Travis County Commissioners Court
June 20, 2006
Item 30
Number 30 is to consider and take appropriate action following planning requirements for community development block grant (cdbg) from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development (hud): a. Priority needs table; b. Potential projects, activities and activity categories; and c. Other related items.
>> meet with staff last week and tried to put together a proposal. Needless to say the matter was a bit more complicated than I anticipated. I think ultimately we did work our way through most of the issues. Okay?
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, sherri flemming, executive manager for Travis County health and human services and veterans service. We are here today to continue our work through the community development block grant process.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> we will display for you in just a minute the recommendations from the court subcommittee, but just a couple of points we wanted to make sure that we advised you of. The first is that as we continue to research the appropriate regs that apply to these projects, we may need to come back and talk with you if there are any snags or hiccups that you need to be aware of along the way. So we are still researching the appropriate regulations that match up with these proposed activities. Also in terms of administrative costs as we have distributed these recommendations to the appropriate departments, we have gotten some feedback that there may be needs that other departments may have -- from an administrative perspective in order to be able to help us work through these projects and activities. It is our request that we come back to you at some point in the future once we have a better idea from h.u.d. What projects they're going to approve, then we can come back to you and talk to you about the administrative costs if there are any significant changes or differences from what we've previously discussed.
>> are we maxed out on administrative costs? Isn't the maximum 20%?
>> the maximum is 20%; however, we've gotten some good news about some other project costs that we might be able to roll to a different category, so that's why I would suggest maybe that we not take your time today to talk about that. Once h.u.d. Is able to see our projects we might have a better idea of what those administrative costs are. We have learned also from h.u.d. That we don't have to outline those specific costs in our plan, so we do have an opportunity to move around which costs you want to charge back to the grant.
>> I think the court needs to understand what our thinking was to arrive at $489,000.
>> yes, we'll talk about those, yes.
>> this is not a good time?
>> it's in the preparation later.
>> go to that page.
>> we've heard many presentations. I think we should get on down to the lick log now. Administrative costs is 20%, but there's a whole lot of work here that pertains to stuff in the future. Go ahead.
>> well, certainly the staff costs related to our staff that you've seen quite frequently here are included in that. There's also one tnr staff that is included in the budget for future project scoping and assessment, especially around projects such as water and wastewater. There's preengineering work that has to be done and so that staff person would be able to work along with the current cdbg staff to get those projects scoped and so that we might have more detail around those projects.
>> that's work that we think needs to get done in '07 and '08 projects.
>> that's correct, yes. There's also hhs staff for compliance monitoring, continued assessment and planning, surveying, program development. There is data management through the h.u.d. Program. We actually have to enter in our tracking information into the h.u.d. System and then the reporting requirements related to each of the individual projects and then the overall expenditure of those dollars by Travis County. Then of course there's other administrative costs for public hearings, advertising and related expenses. And then of course the court has the option, we have set up a preaward budget of about $134,000 that h.u.d. Has said is an eligible expense that could be charged back to the grant once we have received it; however, it is the court's choice whether you would want to charge those preaward costs back to the grant, and that would also have to be a part of that 20% budget.
>> basically county staff has been working on this application and putting the projects together, all this information.
>> that's correct. And the initial public hearing advertising and those related costs and expenses. What we have heard since we've distributed the proposed list of activities, we've heard from a couple of departments that because of the number of activities or either what they're anticipating as the complexity of those activities that they might require additional staff time in order to help us be in compliance. That's about all we know at this point. So that was my reason for referencing it to make the court -- to give the court notice that we do have other departments who feel like they may incur some administrative expenses related to the activities that we approve today.
>> can you remind me of the specific amounts in the top three bullets. Bullet number 4 is 134,000. That's county staff that's been working.
>> right.
>> one tnr staff is how much?
>> about $100,000. And then the second bullet I believe is about 121,000.
>> tnr, that's staff plus a whole lot of other stuff.
>> yes.
>> okay. I'm adding those up. Those so far add up to $355,000. 355.
>> what you don't have, judge, probably, is the advertising cost number, the other related administrative costs, the advertising, printing costs, those things related to our plans, not only our initial consolidated plan, but our action plans for each year. So that amount may not be broken out.
>> is that amount $150,000?
>> you're 150,000 short in the 20%.
>> I've got 100,000 in the first bullet, 121,000 second bullet. That's 221. The last bullet I've got 134. That's 355. 355 from 189 is what we're looking at.
>> okay.
>> 130, 140,000.
>> and actually, the second bullet to have the staff person to do primarily surveying, that increases it to I believe it's about 180,000 from the 121.
>> okay. But we would give h.u.d. The top amount, just the total.
>> yes.
>> 389,867.
>> yes. And some included in those costs would also be -- we just really don't know what needs the engineer might have or if it's an engineer related to the scoping of the wastewater projects. And so there's a little room in there for that.
>> let's say that we submit $480,000 and we really discover midyear that we will only need to spend two-thirds of that. What flexibility do we have with the other one-third?
>> we can amend the plan, either at the time when we are going into our fy '08 action plan or go ahead and incur some expenses to do that prior to that. So if we find we don't need the full amount, we can amend and move those dollars into another category.
>> let's move to the recommendations.
>> I'm going to very quickly go through the recommendations for the high priority, medium and low priority goals for our straip. So this is for the five-year plan. And we reviewed this with you last week and we're going to ask for your official vote on this today. In the high priority category, the items with an asterick -- I'm not sure if the presentation can be pulled up so that you can see what you're voting on. Thank you. The items with the astericks are ones that we moved from medium to high based on feedback that we received from you. The employment training and erosion abatement was as a result of our discussions last week and litter abatement and clearance was as a result of our discussion of the subcommittee. So we recommend that all these listed here are in the high priority category, which means that we intend to spend funds over the five-year period to address these needs at least at some level. The medium priority categories are categories that we might determine money needs to be spent on; however, we're not going to be required to adjust these needs within the five-year time period. And the final category of low priority are -- these are all very important needs in the community. They don't fit in all that well with cdbg and if you look at the other funds coming into the county, there's other ways to address these needs, and we didn't feel they were the most appropriate for cdbg even though they are very worthy needs. So low priority means we probably will not address these needs with cdbg over the five-year time period. And I just want to remind the court that any time over the five years we can amend these priorities, we can do that without incurring an additional expense by doing it and kind of rolling that into the public hearing process for one of our action plans. So these are not set in stone, but they will guide us for at least the first year.
>> if we were going to do a swimming pool this first year, where would that fall? What project category? Would that be youth services or something else?
>> it's usually considered public facilities. And it would be a parks and/or recreation facilities, so it would fall in a medium priority.
>> okay.
>> all right.
>> in terms of the recommendation from the subcommittee for public services, there are three projects. The first is for employment training and the activity would be for job training placement and supportive services in the amount of $200,000. The second project would be for youth services. The activity is to add to the youth family assessment center flex fund in the amount of $10,000. And then finally a project in public services, the activity is to expand the social work services within family support services, and those two staff people would actually be focusing in precinct 1 and precinct 4 to the south and east towards the county line and the unincorporated areas. And so those social work staff would actually be identifying the people to do the $10,000 in the flex funds. They would be identifying those clients.
>> so the public benefit of those is what?
>> staff will be helpful in identifying -- we've talked a lot throughout this process about pockets of folks in our community that don't necessarily stand out on the census blocks that we are required to use in terms of looking at low to moderate income areas in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. Those social workers in conjunction with our established network of community centers will be able to actually work in the unincorporated areas exclusively with families who are in those areas that we all know about so that we can specifically identify what their needs are. Even the geographic location where they are, so that we can dispute the census block that we're required to use. There are areas where when you look at the census block, the areas identified as something other than low to moderate income; however, as the Commissioners court has let us know as well as your staff, is that there are significant pockets of folks who could benefit from the services that we can pay for through cdbg. So those social workers in addition to being able to connect those families most directly with services and benefit from the cdbg funds will also be able to help us with that data collection so we can dispute the information that we're currently being asked to use.
>> we also believe that under the public services other, the social workers will also be able to provide expanded service to approximately 100 households. And that number could increase depending upon how things work. And then also for the flex fund dollars, we believe that it will be able to target approximately 40 youth, at risk youth with services like mentoring, tutoring and those kinds of things.
>> we'll be sure to monitor achievement of those. Okay.
>> we had some -- judge, if we were getting a little bit more due diligence related to the 200,000 because we were wanting to find out some positive response from potential agencies if there was going to be some kind of subrecipient agreement, and the question was going to be asked of is there somebody that is willing to go that route, and I'm hopeful the answer is yes because it's on our list here.
>> it is. We had discussions with two agencies who are both here today, I believe. And they reviewed the manual that we received from h.u.d. That's a handbook for subrecipients with all the associated requirements. We also gave them the federal regulations and notices regarding fiscal management, and they both felt very comfortable that they could comply with all of those and address the needs and provide the services that we really wanted in the public service category. So they are both ready to move forward.
>> okay. In terms of community development, the recommendation is to do street improvements for substandard roads. At this time the activities are not determined. We'll come back to you at a later date with some identified roads and perhaps a criteria for making decisions on that. And that amount would be $750,000. The next project would be owner housing, production of new units, and that's in the amount of $125,000, and that's to acquire land. So that could go to a nonprofit to actually build single-family housing. The next project is rental housing, production of new units in the amount of $375,000. And again, that activity would be land acquisition and that would be for multi-family unit directed towards seniors. And then finally a project for water sewer improvements, $200,000. And the activity for that at this time has been identified as north ridge acres. And then we still have $149,470, but at this time we need to have some direction on how you would like that spent. In terms of what we've heard thus far, there's a project that we just heard just a few moments ago about land acquisition in imperial valley. That is something that we can continue to look at. That is a possibility. And we can do that under the prospect of clearance, which means trying to keep it -- trying to remove the blight conditions that exist. So we can assist in purchasing some of that land. Another project is home buyer assistance. The activity would be at down payment assistance. We also could take any of those funds and increase any of the amounts of the projects on the previous slide or we could also consider additional ideas.
>> the down payment assistance, I'm really looking at that close. In fact, I made available some additional backup to the colleagues on some of the stacking possibility of down payment assistance. One of the hard things that we are running across out there is folks that are eligible, the 80 percent below median family income, having available the down payment monies that may be necessary to acquire and move into a home. And I'm kind of concerned about that as far as making sure that these homes are affordable because of the fact that we may be able to stack loan assistance. And I know the county, we have some loan programs and at some time I would like for harvey Davis to maybe go over some of that assistance, and I want to make sure that we are included in letting the public know that Travis County has these type of assistance programs now, but also there may be money made available through the cdbg funds to assist even more so where you have a bigger bang for the buck as far as bringing down the cost of that mortgage by having a lot more money for assistance. So harvey, if you would for me go through that real briefly on the possibility of the use of the stacking approach? Stacking means that you take existing availability of loan money for those eligible persons and also stacking this on top of this so you get more bang for the buck as far as affordable housing is concerned, as far as attacking the affordable housing issue. That's really critical here in Travis County. Harvey, could you go through that real quick like?
>> I'm harvey Davis, manager for the Travis County housing finance corporation. And we currently have a grant from the Texas department of housing and community affairs for a home buyer assistance program. And we require in that grant that the home home buyer that uses the assistance, which is an 8,300-dollar forgivable loan. It's forgivable over 10 years. That they also use either our Travis County bond program or the state's bond program or mortgage certificate program. So a typical home buyer, I think in the example that I prepared for Commissioner Davis, if they use both programs, a home buyer could receive $8,300 in a forgivable loan, and with the bond program they have a four percent down payment assistance grant which is four percent of the amount of their mortgage. So if a home buyer buys a home and their mortgage is $100,000, then the amount of the assistance from both programs would be $14,000. I'm sorry, $12,300. 8300 in the down payment assistance, 4,000 with the bond program. In addition, they would have a very favorable interest rate of 5.95 percent, which is well above a half percent below the current market. So this gives the home buyer a real equity in the home, a great start, and a mortgage payments that are going to be much better than if they did not receive this assistance.
>> okay. And could you show that -- did you give me that amount exactly when you stacked the cdbg amount of money? Let's say it was just $10,000 for an example.
>> right. If we have a cdbg home buyer assistance program, we could provide $10,000 of assistance to the typical home buyer, and then they could use again the county's or the state's bond program to really receive a nice amount of assistance to help them in the purchase of their first home.
>> just a thought that may resonate itself to the fact that we are looking at persons that are eligible because of their low income status. And of course, there are folks that really do need as much assistance as possible. And by stacking these particular opportunities, these grant opportunities, it would appear to me that that would be something that we needed to consider, especially when it comes to a home down payment assistance to ensure that affordability of homes are at hand to some degree. So is that the purpose of this little particular presentation as far as what mr. Davis has brought forth to us today?
>> so the county's program in place now has a down payment since tense of $8,300.
>> yes, sir.
>> and what is the four percent that you would add to that?
>> the four percent is from the county's bond program. We issued $15 million in bond, so we have a pool of mortgage money for first time home buyers. The interest rate is set. It doesn't change. It's 5.95% for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage and the home buyer receives also a four percent down payment assistance grant, which is again four percent of the amount of their mortgage.
>> that's in place already?
>> that's in place. And we also have in place a down payment assistance program, $8,300. We received a grant to provide 30 of these loans. That grant started in January. We have closed on four. The grant period runs until September 2007. In addition we have applied for a second grant that would provide assistance to 25 homeowners. We do not know -- that again was with the state. These are home funds. And we don't know whether we are going to be awarded that grant. And because we applied for these two programs is why I had some reluctance in cdbg whether we could use these funds or not. Commissioner Davis and I had a very good discussion about -- he gave some really good suggestions about how we could better market the home buyer assistance program. We're going to work on that.
>> sure.
>> why in your view around we using more of these available funds? I mean, if there is down payment assistance of $12,300 and we've got capability of 30 loans, we've done four, a very small percentage, why is it that we're not closing more?
>> I think there are two major hurdles. The first one was temporary. The state was out of bond money and mortgage credit certificate money. And because we required the home buyer to use either our bond money or the state's, then that limited the option of somebody wanting to use our down payment assistance program because many of the lenders weren't signed up for the county's bond program, but most of them are signed up for the state's because it's of course a much larger program. So they didn't have really the option of using our down payment assistance while the state was sort of out of the ballgame for awhile. They've started their bond program in about a week and a half ago. So that has been one problem. The second problem is that the down payment assistance program are very labor intensive for the lender and the realtors, and of course they're trying to close on homes very quickly, and a lot of times they are able to secure a mortgage and qualify a person. Without using our program they may say, well, we want to go ahead and close and not have to do all the work that is required for our program.
>> where does creditworthiness fit into all of this?
>> all the home buyers have to qualify for a mortgage. So they have to have good enough credit to qualify for a moj, but these programs of course are significant help for many home buyers in improving their loan. The debt ratio and providing them with enough of a down payment so that they can get in the home. You're required to have at least three percent down payment for a home buyer, and of course these programs will far exceed that.
>> then do we provide education to educate them on how to stay in the home once they get in the home?
>> these programs, they're required to attend an eight-hour home buyer education course, and that course also provides them at no additional cost post-counseling on home buyer assistance. So our home buyers receive a course from consumer credit counseling and they know they can go there after they have issues after they buy the home in getting good professional assistance.
>> but $12,300 is a whole lot of help available right now.
>> it is.
>> if I had that, my preference would be to put it in workforce development. If not there, line acquisition and help on the other project. I would feel a whole lot better if we were closing on, if we had 30 loans available and we would close on 26. The other thing is last time we tried to help county employees by making sure they knew about a county program, what we ran into was a whole lot of employees who had creditworthiness issues that they had to overcome. And no amount of down payment assistance would help them unless they improved their credit. And so the group that we're trying to help, I mean, my guess is that's still an issue. The down payment assistance money available is good. And because we have done a good job with that and there are programs available that we can access if our goal is to increase it. So I would rather see us use the cdbg money on something that a little bit different. That's how I would spend it.
>> the job training is certainly one that is showing a lot of success and for the community to get jobs that are paying them pretty well. That helps them to get into a home. And that really helps put them into the pipeline of success to be able to afford a home, get a home and stay in a home. And so we've been getting a lot of good results from the job training program.
>> I think what we ought to do on the down payment assistance is take a real good look at the home ownership programs we have in place and figure out how we need to modify them if we can. Last time the modification was for us to fund the credit wore aniness education programs. And we did that and I think we have been producing some results. I don't know if they've been dramatic, but we have been paying the $65 for participation and the creditworthiness course for certain individuals. Right, mr. Davis?
>> we actually pay 50 of the $75. The home buyer pays $25.
>> I certainly wouldn't want to take credit for that $25.
>> yes. We want to have the accurate record.
>> if I might remind the court as well, almost as soon as we complete this process, we will be back with you probably in October or September to discuss our year two action plan. And so if the direction is for staff to get a little more information, we certainly can do that, and certainly if it were your wish we could bring forward more information on uses of cdbg dollars in this area, if not home buyer assistance, maybe some other related home buyer program that may be yet unidentified to us. But it's possible for us to consider this again if the court chooses not do this in the first year.
>> I'm going to stay on it like a duck on a June bug because I just feel like we need to do more. Maybe what we have in hand right now is this may be sufficient, but the bottom line is that I just think that there's a lot of folks out there that do want to get here. I don't really know how many folks really know about what we're doing here in Travis County as far as down payment assistance. I want to make sure that those developers and those people that are developing the new subdivisions, especially in precinct 1, it's growing like wildfire out there. And we have homes out there that are coming online. How many folks that are eligible to purchase these homes know that there are down payment assistance dollars available through Travis County to help them decrease the mortgage with that down payment? I don't really know those answers. So that's why my answer is to keen to make sure that the affordability of folks that are wanting to reside in the new subdivisions that are built here and are eligible, whether they're built in any precinct, have the down payment assistance available. And I'm going to continue to work with you, harvey Davis, on making sure that those residents here in Travis County that are eligible for this particular assistance have an opportunity to participate at least know about it. So that's my -- one of my big concerns is that I don't think enough folks really know about it. All right, thank you.
>> what if we could meet the middle point here, and that is to hear Commissioner Davis talking very strongly about home ownership and affordable housing if we put the 49,470 of that into the land acquisition related to owner housing, the habitat for humanity project. That is talking about home ownership and sweat equity and what's standing in the way there, and then put the other $100,000 into the job training. And we get to -- we get good things happening on two different fronts. That would put 300,000 into the employment job training and that would bump up the habitat for humanity thing to almost 175. Slightly under.
>> we can increase by that much, but everything else has to stay into a community development project.
>> I forgot there was the cap on the 350. Shoot.
>> don't you have to identify this 149,470 today?
>> we have to identify a project today.
>> a project. Not the exact amount.
>> not the activity.
>> so where can we not -- we heard the two suggestions. So we cannot add $100,000 to workforce development?
>> that's correct. 7,400 if you would like to do that and take out the 149. That would max out public services.
>> are we able to add it to the --
>> we can add it to the land acquisition, the 49,000 can be added.
>> but not 149,000?
>> we can stay on page 2. We just can --
>> you only have $7,000 roughly to work with in your public service category before you hit your 15% cap. You could take that 149 and roll it anywhere in your community development projects without any project.
>> if there's any amount, even if it's $7,400 that we could roll into job training, that's probably one or one and a half more people at capital idea or american youth works. We could max it out.
>> that would be $7,400. So we'll reduce the extra 149 by 7,400 and then we can add the 142 to one of the project areas in community development. The land acquisition, road improvements or water sewer improvements are the three kinds of projects.
>> are we able to shift between the projects on the community development page as the year unfolds?
>> you can shift up to 25% without an amendment as long as you don't create a new project.
>> that's fine with me. Susan?
>> I hate to be a broken record here; however, the projects are more diverse and there are subrecipients, we can't annual that. We need staff, and unfortunately I had semi staff go and look at these projects, similar ones, and actually figure out how many hours they thought it would take. And you have that in your backup. It is like a half-time person in accounts payable and a half-time person in grants. One would be a degree person, one would be not. So it's not as though we could combine those. We've not hired part time if people before. I'm not sure how hard that is. The requirements are very stringent. I will be signing my name to those. I'm sure they will want me to be the financial officer on these grants. It would be unfair for me to sit back and you to think we can handle this when we can't.
>> are you saying you need a person? Two half-time persons?
>> yeah. They're different jobs.
>> after the 20%?
>> we ought to. Just plan for it.
>> we'll cover it. I don't know if we should turn down $3.4 million because we need the equivalent of a full-time person. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. Move approval of the recommendation. All the ones that we have discussed, including the last one for the $149,000.
>> that was my question. It's just asking for clarification, judge. We put 7400 into the job training line item and where did we stash the remainder?
>> 142, put it in community development.
>> but did we assign --
>> land acquisition.
>> which land acquisition.
>> sha tag with a I would do.
>> that's actually a new project.
>> what the motion?
>> chatogua.
>> the motion was these with the changes we discussed here. It is the 179 less --
>> 1 sfroo thousand 070.
>> > and if I may clarify, you are adding another project that -- it would be listed as on your page that says options for unallocated community development. It would be an infrastructure other project and the activity would be land acquisition for clearance in imperial valley.
>> we can do that, right?
>> on that page?
>> the other things that I think that six mongts into the year we ought to see how the projects are going, and if we -- we ought to be alert on what we can amend and not. And if there is additional flexibility that you inherit midyear that you may not have had at the beginning of the year, I guess h.u.d. Would be able to let us know that, then we ought to remain alert as to that possibility and do it. The other thing is we need to footnote two half-time people in the auditor's office, put those under the 20%. My own view is that if -- I think that if we need additional staff to do what's necessary, then we just tap the general fund, the unallocated reserve to get it done, but hopefully we're talking about small amounts of money anyway. Right?
>> judge, just a question. Since we don't have a conservation easement or really don't have a relationship yet with chatogua, 1 sfroo thousand related to that project? Again, I'm trying to get just a tad more into the land acquisition for habitat because that again is -- would be meeting the goal of Commissioner Davis related to home ownership.
>> I think on habitat we ought to leave ourselves an opportunity to tap other county resources for land acquisition at that point. And we're looking here at half a million dollars for land acquisition when the land has not been identified. And when the land is identified, I would think that the county would have to agree as well as agree with whatever project is intended for it. There is a housing finance corporation that would have money coming in, so --
>> I just want to make sure that there are still other options. This is just for today. I'm fine with the one for you, judge, I want to explore all options.
>> I haven't seen the land that they have targeted. That is a major undertaking. And if we can clean that up, though, I think they will have done Travis County residents a big favor. And if that can be converted into recreational areas for young people, then I think we're way down the road in terms of public benefit?
>> they can always come back for more.
>> my motion is to approve wherever we ended up. >> [ laughter ] that's where the plan and the two changes that we have mentioned.
>> has anybody seconded it?
>> I did.
>> I know you had a formal presentation, but you may have support.
>> we're just wanting to point out that we need approval on the priority needs table separate from the approval on the recommended projects and activities.
>> well, maybe my motion is to approve the priority needs table first. That's seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Now, is b what we've been talking about today? Those are the specific projects and the amounts and the changes that we discussed. My motion is to approve those.
>> second.
>> and to thank our dedicated county staff for working with the subcommittee of the court and joe gieselman on Thursday or Friday. Working with us is not as much fun as most people think. It can be difficult.
>> high maintenance. Just a clarification, judge, on the 20% page did we take into account that there would be a sublisting there related to the auditor's office, making a clarification?
>> yes. And we will come back and talk specifically about the administrative cost and how we feel, give you some rimtions on how it should be allocated.
>> not a problem, thank you.
>> and some others may have come down on this item. It looks like we are headed in the right direction. If you have objections we want to hear from you.
>> don't forget about purchasing, judge. It looks like with all the public works, a half-time position and also just in the normal budget process we're seeing tnr and fm getting additional staff that's going to impact us.
>> ask the court to chat with pbo.
>> with the court's approval we will poll the departments and determine those that will be affected and what their needs might be and come back with a discussion on the administrative costs associated to cdbg.
>> because we administer the contracts, things that have to be bid out, the advertising, all those things affect us, go through us.
>> let's do that.
>> let's make sure that precinct 3 office gets part of this thing too. It feels like monopoly money. >> [ laughter ]
>> but apache shores I think is going to be our identified -- >> [overlapping speakers].
>> I'm trying to keep an eye on something here.
>> $750,000, the substandard road project --
>> so I get all of that?
>> yeah. >> [ laughter ]
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, just one more clarification, we did indeed take a look at the erosion issue that was brought up a week ago related to the walnut creek, and we found in our due diligence that because of the income requirements that that was something that was not going to work. So I didn't want those folks to think that somehow we blew it off and it wasn't important. It is indeed important, but this was not a good fit for it. And so I'm going to be dedicated to continuing to find -- try to find solutions there. But we looked at that.
>> you remind us what fits and what doesn't fit with cdbg so we can keep it all straight.
>> c is other related items. Anything under c?
>> there are none today. Thank you.
>> thank you very much. Thank you for coming down.
mr. Schnieder, ms. Brown. You all are the spokespersons for the others. Sorry, I thought you all were just enjoying our court discussion this morning.
>> judge, Biscoe, my name is nettie brown, president of north ridge homeowners association, we are here to thank the county judge and all of the Commissioners, we really appreciate everything that's happened here today. We also would like to put our special thanks in to judge Biscoe's assistant, dan smith, who has worked so hard on our project. We have been a long time coming waiting on our water, we have been on the -- >> [indiscernible] for the last six years, the water well has been dry for seven years. So this means a lot to the neighborhood and we just want you to know that we really appreciate it.
>> thank you.
>> we are going to try to pick up the pist and see if we -- up the pace and see if we can expedite this matter some. The money has come together from various places. This cdbg money will close the gap that we thought we may have and made the liability for loan funds, but we can get this coverage, I think financially will be -- will be 100% there. There's just a matter of getting all of the consultants in place and getting it done. Mr. Snyder, how are you doing.
>> I'm ken snyder, north ridge. I do appreciate everything that you all have done. Dan smith has been the best on this project. I can't really believe it. We are getting shh water. This is the water Saturday after this rain. There's a lot of difference. But we need sewer, too, they have all kind of programs coming out, everything, different roads, all of that kind of stuff and everything. They need if they can get human services, healthy like everything else, get the sewer going in once they get the water in. Be nice to get them both together. People will die from this stuff here, I'm afraid hepatitis is going to break out before we get anything done. It looks real good everything, of course I still say I have got to see it first, it's getting there, getting real close but we do need to get the sewer out there and they got all of these programs coming in, everything for rec centers, all of that kind of stuff. I think they need to take for human services get the grants out immediately. I know they spent a lot of money for health and everything all that and everything, political type of thing or whatever, but I think more or less work on the human services more than anything and get water and sewer. That's the most important thing I think than anything out there. Roads or rec centers, all out there. Affordable housing, because there's so much land sitting there empty that could be used, be affordable housing, a $100,000 house doesn't seem very affordable to my. You can get a $10,000 trailer up there, a place to live. Anybody can afford to buy a trailer and buy a 10 or $10,000 lot, they can buy a $100,000 house and get qualified everything. You have got to have a job to make $100,000 a year to get a 100,000 house. That's why I think further out and give them services, everything, to make a living like human beings and get going and put their trailers in there, people could live in them, rent a trailer for $500 a month or a house out there for 5, $600 a month, then right now he can't get a place in Austin less than a thousand dollars. 7 or 8 hupdz for apartments. I don't think you are going to be able to work the problem out for affordable housing with so many people making 6, -7d an hour -- $7 an hour, they ain't going to qualify. But you take the colonial areas, outside county areas, they get out there, put a trailer in there. For 45, $30,000, have a place to live. Everything is coming this way anyway. 10, 20 miles from -- 15 miles council the street, 15 miles, to my front door from here. People can go back and forth and everything, that's how come they live in Austin, but they can't afford to live here. Taxes alone cost you 3 or $400.
>> even after we get that water done, we still are not done. There's another work to do.
>> I appreciate you all putting the sewer in there and working on that part of it, too, before we do get any real bad problems out there.
>> thank you very much. We will try to pick up the pist and get that construction done so you can see the results.
>> a lot of programs now to do that kind of stuff.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> programs.
>> thank you all very much for coming, thank you for your patience, also.
>> good to see you.
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, June 21, 2006 12:13 PM