Travis County Commissioners Court
July 14, 2009,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next.
and this item gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes.
gus pena is the first resident.
he will be followed by ronnie reeferseed who will be followed by frank urias.
good morning.
>> thank you, judge, Commissioners.
gus pena.
judge, I just want to say again how fortunate we are to have a good leader here leading our county Commissioners court.
i'll leave it at that.
you have demonstrated time and again you are a man of good heart and help the people.
thank you very much.
anyway, electricity cutoff.
last week I called your office, judge Biscoe, and I called mayor lee leffing well.
our understanding from the p.u.c.
if there are two or three consecutive days of 100-degree weather there is a heat advisory, no utilities are to be disconnected.
no utilities are to be disconnected but they were.
they occurred in our precinct, Margaret and other precincts.
precinct 1 also and precinct 3, Commissioner Huber.
so I contacted these different officials and also contacted the governor's office, jay kimbro's office, and I was directed to another individual's office and I received a call from mr.
cardenas and I thank the good lord they were expeditiously contacted because it stopped a lot of people's utilities from being disconnected.
having said that, I appreciate the effort you did, judge.
you did intervene expeditiously, the mayor's office also.
anybody have any problems or complaints, call the mayor's office.
roger duncan's office.
>> [speaking in spanish] anyway, family elder care, the heat wave is upon us.
i've never seen it like this.
the lake is drying up.
please make donations of fans and money to the family elder care so they can purchase fans and distribute to senior citizens.
the poor that do not have any kind of electrical assistance, I'm sorry, any kind of air conditioning assistance.
it was ironic, Saturday cnn ran on spot or the weather channel ran a spot on the 1986 heat wave of chicago.
over 700 deaths occurred in chicago because the mayor failed to implement an advisory warning.
i say the mayor because mayor lindsay was there and he came out on television.
i don't want to blame anybody, but over 700 deaths occurred.
we don't want that to happen here.
veterans need treatment.
comprehensive job training.
>> [buzzer sounding] I'll cut it short.
after years of battle veterans must fight for jobs.
they cannot find jobs.
one of them that rather hurts me is young veterans face higher odds of being unemployed.
god bless my country.
thank you, judge.
thank you for your kind heart.
keep up the good work.
>> mr.
reeferseed.
>> thank you, judge.
i'm ronnie reeferseed and what's it all about this reeferseed?
i'm overwhelmingly blessed with an opportunity to help save our world for me and it's all about to help feed our future.
as we all know topsoil is needed for virtually all food we eat.
every moment of every day that hemp marijuana is denied to farmers we lose the traditional family farms, the basis for all humanity.
hunters and gatherers don't apply.
instead trees are cut down to make fiber for paper or cardboard.
clear cutting the trees kills the root systems.
the next time it rains we lose all that top story soil at runoff.
our human population forever expands as we live longer with healthier babies.
the number one known preventable cause to mental retardation in babies is fetal alcohol syndrome.
there's no thing as fetal marijuana syndrome.
it is a nontoxic medicine that means you can't od on it.
i know, I've been trying for decades.
my ongoing recovery from my own coma inducing traumatic brain injury has been greater helped by it in my bloodstream so I believe thc should be an option for doctors to treat their patients.
help support our troops with traumatic brain injuries with medicinal marijuana.
since 1996, voters in at least 13 states and many municipalities have legalized use of athlete medicinal marijuana despite our federal government of tyranny says that's a state rights issue.
now we need a president with the brains and guts to stand up to the thugs who rule our world.
obviously ob-gyn doctor Ron paul who has delivered over 4,000 babies knows what is best here.
dr.
paul has been calling for the cancellation of continue war.
he is a doctor who knows what's best for his patients.
and acts accordingly.
dr.
paul also knows what's best for the survival of our world lies in the preservation of our constitution.
the gift of genius from our nation's founding fathers.
you can share your ideas on this and anything else in many ways.
write to your congress, legislature, governors, presidents, newspapers, family, friends and say yes to absolutely freedom for farmers.
here in Austin on 90.1 fm for free we -- which includes alex jones online.
we have infor wars.com 24/7 as well as dr.
paul's campaign for liberty.
c-a-m-p-a-i-g-n for liberty.
you can call american free press news --
>> [buzzer sounding] -- to subscribe.
>> thank you very much.
mr.
urias.
and he is assistant director of Austin county e.m.s.
>> I've been asked to give a short update on where we are as far as heat-related emergencies.
no surprise we're in unprecedented heat wave, 27 days of triple-digit temperatures.
overall we're seeing four patients a day as het related.
you can triple that number because many will come in for a variety of other symptoms such as headaches, fainting spells, generalized sickness.
tripling that number is very prudent.
the steps that we've been taking is we have a twice weekly conference call within the city organizations to monitor what numbers we're seeing, what everybody else is seeing.
there's been a very proactive approach being taken at the homeless shelters as far as opening up additional spaces and ensuring they have adequate water resources.
our demographics are showing, however, that the problem that we're seeing patientwise is spread across Travis County.
there's no geographic tie-in, not one part of town as opposed to any other part of the county.
the median age is somewhat interesting in that the patients we're seeing tend to be in the 35 to 40 age group.
we will continue to monitor the situation throughout the week and we work very closely with troy kimmel and the you unsavory news this is going to continue for another week.
we and the city are pretty much taking a proactive.
we believe many of our efforts are being heated.
we have had no direct deaths associated with the heat.
and we've only had a couple of incidents that we know of where children have been left in cars.
that's the positive news that the message is getting out and I think a lot of people are heeding the warnings that are out there.
are there any questions?
>> for the benefit of those listening, symptoms of heat stroke, being affected by heat are?
>> they can be very subtle, but then they turn very rapid.
usually most people start off with general fatigue.
some mild nausea.
a feeling of dizziness.
from there we always say listen to your body's warning signs.
it can progress rapidly to more serious signs and symptoms.
vomiting, fainting.
and then from there it gets very rapidly serious if those aren't heeded.
>> can you also tell us what a loved one should do if they think -- or the individual themselves if they feel they've gotten heat stroke?
what should they do?
>> the precautions are still very much -- very important as far as limiting your outdoor activity particularly in the heat of the day.
we see most of our calls around 1:00 and 2:00 p.m.
so try and limit your activities.
plenty of water.
we work very strong on making sure people remain hydrated and that doesn't mean soft drinks and certainly anything with alcohol in it.
wearing light clothing, a hat, sunscreen.
but primarily listening to what your body tells us as far as symptoms.
>> if someone does feel they've gotten heat stroke, they should dose themselves on water, a cool bath in order?
what should they do if they feel they are going down, and to call 911.
>> the primary thing is to get out of the sun, get out of the heat and start cooling off.
those will solve about 95% of the problems.
for people having the true heat related emergencies, it's time to call 911.
particularly if they've had any kind of fainting episode, if they feel like they are going to faint, nausea and vomiting, anything like that because they won't be able to keep fluids down and that's when we'll have to have an intervention.
>> thanks.
>> anything else I can answer for you?
>> thank you very much.
anybody else for citizens communication whether you signed in or not?
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, July 14, 2009 1:31 PM