Travis County Commissioners Court
October 27, 2009,
Item 1
Item no.
1 is a public hearing to receive comments regarding park fee and refund proposals by the transportation and natural resources department.
>> move that the public hearing be opened.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
Commissioner Eckhardt would vote for this motion if she knew that we were having it.
>> sorry, yes.
>> open the public hearing.
good morning.
>> good morning, judge.
charles --
>> by the way, let me announce this.
Commissioners Huber and Davis will both miss today's meeting, so we will only have three.
okay.
>> charles bard with t.n.r.
parks, with me to my right is curt nielsen, robert armistead.
we are here to present a proposal for park fees for next year.
and -- there you go.
our proposal for park use fees includes day use fees, camping fees at several park, hamilton pool, hippie holly, bob wentz, loop 360, cypress creek, reimer ranch, sandy creek and arkansas bend.
the last time we increased these park fees was in October of 2003.
currently, our day use fee is $8 per vehicle.
we are proposing a rate of $10.
our day use at hippie hollow currently $10 per vehicle, increased to $12.
annual day use fee is $75 per vehicle, $100 is the proposal.
and our duplicate annual permit, $25 per vehicle up to $50.
comparison on the chart shows what other agencies are charging.
city of Austin, parks and recreation, is $5 during the week and then Friday through Sunday is $8 per vehicle.
their annual pass is $75 for 20 entries per vehicle.
lcra is $5 per vehicle or $4 per person, $60 for their annual fee.
comparison with parks and wildlife is $5 per person, $60 annual fee.
and the difference in that one is theirs is per person, where ours is per vehicle, so obviously the more people you have in the car, the more it will cost for that.
the main thing that we're trying to do is get our cost recovery up.
currently overall with all of our parks about 33%, covering revenues over costs.
that's -- that's our part.
next, curt is going to talk a little bit about the refunds policy.
>> last year the court approved new fees for our athletic fields and facilities.
it included higher reservation fees in order to -- to increase our accountability.
a lot of people were -- they could book the fields for a small amount of money.
one thing that we didn't realize, now that they are putting up more money for reservation fees, we want to put a mechanism in place to where they can get that refunded if they give us adequate notice of cancellation.
so we're proposing a -- a policy that says parks reservation office, must receive a cancellation request 12 business days in advance of the scheduled event dated to receive a full refund, which would include all fees.
then we're also allowing people like -- that are having tournaments to make modifications to their reservation, as long as they do that at least four business days prior to the event.
at the same time we were looking at this refund policy, we were looking at our policy for refunds for our permit parks.
our -- our parks where we have day use fees, which we talked about earlier.
and right now, we have a -- we have a policy in place that allows us to give visitors avoucher for reasons if they come into one of our parks and way to get in, then there's a family emergency and they have to leave.
now we're able to give them a voucher which would allow them another visit at another time.
what we have realized sometimes that really isn't advocate for maybe out of town visitors or such.
so we would like another mechanism in place to be able to refund their money.
in cases where avoucher does not really fit the situation.
>> the other -- the other park fees that we're talking about are -- is to -- to add a -- pavilion rental fee for mansfield dam concession building.
this concession building was built in the park back probably about seven or eight years ago.
we had a -- a concessionaire that operated there for several years, but we have not been able to get a concessionaire back in there and the building has stayed empty.
so the thinking is that we would rent it out as a pavilion and try to generate income from it.
the other shelter, rental fee that we would add, is that the east metro basketball pavilion, allow us to -- to busy weekends, that pavilion gets overrun by picnickers and we would be proposing to be able to rent a portion of that shelter out for -- for picnickers because the basketball uses is -- can be displaced to a shelter, basketball court which is at a nearby structure.
we are also proposing $50 refundable deposit for shelter rentals.
that would be at the moya and webberville park.
also at east metro if we allow the basketball pavilion to be rented as a shelter.
and ...
that's it.
are there any other recommendations?
>> what's a business day in the parks department?
>> you mean hours of operation?
>> well, you -- part of your proposal pertains to four business days.
>> oh, for the refund policy.
>> is that --
>> that's like Monday through Friday.
if they have, let's say they have an event on Saturday and they want to make a modification, then they would need to come in by Tuesday.
>> all right.
>> four days during the week, basically.
>> during the week, yeah.
>> on the conversion of the large basketball court at east metro park, my recommendation was that we touch base with some of the residents in that area, beginning with the advisory committee and the east rural community center and the neighborhood associations there if -- if we can locate them.
the recommendation makes sense to me, but I think we ought to try to get input from the impacted residents.
>> we can do that.
>> that same notice, we may ought to remind them of the availability of a beautiful, large, more than one, I guess, shelters down at webberville park.
>> absolutely.
>> yeah.
any other questions, comments from the court?
>> huh-uh.
>> we are posted for a public hearing on this item today.
no action.
but a public hearing.
we will get additional input and if you are watching this, discussion and wish to provide input you will have time after today, probably up to about another three or four weeks?
okay.
if you would like to give comments on item no.
1, the public hearing on the proposals regarding park fee increases and the refund changes, please come forth at this time.
please come forth at this time.
this is probably the only public hearing in the Commissioners court.
but those who wish to give comments can just contact the transportation and natural resources department or phone --
>> 854-9383.
>> the main number?
>> okay.
or send an e-mail to t.n.r.
>> t.n.r.
>> okay.
>> thank you.
>> what was that number again.
>> 854-9383.
>> 354?
>> 854-9383.
>> 854938?
>> 83.
>> just ask for parks.
>> move that the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you all very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:40 PM
