Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 25, 2010,
Item 10
10. Consider and take appropriate action on the use of the local initiative program grant to pay for an alternative fueled/hybrid vehicle. And mr. Reeferseed has a question.
>> yes, i'm sorry, i'm ronnie
>> [inhale] reeferseed, asking a simple question about this -- i notice that it's one hybrid vehicle and i'm wondering what the -- who the -- how that -- the use of that one vehicle is limited? Who that is limited to use that vehicle. And if there's maybe plans for more in the future with the same kind of funding if it's available. I'm unaware of how the funding is acquired.
>> the funding for this program comes from the local initiatives project grant, which was given to travis county by tceq approximately two years ago. We have left over funds of approximately $15,000. And this is the last time this -- this is the last bit of money that can be used to purchase a hybrid vehicle. That is why we're only requesting one at this time. In the past, we used these funds to purchase 22 hybrid vehicles for travis county, three of the -- to assist the city of austin and three to assist the manor -- the city of manor with the purchase of cleaner vehicles.
>> great, thanks.
>> we can no longer use this grant to purchase hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles once this money is used up.
>> okay, thanks so much.
>> mr. Priest?
>> yes, judge, i was just wondering if there was any way that -- i'm pretty much opposed to these type of programs primarily because i think that cost effectiveness is not there, even with the grants because of maintenance and the high cost of these vehicles. But i did want to know if there's any other way to use these funds for other things other than that's really the primary question that i had is if we were locked into, you know, like if we could use these funds, for example, for emergency lights for a constable vehicle, if it happens to be a hybrid vehicle. So i guess instead of buying another vehicle because one, i wanted to know, 15,000, how much is the vehicle? Is it like 45 and we have to come up with 30, but if we could use this money like if the county would, you know, sheriff's office had a hybrid vehicle, could we -- since it was a hybrid vehicle, could we use that money for cameras or flash bar or -- or can this money be spent some other way?
>> it cannot be used to purchase computers or equipment for the vehicles at this time. Because it has to be an air quality issue and purchase of computers or cameras at this time is not part of that. We are looking into purchasing some -- the energy equipment to run the lights that you are speaking of, but at this time it has not been approved. They have not seen it to be very efficient.
>> well, this will be part of the -- part of the management of the balcones canyonlands preserve, right?
>> yes, sir. John white, t.n.r. Our intent here was basically sort of like scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar trying to use up the last of the funds. We've had a need with the bcp for a while, we saw an opportunity perhaps to leverage those funds but keeping in mind that really what we'll do is look fleet-wide at where the immediate need is and we'll buy an appropriate vehicle that matches the need that we have county-wide. The intent obviously then is to somehow transfer a vehicle to be used in the bcp as well. Really a way to leverage those funds.
>> we expect a new vehicle to cost a little bit less than $30,000. This is 15 from tceq in this grant. So the county will supplement that 15,000 with another 14 or 15.
>> that's our intent. From time to time, we negotiate fees with developers with respect to the bcp, one of the specific needs we identify is the need for a vehicle. It's gotten to the point where we would have enough dollars to do that. Really, what we have here is sort of a mix of funding sources, includes lip dollars, i think some interest dollars and various a couple of other sources, the main thing here is to get the authorization to use the lip dollars specifically for a vehicle purchase.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion of the snotion all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 2:35 PM
