Travis County Commissioners Court
December 11, 2007
Item 22
22 is to consider and take appropriate action on public input for the downtown redevelopment and civil courts building projects. What I’m hoping to do today is just lay out my thoughts about with this, maybe get some others and have this back on next week or the first part of the year for action. I do think we should go ahead and put in place a blue ribbon committee of Travis County residents to assist with this. I think we need public input -- public understanding first. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle. I think they should know about all of them, know what we propose and why, participate in the decision making. And we get their input along the way because at some point we will need them to help us understand the public. The price tag that I’m seeing is a large one, getting larger. And so when we start educating the public it will be critical that somebody outside Travis County government understand what's proposed and why. Affordability will always become an issue. There are many county assets that we don't use. Some we probably need to hold on for future use. Others we may well want to liquidate and take those proceeds and apply towards the multiple remedies that we will put in place. And so if you get a committee that's too large, I think that it will lose its effectiveness, so we've got to right size it and figure out who is on it. Almost have to get somebody willing to dedicate the time, so either somebody that really feels invested in this or retirees or both. And the question is how do we put the committee together? Whether each member of the court has a certain number of appointees or whether we take appointments at large and just maybe look at their back be grounds and try to figure out how to make sure that a cross-section of the community is on it. We had been sort of hinting at the use of a committee. I just think it's time for us to go ahead and do it. I wouldn't rush into it. I would think about it a little bit and try to get them up and running the first part of the year. So a real serious meeting in January. If we skip -- January 1st is a Tuesday, so actually the eighth would be soon enough, won't it? If we can get it done by the 15th, it would be good, I think. So I’m hoping that we can think of this. The thinking has sort of gone from one building to really others that will be affected. And on these projects I think demonstrating the needs is critical as well as describing the remedy and making sure that it makes sense. And christian has told us that pbo has decided that it's affordable, but what we -- when we issue major debt, we're also trying to satisfy other debt to stay within our debt guidelines. So in addition to that, we will need a financial planner. There's already one working with the committee.
>> yes. You will need someone from facilities too, judge. And think about the charter, too. Do you want to focus on downtown? We have other facilities, medical examiner's building 4, for example. You made a commitment of building that, that's 20 to $25 million. Precinct 2 we have a solution for you on short-term, but you need a long-term solution for that area that may entail purchasing more property and constructing another building. So what is the charter of the committee? Is it focusing on downtown? Is it only? Is it looking at all Travis County capital projects?
>> I don't think we want to look at all of them. I mean, there are others -- if there are projects outside of this initiative that are ongoing, for example, the precinct 2 building project would be on the court's agenda fairly soon, right? Because I know you were trying to value engineer or re-engineer on it.
>> yes.
>> I guess it would help us to know the working committee stays in place. It may help us to know exactly who has been participating on the working committee. And the executive committee has been higher level.
>> if you look at the backup, the players are all pretty much explained in the backup.
>> there is a steering committee with an executive branch made up of elected officials. The steering committee was focus odd civil courts, but it was made up of the user departments and the Travis County bar association because of their particular interest.
>> as the program progressed, as the needs became more apparent, we brought more people to the table and that's why the working committee got formed. And that approach has really helped a lot in moving forward.
>> but if you look at that particular model of the steering committee, it does provide a model for pinpointing what the charge will be will be and then who will be on the committee.
>> okay. So I’m seeing steering committee, but is that the same as the advisory committee?
>> yes, sir.
>> then there's a working committee too, though.
>> that's correct.
>> separate and apart from the advisory committee.
>> that's the one we've asked for you today to give your input to. You've approved the working -- the steering committee, which was a larger committee and was focused mainly on civil courts. And then you approved the executive committee. But the working committee, once we went to plan b as we call it, which started to move from across the street to granger and had all of these, we went to a working committee that became more comprehensive. I think that's what you're looking at and that's what we've asked you to prief because that committee as the locus for this entire spate of projects we think makes sense because everybody is at the table f we add the criminal courts and the da and ca's office, then we have the same ability to do what we've been doing and that is putting out a good project and making sure all the ideas are vet appropriately.
>> the people that are kind of ad hoc with the working committee, and the judges have done a really good job of getting people together and really looking I think at the interest of this entire project that you can see its judge dietz, judge help shepherd, stacy, cyd grimes, marvin bryce, alicia perez, roger el khoury. (indiscernible). It is an interdisciplinary -- that's the work group that if you need something done, people are expected to go out and get that done. That's really -- the agenda item deals with that, but you may want to expand the executive committee or this committee and the steering committee are all to be involved. But it was that working committee.
>> so the advise I have advisory on page 5 is a working committee. There's another advisory committee on page 4 made up of different offices.
>> judge, the way this was established, it was voted on in April by the court, you have a steering committee. That steering committee has an executive board. Let me make that analogy. The executive board were elected officials. Two members of the court, two members of the judiciary. So what you have now on the books is a steering committee, and that is on page 4, representative of those departments, plus the bar association. They met, they elected a chair, which was judge dietz. Judge dietz called then a working group made of staff, just staff members. And that working ground is what is before you and lifted in your backup. We usually do not come to the court for approval of working groups. The judges thought that that would be appropriate on this time because we were making so many recommendations from that working group, that it would be appropriate for the court to take a look at that. The complex of the project has changed since April and you appointed this particular group.
>> we have 21-g back on next week, maybe with different wording. And are we ready for the public committee next week? We'll have 22 back on next week also. And try to pull this item up early afternoon works best, 1:30? Anything else today? Anybody else want to be heard?
>> judge, I’d like to speak --
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> all right. If next week is better. Unless you want to come up now.
>> I’d be happy to come up now if that's okay. Judge and Commissioners. My name is chris riley. I appreciate you hearing me today. I’m a neighbor of yours. I live and work right around here since 1990. I’ve also -- I have a lot of interest in this area. I’m president of the Austin history center association, which of course we're just on the southside of wooldridge park. Iels manage the giant chess set that goes up in wooldridge park every Saturday. So check it out on the internet if you want to know about that. I would like to say a quick word about the county plans as they relate to the surrounding environment. I’m sorry I didn't hear much talk about that today because it is an important issue to a lot of people. It's something that a lot of people have very strong feelings about. With that in mind I’d like to focus on a few things that I think there's a lot of agreement on. I think there is a fairly widely shared agreement that the current conditions around the county's campus, particularly west of guadalupe, are not exactly ideal. I think the heritage society in their recent reports, they refer to the blocks 126 and 108 as obviously under developed, the downtown Austin neighborhood association feels the same way, the downtown Austin alliance. Everybody thinks that there's a lot of problems when you just look out here. As widely diverging as people's views are on other things, you won't find anybody that looks out on the blocks and is filled with civic pride and that's a shame. Those blocks were a lot more impressive in early years, 100 years ago that was -- those blocks were as densely used and active as any blocks downtown. But by the time of about 25 years ago when we enacted the view corridors, they weren't so good. If you look at the capital view preservation study that lead to the creation of the view corridors -- and this was the report that started the whole view corridor thing. The comment there was when we created the wooldridge park view corridor, the comment was that this area is rich in civic, cultural, historic amenities. The history center, the her issue field house, the moonlight tower. But two blocks of underutilized land separated the governor's mansion from wooldridge park. Currently occupy by banking facilities and parking lots, these blocks should be developed in a way that enhances historical connections and provides a continuum among public amenities. That is what we were saying 25 years ago. And I think 32 general there's general agreement that we haven't made a lot of progress. I think those are the same conditions that you sigh today as they were when the report was made. And it's a real shame when you think about the impacts not only on the historical amenities listed there, but on wooldridge park in particular. That park used to be -- that was where l.b.j. Announced his presidential bid. That was our roman forum. And now it has really deteriorated to the point where the only daily users are homeless people. It's not a place that fill you with civic pride. It is a real disappointment. In 2009 that park will hit its 100th birthday. That was created as Austin's first park in 1909. We're about to celebrate its 100th birthday and it's a shame to me as a lifelong Austin resident that we've let it get to the way it is now. So the good news is that there's also agreement that folks are willing to talk about all that and to work on some solution. The heritage society in their report said that -- the heritage society and other interested parties and community organizations have committed to participating in a process for locating a civil courthouse and approving the area. The downtown Austin alliance did a report recently on wooldridge park and they urged that we engage all downtown stakeholders to ensure that wooldridge square is considered an integral part of downtown fabric. So we've got a lot of folks that are nting to foe cows this and work on it. With that in mind I would have two simple requests for this court. First I would ask that as we move forward with the planning for meeting the county's needs, let's state as an expressed goal that we want to determine a vision for integrating the county's campus with wooldridge park and the surrounding downtown community. It ought to be a part of the downtown fabric. This should not be a part of downtown that we're embarrassed tonight. The state has fix bed up this area. The city really worked on the area rnd its city hall. The county is frankly lagging a little bit behind. And I think we could do better and I think the community wants that and they're willing to work with the court on getting there, on working towards a more positive vision for the county's campus and the way it is integrated into the downtown fabric. And the second thing that I would ask you is that as we go through that that we keep our options open and that we not do anything that would foreclose possibilities for the future. I totally understand the Commissioners' reluctance to get involved in the whole view corridor issue. I can very much relate to that. But I think that the court could actually move forward with meeting the county's needs in such a way that you could allow that discussion to take place in the future. I mean, for instance, you could go downtown -- go underground as deep as you want. Going underground is always great as long as you don't assume that you're never going to build a little bit higher. I would suggest that it would be appropriate to expect as we come up with a vision for the area, perhaps we could have a conceptual phase 2 for a way that 50 years from now when we need to expand if folks have been willing to engage in discussion about modifying the view corridors by then, then maybe there would be a plan for expanding in some way that would not be allowed right now under the current view corridors. When we built the original heman marion sweatt courthouse it wasn't long before we went with phase 2 and expanded it. If wech a new facility on block 126, why not have something done for the future if there were other decisions about the view corridors that occurred after a lengthy discussion, the kind of discussion that we can't engage in now. I think that would be a responsible use of the county's resources and would allow for all kinds of decisions to be made in the future. Again, the important thing is to just come up with a vision that all that works with, a vision for blocks 108 directly east of wooldridge square, facing wooldridge square and a vision for block 126 right here. What will those look like? When I asked judge dietz about that last week, he said if you modify the view corridor you could get this and that. And I’d like to hear a vision for our life times. If we're going in assuming we're not going to adjust the view corridors, then what is the vision for 108? I don't know. I have a hard time envisioning a whole lot there with a height limit of four feet. I don't know what you could do. But at least let's talk about a vision for that so that we can assess that in a responsible way as we go through the discussion about the county's plans.
>> mr. Riley, I would throw in another suggestion as part of that. That we have to have a vision for the downtown campuses as a 24/be 7 vision and not an 8:00 to 5 vision.
>> absolutely. I think the downtown community and the whole city would wholeheartedly embrace that.
>> thank you, mr. Riley.
>> pardon me, judge. I have visited with chris and have found him to be a tireless worker. He has provided an entree for us others. Chris and I have talked about going to the historical commission to see about talking to them to see how much flexibility there is, whether if we provided something is there any type of wiggle room. And I didn't plan on this, but I would commend chris when you're looking for someone to be on this type of committee because he -- I don't know of a more tireless advocate for downtown living than chris riley in his service on numerous boards and commissions has been long-standing.
>> chris may receive membership on the committee as a penalty.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I’d be be glad to help.
>> thank you.
>> anybody be else before we end our discussion of this item? Then we'll have 22 back on next week. 21 and 22.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 18:30 AM