Travis County Commissioners Court
April 7, 2009,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is first, gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes, gus pena is first, followed by ronnie reeferseed followed by rob surrett.are you here on an item on the agenda?
>> sir?
>> are you here for an item on the agenda?
>> I think
>> [indiscernible]
>> okay.
tell you what we will do on that one then, my staff did tell me that some citizens are here on that item.
normally citizens communication is for those who want to address issues not on the agenda.
but we will pull up that item after -- -- after consent to take any open court testimony that's available and then when we get into executive session, we will just take it into executive session, which is what its posted for.
okay?
so not during citizens communication because it's on the agenda, but we will call it up real soon in the meeting for an open court discussion with citizens who have come down and that way when we get to executive session, later today, we will just announce it for executive session.
okay?
mr.
surrett will be with those who come down on the mountain view subdivision item.
mr.
>> [indiscernible], billy kelly?
morris priest.
>> [indiscernible] mr.
priest, all right.
you will be our third citizen.
good morning, mr.
pena.
>> good morning your honor, judge, gus pena, I will make this as quick as possible.
i have a lot to say.
as I make phone calls to nearly all of the social service agencies in Austin, it is obvious that the recession is having a devastating impact on funding reserve that serve the poor, needy, havenots and less fortunate.
i cresenteed in funding, the need is greater than last year.
collaboration with social service agencies, posted on the web and if fiscally possible, in the community newspaper since not everybody has a computer access to one, crime is on the increase.
we have -- we will be meeting again with federal agencies to discuss strategies on how to combat crime and that's -- that's set for I guess about two weeks from now.
many are returning veterans who have served in iraq, afghanistan, other wars have many needs of the department of veterans affairs and department of h.u.d.
and department of defense not addressed such as the increased improvement of treatment for ptsd, post traumatic stress disorder, health needs, affordable housing, for some mental health treatment.
we have had direct contact with general's office to request comprehensive overhaul and improvement on treatment of veterans health care, ptsd treatment, reentry counseling, we talk about reentry counseling, where to get jobs.
counseling, to reenter civilian life and mental health treatment.
suicide rate of returning combat veterans is higher than any other war we've had.
statistically it is a proven fact.
our veterans transitioning back into civilian life is traumatic, confrontational on the civilian side and highly emotional.
it is incumbent upon us older veterans, city council, county Commissioners court, state of Texas and of course the united states government to improve the quality of life for returning veterans and also for their services that they need and treatment that they need.
in attendance, I want to say this because I have high respect for these people, we have our veterans service officer, mr.
pope who I know he didn't pay me or anything to say this, but I'll say it out of the kindness of my heart.
since we have our veterans service officer along with his staff, other supporting staff doing an outstanding job of providing assistance to our military veterans, I personally have seen more veterans seeking assistance in many aspects in many situations and I see more veterans with special needs that the department of veterans affairs need to address and improve on.
we need more mentors and tutors, help in math and other subject, especially with the taks test, what happens if our kids don't pass the test, they give up.
dropout rate is the next solution for them and -- not solution, situation for them to reenter the ranks of the -- of the dropout, that's not acceptable.
i will be speaking on item no.
9 and 10.
also we have the executive committee, I won't mention anything until I speak on it.
captain john retired a.p.d., frank mendez, sheriff hamilton, mr.
david
>> [indiscernible], anyway, thank you very much for the hard work that you do providing services for our people.
the need is great.
please continue the hard work.
god bless you all, have a good day.
>> thank you, mr.
pena.
>> mr.
reeferseed.
>> thank you, judge and economics.
let us all unite with the stop of killing idea.
today we can all demand and deliver more peace and fred dumb to each other.
we can -- freedom.
more freedom for farmers, simultaneously we can all help preserve our brave and honest law enforcement personnel by just canceling our continually counter productive costly war on pot smokers and hemp enthusiasts.
well over half a million fellow americans are now rotting behind bars serving nobody, wasting time and precious taxpayer dollars merely in servitude to the nonsensecal status quo on pot here.
who benefits?
only criminals, organized crime thugs and all of their tag alongs, short sightedly hang on tightly to this nonsense.
in reality all of us are big losers because each and every day we lose precious topsoil, food production capacity needed to help feed our hungry planet.
look, everybody needs food and a family of -- families of farmers are the key to sursurvival in the future.
family farms are now and have always been the backbone for all civilizations throughout time.
we in big cities especially depend on family farms for food because we city folk are just too busy to supply our own food for ourselves and our families and pets.
sadly family farms for years have been evaporating, thrust by competition from huge agri business.
we need to grow any and all specialty crops to feed and clothe the rest of us.
for more commons sensical reality frantically I suggest we take time on line to examine www.infowars.com.
right here in Austin listen at 90.1 f.m., great programming absolutely free alex jones, for example, is there each week day 11:00 a.m.
to 3:00 p.m.
on 90.1 f.m.
and from 4:00 to 6:00 on Sundays.
there are many great shows on 90.1 f.m.
every day including the lovely dr.
kathryn albrecht show.
during the week following alex jones, the power hour is on weekday mornings before alex jones and local shows are also featured with local call-in opportunities.
remember, we can all do more to stop the killing worldwide on our behalf, by just saying no more killing to our elected officials.
stop the killing of honest cops.
stop the killing of family farms.
stop the killing and torture of imprisoned fellow citizens with freedom.
absolute freedom from farmers is the best answer to help solve many problems in our modern world.
thank goodness for our very own ongoing ob/gyn Ron paul revolution of love for liberty in our sacred constitution.
it just keeps on keeping on.
thank you also, judge, for what I understand the big victory that you -- that we all have thanks to your work on the providing for the prisoners to have more opportunity to visit with their families.
>> [buzzer sounding] and all that.
that's really a -- an example of a great thing judge Biscoe has done for all of us, thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
priest.
>> judge Biscoe, Commissioners, morris priest for the record.
i wanted to invite everybody to the coming campo meeting because it's going to be an important campo meeting because I believe it's going to take up issues of the bylaws.
as many people remember we didn't get to speak at the December the 1st meeting when they tolled 290 east.
we need to make changes in the bylaws to allow citizens to speak before the campo transportation policy board.
i would encourage our judge and commissions to support us in this endeavor.
also, I think it would be a great idea to use this time since we are giving up some things in these bylaws with the joint resolution powers to include an item on the agenda if for example when we had the road 973, I know that you all probably remember that when txdot wanted to build a road through the Travis County facilities and this entire court rejected it.
i think it would be a good idea if there is a unanimous vote from any court of the -- of the campo region whether it be travis, Williamson or highways, if there's an -- or hays, if there's a unanimous thing that the court wants to put on the agenda that they should be allowed to put that item on the agenda.
also wanted to bring up another issue of -- we have a situation where we have a lot of crime increase and there's been some mischaracterizations recently in the media and I want to invite nelson linder and some other people to come to some of these campo meetings.
the problem that we had out at highland mall, there's been a significant crime increase and highland mall had their security bail on them right at the last minute and it was a total mischaracterization of -- of the mall not being supportive of this event.
anybody with a business knows that sometimes your help doesn't show up or contractors make a last minute cancellation or bailout on you.
and they were left in a very perplexed vulnerable situation due to that -- due to that and I think there's been misreporting.
i know that highland mall does employ a very large number of minorities as well as elderly people and we are having a situation that's unique to that area.
due to crime in the area, now they want to open up a le bares strip joint right there at that lincoln center.
crime level has been increasing.
a lot of situations in that area.
it wasn't just the issues of the relays that they -- that they decided to close the mall for those four hours.
but I do think that -- that I would like people to look at that situation.
i know that when I have gone to these campo meetings I haven't seen mr.
linder and some of these other people in the community fighting to keep these tolls off the east side.
i haven't seen them fighting to stop the homeless r.v.
park that 10 neighborhood associations came out and spoke out.
i would hope that he would reconsider a protest out there, maybe help protest to make that area better.
we have that day labor site non-authorize at saint john's, I would like the city to see if they can help issues with crime in the area, thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
priest.
james shirley.
>> okay.
dr.
curtain or keeton?
terry arian.
writes like a doctor.
we have a couple of cadets.
aaron
>> [indiscernible] and nick -- all right.
michael swingler.
looks like the rest of these may be -- may be cadets?
mr.
brown a cadet?
mr.
brown is a cadet, also?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, my name is don smith, fire chief of esd number 4.
it is my honor to present to you class number 9, graduating on the 15th.
i hope that some of you can make that program.
it's really kind of nice to be out there with the neighbors and see these young people graduating this program and starting a career in the fire service.
class 9 started in October.
we actually started with a little bit larger group of 15.
i mean, I'm sorry, 18.
we have kind of dwindled down, 15 people going to graduate the program.
it has been pretty good for them.
they have learned a lot about command, structure, what happens in the fire service and this morning out in the hallway chief reynolds was still giving them education.
so it's a never ending process that happens.
this program is really here because of you.
i have to commend each of you for supporting this program.
young people from our program are spreading out across central Texas in the fire departments.
some are even -- some are even moving outside of Texas to other states finding a job in the fire service and it's kind of neat to see it happen.
i believe that I did send an e-mail a few months back.
one of our graduates from two years ago had a dream of being a new york city firefighter.
has young man is a new york city firefighter today.
so -- so dreams do come true from this program.
and again it's because of what you do in supporting the program.
we would like to -- to present you with some class pictures if we could present those to you right now.
>> okay.
is that I'll put mine right next to my mother's picture.
>> thank you, judge
>> [laughter] we do consider you our behind the scene heros because you are not out there getting seen as we do this training, they see us, they see esd 4 doing training out there, cadets do p.t.
and training exercises, people see them and they ask questions about the program.
we are in the process of taking applications right now for class 10.
that process is open.
i'm looking for some young people, specifically looking for young ladies that might like to try this program or some african-american young men that would like this program.
african-american young men are the hardest to recruit along with fifi males into the fire service.
i'm sure there's reasons for that, maybe a lot of history behind that.
but our program has been very successful over the years.
and -- in recruiting a diverse group into this program.
and again, it's all those people that work and help us that -- that the community doesn't really see.
it's really our kind of behind the scenes hero as we like to call them.
again, we would like to give you a behind the scenes hero gift.
>> thank you.
i was asked one day, well, what do your cadets do while they are in training.
this is set up different than most fire training programs.
most people have a job when they are in the program.
our cadets are strictly volunteers and they volunteer for us or other esd's in Travis County.
as parts of that program they actually go out and ride on fire trucks as we start developing their training program so they start giving back to the community very early on.
they continue to give back riding out on fire trucks providing service to the community.
so it's always kind of interesting when people ask that question.
many fire academies, the cadets never actually get to go make an actual call until after they graduate the program and get assigned to fire apparatus.
unlike ours, our young people get to start making calls after about the first four or five weeks.
kind of a show of hands possibly, how many of you have made over 5 calls on a fire truck?
or ambulance.
a large number.
>> [ applause ] keep our hands up as I move forward.
over 10 calls?
15 calls?
20 calls?
25 calls?
30 calls?
35 calls.
over 40 calls.
you can see that these young people participate a lot in our community during this training program.
they are out there, they are doing things, they are serving their community.
that's how they pay back to this program for getting that training and that -- that ability to look for a service job somewhere.
as we say, it's not the job they're looking for, it's the career they're looking for.
so again thank each of you for supporting this program and making it happen.
thank you, Commissioners.
>> thank you.
>> no, thank you.
really,
>> [indiscernible] communication type of things, I'm just wondering if you would call my office, I want to talk to you.
>> I certainly will do that.
>> will you do that for me.
>> thank you, Commissioner Davis.
>> thank you.
>> best of luck to all of you.
>> good luck.
>> thank you.
>> you have got bright futures.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> one more thing they want to say.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> now we are done to a mean 15,
>> [indiscernible], now we put it to the test.
>> [indiscernible]
>> [ applause ]
>> [chanting]
>> [ applause ]
>> thank you very much.
>> thank y'all.
>> > sorry that got a little loud.
>> no problem.
that just woke us up.
>> [laughter] I have about 12 here that I think belong to the cadets, but is there anybody that signed for citizen communication who has not spoken yet.
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, April 7, 2009 2:03 PM