Travis County Commissioners Court
September 16, 2008
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next.
>> did we vote on that?
>> we did vote --
>> citizens communication gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter for up to three minutes. And jimmy castro signed in for item number 1 and he has given comments already. Gus pena and jenny clark.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, gus pena. Our prayers go out to all the individuals that were affected by hurricane ike this last week. I'm not going to speak on the item because you have to wait until the item comes up on the agenda to take comments. Item 2 on health and human services will be very important as to how much and what will be allocated to the victims of the hurricane but also not only that but also to the people how it affects those, the poor and need 82 in Travis County. Students need tutors forral gentleman and reading and writing. The requirements the students take algebra. I had problems with it at johnston high school. Please, if you know anybody that can volunteer, I'm telling the viewers, if you can volunteer to help our students grasp the matrix, strategies and concepts of especially algebra and math which is a prerequisite for requirement and graduation, please help mentor and tutor the students. A lot of students fail. A lot of students drop out because they cannot function or handle algebra. More funding is needed for mental health treatment. Many returning veterans have ptsd, bipolar conditions, anger management conditions. Many have mental health issues. Austin-Travis County mhmr dave evans' facility is doing a great job but a lot of them need more help. That was brought about because not only of katrina but because of the homeless individual will not seek assistance in the needed treatment to go to the treatment facilities. Many of our youth have anger management problems. It is a growing issue. They can't cope with a situation at school and home so funding is needed for that treatment also. My understanding is from washington, d.c. Is that there will be an investigation -- a current investigation by the attorney general -- I'm sorry, the inspector general, the government accountings office and congressional investigations who are started by senator gyms west, senator from virginia, a united states marine corps veteran at the request of many military veterans who have met many barriers trying to obtain housing vouchers under the h.u.d. Program. The veterans assistive housing program. This will give the veterans a voucher instead of going through different agencies to get a house if you are homeless, which right now the backup is that temple and waco v.a. Facilities, veterans administration facility which is not acceptable. Eligibility criteria he were not specified when these programs came about so it's vague who qualifies. If we can get the veterans who are individuals -- that will be less of a burden for Austin-Travis County housing authorities. St. David's hospital is going to have a prostate screening this Saturday, September 20th, from 9:00 a.m. To noon. Get yourself checked out. I tell you what, if you get prostate cancer and it's the late stages, you can't get healed. Last item, please donate food to the food bank for our senior citizens with high blood pressure and diabetes or heart conditions. Last item, judge Biscoe and Commissioner droughtry, thank you very much for having a good heart for the people and thank you very much all of you all for the hard work that you do for the people of Travis County. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
>> thank you, mr. Pena. Jenny clark.
>> > good morning, judge Biscoe and Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> my name is jenny clark. I'm here representing vote rescue. I still want to talk about the electronic voting machines. I understand that the machines are supposed to be delivered sometime at the end of this month, which is coming up soon. One request that we have is to allow our experts to observe the delivery and the testing of the 35 new voting machines that Travis County, in my opinion, unwisely approved $102,000 funding for last month. This would allow us to -- to observe what our county clerk relies on with her testing procedures. There is a conflict in information that her testing procedures will catch any malicious code and our experts are saying no, they won't. So I appreciate the fact that the judge and Ron Davis and others have supported have post-election study on this issue, but right now we're in an emergency situation with the use of these machines. So I'm again requesting the use of paper ballots for this election. I also have with me close to 350 -- this may not be all of them -- dear dana letters that have been collected over time. Dear dana, our county clerk, I demand all elections in Travis County be held with paper ballots, hand counted in public view. People should count, not machines. One of the most insidious problems with this is that we've delegated our elections to a private corporation and not to the citizens. It's not fair to ask Travis County voters to rely on dana's opinion that these machines are safe to vote on. It's clear they are not. We've delivered plenty of evidence to the contrary to you. I believe it may be even a dereliction of duty to not allow our experts to be present to oversee and to observe the testing procedures as these new machines are coming into the county election process. I'm a little confused that you had an agenda item, number 32, to consider and take action on issues related to the conduct of the November 4th joint general and special elections. So I was glad to see that was on there. I don't know why that got dropped. I don't know if it's -- anyway, I'm hoping we can have an agenda item or working session or whatever process you recommend, I'm not certain about 82 process about what exactly is the proper way to proceed and we will be communicating with dana about requesting our experts to observe her -- the acceptance of these machines. In closing, I would like to invite you all to a movie, on a happy note. Stealing america vote by vote is not a happy movie, in fact it's described as a -- the year's scariest movie. It does for american democracy what an inconvenient truth did for global warming. It tells the story of the myriad of ways voters have been disenfranchised through various elections over 20 years. After you see this movie, hopefully you will get even more informed about the information of our concerns. I'll be delivering these dear dana letters and your invitation to the movie. It opens at the regal on great hills trails. I hope to see you all at the movies.
>> I sent ms. Rennick an e-mail.
>> yes, sir, I have that here.
>> the one regarding our selling of the machine, of the paper ballot machines in 2004.
>> yes, sir, I saw that.
>> okay. Thank you. Jennifer gale is next.
>> good morning Travis County judge Sam Biscoe. All our Commissioners, injured Daugherty, Margaret Gomez and sara eckhardt and Ron Davis. I want you to get out there and sponsor revolution going after capital metro, the employees of capital metro so that we are ending this nearly 15-month contract. Failure to have a contract. If we have a failure to contract, then that means that they are worrying and these bus operators clearly need to have better health care. They certainly need more exercise. And so we're looking after all our other employees but we're not looking after our bus operators. The two-tier system allegedly removed half of the bus operators, which is probably more than half by now. So we need to end the two-tier system, give them retro pay, not this bonus, and we need to make sure they have the health benefits. They gave up the health benefits for the two-tier system which destroyed them. So they need to have both of those. They need to have health care and removal of the two-tier system. I want you to sponsor a resolution. I want you to get off your butt and get this job done. Our -- this thing that jimmy castro is bringing up about having a place up near braker lane, how many people are going to run up to braker lane for their health care? They have enough trouble if it's centrally located. They are needing emergency help, we're not taking care of our patients. Let's build a university of Texas medical branch. Let's begin the planning with the city of Austin and build this hospital so you and I can have the best possible health care? All the people from ike, they need the best possible health care. But the fact is as operation rescue has brought you, we don't know if you are rightfully elected or we should have been elected. So the question is you've heard all the evidence stacked against you. Why aren't you using paper ballots? And then confirming those paper ballots in a recount? Because oftentimes the count is inaccurate. There's no -- you are sitting on your hands when you should have done this year's ago. You've had enough evidence. So when it comes to the spending $95 million for a health care district, we need to take care of those funds for a university of Texas medical branch. We're paying $144 to spend money for people from other countries for the poor and the mentally ill. We don't take care of the mentally ill in our county. You see them walking the streets all day long. Why aren't we taking care of our mentally ill in Travis County? That's your responsibility. If you just want them to walk around say it's our policy to have the homeless walk the streets and live a more believe life, that's fine, but you need to stipulate that so people understand you have no intention of caring about the homeless or our election system or about --
>> [buzzer sounding] -- the people that are counting on you to show leadership. There's -- being a representative here and voting and then there's leadership. I want more leadership out of Travis County Commissioners court, and remember, don't forget to vote. It's coming up in a few weeks. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
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, September 16, 2008 2:37 AM