Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 10, 2010,
Item 18
>> 18 is to consider and take appropriate action on recommended pilot initiative to implement zone parking for county employees at 700 lavaca garage.
>> thank you, judge. This was -- this item was requested to come to the commissioners court as a result of some of the planning assumptions development for input from the parking committee. Sydney is here to provide you with the recommendations. And she'll be happy to address those issues.
>> okay.
>> good afternoon, sydney crossby, chair of the parking committee. We'll take you through the memo quickly so that you can enjoy your lunch. As rodney stated, this is the recommendation to go ahead and implement a pilot for zoned parking. It would be in the 700 lavaca garage zone because as we discussed last week, that garage is using this method currently. It already has a management organization that is administering the program at that garage, and it would reduce the wait for the people on the wait list. There are currently 650 employees on that list and so depending on the number of employees we're able to accommodate with this pilot, somewhere between 100 and 200 are still working on those numbers, that would certainly decrease the wait for those employees.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> ... Because they already have staff on board and are staffed to manage a full garage, so what we would be doing is adding partners to that, the only cost that would be associated with it would be for the access cards and $350 for a box of 100, so 3.50 per access card for the employee that we would assign to that garage.
>> besides the dedicated resource, something if we wanted to roll this out if the pilot is successful later, we'd also request that the court change the policy today to reflect the weight list to be determine bid hire date rather than the date that someone submits a request, we would like to reorganize the wait list by hire date and theoretically, if people turned in their forms minimal impact to people on the weight list by doing it by hire date.
>> i thought it was by hire date.
>> unfortunately the current policy does not state that's the mechanism. We would like to change that before we implement the pilot.
>> all right. In addition to that which we can or cannot act on today is changing the definition of a car pool from 3 to 2 county employees, the current policy has it as 3. Most car pool lanes, federal statutes have it at 2. We probably will not be putting car pool people in the garage as part of the pilot, but because people are moving it may shake out that we get more requests for car pooling, parking in itself will also be highlighted as people know that something is going on and there's this massive movement on the weight list, so if we get requests for that, we would rather it be two county employees than three as the current policy enstates.
>> how do the those entities enforce the car pooling policy.
>> i cannot answer that directly. What we do is audit the car pool periodically to make sure the people who say they are car pooling are not sharing the space. We want them to be coming the same vehicle as part of our alternative transportation program.
>> okay.
>> we had a chance to i guess get out again the input -- i know i asked this question before, but on this particular parking type scenario, even though it is a pilot, have we actually gone out and asked the employees about this particular concept?
>> uh-huh. Besides the survey that we did initially, i have just last week talked to the employees that are parked at the lavaca garage that we have --
>> i'm saying employees of travis county.
>> so, yeah, specifically we've talked to the employees that are already located in the 700 lavaca garage with the da's office, most of those employees park at ninth and lavaca which is a space we are leasing and actually operates in the same system with the zoned parking. All of those employees indicated they were pleased with that arrangement, had no trouble finding parking. If they had any complications, it was linked to getting access to the garage, their cards might have failed. They said there was a quick response with that card. I was not able to reach i think five employees that was parked at that garage --
>> but that is just a small -- that's just a small sample.
>> yes, exactly.
>> this is in addition to the --
>> hold it, hold it, hold it.
>> okay.
>> what i would like to know is a survey to make sure there's enough input on this because i'm getting e-mails from folks that say they don't support it, period --
>> well...
>> hold it, please. Let me finish. I know you're all excited. I am too. Getting close to lunchtime.
>> oh, yeah. But anyway, i want to make sure what we're getting is for the pilot and all of this other kind of stuff is what we talk about here has been a true assessment of what the entire population of my thoughts for the travis county in parking in this particular snainio, what are they saying about it? And of course for me to go forward with it, i want to see what the employees of travis county are saying, period. I hear what you're saying, i hope you hear what i'm saying. Then again, how much would this cost to run such a pilot?
>> to answer your input question, so we did the survey originally which was probably a year old, so we can certainly do a updated survey.
>> i would like to see something new --
>> right.
>> and -- and parking committee is constituted of travis county employees as well.
>> that's not my point. My point is just as i stated earlier, and i want to see something from the travis county employees, period.
>> certainly, we can do that.
>> all right.
>> okay. So in regards to your second question, the cost would be simply for the access cards at this point. There would be no other cost for the pilot. While it is stated in our backup, there could be lots of revenue depending on -- depending on how extensive we wanted the pilot to be, so there are currently month to month leases, tenants parking in that garage and we could determine from the start of the pilot that we want to change that arrangement and terminate those leases or we could determine that available spaces without any changes to those tenants, so depending on how --
>> that was -- that's a big issue there.
>> exactly.
>> yeah.
>> i thought what we would do is to identify the number of available spaces in the building, then we will go to our waiting list and i always thought it would be based on date of hire, seniority.
>> correct.
>> then we would basically start with 105% of employees for available spaces, and if it turn out that we could go up another 5%, we could go up 110%, we would do the pilot that way.
>> exactly. That's what we're suggesting.
>> we wouldn't impact anybody with assigned parking anywhere in the county.
>> correct.
>> and we give ourselves an opportunity to see that is working and at the appropriate time in the future decide whether to expand that countywide, how far, et cetera, and what you have here is that to deviate from the policy the issue would have to be brought to the commissioner's court, but it would be brought through the parking committee.
>> correct.
>> and you didn't have in mind the parking committee disappearing after -- after court action.
>> no, i don't think --
>> stays in place.
>> as much as she would love that.
>> the parking committee would be able to consider requests fairly promptly, you think.
>> yes, as evidenced by quick response to your request last week.
>> it was pretty quick.
>> judge, point of clarification, if you could.
>> all right.
>> you're talking about beginning the pilot project with those on the waiting list regardless of who will eventually migrate over to 700.
>> i am immediately, yes, sir. Then when we start migrating over there, my thinking was that for the employees who have parking now, who go there, i mean there would be temporary assignments on the pilot, so if ten people left here and went over there, and they had parking here, we would expect them to have ten parking spaces there, right?
>> uh-huh.
>> but the ten pilot parkers, you know, would hopefully be transferred to the displaced parking spaces here.
>> so as long as they're appropriately notified that this is a temporary assignment.
>> that was my thinking.
>> i'm with you. I'm --
>> i'm thinking too a few on the waiting list now, the opportunity to park there, even on a pilot basis, would be a whole lot better than i guess right now they survive as best they can parkingwise.
>> and we've going e-mails to that regard.
>> okay. I was working off the assumption that as we migrate, the pilot would take place in 700, but i'm following you now.
>> i'm thinking on day of implementation if we can fill all of available flights there, we would do it.
>> okay.
>> right?
>> especially considering when service lots become available only a block away from here and you offer them to people they refuse them because they don't want to have to walk a block. That's how i got my space when i was assistant county attorney. Five people ahead of me refused a space in surface lot because it was a block away.
>> how long would it take you to get announced --
>> i would say it would probably take us a couple of weeks. We want to give employees some time to respond to that.
>> you know, i think it's more than-- you know, no severe pressure at this point, i want to make sure whatever we do, we do it because we've already screwed up, you know, as we possibly can, turn all the rocks and everything else, turn them over, let's see what we say.
>> i have no problem with trying to get that information. I do think today that we ought to vote that we move in the direction of implementing this.
>> second.
>> and i say that because we've been talking about doing this for years, so this would be a let's move ahead, now, there are questions that still need to be answered. We need to firm up the understanding with the garage operators, amaco,.
>> and i just had a general comment, well, specific and general comment, and that is four items 2, 3 -- (a), 2, 3 and 4, which pertain to actual revisions to the existing parking policy which is sorely outdated, i wanted the court's clarification if in fact you are approving those policy changes. You haven't -- we haven't brought the language, the proposed revised policy language to the court in some time, but for example, making the placement on the packing weight list automatic by hire date would in fact have an immediate impact on the weight list numbers, and i just talked to roger horner who administers the parking list now, and he said that an example is that someone who is currently in weight list space 301 would be moved up to number 2, so it's going to displace -- it's going to have an effect on people who periodically check where they are in the waiting list. They were --
>> i don't know that our intention is to give that retroactive application, though.
>> that's my question.
>> yeah. It was saying to me that we would deal with the current issues as best we can. See what i'm saying? But we would give prospective application to a policy of that nature.
>> the placement on the parking list by hire date would be prospective only?
>> well, as best we can determine, we would use that applying it to the list that exists. I mean whatever we use. So if we go -- if the current list has the date you requested parking, i guess i would -- seems to me fair to do that.
>> well, i think one of the considerations about -- y'all do it better because y'all sat on the parking committee.
>> well, the issue is folks thought they were on the parking list the day they got hired, they thought they automatically rolled on. They were here for a year and a half and realized they had to be requested to be placed on the parking list.
>> they have a number on that list today.
>> not in all cases because the list is flawed.
>> the list is seriously flawed.
>> if someone turned in their form six years ago, it's been six years, the wait is seven years, at that point six years later they find out they were not on the list. Some --
>> for whatever reason never made it on to the list because of a, you know, administrative error in the excel spreadsheet that lynn used to keep five years ago.
>> i wanted to point out, this is going to have an immediate impact and perhapses with respect to the policy revisions we could come back to court for specific approval and maybe have some numbers work out where everyone is going to shift on the parking list and then notify those persons so at least they all of a sudden aren't taken aback by moving up or down as the case may be on the weighting list.
>> think again, two weeks would be sufficient as far as i'm concerned to see what the employees actually are saying on this. I don't think two weeks are going to hurt anything.
>> i think we ought to bring back two alternative lists, though. One ought to say basically if, you know, if the effect is sort of relative retroactive application, here is what we end up with, and if we do the -- if we do date of hire for everybody, whenever you started working at the county, another list ought to show that.
>> uh-huh.
>> i'm thinking they will be pretty close, won't they?
>> generally, yes.
>> will one be different than the other.
>> they will be pretty close.
>> if i'm an employee and i've been here ten years, i requested parking a year ago, i would step forth and say i started working here on 2000, shouldn't i be among those whose date of hire is 2000. You know, i guess you're talking about a handful of people, it may not matter a whole lot, if you're talking about half the list, it's a big deal. It will take some time to put that together, right. The commissioner may get his two weeks anyway. I think we ought to touch base with the amaco folks, but i do think today for the parking committee we ought to say we're moving ahead to try to implement this. There are some flaws we need to kind of work through, some issues, and so as fairly as we can work through them, but for the 650 employees on the weighting list, i mean i -- if i'm on that list, i've got a chance to assist 250 of them, my request would be that we do that as soon as possible, even if on the pilot basis.
>> and while we're doing the survey, judge, with the court's permission we could run the traps of policy changes and coordinating with amaco through the appropriate departments, county attorney, et cetera, and run dual tracks on those at the same time so that we can reduce our length of time.
>> yeah.
>> is that okay?
>> yeah.
>> but i don't like the idea of these parking spaces kind of setting there and us having two or three times that number of employees in need of parking. I mean so my request would be that we move as expeditiously as possible to fill available spaces.
>> okay.
>> and i assume that for the tenants at 700 lavaca, you can identify those who have parking there, and those who don't, right?
>> right. Right, we've got that list.
>> but judge, is your motion to approve, a, 1, 3, 4 and 5, and bring a-2 back.
>> my motion is really giving the directions for staff to proceed.
>> okay.
>> and i think -- i think we ought to approve the recommendation -- approve implementation of the recommendations, realizing that additional implementation steps must be taken and give ourselves two weeks to do that, is that -- that's better than the week, right? Get commissioner davis's additional questions answers as best we can. Try to figure out who would do the parking, who would get the parking, my guess too is that parking committee will probably receive phone calls from employees who believe they have special circumstances, so as best we can address those. I mean i don't know that we can do more than that now. I mean it's going to take some time to do it, to implement this anyway.
>> right.
>> so including my concerns as well as what the employees may end up suggesting for what the survey will reveal.
>> to get the implementation, i'm assuming the survey will show the same results as before. If you ask an employee with assigned parking, he's not going to want that changed. If you ask an employee on the waiting list whether he or she favors being given parking, even zone parking, my guess is since it will be so much better than none, they will say i'll take whatever you got, won't they.
>> compared to last week, yeah.
>> but like i say again, i have received e-mails and i guess all of us probably have --
>> take it trying to get those --
>> in my opinion, judge, if you would, i know you've already made a motion, but i think it would be better to hear what they're saying and wait until the two weeks come and we come from there. Right now you got me where -- over a barrel, because i'm waiting to hear what the surveys say, and you put a motion out, and, you know, so... Two weeks is not going to kill us one way or the other.
>> it's going to take longer than two weeks to implement all of this.
>> no, no, no, i'm just saying as far as getting responses.
>> i just want to say that i want to be sure that people are clear or i'm clear that we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about policy and we're talking about pilot, and we can't even look at some of the policy changes we're looking at until we try the pilot, and employees opinion at this point is -- is from a pilot standpoint, they don't know. We haven't tried it, so how can there be an opinion on it? So i think that it's important if we're going to try to do the pilot program, that we realize that there are going to be those who are worried that it's not going to work and they may have opinions against it on the front end, but we don't really have valid opinions until we've tried it on a pilot, so there's -- and there are some policy issues that we're talking about on lists and things like that that we need to address before we implement, but i just really feel strongly that we need to have a pilot so that we can ascertain if it's even viable.
>> that's what i was trying to get to. I just think you shouldn't wait forever on the pilot. We ought to implement it as soon as possible, but realizing specific things should be done, it will take us two weeks at least. I was suggesting during that two week period we try to get answers to commissioner davis's questions which the committee chair has indicated she will try to do. So i mean i agree, on those policy issues, those, some will affect the pilot program, others are more permanent in nature. I think we ought to see the exact words before we land on that, and my thinking was in two weeks the worrying would be before us.
>> we can definitely do that in two weeks, have the wording as part of the backup.
>> i was kind of just talking, i don't know that i made a motion, but ms. Eckhert asked me what my thinking was, i was trying to explain nor directions than anything else.
>> i have no problem with that form of direction, but a motion kind of gets a little more binding, a little more, you know, genuine type of situation. Almost like we've done it already without enough input, and that's what bothers --
>> the pilot is input.
>> no, not all, though. Not all input. I would like to get as much input as possible for me to make the kind of decisions i need to make.
>> i bet my parking space there won't be any new information to come back. There are only so many questions you can ask in a survey and i think we know what the answers are, because they've been -- employees have been surveyed repeatedly, and e-mails that i get, those with assigned parking don't want to be messed with. Those that don't have parking want to be helped. And it seems to me that on -- in the pilot, my direction was on the pilot, we are moving to implement it, but we are moving cautiously, and there's some policy issues we need to address, and other information requested by commissioner davis that we ought to try to get, and, you know, postpone this item to two weeks and try to address all of that . But in two weeks from now, i hope we have advanced the ball on implementing how we use available spaces at 700 lavaca garage, because i think the worst thing in the world is those spaces remaining available and 650 people on the list waiting for park. My motion is give those directions.
>> second again.
>> motion to give those directions.
>> you're going to lose me, but if it was divided maybe i could support one part of it, but probably i think especially with the e-mails i've gotten suggesting that there's not a lot of support for it, especially on the zoning parking, but again, you know, it's not separate, it's just all -- so --
>> but nothing is going to be done until we get back here two weeks from now.
>> i understand.
>> so the motion does cover all those directions. Don't ask me to repeat them, mrs. Porter. You've got all of them, right?
>> oh, yes.
>> any more discussion of the motion to direct, to give those directions?
>> directions.
>> i'm saying --
>> just directions.
>> right.
>> i'll go with --
>> it will be back in two weeks with real specific stuff, hopefully, including lists of those who would benefit.
>> exactly.
>> as best we can.
>> okay.
>> let me ask this final question. How long will it take -- if you do the survey, how long will it take to get from it.
>> if we do an e-mail version, then that could be done certainly within two weeks.
>> pardon me.
>> if we do it by e-mail, then certainly we could get the results back by the time we come back in two weeks.
>> within two weeks.
>> uh-huh.
>> you'll have some answers?
>> yeah, by e-mail.
>> i can't get the whole pie, but i'll get part of it.
>> that's fine. E-mail survey? Is that all right?
>> yeah, that will be fine.
>> okay.
>> i'll be part of it, then. I'll go with that.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Move that we recess until 1:45.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously too. I know commissioner davis is not voting against the meal...
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 2010 1:30 PM
