Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Ad Hoc Infrastructure Committee
November 7, 2001
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
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7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the
8 7TH day of NOVEMBER, 2001, there came on to be
9 heard matters under the regulatory authority of
10 the Parks and Wildlife Commission of Texas, in
11 the commission hearing room of the Texas Parks and
12 Wildlife Headquarters complex, Austin, Travis
13 County, Texas, beginning at 4:10 p.m., to wit:
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15
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APPEARANCES:
17 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
AD HOC INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE:
18 Chair: John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas
Katharine Armstrong Idsal, San Antonio, Texas
19 Ernest Angelo, Jr., Midland, Texas
Carol E. Dinkins, Houston, Texas
20 Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas
Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
21 Philip Montgomery, Dallas, Texas
Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas
22 Joseph Fitzsimons, San Antonio, Texas
23 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and
24 other personnel of the Parks and Wildlife
Department.
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1 NOVEMBER 7, 2001
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3 AD HOC INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE MEETING
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5 CHAIRMAN AVILA: I now convene the
6 meeting of the Ad Hoc Infrastructure Committee,
7 November 7, 2001, at 10 after 4:00.
8 The first order of business is the
9 approval of the committee minutes from our
10 previous meeting. I need a motion.
11 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: So moved.
12 CHAIRMAN AVILA: Second?
13 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Second.
14 CHAIRMAN AVILA: They are approved.
15 Andy, are there chairman's charges?
16 AGENDA ITEM NO. 1: BRIEFING - CHAIRMAN'S
17 CHARGES.
18 MR. SANSOM: Yes, sir. Thanks to a
19 lot of work from a lot of people, I think
20 particularly Chairman Idsal, Mr. Nash, former
21 Chairman Nash, and Lydia Saldana, as you know,
22 Proposition 8 passed. And so the principal issue
23 in your charges will be to prepare for and execute
24 the upcoming bond issue. Passed overwhelmingly.
25 And 35 million of that has already been certified
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1 and should be available to us by September 1.
2 CHAIRMAN AVILA: Great. Scott,
3 you'll give us an update?
4 AGENDA ITEM NO. 2: BRIEFING - CAPITAL
5 PROJECTS UPDATE.
6 MR. BORUFF: Mr. Chair and members,
7 I'm Scott Boruff, director of the infrastructure
8 division. And while I am going to discuss the
9 proposition 8, I'm going to hold that to the very
10 end, but I will make the rest of this very brief.
11 I did want to just very briefly kind
12 of give a little bit of history here, particularly
13 for the new commissioners, about our history with
14 the bond programs here at the agency.
15 First of all, as you may or may not
16 know, prior to the middle of the 1990s, it was
17 really a fairly unpredictable capital revenue --
18 or capital program for repairs here at the agency.
19 And in light of that, we really kind of fell
20 behind dramatically in terms of keeping up with
21 the facilities that we had, and we kind of got
22 into a crisis phase.
23 In 1996, there was an infrastructure
24 task force established, and that task force
25 identified $75 million of backlog needs which we
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1 needed in order to bring ourselves kind of up to
2 par. The 75th Legislature authorized $60 million
3 in revenue bonds to address those needs. And you
4 can see in the slide how we initially proposed to
5 spend that $60 million. 75 percent of it was
6 going to be for water and wastewater system
7 upgrades, 20 percent for facility repairs, and 5
8 percent for ADA.
9 I'd like to report that we, in
10 January, got the last of that $60 million. We are
11 on schedule. That money will be spent as it was
12 supposed to be spent. We have changed those
13 percentages slightly. We actually will have about
14 55 percent of the money will have been spent on
15 water and wastewater. About 40 percent will have
16 been spent on facility repairs. And 5 percent
17 will have been spent on ADA.
18 The next slide, which I'm going to
19 show you, is a slide that those of you that have
20 been here have probably seen a lot. This was the
21 slide that we used in the Legislature last year to
22 demonstrate the kinds of needs that we have on an
23 ongoing basis.
24 The upper triangle you see there
25 represents the $75 million which was identified in
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1 backlog needs. The blue part of it is the $60
2 million which we were given in the 75th
3 Legislature, which left us with a $15 million
4 balance to bring us to conclusion with that
5 particular analysis, which was concluded in 1996,
6 remember.
7 Of course, since 1996, we have five
8 more years under our belt. In the meantime, we've
9 been piling on additional critical repair needs.
10 We went to the Legislature and tried to convince
11 them that we needed anywhere between eight to ten,
12 maybe up to $15 million. And we don't have a good
13 handle on that yet.
14 I will share with you, by the next
15 legislative session early next year, our facility
16 management system will be in place. It will have
17 in it every component of every facility in the
18 system, and it will be tagged to industry
19 standards which will allow us then to identify
20 life cycles for everything from roofs to
21 wastewater systems to roads to pipes to you name
22 it.
23 So that in the next session, we
24 won't be guessing -- and we're pretty good at
25 guessing, but it's not very good to go downtown
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1 and guess. So next session, we're going to be
2 able to have some hard numbers.
3 But this slide represents the fact
4 that in addition to that $75 million, we think we
5 need between 10 and 15 million dollars a year to
6 keep from getting in the same position somewhere
7 down the road.
8 In addition, back in the 75th
9 Legislature, we were authorized $3 million a year
10 for minor maintenance, which, of course, helps
11 prevent us from falling into the major maintenance
12 category. So that's an ongoing predictable
13 source.
14 My preference, and I think every in
15 the agency, we would also then in the next
16 legislative session or two come up with some more
17 predictable capital funds over the long-term so
18 that we don't have to keep going back and asking
19 for these huge bond issues in order to get our
20 business done. I know I would sleep a lot better
21 not having to go through what we have gone through
22 in the last few weeks in hoping that we get the
23 money.
24 Having said that, that's kind of the
25 history. And I would also like to share with you
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1 our philosophy in infrastructure. We really have
2 kind of anchored our approach, particularly in the
3 last two or three years, to three major components
4 of the philosophy, if you will.
5 The first, I don't have a slide up
6 there for, but it's a strong commitment on our
7 part to make sure that in infrastructure we are
8 very tied into the mission of this agency; and
9 that is to protect and manage cultural and natural
10 resources. So we have a very dedicated staff of
11 men and women that are very committed to doing
12 infrastructure in a way that does not impact the
13 resource negatively.
14 You know, we see it as our role,
15 really, to set the stage for the other resource
16 divisions in this agency so that they can go out
17 there and do the job they need to do in terms of
18 outreach and education and in terms of resource
19 conservation.
20 The second component of the
21 philosophy is a commitment to sustainable design,
22 our green building. And that's what this slide
23 reflects. Sustainable design is an effort on our
24 part to incorporate national standards as
25 established by the United States green building
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1 council.
2 This is an organization based in
3 Washington, and it has an established
4 certification criteria called "LEAD
5 certification." And LEAD stands for leadership
6 and energy and environmental design. It's based
7 on accepted energy and environmental principles,
8 strikes a balance between known, effective
9 practices, and emerging concepts.
10 The real idea here is to evaluate
11 environmental performance over the entire life
12 cycle of the building or a project, so that we're
13 looking at all kinds of opportunities to build
14 sustainable projects.
15 One of the things we're most proud
16 of, I guess, in our division is that the
17 headquarters building in Lake Somerville, as I
18 discussed in the last briefing a couple of
19 sessions ago, burned down. And it was our first
20 effort to design internally a building which would
21 meet these LEAD certification guidelines.
22 And I'm proud to report that at this
23 point, the LEAD certification process really has
24 several different levels of accomplishment. The
25 top level is called a platinum, gold, silver, and
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1 bronze, I think is the last one. Anyway, the
2 bottom line is, we're only a few points away from
3 platinum. If we can manage a platinum
4 certification on this, there are only two other
5 projects in the entire United States that have
6 reached that level of sustainable design.
7 And I might mention that many of the
8 very reputable architectural firms around the
9 state have never reached a gold rating, and we
10 will certainly reach a gold rating on this.
11 So just as kind of a kudo for my
12 staff, you know, I wanted y'all to be aware that
13 we have folks here that can do design just as well
14 as anybody in the state. And we're very proud of
15 the fact that we're going to be able to put
16 buildings on the ground that are sensible and meet
17 the needs of this agency in terms of its vision
18 and its mission in the future.
19 The other cornerstone that we use in
20 the infrastructure division is accessibility.
21 Accessibility is something you're probably all
22 aware of relative to ADA. However, there are new
23 guidelines coming out in the next couple of years
24 that will add to the requirements relative to ADA;
25 in particular, "accessibility in the great
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1 outdoors."
2 And there are two new components
3 that will be coming to fruition soon. The first
4 is "accessibility guidelines relative to
5 recreation facilities." And the second is
6 "guidelines relative to outdoor developed areas."
7 And I'm going to skip over this just a little bit
8 in the interest of time.
9 One of the things that we're going
10 to be looking at, for example, under the new
11 guidelines for recreational facilities is on
12 fishing piers and platforms. These guidelines
13 require us to have accessible routes that connect
14 the floating fishing piers and platforms to the
15 areas where people will park, so that there has to
16 be a way to get to these floating fishing piers.
17 The new guidelines will require that
18 25 percent of the railings will be no higher than
19 32 inches. There has to be protective edging at
20 least 50 millimeters above the surface of the
21 ramps. There has to be additional maneuvering
22 space on fishing piers and platforms, which will
23 allow people to go out and actually fish off of
24 platforms safely and with some enjoyment.
25 The second component, as I
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1 mentioned, are the outdoor developed areas
2 guidelines. These are such things as recreational
3 access to routes and trails. Other things are
4 affected, such as camping facilities, trailer
5 spaces, tent pads, shelters, fixed picnic tables,
6 fire rings, cooking surfaces, grills, and
7 utilities. We're ahead of the curve here.
8 We've been looking at these things.
9 And, for example, in the World Birding Center, we
10 have at this point designed in two miles of
11 universal access trail at the headquarters site in
12 Benson. Not only will they be wheelchair
13 accessible, there will be opportunities for other
14 folks with other disabilities; for example, folks
15 that are blind will be able to access these
16 trails. There will be signage that's in Braille,
17 those kind of things. 2.3 miles of universal
18 access trails have been designed in at Brownsville
19 to form a loop all the way back to the center.
20 And a one-mile universal access trail is in the
21 plans at Weslaco. In addition, at Benson, there's
22 going to be a canopy walk that travels through
23 dense woodlands with fortified distinct viewing
24 platforms that will accommodate folks in
25 wheelchairs and with other disabilities.
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1 With that background, I'd like to
2 just give you a real brief update on some of the
3 projects that we're doing. Of course, the World
4 Birding Center is one of our busiest projects
5 right now. I brought in a small model here. I
6 encourage you, if you have an opportunity, to take
7 a peek at this as you walk past this. I won't
8 take the time right now since we are running late
9 today.
10 But we are well along the path to
11 completion of this project. We just recently
12 finished the schematic design phase. We have
13 approval from all the communities. The
14 interpretive planning has already started at
15 Benson for the display -- for the displays that
16 are going to be there. The force account crew
17 will be on-site next week. Madame Chair will be
18 there along with everyone else. I think we've
19 invited everyone to come down.
20 But we plan on having a media event
21 down there next Friday, where we can actually
22 launch the project. We're going to start with
23 some demolition there, some bathroom sites, and a
24 boat dock that is obsolete that we need to get out
25 of the way. We will begin late in the year,
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1 probably around the end of December, construction
2 on some hawk towers admission. And then early
3 next year, we'll begin developing trails and
4 boardwalks at all three sites with construction
5 slated to be started in the middle of next year.
6 The Texas Rivers Center is also
7 something we take a lot of pride in. This is a
8 partnership with Southwest Texas State and the
9 Corps of Engineers. The interpretive -- the
10 initial interpretive planning phase is already
11 started. Phase I will include the restoration of
12 the Inn at San Marcos, as well as some upgrade of
13 the infrastructure to accommodate phase II, which
14 will probably start in about a year once the Corps
15 of Engineers has gone in and done the demolition
16 of the structure. That's part of the
17 collaborative arrangement we have with the Corps
18 of Engineers in order to save significant dollars.
19 They're going to be doing a project
20 there to upgrade the dam, to preserve that lake.
21 And at the same time, at no cost to us, I might
22 add, they're going to come in and do the
23 demolition for us, which saves us about a quarter
24 of a million dollars. It's just another example
25 of, I think, a collaborative innovative approach
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1 with multiple different agencies involved that are
2 going to bring that thing to fruition.
3 Possum Kingdom Fish Hatchery, this
4 was our first designed build project which we
5 launched last year. Phase I, which is a million
6 and a half dollar improvement to the hatchery was
7 completed in March of this year. The second phase
8 is to be started in January to replace much of the
9 infrastructure.
10 And I'm not going to tell you the
11 rest of this stuff because it's fish stuff that I
12 don't really understand too well myself. But,
13 essentially, we're upgrading the facility there.
14 I'm going to jump forward. Austin
15 Woods is a very exciting project. This project --
16 the draft master plan is completed. We will be
17 tomorrow presenting the draft master plan to the
18 mitigation bank review team for their review
19 hoping for approval from them. This project will
20 also include a 30 to 40 foot off-the-ground
21 400-foot-long canopy boardwalk through the top of
22 the trees, which will allow folks to move through
23 the top of the trees and see this habitat. And
24 it's very unique bottom land hardwood habitat.
25 There will also be 2.5 miles of
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1 barrier free -- if you remember my -- a moment
2 ago, this is one of our commitments, a
3 barrier-free interpretive trail which will allow
4 all kinds of folks with different kinds of
5 disabilities to move through this unique habitat
6 and enjoy this. There will also be a four and a
7 half mile interpreted loop including -- that will
8 connect four different types of viewing
9 structures, including a couple of 50-foot-tall
10 observation towers, which will allow folks to
11 observe different kinds of birds and other
12 wildlife from up high.
13 National Museum of the Pacific War,
14 formally known as the Admiral Nimitz Museum. I
15 hope you're all aware that next month, in about a
16 month, December 6th through the 8th, there's going
17 to be the "Remember Pearl Harbor" commemorative
18 ceremony there. There will be about three to five
19 hundred survivors from throughout the country,
20 folks that were actually Pearl Harbor. And
21 there's some exciting stuff right now. We're
22 videotaping a lot of those survivors and getting
23 their accounts on tape so that so that our
24 children in the future will be able to enjoy those
25 stories about what happened there.
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1 The outdoor exhibits are going to
2 emphasize the creation of a true-to-life
3 environment that makes guests feel like they just
4 stepped from the past into World War II. They
5 will be able to step aboard the scene of a hangar
6 deck from the aircraft carrier USS SAN JACINTO
7 which will be faithfully reproduced.
8 The PT boat base, the PT boat, as
9 you know, was recently moved over there. We're
10 almost through with that building. Visitors will
11 be able to come up to approach the South Pacific
12 Forward Base where PT boat is preparing a sortie
13 mission. So this is going to be a very
14 interactive project with the public, and we're
15 very excited about it.
16 Last but not least is our combined
17 excitement about proposition 8. And I guess
18 before I start this piece of the presentation, I'd
19 like to take a moment just to thank all of you,
20 present commissioners and past, for having taken
21 the time to make this thing happen for us, as well
22 as you, Andy, and all the staff here; particularly
23 Lydia and her staff have really gone the extra
24 mile to make this happen for us. And this has
25 given us a bright future. And I think will
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1 prevent us from getting into the same kind of
2 backlog experience that we were in six or seven
3 years ago.
4 The nice thing about proposition 8
5 is there's a little bit of development money along
6 with money that is earmarked for major repairs.
7 And as you can see, that falls out roughly 32
8 million in park development -- and I'm going to go
9 over what that is in just a moment -- and about 69
10 or 70 million dollars which we'll be able to use,
11 to some extent, at our discretion to continue the
12 major repair process that we've had going to for
13 the last five years.
14 Well, I thought I had another slide.
15 Let me run through these. The line items, the
16 projects, what we're going to be doing, some
17 development, the first one is the San Jacinto
18 battleground. And this bond will give us $12.1
19 million for major repairs at San Jacinto. This
20 includes a restoring of battlefield to its
21 historical levels and providing interpretation of
22 the battle that went on at San Jacinto.
23 The second major project it will
24 support is the battleship TEXAS. It's given us 12
25 and half million dollars for dry dock and berth
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1 repairs of the battleship TEXAS, which are sorely
2 needed.
3 Third, and one of my favorites, is
4 the Sheldon Lake State Park, $2.6 million will be
5 allocated to build the Sheldon Lake Environmental
6 Educational Center, which will be primarily
7 utilized to offer hands-on education for inner
8 city school children. This is, of course, a
9 former fish hatchery. And we're excited about
10 having some funds to move that project forward.
11 The fourth is the National Museum of
12 the Pacific War, an additional $1.1 million to the
13 Nimitz Hotel and the ball room theater. And last
14 but not least is the Levi Jordan Plantation, which
15 we will have $4.1 million to create a new
16 historical site there, which will interpret the
17 African-American heritage of the State of Texas.
18 The University of Houston has recovered almost
19 600,000 artifacts at this site to date, so this is
20 pretty exciting.
21 And with that, I'll conclude and
22 answer any questions.
23 CHAIRMAN AVILA: Any questions?
24 Well done, Scott. And just from my fellow
25 commissioners, when we get ready to spend the
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1 dollars, we will be putting together what
2 qualified, how it got there, what the level of
3 repair was and this new system that we -- was that
4 Carter Burgess that did that for us?
5 MR. BORUFF: Yes, sir. They helped
6 us start that project. I will say that our
7 facility management team, which is only three
8 folks, have done an incredible job of tailoring
9 that system to meet the needs of this agency.
10 CHAIRMAN AVILA: So we're a pretty
11 good in-house construction company.
12 MR. BORUFF: I'm very proud of where
13 we are right now. I will tell that you that that
14 Somerville project, just for your information
15 because I know as we move into the session, you'll
16 get these, we did that project, in my opinion, at
17 somewhere around $200,000 less expensively than we
18 would have if we had stepped out into the private
19 sector. And yet we're going to get a gold or
20 platinum something from the leader of green
21 building advocacy group in the United States.
22 CHAIRMAN AVILA: There's no other
23 business, so this includes our infrastructure,
24 Madam Chairman.
25 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: That concludes the
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1 infrastructure committee. And next we will begin
2 with the Education and Outreach Committee.
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4 (MEETING ADJOURNED.)
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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 20
7 pages constitute a full, true and correct
8 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks &
9 Wildlife Commission on NOVEMBER 7, 2001, 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 at 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 9th day of
19 January, 2002.
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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