Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Outreach and Education Committee
May 29, 2002
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1
7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the
8 29TH day of MAY 2002, there came on to be heard
9 matters under the regulatory authority of the
10 Parks and Wildlife Commission of Texas, in the
11 commission hearing room of the Texas Parks and
12 Wildlife Headquarters complex, Austin, Travis
13 County, Texas, beginning at 2:12 p.m., to wit:
14
15
APPEARANCES:
16 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Chair: Katharine Armstrong Idsal, San Antonio,
17 Texas, Chairman
Ernest Angelo, Jr., Vice Chairman,
18 Midland, Texas
John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas
19 Joseph B.C. Fitzsimons, San Antonio,
Texas
20 Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas (Absent)
Philip Montgomery, III, Dallas, Texas
21 Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas
Kelly W. Rising, M.D., Beaumont, Texas
22 Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
23
THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
24 Robert L. Cook, Executive Director, and
other personnel of the Parks and Wildlife
25 Department.
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2
1 MAY 29, 2002
2 *-*-*-*-*
3 OUTREACH AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE MEETING
4 *-*-*-*-*
5 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: At this time,
6 I'd call the outreach and education committee to
7 order at 2:12 p.m. on May 29th. The first order
8 of business is the approval of the minutes from
9 the last meeting. Do I have a motion?
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So move.
11 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Second.
12 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Been moved and
13 seconded. Any opposed to the motion? All in
14 favor say "Aye."
15 ("Aye.")
16 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Any opposed?
17 Motion passes.
18 (Motion passes unanimously).
19 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Mr. Cook?
20 AGENDA ITEM NO. 1 - CHAIRMAN'S CHARGES.
21 MR. COOK: Chairman's charges,
22 Commissioners, item 2 in your committee agenda is
23 an update on the status of our outreach and
24 education review of that entire program, which
25 will comply with our chairman's charges.
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3
1 AGENDA ITEM NO. 2 - SUNSET RECOMMENDATION ON
2 EDUCATION AND OUTREACH.
3 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: We have two
4 briefing items. The first one is the Sunset
5 recommendation on education and outreach.
6 Mr. Steve Hall?
7 MR. HALL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 My name is Steve Hall. I'm the education and
9 outreach director. And with me today is Nancy
10 Herron. She's the education services coordinator,
11 who assists with this project but also with things
12 like ^ Web cast and evaluation. And also Leah
13 Huth, I'm sure, is here. Leah? And you heard
14 from Leah last time regarding the natural leaders
15 teams project that deals with education and
16 outreach that is really the bulk -- and the
17 centerpiece for the plan, the education outreach
18 plan, that will result from this project.
19 The issue 6 from the Sunset Bill
20 deals -- dealing with education and outreach deals
21 with four main activities; one that each of the
22 education outreach programs and events are
23 consistent with our mission. Number two, that
24 they are not duplicative, and that's both internal
25 and external. Three, that they're cost effective.
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4
1 And four, that they are effectively measured.
2 The road map for success
3 essentially, both internally and externally, goes
4 through, of course, this committee, but also the
5 newly appointed education and outreach or outreach
6 and education advisory committee. That's the
7 external group to be appointed prior to September.
8 And then we have an internal team, the educational
9 outreach team that's been meeting since the mid
10 '90s, first and foremost to communicate what the
11 different divisions are doing relative to
12 education outreach. But more importantly, and
13 during this process, to be granted any kind of
14 authorities or project leadership in terms of
15 taking this process forward.
16 And finally, you have major
17 divisions or efforts within the department that
18 deal with this on a daily basis. And four of
19 those mentioned here are education,
20 interpretation, outreach and communications, which
21 has an entire division, including the marketing
22 components.
23 I've sketched it out here in terms
24 of what it visually looks like to combine all of
25 these components together. There's an overlapping
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5
1 component of all of them, which is important, that
2 centers around our mission. But there's also an
3 independent component of all of them where we have
4 various strategies that are solely educational or
5 solely communicative. And those kinds of things
6 need to be accomplished but also need to be
7 highlighted as separate and apart from some of the
8 other activities that go on.
9 We've posted a few definitions just
10 to keep this kind of separate and clear, and that
11 communications being the media flow of
12 information. Again, we have an entire division
13 dedicated to that in marketing. Education, we
14 have an entire branch dedicated to that which are
15 the program-based information and education. And
16 these are statewide and mostly formal efforts by
17 comparison with informal efforts. Interpretation,
18 these are site-based programs, as well. And
19 mostly, of course, these are field base
20 operations.
21 And finally, outreach, we've
22 determined as breaking down the barriers for
23 participation. This agency obviously has decided
24 that, you think, women, youth, minorities, and
25 certainly people with disabilities are four major
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6
1 categories or demographics, if you will, that need
2 to be more involved with the Parks and Wildlife
3 mission, programs, and activities. And we've
4 launched numerous activities that essentially
5 either are targeting these specific groups or
6 certainly want these particular groups to be the
7 ones highlighted, such as wildlife expos, where
8 you talk about families or youth.
9 Management actions are four that
10 we've been charged with from the Sunset Bill. The
11 first one is the program assessment. We're midway
12 through that program assessment. We've identified
13 99 different programs and events that certainly
14 deal with education and outreach. And just going
15 through, asking program managers, you know, when
16 and why they were created is just an interesting
17 question in and of itself. But certainly the need
18 for the program, who are their target audience, is
19 that a prioritized target? You know, is it a
20 specific group that they're after or is it open to
21 all groups certainly?
22 Costs and methodologies, and whether
23 they're formal or informal efforts and the
24 relative costs associated with both of those.
25 Finally, evaluations which also includes outputs
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7
1 and outcomes. Formal lingo used in terms of our
2 LBB measures. But certainly we'd like to think of
3 them as quantitative and qualitative types of data
4 that we can sink our teeth into.
5 Again, these programs are numerous
6 and it's been a daunting task just identifying,
7 number one, the programs, and then certainly
8 meeting with the program managers. This is the
9 brunt of what Nancy will be working with as an
10 ongoing component of this, not just something
11 upfront, as well.
12 Key strategies from 6.1 will be to
13 complete this assessment prior to the end of July,
14 to handle the communication and interpretation
15 components separately. These are so massive, just
16 to give you an idea, of the 33,000 fish and
17 wildlife events from the Department, about 26,000
18 of them deal with the parks or the funds 64 side
19 of things. Also, the communications division,
20 having the magazine, radio, TV, those kinds of
21 efforts will be acted on separately or as
22 independently, if you will, from education and --
23 or, excuse me, education and outreach types of
24 events.
25 And finally, using Outdoor Kids and
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8
1 programs like that to tie all of our youth
2 outreach programs together under one thematic
3 approach, it does help us deal with the public in
4 that they can identify maybe one theme or logo or
5 slogan or something that connects them with Parks
6 and Wildlife versus the myriad of things they
7 could connect with, whether it's our fisheries
8 division or wildlife division or what have you.
9 Management action number two is the
10 internal oversight. This is just looking
11 internally at ourselves, our organization.
12 Certainly Leah Huth and the natural leaders team
13 did a great job looking at the roles and
14 responsibilities all the way from your level down
15 to the grass roots level where the rubber meets
16 the road, if you will, at the field level. And
17 that's not easy because everyone in the agency
18 deals with education and outreach in some form of
19 fashion. So it was trying to identify and pick
20 out those individual entities that work solely on
21 education outreach and essentially lining or
22 assigning the authorities to those entities.
23 And finally, looking at maybe a
24 performance goal on a project code that we used
25 internally as an agency to identify what time we
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9
1 spent on education outreach. That's an enormous
2 task. Just as an example, federal aid projects
3 versus state projects, in the federal aid codes
4 that we use versus our state codes, just tackling
5 those kind of little intricacies are something
6 that is challenging, but I think we can probably
7 settle in on some project codes that help us
8 identify better with what time we do spend in
9 these areas.
10 The key strategies from 6.2 would be
11 to create outreach coordination at the regional
12 level. We've done that and assigned an outreach
13 coordinator in the State. And, of course,
14 initially we've started in the major urban areas
15 with the urban centers. Give authority to an
16 agency entity to carry on these charges, to
17 provide a model performance goal and to review and
18 consolidate those project codes. So these are the
19 strategies identified or at least some of the key
20 strategies identified from 6.2. And, again, Leah
21 has put together a report dealing with the roles
22 and responsibilities. 6.3 is evaluation.
23 That's probably the crux of this
24 whole effort, to determine our effectiveness as
25 programs. That's always been a key question,
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10
1 always will be a key question. It's probably the
2 hardest to answer at times, especially when you
3 look at item 3, which is the qualitative types of
4 outcomes. These are hard to measure when you're
5 dealing with a youngster ten years of age and
6 whether our program has any impact on him or her
7 when she's 20. And that's always an interesting
8 question because it involves both short-term types
9 of tools but also long-term tools, as well.
10 And that's the one that we're
11 excited about to really kind of help program
12 managers with, is to develop tools to actually
13 track that kind of data over time.
14 Key strategies is to encourage use
15 of these kind of tools, especially at the program
16 management level, such as the balance score card.
17 Certainly to create a database that's consistent
18 across the agency whereby a field staff member
19 could be inputting, through via the Internet,
20 their data from their event, and it gets into the
21 consolidated framework so that somebody here in
22 Austin could punch that up and say, "Oh, I see
23 they're having an event there in Brazos" or, you
24 know, "They're having an event somewhere that
25 interests me." So they could pull out that data,
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11
1 query that data at all levels within the
2 Department, and that, again, is a nice -- that's
3 something that we're looking forward to.
4 Finally, assign and provide a person
5 or a team to consult with these people. And we've
6 assigned Nancy Herron to be a consultant or act as
7 a consultant to the evaluation process. And
8 that's an important role for us to play, I think,
9 in education outreach, is for any program manager,
10 whether they're at a historic site or park,
11 wildlife management area, to come and say, "Jeez,
12 I run this wildlife management camp for a week and
13 I need a tool to determine or help me determine
14 the effectiveness of this camp." And so that's
15 where we can act as a consultant and try to give
16 them tools that they can use to do that. Again, a
17 daunting task but something that kind of excites
18 us a little bit.
19 That database is a -- template has
20 been essentially developed by that natural leaders
21 team, as has an outreach evaluation report that
22 looks into evaluation as a way to get at some of
23 the data that we've needed to get at through these
24 activities.
25 And finally, 6.4 is the
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12
1 partnerships. And we have existing partnerships
2 as Susan and Page have brought to you, both in the
3 nonprofit realm and in the areas of in-kind
4 contribution. Our volunteer partners are probably
5 some of the more successful things that we have
6 going. So the existing partnerships are
7 important. We do want to develop new
8 partnerships, especially at the local level. The
9 co-op partners, the -- Darlene's program in terms
10 of who she's been able to help fund instantly
11 become partners of ours because they're taking our
12 mission forward at the local level. And they're
13 an important group. But so are our regional
14 coordinators, our specialists in the urban areas.
15 For example, Johnny Jones in Houston has already
16 essentially developed and worked with now a
17 minimum of 25 partners just in the Houston area
18 alone, mostly church and boys and girls clubs and
19 boys and girls groups and just developing those
20 kind of partnerships at that level has been a real
21 key success. And he's only been on board a year
22 now. So -- so these are some of those strategies
23 that I've just talked about.
24 The second one is important and
25 that's to continue working with the Texas
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13
1 Education Agency. They're entering a new realm of
2 essential elements called the TAKS. And we're on
3 top of that in trying to determine how our
4 curricula fit in with their standards that they've
5 set; and as they change their standards, how they
6 cross reference our efforts. And we've had a good
7 working relationship with them and I think more so
8 in the future because they're going more toward
9 field work and our Parks and Wildlife management
10 areas become a key place to do their business.
11 And as we obviously identify what
12 parks are closest to what schools and what
13 schools, especially the Sheldon Lake area, that's
14 going to be a key component and it ties nicely
15 together with the new curricula. But we have to
16 keep up with the administrative effort on tying
17 those two things together so a teacher can clearly
18 see, "Oh, this is how Sheldon Lake state parks
19 meets my objectives here in the classroom." And
20 once we do that and make it an easy format for
21 them, then hopefully on the ground those school
22 kids do get out to that area. And finally, to
23 continue our partnerships with major universities
24 such as the cooperative extension service at Texas
25 A&M and others, these have been key relationships
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14
1 that we've formed over the last eight to ten years
2 and we certainly want to keep those going, as
3 well.
4 And finally, for your perusal in
5 August will be the completed plan that, again, is
6 comprised of a lot of what the natural leaders
7 will be presenting here next week, but also what
8 Nancy is doing in terms of program assessment, as
9 well. That plan will be ready for your adoption
10 in August as part of the other Sunset strategies.
11 And the time-line on most of this,
12 as you can see in the blue, the first three
13 measures will be things that we complete this
14 fiscal year but the brunt of the work will start
15 in September and that's implementation of the plan
16 and the tools and the database. And, again, I
17 think I, for one, have been looking forward to
18 tying these efforts together. I know Nancy has
19 done a lot of good work and so has Leah in the
20 natural leaders team. And it's exciting for me
21 because I think that we can tie these things
22 together even though they are as broad as this
23 agency is. So with that, we'd be happy to answer
24 any questions.
25 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Comments?
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15
1 John?
2 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I've got a very
3 fundamental question. The outreach and education
4 committee's objective, its audience, is it a -- is
5 it our total constituency or is it an age group?
6 MR. HALL: In terms of the
7 Commission committee or the advisory committee?
8 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: The advisory group?
9 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What's the
10 goal of the program?
11 COMMISSIONER AVILA: What's the goal
12 of the program?
13 MR. HALL: Okay. Outreach, it's
14 women, minority, youth, and people with
15 disabilities. In other words, demographics that
16 don't -- aren't dominating the percentages like
17 they should, perhaps, in our business. But for
18 education, it's primarily -- it's across the board
19 but it's traditional groups such as for hunter
20 education it would be hunters. So that would
21 include adults, for example, for boaters. Outdoor
22 Women is a program of outreach, something like
23 boater education is a program for traditional
24 constituents that pay the bills but that have a
25 mandate associated with that.
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16
1 COMMISSIONER AVILA: And I thought
2 that was the case, I just was seeking a course
3 correction, if there was one. Because you do have
4 every program up there. So it's all of our
5 constituency.
6 MR. HALL: Exactly.
7 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Then the
8 emphasis that the Commission gave directly on
9 minorities, women, children as another generation
10 of users of our services.
11 MR. HALL: You bet.
12 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: But the themes and
13 the message we relay to all our constituents, be
14 they women, children, or minorities or handicapped
15 or other constituents is the same message and the
16 same themes.
17 MR. HALL: Correct. That's where
18 those circles overlap in terms of the mission, is
19 that, you know, if I were to pick constituents
20 that hone in on the mission, it's the family unit,
21 you know, which is comprised of all the things
22 we've talked about.
23 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I guess the
24 only other question I have is, is there so much
25 ownership on some of these programs that when you
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17
1 see the -- that we can eliminate some? Are you
2 going to do any of that? Is that beyond the scope
3 of what you're doing?
4 MR. HALL: I don't think at all
5 about -- I think it's a hand-holding come to
6 reality session with a program manager that's
7 certainly vested in a specific program.
8 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I don't know
9 that that will be the case but there might be some
10 that are consolidated and like that. I wouldn't
11 hesitate to tell us about that or Mr. Cook.
12 MS. HUTH: If I may, I think through
13 this evaluation and inventory, I think we're going
14 to identify best practices. We may see some
15 points of consolidation, we may not. We may learn
16 that we need to replicate someone's exemplary
17 program. But I think we're going to learn a lot
18 through this process and work more effectively and
19 expertly.
20 MR. HALL: We actually hope the
21 program managers come to that conclusion rather
22 than an independent, you know, hammer coming in
23 from the side and saying, "We'll cut your
24 program."
25 I mean, if you go through the needs
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18
1 assessment or, say, just cost per participant that
2 you're reaching and you -- and something is out of
3 whack or it's clearly not tied to the mission,
4 that, you know, ought to come from the program
5 manager. If it doesn't, you know, certainly we're
6 going to recommend various things. But I don't
7 want to be in a position, for one, to be the
8 hammer. But if we're designated that authority or
9 if we're assigned that authority, I don't think
10 we'd be afraid of that. I'm going across the
11 board with all these programs and it -- the one
12 thing that's clear is how amazing some of these
13 programs really are and some of these people. So
14 it's going to be hard to play that role if that
15 role ever comes.
16 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Mr. Hall, you said
17 you identified 99 different programs? I think
18 usually that --
19 MR. HALL: That's something you can
20 get your handle on, there's obviously other
21 activities. Game wardens are involved in so many
22 different activities that even necessarily
23 included in those 90. For example, say, field
24 biologists. But those are activities that respond
25 to requests, versus the 99, where it's a program
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19
1 or activity of the department typically brought to
2 someone that we're prepared to bring to someone.
3 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: A couple
4 of things. If we're going to actually approve --
5 I didn't realize we were headed to approve a whole
6 broad plan for education and outreach. But sure,
7 I'd like to see an advance. Didn't have a time to
8 discuss it among ourselves what we want to
9 accomplish in this area.
10 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: May I make a
11 comment here because I think it's worth noting.
12 Speaking for the Commission and myself, the
13 importance we place on outreach are clear based on
14 what's happened in the last 12 months. We've made
15 the education and outreach committee a full
16 committee of the Commission. I've created an
17 outreach and education advisory group. And, of
18 course, Sunset has charged us with going through
19 this. Mr. Henry, Commissioner Henry has been the
20 chairman of the committee and unfortunately has
21 been ill. He was also a key member of the
22 advisory group. Unfortunately his illness has
23 slowed us down. That does not take away my
24 interest in any way or my energy and focus on this
25 area. I do think we're running into a time
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20
1 constraint that is of concern to me. I am
2 intending on focusing very keenly on these -- on
3 this committee over the next -- and advisory group
4 over the next month. I think some of the issues
5 that you're looking at today and your concern
6 about the importance of all us looking at what
7 you're doing and looking at it carefully is noted,
8 and we will do so.
9 I think it's also important, when we
10 look at all these programs, that we reflect back
11 to the new mission statement, that our message is
12 clear, consistent and reliable, and that it's
13 based on good science and sound reason. And that
14 if that guides us, I think we can come up with a
15 very good plan.
16 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I agree
17 completely with what you're saying, Madam
18 Chairman. The other thing, Steve, that would help
19 me a lot in reading this, when you-all describe
20 the children and say 10,000 children went through
21 the program, can you be specific as possible if
22 that means 10,000 children attended a two-hour
23 fishing class once? That would help me, rather
24 than 10,000 children went through the program. Be
25 real specific because I think in judging these,
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21
1 there's a tendency to throw all the numbers in
2 there. That's natural for everybody who runs them
3 and does them and feels great about it. But for
4 us reading it, it's real hard to see that kind of
5 gross information and be able to sense what kind
6 of impact we really have. And that's one thing
7 that's on the front end, as precise as possible
8 would be very helpful. Second, I would appreciate
9 reading -- I don't know if it's part of the report
10 you mentioned up there. As specific as possible
11 recommendations you can make on how we can measure
12 the long-term impact some of these things are
13 having, to the extent they can be measured or seen
14 or might be implemented. Because I think, the way
15 I see it, the big challenge is creating behavior
16 patterns that cause people to do things in the
17 outdoors that are more of our mission. And a more
18 intense experience with a more limited population
19 may, in fact, be more effective in the long run
20 than a long-range project that comes and goes very
21 quickly. But, again, your thinking on that as you
22 get into it would be deeply appreciated.
23 MR. HALL: I think what we're
24 anticipating, what will be happening at that one a
25 longer project that is more costly but, like you
.
22
1 say, potentially more than effective. So what is
2 the balance as an agency. We wouldn't want all
3 eggs in one basket.
4 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: The finer
5 grade you can do that, the better we'll be able to
6 make those judgments. Sounds like a great
7 project.
8 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Any other
9 comments or questions?
10 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I would like to
11 echo the same comments of Chairman Idsal. You-all
12 have a tremendous responsibility and we have to be
13 focused on the youth and minority and outreach
14 education. I kind of lean more toward outreach
15 and there are hundreds of programs. Thank you,
16 Steve. I appreciate it.
17 AGENDA ITEM NO. 3 - WATER COMMUNICATIONS
18 INITIATIVE
19 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: All right. The
20 next briefing will be by Lydia Saldana, water
21 communications initiative. Lydia? I see you got
22 rid of your leg.
23 MS. SALDANA: For the moment. I'll
24 be having surgery tomorrow. That's why we're
25 doing this briefing today. I'm Lydia Saldana,
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23
1 communications director. And Larry McKinney is
2 joining me. It's a tag-team presentation. Larry,
3 why don't you start?
4 DR. McKINNEY: Appreciate it. I've
5 been trying to set up a little bit of what Lydia
6 is going to talk to you about, I think it's
7 important to talk about a couple of points. And
8 although we talk about it a lot, it's worth
9 repeating. And our focus is water. And it is the
10 single mostly source management issue that we
11 face. And we talk about that often. And as we
12 heard today, when we were talking about the
13 briefing from the land and water conservation
14 plan, as Jeff and Emily talked about, made one
15 specific mention of a number that caught my
16 attention that said 80 percent of top parks are
17 associated with water. Everything we do with fish
18 and wildlife regulations relates back to that.
19 And we have to stay focused on that issue because
20 as we move forward in time, if we don't want to
21 make all this good work that we've accomplished
22 over the last 30 and 40, 50 years to secure our
23 fish and wildlife, we want to secure that for the
24 future, we have to make sure place to be, that
25 they're there. And water is that issue. We are
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24
1 in a very important time with water. We always
2 say it's a critical period and it seems like every
3 year it's a critical period for decisions. But it
4 certainly is now.
5 The Legislature, for example, will
6 be taking up this issue next session about how do
7 we roll in environmental needs into our water
8 permitting and management, how does that fit?
9 There are interim hearings going on now about that
10 topic. So they will be making decisions on this
11 issue that are critical.
12 We're in the second phase of our
13 state water planning effort. And in this phase,
14 we have worked closely with the regional groups,
15 16 regional groups, and the water development
16 board to try to make the point that now is the
17 time for us to, as we evaluate the plethora of
18 strategies that we have for meeting our water
19 needs for the next 50 years, that now we need to
20 work our environmental issues into those and try
21 to make a determination of how that works, as
22 well.
23 So a number of issues coming up
24 before us that are critical to us.
25 And having informed decision makers,
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25
1 having our constituents and the public aware and
2 knowing of these issues are going to be important
3 for us. And that's the focus of what Lydia is
4 going to talk with you about.
5 Clearly these issues are important
6 to Texans. When we do polls, when independent
7 polls are done across the state, environmental
8 issues are there. And among those issues is
9 water, be it water pollution or wildlife habitat.
10 It's certainly a nonpartisan issue. It's
11 important to all of us. We've talked to our
12 constituents and asked them in our own poll work
13 we've done, they say what are the most important
14 issues to them, water-related issues are their
15 biggest concern, of 48 percent of Texans. Now,
16 the second category is -- I don't know. 24
17 percent of the people don't know what those issues
18 are, which I think really frames what we're
19 talking about here in this communication process.
20 We not only have to work with our constituents so
21 that they understand, they know the water
22 importance but they need to understand what it
23 does, why it's important. And those who don't
24 understand that, they need to understand the
25 connection between fish and wildlife. That point
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26
1 was brought home to me just a little while ago. I
2 spent most of the lunch hour with David Sikes who
3 is an outdoor writer in Corpus Christi who has
4 recently written some on water, who is writing
5 another series on the Gulf of Mexico. And he
6 said, "You know, Larry, I've begun calling all
7 over the states in the Gulf of Mexico and every
8 place I turn it's water." And I said, "Yeah,
9 that's right. Water is the issue." And David is
10 facing a tough issue down there in Corpus where he
11 has a group of landowners who have houses adjacent
12 to a lake there that are basically saying, "Wow,
13 the fresh water going into the Nueces Bay is
14 poisoning that bay and the water. I'm losing on
15 my lake is killing my property values and we need
16 to do something about it." He said, "Larry, every
17 time I say how important freshwater is, I get
18 bombarded with hate mail from that side of it."
19 So he said, "My problem is, how do I get this
20 message across? How do I tell people and get --
21 this is a difficult issue. How do I do it?" I
22 said, "Well, we're going to give it a try and
23 we've got our best troops working on it. And it
24 is an issue for them." So our focus -- turn it
25 over to Lydia now -- is to how can we set the
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1 stage to provide that information. And that's
2 where we're going.
3 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Thank you.
4 MS. SALDANA: How do we get this
5 message across? Well, the strategy to address
6 these issues is why we call Texas the state of
7 water. Our positioning statement is helping
8 Texans understand the value of water. It is a
9 very complex issue. It's not easily reduced to
10 sound bytes. It's not something you can do in one
11 news release. It's going to require an
12 interactive and sustained effort on all of our
13 parts to get this message across. What it is is
14 an integrated active initiative that will utilize
15 every single one of the communication tools at our
16 disposal. Our goal, as Larry mentioned, is to
17 raise Texans' awareness and understanding of these
18 very complex water issues that we face. And what
19 we came up with and what we've brainstormed -- and
20 we did this as a team both within the division,
21 communications division and certainly involving
22 Larry and his staff. The original idea for this
23 was very, very big and bigger than the budget
24 dollars that we had at our disposal. So one of
25 the things we've been very aggressive about is
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1 seeking sponsorship dollars. And before the ink
2 dries on our first proposal working with the parks
3 foundation, we got a hundred thousand dollar
4 sponsorship from Brazos Mutual Fund. We're very
5 excited about it. It's going to allow us to
6 execute some of these strategies that we would not
7 have otherwise been able to do. A little bit of
8 background on Brazos. Brazos Mutual Fund was
9 created and managed by a Texas state active, John
10 McStay of John McStay Investments. Now,
11 Mr. Mackay is an avid Texan. He is an avid
12 outdoorsman. I hope he will become a very good
13 friend of parks. Certainly he's made a very, very
14 generous offer to assist us. Just a little
15 background on the fund, the Brazos Mutual Fund
16 derives its name from his ranch. They were
17 looking for an immediate opportunity, a branding
18 opportunity to raise the proceeds of the mutual
19 fund. This partnership is very much a win win for
20 both of us, so we're very much excited about it.
21 As you develop a communications
22 plan, you think of who the audience is that you
23 want to reach. And certainly our constituents are
24 first on the list, anglers, boaters, hunters, park
25 users. But he wants to go beyond that. In some
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1 instances, we already do a pretty good job in
2 communicating with these folks. We also need to
3 reach the Texas general public, those folks that
4 don't -- you know, think that water is the top
5 issue but don't really know a whole lot about it.
6 And we're going to reach the general public
7 through some of these avenues that I'm going to
8 explain in just a moment.
9 Key messages is also -- you have to
10 define what your key messages are before you
11 embark on a strategy or communications plan. So
12 these are a few of the key messages we've come up
13 with. Clean abundant water for wildlife. Is
14 water for people? These are not mutually
15 exclusive or an either/or proposition. This is
16 going to be something we communicate through
17 everything we do. Fish and wildlife management is
18 key to the equation. I don't think a lot of folks
19 have a clear understanding of how important that
20 is to water quality and water quantity, and
21 particularly land stewards are also water
22 stewards. We need to communicate what role
23 private landowners have in this process.
24 Ecosystems protect our quality of life. And
25 certainly the folks around Lake Fork understand
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1 that concept in terms of ensuring a healthy
2 economy, ensuring a good quality life. And that's
3 the kind of thing we'll be going through
4 everything we do.
5 Larry has mentioned planning.
6 Planning is going to make the difference. And if
7 we do this right, we'll do it in a way that will
8 ensure that fish and wildlife aren't left high and
9 dry when the planning process is over.
10 And finally, this is one of the most
11 important messages. And that's that we all have a
12 responsibility, all Texans have a responsibility
13 to learn more about it, to become more
14 knowledgeable about the issues and then to become
15 involved. So those are basically the key messages
16 that we'll be delivering in everything that we do.
17 It is -- as I mentioned, it's going
18 to utilize every communications tool at our
19 disposal, from print to our broadcast programs to
20 the World Wide Web and we're also going to be
21 depending on our media colleagues, the
22 environmentalists of the state, the writers of the
23 state to help deliver this message. It is
24 critical, it is complex and Larry just revamped
25 his conversation with David Sikes. This is the
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1 kind of thing that needs to be covered and covered
2 on a continuing basis. We're going to do
3 everything we can to make sure that happens. We
4 will launch the initiative with the July issue of
5 the magazine. The July issue will be published
6 as -- it will be on the newsstand for more than
7 one month. It is the most ambitious that Parks
8 and Wildlife magazine has ever published. It is
9 the longest issue. It's 116 pages. And it is the
10 most ambitious issue in terms of content, in terms
11 of the writing and photography talent, in terms of
12 the effort of the staff. And it's going to be
13 pretty awesome. We've attempted to take a
14 National Geographic approach to the subject. And
15 our goal is to get at the heart and soul of our
16 rivers, our springs, our bays. And to help us do
17 this, we've enlisted the top talent working in
18 Texas today. In a series of six essays, legendary
19 author Larry Hodge will write about the aquifer,
20 Jon Reid will write of his personal relationship
21 with Comal Springs, Joe Nick Patowski - Devil's
22 River, Carol Flake Chapman - Caddo Lake, Michael
23 Furtman will explore the wetlands, and Jim
24 Anderson will delve into Matagorda Bay. We'll sum
25 up the issue with a special report from Rod Davis,
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1 a top writer who has written for national
2 magazines on the Rio Grande. Our own Earl
3 Nottingham, our chief photographer, did the
4 photography. And I had the pleasure looking at
5 the layouts. It truly is the best work Earl
6 Nottingham has done. I think it's the best work
7 of Susan Ebert and her staff, the folks at Parks
8 and Wildlife magazine. You know, I don't think
9 I'm going to say anything more. We'll let the
10 issue speak for itself.
11 DR. McKINNEY: It's already working.
12 MS. SALDANA: Susan took a couple of
13 hours off this afternoon to be here instead of
14 reviewing layouts and proofing layouts but we're
15 in the production of our July magazine and it's a
16 beauty. But I'll let it speak for itself. So
17 we're excited about that. On the heels of the
18 July issue will be the publication of the Texas
19 rivers book. Author John Graves and Wyman Meinzer
20 collaborated. You will recall that essays from
21 this book were published in the magazine last
22 year. I think everybody knows who John Graves is.
23 This kind of complements a lifetime of working on
24 rivers and river issues. His 1957 "Goodbye to a
25 River" established him as one of the top
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1 naturalist writers in Texas. We are thrilled to
2 have him involved in this book. It is just going
3 to be wonderful. Brazos Mutual is going to be
4 involved in this project, as well. They will be
5 funding a reception on July 31st in Dallas that
6 you-all will all be invited to that I hope you can
7 attend. And Brazos mutual is also sponsoring a
8 traveling exhibit that will feature images and
9 process from this book. This exhibit would not
10 have been possible without this funding. It will
11 debut at the Capitol. There will be another
12 reception for that exhibit at the Bob Bullock
13 Museum. It's going to be traveling all over high
14 profile places including the Texas Book Festival
15 in November. So it's going to be an excellent
16 opportunity to get these issues front and center
17 with Texas and also to promote our book on the
18 side. So UT Press is behind us 100 percent.
19 They're distributing it. And I can bet this is
20 going to be -- the answer to your Christmas gift
21 list is here.
22 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Lydia, what's the
23 date on the Bob Bullock reception?
24 MS. SALDANA: We're still working on
25 that. We're working with the Foundation. But
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1 it's going to be in September. We're looking at
2 three different dates. We'll be coordinating with
3 your calendar and with Bob's calendar on that to
4 make sure it's going to work with y'all. But
5 we're excited about that, about having that
6 presence at the Bullock Museum and being able to
7 travel around. Another very ambitious project is
8 a one-hour television documentary. This also
9 would not be possible without the support of
10 Brazos mutual. We'll also be partnering with KERA
11 in Dallas. KERA will be allowing us to use their
12 high definition television equipment and editing
13 facilities, which means we won't have to pay for
14 that which means we will be able to get a little
15 bit more out of this documentary than we otherwise
16 would have done. Richard Roberts heads our
17 award-winning productions branch. We will be
18 overseeing production with this. We've also hired
19 two outside producers, we have hired Curtis
20 Craven, who used to be our staff and Mark
21 Southern. We have an outstanding team to do this
22 documentary.
23 I've been at Parks and Wildlife for
24 12 years. And one of the reasons why I came to
25 Parks and Wildlife was the quality of their
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35
1 television production. That was one of the
2 reasons Richard came here, as well. And I'm
3 thrilled and I think Richard is, too, to be
4 involved and really getting into an issue in this
5 hour-long documentary. We're going to produce it
6 in a way that there's segments. It will air in
7 February, hour long prime time, we hope, prime
8 time documentary, but we're producing in a way so
9 that the segments can be pulled out and run also
10 in our PBS series so we'll be getting double duty
11 out of them as a one time documentary and then
12 several recognized in our PBS shows. We're real
13 excited about that. We're looking at an air date
14 of February about that. We've got other ways to
15 get this message out. Our "Passport to Texas"
16 radio series over the next six months will be
17 featuring various stories about the water issues.
18 As you know, "Passport to Texas" reaches an
19 audience of 350,000 a week. This is a really good
20 avenue to get this information out. We will be
21 looking at a Web design. We will be looking at
22 Larry and his folks and depending on if we get
23 sponsorship dollars will depend on how robust we
24 get the web sight. But we'll be looking.
25 And finally, media relations efforts
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36
1 are going to be key to this. Press kits will be
2 going out in a couple of weeks announcing the
3 initiative with the July issue of the magazine and
4 then we'll be doing strategic releases over the
5 next six to nine -- year on this issue. So we're
6 really excited about it.
7 Existing dollars within our division
8 is funding this. I mean, certainly communicating
9 about water is a core function. It's something
10 that we could do anyway. But, again, what we
11 would envision has gone far above and beyond
12 what's funded beyond our branch, I mean within our
13 division. Larry has come up with some assistance
14 in terms of dollars that really made the July
15 issue of the magazine possible because that was
16 probably the double the -- well, not quite double,
17 but it was certainly more expensive than the
18 magazine, so support from Larry, the Brazos Mutual
19 Fund and the Brazos River Authority has made that
20 possible. We've also worked very closely with the
21 Foundation. We have about 60 professionals out
22 now, funding proposals, so we certainly have an
23 opportunity for additional dollars to go toward
24 some other projects and we're very excited about
25 it.
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1 And I guess the last thing I would
2 say is what I opened with, which is this really
3 has been a team effort. I think we do our best
4 work when we work together and when we brainstorm
5 together and come up with good ideas. And, again,
6 Susan and Richard are very excited about this as
7 it rolls forward. Any questions?
8 DR. McKINNEY: Before you have any
9 questions, one last thing, before we do get into
10 this deal and I would note, we hoped to have the
11 preliminary ready now but thanks to a lot of
12 special work by the Chairman, which we appreciate,
13 Governor Perry has named June "Texas Rivers
14 Month." And that's going to roll into this thing,
15 as well. And so we're very happy -- kind of
16 happened at the last minute. That's another
17 element here.
18 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Lydia, you've
19 convinced me and I continue to be amazed at the
20 first class magazine. Y'all do a great job. I
21 congratulate you. Any comments or questions from
22 the Commissioners?
23 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Very exciting.
24 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Thank you both,
25 Lydia, Larry. I guess there's no other business
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1 to come before this committee, so at this time I
2 call this committee adjourned.
3 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: I don't believe
4 there's any other business for this Commission.
5 So this meeting is adjourned.
6 *-*-*-*-*
7 (MEETING ADJOURNED.)
8 *-*-*-*-*
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1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF TEXAS )
3 COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
4 I, MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, a Certified
5 Court Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do
6 hereby certify that the above and foregoing 39
7 pages constitute a full, true and correct
8 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks &
9 Wildlife Commission on MAY 29, 2002, in the
10 commission hearing room of the Texas Parks &
11 Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis
12 County, Texas.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic
14 record was made by me a the time of the public
15 meeting and said stenographic notes were
16 thereafter reduced to computerized transcription
17 under my supervision and control.
18 WITNESS MY HAND this the 29th day of
19 July, 2002.
20
21
MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, RPR, CSR NO. 3226
22 Expiration Date: 12-31-02
3101 Bee Caves Road
23 Centre II, Suite 220
Austin, Texas 78746
24 (512) 328-5557
25
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