Travis County Commissioners Court
November 20, 2007
Item 5
Let's go to the cdbg item, that will be fast, then we will get ms. Rio and christian.
>> good afternoon, judge and economics.
>> let me call that up as soon as I can find it. I know that you just read it. 5. Revised language: -- consider and take appropriate action on items related to the use and planning of the community development block grant (cdbg) provided by the u.s. Department of housing and urban development: a introduction of the new cdbg planner; b, approve the public -- how are you doing, ma'am.
>> doing great, thank you.
>> b, approve the public comment period for the program year 2006 (py 2006) consolidated annual performance evaluation report (caper); c. Approve the ad to notify the public of the public comment period for the py 2006 caper; fy 2006. I guess I should have py the second last two, right, program year. Okay. Program year 2006 caper. D, execute the program year 2007 (py 2007) grant agreement; e, approve the certificate of exemptions from the environmental assessment for the following py 2007 projects: 1) family support services social work services expansion; 2) design, engineering and environmental services for the apache shores substandard road street improvement; and 3) water/wastewater and other project planning; f, receive the estimated award for program year 2008 and related timelines for action plan development; and g, other related items. 7. Other related items. There are a whole lot of parts to this, right? Okay. Good afternoon, judge, Commissioner, sherri flemming executive manager for health and human services and vet ran service. You know how excited I get about cdbg forgive me for being a little overzealous. I can tell you that it will probably take you, took the judge longer to read our posting as compared to what it's going to take for you to approve all of these items, hopefully that will give you some comfort. I do want to introduce to you marryanna salazar, our new cdbg planners, they have lots of interaction with you, so we wanted to be sure that you were aware that she was on board. She joined us November 5th. She has a --
>> good day, by the way, excellent day.
>> oh, yes.
>> [laughter]
>> but in any event she has a bachelor's in economics with a management concentration and a master's in public administration in development studies. We are happy to have her with us. She's been on board, we have made sure that she knows that she was needed. With that I will give you over to christie.
>> ms. Salazar, November 5th is a good day because that's my birthday. A gift giving period is over
>> [laughter] for this year. Christie moffett, Travis County health and human services. Item b is to approve the public comment period for the py '06 caper, the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. This is the first time that we have done this. This is your introduction to the caper cycle. Basically we have to analyze our performance for the past fiscal year. So October 1st through September 30th. And so we have to provide that document for public comment for a 15-day period and your backup actually says the public comment period is December 5th through December 19th, that actually is December 5th through December 20th, we are requesting that the court approve that 15 day public comment period to be in compliance with our citizens participation plan and with federal regulations.
>> so moved.
>> second. We changed December 19th to December 20th at 5:00 p.m.
>> correct.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. C is the ad related to the public comment period. We have to post a notice in newspapers of general circulation. We usually put this ad in english and spanish. You have a revised backup provided to you yesterday. The revised backup is in relation to the fact that we got clarification from h.u.d. That indeed we do have to have a public hearing. We had received clarification previously where we did not believe we needed to have a public hearing regarding the caper. Now we know that to be incorrect. So your backup, your ad actually includes a public hearing date of December 11th, at 9:00 a.m., which I will ask you to approve under g other related items. But if you would approve the item.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> okay. What page is that ad on?
>> the ad is -- should be the second page in the backup after the memo. The caper will be provided at the community centers at the seven different track community centers for public review. It will also be on the website. Also provide notice by letter to people who have attended the -- who have attended the public hearings previously. So we will give as much notice to people who have been involved as possible.
>> okay. That's the ad?
>> yeah.
>> I guess I was looking for the word "ad" somewhere. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Item d to is execute the program year 2007 (py 2007) grant agreement; we have requested the county attorney's office to review, they have provided their comments. They asked that we put by in the signature line and then also the county attorney's office noticed that there was some inconsistency between our py '06 and py '07 agreement, they put judge Biscoe's game as the grantee other than Travis County. We received an e-mail, clarified by e-mail with h.u.d., they asked us to mark through judge Biscoe's name and put Travis County. We have done that. And with that --
>> nothing personal about that, right?
>> no, nothing personal, sir.
>> [laughter] and so we are asking that you execute that agreement so that we can go ahead and start implementing our second year of funding.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Okay, item e is related to certificate of exemptions from the environmental assessment. Any time that you fund anything using cdbg dollars, h.u.d. Requests that you assess the physical impact on the human environment of any project that's being funded. Basically what we are identifying here is that the social work services project, the planning project for water and wastewater and other project planning and also the design and environmental and engineering services are exempt because they will have no impact to the physical structure of the human environment. Sop we have to request that the judge certify that finding for each project. You have that attached backup. That is a h.u.d. Form that is required that we have filled out, we are requesting you approve that certificate of exemption and authorize the judge to sign that.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> okay. Item f is related to the development of year three or program year 2008 cdbg grants. And we have been notified of an estimated 85 of 4 -- $856,404 for year three, which is an increase. We proceeded just for your convenience an estimated time line of items that will occur from January till September or sorry until August 15th when we return in the plan. So this will kind of give you an estimate of the time lines that we will be working with to develop the year three funding.
>> so our big challenge is that as we prepare for the next cycle, we need to make sure that we complete the projects that are already underway.
>> that is correct.
>> because at some points there would be a stack of paperwork that we need to provide h.u.d. Regarding those projects.
>> yes. And that stack of paperwork is called the caper. And so what we are doing actually is because of the four-month delay it took when our first map was disallowed due to the allocation error, by the time we got the second year's plan done, it seemed most prudent to implement years one and two together. Because a lot of the projects augment funding from year one and year two. That's we expect quite a bit of movement in terms of implementation after the first of the year.
>> should we put on the agenda at some point I guess early next week a status report of the various projects underway?
>> we can. Or if you would -- if you would allow we can give you that at the same time we provide you the draft of the caper, that would happen on December 4th I believe. We can provide that status update to you at that time.
>> okay.
>> just for the court's information, we provided I think it should be the first page after your memo, a summary of the current cdbg allocations by year. Because we realize as this continues to roll, we have previous year's activity, then we are rolling now into the next year's activity. So we wanted you to have there the various allocation amounts that we are working on so when we are talking about program year 2006, 2007, you can distinguish between those two in our discussions because we are actually underway, under two program years, about to do planning for the third. After next year we will be ready to review and update our five year plan for the next five years. So we wouldn't want -- we want to be sure that the court is -- is up to date and knows what we're doing.
>> each one of those
>> [indiscernible] as we start getting into the
>> [indiscernible] year allocations and also projects that we will add to this list of projects, there hopefully also will be I guess a status of each particular project, where we are as far as the indefinites of the process within that particular project which is halfway through, three-quarters of the way complete, you know, near completion. I think it should run also in concert with what we're doing.
>> yes. We can include in various work session that's we will have throughout the remainder of this fiscal year an update on the previous year's projects.
>> exactly.
>> if you --
>> per project. Because it would be good to know that the money is not only out there, but the project we have assigned this money to and what status that project is in, even after receiving the necessary funding.
>> the other thing that we can do is we will be providing quarterly updates, so as we do that, we can also send a copy to the court so that if -- was we do work sessions you can also have a quarterly update as well about the progress of things.
>>
>> [indiscernible] do we need to receive -- acknowledge receipt of the award?
>> no, we do not. The action plan is actually acknowledgment once we determine that.
>> anything else on this item today?
>> then on other related items, if the court will approve to set a public hearing date of December 11th to hear public comment on the py '06 caper.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> that's the date in the ad, right?
>> correct.
>> okay.
>> we already voted on that, right? Did we vote on that earlier?
>> [multiple voices]
>> on the ad and public comment period. When I originally wrote the agenda item I didn't know we were going to have to have a public hearing.
>> okay.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all.
>> me salazar, any comments, words of wisdom.
>> nope, it's a pleasure to be here, I?m so lucky I started November 5th. I was contemplating different days, I settled on that one.
>> welcome aboard.
>> thank you.
>> all right.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, November 21, 2007, 18:30 AM