Travis County Commissioners Court
December 20, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 29
Now, we did indicate our intention to take number 29 into executive session.
however, mrs.
johnson is here on the item, right?
29.
consider and take appropriate action regarding interlocal agreement with clean air force.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
my name is scott johnson.
the foremost opportunity for any discretionary funding that might come from the county for regional partnerships, I believe, should be focused on how can we better fund a program that Travis County implements now, which is a low income repair and assistance program.
the budget for that was cut by the legislature by approximately 87%.
and while there is funding for some activities, with regard to that program, the -- the program is obviously going forward, not going to be near as robust as it could be.
and in fact the court took action in 2006 to cut the funding at that time of $20,000 annually for the clean air force of central Texas back to $10,000 and then reallocated that money, is my understanding towards helping the city or the county rather launch this -- this new initiative related to vehicle emissions testing.
regional partnerships in general, I think, are -- are incredible opportunities as we need to continue thinking about regionalism.
I've been very closely associated with two of those efforts.
one being the clean air force in which I was an active volunteer from 1994 to 2004.
and as well I was on the board for the sustainability indicators project, which is last.
the other program envision central Texas which you are considering today, out of the three regional partnerships that -- that public funds have gone into, I think that one has actually produced more of a mindset change in terms of the way people think about growth and planning for growth than the other two, even though I've been less involved and connected with that group.
that being said, those funds that you are going to consider today, if you haven't already considered, again should be under the filter of how can we best spend funds that support current county programs. The program that I mentioned earlier, low income repair and assistance program, they do not have the funds to replace vehicles as they did prior with the funding that they had from the legislature.
and that's -- that's a shame.
they do have funds for repair, at least for another year or so.
so I would like you all to think about that.
regarding the clean air force in particular, as I was telling the Travis County employee recently, that non-profit groups, when they are doing work that is effective and recognized in the community, they begin to attract funding from the private sector.
if that private sector entity realizes that they can benefit from supporting them and the sponsorship opportunities and the accolades that go along with that.
if the non-profit group is not growing in terms of the fundraising coming from private sector entities that they already get funding from, or increasing those or getting new ones to be more self supportive, from -- from donations, rather than getting money from government and government tall entities, then you should be thinking to yourself well why is that, why haven't they been able to move away from public sector funding from cities and counties to a sufficient extent so that they can run their operations more fully or totally fully away from this.
the city, I know for certain, is -- is scrutinizing their grant, which is much larger than the county because are they getting a return on this?
do people know what ozone action days are.
are they taking action to reduce their emissions, to buy electric lawn mowers, whatever is going on.
and I think that's something that the court should think about.
and think about what are the needs for county programs and how can we better fund those programs. I myself do not think that -- I think that the clean air force and the board and the staff think very highly of what they do and it's great to be positive about your own non-profit, but if -- if the community has not taken action to reduce their emissions and they have been the focal point of that message since 1994, then -- then where are we?
can we do better?
the clean air coalition elected officials is obviously a group that the tceq is going to be looking towards to partner with as we get closer to violating the ground level ozone standard.
I have a long affiliation with the group.
I would be happy on to answer any specific questions about my involvement in the programs and whether they have been working or not in the way that the board deals with citizens, comments and that type of a thing.
>> let me just commend you on what you have done over the years.
making sure that the emissions that are reduced significantly that --
>> [indiscernible] ozone.
>> [indiscernible] so I want to commend you for your continued hard work that you have done in the community for many, many, many years.
you have been an icon for a long time.
I want to embrace this concept because if everyone were to yield to a lot of the things that you say, we would be ahead of the game a lot more than what we are now.
I want to applaud you for what you are doing.
thank you.
>> thank you very much.
>> grateful for that.
>> mr. Reeferseed anything on this item.
>> I want to thank you again, echo mr. Davis and one of the first things that I ever talked about with you guys was about how we could use real lawn mowers and maybe encourage other people to use them.
I think we could buy them as an alternative on the county level, when they are not the huge project, just a lawn in front of the office or something like that.
sounds, you know, pollution is gone, all of the other bad things about it.
enrich -- the -- the ground with the cuttings everything.
there are alternatives.
encouraging people to buy more real lawn mowers would be one maybe tiny step but I think that it's something we could do, we could do more of than we have been doing.
thank you again for make you are doing -- for what you are doing.
>> comments, questions?
>> judge.
tom webber with t.n.r.
I'm here in case you have any questions on this.
>> any questions for mr. Webber.
>> I do.
with regard to the interface between the clean air force and their deliverables, what I'm looking for is more of a distinction between their activities or distinction or overlap of their activities and those of capcog, clean air coalition, campo, I'm -- I'm -- that's -- that's kind of where I'm going.
>> there are --
>> and lirap.
>> Commissioner, we -- we have participation in each of those, there's a lot of other entities that have participation in each of those.
all of them have a slightly different emphasis and mission.
some of them are like capcog is actually up -- up -- governmental.
I guess quasi.
clean air coalition I think as scott laid out is the one primarily involved in ensuring that our ozone flex plan is being implemented, clean air force is a supportive group.
a little bit more non-regulatory, in terms of how it -- rather than looking at implementing say an emissions implementation and maintenance program, an I and m program, they are focused more on things that are non-regulatory and in trying to build incentives or trying to instruct and educate.
so there's a different emphasis and of course campo, the clean air -- the clean air coalition has working groups that are composed of people from capcog, Travis County, city of Austin and campo.
technical staff.
so there's a lot of different I guess permutations and combinations of people to staff these various organizations with slightly different purposes, but holistically they all come together with the overall goal of addressing high owe zone.
>> just the -- so -- so just to clarify, the clean air force's distinct function in this constellation is its non-regulatory outreach aspect.
>> I think that's a fair assessment, yes.
I think the good example is getting out information to people who sign up to -- to be -- to understand when an ozone action day is or some of the things they are doing with school children in competitions things trying to address drop offs of school children, things like that.
non-regulatory.
no one from the government is saying that you have to initiate something like that.
but any kind of success we get from that we can -- we can -- will help us move in the right direction in terms of our attainment.
>> and t.n.r.
didn't recommend inclusion in their budget.
I'm assuming it was because of the deliverables?
>> I -- it's really because it's -- it relates to priorities.
we -- in taking a five percent budget cut in for -- for fy '10, '11, now '12, that in my particular budget, which is just a program of a division that -- that amounted to over $70,000 each year that we had to find.
we had to look at our non-salary.
we had to look at one of the main things that we were able to accomplish is having our staff on the ground.
just I jotted down four or five things here that we didn't want to cut or cut less and I think it might give you an idea of some of the -- of what the higher priorities are that we can't cut.
we didn't cut.
we have funding for consolidating services to do floodplain buyouts and develop hazard mitigation plans.
we fund recycling supplies.
for various county departments.
we did cut keep Austin beautiful.
like we did I think we actually -- over the last few years, we have cut it more than clean air force because again it was another one of the organizations that we thought was a lower priority to some of our things.
we have to fund utilities and operation and maintenance at our u.s.
290 landfill.
we're charged by tceq to have a program to ensure our roadways so our rights of way don't cause water pollution from storm water runoff, so we have a small budget to ensure that we can fund small projects to stabilize our rights-of-way.
those are just a few examples of the choices that we have to make.
so -- so --
>> what's the budget of this 290 east landfill that's around
>> [indiscernible]
>> for the operation of the maintenance and utility, it's kind of the annual recurring costs are around 80 some thousand for operation and maintenance and about --
>> what am I thinking close to one million.
>> judge, you are thinking of the plans that we're envisioning to remediate the landfill.
>> that's everything.
>> yeah.
>> you're just talking about utilities.
>> I'm talking about just kind of the ongoing making sure that the pumps pump leachate and that the leachate gets to the city sewers and things like that.
>> maybe we ought to have this afternoon a list of exactly what the clean air force does.
I know generally as you all have mentioned.
but it may help for us to have those specifics before us.
the best place to get those from the contract or from t.n.r.
if.
>> I think that I can work with ms. Noel and we could have that over here.
I think we have -- if we don't have the upcoming deliverables, we certainly have the ones that were part of the -- part of past years.
>> 131, 145, something look that.
okay.
any other questions for mr. Johnson or mr. Webber?
okay, we'll take this item up in executive session this afternoon as promised.
let me get to you now on item 41 regarding the tax assessor, yesterday I pulled together a couple of documents that I think may be informative as to exactly what the budget of the tax assessor's office is and the organizational structure.
and while doing that, I said well the rest of the court may be interested in seeing that.
I will have a couple of legal questions, actually I should have those questions at 1:00.
who answered those last week?
any of y'all recall on the tax assessor?
was it john hilly?
tell mr. Hilly he won't be able to have that long lunch today unless I can reach him by cell phone at about 1:00.
with that I move that we recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous
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