Travis County Commissioners Court
November 3, 2009,
Item 23
>> 23 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding the recodification and internet publishing of the Travis County code a, appointment of a task force and b charge for task force.
Commissioner.
>> certainly, I will lay this one out.
gillian may throw in some uncharacteristic comments here and there hopefully.
this issue came about sort informally among several people.
there was a discussion about the fact that technology and the information access has changed over the years.
and although we have --
>> microphone, please.
>> good., sorry about that.
although we have -- worked diligently to keep pace, we've -- we have not paid very much attention to the access, either public or internal, the electronic access to our county code.
it is not currently -- our county code is currently not available for the public or internal users electronically.
even as an assistant county attorney, one cannot access the full code electronically.
to the extent that it can be accessed electronically, it's not searchable by terms.
it's in multiple media and formats, it's -- the county clerk is the keeper of the full code and has the full code, but it is in multiple medias and formats.
portions are outdated, superseded, never repealed or are duplicative, navigating the -- navigating often requires assistance of the library staff.
some of whom know only because of the amount of time they have been at the county how to find certain things and my concern is when those staff people move on, their knowledge will move on with them.
so in sort of informal discussion with county clerk staff, with -- with library and information technology staff, I wanted to put forward a goal of editing and formatting the code for publication too the -- to the web and establishing a procedure for the maintenance of the code moving forward to facilitate user friendliness.
>> I have gotten requests for this information in this manner from -- from probably four residents over the last couple of years.
not a whole lot, but -- but at least three of them seem to be real surprised that we didn't have this.
and claimed that every other governmental entity does.
i doubt that every one of them does, but many of them probably do.
>> we did check with the conference of urban counties, some of the other counties used codification services.
in our internal discussions, in any case, none of this is formal or anything, but at least in our internal discussions it was thought that we really didn't need a codification service at this point; that we had considerable in-house talent to at least do a first leg of recodifying, formatting and recodifying and establishing parameters.
if we then saw that the codification surface -- we would have to greatly reduce the amount of money because we would have done most of the leg work already.
the idea was the proposal for next step on this would be to create a task force and several of those people in informal discussions got so jazzed about it that they continue to work on it, even though we haven't formalized anything.
the e-mails have been flying back and forth rather furiously about suggested ways to streamline the process.
the individuals who have stepped up to the plate are gillian porter, lisa rush, robert resnick, josie zavala, roxanne and tinley aldridge.
that group represents our library staff, clerk staff, representative out of judge Biscoe's office, I hope you don't mind
>> [laughter] former auditor now with its, the county attorney's office.
and these are all individuals who are intimately aware of both the holes in our system but also the existing document.
and they would very much like to be named to this task force.
the items that were discussed with regard to a charge, just as, you know, a proposed starting point, are, one, to recommend a universal style guide for reformatting the existing code.
just so, you know, you are looking at the same format whether you are looking at something applying -- that applies to t.n.r.
or applies to facilities management.
editing the code.
and this charge would require a collaboration with the departments to differentiate between current and outdated portions of the code as it relates to that department.
and also staff recommended edits then coming back to the Commissioners court for review.
so none of this would be done under the radar.
it would all be done with Commissioners court oversight.
three, to -- to reformat the edited code for web publication.
and, four, to recommend procedures for future amendment and maintenance of the code that facilitate that kind of user friendliness and accessibility.
>> questions?
>> my only recommendation would be that the fund be larger than the backup memo
>> [laughter]
>> that could be done.
at this point there's no cost associated with it.
this -- this informal group had looked at it and felt that this was a charge that they could take on without additional costs at this point and that -- that -- group would come back to the court if they saw a price tag associated with their activities.
>> interpreted, no budget is approved.
second the motion.
>> uh-huh.
>> that was your motion to approve it.
>> yes, sir.
>> discussion?
>> its time has come.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
number
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, November 3, 2009 1:40 PM
