Travis County Commissioners Court
January 29, 2008
Item 11
Number 11 is to consider and take appropriate action on draft scope of professional services list of stakeholders and budget relating to a community opinion survey of county land use authority.
>> judge, before joe gets started. Let me make a couple of comments before tnr comes in. As you know, we have had a very challenging, all of us have had very challenging issues dealing with what we call maybe incompatible land use and trying to protect the investment of portions of the community. Because of the limited powers that counties have, we sometimes are handcuffed. Let me give an example of when we dealt with this sun cosituation, the above ground tank located adjacentant to the subdivision across the street from the new middle school, just a recent one. Of course, the possible proposed tract for use of a solid waste landfill near webberville now owned by the city. A lot of challenges that all of us have experienced in our precinct. This is something that I am embracing, putting my arms around. Hopefully the survey and all these other things involved in this, I think maybe reveal some revealing information. Joe, I wanted to lay that on the table to let the public know why county land use authority is significant with the growth of this community. I wantd to lay that out before we move forward. Thank you.
>> three weeks ago we had had this item on the court agenda and you asked me to go back and prepare basically a draft questionnaire, list of stakeholders and a draft for fee. Attachment c was left out of the packet which is the list of stakeholders. I would consider all of this draft. We gave it aur best shot of preparing questionnaire. I think there's still need to be work done on that hopefully with a professional consultant who knows how to word questions and put it in plain english and also what is so difficult mthis particular survey is that respondant will have to have some base knowledge of the subject matter before they can respond. The questionnaire has to both educate and then quory about opinion. That takes professional guidance. That's why we are looking for outside guidance. We're in the trying to solicit a response. We're trying to get to opinions. It's not a push-pull. I think I said that the last time I came here. We're looking important honest opinions. Those will be varied in this community depending on who you ask. The other important thing here is making sure that we have a random sample. I suggest a stratified random sample, which goes to different stakeholders groups because the opinions will be different. The list I think also needs some work. Basically we went to databases that have opinion makers, look at the city of Austin neighborhood councils, their database lists all the neighborhood groups so you will be tapping into the officers of homeowners and neighborhood associations within that database. It may not cover the rule areas very well but generally in Austin you get people generally in the know because they monitor zoning cases if their own fabe whose. You have the chamber of commerce in there. They have a database we would tap into.
>> that's all the chamber of commerces or just, in other words, capital city.
>> Austin.
>> in other words all chambers? You just said chamber I didn't know if it was flushed out to include the african american and hispanic. Is that all included?
>> I知 not sure if it's greater Austin or all encompassing. All I mow is there's a database--
>> I understand. All right.
>> as I said, what is missing from there, I would say is eric ar or central Texas home buller association. I don't know if those private databases would be made available to Travis County for this purpose. So we have gone generally to the organizes that are public or semipublic. Once you start tapping into someone else's mailing list there are some sense activities about that and they may or may not want to us have access.
>> right.
>> anyway, the notion that we would get a broad based residents of Travis County and then get some stakeholders groups that we would tap into. We would have a questionnaire that was tested to make sure that it was reliable, we were getting back the information that we expected to get back without distortion. And that we're asking the right questions. And we have a basic scope of services which is fairly typical of this type of survey work that we would put out. We have contacted at least one survey company. They believe the budget of 15,000 is still good . We expect the sample size of somewhere around three to six percent will do it. At this point really it's a party of if you have any amend ments, well, really whether or not we proceed further from this point, I think the decision is to be made whether this is a good idea to proceed on. At that point, we need a budget authorization. There's no money authorized that the point do the survey. Then if we get the ga-a--go ahead, I would work with purchasing to begin the process of soliciting professional help on the thing.
>> the question that I saw in the backup is in the amount of $15,000 to carry out these particular services. I guess I will entertain a pokes --a motion coming from the allocated reserve. I hing my--thick --think my colleagues will have things to say about this. But the intent is to make sure we have the necessary message enveloped to move forward so at the end of the day the straight --state legislature has to make a determination to see whether or not we can acquire land use authority. But even so, even in the background given here, we did have some deveer difficulty in the last legislative session with senate bill 1688, 1689 and 1690 that didn't even get out of committee, which were actually land use material. Bills actually. So I知 concerned that we head in the right direction, come back with public opinion and see where we are. I知 concerned because of the several attempts we have made in the past. Don't want to be shot down. I think it's something that is achievable. I want to make had a motion to that effect after everyone has their say.
>> what does three to four percent mean?
>> typical when do you a random survey, let's say you want to pull everyone in this area that has a telephone, you take a telephone book that should be a comprehensive listing of everyone that has a telephone or at least a land line, and you go in and say I want three percent of everyone that has a telephone. Because if you get three percent if it's selected randomly, it's a pretty good indicator of what everyone, the entire universe, will feel about it. There's a science to this. They say if you get a pretty good response from three percent that will be reflective 100 percent. What they do is go in and pick whatever three percent is. So ultimately you don't have everyone in the phone book, only three percent and picked in such a way that they are random.
>> so the three to four percent is not three to four percent of the 900,000 people in Travis County.
>> could be.
>> you're talking about 27 to 30 000 people. If you're going to do this by mail, I mean is this--
>> I don't know.
>> there's an indication that it could be by mail because you wanted people to be able to spend enough time to really think about this.
>> yeah.
>> we just need to make sure that 15,000 bucks, I mean I知 fine with doing this but only if $15,000 gives you a good indication as to how people feel about it.
>> let us do this then before we actually seek funding authorization. Perhaps put the draft questionnaire out with request for qualification, get some feedback from the respondents. They will tell us.
>> sure.
>> given what we see you want, 15,000 is fine, but maybe maybe not. That way we'll give you a better definition of cost.
>> how do we derive the $15,000 amount sm.
>> by calling.
>> when we first started this, it . . . That, the appearance was that it would be mere than--more than enough to do such a survey.
>> that is from one fairly reliable survey company in Austin. We have used, tnr has used in the past. We called them up and said hey, this is what we are trying to do and that's the response. I知 not suggesting that 15,000 isn't sufficient but we didn't go into details as to telephone or mail out, you know, sample size and who all we are going to contact. I think with more information we'll find out whether they stay with that or not.
>> so could you have this, could you do what you are doing as far as finding out by next week?
>> I don't think so. I would expect to work with purchasing on putting this out so we get aheld of everyone who might be interested in doing the work I don't thick I would get a response that quicklyit's not going to interfere with some of the time lines that we have to deal with to make sure we have enough time available to us to make sure that this is proceeded towards, this process is headed towards the end result which is doing things towards, getting things sent over to the legislature.
>> what time frame would you expect to find these to be back to Commissioners court? I don't think we have spoken to that up to this point. I知 not sure I know what your timetable is. What are your expectations with regard to services performed?
>> I want to make sure that they have enough time to do an adequate job, that is the first thing, which I don't know because I知 not doing the survey. But whatever time is necessary for them to do the public opinion survey. Also enough time left to where by we will be able to deal with the legislature in a timely fashion as we start putting the bill language together to send to the state legislature. Those kind of time lines I知 looking at now. That is adequate within what we are doing here, then fine, I have no problem with that.
>> the session starts in January. Typically bills are prefiled in the fall. We are talking five, six months here before we probably hit some drop dead--
>> that's I guess--
>> there's no reason that you can't be drafting legislation even before a survey comes back.
>> all right. Okay. That's my concern. That amount is sufficient.
>> yes, sir.
>> judge.
>> thank you.
>> I guess the reason I知 a little confused about this, I think that this court is very interested in having more authority than what we presently have. I知 wondering whether we are spending $15,000 for nothing. Given the fact that I think the majority of us think there are things that we need to do. And my impression of the way that you need to go about doing this is to get a lot of different players at the table, everybody from landowners to developers, to residents, to whatever, and to come up with what we think that we can collectively agree on that we think is really important for us to have, and then sit down with our loan --lobby and say what do you think we can get done I think this thing will come back, yeah, we think you need to have more authority than you need. I think the five of us believe that. I don't know that we need 15,000 or whatever the amount of dollars is to tell us that. To me the more important thing is how do we as a court agree on what we want to send the lobby people over bill wise that we think that we can actually get done. Because we know that that, you can, if you kind of overreach as young, as some people think that some of the legislation, this last legislative session had, we're smart enough to know you can't get things out of committee. You just can't move the ball forward. I think that we need to be smarter about how we go about getting that done. It's not going to make any difference if we find out yeah, you get all the power that you can as a county and go with these 181 people and get your hat handed to you just like happened last time. I mean maybe we need to think about how we can collectively determine what it is that we're going to be asking legislative wise and then get our lobby team over here and determine which , you know, all of us how we are going to help participate in that thing.
>> let me say this to you, Commissioner, on your comments, and which I accept and I appreciate a different view. But the view of the community, all across the county, I think we need to hear from them officially. Sure, I think the state legislature understands that there have been barriers that I think have not been addressed and people at the table that may not have been addressed. I think this survey is inclusive enough as far as public opinion to ensure that they will be included. I think it's money well spent. When you go into community where I live and you have challenges such as the things that we have to do to protect the investment of persons, that's significant. And I have heard this all across Travis County. It's just not a precinct one deal. It's an county wide deal. I think this is more appropriate and including those concerns that you just brought up. What are the barriers when the bills went, sponsored by senator watson, of course worked through us at this Commissioners court which we all supported, we all supported senate bill 1688, 1689 and 1690. But yet it didn't move out of committee. What are the barriers? What was the real estate council saying, the homeowners association, the residents saying. None of them really had an opportunity as far as public opinion to have input into the process. I am inclusive mthis and I want to be inclusive. I guess the survey needs to be mod need accordingly. But I think land use is a big deal here in growing counties. Sh 130, your area, land use is important.
>> we understand that.
>> I think we have an opportunity here.
>> we understand that, Commissioner. But this 15,000 is motor going to get us over the goal line.
>> maybe, maybe not. Until I think joe is going to come back, we have asked him to come back and find out what we can do with this 15,000. I don't really know that. I understand that was a benchmark. May be more, may be a little less. I really don't know until we are able to canvas what is out there and come together with a public opinion survey. I really think it is in the best interest of a growing community such as Travis County, and I understand there are other counties dealing with the same situation as we are in the region, wanting to do something similar. I don't really know where they are but I do know that there is enough interest here in Travis County as far as land use authority that we need to find out what the person, the disposition of opposition and he was elserb where are they.
>> why, what I i don't understand, why are you spending $15,000, why are you spending $5 000 if you know that's what people want. You don't have to spend money on that. We as a court understand that is something that we collectively want to do.
>> let's listen to er--Commissioner eckhardt.
>> I think your point are well taken. I think what Commissioner Daugherty is describing as an action plan is something we need to do as well. This idea of a poll should not prochewed, it should augment that. The value I find in Commissioner Davis's suggestion is that land use as a topic is rather broad. And when I go to the community to discuss with them land use authority, it comes in many different flavors and different people are inspired or repullsed by only a certain aspect of it. At least in this draft so far, I see value in being able to break it down into parts, whether it's land use, whether our the public wants us to attack land use in regard to the incompatible industrial uses, if in regard to water quality, whether they want us the attack land use in regard to more compact development to impact transportation infrastructure, I think it would be valuable for us to know at least the triage of the many types of land use authority that we might want to seek. I think in many respects the reason we had our hat handed to us in in the last legislative session is that we went broad. And I think that this kind of effort would have two benefit. One, it would have an educational component. Not to be a push-pull, but to lay all the issues on the table for the public to consider. The second value in it would be to give us a better handle on the triage of the kind of authority we might request. How tailored can we make it. How local can we make it. In order for it to be understood. Frankly, in the last session it was the home builders association that got heard, not the folks with regard to what they would like to see? Commissioner Gomez.
>> where are the home builders? Are they in this group.
>> they are not on this listif we are --
>> if we are going to have a conversation with everybody in the community, we need to have all the stakeholders at the table I remember senator watson before he took offers pulled all those stakeholders together at several meetings at which we were there and everyone was invited to give their ideas on how to have a successful legislative session I think that was a good start in terms of communication. And I wonder if the senator is interested in having that conversation with all of the stakeholders at the table again. I would say that if I wanted to know exactly the barriers I would go to senator watson and ask him. He knows what the barriers were. And so I知 interested in having, continuing that communication again, the conversation, because I have said it before, but I need to say it again. I致e been working with Travis County since 1973. All of the Commissioners courts have been involved in trying to get this land use authority since then. The courts have failed. Then they created the conference of urban counties so that all of the counties could come together and join forces to communicate with the legislature. Obviouslirb it's still not working. Something is amiss here. I would include the home builders here.
>> exactly.
>> I think they need to be part of this conversation. If this is going to go, be a good conversation. So we can get all of our issues together. They need to be on this group. I think that the general public is going to be in favor of having land use authority. But are we going to then take the results of this home and give it to our delegation and say this is more support that you need to approve it? Well, our local delegation has always approved it. It's the rest of the state.
>> it would be evidence to take to other delegations say if you believe in local control, here is your evidence of local control in our county.
>> exactly. Then we have had several issues that we have had taken to members of our delegation that are real honest to goodness example of how not having land use authority makes it hard for us to make some good decisions. And so, I think that those are some of the examples that can be had in a conversation with with senators and representatives from other parts of the state that might be the ones who oppose this in having land use authority. And let's find out why. What exactly would be acceptable. Is it baby steps instead of this broad view of what we need. For me it's more of having a conversation with legislators rather than--
>> we need two pieces of information. One is we need to know exactly who we hope to survey. I would broaden this list.
>> I would.
>> the other thing is, I think we have to determine how we want this them surveyed, whether we want to respond to the questionnaire or telephone.
>> telephone.
>> if you go to consultant, don't you have to let the consultant know clearly what you want them to do. It makes a difference whether you are surveying 6,000 or 20,000, doesn't it? Zim expecting them to tell us what will result in a reliable survey, including whether or not you use the telephone. They may say don't waste your actual on sending a piece of paper because you don't get any response. Telephone may be a cell phone, nobody at home.
>> I don't know that we make the call but I think we ought to make the call on what we think will work, go to consultant and get expert advice.
>> that's the purpose.
>> my point is 15,000 may not be enough and it may be too much. But when I look at this list here, there are categories of folks that I think ought to be included. So one question too is if you go to a group, do you get the consultant to do that or do you let the group survey its members? If you want neighborhood association survey, it would be better to get the neighborhood association to get the numbers.
>> the consultant has to control the ram doneness and reliability of the survey.
>> is that from joe the consultant?
>> that's probably a professional opinion.
>> out of my area. I guess if we are paying we may as well get the consultant expert advice.
>> I致e done enough work to know you don't get the organizes to survey their own people.
>> I知 just putting the question. The list of stakeholders tells me there's a little more work to do before we decide exactly how to proceed.
>> sure there isi think what each of us ought to did is take this list and figure out how we would add to it. If the hill country alliance, where they picked up. They, on the subdivision issues that we had, they are interested I know. If we picking up every neighborhood association, where is that done. Is it on this list? I guess my point is seems to me we ought to to this list and try to expand it which means take another week.
>> one more observation as we talk about stakeholders we are actually not talking about a random survey. We are talking more about Commissioner Daugherty and Gomez's ideas that talk about opinion makers and action groups. The idea of a poll in my limited knowledge of how they operate in my own educational background is that for a poll you don't want to go to interested parties. That skews the randomness and credibility of the poll. If we were to only poll--
>> makes more sense to have a conversation rather than pollin.
>> I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I think that we must be clear on what our goals are for doing a poll. My an understanding of the goal was not to develop consensus around legislation to take to--
>> an an understanding of what the issues are and the barriers.
>> my an understanding was that a poll was to gauge the level of support for local control. And in what categories of land use.
>> exactly.
>> is it water quality, is it transportation, is it incompatible with industrial use you know, there are many different components here. I don't think, of course, a polling consult the would have far more gravitas on the issue than i. I think the exhibit c really goes more towards focus groups and consensus building rather than to the universe from which we would poll.
>> doesn't make sense to me to exclude groups and persons that obviously have an interest in this because they have set out their shares.
>> yes but.
>> this is posted as public opinion survey which in my view is a little different than a poll. But I yield on other on that. We need to know what it is we are trying to purchase. Otherwise we won't know what it is that it will cost us. Seems to me that consultants will have a difficult time telling us that they can give us what we want when we can't tell them what we want. What I would do is have this list as inclusive as possible. It's the good government thing to do and certainly the political thing to doment I certainly don't think we should get outside help when we know there are people that will come dunn and criticize no matter what the result is because they have indicated a burning desire to work with us on some of this stuff.
>> judge, I think that you bring up some real good points, and all of us have been bringing up good points, and that is involvement from the public as far as the counties and land use authority. Again, when I looked at the list I think joe was with of the system opinion that we needed to maybe be inclusive. And we spoke before the league of women voters here in women of last year, one of the things that they even indicated, Commissioner, we are really interested in the land use issue that you bring up and other that spoke that night on land use. It is a hot topic button issue here. Not only Travis County but also the state of Texas, those particular counties growing in leaps and bounds, including urban counties, this is a public survey that is going to get some results that we can really look at.
>> judge, I can see Commissioner Daugherty's point. Why are we going to ask what we already know.
>> we already know.
>> it's more--
>> we don't know all we should know.
>> exactly.
>> but I think--
>> we know this is a problem area.
>> yeah, but--
>> we know it has been. We know it's hard to get the legislature to side with us and expand the authority.
>> the problem area is in the unincorporated area, not in the city of Austin or any city. They have the ability to write order mances about land use. We don't.
>> although we have heard--
>> the lan use need for this authority if in the unincorporated areas.
>> although we have just heard issues about nonattainment.
>> right.
>> so people who live in the city of Austin have a stake in land use policies outside the city of Austin. We're about to hear later on issues of stormwater runoff and water equal. Again people inside the city of Austin have a stake for what happens in the unincorporated areas. So land use is not a, I don't think it's a doughnut issue where the hole should not be concerned. I think the opinions of hose inside the city are relevant as with me. I think they are stakeholders just as surely as someone living in the unincorporated area.
>> I living in the city of Austin. Of course.
>> the questions clearly pertain to Travis County. We clarify further if we need to. My point is we take action today or take another week.
>> judge, I said I would entertain a motion but I will not do that, hearing what I have heard today, until it be the form of a motion of maybe direction. Let me move this. I move that we authorize joe gieselman and f--tnr staff to continue in the county land use authority public opinion survey and report back to the court on other consultant or whomever we are going to use to look at this $15,000 deal. And all the other things mentioned here, joe, such as maybe being added, for the list authorizing each one of us to look at the list and add those groups that we feel are vital in this particular endeavor. I would make maybe a motion on that. And then report to the court as soon as you have gathered that information. I may take two or three weeks. I don't know. That would be the form motion or direct shup. I want to be sure he understands where we are going to go and the public understands since we aren't going to take any other action. That could be direction or motion, just depends.
>> what was it?
>> there's a direction to proceed, go to work as best he can but I do think court members ought to help joe as much as we can.
>> exactly.
>> if the league of women voters expressed an interest in working with us, we ought to be sure they are surveyed.
>> that's another point.
>> on some of these if we say okay, league of women voters, we want to survey your members, we would ask them for a list of the members to give to the consultant?
>> what do we find when we have ten groups that we have surveyed and we got opinions all over the board? What we are going to do, we have to as a court go okay, what of these things do we think that we can get done or that we ought to put legislative-wise before the legislature. If you are doing an opinion survey, then you really need to do it random and you don't need to get into groups. Now, if you want to get into these groups then you get in and do these focus groups and you debt--
>> the problem with the random survey, after half the people I don't know don't know what the issues are or could care less. If you stop a hundred people in Travis County and ask them about Travis County land use authority they won't have any idea what you, 90 percent of them in my view won't have any idea what you are talking about.
>> right. You're right.
>> so I guess why waste that 90 percent's the time. I知 not saying don't do some random surveying. But I would certainly add to my list groups that we know are interested. And if the league of women voters indicate an interest in working with us on this, I would certainly survey them. Hill country alliance we know. Neighborhood associations in unincorporated I would go to all of them and ask them because they have been impacted one way or another by our lack of land use authority. Some of them think we have used this has an excuse for not doing the right thing on occasion. And I have myself wondered, okay what is it they would like for us to do if we had the authority. Half the time I know and the other half I really don't.
>> then judge, why don't we have a work session where we invite every one of those groups to come and to tell us. And we have joe, I mean, we take notes, here are all of the different things that people are wanting. You don't have to spend $15,000 to to that and you can get everybody at the table.
>> in the next week what I would like to do, and this doesn't require a motion or anything, what I would like to do is work with joe, also contact the urban planning institute inside the school of architecture, and I致e been in contact with dean steiner, with the l b j school, both academic schools have a discipline in polling focus groups and opinion surveys, and find out what all the tools are that are available to us and what the main usefulness of those tools are. Then at the same time we can be putting together a field plan for having those kind of stakeholders conversations that you suggest which I think is an excellent and absolutely next suggestion--necessary suggestion both of you.
>> Commissioner, I have traveled the road you just mentioned, the l b j school, Texas state, to see if we can get this done in the time line. The requirements and all these things they aren't able the fulfill.
>> I知 not suggesting they conduct the polls. I知 asking for their academic and professional opinion of what the tools are and the goals are so we would know what we would be purchasing in a consultant.
>> I understand. What I do not want to see happen that is we change the direction of what this item on the agenda is about and that is to get a public opinion survey. I think the questions even within this, I知 quite sure, I知 not a consultant. We have not even involved a consultant and yet we are, we have things as far as the scope of services, we have all these things they need to look at. The consultant has not spoken as far as how and what we need to achieve. What I壇 like to see joe to do today, take this information to the consulting world who know all the ins and outs of what we are trying to achieve as far as a public opinion survey, and then after dealing with that, this information we have, focus survey and what you heard here today, and report back to the court. Now it's really not about funding per se. Now we are getting into methodology stuff. Of course, not being a consultant, not being an expert, hearing all the input that we have heard, maybe adding to the list as we wanted to add to it, would that be detriment? Would it hinder an accurate public opinion survey? I don't know. I知 not a consultant. But I think we need to take this information here today, our backup that we have here today, and allow a consultant to start looking at these things, and see whether or not what we are trying to achieve, if there is some come that --components that we need to add or delete and have them give us a cost estimate to do what we are trying to do today. That is the direction I壇 like to see the court going in. That could be a motion. Right now I think it would be best to go the direction and then report back to the court peedly after--immediately after checking with the consultant world as far as getting a county land use authority opinion, public opinion survey. That is I think where we are trying to go all of us are trying to get there but there has to be a mechanism to go there.
>> that's the detail.
>> that's the direction, joe. Take what we got. Of course, the judge made an observation.
>> let me add to that. Give ourselves two or three weeks. We'll have an appropriately worded agenda. If there are people at ut that you want to contact to see what help they can give to give you a chance to do that. I will make recommendations about stakeholders that I think ought to be added because they have indicated an interest. I do think it's important to talk to two or three consultants by phone to get some feel for what they think. That would help us some, I believe. We may ought to give some thought to exactly what our goal is other than knowing exactly what the survey of stakeholders is. What do we plan to do with thing in of I thought we would put together a strategy to go to the legislature with whatever we thought legislation we needed.
>> exactly.
>> if we need to regroup on that brainstorm, give it a little bit more thought, we can have that as far as the agenda item too. What is clear that maybe we ought to anticipate spending another hour, hour and a half on this item when it comes back. I said two weeks. Maybe three weeks and try to have a timetable too. If I were the consultant I guess I壇 want to know when do you expect me to get this work done.
>> judge, I know one question that I知 really wanting to have asked, do people expect that with land use authority, that the county will be able to stop certain development. Because I think that's in the back of people's minds. And I don't want to set up anybody for disappointment. And I don't want to set up anybody for getting mad at us because we ask them if they want land use authority and then they say yes, and then we don't get it? The way they are interpreting it. That's not fair. And so that is my question. Once they say yeah, you need to have land use authority, then I think the follow-up ought to be do you think that land use authority should be used to stop development.
>> we will have a follow-up discussion, hopefully followed by action, three weeks from today.
>> February 19.
>> okay.
>> February 19.
>> February 19. Try to, joe, we left a few issues dangling there but if you could--
>> translate.
>> do your best to get something for us.
>> it's been a pretty specific conversation this morning.
>> this is a controversial issue y'all, but an issue whose time has come.
>> it sure has.
>> three weeks from today. Thank you, joe.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 8:09 PM