Travis County Commissioners Court
July 5, 2005
Citizens Communication
Moving back to citizen's communication, we do have one citizen. And that is scott johnson.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, county staff. My name is scott johnson and I’m here to talk to you specific ily about air quality. I spoke last week with Gerald Daugherty and one of the thing the county will be responsible for this year starting in September is the emissions testing that Travis County and Williamson county stied to take on as part of the clean air action plan. And one of the challenges that I see is whenever you have a new program, even when you're advertising and you're getting the word out as best you can, in this case through the state, there are still some folks who don't understand what we're trying to do. And what I proposed to him and talked to county staff about is get outing a letter with widespread distribution to folks, a mailing to them that would promote the understanding of the importance of the program to public health, meaning the emissions testing program. And describe the accessibility of this program called the low income repair and assistance program called lirap. That's the understanding in the english speaking community and the spanish speaking community. There is going to be additional fee above and beyond the regular safety inspection fee that's currently being charged for the emissions testing. And having lived out in southern california where this program has been underway, there's a potential for fraud. People are concerned that they're not going to pass and they're not going to be responsible for hubs of dollars in additional expenses in order to upgrade or maintain their car. For you all to get involved and actively spread the word by appropriating funding for this cause. And I think the staff would be in concurrence with me on this, the Travis County staff. A second opportunity is that there's currently a law in place that prohibits smoking from a vehicle. If it's smoking for 10 seconds or greater. One of the limitations of this emissions testing program is it does not cover diesel engines. And that's a fairly large part of the emissions inventory, not for cars, but for trucks, etcetera. Some years ago I proposed this to the city. The city asked at a staff meeting, a.p.d. To look at this and ask them to enforce the statute more by warning people or even issuing citations. Several years ago I checked the records for Travis County sheriff's office, and this particular statute was not being enforced to any appreciable level. If y'all would take the opportunity to ask the Travis County sheriff's office to try to educate themselves about this more added to the in-service and ca dat training program, that would be adeal, then if there's a badly smoking diesel vehicle, y'all would be able to -- we would be able to gain some ground on this particular issue and have those folks know that they need to maintain their vehicles better even though they're not part of the emissions testing program.
>> any questions? Thank you. Mr. Johnson.
>> one last thought. The county put forward a burn ban this year, which is appropriate. Next year at this time we're a couple, three weeks prior to the fourth of July, I think it would be appropriate to consider also banning the sale of fireworks, at least bottle rockets and ones that can be launch understand the air. I think that would be a good opportunity.
>> the law requires that that be done a number of days in advance. Last year the tests were fine and the dry conditions didn't exist. By the time conditions got incredibly dry and dangerous, we had passed the deadline. Because we all looked at that. When we put the burn ban in last week wondered about the fourth of July and fireworks. We're on board, though.
>> caldwell county did it. That's encouraging.
>> that does it for the Commissioners court.
>> move adjourn.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 5, 2005 7:59 PM