Travis County Commissioners Court
May 1, 2007
Citizens Communication
Citizens Communication. Can you hear out there now? Is it better out in the audience, the audio, can you hear it better now? Go ahead.
>> thank you, Commissioner Gomez, good morning, Commissioner Gomez and Commissioners. My name is jimmy castro, I'm here to speak on my own behalf. This presentation is about the history of cinco de mayo. The first shows the fifth of may involve the histories and distakens of both the -- destinies of both the united states and mexico. In 1862 soldiers came from france, their plan was to capture the capital of mexico, mexico city. The rest of the country would have surrendered. On may 5th, 1862, 10,000 french army soldiers armed with cannons and rifles took on an ill equipped indians armed only with pride and machetes. Many honorable mexican farm workers died so mexico can remain independent. The mexican soldiers knew they had to fight for all their worth if they lost they knew that they would become part of france. This, mexican farmers would not tolerate. On this day, may 5th, 1862, the rag tag forces were victorious in their fight against the french army. In what came to be known as the fifth of may. The city is now called pueblo dezargosa in honor of their victory. American forces rushed to the Texas-mexico border under general sheridan who made she the mexicans got all the weapons they needed. In gratitude thousands of mexicans crossed the border after pearl harbor to join the u.s. Armed forces. Mexicans never forget who their friends are. Neither do americans.
>> [speaking in spanish] that's why we celebrate cinco de mayo, a party, what's why cinco de mayo is such a party. A party that celebrates freedom and liberty.
>> [speaking in spanish] this is why we celebrate cinco de mayo.
>> [speaking in spanish] for the children. For the history. For the food. Because we are all north americans.
>> [speaking in spanish] thank you, Commissioner Gomez and Commissioners.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, jimmy.
>> good history.
>> thank you. Item 2, dan mansewer. Mansour.
>> good morning, dan.
>> inform you of a recent wellness program that just was completed. About 12 weeks ago a group of Travis County employees signed up to train for -- to train with run tex leading up to the Texas roundup held this past Saturday. The -- the employees completed the 12 week training and -- and participated in the race and I want to -- to inform you who they are. Donna sternman with hrmd, margie salano, hrmd, sherri hamilton with the wellness clinic, sheriff greg hamilton --
>> greg hamilton participate understand that?
>> [laughter]
>> yes, he did.
>> man, I tell ya --
>> he completed the 5 k.
>> he did what now?
>> he completed the 5 k. Actually he may have been the only male participant that I know of from the wellness training that took place.
>> all right, go ahead.
>> norma guerrera with commission precinct 4's office, laura taylor with the district clerk, barbara warren with facilities management and lisa brown with the Travis County sheriff's office. Participating in the 10 k was
>> [indiscernible] barnett hrmd, julie cullen, auditor's office, diane
>> [indiscernible], josie pena with the wellness clinic. Russell hahn participated, he just was there to support our group. I want to recognize run tex, paul carozza for his contribution to the training program. His assistant coordinator williams and the trainer patrick guy who just did a fabulous job.
>> [ applause ] so those are the participants in the back that --
>> [laughter] that -- that I named and we are looking forward to the next training session which will be announced, there will be a maintenance program taking place this summer and that will also be announced, the fliers as well as the internet and the website for -- for Travis County wellness. So we just wanted the clerk to know that this is one of the wellness programs that was recently completed. We appreciate your support of our wellness efforts, we appreciate the employees who participated. I'm sure there are other county employees who did sign up and participate in the run tex, I'm sorry the Texas roundup. We just don't have their names.
>> next time around, please let me know --
>> [laughter] I want to do something similar to that.
>> that's a challenge to some of our employees that are involved. Yours truly included.
>> very good, thanks.
>> congratulations to all of you.
>> congratulations. Thank you.
>> those were the two speakers for the citizens communication. Where -- where this item -- there is -- not another item on the agenda regarding their subject. There are two speakers, mr. And mrs. Donahue on kimbro regarding kimbro road, that's coming up, item -- what item is that?
>> I think it's item no. 9, isn't?
>> 9.
>> I believe so. Anyway, it's on the agenda. So we will get to that one shortly. We had a little confusion on the citizen's communication and we'd like to call that back so that mr. And mrs. Donahue can address an issue with us.
>> would you all please come up, please. Thank you.
>> is tnr around ?
>> actually, it's really not related to item 6 at all.
>> right.
>> but is it.
>> right.
>> so mr. Donahue and ms. Donahue.
>> on living on timber road, which connected in liti road there is a business applying for a beer and wine license. This business is a tj loraine entertainment thing. The operation was submitted by george richards doing business as shady deal at 42 4219 littig road.
>> what is the address again again?
>> 14219 li the ttig road. Shady deal.
>> okay.
>> have I to say it is a shady deal. We have been fighting with this man for over two years. The noise is horrendous. We suspect drugs. We suspect raves. I know of people that have gone to it and they say yeah there's drugs and all kind of things going on out there there. We sat down with the man that owns the property. He leases it out to these people that have the disc jockeys come in and they have had parties from Friday into Monday morning in one case. I am not sure if you are away but sound dralves equate a distance. I live about a half mile and the base noise goes boom boom in my bedroom all night long. We have dressed this with the man that owns the placement quite frankly franklyfrankly--the place. And quite frankly, he could in the care less. We had a meeting about a week ago and I don't think anybody saw and remorse. We heard no apologies. All he wanted was his license for his beer so he can make some money. Based on that, we're opposed to it. You will be seeing probably, no probably, you are going to see a citizen's petition against it. I don't know all the laws and everything, but please don't approve that. It's going to wipe out a good neighborhood.
>> I guess I need to find out, your comments are in reference to a liquor license. (changing captioner. Captioner.)
>> I think it will be a bad situation if we don't address it now, especially if he gets to sell beer or whatever up there, I know we'll have people's houses broken into because we've already had some thefts increase in that area as it is.
>> is this an issue that we can refer to the county attorney's office?
>> I think, yes, it is. We'll do that. I just wanted to make sure that the county can hear it. If you've got something in writing, per se, I think we need to have that too.
>> well, I have the letter that will be sent here and tabc and other places. I have a rough draft. I would rather that come in officially with the signatures and everything. And you should receive that in a day or two. There's over -- I think they said over 48 signatures on the petition. There's not many people out there. We are being bombarded by this man and it's not a good environment.
>> okay. Thanks so much.
>> may I please at this time have a word. Let me kind of reinforce -- he took a lot of my information, but as he was saying for the past two and a half years, we have been fighting with this person, with all this weird music that has been going on. I think what I want to bring out that I'm more concerned with than anything is the fact that a venue for preteens, young adults to come out and do these going on -
>> on the internet.
>> and it's been advertise odd the myspace website. And the pictures and thing on that website are advertising theeg young 14-year-old, 13-year-old naked girl and it's being advertised that they're being with older men. I mean, it's just something that shouldn't be permitted. For us to calm the law enforcement when this is -- for us to call the law enforcement when this is going on, we're consistently told that their hands are taid, they can't do anything. The only thing they can do is take our statement and go over there and warn him about the noise. That's not the problem. It's not the noise, it's the thing going on on the grounds. They have drugs, they have marijuana. There's sex, everything. There's not bats room facilities on this particular ground and they have anything from four to 700 people at one time at these particular raves. Where are these people using the restrooms and stuff? In neighbors' yards. This is the problem. We've got a serious going on here. For no o to be able to do anything about it, I'm here to say that perhaps the law enforcement should be given some type of way to go out there and stop this. If it's visible and you know that these things are being presented on this site, why can't you stop it? They can go out there and they can stop a religious gathering that's going on and being told that that's disturbing the neighborhood. They can stop that. They can issue a citation for someone's alarm system going off in their house if it goes off too many times, but they can't stop a rave where children are being exploited?
>> the county attorney's office has an enforcement division. It's I'll deally suited to address your issues and what we can do under the law.
>> what I'd like to see happen, if you can leave in my office the information that you do have, and I can take it to the county attorney and we can proceed. But would both of you state your names for the record?
>> my name is brennan donahue.
>> and I'm dolores donahue and we've been working with the county Commissioners office on this for a year and a half, so all this information is available.
>> no, no. A gentleman here we've been working with, dan smith. He's aware of some of this.
>> there is a case number with the sheriff's department in our area of 06-30105. It should contain all of the complaints that have been filed against this gentleman for at least a year, I think, because we filed -- personally filed that ourselves.
>> it will be valuable information for the county attorney's office.
>> please get it to my office. This is in my precinct. I'm the Commissioner of precinct 1. Please get this to me.
>> definitely.
>> I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
>> thanks for hearing us. .
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, May 2, 2007, 8:00 AM