Travis County Commissioners Court
November 28, 2006
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. One citizen has signed in and that is gus pena. Whoever is holding slip number one if you want to testify during citizens communication you can come forth, too.
>> judge, good morning, again, gus pena. For the thanksgiving holiday we lost a good -- I lost a good friend in senator frank madla. A lot of people don't know. A lot of us folks in Austin worked in politics in san antonio with former mayor henry cisneros and madla, it was a joint effort. We have a lot of relatives over there, too. They had a lot of concerns. May he rest in peace and it was a tragic loss. Wanted to let you all know that, you know, we just lost a good human being. Working with senator florence shapiro, we are going to work with everybody, not party lines, that's not good anymore. Working with isn't it true shapiro on regard to taks, it's killing our kids. It's a good assessment process. But not good enough. Let's say for example some seniors have 25 credits, you only need 21, 21 to graduate. But they have not passed the taks because of the darn, I said darn taks, excuse me. I know lucio, I know that he's listening to me, he should be paying attention to his algebra. But anyway, it's killing our kids. Let's go back to the old system when I was in high school, when you all were in high school and it's basically called, you know, the teaching to the core curriculum. The system is not working. The teachers are frustrated. The parents and the students are equally frustrated or more. You know, let's go back to the old system and we are working -- we are going to be working with senator shapiro among other elected state officials to do away with taks and go back to the old reform system. I think we will see more higher educated graduates, not frustrated people that enter the dropout rate, again it's going to hurt your budget system, the city's budget system because they are going to become products of the social service system. You know, just puts a burden on them. But anyway I'm hoping that you all will collaborate and support that issue. You feel that taks is more, a better system than the old reform system, so be it. We feel like we don't need it. I taught esl, I taught civics, also, it's not a good system. Judge and Commissioner, as a suggestion to the city, county, state and federal agencies, we have mentioned you should have a good review and assessment of all entities that provide service to the homeless to determine effectiveness of programs and proper utilization of funds that should be appropriate for services. In other words, if -- if our salvation army, whatever social security agency that provides service to anybody or the homeless are allocated or appropriated funding, make sure that funding is used correctly and appropriately.
>> sometimes it's not. It goes more to overhead and direct to employees salary, to the center for defect services. There needs to be a more better assessment system to make sure that they are doing their job. One more issue than I'm gone. Why students in Austin are still being left behind. Read the paper. Principles and assistant prince sells do not return phone calls regarding tutorial session. Out there, not educating the parents. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
>> thank you, judge.
>> anybody else for citizens communication? Our combined charities effort will last through December 15. We are about even with where we were this time last year. But we normally generate quite a bit of additional contributions during the last two weeks. And so between now and December 15th, we will be blitzing Travis County officials and employees to try to generate additional combined charities contributions and these funds are used to assist non-profit agencies that provide a variety of health and human services to our residents. And of late various environmental programs, also including water and air quality. So to the Travis County family, please give what you can. And by the way, retirees have never been formally excluded. I think they misinterpreted our focus on incumbent employees. But for the retirees listing, also, we need your help. That does it for citizens communication.
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, November 29, 2006 07:48 AM