Travis County Commissioners Court
March 9, 2010,
Item A1
A1.consider and take appropriate action on reappointment of henry gilmore to the central Texas regional mobility authority board.
1234 henry gill more the a great individual.
what I have to say about henry not as an individual but about choices we each get to make.
we all have choices we make in our lives.
i have no problem with that.
in business we generally make choices that enhance our economic returns, that's fine.
on the other hand, in terms of leadership, those choices often require one to step beyond themselves to think of others.
and at times leadership choices may have a short term impact on one's own compensation or revenues so when I looked for a qualified candidate to appoint to a leadership position, particularly a regional leadership position, I look for individuals who have demonstrated they have the greater interest of the region at heart, that they have demonstrated that they can go that extra step when it is needed for the greater good.
when I have a candidate who is -- who has represented in front of this county a sand and gravel mining project, specifically the txi horns by bend prompt, a project which will likely increase property value of which these counties are income based, a project that will negatively impact over 3,000 residents, a project that will have huge impact on air quality in the region, bordering on nonattainment, a project of 2,000-acres that sits right in the middle of the sh130 corridor which is the targeted corridor for economic development by the city of Austin and the greater Austin chamber of commerce, a project that will last 15-30 years and have upwards of 750 trips per day by huge sand and gravel trucks on limited two-lane roads, I have to wonder if an individual who made a choice to represent a project with regional impacts as potentially egregious as this one will make good leadership choices on a ctr in may when it comes to what is good for the region.
i have to wonder and my wondering prevents me at this point from being able to cast my vote in favor of reappointment of this individual.
>> any more comments?
>> I have a comment.
i am grateful for the representation of our campo appointees but I feel I must express dissatisfaction with the ctmra with regard to a regional transportation Texas that is multimodal and I think the ctmra will go in great lengths to prevent procedural and safeguards in regard to move money from one toll road to ore toll road projects, I call on our appointees, including mr.
gill more to represent the wishes of the majority of the county for whom they are the representatives rather than go along to get along in the ctrma board.
it was very, very difficult for us to find candidates willing to serve when we were filling mr.
leverman's spot.
i pledge to go out there and beat the bushes for the best candidates we can possibly to find to serve on the rma to represent Travis County interests.
at this point I will vote in favor of mr.
gilmore's next term but I am not at all satisfied with the rma, knowing what their statutory abilities are and seeing what their actions have been, I am not at all satisfied.
>> any other comments from the court?
mr.
priest.
>>
>> [indiscernible] I was hoping to hear a little bit more than rhetoric, but I
>> [indiscernible] the court even consider appointing this individual because the obama administration made it real clear that this money wasn't for toll roads but with this cross
>> [indiscernible] of 183 and the gravel mine situation but as well as the situation with tow tolling these flyovers, on 183 and 190, there are four flyovers there and they were originally funded for gas tax dollars because these toll roads aren't bringing in the revenues they were expected to bring in.
i just think as far as these decisions that's been made by the ctrma and this particular individual, when I went to a workshop, I asked him -- and I am not even sure if he knew how many of the questions I asked him if he knew how many flyovers there were and him and mike halinst, ine couldn't answer the question, that is after you approved with campo and I found out the same situation with some campo board members, but, I didn't there is some conflicts of interest or ethics or whatever you want to call it.
just things I am not comfortable with and I certainly don't think that -- I would like to see a little bit more than rhetoric.
i would imagine there is at least two votes that would --
>> my point on that --
>> did you get a chance to finish, mr.
priest.
>> sorry.
>> go ahead.
>> were you finished?
>> yes.
>> this is your last opportunity.
>> that's fine.
>> I didn't mean to cut you off.
>> mr.
davis.
>> thank you, judge.
my concern is that when the express -- the main express toll situation came up I had a lot of calls from the community, saying they were not involved in the process, they had some -- they may have had some hearings but the real guts and nuts and bolts of the community were not being listened to.
that disturbed me greatly and I remember the stimulus package of money and all of this other stuff, the decision made by Texas transportation commission, all of these other kinds of things but concerned more more than anything else was the persons that were impacted the most was not -- did mott have a voice.
>> right.
>> and not having a voice, in my opinion, is just not appropriate, and I had no one to even report to me on -- when I was hoping to get information from mr.
gilmore and others on this and I did not, per se.
i had to get the information, I guess, from county staff to let me know what is going on, but I got a lot of information from the residents that live in that area who would be affected by the toll.
and we are talking about some folks that are very poor, who have to use this area to travel back and forth to get to town the best way they can.
so I am very real disturbed about the performance of the ctrma board members.
and I am concerned that I am going to hold up the banner for the persons who have been following -- their voices have not been heard in the proper or shade in the category that I think they should be listened to and I will listen to them.
so I can't support this appointment -- reappointment.
>> I think he has done an outstanding job.
he took on this responsibility when it was new, he has been on since.
this work is tough work.
probably next to the child child protective services board, it is probably the toughest.
the last time we had a vacancy on there and we had to extend the deadline for application three times an we barely got two and I tried my best to beat Travis County bushes on that.
this is not -- this is not an opportunity that everybody would embrace.
it requires a whole lot of time.
there is a lot of agony.
et cetera, so I think that -- I think we are lucky he agrees to serve one more term.
he did say this would be his last, so I think we ought to pat him on the back.
on the actions that the ctrma has taken, all of those were consistent with the position that campo took.
and our policy has never been that if we don't like your clients, we will pun punishyou, and I don't think tht is a good policy because we applied across the board we will probably end up with nobody volunteering to serve on these boards and Commissioners, I move for approval of reappointment to henry gilmore for ctrma board.
>> second?
discussion discussion.
>> all in favor, Gomez Eckhardt and yours truly voting for and Commissioner Davis and Huber against.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 2:53 PM
