Travis County Commissioners Court
May 31, 2005
Item 27
Now, number 27, this was for the legislature over the last few days. The other thing I thought that we would want to get a status report on some of the legislation that we were following during the session. I guess if there were species that we think were voted -- pieces that we think were voted out of both houses, going to the governor's desk, if it was appropriate to send us a letter in support or against, at least we would know and start putting those together. 27. Receive update on various proposed legislation before the 79th Texas legislature, and take appropriate action. (a list may be obtained from any member of the Travis County Commissioners court.)
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners. It's with a great sense of relief that we report to you that the legislature has adjourned sine die and has left town. What we would like to do, as you know the governor will have until June 19th to review bills, veto them. We would like to come back at the end of June to give you a final report of all bills that you took some action on during the past session. But today we would like to do what the judge suggests, just to highlight some of the -- some of the issues and bills that you have talked about in the last several weeks. Also touch upon the priority legislation. We are going to start out, marisa gonzalez will be here briefly. She has some reports for you. But we are going to start with chris giving you an overview of some of the big issues that -- that some that made it, some that did not make it. And then i'll go through the priority bills and then marisa will touch upon the tier 1 bills, which are the ones that you took some action on during the course of the session.
>> okay.
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners. I think most of this, all of you are well aware of, we will very briefly hit a couple of points. Many of you know that this session is receiving a lot of press coverage based perhaps more on what did not pass than what did pass. House bill 2 the school finance bill and house bill 3 the property tax relief and tax restructuring bill did not pass. There are various rumors about the possibility of a special session to come back and address those issues. I would just be guessing either way to let you know if that could happen or not. There certainly were a lot of last-minute negotiations up in the last 72 hours or so that could have resulted in the calling of a special session. I think the general sentiment right now is that that's not likely. At least not for the next few days. On those subjects. The Texas supreme court is expected to rule sometime this fall on the -- on the education issue and at that time perhaps a special session might be in order. I think it's going to be tough to get the legislature together prior to that, but, you know, as we leave the court today, we could find out that there's announcement imminent. There are a couple of matters that are -- that kind of fell through a crack right at the last minute that could result in a very short one-day special session. There are rumors of that, although again I don't know how -- how valid those rumors are. The two issues that seemed to be pushing that the most are the tuition revenue bond bill that -- that did not make it at the last minute and the judicial pay raise bill. Which got killed on a point of order. Basically. Or got involved in a dispute which involved a couple of points of order, and whatnot. So those -- those two matters are sitting out here. I would also note as the court is well aware that the appraisal cap bill did not pass, that the court was very concerned about it at various points in time and the revenue cap bill did pass, but I kind of put it in the category of did not pass because what ended up passing was a very benign amendment to the law, which I don't think the court really objected to versus the version that was originally filed as house bill 1006 in the house in which the court along with many other local governments had expressed a lot of concern. I would also note that the session's major water bill, s.b. 3 did not pass. That's not something that the court spent a lot of time on. I just bring that out because it's a major bill of state-wide importance that has to do with financing water development, resource infrastructure over the next several decades and that's something that the legislature is going to have to address relatively soon. The big issues that did pass, I will just mention three, the budget, $139 billion, the good news about the budget is that it did not harm local governments in the same way that the budget during the last session did. In terms of making significant cuts in a variety of areas that were to some extent had to be picked up by local governments. There was not the amount of cost shifting in this budget. And in fact there were additional dollars in this budget in many areas that the court would be supportive of, including chip in particular and medicaid. Workers' comp reform passed this time. And child protective services, the -- the major bill that I think had gotten a lot of attention through the interim and did in fact receive significant additional dollars and significant reform in I believe the number is s.b. 6. So those were kind of the biggest issues that I would mention. As kind of summarizing this legislative session, I think that I have stopped there and would be happy to answer any questions about any of those issues, then I think we're going to talk about some of the other issue that's the court was specifically interested by category.
>> takings died?
>> the house bill 2833 died, yes, ma'am.
>> got it.
>> [inaudible - no mic] I think you had a report to do, so why don't you go ahead first.
>> okay. Sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services. The court had been following house bill 470 and based on our final checking, h.b. 470 passed out of committee in the house, but never made any -- never went any further than that. So house bill 470 apparently died at the close of the session. 2572, which was the other bill that we were following related to community mental health and mental retardation centers actually has passed both the house and the senate and is going to be submitted to the governor for signature. And basically, the original version of 2572, addressed specific issues which would allow community mental health/mental retardation centers to be both the authority and the provider for persons with developmental disabilities. There has been some amendment to that bill, as it has moved through and those amendments basically are in three areas. First, it protects local control and protects against the regionalization of authorities which was the primary concern we had with house bill 470. It also removes the provider of last resort provisions passed during last session related to house bill 2292, I believe. Then it also creates a joint interim committee to study local mental health and mental retardation service delivery systems and to report during the next session. So I believe that that -- that should this bill be signed by the governor or passed into law, that the current provisions will serve to strengthen our local mental health system as opposed to some of the devastating effects that we had anticipated had house bill 470 come to fruition.
>> good work.
>> at this time, what I will do then is to highlight the priority bills and you should have a report in front of you. In the very first one, house bill 1492 was the companion to senate bill 665. And that bill, 665, has passed. And that is one that was brought to you by the sheriff's office to -- to include to expand the list of those people who -- testing of another person who may have exposed the person to a reportable disease, including h.i.v. Infection. What they did is they added employee, contractor or volunteer other than a correctional officer who performs a service in a correctional facility as defined by the penal code. So that one has passed subject to the governor's signature. The next bill on that list is house bill 2309 an omnibus voting bill by chairman denny of the elections committee. In that bill is some language regarding increasing the -- the minimum precinct size from 2,000 to 5,000. And what it says, there's -- there's going to have to -- I?m not sure which one. I believe that 2309 passed later than 2759. The other one dealing with that. But it raises -- it del let's the reference to 2,000, just says 5,000, precinct must contain at least 100 but not more than 5,000 registered voters and it repeals subsection d of that statute. Now, house bill 2759 by taylor, which did pass, it -- with respect to that same provision, 42006 of the election code, taylor's bill del let's excuse me, amends subsection d, that's the one repealed by the denny bill. In any event, I know that we have gone from 2,000 to 5,000, we need to sort out a little bit, find out which of the other language will prevail there. So --
>> yea. We need to get the governor to sign that one.
>> this is roughly the same language that the governor vetoed last time?
>> yes. The next bill on the list, house bill 3025 and its companion, senate bill 1675, this was one brought to you by the sheriff's office. Senate bill 1675, passed out of the senate committee, was recommended for the locale door, but that's the one -- for the local calendar, that's the one that the sheriff's office decide they were not in a position to go forward on. So that one did not go anywhere. On page two of your priority report, first one there, house bill 4519 relating to the appointment of temporary justices of the peace in certain counties, this was the one that the j.p.'s brought to you to allow visiting judges to be used for back load or -- backlogs on their caseloads. That has passed. Next bill senate bill 230, this was relating to indigent health care services, trying to get at that issue that you had brought up when individuals from other counties come and use the facilities in Travis County. Trying to get reimbursement. As we mentioned, that one did not go anywhere. That specific issue had little traction during the session. What got all of the attention was the star plus program and whether or not that should be expanded around the state. That was an hmo type of model. That -- that -- the expansion of that was prevented. The -- it was to recovery more federal dollars for the counties for -- for indigent health care with the idea that if there's more funds available, then in terms of other -- individuals from other counties coming and using the facilities in Travis County or harris county or any other county will be relieved somewhat because there will be more federal dollars available. So indirectly, we are hitting that issue, Commissioner Davis. But not in the manner that you wanted to. I think that this issue will continue during the interim, it will be one that we need to work on and find a solution for. The bill on page 3, senate bill 665, related to work-related exposure, gone to the governor. Senate bill 767, this was the evaluation of the conservation easement. 767 did not pass, but senator wentworth put that as an amendment on to house bill 2491 which did pass. Assuming that 2491 becomes law, the -- the conservation easement provision will become law as well.
>> that was senator wentworth that helped us out on that one?
>> that's correct.
>> who was the sponsor of 2491 that allowed that.
>> that was puente and armbrister.
>> okay. I need to know who I need to write thank you notes to for allowing that to be tagged on. Thank you.
>> and then going to the -- the final page of the priority report, senate bill 875, that was the one that -- we are hoping to get reimbursement for the weekender program. We just could not get the senate to supported that. So that died. The next one senate bill 1214, by antos and naishtat, that one did pass has gone to the governor. And that one will allow counties with a population of more than 800,000 to use an insurance broker to obtain your insurance services. In the past, you have gone out with a request for proposal and that had been very complicated and time assuming and the results were not -- often were not what you wanted. This is intended to streamline that process. Obtaining all kinds of insurance, including excess insurance, stop loss insurance as well. Senate bill 1272 by mike jackson, that was a senate bill on election precincts. Then finally, 1675, we have already talked about that, that was the one that the sheriff's office decided to not go forward with. That is -- that concludes the summary of the priority bills. Any questions on those?
>> well, I have another question related to another bill.
>> we are going to go into the tier 1 bills right now, we may hit upon some of your other questions if you would like us to go start on that.
>> one question that I had that was a bill that -- that I -- that I believe it passed both -- both the house and also the senate. Hb 525 sponsored by representative eddie rodriguez and senator gonzalo barrientos. And it appears that it may address gentrification issues. I think dallas is one county that has this type of involvement right now.
>> for a signature. I?m just trying to get better clearer picture because it's kind of a complex bill. Seeing that the city of Austin will be -- will be I guess -- at the top of the pyramid, but however there may be opportunities for Travis County to participate depending on -- on several things. From -- from -- vacant land and putting it in a land trust. All the way to creating a -- a -- a -- a program to -- to actually bring about affordable housing to persons that are in the 60% median income family which is basically from 29,000 I think up to about 50,000. As far as that type of arrangement is concerned. So it's -- I would like to get some more clarity because it's a tier process it appears that there are different overlapping programs that -- that will address gentrification but of course the binders have not been identified because I guess the city of Austin is still going to have to do some work as far as identifying the area. So really what we are looking at a possible freezing of -- on the evaluations of property so -- will you give me a little more detail on that, harvey forks the court.
>> yes. -- for the court.
>> yes. House bill 525 was -- was passed and the only entities that qualifies to have a homestead preservation district is the city of Austin. And the -- the bill allows the city to -- to establish a -- a homestead preservation district that's next to the central business district. So -- so presumably if the city -- if the governor signs it and the city decides to -- to proceed with this concept, they -- they would have a history preservation district somewhere in the east Austin area. Then once the district was established, there are three affordable housing tools that they could use. One would be having a homestead land trust, the city would appoint the directors of the trust, the trust would be able to acquire land and preserve it for affordable housing purposes. They could -- they could give long-term leases to residents that are very low, low or moderate income citizens, that the land that's held by the trust would be exempt from property taxes. So -- so that -- that would have some -- could have some effect on Travis County. The second tool that they would have would be a homestead preservation reinvestment zone. And this would be -- the city would establish this zone and come up with a -- with a financial plan of -- of what they would plan to do to preserve and -- and enhance affordable housing within the preservation district. The zone, the -- the funds that the zone would have would be -- they would have a -- what is called a tax increment fund and this would be property taxes that would be paid in the funds of increased in valuation within the district. So -- I had an example that if -- you know, when the -- when this -- when the district began, if you had valuation of $10 million, and then the next year it went up to $12 million, then the -- the incremental value would be the property taxes on that additional two million would be available for the funds. The participants in the -- in the zones, the taxing entities, would be -- I mean, they could -- they could participate or they could not participate in the -- if they could participate at -- at 100% of the incremental value or they could participate at some percentage less than 100%. So that would -- if this concept went forward, then Travis County, the city might come and invite Travis County to participate in this zone and then the county would decide whether, if they were going to and then at what level. So they would be of course a loss of property taxes. Then the third --
>> harvey, let me ask you this question. T cad, travis central appraisal district, still would have to go out and I guess assess whatever the valuation of the property is at this point, I guess they still need to identify -- that's why they don't really understand the boundary of how deep or how wide the district is going to be because it appears that -- that there are areas of -- that may be -- as far as [indiscernible] is concerned, within that range of what I discussed before, the 60 median family income, median family income. Still things that need to be done, by the city of Austin, by tcad to define this area or the area definition as far as boundary is concerned. The way I understand it, that the -- the tax exempt deal would be for other taxing entities other than the schools. I think the schools will still get that -- get their taxes. I believe that's correct, but I?m not sure.
>> yes, sir, that's correct.
>> is that correct?
>> that's correct. I was wrong when I said the -- the land trust land was exempt from property taxes except for -- no, actually in the -- yeah, the land trust, I believe, the -- they are exempt from -- I?m not sure if they are actually -- I?m not sure if they are exempt from the school taxes or not. And the -- you know, the size of the preservation district and the amount, the potential amount of the indecree mental tax funds -- incremental tax funds, these are kind of driven by the city. I don't have any idea of how, how much in potential property taxes we are talking about.
>> if the governor signs this bill, how long would it take -- can anybody tell us how long it would take tcad to find out what kind of impact this will have on that property value? I guess at that time that would actually be frozen and come back to see exactly what -- what we are talking about as far as impact on all of the taxing entities, I guess.
>> well, I was -- I was informed that -- that some information has been requested from tcad about property values and there are some people that are associated with the low income affordable housing community that are attempting to -- to do some calculations about how much potential property taxes would be going into this tax increment fund.
>> judge, it appears that there are still some persons that still have to be kind of flushed out a little bit, especially with some of the -- some of the acquisition of -- of property by -- by one of these organizations as far as the land bank program that's one of the -- one of the programs in this whole thing. You know -- in other words they are suggesting that they acquire the property, but you know they will hold it up for -- I?m saying vacant land -- they will acquire the vacant land, but after they acquire it, they have three years to -- to develop and put affordable home on it. But after that three years, if it's not done then what happened to, you know, questions like that, what happens to the acquisition of that property? You know, property that's sitting there and taxes not being collected on it so this -- they will have that authority to do just that. Under this particular bill. But it's still some questions that still need to be answered on this particular bill.
>> I think we probably need to get into a -- a conversation with representative rodriguez and [multiple voices] and talk about his intention of this.
>> right.
>> and how -- what he perceives will happen. But I think it's a way to address the gentrification.
>> gentrification, exactly.
>> that's going on in east Austin, east of i-35. And while I think that we may think that it's a loss of taxes, but it's probably -- it won't be a loss of property as well.
>> no.
>> so people will be able to stay in their homes and still pay taxes, they just won't -- what won't take place is the selling of the property at a very cheap prices. There's no other way to say it. Cheap prices and then flip it and then basically put people out of their homes in east Austin. So I think it's an attempt to address that issue.
>> it is.
>> and so I think if we get into a conversation with representative -- [multiple voices]
>> we can learn a lot more about what his intentions were.
>> I have a call into senator gonzalo barrientos who [multiple voices]
>> yeah, I think we need to carry on those conversations with them. I agree with you, Commissioner.
>> I know the city, there is attempts to -- for the city to issue $50 million in bonds for affordable housing and I don't know how much of that money would be part -- put into this program if this gets signed and --
>> yeah. We need to get into a real serious conversation.
>> lots of questions.
>> Commissioner Gomez, Commissioner Davis, you recall our earlier conversations with representative rodriguez, there is a provision in the bill, harvey tells me it's still in there, I know it was in the early ones, that gives the county essentially a veto power on what projects go forward. You will have a say in how this all comes down.
>> the county has a -- has a -- can participate or not participate in the reinvestment zone. But -- the -- so -- so that's --
>> we will be part of the discussion.
>> exactly.
>> like I said, about three or four programs within -- about three or four programs within this bill that the city has to create these particular opportunities for those programs that are mentioned and of course I --
>> and on the land bank, it is -- to me it's unfortunate that it's the city that would be doing the land bank because then you are just confining the -- the vacant land to within this boundaries of the city limits, instead of within the boundaries of the county. So it's -- it's, you know, in retrospect I think it would have been better if the county --
>> next session [indiscernible]
>> yeah. I?m sorry, I was trying to quick and dirty move ahead. New criminal district court, did it -- did the omnibus court bill pass?
>> 427.
>> it did pass.
>> what was the effect date.
>> I don't know the effective date.
>> you can give it to me later. Several bills that we would like to highlight, marisa is going to highlight several. Chris has another one, then we will wrap it up.
>> cool.
>> the omnibus transportation bill, house bill 2702, section 19 does include language about highways intersecting trans Texas core dpor. House bill 266, wayne smith relating the type of processing the county building permit, that actually ended up being bracketed to counties of 3.3 million or more. And it did -- it's passed. And then 278, 123, those related to the early action compact. Those bills stand alone, did die, they were amended on to the language and was amended to process bill 2129. But -- but the house didn't support the amended language, so that's not the essence of those bills, is not in 2129 anymore.
>> what language was that? What part of the -- what part of the early action compact.
>> that had to do with the ability of a region to voluntarily go into an early action compact as opposed to having a federal mandate for --
>> charlene walker with Travis County air quality project. That was the bill that senator barrientos and representative rodriguez introduced basically on behalf of all of the early action compact regions and testified in the senate, this would have basically just given tceq explicit authority to implement emission reduction measures in eac counties only because there as much as some question by tceq as to whether or not they had been explicitly given that authority by the legislature and the bill wouldn't have forced tceq to do anything.
>> persuade the tceq that it had that all the time.
>> -- that authority all the time.
>> we have always argued that they had that authority, they asked that the legislature weigh in and say explicitly. We would still argue that they have the authority. They have adopted emission reduction measures in our early action compact as state measures, the precedence is there. They -- they were sim ly asking that it be clarified, I don't know if the county wants to say that --
>> I never doubted tom's initial opinion. I still support it.
>> okay.
>> me, too. We thought that would be real simple, didn't we?
>> yeah. Senate bill 121 relates to the requester's right of access to investment information, something mary mays come by and talked about earlier with the suggested amendment language that it has gone to the governor. And I think last but not list house bill 3540, which I believe had some language about the gas tax issue, 1964, in and of itself on its own I think that you have testified regarding that one, judge. Did die and I believe that some of the language had been amended into 3540, but that language did not -- did not die with the bill. Now with respect to 3540 and 2233, those of you that have followed the process for a while would know those bills at the comptroller's fiscal policy and technical corrections bills. They are considered to be like sunset bills. They pass every session and they are usually fairly lengthy and have a number of technical or fiscal policy changes in them. This is the first time that I know of that -- that those bills did not pass. And the 2233 in particular, which died on the last day, on point of order, called by representative keel, had a number of those provisions in it. So those are -- those have caught a lot of people by surprise, there were a lot of provisions in each of those bills that solved or addressed one issue or another. But one of the things that was in there and of course was that gas tax. There were other items relevant to Travis County, such as the home depot incentive package was in 2233, for example. There were some other items. One other bill that the court had spent some time on, was the delinquent tax collection bill. That was originally house bill 3071 by goodman. That bill died, but all of its substantive provisions were rolled into house bill 2491 by punnte and armbrister which is the conservation bill put into, all of those provisions did pass. None of the language that you were concerned about is included in that legislation. And that is on its way to the governor's desk.
>> no bad things.
>> no bad things.
>> thank you. March ritz say on -- marisa on 2702 of the transportation bill that is where they rolled in the no billboard, I believe got rolled into the omnibus bill.
>> I believe so,.
>> thank you.
>> so the Austin american-statesman yesterday sort of had a summary of key provisions of the omnibus transportation bill. As far as we know they were accurate?
>> yes, sir, as far as we know. I think the most significant part of that bill or at least the most watched part of the bill had to do with the development of toll roads and related facilities. I -- the bill itself, as you may have noticed, was actually declared dead at some point in the process and then revived. The -- for the first time this year. I saw several bills where the conference committee reports were handwritten and that was one of them. So there are, if you look through that bill, there are several places where people have xed out, written in, typed things and then pasted them on to the page and stuff like that. And so to be honest, I -- that's a big bill and nobody -- we have not reviewed it completely yet.
>> there's a good question. What did you mean when you say that -- that residents should have an opportunity to vote on whether to convert an existing road to a toll road? Meaning if the existing road is four lanes and you go and you add two more, and total the two more and you clearly can show that, the question is whether you have tolled an existing road.
>> yes, sir.
>> or whether they really mean if you had -- if you have four lanes, and you convert them to toll lanes, whether that's what's meant there. I?m hoping that there's clarity on that, otherwise I know that will be a big fight over the next couple of years. The other thing is that is pretty important because it may well impact the list of roads that we have that we have given to the -- to the ttrma.
>> those are grandfathered, judge.
>> those are grandfathered.
>> there's a date of it had to be announced by September of '05, it's still in there, so those are grandfathered.
>> both versions of that bill, representative krusee's house bill and senator staples senate bill to me very clearly defined what existing road is and there was a grandfather date in there related to the -- to the mpo's regional plan. So -- I think it was may 2005. Any road that's designated in an mpo plan is tolled premay 2005 is -- is an existing toll road. And then there were different other definitions about if you -- if you have x number of lanes, not tolled, and you want to add tolled lanes, as long as the number of non-toll lanes stays the same, it doesn't require the election. There were four or five different definitions of what I would call what's an existing road that you know -- and does it stay existing if it has the same number of non-toll lanes, that was sort of the gist of it. As long as the number of non-toll lanes stayed the same, you could add new capacity that's tolled without having an election. Or -- or approval of the county Commissioners court. I think that was in one of the bills. I can't remember which.
>> I think we ought to become familiar with exactly what was --
>> I can prioritize that and report it to you.
>> the question is exactly what was grandfathered, what was not.
>> uh-huh.
>> because I had no life yesterday, I was actually cruising and watching some of this stuff. Representative krusee late yesterday afternoon had a huge long list of corrections to the transportation bill, which even for folks who were following it were going -- say what? Because they literally were I think you were right, chris, of having things that were handwritten, things were not correctly stated in terms of subsection numbers. But there was a huge corrections bill to the transportation bill.
>> were those adopted?
>> yes, sir.
>> yeah, it was.
>> they were and we have not reviewed them yet. I saw that, it was just almost impossible to follow from --
>> they had a lot of things where they were giving new instructions about how things were going to be engrossed, final end grossment.
>> you mentioned 22 and 33 died.
>> yes, sir.
>> how did that impact Travis County?
>> there were a list of items. I do not have the list with me, judge. There was money in that bill for the district attorney's office from a variety of places, I am told, home depot had negotiated a settlement agreement, not a settlement agreement, a -- an economic development incentive agreement with Travis County, approximately $12 million -- with the state, I should say, not Travis County, approximately $12 million of that was reflected in the legislative changes in that bill. I?m not sure the rest of the items, but I can -- I can get you that list, judge. It was a 160 page bill, had 150 or so sections I think.
>> the governor still has that, his special fund since that 12 million could not come out of that particular piece, is it still eligible to come out of the governor's I don't know what you want to call it, special fund?
>> his enterprise fund.
>> thank you.
>> I don't know the answer to that question, but I would think that's a possibility, yes.
>> plus actually I guess the recommendation is to fund about half of the request, right?
>> in the enterprise fund?
>> right. The enterprise fund received about $180 million, from two different sources and then the new emerging technology fund, which is kind of its sister fund, received about $200 million. So altogether 380 to $400 million was set aside for economic development efforts through the governor's office.
>> okay.
>> judge, I might just, if I could, close on one note. I know Commissioner Sonleitner is always asking us who to recognize and thank and I want to mention one person who is receiving a lot of recognition just in the last couple of days. And that is chairman or representative fred hill from richardson, the chairman of the local government ways and means committee. I mention his name to you only because this was a difficult session for local governments by any accounting. And fred hill is kind of regarded as the republican, the conservative republican who led the fight against appraisal caps and general was sensitive to the concerns of local governments. He was identified as the outstanding legislator on one of the daily things that all of us read. That work around the lobby and so I would just mention to you that he is someone worth -- worth dropping a short note of appreciation to. I think that he had an outstanding session and a lot of his work this session was on behalf of local governments.
>> I will throw in my two cents in terms of who on appraisal -- on revenue caps especially, representative carter cast steel from new braunfels was heroic. She -- she just was amazing on so many different fronts. Carter kastille, mike villereal, a democrat from san antonio was amazing in terms of being there with the good arguments and I?m appreciative of senator williams from the wood lands area was sensitive and it's -- the fact that 1066 which could have been really bad news coming over from the house, senate bill 18 turned into something quite different in terms of transparency, accountability, you know, disclosures, easier access for the voters to get to a rollback election, the kinds of things that really were a different way of doing what 1066, one was kind of a -- a punitive way of getting there, the other one is it's transparency. And so that's another one and senator wentworth went beyond the call of duty on some things that he just picked up for us and coupled with senator barrientos both had very, very good sessions takingings bill, senator barrientos was amazing in terms of getting that thing stopped.
>> I would like to thank gonzalo barrientos also for helping kill h.b. What is it? 2833, he was very instrumental in that point of order stuff and a whole bunch of things that he did there. And just nailed it to the wall. So -- so I guess a lot of folks, you know, we oppose that. And [indiscernible] a whole bunch of other stuff we were dealing with, so he -- I just, you know, really do appreciate him and letting him know that in writing and worked with -- several other things. He basically dealt with. And senate bill 142, didn't make it. I know that he -- he worked with that very -- I guess up until the last minute. What really happened at the very last minute because it seemed like it was making some progress and then just stalled.
>> [indiscernible]
>> senate bill 142.
>> what's --
>> it just died. Right. I think that it was -- it never had broad based support. I think it had been watered down significantly even at the point if it did make it to the process --
>> well, that doesn't mean it can't come back. I think a lot of the community I know in my particular area concerns with the way things are going, the way the rapid growth is happening in the county, the county has more say in how things are developing as far as land use and stuff is concerned. So it's -- it's still an issue that I think still needs to be brought back.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> judge, I?m sorry, there's just one more round of thank-you's. I want to thank marisa, chris, bob, for another session. We got a lot of good work done, we stopped a lot of bad things from happening as well. And all the county staff, county attorney's office, all of the staff folks, p.b.o., et cetera, who contributed in terms of all of our bill monitoring to assist our -- our hired guns over at the state legislature and I want to say a special thank you to anne dankler in my office for being the liaison on behalf of Travis County getting all of those letters that we passed hand delivered over to state legislature. So I want to compliment anne on doing once again a very wonderful job on behalf of all of us.
>> thank you, everybody.
>> thank you. We do want to echo what you said about the staff. We had tremendous support from the staff and from the Commissioners court, I think every one of you were over there on a bill or bills this session. It helped out tremendously. It really added to what we were trying to do. The entire Travis County legislative delegation, representative naishtat, baxter's office gave us great help. Both of those offices carried bills that -- that the Commissioners court had endorsed. So we are very appreciative.
>> unlike Commissioner Daugherty -- I?m like Commissioner Daugherty, I appreciate all of them, but I like very, very few of them. Anything else? [laughter] move that we recess to 1:30.
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, June 1, 2005 9:29 AM