Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 12, 2010,
Item 4
Now, item number 4, if we can -- that should be fairly quick, introduction of linda watson, president and c.e.o.
of capital metropolitan transportation authority by beverly silas, Travis County appointee on the capital metro board of directors.
let's get to that.
we know ms. Watson is eager to get back to work.
>> thank you very much.
>> would you like to join ms. Silas there?
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> as your appointee to the capital metropolitan transportation authority board of directors, it is part of my responsibility to give you an update on how we are doing, and what I would like to do is give you a brief overview of what has transpired in capital metro the last few months.
you appointed me to the board in November of 2009.
I was sworn in January of this year.
since that time, we elected officers.
mike martinez is chairman, beverly silas is secretary.
we got the red line up and running in March.
we accepted the sunset commission report as a mandate and not as a suggestion, and so we went through and developed a matrix of all of the findings of the sunset commission and how we were going to address those.
we hired a president and c.e.o., linda watson, from whom you will hear in a minute.
we last month became totally transparent, all of our financials are online on our website including our check ledger.
we are the first transit authority in the state of Texas to do that and we are almost sure we're the first transportation authority in the nation.
we can't verify that, but as of last week none of the others at the annual afta conference could tell us they are doing that, so that's something of which we are very proud.
we just last month accepted a balanced budget which includes a five-year capital improvement program.
it also includes a -- a way of paying back the city of Austin for those funds that we had -- were supposed to have paid over a period of time, and the budget also eliminated stipends for us board members.
we adopted policies also at this meeting to address metro access.
we increased the fare in some of our services which was in line with the sunset commission review which, as I said earlier, we accepted as a mandate rather than suggestions.
we also adopted policies for how we allocate and appoint people to various capital metro committees, which includes an application process.
so that is a brief overview of a number of the actions that we have taken and now I'd like to turn it over to our president and c.e.o.
linda watson.
>> thank you, beverly, and thank you very much for having us here today and for this wonderful introduction to the Commissioners court.
as you can tell, we've got a very active, very strong board.
it truly is a new day at capital metro with new leadership and a new -- new direction as well.
I'm very excited to be here.
it's been eight weeks now and it's very positive working with this board who is so good at doing the right thing, and what I tell our employees we're going to do the right thing and for the right reasons and identity the right way.
my goal is to prepare the organization for the challenges that central Texas has over the next several years in preparing for growth, congestion, dealing with congestion and providing the kinds of services that this community can be very proud of.
when I moved here, I noticed that Austin is on the top of the list in every magazine for something, for one reason or another, and I want to make sure that Austin gets on the top list of -- in all those magazines for the high quality transit service that we provide.
I'm spending a lot of time trying to get out in the community, meet members of the community, but also our community and elected leaders.
I'm working internally to align the organization to meet our goals.
I'm very committed to working with you and developing partnerships in addressing our common goals and I'm here to work with you in any way I can and help you as you see the issues and needs in the neighborhoods.
so thank you very much for having me here today and I look forward to working with you in the future.
>> thanks for coming by.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you for the good work that you are doing out there as our representative as well.
>> thank you.
>> we figure that if you made it through the first eight weeks, it's got to be downhill from now.
>> I don't know why the board didn't finish all the work prior to me getting here, they came pretty darn close actually, but thank you so much.
>> we look forward to working with you.
beverly, good to see you.
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, October 12, 2010 6:33 PM
