Travis County Commissioners Court
January 10, 2006
Item A1
A 1. Is to consider and take appropriate action on whether to appoint a citizens accountability committee on voting approved bond projects and if so an appropriate scope of assignment. During our work session, we said that we would place this on the agenda for follow-up discussion by the Commissioners court. And that's why it's there. Actually, the question is whether we want it in two parts of the project, one would be I guess the jail construction project and the other category would be all others.
>> judge, it is possible that we can do one committee, have them subassign who wants to gather around the -- the jail projects and who wants to gather around in that way they could schedule their work as needed. But I知 not sure that we need two committees.
>> I think we need -- I don't know that we need a second one, but we need one for the judge --
>> oh, big time.
>> I think we need a committee that -- that is interested in the project and able to commit the necessary time, otherwise the committee would be like the court, it would get in the way. And we don't want that to happen. It may be that the best thing for us to do today is to indicate to staff our inclination to try to put an accountability committee in place and suggest that they try to round up three or four interested persons. Now, in my own view, mr. Martin would be a logical member. At the same time I appreciate that he is in this for -- this is his business basically. How many volunteer hour he is willing and able to commit --
>> I can tell you that he doesn't have the time, because I致e asked him and you are right. I mean, he is the person that we would all want -- not that we don't hear what the other people think. But if you are going to have this committee, you need to have somebody like him. And he doesn't have the time to do it.
>> from what I understood, on our discussion with the staff at work session and the jail staff, is that they are pretty much following, you know, what the citizens bond committee came up with in terms of the jail cells and the numbers. Sounds like we really need some citizens from the bond committee to go ahead and follow up on the plan that was approved by them and by the voters and then the financial part especially is important, so that we can stay in budget and finish the project on time.
>> what we learned from the -- from the committee leadership was that the work was done at the subcommittee level. And when the subcommittees reported back to the big committee, basically the big committee deferred to the judgment of the subcommittee.
>> yeah.
>> and mr. Martin was just one member of the subcommittee and I don't know offhand who the other members were. But it does seem to me to make sense, I mean, if we are serious about the jail committee jail construction accountability committee, then I would try to get one or two professional people with some background in jail construction, criminal justice facility construction to help out. I don't know if there's any big rush on this today, but I mean I do think that we ought to give staff specific enough directions to try to help out. I think on the other projects, you know, they will sort of evolve and -- and some of those I guess by virtue of the fact that you can't do all of them in one, we sort of stagger them over a three or four year period, so there are built-in delays. But on the jail construction project, I think once we get -- once we get the design done, contracts in place, we really ought to be moving, that was our commitment to the state jail commission also and ourselves, because we issue -- we will issue the debt to acquire the money necessary for the first year, then the second year, and we need to -- once we do that, interest starts running, so we need to go ahead and spend it. Joe, do you have any ideas? Other than it's not your fight?
>> judge, the only thing that I would throw in there is that we also are under a very tight deadline, according to what we told the voters related to our public/private partnerships. If those private public partnership agreements are successful executed by next January, December 31st, literally by the end of this year, then those projects go away.
>> right.
>> they either go to other undesignated projects or unallocated projects or whatever, but there's an awful lot of -- I値l just call 'em another set of eyes to be out there related to those agreements because a good portion of the transportation bond project is dependent on action that must occur over the next year or else. And I知 very --
>> too much work for one committee. And I think that the -- that the projects vary significantly. And I don't know that we ought to assume that if you are interested in a road project or a park project that you would be similarly interested in a jail construction project.
>> probably the best thing to do is just ask. Let's ask them and see what interest there is in helping us --
>> the committee?
>> yeah.
>> we can all check with our appointees to see who is interested in serving because certainly they did subdivide into the jail group and the other capital projects.
>> yeah, okay.
>> two of them were bold enough to accept leadership position, weren't they, joe? The chairman and the -- the vice chair? So -- so the recommendation is to get feedback from them?
>> yeah, I think so.
>> report back to us in two weeks.
>> okay. Specifically our question, what role if any they should play in a project completion accountability role. Whether or not they believe that they can take on the various categories of projects. Which would mean all of the bonds. Right?
>> uh-huh.
>> and whether they believe they should take Commissioner Daugherty's advice and separate out the jail construction part and have all of the others in another category. That may have been the county judge's recommendation. Don't attach my name in case they don't need it, joe. Anything else that we need to ask?
>> let me ask -- do we have to stay within -- with the folks that we had.
>> I wouldn't think so.
>> because there may be some different skill sets, you know, that we are looking for in this deal, so if I had somebody that I致e talked to that's contacted me about hey I would like to watch over that a little bit, then we would have somebody else. We are not just going to the people that were on the committee.
>> I知 thinking if we would start with that. Now, they didn't indicate to me, nobody on that committee except mr. Martin had -- or has any expertise in jail construction.
>> that's right.
>> and they all felt a bit uneasy about -- about giving a whole lot of advice on it.
>> yes.
>> that was my idea. If we get one or two professionals to get out, it would.
>> start with them, get their feedback, in the mean time it wouldn't hurt, especially on the jail construction, if we have, hopefully want to serve in a volunteer capacity. I think we ought to hear them out, look at their resume, bring that to court. The other thing is that the committee members did sign various ethics documents that are required by law, a lot of folk don't want to go through that.
>> they did agree up front that they would not be getting involved in the actual bidding or business, so they are already kind of precleared in terms of not having conflict of interest.
>> we can start with the committee. Another set of eyes kind of looking at what we are doing, and there's some accountability, the fact that we want projects and finish on time and on budget. And so those are the three things that I知 looking for. So you don't need that in writing, you have been taking notes today. Mental notes.
>> two weeks, judge.
>> two weeks.
>> okay.
>> and that will be January 24th.
>> uh-huh.
>> right? Anything else on this item today?
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 7:25 AM