Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 11
Number 11,, consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, briefing on the charge, activities and progress of the 2011 citizens bond advise I have committee and b, whether to include certain facility projects, excluding the civil/family family law court house in the charge to the committee.
and I was expecting to see the staff person of that bond advisory committee, and I don't.
mr. Hobby, did he leave?
>> no, sir, I知ite here.
>> maybe that means he doesn't want your participation in 11 there.
we may just have to do it without him.
you were here basically to give comments on some facilities projects that are currently not in the charge to the bond advisory committee.
right?
>> yes, sir.
steve definitely wants to be here as well as I think roger el khoury.
I知 sure they're heading over here.
but I値l go ahead and kick it off if that's okay.
I think what's important is I think steve is going to tell you that as well is that since the bond committee has already been meeting, it's now important for the court to consider any particular projects that you might want to place on the bond regarding facilities.
and I think you have the backup that steve wrote to you in regards to those projects.
and so I think they're listed for you.
I think what I would like to do is just kick off with the medical examiner facility.
do you have all that in front of you or do you want me to review those?
but I would like to let you know that if you decide really for any of the facilities to go on the bond, then it is important that we do that now because I知 already being asked to go and speak on some of the little trips that they're going on regarding roads.
plus it would be good to know -- I would like to introduce myself to the committee since I haven't been to a committee meeting yet.
but at the same time you may want to reconsider the list because with medical examiners, I would like for you to reconsider that one as to whether or not that should be on the bond or not.
or whether or not we should do co's.
because with the-million-dollar examiner facility we have a unique possibility of several other options.
and that is we right now are doing a financial review, if you remember, with a consultant.
consultant, to try to look at what the scope should be in regards to the operations of that facility, meaning do we stay with all the outside counties?
do we partner with somebody else that right now may potentially in the next few years be able to build their own medical facility?
and so this particular direction based upon the financial review could end up to where we actually partner, kind of like I did with c tech and regional radio to where we would have other partners that would come in and actually participate in the funding of the building.
and so those discussions would need to take place with those particular groups.
the importance of having a new facility, though, we need to do that because even if we stay with just Travis County only, then we're going to need a larger facility than where we are.
now, also if you'll remember, there's other people that actually want the facility we're in.
in fact, they were trying to get us out of there several years ago.
and we've only got a few more years left in this facility before we are going to be in danger of our accreditation, before we're going to be completely not able to perform the job that we need to perform there.
so needing a new facility is very, very important.
it's just that I want to let you know that we still have a few more steps to go to see exactly how we might end up funding that facility.
of course, if you know me at all, it's always trying to go out and partner.
and we may not be able to do that.
but at this particular time I would like for you to consider not putting it on the bond, but using it for co's if we need to go that direction and allow me time to work on this area.
if you remember the medical examiner and I will be finished with the medical examiner and answer your questions, we delayed for a little while because we wanted to go with the medical school.
and that's still something I want to pursue even in our relationships with u.t.
and with the seton network.
so the medical school is still something that's very, very important to us and I will continue to pursue that as well.
so that's the medical examiner's.
is there anything else that I need to talk to you about in regard to medical examiner?
did you have any questions regarding that?
>> mr. Hobby, I do have a question.
you make the dition tings with medical examiners because there could possibly be a public-public partnership and development of that facility.
it appears that all the projects on the list could have some sort of species of public-private or public-public partnership for their development, some sort of alternative financing mechanism that we haven't utilized.
haven't utilized too extensively in the past.
>> that's correct.
I was assuming I wasn't going to be with facilities that much longer so therefore I was not talking that much about them.
but now we'll shift to facilities.
>> [ laughter ] and of course, there's definitely some opportunities with facilities.
that could be done that same way.
however, what's interesting about the facilities, and Commissioner, when you and I talked about this particular area, I wasn't aware that in April of 2010 the court did approve a master plan for the north Austin master plan.
which is a pretty good study in itself and laid out real well as to what the direction is with the neighbors there and the neighborhood groups.
glad you could join us.
>> [ laughter ] and as a result -- this is steve manila, the guy that's supposed to be in charge of all this.
>> [ laughter ] I知 doing quite well, so just don't butt in right now.
but in regards to the north campus, there's a new building, new garage that's proposed here.
and of course there's some expectations as you know from the neighborhood groups.
I think there's like three neighborhood groups.
and it's for really, according to the master plan, is designed for staffing additional and expanded staffing, I think health and human services would definitely be one.
my area, all those that are currently at airport would be one.
and so -- but we do have a master plan that's there and that y'all have approved since you'll have to figure out how we're going to connect that.
but now that we're talking about public-private partnerships, I think definitely that's something that you would want to use not only for these two facilities, but any property that we now own that we have yet to have a question mark as to what we're going to do with it.
but I didn't want to overlook, Commissioner, the fact that I got a good briefing this morning on mr. Hobby are you aware of the fact that we did a master plan and here's the master plan.
so I got educate odd that, Commissioner.
>> and in your reluctant capacity as the head of facilities currently, I知 taking it that there's really not a distinction between the items with regard to the fact that any one of them could have a novel financing mechanism there by making probably the route more appropriate.
the medical examiner rises to the top because of the extreme space needs.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> one and two are intertwined?
>> they are intertwined.
>> and they total $79 million.
>> yes, sir.
>> I think we should indicate to the bond advisory committee that we think they have enough work to do and let's keep these projects on the fire, let m 'em cook a little longer and at the appropriate time in the future the Commissioners' court would revisit them.
>> second.
>> which means basically we don't dwif them to the bond advisory committee, we let them complete their work on road drainage.
they have some open space projects, right?
>> they do.
>> and park projects?
>> yes.
>> great.
>> these facility ones, I think that at some point we ought to try to figure out priority order and then as creatively as we can how we would fund them.
that's my own thinking.
Commissioner Eckhardt seconds that motion, any motion.
>> judge, there are two other items that I can't forget that's on the list as well.
>> okay.
>> that's the hms courthouse renovation.
>> I didn't forget them.
I知 looking right at them.
>> yes, sir.
three and four.
I知 also looking at the amounts.
>> yes, sir.
>> both of them in excess of $100 million.
rodney rhodes is all choked up over there, so he can't come out and object to them, but he's thinking.
>> how would we get to the renovation of the hms courthouse before we have a civil courthouse to move people into?
>> that's what I知 thinking.
I think we ought to give priority attention to the civil family law courthouse.
when we bet get it far enough down the road we can really turn our attention to some of these.
at this time luckily we are making significant payments towards outstanding debt now.
so as we go along the amount that we owe decreases and hopefully the opposite effect would be to increase bond capacity or capacity for new debt.
>> long-term.
>> long-term ms. Rio says.
not that long because like danny hobby, some of us are -- as soon as the door slams behind him, others will be reaching for it.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I didn't mean that.
>> including one on the Commissioners' court.
>> somewhere along the line, though, I think we need to really look at the particular projects.
I know that we may not want to look at them today maybe as far as the charge that we have for the -- for the bond committee at this point, but there are some folks -- an example, dealing with the north campus over there, that have put a lot of work into this project.
and of course wanted us to proceed as quickly as possible to look at how they can intertwine their input, the neighborhood association.
ms. Ward and a whole bunch of other folks out there have really expressed an interest as far as what we're dealing with as far as the north campus is concerned.
I don't want anyone in any shape, form or imagination think that those priorities as far as our facility projects are not going to be ignored.
in fact, whenever we come up with something as far as all the rest of these things, of course we're dealing with our drainage, open space projects as far as the charge is concerned.
I just want to make sure that the community understand that we're not going to divorce or turn our back on those other projects.
I think I致e heard you pretty clear, danny, on that, but I致e also heard some concern from the community that they would like to maybe make sure that the north campus project in which they have been involved in and have even come down here before the Commissioners' court, and we've also supported them with support from the city of Austin to deal with this particular area.
and I don't want them to think that -- I know I知 not turning my back on them.
and of course I don't think the court is, but I don't want staff to understand that as soon as we possibly can we're going to have to look smat of these other projects as far as the facilities and see how and what we can do as far as the funding mechanism for these projects.
right now we have a lot of things on our plate, but at the end of the day I want to make sure that we lay that across.
because when they called me and asked me about it, I would like to tell them certain things that we're not ignoring them.
this north campus project is something that's been around for awhile.
the medical examiner is another.
that's been around with us for awhile.
so I just want to make sure that y'all relay that to those neighborhood folks, as I知 going to do when it comes to these projects.
roger el khoury was very key in this in that area along with many hours.
the judge even spent some time out with me on a few meetings up there.
in this particular general area.
so I just want to keep that in the presence, in the minds of each and every last one of you.
so that's about all I致e got to say about that.
thank you.
>> any more discussion?
Commissioner Eckhardt?
>> hopefully to ride your coat tails on what you're saying, Commissioner.
I致e been schooled some by belinda on the benefits of the capital improvement plan over five-year, 10 year, 15 year, 25 year period.
I would very much like to see a single document that has our -- all of our projects with time lines for them and suggested financing for them.
I think we probably need an interdisciplinary team to look at possible financing for these projects.
I don't want anyone to get the impression just because these five items aren't going on this year's bond package that they aren't a priority and aren't firmly in the pipe for progress.
so I would like to see a holistic document because I have -- my feeling over the last four years has been that we take projects one at a time rather than having a holistic approach of which project is coming when and how can we phase them and how do they interrelate?
>> any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank y'all very much.
>> thank you.
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