Residents urge more community engagement on gun violence; advocate presses county to partner on distracted-driving enforcement

A juvenile officer and a traffic‑safety advocate used early public comment time at the Feb. 4 Travis County Commissioners Court meeting to press officials on community engagement and distracted‑driving enforcement.

Anthony Walker, who identified himself as a juvenile officer, said he has organized community meetings to address gun violence and urged commissioners to meet residents where they are rather than expecting them to come to county offices. "If the people can't come to you, you gotta go to the people. You gotta engage them," Walker said, and asked commissioners for "just 20 minutes of your time" to discuss mentoring and reentry support for young people leaving detention.

Walker said many residents released from juvenile facilities return to the same environments and told the court that mentors and resources are scarce. He described his work teaching residents to create five‑ and 10‑year plans for employment, licensing and other stability measures and said repeated returns to detention are common.

Scott Johnson, a community safety advocate who said he led the effort to bring a distracted‑driving ordinance to the City of Austin about 10 years ago, told the court the local ordinance prohibits touching a mobile phone while driving or bicycling and that a state law passed "about 4 sessions ago" is enforceable by the Travis County Sheriff's Office. He urged the county to explore ways deputies could document egregious violations and refer them to Austin Police Department enforcement.

"The ordinance says, specifically, that when you're driving or riding a bicycle, that you can't touch your mobile phone," Johnson said. He cited a national study showing drivers interacted with their phones on nearly 58% of trips in 2022 and urged collaboration between the city and county on public awareness and enforcement campaigns.

Neither public comment item resulted in immediate court action; both were recorded during the meeting's early public comment period.