Travis County Commissioners Court
January 2, 2007
Citizens Communication
Citizens Communication is next and two citizens have signed in. This item is to give residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda. For up to three minutes. And -- and phillip a. Dick signed in, followed by guess pena. Gus pena.
>> good morning, a belated merry christmas to everyone. I am here as you know to talk about my innocent son, mr. Roosevelt hutchins, junior, this is his picture, I am the president of a group by the name of parents of concerned inmates being abused in Texas prisons, jails and youth facilities. My son right now is being abuse understand the state prison and he is innocent. I have proven this by going -- carrying this file around. I carry this same file that I gave to you of -- judge, and judge bob perkins, he denies this page being filed, he did not sentence my son to wackenhut on this date or, you know, under this cause number. He told me that he did not fine it or -- he did not send him to state prison. He suggested that I go to talk to judge wisser. He didn't sentence him roosevelt to wackenhut either. The files claim he sentenced my son to 15 years in state prison, but the proof shows that he didn't on these dates that my son was already incarcerated in Travis County, wackenhut. So to -- to increase that file I went knocking on doors like mr. -- like mr. -- representative of mr. Ron Davis told me to. I have now carried this same file to mr. Terry keel. He is named -- named as a sheriff that -- that accepted my son into Travis County jail. He called me December the 6th, 2006, told me, ms. Dick, your son is innocent. That means that mr. Teal
>> [sic] did not accept any son into the Travis County jail like this file is saying. He repeated to me your son is innocent. I have carried this same file. I carried it to mr. -- representative mr. Coleman's office, they are involved now. Mr.
>> [indiscernible] coalman, he took his representative took the files and he looked it -- at it, he read all of the stuff, everything that I already had going while he was typing it. He says your son has to be innocent. How can he be two places at once on these very same dates just only on cause number, you know, separating the differences. So they have started an investigation and the -- and the -- and inspector generals was down there talking with my son but you see every time something gets started the investigation, something gets started to try to help my son to get out, he's beaten to death almost. My son was beaten on michael's unit last Wednesday. He was almost beaten to death. I want him removed off of the michaels unit, I want him home. I want my innocent child home. Now I have also carried this same file,
>> [beeping] to mr. David dewhurst's office. I'm getting an investigation going there. They told me ms. Dick we do not want innocent inmates in our prisons. Bring all of your information to me. She says -- not to me, she gave me a fax number to take and fax all of this information to her so they can get the investigation done. I don't want my son dead. He did not go into that prison dead. I want him home, I want him healthy when he returns home to me. I have not touched my son since April 15th, 1994. The files claim that I can have contact visits with my son. I haven't touched or kissed my son since 1994. You understand that? I get on the phone and talk to my son through thick glass, a thick glass. I cannot touch him. If there's no parole that's why we couldn't get no parole because in this file by
>> [indiscernible] it says that he could not -- it says no parole. For a 15 year drug possession case, what is it, one gram or two grams of cocaine, this is ridiculous. I want my son home.
>> thank you, ms. Dick.
>> thank you.
>> guess pena is next -- gus pena is next.
>>
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, I want to thank god for giving me another day in this world. Commissioner Gomez, I would like to thank you for item no. 20 on the voting session, December 9th. I was remiss in thanking you. I did thank you all for voting on funding for veterans or transitional housing. I notice I got a copy from edith, your executive assistant that has the notation veterans and families. I'm glad that you made that notation, somebody did. A lot of veterans with family need transitional housing, they are homeless, thank for you that very much. Second of all, I want to thank the Commissioners court for -- for voting around r and approving the $400,000 funding for a new mobile crisis outreach team. Great, that's what needed to be happening. We need counselors to go out to the streets. Work with the people that have mental health issues and concerns and bring them in to where they are needed and the backup says direct them to appropriate agencies for help and health care. We see an increase of kids, students, with anger problems. This is considered a mental health problem, also. I see it in high schools, I see in my boys high school, also. So this is another concern that we have out there, a lot of parents have expressed concern about how to deal with anger. It's growing. Another -- the last couple of things, we believe that we have -- the taks test, it has been our opinion that the eoc is more better and more suited than the taks test. A lot of kids falling through the cracks. You will see them in the juvenile justice system at garner-betts, they fail, cannot graduate, they have the appropriate number of credits. Can't pass the taks, not going to graduate. I'm on the way to the capitol to do that now. Affordable housing, one of the things that I told the h.u.d. People, the cousin the former transportation secretary, I want this to be a true definition of what affordable housing is. It is not 160,000 to $250,000 per home. This is not affordable. This is not an affordable city or county anymore. This is not an affordable city or county for the poor. Austin is not affordable for many people. Property appraisal processes need to be revised, reviewed. We are going to go to the capitol again to do that again. I think that we have the support to review that, speaking about the poverty level here, you have many people in -- that are living in poverty. Their homes are -- their homes are in need of repair. Thank you Commissioner Davis for bringing up this issue. I think that I have been bringing up these issues about poverty for many years. The gap widens between the haves and have nots. The lord knows this is not supposed to happen in the united states of america. We are going to work on a lot of issues. Thank you very much for the hard work that you do. Happy new year, Commissioner eckhardt, I helped you a whole lot, remember that please, the last person didn't.
>> thank you very much.
>> anybody else for citizens communication? Any matter not on the agenda? Let me just announce then the -- the beginning of the -- of the work by the community tax centers. Fortunately last year we had in our community 365 volunteers who helped over 8,000 families prepare 10,250 federal tax returns. And this is a free service to low to moderate income taxpayers and last year they were able to get $13 million in federal tax refund. Who qualifies? Individuals making less than $25,000. $25,000. A single city of Austin employees making less than $30,000, that applies to the city of Austin, I guess it applies to Travis County, too, right? It's got to be close to it.
>> I would think so.
>> this doesn't come from Travis County y'all. It comes from our community tax centers entity and families making less than $50,000. So the income requirements are pretty high, to qualify for this free service. What they do basically is help you complete the return, claim whatever -- whatever claims that you can legally make. And at no cost basically get your federal income tax refund, 13 million was a lot of money last year. I think that we left on the table probably as much. And the goal really is to help these families claim as much as they are entitled to and we think that the -- that the accurate amount is up in the 25 to 30 million-dollar range. So I mean that's a lot of -- that's a lot of doe, a lot -- a lot of dough, a lot of bread as we say back in east Texas.
>> still seems like a lot of bread, judge.
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, January 210, 2007 8:14 AM