County takes courthouse proposal to the people

The brain trust behind the information blitz promoting Travis County’s proposed Civil & Family Courts Complex shed some light on the proposal’s progress on Tuesday. The project’s lead task manager, Matias Segura, told the Commissioners Court that his team has already had 37 public meetings with stakeholders and has plans for at least 80 more before November. Of those, 12 will be open houses in each of the commissioners’ precincts. The rest will be meetings with organizations, including the Austin Group for the Elderly, Mexic-Arte Museum and the Lakeway Men’s Breakfast Club. Segura told the commissioners that most of the people his team has talked to approach the project with some skepticism but are often persuaded when they learn key details. That seems to square with results from a poll conducted in May that shows a 7-point swing in favor of the $291.6 million bond after respondents were presented with “balanced messaging.”