Travis County Commissioners Court
June 23, 2009,
Item 27
Moving on, 27.
27.
consider and take appropriate action to appoint chairperson and complete count committee to head the Travis County 2010 census initiative.
i did get another communication from the census people.
and they are trying to pick up the pace on this effort.
and Texas including central Texas and that's why I put this item back on.
in other communities they are using the gis person, our person is david shore.
i did talk with joe gieselman about us appoint him, I am down there 10, capital gis, all cap, david shore is our person, I recommend him.
the other thing when I think of the community centers they also have advisory committees, if our goal is to put tentacles in as many parts of our community as possible, my recommendation here is to get our directors to work with us.
i don't know whether I shared this with ms.
flemming or not, I hope I did.
we may have to give the directors and ms.
flemming a little pep talk.
when I think of hard to serve people, veterans kind of come to mind.
unfortunately a lot of them are hard to serve, hard to reach.
but oly pope is our director or his designee, kind of understaffed down there forever.
so if there's another person who can help us with this it will be good.
i'm thinking, too, typically we have rsvp folk.
retired senior volunteers to help in different departments.
if we could get some of them activated at the appropriate time.
maybe a little early still except for putting this committee together.
then I have a representative of Austin Travis County mhmr, I think of mental health clients.
somebody with access to them.
i've not chatted with david evans about this, but if we approve it I will tell him that the court approved a representative, if he doesn't have one to try to get one from one of the non-profits.
a little additional work.
and epstein, I put in parentheses who has volunteered.
i did discuss this with all of the executive managers and our agenda setting meeting and mr.
eckstein has been staned attending though -- attending those, he volunteered.
religion and education, broad categories, if we could get folks active we could help.
religion, I have really try to get with Austin interfaith, all of the ministers associations, black ministers association, hispanic group, interfaith, try to get them.
i don't see these groups working 12 or 18 months, though, but it seems to me if you blitz it at some point they will really become engaged for 30 to 45 days is what I have in mind.
then education talking with the new superintendent to get her, maybe principals, teachers, activated at the appropriate time.
>> the other group is workers defense project.
>> okay.
>> they have tremendous contact with folks who need to be counted.
>> should we also reach out perhaps into the immigrant community?
>> if they work with them, yeah.
that workers defense project would definitely -- uh-huh.
>> okay.
although this is real sensitive, I think we need to try to get the census people to try to do some education.
>> [multiple voices]
>> yeah.
>> okay.
>> so that would be under the category of religion?
>> I put them separately.
>> separately.
workers defense project.
>> uh-huh.
>> anything else?
>> as -- as community groups start having July 4th celebrations, is there anything that they can have as a booth?
i know they will have booths to advertise this and that is -- there any kind of information we can give them about census right now?
or we'll just have to wait for that later?
>> probably later, yeah.
i do think we ought to start the public education campaign as soon as possible.
you know they mail these things out.
if two to three months before the mailing we can kind of talk about it and get people ready to receive them --
>> what it is when they -- okay.
>> then you have 30 days to send it back in.
i think 30 days or so after that they really start knocking on doors.
>> okay.
>> are we the only body making the appointments to this -- to the complete count committee or is there anyone else making recommendations to the complete count committee?
>> I think we're the only ones in Travis County.
>> would it be beneficial to bring this as an agenda item to the community action network to get their input on -- on how to cover the waterfront?
>> we can do it, there ought to be a specific ask, though, because we've had this topic discussed there before.
but I think it was more outreach and education.
>> uh-huh.
>> if we go and say we need members to serve on the complete count committee, and here are some of them, I think that would be good.
>> okay.
>> I mean these are county community clinics.
the -- the city has some, too, right?
i think we ought to touch base with them, work with the hospital district.
in time.
okay.
this will get us started unless there's objection I'll just pass this on, get with ms.
flemming about chatting with the oly pope as well as the center directors.
not so much what the directors do as much as what they can get the advisory committees and neighborhood people to do, I think that -- I think if they appreciate that, then they will be a lot more helpful.
is that okay?
>> uh-huh.
>> then I move approval of this strategy.
i will give these names now to the census people and say you are the ones who will start working.
i did get joe to sign-off on david shore.
i'm not sure exactly what those people do early on.
except be available in the event that there are questions.
but I chose him because he is our gis person.
and the census people say that's who has helped them most in the other counties.
so -- sort of requested that person.
all right.
>> is there a motion, judge?
>> I move.
>> discussion?
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
and any other ideas after today pass them to me, we will pass them on.
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, June 23, 2009 1:31 PM