Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 7, 2010,
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next.
this item gives residents an opportunity to address the court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes.
as I call your name, please come forward.
ronnie reeferseed.
charlie round tree.
mr. Roundtree were you here for the public hearing, only, or would you like to speak during citizens communication?
>> I'm sorry.
>> just the public hearing?
>> yes, sir.
>> oh, thank you.
>> thank you for your comments.
>> thank you.
>> gus pena and vicki cart.
mr. Reeferseed, please start.
mr. Reeferseed, please begin.
>> thank you.
okay.
I'm sorry.
I was confronted by a proud citizen.
thank you, sir.
I am -- I am of course ronnie
>> [inhale] reeferseed yelling kids, don't waste a moment of your brief childhood trying to be a grown up.
you have got it made now!
and with that first hit off a cigarette, joint or bong, that first swig of alcohol it's over.
say hello to bills, obligations and perhaps jail.
hey grownups, listen to 90.1 f.m.
from 11 to 12 weekdays, 4:00 to 6:00 on Sunday for alex jones window to the truth.
on line we all have access to vast sources of films, articles and links at www.infowars.com.
also online www.campaignforliberty.com, about the Ron paul revolution, lewrockwell.com.
call (888)322-1414 for weekly updates from george washington and thomas jefferson ob/gyn Ron paul, delivered well over 4,000 babies so far, zero abortions, here's an update on the ongoing revolution for freedom from fluoride here in Austin.
at a party here at the magnolia court apartments, I counted four eugenics who watch me live there evidently just to take down my fliers, watch me, my fliers about fluoride, other things, including info wars flier your tap water is poison.
hey, it's happening.
these emotionally retarded socio-paths who take down my fliers deserve our pity and revulsion.
but most of all, they need to be loved by someone who they realize so they realize it's not better not to kill others.
we need to
>> [indiscernible] love and forgiveness, pity the killers like sataro and socio-paths among us, now on the other hand, Saturday, counter to this machete garbage, I was wearing a Ron paul t-shirt, passing out fliers about fluoride while carrying by combo Ron paul, signs.
a total stranger gave me a wonderful meal for free.
again I stumbled upon a fundraiser meal combo garage sale, given a yummy chicken meal for free, I guess I looked hungry or my devotion of peace, I think it was myron paul shirt and science, look, I'm a gringo, everybody else was hispanic there.
however, I got nothing but love.
no machete hog wash, so resist the hate with love and devoting, we win.
-- devotion.
we win.
today in gainsville, florida the plan for burning a koran that will surely bring us back to dead right is part of the ongoing cover jump the 9/11 inside outside job, blaming slam is moron nick, we should instead lock up bush ...
they are all traitors, they need to --
>> thank you, mr. Reefer seed.
>> thank you so much.
>> gus pena next, followed by vicki cart.
marcello
>> [indiscernible] come forward.
>> good morning again, judge, Commissioners, good to be back.
number one housing, the city of Austin about two or three months ago allocated millions of dollars of our tax dollars to so-called affordable housing.
without any kind of supervision, accountability, without any kind of matrix.
and definition as to how these fundings are supposed -- these funds are supposed to be spent, who receives them.
my directive to them was give some -- some direction to them.
have legal write up a -- a document so they can follow it up to -- to each letter because sometimes millions are not allocated fairly to the people, those people that need it the most housing, homeless.
homeless veterans with families.
so anyway accountability process has been compromised with the city, I brought that up two Thursdays ago at the council meeting.
a number two budget please fully fund all social service agencies of course with assessment, also accountability process there.
sometimes the executive director, ceo's get more funded than they allocate to people.
direct services, funding for direct services is where the impact is at.
judge, Commissioners, this is not a -- not the last year of the recession, I don't care who tells you what.
it's not.
going to go for more years than many people are thinking.
the need is great.
people need help with rent, food, utilities, medication, baby formula, pampers for the babies.
fund you think for social service agencies, let's talk about that.
funding.
veterans, please show your support and appreciation for our military personnel coming in, from iraq and afghanistan, it has taken a big toll not only in the families, only in the economy, also the veterans, coming back with post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, housing problems, comprehensive job training to include creating jobs for everybody with -- with substantive salary of all of these new jobs, dropout rate.
judge, if you remember the dropout session out, there the summit with the superintendent, I think it was February.
the superintendent said let's intervene at the middle school level.
ron, you were -- I appreciate you very much for saying wrong.
we need to intervene strongly at the elementary level.
get those kids educated so they don't dropout.
drop out rate is higher than what we think it is.
the t.e.a.
and school district is stating this, it is higher.
we need to provide mentors and tutors for the students to grasp the subject material, math, reading, et cetera.
unemployment is higher than what the newspaper is telling y'all about -- I wouldn't say elected officials, but let's say people in washington are clipping.
no jobs out there.
if you create jobs, make with it a substantive salary they can live with the families, also, provide for the families, mentors, tutors, volunteer to be a mentor, tutor for our students.
please don't let them fail.
I tell the teachers back to school last Wednesday, help your students out, we'll be there to help you out.
judge, Commissioners, it's -- a society's worth is measured by its treatment of the less fortunate.
thank you all very much.
keep up the March.
thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Pena.
>> ms. Cart is next.
clint smith please come forward.
>> good morning, Commissioners, judge.
vote rescue is back in court today with our coalition partners to restate a message that effects every Travis County voter.
that message is this, our votes are still being counted in secret with the corporate owned proprietary soft conveyor in the hart e slate commuter rised voting system.
when americans wonder why so many of our elected officials act that we can't vote them out of office, in effect that is right, we can't.
many nationally computerized exerts have proven that voting machine software can be easily manipulated and results can be altered undetectably.
counter to the claims of the county clerk no amount of testing can detect the type of fraud that is possible with secret election software.
an abundance of this evidence has been in the position of most members of the court since 2007 and Commissioner Huber later this evidence was personally deliver and explained to each court member by vote rescue leaders and volunteers during citizens communication and public hearings on numerous occasions.
our petitions for redress of our grievances have fallen on deaf ears.
the Travis County election study group of 2009 was in our view a waste of time because virtually nothing has changed or will be changed for the positive based on the nine months of meetings of that group.
we come to you again with a petition for redress of our grievances today.
and to refuse to adequately address these griefances amounts to a violation of our first amendment rights under the constitution of the united states and a violation of your oath to uphold the constitution, which is a criminal offense.
we the people do not want voting machines secretly counting our votes in Travis County any longer.
here's how we the people want to vote in Travis County starting this -- this November.
on election day we want to mark our vote on a paper ballot.
all of the ballots shall remain in a locked box kept in full public view continuously on election day at every polling place.
immediately after the polls close all ballots shall be counted by teams of citizen counters and observers in pull public view at each precinct.
the results shall be posted at the polling place in full public view immediately after the counting is completed before any ballots or records are transported to any other location.
we will gladly return to our polling places after the close of polls in order to help with the counting and we believe we can get a substantial number of people out there who would want to help us do that.
at harris county, due to the fire that destroyed all of their e slate machines can give all of their voters a choice of paper ballots for this upcoming election and arrange it this close to the election, then Travis County can do the same.
but we want the paper ballots counted by hand in full public view, not by electronic scanners because scanners also count votes out of sight, in secret, and they are just as easy to hack as a paperless voting machines that we use right now in Travis County.
>> [ applause ]
>> thank you.
mr. Tefoya is next, would bill stout please come fort.
>> thank you, judge, thank you Commissioners for permitting us to be here, I'm marcello, district 12 director for lulac, the league of united latin american citizens, the largest latino human rights organization in the united states and including puerto rico.
at our last convention here in Austin in June we passed a resolution open and honest public elections with hand counted paper ballots.
we took the resolutions to our national convention in albuquerque and it passed by unanimous vote.
I believe we had already given y'all a copy, but we'll give you one later.
the only thing that I want to read is the therefore.
it says therefore it be resolved that the league of united latin american citizens demand absolute and non-negotiable public oversight and supervision of all aspects of our elections, including but not limited to elections day voting, absentee voting and post election day voting counting.
be it therefore resolved that the league of united latin american citizens the only voting system -- we demand the sole implementation in all of our elections of paper ballots that are voted, marked and the voter cast into a secret ballot box that is always in public view.
vote counting that uses both partisan and independent counters and observers checking the ballots of each with public supervise and video recording freely allowed, immediately and un
>> [indiscernible] accept by the public to all information about precinct count and results before the ballot and other election documents are removed from the precinct polling place.
a secure, uninterrupted and public observation chain of custody of all aspects of election from the moment ballots are cast on election day to the public posting of the election results at the precinct polling place and a guarantee of speedy and effective open investigation and remedying for any election irregularities reported by the people.
lulac stands on this.
it was voted unanimously, not only nationally, including puerto rico that was present but also in the state of Texas.
so this is our request.
thank you very much, judge.
>> thank you.
>> [ applause ] is bill stout still here?
okay.
would -- would Karen rennick and mr. Smith.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, very happy to be here.
I represent gray panthers, I'm clint smith.
I should say first off that charlotte flynn sends her greetings, blessings and good wishes, gray panthers are in our 40th year, 40th anniversary now.
charlotte turned 90 last year, she says she will be down here 10 years from now to greet you again when she's 100.
I might say the gray panthers are happy to be anywhere, we are long in the tooth, it's a privilege and pleasure to be here.
I'm here to basically support very strongly support both lulac and the vote rescue group.
I am also a member, a member of the national board of gray panthers, also a member of the Travis County electoral study group.
we've been involved in that group almost two years now.
first I want to commend you and thank you for setting up the electoral study group.
it's given us an opportunity to go very deeply into many of the details.
particularly interesting to me.
I was in washington in 1964 when the civil rights act was passed and '65 when the voting rights act was passed.
I also worked for the civil service commission at that time.
we trained the examiners and the reviewers who went out to look at and to the monitors over the elections, many people forget that not only did we send monitors and reviewers out to mississippi, alabama and Texas, but also to chicago.
our concern in other big cities, because it's an issue and the question of electoral procedures and policies, our concern, another reason that I'm here to support lulac and vote rescue, I'm convinced that during the study that we've been making we've not been able to give attention at all to the voting rights act of 1965.
its powerful.
it has provisions, for example for hearings, investigations, taking testimony under soup.
soup -- under subpoena.
we have -- we have not been able to get any attention to that, despite my request and discussions with the clerk.
I'm not here to criticize.
what we would like is to bring your attention to these issues, especially right now before the budget closes for this fiscal year.
also particularly before this election.
we think that it's particularly important that we measure those provisions against those that help america vote act provides, some of us don't consider that it helps us very much.
thank you.
>> [ applause ]
>> thank you, mr. Smith.
mr. Stout is next, followed by Karen rennick and morris priest will be third.
>> judge, Commissioners, good morning, my name is bill stout, co-chair of the Travis County green party.
here also to talk about our election system.
we have a crisis in our election system.
very low percentage of voters seem to come out for our elections, somewhere between 15 and 30% if we're lucky.
I think this is an indication of the lack of confidence that people have in our election system.
I think that's indicative of the electronic voting box that's have been used and the plethora of information that is available to citizens to be able to recognize from experts that these machines are hackable and that they do not provide a -- a verifiable, transparent system in which every vote as cast will be counted.
our elections, because they are not verifiable, our elections are the heart of our represented democratic system.
if citizens don't know their vote is going to counts, why should they come out to vote?
how will anyone know whether or not those people who have supposedly been elected are actually representing the citizens as opposed to large dollar corporate interests.
the hand counted, the lulac resolution prescribes a hand counted system that verifies the intent of each voter as cast.
this is an international issue.
recently it's become of interest in -- in india and the german supreme court in March of 2009 determined that -- that this was unconstitutional to use electronic voting box.
they will be using hand counted paper ballots from now on.
it was determined that -- that technologically it was too difficult and hidden for the average citizens to be able to understand.
and that's unconstitutional.
the german constitution, as you know, is based on the united states constitution after the second world war.
this of course is true here.
it's a violation of the voting rights act of 1965, to be able to count votes that are hidden and unverifiable.
in conclusion, given the -- the recent citizens united versus the sec case where corporations are now given open access to -- to advertising in our election system, over 5 billion-dollars was spent in the 2008 election, I think that it's extremely apropos that at least citizens know that their count is going to be counted as cast and not left some arbitrary system in a box where they have no idea whether or not and no verification whether or not their vote counts as cast.
thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Stout.
>> [ applause ]
>> mr. Renick is next, would fidel acevedo please come forward.
>> I'm Karen rennick the founder and co-director of vote rescue.
you have heard compelling statements from our newest partners, about why we must have open and honest elections here in Travis County and how this can be achieved.
I will now present the second half of the opening statement given by our co-director, vicki carp.
the purpose of my statement today is to help the citizens of this county understand that it is vastly important that a public hearing for discussing the truth about these voting machines, happen immediately without any further delay.
as we stated in our press release, we have submitted our requests for a public hearing to all of the Commissioners, but to date we have received no reply.
we are here to publicly repeat our request for an immediate hearing.
I would like to present a brief overview of the past two years so others might understand our growing impatience.
in late September of 2008, nearly two years ago, the Commissioners court decided to do something about our repeated appearances.
so one of the Commissioners agreed to take on the role of the bell cow, the exact term he use understand a conversation with one -- used in a conversation with one of our new coalition members, to lead us on a long winding path away from the court.
the plan was to get the county clerk to agree to convene an election study group to take a critical look into the known security issues of the county's current voting system, the hart e slate and to evaluate the security and viability of two other voting systems that the county might consider using in the future.
paper ballot scanners and hand counted paper ballots.
at the time of the plans inception, we strongly protested having the county clerk organize and lead this group because we were well aware of her heavy bias towards electronic voting machines and knew the likelihood of the -- that the study group would become a convenient rubber stamp of her point of view.
this has turned out to be the exact result of the nine meeting once a month effort.
though we participated in earnest, in the hope of breaking through the automatic support the clerk had from her audience of over 40 hand picked participants.
to be sure that the truth about the study group was told, we issued a report of alternate findings and recommendations, which is what I have here and you all received copies of this, with the full support of our friends here today.
we all expected that a public hearing would be held well before the upcoming November elections when the clerk's report would be finally presented to the court, but months have gone by, we just recently learned that the clerk wants to postpone the presentation for several missouris.
this postponement quite effectively denies the public the opportunity to participate in and learn from a public hearing about the study group and the differing reports.
to conclude, the court has stalled way too long.
it is time that all of you become directly accountable to our constituents.
you can no longer defer this important issue to the county clerk
>> [buzzer sounding] we the people are tired of not being taken seriously all of these years.
we will not be diverted anymore.
we are here to stay until you, our public servants, rectify or legitimate grievances which you swore an oath to do.
thank you.
>> [ applause ]
>> thank you, ms. Rennick.
would connie ripley please come forth and mr. Priest is next.
>> all right, thank you, judge, Commissioners, morris priest speaking on my own behalf.
I do believe that our present administration is much like paris hilton, oh, no, everything in the purse is not mine but the purse doesn't belong to me.
that's pretty much the way our government is with the obama administration, it's not our county, and the county government.
they are -- the most compelling thing, argument that I have seen, is the fact that over and over again it doesn't matter if it's jim harrington or james harrington, last week or if it's ms. Rennick or ms. Carp, we hear time and time again, from constituents in this county, we have mailed letters, sent e-mails, called, we have not heard from our county representatives.
this is just a mantra, a repeat theme that we hear time and time again.
it doesn't matter of the standing, doesn't matter how large the organization is, is the nonresponsive county government.
I want to remind people.
we haven't really had the opportunity to -- let me see if I can get this -- to really have people voted in office that have a business mind such as mike macnamara for county judge and david for precinct 2.
now we do have an opportunity.
I would encourage everyone to come out in November and I want to remind everybody that November is coming.
we have values in this community, whether it's life or many of the other issues that are being ignored by this county and time and time again we hear these same arguments used for developers, whether it was intel, which had to be imploded or any of the others, commercial development projects.
always given Texas incentives.
we saw with txi, enormous problems that it caused and will cause with our environment, our school districts.
our gravel trucks tearing up roads or just too many things to even count in one -- in one three-minute time to speak.
but, you know, it's just amazing how -- how we have these problems and these issues and time and time again we're told, you know --, you know, by our elected officials after the fact, well, we didn't know.
well, ms. Carp and others have told you whatever the issue is, time and time again, that the documentation from -- from experts far exceeding any level that the county has.
it doesn't matter if it's our voting rights, doesn't matter if it's our environmental rights, doesn't matter if we're being taxed out of our homes, it doesn't matter if it's something that's a public safety issue.
it's just -- it's a never ending stream of nonresponsive government.
I can't emphasize enough that we need to remember in November and hopefully it won't be a black box voting episode.
but we won't know because we've asked for these things over and over again.
we've asked for -- for fairness.
every time we have an issue
>> [buzzer sounding] there's always a notice issue.
people aren't informed, they aren't notified.
I think that we need to put this to an end in November.
thank u.
>> [ applause ]
>> mr. Acevedo is next, would gary dugger please come forward.
>> thank you, judge, thank you, Commissioners.
my name is
>> [indiscernible] acevedo, I am a member of the league of united latin american citizens.
I'm the president of council 4860 based out Pflugerville area.
likewise here in Travis County as an activist in the community where latinos definitely want to -- to do what is right in the community.
I -- I'm going to address you with a -- with this.
trust.
trust that you as Commissioners will be able to do the right thing for the communities regardless whether we are latinos or not.
we put this resolution together.
in good faith.
from the local level all the way to the national level.
I'm very proud it passed unanimously at the national convention.
so it's not just an issue here locally.
but it turns out to be even worse than that when we start looking at the fact that we cannot get it on the agenda until the election clerk happens to be with us.
I -- I trust that we are being looked at from all over the world today with the electronic system that we have going for us, that the election clerk could listen or review what we have to say.
so with trust in mind, Commissioners, I will tell you that -- that integrity of our voting is at stake.
democracy.
as we know it.
as we knew it.
with this kind of voting system that we have to date, believe me, I was here from the inception of it, training the latino community on what it would be.
but with the background, from i.b.m., I do know for a fact from those folks who -- who do believe, and will tell you, that this system can -- these systems can be hacked and can be altered to a point where we don't know who won the election or if it's a valid initiative -- ballot initiative, likewise.
some of them have come extremely close to where we could say maybe it didn't really happen.
again it goes to trust.
we trust you as our local government officials to do the right thing for our community.
to have us put this on the agenda with or without a sponsor.
judge, I know that we have known each other for a long time, but the fact remains that this is critically important to educate the public of what they do.
the mystery of the electronic voting continues to be a secret ballot.
secret counting.
we cannot continue this -- this path, especially when we know that -- that the majority of us are asking you for trust in our democracy.
give it back to the -- to the citizens of the community and we can start here.
here in Travis County.
thank you, sir.
>> thank you.
>> [ applause ] sharon brown, spoke on item no.
one, right?
ms. Brown.
okay.
would martin boyer.
please come forth as our third speaker.
ms. Ripley.
>> I am connie ripley, president of delta, don't empty Lake Travis association.
Lake Travis is the largest economic driver in Travis County.
and one thing that the people for the solar project didn't mention was how much water solar will save.
that should have been mentioned, too.
it is -- Lake Travis is our only significant water source.
we drink it.
our crops are irrigated with it, our power plants are cooled with it, it is necessary for our county's existence.
not only is it a huge financial magnet for tourism and business, it is also a recruiting tool.
even the u.t.
sororities and fraternities rent party boats on Lake Travis for their rush parties.
I suppose that's a form of recruitment.
when the Lake Travis water level goes down, the entire county suffers.
it is time that you, all of us, realize the importance of the lake.
the county needs to become more involved in terms of our precious finite resource.
please actively engage in conservation over more usage, go one step further.
will the county take the lead in a thorough, comprehensive, transparent study of the economic impact of lake levels of Lake Travis on Travis County.
compare 2009 and 2010, the economies are about the same, but the lake levels were very different.
others have made attempts at studies in the past, but they have fallen short.
one small published study some years ago blew us away with simply the annual income of your parks around the lake.
I wondering how much more that figure would be this year and then compare it to last year.
take that study a step further to gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, lake supply stores, restaurants, hotels, conventions, businesses, boat dealers, marinas, property values.
your tax base.
the out of town lake front owners and on and on.
I have to tell you that delta that more out of town members than in Austin, especially from houston and dallas.
how important are fishing and boating supplies, even ice chests, to academy and cabella's.
we need to prove to the water wasters that they are draining other life's blood.
they are draining our county's life blood.
please take the lead in protecting our lake.
support conservation over more usage, lead a study to approve the enormous -- improve the enormous value of Lake Travis.
>> thank you, ms. Ripley.
gary dugger.
>> hello, Commissioners.
judge Biscoe.
I'm -- I'm the --
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> Lake Travis is an undeniable key component of certain quality of life that attracts the productive class, specifically those who contribute to our economic sustainability.
year after year seems immense economic impact is ignored in favor of expanding in favor of new utility water contracts.
I want to share an example with you as I see it, kind of how things progress as the lake levels drop.
what we noticed initially as lake levels drop is a reduced ability to navigate by water.
lake restaurants, lake parks, followed by media coverage highlighting the dangers of falling water levels and the hazarded to Lake Travis boaters.
as the lake continues to drop past 667 we see an inability to launch boats in many Travis County parks, increasing difficulty with navigation and again boaters to discontinue the use of their boat as they search for other forms of recreation for their leisure time.
pool tables, media room, pools, time share condos at the beach, vacation homes, new cars, ultimately as the lake 650 the level which of almost all boat ramps are inaccessible, boaters put away their boats.
out of towners no longer travel in from san antonio, houston, dallas and abroad to use Lake Travis.
boaters consider selling their boat.
hoists, boat docks, or they just don't renew their slip or dry dock agreements as they seek to do a another recreation.
this ultimately leads to devastating loss of boat service and revenues, lack of county parks access revenue, loss of gas revenue, loss of hotel room night revenue, loss of grocery revenue and loss of tax revenue.
we also noticed that at 6:50 perspective buyers stop searching and shopping for a boat.
loss of boat sales and subsequent revenue follow and ultimately those boaters that with perspective buyers also became discouraged permanently by the prospect of owning a boat, so they were lost to other forms of recreational enjoyment.
we're talking millions of dollars and thousands of families affected.
in closing, Lake Travis is the cleanest and most precious recreational lake in Texas.
Travis County, lcra and lake residents and business owners like myself have to work together to properly and comprehensively explore any and all means of assuring that it stays that way.
I urge each of you today to start conserving Lake Travis.
our local economy depends on it.
please help ensure Lake Travis has enough water to support continual water related recreational activities and stimulation to our local economy.
thank you for your time.
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, September 7, 2010, 2010 6:54 PM
