Travis County Commissioners Court
August 25, 2009,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication next, this gives residents an opportunity to address the court in matters not on the agenda.
gus pena is first.
pete rangel, is that the same person that testified earlier?
>> yes?
>> okay.
he has testified already.
judy holden is second and ronnie reeferseed is third.
good morning.
>> good morning, judge.
Commissioners, gus pena.
capital metro.
Commissioner Gomez, you are the board chair and I believe Commissioner Eckhardt you serve as a board member of capital metro?
no?
who is the other one?
nobody else, just one.
how sad.
please vote no on the fare increase, it's a recession, people are losing their jobs, uncloud.
it's not good, not a good time.
as a matter of fact, we urge that you replace fred gilliam as president and ceo and randy, any other officials that have been detrimental to improving capital metro.
they are not doing their job.
more people need help for represent, utilities, food, help to pay for medication.
a lot of families are in motels.
some don't accept checks.
some will not accept vouchers from Austin Travis County health and human services, takes 30 days for reimbursement.
nobody in their right mind will accept this type of situation to pay for rent.
social service agencies, a lot of money needed to improve the poor, needy, have nots, less fortunate.
red tape requirements preclude people from being eligible for some of this funding.
whatever, you need to do your homework, find out what red tape is there, keep people from being eligible for these fundings.
h 1 n 1 swine flu, influenza, said this two or three weeks ago.
the health authority needs to do education, combat possible contamination.
veterans, please thank a veteran returning from iraq, afghanistan, they put their lives on the line.
families are in turmoil.
they need ptsd treatment, housing, jobs, et cetera.
show their appreciation.
mentors and tutors for students, especially in math, please volunteer your time if you can.
property taxes, property taxes protests on the increase, a lot of problems out there.
one last item and I'm going to leave it at that.
i have to go, you know, I mean having a public hearing before citizens communication kind of throws our schedules out of whack.
judge, Commissioners, I met alicia perez a long time ago when she was an assistant city manager, city of Austin, I go way back to mayor miller.
i found her a very professional, respectful, caring and loving person.
that's all I'm going to say.
i mean, I'm a former eeo discrimination complaints investigation for the department of treasury.
i have my -- I gave you copies of my former i.d.
i just, you know, hate to see her go.
she was very helpful to a lot of people.
employed a lot of people.
helped people when they needed help.
i never found her to be angry, she can be tough.
angry or disrespectful to anybody that I know of.
i have to say this on the record.
you know, you are losing a good employee.
i wish it was not so.
it's very tough to do that in these tough economic times.
i just feel that she is respectful and she is an asset.
thank you very much, have a good day.
>> thank you, mr.
pena.
ms.
holden.
>> I need somebody to show me how to project this on to the screen.
>> media, are you able to --
>> it's on.
>> here, but you can't see it.
>> can you put what's on the machine down here on the television?
there you go.
>> oh, it's on there, good.
>> I'm here today, I'm judy holden, here today to show you a little slide show of a very beautiful bend of the river called hunters bend.
where txi wants to mine 2000 acres of gravel.
here is some irrigation at the Texas native nursery.
as you see, they use a lot of water, it's shallow.
it's from water wells, they brought all kinds of plants that are sold here in Austin.
this is the Austin tree farm, which is also on hunters bend.
none of these will be affected by the gravel mining except that they may lose their water.
and that's a huge effect.
but they won't be mined because they wouldn't sell.
this is pecan orchard irrigation, you can see it there on the left-hand side of the pecan trees.
this is pipes with sprinklers that go around and around.
this is a pecan crop.
very good this year in spite of the drought.
a hey crop also quite good this year in spite of the drought.
all of those trees in the back are giant pecan trees along elm creek.
this looks like a tree out in the middle of a field where they're going to dig for gravel.
actually, it's the gilly land family cemetery underneath those -- that tree.
gilleland.
three of james's gilleland's children are buried, james and diana gilleland may be buried here.
it's in very bad disrepair, needs somebody to adopt it.
one of james and diana's daughter, rebecca gilleland already is buried here.
she gave birth to a son, frederick burke, christmas day 1943, she died five days later.
she was only 21 years old.
her son died in August of the following year and is also buried in this cemetery.
you will just have to figure out what you think happened.
txi is going to make a narrow levy going out to the cemetery and they are going to mine on three sides of it.
this is the william dunlap hunter plantation home and cemetery.
it is protected by a seal, whatever that is.
people were in this area from 1858 onward.
the land has been owned by his descentants until now.
this, too, will be mined on three sides.
>> [buzzer sounding] this is a picture of a giant pecan tree and the car is in there just for scale.
now if the water is interrupted or the water table changes, these trees may not survive.
they don't get irrigated.
so -- oh, very last.
you can just read through this.
>> thank you ms.
holden.
>> thank you very much.
now somebody needs to turn this off.
>> there we go.
>> thank you.
>> mr.
reeferseed.
>> thank you, judge, ronnie reeferseed.
paraphrasing john lennon, you don't know what you have got until it's gone.
it's about the first amendment people here, liberal progressive Austin, Texas, our new mayor leffingwell along with city council man mike martinez decided to sled our constitution.
in effect I am banned from exercising my first amendment rights of free political speech, the current wacky rules now demanding a two week prior reservation for the privilege of addressing the city council and so-called public servants.
now extended to two months.
ie having addressed the Austin city council only about half a dozen times, I was startled to learn of their new censorship regime at the city council meeting last week, proudly my sometimes provocative ideas about peace and freedom have shaken up the tyrants of political masters of local politics here to run scared.
they decided to ban the three minutes of my words and ideas for at least two months, ie four city council meetings, evidently any citizen who bothers to participate more often than the so-called elite perrers is now limited to one, three minute segment to speak only after waiting two months since the last time.
nowhere in our sacred constitution is political speech limited in any way.
that requires a two month delay for the privilege to share political ideas.
usually, like this week, the unconstitutional limit of 10 speakers is not met because several if not most of those who get on their cursed list don't bother to show up.
they don't even have 10 on the list this week.
in contrast, here at the Travis County Commissioners court sessions here, there is no such numerical limit to speak.
to speaker his, you just have to show up here in time to speak your mind, even with controversial ideas about life, love, peace and freedom.
thanks judge bisco.
news 8 Austin did a occur allows hit peace about me as a result only added fuel to this fire and widening my exposure to an even larger group.
they only showed a partial pronunciation of my name, ronnie reeferseed but the word is getting out anyway.
that's right, truth and liberty is catching on as more people every day learn to speak and demonstrate their ideas.
no matter how hard they try, they can't stop us now!
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every week day and Sunday afternoon, online I suggest everyone check out www.americanfreepress.net.
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imagine two doctors paul in the government.
yes, we can help save our precious constitutional republic from the --
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tell me what you think, thank you so much.
>> thank you, mr.
reeferseed.
christie cleveland, I think she testified already on another matter.
paul saldana is next.
and frank wringer.
>> good morning, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> my name is paul saldana, I am here this morning to speak to the importance of moving forward with a court resolution and a county policy that addresses the county commit's to affirmative action.
a small group of us had a meeting with Commissioner Gomez and judge Biscoe and we did speak to both of them about this and eventually our plan is to come and meet with each of you about this.
members of the hispanic community remain deeply disappointed with the county's lack of diversity at all levels of county government and it's my understanding that to date there are no hispanic department heads out of the 24 county departments that you have.
and obviously there are no more hispanic executive managers.
i firmly believe that our society and our community as a whole benefits when affirmative action is used to maintain diverse workplaces.
people from different background, cultures, genders bring complimentary skills that collectively enrich the places where we work and learn.
it's my hope that each of you can envision a workforce that mirrors the large community, larger community and reflects our rich diversity of people and of cultures.
at minimum the court's resolution and policy should strongly endorse the use of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action mechanisms to ensure equal opportunities for all employees, job applicants and for contract vendors.
and to promote the full realization of equal opportunity for the county as a whole and within each of your county departments.
to accomplish this, the county should engage in personnel practices and policies that will assist the county government in achieving a workforce that reflects the demographic diversity of the county.
actively recruits members of protected classes for county employment, strongly enforce equal opportunity and affirmative action guidelines in your vendor contracting processes and procedures.
and finally in order to achieve these goals the county Commissioners at the court should create and adopt a county equal opportunity and affirmative action plan.
it's my understanding that the county has no affirmative action plan.
i think also take it a step further, I think that you need to have an office of affirmative action that would assume the responsibility of monitoring and enforcing your affirmative action plan.
recently came across an article from a law professor in the midwest who addressed the issue of affirm testify action equity and diversity, he writes let me share my list of 10 indicators that will lead me to champion the elimination of affirmative action, equity and diversity efforts in higher education, business and government.
number one when women and minorities have attained their proportionate share of leadership roles in higher institution and business and government, number two when the voices of youth and minorities and women are actively solicited present and heard and accorded due respect and weight in the process of hiring promotion.
merit and retention.
when policy practices added to structures within our institutions, organizations and workplaces support the development and success of qualified minorities and women.
>> [buzzer sounding] and the same
>> [indiscernible] others developed and supported.
it goes on and on, I will e-mail this to you.
but the bottom line is until then affirmative action, equity and diversity issues are necessary, warranted and timely tools for social justice, I appreciate your time this morning.
>> thank you very much.
>> mr.
wringer.
>> yes.
thank you for this opportunity.
first just a little bit about my background.
i've got 30 plus years experience in public sector administration.
approximately 15 years of that has been at the executive level.
i'm saddened to hear that the county has had this conflict at the top of its organization between the administrator and h.r.
i would urge the Commissioners court to proceed slowly with filling those positions.
and the reason I suggest that, this is an opportunity because this is happening at this level, I don't think it's risky to say that you all have a sick organization.
the opportunity to go in and do an assessment to see what works and what does not work is now f.
you don't do that -- if you don't do that, then I would urge you when you fill those two top positions to change your job descriptions and to look for someone who has a strong background in organizational change and organizational management.
one of the issues that you all face at this point in time is risk.
when you have a dysfunctional organization at the top, okay, even the best organizations there's the risk and the risk comes from what we all consider our most important asset, that's our employees.
productivity suffers.
effectiveness and efficiency suffers.
the organizational culture splint teres.
it is the nature of -- of private sector to be siloed.
i would be willing to say that some of your silos now are underground.
okay?
this would give you an opportunity to, number one, to create some efficiencies.
to change the culture.
okay.
now, it will not be easy because this is a situation, when these opportunities present itself, this is an opportunity to walk the talk.
okay.
and if in fact you want to change your organization, okay, you all are going to have to be willing and active participants in this process.
you are only going to have to acquire the tools that you expect your employees down line all the way down to the lowest maintenance worker to be able to utilize.
now, I'm a consultant, but I don't say this as a consultant.
i say this as a former associate Commissioner of health for the state of Texas.
that had all of the broken glass organizations responsible to me.
i had h.r., I had purchasing, I had facilities management, I had all of our state-wide leases, I had our h.r.
benefits and pay policies and I had our administrative policies.
>> okay.
>> we went
>> [buzzer sounding] through an organizational change and I can tell you that it invigorated our organization, it streamlined our functions, there were savings and you -- it's hard to believe that the suggestions for most of the savings at the end of this process and most of the streamlining came from suggestions from our employees.
and I would say that I would be available to talk with you all in more detail about what's available to make those changes.
but if in fact you vote to go ahead and fill those positions, I would suggest that you look very closely at your organizational chart, look very closely at the job descriptions at what you are going to be asking these individuals to do.
because if you don't bring about some type of organizational change or cultural shift --
>> thank you.
>> okay.
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, August 25, 2009 2:07 PM
