1 L J 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 s 10 11 12 .~. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONERS' COURT Monday, June 8, 1998 9:00 a.m. County Commissioners' Courtroom Kerr County Courthouse Kerrville, Texas 78028 PRESENT: ROBERT A. DENSON, County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 T. H. "BUTCH" LACKEY, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 9 Fled ~ Dayof D.1~$TIME_ BILLI G. MEEKER Clerk County Court, Kerr County, Texas B Deputy I~l L J 1 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 12 ',,, 13 1a 15 16 17 1e 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 On Monday, June 8, 1998, at 9:00 a.m., the regular session of Commissioners' Court was held in the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings wre had in open court: P R O C E E D I N G S JUDGE DEN3ON: Good morning. It's Monday, June the 8th, 1998. I have 9:00 straight up. Before we get into the business at hand this morning, we'll have an invocation and a pledge of allegiance to the flag. This morning our invocation will be handled by Commissioner Oehler of Precinct 4. If you'll please stand. (Invocation and pledge of allegiance.) JUDGE DENSON: Thank you very much. The change in the weather has been lust absolutely delightful compared to the misery we had last week with all that heat and smoke and what-have-you. And there's a chance of rain today, so let's hope. We've already prayed. Okay. We need to pay bills. Do I have questions or a motion? COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: Hold on. JUDGE DENSON: All right, sure. COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: I think I've got all mine answered this morning. I move we pay the bills. COMMIS3IONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DEN8ON: Questions, comments? All in favor? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Indigent too? C"`l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Indigents included. (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) COMMI3SIONER OEHLER: We don't need too many more months like that on indigent, $48,519 in indigent this month. MR. TOMLINSON: We're getting close to the max. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I understand, bound to be. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, budget amendments. Number 17 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Number 1 is for J.P. 2. It's a transfer of $50 from her supplies to bonds to pay for her clerk's bond for Judy Lee -- I mean Mary Lee. COMMI3SIONER LACKEY: So move. COMMI3320NER LETZ: I have a question. Who's responsible -- Tommy, do you keep track of the bonds or do the elected officials? MR. TOMLINSON: They do. COMMI3SIONER LETZ: These are the kind of things that we shouldn't have to do amendments for. I mean, the bond is something that we know in advan ce, unless it's a new bond. It lust seems - - you know, this is the second one we did thi s year. I may be mistaken, but -- MS. NEMEC: I think they incr eased this year without us knowing. COMMI33IONER LETZ: There is an increase? MS. NEMEC: I'm going to have one too. MR. TOMLINSON: The Treasurer has one too, so -- 3 r"`l L_~ r-. 1 2 3 a s s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 ~~ 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, I move. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion and a second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Number 2. MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Number 2 is for the -- for the jail to transfer $8,150.31 into overtime line item from group insurance. COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- is there an explanation as to why we have the overtime? MR. TOMLINSON: I have a list here of -- you know, this is quarterly, from February the 15th through May the 9th. It's a list of individuals with the number of hours and the rate. COMMISSIONER LETZ: My question is more as to why. Is it a matter that we're not staffed properly or are we -- do we need to work extra hours? MR. TOMLINSON: I don't have that information. JUDGE DENSON: I think that is the intention. From the conversations I've had with the Sheriff, one, she is understaffed as far as alloted positions in the sail. I think we all know that. And then, as far as the Sheriff's Department goes, -- well, this is just strictly for the jail? MR. TOMLINSON: That's just for the jail. 4 r~ L. J r 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s 17 18 19 zo 21 22 23 za 2s COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is she understaffed because she hasn't -- we've budgeted spots and she hasn't filled them, or understaffed because she doesn't have enough positions in the budget? That's what I'm trying to get at. JUDGE DENSON: She has unfilled positions. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Unfilled positions. So if she had her positions filled -- JUDGE DENSON: She fills them, but then she loses them. I know a month or six weeks ago, she had commented in a very upbeat manner that she had -- she was finally fully staffed. And then in a few days she has two or three gone. I don't know -- Deputy Brecher7 I don't know whether you can comment on that at all. I know you're not part of the sail, but -- DEPUTY BRECHER: It is my understanding that two supervisors quit, plus a iailer. So three left, you know, right at the same time. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think my next question is for Barbara. Do you keep track of the numbez of the -- like, the personnel level of sail or does the Sheriff keep that? Lfke, if I was to -- you know, we have an ongoing problem here, and if it's understaffed, we need to figure out why we're understaffed, why we're not funding the positions. But can you put together a chart as to what our staffing level is on a daily basis? Is that something you could do7 5 r~~ LJ 1 2 3 4 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MS. NEMEC: We keep track as they come and go. We have -- what we use is the budget position schedule. And if someone leaves, then we take their name out so that we can know that if she hires someone, there's that open position right there. 30, I mean, I couldn't tell -- you know, once they leave, then we take their name off and then ff someone's hired, then we put it back in. So -- COMMI33IONER LETZ: It just seems that, you know, it's a problem. We need to figure out what the problem is here. JUDGE DENSON: Well, now, I was on board when we first opened that new facility out there. And the Texas Jail Commission has a number of jailers per volume of inmates, you know, whatever the population is, and different cutoffs. And I know we had that built into the budget for the jail at that time, and have carried that forward through today, where the Sheriff has enough slots, position slots, for 199 inmates. And I don't think we've ever even reached -- come close to that, even without another county, having 199. As a matter of fact, I think recently what we're talking about is in the neighborhood of 100. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: 102 this morning. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. And so you can see, 3ust from that example, that the budget and the positions that the Commissioners' Court would allow certainly provides adequate 6 L.~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 to 1s 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s staffing to address the inmate population. MR. TOMLINSON: We don't have the out-of-county inmates now -- or lately, the last two or three months that we -- JUDGE DENSON: Yeah, I'm aware of that. COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: You're getting into some of my later questions here, Tommy, okay? Just hold off here, I'll get into that. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we approve the budget amendment. JUDGE DENSON: Let's see. Do we have -- that's the motion. And let me also say, just for my personal comment or two cent's worth, that as a business owner, as a C.P.A. who worked for a number of years in the management advisory field, as a present operator and employer, that it doesn't make good financial sense to pay overtime. There's some times when you have to pay overtime, but it just makes common sense -- if you're paying someone, just for example, $5 an hour to perform a service, why in the world would you want to pay them $7.50 an hour to perform that same service? You do everything in your power to avoid that kind of thing, because it certainly affects the bottom line. And in County government, I know we're not talking about profit, but we're certainly talking about the efficient use of tax dollars. Okay. Do i have a second? 7 ~~l L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 1a 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, I have a motion and a second. Further comments, questions? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Number 3 is also for overtime, but it's for the Sheriff's Office, and it's $8,691.70. JUDGE DENSON: Can we just say ditto? COMMISSIONER LETZ: Same. MR. TOMLIN3ON: I have the list of people. JUDGE DENSON: Another question, you know, that all this raises is, how did we come up with such an overbudget on group insurance? MR. TOMLINSON: Because all those -- we budgeted for full-time people for a full year, and chances are that maybe only, you know, 90 to 50 percent of those people actually qualified for health insurance. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. So because we're understaffed? MR. TOMLINSON: JUDGE DENSON: MR. TOMLINSON: JUDGE DENSON: MR. TOMLINSON: JUDGE DENSON: Because they're -- Because they're part-time or -- Because they're part-time. -- temporary? Temporary, right Probationary period or whatever, 8 f"`1 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 okay. So, we have group insurance money left over because we're, in effect, understaffed. We need to take that group insurance money to pay overtime? MR. TOMLINSON: Right. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd just like to follow up on Commissioner Letz' line of thinking there. In the -- you know, this is a quarterly bill here, and in the first quazter and this quarter, between the S. 0. and the jail, we have -- we are spending in the neighborhood of 560,000 for overtime. JUDGE DENSON: On an annualized basis. COMMIS3IONER HALDWIN: Yes, sir. And we're not into the third quarter yet. Sixty grand is -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, it's obviously -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- lots of money. COMMISSIONER LETZ: During the budget process this year, the Sheriff has got to come up with a plan to be able to keep police. That's just the bottom line, whether we work salaries or benefits or something. But it's -- its too much money having the turnover out there. MR. TOMLINSON: I think this problem is more obvious now since we have a -- since we have a line item for overtime, but we have paid that in the past. Because when -- when employees have -- have left, and they have accrued comp time or vacation time, we've paid them. And that -- and 9 L~ t 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 ~0 ~i 12 13 is 15 ~s n ie i9 20 21 22 23 2a 25 those payments don't show up in here. They're in the payroll. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Riqht. MR. TOMLINSON: I mean, they're -- so we're not -- you know, we're not having to, you know, transfer monies for that purpose. So, I mean, this makes it, you know, more obvious. But it has -- but I assure you, we have paid those in the past. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a motion on this? JUDGE DENSON: I don't think so. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So move. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion, Mr. Letz. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Second from Mr. Baldwin. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLINSON: Number 5 is for County Court at Law, a request from Judge Brown. JUDGE DENSON: Did we do 9? MR. TOMLINSON: Oh, did I skip one? JUDGE DENSON: J.P. 1. MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, yeah, I had it clipped together with that one. Okay, J.P. 1. It's a transfer of $100 from comparable sales to part-time salary. COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. 10 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 6 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion. COMMISSIONER SALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, Number 5? MR. TOMLINSON: Now 5, okay. This is, as I said, from Judge Brown. He has a request to transfer $933.92 from his Court-appointed attorney line item into conferences. He has a conference in July that I have the -- I have the bill on. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, haven't we already amended the conference budget for that office? MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, we have. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Three or four times. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Five. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh, five? Well, I was close. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a reason? I mean -- MR. TOMLINSON: I don't know. His court reporter's been and his court coordinator has been to a conference, and now he's going to one, so I guess it would be -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd really like to hear an explanation from Judge Brown, because -- MR. TOMLINSON: That's fine. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, we'll pass on this is what 11 ~l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 you're asking? MR. TOMLINSON: That's fine. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, Number 67 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. And this is also from the County Court at Law, and to transfer $37.50 from fury fees to the special court reporter. COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLINSON: Number 7 is for the County Treasurer, request to transfer S25 from telephone line item to bond insurance. And it's a bond for her clerk. COMMISSIONER LETZ: 3o move. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 87 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 8 is between nondepartmental and Commissioners' Court, transfer 51,260 from contingency to -- to autopsy and inquest and nondepartmental to have one inquest and transportation. COMMIS3IONER LACKEY: So move. 12 L~ 1 2 3 4 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 1s 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Nine? MR. TOMLINSON: Nine is for the 216th District Court. I have bills for Court-appointed attorneys totaling $1,380 that we don't have money for. So -- JUDGE DENSON: Declare an emergency? COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question on that one. When we were going through on Budget Amendment 5, it appears there's an abundant amount of money in Court-appointed attorneys for the County Court at Law. MR. TOMLINSON: That was out of fury fund. COMMISSIONER LETZ: That was what? MR. TOMLIN3ON: I think that was out of the jury fund. COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, Number 5, it says Court-appointed attorneys, and there's $12,000. MR. TOMLINSON: Oh, County Court at Law. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why can't we -- I mean, he hasn't used anywhere near his portion. Why can't we take some money lust for a while out of there, rather than declare an emergency? MR. TOMLINSON: I have no problem with that, if ~,,,~ ~ ~ 13 f'~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 zo 21 22 23 2a 25 it's okay with the Judge. JUDGE DENSON: When you get his explanation on that Number 5, you can get a consent. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds good to me. If he'll consent to that, there's no point in going into reserves if we don't have to. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. JUDGE DENSON: And I probably have money -- I haven't looked at it recently on an annualized basis, but I have some money in the County Court. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We'll take it. JUDGE DENSON: If I consent. COMMIS3IONER LETZ: I understand to that effect that the County doesn't really change, 'cause if we don't use ft, it goes back to the reserves. But every time we do go into reserves during the budget, it's increasing our budget, which is making it grow every year. JUDGE DENSON: But I do think we -- we've established a practice in the past of refraining from going into someone's budget without, you know, at least telling them we're doing it. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have no problem with it. COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: Good thought. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, so we'll pass on this for a moment. We'll take it up when we talk with Judge Brown about r ~~ 14 f''-`i ~~ 1 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 1a 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 Number 5. Okay, 10. MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, 10 is for the jury fund for the 198th and the 216th District Court. I had -- I had some conference expenses for the court repozters for both courts. And originally we paid those out of -- out of the general fund. And since -- since those people are going to be -- to have required hours from now forward, I thought it would be better to -- to have a line item in the juzy fund, since that's where we pay their salary. And we will have to budget that for next year as well, so I would -- that's what I'm doing is setting up a conference line item in both jury funds, and tzansferring the money from special court zeporter out of each jury fund. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, does this get divided up amongst all the other counties in the -- do we reimburse the counties in the 198th and 216th? MR. TOMLINSON: We have in the past. This is -- this item is brand -- I mean, it's new this year and we didn't -- genezally, the way we handle the district courts is -- is at the first of the year, we know what their salaries are and we estimate what their operating costs are going to be, and we bill each county at the first of the year. But nobody knew about these conferences for these court reporters, either during the budget process or until the first of the fiscal year, so they weren't budgeted anywhere. '~ ~ ~ 15 I~`l L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 ~ n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 So this is something that -- that we will, you know, ask for some -- some money. That is on the approval of judges. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: My only question is, this covers the two district courts. How about Commissioners' Court? How about County Court at Law? Are we not -- MR. TOMLINSON: I don't follow that. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We have court reporters. We have a court reporter here. MR. TOMLINSON: Well, we can deal with that in the next year's budget. These are bills we have now. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So they -- they just went out and spent money that's wasn't -- okay, that's fine. Why would I argue about something like that? Okay, I move that we approve Item Number 10. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DEN3ON: Motion and second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Eleven? MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, 11 is the -- the same reason that we did Number 10. Number 11, I have a bill -- I need a hand check for a late bill from Judge Ables for $1,013.51, and that's for a conference. And I'm -- I have a budget amendment request for $116.09 to transfer from Special 16 [~'~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 za 25 District Judges line item into conferences. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did Judge Ables, himself, go to this conference? MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, he did. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And where in the world was it? A thousand bucks for a conference, that's -- where was it7 MR. TOMLINSON: It was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: I see. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't understand that. MR. TOMLINSON: Well, there was -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: Not that he went to Santa Fe. I don't understand the relationship between 10 and 11. MR. TOMLIN30N: Well, we had $1,300 budgeted in for conferences in the 216th District Court. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Cindy Snider, the Court reporter, went to this conference that was -- I think it was 5597. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. MR. TOMLIN30N: And we paid for it out of -- out of the line item -- out of the 216th's Court budget, out of general fund. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Out of the conference -- MR. TOMLINSON: Right, out of conferences. So we 17 L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 get this -- we get the bill for the judge's conference, which -- which was supposed to have come out of there, which -- which it should have. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Over-spending. MR.TOMLIN3ON: However, we'd have been over-spending that line item if we'd have kept the -- the conference for the Court reporter in there. My reasoning was that -- that the court reporter's conference should come from the fund that she gets paid from. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. MR. TOMLINSON: And that's why I moved it from -- from the general fund to the jury fund. That's the reason for the 10th amendment. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I move we approve number 11, the Santa Fe trip. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I'll second. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, I'm not being mean. I'm just trying to clarify that we're on the right page. JUDGE DENSON: Number il. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Number 11. Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Yes. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion and a second. All 18 L.~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 in favor? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is there more to it7 MR. TOMLINSON: No, I was lust going to make a comment. JUDGE DENSON: All 1n favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Yes, sir? MR. TOMLINSON: I was going to say you think you're having fun now, wait till August. I think we had 33 amendments in the August 1 meeting last year. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 12? MR. TOMLIN3ON: Okay. This is for the 198th District Court. This is a transfer of 537.50 from the Special District Judges line item to books and publications. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So move. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, I've got a motion and second. Further questions and comments on this? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DEN3ON: I thought you might ask if those books went to Santa Fe. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why are we still buying books when everything's computerized? JUDGE DENSON: Okay, let's see, 13? MR. TOMLINSON: Thirteen is for the County Clerk. 19 I~`l L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s B s w 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 And if she -- she's requesting a transfer of 31,700 from computer hardware to office supplies. I don't -- I only have bills for 574.41, but apparently she's anticipating an additional 31,600. 3o that's her request. COMMISSIONER LET2: Do you recall what the 31,700 was budgeted for in the hardware? Was it lust kind of like contingency or -- MR. TOMLINSON: I don't recall what it`s for. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The budget was made for the retired County Clerk, and this one maybe sees things a little -- needs a little differently, would be the only thing I would say. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So move. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a second. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, that's all of them. MR. TOMLINSON: Well, I have -- there's some on the table. JUDGE DENSON: Handouts? Okay. MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, Number 19 is for the 216th District Court. I have a -- a late bill. I need a hand check for Cindy Snider for 5583.20, and it's for court 20 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 transcripts in the State of Texas versus Hernandez. COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. Oh, wait -- there's no money in this budget, you remember. You want to deal with this like we did the previous one, transfer money out of the County Court at Law, or do you want to qo into reserves? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we can qet -- or try to qet it out of County Court at Law. MR. TOMLINSON: Well, you want to pass on it until we get to there? Okay. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Judge Brown's been to a lot of conferences lately, so maybe he'll be in the giving spirit. MR. TOMLIMSON: You know he will. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 15. MR. TOMLINSON: You are going to approve -- are you approving the hand check? JUDGE DEN30N: I don't know. It sounds like to me that ya'all wanted to wait and talk to Judge Brown about this stuff. MR. TOMLINSON: All right. Okay, Number 15. Is -- it's for Commissioners' Court. I have bills from Tom Pollard. I need 5136.91. It's for pzofessional services. COMMISSIONER LETZ: This -- and the reason -- I'll give an explanation. The difference here is that this is something that we had totally no idea about. And the other 21 i%`l LJ 1 2 3 a s 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 it 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 ones, it's hard to budget some of those other items as well, but there is something coming out of the litigation at the jail, which is qualified in my mind as emergency more than any other instances. So, in this case, I make a motion to approve it. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Second. JUDGE DENSON: I have a second right here. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 167 MR. TOMLINSON: 3lxteen is also for the Commissioners' Court, for professional services, and this is -- I have an $8,169.25 deal from Douglass and Barnhill. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Jail litigation. JUDGE DENSON: The reasoning? COMMI33IONER LETZ: Same reasoning. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Motion? COMMISSIONER LETZ: Same. JUDGE DENSON: Do I have a second? COMMI3SIONER LACKEY: What are you pointing at me for? JUDGE DEN30N: Okay, I've got a second. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLIN30N: I have some late bills. 22 r~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Okay. MR. TOMLINSON: The first one is for M. N. Travels, Inc. It's for $78 out of County Clerk's budget for travel for one of her clerks to school. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So move. MR. TOMLINSON: That needs a hand check. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Next one is to MasterCard for $1.96. Apparently we mispaid a bill and we -- we're catching up. So I just -- I need a hand check to pay that. COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: $1.967 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. This is out of the jury fund. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Can you handle that? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think I'll make that motion. That's more my level. JUDGE DENSON: Do I have a second? Did I see a second over here? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sure. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MR. TOMLILN30N: This is the last one. It's from Barbara Nemec. I need a hand check for a late bill for $299.89 for reimbursement for travel and conference. 23 I~l ~_J 1 2 3 a 5 s B s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1e 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So move. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Next, have ya'all looked at the minutes? I make a motion to waive reading and approve. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Gentlemen, have ya'all had a chance to look at the monthly reports? COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion we approve the reports. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. I have a question. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, I've got a motion and second. What's the question? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We have been getting -- I don't know if ya'all have paid close attention or not, but we've been getting monthly zeports from the Sheriff's Office lately, and there's really some interesting -- interesting information here. But my question is that we have -- since this Court has been here, January a year ago, we have done contracts with five other counties, and on our little monthly repozt, we only -- we're only dealing with one county here. What happened to the other four? I mean, do we still do 29 ~"~ U 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 s s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 business with them or did -- JUDGE DENSON: There's just no prisoners at this time. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There's no prisoners from these other counties? JUDGE DENSON: At this time. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER LETZ: No prisoners -- the entities don't want to use our jail at this time. I'm sure they have prisoners in Gillespie County, but -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm sure they have prisoners somewhere. Maybe they choose not to use Kerr County. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So you guys think that we are -- we have these contracts and we're doing everything we can to fill up our jail? JUDGE DENSON: I have no idea about that. You need to ask the Sheriff. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, I see. Officer, do you know? DEPUTY HRECHER: I don't know anything. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure nice seeing you again. One of any favorite constituents sitting right here on the front row. Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. We've got a motion and a 25 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 second to approve -- accept and approve the monthly reports. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Could I ask one more question? JUDGE DENSON: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do look -- I do look at these reports, or try to, and the J. P. reports -- this is J. P. 2 and that is J. P. 3. Can we ask them to come somewhere near the same report? Do you see the difference in that? Wouldn't it make it a lot easier if we looked at -- I like to compare the numbers and see -- JUDGE DENSON: I think that's a good idea. MS. NEMEC: They're supposed to be doing one report. Tommy designed that report that J. P. 2 is turning in, and that works wonderful for our office, 'cause we have to input all those codes in our computer. And that's what the other J. P.'s are using. And Tommy did that form and it works wonderful, especially the way we're having to break down the payment of State fees now, certain percentages. So I don't know why J. P. 3 is not using it, but all the others are. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Well, it didn't matter which one to me, lust as long as we catt look at them. MS. NEMEC: That's the most -- most updated one, the one J. P. 2 turned in. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's a nice-looking one 26 f"~ L~ i 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 is is is n 18 is zo 21 22 23 2a 2s Tommy did. MS. NEMEC: Our Auditor did that. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. All in favor of accepting the reports? (The motion was carzied by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Top of the agenda, 2.1, Consider accepting roads in Spring Creek Ranch, Precinct 2, for County maintenance. Mrs. Pena and Commissioner of Precinct 2, which is, I think, Commissioner Lackey. MRS. PENA: Just for your convenience, I brought maps of the subdivision with the roads marked this morning. I believe you also have in your packet the memo from Mr. Odom of the Road and Bridge Department outlining 3 different options for taking over the roads. And, of course, the property owners at Spring Creek Ranch really feel that the first option is the only one, and that is to take in all of our roads. If we were to take in only Witt Road, half of the property owners out there would not not be serviced, because half of them live on the two side roads on your map. And we feel it really wouldn't be fair to those property owners who are having to come up with funds to not have their roads improved, so we are asking that you take in all three roads for us and -- and do County maintenance on them. We have, at this point, pledges for about 58,500. I think that we can get to S10,000 with a little more effort. There are a couple 27 ~1 L ~ i 2 3 a 5 s 7 e s ~o ii 12 13 is a is n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s of property owners we really have not heard back from yet, and we have the "hunting dogs" out after them. We have -- we are attempting to contact evezyone to see if they will participate, although I think it may be unrealistic to expect a hundred percent participation in -- in any kind of fundraising scheme. That's what you hope for. But other property owners have said that they would be willing to give a little extra in order to reach the $10,000 goal. And at this point, it's in your hands. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Judge, as I recall, we discussed this with Tom Pollard at one point, and there was a question as to holding the money or something. JUDGE DENSON: No. COMMISSIONER LETZ: The County could not hold -- or should not hold the money. We're getting into all kinds of problems when it becomes County -- JUDGE DEN3ON: Exactly. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: You have that all worked out? MR3. PENA: Right. We are establishing a savings account and having contributions sent there. And when the fund reaches the total amount, then we would have a -- a certified check to the County made out. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I've talked to Mr. Bledsoe, and he's willing to give us the property with a deer-proof fence if we'll move the fence and everything, which was -- 28 t 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 has been approved several years ago, but never was put on record. JUDGE DENSON: Now, wait a minute. That's something that's not reflected in here. MRS. PENA: What's that, sir? JUDGE DENSON: Moving a deer-proof -- tearing down a deer-proof fence and re-erecting it at the County's expense. That's not even in this. MS. HARDIN: It's in the letter from Mr. Bledsoe. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is it in the $90,000? JUDGE DENSON: It's not in the money that our road manager came up with in his report to the Court. I lust -- I want all the numbers that are in front of the Commissioners' -- that's what I've had time to do for a year now, or however long we've been dealing with this. And Leonard has given us a pretty comprehensive report, and now we're talking about additional monies that are not in there. MR3. PENA: I think that he was including that expense. And if you look under Option 3, that's where he actually listed the relocation of underground cable and deer-proof fencing. And that was a requirement of the landowner for giving up the additional right-of-way on the road. He has a fence there now, and Mr. Leonard did include the cost of that fencing in the -- am I right, Truby? MS. HARDIN: Yes. 29 L .J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1e I 19 '' 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MRS. PENA: In the $90,000 for all of the roads. It's not specifically listed under Option 1, but it is listed under Option 3. JUDGE DENSON: Truby, are you saying that the -- tearing down the deer-proof fence and re-erecting it in the proper place, the cost of those materials, the labor, what-have-you, is included in the $90,000 in Option 1, and $56,000 on Option 2? MS. HARDIN: Yes, sir. ` JUDGE DENSON: Okay. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where's the deer-proof fence? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Just as you go in. If you -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, is it along the pink part? COMMIS3IONER LACKEY: Yeah, up here on this. MRS. PENA: Actually, it's in a part -- you see where the words "Spring Creek Ranch" are, the little wavy line? If you were to take that as the creek, that small section between the creek and the first line where it says "Log Cabin, Steve Wright," that's actually the little piece that's about 300 yards. COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the deer -- MRS. PENA: And there's an old fence there, and they would simply put -- give him a new fence. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 30 r- 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 io 11 12 13 7a ~5 i5 n is i9 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MS. PENA: It's fully outside the bounds of Spring Creek Ranch, itself, but there's a connection to the current paved road. (Off-the-record discussion.) COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought the -- maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that the amount was more than 510,000 that we were asking the the homeowners to come up with. I thought it was more like $25,000 or $30,000. JUDGE DENSON: No. COMMISSIONER LETZ: We came down? JUDGE DENSON: No, we never did come to an agreement at all. There was -- there were different figures that were thrown out. I think as low as 510,000 was mentioned, and as much as thirty has been mentioned. So that's something, you know, that we need to wrestle with, and I -- and I guess these options that he's listed, this is relevant. Now, it's my position now, always has been, that we're establishing -- if we elect to do this and pay the lion's share of the cost, we're setting a very, very -- I think very dangerous precedent. We're opening our doors to everybody else in the county coming here. I don't mean to get on my soapbox, Mrs. Pena, but buyers should be held responsible when they go out and buy property. They should look at the roads, they should think about the future. They should be held accountable for their actions. I don't think 31 C3Sl L- J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 19 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 they should lust be able to come in and pass their mistakes or the cost of their mistakes off to other taxpayers in the community. Sut I know in the past, the Court has -- while we`ve denied some property owners because we didn't feel like there were enough along the road, there has been situations where we've worked to take only a portion of the cost -- only a portion of the cost of improving the road, and then accepting it. So I guess you really get down to how much. Now, what is -- what is fair, what's reasonable is what ya'all want to agree on. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I think that we've got Road and Bridge to at least give us some options that we had talked about a long time ago, and we have those options before us. I'd like to know, dust for fun, if nothing else, what -- what would the Road and Bridge Department -- which one of those would you recommend? MS. HARDIN: i don't think that -- are you looking at me or him2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm looking at both of you. M3. HARDIN: My understanding is that it's not the Road and Bridge Department's place to make recommendations on acceptance of the road. It's the Court's decision, and we will live with whatever ya'all choose to do. Is that right? MR. JOHNSTON: I'd second th"at. JUDGE DENSON: Pretty good politician sitting out 32 r''"~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 s 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1a 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s there. No, the better politician is Leonard for not being here. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He writes a letter, doesn't even show up. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I think aftea taking the Center Pofnt streets all off of the Road and Bridge, that they're a little under the quota, and this will bring them back up to the quota and everything put back to the 500 miles. And as hard as they've worked on this thing to get pledges on it, I think we ought to accept it. JUDGE DENSON: Accept what? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Accept the 2.9 - 500. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. How much -- how much are they going to pay? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: $10,000. JUDGE DENSON: $10,000 on a $90,000 project? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: That's over two or three year's time. What is it, two years? COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there -- on the third option, is there a reason it stopped at .9 mile? Is that like something happened at .9 miles in the road? MRS. PENA: It lust represents the amount of the road that is the in-between portion at the -- from the end of the currently paved road to the beginning of Spring Creek Ranch. It's an artificial stop, and it just has to do with .- ~~ 33 r~~ L.~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 1s 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 the fact that that's technically -- that's the portion which lies between the two -- the two roads. MR. JOHNSTON: Is that part Mr. Bledsoe's7 MRS. PENA: And that's the part -- that was the right-of-way we had to get from Mr. Bledsoe. The -- the right-of-way on the little portion where you see the box that says, "Log cabin, Steve Wright," we already have had that right-of-way; that was in his deed. There's already a 50-foot right-of-way there. So the only portion we needed was from there down to the creek. And Mr. Bledsoe's letter is included in the packet. JUDGE DENSON: Mrs. Pena, is the pink shaded -- is that Witt Road? MRS. PENA: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. If number -- if this Court will back Number 2 option, which is the 2 miles of Witt Road, taking in only Witt Road, which appears to be the main road there, and the property owners coming up with a third of that cost, would that be acceptable? MRS. PENA: Well, without having polled the property owners, we've never discussed anything but taking in all the roads, out of fairness to the property owners out there. As I pointed out, half those property owners live on the side roads and would need those roads for access. So I can see that they might be very reluctant to give funds if 39 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 2s the roads -- JUDGE DENSON: Okay, let me rephrase that. If we -- if this Court selected Option No. 1, all roads, would the property owners be prepared to pay the one-third of the cost? MRS. PENA: The only way we would be able to manage that would be if we were allowed by the Court to raise the 510,000, which is a goal that we feel is attainable for us. There's no way we could raise $20,000 or 530,000 dust by writing checks. The only way we could do that would be raise the $10,000 and have the remaining $15,000 or 520,000 in a road district situation. And that would only take us seven or eight years to pay off, and that would be very acceptable to us. In fact, it's really the only way we could come up with that kind of money. And I know before, when we proposed a road district, it was for the entire amount and it would have taken 50 or 60 years, but now if we're talking about 520,000, that's -- with the property values we have out theze, it is certainly doable in less than 10 years, because our -- at current property values, we would bring in -- Paula Rector and I discussed it. We'd bring in about 51,500 a year in taxes right now, but as soon as those roads are done the property values are going to increase. And within about 10 years -- 10 to 12 years if the amount of money we were being taxed for was S20,000. On $15,000, we would be able to pay that off in less than 10 years. And the other reason why we 35 I~-1 L J i 2 3 a 5 s 8 s io ii 12 13 is is is 17 ie is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 like the idea of the road district is that everyone out there would be taxed and would contribute. It would not be voluntary. And I think that's appropriate that everyone out there does pay some share of the funds. COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: Of course, in a road district, we have a special election and those folks vote as to whether to raise their taxes or not. MRS. PENA: Yes. You may recall when I first came last August, though, I -- I had petitions from 30 homeowners out there, out of 39, asking for a road district at that time for -- for a lot more money than we're talking about now. So I feel very confident that a majority of the homeowners out there would definitely vote in favor of it. JUDGE DENSON: AS I recall -- and I think we have Ms. Rector here -- there was always an estimate of 590,000 or 5100,000, I think, sort of thrown around back at that time. And to pay off that entire amount is going to take more years, i think, than the -- the way the the law is structured on the district. It's going to take 15 or some-odd years or more. MR3. PENA: Well, it would have been over 50 years, 50 to 60 years if it were S100,000, right. JUDGE DENSON: Right. And so, now, what we're talking about is paying -- lust -- lust by example, one-third of that, we have 530,000, but ya'all have ten up front, and 36 i 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 so that would leave $20,00 into the road district? M3. PENA: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: With the County absorbing the other 560,000 of the total of 590,000. But 520,000 being paid over a period of time. MRS. PENA: Yes. JUDGE DEN8ON: Structurally, Ms. Rector, do you have any comments on that? I'm not that familiar enough with road districts to talk really intelligently about it. But we're -- we're just saying that the taxes will be -- to be repaid through the road district would be 520,000. And then we'd have an election on that, and if the election should fail, which I can't imagine it failing, because it does sound like you have a majority in support of this? MRS. PENA: Yes. JUDGE DENSON: But if it would fail, we wouldn't have an agreement. MRS. PENA: Right. JUDGE DENSON: That's understood. MRS. PENA: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. MR3. PENA: Absolutely. If they don't vote for it, then -- then we're out of business. There were five road districts set up in 1989 and 1990. The -- the one with the most value in it, I believe, was azound $99,000, but there 37 LJ i 2 3 a 5 s 7 a 9 io ii 12 13 :a 15 16 I' n ie is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 were some with 515,000 or 520,000. The Harper Road road district, I believe, was paid off in seven years. Now, I don't know what their property values -- MS. RECTOR: Heritage Park? MRS. PENA: Heritage Park. 3o there's certainly a precedent in those road districts for the amount of money that we're talking about. Whereas there -- there really wasn't a precedent for the 5100,000 we were initially talking about. COMMI33IONER LETZ: I can go along with that proposal. JUDGE DENSON: I could, too. I could go along with that. As a matter of fact, I'll make a motion that we approve Option 1, with the funding being 510,000 lump sum from the property owners, and the 520,000 coming from a road district. MRS. PENA: Okay. JUDGE DENSON: And the mechanics will have to be worked out. You'll have to get with -- with the Tax Assessor/Collector's office. We'll have to have a contract drawn up. MRS. PENA: As I understand it, we would probably need to do the road district vote first. JUDGE DENSON: Yes, ma'am. MRS. PENA: To make sure that passed. 38 !~"`i L~ : 2 3 4 5 8 7 8 s ~o i~ 12 13 14 15 is n 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JUDGE DENSON: Certainly. MRS. PENA: And then we could -- and then we could give the $10,000 and begin to be taxed. JUDGE DEN3ON: Right. MRS. PENA: So -- JUDGE DENSON: That would be my motion. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Any further comments, questions on this? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DEN3ON: Okay. Thank you, ma'am. MRS. PENA: I'd like to -- on behalf of all the property owners at Spring Creek Ranch, I'd like to extend my most wonderful congratulations and gratitude, really, to the Commissioners' Court for being willing to work with us over many months to arrive at a mutually agreeable solution. And we're very grateful and particularly I'd like to thank Commissioner Lackey for his help and support during this whole process. JUDGE DENSON: Thank you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Mrs. Pena, for putting up with it. JUDGE DENSON: Let's see. Consider final plat of Bluff Creek Ranch, Precinct 2. County Engineer, Don Voelkel. 39 C~ L J t 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s I MR. JOHNSTON: I believe at the time I had the preliminary plat approved, the Court requested some drainage analysis in that area. Here's Don -- yeah, Don's here. You have a letter in your book that Voelkel Engineering sized some culverts and an overflow section in one area and showed what the -- the flood plain's shown on the plat. I guess if you have any questions, those culverts are shown on the plat now, on the final plat. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Commissioner Letz7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's not mine. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It says 3. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Is it 37 I thought it was 2. JUDGE DENSON: Well, let's see. Let's see if we can -- cut to the chase on this. We had preliminary plat approval and some questions raised about drainage, and now Don Voelkel has done an engineering study and he's making recommendation reflected in this backup material, which is now part of the final plat? MR. JOHNSTON: That's correct. JUDGE DENSON: In other words, questions raised by the Commissioners' Court at preliminary plat time have now been addressed, so there should not be any other matters left out there. We should approve. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not sure. It's right on the border between -- it's by the junkyard. It's right by 90 f"`i LJ 1 z 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 the junkyard that's going in where the old Center Point cutoff is. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Its a part of the Walker place? HR. VOELKEL: Used to be. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Oh, okay. And they've already concreted all that and everything and fixed it. COMMI33IONER LET2: And I'll look at the plat. I'll make a motion to approve. JUDGE DENSON: Thank you. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I'll second it. MR. JOHNSTON: All these are private roads. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: 2.3, Consider and discuss approval for the Sheriff's Department to accept bids to sell the following surplus County patrol vehicle: 1989 Ford. Chuck, you can give any -- a little explanation? Just a worn out car or what? DEPUTY SRECHER: •Yes, sir. It's an '89 Crown Vic, stripped, all the radios and lights off of them, decals are off of it. It's got about -- I think 250,000 is a conservative figure, what it has on it, miles. 250,000 miles or more. JUDGE DENSON: And I think, tzaditionally, the 41 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 1s 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s Commissioners' Court have always authorized the Sheriff to sell her own excess -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. JUDGE DENSON: I've got a motion. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll second it with one comment. When the thing is sold, somebody in this courthouse needs to be notified to take it off of our list. DEPUTY BRECHER: I'71 do that. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We have a County-owned vehicle floating around -- a formerly County-owned vehicle floating around that is receiving traffic tickets, and I can't find a thing. We don't have a record of it. So when this one's sold, we need to notify somebody. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, we have a motion and second. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 2.4, Consider and discuss purchase of used vehicle for Sheriff's Office, Criminal Investigation Department. And funds from which will come from unexpended capital outlay funds. Deputy Bruecker brought this to me last week on behalf of the Sheriff, and I communicated with the Auditor's Office. They do have -- there's 519,000 remaining in capital outlay. And that amount of money has actually come from savings on -- on authorized items in the budget. For example, we had approved 569,000 f-~. ~ ~ 9 2 r-...-i L.J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 for three new Ford police vehicles, and they came in under -- a little under 60. There were various other examples of savings, and so on. That's where the money's coming from. Is the Sheriff still out of town? DEPUTY BRECHER: I think the Sheriff's in town. She sent me to do this for her this morning. JUDGE DENSON: Oh, okay. 3o she's here? DEPUTY BRECHER: As far as I know, yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: But the vehicle is a used vehicle? It's over at Cecil Atkinson's, and I think its $13,000? DEPUTY BRECHER: It's $14,750. JUDGE DENSON: $19,750? DEPUTY BRECHER: $19,750. JUDGE DENSON: Tax, title, license, drive-off? DEPUTY BRECHER: That's the -- that's it. They're holding it for us -- the dealer held it for us for one week, and today is the last day. They -- COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: I move we approve the purchase of that vehicle with a comment. The next quarter of overtime, we're going to wish we had this money. That's all I have to say. COMMISSIONER LETZ: My only -- I have two comments. One, and I look at that as a pre-purchase for next year. So you might relay back to the Sheriff that if she had in her budget four cars or three cars, whatever she had, she might 93 ~~ U r 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 reduce it because we're buying one early. And the other comment is really to Tommy. We're real -- Tommy's not here any more. This amount is very, very close to the amount where we need a bid. JUDGE DENSON: And a -- COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's my comment. JUDGE DENSON: Well, it's -- this is tax, title, everything. You know, that's final figure. I don't know what the -- DEPUTY BRECHER: It can't be over that figure. That's what they had told me that they would sell that car to us for. And they -- it's not going to be a penny over that figure. COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the reason -- from a bidding standpoint, $15,000 is the limit. When you go above $15,000, you have to go out for competitive bids, and we're at $19,750, so if we're talking about adding a radio to that car, we're over; adding lights, we're over. This has to be equipped price. DEPUTY BRECHER: That is the price we're going to pay that dealer. COMMI33IONER LETZ: We can't do it, then, I don't think. And the reason is -- it's not the car. We're paying fox part of the car for $19,750, and the other part might as well be the engine. We have -- you have to buy either -- 99 L.~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 it's of no value to the Sheriff's Department unless you buy a whole car. DEPUTY BRECHER: It's the entire car. JUDGE DENSON: No, this is the -- COMMIS3IONER LETZ: Equipped with lights, radio? DEPUTY BRECHER: The car's going to C. I. D. JUDGE DENSON: Oh, it's C. I. D.7 DEPUTY BRECHER: We're not putting -- if we're going to put any lights on it, I have -- I have some surplus equipment that I can put on this vehicle. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I'm in favor of the purchase. I just don't want to get the Sheriff's Department and Commissioners' Court in trouble from a bidding standpoint. If anything goes on that car, we're going to be over $15,000, if we have to spend any money on it. If we have it in stock -- JUDGE DENSON: The car's in usable condition right now? It's in the condition in which the Sheriff's Department is going to put it on the street and use it, is it not? DEPUTY BRECHER: Just -- 3ust like it is. I'm going to go ahead and probably put a radio in it that I already have. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I guess my only question is, we're buying a four-year old car, almost five years old, and the price is a little over $9,000 under what we could buy a 95 f„~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 zo 21 22 23 2a 25 brand new one for. JUDGE DENSON: They -- Chuck has told me that they picked this vehicle up, they've had it thoroughly -- DEPUTY BRECHER: I had a mechanic look at it. It's got 25,000 miles on it. It has no blemishes, on the inside or the outside, that I can see. And the mechanic told me -- he said, "I can usually find something wrong with even a new car. I can't find anything wrong with this one." JUDGE DENSON: So-- COMMI3SIONER LETZ: If this is what the Sheriff wants, its in the -- within our -- JUDGE DENSON: That's right. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't have a problem with it; it's lust that I'm concerned about the bidding part, and also I agree with Mr. Oehler that for $9,000 more, she could have a new car. But -- JUDGE DENSON: It's what she wants. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Who made a motion? Buster? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I made a motion. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I'll second it. JUDGE DENSON: okay. All right, any further questions or comments? All in favor? (Judge Denson and Commissioners Baldwin, Lackey, and Letz voted affirmitavely; Commissioner Oehler was opposed.) 96 L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 s s 10 11 12 13 to 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s JUDGE DENSON: You're opposed. Let's see, we have a couple of 10 o'clock public hearings. I notice we have a lot of people in the courtroom here on those matters, so rather than take a break now, let's just move on into those. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: And that -- Chuck, let's revisit that for a minute. One item I forgot that needs to be part of that motion is we need to pay them today? DEPUTY BRECHER: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: We need to authorize Tommy to cut a check or Barbaza to cut a check for them today. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was in my motion. JUDGE DENSON: Part of the motion, because they did hold that car until today. Okay, that's part of the motion. Let's see. 2.5, public hearing for vacating Lot 1 of Grotto Springs Ranch I and expanding Lot 18 of Whiskey Ridge Ranches, Section Two, and consider and discuss final plat approval. County Engineer, Mike Lindley. Mr. Engineer? MR. JOHNSTON: That is basically the issue. He wants to combine some property, and one lot was in the Grotto Springs and one lot was in the other subdivision. He wants to vacate that one lot and combine it with his other lot. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Let me close our Commissioners' Court meeting for a moment and -- and open up a public hearing on this question before the Court. Anyone 97 f"l ~J .--. 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 here publicly who wishes to address the Court on this sub3ect matter? (No response.) JUDGE DENSON: There is not? If there's no response, we'll close our public hearing and reopen the Commissioners` Court meeting. Do we have a motion? COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: A motion and a second. Further comments, questions? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 2.6, public hearing for replat of Lot 10 in Riverside Park and consider final plat approval for same. County Engineer, Elroy -- not Elroy Vlasek. I know Elroy to have a different name than that. But I think it's Elroy and Mr. Vlasek. Likewise, we'll close our Commissioners' Court meeting and open up a public hearing on that matter. Let's see. What are we doing here, Franklin? MR. JOHNSTON: There is a replat of one lot into two -- two lots. I think you granted a variance last -- at the preliminary plat. One lot is slightly less than two and a half acres. The other one is more -- over two and a half. But there was some existing houses and wells, so they divided it in this manner. 98 L ~ 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 ~i 12 13 is 15 is 17 18 is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DEN3ON: All right. MR. JOHNSTON: But it was approved. I think the variance as was approved. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. I do have a hand raised. air, if you don't mind, if you'd come forward please? Come up to the lectern, just so we can hear you and the court reporter can make a permanent record, which we're required to do. MR. PARKER: Yes, sir. Last year my wife and I -- JUDGE DENSON: Excuse me, could you -- MR. PARKER: My name is John C. Parker. JUDGE DEN3ON: Good, thank you. MR. PARKER: Last year my wife and I negotiated with Mr. Vlasek and Elroy Bering and wife, Becky Bering, for the sale and purchase of 9.89 acres of land from Tract Number 10, Riverside Park Addition, subdivision of Kerr County, Texas, Volume 1, Page 7 of the Plat Records. We have kept a lien on the entire 9.89 acres to secure the payment of a promissory note which was in the amount of 535,000, so that in the event the promissory note is not paid, we can then foreclose on the entize 9.89 acres. If the Commissioners' Court decides to allow a subdivision of the 9.89 acres into two parcels, then if there is foreclosure on our liens, we would have two parcels of land to deal with instead of one. We do not believe it is in our best interest to allow a 49 r~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s ni 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 subdivision of the 9.84 acres until the lien is paid, original $35,000, and promissory note is paid in full. So we would object to allowing a division of the tract into two parcels. This has been under suggestion several times with Mr. Vlasek and Mr. Bering, and each time I have, either verbally or in writing, told him that I did absolutely not want my portion of any part of that land subdivided in any way. And this, apparently, is a culmination of his desire to do that. But I was not notified other than by Billie G. Meeker that this hearing was even going to be coming about, and there was a request to the -- the County fathers. So we object to it, my wife and I, and -- and we do not believe, as I say, that it's in our best interest if we'd have to deal with two parcels of land. That's far and away above paperwork, attorneys fees, so forth, so forth. We do not object to any partition after our lien has been removed. JUDGE DENSON: Yes. It's Parker? MR. PARKER: Yes, sir, John C. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, Mr. parker. You have a very, very private interest in this matter today, personal matter. Let me ask a question or two, just for understanding. Now, you have a lien by virtue of your -- your vendor's lien by virtue of your deed to -- MR. PARKER: Warranty deed. JUDGE DENSON: Right. And you reserved a lien to 50 rr~ L. J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 enforce payment of the note? MR. PARKER: That's correct. JUDGE DENSON: All right. And so that lien addresses this entire tract of property? MR. PARKER: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: No action by the Commissioners' Court is going to authorize the owner of that property, I guess being Mr. Bering at this time, to sell a part of it without your -- without paying off that lien, or presumably, if conventional real estate documents were used, he'd be in violation of the terms of the note. MR. PARKER: That's correct. JUDGE DENSON: And so you could foreclose on the entire piece of property. MR. PARKER: That's correct. JUDGE DENSON: So you're not being ieopardized by anything that the Commissioners' Court would do today on this. MR. PARKER: It would facilitate any foreclosure, being cut into two pieces of land. JUDGE DENSON: So your forclosure is going to be foreclosure of that property that's described in those real estate documents that was drawn up when you sold the property? MR. PARKER: That's correct. If it's one parcel, 51 rr~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 6 e s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 18 19 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 then, if it's sold -- JUDGE DENSON: How can he sell it without your permission? MR. PARKER: He can't sell it without paying off the lien, the way I see the contract. JUDGE DENSON: Right. MR. PARKER: And any division of it would be facilitating a sale, and if that occurs, then the other portion of it is subject to a lien, whereas the other one is not if it's paid off, if half of it's paid off. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. He has no right to pay off -- unless it's provided fox in the real estate documents that a partial release of lien is allowable, and unless he anticipated this when he bought the property -- and, again, its provided for in the legal documents that were drawn up, saying that for "X" thousand dollars, you have to give him a partial release as to that piece of property that you're selling. MR. PARKER: That's not in the contract. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. So, therefore, if he wants to sell one of these pieces, assuming the Commissioners' Court approves this division, he's going to have to come to you and your wife and say, "Let's bargain for your releasing the lien on this particular piece of property." MR. PARKER: I've already told him three times that ~ ~~ 52 L~ i 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s ~o i~ 12 13 is 15 is 17 18 is 20 21 22 23 2a 2s I would not. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. So what his -- his only remedy at this point, then, would be to pay off your entire lien. MR. PARKER: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: So, again, you're not jeopardized in any way. And I know we're talking about your personal legal rights here, but you're not jeopardized in any way by what the Commissioners' Court would be doing today. MR. PARKER: Maybe not. My lawyer said it would. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Well, is your lawyer here today? MR. PARKER: No, sir, he's not. This -- this is -- personally -- JUDGE DENSON: I understand. MR. PARKER: Personally, I think its no more than subterfuge, because I have numerous times discussed -- I have sent him letters. I said I do not want and will not approve any subdivision partition whatever. I allowed him to drill a well prior to the sale on another section of the land. There was a well on it. I allowed him to drill another well in a different location. And so far as I'm concerned, it's nothing but subterfuge, and they want the place split. I don't care if they split it 50 ways, so long as they pay me first. 53 Ill L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 1a 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s JUDGE DENSON: Right. And that's your objection, and I appreciate that and I respect it. But your -- your objection goes to -- not to the division, itself, 50 ways ways or whatever, but as to protecting your note? MR. PARKER: Absolutely. JUDGE DENSON: And your lien will do that. MR. PARKER: That's not the opinion of my lawyer, and that's -- that's his opinion. JUDGE DEN3ON: Well, I mean, I think you've already answered the questions. You know that Mr. Bering could not reconvey the property and give clear title without paying off your lien. MR. PARKER: That's all I ask. JUDGE DEN3ON: I mean, that's what the papers say. That's what will have to be done. MR. PARKER: Well, this says that, "I've made application to Kerr County for revision of plat of Riverside Subdivision." I didn't sell him a revision of any plat. I sold him Lot 10. JUDGE DENSON: Well -- MR. PARKER: And I want to sustain Lot 10 until my lien is -- is erased. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. You know, I think we're sort of beating a dead horse here. Hut Commissioners' Court is looking at this -- whether this fits within our subdivision ~' ~~ 59 f'``i L_~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s zo 21 22 23 za 25 I rules and regulations. MR. PARKER: I understand that you don't know me, but you do know Mr. Bering and Mr. Velasic. This is -- this is something, as I say, it -- we may be beating a dead horse, but that's where I come from. JUDGE DENSON: No -- well, my opinion, sir, with all due respect, that this isn't -- your objection, your type of objection, is not one that should prevent the Commissioners' Court from acting. There may be others that would be legitimate objections, but this, because of your concern about your lien, is not something that the Commissioners' Court should either agree or disagree on a plat. MR. PARKER: Where -- JUDGE DENSON: Unless it's prohibited under your real estate documentation, which obviously -- I wouldn't say obviously -- which it doesn't appear to be. MR. PARKER: Well, what I went after is this; that's why I'm here. "During the regular term of Commissioners' Court, shall adopt an order for revision of the subdivision plat if it is shown to the Court that, one, the revision will not interfere with the established rights of any owner of a part of the subdivided land, or each owner whose rights may be interfered with has agreed to the revision." I do not agree. And I do hold a portion -- a 55 I?`l L.J 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 B s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 portion of the ownership of that land in that I have a lien on it. JUDGE DENSON: Now, wait a minute. Wait a second. And, again, see, we're splitting hairs here, but do you own any other property out there? MR. PARKER: No, sir. JUDGE DENSON: That's what -- MR. PARKER: My lien -- my lien is a cloud on the title; therefore, a portion of the rights to that property. JUDGE DENSON: You don't own any property, and that's what that language you lust read relates to, is an established property owner. You're no longer a property owner; you're simply a creditor of someone who owns property. MR. PARKER: That's true JUDGE DENSON: So this isn't the same. I mean, what you've read, you're not, by definition, one of those people. MR. PARKER: I have an interest in the bundle of rights of that property. JUDGE DENSON: Sy virtue of your lien only. MR. PARKER: Yes. JUDGE DENSON: Right. I understand, okay. MR. PARKER: And that's where I read each owner whose rights -- rights has been interfered with has agreed to the division, and I do not agree. 56 L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 16 17 18 1s 20 2t 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Anyone else on this? MR. JOHNSTON: I'd like to amend the statement I made earlier with respect to the variance. I said the variance was approved to the smaller -- the two and a half acres. I think the actual wording was it was approved subject to the Headwaters Underground District approving it. 3o that's just below their minimum size for a well. JUDGE DENSON: And has that been done? MR.JOHNSTON: Not to my knowledge. JUDGE DEN30N: Mr. Bill Vlasek, do you want to address the Court? If you don't mind, Bill, come up here to the lectern. MR. VLASEK: Mr. Parker, the whole reason why we was trying to to subdivide this is to pay you off, and I thought you very well knew that. MR. PARKER: That is my entire interest. MR. VLASEK: air? MR. PARKER: That is my entire and only interest. MR. VLASEK: I've discussed it with you over the phone and you were all agreeable with it, and now you said you haven't discussed it with me. But it makes no difference. All we're trying to do is subdivide ft. MR. PARKER: The last thing that I -- JUDGE DEN30N: Excuse me, Mr. Parker. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Vlasek. 57 l~l L J .-_ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1e 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s MR. VLASEK: What we're trying do, we're subdividing it out. I drilled a well on it, put a septic on it where we're going to be selling the three acres and pay off his note. That's the whole deal, just a little bitty type deal. I was trying -- Elroy's going keep part of it to live on and we was going to sell this part off just to pay the note off, and that was the whole intention. So, how can you lose? MR. PARKER: I'm talking before. Whether its paid off first, then sell it -- MR. VLASEK: Well, it makes no difference. It won't be subdivided until its -- MR. PARKER: If it's simultaneous, I have no objection. JUDGE DENSON: It wouldn't -- now, again, I reiterate that this Court doesn't need to get into ya'all's private business, the issue that Mr. Parker's talking about. But, for example, this is the way that transaction would -- would consummate, if in fact, it went through like Mr. Vlasek is suggesting. If the Commissioners' Court passes this today, he puts up a for sale sign or whatever means he decides to sell this one lot that he's talking about, or one portion. And Mr. Vlasek and the buyer of that portion goes down to a local title company, sits at a desk and signs up papers, and the title company has some deductions that are 58 r~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 za 25 for purposes of the closing, one of which is to satisfy a lien, an existing lien that's owned by Mr. Parker. And so that amount of the sales proceeds will be pulled out by the title company and sent to you along with a Release of Lien that you're going to have to sign that not only will release the lien on the piece of property they're retaining, but also on the piece of property that they are conveying to this third party buyer. Thus, Mr. Parker is paid in full, his rights are protected, and Mr. Vlasek or Bering or whoever else are getting what they want. MR. PARKER: That's all I've ever asked. JUDGE DENSON: Your lawyer could tell you all that. MR. VLASEK: That's all all I have to say. MR. PARKER: That wasn't what this paper said. My lawyer was advising me on a letter from Billie G. Meeker, County Clerk. JUDGE DENSON: But you're just not -- what is being asked of the Commissioners' Court today is not -- we're not interfering with your existing rights, is what I'm saying. COMMISSIONER LET2: Well, to really facilitate it, he can't sell it until we grant this. He can't sell a piece of that property until we -- MR. PARKER: That's my contention. That's my contention. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Parker. Mr. 59 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 Brown? MR. HROWN: If I may, I'll speak loud and stay here. For the record, my name is James T. Brown, General Manager, Upper Guadalupe River Authority. Last Friday I reviewed this plat in accordance with the Headwaters rules, and we find that the subdivision meets the criteria foz well spacing in the Headwaters program. And I signed off on it. JUDGE DEN30N: Thank you, Mr. Brown. Yes, six? MR. PARRI3H: My name is Harry Parrish, P-a-r-r-i-s-h. I own Lot Number 8, which is two lots down fzam 10. I'm not sure -- I've never done this before, so I'm not sure that what I'm going to say is within the scope of what ya'all are trying to do. As a homeowner, almost every home in that subdivision is sticks and stones and bricks. And the rumor is -- and I know you don't deal in rumors, but the rumor is that this piece of property that would be subdivided and sold off would be used for a mobile home park. So as an individual, the reason I'm here is to ob3ect to the sale or subdivision of that lot if that's what's going to happen, and I'm not sure whether that's in ya'all's scope. But i think that's also a concern of the majority of the other homeowners who are either here or not here. JUDGE DEN30N: Mr. Parrish, do you know whether or not -- and I'm simply asking a question. I have no idea. Do you know whether or not there's restrictions, homeowner's 60 ~"~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1e 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 restrictions that were established at the time this subdivision was put in place that would preclude anyone from coming along now and putting in -- MR. PARRISH: I do not know the answer to that question. So, again, it could be one of those situations where there may not be anything to enforce banning mobile homes. 3o I'm not sure whether I have anything to say or anything ya'all can do about it. That's my concern, that's why I'm here. I have no idea what's going to happen with that lot. I lust know there's a for sale sign on it. JUDGE DENSON: I notice 3ust from looking around the audience there's a lots of faces that I recognize, a lot of people I know that live out there, that I presume are here on this subject matter. Is there anyone that knows the answer to that? MR. PARRISH: I would nominate Owen Crenshaw. He was there when dirt was invented in that neighborhood, and has probably been there -- I'm sorry, Owen is my next door neighbor. But -- JUDGE DENSON: Mr. Crenshaw -- and I met Mr. Crenshaw. MR. CRENSHAW: The original deed -- or the original restrictions. The property was platted in September of 1996. The original restrictions, no trailers, no hogs. That was the original restrictions. 61 f'~1 ~_ J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 zo 21 22 23 24 25 MR. CRABB: That was passed? MR. CRENSHAW: Yeah, that's right. JUDGE DENSON: What was that? And your name, sir? MR. CRASS: Crabb, Clarence Crabb. MR. CRENSHAW: Clarence Crabb, right down my lane. And I'll tell you what our concern is. Like Harry says, no trailers, for this reasoning: If they start putting trailers, per se, as we know a trailer, number two, ouz property values are gone. Now, they'll come in, do them right, pretty them up, make them look good. You know, like our neighbor right down the road -- across the road from us. Double-wide, you can't tell it from a house. They've spent money on it. On up the road, a trailer, they've beautified it, looks good. That's what we're concerned about. What is the property going to look like? Is it going to be a bunch of trash coming in there, in a year's time look like old Ingram? No, we don't want that. No, all my neighbors will agree with me. Thank you, Your Honor. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I might point out, Judge, that that is the governor of Hunt, Texas. MR. CRENSHAW: Oh, now, wait a minute. Somebody lust said I was older than dirt. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I did not say that; that came from your next door neighbor. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Ms. Manning, Serena Manning? 62 ~~ ~ ~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1a 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MS. MANNING: Yes, sir. I live right across the road from this property that they're wanting to subdivide. My big concern is the property is really not that big on top of the hill. The property slopes down to the back -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to knock your head off. I don't see where they're going to have enough room to put more than one home there, anyway, regardless of the size. And I think that in order to keep it nice, I don't care -- I mean, we want new neighbors. We love kids, dogs, everything. But I don't -- I don't forsee them subdividing that part and trying to squeeze four in there, or two. I think one. And that's -- I mean, it anybody needs to come and look, they can come and look. JUDGE DENSON: Let me -- maybe we can get a comment that can take care of all this out of Mr. Vlasek. MR. VLASEK: We need to find a buyer first. And maybe once the buyer buys it, you need to take this up with the new buyer. I wouldn't have any control over it if I sold it, but I'm sure nobody's going to put trailers there. We were just trying to sell it for a home. We were dust simply subdividing it out, trying to clear a piece of land so someone can build a house, that's all. Just going to subdivide it out, sell it off, and pay for it. I'm sure somebody's going to build something nice on it. JUDGE DENSON: What you're saying is, Mr. Vlasek, that there's no truth to this rumor? 63 I?"l L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1a 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MR. VLASEK: We haven't got it sold yet. We're asking for $50,000 for that new well, new septic system. Who's going to pay 550,000 for three acres and put a $90,000 trailer on it7 If they do, they're going to spend a lot more money dressing it up. JUDGE DENSON: But the rumor, which I -- from your explanation, the rumor is that once you get this -- this division that you're asking the Commissioners' Court to approve, that you're going to go out and open up a little mobile home park. MR. VLASEK: That's lust Hunt, Texas, small-town rumors go around, and I'm sure somebody made it up. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: See if you can get a yes or no out of him. Try. JUDGE DENSON: All right. Thank you, sir. MR. HAGEMANN: How do you get a septic system approved if you don't tell them what you're going to dump into the septic system? MR. VLASEK: That's right. That's a good point. MR. HAGEMANN: 3o there should be something saying, you know, "I'm going to put a house on here," or, "It's a commercial septic system." Somebody had to tell them what was going in. JUDGE DENSON: And your name, sir? MR. HAGEMANN: Oh, I'm Charlie Hagemann. 64 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Mr. Vlasek? MR. VLASEK: Okay. We have a a septic system approved in there foz four bedrooms, that's it. Probably somebody going for two bedrooms, that's fine, but if they wanted to put four bedrooms, they could. That's what it's approved for. MR. HAGEMANN: So they couldn't put a trailer park? MR. VLASEK: If they would, they'd probably have to have list stations. We put it on a park with only one building, so I don't know what else -- if somebody else does buy it and wants to put something in there, I couldn't stop them once they bought it. But, far as I'm concerned, I'll -- I'm not putting anything on it. JUDGE DENSON: Here's what -- my perception leads me to the conclusion that Mr. Vlasek or Mr. Bering or both -- who is the property owner? MR. VLASEK: Both of us, Judge. JUDGE DENSON: Both of ya'a117 MR. VLASEK: At this point. JUDGE DENSON: They have met the Headwaters, U.G.R.A.'s, and the County's rules, subdivision rules. We've granted -- granted a variance, and we've approached this on a preliminary basis and then we come back for a public hearing, which we're engaged in right now, to review, to see if there's any legal or other requirement that would prevent us 65 r=~~ L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s 17 18 1s 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 from giving final approval. And it seems that I'm hearing from a group of citizens, homeowners out there, that because of the rumor of a possible mobile home park or whatever being put in there, that you're against it. I agree that I don't like mobile homes either, and I live out in ya'all's neighborhood and I know most of you. And I understand how you feel and I sympathize with you, but, you know, does the Commissioners' Court have the authority to not authorize the division of property because of a rumor and because it's simply something that ya'all don't want to happen? And I'm not -- I don't think we do. I don't think we have the authority to deny this. Any other commissioners can comment on this. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question. Maybe it will clear it up. Mr. Brown or Wiedenfeld, the system out there, could it be used as it is for a mobile home park? I mean the the septic system that Mr. Vlasek installed? I mean, could it be used for a mobile home or multiple mobile homes? MR. BROWN: I'm not really prepared to speak to that, 'cause I didn't evaluate the plat with that in mind. But it appears to us that what's there is a septic tank and a system that would -- that would serve a single-family residence, up to four bedrooms. I don't know -- unless you went in and put in a collection and aerobic treatment system 66 r~ LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a is 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 za 25 somewhere else, I don't think you could put mobile homes on this. I think it would require additional expense or some greater expense in order to qo in there to equip that piece of dirt for something other than a single-family residence. JUDGE DENSON: Let me ask, Mr. Vlasek or Mr. Bering, do you know anything about what Mr. Crenshaw spoke of, the restrictions barring or prohibiting mobile homes, being trailers? MR. BERING: Well, Your Honor, there's mobile homes there already, so I'm sure if somebody bought it and wants to put in a mobile home and dress it up real nice like they talked about, you know, it would suit them, and it would look 3ust, you know, real nice. 'Cause right across the street, Ms. Banning has a double-wide, I think. If I'm wrong, I don't know. M3. MANNING: It's a single, and it wasn't in our deed to not put a mobile home. And the purpose that we had one in the first place is to live in while we built our home, and then we placed it on our property and it's rental property. But it is -- it blends. It's there, but it's not a stick -- you know sticking out. JUDGE DENSON: Yes, sir? MR. SILK: My name is Michael Silk. I have a question for Mr. Brown. You can correct my thoughts on this. If -- am I understanding correctly that this sewer system and 67 ~"1 LJ 1 2 3 a s s 8 s w 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 well water is in there just for a three- or four-bedroom residence? MR. BROWN: My best understanding -- Jim Brown, for the record. My best recollection and understanding of the plat, as I reviewed it, that the system that's in the plat is a system that's designed for a single-family residence. MR. SILK: Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: Yes, ma'am? MS. WEBBER: My name is Melinda Hopkins Webber, and my husband and I have just bought Lot 12 and are about two-thirds of the way building a new home with a value in excess of $300,000. And we have to come right past that lot every day, in either direction, to get to the house. There is very little land on top of the hill. Most of that acreage goes down the hill and adioins my mother and dad's place on the other side of the fence. If they subdivide that top, we're talking, like, 2 little town-size lots, where all of the acreage out there is basically three acres and up. We bought nine acres. And we would like to see it stay in larger tract homes rather than having little -- whatever. i mean, we specifically don't want mobile homes, but we don't even want two homes on that small of a piece of acreage because we feel like it devalues the property value. JUDGE DENSON: Any other comments? Commissioners? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think what this Court is 68 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1s 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 addressing today is this particular subdivision or a division of one piece of land into two lots, and that's all that we're addressing today. And we can't look down the road to talk about mobile homes and septic tanks and this kind of thing. The only thing we can address today is what's before us. Sure is good to visit with my old neighbors, though. Golly, nice to see ya'all. MS. WEBBER: I have one other question. I think that I heard ya'all say earlier there was a variance already granted? Does that mean that something is already being done that is out of the ordinary? JUDGE DENSON: Well, nothing -- yes. MS. WEBBER: 'Cause I know, for one thing, they placed that well within probably 10 feet or 5 feet of the other property owner, the old Jack Moore house that was there, and I thought that was -- JUDGE DENSON: The variance that we grant is on a preliminary basis. Now, this one that we're doing today is the -- was the permanent one, the final action by the Court. What we said was, as to the water well, a variance was needed by Headwaters, which Mr. Jim Brown is the Executive Director of, and they granted that variance -- Headwaters -- as to the size of the lot as it relates to the well. Okay? Not the Commissioners' Court. And that has been approved. So there's no objection or problem as to that issue today. In 69 L.~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 other words, everything's ready, as far as the Commissioners' Court goes, to make this approval. And I think Mr. Baldwin -- Mr. Baldwin's right that we have a very plain, narrow issue before us, which doesn't relate to future uses of the property or lienholders or such as that. MS. WEBBER: But the letter that was addressed to all the property owners said that if we had an issue that we felt like it involved us, you know, that we had a right to be here. JUDGE DENSON: Uh-huh. MS. WEBBER: So if -- if the majority of everyone that lives in that subdivision is here and feels like we don't want that area subdivided, then regardless to what's going to be on that -- the land later, where does our voice come in? MRS. MANNING: There's already one home on the original lot to begin with. So its basically they're splitting that in half and making two as it is. MR. VLASEK: Can I just talk? The lots next to it are all just a little bit over an acre. Crenshaw's lot is just a little over an acre, and I think most of the people here have very small lots. I think that you bought a lot over there that was just a little over an acre, tool MS. MANNING: We have three. MR. VLASEK: Okay. So these are all very small 70 L J 1 2 3 4 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 lots. And somebody stated a while ago that she has 9 acres and the other ones are a lot larger acres. There's a lot smaller lots than the one we're splitting; one is 1.83, the other is 3 acres. That's a pretty good size, considering all the ones around it are lust a little over one acre. MR. HAGEMANN: I have a 9-acre lot. My neighbors, one has 1, one has 5. MR. VLASEK: Owen, how big is your lot? MR. CRENSHAW: 1.75. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question going back to some of this -- maybe it's already been handled in the past. The statement that was made that the well is right at 10 foot against the line, property line. I hope that's not true, that a permanent well is so close to the property. MR. WIEDENFELD: We issued a permit to drill the well less than 75 foot from the property line, in that the owners, Mr. Vlasek and Elroy, demonstrated that they couldn't meet the provisions with the other improvements they wanted on the property to get it 75 foot; which, i.e., septic system, flood plain issues, and these others. 30 -- COMMIS3IONER LETZ: How far from the property line is it7 MR. WIEDENFELD: That I can't recall off the top of my head, but it's less than 75 feet. MR. VLASEK: Its 18 feet. 71 Ill L.J 1 2 3 a 5 s a, s 10 11 12 ,, ~ 13 1a 15 16 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 za 2s COMMISSIONER LETZ: 18 feet. MR. VLASEK: And T.N.R.C.C. will let you go for 10 feet. COMMI33IONER LETZ: I have a comment I'll reserve for later. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Any more comments in the public meeting? All right. At this time I'll close the public meeting and reopen the Commissioners' Court meeting and ask for any further comments, questions. None? Do I have a motion from anyone to approve? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I just have a comment to make before a motion or anything else. I can't see in the restrictions here -- I haven't read them close enough to see what the acreage could be divided to under the restrictions, but evidently it could be down to 1 acre or 1.75 or something like that, 'cause we have lots that size; is that correct? MS. MANNING: Well -- MS. HARDIN: I think there are some old ones that are grandfathered in, but the new ones are two and a half. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The only way they can go less than two and a half is for the Commissioners' Court to authorize a variance to do that. And I think that's the key thing. I mean, once -- once they meet the criteria and if the Court agrees to give them a variance from the lot size requirement and they've met all the other conditions, we have 72 L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s no choice by law but to approve it. And we would do the very same thing for anyone -- any other landowner in that subdivision or any other subdivision, for that matter. And all we can do is hope that what goes in there would be advantageous to the subdivision and not a detziment to it. We have no control over that. The only thing that you can control that with -- and I talked to Mr. Crenshaw about this a week or so ago, and that is through restrictions, I believe, in that subdivision. And the landowners are the ones that make the restrictions, or the developer in the beginning. 3o I really cannot sit here and not approve this based on what has been done under the law and met the requirements for this to happen. Whether my heart says yes or no, it doesn't really matter. It has to do with what's -- it's protecting property rights is what it's doing, between the seller and the buyer. And you hope you protect the rights of everybody else in the subdivision, but if they're not, they have to do that in a civil case against another property owner according to the violation of restrictions. And I -- that's the way I feel about it. I think that's the way I have to go. And if so, I don't think that, from my point of view, that I could deny Mr. Vlasek and Mr. -- COMMISSIONER LET2: Berings. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- Berings from being able to do what they're asking us to approve, and that is only to 73 f'"i L_J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 partition one lot into two lots. What goes on beyond that is not really the concern or the legal right of the Commissioners' Court to control. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Commissioner, as I recall, at the last meeting you brought up a point that it may be easier, or possibly, to divide that lot so that it was closer or very close to the minimum requirements. I was wondering if that was done or could be done. COMMI33IONER OEHLER: That was a concern last meeting, and that was to -- I've been out, looked at the lot. I did meet with Mr. Crenshaw out there to look at it, and it seems -- you know, there really is only one building site that I can see on the property that he has for sale, and there is a for sale sign up. There is an existing structure real close to the property line. Mr. Crenshaw's pzoperty has been there for years; looks like there's a little remodeling maybe going on. There's some things that probably will be cleaned up when construction is finished. I don't know that for sure. Doesn't matter to me. I mean, I'd like to -- if its bad, maybe Solid Waste could get involved, but not Commissioners' Court. JUDGE DEN30N: I've got an idea, let's see if we can do this. And I agree with what Commissioner Oehler said as faz as the position of the Commissioners' Court at this time. But I would make a motion to approve the final plat of 79 f~~1 ~~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 1a 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 -- the replat of Lot 10, Riverside Park, limiting the use of that septic system to single household use only. And I think that's what Mr. Brown has already told us today, that the septic system that's in place is for a single household. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I believe our subdivision rules reflect that also. It's one -- one dwelling, one system per lot. I believe that's what it stated in there, unless somebody comes in and tries to modify that in some way. JUDGE DENSON: You see what I'm saying, Bill -- or Mr. Vlasek and Mr. Bering, is I'm -- I'm making a motion that we approve this replat, but we also acknowledge at the same time that that septic system that's in place out there is to be used for a single household use. in other words, multiple trailers in there won't work. MR. VLASEK: Well, I never intended to, but it could -- you know, if somebody else wants to come in here and build a house and a guesthouse, they'd have to put in another system. JUDGE DENSON: They're going to -- they'd have to reapply. They'd have to go to U.G.R.A. and Headwaters, the whole deal. MR. VLASEK: Right. There's no way you could put a house on there and have that house, put another house in, and make it work. You'd have -- you'd have to add it to the 75 ~J t 2 3 a s~ 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1e 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 system, so they'd have to put a complete other system in. They wouldn't be too happy. COMMI33IONER LETZ: I'll second the motion. JUDGE DENSON: Further questions or comments on this, anyone? MR. HAGEMANN: Restate your motion, please? JUDGE DENSON: My motion is to approve the replat of Lot 10, Riverside Park, limiting use of the existing septic system to single-household only. MR. HAGEMANN: Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: Yes. MRS. WEBHER: I'm sorry, I 3ust would like to make sure I understand this clearly. They have less than 5 acres, lust slightly under. And I believe Mr. Oehler said that it was two and a half acre minimum is in the restrictions that JUDGE DENSON: No, that's not in the restrictions. See, I don't want to -- excuse me for interrupting, but this all gets a little confusing, because we have property owners' restrictions -- which there are none, basically. There's a few little things that you can read for yourself, but it doesn't apply to the size of the lots. The two and a half that he's talking about is a Commissioners' Court rule, minimum size of a lot that has their own well and your own septic tank on it. II 76 L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s rr 18 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 MR3. WEBBER: So that's your own rule and now ya'all are going to vote to break your rule? JUDGE DENSON: Variance, not break. A variance. And I'm not trying to kid with you and use softer language, but that's what we do is grant variances if the intent of the rules are satisfied. And we let the other authorities, Headwaters, who have the authority of iurisdiction over wells, and septic systems, which is the U.G.R.A. administers those rules. If they're satisfied and we can grant a variance to accommodate a property owner, we do that. But we have to make sure that those protections are there. In other words, the safety of the ground water, that the proper well and the proper septic tank are constructed in the space that we are granting a variance for. MRS. WEBBER: And ya'all are aware that the creek that flows right into the Guadalupe is right at the base of that property? JUDGE DENSON: I'm not personally aware -- you're asking me these questions, but I don't know where this exact lot is located. But we have different organizations -- or different authorities, again, Headwaters and U.G.R.A., that go out into the field and make on-site inspections before they sign off or give their approval to the Court when we address the final question. MR3. WEBBER: But what you're suggesting now, '' I I ~ ~ ~~ L J 1 2 3 a 5 s a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 somebody could come back later and get another variance from you guys and do exactly what we're trying to -- JUDGE DENSON: No. I mean, I can't tell you what's going to happen in the future; I don't have a crystal ball. As a matter of fact, I won't be around after six months. But, you're talking about putting multiple septic tanks on a small piece of property like this. No, that will never work. MRS. WEBBER: Well, but you've already granted a variance to put one on smaller than what your rule is now, so COMMISSIONER LET2: The reason we granted the variance last time is our two and a half acres is based on Headwaters' well-spacing minimum requirements. That's the reason for that. When Headwaters granted a variance to drill this second well -- that's the reason we have our two and a half acres, so if they're going to go along with it, there's no reason for us not to go along with it. It's kind of -- the reason for that is well space. And Headwaters granted the variance from the property line requirements to drill that well. Therefore, that's the reason for the variance, because they granted the well permit already. MRS. WEBBER: Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: I think -- in reality, I think you're protected. COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the other reason, the other 78 L ,~-- i 2 3 a 5 s 8 s io i~ 12 13 is 15 16 17 is is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 -- from the way the Judge made the motion is that the variance is granted as a stipulation not regarding the septic. And it's only for one residence. JUDGE DEN3ON: Okay. We have a motion and a second. Further questions or comments? Quickly, let's vote. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DSNSON: Thank you very much for coming down, expressing your interest and your opinions. That's what this is all about. And I think everything's satisfied. Okay. At this time we will take a 10-minute break, come back in at 11 o'clock. (A 10-minute recess was taken.) JUDGE DENSON: I'm looking at the remaining items on the agenda, and people that are in the audience on various business that they need to conduct, subiects we need to address so people that are members of organizations outside of county government can get back to their business. Let's go down to 2.11. M3. NARDIN: There you go. JUDGE DENSON: Consider and discuss 9th of July celebration being held at Ag Barn facility. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Judge, can we delay that? I lust asked Thea to call Johnny, see if he can get up here for that. 79 ly``~ ~J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1a 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Sure. Let's move on to 2.16. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sorry, ya'all. JUDGE DENSON: Consider and discuss amending the Kerr County rules and regulations on on-site sewage facility regarding primary concerns by U.G.R.A., Jim Brown. Jim, before you get started, this isn't a preemptive strike on my part, but I've got your letter in front of me which addresses, in a broad sense, a number of different things. And it may be that after your presentation today, what we should do is set up some kind of meeting to address these -- these suggested changes in detail. MR. BROWN: Judge, that's exactly what I'm going to ask you to do. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, go ahead. MR. BROWN: I'm going to be short and sweet, give you some time back. JUDGE DENSON: Go ahead. MR. BROWN: For the record, my name is Jim T. Brown, General Manager, Upper Guadalupe River Authority. And with me is Charles Wiedenfeld, Senior Water Quality Specialist with the U.G.R.A., and also manager of the Hydraulic and Environmental Resources Department at U.G.R.A. Just a real quick, general background. Last year, T.N.R.C.C. changed a lot of the State rules in regards to construction and permitting of on-site sewage facilities, or septic tanks 80 f"`' L.J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 or septic systems. There are now some inconsistencies between the Kerr County rules and the new State rules. Nothing blatant, nothing that's creating any real problems, and not any fires out there, but we do think that it's time for us to revisit those rules. There are a couple of other things that have happened as a result of T.N.R.C.C.'s changing the rules, and that is the various professional licensing of people who deal with on-site septic design and installation. It's unfortunate that several of ouz local, successful, popular on-site septic installers did not attend the Installers II licensing class, and some who did attend the class have not been able to pass the new exam to this date. So come August 1, you're going to see a sizable reduction in the number of people in Kerr County who will have the license, T.N.R.C.C.'s license to install on-site septic systems in the county. The -- the other issue that I want to point out to you before I ask the favor. We went through a -- the Kerr County program, the order that was adopted by a previous Court and sent over to us to enforce, it's considered to be one of the top five in the state of Texas, as well as the -- the program that you have given us to administer for you. So we're very proud of that. Kerr County, I think, is the second county in the state of Texas that -- that went into a proactive, on-site septic facility in order to best address the water quality needs of the 81 rl"~ ~_ ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 e s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 Guadalupe River. L.C.R.A. and the upper lakes region of L.C.R.A., I think, probably was the first, and then Kerr County was second, and we're known all over the state to have one -- some of the toughest, but some of the most equally enforceable O.S.S.F. orders in the state of Texas. So what we're here today to ask the Court to do is to consider appointing a committee of various individuals in the community. And U.G.R.A. has no -- no suggestion as to how that committee might work, except, if you'll notice in the letter sent to you dated May 27, 1998, we've suggested that maybe the -- the committee be made up of two County officials, and that would be an employee of the County, maybe your County Engineer or someone who's involved in -- at least in the subdivision part of your county; someone from this Court or the County Commissioner or someone of that nature; two active professional designers in Kerr County -- we feel like industry should probably be represented; one designated representative of O.S.S.F. program -- that would be one of the two U.G.R.A. employees; and then a couple of concerned citizens. And we would suggest that maybe something you might consider on the concerned citizens is someone who may be associated with either the building industry, homebuilders' association, or the real estate industry in the community, and -- and someone who has an interest in water quality and who understands the water quality issues. I 82 LJ 1 2 3 a s s a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 1e 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s think one of our greatest concerns now -- we're talking about this a lot over at U.G.R.A. -- is it's pretty obvious to us that growth is going to occur in Kerr County; generally speaking, in west Kerr County. We think there will be growth in east Kerr County, but we think -- we certainly think that west Kerr County, right now, is the most marketable place. Our concern about west Kerr County and the septics out there is that the water that we see passing through Kerrville in the Guadalupe river in non-rain event days, that comes in from the springs out in west Kerr County. And the quality of that water will be impacted by development in west Kerr County if we do not have the proper controls in our development and and build-out orders in Kerr County to protect that -- that natural resource out there. So, that's why we've suggested that maybe in item number 4 of the two concerned citizens, that the Court has knowledge of people who are interested in water quality issues and who understand some of those issues. U.G.R.A. is prepared to work with -- with whatever and whoever this Court appoints to that committee. We would suggest that if -- if timeline possible, that this committee start work sometime this summer, and hopefully by this fall we would have a preliminary redraft of the -- of the order. There's one thing in the handout that I gave you that I'd like to call your attention to, and that's Section 10, which is found on Paqe 9. Section 10 allows the 83 ~~ LJ i 2 3 a 5 s 8 s i0 ii 12 13 14 15 is n ie i9 20 21 22 23 2a 25 County to adopt various elements of -- of the plan that are more restrictive than -- or more stringent than T.N.R.C.C. Our rules today -- when we first adopted our rules, our rules were much more stringent than T.N.R.C.C.'s. T.N.R.C.C. has come within a shadow of adopting the rules that -- that this County had the foresight to adopt back when it created its program several years ago. 3o we're not too far apart from the State, but there are some things that we may want to look at that -- that are more in the nature of living in Kerr County in the Hill Country and our water quality issues. That's all. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The requirements would be -- some of the differences might be that the -- lot size may be one? What are the lot size zequirements of the new T.N.R.C.C. -- MR. BROWN: Charlie, could you -- MR. WIEDENFELD: They're one acre, one acre, and a half acre, still. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's probably one of the maior differences between us and anybody else. MR. BROWN: And soils. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And soils? MR. BROWN: I don't -- we're a little tougher on soils out here. And we've got a -- we have a real new challenge coming to us, effective August 1, when the new site II a9 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1s 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 evaluators are licensed. Right now, site evaluation is a fairly subiective evaluation out in the field. Under the new provisions, the site evaluators are going to actually dictate the type of design that will be produced by the engineer or professional designer. There's going to be -- we see that -- we see that there's going to be some real challenges there between professionals in the future in the design of our septic tanks, which means that I expect that there's probably going to be a lot more -- a lot more interaction on the part of U.G.R.A. or the County or whoever administers this program, and that -- that we see there's going to be an awful lot of dispute resolution involved in the -- the design and installation of septic tanks, septic systems in Kerr County. Except for when you get off down in the -- maybe the eastern part of the county where the soils are fairly consistent and -- and the systems, the old conventional type systems, work well. I -- it's coming. And you might as well get prepared for it. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What you're going to have is is a site evaluator who's going to say, "Well, this is the only kind of system that will work," and he's going to turn it over to an engineer to draw the plans for it. And they could butt heads over it. MR. BROWN: And if the engineer -- and most of them out here -- most of the engineers sell systems, and they like 85 ~""~l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 to design systems for one that they can pull off of the shelf out in the warehouse and put in the ground. And -- and we're going to see some engineers and we're going to see some site evaluators who are going -- probably going to cross paths with some of the -- some of the designers and some of the wholesale systems people around here. COMMISSIONER OENLER: Site evaluators are not necessarily educated or have the requirements it takes to design systems? MR. BROWN: It requires you go and sit through a course, and if you can pass that booger at the end of it, you're going to get your site evaluator's license. And this person may or may not have any practical knowledge of -- of the design of on-site septic systems, and -- and may not be educated in that area. It just requires sitting through that course and taking the test and getting the license. That's happening state-wide; that's not unique in Kerr County. COMMISSIONER LETZ: What do you need us to do? Are you putting us or notice or -- MR. BROWN: No, what I'd like fox the Court to do is -- is to appoint a committee or give us some decision. If you want the Court or your staff to work with U.G.R.A., that's fine. If you want to bring in a committee of outside citizens so we get citizens' participation, much like you did on your subdivision review, we would welcome that. We just 86 P'"`~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 ii 23 za 25 need for the Court to give us, either today or as soon after today as possible, some indication of how we're going to come together and review our rules and -- and come back -- qo through the process of amending them and come back for Court adoption. COMMI33IONER LET2: I think it's a good idea, needs to be done. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't have any problem with it. Let me ask you a question. You say there's some inconsistency with the train wreck and our -- and our things now. How many -- how many items are there that have changed? I mean, is this something that we really need to form a committee and do this long study over, or is there something we can look at in 35 minutes and -- MR. BROWN: I think -- I think we could -- I don't think its going to take 35 minutes, but I think we could probably have a work day where we go through and analyze our rules and the other -- and, I mean, we're talking about three hours, put our heads together, have a second meeting, come back. And if we don't have a lot of differences between where we are and where we want to go, another three-hour meeting, and we'd have something to come back to this Court with. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: Do ya'all have the changes? I mean, can you lay -- can you go back to your office and lay 87 L_ J 1 z 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 down the train wreck changes and our stuff side-by-side and see what the changes are? Do you have all that available? MR. BROWN: Do you have any idea how much time that would take? MR. WIEDENFELD: Take us a couple working days, probably. MR. BROWN: Okay. I would say that -- I wouldn't say by the end of this week, because there's several -- the Headwaters board meets this week, and that kind of throws the staff out of line. But maybe by, what, Tuesday of next week? By Tuesday of next week we could deliver a comparable package or a package that has the comparables of the two programs side-by-side. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like that. COMMI33IONER OEHLER: I don't think, other than lot size requirements, that there's going to be that much difference. And I think if that's the way we want to be, I'd be for that. I'm really an advocate of State rules so that we have some consistency from one county to the next. They can't say, well, Kerr County does this and they're not reasonable, and -- you know, and the State says, we do this. And I think the State has come a long way. Kerr County was ahead, considerably. MR. BROWN: Well, I think everybody at T.N.R.C.C. will tell you that Kerr County was out there on the cutting 88 ~~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 tt 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 1e 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 edge in -- in our septic program. More specifically on water quality issues. Probably we've really sort of -- we've set the challenge for the other folks to come along. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, now the State has set the mandate for everybody else to follow. MR. BROWN: Well, and I think their argument is that Kerr County's been doing this fox several years and it hasn't killed them. Our development, our growth in the rural areas of this county, would indicate that -- that the on-site septic system is not a deterrent to growth. One of the other things along this same line -- and be careful, I don't want to step beyond the agenda, but U.G.R.A. has -- has made some significant commitments about -- about getting out into our growth cluster areas and try to get waste water collection and treatment in those areas as soon as we can -- as soon as it's financially feasible, to put those systems in the ground and take that water and treat it. East Kerr -- west Kerx County is going to be the most expensive area of the county to install those systems, but that's where we need to be because of the Edwards limestone out there and the transmissuity through the grounds to those springs and into the river. Sa it's -- it's a hot button, but I think the community's aware of it and I think we're all trying to get there together. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I think by the next 89 ~/`I I-i 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 meeting we'll be prepared to -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: Names, have names. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- to actually adopt some kind of committee. MS. DIXON: Judge Denson? JUDGE DENSON: Yes, ma'am? MS. DIXON: I'm Artie Dixon on behalf of the homebuilders' association. I would like to recommend that perhaps we have one of our builder representatives to be on your committee, if ya'all have had time to consider that. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think that's an excellent thought. JUDGE DEN3ON: Certainly. Okay, let's do that. Maybe, Jim, you or Charlie, one of the two, could submit to the Court as soon as convenient, next week sometime, some kind of brief analysis of the difference between Kerr County rules and those of the 3tate7 MR. BROWN: Okay. JUDGE DEN3ON: 3o we'll have that in front of us when we do meet again. And we can consider the -- how comprehensive a review we want the committee to get into. MR. BROWN: What we'll try to do, we'll try to do this: i didn't clear this with -- with the support staff, but what we'll try to do is take your current ordinance -- your order, and do a red line where the State standards will be in 90 ~1 L. J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1a 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 either bold or -- or an in italics, italicized print, which will make it a lot easier for you to go through that. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, good. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I can tell you from experience that you can spend months on this and still not be in agreement, kind of like your subdivision rules and regulations. You're going to have some differences of opinion. And some of that you can incorporate and some of it you can't. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, thank you. MR. BROWN: Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: Thank you very, very much. Okay, back on agenda item 2.11, Consider and discuss 9th of July celebration being held at Ag Barn facility. Commissioner Letz7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I put this on the agenda because there are some things the County needs to get ready for for that celebration, get the facility of the Ag Barn ready. Artie Dixon's here. And just more, really, going over a few of the areas. I talked to Brenda earlier. The temporary fencing, she's made arrangements for, so we have that. But we discussed earlier that the Women's Division will give a contribution to the County, and we need to figure that out, and also the contract amount, we need to kind of go over that briefly, Brenda's recommendation, and also need to talk about 91 ~"~ L_~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 19 zo 21 22 23 2a 25 fencing that we need to put up and the mowing and some ground work we need to do, so kind of three areas. On the contract portion of it, at our last meeting, Brenda was at -- we came up with, I believe, about a $1,500 fee, which is a thousand dollars -- well, $1,500 total that the Women's Division will pay. That includes the contribution that they'll be making to the County towards the fencing materials. I think $500 of that was actually the contribution, $1,000 is the fee. The amount that we would charge if the County wasn't really involved in this at all -- which we're not really, but we are sort of -- would be about $1,600; that we are offering a little bit of a discount of 5600 to the Women's Division. Brenda and myself -- I don't think Bruce was at that meeting, but the reason we did this was to the benefit of the County. It certainly comes to the good of the County to do this function. So I think we need to approve that as the amount the Women's Division will give to the County. And I would like to really earmark all of that money, or the maiority of it anyway, for the fencing materials which we need to get. And I think Bruce has mentioned that he would like to or could -- I don't think he'd like to. "Like" may not be the right word, but would be able to get a crew in there and build a fence on the -- COMMISSIONER OEHLER: East side, and then maybe partially along the Riverside Drive. 92 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 1s 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMIS3IONER LETZ: It's something that we've needed to do for a long time. It wasn't really in the budget, but Laura has mentioned it, and I think we're all aware that facility is not really secure, and this would go a long way toward doing that, with some donations from Mr. Oehler and some materials -- a portion of the materials from the Women's Division. The balance of materials, I would say, would probably come from Commissioners' Court's contingency would be the appropriate spot in the budget. I'm not sure what the total amount of that would be. I don't know if Bruce has ha8 time to do that. I think this agreement is going in that direction. JUDGE DENSON: Sounds good to me. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Sounds good to me. COMMISSIONER LETZ: The other area is that the -- the reason Johnny's up here is so that we're all clear on it, that the -- we need to try to agree if there's extra work to be done out there a couple weeks prior, everything from killing fire ants to this touch-up maintenance, I think Johnny's aware what the requirements are, things of that nature. But we need to make sure that the Maintenance Department can do what they can to have your entire staff available that weekend. I know it's 4th of July, a little bit of inconvenience. But if we could maybe give comp time earlier, between now and then, and after to have them ~"' II 93 ^-1 L~ 1 2 3 a 5 8 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 available, because we need to make sure our maintenance staff is there. And especially from -- you know, for the 9th of July. MR. TISDALE: I have everybody except Maria. She had planned a vacation, you know, six months ago. COMMISSIONER LETZ: And then the final thing, really, that I have is the -- we need to mow an area over where the proposed park would be for the fireworks area, so we could request Road and Bridge to go over there and mow that, about a one-acre area, and then additionally mow the Riverside Park area between the Riverside Drive and the river, and mow that area. MS. HARDIN: Are you talking about the 14 acres across the creek? COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, just -- we just need a small piece over there for where they do the fireworks, probably. MS. HARDIN: We're going to mow all of that the week before. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. And then all the land down the Riverside Drive. M3. HARDIN: You said fire ant killer; we have in our office a 50-pound -- a big box of fire ant killer that you purchased. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I did? 94 ~"1 ~ ~ 1 2 3 4 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 18 rr 18 19 20 21 22 23 za 25 M3. HARDIN: For the public cross-field last year. I guess it's in our office. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, it came from the Ag Barn; I didn't purchase any. M3. HARDIN: Well, we ordered it for you. But we ordered it and it's there, anyway, in our office. 3o does it go to Johnny? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It can be spread out over that area, Johnny. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Are you still trying to get a dozer down there? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I was going to ask if anything's been done on that. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Waiting on you. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Waiting on me? For what? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Well, I talked to Road and Bridge, and they thought that you would get somebody in there. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't have the authority to get anybody in there. MS. HARDIN: I thought that they gave you that authority. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, I told them I wouldn't take that authority because I wasn't going to get in between Road and Bridge and spending taxpayers' dollars to authorize 95 C~~ J 1 2 3 a 5 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a zs anything. The Court authorized that money to be spent for that purchase. But not -- JUDGE DENSON: And I thought that Leonard took the lead on that. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what i thought. If I'd have known that, I'd have had something done about it. I thought he was going to have a dozer down there and he had a certain amount of money spent. But what we authorized -- JUDGE DENSON: Didn't he mention an operatoz's name? COMMI33IONER OEHLER: Yeah, he did. COMMIS3IONER LETZ: Well -- COMMI3SIONER OEHLER: It needs to get done. COMMI3SIONER LETZ: That needs to be done; we need to relay that back to Leonard. MS. HARDIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Whatever amount that was authorized. And then if you'll have -- if you're scheduled to do the mowing that's required, and the only thing the Court needs to look at, then, is I guess on the -- the amount of money. I think that probably needs -- 'cause the payments they're going to be paying is less than we would normally charge. I don't know if she can do that on her own, but we need to authorize $1,000 lust to -- lease portion, and then a $500 contribution is acceptable to the Court. 96 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JUDGE DENSON: You want to make a motion? COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion to that effect, $1,000 rental fee for the Women's Division and they'll make the $500 contribution to the County to go towards purchasing the fencing materials. (Off-the-record discussion.) COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Any comments? MS. DIXON: Only on the payment. I did get paperwork today on that particular thing, and, she has time stipulations on payment. Is that going to be a factor with ya'a117 We're still waiting for sponsorship money to come in and ticket sales, so -- JUDGE DENSON: We don't have a Sears and Roebuck plan. MS. NEMEC: Can we pay it after -- JUDGE DENSON: What is the time -- do you want to earn the money before you pay us7 M3. DIXON: Well, it would be nice. We have to wait for some major sponsorship money to come from Carson Distributing, and its quite a bit, and it won't start until probably this next week. And they're doing an implement, so it will be very close to the 9th before we could pay it out. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Prior to the event. M3. DIXON: Okay. 97 r.~ L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: That's part of the motion, money to be paid prior to the event. And there's a second. Okay. Any other questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) MS. DIXON: Thank you. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, thank you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ms. Treasurer, are you in on all this? MS. NEMEC: I'm the President of the Women's Division. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd say you're in on it, okay. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Frank, you want to get out of here? You want to talk about road signs? 2.18, Consider and list the regulatory signs for public notice and set public hearing for same. Yu got a date? MR. JOHNSTON: Public hearing date, July 13th this year, at 10 a.m. The critical sign is the school sign at the new Ingram Elementary School on 3kyview drive. We need to get this public hearing so we can get that in before school starts. MS. HARDIN: I laid a correction on your desk up there on the signs. MR. JOHNSTON: Then we have the no dumping, the 35, and the no parking as listed. 98 r* L J 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Well, last week I saw this and it says it was "Do Dumping." M3. HARDIN: Yeah, I know. That's why you have a correction. JUDGE DENSON: Like a place that you were supposed to dump. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I wanted to oppose that because that's in my precinct and we're not creating -- it says "Do Dumping." MS. HARDIN: I know, that's why I put a correction on your table. And then change one to "No parking." COMMISSIONER LET2: So move. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. COMMI33IONER LACKEY: Third. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: Fourth. See how simple this stuff is7 JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Thank you, Franklin. Okay, let's go back to the agenda and in order. That will be 2.7, set quarterly financial and investment report, Treasurer. M3. NEMEC: I apologize for this being so late. This was for the quarter ending March 1998, just one thing after another and couldn't get on the agenda in time. The first page there, bonded indebtedness in Fund 60. That will 99 r-~ L J 1 z 3 a 5 s 7 8 s i0 ii 12 13 is 15 is n 18 ~s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 be paid off this August. We have a principal and interest payment. 3o you won't see that on -- on there any more. And then 58 and 59, we have an interest payment in August, and then our final pzincipal and interest payment will be February of '99. So, we'll no longer see that either. And then I put Fund 15 on there. That was paid off February of -- of this year. 3o I lust want you to see that we no longez had that. And then, of course, the only thing that will be left will be the jail bond. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: 30 out of $7.7 million, $150,000 of that's going to disappear, and all that will be left is the iai17 MS. NEMEC: Right. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: That is good news. M3. NEMEC: Looks good. Next page is our operating funds at Security State Bank. As you can see, we had a collection -- ouz tax collections there was oyez $2 million; that was transferred to the Federated Investment account. And in Road and Bridge, you'll see revenues of 5828,000. The actual revenues was lust 5298,000. There was $530,000 that was transferzed from Fund 17 that's allocated in the budget to be transferred, so the actual revenues was just 5298,000. On the next page is our Federated goveznment money mazket account. And you'll see on there the tzansfez ins and the transfez outs. And this account earned, for the quarter, 100 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 5.21 percent in yield. And the logic investments that were lust approved at the last Court meeting, for the -- for the three-month quarter ending March of '98 was 5.989, which would have been 28 basis points over what this account is earning. io, I'm real -- that will reflect on this next quarter, those investments. 3o we would have earned .288 basis points more. The next page is lust a description of the securities that were purchased and when they matured, all being in U. 3. Government agency discount notes. And again, that's with NationsBank, but with the diversification with logic, that will take care of that there. The last page is iust a breakdown of all the funds and the interest that was earned for each month. And, again, 5.21 percent in the federated account. Any questions? COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: Very good. COMMI33IONER LET2: I move we accept the quarterly financial investor report. COMMI33IONER LACKEY: Second. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. Questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) M3. NEMEC: Thank you. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Thank you, Barbara. JUDGE DEN3ON: Okay, 2.8, Consider and discuss renewal of County Officials at Texas Association of Counties. 101 C"`l ~ ~ i 2 3 a 5 s 8 s ~o ii 12 13 14 ~5 i5 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 Mr. Auditor? MR. TOMLINSON: This -- this renews in August. What I'd -- and I think at our last discussion in Court about -- about liability of property coverage, we were going to try to -- to get our maturity dates or renewal dates on all our coverage as of January the 1st because it -- that would coincide with our work ex 's comp, and so I -- my recommendation is to renew this until January the 1st. And, now, what we still -- we still have a problem with property because it renews in May, so we're going to have to be the same -- we're going to have to do the same thing when our property coverage renewal comes up. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds good to me. COMMISSIONER LETZ: So in two years we'll have everything at one time. MR. TOMLINSON: There's -- there's really not much need in bidding. JUDGE DENSON: Do we have a motion? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to make a motion -- do you want to do that? No, if you want to do it, you can do it. Okay, I'd like to do that. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll second. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 3o the motion is made by Commissioner Baldwin, and seconded by Commissioner Letz. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 102 L_J 1 ~~ 19992 2 3 a 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 1a 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Renewed through January 1, MR. TOMLINSON: That's right, to January 1. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Further questions or comments? All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay, 2.9, Consider and discuss approval of resolution supporting Amendment No. 1 to Airport Participation Agreement for Tex-Dot improvement and records reconstruction protect, authorize County Judge to sign the same. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm dust a little bit confused here. It talks about here on this first page the summary statement. The County has paid 578,000, and the remaining 519,500 will be paid out of Airport Furtd 97 line items. Then I look above that paragraph, and I guess I'm looking at Fund 97, City's Fund 97. Is that -- JUDGE DENSON: Right. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: You think I'm correct in that? JUDGE DENSON: I think you're absolutely right. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 3o show me the S19,500 that's there. Do you add -- JUDGE DENSON: I don't know. COMMISSIONER HALDWIN: - something and something 103 ~~ L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 and something? COMMIS3IONER LETZ: I think you'd add the current balance. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Add those current balances up, which was right at $19,500. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Pretty close. COMMISSIONER SALDWIN: So you think that's what it is7 JUDGE DENSON: Yes, sir. COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: Okay. Well, I lust wasn't sure. This is a City budget, And I lust I wasn't familiar with it. Of course, you know, if we have to up ours, it's -- the way I read this thing is due to -- we were going to go out and resurface the one of the strips, and they found failures, and so, TexDot says, "Well, if you want to fix it, we'll up our end of it if you'll up your end. And I can't -- basically that's what it ia. JUDGE DENSON: Right. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we have to do it. JUDGE DENSON: See, it's a project that's already underway, lust an amendment to the existing project. (Commissioner Baldwin raised his hand.) JUDGE DENSON: You're the movants. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was a motion. JUDGE DENSON: And I've got a second right here, 109 P"' J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 Mr. Lackey. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. (Off-the-record discussion.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 2.10, Consider and discuss giving Commissioner of Precinct 1 the authority to start setting up workshops for elected officials and department heads. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What my thought was, in light of the recent federal Court case, I thought maybe it would be a good time for us, while its fresh on our minds, for all the department heads and elected officials, if they would like to come in and let's get briefed again on our hiring practices and -- and the bidding pzactices. I understand that it's been recommended that we do that. Open meetings and open records. Just kind of get briefed and get some -- the new folks that are coming in into Commissioners' Court and just kind of all get on a -- my only problem is I'm not sure who to go to, unless it be TAC. JUDGE DENSON: Yeah, TAC has -- they not only have the people that are experts in these areas, but they also have seminars on these from time to time. But then as far as hiring, if I think our personnel director, Mrs. Nemec, may be able to comment on that. MS. NEMEC: Well, I could get information and 105 ~~ i 2 3 a 5 s B s io ii 12 13 is 15 is 17 is 19 20 21 22 I 23 2a 25 present it, or we could get TAC to do it all at one time also. It would be from them that I usually call, anyway, and get all the information. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That would be fine. It doesn't matter to me. MS. NEMEC: Richard Slagle. MS. UECKER: General Slagle from TAC. COMMISSIONER LET2: I think its a good idea. The hard part is that when you do it, you have to have pretty much all the elected officials. Got to have three of them here that want to do it, as well, because there's no reason to have somebody come in and pay someone to do it if all of the other department heads and elected officials aren't going to either attend or have someone from their staff. MS. UECKER: And TAC may tell you that they have quarterly seminars in different parts of the state. They may tell you, why don't you just plan to, you know, send all your people to one of those. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, what my -- I know I expect them to say that, but I'm going to be of opposition to that. I want them to come here, and if necessary, we can bring in some surrounding counties. MS. UECKER: And they can go -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We'll bring in some surrounding counties to do that. But here's my big problem: 106 fr"i L~ i 2 3 a 5 s s s is it 12 :3 is 15 is n 18 ~9 20 21 22 23 za 2s We're fixing to get in the budget process and be having a lot of budget workshops. And I don't want to us to be sitting in here seven days a week in workshops. So do you have a suggestion about -- do you have an idea about when we'll start the budget workshops? JUDGE DENSON: Yeah, right around the first of July. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: First part of July. COMMISSIONER LETZ: 1 August, 1 September, one a month or one every two months. JUDGE DENSON: Well, let's wait until our next meeting and get a report back on what's available through TAC. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Okay. MS. NEMEC: They'll want to do, like, a seminar at one of the motels and invite the surrounding counties to make it worthwhile to come back down and -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are va'all interested in this kind of thing? JUDGE DEN30N: Yeah, I think it would be good. I mean, this kind of stuff can't harm anyone. MS. UECKER: They may want to just schedule this as one of their quarterly meetings. JUDGE DENSON: Bidding only concerns the Commissioners' Court, in effect. I mean, we're the ones making the decision. ~ ~~ 107 r,.~ LJ ~-. 1 2 3 a 5 s B s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right. And the newly elected officials that are -- I saw three or four of them out here. JUDGE DENSON: But different department heads, while it might be of some interest to them, they don't get involved in bidding for this. COMMI33IONER LETZ: They need to know what -- M3. UECKER: We don't? JUDGE DEN3ON: You don't go out for bids, I'm saying. Now, the Commissioners' Court, that's more of our -- our jurisdiction. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They want them to come and be there, though. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Maybe the Sheriff would be. M3. NEMEC: Do you want me to talk to Aichard and finds out what's available? JUDGE DEN3ON: Why don't you do that? We're all just talking in the dark, what's available. Why don't you talk with TAC and come back with a pretty comprehensive report for us? M3. NEMEC: Okay. JUDGE DEN30N: Okay. Down to 2.12 now. Consider and discuss the parking problems during the renovation of the courthouse, and giving authority to the architect to conceive a plan. 108 f'~`a L _J r- 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 COMMI33IONER LETZ: That's giving him a lot of authority. The reason for this is we're obviously losing some parking spaces during the construction phase, and we will not have those back for probably three years, and may even lose -- well, actually, we'll lose everything down below once we start the construction and we start doing, you know, exterior work, things of that nature. We talked before about redoing the whole parking area, the drive around the courthouse and adding parking spots around there. That's really what this is. We want to go ahead and proceed with that at this time and authorize Mike to come up with an idea and conceive of a plan. Now, we have an idea -- JUDGE DENSON: You got a comment on that? MR. WALKER: Idea or plan? JUDGE DENSON: Do you have a comment on what Mr. Letz lust said? MR. WALKER: No, I -- it was a question that we discussed. We brought it up because, obviously, there are efficiencies that could be gained by making minor modifications in the square. And we have looked at those in the past when we did other studies, but that was sort of an incomplete thought and certainly not current. But we'd be glad to look at it again. And we I think we'd estimated before that we could comfortably park 200 cars if they're properly arranged and configured without losing any trees or 109 ~~1 ~_ J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 1a 11 12 13 1a 1s 16 17 1e 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 pretty antique street lamps or anything like that. 3o that would be -- you know, we'd take whatever direction you'd give us on that, but it probably is a good time to consider it because there are going to be utilities involved; there's going to be minor modifications. I don't know whether to call them minor or not, but there are going to need to be modifications made as a result of what we're getting ready to do on this annex. We're getting ready to create a brand new footprint down there for a very large, 15,000-plus square foot building, and now would be the time to consider utilities and the parking involved with that. COMMISSIONER LETZ: You figure that would cost probably about 5500 to do that plan? COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe I figured that out quite -- COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds good, Mikey. I'll make that motion. You spend $500 for you to -- MR. WALKER: Do all we can do for 5500, okay. M3. UECKER: He just did it. COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: There's our $500. COMMI33IONER OEHLER: I'll withdraw my motion. COMMISSIONER LETZ: About how much -- I mean, what -- you know, obviously, we're not in the habit of giving open ended -- MR. WALKER: Well, it depends on whether you'd want 110 CY"'~ U i 2 3 a 5 s a s io ii 12 13 is 15 is n is is 20 21 22 23 24 25 to put it in the contract. If you want us to dust do studies on it, we're talking about less than $1,000 to do that, but, I mean, that would get us a layout and you could look at it and say, you know, go further or don't. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, my feeling is -- I mean, I think probably Mike will be of value to you, except I think we'll turn it over to our Road and Bridge Department to do it. I don't think we need to pay Mike to oversee construction of that part; we have a department that does that. But the plan I would like, you know. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If Road and Bridge would not do it, we could always bid it out. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or they could bid it out. They could handle the -- oversee it. I think. MR. WALKER: Well, there are further issues to be discussed. I mean, there's drainage and how that gets off of the property and how that ties into the City storm sewers. Whether you, you know, pave it in concrete or whether you continue to use -- whatever that is out there. So there's a lot of different decisions that have to be made. And, of course, our major concern is what we do right back here in this area, this quadrant, but I think that the -- you know, the overall thing could be looked at and we could hand it over to you, you could tell us what you want us to do from theze. But we could attempt to keep the -- the visual 111 f'"1 U 1 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 integrity of the square, lest it be misunderstood. It wouldn't be a -- you know, tear down the trees and put up a parking lot; that's not the point. But there are a lot of efficiencies that could be gained with minor modifications. JUDGE DENSON: Ms. Uecker7 MS. UECKER: I had talked to Mr. Walker about this previously, and just for your information, the -- we are -- the district courts are going to be having a lot of jury cases, almost every week, from here until Thanksgiving. So -- and, you know, parking is a problem without the additional space, and especially since construction is going to be going on, so, you know, I had asked him to address that, and I think I'd even talked with Mr. Letz about it. I am in the process of sending a letter to the Postmaster, asking them not to park here any more, whatever good that's going to do. But at least I've done it. COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: Whether there's a jury in or not? MS. UECKER: Yeah. Usually what I do is I send him the dates that we have big juries coming in, which the next couple of months is every week. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So that means that the post office parking is discontinued from this point on. MS. UECKER: i would hope so, yeah COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what you're saying? 112 P'`~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 M3. UECKER: Yeah. COMMIS3IONER LACKEY: If you'll come out here early in the morning, sit down and watch, those people are not from the post office; they're from all these business places over here. M3. UECKER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I've set out there and watched them. JUDGE DENSON: Yeah. Not only in the morning. Linda, you and I have been dealing with this for a couple of years. I've done everything I can to try and get the matter corrected. Now, the Postmaster did, I think a matter of $50,000, rented for a couple years behind Grimes funeral Nome. And I think he's been trying to be a little bit accommodating in the recent contact we've had with him. But Butch is absolutely right. You know, I see this at lunch. You'll see the girls from across the street -- 'cause most of them are females, secretaries and such from over there -- walk across the street, get in their car, and drive off, and then come back around and park their car here after lunch. M3. UECKER: Well, maybe -- JUDGE DEN3ON: I'm not through. MS. UECKER: I'm sorry. JUDGE DENSON: And I'm of the opinion that these problems will never be corrected unless we put some teeth 113 ~~ L J 1 2 3 a 5 s s s 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 into some kind of enforcement provision around here. We brought that up last time. The Court addressed this and nothing was ever done about it. M3. UECKER: Would you want me to not only address that letter to the Postmaster, but to all the businesses on this street? And I'm glad you brought that up, because the -- all of the staff at the 3chreiner's Department Store is no longer allowed to park in the Schreiner's parking lot. Now, one of the staff told me that herself. So probably a lot of those are 3chreiner's staff. And I can send the letter over there also. M3. NEMEC: See, its gotten worse with the construction over at the hospital. That parking area is no longer there for parking, so it's gotten worse. COMMI3SIONER LACKEY: Put one on all their windshields, every one of them out there, whether it's employees here or not. JUDGE DENSON: I mean, I'm not trying to be a defeatist about this, but you're never going to get anywhere with it until we implement some kind of punitive -- MS. UECKER: Yeah, we enforce it. JUDGE DENSON: -- measures, whether we're going to haul off cars or what. MS. UECKER: Which I think we tried to do several years ago, and I don't know if Mr. Lackey was here or not, 119 ~~l LJ t 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s 10 ii 12 13 is 15 ~6 17 is ~9 20 21 22 23 2a 25 but -- COMMI33IONER LACKEY: Yeah. MS. UECKER: I know the Commissioners' Court caught a lot of flack about threatening to tow vehicles, as I recall. COMMI33IONER OEHLER: If that's what you want to call it, that's what it was. COMMISSIONER LETZ: One other thing we could do is go to the City Council and explain that during the construction here that we're going to lose a lot of parking, and if we start redoing our own parking lot, we're going to lose even more, 'cause while the parking lot's under construction, we're not going to have any parking. Or minimal parking, anyway. If we apply to the City, you could ask them to relax their no parking in this whole area downtown for a while. Get rid of their 2-hour parking and ask them to -- you know, the situation, that we're going to solve the problem by adding more parking, but we need them to relax their 2-hour parking limit, which would get the local people out of our parking lot. MS. UECKER: Maybe they could do a variance. COMMI3SIONER LETZ: You know, we -- JUDGE DENSON: Sweet. COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that's the only way, to me, it's going to work. 115 P'~ L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 .-, 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: And that's a good idea. I don't know why the City, unless it's brotherly love, would have to accommodate us, but that's a good idea. How far -- do you want to contact the City for us, Linda? MS. UECKER: Sure. JUDGE DENSON: Sheila or whoever. MS. UECKER: Yeah, I will. And what do I need to do? Maybe we can get on the City Council's agenda? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The Judge will make an appearance over there to beg and plead with them. JUDGE DENSON: I'm thinking that she'll be -- they'll be more responsive to her begging and pleading than they will to me, or any of us. COMMISSIONER LET2: I'll be glad to go to the meeting. MS. UECKER: Well, maybe myself and one member of the Commissioners' Court could. Johnathan, if you want to. JUDGE DENSON: Talk to Glen Brown. MS. UECKER: Yeah. And I have talked to Chuck before, the Chief of Police, I've talked to him. And he kind of -- I guess it ran in this ear and out the other, but I will call him again and talk to Sheila. I'm sorry. JUDGE DENSON: And I would appreciate you writing a letter. MS. UECKER: Okay. 116 G~"`1 L~ .-, 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Write a letter to the Postmaster, to the businesses. M3. UECKER: I will do that. JUDGE DENSON: Now, back to the agenda item itself. What do we want to do with Mike? MR. WALKER: Oh. COMMI3SIONER OEHLER: That's a wide open statement, isn't 1t7 MR. WALKER: Would you like me to leave the room? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Paula, what would you like to do with Mike? JUDGE DENSON: Wait. Wait. One person at a time. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd like to make a motion to authorize Mike to develop a plan for us to redo the parking at the courthouse square, a site plan. And -- just a site plan. I don't want any engineering, I just want a site plan of what you think would be a good use and would maximize our parking. And how much is that going to cost? Make an estimate. MR. WALKER: A thousand, max. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Up to $1,000 max. COMMISSIONER SALDWIN: Second. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Come back to the Commissioners'Court with it. JUDGE DENSON: Motion and second. All in favor? 117 f~`~ ~J 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 6 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 2.13. I don't think we're going to be able to handle all these things without going into the lunch hour, so do ya'all want to lust recess now and come back at one o'clock sharp? COMMISSIONER OENLER: Sounds good. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Can we do Mike's last one? JUDGE DENSON: No, it's -- -- Mike, can you come back at one o'clock? COMMIS3IONER LETZ: Do you have 2.15? Is that going to be discussed? MR. WALKER: Yes. That's pretty quick. Let's go. JUDGE DENSON: It's still going to put us in the lunch hour; it's 2 or 3 minutes till. Can you come back at one o'clock sharp? MR. WALKER: Okay. JUDGE DENSON: Can you? MR. WALKER: Yes, sir JUDGE DENSON: Good, see you then. We're in recess. (Lunch recess taken.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. It's about two minutes after 1:00, the 8th of June, '98, and we have several budget items. Nr. Walker, I'm going to take Judge Brown up first. MR. WALKER: Okay. 118 r"`l L_J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s JUDGE DENSON: We had several matters. Let's see, I think it was numbers 5, 9, and 19. JUDGE HROWN: All right. You got one I can look at7 I should have brought one, I apologize. MR. TOMLINSON: That one? JUDGE DENSON: Oh, no, budget amendments. COMMI33IONER LACKEY: Oh. JUDGE DENSON: 5 was -- COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I know it's 9 and 19. COMMISSIONER LET2: 5 is the conferences. COMMI3SIONER OEHLER: We already did 5. JUDGE DENSON: Yes, but Jonathan asked a question about 9, how it related to 5. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm. JUDGE BROWN: Okay. I don't know the numbers, I'm lust looking -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: The question on 5 that I had was why did we have to amend -- give you more money for conferences? JUDGE BROWN: Well, one thing, the court reporter has conferences now she's got to go, and Barbara has to go to them. They have -- they've got a minimum -- some minimum deals which they have to go to, minimum hours. Of course, I have my hours I try to go to, the family law, criminal law, and civil law every year; that's the ones I try to go to. 119 ~~1 L_ ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 And in years past, a lot of those things have been in San Antonio and they're free to me except for a motel room and the travel. And so when it's in San Antonio, I just go down there and get -- you know, go to class and come back every night; it doesn't cost anybody anything. Now, this coming year they're going, like, to Corpus. There are different -- they're way off. So I'm -- it's for travel and motel rooms. But you add in -- used to we had nothing for Barbara and nothing foz Kelly, and now both of them have requirements. And I wish they were here. You want me to get Kelly down here right quick? COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, I mean, I know what they -- JUDGE BROWN: I had Barbara figure out what it would be next year for she and Kelly and I. COMMI33IONER LETZ: We did an amendment for the District Judge's court reporter. It's just that your conference budget is a lot more than anyone else's. JUDGE BROWN: It is, yeah. COMMISSIONER LETZ: And this is the fifth time we've added you this year. Granted, they've been for various reasons; the court reporter has to go and the rest needed to go to something. It just -- you know. JUDGE BROWN: You want to table it till I get Barbara down here? She knows exactly why that number's on there. She did this, she worked it up. I told her to figure 120 r~ LJ 1 2 3 4 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 1s 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 out what we got to do next year and put the number down. COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is this year. This is this year's budget amendment. This is for, as I understand it -- JUDGE BROWN: Oh, this is not next year's budget? COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, this is why -- this is what school you're going to, I think. MR. BROWN: Well, I'm going to Corpus tomorrow. And then I'm going to go in July. And she's -- she had a couple of them that -- she had one to go to and Kelly had to go to one. COMMISSIONER LETZ: You can't get by with two conferences? My bottom line is, can't we do with fewer conferences? JUDGE BROWN: Yeah, we can. COMMISSIONER LACKEY: No, I thought Tommy said Santa Fe. COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's Judge Ables. JUDGE BROWN: I've been to Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and Corpus, San Antonio. But, like I say, in San Antonio you never get a bill on that; that's just a freebie, far as I'm concerned. I just go down there and back. COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're just just getting more and more mandates from Austin telling people to go to conferences, and conference budgets are going up and up and 121 "'" L J 1 2 3 a s s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 up. Yours has gone up a bunch this year. Do you really have to do this conference, is my question. JUDGE BROWN: Well, i feel like if I don't keep up with criminal law, family law, and civil law sessions, they change them. If I don't stay up on that, those lawyers are telling me one thing and I'm wondering what are they talking about. I feel like I have to go. Hut, I mean, certainly I will -- you know, if you guys tell me not to go to them, I'll probably go anyway, but I won't charge you. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Hey, that's a good idea. COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what I'm leading to. JUDGE BROWN: And, you know, really, to be honest with you, I think -- I can't remember, but if you'll look back on my budget from '91, '92, '93, maybe even '99, I never charged a dime for those. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I like that. JUDGE BROWN: Well, I know. And Karl and them said, "Well, we're charging," so I said, "Well, maybe I ought to get reimbursed for my motel and my travel," so I started charging. But I certainly -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know ya'all may want to look at next year's budget as to pick apart -- it may be that one a year, to me, is reasonable for any elected official, and then beyond that -- JUDGE BROWN: Do you want us to get with them and 122 ~'"~ ~-_J 1 2 3 a s s B s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 make ours just like theirs? COMMI33IONER LETZ: Fe. No, because he goes to Santa JUDGE BROWN: I ain't going to places -- well, he has to. He's the Administrative Judge, he has to go to stuff like that. But, I mean, I go to the family law, criminal law, and civil law. And then we have -- Barbara goes to something and Kelly goes to something. That's what I understand, that's in our budget. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. JUDGE BROWN: And I will do whatever ya'all want to do. It ain't going to hail up the Pope one way or the other. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Where are we are we on 57 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're on 5. JUDGE DENSON: Do I have a motion to approve? COMMI3SIONER LETZ: So move. JUDGE OENSON: Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, you got a second. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Now we're going to ask you for something better. JUDGE BROWN: I hear that one coming, and you have it, whatever it is. JUDGE DEN30N: 97 ""~ I 123 L ~ t 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 i 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a ~ 25 JUDGE BROWN: Yeah, is this the Court-appointed attorneys? JUDGE DENSON: Right. JUDGE BROWN: Okay. Yeah. COMMISSIONER LETZ: We want to start using some of that. How much can we use? JUDGE BROWN: Just about as much as you want. Did you see what we did last year? Can you see -- MR. TOMLINSON: There's $12,000 left in there, I looked. JUDGE DENSON: Putting a very, very narrow -- JUDGE BROWN: Are you talking about what can you use out of the $12,0007 We're not talking about next year? This year. You can probably use -- I don't know. You think you could use ten, leave us two? We haven't used that much. How much have we used? It shows us. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Six or seven. MR. TOMLINSON: Six or seven, i believe. JUDGE BROWN: This has been the best year for Court-appointed lawyers; we just haven't had hardly any Court-appointed lawyers. JUDGE DENSON: That's because of the judge. JUDGE BROWN: Huh? JUDGE DENSON: That was because of the judge. JUDGE BROWN: Yeah, I and I think Ilse's doing a 124 I"~ L ~ 1 2 3 a s 6 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 2s good iob. Makes a difference. If they make reasonable offers, these guys say, "Well, I'd rather take the deal." Then they 3ust don't ask for a Court-appointed. lawyer. So they've been real good good getting these people happy with their deals. COMMISSIONER LET2: Ten thousand would be super, more than we expected -- I expected. JUDGE BROWN: Well, I mean, all I'm saying is if I get nailed for one, I'm going to have to come in here and ask you for it, but I don't think I will unless something drastic happens in the next few months. Do you? COMMISSIONER LET2: I understand. Just rather than qo into reserves and declare an emergency, we'd rather try to use up what we have. JUDGE BROWN: That's fine with me. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. We're going to amend the budget amendment -- we're going to move $8,000. MR. TOMLINSON: May be moved as needed. JUDGE DENSON: Do you want to do it that way? MR. TOMLINSON: That part, yeah. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. All right. So, for purposes of Number 9, the $1,380 that you need, rather than coming out of reserves, will come out of the County Court at Law line item. MR. TOMLINSON: Sure. 125 L~ i 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s io ii 12 13 is 15 is 17 18 is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Do I have a motion? COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. MR. BROWN: The closer it gets to October 1, you can use all of it up. JUDGE DEN30N: Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Second. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON. Okay. And then I have a note that says something about 19 -- COMMIS3IONER BALDWIN: We can blame that on Spencer while he's here. Is that what the deal is7 COMMI3SIONER LETZ: That's the same. It was coming out of the 216th; it was $582. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If we can get Judge Brown to go along with the budget change, we were going to pay that out of that same money. JUDGE BROWN: Thank you. JUDGE DEN30N: Okay. Got a motion? COMMISSIONER LETZ: So move. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: Third. JUDGE DEN30N: Okay. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. All right. Now, back to Mr. 126 ~-`~l L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1e 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 2s Walker. MR. WALKER: Thank you, Judge. JUDGE DENSON: And I think where we were, Mike, was at 2.13, Consider and discuss electrical problems on the first floor annex. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe you started on this one, too. We can handle it pretty quickly. During our preconstruction meeting, Paula and Barbara both mentioned that they have a real shortage of electrical outlets in their offices and they're overloading circuits and blowing circuits right now, basically, just because we've added a lot of computers, electrical, since that building was built. And now is probably a good time if we need to redo some circuit changes or got any upstairs, it's probably a good time to add circuits on the second floor where they're needed. That's basically -- Mike felt it's feasible to do that. MR. WALKER: Well, yeah, it's feasible. I don't have any kind of budget figure for you or anything else, because we really haven't talked about how many computers or where they go or anything else, but it -- this would be a good time to do it. If it cannot be postponed till such a point where you study the whole floor for whatever other changes you need to make, at least we get them through the -- the gap here on getting their computers up and running and not having quite so many brown-out problems. Paula may have ~~ 127 CT"`1 L ~ 1 2 3 4 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1s 1s 2a 2t 22 23 2a 25 more to say about that than I do, really. She knows more about what her problems are. MS. RECTOR: My concern was because we're running everything on power strips now that are loaded. TexDot's going to upgrade on our computer system; that's going to require more power, probably some more outlets. We've added another piece of equipment from TexDOt this last week where we had nowhere to plug it in. And it's blowing the circuits and taking down everything in one particular part of the office. And that's happened four or five times already. COMMISSIONER LETZ: And Barbara has the same problem. She's mentioned -- I don't know if the County Clerk has it or not, but the Treasurer does. She mentioned it. And I don't know if it's easier to -- if it's something Johnny can do or Mike needs to incorporate it upstairs or how to do it. I lust put it on the agenda so the rest of the Commissioners will be aware of the problem and we can figure out how to handle it, because it I think it is a problem. It's also a fire hazard. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'll tell you from past experience, you're going to have -- Benno has done most of the line stuff in and around what we have. He probably knows the system better than anybody. I would say that might be wise to give him a call, have him come in and make a recommendation of how to fix that problem. Outside of any 126 f~l L_ J 1 2 3 a 5 6 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 1e 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 contract we have going or any -- it's -- I don't think you're going to spend that much money. It's a problem that needs to be fixed under the maintenance, I think, rather than going and make it a part of a bid package. It sounds like it needs to be fixed now and not six months from now. MR. WALKER: The only thing I would ask on that is I know that under maintenance, a lot of things have been done, but remember that we had a whole lot of stuff to sort out once we went into this courthouse, and -- and, you know, you had a three-leg system with unbalanced legs on the load,. And so all I would ask there is that at least we get the opportunity to review what's being proposed. If you want somebody else to do it, that's fine, but our electrical engineer understands the building like you wouldn't believe. And I'm sure Benno's very aware of it, parts of it, but in terms of overall -- the overall load situation on the building, I would -- I would highly encourage you to at least let our electrical engineer look at that, because it is -- it is really critical, the way those loads are put on. And that you be aware of where you're going with the next phase and so forth so that you don't -- we don't get into a problem like we had before where circuits were being blown simply because the legs -- the load wasn't balanced on the three legs. So I would encourage you to at least let us take.a hard look at that. It's coming from -- it's all coming from this 129 L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 e s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 rr 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 it's all coming from this electrical room that's in the lower level down here. But there is some -- some ample or spare capacity in some of these panels, and then there's not in others. And in some instances it may be well that we recommend a -- just a separate subpanel be put in, but that it be properly loaded off of the main system so that we don't get into an imbalance problem. We have saved -- by the way, just for ya'all's information, we've run over the utility bills, and there's been -- there's approximately $500 a month savings in utility bills over the gas -- you know, whatever that system was we had before with the boiler and the imbalanced loads. 30, overall, your utility bills will continue to go down as long as we're allowed to look at those -- the way those loads are put into the building. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm with the Benno thought. COMMIS3IONER OEHLER: Henno, I think, will know whether it's going to be overloaded or not. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And if there's available space, and let him make a recommendation to fix those. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And if Mike was to hire somebody to do it, it would probably be Benno. JUDGE DENSON: Why don't -- let's just continue discussion on this. Why don't we have Mike be in charge of -- or give him the authority to call Benno, for Benno to come 130 ~'~1 L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 out and make his recommendation, but at the same time, for Mike and his electrical engineer to be aware of what's being recommended? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's fine. That's fine, but I think it needs to be taken care of fairly quickly. MR. WALKER: Right. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Because we can't have all this computer stuff continually blowing breakers. We're going to screw up some equipment, I believe, at some point if we don't do something about it. MR. WALKER: Okay. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I make a motion that we authorize Mr. Walker to call Senno and to meet with him and his electrical engineer and fix the problems of circuitry within the offices that are having problems. JUDGE DENSON: Fix or report to the Court? COMMI3SIONER LACKEY: Fix. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, report to the Court, but it needs to be fixed. We have a meeting every two weeks. It could be paid for out of the monies -- we're looking at 510,000 to put some new wiring in. JUDGE DENSON: We're not talking about -- MR. WALKER: Do we lust make a recommendation to you in two weeks and then see if it -- by that time we'll know what the magnitude of the changes are. 131 f"~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Is that okay with you, Paula? Do you have daily problems? COMMISSIONER OENLER: Two weeks is better than nothing, I guess. COMMISSIONER LETZ: This just came up. I mean -- M3. RECTOR: What happened was the computers, printers, and everything in Diane's office kept going out, and it was -- it was the circuit. And it happened three or four times. We'd get maintenance, they'd just mess with the circuits and it would come back on, but it continually happened. And now they'ze going to start doing the upgrade on our TexDot equipment, and they were looking at all the power strips we'd got that are just full, plugged into. JUDGE DENSON: That's what they're going to have to look at in making this -- developing a plan. And after. MS. RECTOR: As long as nothing major happens in the next few weeks, I don't have a problem with it. JUDGE DENSON: All right. We got a motion. CONMI33IONER LETZ: Second. JUDGE DENSON: All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 2.14, Consider and discuss extending burn ban. COMMISSIONER OENLER: Don't look at me. COMMISSIONER LETZ: We didn't get any rain in the 132 I?" l L~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 eastern part of the county. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. You making it? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: I'll make it. JUDGE DENSON: You made a motion? COMMISSIONER LACKEY: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: And Mr. Baldwin seconded. We had three and a half inches out there in Hunt. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, I know. COMMISSIONER LET2: I don't want to hear about it. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. All in favor? (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) JUDGE DENSON: Okay. 2.15, Consider proposed alternate procedures proposed by Absolute Demolition. MR. WALKER: Yeah. Let me -- this is more of a status report than it is anything else. It's not to ask for a decision other than the fact -- and Paula's probably -- its good that she's here. She's probably the one most affected. I've sort of sampled opinions. Tammy here said that they've experienced a little bit of noise. My first question is -- and the $3,500, remember, was a credit to ya'all if they were allowed to work during the day. I checked with Larry Gable this morning, and that's still -- that deal is still on. As long as nobody's saying it's time to stop the daytime operation. And to date, unless Paula says something different or Tammy says something different -- and I talked 133 f'"`1 ~J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 with Johnny about it while he was here earlier this morning. Nobody's having a problem that I'm aware of that's unbearable. So, if you want to continue that deal, we'll continue that deal. And then I'll talk about the other portion of it. COMMI33IONER LETZ: I mean, its up to, really -- MS. RECTOR: The only problem that I'm seeing today is they've got that little ramp where they're dumping all that stuff right over my window, and when they dump it in that dumpster and then then they take the dumpster out and bring it back, it shakes the whole building when they set it down, and it's right there under my window. MR. WALKER: Yeah. I mean, that is -- that's a noisy operation. The only thing we could do is force them to come get the dumpster after hours. M3. RECTOR: Well, but they've hauled it off, I know, two or three times there already. MR. WALKER: They would have to stop work and then redo it, and then they might start -- MS. RECTOR: That's the only big noise that I've noticed today. The pounding upstairs was not a problem. Hut it's just when they drop all that stuff down that chute and I'm sitting right there under it. MR. WALKER: Okay. Well, I'm curious. One of the things they were going to to do is block off your window 139 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1a 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 right there, the window's right in front of it. And I'm a little bit worried about debris. M3. RECTOR: I haven't noticed -- I haven't even noticed much dust when they dump it down there. MR. WALKER: Well, they've been keeping it watered down. I've watched them; they've been keeping it watered down. I'm more concerned about the safety problem out there. There is a problem -- a guy almost got hit in the head a while ago while I was watching, and so I'm a little bit worried about them not blocking that off well enough. It's probably going to make some people mad. I think we're going to have to keep people out of that ramp parking right there, because that stuff is -- you know, it sort of scatters sometimes when it -- when it hits the pile or before it hits the pile, even. So we may lose a few more parking places, but other than that, I don't know that -- that there are any problems. We did have a leak, as everybody knows, into Paula's space last week, and I think that was lust sort of a -- almost an unavoidable thing, that they did not know it was happening until the middle of the weekend. And i think Tommy came in and found it and it was taken care of. The main thing that we posted to all the employees -- I think they sent out a memo telling everybody what that digital pager number was, and that's what they called to get it fixed. As a matter of fact, even over the weekend, that guy's been 135 L _J t 2 3 a 5 s a 9 io ii 12 13 is 15 is n 18 is 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 staying here, Tony Kershner, the superintendant. I think they've -- they're doing a good job of keeping everything in hand. And it's about as much as you could expect for -- for a daytime demolition job. The only other thing to do is make them go to the nighttime operation. And then, of course, you lose the $3,500 credit. So, that's it. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Where are we as far as percentage of completion of demolition? MR. WALKER: They're probably approaching 25 percent right now. They're moving along very nicely, and -- and actually, I think they're probably a little ahead of schedule. And, you know, 90 days, 25 percent complete, you can see they're going to get through there pretty fast. Now they'll do that until they get to the hard part, which is the cutting out the concrete, and that's the other proposal that I wanted to talk to you about. And that will slow down just a little bit when they get to that part; it won't go quite as quickly. So, you know, you're probably going to get their -- this month you'll probably get an application for payment for at least one-third of -- of the total amount, less $3,500. Do you want to talk about the $15,000 now, the credit? JUDGE DENSON: I want to talk about whatever needs to be talked about in order for us to complete this agenda. MR. WALKER: Okay. What the engineer is doing is a study right now, and that's, of course, at the contractor's 136 ~`~ L_J .-. 1 2 3 a 5 s a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 1e 1s 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 expense. It will come out of the 515,000 savings that he's proposing, and we do not know the answer to that yet. But they're still looking at the alternatives that we've talked about, having the Bobcat up there on the floor, and the concrete shear scissors business. And we lust don't have the answer to this one yet. But he will -- we will be ready at the next Commissioners' Court meeting with that, he says. JUDGE DENSON: So there's no action to be taken? MR. WALKER: No, sir. Unless you want us to stop. JUDGE DENSON: No, I don't think Paula hollered quite loud enough. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just -- MS. RECTOR: I've been through worse. JUDGE DENSON: We appreciate you being able to put up with the situation. M3. RECTOR: So far. JUDGE DENSON: Well, I understand, and we always have an open ear for possible changes, you know. MS. RECTOR: When it becomes a problem with customers. JUDGE DENSON: At the stage you're at, as opposed to what we dealt with upstairs -- COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are you finding them to be pretty responsive? MS. RECTOR: Oh, yeah, they've come down and 137 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 1~ 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 checked to be sure that they're not knocking anything loose on my side when they're pounding away up there. They've come down periodically to make sure there's nothing being tarred loose by their pounding. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Next, we do have one other agenda item. 2.17, Consider and discuss resolution supporting the Reservation School receiving a historical marker. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I placed it on the agenda. I was approached by a group of concerned citizens in west Kerr County who would like to see this happen. And they felt like the resolution from the Court supporting their action would be helpful in raising money and getting the marker placed at the location of the school. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It wasn't established until the 1900'x3 Seems like for some reason I'm thinking it was earlier, like the 1800'x. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, it was ft was a church. It was a Baptist church up until 1919, when it became a school. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 19197 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's fantastic. COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 138 r~~ L.. J it 2 it. 3 a 5 6 8 9 io ii 12 13 is 15 is n ie i9 20 21 22 23 za 25 JUDGE DENSON: Is that a motion? COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Authorize the Judge to sign JUDGE DENSON: It says, "The Reservation School of Kerr County was established in the early 1900's and served the children of this county for many years. Whereas the Reservation School District wishes to be recognized by the Texas Historical Commission for the many years of dedicated education to our ranching community, and whereas the Commissioners' Court and the citizens of Kerr County support this effort to have a historical marker placed in a prominent location for recognition of service. Now, therefore, be it known that I, Robert A. Denson, County Judge of Kerr County, Texas, and in cooperation with the Commissioners' Court of Kerr County, support the Reservation 3chool's effort and encourage the Texas Historical Commission to recognize this important part of our history. Signed this the 8th day of June, 1998." COMMISSIONER OEHLER: COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: COMMISSIONER OEHLER: COMMISSIONER LETZ: That was my motion. JUDGE DENSON: Okay. And you seconded? COMMI3SIONER BALDWIN: I did. second it. One of us did. We'll let Bruce. I can first it and you can 139 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There you go. ~ JUDGE DENSON: You got Commissioner Oehler. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got to do all the s thinking. a JUDGE DENSON: And Commissioner Letz, second. All 5 in favor? s (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) ~ JUDGE DENSON: It's unanimous. e COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about -- did Mr. Duncan s want to come in on a report -- ~~ JUDGE DEN30N: Yes, he did. ~~ COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- to the Commissioners? i2 JUDGE DENSON: He did, but he's not here right now. .- i3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's hard to get good help, 14 isn't it7 i5 JUDGE DENSON: We're going to move into Executive i5 Session here shortly and talk with our lawyer. ~~ (Off-the-record discussion.) 18 (The open session was closed at 1:30 p.m. and an Executive Session was held, the transcript of which :s is contained in a separate document.) 20 JUDGE DENSON: Okay. It's back -- it's like 18 2t minutes till 2:00 on the 8th of June, '96. We're coming out zz of Executive Session, and Mr. Pollard wants to talk to us 23 about another matter. Tom? 2a MR. POLLARD: This thing that you had on Japonica 25 ~"' 19 0 LJ 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s io 11 12 13 is is is n ie is 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 Hills here last session of the Commissioners' Court kind of pointed out a recurring problem that we sort of had and that I've been aware of ever since I've been practicing law. It has to do with this subdivision -- going through the subdivision process on matters out in the county, when it is subject to it, and that's not really an easy question to answer. It's -- the statute is not really very black and white on that. The State's statute says that when you are subdividing properties for the purpose of laying out public streets or any public facilities like that, then it is subject to subdivision regulations. So you can actually have situations where maybe a tract of land fronts a public road and you're going to divide it so that both tracts are fronting on a public road and you're not going to -- the purchaser of those tracts is not going to subdivide them and lay out any more public streets in there, so they've got access on the front. And you may not -- if that's the case, then you probably don't have to go through the subdivision process with the County. Otherwise, you pretty much have to. And there are, of course, a lot of complicated ways of getting around it. For example, it's pretty common practice for attorneys, in drawing up wills, instead of saying, "I'll cut this place up and let this tract go this heir over here ~ in my will, and this one qo to this heir," and so forth, why, you leave it to them in undivided interests. Probate the '~ ~~ 191 LJ .-, 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 will, and then after the will's probated and everybody's got their property, why, then they have the right to partition it amongst themselves without going through the subdivision process. 3o it's -- you know, the lawyer is pretty well encouraged to do that. There are ways to sell a piece of property to two purchasers, for example, and then have a partial release agreement in there where they could start off saying, "I want Tract A and you can have Tract B, 'cause let's buy it together." You know, so the seller doesn't have to go through the subdivision process. They buy it together, get a partial release clause. Then A says, "All right, I'm going to pay off my tract and partially release Tract A to me and partially release Tract B to you." And you've avoided the subdivision statutes that way. And there are probably other ways of going about it. So, it's not a real easy thing to look at and come up with some sort of a tried and true rule which is easily applied and is easily understood by a lot of people. And apparently, a lot of the young lawyers in town are not really fully aware of the subdivision statute and how it works, and I'm told that Greg Richards, I think, and the Hamil firm and some of the other young lawyers around here are trying to do an awful lot of real estate and they're doing it pretty cheaply. I think Gary Kersey complained to the Judge about it, that they were doing deeds and things like that pretty cheaply. Of course, that's free enterprise. 192 Imo" l ~_ J i 2 3 a 5 s 8 s io i~ 12 13 is 15 is 17 ie is 20 2t 22 23 za 25 But it points out -- I did visit with Greg Richards about it on the phone. I decided what I'd do is maybe call around and solicit input on this from the lawyezs that did quite a bit of real estate, from the title companies, from the surveyors, everybody involved, and see if we couldn't come up with some kind of a solution to the problem. And, the worst thing that could happen is that we arrive at no solution and do nothing. But we're sort of educating people about it, and maybe -- maybe accomplishing the purpose even without coming up with a fozmal solution. 3o I started -- I called the Judge about it first, see if he thought it was a good idea, and he thought it was, so I began to make phone calls around. I talked to Kersey about it, talked to Voelkel about it. I talked to two of the title companies -- two of the three title companies we have heze about it, Greg Richards. I keep missing Bob Pazmley. I've tried Lynn LeMeilleur; she's out on vacation. I tzied those that are noted for handling quite a bit of zeal estate. Don Greer, I've called him and visited with him about it. The upshot of it is, is that the title companies, they put an exception in theiz policies and say, "We don't covez that sort of thing," but they go ahead and close it. If somebody complains that it should have been subdivided, well, the title policy doesn't cover that because it's not an exception in it. The title company, therefore, doesn't care; it's not theiz zesponsibility. They're kind of passing it 193 LJ t 2 3 a s s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 off to somebody else. Young lawyers are telling people, you know, it might be subject to subdivision regulations, but a lot of people record deeds that are part of a larger tract and take their chances with it, you know, and tell them about it. And most people want to go ahead and take their chances then instead of going through the subdivision process, because it does involve a longer drawn-out process and delays everybody. It is somewhat expensive sometimes. But the main thing is the delay, I think. And the Judge has come up with a suggestion maybe for a solution there, maybe a kind of a quickie-type process with delegated authority to somebody -- maybe the County Engineer or something -- that take a quick look at it, and if it has public roads, no drainage problems, and -- you know, what you do on your checklist thing, then he can go ahead with a quickie process and approve it and let it go through. That will reduce the expense and the time involved in it. Might be a good idea to do something like that. Jimmy Peschel at Fidelity Abstract and Title Company said, you know, if we could all agree -- all the title companies could agree, he said he would be willing to refuse to close the deals and record them. I had thought about maybe talking to the County Clerk's office, and I did; I talked with Jannett Pieper about it. I missed the County Clerk, the interim one, but I talked to Jannett about it and suggested that maybe we could set up a procedure in there 199 I?4l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 1s 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 where if it was obvious from reading the legal description when it's presented for recording, if it was part of a larger tract and at least raises the question of subdivision, maybe they could refuse to record it. I sort of have my doubts about whether they can do that if it's in proper recordable form. But, at any rate, it was a suggestion. And when I made that suggestion to the lawyers around town, boy, that will get everybody's attention, you know. And there is some enforcement. It's a Class C misdemeanor, I think, to record a deed that should have been subdivided without going through the subdivision process. Well, that's -- what do you do7 Go after somebody after the fact through the County Attorney's office and file a criminal complaint on them, a misdemeanor complaint, and fine them $500, you know? I guess you could do that a few times and it would -- the word would get around, but it also creates hard feelings. Maybe file a suit to set aside a deed because it didn't go through. Maybe that -- that gets expensive, too. I'm lust trying to think of some other alternative methods. But I think maybe the one that Peschel has come up with, maybe together with the quick process that the Judge has suggested, might turn out to be a pretty good solution to the whole thing combined together. But I have yet to talk to more people, and I want to get -- of course, everybody you talk to has got his own personal little thing he wants to talk about. It opens Pandora's box. .-~ ~ ~ 19 5 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 14 1s 16 n 1e 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 When I got Delly Voelkel,on the phone, "Yeah, we got too much regulation; we need to do this and do that." Apparently he was in here giving ya'all a hard time, or his office was, on one or two matters not too long ago, maybe the Japonica Hills matter. And, so, we -- I'd have to listen to all of those things too. Sut finally -- that's what I'm trying to get to, to see if there's some solution to thing, and maybe educate. Greg Richards thought it was a matter of education, letting everybody know what the rules were and how to go about doing it and letting the lawyers -- lust educating the young lawyers and the title companies on it. I don't think the title companies need the education. It's -- apparently, it's the young lawyers that do. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Real estate people could probably use some education. MR. POLLARD: Pardon? COMMISSIONER LETZ: The real estate people could probably use some education, or maybe they just know what not to tell people. MR. POLLARD: Well, how far do you go with this? I mean, do you end up having seminars with the whole real estate association here and all that kind of business? You know, I don't think ya'all really want to go with that big a deal, but let me gather some more information if ya'all think its worthwhile to do. And I'm aware that, having done real 196 f'"i L ~ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 1a 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 estate law here, practiced that here in this community since September of 1970, that this is -- it just is a constantly recurring problem. And we need to try to do something to try to offset it a little bit. COMMISSIONER LETZ: It would be nice if the State would clean up their definition. MR. POLLARD: Yeah, it would. COMMISSIONER LETZ: To me, that is so hard to understand their definition. If they would make it real clear it would solve a lot of the problem. MR. POLLARD: Actually, i simplified it too, so when I was telling you about it, it's even more complicated than what I was telling you. It's a mess. Yeah, that would be the best place to start right there. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Because, I mean, that's what we use in our set of rules, the State rule. I believe that's why it's so confusing, because there's so many commas, semicolons, and paragraph-long sentences. MR. POLLARD: You're familiar with that statute, then? COMMISSIONER LETZ: When you read the definition of subdivision, you're not sure if you're doing one or not. MR. POLLARD: Yeah. Well, if you think it's worthwhile, I'll keep gathering some information. I won't go overboard with it, but see if I can elicit some good ideas. ~~ 147 L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 We've already gotten several good ideas. Maybe we can come up with something. COMMI33IONER LETZ: Could be a way of handling it in a simplified -- we'll do a minor replat where a Commissioner signs off on it. MR. POLLARD: Mm-hmm. Well, okay, that's all I had to stay about that, unless anybody else -- JUDGE DENSON: Okay. Well, that takes care of your business, I guess. MR. POLLARD: Right. JUDGE DEN30N: I think Russ wanted to have an informational item presented. MR. DUNCAN: Just a real quick one, Your Honor. JUDGE DEN30N: Russ Duncan? MR. DUNCAN: Yes. I want to hand you out some literature here. This is a fine and collections program that we are instituting as of the 16th of June. And in here, the first little bunch of cover stuff that's there is just informational to kind of tell you what the program's all about. And the real meat of the program is the last few pages. And the heart of this this program is that we've had a problem -- I've been working on collections of fines and fees and court costs dating back to 1982, as ya'all well know. And that's nonsense. If, you know, you're in private business with your accounts receivable the way we've been 198 L J 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1a 19 20 21 22 23 2a 2s doing it, you know, we wouldn't be in business long. I'm going to treat people coming to court dust like you get treated when you go down to buy a car or any other big-ticket item where you're going to get money loaned to you over time for, you know, five, six, seven hundred up to a thousand dollars; that is, I'm going to ask them to fill out a credit form which we're going to have some information on it. One of the worst things -- we've had people walk out of court and all we've got is a P. 0. box and/or General Delivery, Hunt, you know. And that's kind of hard to find people to collect the money. So what we're doing is we're going to have better information on these people. One of the things that's on the positive side of this is that when they fill out this credit report, what I observed up in Dallas -- I spent a day at the Dallas courthouse, and what I observed is, you know, we're dealing with a clientele here who doesn't really want people to know exactly where they live all the time and everything there is to know to know about them. Well, when filling out this credit report, we`re going to have more information than they really care to give us. Seventy percent of the people, when they were sent to the Collections Department in Dallas, said, "I haven't got time for this this, let me pay you now." We're looking at things that we have up there in Dallas, taking a Visa or MasterCharge card. That's a money item, though. That's a 2.9 percent charge for each transaction. 199 ~~ 1 2 3 a 5 s s s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s rr 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 2.9 percent charge for each transaction. But in the long run, that might be cheaper than going through all the collection process that we have to do if we could get the money right now and put it in the County coffers. The other thing is, for example, in Dallas the people that -- that when we look at them and they 3ust haven't -- they're indigents, haven't got the money to pay us the fines and court costs, put them on the swap program and let them work it off. Dallas, for instance, has two grounds supervisors, and that's their whole grounds department; they save 5750,000 a year in care of their grounds of all their County offices and buildings, because -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say that again, please. Say that again. MR. DUNCAN: Okay. When people are indigents and they cannot pay the fines, fees, and court costs, we used the swap program, which Dallas refers to as their Community Service Program. In other words, they've got to work out their fines and fees at 56.25 an hour or S50 a day. Dallas right now has two grounds supervisors to do all of the grounds and areas in County facilities for Dallas County. All the work -- when you go out and see people working on the grounds in Dallas County, up in Dallas or on the County buildings up there, all of those people are Community Service/Swap Program people. They're saving approximately 150 ~~ r-. 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 za 25 $750,000 a year in salaries and costs. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, there's a question on that. Do they -- is it voluntary when they come in, or do they have to set up a schedule and they have to show up? MR. DUNCAN: They have to -- (Off-the-record discussion.) MR. DUNCAN: But that -- no, if they -- if they -- when we put them on Swap Program, we set up a schedule at work. They agree to a schedule of work. They will come there and work "X" number of hours on a given date. If they don't show up, Swap is 3ust like being itt Sail, except you're on the outside and we're not feeding you. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our community service, you know, it works great, but it's whoever shows up on a Saturday. So you can't plan. MR. DUNCAN: Well, that's Community Service; you know, that's worked out of the Probation Department. COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. MR. DUNCAN: We're talking about -- Swap Program is what Rick Carter works here, and he sets up a definite schedule: you'll be in here on Thursdays and you'll work here or Salvation Army or -- we have them all over the place. We've got guys mowing the lawn out here today. I mean, but there's got to be a set standard. The problem is we dust haven't been -- I've got a computer program that was given to .-- ~~ 151 U i 2 3 a 5 s s s io ii 12 13 14 ~5 is n is is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 !~ us by the Justice Council. And what it does is every morning I go in and push a button and it tells me who's going to pay that day and how much is coming in. It tells me who was supposed to pay yesterday, who paid and who didn't pay, and how much we made and how much we didn't make. And then I put an aging date on it, which will probably be 5 working days, and it will kick me out people who haven't paid in the last 5 days, and it's a list of people who need to go to warrant, who need to be taken back to the Judge for warrant because they failed to live up to their agreement. It's a simple system of holding people accountable. If you don't pay on your mortgage on your house or the payments on your car, they take your car, they take your house. Well, we're just saying to people, "Hey, look, you know --" I had a couple attorneys say to me, "Well, you can't do this because --" I'm sorry, I know there's an attorney present, but, "you can't do this because they haven't got the money." And I sways ask the same question, "Did you get yours? Did they pay you?" And their expression changes and they say no more. But the attorneys get theirs, the bail bondsman gets theirs, and we're left out in the cold, and that's not the way that we should do business in this County. And 28 counties that are doing this, their collections have gone up considerably. And I've got to tell you now what I have written on the back of this little flowchart; you'll see some stuff that I've done 152 ~l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 here as far as -- this is given to the individual when they show -- when they go from the Court to the Clerk's office. The Court tells them about their fines and fees. This notice, after I get through informing ya'all, is going to on the door of the courtroom, and there's going to be four of these notices posted up. I was going to have them made up in nice signs, but I found the cost was 190 bucks, so I Xeroxed them; I saved some money. Sut this is going to up on the courtroom door and some other places in the courthouse here so that there is some notice. And there's been two articles in the paper, and we're sending letters out to all the attorneys who do business in our court, so there is going to be some notice. This sheet here is given to them. Sorry about my cartoons, but I'm no artist. This is going to be given to them and they sign it at the Clerk's office. That tells them what the process is they're going to qo through, and they're sent down to my office. This collections program is just a quick layout of what the program is to start with, right now currently, and how it's going to be run and the hours it's going to be run. And you all are getting me for the same cost, by the way. I'm still doing warrants; I'm just doing this as an on-the-side. The closing guidelines, this is so that when we do get to where we're running a program and I have a staff or anybody, this kind of tells what we're asking for on the program, as far as, you know, 153 r~ L~ 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 e s 1a 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 2a 21 22 23 2a 25 what we want to make sure that we've got that information. And so some conclusions are drawn -- I've been typing away on this before I went on vacation; there may be some typo errors. And then this is really the application that we're going to ask them to fill out. And the third page of that application is kind of a thing that the reviewer fills out to use as -- as a little thing to see how much money they've got and how much they can pay. And so that's what we're looking at. So, what I would like to tell you is that on -- as of the the 16th, which is next Tuesday, we're going to start the program. Now, I -- the other part of that is, yes, I have put in a budget request for a clerical person in October, because if it works -- if it works, I want to make clear on that -- in October, that both district courts want to come aboard, and so does family court for this program. And they're willing to share the cost of the program. Hut if i see the program won't work -- you know, it may work in Dallas, it may work in E1 Paso and other places, but Kerrville is Kerrville. So before I could tell you anything that's perfect, I need to run it in Kerrville, and that's what we're going do. And if the program doesn't work, frankly, we won't do it. I'm not going to spend your money and I'm going to use what funds there are now to run the program, so we're not costing you anything. JUDGE DENSON: And that's a comment I want -- I ~~ 154 r~ L_J 1 2 3 a 5 s a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s 17 18 1s 20 21 22 23 2a 25 applaud what you're doing and all your efforts. But you're putting in a budget request, I recall, for two clerks and then a manager, a full-time manager? MR. DUNCAN: Yeah, but right now -- the manager is kind of me right now, and I'm -- JUDGE DENSON: I understand. I understand. But the program as you conceive it to be, once implemented, is two clerks and a full-time manager at a salary of 25 -- MR. DUNCAN: No, I put it down -- I actually, since I'm going to be the manager, I put it down at 15,9 for me. And the clerk's salaries, I've asked for two clerks, but I've asked for one in October 1st, but -- but I won't get the other one unless I can come in here before this Commissioners' Court and iustify the second position. Because I won't -- you 3ust don't ask for staff without being able to iustify the staff. So what I've asked for is I've asked for two, but one on October 1, so I can run the program. If I can 3ustify the second person, then I need to come here with iustification and and have ya'all say, "Okay, ya'all can qo out and hire that person. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So he's asking us to approve in this budget two clerk people, and he may use one and may not? JUDGE DENSON: Well -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They will be sitting there 155 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 just in case? JUDGE DENSON: And I've told Spencer and he says you -- what the concept is is that if this thing is implemented, it's going to be a full-time -- MR. DUNCAN: Yeah, I want to get out of it. I really would like to go back to retirement one of these days. JUDGE DENSON: We have to speak one person at a time. She can only take one person at a time, so when I'm talking, let me finish. MR. DUNCAN: Please. JUDGE DENSON: That it would be a full-time person, and which you're not and which you don't want to be7 MR . DUNCAN : Hmm-mm. JUDGE DENSON: And that the salary would probably be in the neighborhood of $25,000, $30,000 a year? MR. DUNCAN: Yes, sir. JUDGE DENSON: And the two clerks would be working for this individual? MR. DUNCAN: Mm-hmm. JUDGE DENSON: I just -- I encourage you to go forward and feel this thing out and do everything that you're doing, because it appears to work and be of benefit to the County. But don't go to the point where you actually have a program in place as to require the Commissioners to come forward with some funding. 156 I~l LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 1a 1s zo 21 22 23 2a 25 MR. DUNCAN: I won't do that to you, sir. Won't do that to you. That's why I say everything I'm doing, I'm looking at what I can handle by myself right now. And -- and I will do it by myself. And I've already got some -- Jannett has already said she could -- if it gets too much, she'll help me with some staff person and we are not going to ask you for money. And until I can prove this program out, I'm not going to come before you and ask for anything. Because, like I say, Kerrville is Kerrville and Dallas is Dallas. And if it -- you know, it may be fine for Dallas and it might not be worth a darn for this place. 3o I think what I'd do is justify it, and there is a way of justifying the program is to test it and see how it works. JUDGE DENSON: Good. MR. DUNCAN: You see our incomes in -- we see the money coming in, then -- and when you talk about Visa card and MasterCharge, that's an initial cost of $40 to get the machines in here, and then it's only a 2.9 percent charge each transaction. I've written some legislation, by the way, that I've given to Buster to be forwarded which will bring some of that money back to the County sQ that we can change for this. The other part of that is, Western Union will put in a line with a check-printing machine that will print checks out in our Clerk's office so that people in Dallas, Fort Worth, Wichita, Kansas, or wherever they might be, can 157 1 2 3 a 5 s 7 a 9 10 11 12 13 1a 15 16 n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 be in the nearest Western Union office and say, I want to send this money to Kerr County, and they'll send it and it will print out a check in our office, doesn't cost us a penny. But, of course, the people sending the money are goint to pay $11, and Dallas is using that. While I was standing there, I watched about 350 checks get printed up. So, I mean, it's quite successful. What I'm trying to do, gentlemen, is to try to find the best cost-effective methods I can to get the money -- because what I'm doing now, working on stuff from the '80's and sending stuff to the credit bureau and giving them 35 percent, is not really cost-effective. And I'm just trying to find a better way of doing it so that, you know, I can serve ya'all better. And that's -- and, like I say, one of these days I'd like to get out of here, maybe. So -- COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, you wouldn't. JUDGE DENSON: Okay, next item. The second Executive Session matter that was posted is to be held -- and we have some out-of-town guests; specifically, the A.G.'s Office. That's to be held at 11 o'clock Thursday now. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Executive Session? JUDGE DENSON: Yeah. This has -- you have to look at the language that I use on this posting. It's the Constable Precinct 3. COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh, yeah, okay. 158 Imo'" l ~J 2 3 a 5 s 7 8 9 io 11 12 13 is ~5 is n ie is 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Discussion of duties, since counsel is right here. Discussion of duties while this litigation, this indictment, is pending. I don't know what they want to say, but I was asked by the County Attorney's office to put it on the agenda and hear these people out. So it's now going to be 11 o'clock Thursday. MR. DANFORD: That's why I'm here, Your Honor. I know -- JUDGE DENSON: And Harold Danford is the attorney that's about to speak to us, and Narold represents Constable Shaw. MR. DANFORD: I was going to see if I could be present at the Executive Session when you discuss it, but I'm not going to be here on Thursday. This Thursday at 11 o'clock I'm not going to be able to be here, so I was going to see if we could get another date to talk about it. If I can't be in here, then there's no reason for me to -- JUDGE DENSON: And I don't -- I don't think it's our place, particularly at this point, to say that you could be in here. The County Attorney's office asked for this agenda item and said that the A. G. representatives were going to be here, so I think it's sort of their call. MR. DANFORD: By "their call," you mean the A. G.'s or the County Attorney's? JUDGE DENSON: The County Attorney's. 159 L~ i 2 3 a 5 6 7 a s ~o 11 12 13 14 15 a 17 18 a 20 21 22 23 2a 25 MR. DANFORD: Okay. Well -- JUDGE DENSON: Call the County Attozney, and if ya`all can reset, super. MR. DANFORD: Okay. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This week? JUDGE DENSON: No, what I`d like to da is reset it for the next Commissioners' Court meeting, when we're all here as regularly scheduled. MR. DANFORD: That's -- what's that, the second Monday of the month? JUDGE DENSON: Well, it would be 14 days from today. Today's the 8th -- 22nd. C0MMI33I0NER BALDWIN: 22nd. MR. DANFORD: Okay. Because I think, you know, based on my client's perspective and the Court's perspective, we're going to have a pretrial between now and the 22nd, and from there, I'll know and the A. G. will know a lot more of what's going to go on, how long this is going to take to get it resolved also. JUDGE DENSON: Why don't you call David and visit with him on it, and you can call me and then I'll, in turn, see that all the Commissioners are notified not to be here Thursday. But for right now, I'm going to set it Thursday at 11 o'clock. MR. DANFORD: Okay, thank you. 160 I?`1 LJ 1 2 3 a 5 s 8 s 10 11 12 13 1a 15 1s n 18 19 20 21 22 23 2a 25 JUDGE DENSON: Thank you. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to make a point on Mr. Duncan's program. Something I want ya'all to think about is when we go into this process and if we -- if we fund it and a program goes into place, I wander if we could put some language somewhere in there that there's a possibility of sunset after a year, lust to give us an opportunity, if the thing's not working at the end of one year, that we can sunset it and it's over. JUDGE DENSON: Can't you, in effect, sunset it by not budgeting for it the second year? COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, yeah, but it's awfully difficult, isn't it, to stop something that's rolling. JUDGE DENSON: You're saying -- putting notice up front to everybody that this may die on its own terms? COMMI33IONER BALDWIN: i just thought it would be kind of interesting. I've never seen that in County government before. And we all know once you get something going like that, it's hard to stop it. COMMISSIONER LETZ: It may pay for itself, but it's going to be expensive. It may not be the first year, but in three, four years, it's going to be a very expensive program. COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I think a sunset would be a safeguard for us. COMMI3SIONER LETZ: Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. 161 fr"i ~J 1 2 3 a 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just think about it. We'll talk about it, I guess, when we get ready to deal with the thing. COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're done. JUDGE DENSON: All right, we are. We're in recess. (Commissioners' Court adjourned at 2:11 p.m.) 162 P"`l LJ 1 2 3 a s s 7 8 9 10 11 I 12 13 14 16 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 C E R T I F I C A T E The above and foregoing is a true and complete transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as Official Reporter of the Commissioners' Court of Kerr County, Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. Dated this the 17th day of June, 1998. ~~~77~''1 ~Ll~ KA HY IK Certified Shorthand Reporter 163