Travis County Commissioners Court

June 26, 2012 - Item 15
Agenda

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Number 15 is, receive briefing and take appropriate action regarding recommendation to send Fire Marshal and/or other county representatives to observe preparation for and running of formula one race in London, England, on July 7, 2012.
Now, what I gave you a moment ago were two little emails.
One from the fire marshal and the second one from major claire of the Travis County sheriff's office, and each of them attempts to indicate what benefits they believe an on hands visit to see formula one in person in london, england, would make.
As I say in my email, I had a conversation with cota representative and during that conversation I indicated my belief that if the county were to send appropriate county professionals to see the formula one race in england, then it would be beneficial.
And my thinking was that you could try to learn all you could about formula one races from afar, but that was not the same as actually seeing one in person.
And I ruled out the county judge going because I thought that would look like a conflict of interest and super political.
I did not think that it would look that way if we sent the county people who, in fact, were involved for the county on a day to day sort of evaluation and more toring of the formula one venue being prepared for that first race.
And I don't think I was mistaken on that.
It was actually last Wednesday I had that conversation and chatted with danny and the fire marshal about it the same day.
I have since chatted with the sheriff because earlier I was saying maybe it makes sense for the starflight to go instead of the sheriff's office, but when danny and I chatted, we kind of concluded that it mate a lot more sense for the sheriff to send a representative and I chatted with the sheriff himself about that.
So rather than -- and I sort of reached conclusions myself just based on what I have learned about formula one here and what I've heard.
So I kind of concluded that the benefits would greatly outweigh disadvantages of, you know, so going made a lot more sense.
And I asked them to prepare a sort of statement of what they saw the benefits being and if they would share those with us today.
Now, the formula one people said they would pick up virtually all the cost and on my own I said the county typically pays per deem, 45, $50 a day.
I had forgotten it varies on vacation so the per deem for new york city is much higher than say san marcos or for that matter san antonio.
And I also said that if the county -- if the court asks these professionals to go, then they would be on the county payroll.
So they would pay whatever they would be making if they were performing the same duties and responsibilities here in Travis County.
Those are the two expenses that I thought the county would pick up and I thought cota would pick up the others, plus this close to the race, it may be difficult to get air travel and hotel accommodation reasonably close to the venue over there in england.
So I've been thinking and talking and, you know, kind of making decisions, but the only decision so far has been the judge to put it on the agenda.
The Commissioners court hasn't acted on it and I tried to make it clear ultimately it's the court's call.

>> And judge, I would agree with your comment, with your reasoning on it and the reason is that I think these folks have been working with croat cota since the very beginning and doing the planning but this would be one way to get a hands-on type of view of what's going on over there and perhaps be able to add that to the planning that you've already done with -- on the race track.
So I mean I just -- I think it's very reasonable to believe this is the way to do this.

>> What difference would it make to y'all?

>> Well, judge, we have been involved with them for going on two years now as far as permitting buildings and things like that and myself and my staff, I think we've done a good job in getting -- we understand the fire code, we understand how a building needs to be built, we know how to inspect that building.
This is going to be the largest operation of this kind that I've ever been involved with.
So 120,000 people in a single event in unincorporated area is going to be something that's pretty new to Travis County.
So operationally I do have some questions and I do have some concerns.
I can tell what you the fire code says about fire alarms, but I would like to be able to look at how other people do that.
So I think there would be some great benefit as far as looking at how operations are conducted.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> We really would benefit from having a firsthand look at how they structure their staffing, whether they are using civilian positions in certain locations which would help us with staffing as well.
The way they staff the command post.
What agencies need to be included on site, off site.
Their traffic plan.
I believe they use contraflow in that area because this location is very similar to the characteristics of the elroy location.
It's in a rural setting, roads not the best roads.
It looks like elroy does.
From their past changes, whatever experiences they have, I would think it would be reasonable for us to focus on that so we don't repeat those, so that we come back with those plans already made instead of having to fix that in the second or third year of the race.
Communications plan is important, as herschel mentioned.
What kind of technology they are use to go help with staffing because cameras and radios are significantly important for all that communication.
So the other thing is the cooperation with multiple law enforcement agencies.
Would the local, how they work together and the national and international levels of agencies that we'll need to be having contact with because you can get some of those agencies will be here in November as well.

>> I did take the liberty of putting john hilly on notice we may have a few legal issues about potential conflict of interest so the county attorney will be basically be available to answer those questions in executive session and two or three of the questions I got from the statesman so we thank the Austin american-statesman for those.
Court members, questions, comments?

>> I hear what you are saying about the benefits of seeing it firsthand and the learning curve there.
A question I have is what would be the exact time frames?
What would the travel date time frames be?

>> My understanding is, and this only from discussion at this point is that folks will leave on the 3rd of July and come back the Monday after the race, which I believe is the 9th.
As far as Travis County folks.
But I'm not exactly sure on that.

>> Here's where I'm headed with this because this is my concern.
It's purely selfish for the residents of Travis County.
We've got the fourth of July in the middle of that, we've got the fire marshal going overseas.
It's like give me a comfort zone for the citizens of how we're going to have our key people in place in the event we had a wildfire because we are moving in that direction from the standpoint of conditions.
With a major holiday that is problematic.

>> It is a holiday that every year has its challenges and I've discussed some with the assistant fire marshal that should this occur that I'm out of town, and actually two weeks ago we sat down and talked about who is going to work and who is going to work when.
I have six assistants or six deputy fire marshals, one of which is the assistant fire marshal, and they are all already planning to work.
If I'm in town, I'll be out working too, but if I were not, of course there will be six deputy fire marshals that will be -- that they have already given.
When they go to work, they give up July 4th of their life.
So all six of those deputies will be working.

>> Unlike the gentleman said this morning, you really don't have a fire hose to help put out the fire, you do other things.

>> That's correct.
The Travis County fire marshal's office do not put out fires.
The emergency service district and Austin fire department do an excellent job of putting our fire, but when we come there, we would like the fire to be out.

>> But prevention and planning really are important.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Law enforcement also is a critical player in evacuation and management during a wildfire too.
I'm just concerned about leadership because I know when we had the wildfires, everybody who could was out there working on it.

>> You are right, it's all hands on deck and I would have to say while things -- I believe last year went very, very well, although there was room for improvement.
We learned some things from that.
Captain frank loston will still be around, captain paul knight will still be around.

>> Now, sheriff hamilton is not going to london, is he?

>> I don't believe sheriff hamilton is in the pool of parties.

>> Just one other quick question.
To me, explain the difference to me of our people going over there and watching one race or -- and to me the cost, from the standpoint of usefulness to our race, the difference between our people going over and observing one race or cota funding the expertise that's over there has been around for multiple races to be here with our people during the actual race, to side saddle you.

>> Am I first?

>> Actually I can't speak to cota's thoughts on that.
Cota is not formula one.
Cota is just circuit of the americas.

>> Semantics, getting that expertise to come here during our race.

>> There are a few questions we would like to ask too since we have not talked with cota with regard to this trip taken fire marshal, I'll speak on behalf of the fire marshal, benefit that's listed here is we would like to be before the event as well as the event.
This is not something where we look at as far as entertainment and actually going to a race.
This is seeing how the race is done both before and during.
So this is a work trip.
This would not be an entertainment trip.
In fact, I've asked the fire marshal to present me a report when he gets back to really highlight what it is that he did learn from that particular trip so we can share it not only with this office and the fire marshal's office but to whoever would like to read it.
Again, there are things we would need to ask because it is formula one, not cota, and that is would they allow us access before the race and where and to what.
But it would be of benefit as the fire marshal just listed out, these are some very valuable benefits that we could learn from and I think major claire even put in her notes rather than go through trial and error on some things, why not go ahead and learn them ahead of town so we can benefit from that before the race.

>> Well, and I think on per diem, if that's approved, that really means the person is on the job.
You know, if they are going to cover that cost.

>> I wanted to make that clear too.
Herschel does not get patriot overtime.
He's an exempt employee.
The number of hours he would normally be paid anyway so this is not a situation where we're going to be paying him extra money.

>> But jose is here and we kind of look toward him for guidance as well so he might have some comments.

>> Just a couple of comments.
Should formula one accept that they are going to pay for expense, we ask the court to accept that as a contribution to the county.
We've done that before.
On the per diem side, as we use the g.s.a.
Tables for locations and meals, g.s.a.
Does not provide foreign rates but the department of state does.
And we have come up that there's a table that's $144 a day for per diem, meals only, for foreign countries.

>> $144 a day is --

>> Meals only per diem.

>> Now, is that for the secretary of state going over there or just a regular federal employee?

>> That's department of state.
The table set by the department of state which kind of goes to the i.r.s.
Tables, make that you are sha that's what they --

>> Going to make me wish I was a federal employee.
Commissioner Eckhardt.

>> I think it's highly probable the benefits in education and preparedness will outweigh the costs even with the per diem that's at $144 a day.
I totally recognize that we've got some known unknowns, to steal a phrase.
Where I see that this can be an additional benefit is just as you say, major claire, making contacts during the race that aren't cota because this isn't cota's race.
And that's -- because there was no backup on this item, I had a list of questions that we might not even know the answers to yet.
I was wondering if we had had the opportunity to see which formula one races before November are most comparable to what we are likely to see.
And if so, is the silver stone race the most comparable.
Do we know?

>> From the conversations I've had about the few races, the silver stone is a fixed track that's used for formula one.
The -- I tried to contact the people in canada several months before their race asking questions, some questions I had about things that were going on here, and as near as I can tell from them is that that race is on an island.
The track is there full time, but their structures are not.
The structures come and go.
And so they are not there full time.
But in looking at the silver stone track on line, it appears that they have a similar grand stand and a similar paddock club, similar media center, which are the main structures where people will be during the race.
So from that standpoint, it has some of the same buildings and arranged in a similar manner.

>> The other question hi is do we yet know the -- we might not know this yet because this came down pretty fast, from what I understand.
What the comparable governmental entities to the county fire marshal and --?
Silver stone?

>> I have not.

>> That's is the contact we want to make.
And do we know -- I'm assuming, and I don't know, this is total assumption on my part, whether there's a comparable private entity like cota for the u.k.
Race.

>> I do not know.

>> And who owns the track.

>> I would guess so.
It might be someone may own the track and someone else may own the license.
I don't know.

>> That's a good question.
How many county officials -- which and how many county officials are expected to go?

>> We have not made a 100% determination for the sheriff's office as of yet.
I think we need to have some further discussion.

>> Do we have a ballpark?

>> One from the sheriff's office.

>> Oh, one from the sheriff's office.

>> Two is what -- who is steve with?
With formula one or cota?
Two is what cota offered.

>> Two county.

>> Right.
Just two.

>> Okay.

>> I want to make something clear.
The per diem of $144, that's what the table s the Commissioners court can decide what they want to pay up to that amount.

>> I had told our people it was $45.

>> If that's the wish of Commissioners court.

>> That's my story.

>> You will be eating peanut butter.

>> Fish and chips.

>> I have a question based on some of the questions Commissioner Eckhardt had.
The race over there is what date?

>> It will be on Sunday, similar --

>> July 7th.

>> You'll be leaving on the 3rd.
That's a week from today.

>> Right.

>> And we don't even know who we're going to hook up with?
Aren't those people really busy over there?
Do you think you have the time to get the relationships in place?
And we need to act on this today, right?

>> But if we run into facts that we think make it more reasonable not to go, we don't go.
This kind of surfaced alaskaweek so I put out the agea for the court to respond realizing because all the benefits I could think of were there and I really couldn't think of a down side other than finding somebody legally with the legal papers to go over there and the willingness to do so.
At the same time it would have to be the right person with the right responsibilities at Travis County, some expertise before you arrive there.
And we're depending on cota basically to open some doors for us to make sure we get done what we want done.
If we are convinced based on followup conversations with cota reps that it doesn't make sense to go, we ought not go.
I understood as much as I could during the telephone conversations that I had.
I was speaking with a higher-up person to believe the commitment was reliable at the same time, so I tried to put the different pieces together chatting with danny and the fire marshal the same day.
I didn't talk with the sheriff's office until yesterday.
I was kind of hung between starflight and the sheriff, and after chatting with danny and the fire marshal, it made more sense for the sheriff's office to send a representative.
We have been sort of pulling this thing together.
There's a whole lot of more work to be done before the 3rd.

>> Is there another formula one race between now and November that would give us more time to prepare and establish the contacts to get preparedness information from?

>> I don't know that there is one that offers as much similarity to the elroy location as this one does.
But I do want to back up a little bit and say that as far as talks with cota about actually going over there and sending someone, I've talked with them as long as two weeks ago, so if they -- just to address the issue of whether or not they've established contacts over there and a plan to get us hooked up with the folks over there that are appropriate, it's been going on a little bit longer than from the time frame that they contacted you, judge.

>> And we've not had any -- as far as the emergency services, we've not had any contact with cota whatsoever in regards to this and Commissioner Huber, that's something that I would like to get permission from if you all approve this is that it would be good for us to see exactly what it is that we can and cannot do and that would be important.
You mentioned the event.
Even though the race day is on the 8th, it's still similar to what we're going to be doing.
It's a three-day event, the 6th, 7th, and 8th.
What we were hoping if we got to be there earlier, maybe those officials would have the time to be able to visit with us.
But those kind of questions really need to be asked.
Because if it's just going over there and all we're going to be doing is seeing the race, I don't see any benefit of us doing that.

>> I just pulled it up.
There's the german formula one to 20th to the 22nd, the buda pest 27th through the 29th of July.
The belgium grand prix, 31st of August to September 27bd.
2nd.
The italia.
We might want to look at how we might be able to take advantage of the invitation more robustly if we didn't have a week to bang it together.

>> Did you all brush up on your german and italian recently?

>> I mean, everybody in germany speaks english practically.
And belgium too.

>> I doubt that.

>> And the other thing that is going to be required are passports and I assume you all have those road?

>> That's part of the discussion that we need to have as well.

>> I have one.

>> He's got his.

>> I have mine.

>> There's additional due diligence that needs to be done even if we say let's do it.
The offer was for london, england.
And why it came so late, I don't know, but I talked with them last Wednesday.
And my first thought was what professional employees at Travis County would best benefit from seeing this and kind of arrived at the two departments that we're looking at.
But there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
That's a long way to go so you want to make sure what doors will be open before you get there, right?
And the other thing is if you really study preparation for the race itself and the race itself, it's really hard work.
I mean, I'm sure that late at night you can dream all you want to in england, but first thing the next morning there are things to see and questions to be asked and, you know, a learning curve that we all need.
The other thing about the conflict is my own position is that the county judge, unfortunately, is charged with making permit-related decisions.
I rely on county professionals to get that.
And the more informed the professionals are, the better decision we as a governmental entity will make.
I mean, to me it was pretty simple.
At the same time, though, there are additional questions that we have to get done before -- before that.
And including about the other locations.

>> There's ten other grand prixs between now and the Austin race.

>> My first thought was why not canada and basically the reason I was given was it really is dissimilar.

>> It doesn't happen between now and November either.

>> My point still is it is so close that my first question was why not canada.
So it's second place, but if it's not similar it wouldn't help us as much anyway was the impression I was left with from the answer.
If not this -- and I don't know -- it is not like somebody said here's an airplane ticket, hotel accommodations and transportation to anywhere in the united states.
It was kind of like would you want to send your people to london, england to, see the race.
You could learn a whole lot.
And I said let me get back to you.
I also said I've got to put out the court's agenda and let the court decide.
Any other questions?
We'll take this into executive session in just a moment when we get to the executive session items, okay?
Now, miss porter, have we reached executive session?
We have the of --

>>

>> [inaudible].

>> You have a comment about the england trip?
Well, public expenditures for formula one generally.

>> We're not posted for that.
We are posted for something more specific than that which would be welcome to comment on.

>> Well, let me ask the court.
You know, the city

>> [inaudible].

>> We need out the microphone.

>> Richard vicktrum.

>> The city's proceedings on formula one culminated with a formal hearing and a vote up or down a formula one, and I and many others were allowed to present our concerns.
With the county we've really only had the mass gathering permit and there has not been a means for those of us that have financial concerns about formula one to present those to the Commissioners court.
And I just thought I would do that today, but if there would be another time, I would appreciate it.

>> That would have to be at another time.
We are posted for the recommendation to send fire marshal and other county representatives to observe preparation for and running of formula one race in london, england, on July 7, 2012, and we have learned instead of other representatives it would be somebody from the sheriff's office today.
So comments related to that would be appropriate today; otherwise we would have to try to provide you another opportunity to discuss this.

>> I guess we all learn something from these hearings.
One thing I would say, the belgium race is not too far from england and so they could go across the channel and meet with silver stone officials.
That race track is similar to what we will have here in Austin.
It might be something they would want to do.

>> Would you be okay with the Commissioners court paying to send two people to one the of the other races to observe them?

>> I was more or less speaking to the direction of where I think the vote would go.
No, I don't approve of any more public expenditures for formula one whatsoever.

>> And a lot of residents have voiced objections, which is why I thought if they paid for it, it would make a difference.

>> The other, I guess, I thought would be one of the threshold questions to ask was how often does formula one have a trackside fire.
I would hope that would be asked.
If we're not having fire equipment deployed at the track a lot, if there's truly not a need, I have taken the time to look at a couple formula one races, as hard as it has been for me considering how I feel about this issue, and I did not see, you know, they are not like american races.
I'm sure they've had wrecks but I think we should ask how much we're going to need fire equipment deployed at the race.

>> Your comments could arguable be applicable to those agenda items.

>> That's true.
But on that fire, we'll ask that question because I have no idea.

>> So I guess here back here for 30.

>> Go ahead and make your comments now.

>> Okay.
Well, judge, Commissioners, you know, I do express caution about public expenditure and support for formula one.
You may be aware of my work before city council at the original request of council and they said no.
They had four votes after they looked at our work and they decided no city funds would go for formula one.
The city tax funds that form the major events trust fund.
Our original concerns about formula one arose from the incentives.
Abusing the major events trust fund and in a manner of speaking shaking down our own treasury whichly explain.
The central problem with f1ny is what it adds to our economy.
Austin's leisure and hospitality economy is 90% full.
F1 will only fill up the last 2%.
Yet the award is 25 million a year for a quarter million total as if tumbleweeds were blowing down congress avenue before formula one.
You only pay what you are getting, the value added.

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> And just to explain how the major -- how taxes from these events and from the economy work, v4 taxes which are sales taxes, car rental taxes, lodging taxes and alcoholic bergeron taxes, they are general revenue, state cash but merely receipt from endorsement from city or county, it is that sound from the bank, the pneumatic deviceses are, all the money that somebody says in something like this lands in this trust fund.
When I was doing this investigation, it was prepared by don handout, payday, former employee of the comptroller's office, his sole form of work right now.
He doesn't have a payday in economics.
He sought to hide that from me.
I asked him where he got his payday from.
He wouldn't tell me.
I had to look at dissertation abstracts to find out he has a degree in geography, not economics.
He prepares virtually all of the applications from the major events trust fund.
The current major events trust fund manager is on record to the press and other parties saying we do not review this work.
It is not our job.
We don't have the resources.
Mr. Hoyt did not adjust in this report for the 90% that the economy has utilized, and that's important.
That would reduce the award from quarter of billion dollars to 25 million.
And 25 million a year to $2.5 million a year.
You can understand how that impacts where I am going, about my general comments about the business that has formed the one.
More recently my work has trented basic due diligence about f1, much as an investor would do as you should do as stewards of public resources.
According to the formula money, and that's the industry trade organization, public support for f1 is not $510 million worldwide, half a billion dollars.
It is -- it is formula 1 single's largest source of revenue, one source of revenue.
The point is if comptroller comes for us to eventually deliver these incentives properly as the law requires, she'll cut the 25 million or she will be forced to reduce 25 million from the state to 2.5 million and that will jeopardize the financial model of formula one here in Austin.
Formula 1 has had record of entering communities in the past.
They promote hard, pr hard and shout the tourism benefits to the community, but if you look at other than nonmotor cities where f1 has been held, long beach, phoenix, and dallas, it was 3-1 and they were out.
And so they take the early money from the public offers.
By the time the public financial managers catch up at the benefit to the economy is not what was promised, they have gone on and moved to another location.
So I have appropriate concern about even with the dedication of fire marshal and sheriff going to europe, those are public resources that could be spent on business other than formula one.
It is a lot of hype.
It is an event.
I don't think they will add to the economy the way they have marked it themselves.
That's it.

>> Thank you very much.
We appreciate it.

>> Thank you.

>> If we find out about that fire engine, should we contact you, just use it for our own edification?

>> What now?

>> You asked about the fire engine being stationed out there.
Should we try to find out?

>> Just how much of their trip to england or wherever they go to look at a race, how much -- I hear they are looking at other --

>> I thought you were questioning stationing of a fire engine at formula one here in Austin.

>> How much resources will we need for that or do they have a lot of track site fires?
I do not know that.
Thank you.

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