Travis County Commissioners Court
January 30, 2007
Citizens Communication
Citizens Communication is next, this gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any item not on the agenda for up to three minutes. And two residents have signed in, laurie rentaria is first and she will be followed by carol coleburn. Good morning.
>> good morning. Thank you, judge and Commissioners for the opportunity to speak today. We are here before you really begging for assistance. From your staff, especially the legal department. In October of 2004, we were notified by a -- by a sign in the neighborhood that -- that a local homeless transitional shelter for -- for men and women were applying to -- to convert the facilities from serving local homeless people into a tdcj contract facility for serious felon -- felons who would not be released from prison unless they had a community bed available for them. We've had no problems since 19, I don't know, 60 with offender programs that used to operate at that facility. In the late '90s, tdcj took away the availability of that vendor, to scream -- felons coming to their halfway house. And these people were -- had already served their time and done whatever they had to do in prison and they were being released on paper, on probation or parole. And we had no problem with that. They quit and closed shop 7 because tdcj would not let them not serve sex offenders or violent offenders and they had made a commitment to our neighborhood that they would do these halfway houses for felons but wouldn't serve sex offenders or violent offenders. And when their ability was taken away, they closed shop. We, the neighborhood, actually recruited a homeless provider, pushup foundations, to save the 60 beds so that we could serve local homeless people and we didn't care if they were on probation or parole. What we object to is that these type of programs that tdcj and now the legislature is talking about putting 6,000 more felons who they don't want to treat with substance abuse and anger management and counseling in jail, they want to throw them out in the neighborhoods to be treated. So they are not on paper. They have not completed their sentences in jail on probation. So that is our issue. And we are -- they have changed the -- the public hearing and public involvement process and the letters before you with your names on it, because none of you all objected on behalf of the neighborhoods, it was your implied consent. In the past tdcj honored
>> [beeping] if there was substantial neighborhood opposition, they would not place a program like this in a neighborhood. They changed the rules and now only elected officials can -- can formally object. That needs to be changed. I know that I have taken up too much time. I have given you a handout. And I would really -- I'm begging you, I will get down on my knees if I have to, to get some assistance from your higher guns, your lobby team up at the legislature, to get some necessary changes in how they are citing these facilities so that we are not putting serious felons next to homes. Thank you very much. And all of this is our research. You know, we have just -- we have just done as much as we can, as citizens, using freedom of information and everything and the a.g., attorney general, has -- has -- you know, clamped us down. We are at a standstill until we get an elected body to -- to -- on our behalf request, you know, some investigation.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> would you -- actually, would you take -- would you take -- if you would take -- do you have a copy of this well really written memo that you did on this?
>> yes.
>> would you take it up to daniel bradford in my office, we will take a look at some of the legislation?
>> thank you.
>> carol coleburn is next.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, I'm carol cole burn director of Travis County services and education department. I'm here this morning to introduce to the court ce's new clinical manager, mark spate, he comes to us from the depend of state health services where he was for five years as clinical training coordinator. And in that position he monitored all of the state mandated substance abuse classes like the dwi classes, drug classes, which ces does as well as train the counselors to teach the class, revise some of the curriculum. So -- so mark is bringing a lot of good information and knowledge and experience to ces. Also, I wanted to mention prior to going to the state, mark was with ces for approximately five years. So we are excited to welcome him back to the department.
>> great.
>> welcome back.
>> thank you, thank you. I just wanted to say real quickly that I'm really excited to be back with Travis County. I have worked with Travis County before. I really have a lot of respect for the work, appreciate you for the work that the education services does. Having worked for the state I have seen firsthand how far out in front, some of you may be aware of this, some of you not. Travis County is doing a lot of good things as far as substance abuse, family violence, other things that are not necessarily happening in other places, I'm pleased to be back be part of that effort. People in the agency work real hard, I am delighted to be part of that environment again.
>> we look forward to working with you. Welcome home.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> good job.
>> anybody else for citizens communication, whether you signed in or not?
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 31, 2007 6:55 AM