Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 24, 2010,
Item 25
25 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding request to central texas regional mobility authority to establish a veteran discount program for electronic toll collection customers.
>> commissioner davis and i see representatives from the ctrma here.
>> also we have ollie pope, deece eckstein and all of the persons related to this particular item probably need to come to the table. And we'll just go from there. And judge, miss willis approached me a little bit ago and asked us to intercede as much as possible as far as getting this item placed on the agenda. Of course, some of the requirements that they must make is they must go before the particular authority that exists that look -- oversee the tolls, which is one of the ctrma. Of course it comes and it's contingent off and based off the house bill 3139. And of course we do have ollie pope who has worked with us and also has been one of the lead persons in bringing this before the commissioners court and ollie pope, we know him to be the person over veterans services here within travis county. And of course the letter generated that -- that we have as far as part of the backup, and of course the components and the specific data that's revealed in this particular letter to allow veterans a discount, disabled veterans a discount, especially those that that have been the recipients of congressional medal of honor, purple heart, and a lot of legwork has already been demonstrated with this particular effort, especially with the identification of those particular license plates by the motor vehicle folks that actually have identified these particular persons that have served this country well. And of course, this is basically something that they've brought before the court to see if we could approve this particular letter that is to go before the ctrma tomorrow in fact at 9:30 at their particular location. So at that time i would turn it over to staff and those that -- and those that want to speak in this behalf, judge.
>> thank you, commissioner davis. Judge and commissioners court, ollie pope, travis county veteran service office. And i want to take this time, this opportunity to thank the court for initiating this first step to get the disabled veterans and purple heart veterans except for toll road fees. As you see from your letter that will go before the authority, it's roughly you will affect about 3,000 veterans. This is an eye opener for the individuals. They are sitting and waiting to see what will happen with the toll road authority. I was amazed to see how many agencies are affected by the toll roads around travis county. I also would like to thank miss willis for initiating the interest in seeking out the reasons if we can or we cannot get an agenda before the toll road authority, and it's with her initiative i take my hat off to her for starting this campaign for us. Miss willis is currently employed with the va. She's a desert storm veteran. She is a disabled veteran and she is also recipient of the dv plates also. If she would like to say anything i will pass it on to her.
>> good morning, judge, commissioners court. I'm a disabled vet of the united states army. At the age of 19 i had my first surgery when i was in the military. Since then i have chronic back pain and suffer from degenerative joint disease. While working with the va, i've noticed several veterans that can benefit from free or reduced tolls. The va's locations are in Cedar Park, austin and temple: fortunately Cedar Park and austin do not offer the specialty services that temple va does, so that causes for a lot of veterans to have to travel back and forth to appointments. The average drive time from austin to temple is about an hour and a half. Not including traffic. If you can imagine that gets pretty stressful driving back and forth to appointments multiple times a month. I'm just asking that you consider supporting veterans and free/reduced tolls.
>> so does harris county have free tolls or reduced tolls?
>> they have free tolls. Also included with harris county is fort bend county. Month gomry county north, the toll system does not go through that county, so they're not affected by the toll road fees. So an individual with a plate that has been identified, preset up during the process of getting it organized, that plate identifies dv plate or purple heart plate or congressional medal of honor plate in the electronic system and automatically exempt that particular vehicle.
>> miss meade, any insight from the ctrma? Central texas regional mobility authority. This is one of the board members, y'all.
>> okay.
>> one of our board members. We have three on the board.
>> all right.
>> judge, nikelle meade, one of the members of the central texas regional mobility authority board. I was here in case there were questions, but i wanted to let the commissioners know that we heard from ms. Willis. We appreciate her contact and we are going to start the discussion on the item tomorrow. We've done research to see what the harris county authority is doing and what works and what doesn't work and what the problems are. And we're going to be starting the discussion tomorrow at our board meeting, which starts at 9:30, in case anybody is interested in attending. We're going to start the discussion to see if this is something that we can do as well.
>> so if the board operates in its usual efficient manner, when should miss willis expect some sort of decision from the board?
>> what we have on our agenda tomorrow will be to ask -- if the board approves to ask the staff to go forward, do the research that's necessary and bring a recommendation back to us. And if that happens, then we should be able to consider that at our september meeting, which will be the last wednesday of september.
>> would your staff move that quickly?
>> yes, i believe so.
>> so either at tomorrow's meeting or the subsequent meeting, which will be in september.
>> correct.
>> and i actually think it will -- tomorrow the action would be us asking staff to go forward and bring us back a recommendation. And then that recommendation would be considered in that last week of -- wednesday of september.
>> so mr. Pope, we think these plates would be readily available from the state if approved by the ctrma?
>> yes, the plates are. The individuals, the 3,000 that are already registered for those plates, they're physically on the vehicle.
>> okay.
>> okay. They don't have to go through any other registration to obtain the plates. Now, if a new individual comes up that meets the requirements for the plates, ie, that individual is 50% or greater, service is connected or is 40% with a lower extremity amputation, they qualify for the dv plate. Quite naturally the purple heart plates we know those individuals if it's identified on their discharge paper, they have been awarded the purple heart, automatically they qualify for the purple heart plate.
>> so it is actually reveals the recipients of these particular --
>> yes.
>> what you may see is an individual that has identified their service as being an ex-pow plate. That may be patchy fog that they're most -- they may be something that they're most proud of, survivor of pow. That individual may also qualify for a dv plate because more than likely his injuries sustained could put him in that category as a 50% rating. That individual has to make a choice whether to transfer to dv plates to take advantage of or maintain the ex-pow plate. And that's something that may have to look at in the future through legislation.
>> and commissioners, one --
>> as i stated earlier, deece, under this particular concept, there is -- there's a bill passed the legislature, hb 3139. Can you -- with this particular letter, if the court approves this letter to go before the -- for staff to take this before and miss willis will appear before the ctrma board, could you tell us who has been cc'd on this letter because i think it's kind of a cross-section here. In other words, as we heard testify this morning, we have veterans that cross county lines to go to different facilities to be medically looked at and we cross county lines. So could you tell us who this particular letter, if the court decides to go this court, who is --
>> members of the court, deece eckstein, the draft letter you have in front of you includes as carbon copies, the governor, lieutenant governor and the speaker of the texas house of representatives. In addition to all the members of the travis county legislative delegation. And all the members of the texas transportation commission.
>> the reason for that, and as we've already notified williamson county commissioners court on this particular agenda item, per se, as far as what we're trying to do here. The reason for that is if we look at the ctrma board it's made up of nine members. I think four from williamson county, four from travis county and then i think the chair is appointed by the governor. So that's why i think it's very important for all of these particular parties to know exactly whroos going on as far as what we're doing. I would like to thank board member michelle meade for responding to quickly. I e-mailed her, my staff e-mailed her and told her about this particular request for miss willis and which we appreciate bringing it to your attention. But she regrettably had to placed on the agenda and it was really -- he would really like to applaud her for doing that. Of course, that's tomorrow. So i appreciate that.
>> i appreciate it also.
>> we're happy to do it and we know it's a really important issue. We wanted to be able to take it up as quickly as we could.
>> my counterparts in the surrounding counties are also interested in what's going to take place, particularly williamson county. She is on board and she's going to take the necessary steps to approach their commissioners court to follow suit.
>> so if anything i would like to move approval of this if there's no more discussion.
>> i have a couple of questions. Just to place this in perspective, while i very much agree with the intent behind this, i just wanted to put it in context. We too have a disability exemption on property taxes, which is our primary revenue source. So i believe that this is -- this is a subset of -- this request is essentially a subset version of the discount of what i consider -- i've always called them this and i will continue to call them this, the toll tax. It's a toll tax because it's how we're funding roads these days in our region rather than having what in my view would be a more appropriate taxing scheme for transportation funding. So i believe what this request is is a discount on the toll tax for disabled veterans. I wonder on on if i were queen of the universe i would have a discount on toll taxes for those who are least able to pay because of their limited revenue sources. One of my issues with toll roads has always been it's a one size fits all flat tax irrespective of your ability to pay. We try to mitigate that through legislation as well as local policies with regard to having a non-tolled alternative for all individuals. While i again -- while i agree with the intent behind this, and we ourselves have an even broader discount on our ad valorem in that we discount for anyone who is disabled, whether or not they served in the mailter, i do have concerns for a slippery slope here. And a slippery slope that only applies to certain agencies. Does the bill apply to txdot as well?
>> it authorizes txdot to implement similar waivers, yes.
>> is txdot showing any indication of considering this waiver? Do we know?
>> not that we've seen. There was discussion about this when the bill was first enacted and txdot made the decision not to initiate these waivers. I don't know if something has happened since that has changed that, but their initial response to it was that they were not going to. And that's a concern we have as well that we've got roads, txdot has roads and we don't want to create a confusing system where you don't pay on one road, you exit to get on a second road and you're having to pay. That's another concern we have.
>> this is a confusing system. We have a circumstance where the ctrma operates 183-a. Txdot operates 130 and 45 north and the extension of 45. It's all over the map. My concern here is that we implement the policy that has very good -- well, not that we would implement the policy. It would be the rma that would implement the policy. The rma would implement the policy that only gets to a tiny portion of the issue with regard to the inequities in toll taxation. Then even that tiny portion wouldn't apply on any of the other toll roads in the region. But i don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good here. If we -- if we as a commissioners court do sign on to this letter, i intend to write a separate letter with regard to my preference to see some -- already we're looking at income eligibility across the board for programs available in the central texas region for folks who find themselves in need. One of the biggest barriers to prosperity in our community is the thrption costs between -- the transportation costs between where you can afford to live and where you can find a job. So the issue for me is so much broader than disabled veterans, although disabled veterans are certainly a part of the puzzle. So if this letter passes this commissioners court asking the rma to consider disabled veterans, i will write a separate letter in addition because i think that -- again, i think the sentiment here is good, but it is just such a drop in the bucket with regard to the real needs in this community.
>> and that's -- commissioner, you brought up some real good points. But if you notice that this letter -- i called the governor's office and of course i wanted to make sure that the governor is aware of what we're doing here. And of course, his staff person suggested that i make sure that i cc this letter to the governor, which we're doing. Because -- and of course, to the -- to the texas transportation commission because they're the overseers of state roads. ,, the veterans as we heard this morning, suggested that -- even though i know the only road that is under ctrma jurisdiction, per se, is 183-a, but if those particular persons that i mentioned in receipt of this letter see what commissioners court has done as far as maybe -- hopefully will approve this, then of course they can understand and bring this -- really this severe need to persons that have seived this country and -- served this country very well and have been wounded. And of course i think deserve a break. So this is part of -- this is part of why the letter is structured whereby those other moving parts that you just mentioned, just mentioned, the highway system itself, which does involve the state, and of course the state legislature have supported this bill. It's law for those counties that want to participate.
>> commissioner, would you find it friendly -- as i sit here i'm also mindful of the fact that the ctrma does allow passage of cap cap buses without charge whereas txdot does not. The ctrma allows preregistered van pools to pass without charge, whereas txdot does not. The ctrma works with campo with regard to additional community amenities included in their toll facilities. Txdot does not. Would you find it friendly to make this letter -- to address this letter not only to the rma, but also to the texas department of transportation?
>> they are cc'd with the same letter.
>> not cc'd, but addressed to txdot along with the ctrma since they also are a toll operator in the region under the bill.
>> i have no problems with that.
>> are we posted to get that done, john?
>> can we do that, john?
>> you're only posted for the ctrma. You can do that for the same thing the following week for txdot.
>> let's get that on the agenda for next week, commissioner. I'll co-sponsor it with you. But the bottom line, i would like for this to move forward. Just on this. And of course the other entities have been notified and hopefully they'll take notice and hopefully they will allow some of the things that the veterans are asking for, the disabled veterans.
>> motion to approve by commissioner davis. Second. Discussion on the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, miss willis. Do the right thing out there for us.
>> exactly.
>> thank you.
>> i have a clean copy of the letter that i'll circulate to the members of the court so they can sign it.
>> we should notify all the officials of the state of texas that this letter is coming to them right, deece?
>> yes, sir. I'm sure they're glued to their channel 17's.
>> since we have you sitting there, can we cover 24 in three minutes?
>> yes, sir.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
