Travis County Commissioners Court
June 30, 2009,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next.
this item gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda.
the following residents have signed in: gus pine I can't, ronnie referseed, norris priest and kenneth cohen, who was here I think on the -- are you here for citizens communication also, mr.
cohen?
>> no, sir, I want to hear what
>> [inaudible] has to say.
>> okay.
mr.
pena.
>> judge, Commissioners, gus pena.
i have been coming to the county Commissioners court for many years, city council and school board meetings.
i will be honest, I also am a native american.
>> [speaking in foreign language] and I find it unacceptable to the prior speaker but I'll keep it professional but I'm a respectful professional.
everybody deserves the right to be heard.
i believe we are on support of 1:00 funding and this is the issue in the unincorporated area.
i have family living in in area and I brought this up before.
our families are big.
i'll leave it as that.
the issue is let's remain respectful and professional and cognizant of others.
90% american indians born before the united states of america.
i'll leave it at that.
versus, ptsd, job training programs, extensive and intensive counseling similar or more comprehensive than what was needed for vietnam veterans.
we're seeing partial benefits for our veterans.
our veterans need help in housing, housing homeless veterans, single veterans, and also housing homeless veterans with families.
families.
veterans that are losing their jobs and their homes.
please support and appreciate our veterans and their service to our beautiful country.
please fully fund social service agencies that provide help, groceries, counseling job training.
the need is great.
how many times have I seed this before?
Commissioner Davis, you you've heard it from me, judge Biscoe, you know personal issues, but you know what, we're trying to help others as much as we can.
we would like to see more agencies become the full wrap-around services, one-stop shop, agency people want that they won't have to travel to different agencies, go on a bus, have three transfers.
it's difficult for people with kids and receiving issues concerning wrap-around services.
please continue to fund the summertime programs for the youth.
the city of Austin is planning to give away the program or redirect the program to work source.
i don't think that's good.
we know we don't have the funding but wee need to find the funding to keep our kids active and something positive.
federal statute.
patients with a bill of rights.
under president clinton, under president bush, the patient bill of rights was reinforced.
people out there if you are being abused verbally or otherwise by a physician or a hospital administrator, you have a bill of rights and it is a federal statute.
call your local congressman if you feel you are being abused.
we have some grieveous issues with seton so we're going to talk about that with our legal torn attorney, legal representation.
>> [buzzer sounding] last item and I'll leave it at that.
kids who are -- need to go to summer school, they don't have the opportunity to pay $178 per session.
aisd, please keep this up so kids can attend summer school.
thank you all very much.
>> thank you, mr.
pena.
>> thank you, Commissioners and gus pena.
i'm here to speak about the war and Ron paul.
i'm ronnie reeferseed saying I'm not here to back off ideas.
howdy, honduras, the elected leader of honduras, who favors absolute freedom for farmers has been thrown by our own inservitude to the so-called intelligence community.
i say so-called intelligence community because only biggotted socialistist christmas like israel and/or the united states think it's okay too high jack freedom so -- here's what happens.
when a democratically elected leader calls for absolute freedom for farmers as did democraticly elected leader manuel -- honduras' democratically elected leader, amazingly our very own secretary of state, ms.
felony hog wash traitor as well as our stooge puppet president obama pretended to support their freedom for farmers by backing democratically elected president elias rejecting the coup.
let us all hope and pray for the survival of the democratically elected president in honduras and how now the the time for president obama to prove me wrong.
obama can here and now truly stand up for freedom for farmers worldwide and lead the world by example against organized crime thugs.
imagine our nation truly leading the world by example, promoting absolute freedom for farmers to help feed our hungry planet forever.
wow.
to my cynical mind this all seems too good to be true.
let us all hope and pray that miss felony hog wash and president obama stand up for freedom of farmers.
suddenly our troops can all come home to help guard our borders, to help our nation.
today we have a standing army on over 130 other nations worldwide.
why would any nation want that interference?
in reality they don't.
that's why venezuela's president, hugo chavez, is admired by many worldwide as president chavez fear lessly rejects domination by the united states.
let us all join chavez in support of honduras' own democratically elected leader.
for more information I suggest you visit infowars.com online 24/7.
here in Austin we have 90.1 fm radio --
>> [buzzer sounding] -- 11 to 3:00 p.m.
and please pay attention to the information so we can help save our world.
with love and joy.
thank you so much.
>> thank you.
mr.
priest.
>> thank you, judge, Commissioners.
while walking through the rain I thought of my good county Commissioners court and you are truly are the sunshine of my life.
>> [laughter] I have more information besides the weather.
of course, it is raining and that's great.
chief's decision as you saw in the statesman -- my paperwork is kind of wet -- it's a fraudian slip.
judge sonia sotomayor's decision was overturned.
the u.s.
court, supreme court civil rights case that supported new haven, connecticut firefighters, stating from that report no individual should face workplace discrimination based on race.
this decision could affect Austin and other employers' decisions.
this case has not only raised more questions in the minds of americans as well as Austinites concerning judge sotomayor's commitment to treat each individual fairly as well as our Austin city council.
the high court ruling shows that she doesn't legislate from a the bench as well as race I am not being tolerated.
fear of litigation alone cannot justify making decisions that are detrimental to others.
racism is never acceptable.
the -- jennifer Davis, the fox news correspondent's report on this matter is somewhat compared to a recent digs made by the city council concerning the lebehrs's establishment at the lincoln city.
we have decisions that are made even though we have a fine example and this court is a fine example of making decisions, we have decisions that are made that don't offer people standing, decisions that are made, oftentimes they are based on fear.
decisions that are made sometimes not looking at the law and just common practices, best common practices, but I am glad that we have a Commissioners court that have all honorable members, all our Commissioners and our county judge.
and I know a lot of people in this community say in large part and I would agree that it is our judge that operates a very fine court.
but I think that that -- that it also is in very large part of all of our fine honorable Commissioners.
you all are doing an excellent and wonderful job showing a clear, transparent way of conducting county government and it's the finest example that I know of in the world second to none.
>> [buzzer sounding] and I hope that we can transfer that to our city council.
thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
priest.
dr.
phil wang.
good morning.
>> good morning.
>> yes, I was just going to provide a brief update regarding the situation that you probably heard that we have had the first h1n1 related death in Travis County.
and again, the information at this point -- it was a 49-year-old male that actually lived in Pflugerville.
so there additional investigation going on regarding other situations regarding his health, health status.
but again, we've released notification yesterday and wanted to make sure you were aware of that.
>> that was in yesterday's statesman, right?
>> I think this morning's statesman.
>> I thought I read it yesterday.
>> probably was both.
>> judge, I believe you got an e-mail version of a press release that Austin-Travis County issued.
>> okay.
>> just to place a human face on it, our thoughts go out to the family.
the -- the son and the family is very good friends with one of my nephews.
so keep them in your prayers.
>> several weeks ago we were given a list of sort of everyday practices that might be helpful, and then they were kind of off the radar.
based on that article I guess we need to pick those back up, don't we?
>> absolutely.
and they are really practices we should always be implementing to prevent spread of infection in general.
>> there's been one death in central Texas, but there are other cases.
not a whole lot, but several I recall.
>> yes.
and actually there's now been -- this is the 14th death in the state and almost 3,000 confirmed or probable cases in the state.
>> okay.
questions?
and your last name is pronounced wang?
>> wang.
>> our medical director, Austin-Travis County health and human services.
we don't see you nearly enough, doctor.
good to see you.
>> good to see you.
>> thank you, doctor.
>> you'll see me again in a little bit.
>> judge, I think we have these signs up around this building certainly washing our hands often, sneezing into a sleeve and covering our coughs, and if you feel ill, stay at home, take care of the illness.
>> keep doing it.
>> one observation, please, and you are right, there was note of it also yesterday, but we need to remind the community and those that are most vulnerable that don't have the health care provisions to go to a clinic or money for a doctor's visit, in order to keep on giving updates throughout the country, throughout the world, we've noticed that -- we don't want to scare anybody, we just want them to be educated on the parameters and the effects and everything, but let's keep out the radar screen, as the judge says.
i think it's very important that the public know because they are going to say, oh, well, it's not that fatal.
bull, excuse my language, we want everybody to know especially the poor who don't have the resources and the safety net of health care to be fully aware and cognizant of the problems.
thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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 30, 2009 1:31 PM