Travis County Commissioners Court
March 3, 2009,
Item 16
Number 16 is to consider and take appropriate action on request -- mr.
gieselman -- from the envision central Texas work group for comments on process and recommendations regarding county growth management authority.
>> what you have is the -- I was not here last Tuesday, but anna and steve took your comments and what you now have in front of you is pacifically a compilation -- is basically a compilation of comments from the previous version as well as what you discussed last Tuesday.
a draft copy of that was sent to envision central Texas and I think this morning if you need to make any changes, I believe jim walker is here from envision central Texas if you have any questions.
one in particular, judge, that you had on the statement on additional authority that has not been used by counties, I did have a chance to talk to jim about that.
i think there's probably some further notes to put in the final report about -- it wasn't a blanket statement.
it applies to all counties.
some counties have used the authorities, some counties have not used the authority that's already been authorized by the legislature.
it wasn't a blanket statement that applied to all counties, including Travis County.
so -- but again, I think what's important to remember is that envision central Texas is developing a position statement that incorporates at least five or more counties.
so their statements necessarily are general because they do have to apply to different situations, different circumstances.
>> does each county have an opportunity to position itself as Travis County has done as far as with this latest version that has come back?
has there been any response from other counties, I guess, positioning themselves to look at what is recommended by envision central Texas as far as they're concerned and has there been any response?
i'm concerned about Travis County, of course, and the direction that we're going in.
but I'm also wondering what the other counties are doing as far as maybe allowing envision central Texas to take the lead for them in this regard or independently doing it at we're doing it.
in orders, modifying, either making the necessary changes that we would like to see go forward.
>> I wouldn't say that they are taking the lead on behalf of my county.
as joe was saying, they're all in kind of different places with what kind of authority that they are looking at.
what's appropriate for the residents of their county.
we have a very diverse five-county region, different things are of concern and different solutions are desirable.
you can try to not step on the toes of the authority and the local control of any one county, but you kind of say, this is a perennial issue.
we talk about it a lot.
different things are going to work for different places.
how do we sustain a high level of conversation on it?
each county judge, five county judges in our area, are all on the ect board.
they are all very aware of this particular issue and the ect is working on it.
and each has a different opinion, to be honest, about what's going to work foe them.
and they're all going to take their own steps.
ect's role is a convenient forum around the issue and move it forward in a way that works for everybody.
did I answer your qui?
>> oh, yes.
i wanted to see what the other folks were doing.
i know what we're doing as far as trying to look at it and make the necessary update and revisions that we thought was more prudent and maybe have the best impact for Travis County.
of course, I didn't know what the others were doing in the same regard.
when you said region, that kind of stood out and I said wait a minute.
so you answered the question, thank you.
>> so how will these position papers be used by envision central Texas?
>> the two position papers that the board is -- the executive committee has taken on first, by no means the only ones over the course of the future that we'll take on, are the county groith management authority and the local funding options for transportation, which is also working its way through the legislature.
what our process is at ect is we form a working group.
that working group looks at an issue, tries to get in different opinions, expert opinions.
they call people too just like the phone is ringing here.
>> [ laughter ] they produce a working group report, which is the early draft of which is what you all rez red lined and provided feedback on.
the board then gets to see that and weigh in on that and that's where we'll incorporate all the comment you have will be incorporated into that report document so that it lives with that document.
we then develop a position statement, we develop both of those for these two issues.
those were adopted as of yesterday by the ect board, which is 60-odd person board.
and what we'll then do is do out and promote those positions in the various venues that are appropriate.
we could come back to this group, we will try to make ourselves available as a resource witness to the appropriate legislative bodies on the senate and house side.
we'll work with other stakeholders in the region who are forwarding those.
what we won't do is speak on behalf of a county Commissioners court and say this is what they're going to do.
so again it's to put out there some of the best thinking, not step on any one entity's toes, but to try to figure on what's going to work well for all of us.
>> all of us meaning what?
>> all of us for envision central Texas?
we have the five-county region, travis, Williamson, hays, bastrop and caldwell.
>> but my question then goes back to what I was saying earlier, and that is that the changes that we've embraced in trying to come up with our position as far as going forward to the legislature is what it is for Travis County, and, of course, as you stated, you're not going to -- envision central Texas is not going to speak on behalf of Travis County, but yet you still represent the region.
and of course, my concern is that what will you be speaking on if Travis County has made the necessary changes for what our position is, what would you be speaking on as far as Travis County?
>> this thing that I would love to do with this, and what we will be doing is to celebrate what Travis County is doing.
then also acknowledge what hays county is doing.
because it's different.
than what Travis County is doing.
but they're still working on it.
caldwell county, judge wright has particular concerns and challenges he's trying to meet, but he's going about those in a different way than you are.
and that's the reemg that we have -- that's the region that we have.
and the challenge that ect is trying to rise to is the difficult question of how do we shape growth, how do we improve the way we grow not only in our cities, but in the unincorporated areas so we can sustain our quality of life and remain economically competitive?
and our different counties and our cities are all going to do that in a different way.
we want to be sure that we're connecting the dots as all those activities are happening so that we -- it's as coordinate as it possibly can be.
the infrastructure investments, no one has a whole lot of extra money for infrastructure.
we have to coordinate that stuff.
what kind of planning goes in unincorporated areas that needs to be coordinated.
if I'm hearing you correctly, we are not trying to slow down or question what Travis County is doing.
we're just trying to say we're an entire region, there are different approaches to solving a common issue, which is unincorporated area growth, and we need to think about those at a really high level.
so when I say all of us, it is our 1.8 million odd people that live in central Texas.
and it's everybody.
>> my concern was that whatever we come up with doesn't get overridden or either overlaid by other interests, and Travis County's interests as far as what we see here is not heard properly.
so that's my concern.
>> fair enough.
we'll work to make sure that we are not drowning out any voice or having any voice overlaid.
>> I hope so.
>> yes.
>> we were asked to provide comments and we've done that.
that's pretty much the deal for us, right?
>> we'll incorporate those comments.
i would love to continue to work with joe and with dee and your other staff on coordinating activities.
exactly to the Commissioner's point of not being sure that we're doing our due dill jeps at ect to not step on anybody's toes or disrespect anybody's voice in the room.
and there are a lot of voices in the room on county planning.
we'll continue to work with that.
we're in this for the long-term, not just for the next couple of months.
ect is a long-term view organization and that's the angle we're coming at from.
we would love to come back in the future and talk with you more about it.
we'll work with staff in the mean time.
>> okay.
in view of the fact that action would be taken before today, we went ahead appeared incorporated comments made last week into a draft and that draft was made available to mr.
walker in ect, right?
okay.
we appreciate the opportunity to provide input.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2:17 PM