Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 28
28 is to consider and take appropriate action on request from the city of rollingwood to be added to interlocal agreement Texas agrilife extension service for wildlife damage management services.
>> sherri fleming, county executive for health and human services and veterans services.
I do believe that mayor hamilton was planning to join us, so I'm looking over my shoulder.
>> as of late yesterday, no.
>> okay.
thank you very much.
I appreciate that, judge.
briefly, it's my understanding that the city of rollingwood is having coyote issues similar to what we discuss understand the court several years ago.
that animal activity caused us to enter into a management wildlife agreement with the agrilife extension and the Texas wildlife service.
at that time we budgeted essentially the cost of a person for that -- to do that work in our community.
and the agreement that we have briefly states that they were charged with working within the unincorporated areas of the county and in the incorporated areas of cities that we had interlocal agreements with.
and at that time it was the city of Austin.
the city of Austin -- so the contract itself is around $52,000.
the city of Austin applies a credit of $10,000 to our public health and human services interlocal with them to offset the cost of this work within the city of Austin.
so in discussing the rollingwood request today, you have a couple of considerations.
the first would be that you enter into an interlocal agreement with constituent of rollingwood.
the wildlife extension and agrilife extension has indicated that doing this work would not increase Travis County's cost under its current agreement.
so your first option would be to enter into an interlocal agreement to allow for these services to occur in the city of rollingwood.
your second option would be to reject the first option, which would then require that the city of rollingwood enter into its own agreement with the wildlife -- Texas wildlife services.
and then your third consideration would be whether or not it would be your interest to offset any of your costs through your interlocal agreement with rolling wood, therefore charge them some portion of your expense because the services would now be provided within their municipality.
>> okay.
but our cost is fixed at $52,000?
>> roughly.
52 and some change, judge, yes.
>> no matter what cities we add to it?
>> I wouldn't go that far.
we asked specifically if we added the work that was needed in rollingwood, the response from the wildlife services was that they would not request an request under the current contract.
>> it seems to me if we can do it at no additional cost, we ought to.
but I would have it clear, though, that if other cities were to ask for assistance, I guess we would try to accommodate them too.
the point of which additional costs are incurred, I would think we would want the cities to share that.
>> yes.
this is an annual agreement, judge, Commissioners, so it would certainly allow us an opportunity at the next renewal to look at the amount of services provided, if there's any request to increase the contract from the wildlife services and then how those costs might be shared among any municipalities that are currently in the agreement as well as those that might be interested in joining.
>> seems to me that it's pretty easy with one or two requests.
it becomes more difficult if you have 10 or 12.
>> yes, sir.
>> but we're not at that point yet.
>> judge?
also, it harkens back to conversations we've had about kind of the wild land urban interface with regard to animal control.
at some point domestic animals become wild animals.
are we looking at any kind of collaboration or conversation or linking between our interlocal agreement with city of Austin and our interlocal agreement with agrilife as far as our wildlife containment issues?
>> I don't know that I can speak specifically to wildlife containment.
I can tell you that under this agreement the wildlife services works very closely with animal control.
I would hazard to say that many of the calls actually come through the city's 311 system and animal services, and they get referred to wildlife services once they determine that it's a coyote issue or feral hog or whatever the case may be.
so I think there's close coordination is the perfect -- I couldn't say that it's perfect, but I think there's really close coordination between those services because at the time we entered into this agreement we were dealing with a pretty significant wildlife activity actually within the city of Austin.
>> sherri, perhaps we should be sure that's an agenda item on the meeting that we're having in January, which is a county-wide meeting again on animal control with the city of Austin.
to be sure that that's understood and any clarification that needs to occur.
>> absolutely.
and if you recall, Commissioner, we did talk a little bit at our previous meeting a couple of years ago about wildlife issues, you know, outside of our concerns about domesticated animals.
so yes, we can add that to that agenda.
>> that would be great.
I am seeing some bleedover.
we're seeing a lot of abandoned animals in the wells branch area, for instance, and it's a tossup whether I'm more concerned about the coyote in rolling wood or the stray starving pit bull running down wells branch, you know?
who are you more scared of?
>> legal requests that we -- basically the motion be to authorize staff with legal counsel to negotiate an appropriate interlocal agreement with the requesting city here of rollingwood.
>> move approval.
>> that's Commissioner Huber's motion.
>> and it's actually the amendment to the interlocal with agrilife.
>> second that.
>> that way we can work these things out.
>> and that too.
is that part of the motion?
seconded by Commissioner Gomez.
further discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
>> we'll take care of it.
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