Travis County Commissioners Court

June 5, 2012 - Item 1
Agenda

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View post Executive Session video.

Number 1 is a public hearing to receive comments regarding the application from Circuit of the Americas and Formula One for a Texas Mass Gathering Act Permit under Chapter 751 of Government Code and related issues including but not limited to the following: a, improvements to Elroy, Mcangus and Kellam Roads; b, proposed public safety plan, including reports from Austin-Travis County Health Authority, Travis County Fire Marshal, and Travis County Sheriff; c, proposed traffic management plan; and d, proposed Travis County traffic regulations.

>> move that the public hearing be open.

>> second.

>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
now, how I plan to proceed is to hear from representatives of the circuit of the americas and formula one, then get various reports from county staff, then if the Commissioners court has questions of county staff, we'll ask those.
then we will conduct a public hearing that you've come down here for today.
so representatives first.

>> nicole mead, representing circuit of the americas, also here is david sweezy, vice president of operations for circuit of the americas, and then our transportation engineer aaron nathan with kindling horn.
in the audience in case there are questions, we basically have everybody who is a part of the team so that any question that might come up we'll be able to answer for you guys today.
we've got our civil engineer, the food and beverage concessionaire, pretty much our sustainability officer, all of the lead key staff members with circuit of the americas, the c.e.o.
so anybody that you may have a question of, we've got here today to try to answer those for u I also notice that there are several members, lots of members of Austin commercial who is doing the construction work on the site here in the audience and we appreciate you guys being here and I wanted to acknowledge them that they are here today in support.
we have a lot to cover, but I know the purpose of a public hearing is not to hear me go on and on, it's to get comments from the public, but there is a lot of information I'm going to try really, really hard to keep my comments to about 15 minutes, maybe less, and that will be for all three of us.
and so we'll get going.
so I think we've got it sounds like three things to cover today.
our application for a mass gathering act permit, our traffic -- the traffic regulation that are being proposed for the event, and then judge, it sounds like you would also like to add the starflight agreement to the discussion today.
so I think we'll need to cover those three things.
I will start, as I said, with a presentation concerning our mass gathering act permit and I want to let members of the public know that outside on the tables just in case you missed it there are copies of our full application for mass gathering act permit.
copies of the power point presentation that will be given today.
copies of the traffic management plan, the traffic regulations, and a couple of maps.
we've also got a survey of the property out there.
so there's a lot of information out on the tables for you to pick up if you would like to have it.
so why are we here?
so as I said, we filed an application probably a month ago to comply with health and safety code to request from the county a mass gathering act permit.
and the events that we're requesting the permit for is the formula one united states grand prix which will take place in November of this year.
I'd like to go through the public notice process that we went through to make sure the public was aware of today's meeting.
we really utilized all types of media.
we published on channel 17, we put signs at the property, we published in really all the major local newspapers, the chronicle, the statesman, community impact, so we really made an effort to make sure the word really got out and that everybody was well affair of the hearing today.
in addition to that, we made a lot of contacts by email to make sure folks knew about the hearing using a list of people who had been interested in the past and then did some word of mouth as well to community members.
I'll start by giving a brief overview which will probably bore most of the people, you know all about this project, but for the public I'll give a brief overview of the circuit of americas as an organization and of the project.
so circuit of the americas is the u.s.
based promoter and owner of the track and event center that we're talking about where this mass gathering event will be held.
and I've just made photographs here of the lead contacts just to embarrass them because david sweezy is there, who is in the audience who is the c.e.o.
and I also wanted to include julie who has been the primary contact as far as community out reach with coda.
talking about the event, so formula one people have called it f-1, formula one, it's the highest class of single seater auto racing.
for those not family with it, it's an event where the cars race up to 220 miles an hour.
it's traditionally based in europe, but the events really happen all over the world.
there are about 20 events annually and as you guys know this year there will be an event in Austin.
so in 2012 some of the events have already taken place, but formula one united states grand prix -- or formula one events will take place all over the world.
you see Austin highlighted there in blue and you can see from this list that really these events happen really in the best places in the world.
so it's an exciting thing that's happening right here in Austin.
then I also, I see that your screen is so far away from you it's totally not legible, but this was just to show you where in the past decade the events have been held.
this just shows you a little about what the race looks like, you know, what kind of events it is and these are pictures taken from various locations.
so a little bit about the venue.
so it's located in -- out in Travis County, as you guys know, and it's about nine miles from abia and about 15 miles from the core of downtown Austin.
it's designed to be the only purpose built facility in the u.s.
to host the formula one united states grand prix and it will host that event through 2021 if we're successful today.
it also will host a lot of other major events throughout the year each year and hopefully will be utilized a good portion of the year for something.
it will be -- this event center will be the only fia certified grade 1 track in the u.s.
and one of only 26 such tracks of motor sports facilities in the world and the fia is the governing organization for auto racing.
and as you guys I think know but the public may know, circuit of the americas currently holds exclusive rights in the u.s.
to host the events but is also pretty exciting.
so we expect the venue to draw hundreds of thousands of fans over the ten years that we're sort of focusing on right now.
and probably we're estimating 30 million television viewers who are all going to be having eyes on Austin.
and as I said, we hope to use the facility as a year-round facility not for events as major as the formula one united states grand prix but for different types of events throughout the year so that the facility really does become a community asset.
that just shows you some of the things it will be used for.
we are proud to say that this facility is -- is very well regarded in the community of auto sports racing as a highly sustainable facility and we hope that it will continue to be really used as an example of that.
and we estimate that the annual economic impact of the events that will be hosted at the facility will be somewhere between 400 million to 500 million dollars.
so hopefully we'll bring a lot of money into the community.
and for the particular event we're talking about, we are estimating that over the November 16, 17 and 18 weekend there will be about 250,000 people who attend that event.
the race track is situated on a little over 1,000 acres, 1036 acres more or less made up of 14 tracks that have been combined together and that just shows you the tracks.
you've got that in your packet if you are interested.
this graphic shows the site.
it's a little bit hard to see, but the site is sort of in the lower right-hand corner situated between 812 elroy and mcangus.
this is a site plan which shows you how the facility will be laid out, and if you have been to the facility lately, it's kind of nice because you can really start to see how some of the things you see on this, you know, birds-eye view site plan are really starting to take shape on the ground.
this shows you some of the pictures just in case you haven't had a chance to be out to the site of where construction is as of may of this year.
so a lot of progress is really being made thanks to Austin commercial, by the way.
so I want to focus now on the statutory requirements for us being able to secure a mass gathering act permit.
and you all have received our application, which is extremely lengthy.
there are essentially 13 requirements in the statute that we have to address.
I'm going to focus on what I think are the most important ones today, but please don't hesitate to ask me about any of the other ones if you have questions.
but I want to focus on the attendance requirement and how we'll control attendance, public safety, health and sanitation and then traffic and parking.
attendance.
so as I said, we think the maximum attendance over the weekend will be approximately 250,000 people.
the facility is really geared to hold about 120,000 people at one time.
however, that number really is flexible because of the fact that it depends a lot on how the seating is situated.
and that we really won't know for sure until we have -- we have tickets sold.
but maximum attendance is 250,000 persons over the course of the weekend.
the mass gathering requirements ask us to tell you how we intend to control attendance and we will do that by, of course, requiring everyone who enters the facility to have a ticket.
and you'll have to have your ticket for that day's event.
if you have a weekend ticket, you will have to present that, but you will have to have something that shows that you have the ability to enter that day and we will control the number of tickets that are issued.
moving on to public safety and medical care, we have contracted with the following agencies to provide public safety and medical care throughout the weekend, the event weekend.
for fire protection, we've contracted with Travis County emergency service district 11.
for medical care and ambulance we have contracted with Austin-Travis County emergency medical services department.
and for medical care and medical air lift we are hoping today to contract with Travis County through starflight.
and you have copies of the first two of those agreements in your packet that we provided and I believe that you have the starflight agreement draft in your packet provided by mr. Hobby.
in addition to those agreements, we also have done what any, I think, responsible promoter of an event would do.
we have first aid stations located throughout the venue.
we have actually constructed -- it's under construction now, a state-of-the-art medical facility on the site.
it will be equipped with ekg machine, burns showers, a triage area, x-ray room, treatment room and doctor's office.
so effectively it's going to function like a mini hospital right there on the site.
we will have on site medical staff and physicians including a medical director.
moving on to sanitation and health standards, we have contracted with suduxcc who is a professional company who will handle the food and beverage for the event.
as I said, we've got representatives here, but we've also been working with Austin-Travis County health authorities to make sure that we've got all of the elements of that sanitation plan really buttoned down to make sure everything in that regard will go smoothly.
to get into the specifics, there will be about 1,000 portable toilets.
I didn't know 1,000 existed in the city of Austin, but I guess they do.
60 restaurant trailers.
approximately 80 hand sanitizer stations, and then litter patrol that will be really continuous throughout the weekend, before, during and after event days.
this is the sanitation facility site plan which pinpoints where all of those facilities are going to be located and we can walk you through if there are questions about it.
I want to address traffic and parking management and I am actually going to turn it over to aaron nathan to walk you through how traffic management will work and what's planned for this particular event.

>> > good morning, Commissioners.
I'm going to be relatively brief.
just the cover of the plan on the surface.
we've been working the last six months closely with Travis County, with txdot, with the city of Austin, with capital metro so that the plan that we're proposing is something that really wasn't developed just by us, it was developed in partnership with all those agencies together.
we also have on the team in addition to kimly horn we have vouch who have experience with large scale events, then the experience of the team itself, david sweezy who have experienced managing special events.
the plan we developed is consistent with the standard of care of these type events of this significance andist basic concept of our plan -- if you go to the next slide -- is multiple things, but the conflict is avoid conflict in vehicle movement wherever you can, avoid conflict with pedestrian throw so basically keep traffic moving and the traffic has a significant number of traffic control officers and other things to safely move traffic into and out of the circuit during the event weekend.
again, these are pretty complex plans.
I realize you can't see the detail but you have color, 11 by 17 schematics of our plan.

>> we handed those out separately so you didn't have to go through your notebooks so those should be sitting on top of the papers there.

>> if you have questions, there's a sheet 4 a and sheet 5 a.
4 a is our pre-event plan.
sheet 5 a is our post-event plan.
and the concept is to try to keep as many lanes coming into the circuit before the event as we can.
but also allow for access to and from any local businesses, churches, residences, all access will be available during -- during the event, however, certainly the level of congestion during that weekend will be greater than what you would experience on a typical weekend right now.
the other thing I want to point out is approximately a third of the folks will be parking at the circuit.
approximately a third we're anticipating being downtown, taking a shuttle from ground and another third at the Travis County expo center.
our plan takes advantage of a shuttle loop concept to have shuttles be separated from all vehicle traffic so those coming to and from the event via those shuttles will have a form of dedicated service surrounding the circuit.
we also have accommodations for bicycles to come to and from the event via a shuttle event that's nearby the circuit.
I'll just point out to you -- if we could go to the downtown location.
there you go.
point out that in downtown working with the city and capital metro, we have a location near waterloo park where we propose to have the shuttles come into downtown via mlk, pick up folks right by waterloo park, and then at the expo center working with the county sheriff's office and others and working on a plan to loop shuttles into and out of the expo center to take advantage of the amount of parking available at that facility as well.
so with that, that's a very quick overview of a relatively complex plan that we've been developing really for the last 18 months but indepth the last six months and I'll be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

>> I just have a few final comments.
I know that Commissioners always want to know what the public outreach has been.
the community would like to know what the public outreach has been.
and not just notice of this hearing which I already covered, but real outreach about the mass gathering has been really going on for almost two years.
even before I was actually involved.
and so it's really been ongoing communication with community members, elected officials, leaders, neighbors, to try to keep everybody in the know.
we know that everybody doesn't always have all the information at all times, but we've also been really cognizant of not throwing information out if it wasn't in final form.
we know there is some feeling in the community that maybe information has been held back or there's been information that hasn't been released immediately, but we really have been trying to make an effort to make sure nothing is released to anyone until it's gone through the proper channels and it's really in final form.
what we don't want is somebody having information that's not accurate.
but this really sort of gives you a list of the different community contacts that we've made since about September of 11.
we also have had specific contact with del valle independent school district and so this just gives you some information about the meetings that we've had with them.
we also received some public comments and questions.
we got two of them -- met yesterday so we didn't get a chance to get responses back, but we got four public comments total.
two of those we were able to respond directly back to -- constituents to answer questions.
two of those we got really capital metro sent a comment that really wasn't asking us to really respond but just letting us know that there would be a delayed wait time with respect to shuttle in downtown of 30 minutes, I think it said.
then we also received corresponders we haven't had a chance to respond to from the east view church of god with a concern that they would be unable to -- their congregation members would be unable to access the facility during the event.
and we asked our engineer to look at that and it appears that there will be no road closures anywhere around that particular church and so they should not have any blockage or inability to get to the facility.
of course, just like when there's the capital 10-k downtown, it's not going to be like a normal Saturday where you can get in and out quickly but they will definitely not have an obstruction to access to this facility.
and then we really would just like to answer questions that the Commissioners may have after staff does its presentation, and then I wanted to keep up for a second contact information for david, who really is the man.
I mean, he's the one -- as vice president of operations he is the one to answer questions, he's the direct contact so I wanted to make sure everybody had his contact information.
and then if there's for some strange reason is a question david can't answer, please, anybody feel free to call or email me and I can at least try to get you an answer.
we really do appreciate the time.
we feel that we've met the requirements for mass gathering act permit and we would appreciate, judge, your approval of that permit for us today.

>> why don't we hear from county staff and if we have questions from the court we'll ask those.
and if we could -- okay.
will three chairs do?

>> we just wanted to speak about the improvements to elroy, mcangus and kellam and then turn it over to the three officials.
item 1 a, as far as kellam road goes, you all know we approved a real estate agreement with coda a month or so ago where incoda will improve kellam road widening it and extending it to pierce lane which we believe is a very important safety factor that can be provided.
right now the project is under design by kellam's engineer.
my understanding is they are about 80% complete with that and their goal is start construction on those improvements to kellam by first of August and be completed before the race event in early November.
david will talk about elroy, mcangus at this point.

>> we have two roads under reconstruction out there.
one of them is almost complete, mcangus road.
it's about 1.6 miles.
we've done a recycling in place and with some end stabilization getting the road, it had quite a bit of undulation and it needed to be worked on.
we have pretty much finished that.
we'll be doing a final chip seal surface in the middle of June.
and then approximately around October we'll put a final asphaltic overlay to make it a nice smooth surface before the race.
elroy road from fm 812 to fiber quest, we have just pretty much started that already.
that will also be recycled in place going down eight inches and recycling material, stabilize and then do a chip seal surface over that and that should be done around August time frame with final overlay in October.
we'll be doing some improvements to the east-west portion of elroy road, some level up, smoothing out of the roadway.
we don't want to put too much effort in that at this point because it may be widened in the future so we want to make sure it's a driveable surface and that will be done before the race as well.

>> so where were elroy and mcangus on the county work plan before formula one?

>> well, elroy road was on a work plan two or three years ago.
it was delayed because of some water lines going in.
we wanted to wait for the water lines to go in before we came back.
that has been on the list for a while now.
it's been delayed.
now the water lines are done so we can go in and reconstruct the roadway, mcangus, we probably accelerated that by about one year.
we would have been 2013 work plan.
we accelerated one year to help out knowing there would be a lot of bus traffic on that road.

>> we believe these improvements will be made before the race?

>> definitely, yes.

>> okay.
yes.

>> david, the backup tells us how much the Travis County cost is on kellam.
can you tell us what the Travis County cost is on mcangus and elroy?

>> yes.
we've pretty much finished mcangus and we've got some pretty good accurate estimates on that.
it's about $500,000, 485 or something like for the reconstruction and final pavement of that road.
the elroy road section was a little longer and it's about $600,000 worth.

>> and is that just the county portion or is that the county portion and the coda portion?

>> that's just the county portion of reconstructing the roadway.

>> how much is coda putting towards these three roads?

>> on that I'm not sure how much coda is putting towards the roads.

>> they are not putting anything towards mcangus and elroy.
if we go to widen elroy in the future we would negotiate that but as far as the reconstruction work we're not putting anything towards that.
they are going to, however, build the extension of kellam and at their cost but we would purchase that from them and make it part of the county system instead of a private road.

>> as far as the future improvements, could you list for us the future improvements that are anticipated beyond the four million 100 on kellam and half million on mcangus and roughly half million on elroy?

>> that would be the potential future widening of elroy which also involves a four-lane bridge.
there may be other improvements necessary when we get further away from the facility and we'll assess that and make an assessment and react accordingly.

>> is it just elroy or are we anticipating additional improvements to mcangus or kellam?

>> not to mcangus other than what we're doing right now, and elroy not beyond the potential widening for about the first half mile between mcangus and where coda driveway is.

>> on the kellam extension, you mentioned f-1 is paying for that but we would reimburse.

>> a not to exceed of 4.9 million but does not include right-of-way acquisition.

>> okay.
thank you.

>> we heard a lot of numbers.
the total is how much?
all three.
it's four plus 600 plus 485, right?

>> it's about 5.2 million total.
make it clear the roadways we're reconstructing would have been done anyway as just rage maintenance.

>> you estimated cost of county staff and equipment.

>> yes, sir.

>> but that's not appropriate.

>> any other questions fs staff?
health?
thank you.

>> there was just one comment before regarding the kellam road.
and the reason that we moved to -- to a real estate agreement on kellam road is because the -- our county staff and coda officials met for a good while and came to an understanding that it was necessary to do something with kellam because it was necessary to have a place where emergency vehicles, that is ambulances and fire trucks, would be able to get in and out a little better than without it.
so that's the reason that we thought that the 4.1 million is -- is -- is necessary, is a necessary investment on a county road.
this is money that's not going to coda, it's not going to a private entity, it is for a county road.
and that means it's our asset, it's the public's asset and continues to be so.
that's the reason we're working on kellam road.

>> yes, ma'am.

>> thank you.

>> health and sanitation.

>> good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioners.
sherri fleming, county executive for health and human services and veterans service.
and I guess for the purposes of those who might be listening, Travis County meets its public health requirements through an interlocal agreement with the city of Austin.
as you are very much aware, and so staff of both the county health department as well as the city health department have reviewed the plans as described by ms. Mead in her earlier presentation.
those would include food service policies.
they would include water, wastewater, sanitation policies, public safety policies as it relates to how persons who might become ill or injured at the site would be managed, and so we have been able to review those policies and they appear to be appropriate.
however, I'm sure you are aware that most of the real work for health begins once the facilities are more established and so with me I have david lopez from the city of Austin who can speak more about the actual food inspections and things that will take place once the facilities are in place.

>> good morning, david lopez, chief sanitary and health and human services department.
as sherry just said, we have been in review of various documents that have been provided to us.
feel comfortable with the plan.
we've also been in contact with the Austin water utility with the ongoing water and wastewater project and feel comfortable with the load, peak load that it will be able to handle on race day as far as the wastewater flow goes.
but until we actually get a little further along in the project and more construction has taken place, we can't do any type of site assessment with respect to the actual setup of their food commissary and the like.
so this will be an ongoing process.
we've got -- we've made arrangements with existing staff to be available for all of these inspections that will be required of health prior to the race being held.

>> and finally as you are aware, phil wong is the Travis County health authority and was unable to be with us, however you have in your backup his report that basically describes the items that we have just touched on today and, you know, stands as the staff assessment of where we are at this point regarding health and sanitation.

>> so the bottom line today regarding health and sanitation is what?

>> is that we have reviewed circuit of the americas and sudexco, the primary food provider, reviewed their policies as relates to food items and concessions and all of the related plans we have described in the backup and those plans appear to be appropriate in accordance with the Texas health and safety code.

>> so you keep doing inspections, though.

>> well, sir, that will be something that we will do further down the road.
there isn't anything there for us to physically look at, but we'll be stepping up to have that coverage.

>> and if you find deficiencies, what can you do?

>> well, we'll bring that to the attention of the promoter, make them aware we're running on a time line and they must meet the requirement or we can as the health authority present to you a case why we should pull the permit.

>> questions?
thank you much.

>> thank you.

>> fire marshal still here?

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, herschel lee, Travis County fire marshal.
my office has been meeting with circuit of the americas designers for about 18 months.
this facility, the buildings and the site are being designed to meet requirements of the Travis County fire code which is basically 2009 international fire code.
I've provided in the backup there a list of the buildings that we have already permitted.
I anticipate there will probably be another building or two that will go in.
we also anticipate that we will receive plans for additional fire alarm systems, fire sprinkler systems and things of those nature.
our inspections to date have been limited basically to the underground fire lines.
that's as far as we are able to inspect.
but if these buildings are completed in a timely manner, staff will be there to inspect those buildings and anticipate that they will meet all the requirements of the international fire code or Travis County fire code.

>> so if the requirements are not met later, what do you do?

>> the buildings should not be occupied until they receive a certificate of compliance with Travis County fire code.
and so we will stay on top of that with the designers, builders and promoters, let them know what the deadlines are.
we can inspect up until the day they decide to open the door and let people go in and we'll have staff available to do that.
but if the life safety systems are not in, we would recommend not occupying structures.

>> yes, sir?
-- questions?
any comments?
thank you.
sheriff's office.

>> good morning.

>> good morning.

>> sheriff hamilton, phyllis claire, major of the law enforcement bureau.
as you know, according to the health and safety code, the sheriff is required to investigate the preparations for the mass gathering persons -- of persons that meet the criteria of the statute.
the sheriff and myself have worked with coda and formula one and all the other agencies that you've seen represented here today.
and after review of the plans, it is the opinion of the Travis County sheriff's office staff and greg hamilton as the county sheriff these plans meet the minimum standard as listed in the statute.
I also want to point out that these minimum plans that exist today will continue to be refined and over the upcoming months before the event they will continue to be upgraded as public service entities, let us know what other things might be needed out there.
our staff at the sheriff's office has been actively engaged in ensuring that not only are the circumstances surrounding the event managed in a safe mother nature but that the safety and security of the entire county will be maintained during this event so our focus will not just be on event, it will be the entire county.
we will be having a unified approach to all the security and safety of all the people at the event so no issues are not managed properly.

>> explain to us how we provide sheriff's deputies for security and safety during the event.

>> circuit of the americas has entered into an agreement with Travis County sheriff's office to hire off-duty officers and employ them and pay for their services and for the use of county equipment.

>> and how do we determine what to charge?

>> we have a standing charge.
it's $35 an hour for an officer and it's $20 an hour for a vehicle's use.

>> that's between coda and the office.

>> yes.

>> the county is not in the middle of that.

>> the county is not in the middle of that.
mind you, there will be people working that day including myself and that are at levels that don't incur overtime, we're in management positions, but we believe it is certainly our responsibility to be on duty for something of this magnitude and we will have a significant amount of oversight representing the county's interests and the interests of the citizens.
not persons who are simply on duty what would appear to be representing just the interests of formula one or circuit of the americas.

>> congratulations to you.

>> thank you.

>> any other questions?

>> thank you.

>> thank you much.

>> thank you.

>> mr. Hobby still here?
starflight is number 14.
what's that agreement?

>> I'm danny hobby andy3=z0

>> the second aircraft, and it goes back to the needs of the residents, their requirements were there be a standby aircraft.
and so because we wanted to make sure that we kept our routine, our normal set of operations for the residents, for our residents, we went ahead and subcontracted for a second aircraft to be on standby, and that's, again, dedicated toward the race so if there's something that for whatever reason occurs with our aircraft on site, then we've got another aircraft that can actually come in and do what's needed there.
so the second contract that you have before you for consideration is that we -- that you approve that so we can have that standard of service available.

>> so if there's one helicopter there at the site, if something happens in other parts of central Texas, we have two.

>> we operate just like we normally do.

>> if a patient is picked up at a venue and carried to brackenridge, we bill that patient directly.

>> that's correct, just like we normally would with our regular operations.
any time we transport, we would use the same methodology that we do and that is we would be responsible for that transport and we would build in accordance -- bill in aorder answer with that need.

>> are you in a position to generally explain the agreement regarding the expo center?

>> no, sir, I'm not over facilities.
I could certainly talk about it, but --

>> here's john carr.

>> okay.
any questions for danny and casey?

>> do we need to approve those, judge?

>> what I was going to do is call that item up later.

>> scared you, didn't i.

>> expo center.

>> john carr with facilities management department.
we do have a three-year contract now signed in place to allow parking at the exposition center.
understand the star of Texas rodeo is also in consultation to sign an agreement for their portion of land adjacent to us to provide more parking.
the deposits have been made.
we will receive about $28,000 a year just in fees plus one-third of the parking.

>> this is for use of grounds outside the building.

>> correct, sir.

>> but the buildings may be open.
if so, the county has a contract concessionaire.

>> yes, sir.
our contract concessionaire will be available to provide food and drink to the folks that are waiting for buses.

>> and the county gets a commission from all sales.

>> that's correct, sir.

>> okay.
questions?
thank you all very much.
does that cover for the reports?

>> traffic regulations.

>> yes, sir.

>> traffic regulations.

>> please.
this is sort of outside of the application for mass gatherings act, but this is something Travis County is doing associated with the event, right?

>> yes, in order to operate the roads the way they need to run safely and as efficiently as they can get, we need to put into place certain traffic regulations and david could explain those to you.

>> and what we do, any time we -- a regulation is really a legal documentation of any time we set a speed limit up, set a stop sign, have no parking regulations.
and the regulations are coinciding with the transportation plan by coda.
what we're doing is restricting parking, stopping, standing, parking on several of the roads nearby the site.
all the surrounding roads and also all the roads we will have contraflow on and restricting pedestrian and bicycle traffic on those days.
we do not feel it's safe to have pedestrians.
there's no sidewalks, there's no shoulders, so we are restricting pedestrian access on those roads as well.
and those are the same roads that we're restricting parking on.
then also the other regulation will be for contraflow lanes to turn certain roads all in one direction before the race and all in a different direction after the race.
so those are the three different types of regulations that we're proposing.

>> did we provide a copy of those regulations in the backup?

>> yes.

>> why are these regulations important?

>> well, in order to be able to enforce the restrictions, the officers out there in the field will be able to enforce these restrictions if there's regulation in place.
otherwise they don't really have the legal stand to go enforce them.

>> why are the restrictions important?

>> it's important for the safety of the traveling public and also the efficiency of the traffic to get into and out of the site.
it's important to keep things -- keep things moving, keep -- I guess reduce conflict points, improve safety.
it's generally just to improve the actual traffic control plan and safety to the public.

>> these will be in place during the event.

>> yes, they will just be in place for three days, November 16, 17, 18.

>> questions?
thank you much.

>> judge, there was one other agreement that we will need to bring before the court and that has to do with use of a portion of moya park for people coming in by bicycle from downtown.
the plan right now is to have them park their bicycles in a corral at I think the eastern entrance to the park.
then they will catch a shuttle from that point over to the coda facility.
so that will provide for safety for them as well.
the license agreement still needs to be worked out with parks and that's underway.

>> but for those interested in biking to the event, they can bike to moyer park and catch a shuttle from there to the venue.

>> that's right.

>> okay.
we believe some persons are interested in doing that.

>> [laughter]

>> I tried it.
I went out with a group with a group of city of Austin folks and Travis County and coda people and we actually drove out there.
it's a long way out there if you are not a normal biker, it might be a little difficult, but if I can make it, anyone can make it.
I'm not a biker and I made it.

>> thanks for helping them keep Austin weird.

>> [laughter] questions?
Commissioner?

>> I understand that there is -- and this may be part of the city of Austin's negotiation with coda, but I understand that there is a 10 point plan with regard to vox, nox and baseline and particular tick you late monitoring.
is t.n.r.
part of that or is that city of Austin?

>> that's the city and there is someone from the city if you would like to have them explain that.
gary?

>> I think that's one area of public health that I think we do need to address along with decibel level.
I don't think that we have anything on the books yet with regard to the decibel level and my understanding is perhaps the coda representatives could enlighten us, the decibel level is expected to be about 120 db and shwa recommendations is for highways anyway between 67 and 72.

>> anybody able to answer that?

>> Commissioner, I think you are right that we hadn't done any agreement or anything with respect to decibel levels and I don't know if there is anybody here that knows that figure off the top of their heads but it's definitely something --

>> look into in regard to mitigation for the neighbors.
in strict terms, this is incompatible use issue.
the existing neighbors versus this proposed use and so this court has in the past on other incompatible use circumstances looked at vox, nox, particulate, decibel, light pollution although I understand that's not an issue here because it gets dark at what time?

>> 10ish to 11:00.

>> so just as far as those -- those public safety issues that have not yet been addressed.

>> makes sense.

>> thank you all very much.
now, we will go to the list of persons who have signed in to speak and I will call three names.
and if those individuals will come forth and have a seat and give us their names, we would be happy to get their comments.
we'll let those three finish and then we'll call three more.
mr. Dillon, I think it's john dillon.

>> jim.

>> jim.
donald bowling.
and kersha haberlow.

>> thank you.

>> mr. Dillon, if you would begin, we would appreciate it.

>> judge, I think it was disingenuous for that parade of mid-level public officials and bureaucrats to come up here and pretend that they are going to have the courage to deny a permit at the very last minute to these racists, that would be people who engage in racing, who would have the courage to deny them a permit if they are out of compliance with safety standards and security and starflight and all the other issues.
we know that there -- the lady just admitted they will be out of compliance on noise issues, but they promise to take care of that at the last minute.
and I don't trust them to do that.
I think since this juggernaut started rolling that it has taken on a life of its own and the momentum created by the euphoria and what I would call as opposed to permit for mass gathering, I would call it a permit for mass hysteria.
because from politicians right on down to the wealthy elitists who will be attending the race have been hysterical in their excitement level over a chance to dig a giant hole in the middle of the ground out there in a place where there's no access for is thesize of crowds that are expected.
and the lady promised that these kind of events are estimated to generate probably $400 million.
well, if you subtract the 250 million that was stolen from the taxpayers and the millions that this court is probably going to approve for new roads and infrastructure from that 400 amount, you really have a break-in proposition.
and she also mentioned that these races are held in only the nicest of locations around the world.
one of the most recent races in bahrain was interrupted by the killing of dozens and dozens of people, beatings, arrests of thousands, still in jail in bahrain, abu dhabi is the same situation.
these are totalitarian states with dictatorship who do not care what the people think in any manner whatsoever.
it's for the rich to come in and pose their will on the people, have their race, have their fun.
meanwhile, in Austin the working poor, formerly known as the middle class, get austerity.
and you may wonder why the voters, the Ron paul supporters are so angry, tea partiers, people who engage in the occupy movement willing to sleep on the sidewalk night after night for months, they see that their elected leadership has abandoned them.
with the exception of Commissioner Eckhardt, there has not been an elected official in my memory who has stood up to the corporate welfare eliteists in many years.
you say yes to apple, the richest corporation in the world.
let's give them millions and millions of dollars or they won't come here and pay people $11 an hour to assemble their mind control devices and refrain from jumping from the top of the roof into their suicide nets.
and let's just go ahead since this is Travis County and narrow mopac to nine feet wide and create a special lane for the wealthy elitists so they can --

>> we'll need you to stick to the mass gathering act application, mr. Dillon.

>> yes, sir.
I drove past a mass gathering in atlanta, georgia a few years ago.
it was a race.
it was a cracker barrel 500.
and I waited until the race had started and was well underway because everybody knew that traffic would be impossible, and it will be.
the cars on the race track in f-1 may be going over 200-mile an hour.
the people trying to get there and trying to get out won't be going 2 miles an hour.
even with the county-funded road improvements.
and I do think it was very generous of the racists to allow the county to keep the road that they are paying for, including costs for maintenance in the future.
but as I drove by the cracker barrel 500 on interstate 85 a few years ago and I was going about 85 myself and the state trooper pulled me over and I explained to him that they were going 200 right over there, we could see the track and hear them, it was really loud.
they were out of noise compliance.
decibel level was 120 or higher.
and I still got the ticket, but I don't think that the county needs to give any more money to these people that you are engaged in a very unhealthy habit of playing robin hood in reverse.
you are taking taxpayer money or should I say susan mccombs and her uncle red mccombs are taking taxpayer money at the point of a gun because if you don't pay your taxes the sheriff comes to your house and tells you to leave and if you don't leave you get a gun pointed at you.
in using that money in a very unproductive manner.
this needs to stop.
I commend Commissioner Eckhardt for standing up to this disease that america has contracted.
it's happening all around the country.
and I'm encouraging the county Commissioners to stop this.

>> donald bowling, a resident of stoney ridge which is off elroy road near where the track is under construction.
first of all I would like to thank the Commissioners court for having this hearing.
as far as I know this is the only entity taking public opinion on this and has raised questions about what is going on.
seems like everybody else is jumping on the band wagon that is the money so I would like to thank the court for having that.
ms. Mead, that was your name, correct?
let's not be confused.
today is not about just the November race.
today is about everything that's going to happen from that day on out.
and in their own presentation they say they plan on dozens of races.
so dozens is every two weeks.
so we're not talking about a disruption of a November time frame, we're talking about a disruption to the residents every other weekend.
the noise level was one of the things that I intended to talk about so thank you, ms. Eckhardt, for bringing that up.
we do live near the airport so some people say there's probably not that much of a difference, but I was flipping through the channels one day and heard an f-1 race and the announcer made the comment how wonderful it was to hear the aurora of the engines echoing through the valley.
there is a large hill right next to them.
I live on the opposite side of that hill so I'm expecting that noise to head our direction.
so the noise level is definitely something I think we should be interested in.
as far as the traffic control, elroy road is the only access to my home as well as hundreds of others.
mcangus is the only access point for a couple hundred over there at least.
so these are definitely major concerns as far as traffic is -- traffic flow.
will we be able to get in and out of our houses as they are promised on race days.
the other thing is for anybody who has tried to get to an event anywhere in Austin, drivers will do whatever it takes for them to get to their destination.
you can go to any u.t.
football game and witness that, people are not courteous and they paid a lot of money to be there and they want to be there.
my concern is that traffic flowing in and out of residences that don't belong there and just parking in residential areas where they really shouldn't be parking.
the other thing, part of what I think also needs to happen as far as the mass gathering is what happens the next time.
so we have all the plans in place, and I'm sorry, I asked ms. Mead a question because I was going to get my dig in.
she made the point they are having an event in November.
kind of wondering why we're having this because it sounds like it's already a done deal.
they've got contracts already negotiated.
it sounds like everybody is pretty much of the agreement that this is going to happen.
so I think what we have to do here is now mitigate the intrusion to the residents in the area now.
I think that's probably more realistically what we're talking about.
so after the event, going to their management plan, they have a list here of the organizations involved.
and it's quite an impressive list, but I do see the -- where was it?
the league of bicycle voters.
but the one thing I don't see on here is any neighborhood associations or resident committees.
they have not included them in the organization plan according to their own document.
their mission statement also does not include anything to that effect.
it talks about how they are going to help the spectators, the participants, the media, sponsors, staff, volunteers and special guests, but again there is no mention of Austin or the surrounding community.
there is a -- in the parking permit section, there's a section that covers a limited access from all points leading from coda.
I would like to know how far out those points will be.
it does say they work with residents and businesses to have access to residences.
how are they going to do that.
ms. Mead mentioned they had talked to residents, some people, but I'm unaware of any of those meetings.
I know they had some with elroy residents, but we live in del valle, we're not part of elroy.
I think they have met more with people directly connected to the property line along elroy and mcangus road.
one other quickly to see -- sorry, I was doing this last night while I was working so -- I just have one last comment.
let's not be confused.
this is not a race for the average person.
pricing on their website starts at $375 for a single ticket with a $1,500 psl.
I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think it probably means they have the right to purchase that ticket.
by contrast, you go to Texas motor speedway and the price for the lowest ticket there was $25 for the nationwide series and $86 for a cup series.
this is not a race for the average people.
this is a race for the rich and Austin is just going to be another one of their playgrounds.
thank you.

>> any answer to mr. Bolin's question?
your question was really traffic management and communicating with del valle residents.

>> yes, sir.

>> sure.
I made notes of several points you made and I'll try to go through them really quickly.
as a correction, I didn't say dozens of races.
there will be events hopefully throughout the year, but those will include business meetings, corporate events, concerts, so it's not always going to be formula one 12 times a year.
I just wanted to make that clear.
noise, there is berming and seating between residents and race tracks to buffer some of that noise.
so that will help, but that is something that we're going to be looking at the end of the Commissioner Eckhardt's suggestion further.
access to houses on elroy, the goal, and aaron can chime in on this, is to make sure everybody has access.
we know that people will rogue park in front of your house, in front of your driveway.
our goal is to make sure that doesn't happen.
one thing we proposed that we've got to get everybody on board with it is that you have access permit to get to your property.
that doesn't appeal to everybody so we're trying to really work through what kind of solution can keep that road parker from parking from front of your driveway or in your driveway even, yet make it so that you don't feel like you are a prisoner for the weekend and you can only access your property with a special pass.
we are still working through those kinds of issues to make sure we're doing something to accommodate everybody.
involvement with residents, the involvement with residents as I said during the presentation really pre-dates me, but I've really scrubbed to see what the involvement has been.
I do think you are right that the primary contact with residents has been with those residents who are directly adjacent and impacted, but I was under the impression and there are folks here like trace who might be able to speak better than I that has reached out to everyone.
we need to do a better job of it good there are residents who are saying I've not been contacted, I've not known about meetings.
we've still got months until we want to host this event.
we've got to make sure we improve that process.
if that means a weekly or monthly meeting, whatever it takes, we acknowledged having gotten feedback from residents that we have to do a better job with that.
then how far out the parking permits will go that we're mentioning in the traffic management plan, that's probably something aaron should answer.

>> I'll just touch on it briefly.
for all the subdivisions, stoney ridge, a lot of those subdivisions, pass art our plan we've considered best how folks to best get in and out and certainly it won't be the same as a normal Sunday but what I would suggest we would get with david or you contact david directly and we can show you specifically how we plan to accommodate your specific neighborhood.
if you are north or south of elroy, it may change, but the intent is take all that into consideration.
we've been looking at where all the churches are located so folks who aren't a resident who may come to the vicinity of the circuit so we've looked at a lot of accommodation.
I would say contact david and show you how it work.

>> if you will leave me your contact information, I'll make sure we get a meeting with neighbors who may be interested or at the end of that power point is david's contact information.
thank you for your comments.

>> thank you.

>> good morning, judge and Commissioners.
thank you for having an open and public hearing today.
I have one specific question.
does the proposed transportation management plan utilize the 113-acre tract of land on the southeast corner of elroy and mcangus road specifically where the yellow and blue lots appear to be shown?

>> I have a map.
this tract or that tract?

>> in this corner.

>> that property is not owned by circuit of the americas so it's not -- as part of our plan, that's not been contemplated to be utilized.

>> can you show me with your map with the lots?

>> I can put that on the screen as well.

>> yeah, I should emphasize this is a schematic so this map makes it look like it's in the corner but we're trying to fit in a geography -- you went see it at you will.
while this map shows it in the corner it doesn't go up to that property line.
we were trying to condense a significant amount of information on that one page.

>>

>> [inaudible].

>> yes, all right.
side conversation here.
she's referring to at the immediate corner of elroy he willroad and mcangus there'sa piece of property that's not owned by the circuit of americas.

>> necessary right-of-way for future roadway construction.

>> I don't believe so.
unless somehow the elroy road widening needs that property, but I'm not aware of that.

>> anything else?

>> no, thank you.
thank you very much.

>> thank you.

>> kathy olive, Ron whiting and susan moffett.
ms. Olive.

>> good morning.
before I get started, david?
when you said -- well, define stopping pedestrian traffic.
because about 50 of us have to cross elroy road to get our mail.

>> basically the regulation is

>> [inaudible] down the roadway.
but the intent of the regulation is to

>> [inaudible] several locations.

>> so all of us can cross the road to get our mail?

>> oh, yes.

>> that's a hand-held mic.

>> the answer to that question is yes.
ms. Olive, please continue.

>> good morning, judge Biscoe and Commissioners.
I've been talking to all my neighbors this past week and I'm sitting here representing them as they had to work and could not be here to speak to you.
they know what I'm about to say.
but just a bit of background.
a representative of formula one came to my living room to tell my board of directors of the elroy neighborhood association before it was released to the media where the traffic was going to be located.
the neighborhood had a good working relationship with formula one in the beginning.
but tabo, hoeman and richard subtle was booted out and the new people are between difficult and impossible to work with.
there's a bubble of secrecy over the tract and very little transparency and I don't know how to fix it.
judge Biscoe had to take time out of his busy schedule to help me get with an open records request to get a copy of the traffic plan that I had asked for repeatedly.
I've given a dozen interviews in which I said I was a fence sitter about the race track issue.
I was concerned about traffic and noise, but I hoped I would be included in the traffic meetings.
that didn't happen.
now on the positive side, we were all thrilled about the taxes, the county and del valle school district was going to reap.
and also about the jobs that coda promised the city council to help mitigate all the damages to elroy.
well, as far as the taxes go, coda, as of today, has put 560 acres in a wildlife exemption paying less than 1% of appraised value.
that's over one-half of the land they own.
I fail to see how putting out some bird seed is helping the school district or the county.
s it's

>> until the roads can be improved to handle traffic, cota will still make money at 150,000, people can still go to the race but it will be a safer number of vehicles on the road to manage and surely then we wouldn't need residential passes at 150,000, which is going to make lloyd doggett really happy.
from a quick read through the mass gathering permit I have seven major troubling issues for you and I have them if you want to read them or I can read them to you.
as I sit here the only thing that I'm absolutely sure of is that you're going to hear or you've already heard pretty speeches from cota, they're really good at it, but as soon as they hit the door they do what they want to do because I've watched them do it at city hall.
please either deny this permit outright or knock that number down to 150,000.
and I'll either -- these are the seven troubling issues I have with the permit.
I'll hand them to you -- yeah, I think it would be better -- I'm not an attorney or engineer and I

>> [inaudible].

>> thank you.
you may want to have somebody look at these and if there are responses we can get it later in the meeting.
you'll be here after the public meeting, right?

>> yes.

>> if there are responses we can get to those today it would help.

>> I think we ought to clarify the number that she believes -- of people who will be there for the race.
then I don't -- I think I read or remember reading the presentation that you made a little earlier.
it wasn't 250,000 in November.
just need to be sure about those numbers.

>> yeah, that's our -- that's the maximum possible, and there's not -- the capacity of the venue wouldn't accommodate 250,000 people on the roads at one time.
I mean, the venue wouldn't accommodate that many.

>> but what I'm saying is the permit says 250,000 over the three-day period, and I'm saying also that you had over two years to work on this road situation, you didn't do it, so let's knock it back down to 150,000 over the three-day period, and you're still going to have a race, you're still going to make some money, but it will be a safer situation.

>> any other comments?
okay.
mr. Wattinger?

>> thank you for having us today.
my name is Ron wattinger.
I live on elwood road, my parents do and we're adjoining property owners to the circuit of the americas on two sides.
we're between phillips pipeline and cota on elroy road at the end of kellaher.
I hear a lot of things about the roads and with the mass gathering and everything else.
first I've been a resident since I was 7 years old in del valle.
I heard you just mentioned, you know, houses can affect my life with you bringing all these people out here.
well, I have the same question for him.
you didn't come to me as a property owner before your subdivision was built.
I remember at elroy road and 973 before the improvements were made, that we used to have a stop sign trying to cross 973.
still built subdivisions out there.
people still can.
change is inevitable and change is going to happen.
as far as the noise, I used to have f 4 jets flying over our head when bergstrom air force base was there, and we're not talking loud noises all the time continuously.
an actual race will last approximately, from my understanding, from start to finish, two hours.
it will be periodic.
well, if you live around ut or been to a ut football game, you have three and a half hours of loud noise, bands and everything else.
noise is inevitable but it's controlled.
the races are in the middle of the day, not late at night when people are trying to sleep.
as far as the tax base, well, I find it hard to understand how people complain about cota putting money into a wildlife reserve for land that is in a floodplain.
the land that was put into that, my understanding is, is through a floodplain, and being a long-term resident that has part of lone star creek flowing through our property, I can tell you when we get those eight or nine inches of rain it definitely floods down there.
I've had to stop trees when elroy road floods out on a regular basis when we get that heavy rainfall.
it's one of those things.
there's also 600 other acres being developed commercially.
that is bringing a great amount of tax revenue to the del valle independent school district.
I was on the school board for nine years in del valle and I can tell you, that commercial road is vital to the school district for the simple reason right now, because of bergstrom and the school district having to move all their schools, we have a lot of brand-new and wonderful facilities.
but right now they are at the tax limit, so if we had more help, the school district could not build more schools to accommodate.
this commercial growth will help those zonings.
most importantly, the health and safety.
tell them why it may cost the county $1.4 million.
it's a very much needed north-south connection between elroy road and pierce lane, and the campo plan is, my understanding is because they presented to the school board last month, they plan on with the campo plan not only widening ross road in front of kv homes but creating a new road behind kv roads behind 71 and pierce lane to help eliminate and create future growth.
one of the things county did terrible in this area is when ross road was extended between elroy road and pierce lane, the two ross roads weren't connected.
so now to get from a fire station with the sv 11 to a fire -- they have to jump all the way down elroy road to county farms and ross road, turn, come back up to pierce lane, head east again before they can tie into ross road.
by having the kellam road extension whether it's for cota or not doesn't matter.
having that extension will save at least four minutes on any emergency call.
if you have a lifesaving event that is a huge public safety benefit, outside of what cota will present.
so please do not determine or tie road improvements to mckellam road to circuit of the americas.
elroy road has been long overdue for improvement.
mcginnis was due next year.
and kellam road is a great public safety benefit.
as far as the traffic coming in and out, I've been pretty much to all the public meetings that's been held by the elroy preservation and everybody else, and one meeting about a month ago I was fortunate to have my 3-year-old granddaughter with me, and the analogy I used that night and I'll use it to you today, the first year she was walking she fell and she stumbled.
the second year she got around pretty good and the third year she's running and I can't keep up.
cota has to be given the chance to grow and make this event something we all want to see.
it's a great benefit to the area, to the community, it's a great benefit to the school district, but we all have to be good neighbors, and we all have to be reasonable in what we're asking for.
thank you very much for considering this, and please put the numbers in what people are saying about the costs and look at the overall benefit to southeast Travis County.
same people complain we don't have h.e.b.s and wal-marts, we don't have water and wastewater.
cota, whether it succeeds or fails is bringing water and wastewater to that area which will help spark commercial growth.
so the vote factors -- as well as the mass gatherings, because it can be successful for all of the residents in all the area.

>> thank you, mr. Wattinger.

>> good morning.
thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak and thank you to the county staff and Commissioners for their diligence on this issue.
I am primarily concerned that the current roads as they exist today in the vicinity just aren't up to the load that they're going to be required to handle for this event, and that the resulting traffic jams may well affect emergency access for the 20,000-something residents in the area.
similar events in other areas have produced famously massive congestion according to espn, the 2011 kentucky speedway race had been bali whod with the biggest event of the season with a sell-out crowd of 700,000.
unfortunately this will be remembered for the gridlock along I 71, that prevented an estimated 10,000 from getting to the track.
similarly the inaugural race at the Texas motor speedway was a disaster on a lot of fronts, including a massive traffic jam that included 200,000 fans.
in fact, Texas motor speedway's site now says don't forget to allow plenty of time to get to the track because congestion is always a factor, and the nascar web site says traffic tie-ups are part of the experience.
so while I was appreciative of cota's response to my questions, it's rather hard to believe the statement that 3 1/2 years to clear the internal parking lots, travel times for private vehicles should be comparable to what is a typical Austin weekday period, 20 to 25 minutes downtown, end quote.
I'm just having a hard time actually buying that.
I also wanted to point out that this is a three-day event and on a Friday the shuttle buses that are planned to leave from the state garage area around waterloo, that's a working day for state workers so those garages will be full of state workers and I hadn't heard that addressed so I just wanted to mention it.
there are many Travis County residents in this area, obviously, whose health and safety may depend on access for emergency vehicles during this event, or who may just need to get out to work or school themselves, and I don't really believe the plan that's currently on the table would give a reasonable person a feeling of comfort if they had a loved one who happened to fall in harm's way in this area during this event.
it's still not clear from what I have most recently read and what the statesman reported this morning, that all the necessary road shoulders will be available for emergency vehicles to bypass traffic jams and that is a very serious concern.
second, and others have touched on this, the plan as presented today clearly says we actually can't inspect the food service, the kitchen, the licenses, because none of that is in place yet, and same with the fire marshal's -- things that he needs to sign off on.
so you're put in a really untenable position where you're being asked to sign off on things that you can't possibly know and that there are still big gaping holes in the plan.
I do realize the county has sovereign immunity so it can't be held liable in the event something goes wrong but you're responsible for the health, safety of the residents so even if you aren't legally liable I would hope I would give it the same level of scrutiny as if your own family's health and safety depended on it.
I know there's a lot of political money and pressure riding on this but I think there are too many unknowns in the current plan and I don't believe the roads as they exist today and even with the improvements that are in place for November are actually up to handling the number of people that we've been told for this first year event.
and I appreciate the, you know, kids have to crawl before they can walk, but I think that ms. Olive's suggestion that you might want to cap attendance at slightly lower level honestly would be safer for the residents and probably safer for the event itself because if people spend 11 hours sitting in traffic they won't want to buy a ticket next year.
so I would like to support ms. Olive's statement.
I would ask you to withhold action on the plan until you can get some of the bigger holes filled up and really do consider limiting tickets for the first year of the event.
thank you.

>> thank you.

>> thank you, ms. Muffet.
donald haywood?
frank devault, and gus pena.
is mr. Pena here?

>>

>> [inaudible].

>> okay.
then mike elroy?
mr. Haywood?
how are you doing.

>> good morning.
I'm don haywood, 8218 road in del valle.
I moved out there because I didn't appreciate city life living and I wanted a place that was isolated and seemed like that was the place to be.
I've been living there 16 years by myself.
I was out there when wandering creek came on the scene.
I had a few negotiations with butler buying my property but didn't work out.

>> [inaudible] came on the scene so I'm sitting out there with a racetrack in my backyard, have these two huge parking lots to my east.
the --

>> [inaudible] to my west and a huge parking lot to minority so I'm practically surrounded by formula one.
I don't appreciate them for several reasons.
initially they was cordial and I don't want to get sidetracked but something I have contempt for formula one and I don't want to express it too loudly but I do.
if it comes out I apologize and just try to overlook t but the mass gathering thing is -- at least down on the east side of my easement, and I've been trying to visualize in my mind how am I going to get in and out on race day, because, you know, I've been told that people will congregate over there and be transported out in buses and stuff.
you know, getting on elroy road is hard enough just with normal stuff from my vantage point of getting on to elroy road, but, you know -- and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get out and be able to do that in safety.
I don't -- I've never been to a large event so I've never been to a professional sporting event.
I've never cared to.
don't care much about formula one and racing in particular.
I've never had a taste for that kind of stuff.
I hate crowds, but, you know -- but, you know, it's been encroached upon me.
so we've been going -- before I was -- when I was out there formula one came on the scene.
we've had these issues.
I've been threatened numerous times about legal fees and this and that.
I still have a lawyer trying to defend myself -- the mass gathering -- defending myself with a lawyer about threats made to my by formula one.
so this is not the venue for discussing those cins of issues -- those kinds of issues, but the road system and elroy road is not adequate at this time for this kind of crowd that they appear are going to be drawn into this area.
I'm with the president, kathy, about lowering the number of people to attend the event, because, you know, I want to have the freedom to go and come as I please.
I run a business out there.
you know, I've been -- this is my third year trying to run a nursery out there, and I hate to be -- last year I had to -- I've been trying to grow these trees, and I still do, but last year was a hard time because of the drought, and this year is beginning to turn around, and I think I would have a hard time trying to deal with any kind of limitations as far as people coming and going on my property.
you know, I pay taxes.
I want to be able to hire somebody because I run it by myself now, and so I don't want any restrictions.
if I could prevent that from happening, I would like to be able to have my customers come and go, and they've been talking about, you know, having these neighborhood permits and stuff, and I hate to have my -- have to call my customers and tell them, hey, on this particular weekend don't even bother coming by my place because you won't be able to get into the neighborhood.
nobody ever discussed with me about, you know, how am I going to be compensated for that kind of, you know, action.
but anyway, it concerns me, and so I would like somebody to address it.
the last meeting that we had at the public library on elroy road, I talked with mrs.
salinas.
I don't know if she's he's still with your organization.

>> there he is right behind you.

>> and I had discussed with him about the problem that I was having.
mr. Salinas -- I heard her say a minute ago, leave the phone numbers and stuff, somebody will contact you from that point.
but I did call you and I talked to you after the meeting that night and you said that -- to call you, and we'll dove into these problems that I was addressing.
besides that I did call you two or three times and nobody ever called me back.

>> so mr. Haywood is, how will your customers get to you Saturday and Sunday?
had you open on Sunday.

>> I am open on Sundays.

>> any answer to that question?

>> yeah, probably is a question for --

>> if I understand correctly, to make sure I -- I heard your address but you live on the section of elroy road that's across from jacobson road; is that correct.

>> yes.

>> our plan is both

>> [inaudible] road and jacobson road, linden road, wolf lane, I'm sure you're familiar -- you or your customers would be able to come in and out of those facilities.
depending on whether we're talking about before or after the event, going back down elroy road to kellam, going that direction towards 130 may be difficult and we may need to sit down and talk in more detail about that, but the roadways to the east will be available and open during the entirety of the weekend.

>> well, I would make available to you my address and phone number and whatever else you need, because it's something I'm concerned about.

>> could you put that on the back of a card and give them --

>> I will make sure that --

>> okay.

>> the other thing, I just want to ask -- we talked about the water and wastewater, and I haven't seen anybody yet that's been able to tie into your system.
are there people in the neighborhood that are already tied into it?
is that something in the future?

>> that's probably a question for our civil engineer, actually.

>> not yet.

>> note why.

>> any idea -- not yet.

>> any idea when?

>> the water situation --

>> come on up and be on the mic.
that would be helpful.

>> good morning.
my name is charles brigance.
I'm from carlos on brigance engineering, I'm the civil engineer on the f 1 project.
the question is when will water and sewer utilities be operational, if I've got that right.

>> when can residents tie in?

>> the water system that extends potable water out there in want will be operational and accepted by the city by the end of July.
that includes 36-inch and 24-inch water lines and then smaller lines that connect actually to the structures there in the site.
the wastewater system has been extended right now as we speak.
it will be operational in early October.

>> mr. Haywood, is your question when and whether residents could tie into that?

>> yes, there was a big sale when they came on the scene that they would be providing water and wastewater total to te residents of the -- to the residents of the neighborhood, and I want to know when I'll be able to tie into your water and wastewater system.

>> the water system augments the existing system that's there now.
there is an existing water system right there in elroy road, and the city has future plans to expand that system there around the north-south portion of elroy where your property is.
what we're bringing is big water line with good pressure up to elroy road in the vicinity of the main driveway for the property, all the way through the property to 2812 and tie back into the -- to 812 and tie back into the water system in 812 so it improves the water to the entire area and provides for future extensions of utilities and the future for other developments.

>> thank you, sir.
I have a water line that's been in place out there since 1978.
I've been to these -- formula one, from day one, that's why I have this lawyer now trying to keep them at bay.
they've been threatening to cut my water off now for two years.
I have gone through one lawyer, just dealing with water, just getting water to my house.
for two years I've been dealing with formula one about this.
I have another lawyer that I had to -- my first lawyer and i, we had some disagreements about the way things were going, but it pertained only to water.
just plain, simple water.
and like I say, when formula one came on the scene, whoever provides all this will provide all this, water to be included, and I'm just trying to figure out why I'm having a hard time just getting what's already in place.

>> who's the water provider today?

>> city of Austin.

>> I don't see formula one controlling -- or cota controlling city of Austin.
I'm not sure this is related to the mass gathering act --

>> it's not.

>> now, if we can help you on that let us know.
we've got contact information here.
we probably ought to put you in touch with the right person at the city of Austin, seems to me.
any other comments today?

>> sir, one -- a few other things.

>> okay.

>> it has been over two years since formula one bought wandering creek and they should have come to you on day one when they realized this was going to be a racing track.
because I had my suspicion when wandering creek initially approached me because

>> [inaudible] subdivision -- I wondered why they were building in a floodplain.
but instead they waited for you and now the taxpayers are about to bear this burden.
please do not reward them for bad behavior.
I thank you.

>> okay.
can we get the city of Austin to contact you about that water issue?

>> I've been going around and around with the city of Austin.

>> is that a yes or no?

>> no.
I've been going around with them.

>> thank you very much.

>> yeah, my name is frank devoe and I live on 1520 fag er

>> [inaudible] road.
a mile down from elroy road, I've been living there since 1973.
I wasn't going to discuss water issues but the city of Austin does have the ccn to go down about a mile and a half down that road and they only go down maybe about a half a mile with a 2-inch line, and I know there's people down that road there that haul water to their houses still.
I used to do that.
and before I hauled my own water, the county used to have a water haul program till they went way over -- I think it was 25 or $30 a load.
but anyway, that's another issue.

>> should we get the city of Austin to contact you about the water?

>> well, they've got some kind of a county thing where there was meetings out there and this is what things would you like to see get done and I can't remember what that was called.

>> community development block grant?

>> yes, ma'am, that's what it was.
and they put in a 6-inch line from elroy road down -- for the ccm for the city of Austin, and beyond, on the other side of that is aquawater.

>> what about the mass gathering act, mr. Devoa?

>> issues there that I'm mainly concerned about, one is the noise.
I grew up on cesar chavez, it used to be called east first street.
they used to have drag boat races down town lake and those were quarter mile boat races and typically they'd have one or to boats going down at a time.
they were very loud.
you could hear them all the way up on cesar chavez, which is about -- I'd say about a mile or a mile and a quarter, something like that, from the lake, you know.
I think -- they end up addressing the db issue, the decibel issues, and how much it's going to be.
from what I understand right now maybe the county needs to get some db regulations in place.

>> we don't have the authority.

>> okay.

>> we'd have to go to the legislature and get authority.

>> the city of Austin does, don't they?

>> yes.

>> when is the city going to end up annexing this racetrack?

>> good question.

>> pretty soon.

>> they are going to end up --

>> yes.

>> okay, so they're going to be regulating db, I would guess.
so they need to look at, you know, the cost and see these owners -- they put 300 million into this track.
they may have to put another, you know, I don't know, 50 million into putting up wall barriers or something, berms or, you know, planting trees to knock down the noise level or something like that.
you know, I mean, that's -- they got that little motocross raceway down on pierce lane, you know, and I can even hear it at my place with a couple little ringy ding ding motocross going on down there.
not a big issue, I can hardly hear it but I can hear it.
I don't know if they're talking about 120 db's.
I don't know if that's supposed to be -- typically you regulate things at the property line so what I'd like to see put into this permit is that they pay a consultant or the county has got db meters, you know, just put them all the way, you know, you know, different points around this track to see how much noise is actually really coming off this thing.
if I lived over there by that pablo school, I would really be concerned about it because there's no -- the noise is going to have to come up over the hill and to me, but it's still going to reach me, I know.
so the people over there, poppum, le nard development, simplex.

>> the 120 db research I did was track side at the australian grand prix.
so I don't know what it will be here.

>> I have no idea.
that's why to me they need to put into this permit, or require them toned up doing some db testing around their property lines, whatever.
a lot of people think they're -- and I guess maybe some of the land prices out there have gone up, but I got my wife to do an internet search, went to like google, satellite thing, and you look around that racetrack above fort worth in the dallas-fort worth area, the Texas motor thing, within about a two mile radius of that racetrack there's very little development.
it's like a dead zone.
so you're going to look at a dead zone all the way down to probably 973.
you might get some commercial stuff built in there, hopefully we'll eventually get a wal-mart or h.e.b., maybe that will be one of the best things about getting a water or sewer line.
hopefully it has enough capacity that they can connect into it.
I would think they can because looking at the size of the lines they're putting in out there type of thing.

>> anything else?

>> yeah, on the -- on the road issues, I think they're talking about 5 or $6 million to fix elroy road, putting in a bridge and that sort of thing.
I don't know how accurate that figure is.
but if they're doubling the road size and they're mainly doing it for the racetrack, I think it would be fair enough to ask them to pay for half of that.
and then also kellam lane too.
they would never expand kellam lane if this racetrack wasn't being put in.
so to me, cota, they need to be paying for half of that also.
one other thing when it comes to roads and stuff, 812, all these roads including 812, pierce, elroy, they're all one-lane roads, 973 is a one-way road -- two lanes, one lane each way, with no shoulders type of thing.
so the -- I'm having a hard time visualizing people that pay $355 for a ticket are willing to be hauled by buses to this racetrack.
that's just mind-boggling to me.
I can't imagine.
I took a bus -- one time I took a gambling bus to wind star and when it was coming back -- it was on on on a Saturday or something and they had the race at the Texas motor speedway.
there was wall to wall cars, I think all the way back to Austin from that speedway there.
I mean, those cars were within 100 feet of each other all the way and we're going down to 20 to 16 miles an hour, but those cars were always within about a hundred feet of each other.
and that's -- that's on an interstate.
they're located right on an interstate.
now, this thing is located pretty close to that 130.
what they need to do is to have more access to that racetrack, is to work with the reasonable authority people, the toll road people, and put entrance and exit ramps at mcangus, get in and out right there, and this way people won't be taking 973 and going -- between 973 and the toll road, there's a lot of residences in there, a lot of mobile homes -- it's about all mobile homes but that's a residential area right there.
it's a 30-mile-an-hour thing, people will only be doing 20 miles an hour -- 2 miles an hour anyway.
but -- anyway, they need -- they need to end up -- between the toll road then and cota's property down there where mcangus turns, they need to widen that out to four lanes eventually, and again, half that cost ought to be borne by, you know, the cota people and then they need to put the entrance and exit ramps on to 130 there, because 812, pierce and elroy road do have entrances and exits on to 130.
that's going to be the main thing going into this racetrack, and hopefully they'll push people to be doing that.
but I can't imagine only one-third of the cars are people attend -- of people attending this thing is going to be cars.
so -- I think this whole thing is a bunch of pie in the sky and I think eventually after about three years it's -- you know, it's going to kind of -- you know, they may have other things there, you know, stuff too, and I think they're going to be inconsequential.
this thing here is going to be big, but I can't imagine them getting 100,000 people over there in any one day, myself.

>> okay.

>> and, you know -- so -- so, you know, so they need --

>> is there anything else --

>> anything in your applications?

>> this is the roads, right?
this is part of it.
this is what they need to do is maybe delay this thing until such time they make four lanes out of mcangus, elroy road and then that kellam road, they ought to make that four lanes over to -- you know, to pierce too, where people there can either make a right and head back towards houston, either toward wolf or taking pierce, which turns into 525 over to 21 and head back to houston or whatever.
okay.
the other thing is here on this -- I just picked all this stuff up over here.
I haven't had a lot of time to look at it, but they got these transportation and natural resources.
on counter flow operations they talk about counter-flow on pierce.
again, if I was living over there in those kb homes and stuff like that I'd be upset there.
because they got eastbound prayer to race, westbound post-race, mcangus they got something down there and kellam they got southbound prior to race, northbound, but they don't have anything written about elroy road.
so I assume they'll leave elroy road, and I hope they do, going both ways at all times and not have it going one way one time or another way another time.
at 79 my dad had a heart attack and died out at my place and it took forever for an ambulance to get out there back then.
and my son, he was 3 and he was born in '80, so that was probably about '83.
I didn't know it but he was running behind my little garden tractor and it kicked out a wire and shot him through his chest, through his lungs and came up close to his heart there.
and anyway, we learned from my dad, you don't wait for an ambulance, you just throw them in the car and you go to the emergency room.
so I've actually stepped on rattlesnakes out there.
I mean, I always kind of refer to my area as a snake farm out there, and it's -- you know, and there's about three --

>> mass gatherings --

>> the three different times, we need to end upkeeping the roads open and issue these residential permits or whatever so people can, you know, go up and down these roads.
but right now my overall opinion is that

>> [inaudible] the latest thing till they fix the roads.
and the other thing on this thing, I don't quite understand, when they fix elroy road and all that, maybe they need to start putting in more sidewalks.
I think they ought to take this thing out of here where you can't walk or bicycle up or down these roads.
I think that's ridiculous.
like somebody said, how many people are going to actually bicycle as far as moya park and then jump on a bus?
I mean, who's going to wait on the bus and everything when you just got a short distance to go and be there in a tenth the time, by the time you get on and off the bus.
I think a lot of this stuff on here is -- like the -- saying people can't walk or bicycle up there, I think they don't want residences out there -- or people who live out there that has some acreage to allow parking on their place where people can then walk or bicycle to the site.
they want them all to be out there at, you know, the expo center or, you know, maybe if there's some excess parking around the airport area or someplace like that, and then end up catching these buses.
and I -- you know, again, I can't see -- you know, it's 70% -- I think they had in there 70% of these people are supposed to be coming from out of state.
so I mean, I don't know -- I haven't seen any stats on all these other races, how many -- is it true that 70% of the people at all these other races, you know -- is there 100,000 people there?
do they all come from out of state?
I don't know.
you know, so -- anyway --

>> in conclusion?
or are you done already?

>> I'm looking at this thing.
oh, somebody mentioned something about -- you know, if this thing was like a rave or -- they mentioned something else, that they would -- they would deny the permit.
I think they had some little ray things down there almost directly -- rave things directly north of me on pierce road and they ended up shutting those things down, I remember, and I don't know if it was because of possible drug use or whatever, but anyway, they -- there was some permits, I think, that got denied for people -- some promoter to put on a rave dance or whatever that is, you know.

>> thank you very much, mr. Devoe.
you are done, aren't you?

>> well, on the -- on the issues of the helicopter that's going to be over there at the airport, that is only going to be used for people that are at the thing and then from what I understand, the other two choppers that we have would come in, you know.

>> they'd be available for use in central Texas.

>> okay.

>> even that chopper right there that's at the f1 track.

>> the chopper I stay right there three days of the event.
event.
-- the chopper will stay right there three days of the event.

>> okay.

>> mr. Mag elroy?gh.

>> good morning.
I'm a resident of stoney ridge and when I came in here my only concern or biggest concern was the decibel level.
I had never heard anyone address it at all until Commissioner Eckhardt did, so thank you for that.
just to comment, the public outreach has been nonexistent, basically.
the only way I found out about this meeting was there was a sign out off of -- kind of at the intersection of eckerd and 130.
I could make out the fact there was some type of meeting but any of the details I could not make out.
I had to park over in the subdivision, walk out in the middle of the traffic to try to see what was going on there.
so that's how I got here today.
I could be a supporter of the race if it was not located what seems to me to be directly on top of 5,000 single-family homes, and that's all I have to say, really.

>> thank you very much.
thank you for your brevity there, mr. Mac elroy.

>> you're welcome.

>> dave porter?
got him down here twice.

>> dave porter had to leave but I signed up

>> [inaudible] last week and when I speak I'll read a statement.

>> all right.
ronnie reefer seed.

>> [inaudible] franklin.
lefty fisher.
.
is ronnie reeferseed here?
all right.
it's your turn right now to speak.
followed by richard franklin, followed by lefty fisher.

>> okay.
well, thank you so much for allowing us to speak.
one thing that first knocked me out was you're talking about bicycles.
bicycles, people.
this is so absurd.
as we looked at that thing, one little kind of section where they're going to -- people are supposed to bike to and then they're going to get on a bus.
I mean, it's so absurd.
we're talking about long-time taxpayer obligations for what?
for how much profit?
for how long?
and for what?
I was listening real hard and sure enough this little project ends in the year 2021.
huh?
that's like seven years after we sink all this money into it and sacrifice our water table and not to mention noise pollution, not to mention permanent destruction of our environment.
for what?
for some sorry company to come in here and gouge us for seven years and move on and gouge somebody else.
it's so counter to our state of mind here, here in Austin, Texas, the live music capital of the known universe should not be mixed up in some kind of petroleum spewing pollution debacle.
it's so hazy, these crazy figures.
one-third of the -- one-third of the people will be in the shovel and one-third of the people will be downtown in another shuttle and another third of the people will be in the expo center.
they come up with these crazy plans with no -- no real facts to back it up, and of course the number one concern, I think, for all of us has to be noise pollution.
and that didn't even come up until like today.
well, let's start talking about that, and well, I guess we maybe ought to think about that.
you know, the decibel level is -- it's destruction of our way of life here, and not to mention the air pollution.
not to even mention the water pollution.
I mean, on the aquifer, on the water table is -- I don't think we've even come close to looking into what that's going to cost all of us.
and they're talking in their neat little presentation from the county officials about how we're going to have a state-of-the-art mini-hospital will somehow appear there and of course the stadium only holds 125,000 people, and it's 250,000 people over a weekend kind of idea, and that's a small city.
and any small city I've ever been by needs more than one little kind of health and well-being clinic.
it's completely inadequate to what they're talking about to -- so I'm urging you all to obviously deny this mass gathering permit from cota because they haven't showed any capability of handling it in any productive way.
and again, they're going to leave in 20 -- after 2021.
I mean, we put up all this money and everything into it, and again, the noise level should be our number one concern and like the -- for example, the little bicycle route here.
it's on the little handout that we peons can get, figure one bike route.
one tiny thing.
it's so nonsensical that I was just completely -- again, I started my whole thing here with that is so absurd.
I mean, it's just absolutely absurd.
it's so counter to what this whole thing is which is just another petroleum-spewing pollution event that will just ruin our lives here.
and who's getting the pay-off?
who is getting their little shiny dime and their -- in their purse there for putting us through all this.
I'd like to look into that.
I'd like to look to each and every dollar that goes to each of you guys who hold our future in your hands, and it's just, well, one more frivolous -- well, we don't -- we heard some kind of explanation about this, that or the other, nothing but hogwash and we're not being -- we're not being represented, I don't think, in a good way.
one of the many things mr. Jones said when I think needs to be repeated, it is a robin hood in reverse.
here we are the poor people in this city of Austin, we are poor, comparatively speaking, believe it or not, there's a whole lot of poor people, and we're paying for these rich people.
who is going to be going to these events?
I'm never going to pay 600 and some dollars to go somewhere and look at a petroleum-spewing nightmare?
it's not going to be me.
it's not going to be anybody I know.
so why are we all going to have to pay out the wazoo, the family -- I know they're important, but wasting the taxpayer dollars to help them in any way is not what this should be -- why we're supposed to be doing this, one more phrase, is to keep things moving, safety.
and the only thing that makes sense there is to have access denied.
if we care about the safety and I praise you, ms. Eckhardt, for bringing up the decibel level.
that is so key to everything.
and again, for what?
for a short time period of big profits for some little company, small group of stockholders or whatever, and for us, no, we get nothing for this.
we get nothing for the destruction of our wonderful place to live and the reason why so many people love coming here and we're just going to throw it away on this idiotic plan.
so I'm just here to spread my love and joy for all of you and trying to come to grips with the reality and how you still can just say no.
just -- you can do that.
you can say no.
you can put it off, you can do whatever.
we don't have to do this.
and circuit of the americas is, you know -- they're fine people, I'm sure, in their own little way, but not for me.
not for here.
not for Austin.

>> thank you, mr. Reeferseed.

>> thank you.

>> mr. Franklin?

>> good morning, judge.

>> morning.

>> Commissioners.
I -- I was in the military for ten years and I know that when we wanted to get something done in secret we basically did everything on a need to know basis and we kept all information sigh load, which is basic -- siloed which is basically what happened here.
we asked for impact studies when this thing was first announced it was coming into del valle.
to date we have not seen an impact study of any type and here we are still asking the same questions.
we haven't had an impact study done on the environment.
we're talking about noise pollution, water pollution.
now we're also looking at the traffic issues that we have not done again an impact study.
we're kind of piecing on this thing as we go, siloed information is one broad factor where everybody can look at it and see what's going on.
so the only thing we've had an impact study of any type was done on the economics of this process and that was only based on how much money they were going to make, not how much this was going to cost the community.
and that's another issue we're looking at right now, is how much this is actually going to cost the community on a long-term basis.
there's been no impact studies again.
I cannot believe these impact studies don't exist, although we were told by mr. Subtle when he first started this process they didn't have to have them.
I think they should have been necessary before they looked for permits or anything but they still don't exist, or at least we haven't seen them.
there's no access.
and again, we have a lot better understanding because I just heard mr. Wattinger say, I don't know where he's getting his understanding, if there's a study he's looking at he could refer it to us so we could understand like he understands.
I don't understand anything he just said.
I recently heard from the court that the taxpayers wouldn't mind paying for the driveway to the billionaire's playground.
as a taxpayer I'm not happy with it and I don't think you should couch it as a public safety issue.
that's being disingenuous at the very best, and there are lots of roads in this county and suddenly these roads in the southeast part of Travis County aren't taking priority only because we're putting formula one out there.
otherwise they wouldn't be that way and we know that for a fact.
as an aside you may want to come to the del valle school board meeting this evening, maybe you can send a staff member so you can hear the discussion about not enclosing the schools on that day.
I sat on the school board when they made presentations.
that was never mention the.
now it's brought to them as part of the process.
we need to close the schools up and we'd like to use your facilities.
this was never brought before us until now, six months into the process.
if they were going to do that they should have known that from the traffic impact study that they should have had on board that said we may need to use the school district and their facilities and maybe they need to close the schools and they should have presented that last year but instead we're not hearing about it until six months before the process and now we're up against a real timeline.
also, there's never been any discussion about what happens if any of this fails.
this is all assumption -- assumptions we're making right now, this is going to work and we'll make lots of money.
no one said what about well born, what about the fact they left him holding the bag, what if everything fails.
what happens then?
a bunch of questions need to be asked as far as that is concerned.
del valle met with them a year and a half ago -- more than a year and a half ago with mr. Subtles, represented cota and we were told they would get back to us.
we never heard from them again.
that's the del valle community coalition spoke to them and said we represent a lot of people in this community hold be affected by this directly, traffic-wise and mental impact-wise, economic-wise and we didn't hear back from them again.
as if it didn't matter what we cared about or thought at that point.
they haven't come back and said to del valle we'd like to make sure everybody is on board and this is how we can win together.
that's a real issue.
now it's going to something else.
down to 1 here.
sorry.
-- 14 here.
sorry.
there's so much here that's wrong that I normally go off-the-cuff with this.
I can't with this.
there are too many things that have not been asked.
how will other pourings of Travis County be affected, as we were shown on patrols.
the sheriff's department said we've got this covered.
we only hear we're short on patrolmen in the county and yet we'll go out and hire people in off duty time which is going to short them in their time in other places and we're not hearing how that will affect the county controls we're already short on.
we call 911 or 311 to get somebody to our neighborhood.
the response time is fairly great in many instances and yet here we're going to take those additional resources and put them out there and have to make them up somewhere else.
it doesn't matter they get paid out at the formula one, how will that affect us in our communities who need patrolmen in the outlying areas.
that's an impact that nobody talks were.
is the county going to be reimbursed for all the vehicles they're going to use, by the way?
we don't give them money but did we talk about how much money your vehicles -- how much we'll get back --

>> yes.

>> I didn't hear there was part of the process.

>> but there is an ongoing analysis of the response times during the race to see if it affects response time in emergency circumstances.

>> if I may, Commissioner, just in response to that, mr. Franklin, the patrol officers that will be used are not all coming from Travis County sheriff's office.
where is they'll coordinate the hiring of officers, they'll be pulled from a variety of different departments, so it's not as if all the officers that are going to be off duty for the cota facilities are going to be, you know -- those are all being drawn from the sheriff's office.

>> I understand that.
what I'm saying is if there's an impact of any type, a study could be done where we could look and say, this is where these people are going to come from, therefore it's going to impact it over here or not impact it over here.
again, if there's no impact, then we don't have a conversation.
but the fact that you said what you said knows there is a impact that will happen in our community, so it may not just be one or two or three cops, the police officers in the area, but the reality is it will impact us subway but we don't know -- some way but we don't know how.
I'm also concerned about the fact we'll do away with walking or hiking or biking, when we're a hike and bike kind of community now.
so we can't walk or hike by this facility at all on a taxpayer paid road that we just paid for with our tax dollars that we were told that it's okay, because we're good to do that.
and lord help you if you have anybody in that area that has a friend or family that wants to visit you on that day.
I understand we're going to have people who live in the area are going to be passes, but what if I have a friend who wants to visit me, if there are family members coming down for the weekend?
how are they going to be responded to?
again, part of the impacts aren't being talked about.
the only people that think this is a great idea right now are those people who have a financial stake in the matter.
let's talk about that for real, because right now the people in our community have no idea -- I just heard we're going to have some kind of development in that area.
we haven't seen any development -- any of these processes have been -- any of these formula one's been built around the world that's created a great deal of economic development and suddenly we're in the middle of nowhere and we're promised 600 acres of development.
2500 seasonal jobs.
it doesn't make sense that they'll be selling hotdogs or peanuts two or three times a year and that doesn't help people who can't pay taxes on their homes and losing homes in rapid areas, they'll now get a seasonal job in we can't depend on that.
and we haven't talked about economic impacts for the community as a whole, what it will bring, what it could happen.
there's been no conversation -- the only people who will make money out of this are the people who are directly influenced by it and the few people who stepped up to this podium.
thank you.

>> thank you, mr. Franklin.
mr. Fisher?

>> yes, thank you.
my concerns with traffic -- I live at 15009 fagger quest road.
elroy is my means of getting to and from my home.
I work construction.
I work a 15 hour day.
I work six days a week.
so for me this and every event that goes out there is going to impact me.
my wife and I own 42 acres throughout.
in 2009 we were only one of two usda organic certified ranches in the state of Texas, so this is a big impact on us.
the traffic, particularly with the buses coming from Travis County expo and using the 130 to pierce lane.
we had a meeting with cota on their property.
we were told that there were going to be 50 buses, maybe 500 buses -- I think it was 50 buses.
those buses, when they gave us the number, if you stack those buses end-to-end would be 10 miles in length, and pierce lane exit off of 130 is wide enough for a car or a truck.
you stack up 10 or 12 buses there, you can no longer use that exit for anything else.
and we were told they were going to use that for their buses and make a right-hand turn, go down pierce lane to 973 and make a left on 973 to go to elroy.
but they've eliminated me being able to get to my home off of 130, which is the route that I use.
my office is in Pflugerville on heatherwild boulevard and I use 130 to go home to avoid the mess on 35, and I use it in the morning to go to work.
I won't be able to use the elroy exit, and they stack up the buses on pierce lane.
I won't be able to use pierce lane earlier this past month we had an accident on burleson involving an apd officer.
the injury was severe enough they shut down burleson behind the airport.
all it was was work traffic at 7:30 in the morning.
the road was closed so we had a choice.
we could make a choice and go 973 to 812 over to 183, or hang a right on 973, go to 71 and take it to 183, and my thought was that if this was race day, 812 is out of the question.
this is just morning, go to work traffic.
this is not people going to a race.
took me from 973 elroy to go to 971 to get through the traffic because they shut down burleson road, took me 43 minutes to go nine and a half miles and you're telling me they have it all worked out and it's going to flow like juice out of a bottle.
there was already a comment made that -- about children walking, and stumbling their first year out of the box.
well, I can tell you I've got two grandsons and I'm not giving them the keys to my car.

>> [laughter] one of them is 3 and one of them is a year and a half, so if this is their first year out of the box and they don't know how it run yet and they can't provide the answers to Travis County nor to the citizens of elroy, then I suggest we cut back their permit to 100,000 people.
teach me and show me that you can do this first before I give you the keys to the car.
because once you give it to them it's too damn late to take it back, and once that three-day event turns into a pile of garbage, it's too late to say stop, stop, we can't do this.
that event is going down.
as to the noise pollution, I will tell you right now that term 15 is less than 50 feet from elroy road.
they've got a grandstand planned on turn 15, I believe it's turn 15 or turn 20 and every single car facing that race is coming up -- stays in that race is coming up on the turn.
and those cars make as much noise as a 747 taking off and you're going to have 30 or 40 of those cars running for three and a half hours.
and that's not one day, that's three days, and that's not one race, that's every other weekend.
and they had no noise system set up to stop any of that.
but I do think we need to take a look at this pierce lane thing and how those buses will be spaced out and how cars will be able to use pierce lane so that I can at least get home at night during these events, because this is not the only event that's going to happen.
thank you.

>> thank you, mr. Fisher.
john mackno?
trays elaine as?
mr. Macno still here?
okay.
mr. Bacon, if you'd wait a couple minutes here.
I called four instead of three.
mr. Mackno, mr. Salinas and mr. Piece.

>> good morning, john briscoe, and county Commissioners and staff.
my name is john macno and I own 113 acres in elroy Texas on elroy road, bordered on all sides of the circuit of americas.
we share over a mile of common border.
I have been a resident in elroy for over 15 years.
in brief I am 100% for the mass gathering permit and f1's traffic plan.
as a resident property owner and neighbor I look forward to formula one coming to Austin, Texas.
thank you.

>> thank you.

>> thank you.
mr. Salinas?

>> thank you, judge, and Commissioners.
two quick things and I'm going to try not to take my three minutes.
first I'd like to read a quick statement on behalf of dave porter with the chamber of commerce who was here earlier but he had to leave earlier for a meeting.
dave wanted me to mention that on behalf of dave, who is the vice president of economic development for the Austin chamber of commerce, the chamber, which has 2500 members representing 150,000 central Texas employees fully supports the circuit of the americas permit application for the united states grand prix.
and respectfully requests that judge Biscoe grant this permit.
one of the reasons the chamber supports this is because of the economic development implications, commercial development spin-off that's coming and as a chamber believes that this is the catalyst we've been waiting for along the sh 130 corridor in southeast Travis County.
now, quickly, judge, a couple points for clarifications and I'll be here for questions you may have after we finish the public hearing.
a couple things I've heard earlier that I wanted to clarify on behalf of cota, there was a number, about 250,000 people coming in a day.
that's not correct.
it's 250,000 people over a three-day period.
on race day it will be 125,000 people.
I just want to get that clarified.
number two, we mentioned -- somebody mentioned ticket prices would be $365 and wasn't going to be affordable and don't know how people would be able to come from the community.
we're not releasing ticket prices for general admission, I can't do that today but I can tell you very soon we will and it will be very affordable for a three-day pass tong event.
I spoke to mr. Haywood after he spoke about why I was unable to return his call.
apparently at that community meeting that we had, he asked that I reach out to him, and then he called me.
the lawyers stopped me from calling.
we had a legal dispute that was going on about the water line.
it's been worked out but that's why at that point I was not able to return the call.
I try to return all my calls.

>>

>> [inaudible] blame the lawyers.

>> [laughter]

>> also, with regards to environmental studies, someone mentioned that there had been no environmental studies and that's not correct.
there have been several environmental studies, all in accordance with the city and the county rules and regulations.
and all of these studies were made public during our permitting process.
our civil engineer, charles brigance is here, if there's questions about those studies after this hearing he'd be happy to answer those as well.
last things regards to notification.
I'm just personally happy to hear that one of the residents found out about the public hearing through the signs that were posted because I think everybody that was involved in that process can tell you it was quite an ordeal and ashley kegel in my office is grateful that somebody saw one of the signs she's been posting and reposting for the last couple weeks.
thank you, judge.

>> I have one question for mr. Salinas.
it's also a point of clarification with regard to job creation.
my understanding from the economic development application is that the number of jobs, full-time jobs that will be created is 54.

>> that's not correct.

>> that is according to cota's economic development application that I believe was signed by mr. Epstein.

>> I believe the number is -- yes, between 2 and 300, so that would be something we would be happy to correct.
it's about 200 and 300 permanent jobs this project will create and then on race date, for like the formula one race, we'll have up to 6,000 seasonal temporary employees.

>> according to the application it is 3,580 temporary part-time employees, and of the 3,580 plus the 54 there is a note attached in the application that says the permanent full-time, part-time temporary includes contract -- includes contract labor, the distribution will depend on how fully the facility is used year-round.
so even the full-time employees may actually be contract labor.

>> we'll be happy to get any clarification for you that you need.

>> but those are the numbers -- not my numbers but actually the permit submitted by cota.

>> like I said, we'll get you clarification.

>> mr. Peas?

>> morning, judge.

>> Commissioners, thanks for the time to actually spend a little bit of time here and talk to you.
I've noticed over the morning that there is much more time to talk, not that I'm going to talk that, than you get at the city council, so I appreciate that.
if you have any questions for me during this, you can go ahead and ask those questions.
stop me at any point.
one thing we seem to be lacking that I hope to bring into this is someone who's actually been to a lot of races, and that would be me.
I'm in favor of granting this application for a couple of reasons, among them, it's good for the community.
whether it's good for cota, whether it's going for mr. Epstein, whether it's good for all the investor, I can't address that.
these are terribly expensive things to do for them.
from a standpoint of what the county or the city will contribute to this, it's very minor.
I don't work for them.
in fact, I've written a couple pieces in which I questioned some things that they do.
we don't know the number of people that will come from out of town.
we don't know the number of people that will come locally.
I hope it's as many people as they can bring here.
from the standpoint of I don't live out there in that area of Commissioner Gomez, I am in her precinct but I'm closer in to town, it is an area that is long ignored by the county financially, and so I understand why she supports it, and I support her for that reason.
it is good for local businesses because we're going to bring people in.
when people come in they spend money at hotels, they spend money at restaurants, they spend money taking taxis or rental cars or whatever else there is, ?en -- they spend money.
it's out in the country, races take place out in the country.
things build up around them.
if you look at Texas motor speedway six or seven years ago there was nothing out there around there.
I was absolutely amazed that there was a marriott, it wasn't a marriott then because it wouldn't do very well as a marriott.
it was a doral.
it was a nice place to stay, there was no one there except at race time.
on race days traffic is horrible.
anywhere you go in the world to a race, traffic is horrible.
I've actually read the entire plan.
and I think they've done a pretty good job with what they've got.
I mean, the sheriff will be challenged by this, the city will be challenged by this, everybody is going to be challenged bianca, but this the end -- by this, but in the end it's a pretty good plan.
I don't know what they're going to do on Friday morning when all those state workers go to work.
maybe they're going to give them a day off.
I don't know.
the parking garages, if they don't, those state garages won't be available to park in, but people will find somewhere to park.
people will park farther away.
I think it's a great plan that they'll be able to board a bus downtown, ride it out to the track.
once they get to the track, they'll have to walk to wherever it is that their seating is.
nobody has mentioned that so I'd consider that, but I think the people would go to the -- when they go there they expect this.
they expect there will be delays.
if you're going there as a novelty, you've never been to a race before, you have no interest in racing, you just think it's a pretty good deal, okay?
like someone mentioned, a ut football game.
it's very much like that.
if you're a ut fan, if there's a three-hour delay when you leave the game, so be it.
but you want to see the game.
there's something about being there as opposed to seeing it on tv.
I think it's all new for most people here.
everybody in this room in all likelihood, all of this is new.
whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm in the going to address that issue.
it's a good thing if you're a race fan.
it's a bad thing if you're opposed to racing and for most people it's just a thing, that's it.
somebody said that only millionaires go to this, or they inferred, I should say, that only millionaires go to this.
that's not true.
if that were the case you would have to find 120,000 millionaires to go to this.
mr. Salinas on my left is not releasing ticket pricing, but I believe ticketmaster last night said ticket prices would start this Sunday morning, 9:00, at $159.
I would assume that's plus tax.
for a total of about 170 to attend the race.
this is for general admission, which doesn't get you a bleacher seat.
it doesn't get you a psl.
it doesn't get you any of those things but it gets to you the race and it gets to you the race on time.
I'm just looking over my notes here.
will it work?
I don't know if it will work.
nobody knows if it will work.
I suspect that mr. Epstein seated right behind me hopes more than anybody else in this room that it works.
although I hope that it works.
it's undone in this area.
we're known as the live music capital of the world.
that's how we think of ourselves, but we're subject to change, like everybody else.
if we were able to pay the county taxes and continue to build roads and more schools and that, just being the live music capital of the world, that would be wonderful, but we can't.
we all know that our taxes are going up.
will it be an inconvenience to the local residents?
absolutely.
there's no getting around it.
I'm inconvenienced -- I live close to downtown, I'm inconvenienced about every week.
somebody has a marathon.
I've referred to it as the marathon of the week.
I don't even know what it's for, but it's out there blocking either congress avenue or riverside or somewhere else.
I see people running about, they're having a good time.
they're local or they're not local, but they're all in here and they're having a wonderful time.
the fact that we're going to block some roads, slow some traffic and that out in the elroy area is probably annoying to the citizens out there, but beyond annoying, and I think Commissioner Gomez brought this up, safety is paramount.
there are people that live in that area.
they will choose to stay home or if they can afford to go somewhere else and rent out their home.
but we need to make sure that they're covered.
I think that that area needs really to be addressed as far as emergency services go.
I'm not worried that we have enough deputies out there.
I am a little concerned that we have enough helicopters out there.
I'd probably up the number from three in central Texas to possibly three on-site out there.
it's not going to hurt to have a couple extra helicopters out there.
it's going to cost a little bit more money, but I think it's money well spent.
the city, I know, has ems personnel that I've seen.
they have bmw motorcycles, I'm not dropping a name brand in there -- that can respond to incidents on the highway, they can get between lanes of traffic and get down to that.
it may sound like I'm making this all up, but 40 years ago when I lived in anchorage, alaska everybody went north to work on the pipeline and I got stuck with how does the city operate their taxicabs, buses and that.
none of this is really new to me, I just haven't done it in a while.
is it going to be noisy?
absolutely.
oh, yeah, I mean, there's no denying it's going to be noisy, and for race fans they love the noise.
so I would suggest that if I could give anybody any advice, the last race I went to was in monterey last year, and I had about 100 extra pair of earplugs with me.
I gave them to kids, I gave them to everybody else.
for whatever reason, it's noisy at these things.
Commissioner Eckhardt brought out that it's probably 120 decibels, and that's track side, if I heard remember correctly, at the australian brand pre.
it gets to be -- grand prix, it's less as you get further away but it won't be anywhere you don't hear the noise, until you get far far away.
track side people generally are prepared for that.
they have either earphones or they have earplugs or they have something else when they get there.
it's an ambitious movement plan, but one that takes people from the expo center straight down 130.
also takes them out from downtown, takes them across mlk all the way to 130 and down from there.
but looking at the plan, as I did yesterday, and last night again, looks like a good plan.
they're coming off the places they should come off.
they're making a circle.
they're moving one way, and all of this adds to that.
I've worked the academy awards in hollywood.
I've seen the sheriff's department in l.a.
do all the parties, the after-parties, everything like that, and I've helped coordinate transportation for those things.
it's very similar in that for one evening or one time you're going to see a lot of vehicles try to move at the same time.
it's going to move slowly.
I would have some concerns that perhaps -- and I haven't looked at the plan enough to see how they're going to stage those areas, where they're going to have the shuttles, but I certainly would have enough restroom facilities there that while you're waiting for your shuttles, you can go ahead and use the restroom before you get on the shuttle and then you take your time to get back to town.
I think they're a little bit on the, let's say, liberal side as far as time and movement right there, but they'll clear that up.
they're going to find out pretty quickly how long it's going to take to get somebody from the buildings downtown or from the expo center down there, and they'll adjust for that.
maybe they -- in all likelihood they won't get it right the first time, but they'll get it right.
I might actually be near the end.
isn't that nice.
if I could fault them for anything, I would fault the lack of communication and hope that it gets better over the time frame that we have the six months going between now and then, where everybody who has a question may be in some sort of format -- maybe in some sort of format can ask that question and alleviate some of the concerns of the people who are either in the area but not attending the race, in the area for attending the race.
I mean, I've read article after article about what you should expect when a european comes to visit or someone else.
these are the most traveled people in the world.
they go everywhere.
none of them starve to death.
none of them can't find a place to stay.
it's -- it's in -- in many ways it's scary because we've never done it before as a community.
but I think we'll be okay.
and that will conclude it for me unless anybody happens to have a question.

>> thank you very much.

>> thanks so much.

>> Ron bacon.

>> I'll make this --

>> our final speaker.

>> yes.
thank you, court.
on -- I'm a little bit country, I'm a mcangus, has about 100 residents live along that stretch of road in the mobile home parks, and by looking at the exhibit a and the legend I'm trying to figure this out.
the three-day -- I guess the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of the races, is mcangus going to be heading just one direction on those days or is it -- it will?
all right.
how would my residents come in and out to do their daily errands and such on that day?

>> they would just need to follow that one-way loop, so certainly they'll need to come in and out the appropriate direction.

>> so they'd have to go down mcangus and go up that way?

>> correct.
is your location east of 130 or west?
not that it really matters.
I'm just curious --

>> it's both.
there's a little bit country --

>> yeah.

>> you can't get on to 130 off mcangus.

>> the loop that the shuttles take, elroy 973, mcangus and back, while we don't intend that to be open to all vehicles, certainly local residents will be able to access that --

>> yeah, that's my concern as well, where when you get these passes, and they do have -- a resident has already asked me like if they have family coming or friends, how would that be -- how would they come visit their relatives there?

>> I think the best way to address it is the plan is working with all different agencies has just been finalized and worked through, so the kellam addition, which just got finalized about a month ago, kind of drove changes to our plan so working with all the stakeholders, I think we have consensus on this is the optimum plan giving the roadway network that we have.
and so we're planning to address each group, just like stoney ridge and others, how to best handle each individual, because the answer -- the optimal answer will be different for each group.
in your case you're on a roadway we're trying to make sure is dedicated for shuttles only.
however, we recognize there are residences and businesses along there we have to accommodate.

>> will there be a police officer on the roadblocking traffic and all that?

>> yeah, there's a plan to have officers at basically every key intersection, so in this case at mcangus and 183 to manage the flow.

>> can residents go both way on the road if they're a resident only?
that sounds inconvenient.
they have to loop around and --

>> the reason we did that is that we really need the ability for the shuttle to flow smoothly, and get to into details.
because there's two shuttle lots, there's a scenario that one shuttle vehicle will need to pass another shuttle vehicle, and so if that's happening we can't have a scenario where a vehicle is coming back the opposite direction of track.
that would shut down everything.
the best scenario is to keep it one way.
that will be resident for residents --

>> are the shuttles gulf coast both ways?

>> no, one way also.
all traffic, whether they should be there or not, should all be going the same direction.

>> but I'm talking about maybe 50 or 60 vehicles, so I mean, not talking a lot of vehicles.

>> yeah, for the local --

>> yeah, for the local people.

>> for the local people, there isn't a huge amount -- we think a plan should work well for the shuttle vehicles and we'll be able to accommodate a few local residents that are coming in and out.
actually we've spoken with some of the landowners.

>> yeah, I'm trying to figure out, as it happens, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, what will happen that day when you get a permit?
how do we.

>> the county engineer, mr. Greer, give him the information, and we'll try to work with you on that.
we're talking about county roads.
we do have traffic regulations, but at the same time we know we have residents that live out there, and so we need to try to accommodate them to the extent we can.

>> yeah, is there any --

>> david greer is the engineer on the end there.
why don't we let him know how to contact you, and you all get together on that.
he can work with cota also to make sure that that goes smoothly for your residents.

>> well, to address the court, I mean, is there any way you could maybe make it where the residents can go both ways on that road?

>> you're not going to want to go both ways on that road.
it's -- I think their traffic engineers are correct.
you're actually better off having a one-way.
in terms of not being able to avoid the race --

>>

>> [inaudible] flow one way?

>> huh?

>> 973 is one way.

>> no.

>> that will be both ways?

>> the court would defer to the county transportation experts anyway.
and to the extent that we can accommodate you and your residents, we ought to do that, and the point person at the county would be david greer.

>> okay.
all right.
that's all.
thank you.

>> those are the persons who signed in to speak at this public hearing.
ms. Olive gave us a few questions a few minutes ago, a few issues.
are we prepared to deal with any of those now?

>> I think so, judge.
would you prefer we give her back a written response or just go through the questions?

>> ms. Olive, what's your preference?
a written response or verbal oral response today?

>> are you prepared to make a decision today?

>> we're going into executive session in just a minute and hopefully we'll be in there only five or ten minutes and my intention is to make a decision.
today.

>> we've written them out so we can make copies so each Commissioner has a copy, and you do, judge, but also give those to ms. Olive.

>> okay.
why don't we do this, then, ms. Olive.
why don't you check with them while we're in executive session.
when we come back out we'll see what progress, if any you've made and we'll do that.
under consultation with the attorney, exception to the open meetings act, we will now convene in executive session to ask our lawyers a few questions that I need clarified, and when we return to open court my intention is to make a decision.

 

>> we have returned in executive session where we discussed item no.
1 only, and we'll discuss the other executive session items this afternoon.
let me just indicate for the record that subpart d proposed Travis County traffic regulations and action item no.
16, we will call up this afternoon after we reconvene, probably at about 1:30 or so.
but as to the application for a mass gatherings permit, I find that plans for the event as described in the application and the reports that we received today are adequate and that it is reasonable to expect that preparations for the event will be substantially completed by the time of the event.
and I grant a permit to conduct the event in the manner described in the application and the reports on the condition that cota shall notify the county judge if and when any circumstances arise that necessitate significant changes to the plans for event described in the application and the reports or that will preclude preparations for the event as described in the application and the reports from being substantially completed in time for the event.
I note for the record that county staff in various departments have met with cota representatives, I guess for months now, so we have been following developments pretty closely.
we've had this item on the court's agenda every week for at least two months, if not more, and I appreciate that there is work to be done between now and the event, and we will monitor that work and make sure that the commitments made in the application and the reports that we received are met.
we will sign an order to that effect today.
thank everybody for coming down, which with the people on both sides, both cannot be happy.
but I think that based on the facts that we had before us, that's the appropriate decision to make.

>> thank you, judge and Commissioners.

>> judge, may I ask a question?
I would like, however, for the decibel level to be investigated as far as what can be expected and what mitigation cota is pursuing for that decibel level, and I would also ask that we be provided any agreement with regard to establishing a baseline on box, knox and particulate and future monitoring of box, nox and particulate.
I think they're important to the public safety, not only of the attendees but also of the residents.

>> absolutely, we'll work directly with you but also keep the other Commissioners and judge apprised of that as well.

>> there is that plus some other things that some of the speakers raised, like access to businesses, access to church, access to home.
we just have to work through those over the next few months and try to accommodate those concerns as much as possible.

>> we've gotten a few cards from residents who did ask to be contacted.
we will make sure they are contacted, and we'll also try to get some information on the web site in addition to what's already there, just to answer some of the questions that we heard today.

>> and, judge, I have been getting some emails as well about questions, but I think staff, as you all have done for the past few months -- you all have worked very well together, and with cota as well, and so I was informed of the process as we went along, and so I was getting comfortable with each step as it went along, but there was no question but that county staff and cota officials have met on a regular basis and have really worked out details, and for that I'm really appreciative.
as we say in county government, collaboration, communication, cooperation, and that seems to have worked here.
but I'll continue forwarding those emails to staff for responses to constituents who have questions that come up about how to deal with various issues that come up.
but thanks so much to all of you, and I agree that the issue about the decibels is important.
it probably is even more important than that, something that we're going to continue having to ask the legislature about.
I have little old ladies calling me, and they don't live anywhere close to the racetrack but there are some people move out of the city because they want to get away from city life and city noise and all that, and so when they go out into the county, they feel that, you know, there aren't any ordinances so we can make all the noise we want.
and it does affect other people who live close by.
so there's no doubt that noise ordinances are needed in the county, but right now we don't have that authority to do -- to take care of that.
but I think as we go along the -- one more cooperative act from cota is to maybe the planting of trees or whatever, berms or whatever else can help mitigate that issue for our constituents.
but thanks so much to everyone.

>> and we'd like to echo the thanks to the county staff.
I mean, they've been unbelievably helpful, including the staff in your offices.

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