Travis County Commissioners Court
April 19, 2005
Item 30
Number 30. Consider and take appropriate action on a committee to evaluate responses to request for information, rfi, regarding collection of delinquent taxes. I sent the court a couple of days ago and the affected department officials a little outline of a process that I think is fair and appropriate. Attached to the two-page outline is a sort of part 1, description of work that our p.b.o. Director put together. They had a template for delinquent tax collections. What this is about basically is to say let's collect the data and try to review it in part 1, and then let's do an evaluation. And in part 1, I tried to include the financial people necessary to collect the data. Planning and budget I have christian will be out of town, out of state really most of this time, but ms. Pinellas is there. I think susan indicated might would be like the point person in oliver's office. My guess is mike will have others in the auditor's office working with him. Dusty I think has been working with christian on some of this stuff and really it's the tax assessor-collector's office, I just picked up, anybody else that wants on here in part 1 would be appropriate. In part 2 for evaluation, I really put every department that I thought would be affected. If there is another one, though, adding the other one wouldn't bother me. Tax assessor-collector's office, county attorney's office, purchasing, planning and budget, auditor's office, that's the five that I know are directly affected. Did I leave anybody out?
>> what about adding someone from the outside? Someone from either the chamber or aero or in our business community?
>> part 1 for part 2?
>> for part 2.
>> any responses to that?
>> well, judge, I think -- I mean the last thing we want is to go through all this stuff that we've gone through and not have -- not to have people come to us and say, well, what did you think you were going to get out of it. I trust everybody, but it's real obvious there are a number of people that didn't even want this thing done. So, I mean, I don't want to go through that and then to have somebody come up and tell me, well, Commissioner, what did you expect you were going to get out of that. I would like to have somebody that's so independent from -- you know, obviously we can't have the people bidding on it, but there's bound to be somebody that is just totally a neutral person. Let me look at it, I think you bring up a good idea where we find that person. But I at least would like to have the ability to say we've got a fair group looking -- fair is not the word. The perception is that you've got to have somebody in there that really doesn't have a dog in the fight.
>> well, that's why I was kind of maybe -- i've given it some thought, and again, all I知 trying to get at here is to remember my -- my -- I guess mentors who said, you know, you are a public official, you are conducting public business with public money. And that's all we want to leave with the public and with anybody else, that we are looking at the processes that we conduct internal, but, you know, there's room for comparison. And that that comparison is based on openness, on fairness, and certainly, you know, just incredible doses of good faith. And, you know, I知 not hell bent on one way or the other except that, you know, to behave as a public official, conduct public business with public money. And so I知 thinking that having at least one, if not two, independent members of the public would certainly go a long way to making sure that that comes out of this process. As well as any other process the government conducts. And I知 thinking someone from aero or certainly the chamber of commerce has been really interested in the way we spend public money. The greater Austin chamber of commerce or aero. And because they spend a lot of time looking at public issues and any kind of financial issues that affect them. And so, I don't know, whatever the court wants, one or two people independent from the public, representing the public. I mean I know that we represent the public, but, you know, they -- independent.
>> seems to me if, number 1, in fact pulls together the relevant data, and it's presented in a way that we can believe it and determine exactly what it means, that's really 85, 90% of it, in my view. Now, I do know that some of the data can be presented in such a way that it's susceptible to different interpretations. So the evaluation committee can look at that -- I mean I guess if we get to a point where it's so close to tell whether there's a significant financial difference, then if we go and get outside help, maybe we want to get expert hefp.
>> that too.
>> or citizen input. I guess I知 wondering whether it would make sense to wait and see how close the call is. The data may be so one-sided that we conclude step 2 is unnecessary because 1 is to clear. It may well be that we want to put our heads together in 2 and really evaluate. See what I知 saying? But all of us may conclude in the evaluation stage or may reach the same conclusion. But if we are reaching different conclusions, yeah, if the evaluation results in different conclusions by the five of us, maybe we go to the next step and get some outside help and if we do that maybe the outside help should be more like an expert.
>> another timing question. When does the general public also get to share in the data that is collected under part 1 because there's been lack of clarity on that issue. If we're simply gathering information, but there are aspects of this that seem more like it's an r.f.p. Or the potential of turning into a r.f.f. When does the general public get to see the data collection and review so it's not just p.b.o., the auditor's office and tax collector's office and the five of us that can say, wow, what does all that information mean.
>> if they sent a [inaudible] to my office i'll send to it the county attorney as I do everything else and rely on the call of the county attorney.
>> okay.
>> it's out of my hands. Recommendation of the rest of the court would be do the same thing.
>> my concern throughout this whole thing is that we conduct the public's business with public tax dollars in public sight and not out of sight of everybody that's involved. We've got a system that is extraordinarily transparent. We have folks that are involved in this process that have to file personal financial statements. They have to file contribution and expenditure reports. But if we flip to something else, they are not filing p.f.s.s, c. And e. Reports, they are not following lobbying reports, how much money they spend to woo customers. What cost is entertainment. There's a lot that would be absolutely not transparent to the general public in terms of how those folks conduct their business.
>> I mean everybody -- everybody knows that's done. Everybody knows that we're being asked to do this by people that do this to make money.
>> oh, I so appreciate you finally saying that.
>> everybody knows that.
>> thank you.
>> there are people in the industry that make money collecting taxes. So that's not a question --
>> I so appreciate you saying that because the request is not coming from any of the 83 taxing entities on whose behalf that we do this who are not complaining. The request for us to take a look at this is coming from vendors who want to make a lot of money.
>> and that is not illegal.
>> depending on the what the tactics are.
>> does anybody think that people don't get taken to lunch that is correct don't get taken -- that don't have things set up for them at the masters. I mean name it. It's done. That's the industry. That's what happens. But if we have an independent group that looks and says this is where you need to be doing it, I mean whichever it comes out. I don't think there's anybody that questions how this came about. I mean when somebody came to me to ask why don't you look at this, it's not just this. I mean, you know, we are asked to do a lot of things. I mean you know look at the controller. The controller has on ton of things looked at. I mean and people know that people that are responding to these things are people that are in the industry. Do they use every tool imaginable to say can we at least look at it, I don't think -- as far as I知 concerned, they are as transparent as we are. I mean we're doing a great job. There's no one that says that Travis County doesn't do a great job. But what I need to do is tell somebody or a number of people that ask me we're doing the best job that you can do and we're leaving it where it is.
>> second. But I don't understand the not wanting to even look at it.
>> because I have looked at it because I get the reports from the tax collector's office, we get the reports from the county attorney's office.
>> we've had that vote. I think we're wasting time. We had that discussion.
>> i'll be glad to have stuff on both committees, and I would think that you would think our people would be absolutely independent and they will be in the evaluation. My only concern is I am not convinced that more data will be necessary than on the template. So just understand if -- if we thought we needed -- if the committee thought they needed more data other than this, they would add to that or collect whatever that they wanted. This was not the defining -- because I don't think they know that.
>> well, christian was giving me different ideas and it is my challenge, christian reduced it to a one pager and this is the result.
>> it may be just fine. When they get into it, this may be all the data they need. And, you know, there's been a lot of talk about this, and, you know, hell, i've been here for 17 years. I think you guys look at these things when you get tpablgts, you make decisions on the facts and do that here just like you do every other procurement in Travis County. If I have people on this committee, they are going to be independent. If cyd has people, she's going to be independent. I知 not worried about the process in Travis County. I知 not. I think we're going to do what we always do and nothing is going to change.
>> thank you.
>> the county judge intentionally did not put a single member of the Commissioners court on either committee.
>> I don't want any part of it. I do have a question though related to the template, that is the good analytical information we need to get, but we asked an awful lot of questions that are not part of this template. What happens to all of those answers that we're going to be getting from the [inaudible] that I think are equally relevant in another way related to how they do business and -- well, i'll leave it at that, how they do business.
>> it's in their evaluation, right?
>> right. These three would determine what facts need to be looked at. So my understanding is that they have the r.f.i., they have all the responses, and if they have questions beyond that, really I have no problem with contacting the community to make sure you get the same questions to the firm unless the firm has already provided the information. So what I知 thinking that whatever data the committee needs in part 1, that committee will be free to go ahead and get.
>> yes.
>> I guess what I知 saying is what is going to happen to the r.f.i. Has a lot of questions that are not covered by the template. How is that information going to be handled and is it going to be turned over to these committee members or is that part of the evaluation if we ever get there related to that there are other issues involved other than simply punching numbers.
>> I think it ought to be turned over to the committee in part a.
>> but there's not a committee that deals with so how are they going to evaluate that information. This is strictly pieces --
>> susan, this committee can get information --
>> yeah, I think there will be -- and for people that watch, the only thing that's different about this is that we are comparing on internal process and most of our bids we don't. We have external people bidding and they are all using the same format. We are now having external people bid and we're comparing to an internal process. So everyone is concerned because this is an internal process that is narrowly defined and independent. Judge, I think you are exactly right. Stage 1, that's what we're going to do, we're going to take the internal process, and it's true reports are coming in, but let's define those, look at all aspects of it. My staff are used to validating numbers, and so they will be doing that. Mike is going to be the one on that. What I think the committee will do is say we are confident that this is what the Travis County data looks like. We the committee are comfortable. I think then as they get through that, I think issues will come up that they will want to define other than just this template and other numbers, perhaps, I don't know that, I haven't looked at them, and then they can come back at the end -- if they need to add something for the evaluations because they are going to start this before seeing anyone else's data.
>> susan, the judge has in his memo in terms of the part 1, 2 gatherers, that this group should be able to complete its work within two weeks. Do you think that's a realistic timetable?
>> I don't think we're going to know that until they do it. I think they can do it within two weeks and I think the worst thing that happens is they get into it, they want to do a complete job and they come back and say we need another half week or another week and that's what you always do. We start evaluating things and we don't have enough time, people come back and tell you that and then you say, you know you you got another week.
>> assuming that that is correct, that puts us already in mid-may before the evaluators would even move forward. So in terms of --
>> don't look over the hopefully. Because I知 not doing the work, I didn't want to presume that they would work at incredible speed. I said hopefully.
>> these are people who are used to looking at the data in Travis County. It's not a totally unphone to us. You get data, we get data, p.b.o. Gets data. It's not totally foreign. It's just a matter of getting in analytical way and having everyone comfortable that that in fact is accurate data, and let's say that is put together and someone had a question and we look at something else or add to it. I mean I知 not -- I guess as worried about that because it is county data. As I said, the only thing that makes this process different is we're looking at internal data and everyone wants it to not only be fair, which I知 sure it will be fair, but that it also appears fair to everyone, and I think we all share that.
>> is this coming back to court before part 2 moves forward?
>> no, ma'am. That's not my intention. If you are talking about adding another month, if we require that it be brought back to court, that will do it.
>> well, it's going to take the part 1 folk as much as mid-may to get their work done. Then how long does the evaluation team have to report back to the court on what they think it you a means?
>> the memo intentionally does not address that.
>> that's what I知 trying to he-.
>> the memo is saying it's good faith work by public servants.
>> and they will be working hard and fast.
>> you got to understand that three-fifths of the committee in part 2 works on part 1. So you are talking about a new two-fifths in part 2, otherwise it's three of the same people, three of the same departments out of five. Dusty.
>> good morning, dusty knight with the tax office. I have been working with at least three of the vendors that are wanting to do this. They've obviously said we don't do our numbers exactly the way that you do your numbers. Short time frame, i've said get whatever you can in here so that we can look at this stuff, and if we do have problems trying to get this to apples to apples that we would go back and talk to the vendors trying to get down with them. So I can't tell you all of this is going to happen with -- I知 assuming there won't be many more than three vendors, I don't know that, but it will take some time to be able to get back with their number people and make where our numbers once as susan goes through, feels good about templates, whatever else, that we are comparing apples to apples once again. They are already telling me it doesn't look exactly like what you have already given to us from the tax office. Our numbers don't look the same format. You are going to have to deal with it. Certainly I don't want to be changing their numbers, then have people say we're prejudiced against this or whatever else.
>> I saw your letter back, but we're already getting inquiries from some of our taxing epbt ies as to what's going on over there? Are you just gathering information or are you moving to change the way you do things, in which case we're your customers and we haven't really heard anything about this. How should I answer that kind of question?
>> you can use the memo I sent to the aisd yesterday, delete the last paragraph. It was good yesterday, but I知 not sure it's good today, but it makes sense to me. People have asked me and I said basically -- I have told the truth. And I think probably the court and the county staff can do well just to tell people the court wants to take a look and that's what we're doing. And we're on a process here that will take probably about a month. We'll have more definitive information at that time. I did not know we were collecting for 83 entities. That's a whole lot.
>> yes, sir, it is.
>> but I don't have any assumptions except as public servants we ought to take a good look, and then we basically ought to live with the --
>> that's all the assumption I have.
>> and I don't know really enough about this to serve in any kind of capacity other than policy maker. That's why I think that we're well served to put the right people on these two subcommittees. At the same time, though, if there's a substantial financial gain to be made, then, you know, I think we're duty bound to take a real close look at that and decide what to do. If there is no substantial gain to be made, then we make the call and live with it and we tell everybody, hey, back in '05 we took that look. What you are talking about, we looked at in 2005. But -- yes, sir.
>> once again, I appreciate everything the Commissioners court. I wanted to go down that at least the staff in the tax office, we have no problem with this either. We did this in '99 and 2000. I have provided data to delinquent law firms almost every time since that time frame to show them where we are, this is how many lawsuits we filed, this is how many they filed, so we do not have a problem in the tax office going head to head with anybody and if the numbers bear there's a better way to go, that's where we should go with the citizens of Travis County. We do not have a problem. I知 like the dummy in bridge. I have put all the cards on the table and they've seen it for years to know exactly this is the way you do business and the numbers that you collect. So I just -- when things are going out to the public, it's not the tax office that has a problem doing this either. We're good to look at it too.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> judge, Commissioners, Travis County tax assessor-collector. If I may at this time, I would just like to make a couple comments on the process as a whole. One, we have no problem with going through this process, and we don't have a problem, Commissioner Gomez, with having some member of the public on the committee. I think we may be hard pressed to find some member of the public who is very well versed in tax collections and what the law says one can and cannot do. Unless it's somebody from one of the competing firms. Or non-competing firms. Firms that do delinquent collections. But whomever, I don't have a problem with it. I don't care. What I am concerned about is back to the question that Commissioner Sonleitner posed as to how the court plans to let the public know the outcome. Because when we did this in 1999, 2000, there was plenty of data, conclusions were reached, and nothing was ever published or publicized so that the public does know what happened, what was done, how we do things and what our bottom line collections are. This time I would hope that you would want to let the public know that and prior to -- should you decide to change the way Travis County does delinquent tax collections, I think the public should be made aware of one of the -- one of the issues -- the whole process of all of this, but the public should be made aware that the end result of privatizing delinquent tax collections is that people who are delinquent and who are already struggling to pay delinquent property taxes would be assessed a large -- another percentage. It could go up to 20% by law. They will be paying an extra amount of money that is not going to Travis County to allow the county to meet its obligations, its financial obligations and perhaps in future lower taxes for all of us. It's going to be an extra percentage that they will have to pay that is going to a private vendor. Not to the county. And I think the public deserves to know that. I think that's fair.
>> I agree. Now, on page 2 of this letter, and after parts 1 and 2 are done, recommendations will be made to the Commissioners court. Along with supporting reasons and rationales. It will be put on the Commissioners court's agenda for consideration of recommendations, whatever they are. That process will be completely open as is everything before a decision is made by the Commissioners court. But as to how it impacts different people, what the law is, what the practices are, et cetera, my guess is that that will be more than sufficient public attention brought to bear on that. Assuming we change directions here. So I don't know, you know, the sort of implication that this is a secret process, in my view, is not fair. If there's an open records request tomorrow for responses, I would send it down to the county attorney. And whatever the law is apply it. I知 out of it then. And if [inaudible] says sam, we need from your office this information, and by the way we did get an open records request from the statesman already, I sent my whole file, e-mails and everybody else. No problem with that. So this will be an open process. How it affects different delinquent taxpayers will be affected that way also. People don't understand now we're not talking about just sending everything to private lawyers, even if we were to do this, it would be after a certain time frame. I知 convinced that if this were my business, a private business, then I would take the easy stuff, the low-hanging fruit myself and on the real hard stuff, if there's a better deal, I would consider sending that out. That's just me. I felt the same way, about the jp's and the rest of that stuff. It's hard work and a lot of stuff, there's no statute of limitations in this, right? There are people that owe us from 12, 13, 14, 15, 20 years ago. And I know the county attorney's office -- I mean we have begun to get the word out get as money as much as you can, and as much as you can is probably the most recent stuff. That's what I would do I think if I were the county attorney down there. There are a lot of ways to look at this thing. And we may look at it in all those different ways and conclude what we're doing right now is completely sat eus fakeer to and ought not change it and I can live with that. Won't bother me at all.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...i fear wrap we may be headed -- I fear where we may be headed with this thing is not a place where we are going to want to be which is equal start -- complaining about -- people start complaining about, perhaps even some of our people, that this was done so hurriedly -- I can honestly say, I mean, the couple of people that did ask me, if I was interested in having this looked at, I made the comment, I said "why do you have to do it this year? I mean let's have enough time to go through the process so that at the end of that process people will think there was enough time given" because I feel so hurried with all of this stuff. I知 on a two-week deal. I知 going to he will you -- maybe I haven't been here long enough, you're not going to be able to sit me down in two weeks or four weeks and expect me to really know what the -- what the best thing for Travis County to do and I really hope at the end of the day, we can look everybody in the eye and say we did the best, we really did give you information and this is what we're doing and it's based on the best information that we have. I知 afraid we are going to get to the end of this deal, whatever we did somebody is not going to be happy, the process stunk, the time line stunk, the whole thing smelled to high heaven. Then we haven't done anything. Then I知 still back in the same spot where I just tell somebody well, you know, we tried. Well, you didn't really try Commissioner, I mean,, you know, you went through the motions. Well, I mean, the thing that I hate the most is somebody to tell me I just went through the motions. Maybe I did go through the motions and we were put in a position that we needed to hurry this thing up, I mean, if i'm, you know, an individual that -- if I知 in the industry of doing this, I think the best thing that we can do is to say, you know, let's take the time, let's -- because I think this thing may take a better part of a year to really lay out and to make sure that we have the right committee, that we have -- because I guarantee you, if we go out with these five people on the evaluation, I mean, it's going to be like we didn't do anything. As a matter of fact people are going to really feel like okay well we've looked at it, so we're not looking at it for another five or six years. I really only want to look at it one time. I think if you let me look at it one time and I have the time, I will be satisfied from now until the coming --
>> if the committee comes back and says we are not able to do it in two weeks, in fact we need four more, it won't kill me. We get four more f. It takes another month to do the evaluation, I just think that we ought to go ahead since [indiscernible] anyway, since the staff have gotten -- since it has gotten politically messy, we ought to go ahead and do it and do whatever is necessary to do it right. Wherever we end up it's fine with me.
>> this is just history. Unfortunately christian is not here. When we did this in 1999, this started the process? 1999. When we came to our conclusions, this was turned over to the vendor to look at it and make their revisions so they went in and said I don't think that you quite looked at my data right. So it went through an iteration with the person that requested last time of looking at the data and they can come back now with these two things together. At this point in time we don't have that. Did I represent your data correctly? Obviously we should get the county's data correctly. But did we represent you correctly? Well, this is not in there in this time frame at this point in time because of the time frame. We did that just I知 just saying historically, we did that last time. To come together this -- this is how we represented your data, is it fair or not. I believe christian did do that. And finally it was turned in, whenever we did it, February or March after two or three months after going back and forth with christian, not the tax office, but christian and the vendor at that particular point in time, coming to okay, yes, I can understand that. It was eventually not moved forward on, but -- [multiple voices]
>> it was not a formal process last time, either. It was us communicating with one particular.
>> one particular one, that is correct.
>> if the committee decides after part 2 on that specific course of action and recommends it to the Commissioners court, I have no problem with considering it. Considering that. There's a world of possibilities.
>> certainly.
>> but this is basically as -- what this is basically is an effort to narrow those possibilities to a specific course of action. And -- but in this is basically the assumption that those who know about the county's effort to collect delinquent taxes will be able to make various calls along the way. And at some point make recommendations to the Commissioners court. So I知 not assuming that I know what the recommendations would be. And if you were to come back and say you know the strategy we had last time worked so fine, we ought to do it again, we ought to do it with all three, four or five submitted responses, I知 not going to have any problem with that. If it takes us three or four or five months to do the analysis, so be it.
>> I was just helping Commissioner Daugherty with something. We did do something like this, it's not fair to say I知 taking your data I知 going to manipulate it and you lost -- well, that wasn't the case, that wasn't my understanding that was the case. Let's sit down with them and talked about the other person's data, how it should be represented.
>> let me go one step further there. When this was taken up in 1999, 2000 again on an appropriate amount of time to appropriately deal with it, and working back and forth with that particular vendor, is the information being fully represented, the county did not pull the plug on that process. Nor did the county evaluate the information that a veshd was going to give -- that a vendor was going to give us. We said you know what we're doing a better job. The vendor pulled the plug and said never mind. Because -- they were seeing what the information was related to what they could do for the county. And they asked it to be pulled.
>> that probably won't [indiscernible] this time.
>> that would not be correct. That would be linebarger.
>> what point are you making.
>> I知 not talking, just --
>> that wouldn't be you. It was Commissioner Sonleitner. I知 having a hard time understanding your point.
>> my point is that the last time this came up, it was a vendor let's move forward on this and let's go through the process and when the numbers came back, not as -- as helpful as they would have hoped it would be, the vendor said uh, never mind, don't even go one step further with this process. The county did not pull --did not pull the plug nor do we get to evaluate in a very public process we are doing a better job and therefore we choose to stay with the process that we got. That vendor is back again, the only thing that's changed is the county attorney.
>> if we don't get a single response, would it be therapy and redemption for me, it would be, I have no problem.
>> I知 sure we're going to get responses, sir.
>> if we get at least one I think we ought to have a process in place that's fair. The one I outlined today is the best one, I think --
>> have fun with it.
>> I agree. [laughter]
>> if we find out and -- in a couple or three weeks that we don't have the time to do it, I知 certainly willing to stand up and say you know what, we don't have -- I mean, if you want me to weigh in on this, I don't have the time and I don't have the confidence of where we have gotten because of this time schedule that I知 very nervous about it. We'll talk about this next year, now talking about doing it next Thursday.
>> but Gerald you are talking about repeating the same kind of process saying we don't have enough time to properly do this, as opposed to saying what do their numbers show, let's get the numbers out on there and stop the process at that point or keep going. But once again we are talking about pulling the plug and not letting everybody out there see what their numbers are. I am with dustin and nelda, I have seen -- I知 not afraid of these numbers.
>> the numbers will be available to the whole world at some point. That point is not determined by Sam Biscoe. That point is determined by the law.
>> right.
>> we ought to follow it.
>> mr. Knight, let's wrap this thing up.
>> I wanted to say there is a -- to be -- for the delinquent attorneys to be able to collect for this year, there's a may notice that has to go out, that's a thing that you are going to get caught up in here, do we send out a notice for all 83 jurisdictions that we are fixing to do something. That's not going to be us holding back, it's going to take time to do this.
>> what day in may?
>> the 31st.
>> yeah.
>> that may deadline is seems to me becoming more and more difficult to achieve. The may dead line is not a priority for me --
>> I知 not your attorney, I知 not an attorney. I知 trying to let you know some of the things we will be up against.
>> after 2005, there's 2006 for those living. Then 2007.
>> yes, sir.
>> going like that all my life [laughter]
>> there's one other thick, the vendors -- one other thing, the vendors could have brought these forward and made the requests a whole lot sooner than they did. You know what, they waited until after we hit a March 1 date that is very specific in the contracts, don't get me started on the contracts getting change because they did.
>> please don't.
>> but we got past the March 1 date. That narrow window I think is interesting. So you can't have more time, but if you get those results in prior to March 1, you then empower 83 jurisdictions to make a call as to whether they choose to be part of our process or not. I think there are those who don't want it to happen this way.
>> Commissioner this is vendor driven for you. It was vendor requested for me. We drive this process, we determined what it is we do, and we determine when we do it. The five of us make that call. I知 hearing from the other four that we plan to do that.
>> you all do what you want to do.
>> but you won't let us.
>> no, I知 ready for you guys to take a motion.
>> mr. Wicker.
>> I wanted to reassure that course that at least from my part on the first committee there is no chance that I知 not going to be back here saying we need more time if we need more time. If we can't get all of the data we think is relevant or we need to go back and ask the vendors for that, if that happens, we will be back telling you that, at least I will be for sure, I知 sure the others --
>> that was my encouragement a few minutes ago, if I were in your shoes that's exactly what I would do. We ought to take the time to do this right. But if you take six months to do this, that's six months that other assignments don't get done, too. We want to do this right --
>> we will do it as fast as we can, but we are going to make sure that we do it right. If that takes longer than two weeks --
>> other dupts, too. A lot of folks post says expertise we want their input on this. I move approval of the Biscoe April 14th, 2005 memo.
>> second.
>> let's leave open whether or not we bring in outside assistance. If we decide at this point we need that, then we huddle again with another agenda item. How is that. Any more discussion? All in favor of the motion? Show Commissioners Davis, Gomez, Daugherty, yours truly voting in favor.
>> show me voting know, this is consistent with my vote no on the rfi.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner voting no with explanation. Thank you all, very, very, very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 10:34 AM