Travis County Commissioners Court
February 19, 2008
Item 10
Ten a is to receive briefing on the search for a location for the new Travis County medical examiner's office and associated issues. And 10 b, consider feasibility of building an addition to the existing medical examiner's office building at 1213 sabine street, to server future medical examiner office needs. You will note how the wording has been carefully drafting to eliminate the possibility of taking action today. We should discuss today have them on next week for action but I thought we should lay all the issues out.
>> yes, executive manage for administrative operations. I have been working diligently, we have all been working diligently on this issue of dr. Dolinak, dana debeauvoir, leslie and roger, director of facilities managant. The court has for some years now set a goal of improving medical examinerer services in Travis County. We serve a 45-county area. We have a chief medical examiner for central Texas. You received a report back in February of '06 that addressed a lot of improvements that were needed at the me's office of the office. The court took major steps for improving salaries, adding--adding doctors. You went from three darce to five doctors assigned or budgeted for the medical examiner's office. We also implemented significant renovations to the current facility to house four, and we will look to house five doctors there. In June of last year we came to the court and talked about location of a new medical examiner's office so we could start planning in earnest. The court directed us to look first at county-owned sites, which we did. We look at six county-owned sites, came back in July and made a presentation to the court. At that time you asked us to go and look at non-county owned sites. We had a listing of 29 sites and narrow those down to ten. And we're here today to talk about those ten and the evaluation of the sites both county and noncounty owned sites.
>> I don't have too much to add to that other than, as you know alicia and I kind of partnered am before I came back in February of last year you had her as the interim administrative person for the medical examiner's office. I just can't tell you enough how much we feel like the support from this court has been towards this office. I think we're beginning to see now the benefits of that. To the point where this office has now taken the first step to accreditation. I think if we have time today we'll tell you the status of where that is. As a result of your efforts and support, I think we're ready to who have to the next step, which is indeed to continue to the be the regional provider for this area. That again was mentioned to through a report which kind of broke out all the different aspects of what this office ought to be and where it ought to go. We came up with final recommendations and that's why we're here today. You have instructed us ,000 to take that next step, and that is to do two things. One is to look at site selection and the other is planning process to get into the actual meat of had this particular next step. Today we're here to discuss that. We went out initially and did look at the sites and came back to you and based upon that you said let's go and look at noncounty sites. There were some 29 sites. We did that and now what you have in front of you in the backup, you have all the information that breaks out all the different things that are Monday up in --made up this each one of those sites. And looking at what do we really need and what is desirable for a truly well balanced and well run medical examiner office. If we can move in that direction what is the criteria for when we look at the site. Yes, sir.
>> in reviewing the backup that I have, you said narrow down to ten sites. What I have in my backup is in review, I’m just going to give by precinct, nine in precinct one, four possible locations in precinct four, two possible locations in precinct three, and then zero possible locations in precinct two. So when I tally those up, I have 15 possible locations and yet I hear you saying ten. So what happened to the other five?
>> if you look at those county-owned property and land that we're looking at that the county does not own. That's combined.
>> that includes.
>> yes, the county-owned property.
>> okay.
>> if you look at the exhibit, yeah--
>> that explains it then. At that time why I come up with 15. That's included in that. When I heard you say ten, that's what threw me off. Because when I tallied it all up it comes to 15. Is that, are we on the same page?
>> uh-huh.
>> okay, thank you.
>> sure.
>> if we could, why don't we move she will explain.
>> we developed the criteria with executive management.
>> closer to the microphone, pleaseyes, --
>> yes, judge to look at six-acre site with a developable area of six acres, access to roadways without pausing through residential area, that there be industrial or commercial zoning and surrounding uses away from residential areas. That all utilities be provided at the site with access within five miles that we look at location within 13 miles radius of downtown Austin. We initially started with ten mile radius and having a difficult time finding sites that would meet the other criteria. Also looking for location near primary hospital and medical facility. We also had a difficult time finding property that met other criteria near a medical facility.
>> if we were to ask the south of the criteria, basically y'all brain stormed and concluded that a site that meets these criteria is best?
>> yes, judge.
>> there was no national standard or anything like that. It was just based on our experience, what should we seek sm.
>> based on our experience as well as the experience of other medical examiner offices and kinds of needs they have and kinds of needs that we would perceive as well.
>> okay.
>> judge, I’d like to add to that comment, we have been beverage mark--benchmarking studies and looking at other areas in how to do our project in the best way. We have only seen two types of locations for me facilities. Most are located within a medical center complex. Quite often a teaching hospital complex. One exception that we've seen is the san diego medical examiner's facility located in what they call a county operations . That's the only one that we have seen so far that is not located within or adjacent to a major medical complex.
>> that leaves me wondering why our current location is not the best possible then. It's right there in the heart of the breckenridge medical comple.
>> it's too small.
>> does this take us to item b?
>> that is item b, judge. We are going to get there. We were going to--
>> I can wait. Make sure I don't miss the point. Most of the medical examiner offices are in some sort of medical center complex or teaching facility.
>> that's correct. Usually stand-alone buildy within a multibuilding complex.
>> including the ones in Texas.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> in fact, judge, actually as part of your handout you will see a description of the other medical facilities and how most of them are under, some of them especially so. I’ve just been informed it's not in the backup, so I apologize.
>> that is correct.
>> you will enjoy it, though.
>> we visited, personally, bexar terrance, dallas and harris, and they are all within health centers or hospital districts.
>> point I was going to bring up if you look at at least dallas and I believe terrance as well as harris county, they are in the process right now of building new facility. Is this is what is helping us. As leslie and beth mentioned and roger will mention this, we actually have some good resources that we can go to as we are now preparing ours because they are either in development, early planning stages or construction phase. So we're not alone in in what we're doing here. Other medical facilities are also looking at their facilities realizing they need to be replaced. That's kind of where we are. Roger is now ready to go, I think, which is the real purpose of why we are here, and that is to go through this precise selection material with you.
>> okay.
>> on part 1 of exhibit 1, summary of site evaluation. It's one spreadsheet to explain it all. The spreadsheet shows, again part a, exhibit 1, page 1 is the spreadsheet. And what we did, those 15 properties, exist--Commissioner Davis was asking about, they are listed on that spreadsheet. We organized them in a way that we have the selection criteria. And we divide them into which ones meet all six criteria. We call it tier one. The ones that meet five of the six criteria, we list under tier number two. And then also we meet four out of six criteria, tier number three. And tier number four would be the property meets three out of the six criteria. Out of all those properties we look at, the six county-owned properties and the 29 properties and ten, actually visited ten sites, and only one property right now meets all the sick --six criteria, which is county owned property on springdale road next to star flight property. Now, not to say that the other two properties are meeting five criteria, which one of them is county-owned property, which is johnny morris road property, and the one does not meet the criteria as you can see on your backup. More than five miles from the hospital. And the other property under tier number two, which is the 506 criteria, is a noncounty-owned property on manor road. That's a cost to that also. It shows. Not saying the address at this time but it's in if your backup. It has an estimated cost. The other property, as you can see in the backup, they meet four out of six of the most of those property meeting four out of six, four of them in precinct one and two in precinct four. The property that meets three out of six criteria, two of them are in precinct one, two in precinct three and two in precinct four. Let me go back to the one that meets all the criteria on precinct one and also following up with six criteria also in precinct one. So this is the summary of our search and also the meeting the criteria.
>> the hospital that we're speaking you have is breckenridge?
>> is no, sir, it's val children's hospital? We look at any hospital within that property.
>> so any hospital.
>> any hospital, yes.
>> what criteria excluded two? Two doesn't pop up anywhere. Is that because of the distance from the hospital? One or more criteria that seem militate against a site in precinct two? We --
>> we didn't look at the ones just meeting two out of six. We just made the short list from anything like 50 percent meeting the criteria and above. Anything 50 percent or less we did not even goo further on that. So we can get you the other ones and what criteria they did not meet. We can e-mail that to you, judge and Commissioners, about the property that did not meet. Only meeting two out of six criteria or one out of six. We can send you. That's a good exercise about the land, acrage, primary road access, fits in the commercial industry, utility within 13 miles of downtown area and closer to a hospital, less than four or five miles to a hospital district. These are the criteria. By the way, the property we looked at for not county owned, we hired a broker out of the pool we have with the county and he is with southwest strategy and the broker will help us on all the search and finding out about all those 29 properties, from which we listed ten of the 29 and went and visited.
>> the broker also estimated the purchase price?
>> correct.
>> you have that.
>> sure.
>> judge, you're asking about tier four--
>> no, the absence of precinct two was conspicuous, so I wondered whether certain criteria, since it clearly didn't meet the six out of six or five out of six, four out of six, whether any of the others kind of excluded whatever possibilities were in precinct two. Distance sort of stands out.
>> I think so. There were, as others have said, broker brought 29 properties to us initially and we made a short list of ten to look at. This summary chart only shows information on ten visited site.
>> of the 29, how many are in two?
>> we can get you the information.
>> just e-mail it to me.
>> you got it.
>> that will satisfy my curiosity. All of the precincts with my favorite, by the way.
>> size of building that we are to develop right now is sized at 50,000 square feet. That is preliminary planning estimate based on the expectation of having ten pathologists served by facility to carry county's needs through year 20 take. --2025. Average per pathologist of 12,000 square feet. The current facility has less than 3500 square feet per pathologist, originally built at about 4800 square feet per pathologist. Other facilities we're seeing built in Texas range anywhere from 7,000 to 8,000 square feet per pathologist but those include a full crime lab which we do not. We have taken basically similar sizes, what we had originally for the county me in '96 and factored it up slightly. That area, of course, will be tested and validated during planning phase with the consultant who is specialist in medical examiner facility planning.
>> does the named standards address that?
>> the named standards address many ace specs of building design but not total square footage of building per pathologist. They don't set criteria. They tell you how building should operate and what things should be made functional.
>> you got to that by looking at standards for other medical examiners.
>> we looked at what they are planning on the books.
>> did you take into consideration the workload that each pathologist would have and then somehow that would be affected by population growth. That kind of tells you how many you are going to need within the next if you years? --few ?
>> --few years?
>> it's estimated by population in this area. We can make estimates on the number of autopsies and number of examiners needed to adequately staff that number.
>> we looked, to develop our benchmarks, we did a significant amount of research. We have at least two major, I think three, brair--bexar is doing some work though not as excessive as harris or dallas . We were fortunate to benchmark. Harris is rebuilding the whole medical examiner's office so you have teret, dallas and half is and bexar doing additions. We used baltimore, maryland, dallas county, harris county, teret county, we used maricopa county medical examiners in phoenix and then we useded san diego medical examiner's facility in california. Those were the benchmarks, newly developed, under construction or under planning.
>> I’m sure they had criteria they use in order to plan.
>> yes, ma'am. We wanted it to be recent information to be able to get you the most recent and up-to-date information on what we think it would cost, what kind of space they were building per square foot. Like I said, we took special care not to include a crime lab. We do have a lab with our autopsy suite but we could not have the crime lab. We looked at what we were going to build to replicate in the model for benchmarkswhat --
>> what about as science improves and you're able to do testing the in the future that you can't do now? Would you want to make room for that kind of science ability in the future?
>> it makes sense. I would certainly want to do that but it's tough to predict just what might be out there.
>> yeah, the next best thing we can do is to leave room for a little bit of growth as well.
>> I think that's one reason why you see the property, the amount of acres that we're talking about, would allow for that expansion to take place. So that when you get to that point, would you have that option to do that. As well as if you change your numbers, whether it be standards or population, that allows for this to happensure.
>> we're planning to develop a state of the art facility next week or when we come back with the rfq for the planning consultant. We'll refresh you on how we have target the the best experts in the country to participate in that rfq process, and who between them are now planning the other facilities in Texas, the ones we talked about in dallas and harris county and also in san diego.
>> what consideration is being given to all of the talk, seems like it's going to be much more than talk, about a medical school here? I know whether it's teaching. I don't know that I understand what everybody is talking about. Is it teaching school? A true medical school? Have we talked to any of the folks that are really involved in that to determine whether or not this maybe ought to be something that we should incorporate into their ideas and thoughts? Everything seems to be headed towards that dell campus. Are we in touch with all them?
>> as a matter of fact, we delayed a little bit in having this presentation because I was hopeful that we were going to be able to go speak with some of the primary players in that. But they couldn't meet. In fact, this Thursday is when we go and meet with some of the folks to talk about that. They acted like they are very interested in talking to us. I’ll be taking dr. Dolinak and myself and going over there and discussing those type of issues as to what are they really planning on doing, what is it going to mean. The doctor can then explain. One of the advantages we have, dr. Dolinak, and you might want to talk about this a little bit, doctor, he comes from an environment of where they were attached,able, I believe, to a medical school. Why don't you tell us. Go ahead.
>> well, it's valuable to have the academic environment be an influence in our practice. It keeps the medical examiners on their toes, so to speak, and provides a stimulus to consider to educate ourselves. Being a medical examiner, it's not like you take test and that's the end of the learning. Every day is a lerk opportunity. It's so much more meaningful and easier when you're in an academic environment. Throughout my training and experience as a medical examiner I’ve always been in that academic environment, either with medical school, yeah, it's always been a medical school year by--nearby. The education goes both ways from the calmer's --examiner's office to the residents and physicians. It's question a valuable situation if we can work something out.
>> I need to make the very clear they are very interested in talking with us. If anybody is quoting me, it's talking with us, and that's as far as it is right now. Hopefully I’ll have more information when we are here next Tuesday. We have been very interested in, in fact one of our first presentations to you as a court, I felt like that's something we ought to be looking at in regard to this facility, and that is that we look, at that time there was very little talk about the medical school. As you can see, it's hitting the papers every day or almost every day now. So we're excited about that and we hope there is a connection. Certainly we should pursue it, and we will.
>> we believe that that would be an ideal colocation and partnership. So if there is an opportunity, certainly, with your support, we would pursue it aggressively. I’d like to turn to page 2. That is a schedule for this project. We've been working on this project now for a couple of years. This schedule is presented to you, and we would like for you to tentatively approve the schedule this week, if not next week when we talk more about the site, because it's very important if we are indeed going to get occupancy at 2011. Remember the budding that we are to construct will take us to 2025, according to the projection. You have the schedule and the order that we hope to bring to you in a couple of weeks, having to do with, okay, having to do with the planning and hiring consultants. This is a very specialized field. Buildings have a lot of requirements that are, just like courts, when you build courts, you need to hire a court planner that is more familiar with the operations. Double for medical examiner's offers. This is forensic science center and medical examiner's office. There is a lot of science, maintaining any contamination dealing with decomposition of bodies, diseases that, finding out cause of death could lead to other public safety issues. You also want to look at a site for possible disaser recovery in dealing with mass disaster in the area. So we do need to do substantial planning. And that process would take about four or five months we're talking, leslie?
>> eight.
>> eight months. To hire.
>> to hire, yes.
>> why don't you go over the schedule, lesliei'd be happy to. Tentatively we have expectation that rq, with your approval, would be out on the street in March. About four months for the processing of the rfq as well as the negotiation of the contract and contract award. That is a little, may seem a little bit short. You may recall back in November, you exempted this procurement from the formal process that's going to be handled as informal r q. We have a short list of three interested planning firms and will expect a prompt turn around on their response. Then after contract award, hopefully by June, they would begin what we expect will be an eight-month planning process. And that will involve several cycles of review and approval of their work and presentation to Commissioners court. We would like to achieve a preliminary definition of the project in terms of the size of the building that we're going to build, really, and what we really expect at the planning level it will cost, by next October, October of 2008, so that we can use that information to frame, then, the rfq for selecting the actual design trects--architects. The final completion of planning phase would be, final approval of the project definition by the court in January of 2009, and that would be concurrent with the selection of the ae design firm and commencement of our prenegotiation with them and expecting then to have an architect to design the building under contract essentially a year from now to move ahead. Our key goal is to achieve schematic design with court approval of schematic design, and a budget based on a schematic design cost estimate, by may of 2009 so that you will have meaningful cost information about this building before the public hearings for the 2009 bond election.
>> let me ask.
>> I’ve heard a lot of talk this afternoon. You know where I’m headed. Somewhere in this schedule we have to discuss neighborhood involvement. Now, I hear what you are saying and I’ve look at the sites that you have basically looked at and put your criteria in precinct one. Now, there are several neighborhood associations affiliated within this particular area that you are talking about. Yet when we talk about a schedule, you don't include them. That whole master plan at the airport, for example, that's been under improvements with a lot of new development and new stores, new things out there, there was a significant amount of input. I mean significant amount of input from the adjacent affected hoods. So I want to treed this as I do anything else. I want to be sure that you understand that the neighborhoods are going to be involved in this process.
>> absolutely.
>> I don't see any, and I hear what you are saying, but every neighborhood that would have an opportunity to say what they need to say, needs to have that opportunity, afforded that opportunity. I hear no one saying that at all this morning, this afternoon.
>> Commissioner Davis, I think you can hear me say it today as well as I think the rest of us would as well . We talked about this in our meetings that we have had together as far as how we would actually approach that because we feel that that is very, very importantit's very important.
>> as we go along in the process. If you remember, I had something to do with, and you did too as a court, in regards to ctac also near that prompt. In that process we actually did the same thing. We made sure that we communicated appropriately, made sure that we had people understanding what we were doing. We were talking to the neighborhood associations. You are certainly correct, there's not just one, there are--
>> several.
>> --several. We were hoping to work with whatever precinct that goes in. If it's your, we want to coordinate with you and make sure we are toachinging every base we need to toach. That is not something we want to overlook we weren't going and talking about that as yet. We were just talking about site selection but are well aware--
>> when you start talking about rfp and start talking about design and all these other kind of things, contracts and all these other kind of things to negotiate, all these particular categories and yet there is no say from the neighborhood and I’m very concerned about that and just want to put you on alert that I’m watching it very closely and want to be sure the neighborhood that the impacted, I don't care where it is, has a say in this process.
>> what we had had hoped to gain this week and next is to get some direction from the court. For example, if the choice, 7815 to say then go out and during the four-month process that you are going out and looking for the planners, that we take that opportunity then to go out to the neighborhoods and talk to them and hold meetings and talk to them about the operations of the science center and medical examiner's office and the traffic patterns. But it would be better if we got some direction. Because you have so many neighborhoods. And they are distinct in these areas. We wanted to make sure that the people that we are targeting, that we are discussing with, are the people who would have a say and who would, the court would want to have a say on this facility going on that site or not.
>> now does that, I think the judge brought up a little point earlier and I kind of held on to it. And that is looking at b of this item. I’m not trying to get to b of this item as far as the current site, but when we look at all of this, there is still an opportunity there. I don't want to get all caught up in the a and then forget b as such.
>> we're ready to go to b if you are.
>> I’m just saying I don't want to forget b because that's another option available to us. I’m laying out all the ground work as far as what I’d like to see happen as far as a is concerned but, of course, another opportunity would be in b.
>> all right.
>> did you say 70,000 square feet? Was that the number I heard?
>> 50,000.
>> five --5,000 ten feet times ten pathologist. In addition to the public input process that we might be getting direction on in relationship to the site selection, we also have in the rfq scope of services for the planning phase, which you will see when that is sent to you, specific tasks related to the public input process that we will have our consultants onboard supporting us with because we expect and need to have public input and we have looked ahead to that.
>> and what is the going price for square foot for the me's office? Is that $200 a a foot? $300 a foot?
>> I think the range goes from 500 to about 300.
>> 385, I think.
>> from four to $500 a foot?
>> giving you a number per square foot.
>> 20 to 25 million building.
>> that's correct, 20 to 25that is about the range in today's costs. I want to be very careful to say in today's dollars. We have added some costs for inflation but the market right now is so volatile that that is the range, 20 to 25 million.
>> .
>> do we anticipate this will be a bonds election that will be a different bond election than the criminal courthouse?
>> than civil?
>> than the civil courthouse complex?
>> this will be further along in planning as of now. If we select a site, you will be one step closerment we get--closer. You get the consultant a board and you will be one step closer. I see this will be probably ready to go before that particular building.
>> and has the county ever held bond elections one year after another? I mean, do you do a small, I don't recollect, a small one and then a year or two later do a larger one? Or do you generally say, let's wait and load up everything for one big bond election and go for it? Because this doesn't sync with the civil courthouse. I wouldn't think that we would want to try to do a bond in 2010 or 2009, on the schedule. Generally, we weight for our five years. If the wait for our five years, that puts it to 13 or 14 before the civil courthouse . I know there will be some people not happy with that schedule. I mean, I’ve got some concerns about how, and had this is not a co amount of dough, I wouldn't think, but this could, I can see where y'all's schedule is pretty aggressive with this thing but from a money standpoint I’d like to have an idea of how we're going to pay for it and how this fits into play with what I see as being a much larger bond election by the time we get through with the civil courthouse and downtown campus and all that.
>> b is becoming more and more important? We're ready to talk about b.
>> I think we're ready.
>> we determined that in order to provide for the space for the total of ten pathologists, we would need an addition of approximately 40,000 square feet unto the existing 14,000 square feet that we have currently at. That gives you a total of about 5 had ,000. A little larger than--54,000. A little larger than what we would be planning for a new building. The reason for that is the footprint for the addition is very small of it's the north parking lot only. You would be looking at an addition floor plate of around 3300 square feet. Those small floor are very inefficientant when you start taking out space for stairs and restrooms. We needed to factor up additional total squire footage to take that into account. We know we cannot build on top of the existing three-story building because of strurl limitations, nor can we build on top of the existing autopsy suite bus that would put that capacity out of commission for too long a time to be tolerated by the current operations. So with the only, and we can't build over the north parking lot because that would interfere with the delivery area, where the traffic for bringing the customers in and out from the ally space there, and it's a steeply sloped parking lot and delivery area and not feasible to build there. That would leave potentially only north parking lot. The major impediment is that you have a public utility easement that covers most of the parking lot. Austin energy has confirmed the easement cannot be vacated and the underground electrical line from the substation immediately east of the office cannot be moved because it serves a large portion of downtown. Therefore, that easement by itself would prevent building on the north parking lot. In addition to that, let's say for academic discussion sake the easement didn't exist, we would be talking about a 12-story addition to get 40,000 square feet onto a 3300 square foot footprint.
>> b is pretty simple. That's the reason why it is--
>> not feasible.
>> cap letters.
>> a 12-story addition would be approximately 168 feet tall. And that would exceed the 60 feet height limit current by city of Austin , unless we had a zoning variance negotiated. Then also potential conflict with the capital view corridor, corridor number 26, from east 12th street at ih 35, which may be in conflict with a building on that footprint. But we have had to subject that to analysis with the city of Austin. Last but not least, currently under the north parking lot we have an active waste neutralizedation basin that takes the drainage from the lab. That would have to be relocated to build on the footprint. And hose are not il possible but certainly problematic. Certainly, to build would be undesirable functionally for two reasons. Because the new facility or addition would need to provide seven new autopsy stations and additional body cooler space, and these cannot fit in 3300 square feet. You would be having to locate those kind of fugs which are currently all on the first floor up to upper floors of the addition and that would be very inefficientant for the medical examiner's operation and would require an expensive and hospital side elevator in order to move bodies.
>> let's say that this particular usage of this particular property where we are cock pide now--occupied now, is no longer needed in the future. In other words, some other reason that we may have to go somewhere else. But I’m trying to look at ways to stay. I’ve heard all of the not-to, if the we do this, this is the consequence, if the we do this, this is the consequence, we do this, this is consequence I haven't heard anything if you look at the flip side. I haven't heard that yet. I do understand that folks don't want us over there anyway to begin w I understand that. I kind of caught the drift of that. People over in that area don't really want us in the site, at that site. That's been brought to my attention. My question is, it just appears that we are looking agent --at the not-tos more so than the can had-dos to make sure something can happen. I think there are other persons that want to use the site for something as far as what they want to use it for. Not calling any names. It kind of leaves us out. Hurry and get the heck out of there and find some other place to go. I’m looking for ways to stay there since we are entitled at this particular site, and for a touration--duration of however long. I don't know if it's satellite supporting in other things happen. I don't really know. I do want to make sure that site is not given up on it usage. I think it's very key I think to what we are doing. The other situation may or may not have to be as costly if we already have something that's already in operation. So that's another option that I think that we need to maybe look at. I don't really know. But I’m not hearing that at all, as ways so that we can continue to utilize this spot. And then how much capacity can we get there under the restrictions that are before us now. I’m not hearing any of those kind of things. I’m hearing reasons for why you think we shouldn't be there. It's almost like it's beginning to be a stacked deck. Go ahead.
>> basic limitation. Very typical limitation on that building as we cannot add additional floor on top of it. Foundation was build for three floors, the capacity of this building. In the past we have done renovation to the building since I believe, about 233,000 dollars of internal renovation to make the even more operational, and we did. So it's optimized right now. If you go to the second or third floor or even first, it's optimized. No more space to expand. Other thing, the bo --bottom line, in the north parking area, you have e-mail from Austin energy on the part b, exhibit 2, that a major. They have four electrical duct, let me read what they say. There are four electrical duct banks leaving Austin energy's breckenridge which helps provide pour to downtown Austin am it's not to put a building. That came from Austin energy. We have a major limitation at this site. We'd love to renovate and make it functional. We need to have ten pathologists. There's no room. It's a given.
>> my question though is how much can we glean out of the existing property. Since we don't, since we have a vested interest in it, we have money tide up in it all these years. Just give it up and move on? I don't really know. Since there is a vested amount of money and usage for the medical examiner, I think, in my opinion, I think we need to maybe continue to use this facility as we go forward with what direction we end up going as far as in court is concerned. I hate to just run off and just leave it when there is actually some continued usage for this particular property.
>> Commissioner, I think roger is going in another direction. I think if I’m, see if I am misunderstanding what you are saying or an understanding what you are saying. You are just saying before we would vacate that site, let's look at every possible option for us in what uses can be made of that site. Is that what you are saying?
>> exactly. Because of the cost amount, the money amount, Commissioner Daugherty brought up--i think you are aware of the fact, we are not moving because people don't want us there. We're not moving for reasons that somebody else wants the site. These plans have been in the making for quite some time. I think what you are concerned about is that we don't just simply give up the site and look at what uses we could possibly have with the site being our investment has been in that site. Commissioner, I’m certainly, I would think we would want to do that as we're doing this process and planning process. As you know, there is a particular interest in that site and that is on the table right now. We've not gotten involved in that. We've stayed away from that. I’ve got a reporter that called me not long ago asking, when are you leaving. And my response was, don't count on us leaving any time soon because we haven't any got to the planning stage yet. Well, can you give me how many months? I said, can't give you months. We're probably talking about several years. But right now we haven't gotten into that part of it because we're trying to get to this part of it. But certainly we will continue to look at what available uses are important that site. Again, that is the court's decision to look at this option that's on the table as well as other.
>> okay.
>> this environment will not serve beyond 2010, 2011, we have four offices for pathologists now. You you have five funded staff pathologists. If we were to hire all five of them right now, we don't have enough offices and they would have to share an office and also then the schedule. We would have to be innovative with the schedule. Remember the building that you have now has one autopsy suite for the ability to have two tables in there one decomp room and that is, that's it. That's it. So you would not be able to continue to use that as a medical examiner's office in the coming years if you maintain the service area that you have now.
>> I don't think he is going there. I think there may be other options we would look at as the site begins to be talked about in its use. That's why it would be medical school, medical examiner's offers itself. I think we are past point. We have already seen a 12-story building. I think we're past that point of looking at this facility for the next medical examiner facility. Am I an understanding you correctly, Commissioner, that is really what you are after? You are after us looking at the site and making sure we don't give it up before we see if there's benefits for us.
>> exactly. Checking my card here. When Commissioner Daugherty brought up some points especially on cost, when we are looking at other bonding initiatives, that is something that needs to be laid out. How are we going to fund it. Of course, I think we need to stay as long as we possibly can to make sure we get the most out of that while we are looking at other ways to fund this stuff. That's the trek --direction I’m going on. Everybody has their own thoughts on this. That's part of mine.
>> when we looked at these buildings and our needs, are there any me offices in the country that run more than one shift? I’m getting to the same thing that I always ask the judges. You put all these dollars in infrastructure. A lot of industries work a second shift. I mean, are there, there's bound to be another me office in the country that somebody gets off at three and somebody comes on at three. I mean, is that?
>> there might be. But as far as my knowledge goes, I don't know of any.
>> what is wrong with that? I mean if a major cost in running these kind of operations as they are corporate, I mean how do you get more efficiencies out of infrastructure? I’ve never quite bought off on that you can't get corporate orders, you can't get all the people that it takes to run it. I mean when people want a job, they want a job. I mean, can you, because you might be able to save a bunch of dough right there. I can see where putting a portable wall up and getting pathologists to share offices might be difficult. But as far as a lot of this facility, if you are talking about 5,000 square feet per pathologist, I mean, a small percentage of had a has --that has to be an office. I realize that's just sort of the average with the hallways and elevators and everything in it. I mean, I would love to think, maybe the industry that you are in, dr. Dolinak, we saw looking for you, there are not a lot of your specialty running around the streets. So it may be more difficult finding the path ol activity that will work a second shift--pathologist that will work a second shift. That may be more of an issue. If that's an issue, let's get it on the table.
>> let's think about that between now and next week. Let's also think about what if we were to leave the current part of the medical examiner's office that the there and acquire a siter for a second medical examiner's office. Now, we are limited, if we stop using this facility as a medical examiner's facility, our deed says it goes back to the city of Austin, from whom we got it. Or from which we got it. So the deed was kind of year on that. And when we executed the agreement, it was the best deal we could get. And we were next to the carpenter shop in the basement of breckenridge at that point. I don't know how bad they can make these facilities to be in the old movies, but they didn't match our situation. It was a real bad situation and we knew it for years. So our thing was, let's get out of here any way we can. And the city said, okay, you can why you this tract of land but when you stop using it as a medical examiner facility, we want our land back. And we said, okay. So let's look at those two things. Kind of boils down to efficiency I think. Question really is if you have ten medical examiners, what if you are five where we are now or four, and six at a new location, you would save a little bit on the money. But when you start operating, you have two locations instead of one. Still it has to result in less cost to build a second one. But long-term, the question is are you saving or is the inefficiency so great that it's not worth a few dollars you save up front. We may as well look at it. We can throw the questions out there. Unfortunately, somebody has too kind of think about it, maybe do a little research. The other thing, let's see if there are medical examiner facility in the nation that have basically more than one shift. But let not only do that. If we locate one, let's contact them and see how the situation is. How they manage to operate it. Kind of like night law school. When I wrote in law school, my thing was I need to go if it takes the midnight shift, I wanted to go badly enough to accept whatever I government luckily I got the day shift, y'all. I mean, we may as well look into it and see. In the end, I think dr. Dolinak can tell us efficiencies, accreditation standards, experiences of others that have been in some of the situations we are talking about. But are we in agreement we think that we have to do something because the current facility is too small and won't meet our future needs, and either we need to expand it where we are, or we need to get either another one the same size or another one large enough to accommodate the current program plus the expected expanded program?
>> yes.
>> let me throw one more thing out. I know Williamson county had talked about this. Is there any reason we should talk Williamson county? They are growing at a faster rate than we are. So I think, I’m looking for a way, but Williamson county is a different deal. With scott white and all of the hospitals that you've got, north Austin medical, there's a reason to at least sit down with them and say what are you all really thinking. It always bugs me that we continue to get depended on, you all are the big city in the region. Y'all go to the expense, y'all do it, and we'll send our business to you. But I’d like for us to at least think about that.
>> will we be ready next week or two weeks?
>> I think we'll be ready next week, judge. And we have about, we can make contact again. But about a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, we did visit with harris, sorry, with hays county, bastrop, and williamsson when we were trying to explore a medical examiner district. Williamson, because again of the cost,385 to over 500 a squire foot, were not thinking about doing that any time in the future.
>> you mean they are not.
>> they are not.
>> why sign us up for 385 to 500 a foot. But we're sure in favor of you all doing it. That's the thing that gets push back for me. Get in the game. If you need the business, then don't just look at us to always take it on.
>> that is the other side of the very tough policy issue of not serving the counties that you serve now.
>> that was brought up in discussions recently, perhaps going back to those, it's been, how long ago do you say you did that?
>> a year to 18 months.
>> that would still be worth the effort. What you have done today is raise some questions which we will be glad to come back and answer. There are other questions out there, what did our stakeholders our partners that we work w where are they still in regards to that. I don't want to give up on Williamson or hays. That's still some options.
>> we'll start the discussion off next week with that point. How is that?
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you all. Appreciate your work.
>> thank you for your comments.
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, February 20, 2008 8:09 PM