Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 24, 2010,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication. This item gives residents an opportunity to address the court up to three minutes. Somebody is holding sign-up form number 1. If so, this is your time. Number 2, mary thomas, employee recognition, 30 years retirement. Miss thomas will be followed by ronnie reeferseed. Mary thomas and company. If you all would have a seat there, we would be happy to get your comments. Which one of you is mary thomas? Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> we're here to honor mary thomas for 30 years of service to travis county. She will be retiring at the end of this month. And i just want to say that i am really sad because walking out of our door is a lot of information and knowledge that we've really come to count on. So mary, we're going to miss you. Say it briefly.
>> thank you. And i have enjoyed working for the county and it's going to be hard, but time to move on.
>> 30 years of service.
>> i started the labor day after my 21st birthday.
>> oh, my goodness. I was going to say it doesn't look like you've done 30 years.
>> how many tax assess ors have you worked for?
>> burnett, aleshire and --
>> if anybody has ever called the tax office, they've probably talked to mary.
>> thank you so much. Thanks.
>> it's a hard place to work because of people's feelings about taxes, but it's also a good place to work because the sense of camaraderie is so high.
>> it's been rewarding and yesterday was very nice because i ended up with three kudos in one day, so that was -- i go back to my kudos thing and within a month i receive anywhere from eight to ten.
>> can you describe the kudos system?
>> the kudos system is basically we send emails and when we send an email at the bottom it says if you have comments and you would like to address it, you can send information to our supervisor. And basically they send information to tina about the service they receive and then she sends it out to our division, let's them know that we've helped a customer. The customer received great service and it gets put in our file folder for future references. I had one the other day that she called in for her son to get his license registration and i caught the fact that the address was one digit off so that's why he hadn't received his renewal form and without her even asking me i caught it and corrected it and she sent the email to tina saying that she was surprised that a government office would go beyond without even asking to verify information. And it's nice when you have people out there that are happy with our service and think that travis county is one of the few offices where a government office and that we're there to help people and we have that attitude.
>> and when you call you get a live human being.
>> yes.
>> when you call the travis county tax assessor and collector's office you get a real person.
>> and your last day is when?
>> the 31st, the day after my 52nd birthday.
>> we'll try to get you one of the much honored and appreciated travis county commissioners court proclamations.
>> cool.
>> no extra charge. No charge.
>> that's good.
>> so we can get it to you before the 31st.
>> cool.
>> can we take a picture with all of you? Just a quick one.
>> thank you for your service.
>> [applause]
>> second speaker is ronnie reeferseed.
>> thank you, sir. It's hard to follow such a favorite there, but yes, i am ronnie reeferseed. Just sharing the joy people enjoy for the beauty and value and significance of each and every one of us especially those human babies frozen at no fault of their own in a bizarre netter world of throw-away embryos that to be chopped up what some of us want, to be chopped up like green chips for utilization by these eugenics promoting sociopathic killers. That's why he's there, people. Gee whiz, bush in black face. It's no coincidence or accident that over 50% of all black babies conceived in this still relatively rich us of a were murdered in the womb, people. Never allowed to be born alive. Lots of white babies, latino babies, other are sacrificed in the same way but blacks are now undekneably experiencing genocide. Hello, are you listening? Somewhat self-inflicted suicide, black america is now and always will be led by pre-meditated truly evil schemerships put in place by the marg it sangers. Those same criminals make sure poor folk drink fluoridated water and slogans about anything good about that and any -- that anybody still believes about sodium fluoridated water in exhibit a of brain damage, that we're all victims of this chemical weaponry, this chemical toxic sludge that really does make us all more docile. Let's review. Reverend martin luther king, jr., instructed us all to see beyond color, to reach the promised land with the eugenics stooge sotoro created in what seems to be out of thin air like our currency, it's all part of this evil elite long-term evil plans. They've been writing about this for decades. Search engine the name john -- who blatantly and public has been writing about what they are doing to all of us. One book is entitled eco science, et cetera. So-called approximated indonesian born thus ineligible and so-called barack obama, ie, barry hog wash sotoro is leading his lambs to slaughter because yes, he can. Get it? He's worse than gee whiz bush because many people still buy the media hype. It is no accident that this satanic culture of death is going for broke because you and me are waking up just in the nick of time.
>> [buzzer sounding] big -- openly just recently exposed panic. Learn more ronpaul dollar org.
>> morris priest.
>> i was thinking if you are against this water treatment plant for $1.2 million transmission tunnel, you're probably a republican. You know, i was thinking about this situation that we have here locally with our transportation issues and i was reading an ad in the paper about rick perry, and it seems like the democrats have just gone to a punch of mudslinging with rick perry. But i was thinking almost every person on the campo board is a democrat. Just about every person on the city council is a democrat. I think if there's going to be any hope and change we're going to have to vote republican. Time warner is doing a situation here with a business decision they are making but there's also other things going on with cable access television. The current management contract held by pact is going to expire september 30, 2011. But the city of austin has a website, speakupaustin.org/public access if you want to make comments about new technologies and new ways of funding. It's a good forum to look into. Looking in the paper today, we see there's a $52 million deal underway in minneapolis. $100 million was paid out to families, 13 died, 145 were injured on the mississippi river bridge when it brock apart. It looks like our transportation local democrats are trying to do the same thing on mopac and now their plan to do the two managed lanes which are really going to be tight to come into austin with just 10 feet of lanes. I'm going to encourage everyone to vote down the city and county bonds on their transportation agendas. I looked at the city transportation bond. It's array of proposed projects that may include and that doesn't sound like strong language. The bond packages i've seen from the county with 973, the undermining of voterring by commissioners court of not going through with southwest 45 as we planned and paid for the right-of-way, other transportation issues whether it's hamilton pool road, i just think we've had bad leadership and it's time for change. I think we need to make sure we show up in november. I know the city school district raised our property taxes and they lowered the standards so that they can say that their superintendent is doing a much better job and deserves a bonus. And now we see our travis county commissioners court voting for pay raises for elected officials. I think it's time to remember that november is coming and vote republican today. Thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Priest. John burkhart.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> okay. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> i'm john burkhart, commander of the texas capital chapter 1919 which is here in austin. We're the second largest in the nation. We've got almost 600 members. What we're here to talk about is item 25, i believe it is. To offer our support of that particular number. Congressional medal of honor winners -- or not winners, nobody wins it, it's not a lottery. They were awarded in tract of zero. 634 purple heart plates, 2506 disabled veterans, for a total of 3,140 license plates. We welcome this and would definitely request that it be granted where that these particular veterans that are showing these plates don't have to pay the tolls. We have a lot of them coming from north of austin, round rock, Pflugerville, places like that, to go to the clinic, the veterans clinic in south austin. If they could come around on the toll road, which they would if they didn't have to pay for it, it would save a lot of time and hardships on them. They can get to their appointments on time. And i hate to say this, but if we prevent one incident of road rage, it's worth it all right then. But it's one thing that we want to just voice our support for, please.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> i have a question for you all. If you can answer it or perhaps i can call you later and find out. If you all have any statistics with regard to the numbers of returning veterans who are disabled.
>> we do not that, but i'm sure the veterans administration can supply that. If you would like that number --
>> also looking at this item, of course i think we have -- the judge has allowed a time certain to be placed on this item at 11:30. And alo, pool, who is representative of veterans services, may have such numbers and we've been working closely with them to make sure that in fact the numbers you just quoted were some numbers that came from the research that he had done to -- to supply this information to the court. So again, that will be coming up later and that request probably at that time may could best be served when ali pope comes in.
>> i'll ask him as well. Just so you know --
>> oli.
>> item 4-a, we've created a special veterans court for misdemeanors for returning vets to deal with specific issues there. And then also tangentially related would be item 3 regarding our tax rate because we do have the veterans disabilities exemption on our tax rate.
>> i think i've seen at a couple of meetings
>> [indiscernible].
>> wonderful. Very involved.
>> very much.
>> we appreciate you coming. Thank you. Last call for whoever is holding slip number 1. That does it for citizens communication.
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 24, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
