Travis County Commissioners Court
September 8, 2009,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next.
and this item gives residents an opportunity to address the court for up to three minutes on any matter not on the agenda.
ronnie reeferseed is first, followed by gus pena, followed by elizabeth jones, dr.
jones.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
thank you, sir.
yes.
i am ronnie reefer
>> [inhale]seed, reveling in celebration of our sacred constitution and of course our founding fathers gave to the world a concept of self government with limits.
some limits to what our government can do to us are spelled out within the amendments to our constitution, for example, congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
nor can the state limit the freedom of speech, especially political speech, any political speech is there be protected which of course includes political speech that some people may find distracting or they might object to it or disagree with it.
guess what?
absolute freedom of political speech has resulted in the end of slavery.
here and not only slavery outlawed from the laws made by the congress of these united states, but slavery is outlawed across the nation.
every state.
every city, every county, has to comply and obviously to me similarly the freedom of political speech is absolute everywhere.
across the nation in every state and every city and every county.
not only including our own Travis County, be i& especially including Travis County.
there have been delusions of absolute power over the extreme law of our land our sacred constitution that have already clouded the so-called minds in Austin city government and now are beginning to seep in here.
know the city of Austin -- no the city of Austin does not have the legal right to limit disagreeable or so-called distracting political speech nor does Travis County have any such power to limit any disagreeable or disparaging political speech.
i choose to express some political ideas by carrying political signs and placards with me everywhere I go.
some people prefer not to think, which is their right.
and that does not mean they have the right to limit my political speech or the political ideas expressed by carrying signs.
you do not have to read them.
and/or if they bother you, bring your own signs, express your ideas.
look, we have no constitutional right to limit political speech of others.
even if it distractingly bothers us and disappointingly I have been told by no less than judge Biscoe that my political signs are not only now only useful during my tiny three minutes here and now, huh?
to learn more, read about our sacred constitution, what it means, why it's important by examining that your leader of american free press, a weekly populist newspaper.
subscribe, ob/gyn dr.
ron paul writes regularly for american free press and his ideas can be found for free on the phone, with weekly updates by dialing (888)322-1414, each week day 09.1 f.m.
from 11:00 a.m.
to 3:00 p.m.
4 to 6 on Sunday afternoon, alex jones is there, of course www.infowars.com online 24/7, also www.ronpaul.org.
there's lots of room for political discussion here.
let's keep it up.
>> thank you judge, Commissioners, gus pena here to talk about various capital metro two logical error.
capital rail and budget travails.
last month sounded like we were headed in the home stretch, this month more bases to come said board member and Austin mayor pro tem and I quote the chronicle, mike martinez.
we just don't know how long it will take to work through the problem, replied mr.
allen.
rail signal flaw.
adds to transit line delays.
still waiting for the little train that couldn't.
capital metro may tap stimulus to balance the budget.
i thank you all for supporting and setting aside the proposed rate hike.
it is very catastrophic.
would have been catastrophic in this era, in this bad economic situation and recession.
capital metro support our bus drivers.
we need new management at capital metro.
the public has lost -- a lot of the public has lost confidence in mr.
gilliam, randy hume, cfo, whatever title they have.
i mean no disrespect.
i am a man of respect.
but let's face it, when there is lack of fiduciary funding, accountability, change needs to come about, just like some elected officials need to go, also, that's the way it is.
that's progress.
error after error has continued to be allowed to occur at capital metro.
we just need management change and we're talking about immediately.
need to hold the board accountable, also.
Travis County appraisals, 15,100, get appraisal offer, this doesn't -- might not tell you anything, but maybe it tells the public that there needs to be an independent audit at Travis County appraisal district.
h1n1 swine flu, judge, Commissioner, I want to thank you all very much.
i wasn't able to item talk about the item last week, two weeks ago, about getting the Travis County exposition center to provide immunization for the public.
it's very important.
i'm going to talk about the issue later on when item no.
5 comes about.
people, don't take this swine flu lightly, you might think, because all of these politicians say it's not as bad as we think.
don't take it lightly.
it is dangerous, serious.
veterans have multiple problems trying to transition back into civilian life.
ptsd, jobs, transition counseling into civilian life, affordable housing, comprehensive job training.
when you are a military veteran, you spend whatever x am of number of years that you have in the military life, it is very, very difficult to transition back into civilian life.
i was there six years in the united states marine corps, proud veteran, discharged honorablely, honorablely, out of the rating they could give you on a 5.0, 4.9, which is pretty good.
the reason because I was two pounds overweight, they look at that very strictly at the marine corps.
i'm proud to have served the military.
please support the military personnel.
if you see them, stop them and thank them for serving our country.
mentors and tutors for students who need help in math, et cetera.
as we speak now, lieu at the dropout rate, you look at dropout rate, we need a lot of people to become mentors and tutors.
>> thank you, mr.
mean in a.
dr.
jones is next, morris priest is after dr.
jones and adel noel after mr.
priest.
>> good morning, good morning, judge Biscoe and Commissioners, my name is elizabeth jones, I'm here this morning to voice opposition to the txi hornsby bend project.
i live in chaparral crossing.
which is right across the street from one of the proposed pits.
i purchase my house almost two years ago.
the key factor in my decision to purchase that house was the beauty, quietness, sereneness.
the txi mining project could really ruin by serenity, I would look outside my bedroom window and see a gravel pit.
it will ruin my investment in beauty and quiet, not to mention the value of my home.
one of the proposed pits, as I say, will be right across the street from my house.
i attended one of the txi meetings in may.
and was told the following: number 1, they would do complete reclamation back to the original way the land looked.
we received a picture with flat lands and -- and blue bonnets on it.
and that a conveyor belt would be used and not trucks.
my understanding now is that txi resubmitted their plan and changed it.
now they will do only reclamation that the law -- that the law asks them to do, which will need berms, very much like we have on 973.
those are appalling.
now, we've moved away from the conveyor belt to trucks.
gravel trucks on these small county roads.
altering this project also changed the approval process of the -- of their plan and pretty much eliminates any public hearing on the issue.
the fact that there is no public input or hearing on a project of this size is appalling.
how can txi give the public one picture of what they are going to do as they did at their hotel meetings and change the project this drastically.
where the checks and balances and most importantly where is the public input?
we have a golden opportunity in eastern Travis County.
to build on the current residential growth, it really -- it is a neighborhood now, it is not rural area.
you have commercial growth, residential growth.
and you could really skip with your own conservation plan.
thank you so much.
i appreciate your time.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> appreciate yours.
>> thank you, thank you for your comments.
>> mr.
priest?
>> thank you, judge, Commissioners, morris priest for the record.
speaking on my own behalf as always.
i did want to mention that I previously requested the court to put the campo meeting on the agenda, it's not on.
you have an item, item 36 that's going to be taken up in executive session.
i would hope that the Commissioners on the campo board as well as the Commissioners court as a whole would vote against these bylaw changes if they don't make the changes that I previously brought before the court.
some of them regarding our speech.
the -- the campo meeting will be next Monday at the same place, same time, I believe, at the constance center.
i did want to say that we have a lady that passed away from our community -- in our community, I would like the county Commissioner court to give her a proclamation, ms.
pauline brown.
she was really a pillar of our community and I really just think that she should be recognized for her work with clarksville and we have a lot of people coming to this Commissioners court that are pillars in our community as well as the city of Austin and I think that it would be great to recognize her for her contributions to our city and clarksville.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> I also want to say that -- that I really did want to come to the court to give a no vote of confidence for chief kerr.
since chief kerr is our fire chief at afd, the Austin fire department, she has made many decision that's have been really bad, reducing the level of staffing on fire trucks from four to three, elevating lieutenants to fire chiefs, just really actually too numerous to mention.
i don't really know if we will ever be able to solve the problem until politically speaking, we replace our mayor, mayor pro tem, city management, mark ott, mcdonald.
i think this fire chief that we have has made so many poor choices that it's just time to move forward.
on that, I wanted to say that I did support the court and the removal of ms.
Moore smith and ms.
perez.
i haven't spoke on the issue.
but they are both really fine ladies and everything, but yeah, we have the sheriff, we have people in community, monte christo, the boxing lady, all of the people that's come before this Commissioners court doing very fine things, helping people in our community.
and we need -- we can't have this strife and this subdivision, we have to come together.
i'm not saying anything directly against them.
but simply put it was a personality clash.
it was not to oversimplify it, but we have a lot of people that's really slugging their guts out in this community to try to make this place a better community for all.
and we just can't have this kind of division.
i do support the members of the court that did vote
>> [buzzer sounding] on that matter.
but anyway, I just wanted to say that I do appreciate this court.
i do appreciate and respect each and every one of you and I -- let you know that I supported you in that decision and hopefully we can make some changes, thanks.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
priest.
>> as a point of information, the bylaws are not on this month's campo agenda.
>> okay.
>> ms.
noel.
>> I'm here today to announce an exciting event going on right now in our area, the 2009 commuter challenge.
the purpose is to promote a commute solution on the daily commute to and from work during lunch or during business related meetings.
you know this is dear to my heart because it involves improving air quality.
commute solution is car pooling, vanpooling, biking, walking, riding the bus, roller blading or roller skating or even skate boarding to work, lunch on site, telecommuting or working in a compressed work week.
teleconferencing to a meeting.
calling in instead of actually driving to the meeting.
it's so simple to enter this contest challenge.
you just go to www.rcride.org and it's opened up to all residents of Travis County, Williamson, bastrop and hays.
and I really hope that we have at least 400 county employees that sign up and participate in this event because it's so simple to do.
every time that you do an entry, you bike to work, you stay on site for lunch, you telecommute or you work a compressed work week, you get one entry into the competition to win a great prize.
the prizes are really great.
you have an opportunity to win a digital camera, I pod shuffle or solar backpack or a messenger pack.
what is a solar backpack?
it allows you to plug in your solar devices and have them recharged in your backpack by using solar energy.
i think that it's great.
i wanted to let everyone know about this competition and that I hope to see the court members as well as all Travis County employees participate.
>> it's rcride?
>> yes.
>> dot org?
>> yes, it is.
>> thank you, ms.
noel, I can see court members rushing to sign up.
>> you bet.
>> [laughter]
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, September 8, 2009 2:14 PM
