(Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Conservation Committee
Jan. 16, 2002
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1
5 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the 16th day
6 of January, 2002, there came on to be heard matters
7 under the regulatory authority of the Parks and
8 Wildlife Commission of Texas, in the Commission
9 Hearing Room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
10 Headquarters Complex, Austin, Texas, beginning at
11 2:30 p.m. to wit:
12
APPEARANCES:
13 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
CONSERVATION COMMITTEE:
14
CHAIR: Katharine Armstrong Idsal
15 Ernest Angelo, Jr.
Donato D. Ramos
16 Philip Montgomery, III
Joseph Fitzsimons
17
THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
18 Robert L. Cook, Interim Executive Director, and other
personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department
19
20
21
22
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1 JANUARY 16, 2002
2 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: We are reconvening the
3 Conservation Committee. The first order of business
4 is the approval of the minutes from the previous
5 business -- previous meeting.
6 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Second.
8 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Do I need to ask for a
9 vote on that?
10 MR. COOK: Yes.
11 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Okay. All in favor.
12 ALL COMMISSIONERS: Aye.
13 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: All opposed.
14 (No Response.)
15 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Hearing none, motion
16 passes. The second order of business is -- or the
17 first order of business is the Chairman's charges.
18 MR. COOK: Okay. Madam Chairman, we
19 have two charges that address our Sunset Bill
20 S.B. 305. First of all, to implement provisions of
21 that bill, step one here, is to discontinue use of
22 "historical park" in publications and signs. And
23 this is on your agenda coming up. State Parks has
24 evaluated our historic properties and consulted with
25 Texas Historical Commission and Historic Sites
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1 Advisory Committee to rename as appropriate the
2 various state parks that need to be done to
3 historic -- historical sites. Staff will be
4 presenting these name changes.
5 Secondly, to develop a Statewide Land
6 and Water Resource Conservation and Recreation Plan,
7 again to address provisions in Senate Bill 305. The
8 chairman appointed an ad hoc Land and Water
9 Conservation Committee back in December -- excuse
10 me -- they met in December and -- to work on the
11 outline of this plan; reviewed that plan with staff,
12 and staff continues to work with the Committee in
13 development of that plan.
14 I'd just like to mention and express our
15 appreciation to that -- to the members of that ad hoc
16 committee who are Commissioner Montgomery;
17 Commissioner Henry; Commissioner Ramos; Dealey
18 Herndon, who is a partner with Herndon and Stauch
19 Associates, a project management firm; Chairman
20 Emeritus Lee Bass; and Barry Miller, who is Chief of
21 Staff in the Speaker's office; and Chairman Idsal. We
22 thank you very much.
23 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Second order of
24 business is a land transfer -- Lake Rita Blanca State
25 Park, Walt Dabney will present.
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1 MR. DABNEY: Chairman and Commission
2 Members, I'm Walt Dabney, State Park Director. I've
3 come to you previously to -- to present under House
4 Bill 2108 the potential transfers of Lubbock Lake
5 Landmark, Old Fort Parker, and the Jim Hogg site at
6 Rusk.
7 The Lubbock Lake Landmark transfer has
8 been accomplished, and the other two are in the
9 process that -- both of those should be actually
10 transferred to other subdivisions of the state, local
11 jurisdictions.
12 Today I'm here to talk to you about the
13 potential transfer of Lake Rita Blanca State Park,
14 which is up just outside of Dalhart to the City of
15 Dalhart.
16 Under 2108 we're given a total of two
17 million a year to effect the transfer of -- of sites
18 that -- that through discussion a local entity, a city
19 or a county, expresses an interest in taking over the
20 management and operation of. Those sites have to be
21 continued to be used for park purposes and managed the
22 same way. We -- if -- once you approve it, we
23 negotiate a contract with them about what kind of
24 monies we're going to put into the site to fix it up
25 to transfer, and again, we have done that in the
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1 process on three different sites.
2 Lake Rita Blanca is the northern-most
3 state park in Texas, again right outside of Dalhart.
4 We acquired that. We don't own it, but we have a
5 101-year lease with the counties for that site. We
6 haven't done anything with it and -- and would not
7 propose to be doing anything with it. It fits very
8 clearly into the intent of House Bill 2108, and will
9 make a very good park for the Dalhart area.
10 What we -- what we would be proposing to
11 do today -- tomorrow with your approval is to -- if
12 approved, it would let us proceed forward to negotiate
13 a contract with Dalhart. We do not have the specifics
14 at this time as to what they would request -- at least
15 to present today what they would request for us to do
16 before we effect this transfer or in conjunction with
17 this transfer. We would come back with you and -- and
18 advise you what that is. But tomorrow we'd be asking
19 to -- to -- to be allowed to proceed with -- to effect
20 a contract to transfer Lake Rita Blanca.
21 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Commissioner Angelo?
22 VICE-CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Is this something
23 that we know already that they want to do also and are
24 interested?
25 MR. DABNEY: Yes, sir, we do. Any of
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1 them that we come to you --
2 VICE-CHAIRMAN ANGELO: You've already
3 done that.
4 MR. DABNEY: -- we already know that
5 they are very seriously interested in doing this and
6 that -- that the staff agrees that this probably
7 makes -- that this would make sense.
8 VICE-CHAIRMAN ANGELO: How -- how
9 valuable is -- from the wildlife standpoint is it for
10 the geese particularly and with what they would do
11 with the park, have any impact on that?
12 MR. DABNEY: It's a valuable habitat for
13 waterfowl, as I understand.
14 VICE-CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I shot a few of
15 them coming off of it.
16 MR. DABNEY: Did you? I don't think
17 anything they would do would interfere with -- with
18 any of that. And -- and we would be -- in the
19 transfer to them, we would be putting stipulations in
20 there that it would have to be maintained for the same
21 purposes. And they don't have any intent of -- of
22 doing anything, at least that they've presented to us
23 at this time, that would alter that.
24 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Including public
25 hunting?
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1 VICE-CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I wasn't hunting
2 in the park.
3 MR. DABNEY: It's a -- it's a 1668-acre
4 site, so it's -- it's got some acreage to it. And
5 it's a very shallow lake; a lot of shore vegetation
6 and -- and cattails and that kind of thing. It's --
7 it's -- it certainly is an attractive waterfowl
8 location.
9 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Any questions? Does
10 anybody have a question or discuss -- further
11 discussion on this item?
12 (No Response.)
13 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: If there is no further
14 questions or discussion, without objection, I will
15 place this item on the Thursday Commission Meeting
16 Agenda for public comment and action.
17 MR. DABNEY: Thank you.
18 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: The next item of
19 business: The naming of historic sites and parks.
20 Walt Dabney and Mr. -- is it Dr. Dolman.
21 MR. DABNEY: Dr. Dolman.
22 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Dr. Dolman.
23 MR. DABNEY: Chairman and Commissioners,
24 I have asked Dr. Dolman to join us; he's the Director
25 of Professional Services for the Parks Division. And
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1 Dr. Dolman has been wrestling with this issue for
2 sometime, and I thought I should not deprive him of
3 being able to present this to you.
4 DR. DOLMAN: Thank you, Walt. As Walt
5 said, we have been wrestling with this issue for a
6 while. By way of a bit of background, this particular
7 change was recommended in a study prepared by the
8 Texas Historical Commission with our participation,
9 entitled the Texas Cultural Heritage Plan, published
10 in 1999; although, most of the work dates from '98.
11 These recommendations were -- pardon
12 me. Let me back up -- were incorporated into the
13 Sunset Bill draft and subsequently amended with a
14 number of the recommendations deleted, but the one
15 having to do with historic sites' names remained in
16 there. It's part of two sections of the Sunset
17 Bill: 31.2(b) states, "The Commission may not classify
18 a historical park -- a historical site as a historical
19 park." In Section 36, it amends Section 13.0053 of
20 our code to say, quote, "The Department may not refer
21 to a historical site as a, quote, 'historical park'
22 one in a departmental publication, or two, on a
23 departmental site."
24 We did quite a bit of research and
25 coordination on this because it wasn't a straight line
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1 deal to get there. We checked with the National Park
2 Service nomenclature and they designate a historical
3 park by having multiple properties or buildings.
4 We've tended to designate it based upon the presence
5 of recreational facilities or also multiple sites.
6 They call a historic site a single historical
7 feature.
8 We got input from all of the field staff
9 who would be affected and we also took it to the
10 Historic Sites Advisory Committee in December. In
11 addition, we met with the Executive Director of Texas
12 Historical Commission, Deputy Executive Director Terry
13 Colly, who is in the audience today, and Assistant
14 Attorney General Joe Thrash, and that also was useful
15 in trying to see what our options were.
16 The presentation that I'm making today,
17 which is a briefing item, was in this -- in the same
18 format presented to the Texas Historical Commission
19 both informally and formally at their December meeting
20 by senior advisor for historic sites Cindy
21 Brandimarte.
22 We have a fairly straightforward name
23 change with approximately 28 of the sites. And the
24 example given to you here is Casa Navarro State
25 Historical Park would become Casa Navarro State
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1 Historic Site. This renaming is very straightforward
2 in most of these cases, in the 28 that are listed on
3 your item.
4 We have three special cases, however,
5 that we are suggesting an alternative approach. One
6 happens to do with a -- with two sites that have major
7 recreational components: One of them being Goliad and
8 the other one being Steven F. Austin.
9 In the case of Goliad, because it has a
10 major recreational component and three additional
11 sites administered from that park: Zaragoza
12 Birthplace, Mission Rosario and Fannin Battleground,
13 it was felt that the best way to comply with the
14 statute was to drop the name "Historical," which
15 applies more to the area -- the Goliad name applies
16 more to the area and substitute the name of the actual
17 historic feature there, which is Mission Espiritu
18 Santo de Zuniga. We'll leave off the de Zuniga for
19 the naming purposes.
20 In the case of Stephen F. Austin, the
21 historical component is not even contiguous to the
22 recreational park; they're separated by about a half
23 mile of private property. And the -- the historical
24 component is on the original town sites, one of the
25 old plazas of San Felipe de Austin. Consequently,
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1 we're recommending -- of course, this has no new
2 facilities to the system -- but designating San Felipe
3 as a state historic site, because that is what it was
4 part of and it accurately describes the situation.
5 The five that I'm going to address as
6 part of Category 2 presented a little bit more of a
7 concern. They're major historical park -- historic
8 sites, they're also very significant recreational
9 areas. And this -- we -- finally this was part of the
10 reason for the meeting with the Assistant Attorney
11 General. We were trying to see if we had any legal
12 room in the historical park naming, and the conclusion
13 was we did not. So the response from the staff was to
14 maintain both the state park designation and the state
15 historic site designation as being the most
16 descriptive that is consistent with the terms of the
17 statute.
18 Most of the -- of the input came from
19 staff, the exception being at LBJ. Lady Bird Johnson
20 specifically wrote us saying that she did not want to
21 see it called LBJ State Historical Site. She wanted
22 it either to be state park or to remain as it was.
23 And our response to that was, as with the other two,
24 to -- we have a -- we have a major -- that's where we
25 have the two names, and this illustrates the issue.
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1 Sauer-Beckmann Farm at LBJ is a major interpretive
2 facility, it has real historical value, and we felt
3 like that we could retain the state historic site
4 designation because of those and other historic
5 features of the park. There are also two other
6 historic cabin areas.
7 Then we have a third category where we
8 recommend dropping "Historical" entirely from the
9 designation. The reason for this is very simple.
10 Mission Tejas State Park is primarily a recreational
11 park. The only historical elements at that site are
12 not original to that specific site. The replica of
13 Mission Tejas is not on the original site and is --
14 archeologists believe they have located it on private
15 property about two or three miles away. The other
16 historical feature is a cabin that was restored but
17 was brought from another location.
18 The Texas State Railroad is a similar
19 situation. We have none of the original features of
20 the original Texas State Railroad except for the --
21 the original line itself. None of the rolling stock
22 is original to it. The depots are -- were never there
23 historically; we use them as a tourist railroad. And
24 the staff recommendation, therefore, is that we not
25 call it a historic site but we simply call it a state
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1 park.
2 Because the Sunset Bill is directive
3 that means two things to us. One, the National Park
4 Service Policy is not an option that we can follow;
5 and two, that we have no -- very few options on how to
6 implement the Sunset Bill and -- and consequently the
7 changes are brought to you.
8 We believe that the proposed name
9 changes are very consistent with the actual historical
10 resources, that they are consistent with current
11 Commission policy on naming, and I would finally
12 conclude that because there's a zero-dollar fiscal
13 note on this item in the Sunset Bill, the policy that
14 would be followed would be a phase-in policy based
15 upon replacement, and therefore, would not involve any
16 outlay of money just to do wholesale replacement.
17 And I'd be happy to entertain any
18 questions you might have.
19 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Could you explain to me
20 again how you are dealing with the LBJ
21 Sauer-Beckmann --
22 DR. DOLMAN: Well, this
23 recommendation -- partly because of the -- of the
24 interest of the Johnson family would maintain the
25 Johnson name associated with both the historic site
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1 and the state park designations. This is an exception
2 to what we have suggested for Goliad where we -- we
3 are introducing a new name, Mission Espiritu Santo,
4 but we don't have the same family and stet interest
5 involved.
6 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: And Sauer-Beckmann
7 would be -- I used -- I always referred to as the
8 Sauer-Beckmann Working Farm, but is that the tech --
9 is that technically the name that it has?
10 DR. DOLMAN: That's the name of that
11 particular facility.
12 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Is that a historic
13 site?
14 DR. DOLMAN: It is a historic site. We
15 also have the Danz Cabins and another set of cabins at
16 the headquarters facility that are historic
17 structures, I believe, on the original site as well.
18 Of course, we do have the option of --
19 of changing it and saying LBJ State Park and
20 Sauer-Beckmann State Historic Site if that would be
21 the wish of the Commissions.
22 MR. DABNEY: That was considered. It
23 just gets real long and --
24 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Yes, it does. Any
25 questions on this? This is a briefing item?
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1 DR. DOLMAN: As I understand, Gene, it
2 is a briefing item and that the staff would be -- as
3 long as there's not contrary direction from the
4 Commission, the staff would implement it as an
5 administrative action.
6 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Okay. So there's no
7 motion required or --
8 DR. DOLMAN: Not as I understand it. We
9 really basically have no authority to do much
10 different.
11 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: What was
12 Mrs. Johnson's request? I'm not sure I'm clear on
13 that.
14 DR. DOLMAN: Mrs. Johnson requested
15 either retaining the current name which would be
16 contrary to statute, the Senate --
17 MR. DABNEY: Historical park.
18 DR. DOLMAN: -- Bill 305 with the
19 historical in -- historical park in the name or to
20 call it a state park. And we didn't want to entirely
21 lose the historic designation because of the historic
22 features there. It's both a recreational and a
23 historic --
24 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: So what's
25 the --
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1 DR. DOLMAN: The recommendation is --
2 MR. COOK: Complies with her wishes.
3 DR. DOLMAN: Yes.
4 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: That's what
5 I -- just say, yes, ma'am.
6 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Yes, ma'am.
7 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Yes, ma'am.
8 MR. DABNEY: Commissioner, that's --
9 that's what it would be called.
10 MR. COOK: That's the right answer. We
11 thought it would be very good like that. Sounds like
12 a very good idea.
13 MR. DABNEY: That's what it would be
14 called right there.
15 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Since this is just a
16 briefing item, we can move on then to the next --
17 there is -- I think that -- if there is no other
18 business, that concludes the Conservation Committee,
19 and we will move on to Education and Outreach. Is
20 that correct? Ad Hoc Infrastructure. I'm sorry.
21
22
23
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1 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
2 COUNTY OF BEXAR )
3 I, DICIE LEE EYTCHESON, a Certified
4 Court Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do
5 hereby certify that the above and foregoing 16 pages
6 constitute a full, true, and correct transcript of the
7 minutes of the TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION on
8 JANUARY 16, 2002, in the Commission Hearing Room of
9 the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters Complex,
10 Austin, Travis County, Texas.
11 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a
12 stenographic record was made by me at the time of the
13 public meeting and said stenographic notes were
14 thereafter reduced to computerized transcription under
15 my supervision and control.
16 WITNESS MY HAND this the day of
17 , 2002.
18
19
20 DICIE LEE EYTCHESON, Texas CSR 5392
Expiration Date: 12/02
21 7800 IH-10 West, Suite 100
San Antonio, Texas 78230
22 (210) 377-3027
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