Travis County Commissioners Court
March 8, 2005
Item 26
26. Consider and take appropriate action on six-party agreement with the city of Austin, Williamson county, Texas water corporation and Williamson county and cities health district for the water improvement project in the northridge acres subdivision. The sixth party is Travis County. Good afternoon.
>> good afternoon, judge. Would you like me to lay this out.
>> yes, sir. Identify yourself first, we know who you are, but your many fans may not recall.
>> my name is dan smith, I work in the office of the county judge. With me today I have mr. Kevin ward of the water development board, and bart jennings with the city of Austin utility department.
>> okay.
>> the purpose of this item today is to request approval of the six party agreement between the city of Austin, Williamson county, Texas water development board, north ridge acres water supply corporation and Williamson county cities -- Williamson county and city's health district.
>> this comes after many months of diligent and hard work by many individual and entities.
>> yes, sir. We started back in -- I guess it was memorial day weekend, may of '04. We came down to the Travis County Commissioners court and gave a presentation to the Travis County Commissioners court in June, July of last year. Presentations for Williamson county Commissioners court. Happily two Tuesdays ago the Williamson county Commissioners court approved the $150,000 cash matching grant to help pay for the completion of the project. The city of Austin back in August, approved participation in the project. And they are providing a number of in-kind services to complete the project as well. In addition to that, they will assume responsibility for furnishing a permanent water source to the north ridge acres subdivision, build those customers -- bill those customers out of city of Austin rates and maintain and operate the system. Travis County, back in August and also during our budget time, budgeted in-kind services up to about $150,000 I believe. That would provide in-kind services to complete certain aspects of the project on both sides of the county line. Basically, we need cash for the loan component of this project. Williamson county is providing that from a cdbg grant and we had agreed to do those in-kind services on both sides of the county line. Future actions, basically we have to go forward to apply for another grant through another state agency or agencies. To complete the funding mechanism of this project. We're pretty much there. A lot of --
>> so far we have how much state funding?
>> so far the state funding level is how much?
>> right now we are at 1.3, $1.334 thousand. We have -- $1.344 million.
>> million, I’m sorry.
>> I know these are big numbers, don't get shocked by them, but --
>> 150,000 matching grant from Williamson county. The in-kind resources from Travis County, 140,000, we need about another 320,000 bucks. We visited with walker, some of the other agencies, they have favorably considered our requests. They have not formally acted on it. We have applications coming back within the next 30 days. I believe we can get there.
>> okay. Gentlemen?
>> judge Biscoe, members of the Commissioners court, for the record my name is kevin ward, I’m the executive administrator of the water development board. We have been working on this project for quite some time, as you know. And we are very pleased to get it to this point, we executed the agreement earlier, last week. And so we're prepared to move forward, we have a commitment for a 334,000, we are hoping to work out the bugs on this last minute funding, if we can get that in place, we would like to get moving on this project, provide the money, see it get constructed. We appreciate any consideration that you can give today to this request.
>> my name is bart jennings with the Austin water utility for the city of Austin. We just wanted to say thanks to dan smith for leading this effort and working with kevin ward and the Texas water development board and those other parties. They are so important to pull together to make this project happen and we appreciate all the help and consideration that you can give to this item and we stand ready to provide retail service upon its completion.
>> we appreciate your help. Are you the one who was about to retire recently?
>> now, not to my knowledge. You may have additional information that I don't have. [laughter]
>> I think dan talked somebody into staying on at the city.
>> that was john tresneki, one of the assistant city attorneys who had put in for retirement, but he wanted to see the -- to see your signature on this document, judge, before he walks out the door tomorrow. That would be helpful. This document is a multi-faceted document. It involves fire different political subdivisions. So you can imagine how complicated it could have gotten if we had a good -- particularly with support from tom nuk culs and -- nuchols and john michael weed over in the Texas development board, Ron who picked up the lead from michael, michael [indiscernible] from the Texas retirement system, he's over there working as a lawyer now. But we had the city, county, the health district involved, the [indiscernible] corporation in the state agencies, state of Texas. We had to make sure that all of the legalese, all of the regulations didn't trump the other. So it wasn't that the negotiation was all that difficult. It was just getting the document together because you are dealing with five different kinds of political subdivisions. So again Texas water development board, and I frankly I think I got to say this. I have two major co-pilots on this project. That's mark jennings with the city of Austin and mark hall with the Texas water development board. We kind of like threw this thing like a 747, because it's a monumental task getting all of these parties together. But we've had assistance from the Texas attorney general's office, lisa richardson over there, chris lippe, the assistant city manager, the city of Austin, assistant city manager canales, toby futrell the city manager bought into this project from day one. It has -- it has given bart permission to move forward on this project. We also have Williamson county as a major partner. Lisa berkman and her able assistant mary clark, county judge dofler and the entire Williamson county Commissioners court, the city's health district up there, Karen Williamson the director, paula pinto the onsite sewer division manager and of course we couldn't be doing this without the [indiscernible] corporation and neighborhood association, nettie brown and her family, jay brown, kenny schnieder, the entire neighborhood out there. No one believed in Williamson county two weeks ago that they were giving the neighborhood 150,000 bucks. I saw our colleague, mayor culpepper up there from Round Rock. You all remember that he was mayor when this subdivision got placed on that fire plug. He could not believe the events that occurred two Tuesdays ago. He was very happy. Patrick king with the water development supply corporation, of course Travis County. Tom nuckols with the county attorney's office, joe gieselman trrption natural resources, bob turner and his staff on the -- at the onsite sewer division of Travis County, don miller with road and bridge. His crew has assisted us as well. And also the entire Commissioners court want to thank you for all of the help and guidance and we are --
>> you will thank us even more if this item is approved today.
>> oh, absolutely.
>> now, for those who aren't familiar with this, the north ridge acres residential subdivision has been on the Round Rock fire plug, fire hydrant I guess for a couple of years, right? Or longer. And in receivership for more than a couple.
>> 2000.
>> since 2000. So this is a permanent source of water, basically, they tie on, we make the internal improvement, infrastructure improvements, title to the city of Austin, water supply, become just city of Austin customers once this deal is done. It was necessary to get all of the parties together to get the various pieces and in my view, history making collaboration effort. Dan from our office, bob from Commissioner Daugherty office, the Commissioners court did on this -- on the sidelines and loudly cheered. But also committed $150,000 in in-kind contributions which will make this project go. But there were a lot of people who came together and rather than have everybody speaking, we have those here on this item, please stand. How are you all doing? Appreciate your help?
>> judge, if I might point out one of the persons who came in, ignacio, if it wasn't for health problems, he would have been with us all this month. We are thrilled to pieces you are back to work and part of this process. Questions or comments from the court.
>> [indiscernible] for carrying this thing through and keeping me from being overly redundant. Especially to lisa berkman in Round Rock. She really did roll up her sleeves and got involved with this thing. No reason for us to in 2005 have a colonia right here in central Texas where the water that you have is a water hose that goes from a fire hydrant to get your water in your particular area, thanks a lot, dan, for working so hard on that.
>> thank you, sir.
>> dan, this does not mean that you have the afternoon off, now. Take your breather.
>> judge, I would like to personally thank dan and all of the folks that have come here to the Commissioners court over the past few years. The residents that have continued to bring the issue to the attention of the Commissioners court. And I agree with you, Commissioner Daugherty, there is really no reason here in Travis County for a colonia. I hate to see them exist anywhere. Again, I really appreciate everybody, what you have done because I know that it's a lot of hard work. From staff and everybody else, I’m very appreciative of what you have done for the residents of north ridge acres.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all.
>> I would be thrilled to move approval I was going to leave that to you judge if you wanted to make that motion.
>> second authorize the county judge to sign the documents.
>> with everybody's sincere thanks. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much. This is additional work to be done before the project gets completed.
>> this is a step in the right direction. Thanks.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:02 AM