Travis County Commissioners Court
February 23, 2010,
Item 31
31.
consider and take appropriate action regarding horse events at the Travis County exposition center: appoint committee of Travis County residents, county staff and one or two member(s) of Commissioners court; and -- no charge, postpone b, my guess would be until March 9th because next Tuesday is election day.
but on a, they have been collecting a whole lot of data regarding other facilities, and so it seems to me that to the extent that may assist us, even without the charge, we can go ahead and keep collecting.
that information.
i can be on this committee or not, but I do think two other members of the court ought to be on it.
what I will bring back next week or March 9th is a request that we appoint two members who can look at these horse shows, along with county staff, with the events, until we land on our policies and just make the decision rather than bringing all of them back to the court.
so -- so how does that sound?
now, I don't mind working on -- on this, but I do think rather than one person on the court it should be two.
is there a second person interested?
what I would do is be as comprehensive as possible in allowing input and trying to make an apples to apples comparison in terms of policies, fee schedules, et cetera.
whatever we vote on, it would be specific enough where if you have a horse event, then we can -- we can go to that source and find out basically, make the call.
the other thing is that I'm familiar with the -- with the request that we look at comprehensive policies.
i think we ought to work on that charge and work on it to the extent we can do so.
i wouldn't say we would have the same people working on the comprehensive charge as the other -- horse --
>> although we don't want them to be considered in context of the other non-profits versus for profit entitys.
>> right.
i'm not excluding anything.
i do think, though, that what we ought to do as soon as possible is get two members of the court to work with staff, just to make the call on these -- on these requests for same treatment as in the past.
and my own view is until we adapt our new policies that we try to do that as much as we can.
mr.
norton.
>> michael norton with the expo center.
with respect to the list of names submitted by the other parties, I did not get that list.
and I saw it briefly in tinley's office.
i did notice that not all people on the list were involved with horse events.
there were people involved with other events.
>> there was a dog event individual, a couple of entities that had two representatives.
>> right.
>> originally the court suggested that we put three or four people from the community on the committee.
but whether we do three or nine, I just would respectfully request specifically people putting on horse events to be focused on the specific needs for horse event, which is uniquely different and the genesis of this whole issue as it relates to all of the various services and amenities that a horse event requires compared to another.
>> well, I do think that -- that -- that we ought to have one person, one representative from -- from a certain association of entity -- my -- my personal thinking.
now on the dog event, do they do dog shows and horse shows?
>> no.
they do only dog shows.
so we'll be --
>> mora faylen put on multiple dog day events.
>> but it's apples and watermelons in terms of staging and all of the issues.
>> why don't we indicate this then, she may not meet the definition for being on this committee, but we will get with her and try to identify her issues and work with them before we report back to the court.
that meeting, we may be more productive at doing that in that we don't have to deal with as many people.
>> I do have a member from the u.s.
>> [indiscernible] federation that I have not been able to make comment with them yet.
>> the what?
>> the dressage, their national symposium this last year, as a result I met a number of people not using the expo center but it would be very timely to have them be on the committee to determine what it would take to have them locally use it.
it was their national federation that used it for their event.
but never used it locally.
i don't have a strong feeling one way or the other f.
they have not used it, they haven't caused us headaches.
>> I'm trying to figure out --
>> horses --
>> with more -- more than one style of horse show.
>> one member of the dressage association.
so -- so a group may not have more than one representative.
on this committee.
we are adding dressage.
and we are dealing with the dog show folk, a little bit differently.
and what name was that on the list that I have.
>> ms.
phaylen
>> [ phonetic ]
>> I got bard, arnett, lang, gribble,
>> [indiscernible] smith and ms.
monroe, not ms.
phalen.
>> second page, same e-mail.
still don't see it.
yes, I do.
mara?
>> correct.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> I wouldn't.
however, when we get a draft policy you may want to talk to them about it.
i'm suggesting that we figure out what sources of information we want, we try to pull that together, then we have those two or three meetings and we land on a set of draft policies.
then we can share those with whoever we want to share them with, as well as any other member of the committee as we move toward refinement.
that we bring it to the court early on for us to -- to tweak, revise, and then finally adopted.
so somewhere during that, if our question is now whether we use them as resource persons, that would be real good.
i don't know that you necessarily have to be on the committee.
>> I didn't hear the comment.
>> I just asked if someone from the rodeo should be on this committee.
>> well, I mean the issue at hand is rates and individual rental of the show barn, they rent the entire complex, I don't know if it would be --
>> any horse events person here who would like to address the court on this before we move?
by the way, horse events are real positive.
everybody kind of looked down like -- these are positive events, aren't they?
>> [laughter] well, any other thoughts?
there may be a -- sort of continuing slow stream of these to the court.
which is why I suggest next week or the week after that we really put in place a way to deal with the specific requests before we get the policies done.
that way I think it will save us some time.
because we end up pretty close to where we have been with them historically anyway.
so rather than just coming to court, because that's additional time and additional work, if that committee could just act for us with mr.
norton, mr.
roger el khoury, I think we can get it done that way.
so my motion is that we postpone action on the charge, once we have one, and preferably by March 9th and that we appoint as a citizens committee the names that we have on this list, and the only one that we would exclude will be mrs.
-- ms.
phalen, the only reason that we exclude her is that the others are horse events and her specialty seems to be the dog agility events, but we commit to work with her on whatever issues she has so we can work through them and that judge Biscoe is joined by who else from the Commissioners court?
>> okay.
>> ms.
porter, let's not indicate -- let's indicate on the record how quiet everybody is
>> [laughter] this is a valuable community service opportunity.
Commissioner Huber?
>> I will do it.
>> Commissioner Huber will do it.
she says that more enthusiastically than the microphone picks up, by the way.
biscoe and Huber will be for the court.
roger and michael norton for county staff.
and any other staff members that y'all designate that -- that need to assist us and of course ms.
tinley will work with ms.
aldridge, whether she's a foreman member or not.
in fact as an assistant county attorney you don't want to be a member anyway, right?
>> I don't think.
but I will assist in any way that I can.
>> being a resource is more valuable than being a member of the committee.
that's the motion.
>> can I remind you that we were going to add someone from the dressage federation as well.
>> yes, sir, thank you.
>> at least one person and you will get that name to us and what I will do is circulate to the other members the specific names.
adding Commissioner Huber and me.
maybe try to send out a schedule for -- where people can indicate when they are available or not.
we can get ours.
any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> okay, that was 31 a.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 2:15 PM
