Travis County Commissioners Court
April 3, 2007
Item 28
28. Discuss and take appropriate action on issues, policies and recommendations regarding parking for county employees. Yesterday the county judge put together what he believes will be an appropriate committee. To look at this matter for the Commissioners court and county employees. Last time we talked about at a committee, that would help us deliberate this -- this thorny issue. I have 2 or no members of the Commissioners court. Harper one person used park and ride, one bus passenger without park and ride, one car pool participant, one facilities staff person, two employees from the waiting list for parking and two employees who already have a parking space. I have really tried to include every category of employee that I could think of and one I think is important because I don't think we want the Commissioners court to have too great of an influence on the committee since ultimately we decide whether to accept the committee's recommendation or recommendations or not. Do we want public members?
>> instead of Commissioners court members.
>> I would like to have somebody from my office on this.
>> probably the one -- isn't he -- isn't he the bus passenger.
>> that's my belief that we will not have to turn people away to serve on this committee. I could be mistaken.
>> we don't have a cyclist representative on the proposed committee, either.
>> I thought that was so small that we didn't need one of them. We can play with this and add whatever we want to. I don't have a friend who doesn't work for the county who was interested enough in this to work on it.
>> right.
>> unless -- unless we promise to cut taxes as a result of the recommendations and I don't know that we can do that up front.
>> exactly. When I talked to some of these departments that I where down because I noticed them with the different types of things that I wrote here with the sheriff's office, which is a large department that has -- that's what we went for was something -- somebody who didn't have a parking space, somebody who does. They have a huge turnover, they have a fleet, plus they are constantly in flux. It is a huge determining factor down here. Over a lot of things. Transportation natural resources, the reason that I tried to look at them is because we do have so many multiple vehicles down there that they have. They have a large department, but they have a big fleet, also. I tried to get a small department, a small department, the person that I was thinking about here has -- has done it all. Not driven, not had a car, ridden the bus. Done all of the things to get up to this point. County attorney's office, they have a big turnover. And they have some major problems and so consequently when I talked to them it was trying to get that big department, big problems, you have a big turnover in that department.
>> if we do it by department, won't the departmental representative take care of --
>> that's just it. We were -- that's not what I'm looking at at all.
>> the biggest one is the sheriff's office.
>> definitely.
>> they probably have more parking spaces than -- but they are about a third of the county workforce anyway, so --
>> they have more parking spaces that are given to them that they have assigned to the department, not a person, per se. Because long before I came to work for the county, those -- those places were given to them as part of the move down here. If you will notice the parking lot right across the street from the granger building is -- is 99.9% sheriff's department. I have no idea the person's pers name who parks in the parking space, none whatsoever. Just like the first floor of the stokes, granger garage back here, if you will notice they all say patrol cars, that was also given to them as part of that move. As I told you last week, the ones that they lost when we put the cjc on the footprint of where other assigned places were. When it comes to assigned for the department, the sheriff has the most. I wouldn't necessarily then say they have the most when it comes to a stable workforce because they do have such a flux of people moving in and out of the downtown area. Whereas someone like the district clerk's office, has a very stable workforce. These people have worked here a long time. And a lot of them work here from day 1 that they start from the county until they retire at the county. That's a very stable workforce. And I think most of these people that we have -- when we've had a parking committee before, didn't work towards their department. They truly were very, very mindful of the fact that this affects everybody. That each department goes with the other. Even if it's not them who it affects their parking space, it is because the person who doesn't have a parking space isn't necessarily from their department.
>> your recommendation today as to the committee composition is what?
>> is to have myself, facilities management as a co-chair and these groups because I think these groups, which -- which Commissioner Eckhardt voiced a concern she wanted to be part of it, Commissioner Daugherty voiced a concern that he wanted to be a part of it, that his department wanted to be a part of it, not them necessarily. I tried to get a group that was offering different things, that had different perspectives on this. That they bring people to the mix that had all of the different types of things with parking spaces, people that ride buses, people that don't ride buses and wouldn't. And people that have big turnover. People that had big fleets like the auditor's office, they use flex hours, they use added pay. To just put all of those kind of concerns into it that -- that --
>> if there's a cyclist that we are concerned about, if that person has parking he can fit under the parking thing. But he or she should not have a parking space if they are riding a bike every day.
>> no.
>> I assume there are some who will ride the bike when weather allows it and not in inclements weather. I don't know that we have that many parking lot people. My concern about giving one member of the court a position on it is that in fairness the five of us ought to see have one if we go that way.
>> right.
>> but I don't know that we have hundreds of individual who park and ride, do we?
>> we have a few that park and ride, yes.
>> the things that I wanted the committee to look at was the possibilities of working with like capital metro to see where there are the park and rides that can be utilized to bring employees into the downtown area. And so -- so that can be just a -- a part of the charge. It doesn't have to --
>> I think --
>> doesn't require me being on the committee to make sure that --
>> I think part of the committee's charge is that one of these people or a couple of these people, that they are charged as part of this committee is to find out what that would cost us, where we have people coming from. Look over the parking list. Even though this is a list in flux all the time, what direction are these people coming from, where do they live? If this is a possibility. But that's what I think of as -- as a little -- little committees under this doing, that part of the them -- part of this be that we look into each one of these things. We've had a parking study that was done years ago by a private firm having to do with how many parking spaces are at meters around here because this morning I have spent all morning looking for a guy who is over in criminal court and who has parked across two parking spaces in the garage. And that's not one of us. That's somebody who couldn't find a parking space out here around the courthouse, has to be up in court so what is he? He's got his big truck parked across two parking spaces. I feel like I'm obligated a a little bit to look for this person before I call the tow truck. I give them at least a running chance at this. The citizens are paying for us to be able to park down here. If -- we are putting a whole lot of people on the streets, keeping them away from the parking themselves, I'm sort of taking the problem and changing it from us to everybody who comes down here to do business.
>> I'm not personally interested in you spending a lot of inordinate amount of time looking for person that goes and parks illegally. I would be more supportive of you picking up the open for and say come get the vehicle. If it's really true that you spend all of these hours that you say that you do over parking, that is part of what we are trying to do with this thing because I don't think that you took your job with the county to be the parking queen.
>> I have been doing it instance --
>> I know that you have. That's the points that I am making. I think there's more productive things to do with your talent at this county than this. That's precisely one of the reasons that I think we are putting this thing together.
>> fine.
>> I call you the unofficial parking administrator which does not come with a pay increase by the way. That's not your official title, but we view you that way, right? The question for the court is who do we need on this committee and next week we can discuss exactly what their charge is. Because there are many, many things that this committee can look at, the more I thought about it yesterday, it will require some time. Especially if you start looking at the different options, costing them out, figuring out pros and cons so that the report that we get from the committee is meaningful. The other thing is that my own view is that if the committee goes out and does a bang up job, comes back with meaningful recommendations, the court ought to act on them. That's not saying we accept all of them. I'm not saying that some of them won't be real good. The other thing is for the world the parking is very, very expensive. Try as we may, we are not sure that it's the fairest thing in the world. Because elected officials get so many, new elected officials get so many, I left and came back and still had my three or four. The committee may decide to take the judge's parking spaces. We may object --
>> at the same time we think that we also have to think about the fact that hours are worth time also. And them driving around looking for a parking space, no matter who they are, those hours are also worth money. So -- so consequently -- I also did last week you said that people could send me recommendations, stuff like that, so what they would like to have done, stuff like that. I actually sent out to each person, liaison, a little snippet and said send me the recommendations, what do you want?
>> we looked at what other entities are doing such as the state or city.
>> yes, sir.
>> in other words, I guess there's no perfection in any of it. But I guess everybody is trying to get there scfers dealing with parking issues for their employees. I'm looking at all of that.
>> the mix that the state works in the little capsules number one. Don't work at the state. This commission has this. This group has this. You would be amazed to find out that the u.p.s. Officers that work over in the capitol do not have any -- d.p.s. Officers do not have any spaces, whereas other departments have 100%. Each one of the offices works independently of each other. When they built the intention over there, two floors of that extension over there, which is four floors, that's 750 parking spaces that they put in over there just under the extension. But all of those parking spaces are not one group of people. So it's a first come, first served for one, the majority of which especially during the legislative session are you drive into your parking space and that's it. But they also work on a different thing than we do. They have 80% parking spaces as to employees, we have nowhere close to that. So consequently us being accident to do something like -- -- being able to do something like that at this particular moment, unless we get a whole lot of people who decide they want to do alternative forms of getting down here, riding the bus, their bike, are, you know, car pooling I always tell people think of creative car pooling. I don't necessarily mean everybody has to drive up three people in a vehicle. Three of you take it and just every third week you have got a parking space. There's creative, you know, two of you ride together and use it for two weeks and the third one. But at least it gives you the opportunity of knowing every third week or something like that you are going to pull into a parking space, which is a big monumental thing. When I got back the recommendations from people, that was --
>> let's hold on to those because the committee need to see them.
>> definitely, I have made a copy of every one of them.
>> we need to take action one way or the other on the composition of the committee today. Next week we will look at the charge. Susan?
>> I just wanted to make a brief comment because our policy was attached to the backup and it is true in the auditor's office we give each of our employees an add pay of $75 a month if they do not have parking. What's important is where that money came from. When we have been given raise money, instead of handing it out, we have taken that from the raise pool because my own philosophy is that first of all we can't recruit if we don't do something with parking, we just plain can't. It is a compensation issue if some people get a free spot which is worth about $100 a month, others not. Several years ago, judge, you will probably remember this most vividly, which all departments got 6% to solve a marry I can't tell of issues -- myriad of issues was that we would give all of the people who do not have a parking space $50 a month. This last year our people renting spaces the rents went up significantly to $100, so we increased that to $75 a month. So that they could either buy parking, they could buy a bus pass or whatever, but I just wanted that to be clear that we chose that from our pool of money because we felt that was critical. The parking is critical in terms of our first goal to get people here. If they are running around, that's a problem. Or they don't want to come to work for us because there isn't parking that they can acquire even, it becomes a real productivity issue that's tough to measure. I think that it is important, I think that -- I think that I'm the veteran on parking committees, someone else from my office on this one. But when you get to talk about issues like public transportation, the first assumption is that it is available, it is reliable, people can come in and get here on time, if they have to work overtime there's a bus to take them home. That's not the case. So that -- that's an issue. The other thick is we started -- thing is we started out every department got two, the elected official and department head. We started saying however there are emergency vehicles that need to have spots. That really eroded. I think the anger with people is if they think that it is not fair. We've had incidences where an administrative person who worked in our office, did not qualify for free parking because from seniority they hadn't been here seven years, went to another department and immediately got free parking. Same position. So those are the things that I think kick up people's anger when they think that it is not fair. Everyone's idea kind of applies to what they get. I kind of wanted to make those brief comments. If you want our office on that committee, I will assign someone.
>> that idea is on the list of ideas that -- that you were given --
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> last week? What about the committee? Do you want to take another week to mull over the composition?
>> judge, I think on number one, my recommendation would be that each one of us have an appointment, if you want to be out of your office, fine, if you want to be a friend or whatever, I just think that we need to have a say in that. In somebody doesn't want to have somebody, that's fine by me as well. I don't want to put one of my people down here 2 through 8, I think there are going to be other people more deserving of that spot.
>> my number one is for a member of the court. The elected official not staff. Your recommendation is that each court member would have one representative.
>> if they want to be the representative from --
>> I oppose that. I think either we have two elected officials on there to kind of balance -- counter balance -- your motion is to have -- give each court member one representative.
>> uh-huh.
>> and the idea is that a court member would be on the committee or appoint somebody.
>> either one.
>> if it's appoint somebody else, be on there
>> [indiscernible]
>> well, then I will go with whatever gets your vote.
>> I second it then.
>> each of us would appoint one person of our own choosing, either a staff member or a member of the public or otherwise. Discussion of that? Now if you can't find somebody then the committee goes on without your appointing. All in favor? Show Commissioner Gomez, Daugherty, yours truly voting in favor. Commissioner Eckhardt and Davis, opposition? Commissioner Eckhardt votes against.
>> I'm voting against because I think it would be an unwielddy committee, too many people on the committee.
>> I would like to maybe look at it. I would like to maybe have a chance to talk with my staff. I want to see how staff feels about it. I'm not going to look at it.
>> by a vote of 3-1-1 the Commissioners court decided each of us would have authority to appoint one member to the committee, a staff person or anybody else, but the court member may not serve on the committee. Any of the other categories we do not want. We have two from the waiting list for parking, I have two who already have parking, but are interested in this issue.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> move approval of 2 through 8. In 7 and 6 the idea is that we would get with the facilities department, get them to recommend somebody interested and hopefully with a little extra
>> [indiscernible]
>>
>> [laughter] I really feel bad about this, judge. This wasn't even your idea, it was Commissioner Eckhardt's idea, you are getting piled on here I mean I'm happy to second your motion. Two through eight.
>> you all will thank me later on for keeping Commissioners court members off this committee.
>> any discussion of that? 2 through 8? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. The challenge now is try to get individuals to fill the different categories and bring those back to the court so we can approve specific individuals. Lynn and I will draft that charge, circulate it to Commissioners court, hopefully by Thursday at 5:00. We have missed that deadline, by 5:00 on Friday. Homely to give the court the weekend to look at that hopefully, Tuesday we can approve the charge and have the committee off and running, thank you.
>> mr. Harlow can we cover your item in nine minutes. Spoken like a good county manager who wants to -- who wants to -- to get out of here as soon as possible. Your item is number 29, right.
>> yes.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 3, 2007, 9:34 PM