Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 1
Number 1 is a public hearing to receive comments regarding the program year 2011 through 2013 consolidated plan and program year 2011 action plan including the proposed three-year priorities and one-year use of community development block grant funds available through the u.s.
department of housing and urban development.
>> move the public hearing be open.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> good morning, Travis County health and human services.
today is the seventh and final public hearing related to the program year 2011 action plan which allocates 79,610 $136 and the 10th and final public hearing related to gathering input on the three year consolidated plan which identifies needs and priorities.
I'll move quickly through this power point.
as I've said, this is the last public hearing.
right now the document is under a 30-day public comment period which will end on July 29th.
for anyone who was not able to attend a public hearing but still wants to provide input, they are welcome to provide written comments to the cdbg office either by email or they can mail their comments to p.o.
box 1748, Austin, Texas, 76767.
top the purpose and intent of c.d.b.g.
is improve community facilities and services and revitalize neighborhoods.
with the primary benefit to lot to moderate income to residents.
the Travis County t plan covers a three-year planning period spanning from October of 2011 through September of 2014.
and it serves as the blueprint for addressing the most critical housing and community development needs in the unincorporated areas.
in terms of priorities for the three-year consolidated plan, based on data and public input plan, in those three areas we will be investing areas over the next three years.
and populations with specialized needs and services, public facilities and business and jobs are important needs but we classify them as medium so we can invest funds there, but we may not during the three-year period.
in terms of the action plan, it's completed annually, establishs the use of funds from October of 2011 through October of 2012.
again, it is consistent with research and public comments and is aligned with the consolidated plan.
eligible activities for kdbg include economic development, public services, redevelopment or what we consider improvements, planning and housing activities.
the kinds of activities we cannot do is acquisition, construction or reconstruction of buildings for the general conduct of government, political activities, certain income payments and construction of new housing units.
for the upcoming action plan or action -- or for the upcoming program year, we have identified four different projects to fund.
the first being lake oak estates substandard road improvements to improve sections of the road in the subdivision.
this is the first of three phases for the amount of $145,000 to do design work.
the second is homeowner rehabilitation, which is to improve houses, homeowner occupied houses in the unincorporated areas, providing a forgivable loan up to $24,999 to qualifying homeowners and spans of work provided by the family support division of health and human services to provide access and better service access in the unincorporated areas throughout the county.
and finally the administration of planning dollars in the amount of $158,000.
additionally there are alternate projects should we find savings or additional funds available for -- to allow for home buyer assistance, owner occupied home rehabilitation or start the navarro creek drive improvement project.
that's it.
is that presentation available by hard copy for anybody interested?
>> yeah, I've provided it and they can also call me if they would like it as well.
>> that's fine.
now, this is a two-part public hearing.
one part dealing with the consolidated program for 2011 through 2013.
and the second one is the action plan for 2011.
if you would like to give testimony during this public hearing, please come forth.
five chairs are available.
mr. Reeferseed, never to pass up an opportunity to speak.
>> [laughter]
>> I'm shocked.
yes, and the idea -- the overall report of yours is that what we're getting feedback on right now?
>> 2011 through 2013 program year, 2011 action plan.
>> all right, good.
well, I can just briefly say that -- that I'm happy to see that the ongoing genocide against the unborn, especially blacks --
>> thank you, mr. Reeferseed.
>> I just wanted to say -- it has to be with this -- it has to be with the community development block grant program.
otherwise it's irrelevant and not appropriate.
you have citizens communication coming up soon.
>> the thing about political activities on page 11, it says the action plan is ineligible activities.
and so I wondered if anything concerning the facilitating Austin to be recognized as a sanctuary city, would that qualify as a political activity that's not covered in --
>> that has nothing to do with the cdbg.
>> just a question.
thank you so much.
>> anybody else to give testimony during this public hearing regarding our community development block grant program?
>> hello, thank you for the opportunity to speak.
my lawyer is laurie renteria and I am a member of the downtown Austin community court advisory committee.
and I am going to leave with you a letter that we passed as an advisory committee back in April, and I know that you have your priorities and your plan for community development block grant funds, but I know that there is a tight budget this year and we're really desperate to keep the funding by the county for project recovery for our chronic offenders.
and I know that there are service dollars that can be used out of cdbg, and if you are not able to fund your match for our project recovery collaboration, will we divert chronic offenders from the criminal justice system saving all of us taxpayers and provided a needed service for some very dysfunctional members of the community it will be she appreciated.
and I will leave you a copy of the letter.
thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> are cdbg dollars available for those sorts of services?
>> as long as they are focused towards people in the unincorporated areas.
so I think that's -- I know there are a lot of funding cuts going on right now and I think what we've been able to demonstrate through the consolidated plan is that a lot of the services that are being provided are not being provided necessarily in the unincorporated areas.
so we would be looking to expand programs to focus out into that distribution.
>> when you gave a really good presentation as far as cdbg fund usage, there was a young man who came and spoke before the Commissioners court and he basically was trying to make sure that outreach in other areas, in the unincorporated areas of the county is adhered to especially with the assistance as far as having ramps that come to a person's house that may be disabled and need that, or either air conditioning situations where persons are not adequately cool during the hot summer months.
those type of things that he -- he actually hammered on.
of course, they are within the bounds of city of Austin.
I know the urban league and those folks there kind of combine and are doing a lot of things, but within the city limits.
my question to you is did any of these things here, and I know we had about $24,000 allocated, but any of the things the person made the presentation last week to make sure we hit also in this regard?
>> what we've done, there's a couple of things.
right now we have a social work their works in precincts 1 and 4 in the unincorporated areas.
we'll be expanding that in all four precincts.
what she does is she links families who need ramps and that kind of thing very successfully for programs. We've been able to get ramps for several homes since the time that program started.
additionally the home rehabilitation project that we're funding again for the third time that we will be implementing hopefully in the fall will have about $600,000 that we're going to put out competitively.
you can do anything.
you can do any of the architectural barrier removals, put in ramps, you can do plumbing, you can improve, you can replace roofs, you can do all of those kinds of things.
we kept the project very broad because based on the public input, we understood that there were a wide range of needs and we wanted the make sure we do not narrow down the project so small that people couldn't get the assistance they needed.
so we left it purposely very open.
as long as the assistance doesn't go over $24,999, then it's fine.
>> right.
but I guess my other point is this is because what I'm experiencing is that persons in the community do not have the knowledge of what we're able to do for them.
under this type of umbrella.
so the question is how aggressively can we make improvements on letting folks know what we're all about as far as that type of assistance?
and you would be surprised the folks that ask me, Commissioner, I did not know that this was available to me.
and you know, it's knowledge.
it's very important.
so could you --
>> as soon as a nonprofit is identified, they will be outreaching, we will be doing outreach, we will make sure we send it out to list serves, we will send it out to social work staff, the community centers.
we will do our very best to make sure we get the information out as many ways as possible.
>> okay.
thank you very much.
thank you.
>> last call.
public hearing.
item number 1.
>> move the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> this is not posted for action today.
>> no, it will be back on August 9th we'll come back to you.
>> thank you.
all in favor to close?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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