Travis County Commissioners Court
March 27, 2007
Item 32
Due to technical difficulties some caption files may be incomplete.
32. Discuss and take appropriate action on issues, policies and recommendations regarding parking for county employees
>> good afternoon. Roger el khoury. I want to talk to you about the parking space we have in the downtown area. We have 1,308 parking spaces leased and owned. 160 park is space are lease understand the downtown area in five different locations. We have 1,148 parking space owned by Travis County. And there are nine locations. Location number one would be granger garage, about 384 parking space. San antonio garage is 376 parking space. Usb and holt area is a surface parking space, it's 134 parking space. By the way, the distribution of who are in those parking space I will leave to lynn harper. She managed to allocate the space for the county employees. We have 121 parking space on eob. 10th and guadalupe street we have about six to eight parking space. Heman marion sweatt courthouse we have parking in the front and back. We have a secure parking area with about 19 parking spaces for the judges and the sheriff and the da office. And 10th and lamar we have 17 parking space that are not assigned, first come, first serve. Anybody can park there. And 1101 nueces we have four parking space for the ces, they're renting that place. So the problem we have again, it's 1,148 parking space in the downtown area. Facility management help facilitate the parking and maintenance for all the parking facilities. We're doing the maintenance and allocation and the management of the parking spaces. And lynn harper can --
>> my name is lynn harper, administrative operations. I've done parking for 13 years. And I still have hair.
>> [ laughter ] it's -- and I see this when I first started doing this there was probably about a three-year parking wait n that time we've moved departments downtown that had a a huge number of people in them. We've also increased the number of our fleet we have 166 vehicle owned by the county and that park in those parking spaces that immediately takes away from those and don't necessarily think that these are people who are driving those vehicles home. Because the great majority of those are not coming home. Which makes two parking spaces, one person. Then you have spaces alotted to officials, some other staff, they're for apd liaisons, they're for legal aid, they're for handicapped, they're for surface parking and support, which years before I even came here, when the sheriff's office moved here and they put them in, these were give tonight sheriff's office. I have no say so over them whvment we put the cjc in and we took the parking spaces back that were by the old parking spaces, those are parking spaces, but at least I've got one for one. I don't have two parking spaces for one person. Which leaves us in actuality with 922 parking spaces. I have almost 700 people on a parking list. And they spend six and a half years there. And hate to think that pretty soon we have people vested with the county before they even get a parking space. I've got news for you, some of the people would rather have the parking space because everyday for six and a half years they have to come down here and not have a parking space. It's monumental for people. We must have a pretty stagnant force of people here, which is a good thing. We want to keep people working for the county. We want to know that they're happy and they want to stay working at the county it has a directly opposite direct on the parking list. If they don't leave, I don't get new parking spaces. So consequently the only thing I'm get the basically now is people retiring. And that isn't a real quick list. Since the first of the year I've had five parking spaces to give away. And constantly I have phone calls, where am I on the list? Somebody's in my parking space. Somebody's parked illegally. And it's not just our people. Believe me. You wouldn't believe, I understand what it is to be making less than $30,000 a year, to have a couple of kids, to have to get them to school, to have to be able to go pick them up, to be at cool before you get charged by the minute to do so, and at the same time be paying $100 to park. Because if you try to park down with the dillo or something like that and they call from the schools that the kids are sick, then you're asking somebody else in your office or something like that to either take you to the school or take you to your car. And I think efficiency runs into this somewhere. I certainly do not feel like we need a parking space for every person who works downtown because everybody who works downtown, number one, doesn't drive to work. Right now even if I add the 220 in that already have a parking space, if I took away the parking space they would be into the mix, that's 1122 parking spaces for about 2300 people. Because with the sheriff's office we have shifts at central booking, we have shifts at the jail and these are overlapping shifts. One person is not walking out as the other person is walking in. That would be a little dangerous. So consequently we don't even have a 50% mix that we can say, all right, go for it. Usually we're look at about a 78% group if you're going to do a first come, first serve, which always remember, the sheriff's office comes in about 5:30 in the morning and they've already got the night shift who is already there. So you've got those two parking spaces hung up when the rest of us are coming to work. You have a central booking that comes on the second shift at about -- I think they start about 2:30 or so in the afternoon. You have pretrying services that has a second shift that starts at 12:00. Which they might not be able to get a parking space if you decided everybody comes to work first come first serve. Unfortunately the people who went to lunch and are now coming back from lunch who are going to pull into their parking spot are now going around looking for a parking space. That's not true because some of ours are card access. And what we wanted to find a day with some of the problems, it's certainly not some of the solutions. And the main reason I did that was to just explain that the solutions -- I've always said the solution was not buying more parking. I've always said the solution was out of downtown. And let county vehicles downtown. I just cannot believe that we just keep adding more vehicles downtown and not all of those, believe me, are used downtown, are moved on any kind of basis that I deem that are worth $4,000 a month to you. If I have one month that has 14 vehicles that very seldom move or if you take 40 vehicles out of that, that's costing you $4,000 a month for them to have the right to just sit there. And I think we can much better use that for our employees. This is a huge morale issue. This is a huge --
>> what department is that now?
>> tnr. And I'm not saying they don't use those vehicles, but I used one of them for nine months when we had a whole garage down that I drove people back and forth to 10th and lamar and anybody who think that walk is fun, go out there when it's 110. It's uphill the whole way. And if you're coming to work and just crossing across 10th and lamar is taking your life in your own hands. It was hard enough in the van. But we parked people down there temporarily when I had the garage down when we were adding the floors for the cjc, which I ended up as court,, plus I took away a big parking lot that sat back there. And so the net I keep getting out of this is less. When dro, everybody keeps telling me, but the tax office left. I said but dro came. And so consequently as long as we keep pulling people down here and at the same time telling them, by the way, if you want to think what you get paid is bad, for six and a half years you don't have a parking space, otherwise you're going to have a lady calling you who says see if you can beat the tow truck. And I don't like to be like that, but here's the person who it belongs to, here's the person who wants to park, and I understand that, and here's the no parking zone they're parked in that we're going to have a wreck in. But we need to be better about how we utilize the parking spaces, we need to understand that the best use is not having county vehicles sit in them. When that particular department used to be over here in the annex under the gault building they had 30 parking spaces and I got complaints all the time. Those cars just sit there. They just sit there. And I said okay, all right, let me see what I can do. And we moved them to the eob and they came 10 parking spaces for vehicles. And I was not happy. Because I think that if you have a department that is outlined, have the cars outlined. Have people pick them up on the way in. Somebody is driving from that direction, I'm sure. Have them bring them in. Have them utilize one space for one person, not two spaces. And it won't fix things, it won't fix 686 people wait fog a parking space, but it will at least look like there's something -- we're doing something. And that's why one of the agenda items is here. And I said I know I'd like more parking spaces. At a better price than the going market by about $45. So that's why when we discussed this this time and my goal was April the first is my deadline on those, and I just wanted to let you know what we're dealing with, that we're dealing with people that this is just -- it's not just that. It's when some of the offices are having meetings and stuff like that, it's like the only parking -- do you have any parking spaces I can put somebody in? I wish. And it's hidden. It's such a hidden agenda. And purchasing where some of the big long-term people -- we get six parking space water and wastewater this contract. That's the same as giving them $600 a month more on that contract as far as I'm concerned because I look at parking spaces as money. And if you're paying an average of $100 a parking space you've just added $600 a month to that contract as fa the city of Austin sells sort of debit parking cards. Do we use any of those?
>> the problem being, judge, is defense lawyers -- who am I going to be chasing out of there more likely because I scare everybody else to death. They see a tow truck and everybody is calling me because they're guilty, they know they're guilty. It's defense lawyers, and I call their lawyers. It's defendants, and I call the courts and make sure they know that person is illegally parked on top of it. It's people visiting. It's jury members. It's not always an easy find to even find these people that are parking illegally because the truth is, if we can't park and if our people can't park, neither can the people that need to come here and use the services. So they're next place is I'll just be there for a few minutes. Unfortunately joe blow comes in haindz parking spot has been taken.
>> how much time of your day, lynn, do you use --
>> I come in at 7:00 in the morning --
>> for sus parking alone?
>> like on a Tuesday particularly when everybody is basically here, I probably spend a good half of my day today. I come in at 7:00 in the morning specifically to address the parking issues before I start normal stuff during the day because there's lots of people that do come in early. And the sheriff's office is one of those. And it's a huge percent of my day. And bright sunny, nice day, not an awful lot. Let it rain, let it be 102234 the shade. Let it be one of those things, be real cold, and I'm more likely to have a lot of people parked illegally or have more people wondering where am I on the list. I'm never going to get there. It's just -- at the same time you've got people -- you've got sheriff's deputies that now are moving from del valle to here, you know, and a lot of times I'm a little hard because if they've spent their whole time at del valle, if they've present their whole time at precinct 1 or something like that, and they say I've been with the they say I've been with the county for 12 years and I need a parking space. And I say for the first 12 years of your employment you had one. And these people had no choice. They had to go on the list. I won't say they won't be on the list, but I won't promise you they will get the first few spaces because they drove up to a parking space everyday. These people didn't. They waited on a list for six and a half years.
>> why don't we make a list of specific actions we can take that will enable us to better use the parking spaces we have. Lynn called to my attention that we have a couple that I probably should not have had and can be reassigned. There are changes in the office. If you don't have a parking problem, you don't think of it. When you have a dmaing personnel you -- when you have a change in personnel you don't think of it.
>> and the higher the turnover is in your office the more of a parking problem you have because there's just never people get to go that point. They're just --
>> some people use --
>> they're just playing catchup.
>> some may leave who had a parking space. Some may transfer over from another county department and they keep using their old parking and elected officials sort of have an advantage, although our staff is small, we kind of have some parking for some of our staff automatically. And we're not thinking about taking parking from elected officials, are we, lynn?
>> should we?
>> no. Do I think that? No.
>> [overlapping speakers].
>> but besides parking and besides that I also have to think of efficiency. And when I try helping out departments or helping out somebody, that has to run into it too. And a perfect example of that is when we did have the 376 -- when we did have a whole parking garage down and I spent a year, over a year gathering up parking spaces, not reselling them, telling people just go out there and park. And still the way that I finally did it was, and where to put the people, was I sent out a survey and I said what does your day entail? Does it entail that you come and work at a desk all day? Is it not that you're in and out of the office. Those are the ones that I need closest to here because it's not efficient to do them down at 10th and lamar. It's efficient to put the ones that work all day at their desk at 10th and be lamar and shuttle them back and forth. That was a real interesting time, I want to tell you. And --
>> so...
>> ...suggested that because you know a lot more about these parking spaces than we do. We can all look at it, though, challenge ourselves to come up with creative ideas. We won't generate hundreds of additional parking spaces, but I would be surprised if we don't come up with 40 or 50. Go to the list and pull 40 or 50 names from the list. Those people will benefit directly.
>> but if you've only had five to give away since the first of the year, can you imagine what 10 even looks like? I waited until late in the day to tell somebody they had a parking space because no matter how bad they're day habits now elevated.
>> I can tell you one of my best days in my eight years is when you called that my number came up.
>> and that's just it. And to some people it's like getting a 100-dollar a month raise. You've just given them a raise. Because you've taken away their burden of finding parking.
>> can we do...
>> ...office. We have another parking space challenge in executive session along with some other negotiation this afternoon, speaking of spaces. But if we can do that, maybe take a couple, three weeks to do it, if employees have ideas, can we invite them to recommend? Can we invite them to get those to you?
>> yes, definitely. E-mail them to me, fax them to me. They all know how to get ahold of me, believe me.
>> another thing, a little reminder, do we make parking space assignments by department?
>> no, sir, we don't. Whatever comes up I call them and I say okay, this is what's available.
>> here's what I have in mind, maybe notifying a certain department head, you have 100 employees and have you 43 parking spaces. We show these employees to be assigned parking spaces. One, do they still work in your department for you? Two, do they still on use a vehicle to go to and from work and three, do they still need this parking space?
>> right. The one I do. The one, every two weeks I get a termination report. Number two, I get -- I run myself a transfer report. I have a very good rapport now with the sheriff's office, which took a long time to build up, but you always put the burden back on them. You're hurting yourselves if you don't let me do this. That they give me what used to be the pink sheet. It's the transfer sheet is what it is. And other departments that aren't quite so willing I've learned ways through e-mails to find out where they're really located now and lynn take them away.
>> so you're doing some of this already.
>> oh, yes, sir. On a daily basis.
>> let's just brainstorm and see if there are other ideas that we can work with. Start with the court and have us look at our spaces and we may as well ask what spaces do you need, if any? Now frks you recommend that I give up mine, take john hilly's first...
>> ...to something that I'm more -- personally that I'm more interested in and that is the 160 that we pay for. That's $168,000 that the county pays.
>> actually, it's 212,000.
>> it is if you add the 43 that we pay for police spaces. But let's say that 160 because those are 160 spots that we have to go out and secure. I would love through just an e-mail asking how many of those 160 people would give up their space if we bought them a 17-dollar bus pass and gave them $40? What I'm looking for, lynn, is if we are going to spend ones of millions of dollars in this community with a transit authority that is supposed to be one of the areas that helps us, I want to know what does it take? I mean, if you're willing to buy them a pass and you're willing to give them some money, quite frankly we'd save some money if we just said let's see how many takers there are that if we pay them $40 and bought them a pass, we would have $56 there versus we've probably got $80 average of what we spend. Now, the unfortunate thing is that seven hundred that doesn't have a space is going to say, for every person that doesn't want to do that, because the point that I have always made is that if you force people to pay for their parking or you give them a free bus pass, I think that 99% of the people will say, I'll pay the parking, but I'm going to be so upset with you, Commissioner, that I just can't wait for you to run and I hope that I live in precinct 3. Because I think that that's where people will be. But if we are going to try and do something in this community with mobility and transportation, the ones of us that are on the campo board that have made our life in the last three years miserable and all we're trying to do is figure out a way to accumulate our find revenue streams where we can go out and build some added roads or this and that, as I've said before, if we're not going to get ridership out of the public transit authorit, and we can't give people money, buy them a pass and offer them money, why are we going through that? So I want -- I want to find a way to see what people will tell us. If we'll buy them a pass and we'll give them some amount of money, which is the reason why I would like to have a committee, let's go and let's find out. Now, I'd be willing to bet you $10 for every one of yours or vice versa that people say I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in is my parking space, and I think that you ought to give it to me because I don't make enough with the county or this and that. But at some point in time we've got to find a way. And this is something that relates to the other item that we're going to have frank come and talk to us about next week. If we're not serious enough -- and I think that the county has to lead this deal, then so be it. I think that we do need to have a committee. I have a public transit rider in my office that I think needs to be on that committee, but I think that we need a committee of -- I don't know whether each office puts a representative up, but hey, we talk about air pollution, we talk about all these things that we try to be conscientious about. Let's live it. Let's put our efforts where our mouth is. And I think that that is something that we might be able to lead by example. We might be able to lead the state. We might be able to lead the city of Austin and the feds about this -- these are the things that you need to do.
>> I'd like to -- I would like to be helpful on that committee. I'd be happy to work with lynn or with Commissioner Daugherty or anybody else in finding the tipping point. And I confess last week I had my bicycle helmet up here. Today I should have brought my match box car showing I drove today. I'm needing as much forced intervention on my car as...
>> ...sort of categories of employees, not necessarily names.
>> lynn would probably have -- lynn...
>> ...it's important to have some who actually use public transit to get here. Maybe other employees who don't -- who work down here, but are not down here everyday. And then somebody who is down here everyday. Did we look at the possibility of securing an additional parking spaces, other county sites? I mean, I always thought some of our -- some of our property is so large that we could easily put a parking lot on there and kind of park and ride our own people. But I don't know whether that's cost prohibitive or not and whether the parking -- whether that space is near enough downtown to make it fairly tolerable. But a committee could look at that.
>> judge, we did not look specifically at remote, but the committee might be in charge of looking at that. I can say if there's a park and ride deal issue, we can provide a bus. I just want to mention that we have 4 -- (indiscernible). That's another possibility that the committee will look into.
>> especially if you live northeast or east.
>> which is se talk about that there would be more telecommuting.
>> I would like to have that looked at. I don't think it's totally necessary. The private sector does it. My daughter works out of the house most of the time, and they check up...
>> ...pbp budget?
>> I want to add a couple more pieces of information. We have in the downtown area, as I said before, 1,308. We have only 13 parking space for visitors. There are in the parking spaces.
>> 13?
>> 13.
>> and then the dro and the grand jury, they park on a metered parking space in the city area so we have that additional space, but only for the grand jury and the dro. That's not much. Surely we have a lot of shortage of space here. What we're trying to do if we have any available parking here in the downtown area that we can grab -- it's a lease or if we can look at innovative parking situations, that will help our need to help our folks here in the county. Then one more thing is about the space, the 160 that -- we'll make a call for that to see what the 160 folks, what can go in that additional fund that lynn and the committee will do. I would like to ask one more thing here. You asked us about what the other public entity do, the city of Austin or the state? The city of Austin and the state of Texas each has its own parking rules and some assigned space and some first come, first serve. This is another area that the committee should look at, not assigned space, probably first come, first serve. I'm trying to focus to see if we have available space. They don't come readily. Like we have 40 parking space available right now, roabl it's good to have it short-term until we have the long-term for the p you better e fifth floor.
>> all right. Come, first serve thing when you're thinking about first come, first serve, I don't know how all the other offices work, but for example in our office we sort of scheduled a flex time, people choose their work time because they have children and they make arrangements. Maybe one spouse takes the kids to school and the other picks them up, so we have some people who work from 7:00 to 4:00. Other people start at 7:30, others start at 8:00, others at 8:30, others at 9:00. That's something that to recruit and retain employees that we've gone to doing because we can't be that competitive on salaries, for example. If you go to first come, first serve, that's all out the window because now there's not going to be a lot of people that I can tell great, you can come in and work at 8:00, but you won't have anyplace to park because by with the time you get here all the spaces will be full. So that's just something to think about.
>> mike, if you did it first come, first serve up here, you park 384. You had 384 names and there are only 384 that can go in there. So that's -- you don't just go, okay, there's 1900 people that are going to come first come, first serve. You can have a deal where you say there are 384 that can park over here. The first 384 names that get drawn out are the names that have it right now, be it's a first come, first serve be. Yes, you may not get to park in your typical third floor --
>> I don't think that anyone is really going to care whether you did do that one way or the other because I don't think anyone is going to like that you went to -- people aren't claiming about where their spot is in the parking garage, they're complaining that they don't have a spot.
>> it's the people that don't have a spot. The people this tha have a spot would have -- if they came late they would be parking on the fistth in the sun.
>> that wouldn't be a problem at all because nobody is complaining about where they're parking right now.
>> it could perhaps, though, because when you do go into the parking lot at 10 in the morning and then morning and then at 3 in the afternoon you will notice that there are parking spaces that are empty. So it may be a better allocation mechanism we may be able to get, instead of 352 people, we get 357 people in because of a sufficient number of overbooking.
>> right.
>> that's the whole point behind first come, first serve. You always overbook. It's usually about a 78-82% percentile is what do you. The thing you have to worry about when you look, because they told me this before, is we do have shifts. We do have a sheriffs that work in this garage as well as the others. We do have county da's investigators and county havingers that park in this garage. Hopefully they're not just sitting there. Hopefully they're out working. And so consequently what you might not see at 3:00 in the afternoon or 10 in the morning, you might well see at 8:00 at night.
>> but if they're driving 30% of their working life, then it actually might be more advantageous to us to pay for a meter debit card for them than to pay for reant al space for their car that...
>> ...who would be on a committee by categor when we bought the ruiz buildings, we moved people from the downtown area, now the sheriff is going to move over there and the fire marshal, there will be about 57 spaces going to be vacanted here in the downtown area. Plus there's going to be some of the fire marshal in the lease facility in downtown, plus cjp and e.m.s. Are in lease facilities, parking space. They can also move to airport area. So there's about 60 spaces that are going to be vacated here in downtown area. They have to go back to the pool.
>> lynn is moving away from you as you're saying that.
>> that's the condition when you bought the haferty building, part of it, some parking would be available to go back to the pool. I want to mention that.
>> we'll have this back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:00 AM