Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 19, 2010,
Item 18
18, consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, report on the house county affairs committee hearing on Tuesday, October 12, b, adoption of policies and procedures for determining, monitoring and advancing the Travis County legislative agenda for the 82nd Texas legislature. We indicate there b may be taken into executive session under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. C, adoption of the Travis County legislative agenda document for the 82nd Texas legislature. And chief counsel, we will call up your item next. And that is the matter involving the purchase of the automobile. Mr. Eckstein, good afternoon.
>> judge business coast, members of the court, deece eckstein. You have before you two documents that we discussed in some detail at the work session a couple weeks ago. The first is a document on policies and procedures. Essentially a rules of engagement for how the intergovernmental relations office will work with the court, with county departments and with members of the legislature during the session. The second is actually the first iteration of the Travis County legislative agenda for the next session. Before I do that, though, I do want to respect, judge, you asked a couple weeks ago about just getting a brief report on the house county affairs committee hearing that was held in san antonio last week. I would just report to the court that the county affairs committee has set a series of hearings around the state. They had a hearing last Monday in san antonio, they had a hearing yesterday in fort worth, they will have a hearing tomorrow in mcallen. They are scheduling a hearing for tyler, I think one for houston and perhaps even one for el paso. But in all of their hearings, they are seeking bet invited and public testimony about their charge number 1. Charge number 1 is one that's very important to Travis County. It says study the current practices and tools available to counties to manage growth and development, considering incompatible uses and county rule making authority, including rule making authority bracketed to counties of a certain population. As the court members know, our office has been working closely with chairman coleman and with the members of the committee and with their staffs to try to brief them on the issues involved in questions of county growth management. I think we have had several successful conversations with them. At the hearing last week, county Commissioner tommy atkinson of bexar county testified on behalf of himself and on behalf of bexar county about the concerns that they have as a county with trying to do land management. His section of the county, Commissioner, how about oh,, is probably a little like yours, it is the portion of bexar county that has the most rural and unincorporated land in it so he deals with at love issues that we deal with in Travis County in terms of land management and growth and trying to help management that in a way to protect quality of life and property values. So he testified about that. They also had testimony from the representative of the san antonio home builders association. The interesting portion about that was that although he -- although he avered counties have all the subdivision regulation authority they need, he did mention the home builders would probably support something like a buffer zone bill similar to the bill we had last session. So subdivision regulation is one portion of the whole growth management issue, but it doesn't address the issue of incompatible land uses. And so we think we've been successful at educating the committee about the fact that subdivision regulation is one set of issues and that county growth management is another set of issues, and for that reason we hope to actually approach some other legislative remedies that specifically address incompatible land use. So that was a positive meeting last week. They also took testimony on a couple of other charges that the committee is looking at. That will be the pattern in all the hearings that they had yesterday, tomorrow and in future weeks. Our office is going to make an effort if schedules allow to see if we can attend as many of those hearings as possible but particularly try to get face time with members of the committee as we get closer to the beginning of the session. That's my report on the -- on the house county affairs committee hearing, and if there are no questions about that, we can move on to the policies and procedures.
>> after this series of hearings, do we expect the committee to have written recommendations to the legislature?
>> yes. The committee is going to write an interim report where they describe what happened in the hearings, what the testimony was and then they do their own analysis of what the issues are, the counties from the property rights perspectives and will make recommendations. We're hopeful we'll be able to work with the members of the committees and the committee staffs to write a report that we think at least acknowledges existence of some of the issues we've been talking about.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> we don't know what the specific recommendations will be at this point.
>> right.
>> so the second part of the agenda item is to approve the policies and procedures. As I said earlier, these are really just the rules of engagement. This is an update of the document thaw adopted at the beginning -- that you adopted at the beginning of the last session. It really is a set of rules concerning what recommendations I present to the court, recommendations on how to approach legislation. They've been fine-tuned some in order to reflect the new design that we're putting forth the legislative agenda. The legislative agenda will not be adopted and then, if will you, put on a shelf, but will rather be an ongoing document that the court will be reviewing on a weekly basis s during the session so the court can evaluate the status of our legislative priorities. So at this time I would just see if there are any questions about the policies and procedures portion of the -- or the policies and procedures document.
>> any questions or comments?
>> I think it's a good clean document.
>> second? That was a motion, wasn't it?
>> [laughter]
>> that was. Thank you for translating.
>> any discussion on the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you, judge. The next document you have, item c on the agenda, is actually the -- the first formal iteration of a legislative agenda for the county. As I explained to the court at the work session a couple weeks ago, this is based on a series of focus group meetings that we had with county departments over the course of this past year where we asked them about legislative issues facing them. We then tried to research and vet the issues some, and starting with our legislative agenda from last session to put together a new legislative agenda for the court. The template that we're following this year is the style or the approach taken by the conference for urban counties where this document really becomes sort of a score card for the county. And it is my intent that we'll be coming back to the court with this document adding to it, subtracting from it, asking the court to take a position on specific bills that we feel make -- meet the goals of the policy positions in the document and in that method keeping the court apprised of what's going on with all the different policy initiatives of the county during the legislative session.
>> this is a fluid document.
>> it is a fluid document.
>> that we'll change as we see necessary and as we respond to react to different things that happen at the legislature.
>> absolutely.
>> I?ll move approval, but I would like to also point out that I believe you said that the blue highlighted area was new this year, the black was carryover. Number 4 on environmental and natural resources, which is blue, relates to the off permit signs and that's a carryover.
>> that's correct. The court did take a position on that last session.
>> I move approval.
>> second.
>> miss vetaro.
>> I wanted to briefly bring us up, judge. In previous legislation, very often our office has taken a position which is usually in parallel and cooperative with the Commissioners court position on issues that we're dealing with. And what I would like to do is put together a bill that basically deals with public-private partnerships and the legal use of county facilities. And if I could just for a second we're talking conceptual here, but I was advised just at lunch today that we really need to get things to leg council and have it drafted at least to start looking at some of these issues. When we got into the master planning for the county, we ran into a lot of issues that for instance with the building we're leasing is really what was in the public interest, and it seemed to me as your chief financial officer that we could have been more aggressive in leasing out space that we did not need, if in fact we had the authority to do that. And that it was not in the taxpayers' best interest for us not to have the right to do that. These are the kind of issues I would like to get this this bill and I?ll get it drafted. The other thing is that when we had the big community planning groups, there was a lot of talk about the plan that the city of Austin had in retail and some of the ideas that they had. And judge, you brought up the issue that you really weren't sure that we had the authority to do retail, and I agree, I don't think we do. And so if we think we are going to try to engage in those kind of projects, as we have talked about in planning, I think we need a legislative authority to do it. It doesn't mean you want to do that, but if we don't have the authority, it is no longer a choice. The other thing is to engage in public-private partnerships that benefit the taxpayer. One of the issues we have, and as I sat here and listened to deece, with growth, the growth in the buildings are the same thing. In other words, when we have the consultant come in, what they did is they took the state demographer's number and said this is the growth of the county. And we're saying wow, in order for us to keep providing the services, not expand, but just keep that, we're going to need this much space. It doesn't make sense in a rapid growth area to just build what you need for the next three years because you know you can fill that up. It is of benefit to perhaps stretch that out like we did with 700 lavaca and say, look, we're going to need that, we should procure it now when it's in the taxpayers' best interest. We can borrow at low rates, get a good deal and occupy that as we're going on. But meanwhile, it would be good not to have space sitting there empty. Not for us to compete at nonmarket rates against the private sector, but to be able to really plan for expansion and plan for growth and yet recoup some of the taxpayers' money. What I would like to do -- I?m just telling you this because I need to totally get it together. I want to -- April has provided a draft for me to look at. It's not really fully vetted yet, but I would like to have our bond counsel take a look at it. I would like our real estate professional to take a look at it and get it to y'all and at least try to get that into ledge council and drafted with the idea there's plant of time for change, but I kind of forget that time was so sensitive in terms of if we really want something we need to get going. In essence, that's what I was thinking, broadening the county's authority to deal with growth in county facilities and property. I guess that's the essence of it there.
>> may I ask, it seems appropriate not for today, I don't think, but perhaps for next week to consider some language along the lines of underneath the plank that deals with taxation, budget and administration inside you have our legislative platform, that perhaps a number 6 item could go something along the lines, and you will wordsmith this so much better, support legislation and authorizing appropriate use of public-private partnerships in funding and utilization of publicly owned and controlled facilities. Something along those --
>> I?m going to try to take that language from you.
>> I?m going to email it to you right now.
>> sorry. Since you've taken a long look at this, my hope is that you would pull together this information relative to this.
>> I will.
>> and then work with i.r.g.
>> this is something that I would like to spend a lot of time on having worked so hard on 700 and thinking that if the law were different, we could have saved some money. So I?ll do that, but, of course, we'll be working with deece and as I said parallel, yet separate. Yeah, I?ll be glad to do that and I know you have a full legislative agenda. I will put a lot of time on this one and see where it goes. I?ll be glad to do that if you are all right with it.
>> good point.
>> any more discussion?
>> if I could just point out, behind the -- behind the actual legislative agenda in your packets is the backup materials for all the new items, which are the ones in blue, including, I might add, a very valuable document prepared by sherri fleming and her staff, when is the backup to one of the health and human services issues. It is their analysis of the potential impact to Travis County of the budget cuts being discussed as we speak in the legislative appropriations request of the various health and human services agencies. And so all that material at the back of your packet is offered as backup material in case you need additional information about any of the new items we're adding to the agenda. And just for good measure, I put in the billboard thing as well. So I wrote one on the billboard thing as well. So hopefully if the court has any questions about particularly the new items, we can do that. And then as early as next week, we could put another item to court's agenda to come back and revisit this list and make any additions we want to make particularly in light of the issues susan raised. I was going to suggest to the court we would come back in three weeks, which is the Tuesday after the election, and ask if the court would like a briefing on the impact of the election as we would see it on the prospects for legislative -- for the legislative session, and then if there are any additions to this list also bring those at that time. We could do one next week on susan's item and maybe one in -- sort of a update to the court in three weeks.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you.
>> thank 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 19, 2010 2:33 PM
