Travis County Commissioners Court
March 22, 2005
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. This is to give residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda up to three minutes and mr. Bob barstow signed in. Please come forward.
>> I’m bob barstow, I own windy point park. Out on Lake Travis. Next door to your wentz park. And the most pressing issue and -- I discovered this morning that there's an old 1991 letter from -- from jim collins and I just read it again after 10 years. John over here tells me that this is the basis of a lot of reasons why you think there's -- the county is right out there and it's just rife with misrepresentations. I’m going to have to address that with you at another time. I just want to say that there's a tremendous amount of false information in here and I want to -- I want to -- I want to bring you square on it. One of them is that I was merely charging the public to get to public land when I owned as much or more land than the lcra land next to me above the surface of the water and I was providing park services and park usage on that land as well as over my easement. But what I really want to address with you this morning, very briefly, is this -- the lake is going down, you are going to be opening the cause way today or tomorrow, if it doesn't rain and we are going to have, as soon as swimming starts, we are going to have another safety problem out there that I think is promoted by you people. You have built a second-rate boat ramp for me to use and you don't let your -- for my easement, my customers to use, in your park, with public funds, you don't let your customers use it. But you don't protect your customers from the boats that you want me to use. Now, you give me tickets, if I don't use that easement because a judgment -- or ramp because the judgment says I must use a ramp and I disagree with your construction of the judgment under circumstances. If you build one. So you built a second-rate ramp. And I use it. But at the same time, you allow your people to swim in front of that ramp and that creates a very dangerous situation in the water. Again, it -- it shows why we need one management of lake access instead of two competing managements. I've asked the lcra to enforce its regulation. To prohibit swimming within 50 feet of a public ramp on lcra land. They have refused. And the county, they are taking the position that this is a private ramp as is the county. It's no more a private ramp than your park is a private park. You use public funds to build it. You could use it if you wanted to. You don't. It's a safety issue. And if it's a safety issue, on lcra land, where there are other public ramps to swim within 50 feet of a ramp, it's a safety issue here, too. This issue has to be addressed, someone is ultimately going to get injured or killed. I don't want that. I don't want it to happen to someone else. I don't want the liability for it. And I want you to address the safety problem out there. It is a problem of your making. Not mine. You put the -- you put the ramp in the middle of the most popular swim area on the windy point peninsula. Which was insane. If you are going to force me to use a ramp, put it where you people aren't swimming and we can use it safely. In addition to that, the ramp is poorly located because it's exposed to wind, waves and wakes. Which are danger -- end nger the people using the ramps, they hit the boats and can catch someone between the boat trailer and the ramp. It belongs in the cove. Overall, it is not safe to run boats in and out of that ramp area when you put your swimmers in front and will not keep them a safe distance away from that ramp. I want you to address it. It's coming up very soon. As soon as swimming season starts, it starts, my boats are going in, I rent jet skis, I run a public boat launch. There's going to be a lot of boat traffic through there. Someone is going to get injured. You people are putting your swimmers in front of it and you ought not to. You assumed the responsibility of keeping people safe when you leased the lcra land. Unfortunately, you didn't run a title check to find out about my ease. You want to run it as if I don't own an easement and I am the dominant user of the lcra land and I want to use my property safely and not injure someone, I don't want you putting me in the position that someone does get injured.
>> thank you, mr. Barstow.
>> thank you.
>> anybody else for citizens communication whether you signed in or not?
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 10:22 AM