Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Ad Hoc Outreach Committee
November 8, 2000
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
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BE IT REMEMBERED, that heretofore on the 8th day
8 of November,2000, there came to be heard matters under
the regulatory authority of the Parks and Wildlife
9 Commission of Texas, in the Commission Hearing Room of
the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters Complex,
10 Austin, Texas, beginning at 9:15 a.m., to wit:
11
APPEARANCES:
12 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
13 AD HOC OUTREACH COMMITTEE:
CHAIR: Alvin L. Henry
14 John Avila, Jr.
Lee M. Bass, (Absent)
15 Carol E. Dinkins
Nolan Ryan, (Absent)
16 Dick Heath, (Absent)
Ernest Angelo, Jr.
17 John Avila, Jr., (Absent)
Katharine Armstrong Idsal
18 Mark E. Watson, Jr., (Absent)
19
20
21
22 THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other
23 personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department
24
25
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AD HOC OUTREACH COMMITTEE
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4 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: The meeting is
5 called to order. Before proceeding with any business,
6 and I believe Mr. Sansom has a statement to make.
7 MR. SANSOM: Madam Chair, I have a
8 public notice of this meeting containing all items on
9 the proposed agenda. It's been filed in the office of
10 the Secretary of State as required by Chapter 551 of
11 the Government Code. This is referred to as the Open
12 Meetings Law, and I would like for this action to be
13 noted in the official record of this meeting.
14 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you,
15 Mr. Sansom.
16 Our first committee is the Outreach Ad
17 Hoc Committee, and that's chaired by Commissioner
18 Henry.
19 If you'll take over now, Commissioner
20 Henry.
21 AGENDA ITEM NO. 1: AD HOC OUTREACH COMMITTEE.
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Madam Chair, since
23 our last official meetings, we have had a series of
24 meetings of matters related to outreach, particularly
25 with regard to the establishment of the regional
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1 centers that the commission previously discussed. And
2 Andy, along with Dr. McKinney and other staff members,
3 have engaged suitable personnel to carry out the
4 directives of the commission and the committee with
5 regard to establishing viable programs in each of these
6 sites.
7 I'm going to ask Dr. McKinney to come
8 forward and to present to the committee and the
9 commission recent activities in this area.
10 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Okay.
11 AGENDA ITEM NO. 2: BRIEFING -- STATEWIDE AND REGIONAL
12 OUTREACH INITIATIVE UPDATE.
13 DR. McKINNEY: Thank you, Ms. Chair.
14 My job this morning is going to be very
15 easy because I'm going to introduce three folks that
16 actually are going to give the information to you. So
17 I'll let Mr. Murphy's team, Paul and Darlene, come up
18 and present the items.
19 MR. MURPHY: Good morning, Madam
20 Chairman, members of the committee. My name is Bob
21 Murphy, agency outreach coordinator, and with me are
22 Steve Hall, our education director, and Darlene Lewis,
23 the COOP program director.
24 Today I plan to update you on the
25 progress that we have made on statewide and regional
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1 initiatives to plan and coordinate our agency outreach
2 efforts.
3 MR. MURPHY: As was noted in our April
4 briefing, one of our key strategies was to initiate
5 regional pilots this past summer, beginning in Houston
6 and then moving onto Dallas and San Antonio. On these
7 regional initiatives, I'll provide more details on
8 their success and their status in a moment.
9 Let's look, first, at a few statewide
10 programs and approaches that link together
11 strategically for agency outreach efforts.
12 The COOP grant program is the first, and
13 these grants have proven to be essential in supporting
14 our partners in their efforts to get kids involved in
15 the outdoors. These grants are fundamental to the
16 engagement of the communities that we have identified
17 as primary target audiences, and the first steps into
18 the outdoors that many of these programs provide give
19 us opportunities to develop lifelong customers and
20 supporters.
21 Just a couple of examples of how this
22 program promotes creative partnerships. The Galveston
23 Bay Foundation received a grant in the Houston region,
24 and more than 700 students and teachers will go on
25 expeditions to learn about bay resources, bay uses, and
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1 to participate in restoration activities in Galveston
2 Bay.
3 In the Dallas region, the Texas Trails
4 Network received a grant, and in this one, Texas school
5 children will be introduced to the history and the
6 heritage of trails in Texas, while demonstrating that
7 today's trails are a resource for education and
8 recreation. Horseback riding will be one of the
9 planned activities in this grant.
10 In the San Antonio region, the Cibolo
11 Nature Center received a grant. They're in Boerne, in
12 the northwest part of that region. And in this
13 program, secondary teachers and students in the San
14 Antonio area will participate in field research
15 workshops, studying birds, prairie vegetation and
16 insects, aquatic invertebrates, and mammals.
17 One program that's not listed in the
18 bullets up there but is pictured on the right: Ken
19 Pollard has continued to blaze trails with our
20 Community Services Education and Outreach Program. A
21 particular note, they are working with the Cowboys of
22 Color rodeo tour to reach inner-city communities across
23 Texas with access to the parks and wildlife message.
24 Three rodeos in the metroplex area: Dallas, Fort Worth,
25 and Mesquite, and rodeos in San Antonio, Austin, and
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1 Houston next year will reach eight to fifteen thousand
2 people each.
3 The Outdoor Kids program has continued
4 to provide a vehicle for our outreach efforts to
5 youth. We have had strong interests from schools. In
6 the Houston area, there are several schools adopting
7 the program for their entire grade levels or, in one
8 case, for the entire school, and they're using this to
9 integrate outdoor learning into their curriculum.
10 They're particularly fond of the journaling aspect of
11 the program for use at the elementary level.
12 Next, the contract for services
13 approach, which I'll get into detail later on, has been
14 utilized in our regional pilots, and there it has been
15 successful. I'll -- it may be that there's a place for
16 this strategy in our statewide scheme as well. One
17 thought here is that the series of contacts with
18 entities that have special resources or talents may
19 also be used for our advantage. Examples would be
20 children's performers, or zoos, or other partners that
21 we can identify that have special appeal to our
22 audiences.
23 And then, lastly, a critical element in
24 our strategic plan is to monitor and evaluate our
25 outreach efforts. We will be developing multiple
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1 approaches, from staff-led evaluation efforts, to
2 agreements with universities and researchers as
3 independent reviewers. This will be a topic in a
4 future briefing.
5 Okay. Now onto the regional outreach
6 initiatives. First, I'll review each of the cities we
7 have concentrated on, with an update on the status in
8 each, and then we will look at the two contracts for
9 professional services that have been developed to
10 facilitate inner-city outreach.
11 Houston was our initial effort, and we
12 have had several meetings there with a staff team
13 assembled that represent each of the divisions that
14 have a stake in outreach planning. This is the
15 initiative with the most developed team at present, and
16 it is the most representative of the agency within its
17 region.
18 Our pilot partner in Houston was the
19 Nature Heritage Society, and, working with Glen Miller
20 and his team, we have seen benefits to this contract
21 services approach.
22 The hub site for the Houston Regional
23 Outreach Initiative is Sheldon Lake State Park. And
24 just a few notes on Sheldon. First, you'll hear next
25 from Laura David and her consultant team on the
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1 progress of the feasibility study and the future of the
2 master planning process in developing an environmental
3 learning center at Sheldon.
4 Secondly, resource protection staff have
5 been working with park staff on ways to protect the
6 park's watershed, the critical element there, the
7 resource element there that we are using to interpret
8 to the public, and, hopefully, they will be able to add
9 acreage to the park in that manner. Both, the
10 mitigation process and the Natural Resource Damage
11 Assessment Program are involved in that process.
12 And then, thirdly, we recently attended
13 the HISD Schools of Excellence Conference at the
14 Astrohall/Astroarena complex. There were over 15,000
15 HISD teachers and administrators at this conference,
16 two-day event, and many that we spoke to expressed a
17 desire to bring students out to Sheldon. Many of them
18 had already done so, but there were a lot of new
19 contacts made.
20 Rob Comstock, the superintendent of
21 Sheldon Lake, was there both days, all day, and he said
22 it was the best place for him to spend his time. He
23 spoke with --he made so many contacts and talked
24 directly to teachers that wanted to come out there.
25 I spoke with staff at the new Caesar
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1 Chavez high school, and it just opened this year. But
2 next year, they're going to start an environmental
3 education magnet program at that school and at the high
4 school level. That will be real exciting to have their
5 students working at Sheldon on service projects and
6 developing interpretive programs for younger students
7 as well.
8 In Dallas, we have assembled a staff
9 team, also, from most of the divisions involved in
10 Outreach. We've had one meeting that was very
11 productive, but we're not quite at the level of the
12 Houston team yet just due to the fact that we started
13 that process later in the summer.
14 Our pilot partner this summer was the
15 Inner-city Fishing Institute, and working with Mark
16 Cole, the Parks & Wildlife group has --in our
17 programs, have reached many inner-city youth, and we've
18 entered into new relationships with community
19 organizations that have the trust of their Community.
20 The hub site there will be Cedar Hills State Park,
21 although many sites in the region such as the Texas
22 Freshwater Fisheries Center and other parks will be
23 served by this initiative.
24 In San Antonio, we've had one meeting
25 and that was fairly recently. We've begun to assemble
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1 the staff team, and I believe that this is a real
2 energetic group. They're going to do some really good
3 things once we get together and devote some more time
4 to that planning process there. There was not a pilot
5 partner chosen this summer in San Antonio, but we'll
6 work to identify an appropriate partner or partners and
7 initiate contracts at the proper time. Government
8 Canyon will serve as the hub site for that initiative.
9 Okay. And to review the contracts for
10 professional services that we entered into this past
11 summer, let's look first at the Nature Heritage
12 Society. They were involved from June through August.
13 They got started first. We had our contract with them
14 first. And they worked to include over 800 kids at our
15 sites in the Houston region: Sheldon, the Battleship
16 Texas, Lake Houston, and Huntsville State Parks, as
17 well as a number of local city and county parks and
18 recreation centers. Their programs were primarily in
19 partnership with the Houston Parks & Recreation
20 Department and the HISD. I think they did a fine job
21 of including adults in their program as mentors, and
22 they were successful in creating a number of new
23 partnerships with community organizations.
24 In Dallas, working with Mark Cole and
25 the Inner-City Fishing Institute, there were over 600
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1 kids involved through that contract for services. The
2 focus of many of these programs was fishing, but new
3 relationships with some partners will lead to more
4 diverse programming in the future, and we look forward
5 to expanding on that contract as well. Both of these
6 agreements were very positive and beneficial to the
7 agency. They will be reviewed, changed where
8 necessary, and reconstituted for this next year.
9 So to look back at the regional outreach
10 initiatives, our strategies will be to work with the
11 teams that we've created for more effective regional
12 planning and to put some plans in place that everybody
13 can turn to and know where the resources should be
14 directed. We will hire regional outreach coordinators
15 very soon. Those positions will be posted right away.
16 Their charge will be to optimize our outreach resources
17 and increase opportunities to visit our sites and
18 participate in our programs. They'll have a focus on
19 breaking down the barriers to participation. And then,
20 to focus on the Outdoor Kids program in these regions,
21 to set up cooperative ventures and better access to
22 that program for, both, our staff and for
23 participants. And, lastly, to develop new and to
24 strengthen existing partnerships.
25 In closing, on a statewide perspective,
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1 our goals are to improve internal outreach
2 coordination, to foster partnerships and look toward
3 new and creative partnerships, and to support
4 assessment and evaluation.
5 Are there any questions or comments?
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: What age group are
7 you targeting? You may have said and I didn't catch
8 it. But what age group are we focussing on, or are we?
9 MR. MURPHY: In each of the regions, it
10 will be up to team to identify the audiences, and, for
11 instance, Houston is broader at this point than the
12 others. There's not really an age group; although, I
13 think youth is the term everybody is focused on. There
14 will also be, obviously, efforts to involve adults as
15 mentors. There will be efforts to reach women, in
16 particularly, those that are heads of households. But
17 I would say the youth are generally younger, the
18 elementary to junior high age; although, like I said,
19 we'll have some high school age programs involved.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: In any type of
21 outreach effort where you're trying to expand your
22 constituency, regardless of what the situation is, one
23 of the most difficult things that I've seen in the
24 past, in what efforts I've had in that field, is the
25 last thing you've got up there, and that's assessing
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1 and evaluating what, if anything, you've actually
2 accomplished. And, of course, the younger the target
3 group is, the longer it's going to take you to tell,
4 but I think it's extremely important that we focus a
5 good bit on that third point there, in order to find
6 out if what we're doing is having any impact, and if
7 it's not, what could we do differently that might
8 have. Otherwise, we could do a lot of things that make
9 us feel good and look great but don't accomplish
10 anything.
11 MR. MURPHY: I think our goal is,
12 certainly, within the next two years, under the
13 recommendations of the Sunset Commission, to develop a
14 plan, and some of it will be short term, and some of it
15 will have to be long range so that we can, like you
16 say, account for the youngsters that we've got in the
17 program. But we've had preliminary discussions with
18 universities in each of those regions, and then we have
19 staff that are concentrating, as some of their
20 professional development, leadership exercises on some
21 of these sites.
22 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: And I guess you're
23 developing a database of people that have been involved
24 so subsequently, down the road, you'll be able to
25 follow up, maybe, and see if it's increased their
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1 involvement level?
2 MR. MURPHY: One of the real exiting
3 opportunities I think we'll have is that HISD was
4 interested in that very aspect, and they, of course,
5 have the database, they have the students for a long
6 period of time, and they wanted to do some tracking on
7 their students.
8 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Because if we
9 don't know who's going through it, we're going to have
10 a hard time figuring out whether they stuck or not.
11 MR. MURPHY: Yeah, very much so.
12 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Do you have a
13 schedule for Government Canyon, a schedule for when you
14 hope to enlist a partner and move forward there?
15 MR. MURPHY: No, not at this time. But
16 we'll -- as that team meets with a full
17 complement -- when we met originally, it wasn't all of
18 the divisions. When it meets together and sets some
19 goals, we'll report back to you on that. I would say
20 that in the spring, we'll have all of that fairly well
21 laid out, and that -- you know, we just met with them
22 about a month ago for the initial meeting.
23 COMMISSIONER HENRY: But, generally
24 speaking, you do plan to have all three programs up and
25 running for next summer? That's my understanding.
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1 MR. MURPHY: Definitely, for the summer
2 season. There are COOP --
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: So, in answer to
4 the Chairman's question, at least, by summer --
5 MR. MURPHY: Yes, I projected the
6 spring.
7 CHAIR HENRY: -- we can see that --
8 MR. MURPHY: Yeah, I would think in the
9 spring.
10 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: That's an important
11 area.
12 I wanted to ask about the equestrian.
13 Andy, I -- when I reviewed the minutes of the public
14 meeting from -- you know, the annual public meeting
15 from last time, one of the persons who testified was
16 talking about equestrian opportunities and said that
17 there were so many parks of greater than 5,000 acres
18 and could we look at providing equestrian
19 opportunities, and I wondered if y'all had had a
20 response to that, because it seems to me, with the way
21 young people like to ride, if they had the opportunity,
22 that that is one area that we might, at least, want to
23 pay attention to that comment and see if there's
24 something that we might do.
25 MR. SANSOM: Well, we've got a -- the
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1 equestrian folks are represented on our statewide
2 Trails Advisory Committee, and we -- you know, we
3 continue to look for opportunities. We have tremendous
4 equestrian activities under way at Capprock Canyons in
5 Lake Summerville, and Government Canyon itself
6 incorporates an equestrian trail. So it's a situation
7 that is a work in progress, but we've got the
8 stakeholders involved, and it's on the radar screen.
9 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Well, that's good.
10 MR. HALL: Andy, I might add, too, that
11 the Parrie Haynes Ranch is -- that will be a goal of
12 our youth camp as well, is to essentially begin an
13 equestrian -- more routine equestrian activities
14 there, for the summer camp as well, this next summer,
15 and they've certainly done a good job opening that
16 facility to TETRA, which is the equine association.
17 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Oh, that's good.
18 Thank you.
19 MR. HALL: I would also like to add --
20 if he's not in the room -- Mark Cole, from Inner-City
21 Fishing Institute, he did have plans to make it this
22 morning, if he's late, but, certainly, if you want to
23 pick his brain, he should be here for the duration of
24 the day.
25 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
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1 MR. MURPHY: Okay. Thank you very
2 much. I'll turn it over now to Laura David for the
3 session on Sheldon Lake.
4 MS. DAVID: Good morning.
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Good morning.
6 MS. DAVID: What I'd like to do is bring
7 our consultants that we got on board around mid
8 September, and what we've been doing is a feasibility
9 at Sheldon Lake, to look at all the resources there and
10 partnerships that might be useful when we go into a
11 final master plan. We'll be finished with this
12 feasibility study at the end of this month and start
13 the master plan. We have a really good collaborative
14 of professionals here working on this. Some are from
15 Houston. Mary Talley Pope and Don Olson, as well as
16 Donna Carter from Austin and Earl Broussard from
17 Austin.
18 Would you like to show us what we've
19 been doing -- And in the meantime, we've also had a
20 charette with Parks & Wildlife staff, as well as the
21 consultants, and we've brainstormed all the different
22 things that might happen at Sheldon, and we went way
23 broad, and probably when it's all said and done, it
24 will be narrowed down to something that's very
25 realistic. But I think there were some really good
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1 ideas put forward.
2 So, Mary, if you'll show us what we've
3 got here.
4 MS. POPE: Good morning. Glad to see
5 you-all this morning.
6 This is really a status report. I will
7 be finishing the feasibility study at the end of the
8 month, but we wanted to catch you up as to where we
9 were.
10 Let me start with existing. I know
11 you're familiar with Sheldon, but, basically, this
12 vicinity map shows you that Sheldon is really close.
13 The first ring is ten-mile radius, and then each ring
14 subsequent is an additional 10. So 10, 20, and 30
15 miles. So within 10 miles of Sheldon, you've included
16 the heart of downtown, and within 20 miles, we have
17 included far past the Galleria and up into the Kingwood
18 area and far south. So the location, as everyone
19 knows, is prime.
20 This map also depicts the other
21 environmental education centers that are located in the
22 Houston area.
23 This map represents the school
24 districts. There are 13 school districts within that
25 10-to 15-mile radius of Sheldon that are served --
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1 some are served by Sheldon, and others targeted at this
2 point. But you can see HISD comes in from their
3 southwest, and then these other independent school
4 districts, so the opportunity is great.
5 This map is where we have looked at
6 green space, open space parks that are in the Sheldon
7 area, because another important initiative of the state
8 park, in general, is connectivity, so that not only we
9 have buses bringing school kids, but the possibilities
10 of trails and linkages back into the urban center. So
11 we have lots of parks and green space identified that
12 can ultimately, I think, be linked together and link us
13 back into downtown. So this is another opportunity
14 we've looked at in the feasibility.
15 This map is really showing the city
16 council districts and county precincts. We have three
17 county precincts. Sheldon is not in the city of
18 Houston, per se, but is very close; it's in the E.T.J.
19 So, again, we have lots of partnering opportunities
20 because the county Commissioner whose precinct we're
21 in, Commissioner Frank Olie, already has an active
22 outreach program where he takes, both, seniors and
23 school-aged children to different parks and is very
24 interested in working with us because they're always
25 looking for another opportunity. They have more
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1 children than they have resources. So, again, that was
2 good to find out.
3 This starts into our site analysis that,
4 again, just looking at, physically, Sheldon, you have
5 the opportunities and challenges of the aqueduct that
6 cut through it, and Sheldon, when it was built, the
7 reservoir was built to include all this, so there's a
8 levy that surrounds it. Currently, this is ag use and
9 has been for the last 16 to 20 years. We have wooded
10 sites and other possibilities that -- main access is
11 currently to the education center; it comes in right
12 here, off of Old 90, but the beltway has been
13 constructed and the new Highway 90 is here, and so the
14 access, even though it's always been close to Houston,
15 the feel of Sheldon now is that it's much closer
16 because access is so much easier. So, you know, it
17 didn't move, but the urban community feels like it's
18 part of it now, for the first time, I think. That
19 wasn't the situation before. It feels really close.
20 These are just some existing shots of
21 what we are working with. And I think Bob mentioned
22 that water is the resource and the foundation for our
23 learning, but also one of the challenges we have to
24 meet.
25 The top slide is showing us a view from
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1 the north boat ramp, and the bottom slide is one of the
2 deck -- the fishing piers that goes out, from the west
3 side. And so we have some facilities to look at, the
4 upgrade, and how we're going to incorporate the new.
5 This is our access, this -- the slide
6 to the top left is our access point, from 90-A. Here's
7 a view of the aqueduct, and it's fenced as it goes
8 through the park, so we have done quite a bit of
9 research with the city of Houston about going over it,
10 connecting the park, working with them to make the
11 aqueduct part of the park instead of a barrier.
12 This is existing trail and signage. And
13 these are two of the eighteen fish hatchery ponds. And
14 you can see the diversity in these two, and that is
15 just a small sampling of the eighteen offers --
16 eighteen different ecological evolutions, because they
17 were left unmanaged, and that's probably been a
18 blessing for our studies. So we have lots of
19 opportunity.
20 This is a view of the two lakes up near
21 the classroom that exists right now, the single
22 classroom, and the ag fields. And this is where they
23 do a lot of their fishing program currently. But I
24 think you can still see the need for development and
25 looking at how we will manage more children.
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1 The thing we did was look at typical
2 programs, and we find that Texas Parks & Wildlife has
3 done a really great job of developing programs. And,
4 in fact, when we looked at the other centers in
5 Houston, most of them are using the curricula that was
6 developed by Parks and Wildlife. So it's natural for
7 Parks and Wildlife now to provide a site to use that.
8 And we looked at the varying kinds, from the current
9 programs that they're taking on at Sheldon, to
10 expanding that with train the trainer, train the
11 teacher, as well as your skill-based programs like
12 hunter education and boating education, and then
13 internal staff training from Parks and Wildlife,
14 because we think the balances of providing facilities
15 for all of those things is what will make a maximum
16 used facility that we build.
17 And what we did was we took those
18 facilities -- and all of these things will be in your
19 report for you to study in depth, but we looked at the
20 facilities in relationship to what the -- we used that
21 as our basis to type and figure out the facility's
22 needs. And this is the primary thing we did in
23 charette was work out this matrix of what were the
24 requirements versus the preferences, and that was
25 shaping our program.
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1 From this matrix then, we looked at what
2 is the developable area, and this park offers us
3 opportunity. This is site resources, which we have a
4 number of, starting from the fish hatcheries that are
5 being used now, to the possibility of connections so
6 that we have canoeing and other activities on the
7 reservoir. Several really nice wooded areas. The ag
8 land gives us land that's available and economically
9 feasible to develop, and also develop other habitats
10 that may not be represented at Sheldon, along with what
11 currently is there, and then, on the north side, we
12 have developable area, and we have some really nice
13 cypress marsh, and a levee, and, again, access to the
14 reservoir. So lots of opportunity for development.
15 So then, in the charette, we began to
16 frame the facility's needs and put them in
17 relationships, and the driving force, of course, is the
18 Outreach Program, and this is really your student area,
19 and we identified that we would come in, have a
20 drop-off, and have an orientation, and then we would
21 have the hatcheries and things that might be close by,
22 or other classroom settings that we may establish could
23 be close, and you'd also have destination sites because
24 of the size of our park. At the same time, we would
25 develop something that was very easy access for the
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1 adult education programs that might be night and
2 weekends. And there's a need for hunting trail, gun
3 range, and other things that could happen on this site
4 and work in relationship, and overflow into the student
5 area on the nights and weekends, or corporate retreats,
6 other things, and the student area also overflows into
7 these in the daytime. So it was, again, trying to look
8 at the facilities needed and maximum use of the
9 facilities when we build them.
10 From there, we took these relationships
11 and put them on site, because our goal is making sure
12 that we can meet your needs on this site, and looked at
13 an arrangement that we thought would work and came up
14 with two possible scenarios that assure us that,
15 indeed, this is workable, and the types of -- the
16 distances we need for working with children are
17 workable on site to get us to the resources, and this
18 was one scenario.
19 And long term, we are looking at, also,
20 more of an emersion program where they could come and
21 stay three nights and not only be introduced to Sheldon
22 but stay and get a feel for what it's like to camp and
23 stay in the wilderness, which some of the children that
24 come to programs now don't have an opportunity to do.
25 And this was a second scheme that we
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1 came up with that takes us -- takes the center or
2 orientation area deeper into the site and looks at
3 connectivity closer into the north area and really ties
4 us farther into the north. And, again, we enlarged
5 that, so you could start to see that we have the same
6 facilities, relationships, workable situation. And
7 this will be the basis that we spring from, to go into
8 the master planning that's our next phase to roll
9 into.
10 Also, in preparation of the master plan,
11 one of the very first things we'll do is call staff
12 back together and develop the architectural standards
13 and really tie down the facilities and the style and
14 structures that are appropriate for Sheldon. So we
15 started by developing images that we think are -- are
16 starting to get the feel of what we want to do at
17 Sheldon, and I had a few slides to show you the types
18 of things, because one of our charges is that education
19 is important, but that adventure and learning to love
20 nature is the balance of the education.
21 And we think that with all the water
22 that we are have on site, the boardwalks and piers and
23 these kinds of facilities will be an integral part of
24 what we're developing. So we're poised to complete
25 this in -- this feasibility in November, and, at
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1 Laura's charge, move rapidly forward with our master
2 plan.
3 Here is a few shots of trails.
4 And are there any questions?
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: The ones having to
6 do with the master plan itself, what timelines are you
7 projecting at this time?
8 MS. DAVID: We're going to have a
9 completed master plan in early spring, but before we
10 get there, we'll have a draft master plan that you will
11 be presented and we'll get your comments from.
12 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Early spring. Are
13 your dates receding --
14 MS. DAVID: No.
15 COMMISSIONER HENRY: -- from --
16 prior --
17 MS. DAVID: We'll have something in
18 January for you to look at and review, and then we'll
19 take your comments and make whatever revisions, and
20 then get it published, and then it will be ready to
21 implement.
22 MS. POPE: And I think Laura is looking
23 out for us contractually, and our team is also very
24 poised to have you, I think, the tools that you need
25 for some of your meetings in January. It won't be a
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1 completed master plan. That really needs to be a
2 thoughtful document that you have to build from. But I
3 think, in the interim, our team is ready to work the
4 holidays and get you some drawings, Commissioner Henry,
5 and things that you need for the tools to meet with the
6 foundations that are anxious to get us started. So I
7 think we can bring you some package that's very usable,
8 if that's your question.
9 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Madam Chairman, I
10 raise that question because of interest that's been
11 shown by some parties that Andy and I previously met
12 with who have expressed a desire to work with us, Paula
13 and her staff, the foundation, to take position papers
14 and plans and projects to the foundation community. I
15 was in touch with the foundation office just this past
16 week, and we are looking at potential dates --
17 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yeah, somebody
18 called me --
19 COMMISSIONER HENRY: -- to -- called
20 you?
21 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yes, uh-huh.
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I knew they were
23 going to. And that's why I was pressing for a
24 particular date, because they're fairly anxious to get
25 started on this. I was informed just yesterday that
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1 former Commissioner -- and one of our former
2 commissioners has also been active in this process.
3 Then name (inaudible) was telling me this. She had a
4 group, a foundation group, out from New York, out from
5 Sheldon, just this past week. Is anxious to be of
6 assistance however possible.
7 So while we have this well of enthusiasm
8 built up, we sure don't want to let it dissipate;
9 therefore, the interest in moving along.
10 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Well, what you've
11 shown us this morning is so much more specific than
12 anything that we've had to work with before, in terms
13 of the Outdoor Kids Program, and I think it -- I think
14 it moves us a good way forward.
15 COMMISSIONER HENRY: It does. They've
16 done a good job.
17 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yes. It's exciting
18 to see this and be able to envision what you're doing.
19 MS. POPE: We're really excited about
20 the process. There's just opportunity galore. And
21 what I've done is printed you some of the images to
22 leave with you, and then, as I said, you'll have a full
23 report by the end of the month and have everything in
24 detail.
25 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Oh, good. Thank
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1 you.
2 One thing I was going to suggest when I
3 was looking at your visual aids is that when you had
4 the Harris County Flood Control/Storm Water Detention
5 ponds on there, I think it's a little terse just to say
6 the acronym and then "detention area." I think it
7 would be better if you would put "Flood Control
8 Detention Ponds" or something so that people have --
9 who don't maybe know that term would have a vision that
10 those are large green spaces.
11 MS. POPE: Oh, okay. Okay. That's a
12 good suggestion.
13 MR. SANSOM: I would like to ask the
14 staff to give us a little bit of an update, Madam
15 Chair, if I might, (indaudible) at Sheldon by water
16 availability, and kind of where -- what the issue is
17 and where we might -- how we might approach some
18 solutions.
19 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: I thought there was
20 a lot of water at Sheldon. There has been when I've
21 been out there.
22 DR. McKINNEY: Madam Chairman, for the
23 record, I'm Larry McKinney of the Resource Protection
24 Group.
25 I'll have to get you more details at a
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1 later point, but I would tell you that the prospects
2 are not good, unfortunately. I mean, we've worked --
3 Bob Spain, on our staff, who's kind of led a
4 multidivisional group out there just to work with it.
5 We have -- We thought we were on a good
6 course, but the development activity in that area out
7 there has changed hands between owners and buyers, and
8 we cannot keep up with -- we'll have some agreements
9 with one group, and it'll change, and so it has been
10 difficult.
11 I'm very concerned about it, about
12 that. There are a couple of possible solutions,
13 working through the flood control district of Harris
14 County. They've been very cooperative in trying to
15 work with us. TXDOT, we're going to have to have some
16 help from them because some of the activities related
17 to the construction of roads out there, obviously, has
18 been the -- been the big concern there, and I think
19 some issues there, whether it's through looking through
20 ISTEA types of grants, which would be perfect for these
21 types of things because that's exactly what thatrule
22 has done. We're going to have to look at it, but
23 there's no easy solution.
24 I'm kind of rambling, but I'll get you
25 some -- I will get an update for all of you,
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1 specifically where we are.
2 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Excuse me. Is the
3 concern that the water is being diverted away from
4 Sheldon?
5 DR. McKINNEY: The construction roads
6 out there has considerably reduced the watershed and
7 diverted that flow out, away from Sheldon, into other
8 areas. And so the water is -- the potential watershed
9 is considerably reduced from what it was.
10 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: That must be rather
11 recent.
12 DR. McKINNEY: In the last five years.
13 Something like that.
14 MS. POPE: Maybe even two years --
15 DR. McKINNEY: Maybe even --
16 MS. POPE: -- with the beltway.
17 DR. McKINNEY: Beltway has really been
18 the last -- beltway was kind of the last straw that
19 really cut away. We could almost have gotten by until
20 the beltway got us.
21 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Well, we've got
22 some good partnerships with TXDOT, the flood control
23 district.
24 I was on the podium with Art Storey from
25 flood control last week for a ground breaking and, you
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1 know, visited with him a little bit about how much we
2 appreciate them working with us, and I would hope that
3 we can find some solutions to that, because that's one
4 of the marvels of Sheldon is all that water out there.
5 DR. McKINNEY: Absolutely. And Art has
6 been a -- has been a great supporter in helping us on
7 that type of things when he's there. So we will --
8 we'll get you a more updated report, Mr. Chairman and
9 Members.
10 MS. POPE: If I may add, I haven't had a
11 chance to get with Mr. McKinney because we're finishing
12 the feasibility, and we did touch base with Bob Spain,
13 but I don't -- I think what he's saying is accurate,
14 but, also, we have been maybe a little more hopeful
15 with the flood control connection that you're talking
16 about, and that's one of the reasons that we put the
17 mitigation bank and detention on, that I think there's
18 some things in the work that we could partner that are
19 maybe a little more optimistic, that are so early that
20 they haven't really had a chance, and we haven't had a
21 chance to connect on.
22 So I think we have some doable
23 solutions. All of them are going to be challenging and
24 require partnering, probably, but I -- I'm a little
25 bit hopeful in that regard from some of the responses
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1 we've gotten recently, and that would -- again, we
2 haven't had a chance to convey because our reporting
3 isn't quite finished. Thank you.
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Madam Chair, I
5 think that completes the briefing on the committee this
6 morning, unless there are any questions or comments
7 from Members.
8 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: No. That's --
9 it's exciting to see it move to this stage.
10 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I'll have to say
11 that I've been extremely pleased with the efforts that
12 staff have made to bring us this far. I've attended a
13 couple of meetings of the staff team, and it's exciting
14 to witness the commitment that's coming down from Andy
15 and Larry and the rest of the staff to make these
16 things work. And I'm convinced that, following the
17 Chairman's charge to us, that we are on the right foot,
18 and we're making some distinctive moves that's going to
19 benefit greatly the citizen of this state. So I'm very
20 pleased to report to you that -- that progress is
21 being made.
22 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: That's good.
23 Well, I notice that we've got a briefing
24 on the chairman's charges, and I'm not sure that we
25 approved the minutes.
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1 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Well, I want -- I
2 deliberately held off on that until such time as there
3 were sufficient members here to do that.
4 Before I do that, however, it was
5 mentioned earlier that Mr. Mark Cole was due to join us
6 this morning, and, at the time, he wasn't here, but I
7 noticed he's come into the room since that time. So if
8 he would just hold his hand up, the person that was
9 referred to earlier, working in the Dallas area Inner
10 City Fishing Institute.
11 So with that having said, Madam
12 Chairman, I'd like to move that the minutes of the
13 previous committee meetings be approved.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Second.
15 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Okay. All in
16 favor?
17 Thank you.
18 (Motion carries unanimously.)
19 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Did you want to do
20 the chairman's charges also?
21 MR. SANSOM: I have no report on the
22 charges today, on the outreach committee, Ms. Chair.
23 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Is that it for
24 the --
25 COMMISSIONER HENRY: That's it for
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1 the --
2 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: -- Ad Hoc?
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: -- Ad Hoc
4 Committee.
5 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Okay. Well, good.
6 It was a good session. Thank you.
7 I did want to recognize and welcome the
8 students who are in the audience. We always appreciate
9 your interest in the work of the commission. And I
10 know the members all wish you good luck in your
11 studies, and we hope to see you back in other ways and
12 many times in the future.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
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25
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1 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
COUNTY OF BEXAR )
2
3 I, STACI D. SLAYDEN, a Certified Court
4 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do hereby
5 certify that the above and foregoing pages constitute a
6 full, true, and correct transcript of the minutes of
7 the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on November 8,
8 2000, in the Commission hearing room of the Texas Parks
9 and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis
10 County, Texas. I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic
11 record was made by me at the time of the public meeting
12 and said stenographic notes were thereafter reduced to
13 computerized transcription under my supervision and
14 control. WITNESS MY HAND this ____ day of
15 ________________________, 2001.
16
17 ________________________________
18 STACI D. SLAYDEN, Texas CSR 7290
19 Expiration Date: 12/2001
20 7800 IH-10 West, Suite 100
21 San Antonio, Texas 78230
22 (210) 377-3017
23
24
25
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1
2 _______________________________________
ALVIN L. HENRY, CHAIRMAN
3
4 _______________________________________
CAROL E. DINKINS
5
6 _______________________________________
DICK W. HEATH
7
8 _______________________________________
NOLAN RYAN
9
10 _______________________________________
ERNEST ANGELO, JR.
11
12 _______________________________________
JOHN AVILA, JR.
13
14 _______________________________________
LEE M. BASS
15
16 _______________________________________
KATHARINE ARMSTRONG IDSAL
17
18 _______________________________________
MARK E. WATSON, JR.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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