Travis County Commissioners Court
April 22, 2008
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. Two citizens have signed in. One is gus pena. By the way, this item gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes. And mr. Pena will be followed by john brady.
>> good morning, judge, gus pena. Saturday was an emotional day for all vietnam veterans of the state of Texas. The state of Texas long overdue a remember established a memorial for the vietnam veterans for the state of Texas at the state cemetery on Saturday. I was privileged and honored to attend the commemoration. The governor was present as was the land Commissioner and many other dignitaries. Many vietnam veterans and veterans as a whole and also three former prisoner of wars. One a marine lieutenant general whom I met right after he left vietnam. So I thank the state of Texas, I thank the governor and I thank everybody that was involved with the presentation and establishment of the memorial for the vietnam veterans. Long overdue, but thank god it's there. I would proudly like to announce to you, judge, and county Commissioners, because of my complaints of the city council not holding budget sessions like the Travis County does, well, our illustrious city manager, who I have great respect for and I appreciate the man being in that position, they are going to establish budgetary work sessions just like you all so I guess my complaint is going to have to tone down a little on that. Anyway, I admire mark ott, our city manager, I respect him. I also supported jolean from san antonio. Item number 3, we have so much support from elected officials nationwide, especially a former presidential candidate also regarding the veterans assist housing, for not just current veterans who many are at risk of losing their homes and not coming back to jobs, hopefully they can sustain their homes and mortgages, but also to the pry service of military veterans, vietnam era. The other conflicts that occurred from then until now. And I think it speaks highly of our country to take care of the veterans. I don't think any veteran will come out and say, hey, I want a handout, I want a handout. Last item also, and you know there's an item on the agenda I知 going to speak to also about guidelines for hiring ex-offenders. There was a typo and I called roger jeffrey on Friday. I said I知 not going to speak to the agenda item. It says some positions may require a criminal background, et cetera. Page number 6. I hope they corrected that in your backup that it reflects what they mean instead of just saying we're hiring people with criminal backgrounds, they may require criminal backgrounds. That's all I have to say until this item comes up on the agenda and I thank you for your time and thank you for your patience with us. God bless you.
>> john brady. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. I知 john brady. Safety specialist for Travis County through the human resource management department, risk management division.
>> [inaudible] you may know.
>> I知 with the county attorney's office with the underaged drinking prevention program, and we have a wonderful partnership that we want to share with you to best serve the employees of Travis County as well as the citizens. John?
>> Saturday we're going to be presenting a national safety council's alive at 25 parent program. This is a program that's designed to educate parents and teens to the risks that are specific to teen drivers as they navigate on -- no pun intended -- the road to safe driving. Teens are an extremely high risk group, mainly due to inexperience. And there's now a graduated driver's license program in place that limits what teens can do during their first few months of driving on the road. So hopefully through presenting this program we're going to help the teens work with the parents in coming to a parent-teen contract. As to what will be expected of them, what they will be allowed to do during the first three months, to limit those risks to themselves and others. The Travis County sheriff's office has also been good enough to supply an officer to answer any law enforcement questions during the presentation.
>> I also wanted to add that, as I said, we certainly want to make sure that our children of county employees are safe, but we are also opening this up to the community and the underaged drinking prevention task force who is meeting this Thursday, we meet monthly, will also have this presentation. We have about 35 community folks signed up. They include parents, they include p.t.a. Representatives and representatives from the school districts. So again we are delighted to have this partnership. We'll be doing our part to stress the alcohol component, that's what we do best. Thank you for your support.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you very much. Anybody else for citizens communication whether you signed in or not? Jennifer gale was here. The consent items are next...
>> we're going back to citizens communication.
>> welcome back, Travis County. It's good to have you back on citizens communication.
>> [inaudible]. It's earth day today. Happy earth day. It's also e.r.'s 45th birthday this weekend and it's also election day next Monday. County judge Sam Biscoe, Commissioners Gomez, he can hard, Daugherty and Davis. Ron Davis, I think I heard your name this morning. I would like to thank Commissioner Daugherty for granting my request for a meeting on highway 71. We may save a great many lives because of that as well as the work slowing down the traffic with our law enforcement. We need to do it again after two of our children died at avery ranch. Let's slow the traffic down there as well. I知 also worried about item 29 where we're giving our d.a. $10,000 from the downtown Austin alliance. Our police department gave them, like, $29,000 recently. Affordable housing in Austin. 47% of our housing is going to people that are renting. One of my opponents lives -- I知 actually running for office. But one of my opponents lives in a $1.43 million home and the other lives in a $704,000 condo. They clearly can't relate to us. I asked them during the real estate council of Austin if they could relate to us. And they couldn't relate to us. To the people of Austin who have to throw away their money because they don't own their domicile. I知 asking people to call congressman doggett to bring him on board. Who told congressman doggett to break a leg? That's why you don't tell people to break a leg, they go cycling and accidents happen. But it will probably heal pretty quickly. I壇 like to thank former city council candidate gus garcia for his work on getting housing for the homeless. I think we should put 25% of our housing projects towards those on fixed income, those making less than $5,000. They need a place to live and we're not doing that for them. And then 10,000 incrementally raising the rate, but making it so that people can move into new homes. 11 months without a resolution for our bus operators. It was taken away from the city of Austin because we didn't give a contract to them. I知 asking for a resolution from the Travis County Commissioners court ending the two-tier system and a five-year contract. It's earth day. It was started by gaylord nelson in 1970. And they are celebrating it at the university of Texas. The earth's birthday -- e.r.'s birthday at peas park. Early election day for all of Travis County. And happy birthday willie nelson. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, jennifer.
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 23, 2008 8:51 PM