Travis County Commissioners Court
October 28, 2008
Citizens Communication
Now we come to citizens communication. This gives citizens an opportunity to address the Commissioners court for up to three items on the agenda let me -- call gus pena. Mr. Pena followed by ronnie reeferseed
>> [indiscernible] who will be followed by bill bunch, followed by margarita ash, in that order. Mr. Pena.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, I was not going to come back here any time soon but some questions an issues occurred in the community that I needed to bring up and address with some of you. Number one, thank you, judge, again for having a kind heart. Daugherty, good job. I wanted to thank publicly Commissioner Daugherty because in your precinct is an area we call suicide alley, mopac and 290 west. There we nearly lost our lives when an idiot, excuse me, a lady ran two red lights at 65 miles an hour. I can judge distant and speed pretty good. I want to thank you for the effort that you have done to improve not only public safety but the safety of drivers in that area. I have called the chief of police, art acevedo to provide motorcycles just to provide an appearance there of an officer to slow down traffic. In the mornings when I take lucio to school, it is down right dangerous. People are still running red lights. A.p.d. Thank you for curbing down the people who are running red lights and speeding. Thanks for your input and support, Commissioner Daugherty. I am kind of concerned with the presentation. I wasn't going to speak on this issue but, you know, let's define poverty as it really is to get assistance from Austin Travis County. And let's change that number to 854-4100 to a number that people can get a person to talk to instead of having to be transferred from a machine to a person. Poverty to be able to define that. Also one item about people in emergency situations. I can understand that, but still there are people that are very poor need help immediately. If not they're going to be evicted or electricity is going to be cut off. Again I said downturn in the economy brings about poverty and problems. Assistance for the poor, electricity, et cetera, needed. Housing vouchers, senator james webb senator from virginia, congressman lloyd doggett working very hard on improving the situation about the housing veterans for -- housing vouchers for veterans. The hud-vash, a total washout. We need more support in cleaning up the system to house veterans that are homeless. Again, I'm going to say this. We're going to need some more support with the economic downturn, brings up a lot of anger when -- especially parents are not able to provide for their children, christmas or whatever, school supplies et cetera. Anger management is going to be needed, you are going to have a lot of people that are angry because a lot of poverty is prevalent, prevailing out there in the community. We need to support, make sure that programs are there, not only in homes but in schools to provide anger management courses, very important. We need more math tutors for all of our students. Geometry, algebra, calculus, trigonometry are tough subjects. Please, anybody out there knowledgeably in mathematics volunteer in whatever schools you can. We need help everywhere. Anyway, I will wrap it up. Greg and vicki and -- head the afl-cio, they know what they have done, thank you very much, god bless you.
>> thank you. I will need the following individuals to come forward. Six chairs and six mics. Ronnie reeferseed. If bill bunch would come forward, please, also ms. Ash, come forward and have one of those chairs there.
>> good morning, judge, maybe is mispronounced. I choose to pronounce my name ronnie reeferseed. The question is why do we vote? Voting is for citizens to express their preferences for candidates who most closely reflect their decisions on the issues, not to line up blindly behind the "lesser of two evils." they are both evil. One's vote is the best indicator of the voter's ideas. Neither of the stooges stand up to say no to the ongoing bankster bailout estimated at $700 billion, internal documents estimate 5 trillion is the real bailout there, paid for by taxpayers for the rest of your lives. By the way the vote for intro interventionnallistic conservatism like george washington is not to be found unless you choose to write in your vote. To cancel the ongoing counter productive war on pot smokers and to say know on the bankster bailout to bring our troops home from all over the world. To protect our borders, there is the constitution party nominee chuck bald kin. He is the write-in candidate who earned the vote from my hero dr. Ron paul. The state of Texas here in Travis County makes it difficult. The voter has to choose to cast a write in vote, then spell his or her candidate name correctly for the ballot to even be counted. This is yet another reason to switch back to easier verifiable paper ballots as the voting machines are unusable, non-verifiable, easily scannable to scan the results. We never have the ability to see our votes anywhere along the line. So come on, people. Ms. Dana debeauvoir last week answered my inquiry about paper ballots that we have to wait for the Texas state legislature to make these changes. She lied to me as you all know each county makes its own rules and decisions on the mechanics of vote casting and counting. Again this decision is made by you people. To protect our sacred votes. Again don't waste your vote on -- now on my hero dr. Ron paul. That vote cannot be noted much less counted to vote for peace and freedom people need to write this chuck baldwin, spelled out just like it sounds. Don't waste your vote. Chuck baldwin's ideas can be fully researched online, by the way, www.baldwin08.com. And again this is in your hands, not up to the Texas state legislature. Y'all have the power to make sure that our votes are counted. I don't know anything more sacred in our form of government than counting the votes correctly. All citizens want their votes to be counted correctly. I don't know what the problem is. Why do we give in to -- to -- to ms. Dana debeauvoir's lie about the Texas state legislature. It's not in their hands, it's in your hands and we've had the multiple testimony -- lines of --
>> [buzzer sounding] -- multiple ideas about why that needs to happen. I really appreciate the other voting enthusiasts who have appeared here before me, thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> bill bunch is next.
>> thank you, county judge, Commissioners for your time and service to our community. I was here to speak just briefly in support of your greene county initiative. I really appreciate that you are doing that. And wanted to urge your attention to water conservation at the county level. Unfortunately we're not getting the full leadership from the city that we should be having in that area and I know that the county can play a critical role in moving our community forward on water conservation. Also, I wanted to urge you to pay attention to transportation. We need a real focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled as our top priority in the community. I think that -- that the county can play an important role there. Switching subjects, I wanted to just briefly urge you to -- to vote no on your item 53. And that's the permitting the paul hornsby appraisal to go forward. I don't know what permission means. I hope it doesn't mean paying for it or in any way endorsing it. But it seems like if you are being asked to vote on it, that -- has is some sort of advance of giving it due respect. I say this because I spent some time with real estate professionals reading very carefully the hornsby appraisal of the water treatment plant 4 site the new one which will obviously be a leading comp for the appraisal that's being considered. And this is -- this is horrible. Mr. Hornsby is a professional, he's been around this community for a long time. There's no excuse for the scam that this appraisal is. It completely ignores the massive power line easements and other easements that criss-cross the new water treatment plant 4 site. It assumes that the new water treatment plant 4 site had development approvals it didn't had, assumed it had water and sewer service, which it had none and it ignored the fact that the canyon heads coming up to that property really sort of chopped it up into a way that is -- that is not useful. As a result, the water and wastewater rate pairs of Austin ended up paying probably double on the order of $10 million more than it should have. For that site. I see the county being set up for a similar sort of bogus appraisal based on the transaction that mr. Hornsby already cooked up unfortunately successfully at great expense to us, all of us. I please urge you to vote no. The cave tract needs to be protected. I have been working on getting that area protected for over 20 years, literally. And -- and I -- y'all need to pay attention but that has to be balanced with some financial responsibility and bringing mr. Hornsby into that is not the way to go. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> margarita ash is next.
>> thank you.
>> hi, hi name is margarita ash, I am the president and ceo of fine arts electronics as well as the executive director of the rose ash empowerment foundation. These are beginning ventures for me to get back on my feet. I was a very competent professional. Judge Biscoe you saw me speaking at the a business plan competition that won at the university of Texas, published in the wall street journal, university of Texas
>> [indiscernible] war ton. I went on to lead a project, leading projects that brought millions and billions of dollars into the united states economy. Yet this is how I was treated at the Travis County attorney's office. My batterer through alice london knew mac martinez. Mac martinez would not let me fill out a protective order. That would be a very important paper trail should I found dead for a homicide investigation. Every time I came, it wasn't mac martinez, they would call the police to walk me out. I wasn't allowed to say anything. I wasn't allowed to write anything. And mac martinez at the time was head of misdemeanors division. I decided that I brought in a box of evidence, they then called the a.p.d. Swat team to intimidate me to walk out, as if that box was a bomb. Then I said okay, if they are going to play this game, I'm going to bring a witness with me. I brought mr. Ralph olery, I have his notarized statement as to what happened that day. On that day mr. Mac martinez came out and when mr. Ralph olrey started telling him about this guy following me, witnessed to domestic violence and stalking, mr. Mac martinez started yelling at him. As long as I'm charged he will never be prosecuted. As long as I'm in charge. That's how end ethical this guy is, he needs to be removed. Later on I visit mr. Ohlery he shows me the front of the Austin american-statesman, it's a mug shot of this guy mac martinez arrested for drunk driving while he's in charge of prosecuting drunk driving cases. I saw articles in the Austin chronicle concerned about this. I -- I was horrified when he was put in charge of the family violence unit. I want this guy removed. A lot of people want this guy removed. We don't know how to do it. I have gathered 24 people now willing to picket in front of this office with posters that say protective orders are harder to get than guns. Do you want victims of domestic violence and child abuse to be encouraged to get guns instead of protection in the system? My daughter through these people was denied protection against child abuse and as a result she is permanently, physically scarred on her face for the rest of her life. And I've asked the londons for restitution. And if they don't want to do it, there is a lawsuit that will be filed against alice and jack london. Jack london tried to intimidate me and threaten me with ex parte communications with the judge saying he had an e-mail to communicate with judge dietz. And I did not. I asked him, that's not allowed bylaw, you are not supposed to have ex parte communications with a judge. He uses his personal connection with this judge dietz to have me thrown in jail.
>> thank you.
>> this guy is not going to throw me in jail he's not going to hurt me. I will get a gun to protect myself if he pulls this stuff again. That's the end of my presentation, I'm fighting. I'm going to get my life back. I'm not going to be living on disability anymore. I am a competent professional. My name is on the university of Texas wall plaque there is no reason why a woman like me should be allowed to die in this community.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, judge Biscoe for being very compassionate when I did e-mail you. You e-mailed me back. You are one of the very few people that e-mailed me back at a time when I was history centercal and didn't -- hystecal and didn't make any sense. I intentionally skipped consent items, we will pick those up later. Good morning, executive manager for administrative operations.
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 28, 2008 1:38 PM