Travis County Commissioners Court
December 13, 2005
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. Gives were the an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda. Number 1 is bob barstow. Number 2 don smith. Is somebody holding number 3? Sign up sheet number 3 is missing. >> mr. Barstow?
>> judge, Commissioners. For a number of years, I am bob barstow, I own windy point at Lake Travis, we are compors. We have a problem -- com peters, I own an easement for your customers to use the lake, without paying the lake fee and -- when you duplicate the access that was available to the general public through my park from underneath my easement, you take that business away from me. I say usurp, I could even say steal it. The point is there's a safety problem there in that when you take my business of swimming or sail boating, I must go to motor boating, motor boating among swimmers is dangerous. We have a safety issue that's a direct result of what we have. For some years my position has been, Commissioner hubs testified at one point, you started your park to put me out of business because I was charging the public to get to public land. I happen to own land access to the windy point peninsula. Your parks department is hung up on fighting me and thinking that I am not a good citizen. I am a patriot. I am a good citizen. I opened up my property for general public use when no park was managed in that area. There were a lot of lies made up about me. One of them, of course, was that I was charging the public to get to public land when I owned an easement to use the public land into the water. My position for years was I知 not going to do anything but buy you guys out and I知 going to wait. And we'll ultimately do it because the only thing that you can do to solve this problem, is to file condemnation proceedings, I was betting that you would not do that. I just spent two months at a cottage in michigan and I rethought my position. I came back. I came back, I thought this hasn't worked for 20 years, I don't know that it's going to. Nothing has legally changed. But I will be -- I will become more flexible. I will, you know, I will rent my property maybe even sell it, I don't want to sell it to you. I would rather still manage your park, I think that's in the best interests is to bring this problem at windy point on the lcra land under one management. Somehow. Sale, rental will do it, whoever buys, whoever sells, it's the only way to bring it or merge in some way. Is the only way to solve this problem. It's a real estate problem. It's not a problem of sending your park police out to arrest me for trespass. If I move rocks that you put [buzzer sounding] as barrier to keep me from driving to the water's edge, I have got an easement that says I can drive to the water's edge. You leased your land subject to my right to do that. You don't have any rights to block me from driving to the water's edge, yet you have those rocks there. If I move them, you threaten me with arrest. Throw me in jail. It happened yesterday. I backed off, I had moved enough rocks that I can get to either side to drive to the water's edge, of course if they go back, I will probably have to move them again. Here's the crux of what I think we need to do, I知 going to say you've gotta, so please -- listen. For 20 years this has been bounce being back and forth. You negotiated in good faith with the lcra. They did not tell you that they had granted that easement and that I owned it and that I was already using it in park service for the general public when you leased the land. They put you in a position that you bought other land in reliance on that lease. And now we are stuck with a problem. It a legal mess. I will -- you know, I知 rethinking it. I知 willing to get out. But there will be a cost, of course. I think, now you have this on your executive session a couple weeks ago. I haven't received a letter, but I understand that your decision was that you are not going to make the -- any offer, that you are not entered in making any offer to buy or lease my land at this time. I知 -- that doesn't go far enough. That's fine with me. That's not a problem. I talked to the judge yesterday. And he said the problem is that the Commissioner's feel this is an lcra problem. Good. I知 happy to deal with the lcra. I would rather deal with the lcra. Because there's too much animosity between your parks department and me.
>> are you almost -- you are almost two minutes over.
>> okay, judge, I will conclude here.
>> the problem is that the lcra keeps deferring to you to solve the problem, you keep deferring to the lcra to solve the problem, nobody solves it. While I -- what I want from you is a clear and precise statement to the lcra that says you misled us into this situation, we don't want to pay to get out of it, we want you to solve it and you deal with barstow and let's get this thing solved. Something unequivocal so you are not both bouncing this problem, the lcra, it's the county problems, the county says it's the lcra's problem. Face the problem, let's get it solved.
>> thank you, mr. Barstow.
>> don smith is next. And is mr. Cqfers are you? Is seifers with you. Don smith and adrienne seifers are next and others with them.
>> I think they were signing in to ensure that they have appropriate time to introduce everybody.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, chief.
>> my name is don smith, I知 fire chief for Travis County fire control. With me today is district chief, chief reynolds, and cad debt class number 6. Cadet class number 6. I want to thank you again for making this training possible for the young people from Travis County. You have touched so many lives already. It's really kind of neat to see. Class 1, class 2, class 3, 4, 5, those young people are finding jobs around the state of Texas. Just so you will know how well they are doing, many of the classes in class one are paramedics. Many people in class 1 or class 2 are finding officer positions in departments that they are in because their training was well received and they've rosen in their ranks, so it's kind of really neat to see these kind of things happening. It's because of the support that you give the program and I want to thank you for that.
>> chief reynolds, would you like to say a few words, sir.
>> > that's a hard act to follow. Once again, thank you very much. I知 not sure if you are aware of the numbers. 91 cadets we have taken in. Out of the 91 four graduated -- 84 graduated. Right in the neighborhood of 69 or 70 are employed. Which is a pretty phenomenal range. We present you with class 6. Class 5. We have a couple of people up here, everybody is young to me, that would like to speak, let you know how they feel about the program that you allow us to have, that you support.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> the first thing that I would like to say is that they are honored to be in an academy like this, when I first came in, I thought that -- that it was going to be a little hard, which it is, but I知 thankful that I致e had an opportunity to come in and now I have to -- not have to worry about anything. The cadet class that we have is a good class, the instructor and chief reynolds is a good instructor. We come into the class, you don't have to worry about anything meaning books, equipment, anything like that. And I知 just thankful that we had the opportunity to come in and you could just concentrate on what you have to do and not get off track by anything else. I just want to thank all of the Commissioners for having us down here today, thanks for the opportunity that esd number 4 has given us, thank you.
>> thank you, good luck to you.
>> good luck to you.
>> at this time we would like to present you, everybody would like to speak to you, but I知 sure that you don't have that kind of time, nor do we. We do the pictures that we would like to present to you, I know these are cherished by all of you. Cadet stevens if you and cadet gitman would pass those out for the Commissioners.
>> for those watching, this is training for future firemen, emergency services workers and related jobs.
>> basically.
>> > these young people go through the training program, they test out with the state of Texas for their certification as a firefighter, emt with the state of Texas, which means they can be hired by any fire department across the state of Texas. We also have people that have gone through this program that actually end up in the emergency medical side of the program, they get their ecertification through this -- emt certification through this program. Working with ambulance services now. We have two young people working in brackenridge hospital now. Once in Williamson county, with sheriff's office up there, and they are not using the fire side of their certification, but they are using the medical side of the certification. So it's kind of need to see that in this program not only do they get that fire certificate, but the emt that also opens up those other fields. It opens up lots of doors for them to look at. We do have now other departments around the state of Texas who are calling and interested in our cadet classes, asking when they are graduating and wanting to come do some presentations for recruitment and so it's kind of neat to see that happening.
>> don.
>> yes, sir.
>> at one time, at what time if you can help me recall, there was an opportunity I think for the cadets, the class, to maybe enter into a college curriculum, so many of what they do now would be accepted within that college curriculum, is that still possible.
>> you are correct, sir. That program is still in place.
>> can you tell us about that a little bit.
>> the cadets during this program will actually be taking an a.c.c. Class, the particular class is tactics and strategy, which is one of the things that we have to have for certification. With that, they can take that class with a.c.c., at the completion of their training program, when they get their certification from the state of Texas, they take that over to the community college, the community college will then give them 15 college credit hours for their training program, and we have some discussion going on right now that they may also get an additional five or six hours for their emt training program. That means that they get -- kind of a head start toward their associate degree, which is what we would like for them to go forward with in fire science, so when they finish this program, they will get the 15 college credit hours for the training program, plus the three hours for the tactics and strategy program. They have got a start on an associate's degree, yes, sir.
>> that's great. I知 glad the window of opportunity is still available. I hadn't really heard too much since it was basically initiated and started. It's really good to know that it's still around, they are able to go through that door if -- if they need to. So thank you again for this.
>> if somebody is watching this, real briefly, does it cost, how much time do you have to spend -- is it a job, do you get paid, I mean, this -- how long a period have these young folks been in their class.
>> Commissioner Daugherty, typically it's going to take about six months for cadets to come into the program and complete it because we do the fire certification first, then we do the emt second. The state of Texas does not require firefighter to be an emt. In fact they will accept emergency care attendant or advanced red cross, which are much lower certification levels. We selected emt because it makes each of these cadets more marketable when they look for jobs in other places. The program is designed so that we look at young people from Travis County, we typically start in what we call our targeted area, which is the 969, 973 area if I was to put a cross hair there, work outward from that within our district. We try to fill 20 chairs if we can. In fact this class we were filling 21. We had one young lady drop right before we started the program, we lost her before we actually got started. When these young people come into the program they have to be a volunteer with our department or one of the other esd's in Travis County. Which means they have to be active with that department. Pulling time, giving something back to the community. They do not receive a paycheck. Unlike if you were going to work for the city of Austin afd, you go there as an employee. These young people do not have jobs. They are volunteers for our department. They do pull time after they get what we call phase 1 training, they start pulling time at the fire stations, riding out on apparatus, so they get hands-on training, also something unique to the program. Because when they finalize all of their training, many people have had way over 30 runs when they have actually gone to the emergency scenes. They do get a stipend of $150 each week, on offset cost of gasoline, maintain their uniforms, those types of things. They do not draw a paycheck like if you were a cadet with the Austin fire department, sir.
>> but they could have a job and still do this training.
>> some do, it very tough, because they would have to have that job at night. It's very hard, the training is pretty intense, a lot of studying. Most people don't understand how much studyings into getting that fire certification. The testing with the state is pretty tough. And so it takes a lot of time. So it's hard to have a full-time job and do the training program.
>> but they do have a job like how many people have a part-time job along with this training? About a third of them? Okay.
>> I think that's real helpful. I mean if people are watching this to go that's an interesting field, but I don't know that I could do that. I mean, I致e -- I致e got a -- I知 20 years old and I live in an apartment, I don't really know what I want to do, but this is something that interests me, so you have to figure out how to carry on your life and still -- because this is a pretty full time six -- I get a pretty full-time six month commitment where if you are going to do something outside of this cadet class, then you have really got to work even harder.
>> yes, sir, yes, sir.
>> I think what we find at the graduations, I知 very proud to say that I have been to all five graduations so far, I look forward to coming to your graduation as well, is you find that there is an amazing support structure in terms of boyfriends, girlfriend, mom, dad, extended family, husbands, wives, it's amazing in terms of this is not just an individual effort, it is truly a family and community effort and when you come to get your graduations, you will have probably tenfold numbers of people who will be there because they have been for you every step of the way. I think what's most interesting, there was an interesting article in the statesman a couple of weeks ago, about the challenges that Austin in many large urban cities are having right now of having public safety personnel reflect the dmiewnt that they serve in -- the community that they serve in. You are a reflection of the community that you serve in and this is exactly what we need and I will tell you, the houston fire department looks very favorably upon the graduates that we have and -- and is that honey bun that I see in this particular here, in terms of one of the cadets down in houston. But I知 very proud of you. I always let you know class number 1 is always with me here on the dais. The other pictures are upstairs. I will take this picture with great honor, look forward to your graduation picture as well. I wish you the best of luck, you have got darned good instructors in chief reynolds and chief smith.
>> what I wanted to add was that this program will fill in all of the expectations that we had. When we -- when we decided to vote to create this -- this academy. And it's one of the best votes that I have ever taken. And no doubt. On top of that, to see that the, what we expected out of the academy is really being delivered to not only the taxpayers of Travis County, but I guess Texas. Congratulations I知 very proud of you.
>> I know it sounds kind of funny, when we talk about those other departments, we have a lot of our young people that go to other places, of course houston has been one of the big draws, I think that they have hired 15 at this point in time. But if you have corpus christi, south padre, san antonio, kirby, Cedar Park, Round Rock, georgetown, all of the local departments in our area. But we have people that are spreading out and we have fire departments actually sending people here to recruit. We know fort worth has tried to start a program similar to this, they have a program but it still does not really match up with what we do. When they bring people in, they bring them as employees of their department. Not as -- not as volunteers from the community, so it's still a different problem. Good news.
>> congratulations to -- good luck.
>> good luck. Thank you.
>> thank you all, thank you.
>> mr. And mrs. Vasquez? First name rosario? Last name vasquez? Would anyone else like to address the court on any matter not on the agenda under citizens communication. Our Travis County combined charities campaign is still underway. If you plan to do the payroll deduction, it's the absolute drop dead deadline, if you have a cash or check contribution will be accepting through the end of December. , those who insist on being the last contributor, as the county judge does to make sure that your contribution makes a difference, you have a few more days until December 15th, we are now $25,000 under last year's total. But the good news is that we generally receive a substantial amount from our employees during the last seven days. So we have a few more days before December 15th, do the best that you can to help others, help themselves.
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:
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 3:38 PM