Travis County Commissioners Court
May 4, 2010,
Item 33
Let's do one more item, larry, then we'll call yours up, and that item is 33 is to receive briefing and take appropriate action on appointing additional county residents, or official to the policy board of the capital area metropolitan planning organization, campo, and as i indicated in the backup, part of the reorganization of campo that we approved recently provided that austin and travis county would receive one more representative and in a discussion with mayor leffingwell, we decided that travis county would receive the first appointment and we would make that appointment as necessary thereafter, and that's in the backup. And posted today is deciding exactly how we plan to proceed. Now, i did get two things. One is that i did get a request from rica austin chamber of commerce that encouraged an open and transparent process. Two is that early this morning i did see from alderman at this time hamilton of rollingwood, his interest in serving in this position. He says he is running unopposed for mayor of rollingwood and he believed he'll win that election. And the other thing is that we do have some time constraints in that there's a very important vote on the 2035 plan coming up on may 24. My own belief is that what we ought to do is contact those that we think may be interested, have this back on the agenda next tuesday to make an appointment.
>> judge?
>> any other comments? Commissioner?
>> because of the time constraints, i believe that we might consider making an interim appointment as we move through an open and transparent process, as rica worded it. I believe that time is of the essence to have a full -- full representation, a full complement of travis county representatives for both the meeting on the 10th and the meeting on the 24th, and having an open and transparent process will certainly take more than the three weeks, and then we would have missed our opportunity to have a full complement of travis county representatives. Since our small cities representative has communicated his interest in continuing to serve, although, of course, there is no longer a small city slot, but he qualifies for that slot, and also even if we could get a transparent process up and running and make a selection, if it was not someone who is intimately familiar with the 2035 plan in the tip, it would be a great loss to us. And mayor mills is intimately familiar with the tip and long range plan. So i would suggest that we at least make the interim appointment of mayor mills today and then carry over the item with regard to a process for a permanent appointment.
>> so in your view.
>> it's up to the court with regard to how long the process would take. In the past i believe this process has taken up to three months.
>> i would agree with commissioner eckhardt. This whole process with campo is extremely complicated. We're at the tail end of the process on the 2035 plan. I think it would be very difficult to bring a new person in in the short-run, and mayor mills certainly has met the criteria for membership on campo before and been a very good-serving member. So i would support commissioner eckhardt's suggestion that we look to an interim appointment today and perhaps carve out a time frame to develop a process for the future.
>> mr. Davis, do you have a position on this item?
>> yes, i guess i do. I -- tell -- what commissioner eckhardt stated and her reasons for stating it, and also what huber is saying, i want to make sure that whatever takes place, the transparency in this whole idea is in place. Transparency i think means a lot of things, especially if you have experience transparency. So just based on that, in other words, kind of hit the ground running type of setting, and just based on that i'd like to maybe proceed in that recommendation. It's kind of hard to be a part of something and then not knowing the full magnitude of what you've been exposed to sometimes can be detrimental to some degree, and then again sometimes not, but i think as complex as campo is, i mean, it's a very complex organization with a lot of complex issues, and i think we heard testimony today about some of the complexity of campo when we heard the young lady from brodie lane situation and hays county situation. I think we need someone that kind of maybe need to have some insight or have some experience in the complexity of what's going on here. So i have no problem with the recommendation.
>> i would propose we appoint mayor mills as our interim appointee for campo, subject to review and development of a transparent process in the next three months.
>> second.
>> well, i oppose the motion because of the email that i saw this morning, and to be honest, i got 1200 others and i'm not sure what they say, but i would simply chat with those who have indicated an interest on being on this and maybe get them to send us something in writing and maybe make the decision next week, which is about as open and transparent as you can be in a week's time. This was on the agenda last week. The only email that i saw was from hamilton, who has served on cartco for many, many years and has attended numerous campo meetings, because i've seen him there, and he's about as familiar with transportation issues as anybody else. The other thing is that he is now an alderman at rollingwood and soon to become mayor, and mayor mills is not in office at this time, did not seek re-election, and in my view -- and i would -- not that i would necessarily choose haim hamilton but i would give ourselves an opportunity to compare them better. Any more discussion of a motion?
>> one thing, it was pulled last week because -- since there were only three people on the dais, the feeling was that to make any kind of interim appointment with so few folks from the commissioners court would be unfair to the appointee.
>> i'm not suggesting the appointment should have been made last week. I'm suggesting it would help, if you have an interest in serving on the board, get your application in before next tuesday. It would put us in a better position to do that, which is why i put it on the agenda before i left town. At the same time, though, i didn't have any strong preference and had no way of knowing that alderman hamilton was interested in serving in this slot.
>> do you anticipate that we'd be able to make a decision on a permanent appointment by next tuesday?
>> as permanent as the appointment gets. I don't know whether the appointment is for a year or two years. It's a mid-year appointment, i would think. So -- i mean, i don't know that we -- we typically would give a 10 or 15-minute interview, but it would be an opportunity to look at resumes, consider all the factual circumstances and then make a choice. I agree with you. Interim on this court does not mean 30 days. Typically it means many, many months, and if the next permanent slot starts -- tenure starts in several months, in my view the justification would be for us to just wait and start that next tenure at that time.
>> and not have representation in that spot or --
>> i'm saying make the decision next tuesday, but i'm saying, i saw one email but i was really going through look for emergencies and had no idea it was about, pulled it out and read it, and to be honest i don't know whether it came yesterday or a week ago. I got to the office this morning at 8:00, 8:00 am, a little bit earlier than usual, and had an opportunity to go through some email.
>> judge, i have a question because i haven't had a chance to really look at the agenda for next monday's campo meeting. Is there any action item or is it just a public hearing.
>> supposed to be just a must be a public hearing. Suppose to be. And if i have my way this side of the agenda would be
>> [inaudible] but others may have a different idea. We committed at our last meeting to give priority to the public hearing, and i have no way of knowing whether they'll have ten people come to give comments or a hundred. I have not chatted with commissioner eckhardt about the committee meeting on tr 4 yet, but my guess is there will be something related to a report back from the committee if there's something to report. So....
>> so the motion on the table is what?
>> the motion is -- ms --
>> appoint the
>> [inaudible] as an interim --
>> to appoint former mayor mills.
>> yes, until you find another -- there's no time
>> [inaudible].
>> right. That was a motion, seconded by commissioner huber.
>> and develop a process of transparency for appointment.
>> oh, yes.
>> any more discussion? All in favor of the motion. Show commissioners, davis, eckhardt and huber voting in favor. Voting against, yours truly. Congratulations, mayor mills.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 1:50 PM
