Travis County Commissioners Court
October 21, 2008
Citizens Communication
>> citizens communication is next. Citizens communication gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda. Frances martinez is first. Second is ronnie reeferseed. If we could get both of them to come forth. Gavino fernandez, junior will be third. Good morning, ms. Martinez. Frances martinez first, please.
>> judge, if you don't mind, could we go together or he go first? Either one?
>> y'all can go together, fine with me. If you all speak one at a time.
>> yes, sir.
>> good morning, my name is frances martinez. Thank you for having me here today to citizens communication. And I am a member of christo ray catholic church, we are having an October fest, which will be October the 26th, at 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. It will be held at parque zaragosa, that is located at 2608 gonzalez street. We will be having a family fest. It's a -- it's a family oriented festival, we would like to invite each and every one of you and the public. We will be having food, games, for the whole family, and we will be having music. It will be a fun thing. We will also be having some -- a raffle for -- we will be having a thousand gift certificate, $500 gift certificate, and the $75 gift certificate, $50 gift certificate, children's
>> [indiscernible] and a bracelet, a statue of guadalupe, and a lady's watch. We would like to invite each and every one of you to come and join us for a fun fest on October the 26th at parque zaragosa, gracias, thank you.
>> that's this coming Sunday? Right.
>> yes, it is.
>> then I would like to also
>> [speaking in spanish]
>> will be it go good music?
>> yeah.
>> yes, it will be good music and lots to eat.
>> all right.
>> [laughter]
>> gracias.
>> thank you.
>> good morning, Commissioners. My name is gavino fernandez and I come before you as the deputy director of lulac district 12. Travis County is fortunate in having over 40 lulac councils which drove the state board to have us form two districts within our geographic areas and district 12 is that one new district. One of the invitations that I would like to invite you and your listening audience is to a -- an elderly conference scheduled for this weekend, October the 24th and 25th, at the dove springs recreation center. It is the free event and it is an events where we are asked -- where we are inviting senior citizens from throughout central Texas to attend this elderly conference to discuss issues that affect our senior population in our communities. We will have -- we will have organizations like aarp, wallgreen's, h.e.b., many of the corporate industries that cater to our senior citizens. So I want to extend this invitation at -- again it's going to be at the dove springs center at 8501 amos drive and Friday will be from 9:00 to 6:00 p.m. On Saturday from 8:00 a.m. To 1:00 p.m. We also have the honor of having our national president be in attendance on Saturday, rosa rosales, the national lulac president. Joining us at this conference. I also want to encourage people in our communities to take time to vote, early voting started yesterday. Many of our people need to -- to understand and realize that that's the most powerful possession that we have as u.s. Citizens and that's the power to vote. This is a time where -- where many -- all of the elected officials go through that public evaluation, if you will. And -- and we just need to increase the number of voters in our communities. It has been very low in the past. However, traditionally, on every presidential year, we see that increase to -- to double fold if not much more higher. Another thing that I want to emphasize is this event at parque zaragosa is that we are also part of a mission to educate our communities, that -- that we can enjoy and have fun and be with our families and socialize where alcohol does not have to be present. We -- this is our second event that we are promoting that is alcohol free. So it's very, very important for our community to be able to have these type of events available in the public so that they can attend with their families. Judge, thank you for the opportunity to be before you, we look forward to seeing you all, thank you.
>> thank you, gavino.
>> mr. Reeferseed next, followed by Karen rennick.
>> good morning, good morning Commissioners. I want to urge my fellow citizens don't waste your vote on tweed del dumb or tweedle dumber, both parties have sold out to the criminal bankster bailout scheme that by the way sold out your family's future. Foolishly flagrant
>> [indiscernible] by the way we have a choice to voice our refusal to go along in his name is chuck baldwin, the constitution party nominee, ob/gyn dr. Ron paul has thrown his support, full support behind chuck baldwin, because like dr. Paul chuck baldwin understands that we do not have to surrender untold trillions to these criminal bankster thugs, he understands that our nation is better off defending our borders than bossing around everyone else in the world. Both Ron paul and chuck baldwin are attuned to general george washington's warning against foreign entanglements so as to keep good relations with all of the nations throughfare trade, peace and fair trade. We now have a standing army by the way, over 10030 other nations. 130 other nations. How would we like it if one other nation had a standing army here telling us what to do. How about 130 other nations? There are now over two by the way also there are over two million people behind bars here, over half on drug charges, over half of those people are on non-violent marijuana charges. Who thought that up? By the way, since 1996, democrats, republicans and independent voters in 12 states have overwhelming demanded that med Decembernal marijuana be decriminalized, they have defied the public to satisfy their masters, the organized crime thugs. Who else benefits from this? Doctors? No, they want to observe their hippocratic oath and best treat their patients, do no harm. Do cops benefit? No, they are sick and tired of dying to keep the organized crime thugopoly on marijuana. Do farmers benefit? No, obviously our continuing evaporating family farms would all benefit from having the option to grow these thriving food fibermed Decembernal drops. All of us will benefit from cutting down fewer trees. By the way, during my lifetime, the human population on the planet earth has more than doubled from 3 billion to over 6 billion and we need the topsoil to grow crops. We once again can certain our leadership on the world stage by example, not bulletin bombs. Again, chuck baldwin who has won the full fledged support from republican representative presidential candidate ob/gyn dr. Ron paul is on the ballot here in Texas as one of the approved write in candidates. Dr. Paul cannot be voted for because he is not on that list of approved write in candidates. So by the way
>> [buzzer sounding] in the first quarter of this year dr. Paul received more campaign contributions from soldiers, active duty and veterans, than all of the other candidates combined. If you support our troops, support chuck baldwin, don't waste your vote on either war party as their candidates have both declared their intentions to continue our nonsensical war against islam. Vote for peace and freedom for chuck baldwin. To quote somebody else that was up here, it's fiscally irresponsible to pay off the bankster thugs. Thank you.
>> if you don't mind can we reverse the order.
>> vicki carp with vote rescue. We took a break last week from being here because we were giving testimony to the Texas senate committee on state affairs about the security risks of electronic voting alongside dr. Dan walllick of ice university who as we have stated -- rice university who we have stated here several times has reviewed the software of the hart intercivic voting machines that we are using here in Travis County who says as we do that these voting systems are absolutely vulnerable to undetectable and multiple types of tampering that could clip election results. They should not be used in the upcoming election November the 4th. The senate committee took this information very seriously and we are pursuing further meetings with them. Now, two weeks ago, I addressed the possibility of this court creating a mandate for -- for a -- what we would refer to as a hybrid election, November the 4th. Which would allow voters to choose whether they would prefer to vote on paper ballots, which would be hand counted, or voting on electronic voting machines. We want to acknowledge Commissioner Daugherty for supporting what it is that we are trying to accomplish here in our efforts. An interpretation of the state election code by county attorney julie joe was given as a reason why this could not occur. She was referencing section 123.005 of the code, I have e-mailed this information to you a week or so ago. This was interpreted for julie joe by elizabeth handshaw as the reason why hybrid elections would not be allowed to occur in Travis County. We wanted to call the court's attention to the fact that her husband is michael wynn who is the county programmer for elections for dana debeauvoir's office. We have the highest regard for michael wynn, but we do feel this code interpretation could certainly be construed as a conflict of interest for his wife to be interpreted code in this manner when clearly code statute number 123.007 actually can be interpreted in just the opposite way. That information was e-mailed to you. These pieces of code that we're talking about here. In at least three counties in Texas hybrid elections are occurring. Tarrant, Williamson and cottel county. Also as stated in my e-mail section 123.001 of the codices code says that the county Commissioner is the adopting authority to decide what voting system can be used and that if ordered by the governor or by a county authority, you have the right to say whether electronic voting or paper ballots would be used in our county. We feel that in the emergency situation in which we find ourselves right now in Travis County, where voters are being forced to vote on electronic voting systems that have been proven
>> [buzzer sounding] to have undetectable fraud capability and election manipulation, we are imploring you one last time because there still is time before November 4th to change the voting systems at least add paper ballots, hand count the as an option. We can help you find the hand counters. We have had amazing support from citizens who want to help do this. There is still time to help avoid an election catastrophe November 4th where citizens will never know if their votes are properly counted. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> ms. Cart.
>> actually, I'm Karen rennick. Is this on? Thank you. My name is Karen rennick, I'm with rescue and also texans for real elections. I want to finish up a few points that vicki wasn't able to conclude. One is that in our attempt to bring information from experts such as dan wallick and even though we present these ad nauseam, you all will -- have turned to the county clerk and asked her about her testing and whether it can detect any of the tampering that we are talking about. Dana has consistently said absolutely her tests can find this. Now, what we find very disturbing is that we come to you with all of these real people who are experts in their fields, yet we are totally unaware of dana being asked to produce any expert on her side that she confers with. She has thrown out the names of organizations, but no people. So we just want to bring that up again as a very serious concern of ours is that we don't think that there is an appropriate consideration being made here. There's a severe disconnect in evaluating the information that we bring to you and simply the word of the county clerk. I wanted to -- to bring to your attention, also today, that already with early voting starting yesterday, there have already been reports from voters of their votes flipping on this screen of their voting machine. This has happened here in Travis County. And in harris county. Coincidentally both counties use the same voting system, hart intercivic e slates. It seems to occur when voters use the straight party ticket or straight party voting option on the machines. And what they consistently report is that they will hit that straight ticket button, on the review screen they will see their choice for president has gone to the opposite party. And this is the same story over and over again. In the past, because this has happened in numerous elections in the past, here in Travis County, the county clerk has written it off simply as voter error. We are tired of it being told to us as children that we aren't using these machines correctly. It is not voter error. It is due to the miss programming of these machines, this misprogramming is quite easy to happen. So we want to be sure that you all are aware of this and that perhaps you can talk with the county clerk, we think that it's within her responsibility to -- to make this problem be known to the voters so that she could tell people that they should not be voting straight ticket because there could possibly be a flipping of their votes and it's not up to the voter to make sure that the machine has -- has cast it, you know, correctly. Yes, there is a review screen. We know that, but we think that -- that the county clerk should -- should take it upon herself to -- to announce this to people and have them stop voting straight ticket. Thank you very much.
>> thank you. John white? Followed by mona gonzalez.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe and mexico of the Commissioners court. I'm -- members of the Commissioners court. I'm john white, director for environmental quality at t.n.r. I'm very pleased to introduce to you the newest member of our team. Tom webber is our new environmental quality program manager. Tom comes to us from tceq where he has many years of experience, he's been transcribed to as the go to guy for water quality. He's had an abundance of -- of experience. Including compliance and enforcement actions. We are very pleased to have him join us and we look forward to having us -- having his expertise and his leadership guiding our programs in both water quality, storm water, air quality and the like. I would like you to welcome --
>> air quality, also?
>> well, you know, you have to -- wear all of the hats.
>> welcome.
>> I hope that you will welcome tom.
>>
>> [indiscernible] welcome.
>> any comments?
>> well, thank you very much, judge, Commissioners. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward to having turned the page and moving on to a new leg of my career and working --
>> to a greener pasture, maybe?
>> [laughter]
>> well, I've been a long time Travis County residents and I really look forward to doing work for the local benefit here for our better standard of living in environmental quality.
>> we look forward to working with you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> you can look forward to us coming around and scheduling some meetings with each of you to discuss things in greater detail.
>> lovely.
>> thank you.
>> mona gonzalez. Good morning.
>> good morning. It is indeed a pleasure to be with you again on this beautiful fall day. In Austin, Travis County. We are here to -- to make a community announcement and an invitation to our fourth annual dove springs March for neighborhood crime. With me today are some members of our Austin fire department and I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves.
>> firefighter tim lafuente.
>> ely santiago, james Daugherty.
>> also with us today are members of the ballet folklorico, they are from tsu, Texas state university. We are really, really blessed that we can provide this type of an activity to the community, not only of dove springs but to set an example, a model for the rest of this county and possibly the rest of this nation. We have been doing the March for a few years. Some of you have Marched with us and you've been there. And you know what that's all about. Dove springs is a community that's a little bit challenging to grow up in. But activities like this help to make it safer and better and improve the quality of life. A place where we can raise healthy children. And that's what this is all about. We -- we are going to have a whole lot of fun that day, clowns,
>> [indiscernible] is going to be there, going to be you are emcee, congressman doggett is going to be there, the chief of police is going to March with us. A whole bunch of great folks are going to join us. It is going to truly be a beautiful event. Filled with children, with families. But at this time in our nation's economy, we are also feeling the pinch and feeling the brunt in our community of people losing their jobs already. Some of them already about to lose or have lost their homes and so we're feeling the hurt. And this year we're going to have a lot of fun, but we have a really, really strong moral obligation to expand the venue and this is what we're going to do, we're going to be providing a whole bunch of social services, health providers, financial, on site financial literacy, service providers like frameworks here in our community who are going to talk to folks about how they can possibly hang on to those homes
>> [buzzer sounding] and the theme, Margaret, this year is safety health, including mental health, because these are troubling times and we know what can happen during these times. And prosperity. The message is, in the faith community -- and the faith community is going to be there in numbers and in state. Saturday October 25th just a few days away. The message about prosperity is that it's not about money. Prosperity is the state of mind as well. Prosperity is what is in your heart. It's all about really making the most of life and during these economic times, the economies are very cyclical as we know. It's important to ask for help if you are depressed if you are feeling really, really desperate. If you are in despair. It is important. So we come here today to extend that invitation. We are going to have this beautiful mural of promise that is going to be created on site, on Saturday. And that is going to be a center piece of the policy making that we are going to undertake in dove springs to bring more jobs, to bring more services. To make life better for our families. I was just speaking with --
>> you are about two minutes over already.
>> sorry. Our Texas state university friends are bringing high school students from san marcos. Those young people want to know what a community is like that does this type of an event and outreaches to its families. So I'm seeing that we are becoming that model that we dreamed of. For other communities and my hope is that -- is this that type of an events can happen across this county and all across this nation. Unite for the right reasons, unite for good and strengthen, strengthen the family and strengthen the community and all it takes is devote the energy and the resources. And it will happen. We have seen it happen and it's going to happen again on Saturday, October 25th. So we extend an invitation to you. And Commissioners, judge, please come and March with us as well. If you don't want to March, capital metro is providing the dillo.
>> thank you, ms. Gonzalez.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much for your time.
>> thank you.
>> and for your --
>> good luck to all of you.
>> thank you.
>> jennifer gale is our last one.
>> now that's leadershipship. What a wonderful group. Hi, travis, county judge Sam Biscoe. County Commissioner Margaret Gomez. Candidate for county Commissioner precinct 3 Gerald Daugherty. Commissioner sarah eckhardt. My candidate for Commissioner precinct 1 Ron Davis, good luck.
>> thank you.
>> our county attorney is here. I gave david escamilla my vote yesterday. I voted. I suggest everyone else vote, you can learn about the candidate at www.votesmart.org. And learn, actually see what the candidates think. You don't see that when they are discussing back and forth. Like barack obama, he's trying to stop abortions more than you think, probably would do a better job than the republican party. The question is who do you trust to vote for? Well, a lot of our politicians have done a lousy job, it's time to take the people you love and remove them from office. Now who do you trust the most? Your mom? I would suggest if you vote on your mamma, then you are going to vote for obama.
>> [laughter] he's up on health care. Our children through infancy, their babies should have sunglasses to protect their eyes so when they grow up they don't have to wear glasses like you and i. If you have a life threatening disease or anything that you are worried about, if you only have one week left to live, you should get with www.askdoctorlindsey.com. Dr. Lindsey duncan is here in Austin, but available nationwide. If you have any problem he can help you solve that. We have a strike coming up. If they don't stop it. They were forced to do another vote Thursday and Friday for capital metro bus operators, line workers and mechanics. I'm asking you to do intervention right now. Because it's going to happen. Remember, remember the fifth of November? That's what we're looking at. At how many thousands of people lose their jobs simply because they can't get to work or to school? To get -- to take their classes. We've had a lot of problems in our country. Why didn't nancy pelosi go after the president for impeachment. She shouldn't be here any longer. We had nine deaths last week for people under 55 years of age. We need hospitals. 884 foreclosures here in the county of travis. That's leadership that you can provide to stop those foreclosures from happening by suggesting they not get mortgages like they did. Austin has a vote on proposition 2. Proposition 2 is something that you should vote for. But the city is going to tell you that you should vote against it because they are the ones that are saying that your tens of millions of dollars should go to whatever project they want to go to in the private industry.
>> [buzzer sounding] proposition 1 again is to say that you shouldn't have the right to determine who your city auditor is. So it's very important. I voted for a president that was an american of african heritage and I'm very proud of that. Remember, when you vote black, you never go back. 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:
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:38 PM