Travis County Commissioners Court
July 15, 2008
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is first and this item gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioner's court for any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes and gust pena is the first one and he will be followed by linda and bob.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioner gus pena. Hope you are doing fine on this lovely Tuesday. Veteran claim is going to be expanded, next year the expansion is post to start. It is an old, updated facility and hopefully more veterans will be be served. Judge and Commissioners, I want to bring out a pretty serious matter yesterday about a veteran that went to brech enridge and was not able to purchase his medication due know insurance if it wasn't for friends throughout the city of Austin, this individual would not be able to receive his medication and I want to thank them. This is an on going problem and sometimes these people are being denied eligibility and I'm glad the person in the county attorney's office, a paralegal was making sure nobody is denied eligibility to the clinics. Commissioner Daugherty, I want to thank you, sir, for your continued commitment to support the youth functions throughout the county. You've been there many years, I know your background well and I want to thank you for this. I think it behooves us to acknowledge those that help the youth, they are our future and we need to help them out. I'm not going to address the issue of the item on the agenda, I don't want to tell you thank you because we've been dealing with it for many years, there is a lot of anger management problems with the youth and it is not good to not have funding to treat these youth. It is very parent to have treatment. I just finished speaking to senator's office in washington regarding veteran's issues. Again, I'm here to advocate for military veterans, the plights that follow are homelessness, job training is needed. I don't think anybody is asking for hand out, just a hand up and the growing insdents that are in Travis County, it is nationwide but I'm dealing with Travis County issue, housing is next to nothing for veterans with families. Whenever you all allocate funding for housing issues, supplies insure instead of having sro, single room occupancies, which is a good initiative, ensure that there are units for families that are homeless. I understand hud came out with a new initiative for homeless families, which is good, now the nation is changing their mind set on helping homeless families. Sro occupancy is for single individuals. That is all I have but I want to thank you so much for all the advocacy you dod in the community. Keep the kids active. I will be here to discuss other budget issues next week.
>> thank you.
>> linda zema.
>> good morning, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> my name is linda zemand, I'm a 30-year resident of Travis County and I'm here today to ask I not to issue the brushy creek region national water authority permits to lay a 6 into the 8 inch pipeline in a 18 foot deed, 10 foot wide trench. They are almost entirely a Williamson county entity and to use their own existing easements and right of ways. There are other viable routes they should be looking into in their own county. The citizens of these three cities who make up the bcrue elected developers on to their city council, so they should bear the brunt of this massive project, they should keep it in Williamson county. I do not have voting rights in Williamson county and I'm here to ask for your protection. Again, please do not issue the bcrua, brushy creek regional water authority, permits for pipelines down trails end road. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> there are problems in western Travis County with democracy and with the environment. We citizens of Travis County are under siege. We've been under siege by three governmental jurisdictions from Williamson county. We've been under siege for about a year. The Texas constitution expressly forbids the power of eminent domain for economic development projects. You are the only elected officials that we have representing us in the unincorporated area in western Travis County. Citizens of your county are being dragged into court weekly with eminent domain proceedings, high-powered lawers from Travis County hired by Cedar Park to expressly to take property rights and to deny protections to the environment out in western Travis County. The bcrue will ask you for a permit to dig a huge trench several miles through western Travis County. The effect of this project on the environment will be long-lasting and permanent. The project will severely disrupt the sub surface hydrology in a large swath of our valley. Thousands of tree will be cut on private property using temporary easements. The easements are called temporary but the damage will be permanent. Our trees also on the right of way will be replaced inch for inch, but trees on private property, I made the mistake of creating an arborous dream on my land by planting trees up to 30 years ago and nursing them along. The source of water for these trees is being undercut by these projects as they are in hundreds and hundreds of acres. Bcrue is in effect putting a french drain in a semiarid rocky environment, an environment that Travis County has known for 30 years to be so fragile they've restricted development severely in the five miles on either side of the one foot jurisdiction that Austin used to have, whatever, and those protections are gone now some of there is going to be damage to democracy and the environment if you aproof the request, not only will the environment be degraded leading to more erosion north of Lake Travis but there will be another kind of erosion, the further erosion of democracy. If you rubber stamp approve this project, it will erode property rights and wash away further the idea that government rule by the will of all the people --
>> [beeping]
>> okay, thank you.
>> you don't have to stop mid sentence.
>> okay. Will further erode -- um. Well, just be responsible with your constituents of Travis County. Thank you.
>> thank you. Anybody else for citizen's communication, whether you signed in or not.
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:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 6:13 PM