Travis County Commissioners Court
November 4, 2008
Item 1
The others are ready. Citizens communication is first, this item gives citizens an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda. For up to three minutes, three signed in, jimmy ronnie reeferseed, number one, jimmy castro two, jennifer gale is number 3.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. By the way, I celebrate halloween all week long! But I'm ronnie reeferseed, a long time supporter of ob/gyn dr. Ron paul who has by the way delivered over 4,000 babies, many current students at u.t. Please don't waste your voted on dr. Paul. He has thrown all support behind chuck baldwin. Chuck baldwin's name is not even on the ballot, per se, but unlike dr. Paul his name is on the list of approved write-in candidates. Again, dr. Paul voted for chuck baldwin a write-in candidate for president of these united states. Please don't waste your vote on the symbolic vote for dr. Paul because it will not be counted at all. Like voting for santa claus, the easter bunny. Again don't waste your vote. Vote the -- both of the parties have sold out to the criminal bankster bailout scheme taxpayer dollars forrology panel off the banksters. Again we have a choice to voice our refusal to go along. And -- with this bankster bailout, his name is chuck baldwin, constitutional party nominee write in vote. Rob paul has thrown his 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 understand 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 entanglement. Keep our nation through fair trade, not free trade. How would we like it if one other nation had their armed forces here telling us what to do. By the way, there are now over 2 million people behind bars here over half for drug offenses of some kind and over half of those people are behind bars because of non-violent marijuana offenses. And by the way, since 1996, democrats, depublicans and independent voters in 12 states have overwhelming demanded that medicinal marijuana be decriminalized. By hijacking the public demand on medicinal marijuana, the clinton bush administrations have defied the public to satisfy their masters, the organized crime thugs. Who else benefits? Doctors, no, they want to observe their oath and give the best treatment to the patients and do no harm. Do cops benefit? No, they are sick and tired of dying and keeping the organized crime thugopoly on marijuana. Do farmers benefit. Obviously
>> [buzzer sounding] not as our continuing evaporating family farms instead would all benefit from having the option to grow these thriving food med Decembernal crops. All of us will benefit from cutting down fewer trees because we must conserve precious topsoil to feed our hungry future. By the way during my lifetime the population on planet earth has more than doubled from 3 to 6 billion. We need all topsoil available. We can earn our leadership by example, not bullets and bombs.
>> time is up.
>> chuck baldwin has won the full fledged support of dr. Ron paul. So don't waste your vote and the troops support dr. Paul, so support our troops, support chuck baldwin.
>> thank you.
>> chuck baldwin for president.
>> mr. Castro.
>> thank you, judge.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe and commissions, my name is jimmy castro, here to speak on my own behalf in support of the Austin independent school district's tax ratification proposition 1 election today November the 4th. The aisd proposition 1 is on the ballot to determine if voters will approve an increase in the aisd's maintenance and operations tax rate of 3.9 cents. The additional 3.9 cents will raise $17.7 million. The proposed tax increase does not affect the taxes on homes of persons who are 65 years of age or older or those with disabilities. The aisd new budget includes the 3% salary increase for all employees and employee only health insurance coverage, contingent upon voter approval of the tax ratification election today November the 4th. The aisd new budget includes the payment of $173 million to the state under the share the wealth school finance obligation. $63 million more than last year. Under state law, aisd no longer received the benefit of rise in property values. When a homeowner's property tax payment goes up because the value of their property increases, the increasings to the state. The Austin independent school district has taken steps to reduce expenditures. This fall the aisd board will appoint financial and organizational experts and local citizens to conduct an in depth analysis of the district's budget and health insurance programs to help balance aisd's revenues and expenditures in the coming years. Finally, let's do the right thing. And pass the Austin independent school district proposition 1 to help retain and recruit qualified teachers and employees so the Austin independent school district can maintain its status as one of the top rated school districts state-wide. Thank you, judge, Commissioners.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> jennifer gale.
>> [ applause ]
>> hi, travis, good morning.
>> good morning, Commissioner, chairwoman Margaret Gomez, Gerald Daugherty, candidate. Sarah eckhardt it's good to see you here tomorrow. My representative Ron Davis, good luck to you today. I would really like to have spoken last week. Thanks for inviting me to come back this week. I am running for mayor. My name is jennifer gale. The newspapers and the Austin chronicle have still not put it out there that I'm running. Despite the fact that it was on the agenda that I'm running. So wasn't everyone to call in and tell the Austin chronicle and the Austin Austin american-statesman, tell them jennifer gale is running for the mayor of the city of Austin. One of the reasons why I'm running for Austin city council is because prop 1 and prop 2 are power grabs. These are things that were decided by our Austin city council that they want to take the power from you. The auditor, they don't want to be able to take away the auditor with the democratically held vote of 50%, they want to have five councilmembers. Then again on proposition 2, they want to take any amount of money, could be hundreds of millions of dollars, and spend it on any project giving it to very wealthy companies. Now, they have our police officers on operation
>> [indiscernible] attacking our homeless every hour of every day in the city of Austin, yet they are giving away hundreds of millions of dollars or are going to give away hundreds of millions of dollars for prop 2. We need a new sheriff in the Travis County. Because our sheriff you go there, there's urine everywhere, writing all over the walls, they are not cleaning them on a daily basis. They take your money if you need medication, they take your medication. This is sheriff greg hamilton that's doing this to us. And I appreciate if you wouldn't appropriate any money. We have a problem with our library here. Those rules that you passed a few months ago, they are keeping people from using that library saying it's only for legal purposes. I don't go in there for any other reason but legal purposes. They stair at your monitors, they don't allow you to work in privacy. They are talking about putting up cameras in the Travis County library to make sure they keep an eye on you. Making complaints to brobackings unanswered. We need to make sure that we end texting in Travis County. That people aren't killing each other. 50 deaths already in Austin. We have we can bring an end to the war by voting for a candidate for president that's against the war. We have killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of the people of iraq. And the republicans and democrats are responsible for those deaths.
>> [buzzer sounding] I would also like to say very quickly that tomorrow at 5th and pleasant valley I want everyone to join me. I don't know if you can see these contractual demand. But they have to do with a five year contract, end of the
>> [indiscernible] system and full
>> [indiscernible] and I'm asking again that you go ahead and give us a -- next week a resolution stating an end, bringing an end. You guys can bring an end to this bus strike. By giving your ideas. I want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> happy thanksgiving to you.
>> don schmidt.a good morning judge and commissions. Don smith. I want to submit to you our class number 9 cadet academy. Part of us are still hung in traffic. I understand they are finding parking. If I could postpone a few minutes until they arrive in the building.
>> all right.
>> under citizens communication we did have chief don smith with us earlier. And the cadets have arrived.
>> very patient cadets.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, judge, for allowing us to have some time to get everybody collected. Traffic was pretty bad today. I think there were a couple of wrecks on 35, it backed up everything. We got hung in it. I have brought class number 9 with me today. And also firefighter joe robberson in class number 2. Joe is currently with the houston fire department and comes back to Austin and assists with instructing of our classes. So I wanted to make sure that joe was up here today and you could see a fine firefighter from the houston fire department with us. Class 9 you have been in class now for three weeks, this is the start of your fourth week. They are working on driver training today so they can get their training permits to drive fire apparatus so we can start that process. And we just wanted to make sure that we got down here so that you could see this fine looking group of people. We will bring them back to you again when they get close to graduation. We will be in uniform at that time. And dressed up and looking pretty sharp. So I have -- I present class 9. If you would like to ask a few questions, please do so.
>> this is the first class without any women in it.
>> yes, it is. We had two young ladies --
>> [laughter] -- we actually had two young ladies scheduled for this class, both dropped out. They did not really give us a reason. We had two other young men also scheduled for this class that dropped out due to financial reasons. They said they just could not afford to do the class.
>> are they able to come back and reapply again if they drop out and they really still want to do it, but whatever sometimes their situation in a person's life that they have no control over, they have to put things on hold. So are they able to come back again and reapply?
>> you are absolutely correct, Commissioner. We have actually already put one of those names into the next folder for class 10 who in fact his situation was his wife is pregnant, due to have a baby here in about three months.
>> my been.
>> she was working full time, lost her job, he felt like that he needed to go back and support the family and he has asked that he be a candidate for class next year. So we have already moved his folder over into that packet so yes we will do that if we feel like they would make a good candidate for us.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> congratulations to all of y'all.
>> thank you.
>> so the class is how many months?
>> six months. We will graduate in April. And in fact we have asked you for a -- for a discounts on the use of the facility.
>> [laughter] I believe our discount was 297 if I'm not mistaken.
>> what is that.
>> I think you all fit neatly inside that policy.
>> under chapter 46, understanding we do that
>> [laughter]
>> I would like for the cadets to give you their names if we could real quick.
>> take that microphone off the last mic there so we can hear them and get them on the --
>> okay. Careful.
>> did you see that teamwork.
>> [laughter]
>> it's on. It's on.
>> shaun murphy.
>> luke pitman.
>> aaron pornoy.
>> wesley porter.
>> john manchaca.
>> andrew garcia.
>> hernandez.
>> nick grenadas.
>> vargas.
>> robert kimble.
>> robert acosta.
>> mark gentry.
>> michael swing ler.
>> eric brown.
>>
>> [indiscernible] bryant.
>> clay
>> [indiscernible]
>> joe.
>> chris hutchins.
>> so -- so state-wide are firemen positions plentiful.
>> yes, sir.
>> is that one of those areas like health care where no matter where you look, it looks like they need medical technicians, nurses, nurse's aides, anything related to health, looks like jobs are just -- just there.
>> our communities are still growing. At a phenomenal rate. Here in central Texas. As we see those departments grew, those communities grow, they are in need of firefighters. Trained firefighters. One of the nice things about our program is that we not only train them to meet the state requirement for fire certification, but we train past that because the state only requires that they have a minimum of about 40 hours of first day training. However most fire departments, most communities when they hire a firefighter would like to have someone that is an emt. We train to that higher standard of emt, which means that our people coming through the program have a much better chance of being hired by cities, small communities out there that are looking for certified people. We recently with the last class had a phone call from new braunfels who hired two of our young firefighters. The fire chief told me, he said I would like to know when your next class is going to graduate, we are impressed by these young people that we've hired. That says a lot for the training people and the young people that do the program. It is a commitment to being excellent in what you do, showing that when you move to another department. So we take pride in the young people that have done that. Really the credit goes to you for supporting it.
>> is there a number that you can give out publicly for those persons that may be watching it. You know, I would like to give that a shot. I think that's what I would like to do in my life. Is there a number they can get in touch directly with you to see if they have an opportunity to participate in such a program? They can call our office, 836-7566. Goes directly into our main office.
>> okie-doke. Thank you.
>> congratulations.
>> any word other than you are making more money than you need down in houston.
>> I would like to make more money, but I enjoy the job.
>> congratulations.
>> > we'll see you all soon. Good luck to you.
>> thank you all.
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, November 4, 2008 1:38 PM