Travis County Commissioners Court
February 21, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 27
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court.
item number 27 is consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, request to join local residents and extend an invitation to officials from haining and rugao, china, to visit Travis County and b, invitation to establish sister city/county relationship with these two cities.
and we have delegation members here.
if y'all could give us your names and if you would like who you are associated with.
these faces may look familiar.
we chatted with them about a year ago about a matter involving another city.
>> my name is roger hanks, I work with hanks brother trading company and I'm not affiliated with any company except.
>> erika assetter and I'm a small business owner in Austin and volunteer with a lot of asian-american associations in town.
>> peter chin, chairman of Travis County city in connection of program.
also the Austin chinese chamber of commerce.
>> alata banks, executive director of asian contract association.
>> I'm george chen.
I -- I am a funder -- one of the founders of several asian organizations such as the chinese society of Austin, network of asian-american organizations, and asian-american chamber of commerce and the Texas asian chamber of commerce.
thank you.
>> welcome to all of you.
what I just handed the court was a copy of the letter that we executed on February 15th, 2011, that involved invitation to elected officials in dung fung and that never materialized and I think we decided ultimately that trip would not take place.
and so we have been working on -- we meaning you, on setting up another arrangement and mr. Chen there has communicated with the two cities that we mentioned in the agenda item and our request is that the court basically agree to establish governmental relationship, one.
two, to send a similar letter to the officials of these two cities indicating our interest and not only establishing formal relationships but inviting them to visit here.
and what we have learned is that they are a little bit more interested in seeing us travel there first than them traveling here.
and as we mentioned last time, there's no financial commitment on the part of Travis County.
what we would do is try to get county residents, county officials interested in going.
greater Austin chamber of commerce and others working.
and looks like we're looking at 10 to 12 invitees, right?
don't let me do all the talking.
I'm too used to that.
>> okay, yes, the organization was set up so we can promote international programs between Travis County and other organizations around the world.
and I know that asian population in the Austin area, the greater Austin area is contributing to 71% of the population increase, at least in the greater Austin area.
so we know there is a great interest to perhaps bring up the level of the Travis County to the world stage, and I know that we do have a lot to offer to the world, especially I know living in Austin for over almost 20 years, you know, we are very dedicated in environmental protection in the green energy.
and china is one of the big consumers of the energy so I think we have a lot to show them and also they have a lot to offer to the Travis County citizens by, you know, being so rich in their resources, in their culture, and also in their economic power.
and the two cities haining and rugao, they are very close to shanghai, which is a port city for many, many years.
you know, shanghai is the first city that has a lot of foreign countries occupying for many years.
we have the so-called
>> [indiscernible] meaning ten miles of businesses there and people learn how to -- you know, they were very exposed to foreign cultures.
so I know that place is the right place for us to perhaps pay our first visit because I think they are very receptive to foreign cultures.
you know, we can bring to them, you know, what we can offer them and also have exchange programs in educational, economic development and also, you know, like educational exchanges.
so we hope the court will allow us to foster this kind of relationship between the two entities.
and, you know, especially Travis County has 22 cities, covers 22 cities including big corporations.
so I see that there are a lot of opportunities between the two -- the two places across the pacific ocean.
>> and I think there's some real good comments you made and kind of struck my ear when you spoke on green energy.
and, of course, we have been looking very aggressively at green energy here in Travis County and, of course, by doing that I think the shoe will bestly fit your sister cities, of course, with Travis County when it come to that.
let me ask you this question.
some of the green energy concepts, we recently, Travis County, have granted basically rebate program to deal with solar generated type of green energy.
the latest example was the one out at the webberville solar power plant.
and, of course, that was a very big deal and, of course, according to sources will not only be able to have provide energy for about 5,000 homes, but it also will off set about -- about 1.6 billion pounds of -- of -- of carbon dioxide over the period lifetime of this particular operation at webberville.
of course, part of the problem is I'm hearing throughout the community not only here but also in other parts of the country what I'm hearing is that how can we reduce the cost of solar power whereby it would be affordable more so to continue in this particular vein and effort.
I understand there was a situation an example out in california, I can't recall exactly where, but part of the industry as far as providing solar panels for residents, a lot of folks would like to go in that particular situation, but, of course, the cost of some of those projects was just not feasible.
why?
well, because of the fact that the solar panels they were use to go provide such green energy to -- to -- to accommodate the electrical needs for those particular residents, be it residential or commercial, was kind of high.
so I'm just kind of curious to know in this relationship, especially with the economic prosperity that would be experienced between you as a sister city with Travis County, you say we have 20 municipalities, of course we don't want to get all the credit for the -- the rebate program that we did out at the webberville project, of course the city of Austin was also involved to that, adding that to their grid.
my question to you is how can we bring affordable panels to this area where it would even I think just enhance this whole area economically by bringing something affordable as far as panels are concerned.
>> that's one of the things we definitely want to investigate to see if we can, you know, find our sources, cheaper sources over there.
and there are a number of green energy companies that I know of that are producing solar panels in, you know, the lead light bulbs, things of that nature.
china is catching on to, you know, this great movement of green energy and so, you know, they are always finding places or opportunities to, you know, make, you know, make a business out of so to speak, or make a profit or opportunities so I know they are interested.
you know, I work for asian contractors so,.
I constantly receive inquiries -- not inquiries, but they will send me emails about their products and mostly green energy products.
that's one of the things I will be very interested in investigating how we can bring the cheaper, you know, energy sources here.
>> because that's basically one of the push-backs.
I think that the cost of providing these energy saving products has kind of been lost because of whatever the economics as far as cost in exchange for what we want to look at.
the r.r.e., for example, solar panel is another company that actually received rebates to produce affordable energy, but, of course, you want to make sure it's affordable to -- to the customers that are using it in this particular area.
so I'm looking across the spectrum as far as all of those green outlets and whatever we can do to assist.
we're willing to help and I just wanted to lay those out as per example, you know, so that's just basically what I'm doing.
thank you.
>> thank you.
>> so I indicated that we would lay this out today and get the court's action next week.
and by then we should know the names, addresses of the officials to whom we should send the letters.
now, we're on a little tighter time frame than we were the last time.
we're hoping to make this trip over there between April 21st and 28th.
>> yes.
peter has visited china and visited with officials there in November.
November.
last year.
so they have tentatively set a schedule for us to visit there.
and government protocols, establish any kind of relationship with foreign counterparts, they would like us to visit them first.
and I think judge has already made that point.
so I think it's good for us to, you know, visit them first.
but because of the time frame that they have already talked about, so we were asking the court to perhaps, you know, approve this -- this wonderful program and then we can move forward from here.
>> okay.
>> like next Tuesday to extend like the two things that we need to do to extend the invitation and then establish formal relationship with the -- between the county and the two cities.
>> now, I'm sad to say that we have not visited china yet.
but we've always wanted to.
and the good thing about acting first is we'll have an opportunity to say yay or nay individually.
>> right.
>> and squeeze out of them the commitment if any member of this court wanted to go and could pay his or her way, he or she would be allowed to.
>> right.
>> thank you for that, by the way.
anything else we need to touch base on?
>> I think that's it.
>> peter goes to china periodically.
>> yeah, well, I visit about twice a year.
>> okay.
and were there back in November.
>> last time in November.
the
>> [indiscernible] half hour from shanghai.
otherwise you -- send a car to
>> [inaudible].
about two hours from shanghai.
close with shanghai.
>> [indiscernible] they are both on the list.
it's opportunity, for example, haining has a company
>> [indiscernible].
so I talk to them if we make a company here.
they said very interesting.
so I think it's better for
>> [indiscernible] in connection and for culture chinese, it's already two solid years of history.
the chinese name is tao.
english name is wave, water wave.
like so high climbing and up, hence all the people watch that coming about one hour two miles away.
that is very famous.
and also famous for -- the reason it's over 100 years old.
it's on the water.
national center over 8.9% for each -- it's called -- there is 18.9.
so it's a fact.
and the famous university.
they want to send people here, exchange in u.t.
and even the high schools.
I think that it's very good.
>> so the goal is for me to have a letter prepared for our consideration and action next Tuesday, a letter that should be similar to the one that we approved last year.
we will tailor this one to meet the needs of the both of these cities, though, and what we would like to do is get the relationship blessed so we can touch base with the city of Austin, greater Austin chamber of commerce, asian chamber of commerce, business people who may be interested in going.
and I guess as soon as possible put that list together, also indicate what we think the costs will be broken down in total, get that information out.
we think we'll have a pretty easy time getting 10 to 12 people to go, but we want court members to look at it and if you can go on your own, bless you, because you you are being invited, up to that number.
we would like to get a cross-section of folk not all from one entity.
>> I think china if --
>> [indiscernible].
>> china would never be the same if all five of us went over there.
>> [laughter]
>> they want us all, judge.
>> anything else?
questions?
issues?
we look forward to favorable action next Tuesday.
we'll work this week to get that letter ready.
okay?
>> okay.
>> thank you.
>> thank you so much for coming.
>> thank you very much.
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