Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, July 6, 2010,
Item 15
15. Consider and take appropriate action regarding contract provisions requested to be added by licensee to license agreement with the texas heatwave regarding use of the travis county expo center. We simply indicate that the item may be taken into executive session under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act.
>> good morning, roger el khoury, director of facility management department. The texas heatwave have been with the expo center for more than 14 years and they use the camp at the expo center premises until 2003 when they have an incident and after that they moved to dell diamond for only one year. They came back to the expo center. Since that time in 2005. After 2005 to 2009, they were not camping overnight camping was restricted at that time. That limitation was stated under section 3.2 of exhibit d. That was, you know, back then when they used to camp, tent camping. They used to have it at the expo center. David and his staff when we have that event they took care of our facility very well. And they are good customer. But the only thing we have right now is the camping or not. By the way, we agreed to all of the terms and the fees and all of that, you know, david and i according to the commissioners court of rates and approved license agreement. This is only -- they signed for -- they will sign for two years, which is this coming up for the 2010 and july 20, i believe 23rd, 24th, 25th and also for 2010 and also for july 23rd -- 22nd, 23rd, 24th of 2011. And the good thing is that with our client customer is they do not -- they are done with this event now, next year they can plan ahead rather than wait until the next minute. All of those issues have been taken care of. And nothing on the table right now except the overnight tent camping on the premises of the expo center. And we thought the staff should bring it to the commissioners court for a decision on that.
>> if you give us your name we would be happy to get your comments.
>> i'm david mcdonald, the owner of heatwave, incorporated which puts on the texas heatwave. I'm the founding promoter for the events. I started it in city park in 1989. Actually started in round rock in 1989, then moved to city park in austin, we had the show there until they got too big and then we moved to the travis county expo center, which has been a great facility for this event for the many years that we've had it there, 14 years. We've invested a lot of time and a lot of money to -- to improve the expo center for our event for the needs of our event and we appreciate roger meeting with us the other day to go over the contract and to explain to us the way the contract works. It's funny, after being there for 14 years i didn't exactly know how the contract worked according to the commissioners court. I'm very pleased with the numbers that we've come up with. So we're -- we can officially say that we're in compliance with the way that the commissioners court is wanting to rent out the facility. We also understand the multi--year contract and we are getting that based on us renting the facility for two years, signing a contract. The only issue that we have is an issue with the tent camping. We are approved for rv's this year, so we are -- we are -- it's not an issue if we can overnight camp or not. It's an issue if we can have rv's in tenets. It's basically what we are looking at. We are asking for approval to do tent camping based on that we have done our homework, we have done our -- our research. We have -- we've done everything, every precaution that's necessary to prevent anything from happening. Of course, there's no guarantees, but we are hiring the travis county sheriff's department, which we have been for -- for the lifetime of us being at the expo center. We also have the ag's, attorney general's office that also participates in our event. So we have all kinds of officers out there that have all kinds of different experience to help us manage the crowd and manage the people outlet there. Nose tackle past 10 years there hasn't been -- since that incidents, we haven't had any incidents. There's been absolutely no problems with our event. We don't anticipate any problems in the future. Basically what we said, that's what we are asking for.
>> what's the importance of the tent camping?
>> well, the importance of the tent camping is unfortunately not everybody can afford an r.v. I'm one of those people. I can't afford an rv, when i go camping, i bring my tenets and i camp. Bring mandatory evacuation my tent and -- bring my tent and i camp. People are asking, can we bring a tenlt? That's what -- tent, that's what we used to be. We used to have tent and r.v. Camping. There's other events that are able to do tenets and rv camping -- to do tents and rv camping. We haven't announced that we aren't doing tent camping actually. Last year michael norton the director approved us to do tent camping, whether he had permission or not to take ma that call, he made announcement to my staff last year in a meeting at the expo center that we could do camping again. We therefore made announcement to the public which is our participants and spectators that we were going to be able to do camping based on michael norton's statement to me. He also told me that he had roger's permission, which we -- in our meeting, with roger, we found out that roger didn't know anything about this. I know who roger is. I never knew we were supposed to deal with roger to rent the expo center. We are dealing with the person who runs the place. That's kind of why we are here today. When michael norton was let go on may the 24th or the 14th, sorry about that, we contacted diana and diana said that we had to get her all of the information so roger could get us a contract. Because he was now in charge of the expo center. Then we let her know about the tent camping, she let roger know, he let us know that absolutely that's not going to happen. So that's why we're here today.
>> do you all have camping at the south padre event, san antonio, corpus christi, houston, dallas events.
>> no, we don't.
>> well the importance of tent camping is so the tents so you can stay overnight.
>> yes.
>> so for the last few years, when the event ended, patrons went home.
>> yes, sir.
>> they went to the hotel or something like that, yeah.
>> well, this is -- this is a musical event concert?
>> no, it's a custom truck and car show. We do have live entertainment. We have a rap -- what is it called? What's -- this is nathan mackey, my entertainment director.
>> we do have live entertainment, we have local -- local entertainers from austin, killeen area, san antonio, they come in and perform. Clean, of course, because it is a family oriented event. For the last four or five years, we've been having a nighttime concert but we're not -- this year we haven't as of yet planned to have a nighttime concert, just during the day we have entertainment as well as a rock-rap type of band that comes out and performs live as well. That's what we do as far as the entertainment.
>> so it's a musical event inside the stadium or outside?
>> it's inside the stadium.
>> do you -- you mentioned that tcso, you had contracted with off duty officers for security for the entire 14 year period.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> so there were tcso officers contracted with in 2003 when the sexual assault occurred?
>> yes. Attempted sexual assault.
>> i believe it was under the direction of hinkle was the officer that we had directed us under that particular year, but i can't say 100% sure because -- but i'm pretty sure. He was with us for a while.
>> i'll tell you frankly that -- that having spent some time on the website and having looked at the images included and the fact that there was an attempted sexual assault in 2003, coupled with the fact that there is no overnight camping in the other events, i will not be in favor of an overnight event of this kind at the expo center.
>> why -- why is there not -- excuse me -- camping at the other events?
>> well, i'll be honest with you. We get a -- we get hundreds of questions from our patrons from local people here in austin that say why? How come the rot rally can do tent camping and overnight camping and why can't the heatwave, my answer to them is i don't know. I really don't know. I understand that we've had some problems in the past just like-- vents out there has -- like other events has had problems in the past they have been able to fix problems and move on. I never really got an answer why. I understand that we had an event that's a very, very serious issue in my book.
>> my question is you have events in other locations, right?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> why do you not have camping in those locations.
>> because they don't allow tent camping at any time for any event, straight across the board fair for every single event. Unfortunately, this is the only facility out of the -- facility that we rent that allows tent camping at other events. And i hate to bring that up. But i -- i really feel like that is a -- you know, we feel like in many -- and many people feel like that there is a problem with that. Considering what goes on at some of these other events.
>> i agree with you, this is a lack of policy on our part. I'm simply -- this is possibly not agendized for today, but this is something that we should look to an across the board policy at the expo center that is adhered to. I agree with you the idea of rot rally being able to overnight when i have spent some time in the rot rally as well, i feel the idea of calling it family friendly a little bit of a stretch. I would also consider the images that are included in y'all's website just to stretch the credulity of those statements as well. I agree with you there's an inconsistency in the -- in the contract arrangements there.
>> what age group -- what age group do you try to target?
>> as far as our overnight camping, 18 and up.
>> 18 to 80 or 18 to 25?
>> 18 to 108.
>> we have -- we have people from all ages come to our event. As far as the overnight camping is concerned, 18 and up.
>> roger would be invited to attend, also?
>> absolutely.
>> anything else? We'll discuss this in executive session with our lawyers in just a few moments. Is that any closing words?
>> we're just asking to be treated fair, that's all.
>> we will make this decision within the next 30 minutes, in my view.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. We will take this item, number 8 -- number 15 into executive session. Under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. We previously indicated our intention to discuss item 14 14. The matter involving damages to the county facility at 1600 smith road in executive session under the consultation with attorney exception, also. We have been asked to postpone item 18 because it is not needed today. Item 18. The matter involving the potential purchase of real estate in central austin. So we will have it back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 2:35 PM
