Travis County Commissioners Court
April 1, 2008
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. This item gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes. Gus pena is first. And are we still waiting on the reverend?
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> okay. Good morning.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, gus pena. I had the rare privilege of receiving communication from congressman allan green's office. Again I spoke to you about this item last week. This is in regards to what is styled as the h.u.d. Vash act. It specifically is stated veterans affairs supported housing. Congressman al green along with lloyd doggett, what they are doing is supporting and trying to ask the -- the senator and congress to fully fund the h.u.d. Vash act. They would have vouchers for homeless veterans to provide housing for them. Makes it a lot quicker response to house the veterans and their families or veterans, older. I have been asked to appear in washington to testify. I don't know if I want to go there or not. I was there when I was with the department of treasury, i.r.s. If it means to have the local input from locals here on the growing problem with homeless veterans and their plight, I will be more than happy to do so. I think this is one of the best opportunities this country has had to house the homeless veterans and provide services for people, veterans who put their lives on the lines in defense of country's freedom and other country's freedom and democracy. Be happy to more than do that. You have read the news in the paper, you have seen the news in the television, electronic media. Poverty is getting worse. Poverty hits not only the -- the poor, but also what is left of the middle class. I don't believe there is a middle class left anymore. More people are -- are applying for food stamps, poverty is getting worse. The gap widens between the have's and have not's, not acceptable here in america. I don't know, just a very sorry state of affairs. I think -- I think, judge, and Commissioner, I think that I’ve said this before, please fully fund in preparation for summer vacation the youth summer problems program. Keep them active, keep them engaged in something positive and not in organized crime. I would say -- I have said this before, I will say it again, I will just stop right there. A society's worth is measured by its treatment of the less fortunate and -- and you know every pen neerks every dollar that you all allocate to social service programs is a benefit and a plus for the people to get them on their feet, feed them, house them, provide health care. Please pray for our veterans whatever your political posture is, you know, they are there to -- to defend our country's freedom and our safety net. A lot of people are playing political games with this. Please don't do that. Support and pray for them, please. And that's all that I have to say, thank you all for your hard work and please help the poor. And the kids. Thank you, have a good day.
>> thank you, mr. Pena.
>> thank you.
>> we have a few individuals here on the -- the Austin disproportionatety advisory committee. Reverend ray hendricks will not be able to make it. Sherri flemming.
>> good morning, judge, economics, I’m sherri flemming executive manager for health health. I just wanted to say briefly that Travis County has had a long partnership with the state and child protective services to -- to ensure that the children of our community have the best possible care and services and along with that, we have continued to be a partner in -- in the department's efforts to look at dispro portionnalty as it relates to the number of african-american children who are a part of the c.p.s. System in foster care and also their disparity numbers in the population of children available for adoption. With that I will turn it over to my partners here to talk about a town hall meeting that will be held next week on this subject.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe and members of the Commissioner. Ora houston, I am a community member on the dispro portionalty advisory committee. Let me give you a background ... Passed by the 79 Texas legislature and signed into law, that bill provided for -- for the department of child and family protective services to do a comprehensive reform of that system. And as you know, that is a huge undertaking of child protective services system. One aspect of that reform was to look at the disproportionalty of children in that system. Those who enter, the number of who enter, those who languish in the system awaiting adoption, the leapt of time that -- length of time that people are in foster care. In 2006 this Austin disproportionnalty community was made up. This is not just a systems issue here with child protective service. But also impacts the school system, juvenile justice system, criminal justice systems, awful the systems that -- all of the systems that deal with black youth. So you see as we go across systems that the disproportionate number of children in special education, in juvenile justice system and in the adult system kind of relates to the number of kids that we have in the child protective services system. So we have been working and looking at these issues for a long time over a year. Part of what we know is that in order to engage the community, we have to have a town hall meeting. We have to have people understand what they have known in their hearts for years, that our children are removed from our community at greater numbers than other children. And so we know that and we talk about it. Why the system has our kids, somebody came and removed this child and they didn't come home and an aunt is over here who is willing to take them but for some reason that connection can't be made. We talk about it, but we have never done anything in an intentional way to correct the issue. Try to lower the numbers. So now after a year of listening to the statistics and the data that the child protective services staff has been so wonderful in presenting, we are now at a point where this town hall meeting is -- is ripe. We are ready to have the community come in and say to us what their vision is. Why do they think that these things are going on. The department has done a wonderful job in training, during cultural competency training all across the system, at all levels, especially those people, workers who go into family's homes that see a world from a different perspective. And see poverty from a different perspective. And so they really are trying and so we are inviting each of you and members of your staff to the town hall meeting. We have given each of you a flier.
>> [beeping]
>> thank you.
>> I’m -- good morning, judge and Commissioners. I’m chris with the family and protective services. The only things that I would add to what ms. Houston has said is to thank you all for being a partner with us. Thank you particularly health and human services for working with us on -- with us on this. As ms. Houston said, it's not something that we can do by ourselves. It's not a problem that child protective services or family and protective services can solve on our own. It takes the cooperation of the county and the city, the education system, all of the other systems she pointed out. Thank you for being willing to work with us on that and as she alluded to, if you can be present or if someone can be represented at the town hall meeting coming up next Tuesday, it's at the rosewood recreation center on north pleasant valley. It's going to happen from 6:30 until 8:00 hopefully to get you out of there before too terribly long. Thanks once again. This is not just another word about this work. It's not something, you know, those of us in government, those of us who sort of have these strings to pull can do some of this. But what we're really trying to do is get the community involved, not just involved but driving this process. The community knows what's best. It knows what works with its own families, within its own neighborhoods. That's something that I think we at family and protective services have come to realize after a very, very long time that -- that this is something that, you know, we can't come in as a state or as the county and tell you what's best for your family. It's something that you've got to partner with us, families have to recognize what -- what can be done to -- to fix these problems and we want to hear what they have to say. So thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Jennifer gale was signing in a moment ago.
>> thank y'all.
>> jennifer gale.
>> good morning,.
>> good morning. Hi Travis County. Judge Sam Biscoe, Commissioners Gomez, Daugherty, my Commissioner Ron Davis. Do you know what today is? April fool's! Today is also election day. You should all run down and vote for our favorite d.a. Who we want to run the d.a.'s office for the next few years. I came in here to tell you identify never heard about a dropout rate for the Austin independent school district. You don't hear it in the news, you don't -- you google, you have a hard time finding any dropout rate. But in -- in dallas, when I’ve been up in dallas, they always talk about their dropout rate. It's right around 50%. But our -- because they track our students so carefully, they say ours is at 77.3 dropout rate. That means you only have three quarters chance of making it through high school. But we're given a rate, 58.2% by a non-profit agency. 58.2. So in the city of Austin, we're creating people that aren't educated well enough to get into college. And of those 58.2%, how many of those were socially promoted? So we're not doing a very good job on our education or supporting our education. All that I’m asking is that the Travis County Commissioners court to support our educational system. Maybe this is a great Austin chamber of commerce creating this. Not letting people coming into our town know what's really happening here. Then again we may be educating people from other parts of the world that can't get an education where they're from. The bus contract has been 10 months since we've had one for our capital metro and I’m asking that you sponsor a resolution telling the bus company -- it's good that lee walker stepped down. I’ve been asking him to leave for years. He's finally stepping down. They're spending money on a light rail system when they are not even running our bus system. Our truck drivers are on strike. I think we should support them. Now they're talking about national health care plan. Our -- our health care providers are saying we need a national health care plan when they have been denying it all these years, complaining they won't get to you for months. We need to train doctors and nurses, we are not doing that in our nation. We have keep Austin beautiful on April 5th. You get a free lunch between 11:00 and 1:30 after picking up some trash. And our pets, we lose about 13,000 pets in Austin. U.t. Tuition is going up to $4,266. Five percent increase, that's after deregulation. Look what that's done to our parent' walts. The most important thing is 40 years ago, April 4th, martin luther king, jr. Was murdered. And we're not living up to his principles and I think that's what we should strive for. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> anybody else for citizens communication? That's to address the court on any matter not on the agenda.
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, April 2, 2008 8:51 PM