Travis County Commissioners Court
March 20, 2007
Citizens Communication
Due to technical difficulties some caption files may be incomplete.
You may want to get those to me. Number 1 is judge jean miller -- judge jeanne meurer, everything is coming out miller today. Ge bioe,urer, good Commissioners.
>> good morning, judge.
>> I don't want to take a lot of your time. I simply wanted to offer an update to you and the community as to what's going on with the Travis County juvenile probation department and our kids here who are going through this system in light of everything that's been happening at the Texas youth commission. As you all are aware, after the article in the statesman came out, we immediately began looking at what was going on, and as it involved I made a decision and said that we would not send any more youth to the Texas youth commission in light of the problems that we were having that. In fact we have not sent any youth since February the 27th. Since the -- since the article actually surfaced one child is the only child that went to the Texas youth commission. 10 children eligible to go, we are making alternate plans to maintain them in the community, either through extremely upbeat supervision, through our new program that you actually funded last year our sanctioned supervise program. Also our residential program, the isc, the leadership program, we have some bids opening there, we are keeping them here, looking for other contracts with other agencies to place some of these kids who are either high-risk kids and cannot be let loose into the community because of the offenses and the supervision or the programs needed for them. So I wanted to legality you know and the -- let you know and the community know what we are doing. This will have an impact, of course, because we are absorbing kids that normally we would be sending to a state facility for the programs that the state would offer. In not doing so the county will be absorbing that, that will be an issue that we will bring to you at a work session in the future to give you some information on how that's going to impact our budget and future budget as it evolves on down the road because we will be looking at whether or not these children that normally the state would fund for the program we will be funding the county will be funding and seeing how we will do that. We were also wanting to let you know what we were won morgue what's going on in the legislature -- monitoring what's going in the legislature, we hope to receive some money to offset some of the costs since we won't be sending those children to the Texas youth commission, hopefully receive some funding through them. We don't know if or when that would occur. Basically that's the only reason that I'm here today is to give you that update, to let you know what was going on, didn't know if you had any we did hear some conces last week, I'm glad that you? Thank oomornin judge,ch. Commissioners, I wanted to take a few minutes this morning to honor our past board member, Commissioner Gomez, we got you this in honor of the service that you have served on the purchasing board for 10, 11 years and we appreciate all of the support that you gave us over the years and wanted just to give you this as a token of our appreciation. Commissioner Gomez replaced barbara carlson after she left right after I got here. So Margaret and I have been together on this adventure over 10 years. We have been very successful, I appreciate all of your support and would you take a picture with
>> cyd, as a new member of the board may I recommend that we give those o anally itead of ery0 or 11 years Commissioners, gus pena. Good morning to you Commissioners, first of all, quickly I would like to commend jeanne meurer, ever since the eighths. I want to echo here concerns or thoughts in her presentation, also, that this is going on for a long time. There's a -- there's a gentleman by the name of rick luna, his son was abused and physically and otherwise back in 1994, 1995, he couldn't get any help. I'm glad it's coming to the forefront. Been a long time coming. Judge jeanne meurer is one of my heros. I want to tell you that -- that they look at the adults, also, that system their abuses, also, I suggest strongly that everybody get on the beangd, look at the adult band wagon, there are gangs, abuse from the guards, et cetera. I used to be a federal corrections officer, used to tell you horror stories that I see and hear from those state facilities. Anyway, capital metro, who is the member here? Commissioner Gomez, thank you. I want to ask you and others also lee leffingwell, I think that he's going to run for mayor. I would like to ask you respectfully to look outside the box. When negotiations come about, please step forward aggressively, I'm not saying that you are not, look also at the harassment that the drivers receive from staff. Fred co, cfo, whatever his title is, he needs to be more professional in dealing with the drivers. 90% are good, outstanding, another 10% are rude. Conduct unbecoming. All in all I have ridden the bus, I love it. I love my car, more, I love the bus, also. I'm the one that got will wynn involved in the negotiations. We need too get -- bring these together. Say that enough about -- about it. Another request, also, I know we -- we think about fiscal responsibility, all of the commissions and judge. The summer is coming around. Let's think about fully funding the senior citizens youth activities. All functions that keep these kids busy off the streets. I'm going to tell you one thing, judge meuer, also, the ms 13 the worst and most violent gang in the world right now apart from the others that are in prison has infiltrated our high schools. The chief of police
>> [buzzer sounding] I will wrap up, doesn't want to believe what we are saying but anyway remember keep these kids busy, keep them off the streets, keep them out of the good workthank you.
>> anybody else for citizens?
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, March 21, 2007 8:00 AM