Travis County Commissioners Court
June 30, 2009,
Item A1
a-1.
>> who is here on a-1?
okay.
a-1 is to consider and take preapt objection on -- appropriate action to request and advise fuel pumping hours for county vehicles on ozone watch and action days.
this comes from the sheriff's office, right?
>> no, sir, actually from transportation and natural resources.
the court had provided guidance on what to do as far as fueling vehicles during ozone days, ozone action day or watch days.
and what that guidance is is that we do not fuel vehicles from 6:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m.
so that means that folks have to work in advance to make sure their vehicle is fueled up.
and in some cases if you're not working outside of those hours, which most of us aren't, that means someone has to stay late or come in early.
which brings us issues of overtime and that sort of thing.
and one -- zone day at a time is -- one ozone day at a time is probably workable with those hours, but what happened last Friday is we had two days in a row of ozone action days.
and so those folks that -- they couldn't fuel up their vehicles for two days unless they stayed late again, and we started getting calls from the sheriff's department, from our own staff and from other folks who use the fueling services within the county.
and what we would like to propose is an amendment to the guidance that the court provided to us.
in the event we have two or even three days in a row like this, we would like to change the hours the fuel pamp can remain open.
for the first day keep it as it is, pumps close 6:00 to 6:00.
if you have two executive days thereafter, we would like to revise that to keep the pumps closed from 8:00 a.m.
to 4:00 p.m.
that would allow the folks, the sheriff's department, county crews and such to fuel their vehicles and keep working throughout that period.
so that's where we are.
if you would like an understanding of what that means as far as the effect on the program that we're talking about here, she can talk about that.
she spoke with capcog and they can advise you in that regard.
>> I think we do need that information.
>> we're going to stop -- the fueling will not be done -- most of the fueling will be done after 4:00 p.m.
it allows a little bit of fueling dog tog on during the morning time, which will have a small impact, but not a big impact.
very tiny impact in the mornings when the ozone has time to cook.
but hopefully the majority of the fueling will be done after four p.m.
and it's very, very rare that we would have three days in a row of high ozone, but it could happen.
but again, if we were fueling the majority in the afternoon, in the late evening, it would not have all day long to cook.
it will have the evening hours to disburse.
>> so did we recently witness two days or three days?
>> two days in a row.
we've actually have had three ozone watch days so far this year.
one of those days was not an ozone watch day.
but so far vef not exceeded our goal of 77 parts per billion.
the standard is 75.
which hopefully will not exceed 77 since it's based on a three-year average.
since 2008 was such a good year for us, we can go over the 75 just a little bit.
>> and we were at 77 two or three days?
>> yes, sir.
we've been at 76, 77 and 77.
>> okay.
>>
>> [ inaudible ].
first of all, I would like to applaud all of the law enforcement officers that work in the bureau for their efforts.
they've been doing wonderful when this.
when it's just been one day we've an able to make it work, but it is the second day that causes the problems.
12 hours is a little long.
our shifts are 10 hour shifts.
what we would be asking our officers to do would be to come back out later in the evening, drive quite a distance to get to the county pumps and that doesn't seem to be an economic here.
so we're supporting this.
4:00 would be a great time for my day shift to be able to get their fuel before they go.
>> thank you so much for your cooperation and leadership.
it's really great to see you.
and your patience.
>> we certainly want to do our part and we know when we want to ask for an exception it needs to be something that's really important.
and I think we can work with the one day, but on the second day we would like to see 4:00.
>> so do we know how long a full tank of gas will last a patrol deputy?
>> you know, there are some officers that fuel up in the middle of their shift because of the amount of driving they have to do.
depending on their district.
and as the court recalls, I guess it was in April, we showed you the geographical outlines of the districts.
some officers drive went miles to get to one call.
some nigh mie just drive -- some might just drive right around the corner.
some drive very fast to get to the priority one calls, therefore burning up more gas.
so I would say an average is a tank should take an officer through a shift, but it might not.
we're only talking about day shift here for the most part.
obviously the evening shift officers come on duty, by the time they get an hour or so into their shifts the pumps are back on after 6:00 most of these days.
that's not a problem.
i can't give you a definitive answer, but I would say one tank of gas should last a shift for the most part.
>> should we add something that says supervisory personnel shall be responsible for compliance with this revision?
>> sure.
absolutely, judge.
we could do that.
>> we may give it a little bit more teeth than just making the revision.
>> in addition to that, I just want to reiterate that for our purposes, tnr business operations, most of our staff are working from 7:00 or 7:30 to 3:30 or 4:00.
so we would like to see it open up until 8:00 a.m.
and close the pumps on consecutive days only again from 8:00 to 4:00.
and if there were an emergency situation, if the court could consider maybe granting my goss, joe gieselman, -- my boss, joe gieselman, the authority to open the purpose in an emergency if necessary.
i can't think of a situation offhand that we would have to do that, but rather than have to come back to court again for that, that would be helpful.
>> is that not in the wording?
for emergency situations?
>> we only have revised language.
i don't know what's in the other one.
is it in the original language?
>> I think she's checking it now.
i don't know if that's been delegated to joe.
>> no, it's not in the original plank.
original language.
>> so the request is from six a.m.
to four p.m.
you were saying eight a.m.?
>> on the ozone day, the first one that occurs, six a.m.
to six p.m.
pumps are closed.
if you have consecutive days after that, our recommendation would be eight a.m.
to four p.m.
the pumps are closed.
and for every executive day thereafter.
>> does your explanation apply to eight a.m.
also?
>> yes.
>> I would like to add that the county notification system of ozone action days is working well, and some departments are actually -- they're using it so that 25% of their staff -- they're increasing this number.
they're trying to get up to 25% of their staff, are teleworking or coming in at off hours.
so it seems to be working very well.
>> good.
>> so I guess eight a.m.
would help the sheriffs too?
>> it would be gravy for us.
we would support that.
we would still try to fuel at the end of the day, though.
>> yeah.
that -- you're saying that it is better to fuel at the end of the day after four p.m.
than before 8 oak if you can?
>> correct.
>> and as early in the morning as possible.
if necessary.
>> okay.
move approval of the revision.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
we are left with expecting supervisors really to help us enforce compliance if possible.
>> that is my directive to my staff.
>> thank you.
move that we recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor, that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 1:31 PM