Travis County Commissioners Court
February 21, 2006
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. And this item is a -- designed to give residents an opportunity to add the Commissioners court. -- to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes. Would anyone like to give testimony during the citizens communication?
>> ms. Smith is here.
>> okay. Why don't we take --
>> I’m sorry.
>> jennifer -- that's all right. Have a seat there. Jennifer your first name is jennifer, right?
>> yes.
>> I remember you from the time before. Your last name is.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> okay.
>> I’m here -- I was here this morning to address the Commissioners court about your sidewalk policies. We received information from the staff here at the county about changes to the policy. Unfortunately, talking with mr. Gieselman this morning, our proposed policy changes were from last year, so our response to -- to some of the proposed changes in some areas were somewhat scathing. And because it needed to be, but may not necessarily apply to this -- to this new proposed changes that I’ve seen this morning. But one thing that came to mind for the folks at adapt, when we looked at the policy, even now this morning the copy that I have, is that there's no talk of a commitment about people's civil rights and ways to -- there's a great deal of information about how to wave and how to get variances. And I think rather than creating a -- a philosophy of -- well, if you don't really want to make sure that your sidewalks are accessible, here's the way to get around it and we have created loopholes to ease your fears. Rather than creating something like that, say, you know, there are creative ways to -- to ensure that excess is provided -- that access is provided throughout the county. This is how we want to do it. Another thing that jumps to mind from what I have just read now is that there's no way for disabled citizens in the county to be plugged into the process. And that needs to happen. You are lucky because you have us as a resource and we have a lot of experience over the years in working with the city. And we can prevent the county from making a lot of the early mistakes that the city made. We would like to work with you in the oncoming future to actually be sure that you can provide sidewalks that are accessible to everyone. The other thing that sort of jumps to mind is that in your schedule you have the types of areas that you want to provide sidewalks in first. But no time lines in which to get the construction done and human [indiscernible] being what it is, you always want to give people time lines if you want something to actually get done. That's another thing. And then additionally, the -- the old information that we have gotten was -- was you mentioned over 10,000 non-compliant obstructions of path that wouldn't comply with the a.d.a. In the older policy recommendations or the policy improvements and what needs to happen is that you actually look at ways that you are going to remove those obstacles and I’m glad that you inventoried, but there has to be a way to get those out of the way. And we would like to work with you to ensure that you are actually able to do it. And -- and what I would like to do is be able to take this back to the office, look at it more closely and then give you updated written comments. Because this is significantly better than what we had, you know, last night. So -- so we look forward to working with you. We want some way to get involved in the process. To help you actually ensure that people don't get harmed.
>> do you have mr. Gieselman business card?
>> yes, I do.
>> okay.
>> we will discuss that item further today. Do a little additional work, and probably post it for public hearing. So my guess is that you will have another -- you will have an additional two to three weeks so we would be happy to get any additional comments that you have.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> as well as there is a strategy to start fixing some of these problems also. We'll be able to share that with you.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you. Now, ms. Moore-smith.
>> good morning. Linda Moore-smith, director of human resources. It's my pleasure today to introduce to the court one of the newest hr staff members, chris nelson, sitting here to my right. Chris joined Travis County last week as hr specialist. She comes to us from the private sector having worked as hr coordinator for a supplier to the semiconductor industry as well as a large retail operation that's actually a national retail operation. Chris has experiences in all areas of hr. Her portion of the port portfolio that attracted us was in the area of management, leadership, training. She will be working specifically with our training and staff development related initiatives, more specifically the performance management initiatives that you are aware of as we discussed some time ago, she'll be kicking that project off and picking up where we left off with it. Chris was selected actually from a pool of many, many applicants. We are really pleased to have had the services of some of our dechts involved in that selection process. Hr was represented by earl hardin, carol darby out of criminal court, donna holt out of tnr. They served as the interview panel that resulted in chris' selection. In addition to her both academic experiences at both the bachelor's and master's level, chris is a certified professional hr employee that you are adding to your other certified professionals in the hr department. So with that I present chris nelson to you as well as to our Travis County family. Welcome aboard.
>> I’m delighted to be here with Travis County. I look forward to working with all the departments. Thank you.
>> we look forward to working with you. Now, the need of the commission -- the Commissioners court need for more and better performance management is greatly exaggerated, ms. Nielson, but any help you need us we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. I look forward to working with you. Anybody else for citizens communication? That's to address the court on any matter not on the agenda. Then let's take the consent items and the special items before we go to collections.
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, February 22, 2006 10:26 AM