race track were both coming at it from two different points of view because of the location of another track in precinct 1. But as we talk more and more about it, we both landed at the same place and that we have to -- we have concerns about the application that is moving forward. To fill you all in just a bit, if you recall back in early August, we posted -- I would call it an emergency item on our Commissioners court agenda when it looked like an application to change a race track designation from the Pflugerville area right next door to our northeast metro park on pecan street suddenly appeared. And when we got ahold of the application, we found that a lot of the information in it, specifically related to infrastructure, the roadway, access, traffic issues, was wholly incomplete. I mean it just didn't even come close to being what we would all call a complete application. And so at that time the applicant, mr. Brian brown, with the retama group, pulled down the application from the Texas racing commission and had some meetings with Travis County about the traffic issues, had some things going on simultaneously over in the city of Pflugerville related to whether they would endorse the project or not. Well, it's now coming back to the Texas racing commission. And I was -- i'll use the word shocked when I called over to the racing commission to find out can we please have a copy of the latest application. And as of yesterday morning, that application was exactly the same application as was pending back in August which we all said was blatantly incomplete, inaccurate and misleading. And when I questioned the p.i.o. Over at the racing commission, I said you are kidding, what do you mean it's the same application. She said why would you think it would be something else and I said we've had conversation with these folks that it's inadequate related to the infrastructure. Late yesterday afternoon, and I do mean late yesterday, I think it finally hit our office about 4:30, there is indeed now a revised application, which if you did not get ahold of it, I have copies for everyone, and it does now acknowledge the things that joe geiselman and his staff over at t.n.r. Have been saying for several months now about the inadequacies that need to be pointed out related to pecan street. It was making representations that somehow sh 130 and sh 145 would help with traffic and those roadways will not be completed until 2007, which is before the track is done. And I think Commissioner Davis summed it up best when we talked about it this morning. It's too late to simply acknowledge -- at least from my point of view, and I let the Commissioner speak for himself, it isn't enough to simply acknowledge that there are transportation and traffic and infrastructure issues. There is nothing in this application that amounts to anything that is a commitment other than we know it and I guess we'll work towards a solution. But there is nothing in it that says we've dedicated right-of-way or we are prepared to submit x amount of dollars towards the rebuilding of this road. There's nothing in there. And the city of Pflugerville has complicated matters because they have made inferences that they intend to annex this land, but they have said nothing about whether that includes the roadway or not. And so we're sitting here with the racing commission now next Monday morning going to take up this application, and even in its revised form, I find it to be wholly inadequate and it basically says, well, we admit that the roadway improvements are simply not there. And to me as part of the due diligence that I would hope the racing commission would take into account, ought that not be there or at least have firm contractual commitments for things to happen. And with all fairness to the applicant, it isn't just about him in terms of making commitments. A portion of that roadway is in the city of Pflugerville. The city of Pflugerville has made no commitments to upgrade that road. And with all fairness, Travis County, while we have designed and had the engineering complete for that road, that was a 2001 bond issue, we have not authorized construction dollars for that roadway. And nor would we put that on a bond ballot without things locked down like right-of-way commitments and the private piece of a public-private partnership like we have done on howard lane, like we should have had done on wells branch parkway. We have seen what happens when you do not lock down those commitments before people say yeah, let's move ahead. So my bottom line, and i'll turn it over to Commissioner Davis and certainly we have people here from the public. I respect the fact that the city of Pflugerville is entitled and they should come to their own conclusions about whether this is a good idea or not. It's in their e.t.j. But Travis County independently and respectfully also is entitled to draw its conclusions about what it thinks is appropriate. And they have not addressed the issue related to the traffic and the roadway. And we're causing issues out there as well because our park is next door and we create traffic issues on the weekend. So I知 not there. I think that we ought to oppose this and send a letter to the racing commission that Travis County finds this application to be incomplete. And I will tell you that in terms of the e-mails and phone calls I have gotten into my office, and I have fielded quite a few, almost as many as coyotes, not as many as toll roads. There's a large range in there. But we've gotten a lot of phone calls and e-mails on this and they are overwhelmingly against it. And they are asking Travis County to do what it can to step in in its jurisdictional role related to the roadway and say we have issues and we ought to speak up because there's too much we have to do up here where we do not have the flexibility to say we object. There are things we have to approve because they meet our standards and that's the way the rules are. But in this particular instance, I really think it is incumbent upon the Commissioners court to basically claim its jurisdictional issue related to an application before a state agency and say this government has issues because the things within our jurisdiction, the roadway, have not been adequately addressed. We have promises, but we have no commitments. There is nothing in here other than yes, there are problems. And when I reread the application again last night, another thing that really disturbed me that I don't think anybody has really focused on, the horses themselves are not going to be housed at this track. They are going to bring them in from retama. So that is going to be a tremendous amount of truck traffic on a two-lane roadway that is already being eaten up, it's being loved to death not only by our park, but there are subdivisions down that roadway and there's this little thing called sh 130 that has a tremendous amount of truck traffic that is already going down that roadway. So one more thing I can't say yes to one more thing being added on there until this county, the city of Pflugerville, and yes, every landowner along pecan steps up to the plate and says we contractly are going to move ahead and give people firm time lines and firm commitments to get that roadway upgraded. Otherwise we are not doing what we have been asked to do by the folks who live out in Pflugerville. Take ahold of your jurisdictional issues. And I知 going to turn it over to Commissioner Davis to add in what he would like, but we have joined together on this that this application is incomplete and we ought to oppose it.
>> thank you, Commissioner. I think you gave a real good overview. I want to reiterate some of the things you brought up. I think it's been echoed very loud and clear and the direction I think this court should go. And there are several reasons that I am going to oppose this particular application. But to begin with, as you know, my jurisdiction is within the boundaries of precinct 1. And -- which houses incorporated city of manor and also webberville and of course this particular manor downs, which is an existing horse racing facility already exists in the town of manor. And to that extent, there is economic, I think, impacts that have not yet even been realized to have two race track facilities in close proximity. It's almost like pitting Pflugerville against manor. I wouldn't want to get in that kind of a fight. I do know that precinct 1 is real thirsty for economic development. The kind of economic development I think that can enhance this community I think is going in that direction right now as we continue to proceed in making sure that economic development does come there properly and in an ordererly form. My question, though, comes back to some reference points that is in some of the backup information about this particular location. Some earlier stage want to go house its at the intersection of 183 and riverside, which is really an area that's really resides in precinct 4, but this is a location that they were really looking at. And of course there was strong opposition according to sources by poder and also the montopolis neighborhood association and also the folks over there at manor downs. Of course, I think the [inaudible] down to close proximity to have similar racing facilities here in Travis County. In such close proximity, so again competing so the point where you may hurt an existing race track that we have here in Travis County. So economically I don't think it's an economically wise thing to do is to have competing race tracks in such close proximity. We have one now -- I have not really heard any negative about manor downs since i've been here on the Commissioners court, and it will be six years, in fact this past November 3rd. Looking at it from that perspective, it's hard for me to support this, but being against supporting an incomplete application to the Texas racing commission I think is very paramount. A lot of things were left out of the particular original application that of course Commissioner Sonleitner did address that have now been addressed and my question is why didn't the folks at 183 and riverside want a race track at that facility. What was the concern? What was the conversation? What was the dialogue of poder and montopolis neighborhood association, [inaudible] participating before the city of Austin, before the Texas racing commission, what was the extent of that. I really don't know. But apparently there was enough opposition to have them to change their mind and I think -- I believe the city of Austin ended up purchasing or either earmarked that property for multi-family use. Again there seems like a trail of unacceptance for this Austin jockey club as far as here in the particular area. And again, I知 not trying to pit one city, incorporated city against another. That's not my intent. But my intent is to make sure that we get the kind of economic development over in that precinct, and we can't lose any economic development. We can't go backwards. Not in precinct 1. And of course anywhere else in the county. So it's a lot of things I think we need to consider when we come -- when people come and talk to us before this Commissioners court or either have anything to say to us individually as far as economic development is concerned. And again, that's an area that I知 focusing on the regional aspect of bringing economic development in that area, but regional participation in doing some things. So again, these are all, I think, monumental. I think there's a lot of things that should be taken into consideration and those same folks, residents are from Pflugerville, I hope they are there to assist as we try to develop that portion of Travis County as we do in other areas of this county. And it's very important to me that that happens. We need a mall. We don't even have a mall over there. You know, a movie theater in those areas. We don't have any of those kind of things. I think those things are coming with the subdivision coming on line, sh 130 being a trigger point for a lot of these things. So again, this is not the time, I think, for this to come forth for the folks over in the Pflugerville area, especially if it's going to harm an existing racing facility that we have at manor downs. In fact, this application just given to me today, you know, haven't had a chance to go through all of the it this morning. I don't think that's fair to anyone to predicate a decision on what we want to do in the acceptance or denial of an application. But from the application that I did review, the city is -- it is incomplete and I think any application should stand on its own merit so therefore I would recommend after listening to the testimony this morning that this Commissioners court direct staff to construct a letter to notify the Texas racing commission opposing this particular Austin jockey club recommendation to locate a site in precinct 2. Thank you.
>> joe, we need -- and tom, probably a few staff questions. Then we'll give the applicant an opportunity to make any comment and then we'll hear from any other residents who have come today. My first question, joe, is what is [indiscernible] at Travis County today?
>> we have seen the application, both the original and the revised application. It's not really a submittal because it was submitted to the racing commission. We do have copies, have reviewed those. We have seen the original site plan. It was not a submittal. We asked for -- to see it. We have not seen the revised site plan which was presented to the city of Pflugerville. We had no official submittal by the applicant for a subdivision, which we believe is required in order to develop the race track. So what we know is really our efforts to look at the application as it's being submitted to the racing commission. With that said, our comments to the applicant, the staff comments up to this point have been very similar to the comments we would make to them when they apply for subdivision of this property. Our concerns have been primarily with access and transportation to the site, things that we would look at typically with a subdivision when it gets approved.
>> so we think that at some point in the process a subdivision application would have to be filed with Travis County.
>> we've -- unless the property is annexed by the city of Pflugerville, yes.
>> if it is annexed by the city of Pflugerville --
>> then we would be out --
>> that then becomes part of the city is outside our jurisdiction.
>> that's correct.
>> in terms of our ability to decide -- our authority to decide one way or the other, we can still provide input as a governmental entity.
>> there were some circumstances -- the worst circumstances would be in the city annexed the property but not me can street. We would end up with obligation on the roadway with no say what happens on the property.
>> the city of Pflugerville has not contacted us regarding annexation?
>> we have discussed that. I believe it is their intent to annex it at some point, but they are not committal -- non-commitment on when that might occur.
>> tom, to what extent does the racing commission incorporate the county's position into its deliberations? I know that horse racing is not on your resume, but -- [laughter]
>> I don't think it's real well defined how they treat input from local governments. I do know that if you read their statutory authority, it's clear that most of their criteria deal with -- would this track be good for the horse racing industry. Now, obviously, you know, a track that has inadequate infrastructure to support it arguably isn't good for the industry. So I think there is a basis for the county to weigh in on those issues and it's something that is within the racing commission's purview. But their primary focus is going to be probable economic issues. Obviously the infrastructure has an impact, but it's more tangential, I would say. They are going to be focusing on the dollars and cents of the horse racing industry and things like that.
>> okay. So what plans does Travis County have for pecan street? Any?
>> yes. We have -- with funds authorized by the voters in 2001, we contract with haffin associates to design an arterial roadway on pecan. At the four-lane arterial from fm 685 to fenig lane, six lanes from fenig lane to state how 130. Those design plans are completed. So we have pretty much fulfilled the authorization of the bond money. It was for design only. So at this point we did fee fin actively say where the road is -- definitively say where the road is, what it should look like. Not the county nor the city have funds committed to upgrade the roadway. We would look for the private sector to participate in the cost of not only dedicating right-of-way but also the reconstruction of pecan.
>> did we estimate the cost?
>> the costs are currently estimated between 4 to 7 million dollars. We believe that the proportionate share along the boundary of the race track would be about 7 acres of right-of-way and $1 million this construction costs. That would be for their fair share of the cost of the entire project.
>> okay. Any other questions of staff? By the court? Thank you. Is the applicant here? Mr. Brown.
>> and he certainly knew about this and in the last e-mail -- I talked to him yesterday on his cell phone and he said he would be here. He certainly is well aware of our discussions.
>> nobody here from the applicant race track project. Anybody else to address us today? We did get a few phone calls yesterday. It's time to come forward. We have six seats available. And if you would get real comfortable and give us your full name, we would be happy to get your comments.
>> my name is mike northern. Citizen of Pflugerville. Also I represent several churches in Pflugerville. I've done a lot of research on this from all different type of angles and I won't go into all those today because I don't think they all particularly address the issue that is a concern to you. I think the two Commissioners that have already spoken have clearly enumerated some of the things that we're concerned about. They have rushed -- they have tried to rush this through. This is part of their game plan. Gambling industry. They want to quietly move in, try to find places where they can get in, and when we became aware of it as citizens, we began to try to bring light to the subject, get the media involved, inform people, and I think some of the others that are here that I知 familiar with have got some things they are going to share with you. I just wanted to highlight a few. In the annexation laws, there is a separate way that they have to deal with annex when there's a certain number of homes. Within that area. If there's not, they can annex quicker, which this land falls underneath that and the city could annex that quickly if they want to but there's m.u.d. Issues involved I think is what is causing the problems with this. There are close to # thousand homes within a half mile of this location. These people need to have some consideration. I live within that half mile. They are going to have a amphitheater. I don't care what you have heard from public comments before about I can hear i-35 noise and this and this and that, we're going to hear that noise whether we want to or not. Ultimately our taxes are going to be higher because race tracks traditionally we have copies of comptroller's report, they do not give revenue to the state. They are exempt from the first $100 million of wages they are exempt from paying taxes on. When you study the records, all the tracts I see except for two are in double digit negative. They cannot make money on racing. They are passing the legislature to pass video terminals and they are going to start to plug race tracks everywhere they can to suck the environment of their income. It will take $25 million worth of wagering to reduce $1 million in revenue. And we have a study from a professor that says in using his numbers and his equations, it will take about $3.5 million to take care of the social problems of just 1% of the people being addicted pathologically or problem addiction to gambling. That's just 1%. That's just Pflugerville. You have already listed the problems with the roads. I can't hardly get out of my house on Saturdays because of ozark. It's awful. We love people coming there, we love they spend money in Pflugerville, but there's good way into that property for the soccer fields. And no -- no business --er business, they keep telling us, retama it's going to help, it's going to help Pflugerville grow, increase all these businesses. Those business couldn't even afford the stay in business because people couldn't get there because of the road structures. That stuff comes later. This is the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong business to start the development of that property. This will set a trend. We have studies that show that businesses don't even want to relocate within 35 to 50 millions of a race track. Because they will hire people that live near it and there's other problems they've had with their employees and it goes on and on from there.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ... Never granted two racetracks in any one county. They tried here in Austin because of the east Austin residents got that turned down. But their license is still there, they are trying to do it. We have 800 population, harris county doesn't even have two racetracks. If we are going to try to see whether a community can sustain two racetracks, let's try a big county area and make sure it doesn't hurt us in our economics because we think we all would love -- the people in Pflugerville moved there, I read hundreds of e-mails in an open records request, the citizens there were very passionate about their love for the town and the family atmosphere and wanting to maintain that and they moved there knowing the taxes are high. Everybody knows Pflugerville is an expensive place to live. We chose to do that. Some people were even laughing that people would say I would rather raise my taxes than try to raise tax revenue from a racetrack that would cause other problems that we would have to deal with. And I think people are serious about that. I think they would rather have that kind of tax revenue. I've got studies that I have done where it really is not a factor in tourism. The main convention planners legalized gambling and racetracks, all of those things are last on the list of 27 factors for them choosing whether somebody, whether they can choose a location for a convention, it's just not important to them. California, less than one percent of the tourists even go to any kind of event, tourist event, whether it's sports or whatever it is, so that is another issue. I知 jumping around a little bit because Commissioner Daugherty hit some of the things that I was going to speak to today. Again, the I 30 toll road corridor is very important to the future growth. If we don't start it off right, i've been quoted as saying that we need positive, proven, productive businesses to go in there and help establish the trend of what's going to happen there. Racetracks have not proven that. They have not proven to be positive, productive, ongoing tax entities. And it is in record, the gaming industry, the gambling industry will tell you differently. Even if their own application, which I read late last night, also, Commissioners, it says: we have used our own staff to come up with these numbers. They did not consult anybody, professionals to help them. Why? Because their numbers will not tell the story that they want told. They want to make us believe that they are doing us a favor when the long run our taxes will be higher so the economic impact will be very low and the tourism will not be there. Public interest in Pflugerville, I think bruce is going speak to that, very high against it. There was a poll done, I believe, by retama presented in their package to the city council. It was called the push poll. We have heard from some people they called, one of those ones where they keep asking you questions a certain direction until they get the answer they want. We felt like it was not a very good poll as an indication. We have been walking the streets, talking to people, having rallies. And I know just our church members alone, I have probably received 3 to 400 signatures and post cards to send to the Texas racing commission. So in closing, I would like to ask you not just to send a letter, send a strong language letter that says that you are against -- this is the wrong business at the wrong place at the wrong time. We could discuss other issues of why I think it's wrong, you might agree with some of them. But right now that's the main thing. It's the wrong business at the wrong place at the wrong time. It is not beneficial. And in the Texas racing act, it says in section 6.03, I believe, they have to take into account the public interest, the public interest in Pflugerville wire not interested. Thank you -- we're not interested. Thank you.
>> let me ask you this, and you hit on something very significant. Everything that you said is significant.
>> yes, sir.
>> however you did hit on the -- on the realm of the economic development that we are trying to develop in this area not only in Pflugerville, but in my next of the woods over in eastern Travis County. Job, economic development, job growth is very important. In this area we have high double digit unemployment. No doubt about it, it's there. The question is how do we address the concerns of the community as far as employment opportunities. I think that if -- if the folks in your area are still willing to -- to participate and look at future acceptable development or -- for opportunities to address those concerns, I think that it's a step in the right direction. So this is not, I think, the thing that we need to look at to -- to predicate the success of economic development on this particular --
>> it would be total different. If it was a business that was a proven, productive positive business that it shows that it will -- that it will be developed. It talks about all of the jobs that will be created. That is a number that I have seen anywhere from 100 to 700. And it's not a long-term year-round kind of thing. It's up and down. So closely tied to retama park as Commissioner Sonleitner mentioned the horses won't even be staying in Pflugerville. I read in one of the reports they are talking about 9,000 or t.n.r. Said 9,000 one-way trips per day. I just can't even imagine. I知 not -- I might as well try photo get out of my house, I live in bowl's place, not far from there. We are trying to walk the streets and get signatures. But yes, sir the economic trend cannot be set by a business that is negative. That is not proven, that is not positive. That is not long-term. Our studies also show that you cannot see, you can look at the comptroller's reports, when legalized parimutuel betting started off in Texas, it started off with a bang and went down. Over time, a five, six, seven year period, you begin to see the trend, fade away, things begin to happen. So it's just not good. That land, as a church, as a minister of a church, I have to look at these issues. Our church, first baptist church of Pflugerville, we are looking at how many church we need to be part of, starting new churches in that area because of the growth. Y'all probably already have some population data that's been given to you. What's going to happen. From 685 east of manor, taylor, hutto. It's going to be unbelievable. I saw it happen in the dallas/fort worth area in plano. We are a plano if you want to liken us to something. I have challenged the city council, go find another city that's been in the position where we are at and be proactive and get out there and get control. Let us decide our own destiny and not let someone else decide it for us.
>> is this a good time to squeeze you in or later?
>> if you want to go ahead.
>> I noticed that you have --
>> [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic]
>> impact it will have on the county --
>> say your name, please.
>> I知 sorry, jody brakhausen. Okay.
>> thanks.
>> I thank you again -- first of all, I represent families in Pflugerville. I came with my family. I知 a mother of four children and I know many families, people don't have time to fight this. I don't have time to fight this. I have my life, in the last month it's -- it's been in disarray, but this is important enough so I知 here. Let me start with my feelings about the -- about how the mayor and city council have been derelict. This must be reported on, the first I heard about this was October 9th, when a friend told me that the city was planning a racetrack to be built near the homes of many people that -- that recently purchased their homes in the bowls and brand new homes, expensive homes, people signed their mortgages without knowing of a plan in place by the city. This plan has been in place for a year. The mayor alluded that it's new, came up new and how if she knew about it before she was running for mayor, she would have discussed it. She's told me that during my lunch with the mayor that I had. She has a monthly lunch that she hosts with people who want to come talk to her. I said -- before -- before your election as mayor and your campaign, you spoke about wal-mart, how doling up a wal-mart or making it cute to fit the town might make it fit. That was her campaign speech. That was a quote in the Pflugerville flag that I read. I called her on it, she said had I known about this I would have talked about it. Now, later I learned that this again -- this had been planned during a year, she was [indiscernible] at the time, so I think that was misleading in a lot of ways. I stand before you not only as an opponent to the racetrack, but as an opponent to -- to misleading civil -- misleading elected officials, people who we elected to serve the citizens, to serve the majority of the citizens, I went to the -- [indiscernible] -- vote on the vearnsz, I don't know if you have seen that. But -- but -- the variance, I don't know if you have seen that, but it was a vote that would permit the city to begin planning on the land prior to annexation. Okay. I didn't know about it, I heard about it from a friend, we tried to rally a few people to show up and make a pretty good showing and we did. We filled up the place pretty well at the council chambers, it's a small chambers, about -- about the size of this -- this facility. And okay. There was not one person there who testified for the racetrack. Person after person, common citizen after common citizen came to that meeting and presented powerful arguments against the racetrack, against why they didn't want to have it here in Pflugerville. You never believe how fast the city council went for a vote on that. It's -- they did it so fast it would have made your head spin. I was so -- so dashed that -- that all of the effort of the citizens to take time out of their schedule, to practice their civic opportunity to address their concern and it was just -- it fell on deaf ears. It was clear to me and many others that this had been decided before. This is something that they were going to go ahead with no matter what we said. We knew at that point that we had to start acting on our own to fight this. Now, after the vote was made, a group of us huddled in the back of the outside -- outside the council chambers and we shaked phone numbers saying we have to get together, they are not representing us, we have a plan, they are not representing us. We had our first meeting a few days later and the -- these are the people that came. These are people from all walks of life. They -- families, individuals, people who recently moved here to retire. People who love Pflugerville. We rallied ourselves together, brainstormed, we decided we needed to get the word out to the citizens because people did not know about it. The mayor has claimed that she has done her part in informing the citizens by doing three things: by having it reported in the Pflugerville flag, by having it included in the little brochure that goes with your utility bill for the citizens, by -- one more thing. I don't remember the other thing. Oh, yes. By having it posted on the agenda at the city council meeting. Okay. Buried, buried, buried. Let me explain why. First of all, the Pflugerville flag has a subscription base of 2,000. And a population of 26,000. I知 saying that is not enough. Part of the problem, the Pflugerville flag subscription is [indiscernible] a year, they do not offer a monthly subscription rate which makes the impossible for many families to afford. It's not a real priority on many people's budget. So this is one problem. The other problem is that I go to the library. I've been looking for the Pflugerville flag for months. I have been wanting to know what was going on in the community. I found out that the librarian has them. In her bookshelf. Hidden. If you go to the library today, the only Pflugerville flags that you will see on display are the ones prior to July 29th. The first showing of the horse racing track in the Pflugerville flag was in the next issue, August 12th. Okay. It's on the front page. But it's not on display for people to see. Now, the other point, the utility bills, I don't -- I don't consider the little brochure inside the utility bills to hold important news that will impact my life, that will impact my property values, that will impact my friends in bowls place. I don't consider that a news worthy, you know -- it's a nice little -- little newsletter, talks about -- about school pool schedules, swimming lessons, things like that. It's not -- it's not taken heed to. People do not expect that kind of information to be in the utility bill. Okay. Point number 3, city council meeting agendas, all right, I had to dig to learn how to find out what was on the agenda after I found out about the horse racing track. I had to educate myself. I had to go make a conscious effort to -- to find out where the agenda was and I知 not really interested in city politics. I've never been involved. I知 sorry to say I -- I知 a very busy person. We are trying to raise our family and we have other things to be concerned with. But um -- I tell you these things because most of the citizens are still unaware of plans for a track. That is not fair. Families have invested in the town of Pflugerville, they invested by purchasing large homes. Many of the homes in Pflugerville are new homes. They are large homes. To house their families, people came here to raise their families. 22 schools in Pflugerville, 13 of which are elementary schools. We are a community of children, small children. Young children. I am here for those who are too young to vote, too young to come to the city council meeting. Children who are playing in the playground who trust us with their community to make it a nice place. Their parents thought they were doing well in purchasing a nice home in a quiet community. I know, you know, how hard it is to support a family, to pay a mortgage, to make a nice place for your family to live. Time and time again i've heard the mayor say Pflugerville is a sleepy bedroom community. I知 offended at that quote. I知 offended because it is not a sleepy bedroom community. It's a bustling nursery filled, packed to the hilt with children. It's unheard of, 26,000 residents and 22 schools in the Pflugerville independent school district. That is a lot of children. That's 1280 citizens per school. Now, it would be irresponsible for anyone to support the idea of a racetrack in that nursery community of Pflugerville. There are other places, there's manor, people can go 10 miles down the road, fine. I support that, if people want to bet on horses, manor is the place to go. It's established. It's been embraced by the community. They would appreciate the revenue. They would appreciate people visiting, spending money there. But I speak for thousands, I stand before you, there are thousands behind me literally who oppose this track. People who don't have time to come. People who are working during the day, that can't take time off of work to come. People who are busy with their kids. I知 busy with my kids, but I see that if I don't come, who will? Not because they don't care, it's because they don't understand. They don't know, they haven't been told. I知 here as a warning voice, as a clarion call to those who don't know. City government is not representing -- I知 sorry, I知 taking too long. I apologize. Well, i'll wrap it up. Thank you for your time.
>> thank you.
>> I appreciate your --
>> thank you.
>> listening here.
>> yeah.
>> thank you. It would be good from now on I think if you could limit your comments to four or five minutes. I think we get the gist of the opposition from residents. There are others who have come today to give comments, right? If you would come forward at this time I would appreciate it. If you have come to give comments on this item please come forward at this time. There are four chairs left. So we have three more speakers. Yes, sir. Including him. We have three more speakers today? Okay. Yes, sir?
>> thank you all very much for taking the time here. I know you all have a busy agenda, I apologize for the lengths of our discussions. Let me -- I kind of titled my topic, I have a copy for each one of you all, given more detail given the brevity of my talk. Honorable judge Biscoe and county commissions, this is a serious matter to us. We in Pflugerville feel like we have an image that gives us a high quality of life, that gives us an image of Pflugerville friendly. We feel like it's been taken away from us. I知 going --
>> your name.
>> I知 sorry, I apologize, bruce wood spokesman for Pflugerville families first group that just formed to fight this issue. I want to title my talk today do we bet our future on the ponies? I知 spelling it as phonies, I feel like that's what we are facing today, I want to talk about trust. I知 a cpa, I normally sit in an office 8 hours a day, I can see how getting involved in the political process is so enriching I think in your lives, it's tiring, though. Over the past several weeks I have learned more about my surroundings, talked to more people than I would normally talk to in a whole year. I have lost a lot of sleep, I was up until 1:00 working on my notes last night, a few pounds along the way, which is probably a good thing. I want to frame for you today why I think we don't have the trust with what is being proposed in our community. I知 going to keep a couple of highlights, going to give you a big point which I think is most substantial to me because I think this has been strongly misrepresent understand the community on what it can do for us, what it will do for us. Austin jockey club didn't should it for community input when this was first submitted to the Commissioners court or first discussed to the Commissioners court back in August. It wasn't submitted to the city staff back in office when this first came before them. The thing that kills me more than anything else is that I watched our economic development director, who should be somebody bringing us high quality projects to the city of Pflugerville, take great pride in the opposition, in defeating the opposition because he's been working on this for a year, it was a team effort. And so I知 really distressed that that's the kind of person that's helping bring economic development to my city. Mr. Timberman whose property this involves, his periwas on the school board. One of the elementaries in town is named after him. You know, I don't know if this is an issue about mr. Timberman, but it wasn't disclosed that he's taken an ownership interest in this until just recently. Traffic feasibility study. Well, you just spent a lot of money, did we go back to the drawing board and do it all over again? I知 looking at a development called sunflower, tejas villejo, sandy ray and a group out of houston. 200 acres, where are they going to direct their traffic through? The city planner told me right down pecan and right down pfluger. That's going to put it right through the same stretch of -- of woods that we are talking about. The misrepresentations presented to the Travis County Commissioners court is -- is appalling. I think Commissioner Sonleitner hit it on the head the fact that oh, they just recently updated their application, only after we -- after the inquiries was made by the commissions court. Documents revealed that -- that -- that some of the stuff presented to the city council included things like letters from the first baptist church, somebody -- and the support area, thanking them for their contribution. When we talked to the first baptist church, they were appalled that their letters were being used to support their application -- their discussions with the city council. That's the kind of trust that's going to cause this thing to go down in flames. I want to talk about -- about this -- about this bayless & associates who did a poll, a push poll that was mentioned earlier. I知 going to give you a copy of this because I think that it's important to see the kind of stuff that mr. Bayless worked on. He did a study supporting the alabama kisado tribe supporting gaming, the majority of Texas opposing the democratic walkout, he did a study of Texas view of legalization of elts. He's an interesting quote that I want you to hear -- how would you like to be one of those poor saps, this is a quote, who goes home to their voters and says, I could have lowered your property taxes, but I知 not even going to give you a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment, he said. I hope we don't become one of those poor saps that believes mr. Bayless' push poll that he did is representative of the Pflugerville voters. We are finding nearly 70% of the people as we go door to door in Pflugerville are against this, we really appreciate what you all are talking about today. Because it gives us a voice that we didn't get at the city council. We lasted over four hours and a lot of our people had to walk away because they couldn't get in the door. We were actually outgunned at that meeting, they got their business people in and crowded that room and we could not even get our people in the door to talk about and hear the issue. Someone once teased this me this is like a pretty girl that doesn't know she's the marvel of all of the boys at the dance. Once someone tells her that, suitors can't be turned away fast enough. 130 is coming, high quality projects will be coming to Pflugerville, I think to precinct 1 as well, if you read in his -- in his application it says the facility will have an impact on Travis County's adjacent northeast metro park, this is funny, traffic from the park during soccer tournaments in particular already cause traffic problems in downtown Pflugerville. Absent the -- uses of the park would noticed to place. Guys there is -- one of the things that upsets me most about the traffic issues is the fact that you go from five lines coming east off the highway down to three lanes through the downtown city of Pflugerville. There is no solution for pecan. Okay? Either somebody spend a ton of money developing alternative routes or you find another solution because you can't take this traffic through downtown Pflugerville. It can't happen. Proximity to neighborhoods and children, within 1.3 miles I think to a school. Manor downs has been in business a long time. They really have. It's a shame we have to put this conflict where we have to choose one over the other. I would say we should give priority to the business that is there right now and I think the example of the houston market is a good example. If it had a class a track, a class b track would be better served in that location with 3 million population rather than a population of only 800,000. I知 just going to close real quick. If we do nothing and watch an outsider come into our midst and does not have our trust and reliability, I would urge you to take a stand against this outside interest. One of the things that as I知 getting more involved in this issue, I realize this is to the hearts and souls of all texans. That we have got to stand tall in this issue as it goes before the legislature. Don't let our cries fall on deaf ears. I -- we will take our issue back to the city council of Pflugerville. We will deal with them appropriately. I have some measures in place that -- that will deal with the city council because they have been reactive in the city, they have not been dealing with the issues at hand, they have let traffic get behind on pecan. It's not necessarily the county's fault. The county is helping out. I urge you today to take a stand and really do what -- what's right for our community, for our county as well. So -- if you have any questions, I would certainly be happy to entertain those.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Any questions.
>> thank you, bruce.
>> hi, I知 julia ruiz, I live in Pflugerville, I have been there about 8 years. Wayne to kind of speak on -- I want to cav speak on behalf of the residents in our subdivisions, I have petitions here that have been signed. When I learned about this racetrack coming in, I jumped on the band wagon of Pflugerville family first that he created and the no racetrack.com. When I heard about the proposed racetrack in Pflugerville and a friend of mine and I combed the subdivision called katymeade where we live, we went knocking door to door asking for signatures opposing the racetrack. It took us seven hours to complete our subdivision. I'll tell you why: the majority of the residents there in katymeade our subdivision invited us into their home. They were upset. They were asking why, why in Pflugerville? Who voted for this? Is it manor downs -- isn't manor downs just down the street, we have a racetrack less than five minutes away in manor. Give it a facelift. Make it work in manor. We don't need the traffic. Our traffic is horrible here. Is this a done deal? What can we do? The city council and the mayor didn't ask us to vote on it. Why would they do that? We had no choice but to sit there and let them vent. There was -- there's several other subdivisions, we have assigned team captains in several subdivisions in Pflugerville. Everyone -- I知 kind of like the link between those that are opposing it in Pflugerville and commissions there, I can say from the reports back from each team captain from bowls crossing all the way to creekside, well over 70% of the citizens in Pflugerville are opposed of this racetrack. I知 here speaking on their behalf of what I heard, what I witnessed, these are e-mail that's have been sent to us, signed petitions and we're not done yet. We are going to go door to door. But that just tells us as a community Pflugerville residents are opposed thank you.
>> thank you.
>> judge and commissions, bryan brown, I知 vice-president of -- of the Austin jockey club. Couple of things I wanted to say. I thought that I was coming here to talk over the package itself. Can you all hear me all right, the changes that have been made. I do want to address some of the issue that's have been brought up. First of all I want to point out there was a unanimous vote by the Pflugerville city council. It was at least the third meeting where our issue was discussed. I believe there might have been a fourth, but I attended three meetings where our issue was discuss understand detail. One of them was a vote on a variance alluded to before, one of them informational, our meeting, the meeting where the city council took a position was a meeting specifically to have all parties air out their opinions on the track and hopefully have the city council, which they did, take a position on -- on the track. There was also, last night, a anonymous vote on our only -- unanimous vote on the concept plan of the Pflugerville planning commission. A lot of issues brought up here today were brought up at the city council meeting. We are accused as a racetrack of fostering prostitution, mafia, other horrible things and some of the evidence we presented is totally counter to that. Some of the things that we have presented, it's kind of interesting, we have talked a little bit, I have talked a little bit previously to the commission about these things, we had letter from father connor mcgrath of our lady of perpetual health and school, adjacent to retama park, he described briefly his relationship and said it was positive. Had a letter from mayor jim parmer, jennifer britos, on the selma city council, she lives right across the street from retama park. And from charlie eanes, also a city council person. In our package, we delineate the distance from the Austin jockey club, to the nearest neighborhood church and school. Those distances are far greater than what we have at retama park. At the retama park the nearest neighborhood is right across the street, nearest school adjacent, nearest church adjacent to our property. There's never been any issue that's have prevented the school from doing what it wants to, the church from doing what it wants to. Certainly no issues with neighborhoods i. I want to point out a couple of things, there's a lot of land up and down [indiscernible] which runs next to retama. Centex homes choice areas that are about as close as can be to retama park. There's a lot of other land, but they chose property near retama park to build neighborhoods. The names of those subdivisions, retama springs and retama ridge. Okay? So obviously they wanted to almost use retama as a marketing advantage to dry people to their neighborhoods. Draw people. None of the problems that have been talked about have come true at retama. Quite frankly, or at Sam houston race park, lone star park and quite frankly manor downs as well. All of the issues brought up as having been associated with racetracks are not there. We have revised our package that will go to the racing commission. Still in draft form, it's in draft form because I知 sure mr. Gieselman might have some changes that he would like to see, clarifications, I would hope that we would receive that so when we present this package on Monday the racing commission is as accurate as possible. The many thing I want you to know, we are not real interested in building a racetrack fronted by a two lane road. Okay? And if down the line there's not something worked out with pecan street and we've gone on record in front of this commission, I have, and in front of the Pflugerville city council saying that we will participate in the cost of that, but if pecan street is to remain two lanes for the rest of time, we are not interested in building there. Now, we feel, I think a lot of people feel that pecan street has to be widened whether or not there's a racetrack there, whether or not there's a county park there, it needs to be widened. We are willing to participate in that financially. Okay? But what we are not willing to do is build a track which will create traffic on a two lane road that will cause agony to the citizens of Pflugerville and to us. You know. We don't want to operate a racetrack where people can't get in there because traffic is too bad. That's not good for business, certainly not good for local politics. So we -- we fully realize that, you know,, maybe a bigger issue that I知 not aware of, but pecan street and it's eventual widening is a huge issue to us, to you and a huge issue to the city council and the citizens of Pflugerville. But I want you to know, you know, we recognize it and hopefully it's covered a little bit better in our package. With verbal testimony to the racing commission on Monday. It will be absolutely clear that -- that we do recognize it and that we do want to participate in its cost, we also do not want to build if something is not going to be done with pecan street or at least definitively in the plans and funded and all of those things. So beyond that I really don't have much to add. I will be happy to answer any questions.
>> how are you doing? I have a few questions for you. I had posed a question earlier about the neighborhood association, montopolis neighborhood association and also poder. At montopolis of course that's over in precinct 3 in southeast part of Travis County. But the -- but one of your sites that you originally proposed to operate a racetrack was at the riverside site. Can you tell me why a neighborhood association, I have a lot of respect for the montopolis neighborhood association as I do all neighborhood associations, also poder who has been up forefront doing a lot of things, in fact assisted you all [indiscernible] as far as shutting down the gasoline storage tank farm over in east Austin. But the organizations that oppose that location, why was there opposition demonstrated for that site at riverside and 183?
>> i've got to tell you, I think a large part is perceptions about what a racetrack brings. I don't doubt mr. Wood and mr. [indiscernible] what they feel truthfully that a racetrack brings to a community. Those perceptions rbtd just aren't just in Texas or Travis County. They are in a lot of places, I don't doubt those feelings, perceptions, thoughts of what will happen stir up feelings about neighborhoods. Neighborhood groups should look to protect their homeowners and families, I have no problem with that. But the fact of the matter is those things in Texas don't happen. Although I understand why montopolis organized against us on the riverside site, I think that it's unfortunate, because I really do believe that we would -- we would have brought a lot of jobs and potential commercial growth to that area. It could happen. So I hope that -- beyond that, you know, I don't know what motivated montopolis in particular, but I do know that they thought that the crime would come to the area. Whether it be prostitution or the mafia or whatever else, crime would come, vagrancy could come and other things that just weren't good for neighborhoods.
>> okay. Sir. I think end result according to sources is that the stay with us decided to end up a-- that the city of Austin decided to end up acquiring that site to build multi-family offeredable units in that particular location after the dust settled with that particular conversation, discussion.
>> yes, sir.
>> number two, sir, you did mention that the -- what we have here that was presented to me this morning as far as the application before the Texas racing commission, basically in draft format, of course you indicated that you would like mr. Gieselman to review the draft -- format of this particular application and if he has any -- if the court has any clarification that needs to be made, of course, we will go forward. And this is to be presented before the Texas racing commission on November 22nd of this year. However, this particular court won't meet again until November 23rd. And of course the application had -- had -- well, the original application had its short comings as far as things that had been addressed in the particular concerns as far as this particular obligation, which you have put before us now. It did have its shortcomings, it happened that you tried to address, whomever tried to address those shortcomings in the original application. My concern is that, number one, I feel that -- I feel that the thing that you had brought up not only with the -- with the current modification in this process as far as an application is concerned, and the court won't have a chance to act again until -- because it will be after the fact, is paramount, but also, number two, you did mention the acceptance of your particular plan before the Pflugerville planning I guess commission, I guess what you call them, but of course understanding what I知 hearing from -- from our staff, t.n.r., Is that this thing falls into a whole different arena when you are not annexed by the city of Pflugerville. And, of course, not being annexed by the city of Pflugerville, it puts this at a different level whereby the Travis County Commissioners court I think do have a little bit more say because of the non-failure of annexation. I want -- I think folks need to understand that. And with the void of not being annexed, it kind of leans more toward some say as far as what Travis County can do. I think it's all predicated also on the application process dealing with -- dealing with an area that's been annexed and the area that's not annexed. This is a whole different concept when you are trying to go through this process. So with those things in mind, my question is to you, since there's been the kind of opposition that has been demonstrated here this morning, demonstrated according to sources and testimony this morning before the Pflugerville city council, and also demonstrated between whoever the audience was when there was a decision made from you to relocate from your 183 riverside site and also being in close proximity to the precinct 1, which is the precinct I represent, manor downs, my whole point is why are you trying to basically bring this to pass when you are getting all of the kind of opposition that you are getting?
>> that's a very good question. The -- I would like to -- I guess expand on what happened at the city council, the Pflugerville city council meeting. There was significant opposition there. But there were an equal number, I didn't count them, don't hold my feet to the fire, but what seemed to me and others an equal number of people that spoke for us as against us. We didn't go out and have some massive campaign and have never done that to get people to come to that meeting to speak for us. We asked several people who did come to speak for us. We had people that came out of the woodwork that we didn't even know. That spoke on our behalf. I think at the very least there is -- there is equal support and -- in that community and the polling shows it and it was not a push poll. Mike basilese does not do push polls, that was one of the first things that he said when we engaged him, he does not do push polls, we talked about it. I know how you do them, but he does not do them. I think to answer your questions, there's at least equal support now. That's with a website and organized movement against us. And a lot of work that's been done by mr. Northern, mr. Wood, others, to drum up support against us. As people will see, if we do -- are fortunate enough to gain approval from the county and/or the city, if there is annexation, I think people will see when the track opens up, none of what was projected to happen in Pflugerville will happen in terms of the negatives. None of it will. And we are very confident of that. We are very, you know, thankful that we got the support that we did from the city council. Mr. Davis, if we had not received a vote that we did from the city council, we probably would have dropped the whole thing. But we do think there's a good bit of business, community support and the citizens support enough that we do want to move forward. I hope that answers your question.
>> it does to a degree. But of course I think my cheegs probably have other -- colleagues probably have other questions that they might want to entertain to you also.
>> my question still comes down to why did you pick this particular site? Because you mentioned retama. Located off of interstate 35. You have a specific exit off of interstate 35. And an accompanying service road. Frontage road. You talk about Sam houston park located off of Sam houston parkway. I mean that is a major state highway facility. A toll road but it has the three frontage roads. We talked about the site down near montopolis, you were going to put that off of a state highway. You yourself have admitted that a two lane roadway at your front entrance will not work. So why did you pick a site up front that may be fatally flawed because whether you like it or not is dependent upon other people coming to the table with huge sums of money and commitments and right-of-way and the most expensive thing and that's something called time to get a bond project through on a construction project can take two to three years. And that clearly is not in sync with what we have for that property, even for the construction period or being open. You don't have to [indiscernible] off of s.h. 130 and 235. This land seems to be out of sync with your plans. And that doesn't mean you wouldn't revisit it at a future date. But it seems like this is -- it's out of sync with the infrastructure that is planned. And I do respect the city of Pflugerville coming to their own conclusions. And I have been asked why haven't you been up to the meetings up there, why haven't you weighed in on this in the Pflugerville piece of the process. I have told them, I have told the mayor this. I have to respect the fact that you are your own jurisdiction, you have to draw your own conclusions based upon what you have got going on there. But we will also be able to draw our own conclusions. It's lovely when Pflugerville and Travis County sync up. We have worked magnificently together on northeast metro park, on -- on the dessau extension, on so many different project, we are joint share partners. But there are times when Pflugerville and Travis County have taken a different position on things that really boil down to planning. And one that sticks out in my mind, actually sticks in my craw, is that they had a different sense of where s.h. 130 ought to be. They thought that huge highway which we now can visualize because it's there, that they thought it ought to be a whole lot closer to these very same neighborhoods than it is now. We fought very hard that hard that it ought to be east of our park and not west of our park closer to homes and families. We thought that was inappropriate. So there have been times when we have taken different points of view on things, it doesn't mean they are wrong, right or we are wrong and they are right. They are allowed to draw our own conclusions. And the conclusion that I keep coming back to is that the infrastructure is not there today. And you have no firm commitments and no firm time tables of when that roadway is indeed going to be upgraded to the six lane structure it truly does need to be. I can't tell you that it will be on a bond election in '05, I can't tell you what Pflugerville is going to do, I can't tell you what the other landowners in that same corridor are going to do. Are they going to be as willing as you to not only make the commitment right-of-way, but to put up a whole lot more than one million as the proportional share what was needs to happen to a regional roadway. And so barring that, there just is no way that I can say, yeah, go ahead, let it move along. Because I would not be doing my job. And that's not to disrespect that Pflugerville didn't do its job. Folks will draw their own conclusions, certainly they have. But for what is before me today, especially in an environment where we do not have zoning and we don't have land use authority, there's not much where we get to see, raise our hands and say, Travis County has a vested interest here and it fails to meet the mark. On this particular one because the road doesn't exist today. You didn't pick a six lane divided roadway. You didn't pick s.h. 130 or appear off ramp on 130 or 45. You didn't pick something that already exists where people can visualize okay what's going to be there to take care of the traffic. That is not a minor thing. It is not a minor thing. And I just can't even imagine even more traffic coming down there related to the construction of this, and what's coming in from the horse trailers and everything else without that roadway already being approved and I can say, yeah, it isn't here today, but it is coming. And we don't have that in this application right now. So for me i've tried stay very focused on what is the county's jurisdiction. Respecting people have other opinions about gambling, economic development. From roadway it simply does not make it for me. And that's what I have to keep coming back to. Pflugerville, sorry, just a second more here, is ground zero in terms of a huge population explosion that is occurring. I mean when I came on the Commissioners court it was 3,000 people in the city of Pflugerville. In the last census it was 15. The new estimates for the town today, mid decade is 25,000. And the estimates are that by the end of this decade the city of Pflugerville will be 50,000 people. Clearly there's a lot of pressure out there to get infrastructure in place and there is equal pressure on trying to get tax base to help support what needs to happen out there. I get is that the council is frustrated and wants to make good things happen out there. But this is only going to create more infrastructure problems, it isn't going to relieve them. If the road were there, we would be having a very different discussion. But it isn't. That's where I知 going to land in terms of what -- what motion I think would be coming from me and Commissioner Davis is to oppose this site because the infrastructure questions, while they have been acknowledged, have not been resolved.
>> I will third that after Commissioner Davis.
>> any response, mr. Brown?
>> absolutely. I think the second part of what Commissioner Sonleitner said answers the first part. Which is -- let me clarify that. Pflugerville is going to grow to 50,000, fairly quickly. That road will be widened. We know that. We selected that site because of 130, because that road had been engineered and we knew from how development, how cities progress that road will be widened. You are absolutely right. We can't point to funding today. You can't point to it. I can't point to it. But it will be done. I think if you polled the Commissioners and asked, will this road be widened absolutely it will eventually. Again it has to be timed for us and for you and for Pflugerville altogether so that we are not bringing out 10,000 people for a live racing night or 5,000 or 3,000. We understand that. We are that -- that confident that that site is what we want from a market standpoint. We would -- we love the growth of not only Travis County and the northeast and northwestern parts but Williamson county. And we know that you can't bring out the people with -- on the two lane road when it needs to be a four or six lane road. We know that. But at the same time we know that road is going to be widened and it's engineered and that's -- that's -- if the road wasn't engineered and if -- if somebody hadn't thought enough about the need to widen that road to -- to at least move forward and I believe it was roughly half a million in funds that were required to do that? It was a big number. A big number. If that hadn't occurred, I don't know that we would have been looking at that site. But -- quite frankly when we initially looked at the site, we had heard that it was planned to be widened. Okay? And maybe it still is, you know, maybe because the funding isn't there, it isn't what all of us would agree is the use, a good use of the word planned. But we are confident that road will be widened. If you look at -- at what we would need to do, where we started live racing, I don't know if we talked a little bit about this last time I was here, but a year before we start live racing, this is kind of the blueprint set by the park we would be I知 mull cast for a full year. Simulcast to this traffic even with two lane pecan street is not a burden at all. There are not enough people that come del to simulcasting is not a burden. If you look at the time frame of when 130 is open, I don't know about pecan street, but at least real close to when 130 is open, we will be up and running for live racing. Before that it could be that we have a couple of months without 130 if you just look at our time frame. But again, you know, if Pflugerville or excuse me pecan street has no provisions, no hope of being widened we are not going to open up. I doubt when we come back to you as Commissioner Davis said for our approvals, I doubt you will approve it if there is just absolutely no hope. So -- but to answer your question, we feel confident enough in 130 and the eventual widening of pecan street and the funding of it, even though we complaint tell you where that will come from, that all of will come together about the time we need the road to be the size it needs to be --
>> I知 glad you mentioned the number of people that may be out there. I知 sorry judge this is the last thing. That reminds me so much of what happens out at dell diamond. When they have a game going on out there, there are thousands of people that go pouring into that site. Maybe I知 reading a little more into it. But I doubt that reid ryan and his dad would have put dell diamond on that location if it were a two lane country road. They didn't do it, they chose highway 79. Four lane they had to do massive improvements around dell simply to hand the flushing in and out of traffic. It has an amazing impact on the city of Round Rock in terms of that place just backing up when a game is offer and we are all headed back to Austin or parts wherever. But they wouldn't have put that and they didn't put on it a two-lane country road thinking well, surely they are going to have to upgrade this road. Not only did they put on it a four-lane road, they had to put in two major signals, signals are about 100,000 per intersection, and they had to make accommodations related to turning into that building simply because it's a lot of people to accommodate of literally coming and going. Not like soccer where you have games going all day, not like all of the people show up at one point during the day, it's a trickle that's there all the day. This is different. I just -- I just really question putting this on a two lane roadway with the hope that this will be fixed. I can't go there. Sorry.
>> any questions of mr. Brown?
>> no.
>> from the court?
>> no. I have a couple.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...the frontage is all dedicated for commercial property. So, you know, there's an entrance road which we absolutely would have no problems dedicating. But that's -- that's easy to say. That's not giving up much. Financially, again, we've gone on record as saying we'll pay what our impacts are to that road. Now, that obviously would need to be measured and worked out by engineers, but we're willing to pay whatever our impacts are. We shouldn't shoulder the burden of that whole road, which is about $6 million, according to some estimates, but we are very happy to take on whatever impacts we create.
>> okay.
>> I was just going to comment on some of the things mr. Brown said. He has casually dismissed our concerns as perceptions and that we don't -- the problems do not exist. They do exist. He shifted the conversation from problems existing at the track, near the track, that's not the problem. It's what's happening throughout the community in lives of the people around the community. I知 sure they keep a beautiful track and try to be good neighbors. And he mentioned churches and they even had a chaplain up there, tried to use the term "southern baptist" which I am from a southern baptist church. Southern baptists start -- where they are hurting people who need help. Not because we agree with race tracks or agree with gambling, we do not agree with those things, but we do go to places where people are hurting and need care. We have chap lanes in prison, but we don't agree with crime. I agree that ours are per -- disagree that ours are perceptions and his a facts. There are problems that do exist. People who have a lot more degrees in training than I do and we did not get out drumming up support. We got out and located and found that there were people against it that just didn't get the word out. So it wasn't like we go out and we were trying to talk people in to being against this. And the support at that meeting October 26 was not equal. Most of our people could not even get inside the facility to speak. There would have been a whole lot more people speaking against it. And many of the people who spoke for it were not even residents of Pflugerville. They were the thoroughbred horse racing president or whatever and this and that and said we moved out of Pflugerville because the taxes were too high and this will be good and I support the track. By george I stayed there because the taxes are high and I wanted it to stay the way it was. Don't let non-residents speak for me and the other citizens. And our polling that -- of course, ununprofessional the way we're doing it, we're just going door to door, but it's showing that the percentage is much, much higher than an equal split. And why would anybody want to come to your community when he doesn't have favorable support by the community. There will always be this negative connotation, people trying to attack it. I agree it's the wrong business, the wrong place and the wrong time and it has not proven to be a good tax revenue for any town. Long term it does not pan out and the reports will show it.
>> anybody else who has not spoken already and who has something different to say? Now is your opportunity. Not spoken already? A brief new statement is what we're looking for. Yes, sir.
>> judge, I would like to ask the manor downs people to come to the microphone because I know they are here and I do have a question.
>> judge Biscoe, Commissioners, I知 howard phillips, the president of manor downs. I'll be glad -- I知 really here as a resource witness.
>> and howard, I have a question. I think I know what the answer is, but I just want everybody to understand. You know, after having listened to about an hour of this, you know, we are often put in spots where we have to make calls -- I mean I would rather not make calls based on morals. And, hey, as a guy that spends a lot of time at riudosa, I can tell you that horse racing is a big, big business out there and there are some people that hate it, I mean will never like it, and I appreciate that. I've got friends that like it and friends that don't. But I was really interested in the fact that the commission would consider issuing this license to somebody that is so close to -- howard, I don't know you. I mean i've known that manor downs has been out there for a number of years. How many years has it been out there?
>> we've been operating as a perry mutual race track since October of 1990.
>> 14 years. And I know there are all sorts of examples of how -- what the distance is between most race tracks. And I知 just amazed that you all, I understand, were basically forced or asked -- or basically forced to put a large sum of dollars from the commission into your facilities. Could you verify that for me? Tell me exactly what you had to do from a commission standpoint in the last couple of years.
>> Commissioner Daugherty, i'll be glad to respond to that. We were asked by the commission to expand the oval race track at our facility to accommodate all breeds of horses, ie, thorough breads. We had an exemption that did not have an expiration date on it since horse racing began. We were, I think, the first or second track granted a license and the only surviving class 2 track in the state. There have been four of us all total. And in that request from the commission, we had offered an alternative where we wanted to spend the money on the patrons and the accommodations and then expand the oval, but the commission said no, we want you to do the oval first. I think the story goes and the industry will verify it, nobody thought we would spend the 3 opinion $7 million on 3.7 million on the oval, but we did. Additionally we are trying currently to complete a deal and I think we'll have an announcement in a few weeks of doing the grandstand conversion, what we wanted to do back in 1999. Which is a $2 million project. But that was the commission's -- sort of their ultimatum to us. And I can't speak for the commission what the reasons were. I知 sure there were some political justification behind all that.
>> do you think you would be in operation today had you not spent -- had you not ungraded to an oval track or do you think the commission would have taken your license?
>> they probably would have taken the license on I mean I知 all for competition. If somebody would have come to me and said I just don't want you to allow somebody to come in, maybe in you are a service station you don't want a service stpaeugs station on the other corner, but that's not how this country works. I知 appalled that the commission would come in and issue, really consider issuing another license within someone as close to where you are after basically forcing you to spend millions of dollars on your track. I mean I知 just -- I really am amazed. I understand that you all don't want racing in Pflugerville, and I can appreciate that. I really come down on this more of why would the commission do this. I mean I will vote against this strictly because of that. Given that I just don't think that it's fair. And hopefully the commission, you know, will reconsider that. I think there have been great points brought up this morning. I mean transportation obviously probably one of the hottest topics in this community and has been for a long time. I do think that we will eventually participate -- I mean the county will participate in pecan street. I think that that is going to benefit Pflugerville. I think they all -- the neighbors out there want pecan street upgraded. What they don't want is they don't want a race track. And I can understand that. But I just wanted to make sure, howard, that I understood what you had mentioned to me earlier and that that is in essence the case and the commission, I知 sure they will hear this, if the commission has a different opinion with regards to no, we did not force manor to spend an inordinate amount of money, then I would like to know that. But as far as I know right now, I don't think that you are lying to me. I think that that is what happened and I知 surprised that it did and from that alone I stand -- I mean I will have the opportunity to vote on it in a second, I suppose. I appreciate I got what I needed.
>> if I could make a comment on that. Commissioner, your logic is well founded. In a highly regulated industry which -- whether it's the state or the federal government regulates, you usually have a protected market, but they can tell you what you need to do improvement -- whether it's a nuclear power plant or a race track. Whatever governing body, they can -- they pretty much can tell you what you need to do and any upgrades or any problems, any situation. But they also protect your market. And in a free market, which I believe in also, you let everybody do whatever they want to and may the best man win, the survivor win. We're kind of still at a puzzle about how this happened ourselves.
>> mr. Howard, let me ask you one question, and I know you are just here for resource purposes, however, I made a statement earlier which I said that since i've been on this Commissioners court for six years, i've never heard a complaint of anyone opposing the operations of manor downs. I知 going to ask you the question has anyone opposed your operation in manor downs where you exist right now in the manor area? Have you had a lot of strong opposition to your operation?
>> mr. Davis, no, we have not. I think the only complaints we had is people that don't win enough.
>> thank you. That's -- with that, I think the motion I think is probably in order, judge.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> judge, I would move that the Travis County Commissioners court go on record in opposition to the application of the Austin jockey club to the Texas racing commission and that an appropriate letter be written that encompasses many of the comments and questions and concerns that have been raised by all members of the Commissioners court. I hope it would be friendly that Commissioner Davis and I be allowed to work with joe geiselman to help craft an appropriate letter that captures all of the concerns that have been raised at this meeting. That that letter be sent to the Texas racing commission as part of the backup for their Monday meeting. And I can tell you that I certainly plan to attend the Monday meeting. I expect Commissioner Davis may be as well.
>> and I second that motion. And I second that. And I would like to say that, again, we don't want to pit communities against one another. That's not what we're about. But I think you've heard the comment that was made today that that was not and is not the intent of this court. However, we must deal with what we've got to deal with as it is presented to us and I think this is the right decision that we go forward with the particular letter. And I guess my point and question is the signature on the letter, is it the entire court?
>> I would ask all five members.
>> all five members of the Commissioners court, if the vote goes that way. If that's the case, we'll proceed.
>> the motion sounds fine the me, but it does not sound fine to get the court's signatures without seeing the letter.
>> yes, sir.
>> so the question, I guess, is can we get that letter prepared between now and late this afternoon?
>> I will do --
>> I understand your concern.
>> my motion is for the court to formally take a position in opposition, whatever that means to the commission. Second if signing a letter -- signing the letter, I think we need to read it.
>> that would be fine.
>> I don't know that a voluminous document would be necessary.
>> if t.n.r. Can help us in terms of [inaudible], that would be helpful. Then you can help tweak and add to it.
>> any more discussion of the motion? That will be our intention. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
judge, could we very quickly go back to 28, the racetrack thing. 28. Consider and take appropriate action on application to the Texas racing commission for change in racetrack location by the Austin jockey club, ltd. In precinct 2.
>> I just want to make sure we close the loop on this. As part of the motion we wanted to see the letter before it was officially blessed by this court. That letter has now been drafted and I hope to everyone's satisfaction and do we need to close the loop there, judge, in terms of moving approval of the letter that officially has been drafted.
>> we can do that. Also include that it be sent to the -- Texas racing commission and I do believe my assistant is going to hand carry it over there this afternoon. Because we want to make sure that it get in their packets. I would move approval of the actual letter that has been signed by the court.
>> and delivered to the Texas racing commission.
>> yes, sir.
>> further discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thanks, y'all.
>> thanks y'all.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:08 PM