Travis County Commissioners Court
February 28, 2006
Item 16
Number 16 is to consider and take appropriate action on a request by the city of Austin to reactivate and reorganize the Austin-Travis County e.m.s. Advisory board.
>> good morning, pete baldwin, emergency services coordinator. We have a request that came out of our subcommittee meeting from the Austin e.m.s., a letter of support for the Austin-Travis County e.m.s. Advisory board. This is a reactivation of what used to be the old quality assurance team that had gotten fairly large and fairly hard to manage. Anyway, this is a five-member board. You have the five members. And actually, it's just a letter of support for reactivating it and support of the five appointees. The county does not make an appointment on those, it's appointed by the city of Austin. This was merely a letter of request to show support for this advisory board.
>> and I can throw a little bit more in here. What we had -- Margaret serve understand this before. We had the old one, that was the quality service team. And that merged into the e.m.s. Advisory board as kind of the next generation once be we got the original e.m.s. Interlocal approved. And then as we started to work through all the very good issues related to getting a brand new e.m.s. Interlocal done, which we did almost a year and a half ago. In fact, it was put on consent this last time, it was so well done. And we worked through all the issues related to rescue protocol, which was really important to the esd's. All of a sudden the board stopped meeting because, quite frankly, there weren't things to bring forward. And because we finally got performance measures in that interlocal, the Commissioners court at least, which was the main reason we were going, we were getting all those performance measures in a quarterly report to the Commissioners court. So the board stopped meeting for almost a year and a half and so when we all did our boards and commission appointments, the consensus was that this thing isn't needed anymore because if you can have a board that doesn't meet for a year and a half and nobody notices, then that tells you something about whether it has served its usefulness. Well, our friends at the city are much more board and commission savvy. They like having boards and commissions in terms of citizens boards and commissions. So they asked whether they could reactivate this as one of those citizen boards and commissions and they came up with five excellent people to put on. Some of these folks have been on the e.m.s. Advisory board before, dr. Crocker, dr. Patrick and dr. Coopwood. And in terms of the other two folks, susan pass co-was a finalist on being on the hospital board, so we actually interviewed her. She has a nursing background, so these somebody that comiltioners court has talked to and we already know paul caroza over at run text. So rather than saying can we replicate this big 10 or 12 member board, what if we bring to our Commissioners court that we basically are in consensus on the five people that they would like to put on a citizens advisory board and they can report to us, report to them and rather than us having to do the heavy lifting or finding five more people to serve on a board and it's very difficult, why don't we look at saying we are in consensus with these five appointments to this Austin-Travis County e.m.s. Advisory board. I would like a flat issue with pete saying, well, we don't have any appointments. These would be joint appointments and that we are in consensus and that this is a small group, got all the basis covered here, and let them go continue on and work and we take the politicians off that board and let them go do good stuff.
>> who makes the five appointments?
>> the city council did this three weeks ago? They decided they wanted to just go ahead and -- but they brought it to us to say, we'd like to activate this.
>> when were these five oi appointed?
>> that I don't know sir directly.
>> about when? Three weeks ago?
>> yes, sir.
>> actually, the appointment to the city, we actually had our e.m.s. Subcommittee meeting about a month ago.
>> so maybe the week before.
>> why isn't acquiescence the greatest supportive gesture possible? There are three issues that I find with it. One is that apparently there are hidden issues. Two is that the decision has been made. Three is that the action has been taken. Do you see what I知 saying?
>> yes.
>> and so I don't know that a vote from us would not be anything more than superfluous at this time anyway. And I don't know that I would have had any different opinion at that point, but that point was more than a month ago. And so I don't have any problem with these five appointments made by the city of Austin, if it's a city of Austin committee. That's fine with me. These individuals are about as fine as they can come, so I知 not saying let's raise an objection, I知 just saying I don't know that we ought to proactively vote for an k action that's already been taken place anyway. It certainly gives it a lot more proactive support than I would rather give this long after the decision has been made and implemented. So I知 supportive, but not to the point that I think that we ought to take a formal vote here and do it. I mean, I would have preferred having this issue brought to us up front. And maybe being told, hey, there are five people here, here's what we suggest, do you have somebody better? Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn't have. That's just my view.
>> judge, what happened on this thing, probably several months ago was when this came before the subcommittee it was really sort of Karen and my opinion that we don't see the reason, like Karen said -- the thing had been in existence for a long time with nobody even meeting, so you didn't know whether it was there, but it was pretty clear to us that the city had a major concern and desire to do this. I guess what we -- I mean, hindsight is always 20/20. I guess we probably should have huddled everybody up and agendaized it so we could talk about it, but quite frankly, it seemed to be so innocuous from Karen and I痴 spot that it was almost like why even take up the court?
>> but the recommendation from the subcommittee to the court was this committee is not functioning anyway, it's gone away, let's not reappoint even two members of the Commissioners court. It's a city of Austin issue.
>> it is.
>> so let's leave it at the city of Austin, let them go with our blessing is my recommendation.
>> I知 fine with that.
>> that's why we brought this, judge, is they didn't ask us and tell us when they were putting it on their agenda because we thought quite frankly it had gone away because there were so many people saying it's dormant. And it just got put on and they wound up doing it. So we at our last meeting said then we need to bring this forward to the court and let's try to figure out the best supportive way to bring it. Gee, maybe we just say we don't have any issues with this, but it does talk in the interlocal about -- because the interlocal is signed by both of us, it can't simply be their board. We've got a part here.
>> but it is their board.
>> I know. I agree.
>> if you want the court to land on we don't have any objection, that's fine with me.
>> that's where I think we're going is we don't have any objection.
>> however you're comfortable. It's all the same. If you're saying accuse we he is is kind of the same thing that you're getting, but you're more uncomfortable with saying let's ratify more or less with a vote. I don't have any problem, judge, with doing what you want to do.
>> and I don't mind us having the title of the Austin-Travis County e.m.s. Advisory board because that talks about what is the name of the organization, but it is a city of Austin citizens advisory board. I知 cool with that.
>> so judge, would your motion be not to take the action on it, but just less it be?
>> I really don't have any objection.
>> we can send that message back of just saying hi, for go forth and do good work. We are recognizing this as a city of Austin citizens advisory board.
>> that makes me feel good.
>> do you want that in the form of a motion or do you just want to basically sent back -- I知 wondering how you want to handle it.
>> I prefer it not to be in the form after motion. Any objection to that?
>> no. We'll send back the message, go forth and do good work. Peace be with you. Cool.
>> thank you, mr. Baldwin.
>> got the idea, pete? [ laughter ]
>> you understand how goofy it was when it came to us. Okay. Well, let's take it to the court.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 1, 2006 7:37 AM