Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 11
The one just above that is to consider and take appropriate action regarding issuance of request for services, number s 110160-ml, parking management services at third and guadelupe.
that is the newly purchased block.
>> number 11, judge?
>> yes.
>> okay.
the Commissioners court directed roger and I a couple of weeks ago to draft a request for services.
I want to again thank hin tinly and richard and my office for helping roger and I get this together.
we have a document together.
and on, there's an item that we had talked about.
the Commissioners court, I don't know if you have the document in front of you.
but page 16.
3.3.
we know the sustainable food center does a weekly downtown farmer market.
y'all wanted that time reserved for that.
so we have, I talked to tinly about this morning.
we might want to put a time certain on that Saturday because then Saturday night we could get revenue from that day.
so that is something that we might want to consider, say Saturday, this e have it all day Saturday until six or whatever time they leave.
from that time on.
it's one o'clock?
>> the farmer market down there, early in the morning until one o'clock in the afternoon.
>> I think we should add that to the contract.
then the second item that we need the court's discussion or input or direction on, there was some talk that y'all wanted some other days reserved for us.
so we are asking the court to tell us how many days per year that y'all would like to reserve.
tinly says that we don't have to use them, but it's reserved for our excusive exclusive use on those days if we want them.
so we didn't know.
we are looking from a revenue perp, so we think maybe none, but we don't know if you wanted five, ten, how many days you wanted to designate as exclusively for our user.
>> did we identify, sorry.
>> that was one of my biggest concerns with this, the kind of open endedness.
we don't have a physical analysis.
obviously sometimes of the week there's revenue generated more than other times.
I guess I would be interested in what we have in mind.
like you are saying, very specifically, how that would impact the revenue because we need these revenue generating properties.
>> there was an example of this last week.
roger, help me out.
we made $8,000.
>> yes, for the fest.
and --festival, we made 8,000 on that property.
>> what would we make if it was in rental for parking?
>> we have a gross receipts revenue for the past year, $495,000.
so it translates about $1250 a day on the average.
>> on average.
of course weekends is more.
>> you are looking at substituting parking, which may generate a thousand something a day, for an opportunity to generate more revenue?
>> no, we didn't get any revenue.
my understanding is that we would not get revenue.
>> I think the main point that we are trying to make here, before we move forward with the contract, is that like with the farmers market, do we want to use this site in case we get requests.
we know we are going to get requests for the site for various uses.
so these would normally be nonprofit, people who aren't there to do anything other than try to do something for the generally public.
so we just wanted to make sure, because there will be, I thought some interest from a few of the Commissioners, that we might want to over this.
we are simply, before we write the contract, do we want to consider that.
yes, it does affect revenue.
but do we want to canner that.
>> does the operator, the license to operate this and doing it for parking purposes, do they have contractual arrangements with users that if we were then to pull a day off in the future, it would impact that users's contract chal rainment to operate there?
>> we would have to, when we get the proposals back from persons interested in operating the site we would have to have them explain how to work in this carve out for the county.
you're right, this e --they would be restricted in contracting with people for monthly periods, not knowing when we might come along and say by the way, we need this.
it does complicate matters.
but we were asked to put this in there as a possibility.
>> I was one of the folks interested in it.
and it came up because of several requests for utilization of the parking lot that apparently had been, the parking lot had been utilized in this fashion previously.
the question that it raised in my mind and I put it out to facilities, was have we done, have we created a list of the nonparking uses of that facility over the last couple of years so that we can take a look at it and see sph we want to continue honoring that kind of activity on the parking lot or not, thinking that since we will be constructing on that space at some point, leading up to that interest po, --to that point, we should maximally utilize not only for parking but any historic or civic engagement we want to entertain going forward.
I haven't seen a plan for that and don't know what the had --historic uses have been.
as we move forward we should keep that in mind as possibility but we should put some meat on the bones and say some number of Travis County use days.
>> we need the input if we are going to include the provision about Travis County exclusive use days, we need some number to plug in.
so again, they can sort of plan around, though that will complicate things.
>> I don't feel comfortable putting a number on there until I know what the historic uses of the parking lot have been.
>> that is understood.
I want to mention one more thing.
the preceding paragraph 3.3, we were asked to do a specific cave out for the sustainable food center which we did, so this operator will have no choice, they will have to honor that weekly request for the farmers market.
in addition, I drafted in such a way that they have a right to allow other third parties to request and to get use of the space for certain events, but that all has to be approved in advance by fa ittle is, by the director.
--by facilities, by the directo.
>> facilities and the less ee, the vendor.
>> yes, the operator.
>> I think a good number is zero.
I think there outh to be language that gives the vendor and us an opportunity on a case by case basis to make the decision.
because if you lay out there a certain number of days, I don't know how you pick and choose who you use those days for.
but if you just, if you don't have it in there, hopefully the requests will be zero.
but for requests that have come like the one that earned the $8,000 bucks, I would want the leave the door open where we can get with the vendor and conclude basically that it's mute mutually beneficial for us to work with that group.
just on the amount of money involved and no hardship on us.
can we put language on that in the rfs?
>> yes, we can.
in fact, that would just require that we kind of tweak that language in the third party use to say including, you know, third parties or Travis County so that we can sit down and say we want to use it, we have identified a time or event and we want to use it for Travis County, some Travis County sponsored event, but it would also--
>> not quite what I'm saying, though.
I don't know that Travis County would want to use this.
I think we need to be in the building.
>> so if there's none for Travis County, that can be taken out.
>> we would still have the right--
>> you still have that authority under the third party language, I think.
>> if.
>> right.
>> if roger felt he could make a lot of money some special event.
>> that is my view.
>> I would like to hear from the parking committee in this regard because one Travis County use may be for our Travis County employees for additional parking.
>> is there a vacancy for a county judge on there?
>> I'm just thinking.
we ought to have more meat on the bones fill --philosophially about what we want to use this for.
otherwise we are at the vaguery of whoever asks.
>> I think it ought to be on the tip of our tongue.
I think our expectation is to say no unless a deal too good to pass up comes.
then I think that we ought to be able to persuade the vendor that we ought to work together and accommodate that request.
otherwise, my guess, you know, expo center is the kind of special facility, but sometimes I'm amazed at the number of requests for discounts and preuse.
once you go down that road, though, you can't just say okay, we are stopping today.
you know, when word spreads, the number of requests will increase.
so my position would be let's not open that door here.
at the same time though, let's not close it to everything.
I would be revenue driven.
>> I would too.
at this point.
>> I did talk to lhe, the manager, based on how many events in the past they have, you know, were there for free I should say.
Austin museum gave it to the alliance for free to have staging area.
we went and told them we would like them to pay like 750 per day to use it, they don't have that money, so we did not give it to them.
so give it to the public, right there, when the public when they went and have a park right there.
and then we generated the money.
however, the only activity was going over there for the whole year is the farmer market on Saturday from early in the morning to one o'clock.
and I did ask any other activities, only small activity authorized by the Austin museum, that is the history from the operator in that facility.
>> do you need more time?
>> no, I think there's a clear majority.
I may not be in it.
>> more time, you may be in that majority.
>> I'd like to see if we are to do anything--
>> you request tweak--a queek week, exist Commissioner Davis.
>> I request a week.
>> let's go to nine.
>> thank you, judge.
>> and we go to the parking committee item next.
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