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Pflugerville on Fire
Our first episode drops August 31! This podcast mini-series will inform you about the initiative to defund the Pflugerville Fire Department. Listen on all major podcasting platforms. Subscribe to get the latest episodes. We have some great guests lined up!
Pflugerville on Fire
Evolution of a County, Planning for Future Growth with Jeff Travillion, Travis County Commissioner, Precinct 1
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County Commissioner Jeff Travillion of Travis County, Precinct 1, joins us to share his inspiring journey from Mississippi to becoming a dedicated public servant in Texas. With an educational background spanning Jackson State University, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvard, Jeff offers us a glimpse into how his experiences fueled his passion for equity and community development. His story is not just about personal growth; it's a vibrant testament to the power of civic engagement and education as foundational pillars for meaningful change in our communities.
As Pflugerville continues to grow rapidly, Jeff emphasizes the critical importance of having skilled and knowledgeable decision-makers to manage infrastructure demands effectively. We explore the pressing challenges faced by Austin-Travis County EMS and the need for resource allocation to keep pace with this growth. By examining the delicate balance between public service motives and profit, Jeff advocates for decisions grounded in facts to ensure the well-being and safety of the community. The conversation is a call to action for transparent city planning and the involvement of individuals with relevant expertise in shaping the future of our cities.
With election day on the horizon, our dialogue shifts to the significance of community and the importance of voting against Prop A, which threatens to defund the fire department, by actively participating in early voting and showing up at polling locations. The episode is a rallying cry for civic duty, ending with an invitation to join us at Hanover's Draft House in Pflugerville to unite as a community, regardless of the election outcomes. This gathering is more than just a celebration; it's a testament to the strength and solidarity that comes from supporting each other in our shared civic responsibilities.
Don't Defund Pfire Website Link
I've always wanted to be a part of the public conversation around serving everybody, not just my buddies, my community. A lot of things that should not be controversial, that should not involve political ideology, have devolved us into arguing about who is right or wrong versus how do we protect the people who elect us and rely on us to make solid decisions for their safety. We haven't even heard of the concept of a plan for the same. We haven't even heard of the concept of a plan. So, at the end of the day, what is important to us is what we can see on paper and verify.
Speaker 1Welcome back to Pflugerville on Fire. I'm your host, chris Wolfe. In this episode we've got County Commissioner Jeff Trevelyan from Travis County, precinct 1, coming on Pflugerville on Fire to talk to all of you guys. Commissioner Trevelyan is a scholar and you'll recognize it in just the way that he talks. He's an Alfred P Sloan fellow, graduated from Jackson State University and studied in both Carnegie Mellon and Harvard. He's got his master's degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and he's been involved in equity and community development for all of his career. As you will hear, having him on the show really places a very important piece of the puzzle. We discuss the hotly contested ESD Board of Commissioners and how they're appointed appointed. We also talk about the Travis County Court of Commissioners, how that works and what kind of community issues they're really focused on.
Speaker 1As I'm talking to you now, we're in day four of early voting. You'll hear this on Friday of week one and by now I feel like you might have had a good opportunity to make up your mind one way or another. And now it's time for us to do our civic duty, get out there and vote, and it's not enough for us to do it. Let's encourage our neighbors, let's talk to our friends. Let's get out there and make our voices heard and start making a positive impact in our own communities. Enjoy the show. County Commissioner Jeff Trevelyan, precinct 1. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's an honor.
Speaker 2Pleasure to be here, honor to work with our firefighters, honor to serve this community together, so important.
Speaker 1We got a county commissioner on our show and it's important to tell people kind of your background. Your wife, perry, is a native of the area, lived here all her life. She got you over here in 1996. Your boys played ball at Pflugerville High School. Your son is both my boys' favorite football coach over here at Hendrickson. They just call him Coach T. Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background and how you came to be elected to the Commissioner's Court?
Speaker 2All right. Well, I moved here in 1985 to go to the OBJ School of Public Affairs, so I have always been involved in school and community issues school issues because both of my parents were teachers. So, as my son has moved into the classroom, that is a time-honored tradition in my family. We're very proud of him. He's a 2011 graduate of Hendrickson High School, and I have three graduates of Hendrickson High School my daughter in 2014, who's also an Aggie, but we don't pray that and then my baby boy, who graduated in 2019. So we moved here to Pflugerville in 1996 when we were expecting our second child, paige, who graduated from Hendrickson in 2014.
Speaker 2It has always been important for us to be in a community that had spaces for kids to grow, understood how our community was growing and we, as community members, provide what is necessary for them to thrive. My first volunteer job when I got here was being a counselor in Upward Bounds at Houston Tillotson, and I knew about that because my father had been a dean of education at Alcorn State University, which was his alma mater in Mississippi. My kids that are engaged and involved are not my kids that are in trouble, so I worked in state and local government for 30 years before I ever ran, I worked at the state at the general land office, which is the Department of Interior for the state. Texas came into the union owning its public lands Wow. So it maintained a mineral interest in a lot of land because before they had money to pay you if you did a job that they needed, they would give you land, but they would maintain the mineral interest in that land and contribute that to the permanent school fund. So I learned a lot about Texas history.
Speaker 1I love Texas history. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2Then I worked for John Sharp at the Texas Performance Review. So when he was comptroller, I worked on preparing recommendations to the state legislature, which saved $8 billion in actual dollars, because John Sharp had probably one of the most incredible policy minds since Bill Clinton. He was just one of those guys that you can ask a question about anything and he had perspective the perspective of a railroad commissioner, the perspective of a state senator, the perspective of a student government president at Texas A&M. There you go.
Speaker 1I appreciate you, I dig them.
Speaker 2So then, when I left the state, I moved over to Austin Energy where I was a business process consultant and my job was to document where our resources were, whether they were power distribution resources or customer service resources, to make sure that people knew how to access the resources of Austin Energy. So I worked there, worked in areas like code compliance. My last job with the city was in code compliance and what we tried to do was make it easier for the community to understand how to work with us. I ran for office. That was the last job I held at the city of Austin. However, during the same time, from the time I was at the LBJ school, I was also an active member and when I say active I mean either a committee chair or up to the local president of the NAACP. Wow, because it has been. You know my interest always to make sure that resources were provided equitably.
Speaker 2You know, I grew up in Mississippi in a place where, you know, people were not allowed to vote until 1965. So my father graduated from college in 1953, served in the military 53 to 57, was drafted, went to graduate school and graduated in 1959, came home, could not vote. So people said well, I don't know if that's true. Well, medgar Evers, who was a classmate of my father at Alcorn State University, was killed in his driveway after registering people to vote Wow. And was killed in his driveway after registering people to vote Wow. Three civil rights workers were killed in Philadelphia and Mississippi registering people to vote.
Speaker 2You know, because you were not able to vote. You had no say-so in who the mayor was, who your city council members were, who your commissioners were. You had no say so. And also, I've always been interested in making sure that we have opportunity through equity. In my community, if you had streets at all and there was a pothole in that street, the city didn't send anybody over. You had guys that would get in the truck and get rocks and put them into the potholes, and so it has been important for me and I've always wanted to be a part of the public conversation around, serving everybody, not just my buddies, my community.
Speaker 1Right, that's incredible. So I really didn't know much about the Court of Commissioners before I really started getting into this podcast. Can you tell our listeners, tell us, about the court and what it's responsible for and how it runs?
Speaker 2So when you have the Commissioner's Court, you've got a county judge who is voted on at large, meaning everybody in the county has an opportunity to vote on the county judge and then you have four commissioners districts and they are usually roughly 300,000 people. Every 10 years, we look at our lines and we make adjustments. For example, wells Branch was a part of Precinct 2 previously, but in 2020, we added Wells Branch to Precinct 1, for example. So every once in a while, we change, but we change based on the numbers and based on the characteristics of a community and we try to make sure that we can engage and involve everyone. So, as we have engaged wells branch I spent I spent some time out there. They're very engaged in the community. They're very big supporters of esd2, uh, and and the types of planning that's happening and the types of training that's happening, the internal training that's done not calling people that are third parties to come in, but actually training up our cadets from day one and that, being a primary responsibility of ESD2 itself, is significant and will continue to pay benefits over time. Absolutely.
Speaker 2But the county tries to make sure that we are looking at indigent care, whether it is health care, we work with Central Health to make sure that people have access to when we had COVID, access to boosters, but also, if you need, the types of things that families need, whether it's a physical before football season, whether it is an outbreak of whooping cough or whatever the case may be. We want to have resources close, particularly to our communities that aren't affluent communities. We also provide for a court system, civil and criminal. We also provide for juvenile services. We also provide and this county judge has been committed to when we look at areas like our jail that there's some people that are there because of addiction issues, which are health issues. We want to make sure that we send them to the right treatment so we don't have to see them again, so that we take them Fix the problem.
Speaker 2We address detox, we address counseling, we address 12 steps programs, but also we want to provide job training and we want to provide some access to housing as well, because you can, if you only fix one of those problems or two of those problems, you have to recognize that there's a continuum of problems and we have to have the system that's necessary so that somebody doesn't get one or two good transactions. But we're building a system that really addresses the fundamental needs, which makes their lives better, but the life of our community better as well.
Speaker 1It's amazing to think how many services that we take for granted are provided at the county level. You know we spend so much time talking about what's happening at the national and federal level. A lot of what we receive is right here, local. It's very interesting. Commissioner, you talked about people being able to vote for their city leaders and elect them. The ESD2 Board of Commissioners has received a lot of criticism from the opposition because they're unelected and therefore you know, quote unaccountable to citizens in the district. Can you tell us why you appoint a particular commissioner over another and what their degree of accountability is to voters?
County Growth and Public Services
Speaker 2That, unfortunately, is a position based on political ideology and, at the end of the day, what we try to do what I personally try to do when I select someone to appoint, I want to know whether they've been a part of their community. We've got folks that have worked in the school district. I want to know whether they have any expertise in the types of systems that are being used. That's why we have someone who came from the city of Austin's department that deals with radio technology. I want to make sure that they have some type of background. That requires critical thinking and analysis. It is important that we make sure that there are people that are not sent by folks that might benefit from their selection. It is important to recognize that. You know if you have to run for a position like that, you have to go raise money. You have to go and try to convince someone and try to convince someone and usually the people that are selected to run. If you have access to raising money, you can look at the way. You can just look at the signs and the money that has been invested in taking a half penny from the ESD2 system.
Speaker 2The ESD system has done a stellar job of identifying the infrastructure that is necessary, placing the buildings in the proper place, getting the appropriate vehicles, getting the appropriate training. Our professionals are making decisions there. I don't want anybody who has been selected and funded by somebody to come and make decisions based on anything other than the facts on the ground. We have been asking for I have been personally asking for for over three years for the city of Pflugerville to give us the information that is necessary to understand their growth. How many permits have been requested? Where have they been requested? What does the road system look like in those areas? Do they have access to water in those areas? It is important for us to know all of those things. It is important for us to measure twice before we cut once.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2That's important stuff we're talking about and a lot of opportunities for people to make money off of these decisions. Running the systems are taking care of the constituents that don't have as a primary motive and interest profit. I'm a capitalist and I believe in someone having the opportunity to make a living, but at the same time, in public service, we make sure that we provide public goods at a reasonable price that will allow our families to thrive Right.
Speaker 1Well, let's talk about the EMS problems, Guys. While you and I are sitting in this room today, Austin-Travis County EMS has been strapped, trying to keep up with the growth of both the city of Austin that's exploding and the outside areas of Travis County. Then, in 2017, two of the Austin-Travis County units were moved to cover other areas. Can you talk to us how has that growth that I was talking about affected the county EMS response in the city of Pflugerville and then what needs to happen to fix it?
Planning for Community Growth and Safety
Speaker 2So there are a couple of things a lot to unpack. First of all, we are the preferred growth area of one of the fastest growing communities, not only in the region, not only in the state, but in the entire nation state but in the entire nation. So it is important for us to make sure that we understand the rate at which we grow so that we can evaluate the infrastructure and make the necessary recommendations and make the necessary investments to include everyone in our safety policies. Now, what do I mean by that? When I moved to Pflugerville in 1996, there were less than 2,500 people, so it was a much different, much smaller place. So now, a conservative estimate of the number of people is just over 70,000. Well, because it is a preferred growth area and you have got Samsung out here and you've got Tesla right at the border of precinct one, you know 130 that runs right through this thing.
Speaker 1You.
Speaker 2It is important for us to make sure that we understand where people are moving. We understand the number of housing units that are being requested. We understand how we manage a complete commercial overhaul. Right, you know, when I first moved here, 685 was a two lane road and you took your life into your hands. Coming out of Steeds Crossing, taking a left that's right and your kids were going to school Wow, northeast side of 130. So you've got two lanes over there, you've got two lanes on the other side and you've got six lanes in the middle.
Speaker 2It is understanding where your growth is. It is understanding the number of permits that you're getting requested. It's understanding what your road system looks like and not putting things in a place that will create problems. Sometimes we fix the problem of going to a school, for example, but we create a problem because it's put in a place where the road system can't sustain it. And when you look on Seal Road and when you look on Hottie Lane, those were decisions where we needed schools out there, but we also needed to make sure we were paying attention to our road structure first.
Speaker 1And I like to remind people, ESD2 gets a lot of criticism for what they're doing out there at Station 7 off of Cameron Road and building Station 6 off of Weiss Lane. You got to have that infrastructure in there when you're putting up that many rooftops.
Speaker 2Well, you know, nobody wants to pay for a $500,000 house, a $700,000 house, and not have the water in place to protect it if there's a fire.
Speaker 2You know any number of reasons for fires, some accidental, some because of what's going on in the environment, but what we have to be able to guarantee as a government entity, as a public servant, is that we're not going to allow growth to occur where we don't have the capacity to take care of the safety of the people who live there.
Speaker 2That's why I've been talking about for over three years that we really need to put our arms around where our growth is. We really need to partner. Every time the ISD is going to do something, every time the city is going to do something, every time the county is going to do something, we need to all be in the same room so that we can see where there are opportunities to cooperate. At the end of the day, I have seen that happen more a few years ago, when I first started in this job, and I see it now a lot of things that should not be controversial, that should not involve political ideology, have devolved us into arguing about who is right or wrong versus how do we protect the people who elect us and rely on us to make solid decisions for their safety.
Speaker 1Right. So circling back to the EMS talking about all that growth. So where are? How did we get to where we are now with the ambulance and how do we fix it going forward.
Speaker 2Well, you know, once again, it is a part of the planning process. What I have asked for and I received from ESD2 and I did not receive from any place else, was a plan to address the needs of a growing community Right, a plan to put eight fire stations, a plan to have vehicles at each of them, a plan to train people and not only the basic training, to provide EMTs, more than one per truck.
Speaker 1Right and that ALS care that is needed on the most critical calls.
Speaker 2Because what's important to me, you know, as I get older if you know, heaven forbid, I have a heart attack. I don't know that I can wait 12 minutes. I need you to be there in five, but I want that for you, and you and your parents as well. It is what we do for the collective that makes sense.
Speaker 1Yes, sir and Commissioner, one thing I'll step on my pulpit for just a moment is like people talk about response times and that is important, but who's getting out of that ambulance is critical If you've got someone that isn't prepared mentally or trained or equipped, or they failed to take care of that equipment. You'd be better off calling an Uber, and so that's what community members need to understand is we need ambulances where they need to be and we need the right people staffing those ambulances.
Speaker 2Well and, at the end of the day, we have to provide resources for the things that we need. I would hate for someone to say that they lost somebody that they love because I wasn't willing to pay 10% more, 5% more. What is a life worth? What is your family's life worth? It is important for us to understand what is happening on the ground and to prepare our workforce to address the things that we know. There are enough unknowns. There are some things that we actually know and we should prepare fully for each of those things, and that's what I pay my taxes for prepare fully for each of those things and that's what I pay my taxes for.
Speaker 1You know a funny story that I heard about you in a planning conference. They were talking about the EMS problem and you said you were talking to a city council member and you said councilman, I'll bring my checkbook when you bring yours.
Speaker 1So, I've been speaking with councilman David Rogers and he said he never saw an offer from the county to pay the difference in the price between the Allegiance for-profit and the ESD-2 ambulances. Can you tell us is the court willing to work with Pflugerville and was there an offer made and how was that communicated?
Speaker 2So there are two things. The person I told to bring his checkbook was actually Mike Heath.
Speaker 1I remember old Mike.
Speaker 2Heath.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And he said well, I want you to do this and I want you to do this and I want you to do this. And I told him those things that you plan for, those things that you prepare for, and those things that you're willing to share costs with, those are the things that we will work on. You should not have the expectation that you will stand in front of other voters and tell me what I ought to be doing. I need to know that you're going to be at the table planning too, and we all have skin in the game. Mike didn't like to put skin in the game, so, as it relates to Councilman Rogers, I try not to get into personalities, and what I explained to counsel this time was that they needed to put a plan together that identified their priorities, that identified their understanding for the need of services, and that they should tell us what it was they could afford With that plan and information.
Speaker 2We were going to take that to commissioners court to identify the things that we could do as well. What we got was you tell us what you're going to do. You tell us how much of this. That's not the order in which things happen. We need to see your plan. We are clearly going to make an happen. We need to see your plan. We are clearly going to make an investment.
Speaker 2We have made an investment. When we saw that Pflugerville did not, the council did not want to vote. The last time, we made sure that we invested so that we had stopgap measures until the city could make its priorities known. So we have demonstrated a willingness to invest. He hasn't seen anything because he has not done his part of the equation. It is our job not to run Pflugerville but to ask them what they are committed to, what their priorities are, what their investment is, and then we will try to work with them at that point.
Speaker 2It doesn't work the other way around, but part of the problem that you have when you bring in a for-profit vendor, you've got two things. Number one when you've got a public entity that is an ambulance service and you can't pay your bill, we might send you information saying, okay, this is what you owe and you need to pay, but we will never go after your house. When you have a for-profit, they can, and in many instances they do. We think that is pretty critical and that the average homeowner needs to know that. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that we are addressing the needs of the community in a way that demonstrates that this is a public good. It's not going to subject you and your home to issues because you don't make a lot of money and you maybe can't afford to pay for the ambulance services that were provided.
Speaker 1Absolutely yeah, and that can.
Speaker 2That can really ruin people you guys were like weren't standing by to drop six hundred thousand bucks to cover the difference between the city and the ESD. But they had to give us a serious proposal based on their ability to pay for that service. And what we learned in the process was that there were arguments that the SD2 wasn't doing this and they weren't doing that. When we looked further into it, they are a level one organization. They are recognized for the way that they are run, the way that they have planned for emergencies, the way that they train people, and we did not see any manner of expertise of that caliber on the other side of the ledger.
Speaker 2Oftentimes, if we go with political ideology, we can give you any slogan that you want. Slogans are absolutely unimportant to me. What is important to me is logistics and when I can look at a plan that tells me these are the eight spaces that I'm running out of, these are the vehicles that I need, this is the apparatus that is on each vehicle at least two different types of apparatus. I've got a certain percentage of EMTs. It shows me a plan for providing service. We got nothing like that from the city of Pflugerville, only criticism of something that all of the experts that talk about EMS, all the experts that talk about emergency services, tell us this is excellent, well done and well trained in the process.
Speaker 1The mayor of Pflugerville, victor Gonzalez, came on the show and asked him have you heard anything about a plan for better EMS if the sales tax revenue is taken from the fire department? He said he wasn't aware of any At your level. Have you heard of any plan if the sales tax revenue is taken from the fire department?
Speaker 2We haven't even heard of the concept of a plan. So, at the end of the day, what is important to us is what we can see on paper and verify. The one thing that Ronald Reagan said that I actually agreed with was trust but verify. There's nothing to verify.
Speaker 1So what do you see as the future of EMS service in Pflugerville? Is Austin-Travis County coming back? Are we going to stick with privates? Is ESD2 going to take over? And I know you're not. You don't have a crystal ball in front of you. I can see, but from your you talked about perspectives, from your perspectives. Any idea on the ground drive decisions that we make.
Speaker 2I am looking for a plan to expand into areas that are developing. I'm looking for a plan that shows me the types of apparatus that I need to get to my primary problems. I'm looking for a plan that shows me this is what my workforce looks like right now. This is how we help people prepare for career progression. This is how, through our academy process, we bring new people into the organization. As we bring new people into the organization, I need to see all of those things in order to know that we are serious about where we're going. This is business. This isn't personal.
Speaker 2People elect me to make sure that I'm in the rooms talking about the things that they don't have time to talk about. I need you know talk is cheap. I need to see your plan. I need to see how it's funded. I need to see how you maintain it. I need to see how it worked over the last three years, when you can demonstrate that you're doing your job consistently and correctly. You are doing your job consistently and correctly.
Speaker 2You know, when you go to my neighborhood they're elderly community members and I have seen fire trucks come in to help pick people up that fell. I've seen them come in to change batteries. I've seen them come in and become a part of the community. So when I see a fire truck come through, I'm also seeing folks bringing out milk and cookies and coffee and showing their appreciation to somebody who's got their back. I'm not trying to cast aspersions at anyone. I am saying in order to replace something, you have to show me a reasonable alternative. There is no reasonable alternative, and some of the alternatives that have been chosen have not worked very well and in some instances have been dangerous. At the end of the day, if I have to pick somebody who is going to help my mother-in-law, who is going to be responsible for my wife when I'm not there, going to be responsible for my children, it's going to be somebody who has demonstrated that capacity consistently, and that's the end of it too.
Speaker 1Well, commissioner, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. Come on the Flickerville on Fire podcast. You talked about perspectives earlier and Lacey and I having you in this conversation, exactly what we conceived the show to be, and thank you so much for being part of it.
Speaker 2Always happy to be a part of building the community. I mean, this is where I live and this is where I'm going to live and this is where my children live. So it is important for me to know the folks that are providing the services and do things like fifth quarter, so that our students get to meet you early and know that there is a fire academy at.
Speaker 2Hendrickson and that we can train you and teach you to take care of yourselves well, but also to be effective community leaders, and that's what you all have been. So we just appreciate you and love serving this community with you all right, thank you all right.
Community Involvement and Election Day
Speaker 1Thank you all right. So that's gonna do it. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode and big thanks to commissioner trevillian for coming on the show. One of the great things about this podcast is we get to be exposed to our local leaders. We bring them into our living rooms, we bring them with us when we're on our jog or doing our dishes or on our morning commute, and it's neat to get that kind of involvement. We only have one more show left before the big election, and so we encourage you to come on out.
Speaker 1We'll be out at the polls all through early voting. If this is something that you're passionate about and you're taking the time to learn about it, go ahead and connect with us. You can get us at the contact us at wwwdontdefundpufffireorg and come on out the day of the polls. There's about 14 polling locations on election day, november 5th. We'll be at all of them. Come on out, show your support, give us a honk or, even better, come and explain to people why they should be voting against Prop 8 to defund the fire department. Once that's done, we'll be heading over to Hanover's draft house in downtown Pflugerville November 5th. We'll get there around 7 o'clock and we'll watch the election go down. We'll either celebrate together or we'll cry together, but the important thing is we'll do it together in community. So hope to see you all there.
