Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 16, 2010,
Item 25
Why don't we go ahead and call up 25, consider and take appropriate action on the request to authorize Travis County constable precinct 3 or another county department to purchase a chevy van vin number 1gceg25h9k7169133 for $1,000 from the Texas department of public safety.
since this issue was on our agenda last, I had another idea which is what another county department pertains to.
and that is that Travis County purchase this for $1,000, not use grant money.
and that it be purchased by the Travis County fleet management department, which would own the vehicle and the vehicle would be available to any Travis County department that needs to use it.
so that would mean any other constable or the sheriff's office or what have you.
that's a little bit different than we discussed last time.
yes, sir.
this is one the precinct 3 initiated.
but my thinking after that day was that this equipment really probably ought to be in fleet management department and should be available to all county departments that need surveillance equipment.
since that time, I have also learned that the value of this equipment is really more in the 40,000 range than 20 to 25 that we discussed last time.
right, mr. Suits?
>> it's probably closer to around 10 or 15.
>> where is that 40,000 figure?
>> if it was bought brand-new.
>> all right.
maybe the county judge had been dreaming.
so what does this show?
>> that was a request for the vehicle maintenance.
>> okay.
>> and then the two bids we had was to put it, if it was going to be a pool vehicle, it would need to be about a $3,000 to $3,500 expenditure to install the equipment in the van so it would be available to all the agencies involved.
>> okay.
>> under our scenario, if we operated the van, we would put our own equipment in that we already have.
>> well, my thinking, after thinking about this and talking to some other folk, was I guess you don't need this every day.
but if you need it and you are a county department doing this business, you should have access to it.
and on regular vehicles, we would have those in the fleet management department.
and I guess they'd be checked out for use, right?
>> yes.
>> that idea, I chatted with joe gieselman about and a few others.
bottom line, if it makes sense to spend a couple thousand dollars of grant money, then it probably makes as much sense to spend that much county money for.
the other thing, if you use grant dollars, you have to do certain accounting.
then they would have to approve the purchase.
so the court would have to approve it and then it would have to go to tceq for their approval.
>> I thought this wasn't grant money.
>> well, at this point in time, with this purchase, we're going to do it with existing line item funds we have.
>> my recommendation would be the accounting general fund and basically put it in the fleet management department.
I think that would be cleaner.
that would make it available county wide to departments that need to use it.
Commissioner Eckhardt.
>> I would have to get confirmation of this from the vehicle users committee.
but my understanding was the vehicle users committee had acquiesced to the purchase of this van based on constable 3 picking up all of the maintenance because it was blind on the maintenance history of this vehicle or its maintenance costs moving forward.
but I would have to get confirmation from the vehicle users committee on that.
my ongoing concern -- I mean I would agree with you if it's a good purchase, it's a good purchase for the county, not for constable 3.
but I haven't gotten confirmation from vehicle users committee that they feel solid about the maintenance on the maintenance requirements for this piece of equipment, nor have I gotten any indication from the sheriff's department that they are real warm and fuzzy about utilizing this piece of equipment.
but we have the sheriff's department here.
>> we have the ability in Travis County sheriff's office to do undercover surveillance with the equipment that we have.
we don't necessarily need another van to do that.
I can't say we wouldn't utilize it if it was available.
but I just remind the court that the sheriff's office does have investigators that are very well trained to do undercover surveil surveillance for all kinds of criminal investigations.
>> so this wouldn't be at the top of your christmas list for further outfitting your surveillance capabilities.
>> no, no, it wouldn't be.
>> jim sylvester, chief deputy.
I would like to add that if it's the desire of the court to purchase a vehicle for the use of all Travis County agencies, that have a law enforcement function, to use for surveillance, I would be supportive of that because, you know, today we may not have a use for it.
tomorrow, something may come up because our street narcotics units are growing at a rapid pace as far as activity involvement and what's going on in our community.
there may be a time in the next year or so that we could use it and the resource is here, that would be wonderful to have access to.
the other question I have is the caretaker, who is responsible for maintenance, mo is responsible for checking it out, checking it in, who is going to be the keeper of the keys.
from the scenario we run in for years, at the sheriff's office before we had take-home cars, the patrol car.
who is responsible for doing the inspection of the vehicle when it's turned in?
who is putting their cigarettes out in the shotgun tube and who damaged the car?
who is doing the mileage?
it was done when I got the car.
that's the issues you have with the pool system.
but if we have t & r as the keeper and they are the ones who sit there and go we are going to regulate the checking out and checking in of the vehicle and hold those people accountable, then that's great because they are a stand-alone and they are separate and unbiased.
their responsibility is for the maintenance and upkeep of that equipment.
>> for the purposes of the motor vehicle inspection effort to investigate these systems through question people are purr vaing these inspection stickers, do you feel you have the appropriate surveillance vehicles and other resources now to do what needs to be done on mvi specifically?
>> yes, we do.
because it would be no different than any other kind of undercover surveillance we do in many other criminal-type activities.
we have a detective who is an environmental investigator.
we have all the mechanisms in place to do the follow-up investigations already in the sheriff's office.
>> has there been -- what level of collaboration has there been between constable 3 and the sheriff's department?
>> I believe there is a meeting this vehicle with my sergeant to get some more things ironed out with the working agreement onboard.
>> thanks.
>> with $1,000, you've got a piece of equipment that's valued a whole lot more.
if I were doing this, I guess I?d jump at the opportunity to get the equipment whether I needed it or not.
if at some point in the future, I determined I wasn't using it to justify continued ownership as a private individual, I?d sell it to the highest person I could find.
as a governmental agency, you auction it off which is what the state is about to do if we don't claim it.
if a department doesn't need this, the department shouldn't use it.
that doesn't mean other departments may not have a need for it.
so I saw this as being pretty simple.
and it's so simple that for $1,000 investment, rather than hassle with tceq, it made a lot more sense to me to go ahead and purchase it and then put it where we have a whole lot of other vehicles out in fleet management.
and basically, whatever county department needed to check it out for county business could just check it out.
I guess I was -- my approach was a whole lot simpler than what I?m hearing today.
>> judge, I think what you brought up with the t&r fleet maintenance assigned to them and them being the caretaker and we check it out, I think that's a great solution to the whole problem.
that way you don't have to worry about who's in charge and who's not in charge, can't find the keys.
you have one responsible there for the county fleet at the end of the day.
>> mr. Joyce because walked in.
>> mr. Davis.
>> thank you.
>> surveillance is needed all throughout the county.
there's no doubt about it.
and, of course, stacy, they may have issues within the jurisdictional situation within precinct 3, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't go outside of precinct 3.
of course, we have a constable that represents each individual precinct.
precinct 1 in particular may have a need for this particular vehicle, also.
and I guess my question to you, stacy, is that under the scenario that the judge just presented, whereby allowing t&r to be the fleet management aspect of this particular vehicle and, of course, the keeper of the keys, could your particular precinct, constable, precinct 3 -- could y'all live with that type of scenario?
>> yes.
but I do want to make two little caveats here.
>> all right.
>> if it's going to be used for narcotics surveillance, none of the tceq-mbi money can be used on this van or any of the equipment.
it has to be separate and has to be a general fund expenditure.
I would also say that this is set up, and I gave you the bids.
there's about $3,000, $3,500 worth of equipment if you are going to leave this permanently installed inside the van.
you are probably looking at having to buy that equipment for people to check in and check out.
okay?
but the other aspect, too, is there is -- the sheriff does have a van that's got the inspection sticker and the license plates two years expired and set for seven months down at lamar and didn't move, what's the possibly of getting that van picked up and made useable and put in also.
>> I don't know the answer to that.
I think we need to redirect to the topic at hand.
item 25, what are we going to do with the vehicle up for discussion at this time?
>> my concern is there's a lot going on throughout the entire county.
and I guess the point is if we can get something to add to the surveillance situation that we need to really address by law enforcement, I think we should do that.
and especially if we can come in at a price that has been presented to us today, where, you know, the van should be capitalized and it's just 1,000.
it just appears to me that we should move in the direction.
what we're doing, we're fighting crime here.
and I really don't -- and believe me, the residents out in this community want to see a relief factor when it deals with crime in Travis County.
that doesn't bother no way, shape or fashion, who does it?
constables or sheriff?
dps or dpd or whomever, this particular community is plagued with a lot of crime.
it is.
now, how do we get there to help offset some of these things?
this is maybe one step of many we need to take to deal with this situation in Travis County.
thank you.
Commissioner Gomez, enlighten us.
you looking for a fight today?
>> no, sir, not at all.
that was a few days ago.
>> [laughter] that's expired.
I?m mike joyce of t & r, fleet manager.
I?m just here to answer questions that the court may have of me about it.
I don't have a fight in this.
>> good, good, good.
what questions do we have of mr. Joyce?
>> mr. Joyce, what is the maintenance cost of this van moving forward?
do we know?
>> I do not have that information.
it depends on how much you choose.
we have another old chevrolet van we were using for a while.
and it was nothing really major but nitpicking stuff constantly.
it's old technology.
it had a carbohydrate on it still and kept giving us fits with little minor issues.
and it's usually happened when you want it the most, unfortunately.
but, you know, the cooling system that was developed inside this van so the engine wouldn't have to be running, it works minimal at 90 degrees.
it works very little at over 90 degrees.
that was an issue.
just being an old vehicle, you know, it just was brakes.
it was spring in the brake system that would break.
just little things like that.
and then that's the reason why they mainly quit using it.
>> what was the year of that vehicle?
>> now, you're getting me to lying.
>> this one is 1989.
is it older than this?
>> we have a 1982 dodge is what we have.
and this is a 1989 chevy.
>> this may be a chance for the sheriff to upgrade.
>> [laughter]
>> if it's bought by the county and put in fleet, who pays for the maintenance?
>> well, the original when we started discussing this was constable 3 being able to be a grant funded vehicle.
I would do the repairs in-house and send constable 3 a bill on maintenance and all fuel used on the vehicle.
and it would be paid for out of the grant funding.
>> it's not eligible for grant funding.
>> it's not.
>> so that presumption on which the motor vehicle users committee made their decision is no longer actually the case.
>> correct.
>> the truth, though, is if the court were to approve this, we'd have to apply to tceq, then get tceq's approval for it to be grant funded.
and tceq would have to make that call.
this was not in our plan because we didn't know about it.
and by the way, I got this from ms. Noel.
when I got to thinking about it, I mean I don't know that you just wanted to dedicate this 100% to the vehicle inspection program, especially when you've got narcotics and other law enforcement initiatives that are going on at the county in various departments throughout the year.
so, you know, by the county owning it generally, it will become available to everybody, for every kind of use.
the other thing, though, is when precinct 3 came forward, y'all were going to do the maintenance.
but the thinking is y'all would have possession of this 100% of the time, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> so I?m thinking that we elevate our discussion, in my view, by purchasing it for the county since the cost is $1,000.
but then we do pick up some other costs.
the more you use it, the more it would cost.
but the less you use, the less it would cost.
and I guess I was thinking it would be a win-win situation because when we decided two years from now we shouldn't have purchased that and we really don't need it, then we just try to sell it maybe to a smaller county that needs some sort of surveillance equipment and willing to pay at least $1,000 for it.
>> we can do better than that, surely.
>> any other questions?
>> so if the county buys it, it's not part of the grant, then the county is paying maintenance on it and it's not allocated or anything?
>> we'd treat it like any other county-owned vehicle.
it would be our responsibility, but it would be ours to use as we see fit.
now, it seems to me if you do use this for one of those grant-funded activities, you could submit that piece for reimbursement and try to make the case that tceq should allow grant funds for it.
but with the understanding that tceq may approve it.
they may turn it down.
the other thing is that a year from now, we may decide, hey, we use this equipment x percent of the time.
and if that program is stale available -- is still available, and you have the legislature coming looking for funds, if that program is available and we can document what percentage we ask, you can do that and ask tceq to approve it, it's just with the understanding that the ultimate call is tceq's.
between now and then, if my strategy is adopted, we would purchase this for county use and any kind of department that wanted to use it for official business would be able to use it.
of course, two departments wouldn't be able to use it at one time unless they are working together.
but hopefully, we'd be able to cooperate and work together like that.
>> I guess I?d like to know how many of these cases does the sheriff's department -- have y'all handled in the last, I don't know, last two months?
>> we haven't handled any cases that have progressed to the point of doing this kind of surveillance as of yet.
we're not approaching the programming quite the same way that the constable's office is doing.
>> okay.
>> do we need to go into executive session on that?
>> no, no.
>> and it's because you are taking time to do other things that y'all normally do in terms of law enforcement?
>> yes.
we have incorporated the inspection sticker observation process into a regular patrol duties with certain officers who have been trained to do such.
and then when the detective, detective parker makes an observation that the information that's being developed through the contact and patrol officers are doing points out a place, then we will devise a plan to take care of that place that seems to be coming up.
over and over.
>> and do y'all get down to the shops that are the people who are selling those stickers to people who don't know or can't afford anything else?
how many of those have y'all identified?
>> to my knowledge right now, we have not got a plan on any of those shops.
>> is it surveillance in real life like it is on tv?
it helps to use different colored cars and different vehicles?
>> actually, we don't typically use one vehicle for surveillance.
if that vehicle was to be burned -- you have seen "burn notice" on tv, right?
we wouldn't want to be back in that vehicle.
so we have other avenues.
>> okay.
>> the process is slowing us down.
the manpower.
sidney parker prioritizes us.
we have the illegal dumping which is a high priority.
theft of metals and copper wire.
theft of air-conditioning units and churches and stuff.
it's been a higher priority.
we also have mechanisms that we're trying to put in place internally for policies and procedures.
we don't want to put the cart before the horse.
before we start a process in place, that we have ample support and personnel to make sure all the documentation that's brought in is handled properly.
do we have policies and procedures for impounding and as far as evidence.
what's the county attorney stance?
can they handle the influx of paperwork?
it's a big deal.
we don't go out there and start investigations.
we have to lay the groundwork and it's time consuming with the court system, the county offices to make sure everybody is ready to go before we start inundating them with paperwork that they are not ready for.
>> see, the concern that I have is that I didn't write the rules for what each office does or is supposed to perform.
these offices are all in the constitution and we don't just all of a sudden decide we're going to just, you know, put you out of business.
but if they have the ability and the time and have gotten trained well enough to deal with these cases that are not a high priority for another office, it would appear to me that's still revenue that's coming into the general fund for the county.
you know, regardless of which office it came in from.
and it also continues to release you to perform the other things that are much more county wide in basis and still brings in revenue, still has cost to it because of manpower or the vehicles or the gas or whatever else.
that, you know, there is still plenty of work to be spread throughout the county in these different offices.
and I?m just recalling, you know, from my days as constable that, you know, we did quite a bit of concentration on delivering civil process and working traffic warrants.
we didn't have all the computers that are in place now.
so we had to do a lot of that manually.
but we got it done, but it takes time, takes commitment.
and other offices had other priorities.
this was our priority.
and we got it done.
and so it's just a matter of having the time to do everything that is supposed to get done.
and so to me, judge, it appears that, you know, we have an office here and we have four other offices, four constables.
I don't know if they all want to get into this business or not, but it seems like this is pretty basic stuff dealing with people who are, you know, poor working people, you know, on a daily basis.
they get fooled by some guy or person who is real clever and cunning.
and they can sell these false tickets and stickers to them.
and who is the real criminal in this situation?
you know, so to me, for the $1,000 that they wanted to spend out of their budget, it is still something that I think maintenance can still be handled by Travis County because this work is being done on behalf of Travis County.
and it's not for personal stuff.
and so I just think that we can work this in for everybody to have some work to do.
>> you know, in the past years or especially on your illegal dumping situation, we tried to address those particular concerns.
we have even added to the Travis County attorneys staff to help us in that regard as far as a lot of environmental violations here in the county.
but just recall some of these.
and I have to go back and dig back in the files to seal if I can -- see if I can recall how much money that the county has to invest as far as people power as far as cleaning up illegal dumping sites.
it was phenomenal.
I don't recall the amount of money.
but that is a big ticket item all throughout Travis County, this illegal dumping.
and, of course, we have set up different things to try to mitigate that type of situation throughout the county.
and, of course, again when we look at tax dollars that be being spent to correct those type of legal dumping problems, it was substantial then.
and I really don't know exactly what it is now.
but I do know that we asked for and asked how much it would cost from the general fund to actually go out and clean up illegal dumping sites where folks would not take things to the landfill.
we have a lot of that in precinct 1.
and, of course, we would like to, you know, get the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
however, to do that, we need certain things.
and that's why this investment appeared to be very minimal as far as maybe helping us offset some of that cost, just to clean up an illegal dumping side that's on the side of the road.
and it's all over the county.
it really is.
but those are things we have to reckon with and deal with.
of course, I think the more out there doing those things can also be a cost savings to the taxpayers.
so this is some of the reason I?m supporting what we're doing here today.
I have no qualm with this, judge, if that's your motion to do what you just said.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt.
>> this is going to be my motion real soon, Commissioner.
>> I?ll second the motion.
>> I just wanted to give an alternative view.
perhaps an alternative opinion taken from the same fact that I applaud what constable 3 as well as the other constables are doing with regard the motor vehicle inspection sticker program.
I have also heard from the constable in my precinct regarding their efforts as part of their regular duties to add into the things that they look at when they do have a stop or do a warrant to take a look at the inspection stickers and check it through that.
I also applaud the sheriff's department for their work on the investigative end.
this is an important program and I stand behind it.
that said, as the overseer of our budget, I am concerned that it costs a considerable amount to fully staff and equip a patrol and investigative apparatus in Travis County.
in my opinion, the patrol and apparatus in Travis County is the sheriff's department.
while the constable does serving civil process and executing warrants, the primary lead on those is the sheriff's department.
and I think we have to maintain that distinction both for policy reasons, but also for budgetary reasons.
we can't afford to fund the sheriff's department appropriately and also fund miniatures of the same in constable 3, much less miniatures of the same in five separate constables.
it's simply unsustainable.
so I would call for a greater degree of collaboration.
I don't think we can afford to have the mvi investigative effort entirely in constable 3.
we've got to learn to share.
I think it would be terribly inappropriate to put this van solidly in constable 3, that's not the motion on the table.
and I?m happy for that.
but I am concerned that we will be through what I expect to be the motion, adding a vehicle to our fleet that is not being requested by the lead agency for patrol and investigation.
I am gratified to know our lead agency for investigation says that they could possibly use it.
but I would think that if the sheriff's department finds that they are not using it, that we should be frank about that in the motor vehicle users committee moving forward.
if it appears that it's only being used by constables, which are not the lead patrol and investigative agency for the county, I think that we should be brave enough to say that moving forward if this motion goes.
>> is the sheriff's office the lead agency when it comes to these fraudulent inspection stickers?
>> no one has made that determination.
>> now, this court approved a long list of deputy constables and deputy sheriffs.
>> yes, sir.
>> to work this program.
and we sent that list to tceq.
>> yes, sir.
>> and to me, that list represented our statement that constables and deputy sheriffs will work on this program for Travis County as much as possible.
now, nobody said we'll spend this much time, we'll spend that much time, but we did say these offices will be working on it, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> so that was one step by the Commissioners court blessing the effort which I think made sense at this time.
this problem is a whole lot bigger than any of us imagined when we approved it.
we suspected that it would be of some significance, but it's a whole lot greater than I thought.
three, though, is that whether we like it or not, elected officials, once we approve the resources, do their own thing.
and we can't stop them.
we can slow them down during the next budget process, but we really can't stop them.
that applies to the sheriff as well as the constables.
and the other thing is there is a reality that we have to face and that is if you are out there doing this work, there are certain kinds of equipment that will help you.
this surveillance equipment is necessary in law enforcement, period.
these inspection stickers just kind of help us surface that this equipment is available from the state and we can have the cost of $1,000.
that's why Sam briscoe moves that Travis County purchase this equipment for $1,000, that we put it in the fleet management department, that we make it available to all county departments that need it for lawful county purposes, and that we get a report back one year from now sort of estimating what good it's doing or bad and we can make the call on whether to keep it or not at that point.
>> I still second it as I stated earlier.
>> that's a long motion.
the more I thought about it, the longer it got.
>> I still second it.
my second is just as long.
>> judge, what about going back to that list we approved of the positions that we approved?
or whatever it was that we approved.
>> they were listed individuals.
but they didn't say -- I think they estimated the time they may take.
but even that was subject to other workload.
you see what I?m saying?
that's the problem.
>> I think they are addressing commitments of the court from the very beginning and the reason we wanted to get into this program, which is important to me, because I think it protects people who can't protect themselves.
and in that they need our help on this.
but I think it would be good to go back and look at that list to see what commitment we made to this program.
>> ms. Noelle has that list, right?
we sent it to tceq.
we can do that.
>> we probably need to look at that list again and see what kind of commitment we made.
>> okay.
any more discussion?
>> friendly.
>> that's friendly.
I?m just thinking we can automatically do that.
any more discussion?
all those in favor?
two vote in favor.
all against.
three against.
that motion fails.
by a vote 2-3.
thanks.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 3:20 PM
