Travis County Commissioners Court
March 18, 2008
Item 20
20.
consider and take appropriate action on request to issue call for recommendations to name a county building
>> judge, forest, why don't you all, however many of you are here to say something, just three of you.
why don't you all come up to the microphone.
judge, the reason that I have put this on is because I have been approached by forest priest and I know that he has folks that are along with him with the desire that was basically stated a couple of years ago.
I think that the process of naming one of the buildings in precinct 4 after ramiro martinez we saw at that time that there was an interest for some other folks to be included in that.
quite frankly that thing got aways down the road so to speak where quite frankly I think all of us were kind of taken off guard as to other people at that time being part of, you know, what we did.
and after having discussed with forest and the group of people that obviously were also integrally involved with the tower incident back in 1966 with the whole whitman disaster, I told forest that I would be more than willing to try to find a building in precinct 3 that we could take and not only have the names of all of the other people that -- I think that this -- that this hopefully we will -- we won't have another group of people coming up here and saying hey we were also involved in that incident.
I this I that they have done their due diligence to make sure that these are probably, hopefully, all of the folks that will come forth.
and I think that it goes a lot -- even goes farther with this group coming and saying we also want to make sure that ramiro martinez's name is also on this plaque.
now, I know that the process that we have to go through here, given the fact that we really want to name this building and the building, you know, that I have -- that I'm talking about is 8656 b highway 71 west, which is one of the two buildings that we own in southwest Travis County, it's where our j.p.
and where our constable's office is along with a substation out of the county clerk's office.
I think that it would be appropriate.
of course, we will go through the process, given the fact that we have got to make, you know, all of the procedural things happen here with -- with putting this thing out.
finding out what we did whenever we did the martinez building, that people do get to submit other names.
I think that we did receive another four or five names once we advertised the fact that this is something that we're going to do.
but that's the process that I would like to get started here today.
forever rest -- forest has two.
I know one of the gentlemen that is here with forest.
if we could take a few minutes and then I would like to procedurally move forward and obviously the historical commission is not ultimately, the court is the ultimate decider.
I think that we will find we can move forward with this thing.
why don't I let them each say what they have got to say, go ahead, forest.
>> my name is forest priest.
I want to thank all of you, judge Biscoe and Commissioners.
Gerald has pretty much stated what we're talking about.
that -- any day that we wake up we have a choice of painting ourselves as heros, villians, geniuses, fools, anything in between.
certainly on that day I was painted as one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth because for reasons known only to him, charles whitman decided to shoot a man standing four feet to my right, in the 2300 block of guadalupe.
but the people that we have listed here certainly paint themselves as hero was a capital h, including obviously police officer billy paul who lost his life that day, all of the people who ascended the tower, the police officers, the department of public safety agent, william cowan, civilians, including allan crumb, frank holder, william wilcox.
all of the people that we will never know their names.
the beautiful red headed girl who with total disregard for our own safety rain out on to the main mall and laid down by claire wilson and talked to her for about 20 minutes while she laid on the scalding hot concrete waiting for somebody to help her out.
finally some men with total disregard for their safety, came out and picked up the wounded victims and carried them off.
the construction workers who over the protest of his boss ran out and pulled victims to safety.
the vietnam veteran who twice carried dead people to ambulances exposing himselfs to gunfire, the list goes on and on.
the bottom line is -- is we think that -- that all of the people who were heros that day deserve to have a building named for them, a plaque.
so we are putting our money where our mouths are.
we have already collected the money to pay for a plaque.
we found a vendor who will do an appropriate plaque for $1,500.
among all of us involved in this evident, we have passed the hat and collected the money.
it won't cost you anything to do it.
whatever it costs to put it on the building, we can cover that, too.
we have covered the cost of the plaque already.
I will turn it over to my colleagues here.
>> my name is frank holder, I sure want to put out to the court that the frank holder listed here is not me.
it is my dad.
and he told me about the events at the end of that day as we were going home from work.
I had a summer job on the campus that year.
and actually I was supposed to have been working in the area of the observation deck, with you for a last second phone call my assignment was elsewhere on campus.
but my dad was involved in this and got people to the observation desk.
desk -- observation deck.
he told me quite a bit about how the events unfolded on that day.
the thing that I really like about this proposed name tower heros being.
it's a general kind of name.
I would like to reenforce what forest just said.
that is the name will allow everyone to be involved, no matter what level their participation was.
whether it was direct or indirect.
forest mentioned some people that were on campus, dragging people to safety.
that's true.
we will never know who those people were.
there were people in the local hospitals who received those who were wounded and no doubt saved some lives in that regard.
so with the potential of -- name of this building being tower heros building, it encompasses everybody and it's -- it represents to me a community kind of thing.
a togetherness, a teamwork.
so again we appreciate your finding a building, Commissioner Daugherty, and we hope that the court at a future time approves this recommendation.
>> thank you.
>> leffingwell: hi, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
my name is kathryn ray.
and I've been a resident of Travis County for 54 years.
my brother, milton
>> [indiscernible] was one of the Austin police officers who went up into the tower on August 1st, 1966 to try to stop the sniper's reign of terror.
like many others I watched and heard the horror of the tragedy unfold that day.
I was working in the p.u.c.
building, now the Texas workforce commission building on 15th street.
we were watching the puffs of smoke out the window, listening to the radio, not having any idea that the sniper's rifles were powerful enough to hit us, too.
my husband, whom I didn't know at the time, was actually on the u.t.
campus, fortunately had just crossed the area where the sniper was shooting about a few minutes before the shooting began.
so we, like many others, remember that day well and we always will.
every year the media or almost every year the media tends to recount the events or at least their version of the events on the anniversary of that day.
but little has been done really to memorialize what happened and to honor those who really played a part in it that day.
I particularly appreciate and want to thank those of you on the members of the court for taking this opportunity to recognize everyone who was involved.
not just police officers.
but citizens and everybody who had a part in that.
the -- the families of those who lost their lives, the -- those who were wounded and will forever carry the scars of that day, the emotional as well as physical and everyone who was within the sights of the sniper.
I won't take any more of your time, but I really appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of naming this county building for such a diverse group of individuals.
thanks very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> I have a couple of questions.
one is that we did get a group of residents to come down and visit with us, just a couple of years back.
one of them is believe was monica mccoy.
was she down here on behalf of houston mccoy.
>> yes.
>> that's her father, right?
>> uh-huh.
>> did you try to include I guess to the extent that you recall the residents who were interested at that point?
>> sure.
in fact monica would have been here today but it's her last day before vacation she had work.
she couldn't take another day off unfortunately.
monica has been one of the key coordinators of this whole thing.
>> do we have a plaque approval committee?
I know we have --
>> no, sir.
that usually comes back to the court.
the process that is called for under the policy that you adopted is the court will call for name.
we usually take three weeks to about a month to put it in the newspaper and advertise it and channel 17, get anyone that wants to submit.
you set a time for the court to hear the item.
then it goes to the historical commission.
then it comes back to the court for approval.
at the time that you approve it, then we would go ahead and start working with the particular committee on plaque, the dedication, depends may take two months, may take six months.
depending on the sort of organization that needs to be done.
>> can we give them a copy of the written policy.
>> yes, sir.
>> so they know exactly what we are --
>> yes.
>> so your motion is about to be that we invoke and implement the county policy covering the naming of county buildings?
>> absolutely.
>> I'll second that.
>> any more discussion?
>> I just had -- one comment.
my sister was hiding behind a car that day.
I think this is a -- this is a very elegant way to handle it.
>> thank you.
>> we never would have been credited with being elegant, but I like the word.
>> [laughter]
>> yeah, thank you all.
we will -- we will move forward on this thing for you.
thank you.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
with Commissioner Davis temporarily off the dais.
thank you all very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:51 PM